Episode: Seeing in Full Colour – Men’s Mental Health, Privilege, and Mindfulness (with Dave James)

Hello everyone, welcome back for another episode of Holding It Both Ways. If you're interested in the paradox of humanity and strategy, you're in the right place. And today my guest is Dave James. Dave, do you want to say hello?

I'm going to say hello.

Fabulous.

Going to keep it short.

Hello. Yeah, well, that's great. Thank you so much for being here with me today. What I would love you to do, if you don't mind, is to do a little bit of an introduction to folks to tell them who you are.

Oh, geez, I always find these things really interesting, and as a speaker, I do find it quite hard to introduce myself because you never know which area to go with. I can go down the— most people will go and talk about their business and things like that, but I prefer to start in the other direction, and I am A man from Birmingham in the UK, so I have an accent which your listeners and your viewers might well require subtitles or captions underneath if I go into some weird accent. I'm a dad of 3, I'm currently separated, and I live now just outside of Birmingham in a little place called Bromsgrove in Worcestershire, which is very, very, very nice. I have a beautiful view of a field and the Avster the other side of it, so it's not a bad place at all. And the work I do now is mostly around helping people in how they communicate via speaking, but also speaking myself about men's mental health and happiness. And that journey has been a bit of a, bit of an interesting one to get here, which I think we're going to explore a little bit of today. Absolutely.

Looking forward to it. So today we're diving into men's mental health and the journey through Dave's experiences. I guess, as I've done with other guests, maybe we should kind of start at the beginning. And I guess, what drew you to specifically focus on that aspect when I look at your CV, i.e., your LinkedIn profile, very much leadership-driven, working with business folks, talking about the power of speaking and communicating. Doesn't say a lot about mental health. So how did you get here?

Yeah, it's interesting. And, and that's almost that— not maybe disconnection is the right word, but that disconnection from, from talking more about the mental health is because it's, it's been there to some degree, but most of the stuff I've been focusing on is more around the speaker coaching stuff. And partly because it's the, the, the idea of niching or niching depending on where you are in the world, and trying to talk about so many different things is, is quite hard. The— it's interesting with the men's mental health stuff, and I, I say this phrase and I'm realizing that there's a bit of a futility in this phrase now when I, when I deconstruct it and ask if it's true. It's not. I've always said I'm not a men's mental health speaker because I, I know so many, so many people out there who were speaking about this subject and have far bigger brains than me and have looked into it and looked into testosterone and looked into the, the manosphere and all this kind of stuff, and I'm like I've got, I've got an experience and I've explored it myself, but I don't have that level of detail. But what has, I suppose, has really come out in the last few years for me is that I have, have a lived experience of mental health and, and still do to some degree. I have spent the time investigating it, asking questions, doing, doing the work in air quotes to, and all the personal development stuff which, which most of us go through on these, you know, that the personal development journey, however we want to, we want to frame it. And I've looked at that stuff and had to think about it and had to change my approach to the world and my approach to myself. And then I have a skill which allows me to be able to articulate it to an audience and deconstruct it in a way and serve it to them, which is going to help them and help them to transform and change. So the futility in the comment, I'm not a men's mental health speaker, is becoming quite apparent.

But your career journey didn't start there, did it?

No, no, my, the journey, I, it really starts if we go all the way back, we're talking back to my, yeah, probably, probably in fact I was going to say my teenage years, but probably even further back than that. So I was born back in the, the early 1970s, which is a long, long time ago now. I, I was born with spina bifida and a clubfoot, and back in those days it was, we had surgery, they tried various casting methods to move the foot, and, and that didn't really work, so they did surgery on my foot. So I had quite a lot of time in hospital as a kid, which helps you to, to develop the cognitive, if not the physical abilities. I wasn't much of a walker or mover, but I was definitely, I was definitely a talker and a thinker. Went through school, found school hard to some degree, but the, the, the big thing which landed was when I was 14 years old back in 1988, and there was a friend of mine at school called Stuart Gough. And Stuart was in the same class as me at school, and he was a paperboy at the same newsagents. And very sadly, he went out to do his paper round one Sunday morning and didn't come back. And what had happened is he'd been abducted and murdered. And this isn't a small community, a community of 7,500 people in North Worcestershire. You know, everyone knows everyone. Parents know kids, kids know parents, parents know parents, kids know kids. It's a very tight-knit community. And when something happens in that space, it's what do you do? You know, I've said, I've said previously that we didn't really know what PTSD was back then. You know, PTSD was this thing which was reserved for people who'd fought in wars, and, and trauma hadn't yet been invented, and we didn't have the internet, so we didn't find— we couldn't find out any of this stuff. But for me, it was, it was choosing an emotion, or an emotion choosing me, which I could communicate with the world, and that emotion was anger. And that anger stayed with me right the way through from those teenage years into my adult life. And, you know, every relationship, the birth of my children, every time I went to university, every job, the anger was sat in the background. And it took until 2015 to really start to deal with it. And that was when my ex decided she'd had enough of it and threw me out the house. And in that moment, you suddenly realize that this behavior you're exhibiting, which you think is okay because everyone around you is giving you the space to experience it, and also not challenging, challenging you on it, suddenly you, you can't do that anymore. You have to look inside and do something about it. And that was, that was the beginning of my, of my personal development, where I had to, to change my relationship with, with anger. And that's been the work in many ways over the last 10 years, been a big bit of work.

