Jonny Wilkinson

Jonny Wilkinson is one of the most decorated and recognisable faces in rugby history. Jonny scored 1,246 points from 97 Test appearances, the most famous being his drop goal that won the World Cup for England in 2003.

In a stellar career Jonny would accumulate four Six Nations titles with England and at club level he left Newcastle after helping them to Premiership and Powergen Cup titles and joined RC Toulon winning the Top 14 and European Cup.

But Jonny’s public success is only part of his story. He speaks frankly and inspiringly about the pressure of expectation and the mental health implications of leading a life defined by others.

TRANSCRIPT

Jake [00:00:05] Hi there, I'm Jake Humphrey. You're listening to High Performance, the podcast that delves into the minds of some of the most successful athletes, visionaries, entrepreneurs and artists on the planet, and aims to unlock the very secrets to their success. Now, everyone needs a professor in their life. And mine is also an author and an expert in the success of sporting teams and cultures, Damian Hughes. Now Damian, you've done a lot of work in, in rugby and there are few people in rugby that intrigue us as much as today's guest. What are you looking forward to learning about?

Damian [00:00:37] I think there's one word that stands out for our guest today, Jake, which is courage. And that's not just the physical courage required to step over the line on a rugby field. This is the courage to open up, to talk about some of the challenges, the struggles, and shift the dial in terms of the importance of mental health, and some of those factors, and today's guest has demonstrated bucket loads of courage to just shift the dial in that way, so, I'm really excited.

Jake [00:01:03] Me too. Okay, let's get on with it then, and welcome a man whose career may well be defined by that one kick against Australia that won the World Cup for England. But, what really interests us more is how he controlled his mind and his body to get there. The struggles he overcame, the mindset he created, the values that he considered to be important. And as Damian just mentioned, not just the courage he showed as a player, but the courage he showed to address the struggles that came with his chosen life. Welcome to the podcast, Jonny Wilkinson. Thanks for having me. Nice to have you with us. Let's start as we always do. What in your mind is High Performance?

Jonny [00:01:40] I think High Performance is about. If you'd asked me some of these, I imagined these questions coming up. Middle, midway through my career, you'd get a very different answer than towards the end, and essentially a very, very different answer to where I am now, which is.... High Performance, when I was younger, was was about outcomes. I'd have painted a picture of, you know, it was all about whether the ball went through the post, whether a pass hit this, whether it's, you know, hit the mark, whether the guy was tackled, whether he went backwards. All of these things were written up on a stat sheet and that defined who you are and whether you're a success, and what have you. As I got further down my exploration of performance and potential, and all these things, I start to understand that for me, High Performance is is about absolute engagement. Just there's kind of I'd looked at it more now instead of at the time playing rugby, it is more about what is, what does a good game look like, what does a good number 10 look like, what does a good career look like? I look at it now, I've been like, what would be, a great life lived and no answer satisfied me until I sort of started to come to something, which started to vaguely feel right, which was all of me and every moment. And that's performance. You're either fully attentive and engaged, or you're not. And that presence, that, I guess that deep involvement is performance. There's for me, there's no other way of defining it. The out to inversion of outcomes and, you know, ticks and all those things and crosses. And that is what led me down the route of great mental health. Was more of a manifestation of my kind of conflicted inner state. And breaking out of that is where I suddenly realised, all the flow, all the intuition, all the feel, all the grace and all the real possibility lied. And, I kind of fought that for most of my career until the end when I gave into it, and suddenly start to find all that passion again.

Jake [00:04:00] So do you think that you could have lived in this present flow like passionate, completely engaged state when you were playing rugby? Or did you need, when you were an elite rugby player to be obsessed with the stats? Because that was what was going to determine whether you won or lost a game?

Jonny [00:04:17] It's a good question, but it is quite a simple answer, is that,

[00:04:24] that's how I lived.

[00:04:27] Between the whistles, so on a Saturday afternoon for the majority of a time between half two and four o'clock, I was in that state. That's why I was able to do what I did. The thing was, is I just created an idea, as most people do, that that state is revealed or earned through great suffering and sacrifice. So there seems to be this deep understanding, which I've explored and experienced otherwise since, that by suffering and stressing and fighting, you somehow end up in a joyful, flowing state. Whereas my understanding, my own experience of it tended to be that by spending my time suffering, stressing and sacrificing, what I did was create stronger habits of suffering, stressing and sacrificing.

[00:05:12] It's a bit like the whole kind of, you know, when I grow up, when I get my car, when I get my promotion, when I get my family, when I get my big house, when I get to retirement, that's where my joy is going to hit me, when I've got enough money.

[00:05:24] But then even when you've got the boat, in the sunny port, you're still suffering and searching for the next thing. And unfortunately, there's become a new one which has taken shape more recently, which is is going to leave no opportunity for turning inward, which is people now think that leaving a legacy after once they've gone, was what brings joy and it is ludicrous. And that's kind of what I was you know, my whole rugby career was like, I'm going to suffer through this, because I'm going to leave the greatest markers. What happens to just flourishing, enjoying and loving life? And then you realise that being in a changing room before a game is where you see it happen. You see that fragility of people that believe in themselves. This idea that self belief is going to create self exploration on the field is crazy. Self believe represents itself as fragility. Look at anyone that's in the middle of self belief. You'll see someone who's covering up fear. Look at someone who's willing to be open to the future and say, let's just see. You'll see someone who's physically and ready, mentally ready. But the story always ends with that I'm always fine when the whistle goes, which is like saying, well, I've spent my time in the changing room trying to live ahead of myself. And when the whistle goes, I'm prepared to live now. Why not just live now all the time? And it's been my exploration for the last fifteen years because of...

[00:06:46] Mental health issues that left me nowhere else to turn, pretty much. And there I found. I've never found anything of substance, anything of truth. I've found nothing solid. I've certainly found no boundaries. All I've found is opportunity, space, and deeper dimensions of experience.

Damian [00:07:10] See, Jonny, it sounds that a lot of that description that you've given in terms of what you found, describes childhood in many ways. You don't see a child planning for the future. They play in the moment in the playground.

[00:07:23] This is the immediate.

[00:07:26] So would you say that some of what you've discovered is almost coming back to that childhood state of playing for the pleasure of it? But living for the moment. Yeah, definitely.

Jonny [00:07:38] I look at. The childhood experience, and I remember from my own. You become. You're able to become whatever you need to become, to make the most of every moment. Like the child said I'm going to be an astronaut. They are an astronaut. They're not me pretending to be an astronaut. They become an astronaut because there isn't that sense of this is who I really am. And therefore, I am pretending. They haven't got an idea of who they are yet. So they can be anything they want, which means they can engage fully in any moment. The imagination is vibrant because there isn't this solid path to who I've become. The thing is, though, is that that childhood experience for me, and my exploration of things is unconscious, it's an unconscious freedom, which means it can be lost, and it is lost. And it's influenced by the outside. And by me being, falling into that cycle of trying to become someone, that self-importance of wanting to know myself, and knowing how the world works, is that that's the path towards going back to that child life, childlike experience, but consciously, so without the sort of the experience for me of suffering the mental health stuff, there is no way of going back there consciously, and there's no other route, but to, the only way to go back to being free of the identity

[00:09:00] of who I've become, you know, is, is too in...

[00:09:05] I want to, I want to say just let it go. But eventually, essentially what that means is, it's got to die. I know that sounds very strong, but it's almost like in order to fully live, you need to. Are you willing to die to fully live? Yes. Or are you just living to die? Now, that was the thing for me is I got to a point where I was protecting this old identity. All this stuff that had become me.

[00:09:28] I use the kind of way of articulating it for me is that, that old me was choosing how this now should be for this now me, and this now me is capable of anything, but I was being held back. The way I was feeling was decided by the old me. So, you know, when I get a feeling of stress or whatever, I'm like, well I don't want this. So who the hell is choosing it for me? All my old beliefs and my old conclusions and my old ideas are deciding how this life has to be for me now. So what I've decided was I'm going to think for myself. I'm going to start deciding how I want to be on the inside, and who I want to be now. And it goes against the whole mentality of a lot of the values around sport, that you are who you are and this resilience of fight and stand up and never give in. It's kind of like, but, it creates this idea that there is something solid inside that you need to protect and you only get one choice in every moment. Are you going to control it or explore it? And if you've got something to protect, you're going to control it. And you look at anyone that's trying to control a situation. They won't be fully engaged. They'll live through the mind and not through the life. So this was the choice I had. Am I going to try and control the rest of my life on behalf of some old ideas I had when I was younger? Or am I going to drop those and start exploring it for what it is now? The child is exploring. There's no other way of looking at it.

