The Secret to Feeling Calm When Out of Your Depth

Summary

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The High Performance Podcast

Episode: The Secret to Feeling Calm When Out of Your Depth

Hosts: Jake Humphrey & Damien Hughes
Release Date: December 5, 2025

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Overview

In this reflective episode, hosts Jake Humphrey and Damien Hughes revisit powerful moments and insights from six years of High Performance conversations, focusing on the universal challenge of feeling "out of your depth." Through guest clips and personal stories, they unpack how elite performers from various fields — including sport, business, and adventure — manage fear, change, and discomfort, providing listeners with tools to cultivate calm, courage, and resilience when confronted with the unknown.

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Key Discussion Points & Insights

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1. Why Feeling Out of Your Depth Matters

• The episode centers on strategies for managing situations where you feel stretched, anxious, or unsure — whether by choice or by circumstance.
• High achievers routinely face imposter syndrome and moments of vulnerability. What sets them apart is how they process and channel these feelings.
• “Dealing with being out of your depth is a key tenet to high performance.”
  — Jake Humphrey [03:08]

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2. Labeling and Articulating Fear

• Clip: Tom Aspinall, UFC Heavyweight Fighter
  • Tom candidly discusses the taboo of fear in combat sports, explaining that all fighters feel it, but most hide it:

    “If you’re not scared, then you’re either a complete idiot or you’re just lying… Fear is extremely present in what I do.”
    — Tom Aspinall [06:01]

• Science-backed Approach:
  • Referencing Dr. Matthew Lieberman’s research, Damien notes that naming feelings “disrupts the amygdala’s activity,” making emotions feel more manageable.
  • “If you can get it out of your head and into the domain... immediately [the emotion] becomes diluted.” — Damien Hughes [05:03]

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3. Acceptance and Letting Go

• Clip: Petr Čech, Football Goalkeeper
  • Petr shares how obsessing over not making mistakes used to stress him, until he learned to ignore the score and focus on his job:

    “If I just ignored the score and ignored all the stuff I couldn’t control… There is no score, there is no problem... just do your job.”
    — Petr Čech [10:54]

• Hosts’ Reflection:
  • Much of our fear comes from catastrophizing or resisting reality rather than simply accepting our situation.

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4. Strategies for Processing Setbacks

• Mo Gawdat’s Checklist:
  • When something goes wrong:
    1. Is it true?
    2. Can I do anything about it?
    3. How can I live with it despite its presence?
  • This practical logic accelerates emotional processing.
  • Referenced by Damien Hughes [14:12]
• Research:
  • Successful people focus on habits, not outcomes (Ashley Merriman, Top Dog).

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5. Stepping into Discomfort: Growth by Choice

• Clip: Alex Greenwood, England Lioness
  • Alex recalls the anxiety-regret of leaving the comfort of Manchester for Lyon, despite the move being her dream:

    “I had an instant feeling of regret… I was like, what am I doing? But I was to play for the best women’s team in the world.”
    — Alex Greenwood [15:53]

• Key Takeaway:
  • Growth often comes by choosing the harder path. Even “good” change brings anxiety and resistance.

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6. Lowering the Barriers to Action

• Advice from James Clear (author of Atomic Habits):
  • “The heaviest weight is always the front door.” — [17:57]
• Damien’s Practical Guidance:
  • Shrink the daunting step; start with micro-actions.
  • “Momentum follows action. Just taking one small step to do something different creates momentum that can work in our favor.” — Damien Hughes [18:20]

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7. Choosing Hard Things Builds Confidence & Resilience

• Host Reflection:

  • Challenges in early life drive growth, yet as adults we’re conditioned to seek ease and avoid difficulty at the expense of further development.
  • Reframing discomfort as evidence-gathering for future challenges is essential.
  • “How good you’re willing to be depends on how long you’re willing to be shit at something.” — Jake Humphrey [19:13]

• Steve Magnus (Do Hard Things):

  • Elite performance and resilience come from regular, voluntary exposure to difficulty.