Thank you for sharing that. That's so absolutely incredible. And I can't even imagine how formative some of those earlier moments have been. And I appreciate you've been able to articulate them so the audience can understand kind of where you've come from that may relate to your expertise, being able to talk about this. Obviously, where you are today, from our pre-conversation, you know, we're really talking about how you've reframed anger. And even embrace vulnerability through the process. It was certainly part of our pre-call. It was something I very much aligned with you on. And I'm wondering, you know, what have you learned about the way men and women are taught to express their emotions in professional spaces, you know, through your journey?

And it's a beautiful question because I I didn't have a, I'm going to say traditional. I don't even know what traditional means anymore. Traditional is whatever we want it to mean. It serves us when it serves us and it doesn't when it doesn't. My background was initially computing. So I went down the route of computing. I love computers as an introvert. For me, it was a great space to be. I could play games and I could focus on this machine instead of focusing on people. And perhaps that was as a consequence of of Stuart's experience and what came about for me from that. But I failed on my computing qualification, so I ended up going into care work. I ended up getting a job in a nursing home. I wiped bums for a living for a number of years, and it was one of the best jobs I ever did because it taught me a lot about people. That led to nursing. Nursing then led to podiatry because of the spina bifida and the clubfoot and having an ulceration in my 20s. But all those healthcare professions were always female-led. They were always female-dominated professions. And I never remember anyone tapping me on the shoulder and going, going, Dave, you're going into these spaces which are, are full of women. These are the things you need to watch out for. There was, there was never any of those conversations. And so it allowed me, I think, in many ways to express myself with, with a different group of people. Had I gone into spaces which were very, you know, heavily man-dominated, I, I think I would have struggled. But it's been really interesting when I started to deconstruct the anger more and start to look at the, the relationship that I had with the anger, which for me was the key thing. It was It wasn't this thing where it's something happened, I reacted to it, I became angry. It was let's look a little bit underneath and find out what's going on. And my experience of men is they're not very good at that. They're not very good at being with the emotion and examining the emotion and understanding what the true emotion is. And, you know, I'm sure people, people listening to this and watching this have seen the emotion wheels where it's, you know, anger is this emotion, but what sits below it? My experience is men aren't very good at being present with that, whereas the women who I know, they are very good at it. They're very good at describing their emotions. They're very good at the granularity of emotions, whereas the men aren't. And that's taken me a long while to really understand. And even now, when I talk to my girlfriend, she'll say, how do you feel about that? And I'll go, I don't know. I don't have the language to describe it. And there's a frustration then which comes with it. And if we lean into that frustration, that frustration is something which I think, as a man, is something which sits there all along. There's a lot of society pressure out there, whether it is overtly and distinctly emboldened that we must do certain things. It's certainly below the surface. And there's a tradition in that. And men showing emotions, it's often frowned upon, you know. Don't show emotions. Emotions are weakness. If you're weak, you can't be a proper man. And even seeing a thing at the weekend just gone, there was a book which a friend of mine posted about online, and it was a book which was very much about misogyny and, you know, all the kind of toxic terms which I've seen around there about what it is to— what we should be doing as a man. And there's so many mixed messages out there, it's very hard to try to kind of square it, which is, which is why I think men are very, very confused about how they can show up and how they can, how they can be vulnerable. Because being vulnerable comes with, as vulnerability always does, comes with risk. It comes with risk, it comes with a lowering of status, it comes with the potential for personal harm in whatever form that looks. So there's definitely a big difference out there, but the more I have explored my relationship with anger, and, and certainly for a while anger had gone as far I was concerned, I never got angry. I disassociated from it, but unfortunately that took every emotion with it. Now I am open to the fact that, that I still, I still experience anger now, but I've got the, I've got the ability to actually sit there and go, is it really anger or is it something else? And most of the time it's amusement or it's frustration or a combination of the two, but it's something which has taken me a while to get to. And I know, I know a lot of men struggle with that.