Damian [00:10:54] So, when did you unconsciously start to be shaped by this new identity? When did that happen? When you look back now, I think for me.

Jonny [00:11:06] And this is not so much experience as so much concepts and ideas, that I came into this role with a leaning towards picking things up in certain ways and that leaning goes back generations, or goes back culturally, or whatever you want to call it previously. And that leaning was to start to shape things, understandings in certain ways. And one of the understands I picked up very early was about mortality. And it scared the hell out of me, at a very, very young age, probably younger than normal.

Damian [00:11:36] And what was it that triggered that fear? I don't know.

Jonny [00:11:40] That was just, there was a sense of doom about being alive. And that for me, was in mortality. And what I did was sort of say, right, I need to come up with an answer to mortality. And from a childlike state, what I came up with, was kind of, was just a big self belief, or big belief, that if I'm perfect when I get to the pearly gates I'd heard about, I'm going to hand over my CV and be like, come on, "that's good enough to get in, isn't it"? And I needed ticks everywhere. So that decided, therefore, my definitions of what's good, bad. So all the uncontrollables in life just destroyed me. And therefore, so you were obsessed with perfection at this point were you? In order to rid myself of this sense of doom. So there wasn't a pleasure in the perfection, which is where the compulsive... What age was this, are we talking, Jonny? Yeah. From I guess four or five, you know.

Jake [00:12:33] So your daily actions and your daily thoughts, at four or five years old, were determined by this desire to get rid of the feeling of doom. Well, yeah, to a degree.

Jonny [00:12:43] I mean, when I'm talking about this, it's not like, it wasn't every moment. Yeah. I was a child. I loved life,  and I went to play basketball. And I played my rugby, and I had my friends and it was great. But often there were periods where I just fell into these big holes where it became, whatever. And I, I created this idea that, that by being perfect, I would be spared the, that would be my I guess my solace, that would be my saving grace. And as a result, I then unfortunately had at the same time a ridiculous passion for competitive sport. So now I'm going into competitive sport with a need to be perfect. Now, competitive sport is an environment where you've got a lot of other people also wanting to have their way, and you can't guarantee anything. So therefore, I had a passion mixed with a deep kind of understanding of life, that put me in a state before games, and after games, in terms of over analysis and the anticipation beforehand, just crippling fear of this idea that what I was about to go through, or what I'd what I'd already been through, would define me. And that no matter, the crazy thing was, no matter what I'd been through, how many kicks I'd missed, the next game held the opportunity to rid myself of that, which was kind of almost counter to sort of, my own belief that I could somehow change my past by being more perfect in the next game. So I just put more and more pressure on the next game. So this idea in rugby that you're only as good as your last game, and your next game will define you just added to the fuel, to the fire.

Jake [00:14:20] You said unfortunately there, when you were talking about it. Like, 'Unfortunately, I was obsessed with being perfect and I loved elite sport'. Isn't there an element, though, of fortunately, I was obsessed with being perfect and I loved elite sport, because I was of the opinion that the reason why you became the leading rugby player of your generation was the combination of obsession and love for the sport. Yeah. Yeah, maybe. Or was it in spite of that, that you still got to the top?

Jonny [00:14:48] No, there's it's all in there, and I'm sure it's all in there. But, it was a classic journey towards, heading down a dark hole. There is no other way for it to go, because, and the inevitable part of that cycle is, as I was succeeding a bit more, I was reinforcing those old ideas. They were getting stronger and stronger and stronger. And you can hear it in the way I was speaking. And I call that, doesn't matter what those ideas are, whether they are negative or positive about yourself, when they get reinforced, they become more important. Therefore, I call that self-importance. Knowing who you are with more and more certainty becomes self-importance. And that self-importance was clearly evident in everything I spoke about. So as an 18 year old, you mentioned that childlike side.

[00:15:43] I went to Newcastle as an 18-year-old, and I stood around in between Marler and Rob Andrew and Dean Ryan and and Pat Lam and these, you know, Gary Armstrong, Doddie Weir, all these amazing, I mean, I could name the lot.

[00:15:57] I'll just come on the show, and name the entire team, and I was just a kid in there, and if I got five minutes,

[00:16:04] or, if I got two minutes, or one play in the team run before a game. I was on the bench, most of the time in that first year, or for the first half of the year. If I got on the team run the session before the game, if I got on there for one play, I was like 'Woah'. When I did go on there, I was just like, look what I'm going to give it.

[00:16:21] Fast forward eight, 10 years.

[00:16:25] I'm the guy in the changing room. The only thing I'm talking about is pressure, expectation. I'm judging the hell out of everyone around me. You're not professional. The other guys a waste of time. They'll never make it now. He needs to be like, ah god, you know, that coaches rubbish. They shouldn't be there. This is what I'm talking like. Go back 10 years. I'm just opportunity. I'm a walking embodiment of opportunity. Passion. Now, the only result of that self-importance, because when I was 18, I'm like, I'm a nobody. I've got nothing to lose. I'm just exploring. Now I'm a somebody. I've got everything to lose. And that's why I'm feeling pressure. I've become solid. So those forces are all compressing me, was when I'm nothing, I'm just fluid, hence flow. So nothing can, I just, wind blows me this way. I don't need to stand against it because I'm not this direction. I'll go any direction. You look at the most beautiful geniuses on the field. They're not solid. So they bend. They flow. They hold your beliefs. Look at a Zidane, or a Federer. And the ball goes here, it's kind of like, they don't expect anything or they expect everything at the same time. It is the same thing. It's otherwise known as being completely open, and ready. Now, what I was before the game was just absolute rigidity, but on the field, you let go because you, because, what I designed myself into was a plug that fit the socket of rugby, on the field. So anywhere that wasn't on that field, I couldn't plug in. At home, I'd be thinking about the next game. After the game, I'd be thinking about this game. If I'm trying to eat a meal, I'd be half thinking about this. Am I doing this? How do I look? But as soon as I went onto the rugby field, that first whistle went, who I'd become, fit that socket.

[00:18:02] You plug in and suddenly you talk about being in the zone and effortless. But as soon as, the referee blows his whistle and says, penalty, suddenly I'm like, 'Now it's about me'. So the way I articulate that self-importance is the thought. What about me? Now, as soon as you see a referee give a penalty, look at a kicker. Moments before they're playing the game. And they're just effortless. As soon as they, suddenly the referee blows the whistle, you see them change. They go (deep breath) and you're like, whoa, hold on. Just be as you were. Why? Because the thought, what about me

[00:18:31] comes in. And it may be what if I miss this? But it ultimately reduces down to, what about me, if I miss this? And then people talk about like I did, self-importance under pressure, the expectation. But take away the thought, 'what about me?', where's pressure? Take away the thought, 'what happens if this goes wrong?', where's fear of failure? And it just comes down to self-importance.

[00:18:55] And what it was, is I allowed myself to think that I knew who I was, and I knew how life worked. And as a result, I had that to protect. And now I'm talking about pressure and expectation. So when I hear that, I say, I realised more towards the end of my career that I was just kind of like, there's no such thing. It's up to me how I am on the inside. I just didn't know I was doing it. Now I do. It's my choice.

Damian [00:19:19] So can I ask you a question then Jonny around, we got a lot of people listening to this that our teacher, or sports coach. They may have turned off by now, is that what you're saying?! No, no, no. But I think that some of the characteristics you describe, that some of like, a traditional sports coach would see you as the perfect player. You're the embodiment of what I want my players to do. And yet your challenging that convention. Yeah.

[00:19:42] So what advice would you give to an aspiring parent, with an aspiring sports child or a coach or somebody? To avoid that trap of building up this idea of perfection or self-importance.

Jonny [00:19:58] There is no, right or wrong. It's the very nature of lack of self importance. There is no good, bad right and wrong. It's just, it's just it, just is. There's a deep acceptance to everything. And what I mean by that is there's also an exploration to everything. So if, and that's where when you talk about childlike, it's the curiosity that comes with it, that means that anything's a possibility. So if there's great disappointment, be curious about the disappointment. Yeah. Don't be angry at the situation. Be curious about the disappointment, it's an inward journey. And if you point inwards, there's no limit there. So a degree of just pure curiosity, exploration with the aim of finding new space, which is new opportunity, which keeps passion alive.

Damian [00:20:48] So how much was that encouraged for you in the dressing room environments you were going into?