    “When you do hard things, you give your brain evidence that gives it confidence.”
    — Damien Hughes [20:37]

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8. Deliberate Exposure to Micro-Challenges

• Clip: Nick Cox, Former Man United Academy Coach
  • On developing resilient youth players:

    “It’s lots of little microdoses of finding stuff hard along the way… When you rescue kids from a difficult situation, you’re taking that learning opportunity away.”
    — Nick Cox [22:35]

• Balance is Key:
  • Regular, moderate challenges foster growth; unrelenting hardship burns out, while too much comfort stagnates.

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9. Normalize Facing Difficult Conversations and Fears

• Example:

  • Zak Brown (McLaren F1) routinely addresses “the elephant in the room” to normalize discomfort and create team resilience.

• The Goldilocks Zone:

  • Ideal learning (and growth) happens at the edge of current abilities — not too hard, not too easy.
  • “If it’s too easy, you don’t learn anything; if it’s too hard, you don’t learn anything either.”
    — Damien Hughes [26:34]

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10. Overcoming Fear of the “Big Leap”

• Clip: Alex Honnold, Free Climber
  • Confront what's holding you back; fear is often unfounded:

    “Maybe you should just do the thing you’ve been wanting to do. What’s to lose?”
    — Alex Honnold [27:38]

• On Normalizing Fear:
  • Even Honnold’s legendary calm is the result of “10 years of traveling to El Capitan and being frightened by it and just choosing to expose myself to the idea of it.”
    — Damien Hughes [28:09]

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Memorable Quotes & Moments

• “If you’re not scared, then you’re either a complete idiot or you’re just lying.” — Tom Aspinall [06:01]
• “Much of the struggle that we have in life, we are creating.” — Jake Humphrey [12:41]
• “Life is always nil nil, isn’t it?” — Jake Humphrey [15:07]
• “The heaviest weight is always the front door.” — James Clear, as quoted [17:55]
• “It’s lots of little microdoses of finding stuff hard along the way.” — Nick Cox [22:35]
• “If it’s too easy, you don’t learn anything; if it’s too hard, you don’t learn anything either.” — Damien Hughes [26:34]
• “Maybe you should just do the thing you’ve been wanting to do. What’s to lose?” — Alex Honnold [27:38]
• “We are not saying leave that partner, quit that job, move to that country… what we are saying is that… what you don’t want to be is on your deathbed with those ghosts of missed opportunity floating around.” — Jake Humphrey [29:01]

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Final Section

Practical Strategies for Feeling Calm When Out of Your Depth

• Acknowledge fear and label your emotions.
• Focus on what you can control; let go of the rest.
• Take micro-steps to build momentum — don’t aim for perfection on day one.
• Seek the ‘Goldilocks zone’ of challenge: not too hard, not too easy.
• Deliberately choose some hard things to build self-trust and resilience.
• Surround yourself with supportive people who help process and normalize challenge.

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Closing Words

"You will never, ever live a life free of fear. But you should be able to live a life where you trust yourself enough to do those things that are just a little bit scary. And the more you do, the further you go.”
— Jake Humphrey [30:41]

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For deeper dives, listen to the individual guest episodes highlighted in this conversation. If you know someone who needs to hear this, share it with them.

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Transcript

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[Jake Humphrey]

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Hey, welcome back to one of our favorite episodes actually here on High Performance, when myself and Damien Hey Damien.

[Damien Hughes]

Hey Jay.

[Jake Humphrey]

We get to do something that we very rarely get to do, which is just sit and talk about some of the guests that we've had on the show. And maybe we should start by explaining the way that things tend to work Here at High Performance. Right. You live in Manchester.

[Petr Čech]

Yep.

[Jake Humphrey]

Unlucky. I'm obviously joking. I live in Norwich.

[Damien Hughes]

I'm not going to say anything other.

[Jake Humphrey]

Than you were getting ready to.

[Damien Hughes]

When they go low, you go high. That's the Michelle Obama.

[Jake Humphrey]

Well done. So, anyway, if you're not in the uk, I live a long way out east. Damien lives a long way north from London. But London is where we record the episodes. So so often we find that we get a train early in the morning, we get in, we record two, three, sometimes four guests in a day. And then, despite the best will in the world, we need to get away quick to get back on the train and get home to our families. So for us to sit and actually reflect on the stuff that we've done on this show is a pretty rare thing. But when we do get to do it, it's special. And today we've decided to share with people some of the best clips from the last six. Can you believe six.

[Damien Hughes]

Six years. Yeah.