Absolutely. And I think that that's such an important point. It's while the history of my work has been focused on, you know, helping women, given my national leadership for women as well as internationally within the LGBTQ community. What I really found, especially in London, as I was meeting with corporates, my gotcha question has been, how's your men's employee resource group or ERG or BRG or employee network, whatever term they're using? How is it doing? And it's still— it no longer shocks me that I get this kind of quizzical look. Cynthia, why would we have a men's group? And my first response, which to me relates partially to your experience, was that when in my own personal journey, that when I experienced testosterone poisoning, as I refer to it, I felt like I had liquid anger flowing through my veins. Where was my safe space to unpack that? You can't talk to your mates about it. It's just not done. And so it was something that I had to live within the constraints of myself. And when I got rid of the testosterone poisoning and was purely estrogen-driven, there was just an entire sense of calmness for me that came over. It was that whole part of me was gone. So it's intriguing. And I don't know if your journey has ever looked at the impact. I know you said that you haven't studied it, you know, of hormones within that. Have you gone down that path or—

No, I'm not that brave. Okay. But it's interesting. And if I think about that, So, yeah, this is where I talk to my girlfriend a lot about this, and, you know, we talked about Katie before and the spaces she works in, that there's that very much that man-woman almost like dichotomy. And we know there is lots of stuff in the middle and around it, which we, although we're not talking about directly, it's acknowledging it's there, and that makes it even more confusing. But with the hormonal stuff, I find it really interesting that if we take testosterone, testosterone is a is a massively important hormone. It is protective in men for against things like prostate cancer. So if we're seeing men who, and I have a friend who speaks on this, he talks about the testosterone crisis, that if we have a reduction in testosterone, then it could be assumed we're gonna have an increase in conditions like prostate cancer. But then when you get to the point of having prostate cancer, the treatment for prostate cancer is female hormones, is estrogen. It's, it's a different thing. And my dad had prostate cancer at the beginning last year. Now thankfully he's, he's all clear at the moment, and he's, he's been on the, he's been on the, the hormones, and, and they, they knock him for six. He gets muscle aches, he gets— it's given him, it's given him a real insight into what it's like to, to have different hormones coursing through your body. And as you touched on before, that, that liquid anger, it's a change in things. So we have this really fine balance between the necessity of the hormones in order to help us to live the healthiest lives possible and protect us against disease and conditions. But then it's when does that lead into the psychology and when does that lead into the behavior and how do we take all these bits of the jigsaw and manage them? And I certainly know for me that awareness and presence and mindfulness and meditation was a big part of that. Because it allowed me to see what was going on and get curious about the different parts of the jigsaw. But looking into the hormones is not something that I've done yet. But I do sense in the back of my mind a small rabbit hole forming, which always happens in great conversations like this, where I go, ah, let me stop doing the work I should be doing for my business and my life and let me go down the rabbit hole. But it's important stuff.

Yeah, but sorry about creating the rabbit hole.

Oh no, no, you must never apologize for anything which challenges me or gets me thinking or allows me to learn more. And Katie gets this all the time, that I get really frustrated when she introduces me to things because I'm like, I don't have time for this. But at the same time, it's— I know that knowledge and I know that being present with this stuff and understanding it more has been nothing but beneficial for me. Absolutely.

And, you know, it really intrigues me that other than the rabbit hole, you know, what you were leading into and talking about, I wonder if you, when you were talking about kind of those experiences and you were touching on kind of some of the gendered aspects and everything else, Is there something that stands out for you that we haven't shared with our viewers today that, you know, where you felt challenged or freed by those norms through this journey?

Yeah, it's, it's, and that's, that's a really good question that I, I, I now, I, I spend quite a lot of time in, in, in, in women, in those women-dominated spaces. We, we have, for the local Chamber of Commerce, we have a, a women's business conference which I can't get to this year. I have something else on, but we have the women's business forums and I go to them. Them because I feel really comfortable in those spaces and I know that I learned something new. I learned something which I didn't quite see before and I would always encourage, I would always encourage men to go into those spaces. But I know that so many men don't, don't have the confidence to do that. They see the word women above the door or on the page or on the website and go, no, I'm not going anywhere near it. So it's allowed me to get really curious about what's, what's going on in those spaces. And, and weirdly, most of my, most, most of my clients, or maybe not weirdly, are, are women and, and also neurodivergent as well, which, which may not be a surprise to anyone who is watching or listening to this based on the way that I respond to things. But it's, it's been very interesting how I suppose my experiences of, of being more around women has, has changed my approach to how I step into those spaces. But it's also made me a little bit curious, definitely, but also reluctant in some ways to step into some of the male spaces. Because I don't understand them in the same way. I don't— I, I've really had to work hard because of my experiences very much in female spaces and, and women's spaces to, to go into men's spaces in the same way. And that's been, that's been really interesting.

That, that's so intriguing because in my own journey, I mean, I'm almost 10 years in the space of doing this work. It's pivoted and changed as life does. And what's really intriguing is that for the first 7 years, I did not work with men. I did not ask organizations about their men's employee resource group because men scared the bejesus out of me because I had so much internal sense of what the unwritten aspects of being socialized as a man that I'm trying to articulate in a book now. It's in the process of being written. It's not the one that I'm going to complete this summer. I'm well into another book, but this is the one that I title, um, 50 Years of Male Thinking in One Hour for Women, because that's all they need. It is a bit tongue-in-cheek, and I apologize for that. Not really, but, uh, this whole aspect was something that for me, when seen and perceived as completely female, and through my journey becoming physically completely female, it just made me feel that much more vulnerable knowing everything that I know.