Jonny [00:20:53] Well, you probably know the answer to that already. You know, we had team talks where before a game, you know, you have this week. And I'm just chatting to the boys before I big game, I'm saying 'Look, let's just go out there. Let's just do it'. It's what we've trained for. It's beautiful to be here, what a privilege. Just go there and love every moment. I mean, breathe it in. Yeah. And then you go in and the coach says, 'Boys, you can't lose this one. If we lose it's the season'. And I'm sat there going 'Right, now that's that energy gone'. And you can feel the energy palpably change. The fact is, you ask any coach or captain or player, what do you want from your team? I just, I want them to to perform brilliantly. So what do you need them to feel? I want them to feel at their very best. So if that's the case, look at everything you're doing. What do I need from myself? I want to feel liberated. Okay. Is what you're doing liberating you, or doing the opposite? Is what you're doing for your team, allowing them to be all they can be? Or are you needing them to be how you want them to be?

[00:21:57] I have a situation now. You're mentioning about the conventional idea of what I brought to the game was a lot of practise and dedication. When that was through passion, it's not work. It's not dedication. It's just enjoying your damn life. It's doing what you love doing and spending all your time doing. I would say that to anyone. What they'll tell you is, 'It sounds like a holiday'. That's what it was. It was a choice. Now, when it becomes effort, people think that's somehow courageous and worthy. It's like no, it's just a loss of passion. And what that means is there's no new space. If anyone feels like they're improving, they're growing, they'll be passion. No one steps away from a journey when you feel like you've just opened and yet no one, you don't go into a house and go, oh, this is rubbish. And then you see a door, and the door was unlocked. Wow. And then walk off.

[00:22:39] You go in the door. You're suddenly like, 'I wonder what's in there'. That's what the journey is. So the journey of that is to reveal new space in everything. Reveal that space of opportunity and disappointment. Reveal a space of opportunity in losing.

[00:22:52] Now there is stories about change or invincibility. For me, it was that people are standing there being like, 'We haven't, we're unbeaten' or 'We can do this. We're not gonna lose'.

[00:23:04] Now, that same invincibility or sense of invincibility also parades itself in this feeling, deep down, of being like, 'I hope the opposition don't travel well'.

[00:23:15] 'I hope their lead guy is injured. I hope that guy is not playing or he has a tough game. I hope the refs on our side or that wind dies down'.

[00:23:22] I mean, there's no invincibility there. And I look at the invincibility of someone that sits in the changing room and says, 'You know what, if we win, that's going to be awesome and I'm going to do so, I'm going to do everything to win'. But if things don't go my way,

[00:23:36] I know that's going to bring out so much more of me. So, I would love to win this game, but I would also love to be challenged and to not have it my way. Now, that's invincibility. Not someone going out there being like, I can do this and I can make it happen. It's gonna go my way. Now, what does that look like as a person that goes on a field. Look at a boxer, look at any team that's unbeaten. You start to see them get more and more shady. The performances get worse and worse. Less exploratory. Yeah. It's a movement away from potential, because it's a movement away from exploring. So, yeah, the point for me is that, as a kid was that success is either an external thing or an internal thing.

[00:24:13] And that being determined by what happens on the outside, which is up for everyone to have their involvement in. If something you can't control determines something you can control, there's a degree of sort of,

[00:24:29] of an issue there. Now, surely you control what you can control, and you allow what's on the outside to be an exploration. It's not been painted that way. And as a result, a lot of solid people for me,

[00:24:44] who have been wound to be, 'This is who I am', and now being unplugged from the rugby environment through injury or through the end of their career. And then they're going around trying to plug that in. And the only thing that half seems to fit, is if I can get back into coaching, that kind of fits. But not fully I'm not fully charged from that. Maybe punditry, but eventually like, this isn't the same.

Damian [00:25:04] I remember Stuart Lancaster telling stories when he took over the national team. Where he, asked the players to do a survey to tell them 'What was the greatest experience of a team environment that ever been in and why?' And the answer that you got was twofold. Most people spoke about playing as a child, or in their amateur clubs, because he said the reason was I was playing with my friends. Yeah. So people I enjoyed the company of, and the second one was, 'We played for the fun of it rather than the outcome of a goal and things like that'. And it sounds like you're trying to shift the dial to do that. But what's your appetite for actually getting into rugby, to actually get that conversation to be more, more common?

Jonny [00:25:50] So I work with the kickers in the England team, and,

[00:25:59] that's the journey. The journey is a journey of understanding that when you let go of old conclusions, you regain the opportunity to define, redefine everything. So when you say about 'I was playing with my friends', well, why can't we be friends in here?

[00:26:20] Why do we, why are we strangers? Now, that's a definition. It's the same way that you're willing to allow your family, so many things to go on there, but with other people, it's not. It's like, well, where does family end, and stop? Now, that's just an exploration, you know. It's a definition that because I was born into this line, this is my family, and you are not. But that line of, where I draw the line, will determine where I draw the line on my enjoyment of life.

[00:26:45] Now, if everyone becomes family, and I connect to everyone, then you're in that state. What about 'Why is it for the fun of it?'. Well, if it's just passionate for now, and it's about performance and exploring what you're capable of, that's fun. So put that at the top of the list. Everything is achievable. The world can be how you want it.

[00:27:06] Unless we're unconsciously holding on to old ideas, we should do in that definition for us.

Damian [00:27:11] So what's the response then, when you go into this world of old ideas and start talking like this because, it's so refreshing to hear. But what's the general reaction to this?

Jonny [00:27:20] But, it doesn't come across like this. You guys have asked me a direct question and I'm responding directly. If I was working with someone on skills, you go back in through the door that they present. All right. So it's a gradual movement towards, and ultimately,

[00:27:35] you could get there straight away with a simple answer. Like, 'What's the most important thing to you?'

[00:27:39] And it comes down to performance. And then that comes down to health and happiness. And you're kind of like, let's go there then.

[00:27:48] But you can't do it straight away because health and happiness is perceived as a kind of almost a separate journey to being on the field, where it's all about this. But if you had a chat with someone recently and they were saying, someone's told me to be, yeah, they think I should find more joy in my playing. I'm like right, 'Tell me what Joy feels like for you'. And the answer I didn't get, was big smiles on the field, and I'm joyful. They were like. It's kind of like just when I'm fully in it. I'm like, there you go. That's deep engagement. Misunderstanding of what joy is,

[00:28:19] is that smelling the roses involves big smiles. Now laughing is a definite sign of joy, real deep laughter. And it's because you're deeply involved in the situation. You look at someone who's pretending to laugh or trying to laugh. You'll see something far from joy, the same way you see someone trying to laugh on a field, and that's not,

[00:28:38] deeply engaging you. So you say, well, 'How do we get joy in everything?' You just deeply engage. And then what happens? Time flies.

[00:28:46] Now I watch. I love the odd film and

[00:28:50] time flies for me when I'm watching a film, and I might be like 'Jeez, that was incredible'.

[00:28:54] What I'm not into the film is this; I'm not, I'm like this. Sometimes I'm like... But, I'm deeply engaged, and time flies. And people, that's what,

[00:29:05] that's what joy is. It's a deep engagement in life. It's not about smiles and happiness, so what we say is right, I want to be held in happiness. What does that mean to you? Well, let's get that. Now, what's stopping you from deeply engaging in this? An idea that it's not as it should be? It's not good enough for me. It's not right enough for me. It doesn't fit with who I am. So you're like 'Let's change'. Let's work on that, so that every moment fits.

Jake [00:29:27] I don't understand how you let go though. I sit here listening to this and I am jealous of the things you're talking about because I want to live in a life of deep engagement, fully committed. I want to flow. I want to have that growth mindset and a flexible perspective towards everything. But then I, you know, I am also looking at other people and thinking, 'Oh, they're doing well, why am I not doing well?'. And then I'm wondering whether I'm being a good enough parent to my kids. And I know that I've got a really busy week coming up. And I know that I haven't spoken to my parents. I feel like I'm carrying with me external pressures, external expectations, internal pressures and expectations, but I don't want them. And there'll be lots of people listening to this, probably coming at it from this angle. Bloody hell, I want to live a free life like Johnny is explaining. Yeah. If you can get there from where you were as the rugby player representing his country a couple of decades ago, then I'd like to think all of us can. Because you've come from a really,

[00:30:27] full on, very different mindset. So if you were able to move, I like to think that all of us can. How do we do it?

Jonny [00:30:35] Well, I think for a start, there is no arrival. There's no, like we said, otherwise, you fall back into the idea that I'm going to arrive at retirement. And all that work is gonna be worth it. You know, it's a bit like winning the World Cup. You think it's amazing. It's the most I mean, it's the immensity of that, the ecstasy of that moment. Incredible. But within three or four seconds it's on the decline. There's no lasting nature to it.

[00:31:02] And that's kind of been like... A day later, oh. And then two months later, you're in big trouble, because now you're way down at the bottom of the hill, looking back at my glory days, and then you add injury to that and whatever, you go through that experience. So there's, there is no part where you think, 'Oh, it's it's going to be this'. The very nature of having an idea of what, my potential is, is what prevents you from going there.

