What Do You Do The Day After You Win? (ft. Yaya Touré, Ben Ainslie & Ian Thorpe)

Summary

---

Podcast Summary: "What Do You Do The Day After You Win?"

The High Performance Podcast
Hosts: Jake (Jay) Humphrey & Damian Hughes
Guests: Yaya Touré, Ben Ainslie, Ian Thorpe (plus insights from Hector Bellerín & Billy Monger)
Date: May 13, 2026

---

Episode Overview

This episode tackles an often-ignored question: what happens after you win? Whether it’s a gold medal, a career milestone, or personal achievement, the hosts and guests dig into the anticlimax, emptiness, and need for purpose that can follow even the highest peaks. Through honest reflections with sporting legends like Yaya Touré, Ben Ainslie, and Ian Thorpe, plus insights from previous guests, the conversation explores how champions adapt, redefine purpose, and find lasting satisfaction beyond the trophy lift.

---

Key Discussion Points & Insights

1. The Post-Achievement "Hangover"

[00:39–01:36]

• Jay introduces the discomfort many feel after achieving a big goal: instead of joy, there’s often an unexpected low.
  • “It’s like as soon as you’ve had those moments, they’re gone. They don’t carry any residual value.” – Jay (06:08)
• The phenomenon isn’t exclusive to elite athletes—everyone, in any walk of life, can experience it.

---

2. Yaya Touré on Retirement’s Void

[02:54–04:34]

• Yaya Touré shares candidly about the emotional vacuum after his football career ended.
  • "Sometimes you feel like I feel empty. I need to do some stuff, I need to be involved..." – Yaya Touré (03:19)
• He confesses that relaxing post-retirement didn’t bring fulfillment: “I need to do something. I need to be involved again.” (04:29)
• Highlights the internal struggle of losing identity and routine after years of high performance.

---

3. The Trap of Delayed Happiness

[05:20–08:11]

• Discussion about linking happiness to achievements—how fleeting and unfulfilling that can be.
  • “Don’t be on the hedonic treadmill… The happiness has to be in the struggle, in the fight, in the everyday.” – Jay (08:47)
• Reference to Carl Frampton’s belief he needed “just one more” title to be whole—challenged by the hosts.

---

4. The Value of Time over Trophies

[07:27–08:11]

• A thought experiment: would you trade places with Warren Buffett for his wealth, knowing you’d also be 96 years old?
  • “The most valuable thing you have is time.” – Damien (07:54)
  • "Tomorrow is worth more than 100 million... you have to have that mindset every day." – Jay (08:08)

---

5. Self-Determination Theory: Intrinsic Motivation

[09:38–10:45]

• Research by Richard Ryan & Edward Deci: long-term fulfillment comes from autonomy, mastery, and purpose.
  • “Self-determination theory gives you that fuel that burns for so much longer…to ride out the rollercoaster.” – Damien (10:38)

---

6. Hector Bellerín: Consistency of Self-Worth

[10:49–12:16]

• Hector Bellerín compares his value to a steady-burning candle, unaffected by wins or losses.
  • "Your value is always this. So it doesn't matter if you score a goal... your value should be constant." – Hector Bellerín (11:01)
  • Critiques the sports culture of extreme highs and lows impacting self-esteem.

---

7. Parenting and Performance: Asking Better Questions

[12:39–13:36]

• Damien recalls Bellerín’s advice to parents: Don’t just ask “Did you win?”—ask “Did you enjoy it? What did you learn? Were you a good teammate?”
  • More insightful, growth-based questions encourage resilience and satisfaction beyond results.

---

8. Ben Ainslie: The Emptiness After Olympic Gold

[14:34–15:41]

• Ben Ainslie opens up about the momentary nature of post-victory happiness:
  • "That feeling lasted about 24 hours. And then it was, okay, what's next?" – Ben Ainslie (14:48)
• The lesson: always have another meaningful goal or direction after major milestones.

---

9. The Challenge of Reinvention: Marvin Hagler, Michael Schumacher & Others

[16:12–20:06]

• The rarity and difficulty of athletes (and others) successfully reinventing themselves after their peak.
  • Marvin Hagler as an example: “I’ve often long admired those that know how to plan for after the final whistle goes.” – Damien (19:30)
• The emptiness some attempt to fill with comebacks, often with mixed results.