Yeah, yeah, it's interesting. And having had conversations with people who've been on a similar journey that you know, going from being a man to a woman. As a man, there is— I mean, I mean, I, I— there's things I don't see as a man. I, I can, you know, I am— I'm 6-foot-plus, I have a beard and tattoos. I look like I'm either gonna, you know, I'm gonna, I'm gonna steal your granny and ride off into the sunset on the back of a motorbike with her, or I'm gonna scare children and growl at people or swear a lot. And perhaps some of that is true, but I know that I can, I can walk into spaces and there's, there's very few things which are going to, going to scare me. I can walk into a networking room and I might feel internally a little bit kind nervous, but I know that I can strike up a conversation. It'll be easier if I was a woman. It would be very different. And that's, that's the beautiful thing about the women's groups I've been in, is that they'll say, you know, I walk into a room and I'm instantly looking for the exits. And I'll go, that's interesting, I hadn't, hadn't considered that for a moment. Or if, if I'm, if I'm walking down the street as a woman, walking down the street, I'm thinking about where the different things are, thinking about safety, and I hadn't considered that. And I had a conversation with, with a friend of mine who has gone through, through the journey you've gone. And what she said was, I, I, one day I, I woke up and I went out and I realized that, that I felt scared, and I'd never felt that as a man. Yeah. And, and that, I mean, you know, and I sit with that and it's like, that, that makes perfect sense for that, but it, but it's very hard for me to, to be able to, you know, internalize it and feel it. But it makes perfect sense. And, and then knowing that makes me think, well, okay, what's my role in making sure that those, that those other people don't have to feel what they're feeling, or can feel it less?

Yeah, absolutely. And it's so intriguing because that exact aspect of, if you will, one of the differences that are experienced not because of transition but because of the perception of gender, which To me, it's just a clear validation that while our chromosomes and that impact the way we are born, they don't impact the way we experience life. That is based upon perception. And so, I use a phrase based upon my experience that I talk about. I don't know any man. Most men, you would probably get this because you've thought about it. But most men don't understand and say, for me, it happened one week after being me. I was walking to a therapist appointment. There was no women around me. No one was coaching me. And I instantly had this sense of not feeling safe on the street, walking to an appointment. And it was— I had to look and I began to assess who's walking towards me that could be a threat, who's walking behind me that could be following me, that's a threat, who's on the other side of the street that may cross towards me that might be a threat? Where are the exits? What shoes? In Canada, they had slightly better walkways than they do in London, so I stopped wearing my heels in London. I went to wearing flats, but, you know, I used to wear heels all the time just because it accommodates. So it's like, do I take my shoes off? Do I pick them up and use as a weapon? Where are the exits? You know, how could I get out of here? And You know, God forbid you try and do that in London. You're going down an alley that's going nowhere. But that whole conversation to myself never existed before.

And it's an amazing shift, isn't it? And yeah, just— and when you're talking about it, I can feel the tightness with it. I can feel the anxiety building. I can— what do I do? This is new. It's like being given something which you've never experienced before and said, and here, deal with this. Hold this weird thing you've never held before. Think about this thing you've never had, you've never had to think about before and solve the problem in an instant in the moment. And there's nothing like, you know, I talked about presence before. Presence is beautiful, being in that moment. But the things which generally bring you into the moment are things which make you scared, anxiety, things which put you on edge, which, which bring the cortisol right the way up, which bring your stress hormones up. They bring you to that moment and that's not pleasant.

Do you always refer to that as anxiety? And the reason I ask is I have this concept that I talk about that for me, I've defined it as 3 words: fear, uncertainty, and doubt. One of the 3 is what's triggering that feeling, that response. And I call it the FUD factor, F-U-D factor. So that, that FUD factor is usually responsible for that trigger, right? That, that amygdala response that we kick into. Have you come across that? Or do you always see it from your experience as anxiety?

Anxiety is the word I would go to.

Yeah.

And, and, and that, and perhaps, and this is, this is, this is where, this is where there's, there's always that lovely challenge of, well, I, let me look at this differently. Because all of those things, the FUD things you talked about, yes, they're all there. It's I'm feeling this in this moment. What is it? And I, and I've been aware of certain— that there are things, there are, there are things which I go through. When I did a mindfulness PG Cert a couple of years ago and came across the work of, of this really cool, cool individual called Lazarus, which I think is the best name ever, back in the 1960s and '70s. And Lazarus had this— there was like this, this theory of stress, which was where you, you unconsciously ask yourself two questions in any situation. A, is this stressful? Which invariably it's going to be. And the second is, do I have the tools in order to manage this? And I, and I've, I talked to somebody ages ago about this and I said, I've got this thing. What if we, what if we made it, what if we made it something which was conscious? I'm in a situation, I'm feeling stress. Is this truly stressful? Because if it's not, you know, you can move on to something else. If it is, you, you then go, what tools do I have in order to work through this? And again, coming back to the, you know, thinking about how, how men deal with, with anger or, or emotion. Quite often we don't investigate it. And that's what the beautiful thing about mindfulness is. I have pain somewhere or a sensation. Well, let's go into it instead of moving away from it and understand what it is. And when you said that, the question about anxiety is, I feel anxious, okay, but what is it? What's causing the anxiousness? And I know that I am a prolific checker of doors for security. And I, you know, I have my tell, which is a count of 3. And I always know, I always know when there's something going on for me where I'm feeling a level of stress or frustration or anxiety or whatever, those FUD things, those FUD characteristics, because it takes me longer to check the door.

