The Good Listening To Show: Stories of Distinction & Genius
"If you tell your Story 'out loud' then you're much more likely to LIVE it out loud" and that's what this show is for: To help you to tell your Story - 'get it out there' - and reach a large global audience as you do so. It's the Storytelling Show in which I invite movers, makers, shakers, mavericks, influencers and also personal heroes into a 'Clearing' (or 'serious happy place') of my Guest's choosing, to all share with us their stories of 'Distinction & Genius'. Think "Desert Island Discs" but in a 'Clearing' and with Stories rather than Music. Cutting through the noise of other podcasts, this is the storytelling show with the squirrels & the tree, from "MojoCoach", Facilitator & Motivational Comedian Chris Grimes. With some lovely juicy Storytelling metaphors to enjoy along the way: A Clearing, a Tree, a lovely juicy Storytelling exercise called '5-4-3-2-1', some Alchemy, some Gold, a couple of random Squirrels, a cheeky bit of Shakespeare, a Golden Baton and a Cake! So it's all to play for! "Being in 'The Good listening To Show' is like having a 'Day Spa' for your Brain!" So - let's cut through the noise and get listening! Show website: https://www.thegoodlisteningtoshow.com See also www.secondcurve.uk + www.instantwit.co.uk + www.chrisgrimes.uk Twitter/Instagram @thatchrisgrimes
The Good Listening To Show: Stories of Distinction & Genius
'Liquid Thinker' Damian Hughes: Profound Life-Enhancing Insights into all things High Performance, Humility, Resilience & Excellence with Psychologist, Int. Speaker, Best Selling Author & Co-Presenter of 'The High Performance' Podcast
"Everyone Needs a Professor in their Life!". And there's a rich seam of GOLD in this episode!
Discover the art and the story-behind-the-story of 'Liquid Thinking', with the wonderfully wise and insightful Damian Hughes, Co-Presenter (alongside Sports Broadcaster Jake Humphrey) of "The High Performance Podcast". I recently saw Damian & Jake speak at the Entrepreneurs Circle "Entrepreneurs Convention" in Birmingham and I am delighted to have him in the Show!
Damian shares his fascinating journey from the boxing gyms of Manchester under the wing and watchful eye of his father, to turning around a struggling factory in his early career with the help of sports legends. We explore the concept of managing energy carefully and the importance of reflective 'pit-stops' (just like in Formula 1) to help us all to restore and reset, as well as the power of mindset and adaptability in helping to achieve all things High Performance.
Damian offers personal anecdotes that highlight the influence of relatable role models and the universal truths about high performance that apply to all areas of life. From learning humility in the boxing ring to finding purpose beyond comfort zones, Damian’s stories offer a compelling look into balancing career ambitions with family responsibilities. He also shares heartwarming tales of finding solace in his dog, Teddy, and the therapeutic power of companionship and nature.
Join us as we reflect on the legacy of impactful figures, embrace the power of kindness, and find purpose in giving back. Damian's insights remind us of the importance of authenticity, emotional literacy, and defining success on personal terms. Listen in for a rich tapestry of personal growth, resilience, and the transformative power of high performance intertwined with kindness and empathy.
Tune in next week for more stories of 'Distinction & Genius' from The Good Listening To Show 'Clearing'. If you would like to be my Guest too then you can find out HOW via the different 'series strands' at 'The Good Listening To Show' website.
- Show Website: https://www.thegoodlisteningtoshow.com
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Thanks for listening!
Welcome to another episode of the Good Listening To Show your life and times with me, chris Grimes, the storytelling show that features the Clearing, where all good questions come to get asked and all good stories come to be told, and where all my guests have two things in common they're all creative individuals and all with an interesting story to tell. There are some lovely storytelling metaphors a clearing, a tree, a juicy storytelling exercise called 5, 4, 3, 2, 1, some alchemy, some gold, a cheeky bit of Shakespeare and a cake. So it's all to play for. So, yes, welcome to the Good Listening To Show your life and times with me. Chris Grimes, are you sitting comfortably? Then we shall begin.
Speaker 1:Welcome to the Good Listening To Show stories of distinction and genius. I'm the curator and the host. Chris Grimes is me motivational comedian and mojo coach. It's my absolute pleasure to welcome to the good listening to show damian hughes, liquid thinker. This is the show in which I invite movers, makers, shakers, mavericks, influencers and also personal heroes into a clearing or serious happy place of my guests, choosing to all share with us their stories of distinction and genius. And just to position damian.
Speaker 1:I had the great delight and privilege of watching him speak recently alongside Jake Humphries, his partner in crime and in business of the high performance podcast. I saw him at the entrepreneurs circle Convention, where the entire premise was shaped around one word, and one word only, which was persistence. And hopefully you'll see what I did there, damien. I was quite persistent in chasing you after I'd seen you. Yeah, you were. Yeah, that's very good Role modeling in action, lovely. And I was there as a VIP, not because I'm very important, but because I actually paid a bit more money, which meant I got the opportunity to have a cheesy photo next to you, which meant I could go. Oh, can I get in touch with you? But thank you for responding and thank you for being here. It's going to be a really, really interesting journey, so welcome.
Speaker 2:Well, can I just say thank you for the invite, and I know how much effort and hard work goes into creating a podcast and curating it like you do, chris, so it's a real privilege to be asked. Thank you, very much.
Speaker 1:Well, it's going to be my absolute privilege to curate you through the JourneyScape, which I'll talk about more in a moment. For those that don't know and I'm sure many do the High Performance Podcast sets out to find the most incredible people on the planet as your guests and then work out what makes them tick from a high performance perspective. I know it's athletes, visionaries, entrepreneurs and artists. And also what I loved in how you were introduced by Jake Humphries is he says everybody needs a professor in their life, and it's you. So let me get you on the open road. How's morale and what's your story of the day? First of all, damien Hughes.
Speaker 2:So morale is great, so I've got a bit of space in my diary today, chris. So I'm at that age now where I'm having to very consciously manage my energy levels. So actually putting in very designated time just to stop, pause, reflect and rest is where I am today. So getting a chance to chat with you is part of that sort of enjoyable, just relaxing and chilling day.
Speaker 1:I'm right there. That's very relatable. Someone wise once said your energy is like a precious pot of golden honey. You've got to be very, very careful where you pour it, and I suspect I might be older than you. Like a precious pot of golden honey, You've got to be very, very careful where you pour it, and I suspect I might be older than you. So I'm absolutely there thinking whoa. Energy is a very precious resource which we have to manage.
Speaker 2:Yeah, definitely. I wrote something when we wrote one of our high-performance books. The publisher was saying have you got any bits where the reader can just stop and take on both the messages? And the metaphor I used for that was we call them pit stops because we interviewed so many of the Formula One guys and they'll tell you that the race isn't won on the track, it's won in the pit stops. So it's how effectively can you stop, recharge, refresh and do what you need to do? So I think that actually it's not something I've always paid the level of deference and respect to, but actually making time to stop and rest really effectively is something even more important.
Speaker 1:And something you say of your own volition 95% of the time, human beings tend to be on autopilot, and so it's really precious when we actually tune into being truly present in order to be able to, I suppose, tune in then to high performance, which is what you're all about. If I may ask you, if people don't have any context for you? Uh, liquid thinking. It's such a brilliant construct, but also your liquid thinker.
Speaker 1:I love the opening montage of a bit of blue green paint. I love the opening montage of a bit of blue-green paint, sort of flying through the air via Liquid Thinker, which is just so lovely. If someone doesn't have a frame of reference and says, oh, Liquid Thinking, what's your way? If someone says, hello Damien, what do you do? What's your best way of either answering or avoiding that question about who you are? Yeah, yeah, of course.
Speaker 2:Well, I'll give you a multiple quiz for the name LiquiThinker. So there's two choices. You tell me which one do you think is the reason? So the first one is Edward de Bono, the old creativity guru, once famously said that 90% of our hours in life are due to solid thinking the inability to change perspective, to be flexible or to see somebody else's point of view, and 90% of our issues in life come from that. So, by definition, the opposite of solid thinking has to be liquid thinking, the ability to just navigate and be fluid in the way that we perceive the world. So that's option one. And two is that over 20 years ago, I was writing my first book and I was trying to come up with a catchy title for it. We were sat in a pub having a pint with my friend who was staring down at his drink and he just said why don't you call it liquid thinking? So they're the two options.
Speaker 1:I shall allow you to decide which one you think is most credible may I be greedy because, as a multiple, we'd like to unpack both those answers. Who were you in the pub with 20 years ago?
Speaker 2:He's a brilliant conference host actually, so I want to give him a plug. He's called Chris Malaband, but Chris and I were sort of young blokes just starting out on our journeys. I had this dream I wanted to write a book and he was sort of like my sounding board to write a book. And he was sort of like my sounding board. He was like the guy that always just challenged it and I was telling him I've got this idea of a book and I'd started working on it and, uh, it was almost like what catchy title can I get? What, like what can I sort of capture with this idea? And he was like, well, tell me about it. And I was saying, well, it's about just being able to see the world differently or open up your horizons. And it was chris that says why don't you call it liquid thinking? Then?
Speaker 1:I see I like the cut of his jib. By the way, sorry to interrupt you the idea of doing over a pint of beer, I think.
Speaker 2:Well, what we did I'll tell you what I did. So I said to him I said if I buy the next round, does that entitle me to buy the rights of that name off you?
Speaker 1:and he went yeah, that's fine that's fantastic, and just a couple of weeks ago I interviewed the managing director of the Bristol Beer Factory where we did free beer, free show. What could not go right with that? So I love the fact that it so that liquid thinking started over a pint. That's lovely as a sort of genesis point. I love that.
Speaker 2:And now you can go to the more intellectual answer of the edward de bono land if you like well again, what de bono said was this very idea that most of our problems in life is because we develop as psychologists describe it as heuristics mental models of the of the game. So the mental model that we're told that if you go to school, you work hard, you get exam results that are good, you'll get a good job and then you'll be happy. There's a mental model for you that many of us get to a stage in life and go. Actually that doesn't seem like it was true. So our ability to go back and rethink our original thinking allows us to pivot or change direction or decide that this career path isn't for me. So there's lots of different mental models that a lot of us have without necessarily recognizing that we have them. You know, we walk into a room and flick a light switch. We don't stop and gasp every time electricity does its magic. We have a mental model that that light switch just generates electricity. But when we stop and have the ability to go and explore and go, how does electricity work? Isn't that amazing that in the last 50 years, electricity is readily there, at the flick of a switch for us, we can maybe have an appreciation of life or the simple things of it. So that was the idea behind it.