---

10. Ian Thorpe: When Context Changes

[20:42–21:37]

• Ian Thorpe discusses how media scrutiny and the shifting context of his achievements led to dissatisfaction.
  • “For me, I was also, you know, I was paparazzi at home... it became a struggle.” – Ian Thorpe (20:49)

---

11. Practical Ways to Find Lasting Fulfillment

[25:27–27:57]

• Focus on flow states (Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi) and intrinsic motivation rather than external validation.
• Consider “legacy questions”—what do you want people to say about your character, not your accomplishments?
  • “It’ll be about the way that you left people feeling in your company.” – Damien (27:50)

---

12. Life’s Hard Moments as Crucibles for Growth

[28:09–28:57]

• Jay shares a parable on choosing a life that builds you, rather than an easy life.
  • “A good life isn’t a life that’s easy. A good life makes you into a good person. And that... is a hard life.” – Jay (28:51)

---

13. Billy Monger: Perspective from Adversity

[29:05–30:32]

• Billy Monger, after losing both legs, gained mental resilience and perspective.
  • “Every day I wake up for the next day and the next thing to be able to do. I don’t take anything for granted anymore.” – Billy Monger (30:08)

---

14. Book & Resource Recommendations

[30:41–31:06]

• Ikigai by Hector Garcia: finding life purpose.
• The Second Mountain by David Brooks: redefining meaning after early life success.

---

Notable Quotes & Timestamps

• Yaya Touré (03:19): “Sometimes you feel like I feel empty. I need to do some stuff, I need to be involved...”
• Hector Bellerín (11:01): “Your value is always this. So it doesn’t matter if you score a goal…”
• Ben Ainslie (14:48): “That feeling lasted about 24 hours. And then it was, okay, what’s next?”
• Damien Hughes (07:54): “The most valuable thing you have is time.”
• Billy Monger (30:08): “Every day I wake up for the next day and the next thing to be able to do. I don’t take anything for granted anymore.”
• Jay (08:47): “The happiness has to be in the struggle, in the fight, in the everyday.”

---

Actionable Takeaways

• Don’t delay happiness: Celebrate the everyday, not just the achievements.
• Intrinsic over extrinsic motivation: Seek satisfaction in mastery, autonomy, and purpose.
• Plan for "after": Have a plan for what comes next, beyond major wins.
• Redefine self-worth: Don’t tie your value to outcomes—be the steady candle.
• Ask better questions: To yourself, your loved ones, and your children.

---

Conclusion

Winning isn’t the end—it’s often a new beginning of searching for meaning, purpose, and happiness. The real high performance lies in enjoying the journey, mastering your craft, cultivating gratitude, and building resilience for life’s inevitable transitions.

---

Transcript

[Abercrombie Kids Announcer]

School's almost out and at Abercrombie Kids, new warm weather staples are in. It's a one stop shop for everything on their checklist like tees, shorts and swim, so planning what they'll wear is a breeze. For outfits that keep up with them and easier mornings for you, stop by Abercrombie Kids shop in the app, online and in stores.

[Jay Comfrey]

Hi there. You're listening to High Performance with myself, Jay Comfrey and Damien Hughes. How are you?

[Damien Hughes]

I'm good, mate, how are you? You alright?

[Jay Comfrey]

Very well, thank you very much. So today we're going to talk about what happens the day after you win. Because I actually think that so much of the conversation we have on this show is about equipping yourself to get the win. Yeah, all too often people don't talk about the day after the win. But there's actually a really uncomfortable truth here that I think we need to discuss. And this isn't just about gold medal winners or people on the top of PO or people exiting businesses. This is an everyday conversation for average people like you and I that are just getting on with our lives, assuming that we're either gonna be really happy when a certain thing happens, or even worse, telling ourselves we can't be happy until that amazing thing happens in our lives. Because so often people have told us on this show that when they do achieve incredible things, there just isn't that moment of joy that day after tends to be lower rather than higher. And I still, you know what, I still can't really work out what's going on here after seven years of having these conversations.

[Damien Hughes]

Well, like, do you remember when we both came off the call, when we spoke with Carl Frampton, the boxer?

[Jay Comfrey]

Yeah. And you immediately said there's problems there.

[Damien Hughes]

Yeah. And I'm glad that he seems to have navigated his way through it. But he was talking about, I need to win a third world title and then my career will be complete. Then I can walk away happy, then I'll know that I've fulfilled my mission. And we were like, no, you've already won two world titles. You've inspired a generation of young fighters. You've achieved everything. You don't need this to get there. We've seen it so often, haven't we? Remember when I did the interview with Alistair Brownlee and I've quoted this so often to people, when he went, I have stood on the top step of the Olympic podium twice with the gold medal around my neck, he said, and I can definitively tell you it's not worth the effort it takes to get there. So if you don't enjoy the effort, don't think that top step gold medal is going to be the payoff, because it's not. And I think we hear it so often from our guests that it's certainly worthy of exploring and diving a little bit deeper into it.