[Jake Humphrey]

Of how we deal with feeling out of ad depth. Whether that's someone listening to this. Cause they've started a new job or there's something on the horizon or. Or often, I think, Damien, people for whom change has been forced upon them rather than they've made the decision to change. I mean, we wrote an entire book, right, about change called how to change your life. Cause quite frankly, dealing with being out of your depth is a key tenant to High Performance. Right.

[Damien Hughes]

Well, definitely. I mean, pretty much every one of our guests has spoken about the imposter syndrome, those moments where you find yourself plunged into a new environment, a new set of challenges and demands and you. You're working out, can I cope with this? Am I gonna be able to thrive rather than just survive? So we've also been fortunate enough to be able to unpick what they've learned, what they passed on to us about how they managed to eventually find their buoyancy when they fell out of the depth. And it's always worthy of just sharing it for us as well as for anyone that's kind enough to listen to us, that they can apply it and pass it on to people in their lives. So.

[Jake Humphrey]

So if you're struggling at the moment, even if you're not, you never know what's around the corner. So we've got a really interesting episode for you today. We're going to hear from Petr Cek, the former Chelsea and Czech Republic goalkeeper, Angus Greenwood, who's a lioness. Nick Cox, the former Academy coach at Manchester United, and free climber Alex Honnold. But we're going to start Damian with a conversation with UFC fighter Tom Aspinall, who, by the way, had one of the worst looking injuries I've ever seen in a UFC fight last week. But that's actually relevant to this conversation, because you would think if you're gonna go into a UFC octagon with someone where that kind of thing can happen at any moment. I mean, death is a reality for a UFC fighter. Right, that you obviously have no fear because you still do it. But one of the biggest sort of awakenings for the two of us when we spoke to Tom was the very real fear that he feels before every single fight.

[Damien Hughes]

Yeah, I think the power of what Tom shared with us is just his willingness to articulate his emotions. He had the ability to say, I feel frightened. I feel scared. This is incredibly intimidating. And I think that's the first step that anyone listening to this, that is facing those moments of taking a big leap can make, is articulate how you're feeling. Because what we know is even speaking to Professor Steve Peters, when he was on the podcast, he spoke to us about, if you can get it out of your head, into the domain, whether that's you writing it down or you can share it with somebody else, the power that it has immediately becomes diluted. You're able to be. To face it and to be able to rationalize it, whereas if you just keep it inside your mind, it almost becomes bigger and more encompassing than it needs to be. So let's listen to Tom talk about how he's learned to articulate the emotion of fear.

[Tom Aspinall]

I'm actually one of the rare UFC fighters that I'm aware of that will sit here and look you in the eyes and talk about fear, because a lot of UFC fighters like to pretend they're not scared. Now, I've basically spent my life in gyms and backstage at events and in these changing rooms. And listen, I've never seen. I'm yet to see a person who isn't scared, but it's very rare that, like, you'll get a UFC fighter who will talk about fear now, because it's a taboo subject. People want to be this big alpha guy, don't they, who's like, I'm getting in there having a fight in a cage with somebody. Listen, if you're not scared, then you're either a complete idiot or you're lying. Like, I'm willing to step in the cage with. We're talking about Jon Jones here, who is the most dangerous guy to ever fight in mma. So I'm talking about potentially the most dangerous man unarmed on earth, right, Who I'm potentially going to fight with. Now, if I'm sat backstage getting my hands wrapped, knowing that he's over the opposite side of the arena getting his hands wrapped, we're both going to walk into the arena in front of 35,000 people with millions watching around the world, and one of us is going to get separated from our consciousness, quite literally. And you're not scared of that, then, like I said, you're either a complete idiot or you're just lying. So fear is extremely present in what I do.

[Damien Hughes]

So that was the top UFC heavyweight champion, Tom Aspinall, there talking about articulating his emotions. And that's validated by the work of Dr. Matthew Lieberman at UCLA, who published a paper in Psychological Science back in 2007 that was titled Putting Feelings into Words. How Effect Labeling Disrupts the Amygdala Activity in Response to Effective Stimuli. So, basically, the research tells us that it's the people who are able to label their emotions compared to those who simply experience the emotions and are better able to control them.

