Why You Care More When You Build It Yourself, with Lions' Legend Alun Wyn Jones

Damian Hughes (0:00)

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Alun Wyn Jones (0:14)

I think every time, particularly as I got my first academy then pro contract, and I didn't realize it again, probably till very late on, I'd invested in myself. I'm a big believer it's better to have and not need the need to not have.

Damian Hughes (0:30)

Welcome back to The Essential Habits of High Performance, where we explore what separates the good from the truly great. Today we're exploring something that might seem simple on the surface, but underneath it contains enormous power. It's a bias, a quirk of the human brain, it's a psychological phenomenon known as the IKEA effect, and at the heart of it is one idea, we love what we build. Hey, I'm Damian Hughes. I've worked as a visiting professor of organizational behavior, I've advised World Cup winning coaches and business leaders, and I've co-hosted this podcast for over five years. I've also spent the last 25 years exploring how high performance works and how we can apply those lessons in our own lives. In today's episode, we're diving into the remarkable story of a rugby legend, Alun Wyn Jones, the most capped rugby union player in history. We're combining it with a curious psychological phenomenon, and then we're ending with a habit that might just change the way that you approach effort and achievement.

This week's guest didn't just build their rugby career, they built a legacy. Brick by brick, cap by cap, Alun Wyn Jones never walked away from a challenge. He was a man who his national coach Warren Gatlin once said, Every training session is like a test match with him. That's the level of intensity he brings. He doesn't switch off, ever, and that is why he's been at the top for so long. 158 caps for Wales, 12 more for the British and Irish Lions, and the record of being the most capped international rugby player in history. But his numbers aren't what define him. It's his grit, it's his consistency, and above all, it's his obsession with hard work. That's what made him great.

Alun Wyn Jones (2:27)

George Northwood would be doing running sessions and stuff, and I'm like going flat out, and I didn't really have good pacing, like I say. I was like, come on, you can only die once, and obviously you can only die once in life, but you can only blow up once in a training session. And he looked at me one day and he's like, you dead yet? I'm like, yeah. And it was like, I was always at the way, because a test level rugby is a running game of wrestling with all the other skill elements. And I was like, well, I've got to be able to get there to go through this, knowing that we're going to have another one tomorrow, day off, and then we're going to do the same on Thursday, Friday. So I'm like, well, you know, I'd rather go balls to the wall as quick as I can and try and stay on that red line. And then if I fall off, I know I've given everything and we go again. Like my younger days are a few messy sessions where breakfast would come up and those sorts of things. But that was feedback.

Damian Hughes (3:14)

He didn't demand respect. He earned it from his teammates, from his rivals, and from a nation that came to see him, not just as a player, but as a symbol. This was a man who built what he believed in, brick by brick, cap by cap. And that's where our story begins. He was not known for his flair or his flash, but he was revered for something arguably much rarer, his consistency, his resilience, and his quiet, relentless determination to outwork everyone in the room. He told us this.

Alun Wyn Jones (3:50)

The thing about takes no talent. I'm like, well, I think working hard isn't a talent. Do you know what I mean? Well, that is a talent if your ability to work hard, or to a point, because you can obviously get burned out and all those things, but actually if you can work harder than the next person, that is a talent. That is the ultimate talent because, you know, it gives you the ability to learn or work on anything.

Damian Hughes (4:13)

Let that just sink in for a moment. What if hard work isn't just a trait, but it's a talent? We're going to listen now to a long section of the interview with Alun, where he talks about his attitude towards hard work. There are four words which made me sit up and pay particular attention. See if you can spot them.