[Jay Comfrey]

Well, let's hear then from Yaya Toure. He joined us recently on High Performance. And we started the conversation not by talking about the goals or the medals or the trophies or the titles. We started talking about after he retired. Here he is.

[Yaya Toure]

Sometimes we don't realize when we are in the game, for example, when you out of it, or maybe you stop or you retire, for example, like I am now. It's coming difficult, you know, you feel like, okay, how I gonna feel my journey or my day today? You just have to wake up, just have a walk around, maybe work out in the gym. Nothing. Right. And for me personally, sometimes you feel like I feel empty. I need to do some stuff, I need to be involved. I need to, I don't know, I need to, you know, feel myself because I've been doing those, this job for so many years. Right. I think for more than 56 years I've been in high level and now doing nothing is quite, really, really difficult.

[Jay Comfrey]

Did you realize this is how it would feel in retirement?

[Yaya Toure]

I never feel, I never realized that and now I realize that a lot. Yeah, and that's like, it's not a shock. I was not, to be honest, I'm. I was not that surprised. I, I knew he's gonna come in at some point. But no, like that, because in my mind, two years or three years before I retire, I was like, okay, you know what? When I finish football, I just go, maybe a Maldivo, maybe a Highlander. Just relax myself. And you try to enjoy it, you know, as much as can. Because it was too much, right? Games after games and national team traveling, all these things like that. It was very, very tough. But now, I mean, I think I feel like I'm not 50, I'm not 60. That's not for me. You know, I need to do something. I need to be involved again.

[Jay Comfrey]

Do you remember when you and I went across to Holland to interview Edwin Van der Sar at Ajax? He was the director of football. And he came in the room and we said, how are you, Edwin? And he went, shit. And he looked really stressed and really upset for whatever reason. And you and I basically messed up and still did the interview that we'd planned we were gonna Do.

[Damien Hughes]

Yeah.

[Jay Comfrey]

We didn't react to what he said. And it was only a few days or weeks later that he actually had a stroke. Right. And obviously the stress and the pressure of that job was eating him up and we had an opportunity to really explore that with him and we didn't. Such a big learning for me, mate.

[Damien Hughes]

It still haunts me that now, and that's why. But I remember texting you the day after we'd done Yaya, and I said to you, and I complimented you on. It went well done on addressing what you saw in the room rather than just jumping in. Do you remember? Because.

[Jay Comfrey]

Yes. So what happened in the room was that where we record these episodes? If you're watching hi, you'll be able to see us in the studio. Just next door is what we call the green room. It's where we greet our guests. Their partners or agents or anyone they're with can sit in there and listen to the interviews. And it was when he came in and obviously I was hosting football when he was playing for Manchester City and I was telling him how much I used to enjoy it and I said, how's retirement been for you? And he just said, really, really terrible. He said, it's been awful. I've just hated every minute of it. I have no purpose. I'm really down. I need to find what's next. And that's why we then started the conversation in that place, because I was like, well, we can't let this moment go. And I was thinking about it quite a lot afterwards, reflecting on the fact that isn't it such a shame that he can bring all that happiness to people? He can give himself all of those great moments, but it's like as soon as you've had those moments, they're gone. They don't carry any residual value. Now, there's also a value in this, right, Because I was talking to Harriet and all of our friends went away on half term recently. Holidays, Disneyland, skiing, whatever. We didn't. And she was like, oh, I'm feeling a bit down. Cause I've been on Instagram and everyone's been away. I said to her, do you think they feel any different or do you think they're now back in their routine? In fact, they're probably lower because they've been on that holiday. Now they're back into doing the washing and doing the school run and making the snack and all the mundane stuff. But also, why don't we just imagine we also went on holiday?

[Damien Hughes]

Yeah.

[Jay Comfrey]

Like, I know that sounds ridiculous, but once You've done it. Apart from the photos on your phone, there is no. There is nothing else. You know, I've experienced people with dementia a few times in my life. Right. And almost one of the most beautiful things is when they were at the stage where they were imagining they'd done things they hadn't done, but the joy of doing those things they felt.

[Damien Hughes]

Yeah.