[Jake Humphrey]

Brilliant. And I think the reason why this matters, actually, Damien, is I think that we slipped into this world where if we label our emotions, then we're vulnerable. If we're vulnerable, we can't possibly be brave. And this is a guy that's telling us he does label his emotions, yet he still goes headlong into the arena and takes these things on. You know, it reminds me of, as you know, I failed my A levels at school, right? Have I told you the book that I was given the day that I failed my or A week after I failed my A levels?

[Damien Hughes]

Was it by a family friend?

[Jake Humphrey]

It was. And what was it called? Do you remember?

[Damien Hughes]

It was Feel the Fear and Do It Anyway, once It by Susan Jeffers.

[Jake Humphrey]

I mean, isn't that one of the great books around this conversation? If you've never read it, I suggest you do. It's not very long. It was so valuable to me, and I think the reason why that book was so important at that time in my life was that I didn't even realize that I was running away from stuff. And I wasn't even in a UFC octagon, by the way. I was just doing school exams, but I wasn't going for trials to be in the school football team, and I wasn't going to try and be in the school play, and I wasn't gonna try my best in the classroom. And I wasn't gonn to put myself out of my comfort zone to speak to new friends because of a fear of failing. Yet I had never labeled that that's what was going on. I just kind of was. I just kind of told myself that I don't do those things. And the reason why I wanted to share that story is I think sometimes people will hear Tom say, oh, yeah, I label my feelings. And they think, well, really, does it actually make a difference? But when you think about feelings that you don't even realize need labeling, then you suddenly start to sort of see your life in a different way. And that book and changing that emotion, honestly, changed everything for me.

[Damien Hughes]

Brilliant. Well, and again, we referenced Steve Peters earlier. Do you remember the analogy he used of juggling apples? And he went, everyone can juggle two apples, Very few can juggle three, but nobody can juggle four. The first time of asking, unless you're a professional juggler, of course. And the point he was making is that these worries just keep going round in your head and. And your ability to almost get them onto the page, to write them down or to share them with somebody stops them sort of dominating. You're almost getting trapped into that cycle of constantly dominating your thoughts and allows you to be able to look at them with a more rational point of view and then work out, how do I change that emotion? How can I make myself feel better?

[Jake Humphrey]

And that, I guess, comes down to acceptance. So can I share a clip about acceptance that we had on High Performance?

[Damien Hughes]

Go on. Who do you want with?

[Jake Humphrey]

I want to go to Pet a check.

[Damien Hughes]

Oh, yeah.

[Jake Humphrey]

Who I thought delivered one of the great conversations on High Performance? You know, it's one of those ones that was a couple years ago, and you, you forget the gold that's in so many of these conversations. But one thing that I want to pull out is how he explained to us how he used to deal with bad moments in football.

[Damien Hughes]

And let's just acknowledge as well, this is a guy doing this in his second language.

[Jake Humphrey]

Yeah, Always impressive. Yeah, here he is.

[Petr Čech]

When I was about 12, 13, I was very stressed about playing a football game in goal because I had the feeling to. To concede. You know, you almost feel like an ultimate failure all the time. You know, you. You concede. So that first goal, you just go, I. I don't want to concede. I want to clean. This is, this is what it's all about. You're not supposed to concede the goal. You're not supposed to fail. So it put a lot of stress on me. And then I realized that I was very stressed. And then if somebody scored that all this part of, okay, now we conceded, so I will not have a clean sheet so I can just get on with it. I was 13, and then it started bothering me because I'm thinking, you know, then I play much more relaxed and better game the moment I concede. So I always almost felt like if I put in my mind that we are 1 nil down, maybe it will sort of switch a little bit and that will go a little bit, you know, not. Not to be so focused on not conceding rather than what I'm supposed to do. And then when I was 14, I figured out that if I just. If I just ignored the score and ignored all the stuff I couldn't control, so the referee, the decisions, if my teammate missed a penalty or big chance, in the end of the day, I realized that it had nothing to do with my job. So from that moment when I was 14, I literally put in my mind, okay, my job. There is no score, There is no problem. There is no referee, There are no people, There is nobody watching. There is like, okay, you do your job. And from there, actually my career, really, I found myself in it because it actually helped me to be consistent. I had the same approach in, like, a match system, which started two hours prior to the game, and I went through with no disruptions.

