There is part of the brain – the anterior midcingulate cortex – that gets bigger every time you do something unpleasant. People who live a really long time have very big ones, which suggests that doing stuff you don’t want to do actually extends your life. Jake Humphrey, standing at 6ft 4in, has got onto this before we have sat down, at the fireside of a nice hotel in Norwich. His Gordon Ramsay brow adds an air of mild panic to his life advice. A former presenter for the BBC and BT Sport, Humphrey hosts the High Performance podcast, which has four million listeners and has attracted guests such as Keir Starmer, who listens regularly, and many superhuman sports stars.
It is the time of year for self-help, a deathless industry which survives on our innate struggle to change: High Performance is part of a new phenomenon whereby enormously successful people talk about their weaknesses.
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