Speaker 2:The origins for it for me had been that I'd grown up in a boxing gym, so my background is that my dad was a boxing coach in inner city Manchester, so that was where I'd grown up and again I saw it that I was watching young men sort of, and at the time it was young men. I know now it's opened up to both genders, but at the time it was predominantly young men from a deprived community, like going off and winning Olympic medals or becoming world boxing champions. And these were people that came from the same background as I did and yet had the mental flexibility to see the world in a different way, to back themselves, to put themselves in the arena. You know, when I saw my dad, he was an illegitimate born child in sort of post-war Catholic Manchester but he'd left school as an illiterate and yet he'd created this amazing community where he was empowering lots of young people to go after their dreams, and he did it himself. He taught himself to read and write and then wrote books himself. So I was seeing people that weren't allowing the limits of their original thinking to stop them pursuing lives of their own dreams. So I'd been fortunate enough to witness it at really close hands.
Speaker 2:So that was the idea of wanting to do that and, yeah, the context of writing the book. So the first book I did I did. I wasn't writing it to publish it so I'd ended up doing a job where I was working in some factories just outside of Liverpool and for about three years we did a huge turnaround operation of getting the factory from being one of Europe's poorest performing ones to being in the top 10% and a lot of that that we'd done there was changing the mentality of the guys that work with us, giving, giving them the tools to see that. So we brought in people like Daley Thompson to come and work on the factory line with the guys and show them the mindset of an Olympic gold medalist and how that applied even to working on things like a factory and a guy called Carlos Alberto that was the Brazil 1970 World Cup captain. Now he was the guy that was in charge of Pele and he came and spoke to us around this idea of like don't defer to somebody just because of their talent, you have to manage behaviors. So we're doing what I thought was quite innovative ways of doing it, but we're getting the results.
Speaker 2:And then by the time it came for me to leave, I wanted to leave almost like the blueprint of what I'd seen happening. So I wrote the book Liquid Thinking based on that, and then I self-published it so and then just gave a copy to everybody in the factory so these guys could take it home and many of them we knew over the three years have been taking the stuff and using it with their kids football teams or you know, using it with like a couple of guys ending up sort of talking to their local Weight Watchers clubs and things like that about what they're learning. So what I did was I was lucky enough to interview people like Richard Branson and Angelo Dundee, so I was calling on my own contacts to do it. So I spent time with them and interviewing them and then I showed it to some of the guys in the factory. I said, listen, I've done this book.
Speaker 2:And they were like, nah, richard Branson doesn't resonate with us. I was like why not? And they were like, well, his parents were rich and we're not from rich backgrounds or things like that. So they always had their excuse. So the final idea that I had was I decided to interview guys from the factory and feature them in between the chapters. So what I was showing was how, like the mentality Richard Branson used to build his business empire was the same, that there's a guy called Andy Hardcastle who works on the line that had a dream of building his own canal boat. So he'd used the same mental tools to go after his own dream. So I featured Andy Hardcastle so that it became very difficult for the guys in the factory to go. Oh, actually Andy went to the same school as me, or Andy's worked here for the same years as me.
Speaker 1:What you noticed was universal truths, so it's not about having more resources at your hands. This is about universal truths of psychology, about high performance. Yeah, definitely.
Speaker 2:And it almost doesn't matter where you apply it. You're applying it to your own life, but the same mentality of starting off by having a dream and then taking the leap and having the courage to do it. There's a certain pattern there that you go that, if you scale out far enough, they see. These patterns of behavior, uh are true, but what I realized for the guys guys that were giving the book to us they wanted something relatable for them. They didn't want just the academic theory, they didn't want just the abstract examples from all these other what they would consider famous people that were out of reach. They wanted something that they could hold on to.
Speaker 2:And then it was about a year or two later I'd wrote my second book and it got bought by a publisher. Or two later I'd wrote my second book, but that was when it got bought by a publisher. So the liquid thinking book that's on sale today is the exact same book that we produced for the guys in the factory. Yeah, there's almost a full circle in it, because now what I sometimes think of the high performance podcast that I do with jake is we're interviewing those same people and trying to make it relatable for everybody. So we've interviewed Richard Branson again, but we're showing you how his story has still got those themes there that anybody could go. Right, I'm not after being a billionaire, but I'm after being a little bit happier, or I'm after being a better mum or dad, or I think I can do a little bit better in the workplace. So we're still taking the same principles that are used in the factory.
Speaker 1:Yeah, they'd like we're thinking extra profound that it has its genesis on the factory floor, which makes it more everyman and therefore relatable. So we can all do this if we apply it. Yeah definitely.
Speaker 2:I mean some of the stories, chris were like the guys that I still keep in touch with them. I've been left now nearly 20 years there. But there was this brilliant guy called Brian Higginson who his wife, was diagnosed with cancer. So we tell his story in the book where, like his, his attitude to cancer. Now I don't want to diminish it because I know that there's lots of people that have this same positive attitude, but and and they're not lucky enough to experience what Brian and his wife did. But his whole attitude to how they faced into this traumatic illness is a story we tell in the book, and the doctors, when his wife eventually went into remission, fortunately spoke about how their attitude had been a key part of the recovery. So I'm not diminishing it and suggesting that anybody can do that, but the point I'm making is that we lived through that period of time with Brian and we could see how difficult it was but also how his innate optimism, his willingness to see the best even in the most bleak of circumstances, helped him be able to cope with that trauma.
Speaker 2:20 years later, I find myself sat opposite the amazing Lindsay Burrow, the wife of Rob Burrow, who I'd known, rob, because I'd been fortunate enough to work with him.
Speaker 2:But Lindsay came and spoke to us around how they were dealing with the horrific motor neurone disease illness that Rob had been stricken with and again it was the same team.
Speaker 2:So Brian had told us 20 years prior about you've got to try and see the best in each day. You've got to sometimes just appreciate the small things, because one day they'll become the big things in life. You know value the people that are around you that can make a difference here. It was all the same messages he told me that I find myself sat listening in awe the amazing Lindsay Burrow telling me the same thing. So I sometimes have to pinch myself that I feel blessed enough to have met those guys 20 years ago on the fancy floor, even before that, growing up in my dad's boxing gym, and I'm still meeting the same people now. So these universal truths or these characteristics or traits of people that tend to have thrived, whether they were on the factory floor in the boxing ring, or whether they're doing it in business or in other domains that we speak to on the podcast, they're consistent.
Speaker 1:The lifelong resonance you have curated is fantastic, then, because it's got its beginnings all those years ago and it's still absolutely current and again coming full circle to that wonderful graphic of the paint flying through the air as a liquid. Yeah, flapping onto the, flopping onto the canvas of life is fantastic thank you, that's really kind here it's my great privilege now to curate you, if I may.
Speaker 1:You're giving me gold by the bucket load in any case, but if I may, I'm now going to curate you through the structure and the construct of the good listening. So there's going to be a clearing, which is your serious happy place, which we'll talk about in a minute. Then there's going to be a tree, a lovely juicy storytelling exercise called five, four, three, two, one, some alchemy, some gold, a couple of random squirrels borrowed from the film up. Oh, squirrels, you know what are your monsters of distraction that never fail to distract you. There's going to be a golden baton, a cheeky bit of shakespeare and a cake hurrah, so it's great. So, damien hughes, liquid thinker, where is what is a clearing for you? Where do you go to get clutter free, inspirational and able to think well?
Speaker 2:it's pertinent because he's right here next to me. He's my dog, teddy, so he's laying right next to me. Now was weird talking, chris enough to pick up.
Speaker 1:So I'm assuming you don't have a sort of a handbag dog here. We're not talking.
Speaker 2:Yeah, no no, no, he's not. Also, I'll try and angle the camera so you can see him, but they're fast asleep there he's your serious happy place, right next to you.
Speaker 1:What was his?
Speaker 2:name. Honestly, I love him. So I didn't grow up with dogs and I was. I was frightened of dogs. I was badly attacked when I was 12 by a lad at my school had a pyrenean mountain dog and I went to his house after school and his dog savaged me like I literally. I'm not making light of that. It was terrific so. So it reinforced a sense of absolute horror about dogs and been frightened of them well, apparently in mountain dog sounds pretty terrifying oh, mate, his name as well was rocky.
Speaker 2:I can still remember my friend crying, rocky, get off him, as he was savaging my arm. I had stitches in my arm and everything, so he wasn't licking your face or trying to hump you.
Speaker 1:He, him. As he was savaging my arm, I had stitches in my arm and everything. He wasn't licking your face or trying to hump you.
Speaker 2:No, mate, honestly he was savaging my arm. I've still got the scars for it now. So I've never really had the classroom for dogs or anything like that. And then my girlfriend she's now my wife her parents got a dog and I was horrified, was like I can't go to your mom that's house, like I'm sorry, and and their dog, jenny, was really kind and really sweet. He was an alsatian and that that sort of started the process of of healing when I was an adult.
Speaker 1:but jenny rocky, you can see that that was a more gentle, yeah all together, yeah, and they were talking a different game.
Speaker 2:And then I've got two children and they don't. And they've been asking me for a dog since they were little and, given the nature of the world, I could do them away a lot and it was like, no, I'm sorry, we can't do it. And then I discovered I was allergic to dogs, so that became another obstacle. And then we discovered about hypoallergenic dogs that I don't know the story of them, but in Australia is where these sort of hybrid dogs came about. Because of, like, blind people needing guide dogs but having an allergy, they needed to find a solution. So crossing a certain dog with a poodle that didn't shed hair became effective. So I'd read about this and then we eventually settled on getting Teddy and honestly, it's been the most wondrous experience.
Speaker 2:I say to my wife every day when I see him, I go you know he's probably one of the best decisions I've ever made in my life, even though you didn't make it yeah, yeah, I didn't, the kids made it, I did, but I take him for what.