[Jake Humphrey]

So I just thought that was a fantastic clip, right, from Petr Cek, because it's this reminder that so much of the struggles that we have in life, we are creating. And there will be people that saw the title of this episode and thought, hold on, that's exactly what's going on in my life. I feel out of my depth. Well, do you feel out of your depth because you're doing things that are big and are brave and are bold, or are you filling out your depth because you're doing things that are big, brave, and bold and you're fighting it? You're sort of creating a resistance to those things because of fear, because of anxiety, because of catastrophizing. And I just think that message on better check that it doesn't matter what the score is. The score simply doesn't exist. Well, the score also doesn't exist when it comes to jobs and relationships and pressures. Do you remember when we spoke to Mo Gao Dat and he said that when something goes wrong, your brain physiologically changes for 90 seconds?

[Damien Hughes]

Yeah, that's right.

[Jake Humphrey]

If you are still feeling angry, frustrated, or bearing a grudge after those 90 seconds. You're choosing to revisit it. And I know this is a hard conversation for some people, but I think it's important for them to think about how much of their sense and their pain of being out of their depth is created by the fact that there's some sort of fight. And if they can just let go, if they can just accept this is where I am, I'm going to do the best I can in this situation. There's nothing more I can do. They will find that suddenly they can go deeper, they can go harder, they can go further.

[Damien Hughes]

Well, the Mo Gaudart checklist that he shared with us about the first thing when something goes wrong, I don't remember that.

[Jake Humphrey]

What was that?

[Damien Hughes]

Yeah, he said, well, is it true? And then you go, well, yes or no? And then it's, can I do anything about it, yes or no? You move on from that, and then how can I live with it despite its presence? And then once you've answered those three questions, your ability to process whatever's happened is so much faster. I mean, there's a brilliant book that I often refer to by an author called Ashley Merriman called Top Dog, where what she did was went and looked at diary entries for over 12,000 participants in a research experiment. And what she found is the ones that tended to be successful despite setbacks, despite feeling out of the debt, for the ones that focused on just small daily habits rather than looking at the outcome. And that's a great articulation of what Petr Cech shared with us, that don't worry about the final score. It's still nil nil wherever you are in the game. So you just focus on doing the next right thing.

[Jake Humphrey]

Yeah. And actually, life is always nil nil, isn't it?

[Damien Hughes]

Yeah.

[Jake Humphrey]

I mean, whether good things or bad things are happening to us, there's no determination of what the future looks like. It's still nil nil. It's like some people have a very bad day after a very good day, and some people have a very good day after a very bad day.

[Damien Hughes]

Absolutely. I think the next clip I'd want to share is a conversation I had with the brilliant Alex Greenwood. Alex was really reflective in that conversation, but she wanted to dwell on when she felt out of a depth, which was when she's chosen to leave Manchester United, when they just got promoted to the Women's Premier League, and she chose to go out to Lyon in France. And we're going to hear her explain a little bit about the struggle and then we'll reflect on what she learned from that.

[Alex Greenwood]

I would say France made me the player I am today. And the reason I say that is because I was so far out my comfort zone than I've ever been that it challenged me in ways I never knew was possible. And I was at Man United at the time. I was the captain at Man United, and generally I lived five minutes away from the training ground. I agreed to go. It was obviously a really hard conversation with Casey, who was the manager at the time, which she. Someone understood. And once. I agree that it's really weird, but I had an instant feeling of regret, which is. It just. Yeah. Which is crazy. I was like, what have I done? Like, I'm leaving me home, I'm leaving Jack, I'm leaving my family to go and play in front. Like, what. What am I doing? Like. But I was like, okay, you just. You're feeling a little bit anxious, like, it's normal. You're going to live in a different country. I'd never felt like that before, ever. It was really abnormal feeling. I was. But I was to play for the best women's team in the world, and at the time, the best contract I'd ever had. And all these great things that I've always aspired to want to do and win Champions League and play abroad and have a different experience. I've outspokenly said I want to do all these things. And then it got to it. I agreed to do it. And I had a feeling of, like, regret.

[Damien Hughes]

I think the important thing that I took out of this, Jake, was that sometimes we have to choose to go into the deep end ourselves. You know, she was going from English football to going to play for a team that became the European champions that season. And it was the reminder that she'd chosen to put herself in that environment. It wasn't done to her. That gave her the strength to persevere and to eventually thrive in that situation.

