...with Damian Hughes
Once again, this Working Lunch edition happened across a screen on a Zoom call. However, if it were up to Damian, it would have taken place in a local cafe in Manchester set up by a friend of Damian‘s called Egginton‘s Cafe - Damian has helped deliver leaflets and supported the business during the lockdown.
I had a bit of an unusual start because before I was born, my father was a coach and founded a boxing gym. Many people assume boxing gyms are based in inner-city areas, perhaps even socially deprived districts of a city – and that was certainly the case for where I grew up.
And I mention that because I believe, even if it was unconsciously, that start in life influenced the work I do now; I was around high performance from a very young age. This included young men who were becoming professional boxing champions or going off to the Olympics; I saw the demands and sacrifices, and the discipline required to achieve success within their domain. Another thing I think influenced my path was the power of culture. The area I grew up in was potentially regarded as quite socially deprived – with high unemployment and many other labels associated with that. But that gym was a place where people could come and be treated with respect and be valued. They were treated with courtesy, and those who came to the gym went on to succeed in a range of different industries, as people, as parents and as professionals.
In academia, a phrase is used where "we don‘t do re-search, we do me-search“, and we often try and understand our own lives and biographies. When I got older, I began to appreciate how rich that environment that I grew up in was and how it informs and influences a lot of the work that I currently do. As well as the books I‘ve written and co-hosting the podcast, I‘ve worked as a consultant for a range of businesses speaking to teams to create high-performance teams which flourish at their best.
The podcast began with a friend called Jake Humphrey, who I co-host it with as we come from slightly different high-performance backgrounds. So, as I mention, I come from being the son of a coach and from a practitioner’s perspective, it takes discipline and sacrifices. I‘ve learned there‘s no secret to high performance; there‘s no overnight successes or silver bullet. Jake is a broadcaster who worked for the BBC for years and is now the lead anchor for BT Sport. He describes that he was around these billionaire team bosses and motor-racing drivers, and he went in expecting a secret but discovered what I had – that there is no secret.
So, when we were chatting together, we thought it would be great to do something like a podcast to share the fact that there is no secret by talking to people who had achieved high performance; and revealed the sacrifices, commitment, and decision-making behind their success. I think it‘s important to stress that the podcast and the books aren‘t there to suggest that people are going to become gold medallists or multi-millionaires. It‘s about doing the best you can with the resources you have and using the knowledge that you possess, with the time you have, to potentially go a little further than what people had imagined they could.
So, this comes with two potential answers. The first comes from Edward de Bono, who is regarded as the godfather of creativity. He said that most of the problems in our life occur because 80 per cent of the way we view it is solid in our thinking. This means there is a particular way we should be thinking and a certain way we should respond and that solidity of our thinking means we do the same thing over and over again, rather than being flexible and creative in our thinking. By definition, the opposite to solid thinking would be liquid thinking, so being a little fluid and flexible. So that‘s option one. The other is that when I was thinking of the name, I was sat with a mate, having a pint, and trying to think of something creative.
We have found with our interviews with high performers that three phrases sum up all of them. Take Responsibility, and that it is responsibility – not blame; and that‘s saying even though it might not be your fault, you are accountable for the way you respond to it. So, although COVID wasn‘t anyone‘s fault, we are all defined by how we respond to it. And this acceptance gives us control, and the more you accept control, the higher your levels of health, wellbeing, and happiness.
Another thing is, how you respond to these times will define you in the future. There is work by a Nobel-prize-winning psychologist, Danny Conoman, called the peak-end law and how when you‘re asked to remember or recall a business or individual, you remember three things – how you first met them, when you last met them and most importantly, how they dealt with adversity. And lastly, just be kind. I think kindness can often be discussed as a twee statement or being soft, but the evidence suggests from high performers, when they have faced adversity and came at with it with a lens of kindness, meaning being kind to themselves and others, they have had a better experience.
I think the greatest thing I have learnt from this time has been about balance. Reflecting on the past, I was very aware I was working long hours and away from home a lot – and not necessarily having that balance right. I have two children, and being at home with the family, my time was seen as a premium. Over the past 12 months, I have re-evaluated these ideas and reminded myself of the most important things in life and that I need to rebalance these elements of my life.
Balancing all those demands was quite tough, but even before we had children, we went on a parenting course as neither of us had been parents before, so we went to learn from someone who knew more about it than us. During this, they asked us to recall a favourite childhood memory, and there was a consistent theme of at least one parent being present, and the activity was often cheap and accessible – like a walk, a park or something along those lines. This gave us the opportunity to make those memories and do activities that weren‘t particularly lavish or expensive, but they were activities together as a family.
One person from the podcast was an Argentinian football coach called Mauricio Pochettino, and he had a great way of articulating the non-negotiable standards that you had to buy into to be a member of his team. And those standards of behaviour were threefold; one was positive energy, be a team player and have a can-do attitude; by communicating these standards, he said, I offered an opportunity to commit,’ and his role was to set those standards from the beginning and even through adversity those standards are to be met. This leads me to another point: not to underestimate the power of enjoyment, as quite often, when you enjoy what you‘re doing, you are willing to go further, spend more time, and do more to succeed. And lastly, don‘t forget the value of trust, as if people trust you, this will sustain you through difficult times.
One of the main things is referring to that idea of commitment; people have to continuously download or choose to listen to the podcast, which means they‘re interested in what is said, not just forced to listen to something like you are on the radio.
The book is based on the interviews of the high-performance podcast, and we are in the process of writing that; it should be out in December. Having done over 50 interviews with people who have been incredibly successful in a range of industries from business, sport, the arts and the military, what we have tried to do from that is distil the common themes and take-away messages that people can apply to their own lives; we have then applied the psychology and research behind those mindsets and why that works for people.
Probably from making my own mistakes and having things go wrong, the advice of being kind to yourself and others resonates the best. Sometimes the way we talk to ourselves is shocking, and we wouldn‘t dream of talking to other friends and family like that, so that advice of being kind is so important in allowing yourself to bounce back from adversity.