James Haskell

I think for me, never conforming and always evolving is basically the DNA to everything I I've ever done. You know, I think embracing life because you only have one of them, you know, I apologise if you think you're gonna come back as a flamingo or there's an afterlife but I'm pretty sure this is all you're gonna get, and you have to maximise it and embrace it and everything's an opportunity, and you're either looking to be better, you're looking to enjoy it, you're looking to thrive and not worry about what people say, or you're, you know, trying to conform, you'll never leave the house, you're always being, you know, instructed by others, and I think evolution is what life's all about. Can you always be better?

There are always ways of improving in every single area of your life, whether that's the way you look, to how hard you work, the way you talk to people, the way you put yourself forward, what you're like as a parent, all of that is is part of of evolution, and that's what we try to do every day is be better. 

I think, for me, it was never about trying to be defiant or trying to be outspoken. I think you three things or or four things you can control in life.

How how hard you work, how you treat your body, how you treat your your mind, and how you how you, treat other people. And everything I do is about about those areas, and I think through that, you become defiant because you are just worried about yourself. You are putting yourself first in terms of how how much you improve. You're not buying into what other people, are telling you. When you have an opinion, you believe forthright forthrightly in something, you will put that out there.

And I think through that, you become defiant because if you don't conform, it upsets other people. If you don't if you do what's unexpected, it rattles people. If you're constantly looking to improve and you're outspoken, you've got a character, and you're living life to the full, you know, that can be defined. And and someone told me a great quote once that the best revenge is living well. And for me, that's that's everything I do.

You know, while others are worried about themselves or worried about what I'm doing, I'm out there chipping away at it. 

I think for me, one way I've defied the odds was the fact that I've I end up becoming a professional sportsman when I was probably the most talented person in the world, that I, I've ultimately gone into different areas of of my life from sports. So going to play for England was probably against the odds, becoming a British and Irish Lion was against the odds.

You know, translating that into becoming an MMA fighter against what people told me not to do, building a music career under Haskell, having 25, 20 six releases out when this when this comes about, you know, becoming a stand up comedian and doing that on a on a sell out tour. And I think for me, all of those things are an act of kind of defiance against what people told you you can do. Some person or people should only be able to do one thing, and I've been able to do it across multiple platforms. And it self it sounds self aggrandising talking it up, but I truly believe life's for living. And so I always wanted to be that one person in the room that'd given it the best possible go and had stories to tell on every single area, and and I'm still chipping away at it now.

The hardest choice I've had to make, I think, for me ever was retiring. You know, most people say that the three hardest things in life are losing someone, divorce, and retirement. And as a 35 year old man who was defined by what he did for a long period of time from 17 to 35, I was a rugby player with James Haskell a rugby player.

That's how I saw myself. That's how other people saw me. I had to put my hand up and say, I can't do this anymore. I can't perform. You know, emotion is very difficult.In the prime of most people's lives, I had to to restart again. And while I had planned ahead and while I had been defiant in in doing other things where people told me not to, I had built a music career and built, you know, written books and whatever I else I'd done, set up podcasts and production companies. I've done all this stuff, but nothing's guaranteed. And so that tough decision to turn around to your friends, to your family, to your teammates, and to yourself, more importantly, say, I can't do this, and start afresh and wake up the next day not being Jace Haskell that everyone remembers is is pretty tough.

The lesson I live by was something that my dad, told me when I was very young and he said, you can lie to everyone else, but you can't lie to yourself. And in the world of, social media where you can be anything you want to be, you can live every lie you've ever imagined, you can tell everyone that you're doing all the things you're supposed to do, you can have pictures next to cars that don't belong to you, you can paint a picture of a life, you can you can, you know, portray it, whatever you want. The only you know what's going on in your head, so you can equate it down to health and fitness. You know, if you're getting getting in shape and you aren't getting results, but you tell everyone you're eating well, you're training smart, only you know whether you're doing that. And I think that's the greatest driving factor because at the end of the day, you can lie to everyone else, but it's only your life you're against.You're not in competition with anyone else, you're in competition with yourself. And if you if you don't put the work in, you don't achieve, only ultimately hurting yourself. And I think for me, that is a lesson that I always stand by. So if I ever catch myself moaning, if I catch myself whining, if I ever catch myself pointing fingers at other people, I ask myself first and foremost, could I be doing more? Is there things in my control?

If the answer is yes, then it's my fault, and I'll be lying to everyone else. And I think it's important as a man in particular, you know, if someone in my position who offers advice to others around mental health and performance, you know, you have to check-in and go, you know, are are you doing everything you can do? And only you know, and I think that moment before you go to bed, put your phone down and the fantasy ends just before sleep is the most real moment you're gonna have in your day. And, you know, you can light everyone else, but you can't light yourself, and only you know. And if you know that you're doing it, you gotta change it or don't, and you won't achieve.