The High Performance Podcast

Why does a weekly to-do list feel so overwhelming on a Sunday night? Jake and Damian argue it's not because of your workload, it's because your capacity . Sleep, energy, confidence, clarity, control: when any of these drop, the same list of tasks stops looking like separate, manageable jobs and starts looking like one overwhelming message — everything, now.

In this episode, Jake and Damian hear from:
Steve Peters on the "chimp" that hijacks you in traffic, and why recognising it isn't you is the first step to managing it.
Ash Dykes on preparing for the worst before it happens, so it arrives as something expected rather than something that ambushes you.
Shane Parrish on why you don't need the confidence to reach the destination — just the confidence to take the next step.
Ali Abdaal on the five-minute rule, and the three-quid hourglass that got him moving on the days motivation didn't show up.
James Clear on the two-minute rule, and the heaviest weight in the gym: the front door.
Jameela Jamil on the power of small, unglamorous no's.
Alistair Brownlee on breaking an impossible-feeling task down into the next five-minute reason to keep going.

By the end, Jake and Damian give you a ten-minute reset for the next time life all feels like too much because the goal was never to shame yourself into trying harder. It's to rebalance the equation.

Thanks to our partners:

AG1 👉 head to http://drinkag1.com/highperformance and get a free Morning Person Hat to help start your AG1 daily habit - plus a free D3 and K2, and five travel packs

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Dina Asher-Smith has just made history as the most decorated athlete in European Championships history. An MBE, multiple major titles and four Olympic Games within reach, but at 30, one of Britain's greatest ever sprinters is still asking how much better she can become.

In this episode, Dina opens up about the realities behind those 10 seconds on the track, from how her menstrual cycle affected her performance to competing through grief. She also reflects on leaving her coach of 20 years, rebuilding her career, and why bronze can sometimes mean more than gold.

With the 2027 World Championships and LA 2028 ahead, Dina reveals how her relationship with success has changed, and why the opportunity to keep competing at the highest level now feels less like pressure and more like a privilege.

AG1 👉 head to http://drinkag1.com/highperformance and get a free Morning Person Hat to help start your AG1 daily habit - plus a free D3 and K2, and five travel packs

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We revisit our conversation with Fernando Alonso - two-time Formula 1 World Champion, 437 Grand Prix starts, 32 wins - recorded in a rare moment where the visor comes off completely. Jake and Damian get behind the "robot" Alonso becomes the second his helmet goes on, and into the boy who started racing a homemade go-kart at three years old, in a family with no money, no expectations, and no competitive gene to explain where his came from.
Fernando is disarmingly honest about the cost of that competitiveness: the two championships with Ferrari he came agonisingly close to and still can't fully explain losing; the two titles he did win, in 2005 and 2006, that he now barely remembers because he was already thinking about the next race before the champagne had dried; and the moment, at 13 years old, a mechanic pulled him aside after his best result yet and told him, "second is the first loser." It's a line that shaped the next three decades of his career.
Moments that will stay with you:

Why his own parents still can't explain where his will to win came from
The 20% of every race weekend spent planning not for victory, but for everything that could go wrong
What changed when he left Formula 1 for two years and heard, for the first time, how much people actually missed him
The advice his father gave him before his first ever Grand Prix, in case it turned out to be his last

He's unflinching about what elite performance actually costs: that you can spend twenty years being told to fear enjoying it, that humility has to be actively protected once fame tries to take it from you, and that self-confidence isn't the absence of doubt it's simply deciding, in advance, what you're capable of, and then closing the visor.

AG1 👉 head to http://drinkag1.com/highperformance and get a free Morning Person Hat to help start your AG1 daily habit - plus a free D3 and K2, and five travel packs

Go Henry 👉 Grow their skills and their money at gohenry.com/highperformance with £5 FREE to get started!

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

What do you do when every option is on the table and you still end up with the same idea you always have? Jake and Damian tackle one of the quiet traps of creative work, and land somewhere counterintuitive: freedom doesn't make ideas bolder. Constraints do.

Damian unpacks David Epstein's Inside the Box and the psychology behind why unlimited time, unlimited method and unlimited scope send the brain straight to its safest, most familiar answer and the three tools for building a better box: the Fake Deadline, the One Rule, and the Small Box.

Along the way you'll hear Shane Parrish on the Henry Kissinger question that outed a staffer's "best work" as anything but; René Meulensteen on the Federer clips he used to teach Man Utd players to stay one point wide; Sarina Wiegman on the training session she deliberately ran with a terrible referee, just to see what her players would do with it; and Lewis Morgan on what he'd actually do with a spare £1,000 and a Facebook Marketplace login.

The idea doesn't need better conditions. It needs a smaller box.
Listen to the full episodes:
Sarina Wiegman: https://shows.acast.com/the-high-performance-podcast/episodes/sarina-wiegman-the-leadership-secrets-powering-england-lione
Lewis Morgan: https://shows.acast.com/3d30295e-f7fb-5af1-b618-30a8763cc75a/625c41bcfa71dd0012e7f614
René Meulensteen: https://shows.acast.com/3d30295e-f7fb-5af1-b618-30a8763cc75a/67e02799511f1304b0d74225

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Ballon d'Or winner Michael Owen became one of the world's best footballers by developing an extraordinary ability to turn doubt, mistakes, and setbacks into self-belief. He joins Jake and Damian to reveal how that mindset was built, and why it eventually became one of his greatest challenges.

Michael reflects on the injuries that took away the explosive pace that defined him, and the painful eight-year gap between the player he believed he was and what his body could still deliver. He also opens up about retiring at 33, losing his sense of purpose, the strain it placed on his marriage, and how he eventually found a new competitive outlet beyond football.

This is an honest exploration of self-belief, identity, and what happens when the mindset that drives success becomes difficult to switch off.

Meet the Owens, a six-part docuseries in the UK and Ireland, is available on Prime Video from the 28th August.

AG1 👉 head to http://drinkag1.com/highperformance and get a free Morning Person Hat to help start your AG1 daily habit - plus a free D3 and K2, and five travel packs

Go Henry 👉 Grow their skills and their money at gohenry.com/highperformance with £5 FREE to get started!

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.