[00:31:27] I have a story about this where you sort of say someone, you say to someone, "Just go into that room, and just find your potential for me'. And if they come back with anything you're like, you moving further away from it. If they come back and say, 'What do you mean? I don't know what I'm looking for'. You're like now we're on the right track. The point is, if you've got an idea of what your best is, it isn't your best. It's just your next limit. It's a limit to your best.

Jake [00:31:50] So, you know, you're going in the right direction then?

Jonny [00:31:52] Good question. Now we're talking. That's the kind of curiosity now. Now, the thing for me that makes this a big opportunity, or did for me, was I built myself hugely on the idea that who I am was a result of everything I've been through.

[00:32:09] And it's quite a common one. It sort of falls in line with the idea that I'm just a physical being. So my body's the result of all the food I've eaten, all the growth and all the scars I've got. It's all linked in there. But if I line who I am with that physical existence. You know, mind and body. I'm just on the decline from the day I'm born, I'm dying, and I don't like these terms, I would probably would reword this if I was doing this again! But, you know, I'm on the decline. But when you realise, when you just seek a bit deeper for ask the big questions about who I am. There's no beginning, no end. It's already there. And I think it's the same way that people are also investigating that,

[00:32:52] as an opportunity is big and the way, one way to do it is just to look at, right, well. If I catch you on a day where you are just feeling good, you're just feeling good, and I say right,

[00:33:05] tell me about that period of your life. And you'll be like, yeah, it's funny. It's the sort of thing that happened, and I think I've learnt so much from it. And now look at the world for me. But if I catch you on a rough day, and I say, tell me about that same period, you be like, 'Well, the world was against me', do you know what I mean?

[00:33:23] What I mean, by the point of that is, is that if you're a result of what you've been through, how can you have two separate causes for the same effect? Surely there's one true way is there not? The point is, is that for me, who I am now is not a result of what I've been through. What I've been through, is a result of how I choose to be now. Right. And so you understand that if you start to explore that choice, you start to realise that everything you've been through doesn't decide who you are. Now you're talking about being liberated, but how could you possibly be liberated, if you're a product of something? The same way that people talk about leadership? And yet one of the biggest values is, who I am is just a result of all I've been through. But people, in an unpredictable world, determine your situation, and therefore they're deciding what you've been through, they're deciding how you are now. So other people in the world hold your potential, or do you hold your potential? So once you get excited about that opportunity to be like, you know, I'm going to go deeper. So I did it. I went looking for, who I am.

Jake [00:34:26] Where did you look?

Jonny [00:34:28] Good question. Straight away, you're kind of like, whoa, hold on. This voice in my head. Whose is it? These feelings I've got, who do they belong to? And all I found was just a load of old ideas. I never found anything. And I've been acting, I'd been acting on behalf of this apparent me, and I couldn't find it. I asked for a meeting, and it didn't turn up. I'm looking at being like, well gee, so where's it coming from? They're just all ideas. Now, exploring those old ideas, there was no logic to any of them. There's no logic to any of them.

[00:34:59] Even the....

Damian [00:35:01] What was the biggest one that didn't make sense to you?

Jonny [00:35:05] Probably, being a result of who I am now, because I was kind of like, or other ones would be, you have. I had all these immense fears of, the failure in the future, and all those kind of things, and they were so true, when I was younger.

[00:35:24] And yet on one day, I'd be so happy. And I'd be like, 'How can I be happy?' If those are still there? If they're true, they must be constant. And if they're constant, they're still there. So how can I be happy? And you create this. I did. I'm just distracted from it. But no, I'm not distracted, because I'm fully engaged. So I'm not taking my mind off elsewhere and trying to think of nice things. So how can I fully engage in what I'm doing? If there's this potential consequence that I need to think about? I realise that, the problem for me had always been living in my mind.

[00:36:02] And what that meant was that, my old ideas of who I was, was deciding for me, my memory, and my imagination. So I wasn't in control of my memory and imagination, and as I let go of those old ideas, my memory expands.

[00:36:22] And my imagination opens, so I start to be able to try to piece together old things I've been through in my life. I can piece them together in different orders to create different imaginations, whereas before, that's who I was and how I got here. So all I could do was translate that into the future. That's how I have to get away from here.

[00:36:40] Whereas now, it's the same. It's the same understanding that people, I get the impression that people think that the now, is a result of the past.

Damian [00:36:50] I would think that,

Jonny [00:36:51] Yeah. But it's not how you... show me the past.

Jake [00:36:56] Well, the now for me is like sitting here having this conversation with you. Right. Whilst thinking, I don't want to be home too late because I've had a busy few days, and my wife will be putting both the kids to bed.

Jonny [00:37:07] Yeah.

Jake [00:37:08] But I know I put that beef in the aga this morning, so at least there's some food made. That's all stuff that happened in the past.

Jonny [00:37:14] Yeah.

Jake [00:37:14] All of which is determining what I'm feeling now.

Jonny [00:37:17] Yeah.

Jake [00:37:17] So even though we're having this remarkable and brilliant conversation, there is still a part of my brain obviously cracking on with stuff that's already happened in the past.

Jonny [00:37:26] But that's the now, that has become the content of the world.

Jake [00:37:33] Right.

Jonny [00:37:34] Not the experience of it. So the idea that now is a time you have to try to get into, or live in, instead of the now being a state you live through.

Damian [00:37:51] Are you familiar Jonny, with the work of Victor Frankl? So did you explore his stuff in this?

Jonny [00:37:55] No.

Damian [00:37:56] Because I'm hearing some parallels with it, that intrigued me. So. Victor Frankl was a psychotherapist that, he was captured as a prisoner in Auschwitz. Yeah. And the stats of Auschwitz is the only one in every 28 people that went in that would ever survive it, and he was one of them. And when he was finally released, he wrote a book about the experience called 'Man's Search for Meaning', where he'd ask the question of 'Why did I survive, and 28 other people wouldn't?' And the premise that he came to was this idea of choice, about constantly recognising how powerful choice was. And lots of people, it describes it, as they were almost overwhelmed by the horror of the Holocaust, quite understandably. Whereas, he chose to interpret it in a way, and said that he was a caregiver. So he said, I'm now going to play the role of being the caregiver and the person that encourages, although I say, and give some hope that there's a better future for them. And he felt that understanding, the power of choice was central in terms of his survival, not only physically, but mentally.

Jonny [00:38:59] I think what you're talking about, is going back to combining the two. Is that, when the now becomes a physical situation, then yes, past exists. So, the physical the material side of this world for me, yeah, where I parked my car, I'm hoping that's where I'm going to find it when I finish. It's the same deal. But it's physical. But when, who I am, becomes physical, I fall into the same laws. And that choice goes, because how can I have choice? You know, if I'm going to try and work through the physical, because a physical is what it seems. Now obviously, actually, you can go a lot deeper into that physical side. It's not actually what it seems. But on the surface, it's cause and effect. So when you invest in the situation, physical situation, determines my inner state. You fall into that stage. So the difference is for me, is where choice comes from, is beyond old ideas. Because as soon as you decide, this is, as soon as I decided ,this is who I am, that decided for me immediately, this is how I see things, that decided immediately for me, this is how I'm gonna feel about things that happened to and around me, which decided this is what I'm going to do about it. Which decides what I create. That decision of how I see myself immediately translates to what I can create in the world. Which is why when people start to create different things, it always relates to a shift of how they see themselves. So when people say things like mostly, yeah, when it goes through difficult times, for me it was a mental health thing. Yeah, and yet there are still, loads and loads of interesting challenges for me. But with those challenges, always affects at the level of how I see myself. And when there's a shift there, there's a shift everywhere. But what tends to be the case is that when you're looking at when when I find, when I was younger, looking at, I want to change what I create, I went back as far as how I feel.

[00:40:57] And then when I got older, I tried to go back to how I see things, but I never went back to exploring how I see myself. And as a result, you just end up creating more and more problems. It's like trying to feel differently than how you see things. No chance. Trying to see things differently to how you start to see yourself won't work. Most people talk about, if you keep doing the same thing, you'll keep getting the same thing. Well, if you keep seeing yourself the same way, the whole thing's done.

[00:41:21] So there has to be a desire to look, inwards honestly, at some of the....

Jake [00:41:28] It feels like a very brave thing to do, though.

[00:41:29] Kind of. It panics me a little bit when I think about doing it. You know?