[Jake Humphrey]

You know, I've told you about my first boss of INTV who told me, never sit in the comfy chair when I was going to go to London and have an attempt at making it as a TV presenter. I think this idea of embracing the hard step is a real challenge for people. I mean, we both loved the conversation with James Clear. What did he say about going to the gym?

[Damien Hughes]

The heaviest weight is always the front.

[Jake Humphrey]

Door, and I think that represents life. Right. The biggest challenge that is in front of so many people right now is not actually what's gonna happen on the journey. It's Taking that initial first step. From all the conversations you've had with various sports people and the research that you've seen over the years, is there anything that you would advise someone to do if that first step right now, it just feels too big, too daunting for them.

[Damien Hughes]

Yeah. So it's shrink the step, make it as small as possible. Just like James Clear said to us about, just go into the gym. Just, if you're gonna write a book, just write the first line of the book. If you're gonna deliver a speech, just practice the first line. You know, whatever it is that we're doing, just take a small step. So rather than raise the bar, lower the bar, and just make it easy to get over. Because what we know is that momentum follows action. So once we take that first step of action, momentum will then start to work in our favor. I remember reading years ago that the biggest predictor of what you're going to do in the next five minutes is what you're doing now. So if you're sat doing nothing now, in five minutes time, you're likely to be doing nothing other than sat in the same chair. So just taking one small step to do something different creates momentum that can work in our favor.

[Jake Humphrey]

I also wonder, you know, and. And I've got no science to back this up at all.

[Damien Hughes]

Go on.

[Jake Humphrey]

Right? Whether life over the last few years has somehow given us all messages that it should be easy, and if it isn't easy, then we're doing the wrong thing. Like, I actually think life should be hard. Like, I think it should be a challenge. I think it should push us, it should ask questions of us. And this feeling that I'm only in a good place or I'm only going to be happy when I'm not doing any of those things, I don't think is healthy because I can't think of a single valuable thing that I've done. I'm sure you feel the same. That wasn't, at some point, difficult. There's that great phrase you use, isn't there, that how good you're willing to be depends how long you're willing to be shit at something or. I like the idea that. And I say this often to the kids when they tell me they can't do something. I say, you know that every single thing that you do now you once found hard. And Florence and Seb, they look at me confused. I'm like, but could you put your pants on when you were six months old? No. Could you put food in your mouth when you Were a year old like you do, you know, could you do ballet and gymnastics as you do now as a 12 year old, Florence, in the same way you could when you were a 3 year old? Not even close. So if you hadn't spent the first, you know, think about how the first sort of 10 years of our lives, it's a constant challenge. Challenged in the classroom, challenged at home, challenged physically. Nothing's easy. And look at the rate of development. And I think then we get to a point where we think, right, better avoid any challenges in my life. Well, okay, you'll avoid growth.

[Damien Hughes]

Yeah. There's a brilliant book by an author called Steve Magnus who titled it Do Hard Things. And it's almost that idea of that when you do hard things, you give your brain evidence that gives it confidence, that allows you to continue to keep stretching yourself and doing it. He has this great line, Jake, where because he was quite an elite endurance runner himself, he coaches people now. And he said he used to have a coach that would say to him, in today's session, we're going to go meet God. And he said occasionally he'd take them right to their edge of their physical and psychological capabilities, not because it made them any better in the short term, but because it proved to them that they could do hard things that would make their daily existence a lot easier.

[Jake Humphrey]

And if someone's listening to this going, well, why would you want to do hard things? Because they're hard, therefore they're not very nice. I think it's important to remember that if you voluntarily choose to do hard things, then you're putting yourself in a position to build your resilience or your growth. So that when you don't have the choice about whether you need to do the hard thing, you can lean on that evidence and go, well, I know I'll be okay. Like, let's say you get a really horrible piece of news about yourself, a family member, a friend or whatever, or your boss delivers something that's not what you wanted to hear. If you haven't done those hard things voluntarily for years, then obviously you can be derailed because you've got no evidence that you'll deal with those moments. But if you're voluntarily challenging yourself daily, well, what happens when someone says, I'm about to challenge you? You go, great. Well, I've been doing it to myself for 20 years, so bring on what you've got for me, you know, well.