Yeah.

And it's really interesting now that I notice it. And whereas before I would have got really frustrated and probably angry at the fact that I was checking the door and I would, I would, my self-talk would be lots of negative words like, you're stupid, what are you doing this for? You know, this is just not clever. Whole host of things. Now I'm just— there's a little bit of amusement where I go, ah, there's something going on. Let me come away from this and let's work out what's going on. And there's a very different experience and one which is far more pleasant. So that invitation to explore anxiety more is another rabbit hole. Oh, my garden is going to be a real mess after this.

I mean, I'm loving the conversation where we're going. There's an aspect we haven't touched on that we did in our prep call, right? And it was about the idea of internal validation, privilege, right? Because every time I talk about this topic, especially in that response of why would we have a men's employee resource group, not a perception, it's a reality that men carry a lot of privilege. But just as they carry privilege, they are also, by the same systems that give them this privilege, they're also held. And, you know, I talk about things that, that is where the idea of, instance, an alpha male society that creates this or perpetuates this idea of a toxic male in today's language and perception of that's how they're supposed to behave. That's what being manly is about. Well, the flip side of that is it gives them privilege in that space, but they have the trade-off is they're not limited. The societal expectation that men are stoic and they hold these emotions— the only emotion, as you've touched on, as I relate to, is take a look at young boys in the playground. The only emotion that they're allowed is the aggressiveness of climbing on a play structure. And in my day, there was no padded bottoms and, and, you know, soft sides. It was concrete and, and steel. Um, and so if you fell off, you, you fell hard. Um, and it taught you to fight and hang on, to kind of be king of the hill. That was the only emotion that you were taught was okay to be.

Yeah, privilege is, is, is a really is a really interesting one. And even when I did my TEDx earlier this year, I start off and the first line I come out with is, I've won the lottery. And, you know, before you stop me outside and ask me to pay off your mortgage, I don't mean that lottery. I've won the lottery of life. I'm white, I'm mostly able-bodied, I'm not living in poverty, and the bonus ball is I'm a man. And that was designed very specifically to highlight the fact that I'm aware of a privilege. I don't know It's not something I've been given, but it is something which is bestowed upon me in a different way. And it's taken— I mean, I'm still, as you can tell from the way I'm talking, I'm still trying to unpack it and work out what it means. But what I do know with that privilege is that, you know, touching on what I said before, that I can walk into spaces and doors open. And my question is always, who can I bring through with me? Who actually needs to be in these spaces? Who maybe isn't in these spaces and needs to be heard? And that's why I don't think there's any surprise that for me now, that I work mostly with, with women. And the women I work with, they'll come into groups and they'll share. The men don't. They, they do it in one-to-one. They, they wouldn't go into a group where there's perhaps more women and, and share because of the vulnerability element. So there's privilege for me because of the characteristics that I have, um, you know, skin color and, and gender and where I live in the world and, and you know, finance, those things. Yeah, but there's also, there is also a privilege in, in the work that I've done. And had I not had any of those other characteristics, would I have been in a situation where I, I'd have been afforded the opportunity to, to do the work? So, so if the privilege is layered, it's like, it's like, it's like the most, it's like the most bizarre trifle. It's just got— so you put the spoon in and you're like, oh my God, there's more! What, what do I do with this? And it's, it's been fascinating to, to look at that privilege. And even If I think back to my healthcare days, even being a man in a space which is predominantly, you know, with women, I'm still viewed as having a privilege because, well, men in healthcare spaces get promoted quicker. They're not here to care for people. They're not here to be a nurse and, you know, wipe the bums and do the drug rounds. They're looking for a fast track towards management and there were things which were very much gamed towards me to be able to do that. The fact that I don't reproduce, I don't need to take time off to have children, you know, my paternity leave is 2 weeks, not, you know, not 9 months. So there were things which definitely were gamed in my favor, and I hadn't noticed any of them until people started to point them out to me, and I went, oh, okay, yes, I can see that now. And what do you then do with that is the big question.

Yeah, and what do you do with it, Dave?

