What Are You Actually Afraid Of? | The Truth About Fear & Self-Doubt
The High Performance Podcast
High Performance
4.6 • 4.8K Ratings
🗓️ 27 May 2026
⏱️ 36 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
Fear doesn't disappear when you become successful. It just changes shape.
In this episode, Jake and Damian go into the archive to ask a question most of us avoid: what are you actually afraid of — and what's it costing you?
They're joined by clips from some of High Performance's most memorable conversations: Phil Heath on navigating darkness to find your highest level, Scott McTominay on the self-doubt that never left him through 21 years at Manchester United, Jameela Jamil on 15 years of saying yes to everything and no to herself, and Robin Van Persie on the moment he realised he was the one making it heavy.
Plus: why imposter syndrome isn't a syndrome, the difference between overthinking and thinking deeply, and what actually happens when you stop fighting a feeling and just name it.
Listen to the full conversations:
Jameela Jamil https://pod.fo/e/225b9e
Scott McTominay https://pod.fo/e/2154f0
Phil Heath https://pod.fo/e/2313e6
Robin Van Persie https://pod.fo/e/18789
Ronda Rousey https://pod.fo/e/23ec96
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Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | Hi there, welcome along to another episode of High Performance with myself, Jake Humphrey. |
| 0:06.1 | And me, Damien Hughes. |
| 0:07.5 | With a very simple question today, what are you actually afraid of? |
| 0:12.8 | How present is fear in your daily life, do you think, Damien? |
| 0:18.7 | It shows up as anxiety. |
| 0:20.9 | I feel it in the stomach. |
| 0:22.1 | I recognise when I feel nervous or when fear shows up. |
| 0:26.6 | It's in my stomach is wherever it registers first. |
| 0:30.7 | What about you? |
| 0:31.8 | I think fear for me shows up. |
| 0:37.4 | I only have fear over two things. Finances and health. Because I think I can pretty |
| 0:44.1 | much cope with everything else. I think I feel the pressure from building businesses. I think |
| 0:49.5 | people often think, oh, if you've built a business that's, you know, like one of my businesses |
| 0:52.8 | has 300 staff. Oh, that must be lovely. No, it's not because one bad month or a few bad weeks, and you've got such huge outgoings that you feel the pressure every day. And I think health is like the thing that you can't control, especially when you've got children and you're married. Like, you're not worried about yourself so much. it's everyone else is helpful at the time. And I also know that I'm a catastrophizer, which I think is one of the reasons why I've had the career in the life that I've had, because I fear the worst all the time. Therefore, I run towards it and think, well, I better do something about it. So it's kind of an energy source for me in a strange way. And the reason why I wanted to talk |
| 1:27.7 | to you about fear was because I was on stage doing a presentation a few days ago to a business. |
| 1:32.8 | And I was talking about how life was pretty run of the mill, if not the even worse than that, |
| 1:38.8 | a bit crap when I was a teenager. By the way, sorry about my voice. My son had a cup final this |
| 1:43.9 | weekend. And I was, I cheered voice. My son had a cup final this weekend. |
| 1:45.0 | And I was, I cheered and screamed so loudly. |
| 1:48.0 | How did they get on? |
| 1:49.0 | They did win with a last minute or a late penalty. |
| 1:52.0 | And the video of me going, ah, like that. |
... |
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