Speaker 2:We just go for hours, just me and him. Nothing like no headphones, no phone with me, just me and him, and we walk for hours and the quality of my mental health has been improved immeasurably just by having that time in the evening. We tend to go in the evening when you finish your tea with the kids, and then I just take him out and we walk for hours and I've written so many books in my head while I've been walking with him. I've sort of planned interviews that we do and I've managed to sort of make sense of the world or if I'm going through like a difficult time. It gives you a sense of perspective or a way of handling it that I really can't advocate enough. Just the difference he's made to my life. So I'd take him everywhere with me if I could.
Speaker 1:I can't, but he is like the most loyal mate well, your next book needs to be called man's best friend.
Speaker 2:Obviously, teddy, a man's best friend, oh yeah yeah, yeah, he's a cracker, so I'm aware that there's nothing more boring than somebody eulogizing about their dog and great ears, but so I'll shut up now. But other than to say that it's more, it's more, the difference he's made to my mental health has been incredible.
Speaker 1:There is that research where a group of people with high anxiety are given a dog to borrow for a couple of weeks, which they find initially rather stressful, but by the end of this sort of study everybody wants to keep their dog. Oh really, oh nice. So in all my circa 200 odd episodes, nobody's ever actually said their dog is their serious happy place. So can I just congratulate you for that, oh nice. So in all my circa 200-odd episodes, nobody's ever actually said their dog is their serious happy place. So can I just congratulate you for that. Oh well, thank you.
Speaker 2:I'm not sure my wife and my kids would thank me for that, but they'd be like well, hang on, where do we come into this? And they do, but given that he's here with me, I wouldn't have to pay for it.
Speaker 1:We both know that if you had to, had to had to choose between everything else going on in your life and Teddy Teddy's going to come out, you're going to win a chicken dinner.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I'll plead the Fifth Amendment on that one, Chris.
Speaker 1:Now I'm going to arrive with a tree in your clearing, so it's me and you and Teddy, if you'll allow me to come for a walk, Okay, yeah, please, I'm going to use the Apples fall out. How'd you like these apples? And this is where you've been kind enough to have thought about four things that have shaped you, three things that inspire you, two things that never fail to grab your attention, and that's borrowed from the film Up Again. That's the well, squirrels, which is actually a dog being distracted by squirrels. I don't know how Teddy responds yeah, he'd be like that, yeah. And then the one is a quirky or unusual fact about you, a liquid thinker, Damien Hughes. We couldn't possibly know about you until you tell us it's not a memory test, so allow me to curate you through it. So over to you to shake the canopy of your tree as you see fit.
Speaker 2:So when I went into university and did some teaching there, I first came across this great line where they said we don't do research, we do me-search here. And what they meant was we're often trying to make sense of our own lives and our own, our own story, and put it in some kind of context or meaning for us, and I think I referenced it at the start. I grew up in a boxing gym and where the gym was based just to give context for your listeners, chris's, it's in a part of manchester that is often neglected. I would's it's in a part of manchester that is often neglected. I would say it's the north side of manchester and at one stage when we're growing, I remember it was in the local paper that we were categorized as the first poorest districts in europe and the reason I mentioned that is because that often comes with sort of social challenges, you know, like high unemployment. They might be drugs and other issues like that that are going on, and that was the case. But the gym itself was almost like an enclave. It was like an oasis in the middle of this community where respect was almost baked into the process. It was about discipline, it was about striving for better. There was lots of really positive aspects from it. So a couple of my earlier experiences have to be drawn from that I remember, so I'll tell you a story.
Speaker 2:I wrote about this in the first high performance book because I wanted to talk about how it shaped me. I was 13 and I was sparring in the gym and I was in the ring and I was sparring with an opponent and within the first couple of seconds of us sparring I realized that I was better than the guy was again. So when I say better, I mean like I was faster, stronger, a bit more experienced, knew what I was doing, so it was easy to dominate this guy. Now, in a situation like that, with Dad's Gym, you weren't allowed to dominate, so what you had to do was slow down to the pace of the guy. That was like the weaker of the two and you almost had to coach them. So you were getting messed up by coaching. Oh yes, so you might say to them right, I'm going to throw this right hand and this is how you defend it, but remember I'm a stupid 13-year-old, so I don't do that and I decide instead that I'm going to take advantage of my advantages in that situation.
Speaker 2:So, in short, I ended up sort of taking liberties with the lad. I was against. I was knocking him about, I was hurting him, I was basically dominating him and we sort of did our three-minute rounds and when I got out of the ring, my dad sort of came over to me and he said where are you going? And I said I've finished sparring. Now Dad has finished my workout. And he said you've not even got a sweater. He said stay in the ring. He said you can do more than that.
Speaker 2:And what he did next was he put a young professional boxer in the ring with me and for the next it ended up being about 15 minutes. But for the next 15 minutes this guy that steps in the ring with me just humiliated me. So he didn't physically hurt me. What he did was he just basically served up the biggest slice of humble pie I think I'd ever tasted in my life. He sort of made me miss. He kept knocking my head back. He just made me look an idiot.
Speaker 2:And I remember at one stage my self-awareness kicked in and I realised that everybody in the gym had stopped to watch me get served my just desserts. And when I came out of the ring on the second time. I thought I was going to cry. I thought I could feel like the humiliation was sort of stinging me and I was sort of choked up.
Speaker 2:And my dad came over again and he said how do you feel now?
Speaker 2:And I couldn't.
Speaker 2:I thought if I speak I'll cry and I sort of couldn't say anything to him.
Speaker 2:And he just pulled me to one side quietly and he said how do you feel now is exactly what you did 15 minutes ago. And I'm telling you now don't you ever, ever, ever, ever, take a liberty again in your life. Now can we count that story and like I can still feel the hairs on the back of my neck stand up when I think about it and I can still feel that sort of prickle of embarrassment of what I did. Now this is talking 30 odd years ago now, but I think that's the power of a lesson like that, that it's sort of driven me that I hate bullies, I hate people that throw the weight around, people that sort of tell you how important they are or sort of like think that blowing your candle out makes their own burn a bit brighter. Like I despise it, and part of it is because I did it and I was made to suffer the immediate consequences of it, so that was like a huge seminal experience for me.
Speaker 1:Is your father still with us? He sounds legendary. What an amazing coaching moment that was. Yeah, he was.
Speaker 2:Yeah Well, I suppose that's another seminal moment that I lost my dad two years ago. So my dad ended up in the last six, seven years of his life. He had dementia. So he was an amazing coach. I'll tell you a nice story that, given the impact of what he did in the community, manchester Council named a road after him in the area where we grew up.
Speaker 2:And on the day that we started with the road naming you might see Andy Burnham, the mayor of Manchester. He came along and it was quite a big deal. It was a really cold January afternoon when we did it and there was about three forums of people there. Chris and I was with my brothers and I remember us looking around at all these people that had gathered for it and we were estimating that I'd say about 80% of the people that turned up that day had never set foot in the boxing ring and we were sort of estimating that I'd say about 80% of the people at Turnaround they had never set foot in the boxing ring. They'd been members of the club but they weren't boxers. That wasn't their sport. Most of them had come just to be seen and heard and feel that they belonged somewhere and what they were keen to come along for, like when they were being interviewed for like local teleopay, was things like they were talking about the impact that being a member of that community had had on them as people, as parents, as professionals, in other aspects of their lives. So I'm offering my example of my dad's impact on me, but that was rippled across hundreds and thousands of people around Manchester.
Speaker 2:So losing my dad a couple of years ago was a seminal experience. And what was your father's name and what's the street called? Yeah, so my dad was called Brian Hughes and the street's called Brian Hughes Close. So it's in the area of Manchester where we were called Cullyhurst. It's weird because you can put him in the sat-nav now, which is nice for my children that they can sort of say, oh, should we go and see where my granddad's road? So we sometimes pop along to it A couple of years ago, like I don't think I've ever like there'll be people listening to this that have gone through grief and have lost loved ones, and so I think it sort of humanises you. It's great because it's such a like like being there when my dad passed and sort of like processing it, of just what it meant there was something that I don't think I've fully come to terms with it yet, but there's something very humanizing about it.
Speaker 2:Like I remember we were doing the first high performance tour, like around theaters and things like that, and my dad passed away and we had like eight days before we were doing the first run in Birmingham and I phoned Jake and I said, listen, I'll be there on the night. I promise you I'll be there, but you don't want to hear off me until we do it. So we'd done the prep and I knew it would be fine, but I said I'll be there on the night and I sort of steeled myself, thinking I'll be alright, I'll be alright. And I turned up and we were literally stood on the wings of the stage and I could hear the voice of God saying like not the voice of God as in the religious thing, like the MC or whoever he was, and I heard him sort of like saying ladies and gentlemen, welcome to. And I looked up to sort of take a deep breath and as I did it and I sort of like just got myself in a place and thought it'd be all right I felt this bubble rise up in my chest and I thought I'm going to start sobbing hysterically here and I hadn't anticipated it and it was such a wrestling match inside of me and it felt like ages. But it can't have been because the guy was announcing it, so it could have been less than a minute. But it was like this real wrestling match inside of myself to not sob because I'd walked on the stage just crying. But I honestly felt that. So that night that my dad was with me, you know, like he was a corner man and I remember sort of thinking it, and then it was almost like I had the idea of like come on, just do your job. And I went out and did it Like there was only one wobble when Jake actually referenced it about oh, david's dad passed this way and I had to look at him and then I thought I'm going to cry again. And then when we came up I said Jake, please don't ever mention it, don't tell people this, because I'm not in a stable enough place that I think I can handle it. I just need to do my job. Like my dad would have said, like bite down on your gun shield and get on with it. And it was almost like I just had to bite on my gun shield. So I've skipped forward a bit, but that's certainly another seminal moment.
Speaker 2:Another one I got a scholarship. So where we grew up, my mom and dad were dead keen that we got an education. So, as I said to you, my dad was illiterate when he'd left school. I think when people haven't had something, you really prize it and cherish what you haven't had. So for him, when he became a dad, him and my mom insisted that we all knuckle down at school and behave and I ended up getting a scholarship to a grammar school and it was seen as a real privilege in the family of like bloody hell we've got, like we've got into one of these posh schools that we never. We didn't know anybody that had gone there and things like that.