Jonny [00:41:32] I think because, because the idea being is that, all I've been through has become my worth and my value. Then letting that go, of course, you let go of everything. But actually my experience is, as you just asked, how do you feel at your very best? And the answer to that is, is I feel liberated. And when you're at your very best, are you thinking about who I am, and how I'm a great person, or are you just free of those thoughts? So in a way, every moment you get where you're outside of thought, you're engaged.

Jake [00:42:08] What about if you feel free when you're not at work, but you have to do your job to pay your bills, or you feel free when you're not with your wife and children. And that scares the living daylights out of you because you want to be with your wife and children. That will create difficult conversations for people.

Jonny [00:42:23] But yeah, I agree. But any line that's been drawn between, any line that divides, you know, this from this, is a definition, right? Because there is no line anywhere else. Well, the physical line of the body. Investigate it, explore it deeply. There's no line there. There's just, it's just one field, you know, even from the perspective of a tree. You can't draw a line around a tree and go, that's where the tree stops. The tree involves the soil. The tree doesn't just stop. The soil is constantly exhanging with the tree.

Damian [00:42:59] An ecosystem.

Jonny [00:43:00] Yeah, it's everything is, everything is one. Everything's connected. So every time we draw a line between us and someone else, it's our line. And every time we draw a line between work and home, that's our line. You could say, oh, well, I'm at work, I'm at this office, but it's kind of like, right. But when you're with, when you're at home, what is it? It's me, and this moment. What are you doing at the office? It's me, and this moment. Those lines are our choice you mentioned, albeit very difficult ones. And I spoke to, I had a chat with a triathlete who was sent to me. I've made an analogy that about how when I was younger, I'd be like, oh, you know, playing a World Cup final. That's important. And now, you know, the idea about doing the washing up would have been like, don't you dare. And now I'm like 'I love doing the washing up'. And he couldn't believe it, he's like 'That's rubbish'. I said, well, what is it you love about, define being a triathlete to me. And he was saying about doing the run, and then the swim, and then the cycle, whatever, and I say, okay, right now, break that down for me. What are you doing? Well, I'm moving my body to get to a goal. I said, What are you doing when you're washing up? Moving my body to get to a goal. So why is one good and one's bad?

Jake [00:44:10] Because of outside opinions and influences, I suppose?

Jonny [00:44:12] Because of old ideas that I've decided that this is something I like doing, because I plug into this, because this is what I enjoy doing. So all those. It's a really tricky one. And there's obviously going to be likes and dislikes. But whether or not you fully engage, comes down to how you are on the inside.

Jake [00:44:30] Does that make lifting a World Cup more important than doing the washing up?

Jonny [00:44:35] No, no, no. That's my decision. If I choose to be a World Cup winner, because I visited a World Cup, that's going to be my next limit, because when I'm a World Cup winner, or I'm a rugby player that won the World Cup. Now I'm a guy that's walking around being a rugby influencer, what happens when England win it again? I'm like 'Im a less important guy who when I woke up. was just the same as other guys'. And now next time England I'm playing, I'm like, 'I hope they don't win it, but I hope they do really well, because I work with the guys, but I hope they don't win it'. It's like no, it doesn't work that way. If I'm a rugby player, when I finished playing rugby, I'm less of a person. But if I'm a nobody. So this unveiling of the, or this unravelling of these old ideas to allow the choice for new, it just means I'm going back from a someone to a no-one, And, when I'm nothing on the inside. I can be anything on the outside, and everything. When I'm a someone on the inside, I can only be.

Damian [00:45:32] So, at this moment in time then, Jonny, who are you?

Jonny [00:45:37] That's the biggest question life has. If I had an answer for that. that would be my next problem. I have no idea. I see myself as, and every situation, as undecided potential.

Damian [00:45:51] So can I ask you a question, and that if we were running a parallel world, this might be a difficult one to answer.

Jonny [00:45:56] I'd like the start of it already. I like the first word. Yeah. Yeah.

Damian [00:46:00] If you were to have adopted this way of thinking.

Jonny [00:46:06] Yeah.

Damian [00:46:06] Halfway through your career. How do you think it would have been different?

Jonny [00:46:13] To be honest. For me, I still involve myself when I'm coaching with the guys now. I constantly put myself in positions where I'll be like, 'So (any player), watch this', and I'll put myself on a pedestal to be like, right hold on, I've just been and I've got guys watching, and I'm telling them about this, and now, I'm going to do it. So I put myself through the same situation, constantly testing that moment out. We went to a fair, some sort of park the other day. They had little games and we had to shoot basketballs through a hoop to win a prize. I looked almost like, 'Oh my god, look at those'. And my wife said, 'Oh, Daddy plays basketball most nights outside in the driveway, he's been practising this. He'll get you one of those.'

[00:47:00] And I'm kind of like, 'This is brilliant', because I can sense that old part of me, the tiny bits that I you know, they're still cogs are still trying to turn in that direction. They're going. 'Oh shit, bloody hell, I better start thinking about this'. And Iike, yeah, 'I'm just going to need a bit of time, I'm just going to stand'. And there's this part of me, that now is saying, 'No, no, no, no, I'm going to sit here and just, I'm going to absorb this'.

[00:47:27] I'm saying because it was busy. So I said, we'll go over there to that play park, and then we'll come back and do it. And so what would have happened at the start of my career? I would have gone over it all, or the middle of my career, and gone over to that play park and I would have been absent. I would have been completely absent. Walking around, being like, seeing what's going on, but being not there at all. You would have been lost in thought, like you were talking about with that, because I've decided that there's consequences to what's about to happen that I can't respond to. I can't deal with. Now, everything in my life has told me that everything that happens to me in the now, I am perfectly equipped for. Everything that happens to me in my mind, I'm ill-equipped for, and it scares the hell out of me. So I choose now, rather than my mind.

Jake [00:48:14] Right.

Jonny [00:48:15] So I look at the play button, and I'm looking for it like, this is fun. I want to get involved. And soon enough, what I find is that by moving on, you make sense of everything that's happened. What most people, and what I did forever, is you tried to make sense of what's happened so you can move on. You know, what I did was choose, I just want to love this moment as all of me. And soon enough, I then spoke to my brother, because we were looking for a shop in the park. And I wanted to, we were looking for something and I said, 'Where's that shop'?

[00:48:46] And as I said, I said, 'Oh, by the way, just about to this basketball thing', because he had a go at it a couple of weeks before. And I was like, 'Any tips for me?', and I can tell the part of me is, I'm loving it. I'm like, and he's telling me this, he's like 'Right the ring is like bent this way.'

[00:49:00] So he said, you need to put some arc on it so it drops in. Don't shoot flat. I'm like, yeah I'm cool, but I'm not like. 'What if I miss?''. I'm sat there and I'm going, 'I'm excited.' Now, the consequence for me is huge, or potentially huge because I don't want to, you know, my old values of 'Can't let anyone down and wasted opportunity. I'll never be able to get over this.' Even though it's a tiny thing, but it doesn't matter. Because it's exploring it, not trying to control it. So now I might. Yeah, we we we head back over and it's now much emptier, and I'm sort of like, yeah, walk over. And there's suddenly, I'm looking forward. Now, the whole thing about when you mentioned about some of these understandings is that when you return, when I've returned myself to more unknown. I get a different relationship with the unknown, if that makes sense. So the unknown doesn't terrify me, like it used to. The uncontrollable's, it becomes part of me, because now I'm unknown. So I find myself connected to the unknown. So, I'm walking over and I'm excited by the unknown. It's another definition of confidence, for me. Not self belief, just excitement for the unknown. It's a different version of confidence. So I'm walking over and I'm excited about what's happening. I'm excited that I don't know what the ball's going to do. I'm looking at the balls the guys given me, and there's no grip on them whatsoever.

[00:50:15] And I'm excited that I've never seen this make of basketball in my life. They've got ridiculous colours, and I'm looking at it, and I'm thinking, and I'm excited about the interaction I'm having with the guy beforehand. We're having a bit of, yeah, a bit of chat about all of this. And I'm excited about looking around and all the things that, you know, my child choose from, if I get it.

Jake [00:50:32] All the things we never see, by the way, as adults. Isn't it. It's a child-like state, isn't it.

[00:51:29] I'm kind of like giving it the old, like the old golfer does his practice swings. I'm like, 'there it is'. And so I've got the hoop in front of me. The first one I'm kind of like, and I can feel, I can feel it's a bit, index finger overweighted. So, I'm slightly left in, and it's off the edge of the ring, and I'm kind of 'okay'. Next one, I'm like 'that's clean', but straight off the back of the ring. Straight back at me. And no sense of 'Shit, this is my last one', it's just next, you know, it's a brand new journey. One shot, one goal. There's no 'It's my last'.

[00:51:59] No, it's just pick it up. And it's just like.