[Jay Comfrey]

The experience was 100% theirs. And there was a bit about this in everyday life for all of us. You know, let's just imagine that we've done great things. Let's think about the fact that we're still lucky. Let's not imagine that other people are in a place that we're not just because they've had an experience that we haven't had. I think it's like, for me, it's almost at the core of what this podcast has become.

[Damien Hughes]

Yeah, I love that. I love. I remember reading a book years ago where it said, said, would you swap, like, your life with Warren Buffett's wealth? And it was like. And most people go, yeah, yeah, I'd love. I'd love that wealth. But you'd now have to be 96.

[Ian Thorpe]

Yeah.

[Damien Hughes]

So to get to have his wealth, you have to accept that you're now 96. Do you think Warren Buffett would swap with you? 48. And most people, of course Warren Buffett would swap with you, because the most valuable thing you have is time.

[Jay Comfrey]

It's like, would you like me to give you 100 million quid?

[Damien Hughes]

Yeah.

[Jay Comfrey]

What about if I give you 100 million? Like, ridiculous amounts of money, but you don't wake up tomorrow. Right, so tomorrow is worth over 100 million.

[Damien Hughes]

Yeah.

[Jay Comfrey]

Like, you have to have that mindset every day.

[Damien Hughes]

Yeah. But I love that idea. Cause that's just a simple tweak, isn't it? That's just the idea of, like, when Sarah Pascal told us that that lovely idea that she went from being paranoid to pronoid. Please. Believing everyone was out to hate her, to then going, everyone's out there to love me. Everyone's out to help me, everyone's out to enjoy my material. And just that one tweak and telling the story in her own head differently allowed her to go on stage and be authentically herself. So most of most of our life is spent getting, in our own way, tripping ourselves up. So this ability to tell a better story, and that includes the story of what happens when we cross that finish line.

[Jay Comfrey]

I just don't know, though, whether it's ever possible to. To really change how people feel about this. You know, we've done this show for seven years, right. We do a lot of talks to businesses or groups of people. You know, we get asked to go and meet businesses and things, and often we will talk to them about. Don't be on the hedonic treadmill. Don't be on this world of delaying your happiness, thinking that one day the happiness comes, the happiness has to be in the struggle, in the fight, in the everyday. We've been saying this for seven years. We've spoken about it on the podcast. Loads. Yet every time we go in and say it to a new group we've never met before, suddenly heads are nodding and they're like, yeah, yeah, I get it. And then you get into this really difficult world of, well, are we saying don't achieve stuff? We're not saying don't achieve stuff. Right. But what we are saying is don't do what Yaya Toure did, which is link your happiness to those achievements.

[Damien Hughes]

Yeah. The happiest people we know are the ones that are driven intrinsically. So this goes back to the research we've quoted numerous times on the POD from two guys called Richard Ryan and Edward Deasy. They were psychologists at Rochester university in the 70s and 80s and they looked at a concept called the Self determination theory. So how do you keep your motivation high even when the external rewards aren't necessarily as prolific? And what they found is Self determination theory says, first of all, it's about having control or autonomy in their language. Then it's this idea of mastery, the idea of just wanting to be really good at something that matters to you. And then it's the idea of having something that you value. So control, value and mastery were the factors that mean if you can factor them into your life rather than focus on the external rewards of, I'm focused on how big my bank balance is, the car I drive or the house I live in. We know that the Self determination theory gives you that fuel that burns for so much longer, that gives you the chance of riding out the rollercoaster that life sometimes puts you on.

[Jay Comfrey]

Can I play a clip from a serious archive episode of High Performance?

[Damien Hughes]

Go on.

[Jay Comfrey]

Recorded in this building, actually, but years before, this building was our studio. Hector Bayer, in comparing himself to a candle.

[Damien Hughes]

Brilliant.

[Hector Bayer]

I don't feel like there's a way in which, like, we should teach kids that the result or their performance is going to be linked to. To their value. You know, it's like your, your value as a human. I would say the analogy of Like a candle, you know, it should always be like a candle that's always burning at the same rate. Right. So your value is always this. So it doesn't matter if you score a goal, it doesn't matter if you score a known goal, it doesn't matter if you lose. Your always, when your value is always here in football is always a complete other way around. It's like you score a war goal, you win a trophy, boom. But then you lose and you're down here, so you're never in the middle. And everything around you, all the voices around you, your coach doesn't pick you if you don't play well. The media doesn't, you know, doesn't talk good about you. But it's not that they don't talk good about you, they talk bad. So they dig you a hole, you know, and then some of people that you call friends, maybe you're not playing that well, but you know, they don't talk to you as much and like. But then when you do well again, everyone is messaging you every week and

[Damien Hughes]

oh, wow, great game.