Speaker 2:And when I got there I didn't know anyone that that from where I'd grown up I didn't know anybody at school. I got there and I was a bit of a fish out of water. In hindsight I sort of messed about a bit in the first couple of years. I was trying to find a role. So the first year it was like being a bit of a class clown, being a bit of an idiot, but I was always handy with my fists. That eventually led me without going into the details I ended up getting expelled from the school when I was in my third year, just for being an idiot and fighting effectively. So this was around that time that being a senator, I told you the first one with the gym and I ended up getting expelled from the school and I remember it was horrific. I remember coming home, my mum was crying, my dad was away with a guy boxing, so I knew when he came back he was going to be sort of murder in terms of it.
Speaker 1:Was that one of those things that you wait till your?
Speaker 2:father gets home. No, my mum was just sobbing and I'd never seen my mum cry like that and I knew I'd sort of broke her out and I was like I've really messed up here. So this is what happened next is so seminal. I was an altar boy in the local Catholic church as well, right from where we'd grown up. And again, nobody at school knew this and I think the teachers just thought I was some harem-scare-em idiot, a stroke thug. And about a month before I ended up getting expelled, I was serving maths on the altar and one of my teachers came in to maths and I saw him do a double take that seen me looking pious on the altar while dealing with me being an idiot in school, and he'd come up to me and he'd sort of ask me at school the next day and that was the end of the conversation.
Speaker 2:Fast forward, a month later I ended up getting expelled and there's all this sort of wailing and gnashing of teeth at home and the night after I get a knock on the door. My mum goes on to it and it's his teacher. Guys, they're on council and he turns up at our house and he comes to speak to them. My dad's back now and my mum's there, and he comes to speak to my mum and dad and he's basically done a bit of research and realised that I'm from a good family. My mum and dad worked in the community. They tried to make a difference. They'd seen me serving en masse and he realised I think he just intuitively sensed that I was a kid that was just trying to find my way. But essentially, at heart, I wasn't a bad lad. So, Mr Counsel, my mum and dad brought me down, bad lad. So, Mr Counsel, my mum then brought me down and Graham speaks to Mr Counsel and he said listen, if I go back to the headteacher, I want to sort of petition that they reverse the decision and you'll be suspended for fighting, but we won't expel you. But if I'm willing to put my neck on the line like that, I want some guarantees that you're going to knuckle down and behave yourself. And at that stage I've seen the horror that I've caused my mum and dad. So I'm like I'll do anything. I'll do anything.
Speaker 2:This guy at Bermuda Council went back to school and managed to get them to persuade them to change the decision. But it was like a proper crossroads over a moment in my life where I was thinking I like, thank you. So I literally did just work my ass. From then on, I sort of disregarded the friends that I thought I'd had that, that were sort of like encouraging me to be an idiot and make them laugh. But then, running whenever, like, the teachers came and leaving me being there holding the baby, I sort of decided that I was just going to focus on, I was just going to try and work hard.
Speaker 2:I don't think I'm clever, but I'm a grafter and I'm curious, so I'll keep working to understand something. But even now, Mr Council, me and my younger brother, we meet him once a year and take him out for a bite to eat. So he's in his 80s now, but I always think that he was a role model of somebody that did something when he didn't have to. There's nothing in it for him to put his neck on the line. He just had this innate belief that most people are decent if you give them a chance. And he was the man that gave me a chance, so I'd put him up there certainly.
Speaker 1:And, and he was the man that gave me a chance, so I'd put him up there, certainly. And is it Bernard? Cancel or Cancel, because it's such a perfect name for somebody who cancels someone's shift of narrative. Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Speaker 2:Yeah, no, it's Cancel. So he's an incredible man, like a really kind generous.
Speaker 1:I love the fact you take him out every year. That is so wonderful to have someone as constant in your life, as someone who is an anchor point and a shifting point of your coordinates, really.
Speaker 2:Yeah, hugely. And that's why whenever I tell the story, I always want to give credit to him, because my younger brother is a teacher. He works in education and he follows after my dad in some ways. He likes working with troubled youngsters. Yes, that's where he just lights up and he makes such a difference and he's like an executive head teacher now of these schools that work with troubled youngsters. So we both sort of do it, because when you see a role model of somebody like that in your life like Sigmund Freud talks about the golden seed moment everybody in their life needs somebody to come and show a golden seed of potential that they can see but the individual can't. Yeah, and I think when you meet people like that in your life, you're blessed. Yeah, and if you're blessed to have people like that, the least you can do is acknowledge it and sort of try and pay some of that debt back. Do you know what I mean?
Speaker 1:and bird of cancer certainly is somebody that fits that criteria and just to say that, again, it's a golden seed moment, did you say?
Speaker 2:Yeah, so Freud talks about it as the golden seed moment. So what he suggests is that if you go and look at anybody's story, anybody that has sort of strived to do something or somebody that has had good or bad, there's a moment where somebody has come along and he talks about it has to be an adult and if I suggest it can be, it can be a teacher, it can be a priest, it can be just a coach, it can be anybody like that is almost outside your domain that just sees potential and encourages and nurtures that, that seed of potential wonderful.
Speaker 1:Thank you so much so we're still shaking the canopy of your tree.
Speaker 2:Yeah, so I'll give you three, my fourth one would be deciding to quit. So that factory job I was telling you earlier like so most of the people I knew grew up sort of cashing, hand work, things like that. So I didn't know anything about the sort of formal corporate world which I can look back on now and realise how silly it sounds. But at the time it was just like the constraints of your own knowledge, your own background. So I ended up I'd been working as a coach, I'd been sort of, I suppose, with Dad in the boxing gym when I sort of left school and uni. And then I'd met my girlfriend, who's now my wife, and she came from a family where her dad was a national account manager for a sales company and things like that, and I didn't know what that was, but it sounded impressive and I was thinking, if I want to sort of stay in this relationship and I definitely did I was thinking I need to sort of think about getting a proper job here, but I didn't know what a proper job was. So I was talking to her and she was saying, well, well, you can do this and that. So I started applying to different companies and I was saying to them listen, this is my background. It's a little bit eclectic, a bit unusual, but I've got a work ethic and I'm prepared to learn and things like that. So a big company called Unilever put me on their graduate scheme and went oh, this is interesting. We then that will take a chance on you. Now again, this sounds daft, chris, but I thought I didn't know about employment loss. So I thought that if somebody didn't like you they'd just call you in the office and say I'd pay you up to the end of the day and you get sent off home and that's the end of it. So I get in there and work hard and I try and do my best and things like that.
Speaker 2:And for the first year, when my boss had called me in, he said can I have a meeting tomorrow? I always somewhere in the back of my head assumed he was gonna send me packing a long story short. Anyway, I was there for nearly seven years and during that time I kept getting promoted. So I kept having that imposter syndrome thing of like when are you gonna get found out? And my mum would say that to me. She said when are you gonna get found out? You don't know what you're doing, I don't know and I can get promoted, and the last job I got this was about six years into the company. I found myself as, like, an hr director. This one day. I can remember it was a really significant moment for me in my life.
Speaker 2:I was sat in this boardroom in durden in south africa, right, and if you're thinking, how did you get there? I was thinking the same thing 10 times louder in my head and I'm sat there in this boardroom and we're looking out on the indian ocean and I was the youngest member of the board at the time. So I'm listening to all this going on around me and, um, what had happened was flora margarine sales in the region it was called betchamon. Flora margarine sales in the region had did.
Speaker 2:I was listening to all these colleagues around the table talking about like how disappointed they were and how we needed to fix it, and they looked crestfallen but they had ideas on how to fix it. And then there'd be a sound in the room and I'm watching the debate like creeping death coming round me and the overriding thought in my head was I couldn't give a shit. I literally didn't. There wasn't an iota of my being that cared. I'm sat there thinking there's not one bit of me that gives a shit about this conversation. I'd rather be either back in the boxing gym or out in the indian ocean, but I don't want to be sat on this table, yeah, and that's it.
Speaker 2:and as the debate got close to me, I'm thinking what am I going to do? Because am I going to betray what I'm feeling here? And then they went Damien, what's your thought? And this is a bit where I pretended to give a shit. I pretended to look crestfallen, I was shaking me and I thought, oh, this is dreadful, we need to fix this. I've got a few ideas I know we could do and I sort of played along with the game.
Speaker 2:It was that night I went back to my flat that I was staying in in Durban. I remember looking at myself in the mirror and I was so scathing, like coruscating in myself. I was like you, fucking fraud, you fucking joker, what are you doing? And the thought that kept me away and I just like that night was like you've got 30 more years, if you're lucky, of being a fraud. And it was the most uncomfortable feeling I've had in my adult life up to that stage. So I often say like I mentally resigned that day. It took me another 12 months to quite to work on the course to physically follow through with my resignation. Yeah, mentally I resigned that day and thought so I don't. So I've been running those factories so I'd seen that my background was in sort of organizational behavior and change and that's what I'd almost had chance to do, that myself and lead it and get into the muck and bullets of it, where, whereas sat on a boardroom table talking about margarine sounds just bored me immeasurably. So I'd written two books at that stage.
Speaker 1:Unilever is Land of Marmite, where you love it or you hate it, and they loved you, then you hated it. I love that.
Speaker 2:Yeah, no. So I'd hate anyone to think that I'm being unkind about somewhere that was incredibly kind to me it's just that lovely moment of realization of I'm.
Speaker 2:My purpose is my soul is not chiming doing this, yeah yeah, yeah, and I want to emphasize that because they were very like again, like the Burner Council example, like they saw something in me that they were kind enough to nurture and encourage. So it wasn't about them I suppose in some ways I was being honest to them as well to go yeah, I don't want to be a fraud for you either. Yeah, yeah, I don't want to sit around the table pretending to give a shit about something that, yes, I'd never in a million years going to care about. So so they were fantastic and I certainly wouldn't speak ill of them. It was me me that made the mistake, but it was up to me to correct it. But it was scary. I found it really frightening. So when I was there, I'll give you an idea of how I'd become a fraud, like I used to play on the idea I don't give a shit about company cars, finance, all the pensions are not interesting to me, and you know the big sign I'm not bothered, I don't need all that.
Speaker 2:The day that I resigned and they took the car off me and I knew I wasn't going to get paid again in a month, I'll tell you what I realised how bereft I felt, and I was a bit embarrassed to myself that I'd almost become soft without realising it.
