High Performance: Lessons from the Best on Becoming Your Best

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Jake and I met in F1, and he has always had a perspective that looked beyond the blinkers of motor-racing. Being too much of a geek to be in to sports so hadn't ever heard of Jake Humphrey and wasn't interested in the book until seeing Adam Peaty had a testimonial on the cover.

Solid book that gave a lot of insights from a range of athletes, sports people and people successful in other fields as to what got them there. Having joined CBBC in 2001, by 2005 he was hosting Sportsround, covering major international sporting events such as the 2006 Commonwealth Games in Melbourne, the World Cup from Germany and the Cricket World Cup from Antigua. There are some new anecdotes from Jake and Damian personally but with respect to the pair of them, they aren’t why I listen/read. Having struggled for motivation and focus in both my personal and professional life it provided me with the message I needed to drive forward and achieve.It will show you how to build a high performance culture that spreads beyond your actions into those of the whole team. Their first book, High Performance , was a Sunday Times bestseller and has sold over 100,000 copies. And they draw on cutting-edge psychology to explain why these methods have such a transformative impact.

This book has changed the way I think to make me more focused on the positives and the controllables. There are some tips to be found amongst the chaff but, on the whole, this book offers nothing new and is far too reliant upon the message that the lessons of sporting superstars are relevant to the average person. The book is full of amazing coaching guidance and inspiring stories as means to better yourself in what ever circumstances that you are in, e. The chart-topping podcast has since grown into a successful brand also delivering content world-wide through social channels, live shows, books and corporate work.Unfortunately, there are thousands of books out there which perpetuate the myth of being “special”, being a winner, achieving your goals and battling against the odds, but there aren’t many books that encourage you to be realistic about your aims, understand and accept your limitations, recognise when the juice simply isn’t worth the squeeze, and learn to appreciate what you already have. After binging the first series over a weekend, really enjoyed the varying perspectives from many different career paths. For a reader that is wanting to different perspectives of high performance (sport and business in the majority), certainly worth a read!

The book itself is like a ‘Greatest Hits’ from the podcast and ultimately there are a lot of helpful insights in it. All things you’d have covered in an undergrad business degree, but perhaps could have lost sight of in the real world. Jake joined BT Sport at the start of the 2013/2014 season as the face of BT Sports Premier League coverage.In this brilliant book Jake and Damian get to the heart of defining, creating, and inspiring the team around you , so you too can achieve high performance. This is the second book based on a podcast that I’ve read, and on this evidence it will be the last (the other one was “Talking Sopranos”). I've worked in many organisations and it was fascinating to compare the different cultures I've worked under and as a future leader I took away some key nuggets from Tracey Neville, Rio Ferdinand and others about how winning cultures and team ethos are built. The only thing that jump out of the pages for me was that you have to own where you are and in the situation that you are in. Feels like a lot of recycled content from their podcasts though so I wouldn't recommend it to anyone who already listens to the podcasts.

Thoughtful and considered, this is a careful summary of the excellent High Performance Podcast but it also goes beyond that to dig into the roots and uncover multiple little gems that anyone can take into any walk of life. This books gives very detailed lessons in ways and which you can high preform in all aspects of your life.

High performance is and attitude and a lifestyle that those at the top live their entire life with, which also explains why they always seem to be achieving in multiple things at once. High Performance has now curated a Corporate Away Day that harnesses the educational qualities synonymous with the podcast and helps steer businesses in the right direction and educate on the mindset it takes to excel. Take any success story - take any famous person - who is famous because they are successful, and they will regale you for hours with stories about their training programme, the sacrifices, the early morning starts….