[Hector Bayer]

You played everyone on Instagram. So the candle is constantly like this.

[Jay Comfrey]

And you're being defined by what happens on the football.

[Hector Bayer]

Yeah, you basically your self esteem is like performance self esteem. It's not like, you know, your value is dictated by your performance, which like no healthy human being can, can be happy with those metrics.

[Jay Comfrey]

There he is, the former Arsenal player. Is he still at Real Betis?

[Damien Hughes]

He scored against Real Madrid that weekend.

[Jay Comfrey]

Did he?

[Damien Hughes]

Yeah, yeah, yeah, he did. So one of the last games of the season.

[Jay Comfrey]

I think that is one of the best quotes we've ever had on this show actually. Live like a candle. Don't get high, don't get low, just be steady throughout. It's almost the kind of advice that answers any question we're about to ask ourselves for the next 20 minutes on this conversation. Right.

[Damien Hughes]

Well, Hector was the one that like he, you know, we often talk about how meeting our guests and we take the ideas away and apply it in my life. He was the one that sort of re. Educated me on the quality of asking better questions to my children. So he tells a story, don't he? Do you remember when he was like he was 14 and he came home from La Masia, Barcelona's academy, and his parents like, oh, did you win? I was like, why is that important for you? It was a 14 year old football match. Why don't you ask me did I enjoy myself? Why don't you ask me what did I Learn. Why don't you ask me, how was I a good teammate? Because surely they're better questions for. For to describe the experience than whether I won or lost. Because if I lost, does it mean that it wasn't a valuable experience? You know, And I. And when I reflected on it, I thought, they're the questions I'll ask my kids when they. Either rugby or netball. I was asking them, did you win? And it's like, it doesn't matter. Did you enjoy it? What did you learn? And how did you contribute to being a good teammate, a far more valuable God?

[Jay Comfrey]

I just think this is so useful for people because I see all the time, people delaying their happiness. Johnny Wilkinson, very early on, 30 seconds, he told us he was happy for when he won the Rugby World Cup. But I want to go to. Our very first ever record was when you and I remember I rang you when I was driving to the Chelsea Flower show and said, do you want to do a podcast with me?

[Damien Hughes]

Yeah.

[Jay Comfrey]

And then it was like, right, who can be the first person we record with? And it wasn't the first episode we released. Do you remember we released Rio Ferdinand that we recorded in his rest. Do you remember going up to Manchester, sitting in a loud restaurant with a

[Damien Hughes]

couple of microphones at the time? Yeah.

[Jay Comfrey]

Trying to do an interview with Rio. But the first one we actually recorded was when we traveled down to Ben Ainsley's racing headquarters in Portsmouth and he talked to us about winning the Olympic gold 26 years ago and how he felt afterwards. So should we go to this clip?

[Damien Hughes]

I'd love to, because this was the moment when I remember thinking, wow, these people are willing to share so much vulnerability that I thought we were onto something.

[Ben Ainsley]

Remember, actually the first Olympics I won, I had a silver medal in 96, and I managed to win the gold medal in 2000. And I remember getting on the airplane home and sort of sitting back and thinking, ah, you know, that's it, I've done it. I don't need to worry about anything else again. And that feeling lasted for about 24 hours. And then. And then it was, okay, what's next? What's next? And then to the point. And actually, after those Olympics, I sort of suffered, I guess probably you hear about it a lot, Damien, but it's sort of post Olympics in my case, or post event blues of you reach a milestone and then you haven't really got anything else planned and you're at a loss because for all those years you've been waking up early, getting to training, focused on one thing and then that's it, it's over. And so for me, that was quite a good lesson learned. Okay. You've always got to have a plan. So whichever the Olympics I went to after that, I always knew straight away after, you know, what was the plan, what was I working towards. So that helped really, I think, from a career wise and a focus to move on.

[Jay Comfrey]

So there he is, one of the most decorated sailors in Olympic history, telling us he felt empty the day after he won. I'm intrigued actually at this point how much that was a lesson for you, because I came from the world of hosting television programmes, working on kids telly and getting fired from McDonald's. Right, you came from the world of being in dressing rooms, operating with elite individuals, lecturing at Manchester University about psychology, researching high performing elite cultures for years. So did you not know this stuff already or was this a lesson for you?