Speaker 2:I'd almost allowed myself to be seduced by all the things that keep you in place. Yes, and I pretended I hadn't. I'd almost allowed myself to be seduced by all the things that keep you in place yes, and I pretended I hadn't. I acknowledged it. I was like, ah, they don't bother me. I tell you what I was bothered by it and I was embarrassed at how bothered about it I was. That was like a really seminal moment. I remember I stood at the end of my garden path when they come and take the company car off me and I was thinking I've got to buy my own car now and it had been years since I'd had to do that because I'd been lucky enough to. The company had given me one and I felt a bit embarrassed at how I'd allowed myself to be seduced.
Speaker 1:Almost like the bailiffs had arrived at your life. Yeah, yeah, I've never thought of that.
Speaker 2:But yeah, that's good. I like that metaphor, yeah.
Speaker 1:The idea, follow that. But yeah, that's okay. I like that metaphor, yeah, the idea of comfort risk panic. That's such a wonderful testament to the fact that if we get comfortable, we can get a bit sort of metaphorically and literally fat and too comfortable and get a bit complacent and the status quo is a really dangerous thing in terms of purpose and high performance, obviously. Yeah, well, a bit like.
Speaker 2:The metaphor that came to mind at the time and I still think it resonates is I don't really play cards, so anyone that does might listen to this and go you're talking nonsense. But it's like at some stage you're holding a hand of cards right, and you either play the hand or you hold the hand, but you have to make a conscious decision to do one of the two things. What you can't do is not make a decision and let the game pass you by and then complain about it. So you either have to show your hand and go no, this is what I want to do with this. Yeah, you hold them. No, I'm quite happy with this, and neither option is right or wrong for anyone to decide. It's up to you to do that, but you have to make that clear choice. Yeah, I think what it made me realize is I hadn't been playing with my hand, I hadn't been making a choice, I'd let choices be made for me. Yes, I then realized that actually, these choices have been made for me and not the right choices for me.
Speaker 1:So then, to throw your hand in, yeah, scary and coming to back to your work, that's reminded me what I found so profound in your video montage at the beginning of your website is the fact, something that's very relatable to me you talk about drawing a white line and then, when people go onto the sports field, they cross the line to get into the zone, and that's so relatable to what I do as well, which is the idea of crossing the line to connect, stepping into the world of your audience when it's time to perform. Yeah, and I love that. That whole story is so much about, you know, just remembering that we need to perform here. You've got complacent. You've got sort of metaphorically, literally a bit sort of fat and comfortable. It's just such a lovely story now that you're so fixed on how to go about performing at our best, when actually, you know, if we get complacent, we stop performing yeah, I don't well.
Speaker 2:Thank you appreciate that sort of synopsis of it. I think what I would say that I've realized is that I remember that garden path moment when the car went and I was, I felt a bit embarrassed at how bereft I felt, and I remember sort of thinking a few times that like I felt really scared because I didn't know where the next job was coming from, you sort of having to go out there and find work and make yourself employable in many ways, but you're employing yourself and what I used to remind myself is that fear just reminded that I'm alive. It wasn't always comfortable yeah, at least it was an emotion, and I realized that I'd alive. It wasn't always comfortable yeah, at least it was an emotion, and I realized that I'd almost been a little bit numb for a few years before that. So I think sometimes, like when I was referencing taking Teddy on a walk sometimes you might go through a really tough time and you might be feeling frightened or a little bit nervous about something, and that's fine as well.
Speaker 2:It's still an emotion and if you've got the emotional literacy to just be able to understand what you're feeling, gives you the way of being able to understand how you can change those feelings for the better and the decisions that follow. So I think sometimes we get badly served in our society. You know, when you hear people going oh I was never born to be an entrepreneur and you just go for it and then it goes well. If you're not frightened, maybe there's something wrong with you. You know what I mean. Like I don't know anyone that's had that sense of certainty that didn't come with a side helping of nerves or anxiety or fear. But that's a healthy thing because it then switches you on it anxiety or fear but that's a healthy thing because it then switches you on it, makes you aware, it gets you to slow down a little bit and just watch your path.
Speaker 1:And if I made this, two things I'd like to say about that the day your car was taken away, it was like it was driving away from your. It was not, it didn't belong to you anymore. It was driving off with your old life, which is a good thing, yeah. And then also it reminds me of the notion when people do get a bit complacent, the whole corporate arena idea of quiet quitting you know, when people just start to retract into oh, yeah, yeah, yeah sort of you know, and sort of sitting in the back of the car, metaphorically, within the you used to drive.
Speaker 1:Now you're sitting in the back with the window down, picking your nose, wondering when it's all going to stop. Yeah, I like that. Yeah, so now we're on to three things that inspire you. So we've done four things that have shaped you. Now. Three things that inspire you.
Speaker 2:Damon is okay, I run a charity, so I'll tell you the origins of it. The charity is called the school code charity, and where it came from was when my dad passed away. When we were at the funeral, honestly, there was hundreds and hundreds of people came along and from the real spectrum of life was there, but all from the community. They'd all been touched by him in some way and I didn't think this at the time because the grief was so deep. But just a while before that, I'd interviewed a guy on the podcast called Hector Garcia and he he'd written a book. He'd offered a book about a Japanese concept called Ikigai. Ah, yes, and Ikigai is the. From Japanese it translates as what gets me out of bed in the morning, and we often misunderstand. We think it's just one reason. I've got to have a purpose, I've got to have a reason, and what Ikigai I liked was there's.
Speaker 2:It's about asking yourself different questions, and the four traditional questions are how much time do I spend enjoying what I do? How much time do I get to spend playing to my strengths? How much time do I get to make a difference to the lives and communities of others? And the other one was how can I make a living from doing this and when I reflected on my dad's funeral, I could answer, in relation to my own life, three of those questions. I really enjoy what I do. I don't know if I'm good at it, but if I've got any strength I feel like I play a little bit to that and I've been lucky enough to make a living for it in the 20 years that I've been working for myself. But my concern was the fourth one, which was how much of a difference to the lives of others do you make? And I'd grown up in the gym. I'd helped my dad, I'd funded the gym for many years when I was doing it, but with my dad's passing I wasn't sure whether I would continue doing that. But I still wanted to make a difference to the lives of others.
Speaker 2:So my wife and I spoke about it and we said well, I've got a friend who runs the manchester united foundation. It's their charity arm. They invite people to donate second-hand coats to people living in poverty. And John who runs the foundation was telling me about it and I had the idea that and he was giving me the stats where 40% of the children growing up in Manchester are growing up in poverty and one of the issues for a lot of these kids is their parents can't afford a decent winter coat for them. So it's almost like how can you expect to learn if you're freezing cold or you're coming into school where? That just seemed like ridiculous.
Speaker 2:So we came up with the idea of the school coat charity, where schools can literally just apply to us. There's no paperwork, they just go on the website and they'll just write and say we've got five kids here that need a winter coat. These are their ages, these are the sizes. So we buy the coats and send them to the school. So the kid doesn't know it's a charitable donation. They get a brand new coat that the school just put on their back. When they go out at playtime you just say put this coat on and, by the way, keep it. So the kid has the dignity of getting a new coat without the indignity of feeling somebody's giving it to them for free or it's a second-hand coat.
Speaker 2:But also as well, what John he's called. John Shields, the incredible man Manchester United Foundation was telling me that a lot of these kids will then use the coats as blankets because they can't necessarily afford to eat at homes. So we've set up the charity and that really inspires me because, speaking to teachers, they were like we don't need paperwork. So we said, right, we'll just take all that out. So my wife and I fund it.
Speaker 2:So a lot of the work that I do in terms of the stuff through LiquiThinker, we take a percentage of our profits and we just put it into the charity where schools can just access it. So the reason I mention it if any of your listeners are here is like, if you know teachers, so it has to come through schools, because then we know that they will distribute it to the kids and they'll get it to the kids that really need it. But any school just go on the website, the schoolcoacharitycouk, fill in the form and, uh, there's no questions asked, we'll just arrange for the codes to get some this is national, not just mankinian schools yeah, I mean, we focus it mainly on in the sort of manchester northwest area, because that's where we're from, but but we've yet to refuse requests from anybody that's come.
Speaker 2:Do you know what I mean? Like so, so all that, all, like, all they ever say to teachers is listen, I'm paying for this myself, so I don't have unlimited funds, so please don't like, don't take the piss, just just choose the kids that really need it and don't take. Yeah, but we do it, like, literally just on faith and trust, and I've found in life that you treat people with faith and trust, they tend to repay it a hundred times over.
Speaker 1:So that's why we do that and just say the name of the charity one more time. I'm deliberately reincorporating it, so just say it again.
Speaker 2:Yeah, thank you. It's called theschoolcoacharitycouk.
Speaker 1:And of itself. That's such an inspiration. Thank you for sharing that. And what uk and of itself. That's such an inspiration. Thank you for sharing that, and what a great thing to be doing. And I love the fact it informs into the icky guy in terms of you know whether or not this means something and what I can give back.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I mean, I did, like I have this conversation with my wife that I don't like these people that sort of go to like, try and use the cloak of charity to sort of wrap around themselves. So I'm not doing it to sort of say, oh, I think I'm great. So that's not my intention. But if I don't mention it, it doesn't get mentioned anywhere. Do you see what I mean? So it's certainly nothing about me or my wife. It's about we're just trying to get out there and make a difference.
Speaker 1:Your intentions are, if I may say, beautiful and completely clear. So don't worry, there's no sense of you doing any sort of virtue signalling or anything. Not at all. Yeah, right, okay.
Speaker 2:Yeah, yeah, that's the term I was thinking of that. I wanted to avoid being a virtue signaller.
Speaker 1:I'm really enjoying this. Thank you so much. So now we're on to a second inspiration.
Speaker 2:Yeah. Second inspiration is I've got two amazing children that I've been blessed with. My son is 15. My daughter's coming up for 12 soon, and when I became a dad, I reckon I touched madness and I'll explain why that I'd been working for myself at this stage for a good few years and again, to use the metaphors of playing cards and things like that the metaphor that came to mind when I knew was going to become a dad was that I was on a tightrope and I used to think that I was walking on the tightrope and I was having great fun and I always had the knowledge that if I fell I'd hurt myself and that'd probably be it, whereas when I became a dad, I thought, shit, I'm actually holding my son now and that tightrope you need to walk a little bit carefully on it. So what I did and again, this is all sort of unpicking it in hindsight was I decided that my best way of looking after my son and my daughter, who came next, was to work as hard as I possibly could to provide as well as I could and give them the best chance, and that led me, for the first 18 months of his life, just to work like a dervish, never saying no to anything, driving and travelling all around sort of at the expense of my own health and wellbeing.