You explore it, you feel massively guilty about it, you deny it, you, you blame everything else you can, and then you realize that actually, like, like anything, the way we, the way we see the world is— and you touched on this before— is perception. I can, I can either perceive it as being something which is, is, is really useful and I can use it for my own personal gain, or I can perceive it as something which is really useful where I can help others and never lose, or I can perceive it as something which should be put in, put just behind, outside that door there, and just put outside and never spoken of again. Yeah. And, and that for me, I'm sure, I'm sure I did that in the same way as I dissociated from my emotions during, during those, those initial journeys into what anger was. And I'm sure I've done that with privilege where I've just gone, no, no, no, no, no, we can sit outside the door for I'll deal with it later. Yeah, but the acknowledgement of it and even just voicing that, like in the conversation we've had before, voicing to people that I can appreciate there are things which I maybe didn't see before, but now I can see them. Even if I don't understand them, I can acknowledge they're there, and then I can say, who's the best person for me to talk to about how we can make— we can change this? And I suppose the nearest, maybe the nearest, you know, word I'd use for that would be allyship. And I know that for some people allyship is beautiful, and other people it's less beautiful. It's got a— it's loaded in different directions.

Yeah.

But it's the acknowledgement which has been a big thing of it for me.

No, that's brilliant. And for me, my discovery of what I call the thing I can't unsee is the society as it is today. The societal inequality today. And you referred to it earlier that, you know, you kind of, you didn't see what wasn't in your purview. And I use the analogy, language slightly different depending whether it's a North American or a British audience, but you know, you end up having a horse that pulls a cart and it wears blinkers. And that's what privilege is, regardless of, you know, which aspect of privilege you carry. And when you get to the point, for me, it was removing all of that privilege that removes these blinkers. So all of a sudden, I see the world as it is, not the filtered view. It wasn't that I was intentionally ignoring what was going on. I just didn't see it. Yeah. And it sounds like you experienced that. And now that you've done some work, I assume through a bit of developing some internal work, that I want to talk about next is you all of a sudden remove those blinkers and it's like, if you're like me, it was like, oh my gosh, is this the way the world really has been working? Because this is horrible.

Yeah, it's overwhelming. It's overwhelming. It's— and as somebody who— and touching on the word anxiety— somebody who can blame themselves quite— it's much easier for me to blame myself than than to try and work out who's truly to blame. I could just go, it's all my fault that I have this privilege. Let's, let's, let's move on to the next question. But it's, it is overwhelming. It's, it's like living your, living your life in many ways in, in, in black and white. And then somebody flicking on, flicking on the color, putting on the surround sound and giving you a 100-inch telly. It's like, whoa, okay. Now, now I can see, I can see things I couldn't see before. I can hear things I couldn't hear before and I can feel things I couldn't feel before. Yeah, I don't quite know why. And, and as a man, I haven't got— I haven't got the emotional range to, to express what it is, but I'm aware enough that I'm, I'm feeling discomfort, but I'm also aware enough that I have an opportunity here to do something.

Yeah.

And that's— and that, and that feels like— yeah, that feels like something which is, which is— it's— I was going to say nice, and nice doesn't cover it. It, it's, it's a really good opportunity and while life would be easier if I didn't see that or I didn't know about those things, yeah, I wouldn't want to go back. I wouldn't want to go back.

No, I, I, and I think it's important. I mean, because you said it yourself, it's like, oh well, I'll just blame me. And I think what a lot of people— and I know, I mean, like I said, I've been in this industry, you know, just about 10 years, and for probably the first 6 or so, you know, it was always, oh, you got privilege, shame on you, you should do something about that. And it's like, hang on, This was the family I was born into that I had no choice. You know, they put me through a particular education that I had no choice. They dressed me or they had a lifestyle that I was born into that I had no choice. And people feel like it's something to apologize rather than what you just said is exactly, I think, you know, especially when you talk about the idea of allyship, men being allies for women. It's just simply, can you step outside those blinkers and just recognize what it is in context? You don't need to apologize for it, certainly not to me, because I understand you didn't ask for that privilege. It was just simply what you were born into.

Yeah. And I think about the— so if I take the characteristics that you're born with, with Spina Bifida and a clubfoot, Being in a, you know, middle of the UK with a healthcare system around the 1970s, I'm still freaked out by the fact that the people who did surgery on me would wear flares and dance to disco on an evening. But that's a whole other conversation. Had I been born in, you know, south of the equator, that would have been a very different experience. And I know that there are countries south of the equator which have real real issues with spina bifida and clubfoot. And so, so there are, there are privileges which have, many of which have, have re— have really helped me. And, and say the majority have really helped me. But there wasn't, wasn't a choice that I made.

It's intriguing because, and, and I don't need to bring a word into it that— a word that you haven't used— but some people might look at those things and go, well, you, you actually didn't have privilege, you actually had a disability. And they see the negative connotation, almost like a subtraction from privilege. And you don't talk that way. Why?

Well, I see, and that's really interesting. This comes down to an identity thing that I could— I could get— I could see— I could, I could go and have a word with the council and get a blue badge because I have spina bifida. I don't, I don't want one, and I don't need one because it's, it's never been something which has been a big part of my identity. And, and I— and even to the point where Now I'm talking more about men's mental health and I'm talking more about anger and I'm talking more about those kind of— having those kind of conversations.

Yeah.