[Damien Hughes]

Talking about sort of bringing on challenges, why don't we listen to Nick Cox, who at the time when we spoke to him, was the head of the academy, the famed academy at Manchester United that has developed so many young players that have gone on to have careers at the club and in professional football, where he talks around how they would deliberately throw people into the deep end just to watch how it developed their character.

[Nick Cox]

How do you develop character? How do you develop resilience? Well, it's lots of little microdoses of finding stuff hard along the way. If I can expose you to lots of little.

Struggles and traumas, things that are a bit too difficult, things that might go wrong, you build those qualities, you build resilience and you build the ability to learn and you build. So if we talk about parents who rescue too quickly. When you rescue kids from a difficult situation, you're basically saying, I, I'm taking that learning opportunity away from you, I'm going to solve the problem for you. Whereas if you just leave them to it, it's an amazing opportunity. So not getting picked or driving to Wales to not play, not pleasant, not nice. I wouldn't advise that someone experiences that every week, but if you experience it once, it's okay. It's a learning experience. How are we going to deal with it? What sort of conversation could you have with the coach at your next training session about the experience you've just had? If you do get on the pitch, how are you going to behave? How are you going to warm up like a world class player, all those types of things. It's a great opportunity. Rather than, as you say, helicopter parents diving in, rescuing their kids from a difficult situation. When you rescue them from a difficult situation, all you're doing is depriving them of a learning experience.

[Jake Humphrey]

I remember hearing him say that and I hadn't thought about the importance of that. I mean, in, in life at the time, but certainly in terms of like youth football. But what I do remember really sort of struck a chord with me was the getting the balance right. It was that kind of stretch and reward thing that he talked about where, yeah, of course you challenge people, of course you push them to their limits. Of course you need to find the breaking point, but you can't just constantly find the breaking point. You can't constantly be at the limits, you can't constantly be out of your comfort zone because that is actually not a great existence. So I guess that is actually a good reminder for all of us that if we're trying to find our limits or we're trying to find our edge, or we're trying to become comfortable with change or challenge that's great, but not 24 hours a day, seven days a week. But there also needs to be the comfort moments as well, where we kind of recharge our batteries, prepare ourselves for battle once again, and then we go as exactly as Nick was doing with those young players in the Man United Academy.

[Damien Hughes]

Well, it's interesting, I was looking at research recently when we were chatting with Joe Cole, because he spoke about a seminal moment for him was where the academy manager at West Ham sort of tore a strip off him. And I was looking at can negative feedback of having that strip torn off you be detrimental, or can it work to your benefit? And the research says it can be really useful every now and again, as long as it's followed up by nurturing support afterwards. Which echoes the point you're making, Jacob. Sometimes we, we can be pushed and stretched as long as we have that nurturing environment that encourages us and gives us the arm around the shoulder and the encouragement to get better. So I think what Nick's describing, the kind of culture he was trying to establish there, is that, yeah, sometimes you do need to feel exposed and vulnerable, but then you need to have somebody behind you that helps you process it and learn from it.

[Jake Humphrey]

Also, I like the idea of the regularity of it. You know, it was a nice moment recently when Zach Brown, the McLaren boss, came onto High Performance and he said that every single week he talks to his drivers about what he called the elephant in the room. You know, the close gap that they're currently battling with in the driver's championship. And it was only after we said, so the fact you talk about it all the time totally normalizes difficult conversations. He was like, oh, oh, yeah, you've unlocked something there. Yeah, I think you're right. I think that's exactly what's happened here. But obviously it's the same in our own lives as well. We don't have to take these huge, like, death defying leaps of faith all the time, but little micro doses, as Nick was delivering, really of challenge is really good for all of us because it means that challenge isn't something that is abnormal to us.

[Damien Hughes]

There's a phrase that sports coaches sometimes use called the Goldilocks zone, where you think about the Goldilocks story of, like, the porridge is either too hot, it's too cold, but you want it to be just right. I think sometimes if it's too easy, you don't learn anything. If it's too hard, well, you don't learn anything from that either. But when it's just Right when that level of stretch is just at the edge of your ability zone and it forces you to just stretch that a little bit further or push yourself more than you thought you could, that's the just right bit. And I think for all of us, I think sometimes we need to ask ourselves, am I coasting because it's too easy or am I sort of pushing myself too far? The sense of the impossible is too dominating. Whereas if we can find that just right zone, I think that's where our stretch, our ability becomes a lot more comfortable.