[00:52:03] And actually, as soon as I threw it, the guy in the store goes, 'Oh that's in', and I was 'Jeez, are you sure? And it hit the back, hit the front, hit the back, hooped out. And I'm like, 'Ah', and it just dropped straight in. Now part of me is kind of going, that would have been survival, mid career. I'd have looked at that and gone, 'thank God for that'. As it is, I'm kind of like, 'Yes!', I'm like, 'Wow, I did it!'. But that doesn't last. I'm not walking around being like, look at me, I'm the guy that got the thing. I'm now like, 'shall we go and find that shop', because I'm interested in what I'm getting next. So this is what I mean is, you never live a consequence in the now. So if you stay in the now, there's no consequence, but everything you're trying to build. It's important to have goals and everything. So there's a difference between what you're trying to build, and who you are, if you separate the two. Who you are, can remain, so the experience of sport is just in the zone, in the now, total engagement. But the journey might be material. You build a house. So you put that thing in the in, you put your beef in the oven, or whatever. But right now, it's a full engagement. But there's a knowing that, okay, I need to be away by this time. So there's a clarity of being, I'm fully engaged, now I'm fully engaged in checking my watch, and I'm fully engaged in this. Not, I'm half absent here, and I'm half absent here, and I'm half absent here. And I go home, and I'm half absent thinking, 'Oh, god, did I do a good interview. Should I have done that?'.

Jake [00:53:28] So, you can still have desires and wants and outside influences and things going on in your life. And it's still okay to be like, yeah, I want to be really successful at that point.

Jonny [00:53:37] That's the point of living.

Jake [00:53:38] But, don't let that dominate you.

Jonny [00:53:41] But that for me, the point of living is to explore that creative capacity, the inherent role we have as a creative force on this planet. And that's the freedom of choice that comes with being, having self-awareness, is that we have an ability to to connect to that role as a creator in this. So creating is the goals. But what I found was that when I sort of start to dissolve a bit of that self-importance, I started to include other people in my goals, and I started to include, all my, or much more of my being, in my goals, in my performance. And as a result, things tended to work out, so my goals were less selfish objectives, and more, collective visions, because they involved the best of everyone, because they were more, still hugely directed, but open in their, in their kind of...

Jake [00:54:37] So would you say, 'I want', you have a drinks brand yeah?

Jonny [00:54:40] Yeah.

Jake [00:54:41] Would you still say 'I want my drinks brand to be the number one drinks brand in the world?', or do you say I want to really enjoy the journey of creating the greatest drink, in my opinion, and then we'll see where it goes? What is the process for achievement with the mindset you have?

Jonny [00:55:03] The concept at the beginning ,throughout, and it will be varied, is to, like you were talking a little bit with the choice, certainly not in any way on the same level as Viktor Frankl. But it's a thing of being, trying to provide some kind of transformational service or opportunity towards health, towards my passion, which is mental and physical health, and emotional well-being. So on that, it was like this is what I'm trying to affect. Now, ideally, if it's successful from a commercial standpoint, we can reinvest and grow it, and increase that impact. But that impact is directly related to my exploration of my passion. But because I've got rid of, not got rid of, but because I'm sort of more involved in the, less than the self-importance and more in the kind of I'm exploring those boundaries and trying to transcend them, or working to sort of transcend them. I find that my passion now involves other people. So whereas I started my career saying I want to be the best in the world. Now, if you ask me who's the best in the world right now, I'd be like, 'I can't be bothered talking about that'. I mean, best in the world. How on earth do you define. How do you compare two people?

[00:56:17] You just, unless you make an assumption that let's say that they all started on exactly the same place, and they're exactly the same being, now we can do it.

Jake [00:56:24] 20 years ago. Would you have discussed that at great length? Who's the best in the world and what do I sit in that?

Jonny [00:56:28] I would have done it myself. I'd have been like, 'I think the papers are saying that now. So I've pretty much done it'. Yeah, and the fact that people say to me now, what about yourself, and Carter and these guys?

[00:56:40] You know? I'm like, 'You've just left off about 30 other people, plus another 50 who I can think of, who I would say are the most immensely inspiring people and would probably be some of the greatest I'd ever seen'. And yet to name just three is like, 'You don't get it'. There's guys that you'd have never heard of, who I've played alongside and gone, I mean, it's immense. I would you know, I'd go to them straight away,

Jake [00:57:06] Does it matter anyway?

Jonny [00:57:07] Of cause it doesn't. Which is the point I'm saying. At the beginning. I want to be the best. What it did, was just, that conclusion, that idea. took over my intellect, so my mind is now. Every time I see something in the paper about so-and-so, has had a good game, I'm like I'm going to read that, but I don't want to read it. And now I'm stressed about that, and then before the next game, I'm like, oh, if he gets into the team, I'd better play well today, so I can keep my game. You're like, 'well, that one conclusion is deciding how I think'. Now what I said about before is that that conclusion is now adding to my pressure. And now you say, 'right. so I'm going to change it. I'm going to be the best I can be'. But I mentioned before about if you know what your potential is, it's your next limit. So how do I know what my best is? It's like, well, I don't. So I've go I've got to go one step further, which is, I want to be all I can be. And if I'm gonna do that, I got to stop looking at rugby. I've got to stop looking at something bigger than that, and that's the point of being like that, because within that, everything else exists. But if you want to be the best rugby player, what people might find as I did is, I felt like I got there or whatever, and what it meant to the rest of my world was I was deeply unhappy, hugely unsatisfied. I was treating people around me like God knows what. I was, you know, physically stressed. In all kinds of physical states, hence the 14 injuries in a row. And even when I got injured the first time, all I could think of was, 'I've got to get back to where I was'. Total expectations, stress, no room for beginning again. No freedom, no liberation, no healing. So I end up with another injury, 'Oh it's even worse now', each game, some big comeback. And this is gonna be the one, I've got to get back to where I was, trying to control, instead of explore what I could be, I was trying to say I've got to get back to where I was.

[00:58:52] So when you said what was one of the biggest moments of realisation was that, kind of like, Jesus, I got 14 messages from the world, over and over again, be like, just be aware of that. Notice that I've got it, just be aware of that. Have another one, this one's your knee. This is an interesting one because you'll do the same knee, 30 minutes after you've come back. And this was going to send you on the Lions tour, 2005, when you're so stressed and all over the place and trying to prove yourself. And it's a team, it doesn't work. And now you've got absolutely hammered abroad, and you're kind of thinking, you thought that be the last time you had an experience like that after the tour you had in 97, didn't you? Here it is again. No, not listening. Okay, let's have another one. Another year out, and you're kind of like, listen to... Life involves physical, mental, emotional health and wherever that goes after that, and then it starts exploring what you can do with the world, but if you try and explore what can do with the world without addressing those, you end up working the two against each other and it becomes a journey of smaller and smaller.

Damian [00:59:53] I love what you're saying, and I think it's really profound. And I think anything that's profound, and forces you to think is is well worth investigating. And I think, allied to that, your credibility through your past life, gives you a platform to really make a difference and shift the dial in this. Not just in sport, but in society in general. But if we accept that, the German philosopher Arthur Schopenhauer spoke about three stages of change.

[01:00:24] First people will laugh at you. Then they'll oppose you, and tell you why it's ridiculous. And then finally, they'll come to accept it as common sense.

Jonny [01:00:31] Yeah.

Damian [01:00:32] Where do you think you are on that journey to get other people to engage with this alternative way of thinking?

Jonny [01:00:43] I don't think it's about where I am. I think it's, I think it's a whole society. I think it's a state of society in general and in the, as you mentioned, I think at the very beginning that there's been thousands of people have walked this planet. Millions, billions, trillions of God knows how many. And everyone has had the same aim of, or so many of them had the same aim of transforming the world into something. And they've all come with their beliefs of good and bad, and right and wrong. This is where we are. That's not to say that they've been wrong at all. It's just to be the fact that, it's time to keep, no more than ever now, to keep looking back inside and questioning, and looking at yourself, because it's so easy to to go to the outside and say, 'this is why'.

[01:01:34] But as long as for me, for example, for my situation, if I need certain things to be a certain way, I'm held hostage by them. And that means that whoever is in that situation, I will then say blame them, for being like, 'oh you're controlling me' in that respect. Now, whatever it has been, you know, with regard to, you know, it could've been around rugby, but mostly it was myself to myself. So you mentioned those three stages. I would have been like, I would have had those three stages. If I went back to my 22-year-old self now and sort of gave me this, I'd get laughed at, definitely. Yep.