Speaker 2:And I reckon it was about I think he was about two, and I'd got this persistent cough. And I went to the doctor and he was like have you had a look at yourself in the mirror, mate? And I was like what? And he was like look at the state of yourself. He went you're close to burnout. He said I don't know what you're doing, but whatever you're doing is is sort of ridiculous. You need to stop. So I came home and I told my wife and she said to me, in front of those questions you know the stop. She's trying to say is this what you thought being a dad was going to be like? And it was like no, I didn't. I didn't think I was going to be as exhausted, I didn't feel I was going to be as as sort of burnt out as this. And she was like you need to find a better way, like she didn't use the line of apply liquid thinking, but it was like you need to be more flexible in the way that you're doing this, because what you're doing is is just not sustainable for you or for us.
Speaker 2:So my kids sort of remind me of that idea of sort of like, don't like, like they're really what matters. You don't mean that they don't care about any of the stuff you do or what they think is exciting, or or what I think is exciting or my ambition. It's like they just want you there as a dad. Yeah, you're turning up, they just want to spend the time with you. So, yeah, they're sort of the light of my life and I feel blessed every day to say I'm a dad. You know what I mean? It's the type of yeah, we didn't know if we could have children, then we can, and then you go, but actually don't take that for granted. Yeah, so I'd say my two children there.
Speaker 2:And then my third inspiration is I'm a secret geek, like. My wife said this to me when she first met me. She said, like when we met at university because I sort of mentioned my background, so it's not necessarily the most usual one, but I used to love just reading. You know what I mean? I'd just go and disappear and Google where's he going, and then they'd find me sort of just curled up with a book somewhere. And my wife comments she said you're a secret geek. Nobody knows you, this bookworm, but it's actually when I see you you're happiest. So I just love reading.
Speaker 2:I love writing, so part of the thing that when I wrote that first book I didn't know where I could write it, but I didn't know what I was doing. But I just really like trying to take complex ideas and communicate them in an accessible way that hopefully people could go. I find that really useful or that's helped me make sense of something. So I've got a little library in my house which sounds a lot grander than it is. It's just a couple of bookshelves but it's some of my favourite. It's like the books that have had the most seminal impact on me that I keep there and I try to just occasionally go back and pick out the book and just remind myself of what I love and, if I may, just whilst you're talking about your bookshelf, what's the book that's going to leap out at you as being your favorite book?
Speaker 2:all right. Okay, so me and my dad like wrote a couple of boxing biographies. And so we wrote one on a guy called Sugar Ray Robinson, where we did it together and we really enjoyed it. It was just like a proper father and son moment where we'd sort of be following each other up and like are you dealing with this? And then we did another one on a guy called Thomas Hearns, where we went and did all the interviews and went out to Detroit and it was like brilliant.
Speaker 2:And then my dad got diagnosed with dementia and in the early stages I was desperate. I was like how do we stay this off? How, like, how can we do this? So I said to him come, we're going to write another book together. Like you have to help me, and I was doing whatever I could to keep him busy and keep him engaged. So the third book we did was on marvelous Marvin Hagler. So we did them together.
Speaker 2:But like I mentioned that because of context of answering your question, that the book that jumps out at me from the bookshelf is a book called the life and times of muhammad ali and it's by a writer called thomas hauser and I remember reading it when I was about 14, right, and and it's it came out in like 1990 or something like that, and it's one of the best books I've ever read, because what he does is he sort of gets permission off Ali to tell his story, but then Ali phones everybody involved in the story and says I want you to speak to him.
Speaker 2:So the book sort of offers you like the ultimate 360 degree. So like in his first fight in 1971 against Joe Frazier at Madison Square Garden. In the book Ali tells you what's happening and then you get Joe Frazier's perspective of what's happening. And then you get the referee is interviewed as well. So and then you get the ringsiders. So it gives you this fully immersive experience in the in an incredible life. That was just so amazing that I remember thinking, if I could write a book, that's what, that would be my blueprint, that's how to write a book from a liquid thinking perspective, isn't it?
Speaker 1:because it's very liquid, it's very, it's everything. Yeah, yeah, it's books, yeah, it's books.
Speaker 2:But then but then when me and my dad did those three boxing biographies, that's when I realised the genius of what Thomas Houser had done, because I knew how hard it was to do so. When I read it I was thinking this is amazing. And then actually trying to write a boxing book you're fucking hell. It's actually really hard. So the fact that he made something so amazing and accessible is the one that I'd probably go back to. So I'd do him.
Speaker 2:And then the other one probably the most gifted book I've given over the last 10 years is a book by a psychologist called Jonathan Haidt, who wrote a book called the Happiness Hypothesis, and I've gifted that to people. It's quite a big, thick book, but it's worth the investment of time. I always say to people don't be cut off by the size or all some of the references in this, just plug away with it, because I think it basically explores, like all the world's religions, yeah, and tries to understand what's the universal truths about happiness and contentment in life. And again, it's a it's a really good book that I'd advocate. So they're the two that jump out.
Speaker 1:Lovely and just in the spirit of reincorporation, deliberately again say that lovely book.
Speaker 2:The Happiness Hypothesis by Jonathan Haidt. So his name is H-A-I-D-T, so I don't know if I'm pronouncing the surname correctly. I mean, he's come into prominence in the last few years because he wrote a book called the Coddling of the American Mind and then he wrote another book called the Anxious Generation. So lots of people have heard of him through that stuff and they're great books. But his earlier one is a cracker, and the Life and Times of Muhammad Ali by Thomas Hauser.
Speaker 1:And may I just say as well how much I'm enjoying the through line of your dad being totally anchoring to who you are, and I also love the fact that you can actually go and sat-nav your dad. Where's dad? Let's go to his own road.
Speaker 2:Well, a really nice thing. So this made me cry. There's a guy called Claude Abrahams who was the editor of Boxing News so that's like the weekly newspaper for people in boxing and my dad had helped him a lot when he was a young man and I got this lovely email of him just after he'd passed. And we did an interview with Tyson Fury on the High Performance podcast and my dad had trained Tyson for a while. So Tyson had spoke about my dad was like the custom art of British boxing, so they had this link and I'd known Tyson a little bit but he was quite young.
Speaker 2:But we sat down and interviewed him and he spoke really lovely about my dad Just said you know, he's the most impressive man I've ever met. But then I got this email of Claude, who my dad had known for a long time, and he said so I might cry again when I say this. He said when I close my eyes, I can hear your dad asking the questions on the podcast. So it's nice that you say it, because I always think that it just keeps his legacy alive. Because, yeah, I like the idea that if I could be sort of half the bloke he was, that's a decent effort.
Speaker 1:And research does show that what we miss the most about people that have gone is what they sounded like. Oh really, I didn't know that. Oh, okay, I've got a series strand as the cut and thrust of what I'm doing where I actually interviewed my own dad for something called Legacy Life Reflections, and my own dad you know all the time you've been speaking. It's been so relatable. My father, colin Grimes, died two months ago.
Speaker 2:Oh shit.
Speaker 1:I'm sorry, Colin. Interestingly, just before he went into, I suppose, a bit of a crater of declining health, I got him in the house in days of his 80s and I recorded him. He agreed to be my first guinea pig. Oh, that's beautiful I recorded him.
Speaker 2:I'm sorry. I'm sorry, I should have asked you about.
Speaker 1:No, no, no I'm sorry to hear about his passing. It's the relatability in everything you've been talking about. And in fact, my mum said do you know what? No thanks. But they did ask if my dad would like a Colin Grimes Avenue named after him. So my dad, similarly, was offered the idea of a street being named after him. Oh wow.
Speaker 2:And what was his background? What was his? Story Well background what was his story?
Speaker 1:well, we grew up in uganda. I'll send you the episode to what? My dad's episode? I'd love to listen to that. Yeah and um. Yes, he, he ended up being very into bowls actually. So, right, rather comically, I now know that most bowls clubs are sponsored by the funeral home. Because the chat that it sounds a bit dark, but there's comedy, that there's, you know, golden threads of comedy within it. The man that buried my dad was playing bowls with him two weeks before, because he's the chap who is the funeral director, who runs the club. In the hedge of the bowling club are three great big signs advertising the funeral home. So when you go, we're going to basically bang your head and slide down the slide. It's where your target market is. It's ingenious actually.
Speaker 2:Why not? Yeah, yeah, go to the customer. Yeah, so is Colin Kurt Rhymes having you? Was that proposed in Uganda or was that over in the UK?
Speaker 1:No, this is in Syston in Leicestershire, where my dad was Right, okay, but it's not unlike your dad. My mum said, do you know what? Thanks, but no thanks. He wouldn't have liked it. Well, he may, he might have loved it, but it's sort of gone away for now.
Speaker 2:But it might come back because there's a Chris, I do it.
Speaker 1:What a nice way of honoring somebody that's made a difference because my dad was very instrumental in, I suppose, rescuing a lot of Ugandan Asians from the point of view, if he got, he got them out of Uganda okay, not literally by smuggling them out under his coat or anything, but he, he helped tremendously and that now went. Now that they live in Leicestershire, there's quite an Asian community there and a lot of them really remember my dad, and there was a 50th anniversary of Idi Amin's kick booting out recently, so my dad had another sort of moment in the sunshine of everyone celebrating Colin Grimes and everything he did.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I mean, I don't know your mum's reasonings Like my mum is quite self-effacing but I know that she gets a lot of comfort from the road being there. So I don't know if that helps with sort of maybe persuading your mum of it's a nice legacy. But I don't think it's like being self-aggrandising, I think it's just a nice way of paying homage to somebody for a life of courage and service.
Speaker 1:Yes, no, thank you for that. So back to you. We're now on to two things that never oh squirrels, this is where Ted can come in as well Two things that never fail to grab your attention, irrespective of anything else that's going on for you in your life so Manchester United that's probably going to turn off a lot of people listening to this, but that was our family team.