[Jake Humphrey]

And as a final clip, if we've encouraged you during the last few minutes to think, yeah, maybe I'm, maybe I'm ready to test myself. Here is free climber and all around amazing guy, Alex Honnold. I want you to hear what he has to say.

[Alex Honnold]

If you're really trying to think about leading a high performance life, I would think honestly about what's holding you back from it and then sort of rationally evaluate whether or not, I mean, because so many people are held back by fear in different ways. Is that fear founded? Does that matter? Like maybe you should just do the thing you've been wanting to do. It's like what's, what's to lose? Yeah, like you've been wanting to sign up for a marathon but you're sort of afraid cuz whatever, you're like who freaking cares? Sign up. You can literally walk the whole way. It doesn't make any difference like just, just do the thing. Just like take step forward.

[Damien Hughes]

I love listening to Alex Arnold when we met him in Las Vegas. But there was a bit that really intrigued me at the end of the interview because we'd sort of had these clips where people had studied his amygdala and found that he didn't respond with the terror that we would do if we were at the top of El Capitan. And he was at pains to point out to us, he goes, everyone thinks I've been born as this genetic freak. And he went, he said, but what they don't see is the 10 years of me traveling to El Capitan and being frightened by it and just choosing to expose myself to the idea of it. Eventually I've managed to reduce that fear because I've normalized it. I've been able to look at it and to process it and rationalize how I would do it. So that's why I don't feel the terror. And I feel that exposure to sometimes just testing ourselves to the edge of our limit is where we eventually realize we can swim rather than sink.

[Jake Humphrey]

Brilliant. And I think that's a really good final and strong message for all of you that have listened to Damien and I just chatting about this for the last little while. And it's that we are not saying leave that partner, quit that job, move to that country, change that fundamental thing in your life. We're not saying you have to do that right now. Otherwise you're. You're living a life that isn't of any value. What we are saying is that maybe for some of you, those kinds of really big decisions is where happiness lies. But the only way to get there is to slowly drip feed some difficult decisions. You can pack a parachute, as we often say. You can put the things in place so that if whatever big decision you want to make goes wrong, you can reverse that decision and you can make sure that you're okay. You know, you've got people to look after, mouths to feed, all that sort of stuff. But I think what we are saying is that what you don't want to be is on your deathbed with those ghosts of missed opportunities floating around saying, if only you'd have believed, if only you'd have trusted, if only you'd have done that thing you always wanted to do. Because you know, as we know, 400 trillion to 1 is the chances of being born right, Damien. And we're all a miracle just by being here. And it's a waste of this miracle that we've all been given. If at times, not all the time, if at times we don't just see where the limit is. And if that limit is on the other side of fear, shouldn't mean that we don't find it.

[Damien Hughes]

Absolutely. That's an incredibly stirring message. And I think again, to emphasize that we've done over 500 of these interviews. I don't think we've met anybody that hasn't had to pass through that doorway that's marked fear. But what they've found on the other side of it is a life and riches and success that they couldn't have imagined before they chose to do it. So there we go.

[Jake Humphrey]

Acknowledge the fear. Control only the things that you can control. Embrace the fact that it will feel like discomfort, expect anxiety, as our guests have told us. But finally, just start. You will never, ever live a life free of fear. But you should be able to live a life where you trust yourself enough to do those things that are just a little bit scary. And the more you do, the further you go. Damien, thank you so much.

[Damien Hughes]

Thanks, mate. Loved it.

[Jake Humphrey]

Good aren't they?

[Damien Hughes]

Yeah, I really enjoy it.

[Jake Humphrey]

Yeah. And don't forget, if you hit the link in the description to this show on whatever app you're listening, then you can listen to the full episodes from the guest that we've just shared those clips from. And if there's someone in your life who you think you know what I know exactly the person that needs to hear this conversation, they need to hear it now. Just send this on to them, ping it over, ask them to have a listen and we'd be so grateful. Make sure you hit follow and subscribe on whatever app you're listening to this show on and we'll see you soon for some more from myself, Damian and the High Performance Team.

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