I don't really talk about spina bifida too much, but when I, when I look back over, you know, the first, the first 21 years of my life were interesting to say the least. And we've got, you know, we've got the being born with a, with spina bifida and a clubfoot. That, that, that in itself and surgery up until school and I still was held back from going to school for 6 months. Because they, they couldn't accommodate me at school. So I had an extra 6 months at home. Then 14 years old, you know, Stuart— what happened to Stuart? That is a big thing. And then when I was 21, a really good friend of mine died. And so in those first 21 years, those real formative years, you have all these things which happen which, which almost set the stage for everything else. And quite often I feel like I'm playing catch-up. But also at the same time, my parents never said to me you've got spina bifida, son, you need to, you need to be wrapped up in cotton wool in the corner. I, I was allowed to go out and break myself, and I still, I still do it regularly now. I'm, I'm not, I'm not known to do things by, by small amounts. I mean, I mean, on one side I'm hiding away, or the other side I'm breaking, breaking things apart. So my identity is not one of being one of having a disability. And, and even now, thinking about that and acknowledging that I do have a disability of sorts, and there are things which I perhaps can't do. And I, I, I do hide that. I'm, I do. So I'm going to go and do this anyway because I don't want anyone to think I'm not capable. And that in itself is a really big one to kind of unpick. And, and is that, is that the man side of things? Is that the psychology? Is that society? Or is, or is that, is that me? Or is it a mix of everything? But I don't, I don't have that identity as being somebody who has, who has a disability. And, and that's played a big part in it.

That's brilliant. So how has this journey that we've talked about and these experiences, obviously critical to where you're at today, how have they helped you develop the work that you do with others? Like, how is that manifested in what you actually help people accomplish?

It's given me a ton of stories. Yeah, it's given me so many stories to tell, and it's given me that opportunity to be able to start a conversation with pretty much anyone because there is some point of connection in, in the last 52 years for me where I will be able to find even the smallest point of connection with other people. And it's that bit of connection which leads to other things. I— and I— the other side for me is resilience. And I don't use the word resilience that much, although I do have a concept called the resilience bubble which I'm playing with at the moment. But to— I am still here after 52 years. I'm like the diesel engine which just will not go away. And I'm really pleased about that. And that gives me all kinds of feelings around. It gives me feelings of hope that, you know, you can keep going on things. It gives me feelings of frustration about why am I 52 years old and still working hard on these things? But it's not a vanilla existence. And, you know, a lot of the work I do, particularly around speaking coaching, is about showing people that you think you've got a vanilla existence, but actually you haven't. You've got lots of, you've got lots of different toppings for your ice cream. You've got lots of different flavors if you spend the time looking at it and you spend the time examining it. And with the men's mental health stuff, it's, yes, it's permission. It's, it's permission to be able to examine where you are and know that you have a, you have an opportunity to step into that little space between stimulus and response. And even if, even if the world tells you that as a man you've got to be stoic and show no emotions, yeah, and you know, you've got to be— you can only show anger, you can't cry, and all— if, if that's the story you're getting, you don't have to believe it. And, and as somebody who, you know, my emotional range is very much geared towards— it's towards the, the lower end of the spectrum, you know, joy and, joy and happiness and excitement, I, I don't dial in too easily. And when I, when I did a clowning workshop last year, they, they asked me to show them joy and joy and excitement, and I couldn't. And I said, I can show you anger and frustration and intimidation much easier. And he said, show me. And I did. And he told me never to show him that again. So it's something I can move into very easily, but it's that permission to know that if I want to experience those things or I want to explore them, the permission's there. And that's you know, perhaps the work I've been doing over my entire life. It just took me 52 years to notice it.

So beyond the stories, I mean, everyone, as you said, is telling themselves a story, whether it's true or not. Um, and, and I relate to the point. For me, my relationship with my father was based upon his validation of my stories, which were actually not mine, they were his stories. Now, you help folks through this journey to deal with and develop this internal sense of validation of the stories that are true about them.

Yeah. And the keynote I have, How to Be a Happy Human, works on 5 different areas. It works on the idea of looking at being authentic, which I know is the phrase which everyone throws around and it's— and makes people want to throw up in their own mouth. But it's a brilliant thing. Although I talk more about intentional authenticity, which is know enough about yourself and then decide how much you want to share with the world. You don't have to share everything. And that's the Brené Brown idea of vulnerability versus oversharing. So authenticity is a big one. Purpose, you know, what are you doing the things that you're doing for? And I spoke with a men's group last week in an organization, and one guy was sharing the story of how, you know, he comes to work just so he could earn money because the time he spends side of work is, is growing chilies to make hot sauce. Yeah, that, that's his purpose. I'm like, you, you're somebody I want to know because I like hot sauce. So you've got the purpose element, then you've got the, the, the choice element is what— how much choice do you have in, in what you do? And we, we all have different levels of choice, you know. Some of those are pushed on us by society, some of those are because of the stories we've been told, some of them, as you touched on with with parental influences. So how much choice do you have? Then it comes down to, to connection, and it's connection to other people. So in conversation, it's connection to the communities around you, but also it's the connection to yourself. And then the fifth one is, I talk about physiology and biology. So how are you moving your body? How are you looking after that? One of the areas I don't touch on is money, because you give me a fiver, I'm going to spend it. It's not— and that's— but I appreciate that's part of it as well. But those Yeah, those 5 areas came out of my experience. They came out of the research that I read when I was working in healthcare. It came out of the things that I saw around me. And, and when I look at those 5 areas in my life, I know that if I can push those all up in a positive direction, generally things feel better. Generally things feel better. And, you know, the authenticity is, is a big part of it, but what sits under that is, is presence. It's being present in your existence and having the space to experience everything that comes along, whether it's wonderful and joyous, or whether it's a little bit less, less than that.