Speaker 2:I use United now as a means of me and my son go. So we've got tickets and me and him go and the game's interesting and it's great and all that. But I think you get to an age where I've seen it before you can recognise it. We're there to spend time with each other. So when we went down to the cup final in 2023, when we got beat to City, my son was like, oh, what happens if we get beat? We're not putting our happiness in Marcus Rashford's hands. So our happiness is in me and you going and just enjoying each other's time and company.
Speaker 2:And we went to this year's cup final when we won, and again it was the same message of it's great and it's a nice experience, but the most amazing experience is that we get to spend time together. So I try to do that as vigorously as I can and it's just a nice. It's almost a platform for that father and son experience. So there's that. But then the other thing that I like doing is the work for Ted. So stuff like that. I really don't compromise on that. There can be all kinds of distractions going on, but that's something that I'd light up when I get to do that.
Speaker 1:Those are great squirrels, ted himself the great sort of you know general squirrel, the one who chases all squirrels, and your son is the other squirrel in man United. I love that Great answer. And now a quirkier unusual fact about you, damien Hughes, liquid Thinker. We couldn't possibly know about you until you tell us.
Speaker 2:My first job was being a ring card girl, so I'll explain it before I get into trouble. I used to go along and carry the spitball kit and get the ice and chase up and do all those sort of different tasks when the lads were boxing and I'd be helping. I'd try to be useful for my dad and we were at the G-MEC Centre in Manchester I think I don't know if it's still got our name now. It's like a big old railway. It holds about 7,000 people at a time and we had a lad fighting for a European title. So it was in Manchester. It was a big occasion. Bbc were covering it on Sports Night at the time and there was a boxing promoter called Mickey Duff that was responsible for the show that's a great boxing promoter.
Speaker 1:Name Mickey Duff I love that.
Speaker 2:Yeah, yeah, mickey Duff. He was called Mollys Prager originally, mickey Duff, anyway. He's coming down the dressing room and he's ranting, let down by the girls that were supposed to be there to do the ring cards and things like that. So my dad doesn't tell me but goes to mickey, said he'll do it for you. So he goes and negotiates for like 25 pound for doing it. I'll do it. Yeah, I ended up having to like scramble into the ring and then sort of walk around with the ring cat who had the round over my head and sort of walk around the ring and then get out and I think I was 14 or 15, right, chris? And I'll tell you what there's nothing more seminal than like 7,000 people standing up collectively to boo you Because they're anticipating some sort of voluptuous Were you in a full cheerleader outfit.
Speaker 2:No, no, no, I had my tracksuit on. I was looking like the scruffy urchin I was. But basically all these people are obviously expecting some voluptuous, beautiful woman walking around the ring provocatively and then some 14-year-old screw-up in a tracksuit comes sort of shambling around. I feel their disappointment. But yeah, honestly, I feel that disappointment but yeah, honestly, I remember sort of looking at it, thinking there's 7,000 people here booing me, and it was featured on I don't know if you remember Sports Night. It used to be on a Wednesday night on the BBC. You can see me on it. You can see me sort of going around the next day at school like my teachers were like where were you last night? And I was like I think I told him a lie so I wasn't there. But yeah, that was my first and I was that good at it that Mickey Duff employed me a couple more times to do it. So when he came to Manchester I got the gig for a few more times.
Speaker 1:Yeah, a job you were born to do.
Speaker 2:Natural. A natural, as you can tell.
Speaker 1:We have shaken your tree, hurrah, so now we're staying in the clearing, which is still you and Ted. We stay in the clearing and now we move away from the tree. Next we talk about alchemy and gold, gold, purpose Gold. When you're at purpose and in flow, what are you absolutely happiest doing, damien, in what you're here to reveal to the world?
Speaker 2:I love just listening. Jake and I have been doing the podcast now for five years and I really enjoy doing it and there's moments where I'll be listening to somebody and they're fascinating. And I always think like you've offered a great example of it here today, chris of just creating space for people to talk, and I can recognize that's a real art when it's done well, like you're doing. And there are times when I feel like I'm listening to somebody and the hours past I'm like where did that go? That I'm just utterly absorbed in what they're telling us and what they were teaching us.
Speaker 2:And I mentioned the Tyson Fury interview. But when we interviewed him there was a photographer in the room and he captured a picture of Jake and I sat opposite Tyson and the picture is like. I sent it to Jake afterwards and I said imagine how flattering that would be to have two blokes looking so utterly wrapped at what you've got to say. You know like I'm like let's not forget that that in a world of distraction and sort of infinite choices, that in a world of distraction and infinite choices, just having somebody to listen to you is such a privilege, and so that's where I feel really, really in a state of flow sometimes when you just get to listen to somebody and absorb yourself in what they're telling you.
Speaker 1:It's a bit like when you meet a fellow liquid thinker you're just like sloshing about in the liquid going. I think I'm listening. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, exactly. And tyson fury, if I may just mention, when I was doing the bristol beer factory show, the piss up in a brewery I organized. What's fantastic about the bristol beer factory is talk clubs happen for men's mental health in bristol beer factory premises and I don't know if you know that where. Yeah, liam gallagher has done a single for talk club as well, and tyson fury, he did a single too. But um, I just, you know, came across tyson fury being mentioned as being really, you know, fantastic in what he's doing to give back to the boxing community because of talk club well again, like when we sat with him.
Speaker 2:It was like, I think, given my background, to hear the alpha male within that sport talking about mental health challenges I know you hear lots of people do this, but the seismic impacts within that community of people going. If he can reveal this, I'm okay to do that. So for men in general, it's great. I think I'm looking at a project idea at the moment with a mate of mine and this male friendship crisis that we're in, people feeling, men feeling lonely and the impact that's having on mental and physical health. We're looking at ways in which we can do it. So when I hear sort of like the men's club that you're describing there, it's called talk club, talk club.
Speaker 1:Sorry give me if you already knew about that, but I'm going to be interviewing the lovely chap who runs talk club. Brilliant in January brilliant.
Speaker 2:I really again. When you hear the stats about it, you go, we need to act on this. And anybody. When you hear the stats about it, you go, we need to act on this. And anybody that's out there making a difference gets the talk club.
Speaker 1:As I'm sure we can relate to where people say about talk clubs, it's literally saved my life because it gives them a safe environment to go and talk about mental health in a way, in an environment they feel safe in. And there's a really brilliant construct where they've got a non-alcoholic beer called Clear Head which they use to fundraise the talk club. So if there's any way that what you're up to can overlap, just let me know.
Speaker 2:Well, I think I certainly wouldn't. I sometimes feel really privileged that the High Farmers podcast seems to resonate with people and I often feel really humbled about it, just because I can always tell somebody that's got listened to it, because you go oh, this is about people showing off what they do. They go. No, it's the opposite of that. It's people you've heard of telling you about the struggles and what they've had to overcome to do it, and I think anything that sort of just destigmatizes this idea. It's not about being rich, it's not about being number one, it's not about being the top. That's nice if it happens.
Speaker 2:But like we interviewed this guy called Charles Duhigg he's out his Pulitzer Prize winning author and um, he came on top of this brilliant book he wrote called Super Communicators. But we always start the interviews by saying what's high performance to you? And he gave me this definition that I thought I'm nicking this. He said high performance is about having big ambitions but not fucking up the rest of your life by going after them. Wow, yes, do you know what I mean? And it's like you are not the sum of you, are not just an author, you are not just a business person. You're not. You're so many other things, and I think when we can get people away from this idea of thinking that it's just about success. It's about success because it comes in so many guises and I think the talk club sounds like it's helping people recognize that, so that's amazing.
Speaker 1:And now I'm going to award you with a cake, damien hughes. Fantastic, thank you. This is a dog's toy, by the way, so ted might like this, but I I'll think about the cake. I'll think it will. So what type of cake would you like, please? Carrot cake would be nice. That's sort of what. That's exactly what that is, yeah, yeah. So auto suggestion have that one. So now you get to put a cherry on the cake and this is stuff now, like what's a favorite inspirational quote that's always given you sucker and pulled you towards your future I'll use one from the podcast that I'll tell you where it came from.
Speaker 2:So we always ask that question, what it's had from us to you and things like that. And uh, we, what's interesting is we've done 300 episodes or over 300, and we don't get a consistent answer to that, which is actually the point of it, that high performance for it is for you to define it, not to allow others to define it for you. But when we were in the first year we're doing it and, uh, I was looking if I'd work with tracy neville for a long time with the England Roses. So I knew Tracy and I knew her brother, phil, and we got Tracy on and Phil said he'd come on. So we went to his hotel that he owns opposite United's ground and we were having a cup of tea and we were sort of setting up for the interview. And I don't know if you're aware of this, but I think it's important to highlight it for Phil was that during Covid they opened the hotel for free of charge for anyone. Nhs workers could come and stay there and just get their respite. So I ran a cup of tea with Phil Neville and I'm sort of complimenting him on this. I love what he did there. Phil thought it was great and he just threw this line in where he just went.
Speaker 2:You know what I think sometimes in what you've got in the moment, you read and I'm like what? And he's repeated it and it was like, mate, I'm nicking that, if you don't mind. He was like I'll go for it, because the reason I like it is the best that you can is different than the best that I can. The moment you're in is different than mine. The resources you have are always going to be unique to you. So that stops that comparison culture, that idea of oh, he's got more than me and I need to do that because otherwise I'm failing.
Speaker 2:No, no, no. It's for you to do the best you can with where you are in the moment you're in, and I think if we could all ask ourselves that on a regular basis, that's success for us. Your best might be different today than it was tomorrow because it's a different moment. You might have done something different five years ago than you do today. That's because you have different resources, different knowledge, so it just allows you in any moment to ground yourself and go. Am I doing the best I can now, in this moment, with everything that I have to handle. If the answer is yes, give yourself a pat on the back and be kind to yourself fantastic.
Speaker 1:That's very resonant with the theodore roosevelt quote, which is almost the same thing, which is do what you can with what you have where you are now lovely, brilliant.
Speaker 2:Yeah. So theodore roosevelt, phil neville, we can credit both of them and say it's the same wisdom absolutely beautiful.
Speaker 1:Thank you so much. Okay now, what notes, help or advice might you proffer to a younger version of yourself, with the gift of hindsight?
