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Have you been forwarded the DARE High Performance newsletter? You can sign up here to receive your own copy in the future.

This week’s DARE at a glance:

Partnership with Fellow; automatically records, transcribes and summarises your meetings. You never need to take notes again.

Commitments: A dressing down from a friend results in a fresh insight.

Competition: Last opportunity for a free seat on my ‘DARE: to speak’ course.

Book of the Week: Two books this week - Powerful by Patty McCord and No Rules Rules by Reed Hastings.

My week: Filming, a finished course and addressing commitments.

 “Let your yeah be yeah and your no be no.”

 (From Jimmy Cliff, this week, not me.)

A Champion Jockey’s Lesson on Commitments

A long time ago, in a galaxy far, far away, I was a lawyer in the City of London. So were many of my friends from University and Law School. There was a very lively social scene. 

But we were busy. We’d share stories about ‘pulling an all-nighter’. It was quite normal to call your friend at 5pm to cancel the evening’s plans. In some ways, a badge of honour. 

Ten years later I was trying to become a televised jockey in 12 months whilst juggling work and parenting. 

One of the people who became a friend was Richard Dunwoody MBE. Richard is probably the most stylish and one of the most tenacious and successful jump jockeys the UK and Ireland have ever seen.

We were due to have dinner together in London one evening. But I was busy with work. So, naturally, I called at 5pm and told my friend I would not make it, as I had learned to do. 

Which was an error.

Friends criticise your behaviour to your face rather than elsewhere. Richard didn’t hold back.  

“You don’t make commitments you cannot honour.” 

 “Sorry?”

 “You don’t make commitments you cannot honour.” 

 “Are you being serious?”

 “Of course I am. Why did you make a commitment if you weren’t willing honour it? You should have said no in the first place.”

 “Make fewer commitments, and then you will be able to honour them. Choose what you say you will do, then do it. I’ll see you later as planned.”

Which was a turning point for me. And an insight into why Richard was a Champion Jockey.

Richard is a world class photographer now. You can see his work here.

How To Win A Marathon

When the great marathon runner Eliud Kipchoge was asked about the secret of his extraordinary success, he didn’t reply with nutrition or heart rate zone training advice.

He replied that he took “Vitamin N. Vitamin No. You have to say No.”

Kipchoge is also a committed family man, married with three children. It’s not about saying ‘No’ to life. It’s about committing to the things that matter to us.

Meeting Dunwoody’s standards of delivering on commitments can only be done by taking Kipchoge’s Vitamin N. 

These are two sides of the same coin.

If you overcommit, you underdeliver. 

Decision

Action 

Result 

Evaluate.

STOP PRESS: ‘DARE: to speak’ - is now LIVE!!

AND I have reduced the price to £149.

SIGN UP HERE

I have done my absolute best to distil two decades of professional speaking, and supporting global leaders to inspire their audiences, to create the best tuition on High Performance Speaking  - speaking like a pro – there can be.

I had an overwhelming response to the super early bird at £149.  You all went quiet at £199.

Therefore I have decided to change the list price to £149.

Those who took early bird places based on the original pricing will receive an email from me this week asking for your bank details to give you a NEW lower early bird price (in other words to send you some cash back) to ensure your early booking and trust is still fully rewarded.

If you have feedback on how ‘DARE: to speak’ can be improved – pass it over and if I agree, I’ll add/subtract as needed.

Commitment To Consistency: Doing Hard Things

Attaining high performance is a ‘hard thing’. 

Doing a ‘hard thing’ brings good days and bad days. Breakthroughs and setbacks. Hard things require a commitment to showing up. A lot. That’s, well, hard. 

We all want to flake. Showing up despite wanting to flake is a Decision. 

Yesterday America’s Taylor Knibb and the UK’s Kat Matthews lined up  for an historic meeting of two legends at IronMan Texas . They showed up after after an entire winter of showing up to train, eat and sleep according to the plan, every single day, to be the best in the world at their sport for the ’25 season.

As I send this to you, 56,000 men and women are lining up to test a winter of showing up to train for their London Marathon. 

There will have been much ‘Vitamin N’ and ‘showing up to do a hard thing consistently’ on display and I wish you all a FANTASTIC DAY!

My Week

A landmark week for me, in addition to several wonderful live events, I finished writing ‘DARE: to speak’. 

Then my team and I spent at day at London’s Iconic Comedy Store to film the course for you. Follow me on Instagram to see some more pictures from the day.

But there has been a cost for me during these past weeks. I have overstretched, been on the verge of a sore throat for a couple of weeks and have therefore pulled back from my own commitments to my longevity and health: my training. Sleep has not been on track either. 

These are part of my role of parenting (as I define it) as well as the foundations of my work. 

If you follow me on Strava – you can see the results of that.  So, I need to follow my own advice this week, take some vitamin N and get my commitments to my own performance back on track.

This week I will begin to rebalance. Follow me on Strava as I hobble back, and I’ll follow you in return and we can share the encouragement and love!

Book(s) Of The Week

I describe myself as an architect of high performance. I believe culture is a thing that can be, and must be, designed, consciously to deliver a specific purpose and outcomes.

One of the many things that convinced me of our ability to design culture was the work that Patty McCord (C T(alent)O and Reed Hastings (CEO) did at Netflix in the Noughties. Their famous ‘Netflix Culture Deck’ was their design blueprint to build for a High Performance culture that bred trust and empowerment.

So I was beyond excited then when Patty McCord’s Book, ‘Powerful’ came out and I highly recommend it.

This week though I’ll pair it with Reed Hastings’ No Rules Rules. It has commentary throughout from an academic co-author from a business school, which you can skip if you wish to stay with the high performance source – or enjoy, of course, if that’s your thing.

If you want to build trust and performance – these are not books you can ignore.

Write your story 🖋️

Jim