[Damien Hughes]

It was, it was a definite lesson. I think what really surprised me though was that I'd had conversations like this in sort of closed one on one, confidential meetings. And to then hear that these elite athletes were willing to share it so publicly to make themselves so vulnerable with the idea that hopefully it could help others. That was the bit that surprised me because I didn't think, I wasn't sure whether we as a society were ready for that level of candor. So that first time when Ben, like I remember when you asked him a question and he went, wow, I've never been asked questions like this before. And it was making him think, and I think the fact that he hadn't prepared an answer, so therefore he was giving us the unvarnished truth. I remember thinking, this is like a real privilege for us to listen to it, so hopefully there'll be people out there that recognize the value of it.

[Jay Comfrey]

You see, I had never even considered that there was an emptiness to elite performance and success until that moment when we were talking about Ben Ainsley. And I remember actually when I got the job to host the BBC's F1 coverage in 2009, a year later, Michael Schumacher came out of retirement and returned to Formula One in 2010. And I was the first person to interview him. It was on like, it was on the BBC news channel and they were doing like media stuff. And so I got the chance to interview him and then obviously spent a couple of years with him in his return, you know, driving into circuits with him and going on trips with him and filming films with him and spending a lot of time in his company. Not once did I ever Say to him, you know, when you retired the first time around, how empty was it? How much did you miss this? And he never mentioned it. And I sort of, I remember then thinking, man, what a, what a missed opportunity to speak to a seven time Formula one legend about what actually was going on in his head in that period away from racing where you just assume, well, he's minted, he can go anywhere he wants, he can buy anything he likes, he's got kids, he's got a wife, he's just come back for even more fun. Not one part of me thought Michael Schumacher has come back because there was an emptiness in his life and he's trying to fill a void.

[Damien Hughes]

Yeah, yeah, yeah. Well, you're right. I remember I, I'd co authored a couple of books on Thomas Hearns and Marvin Hagler. So they're two of what are commonly known as the Four Kings, like a golden era of boxing history. And I went on a BBC 5 live show, it was around the anniversary of this and I was with Steve Buns and Mark Chapman and Mike Costello and we were talking about them and at the end of the show it was rank them in order of significance. And everyone else was like, well, Sugar Ray Leonard was the most talented. Others were talking about Roberto Duran was the most charismatic. And I said, Marvin Hagler. And when they were like, why would you put him there? I was like, cause he retired, I never came back. That was the criteria of which I viewed him as a great. Because was interesting with him was that he. There was all kinds of calls for him to come back and fight. And when I'd interviewed him at the time, he was like, I knew if I'd stayed in Boston where we'd grown up, I would have come back because everyone referred to me as a champ. So he decided to emigrate to Italy, spoke no Italian, but he decided to go and reinvent himself as a, as an actor in Italy because he recognized he needed to do something different with his life rather than stay in the sport where his diminished physical gifts were going to cause him damage. So I've often long admired those that know how to plan for after the final whistle goes. So the fact that we've been able to speak to other more contemporary athletes now and understand that actually this isn't as easy as you'd imagine. Like Schumacher, they'd like. We've seen so many boxers. Tyson Fury has come out of retirement.

[Jay Comfrey]

Well, John Bur. We spoke to Ian Thorpe.

[Damien Hughes]

Yeah.

[Jay Comfrey]

In fact, should we just play it and have a listen? What Ian Thorpe said, just to put this into context, if you're watching, you might not see any video at this point because Ian Thorpe did an interview on a webcam. Do you remember? And you know those like, privacy things that you look through on hotel doors or in your house, what are they called? Like a peephole? Like a peephole. It was like a reverse version of a peephole, so he was minuscule. I don't know what had happened. But anyway, it sounded okay, so we kept it. But there's probably going to be a photo of his face or something rather than the actual video of him if you're watching this on Apple Podcasts. But anyway, here he is. Ian Thorpe, when he joined us on

[Ian Thorpe]

High Performance during that period, it was the context of what swimming was for me that completely changed. It was less about me swimming up and down a pool that it became responding to the media and things like that. So for me, I was also, you know, I was paparazzi at home and it just. The context of my sport changed where it never existed before. I never thought that there was an athlete in swimming that would have to go through that. And so I'd never prepared for it. And for me, as someone that's quite private, it became a struggle. And it was more significant than anything else that I could do in the book where I decided that's it.

[Jay Comfrey]

I'm trying to think whether there's ever been a return that was like, was better than the first time around. I don't think there is.

[Damien Hughes]

Oh, that's a good question.