[01:02:05] And then, probably a bit later on, 24ish after the World Cup, I would have such a strong idea that I'd come back at me. Definitely. I'd be saying oh, 'You're a joke. That's weakness. That's just giving in', and all that kind of thing. And then 28, I'll be like, 'please, please let me have this', because that was, yeah. that was one of my major mental health points. And, it's really a case of saying that there's no, for me anyway, there's no right or wrong. People, everyone is where they're supposed to be in terms of that stage. And to think that I have the answer, I don't I'm just exploring my, own perspective and my own thing and trying to share anything that might allow others to explore theirs. But the, to think that I know anything about anyone else or what's right and wrong, I thought I have in the past, and I've looked at what I've done, and I've looked at the environments I've created. I wrote a book in 2004 just after the World Cup. I'll be surprised if there wasn't sort of a spike in mental health cases after I wrote it. Just because it was so dogmatic. You know, you were mentioning about, I was mentioning about suffering, stressing, that's all the message is. To all these kids with passion for rugby, I pretty much sort of eradicated the idea that passion had anything to do with performance, and just told them it was all about this, and this, and this, and this, and this, and some people came back at the time were like, 'I really love this'. I'm sort of looking back now, thinking 'I hope they....'

Jake [01:03:37] What's your relationship like with regret? Do you have that? With that book?

Jonny [01:03:41] No, no, no, no. Because of the same reason is that if I put myself back into that same body and just said, right, one condition, you have to see yourself the way you saw yourself then. It's done. Yeah, I would see things the way I saw them.

Jake [01:03:56] You would do it again.

Jonny [01:03:57] I would feel the way I feel. I'd do what I did. I'd create what I created. And therefore, that, there's nothing to do but accept it, but also to realise by accepting it, I am now no longer attached to it. I'm not the result of it. And if I'm not the result of it, how can I be regretful? It's a bit like, I said this to someone about watching a sort of post-match video analysis.

[01:04:25] We used to sit in the meeting room like this, and everyone's looking over the mistakes they've made, and going 'Shit, it's coming up on the video an hour. Oh, my God. This is my one. This is my one. When I throw the interception, or I drop the ball or I miss that tackle, the coach is going to kill me. Oh my God. What are the other guys thinking? On no, this is so embarrassing. Whatever.

[01:04:42] But the reason that's there is because everyone is attached to who they were then, is part of, who they are now, at the deepest level and therefore, you, have to take on feelings, you have to feel humiliated. You can't see it objectively. But when you have that deep acceptance of, OK, that was me of then who did that, and that me of then, because that's how they saw themselves, what I can say is, they were living. They were giving it their all. That's what you can say about how we live in every moment. According to how you see yourself, you're giving it your all. So I can look at that, and say that was that version of me giving its all. It's got nothing to do with how this version of me wants to be. And so therefore I can look at it objectively. So I'm looking at it, as if it was you on the video doing it. But I'm watching me, and I'm watching me drop a pass and I'm thinking, OK, yeah, 'I probably would have done that'. And someone tries to say, 'Oh sorry, unlucky about that'. I'm like, 'What do you mean? I'm fresh and brand new'.

Jake [01:05:38] So what's left of the Jonny Wilkinson that won the World Cup?

Jonny [01:05:42] The same memories, but just not in a given order. I've got the beautiful memories, but I can see them, how I want to see them. But if you went back to me at 25, and said, what's left of your memories now? I'd be like, this is my memories, that's my path of life, that's how it is. Whereas now, I can draw any memory and it represents something completely different according to how I need it, now.

[01:06:04] So if we were gonna talk about, you know, like a moment of, you know like, kicking the drop goal, and you know, like that moment of when it needs to happen, how do you perform a technique? Now when I was 25, and I didn't have control of that, I'd just be like, 'Well I just put the ball here and kicked it'. When I was 28, I look at it slightly differently, but now I look at it. I can explore it again as if it's brand new. And I get new insights about it. Now I'm looking at thinking, you know, it's amazing because of this. And I think, because of this, so my own memory has become an exploration for me, rather than something that's telling me how I need to live my life. It's become part of my...

Jake [01:06:40] Are you able now to now enjoy things, that at the time were painful?

Jonny [01:06:45] As in?

Jake [01:06:46] Are you able to watch a period in your career where you knew you were struggling with mental health, and you weren't happy?

Jonny [01:06:50] I'm fascinated by it.

Jake [01:06:52] And you can now watch that and you can...

Jonny [01:06:54] Fascinated by it. Yeah. There's games where I was out on that field, and I was doing well, just to leave the hotel room because of the mental state, I was in, There were games there were I phoned up, I phoned up family, and I phoned up Blackey, a big part of my life. And, I was trying to find reasons to not play.

[01:07:23] I was trying to think about, whether I mentioned injury, or whether it's okay to say that mentally, I'm just, I'm gone, you know? And this is me after two World Cups, 2003 and 7, where we've got to the final and won them, or whatever. I am, I'm doing well just to leave the hotel room.

[01:07:41] And I look at it and I'm fascinated by it, not because of a like, 'this is a great story to tell people that paint me in a certain light'. It's not, it's because I'm looking at it being like 'I'm fascinated by how things can, how we can see things certain ways, and how we can see them differently and how that choice, as you mentioned, is there' and how you know, and I'm fascinated by becoming responsible for that choice. And therefore, I love exploring those moments. I look back at them now and I look at everything fondly to know that, like I said, at that time, I was doing my best. I was giving my all, because it's impossible not to in life, whether I decide to be late, you know, lazy, and sit down, and just apparently lazy, and sit down to do this, is the best I can do because this is how I see myself or govern that decision. But that's also not just the past. That's now. It's happening now. What I'm doing now is, I know it's the best I can do. And I might go and say after this, 'Oh, you know, If you'd ask me that again, I might've said this'. It's irrelevant because that's the best that me can do. But this is the me now, So just fully embrace, this me of now.

Damian [01:08:45] Jonny, that description of struggling to leave your hotel room. I find it quite moving because the pain that you were obviously in, and the struggle that you were facing, is quite profoundly sad. If I was working as a coach, or working within an environment, whether this is the office, whether it's a sports team, whether it's in a classroom. What sort of signs should we be looking out for that somebody is engaged in that struggle? Are there any common traits that is worth us exploring?

Jonny [01:09:21] I think it's, it's difficult because often people look at players and say, that's just how and they are, just let them get on with it. But I think the thing, the big question is. Are you okay with feeling like this? As is in to be able to say, you know, and I think, but that can only come from a position of someone who's exploring, because if a coach is feeling a little bit the same way about the result needs to go a certain way, then there's no, you can't transmit a certain message, and be the opposite of that message. It becomes even more confusing and damaging. But I think the question is, are you okay with it? And exploring that with someone is to be like. 'this how you want your life to be'? Because that's what you work with people on. How do you want your life to be? You know, you start there, not with how do you want your life to turn out. You start with how do you want your experience of life to be? And then you say, let's work on that. And it always comes back to, well, when you're at your very best, tell me how you feel. And it'll be the same answer as how do you want your life to be? I want to feel inspired. I want to feel connected. I want to feel fully engaged. I want to feel effortless. I want to feel just, I want to feel like anything's possible. How are you feeling right now? I'm feeling absolutely fearful. Stress. You kind of like, right, 'are you happy with this', or, because we're sort of saying that you know, it can be, maybe it doesn't have to be this way.

Jake [01:10:53] Yeah.

Jonny [01:10:53] But maybe there'll be a fight with that because it's understood that actually by feeling this way, the game seems to go okay, and therefore I think, 'well, if I suffer a bit more, it might go even better next time'. Before you know it, you're suffering so badly. And then all it takes is you to realise that this isn't helping my performance. Are you ready to explore a different way? And it's, jeez, it's challenging, it involves a bit of vulnerability, definitely. If you ask me to sit in a changing room, and just sit down, and just go on the mindset of is someone says to you, 'how is this gonna turn out?'. Don't go with the, necessarily the idea of it's fine. We're gonna do this. We can do that. We're gonna kill them. It's gonna be great. Go with the mindset of like 'who knows, let's see. You ready? Yes. Definitely ready, let's go and take it on'. But we're so used to saying they need reassurance, so let's give them the reassurance it's going to be fine, but what we're doing is covering up the opportunity to explore all it can be. And we're trying to tell them what it should be, or what it must be, or what it will be instead of now you go explore all it can be, but just to understand that ongoing support of realising that no matter what happens, your worth and value cannot be touched by it.