Speaker 2:Yeah, okay, the advice I'm going to give is you are enough, you are enough. I think I spent a long still wrestle with it, but occasionally thinking you're not enough, you need to do more, you need to keep striving for more, and I think I've referenced sort of the burnout that I did. But I think if I spoke to myself my younger self I'd just go. You are enough, you're okay, you're fine.
Speaker 1:Lovely. And now, what's the best piece of advice that somebody else has given you? It could be your dad, I know yeah.
Speaker 2:I think, piece of advice that somebody else has given you it could be your dad, I know, but yeah, yeah, I think be it sounds a tweet phrase, so I'm a bit reluctant to use it, right, because it's always like a hashtag, nonsense, stuff of like be kind. But what I mean by that is is I don't mean it's between. I mean be kind to yourself, and I think, by definition, if you're kind to yourself and I think, by definition, if you're kind to yourself, you eventually learn to have the capacity to treat others with kindness. But I think if you're going to go after anything in life, it doesn't matter what it is.
Speaker 2:If you're going to go after anything in life, failure is baked into the process. You're going to cock up, you're going to make mistakes, you're going to get put on your ass, you're going to sort of do things that you look back on and you go mate, what? What were you thinking? And I think what I spent a long time not doing is I give myself a verbal kicking or a mental kicking for doing that mistake. You idiot, I didn't do that. You're ridiculous. And what that I eventually realized does is it doesn't give you the capacity to learn from it, because you're just berating yourself. So I think, being kind to yourself, so you know what fine. Let's learn from it. Don't worry, you're still enough, and having that capacity allows you to learn faster, but then it also allows you to treat others with kindness and understanding and empathy lovely.
Speaker 1:We're ramping up to shakespeare shortly to talk just before we get there. This is the pass the golden baton moment, please. Now that you've experienced this from within, who might you like to pass the golden baton along to, to keep the golden thread of the storytelling going in this construct?
Speaker 2:oh, right, okay, my mate chris malabon. Do you know I mentioned him at the start the guy with the inspiration behind Liquid Thinking. I've loved him. This is a great blogger, so he's a. I'll tell you what he does. He's a commentator of some renown so he does a lot of rugby and football and cricket commentating so he backed himself to go and do that. He's a brilliant sort of host. He does a lot of emceeing and hosting for sort of corporate events, but beyond that he's just a brilliant lad, really kind, decent human being. So Chris is the one I'd pass it on to. He's got some great tales and thank you so much.
Speaker 1:That's such a gift, because that goes right back to you being in the pub 20 years ago over the pint, sloshing about yeah, yeah, liquid, I liquid yeah, I paid him in the pine for the idea of it, so I'll pay it back now as well lovely and now inspired by shakespeare. All the world's stage and all the men and women, merely players. This is borough from the jquiz speech in, as you like it, marvelous seven ages of man. How, when all is said and done, damien hughes, would you most like to be remembered?
Speaker 2:oh, okay. Well, if we use the Shakespeare quote, he's got that line I think it's in Hamlet of there is nothing good or bad, it is merely our thinking that makes it. So that's probably the Shakespeare equivalent of liquid thinking.
Speaker 1:You should write that down. The Shakespeare equivalent of liquid thinking is, yeah, the arrogance of even putting liquid thinking in the same sentence as Shakespeare. Such a lovely answer. So where can we find out all about you and the High Performance Podcast, as if we didn't already know on the old interweb. So this is you, to sort of go as deep as you like, how you like, into all of your yeah, cool.
Speaker 2:So if anyone listens to this and got any questions about what we spoke about, there's a contact page at liquidthinkercom where you can just drop me a line and Louise works with me and she'll pick it up and get to it.
Speaker 1:Show me your QR code please. This is the QR code whilst people are watching to get to your website. Oh, thank you. Yeah, your montage and the paint flopping to the canvas of life is just perfect. It's on there, isn't it? Yeah, yeah, thank you.
Speaker 2:You're welcome the high performance podcast. That's available for wherever you get your podcast fix from. What I'd encourage people is we have something called the high performance app. That it's free, you download it but you get out. You get early access to all the episodes that come out. You can even subscribe to one where you add free content which you know can upset some people. But we need the ads to pay the people that work on the podcast. It's not for me or jake, it's for the people that are that bring the real skills to the party, yes, to hire venues and things like that. So there's that free content on the high performance app, but more importantly, yeah, yeah, there's loads of little extras, um, and loads of additional content and early access to this stuff.
Speaker 1:So hack from the tap, but wherever else you get your podcast fix from Lovely and keep on keeping on being awesome with it, because it is a phenomenal podcast which I really admire. May I ask you how big your team are? How many of your squad are wrapped around the production of it all?
Speaker 2:Well, the podcast is growing. So we literally started five years ago with me and jake and finn, our producer, went down to meet ben ainsley and we sat in this little cafe just outside the in the us headquarters which I don't know. I've not seen the apprentice for years, so I don't know if the losing team always going the greasy spoon cafe, but they used to, and we're sat in a greasy spoon cafe. We're like do you think there's any merit in this? And we're like well, don't know, we'll try it. And within the first couple of minutes I remember thinking fucking hell, this is good, like I mean I I was enjoying it, ben, and he was really kind and generous did you know each other anyway, because I love, as I say, just to reincorporate.
Speaker 1:He said everyone needs a professor in their life, and my I know he's kind.
Speaker 2:He's a great lad, jake. I think the world of him. We'd met each other earlier than that. So I was working. So some of the work I do is some of the work in sports teams to help them sort of create high performing cultures.
Speaker 2:And, uh, I've been working in norwich city and jake's a norwich city fan and he came along one day I'd met his dad and then I met Jake and we just sort of ended up chatting and he said he was telling me about this idea he'd had for a podcast and I thought he was asking me to come on and be a guest and I was like, yeah, yeah, yeah, fine, yeah, we'll fix the time, jake. And then it sort of dawn together a list of all the people that we knew that we could sort of invite, like that we could phone and go do you fancy coming on this? And between the two of us we had about we probably say about 10 names that we approached them and I actually think in hindsight we both said this that what I think, what we got lucky with with that, was because we knew these people. We had a relationship built on trust.
Speaker 1:Yes.
Speaker 2:Because it already existed. So when we invited them to come and chat, they trusted us because they knew us from outside of the podcast so they knew we weren't trying to make troubles of them or look for a gotcha moment or something like that. And I think what that allowed is people that we didn't necessarily know could hear it, and they gave us their trust to go oh, I'll come on and talk then when we asked them, and so that's been really special for us.
Speaker 1:Yes, thank you for sharing that too. So, as this has been your moment in the sunshine, in the Good, listening to show Stories of Distinction and Genius, is there anything else you'd like to say, damien hughes?
Speaker 2:thank you for having me. I know, um, we've been speaking about doing the podcast. We're both podcasters, so I think we can both have a sense of appreciation of the hard work, the commitment, the effort that goes into producing them. So I don't say that lightly and I'm really grateful that you were persistent in getting in touch. But more than that, I appreciate your kindness of asking me to come on. So thank you, chris, and I want anyone listening to this to be able to recognise that just the talent that you bring to it, because, having worked within the same field, I know what good looks like. I'm far from good, but you are excellent, so thank you.
Speaker 1:That's such precious feedback. Thank you so much. So thank you very much indeed for watching. I'm just going to wrap up. So this has been the Good Listening To show. This has been the wonderful Damien Hughes from Liquid Thinking. As I mentioned, I saw him at the Entrepreneur's Circle Entrepreneur's Convention a couple of months ago, a wonderful organization that I also am associated with in that I get business coaching from them. But Nigel Bottrell and all of his machinery within Entrepreneur's Circle are fantastic and you know, what was great was the caliber of the speakers, not least, obviously, damien Hughes and Jake Humphries, who were there on the day. But anyway, thank you very much for listening. Thank you for watching as we actually went. This has been a deliciously long time. Thank you for your generosity, damien, and giving me all this time. So I think I've managed to for uk health radio, where your show is always also going to go, which gives you extra happy smoke of about 1.4 million listeners across 54 countries. So I think I'm going to get two episodes out of this, okay, okay cool.
Speaker 1:Thank you for indulging me yes, so to get two episodes out of this, okay, cool. Thank you for indulging me.
Speaker 2:Yes, you get two squits in the sunshine. Oh, thank you, and thank you to everyone that's listened this far in, and I'm really grateful that people give up their time to just engage.
Speaker 1:Lovely and, if I may, I'm just going to play you out with an outro, so we can just sit here going. This is an outro, which is where I'm going to just plant the seed of. If you remember, I mentioned that there is a series strand called legacy life reflections, in order to record the story of somebody near, dear or close to you for posterity before it's too late. This is a series strand called legacy life reflections, which will be explained here. Thank you for listening. You've been listening to the good listening to show with me, chris grimes. If you'd like to be in the show too, or indeed gift an episode to capture the story of someone else with me as your host, then you can find out how care of the series strands at the good listening to showcom website, and one of these series strands is called legacy life reflections.
Speaker 1:If you've been thinking about how to go about recording your life story or the life story of somebody close to you for posterity, but in a really interesting, effortless and creative way, then maybe the good listening to show can help, using the unique structure of the show. I'll be your host as together we take a trip down memory lane to record the 5, 4, 3, 2, 1 of either your or their life story, and then you can decide whether you go public or private with your episode. Get in touch if you'd like to find out more. Tune in next week for more stories from the Clearing, and don't forget to subscribe and review wherever you get your podcasts. Damien, thank you so much, that was wonderful. Oh, thanks, chris, and could I just get your immediate feedback just as to what that was like being curated through this structure?
Speaker 2:I thought it was brilliant. I remember I said there wasn't enough for effects on the show. I think that you create space. I think even like your body language of responding and knowing that you're genuinely listening to it is really exceptional. But I think what you do well as well is I love the creativity of it, because you don't know what's coming next. You know that idea like I think it's an intriguing thing of like the squirrels idea, or the cake or the go by. You go oh, hang on a minute, this, so it stops you getting into autopilot, you know what I mean and just sort of sort of throwing out old rehearsed stories. It forces you to think, which is which then makes the content unique. But I think what you're doing is exceptional. So thank you for asking me well, thank you for sharing. I mean I I was learning from you there in terms of how to do this and what it's like to be on the other side of the microphone thank you so much.
Speaker 1:That's such generous feedback, which I'm really appreciative of.