[Jay Comfrey]

I'm going to. I'm going to read while you talk about something really clever that I can't even contemplate because I've got a small brain. I'm going to ask AI, have you turned it?

[Damien Hughes]

Yeah, well, I mean, it's a really surprising one, isn't it? Because people often, if you think about why, why people stay in it, there's often like that longevity of just trying to eke out a few more years on a lucrative contract or excellent feeling.

[Jay Comfrey]

Damien.

[Damien Hughes]

Yeah.

[Jay Comfrey]

AI says this is a great question. It cuts right into identity, reinvention and that rare second act that usually that actually can surpass the first. It's really uncommon, however. Michael Jordan, first career, three NBA titles, global superstar, second career, three more NBA titles and a 72 win season. Michael Phelps, first career peak, eight goals at Beijing 2008. Came back after burnout, depression and struggles. Second act, five goals at Rio 2016. But this was more than medals because he was the oldest individual Olympic swimming champion in decades, but also mentally healthier, which is important. George Foreman's on here. So first career, terrifying young heavyweight champion. Second career, came back in his 40s and became world heavyweight champion at 45. But you've got a frown on your face. So you don't. You wouldn't agree with that?

[Damien Hughes]

No. Well, if you take the Michael Jordan one, I think the interesting thing for him was that he lost his dad, didn't he? So then his dad was kidnapped and then later found dead. So he went to pursue that career in baseball. Cause he felt he was honoring his father's legacy. And then he came back when he realized how difficult it was in another sport. So I think maybe that gave him a chance on Mental Reset, the Michael Phelps one. You said it was a case of burnout and depression. I think George Foreman, he came back and at first I feel uncomfortable because he was so such a terrifying heavyweight in the 70s when he first emerged on the scene. Like if anyone ever wants to go back and just watch a real one sided beating, have a look at his destruction job he does on Joe Frazier where he just knocks him down something like eight times. He was genuinely frightening. I think when he came back a second time, he was seen more originally as a bit of a freak show. He was almost like. Like people thought he was amusing because. Because of his size and his weight. So although what he did was incredible, I wouldn't compare the second art is the second act.

[Jay Comfrey]

That's a no for me.

[Damien Hughes]

Like first.

[Jay Comfrey]

I also obviously doesn't know that I host this show because it then said, if you want, I can flip this into a room where it happened style monologue. The moment someone decides to come back knowing they might ruin everything or redefine it. I say, I also host high performance, you know, chat GPT. I actually remember now talking to Eddie Jordan about the couple of wins he had in Formula one. And I remember asking him on stage once, we used to do these little Q&As. This sounds weird. We used to do Q&As in campsites. So there are certain races where everyone camps. And there was a company called Camping F1 and they used to pay us to go in and just like do an evening talk to all these campers. It was great. And I remember saying, your greatest win. And he said, getting out of Formula one with my money and my sanity and actually like he wouldn't have been. So he sold that team, I think 2005. He died in 2025 aged 76. So he was born in 19.

[Damien Hughes]

50.

[Jay Comfrey]

1950, yeah, 1950.

[Damien Hughes]

52.

[Jay Comfrey]

So he would only been 55 when he sold that team. Just a few years older than you. Like, what a great time to do that and to get that freedom.

[Damien Hughes]

Yeah, yeah, definitely.

[Jay Comfrey]

So let's talk about how we can really practically help people who are living in a space where at the moment their happiness is delayed, they're telling themselves that they have to achieve, they have to earn a certain amount of money, they have to do certain things for their husband or their wife or their kids. There's a concept in psychology called flow state. Right. Since McCallay.

[Yaya Toure]

Yep.

[Jay Comfrey]

And I wonder whether we can talk about that for a bit to remind people that actually your peak performance, your high performance, your optimal state, it's not about the achievements, it's about the achievements, if that makes sense.

[Damien Hughes]