[01:12:06] Your worth and value as a player in terms of the contract. Okay, these things are moot. But, we understand each other that your worth as a being, an individual, can never be touched and will always be. So that's how I treat you. And that's how we treat each other. If I have to drop you from the squad, you will feel in the way that I, that we have that conversation, that there couldn't be a greater respect for you. And that nothing changes that. That always did it for me, in terms of the squad. It was knowing that, that team is there, and that support is there, no matter what. And yet because of the influence of the media and this hierarchical thing about who's better than this, and who should be doing this, that sometimes feels like it's taken away. And you feel a bit like my importance, my actual self-worth, my value is defined by these games, which I can't fully control. And then, yeah, that's a tough place to be.

Damian [01:13:02] So as a father, then, if your daughter chose a aptitude for a certain sport and she goes into it, and she has some of that drive for perfection, and all those other environmental aspects that you experienced as a child, when she went into it. Given what you know now, how would that influence you as a parent?

Jonny [01:13:27] The thing is, is I don't know anything. And I wouldn't know anything about her. I don't want to talk about my daughter too much, but about anyone.

[01:13:36] I don't own anyone. They're not mine. I don't know them.

[01:13:41] And therefore, that's what the unconditional nature of how I treat them is, I haven't got expectations or I don't know that you should be able to do this. It's just like everything you do is is where you're supposed to be. And I'm here to try to be a constant opportunity to explore.

Jake [01:14:01] But you obviously know things that your daughter, for example, wouldn't know. So you would pass that on.

Jonny [01:14:06] Yes. But those things. I would pass on things with regard to physical and mechanical skills. But I can't give it anything to do with who you are, how you should see things. That's a choice. Now, if I start, reaching into that. I'm trying to shape someone. Now, if I'm going to shape someone, I must know exactly, the most perfect shape for it to be. But I don't. Because I'm exploring my own life. So I don't. I don't touch that. But I go into skills and things to be like, look, here's something to explore with my skills. I've donea lot of things mechanically. This seems to be, work with me very much in the cause and effect route. How does it feel for you? It's never a case of right and wrong. It's just like, you know, do that with the guys to be like, let's try this and everything's life based. But like here's a representation of it physically. Standing up bigger and taller, aligned in the spine, looseness in the limbs. All these things that represents something, being grounded, it's all a life based feel, but it's done through skills. And to be like if it's working, great. If people prefer to be more here, it's kind of like, well, let's go from there, and let's explore that. There is no right or wrong. I think people, for me anyway, it tends to be this thing about disappointment and an anger, a wrong. I know that is what is. But when you explore them, they're possibilities. But when you react to them, they become damaging.

Jake [01:15:35] And with that answer in mind, my final question was going to be for people who have listened to this podcast, feel maybe a bit like me, that this is a journey that they would like to know more about. What would be your piece of advice to begin the journey that you've been on? Where did you begin it? What the one thing people can take away from this conversation?

Jonny [01:16:00] It's a good question, but it's also, sort of it's a tricky one because...

Jake [01:16:08] In some ways it flies in the face of everything, we've mentioned

Jonny [01:16:10] A little bit, but it's also that if without knowing, or getting to know someone through what they say and spending time with people. It's one of those where it's almost more dangerous. But for me, it was just asking the big question, of how am I at my best? And then hearing that and being like, 'doesn't it feel amazing'? And it's like, 'what's stopping me, from being like that all the time?' And a clever, a sort of tool that I use would be like, if you imagine, call it like the super version of you. I don't mean that as in it's better. I just mean like the super version of you doing what you want to do. Or you're about to do and imagine that super version of you doing it in just the most, however you want them to do it.

[01:17:06] I use beautiful, graceful, flowing, just connected, just light, airy, all those kind of things. And I imagine it. And then I ask a simple question of what is it that they have that I don't? And the answer is nothing. The bigger question is, what is it that I have that they don't? What is it that I'm holding on to, that they're not? And letting go is something I can do immediately. But we create this idea that the super version of you has done the 10000 hours, the super version of you isn't about getting all the tips, it's about the graceful beauty, the flow, the elegance, the connectedness. And that comes down to what we have, and they don't. Not the other way round. And so just be it. But don't try and compare yourself to it. Be your version of it right now, and you'll realise that your version is way better than you could ever imagine.

Jake [01:18:01] Wonderful answer. Really incredible conversation. We have some quickfire questions to finish with.

Damian [01:18:08] Have you noticed, we've not spoke about rugby once?!

Jake [01:18:12]  You've got somewhere to be?

Jonny [01:18:14] I need to head off relatively soon, because I've got, I need to be somewhere.

Jake [01:18:21] So, very quick questions, one photo.

Jonny [01:18:22] Yeah. Yeah. I don't want to miss out on, if there's interest.

Jake [01:18:26] We always. We finish with these. Yeah. Regardless of who the guests is, the three non-negotiable behaviours that people around you must buy into?

Jonny [01:18:39] Impossible, impossible to answer. No such thing as a non negotiable.

Jake [01:18:47] Yeah, fine.

Damian [01:18:48] Is openness one?

Jonny [01:18:49] Well, the thing is, though, if if this is a really.. Because one of the things that we speak about is, creating the environment, internal environment for potential to blossom. And you sort of say, well, what is that internal environment? Aliveness. Openness. And you're sort of like, right, but if you know what aliveness and openness is, it's not aliveness or openness. It's conforming to an idea. So you just have to go on the basis of how do you become alive, is to choose now and choose unknown. Choose to say, what do I really know about anything in life? And realise that once I realise I know nothing, everything becomes a possibility. And that, I think, is a bit like us in a way as well, I mean, it's about anyone else. How can I comment on anyone else? I can't even comment on myself.

Jake [01:19:47] Now, I'm worried, though, that what I think I need to be I'm actually just being controlled by outside forces rather than the right,

Jonny [01:19:53] Well, it depends.

Jake [01:19:53] Being open. What I think is open is actually just my opinion of.

Jonny [01:19:57] But you just said it there. You said, 'well, I need to be'. If you had said, 'well, I want to be'. It be a different question. Neither one are the difference between external influence and internal. If it's what you want, then it is for you, if it's what you need, then it's for the basis of pleasing something else.

Damian [01:20:16] What advice would you give a teenager Jonny, just starting out?

Jonny [01:20:23] Just going back to passion. There's nothing more powerful than passion, excitement and a willingness to learn. And that comes in the same basis of curiosity, it be those things would be the things that, I would, I would constantly probe at. I would challenge constantly to be like, 'Right, so where's the opportunity in this?' And move away from the dead end of 'I've worked this out', and move back to the space of, 'I can use that', to see what's possible. That's what I'd do. Just ignite or continue to keep that passion burning, because that's when I called it a day with rugby, when I was about to, one of the things I remember saying to someone was that the passion has been replaced by pressure. And this is at the end of my career when I sort of evolved towards more opportunity and even still, I'd call it that as if there was some kind of, as if it was the game's fault for holding up banners with my name in games, or writing in the paper that I was gonna do this, or if it was the fact that I had two finals in the end season and couldn't bear it, but it was on mine. It was my pressure covering up my passion. And so I look at that thing, I gave up the game on the basis of, you know, of my own doing. And I say keep that passion alive and anything's possible.

Jake [01:21:50] Are you happy?

Jonny [01:21:53] Yeah. Yeah, I. I think I'd have to redefine happiness.

[01:21:59] It's to be like.

Jake [01:22:01] How do you define it?

Jonny [01:22:03] I think. I think it's. It's a sense of, it's a really good question. I've never even gone to that because that's normally the base level. But for me, it's like we're talking about it now. Am I happy to get away from the definition of am I walking around kind of like people expect to see kind of thing?

Jake [01:22:27] Are you happy in your definition of happiness? Maybe if you don't know what that is. Maybe that's what I'm thinking.

Jonny [01:22:33] Am I? Content. Am I grateful to be alive? Yeah. Yeah. Incredibly.

Jake [01:22:41] Brilliant.

Damian [01:22:42] And what's your one golden rule for a High Performance life?

Jonny [01:22:48] Explore. That's it. Versus control. As soon as you're on controlling, it's a decision that I know how things should be. And then with that is the downhills sort of, or the ever reducing cycle of pressure, expectation, as soon as you let go of that understanding, or that self importance of I know how things are and they need to be. You're in a space of exploring. That doesn't mean that you stop training, doing everything. That means the opposite. You just you explore your training. You explore your rest. You explore your own body. You explore your own being. You explore everything. And if you're exploring, you're going to find something new. When you find something new, you're growing. Which is the answer to, for me, like you said before, is that if you, if you spend this life growing and exploring and finding out new things and whatever. By the end, it seems like a reasonable journey. And if you're exploring what's on the inside, it's a damn good journey.

Jake [01:23:52] Thank you very much.

Jonny [01:23:53] Pleasure.

Jake [01:23:54] Really enjoyed that.

Jonny [01:23:54] Yeah, nice.