Yeah, yeah, yeah. So the 6 cent Mihaly stuff tells you about it, that there's those moments where everything just flows for you, basically where the idea comes from. But it's almost about you just immerse yourself in the craft. If it's about playing music, you just love the music. It's where the keys go. You're not thinking about the applause at the end of it, you know, if you're performing in that sense. But it goes back to the D.C. and Ryan stuff about the self determination theory. You got to look at what do you want to master, what is it you love, what do you have a degree of control over and what do you really value? And I think if you focus on those three questions, they're far healthier questions to focus than necessarily focused on outcomes or the external validation of it. Another nice technique that people might think about doing is go back and listen to the interview we did with Glenn Hoddle, you know, because Glenn, I don't think he'd mind us saying, was somebody that sort of had been caught up in sort of reputation and identity for a large part of his career as both a. As that beautiful footballer. But then when he went into coaching and I think that horrendous incident when he had a cardiac arrest and his life flashed before his eyes gave him the sense of reading his own eulogies when he recovered from it and casting himself forward into the future going, what do I want people to say about me? And it won't just be about he was a great footballer or he had this bank account. It was how he behaved, how he conducted himself and how he left other people feeling. Shane Parish told us the same technique of imagine you're on your deathbed and you're in a coma and all your loved ones around you, what do you want them to say? These are all the things that just get us out of the immediate moment and cast us forward enough into the future to go. What's your legacy gonna be? And it will not be about your achievements. It'll be about the way that you left people feeling in your company.

[Jay Comfrey]

I'd also like to remind people that life isn't going through the hard times to get to the good moments. The hard times can be the good moments. I saw this on social media the other day, which I thought was really good.

[Ben Ainsley]

So it's.

[Jay Comfrey]

Imagine you talk to the creator of the universe before birth, and you pick the person you're going to become. So you say, I want to be the most courageous. So the creator replies, great, I'll give you monsters to terrify you so that you can conquer them. I also want to be patient. Great. Then I'll make you work harder and longer so you can learn to wait. I also want to be wise. The creator says, okay, I'll give you failures that will crush your spirit so you can learn the value of judgment. But that sounds like a really tough life. You say, can you not give me a good life? And the creator replies, just like we measure the quality of a blacksmith by the strength of his steel, I measure you by what you are at the end, not the fire and the hammer it took to make you. A good life isn't a life that's easy. A good life makes you into a good person. And that, my son, is a hard life,

[Damien Hughes]

you know, pops into my head when I was. When I was listening to you say that. Billy Munger.

[Jay Comfrey]

Yeah. Should we finish with a clip from Billy?

[Damien Hughes]

I'd love that.

[Jay Comfrey]

Here he is, the man, the young man who, in a British F3 race, sadly lost both of his legs in a serious accident, which was actually remarkably something that changed the way he saw the world and gave him a real sense of perspective. Here he is, Billy Munger, on high performance.

[Billy Munger]

I think mentally now is where I see the real benefits from the accident itself.

[Damien Hughes]

Explain that a bit more.

[Billy Munger]

So just like in terms of my mindset, I say the small things get on my nerves sometimes, but I think sometimes people like to get caught up in things that don't really matter. And as much as I still get annoyed as much as the person next to me, I think I'm able to deal with it a lot quicker. I think there's always that part in the mid, my sort of thinking in the back of my mind that allows me to sort of just say, well, why are you even bothering worry about that. Well, before it'd be like, I don't know, you'd spend five, 10 minutes, like, getting upset if something's happened, but now it's like, it happens. Have a little bit of frustration, and you're like, what are you doing? And then you kind of just forget about it and keep moving forward. So I say my mindset in terms of looking forward to the next thing and the next day. And I mean, I'm excited now. Every day I wake up for the next day and the next thing to be able to do. I don't take anything for granted anymore. And I think that's probably massively down to my accident and the mindset change.

[Jay Comfrey]

Oh, what a great way to end. Is there a book that people should read which kind of sums up this idea of searching for a bit more from your life than maybe we think?

[Damien Hughes]

Yeah. So again, the Hector Garcia book on icky guy. We spoke to Hector. That's a really good book to read. Another book, if you may be more of my vintage and age. David Brooks wrote a book called the Second Mountain, which is like, once you've sort of got to a stage in life where you start thinking about, what else can I do? What else can I offer people? DAVID Brooks, Second Mountain is, well worthy of exploration.

[Jay Comfrey]

Great because we speak to so many people on this show who achieve great things, and as soon as they achieve that great thing, suddenly that great thing becomes a distraction from the next great thing. And it's fine to live your life doing great things. Damien and I are not sitting here saying, don't achieve great things with your life. What we are saying is don't reserve the happiness until you achieve that great thing, because there will always be a greater thing, therefore, the happiness will always be delayed. And therefore, what kind of a life is it if your happiness is not something that's central to it? Thanks so much, Damien.

[Damien Hughes]

Thank you, mate.

[Jay Comfrey]

Don't forget, you can watch as well as listen on Apple Podcasts. You can enjoy these conversations on YouTube or wherever you get your podcasts. We'll see you again soon for another episode of High Performance.

[Ian Thorpe]

It.