Well, you know what, one of the things that's been totally joyous is spending this time with you. So thank you for that. I think, you know, it, it really resonates on so many levels when I think of my purpose, because I believe not many of us know our purpose, have a belief of our purpose, of why we're on the planet in this moment, as I put it, in this meat body. Because I believe that there is this aspect of, um, my spirit, as I refer to it— some people might call it a soul— but my spirit that is freed outside this meat body. The meat body has an expiry date, and that no longer scares me, because I know that my spirit continues. And, you know, my purpose through my journey of almost 60 years that I've arrived at— takes a while sometimes— is the realization of, you know, fundamentally, it was because I don't want to see anyone else have to go through what I went through in my experience. And I want them to feel they belong in all aspects. And they don't have to be LGBTQ. They don't have to come out or go through a gender transition. They just simply need to feel that they belong in a space. And it's what we do to do that. And for me, the idea of acceptance as the foundation and a spiritual aspect of sharing the teachings about what acceptance means And by the way, it's not brand new. I just happen to be the latest person that Spirit has called upon to be the voice and to carry this, except I've committed to teaching 1 billion people about acceptance without understanding by the year 2050. So they got me good. I got a life's work in front of me after a life well lived. So that's what gets me up and excited every single day. About the work and being able to have conversations with people like yourself and, you know, realize how we intersect in so many ways, both from our history, but also in our purpose today. So thank you for bringing the clarity through that. And certainly we will post the TED Talk link so people can go and watch that. But I guess it asks the— begs the question, What excites you about the work that you're doing now or projects that are coming up for you?

And it's— and that's a fascinating question because I, like, like I said earlier, you know, it's that line about I don't consider myself to be a men's mental health speaker. And actually, the excitement is stepping more into that and accepting that there is a role for me to play in that, whether I choose it or not. But it will much easier if I, if I choose to accept it. Like, you know, insert the Mission: Impossible music at this point with a, with a flame going across the screen. But I'm, I'm excited about where that, that will be going. And I'm also really excited with the intersection of me and my experience, my ability to articulate it, the, the, the journey I can go on with the people I can talk to about this, the the speaking element and how I use speaking in order to help people to find that acceptance and to develop. And also the platform I have in, in with the How to Be a Happy Human keynote, because I've been very good over the years at keeping everything in little pots and compartments. I'm like, I'm like, there's my shelving over there, let's put things away. And actually, what happens if I take the shelving out of the way and I just put it all together and then you see connections between, well, I'm saying that and it's, it's that in a different, different language. So, you know, I talk about presence, but also there's mindfulness. I never really realized that how important mindfulness was when it came to speaking and how important mindfulness is. And suddenly I went, all of the stuff which I've been talking about over the years and all the work I've been doing is pretty much the same thing. It's just wearing a different outfit every time. What if we, what if we make up its own little outfit and go from there? And I'm really, I'm really excited by the connections because it's like the rabbit hole stuff. I see these connections and I go, oh my God, I want to know more. I want to know more. I want to talk about this more. I actually want to do this. And, and that for me feels, it feels really good. It's exciting. It's, it's, it's a, it's a good time. Coupled with that, there is a little bit underneath which is like, I'm 52 years old, my God, can I not retire at some point? And, and I don't have any desire to retire, but there is still a, a feeling of, I've done all of these things and I haven't compounded one career. But what I have done is I've compounded something which is far more powerful and far more fulfilling. And, and when I'm sat there on— when my expiry date comes up when the little label I've got which tells me that, you know, cook on 180 degrees and for 4 hours and eat before Thursday, when I'm sat there at the end of my expiry date and I'm having conversations with people, it will be, yeah, there's things I regret, but actually there's some really cool things that I've been part of, and that excites me as well.

Absolutely. It's, um, I long ago got rid of the idea of the career defining me. And trust me, I'm sure like many, I've been through that phase. That was a phase in life where my career literally defined who I was. But that was also a very false dichotomy. And, you know, what you've just described is what I would simply call is a life lived well. That's, that's what you've got. And with that, you've got some brilliant stories. But you're also helping people with some very important stuff throughout the way. So please tell our listeners, how can they connect with you and support your work?

Well, you can find me on LinkedIn. LinkedIn is where I play most of all. It is, it is my, my social media location of choice. So come find me, Dave James, Dave James on LinkedIn. I've probably got some picture of me doing a TEDx because I'm going to milk that until, until the end of time. Time. Other than that, come find me on the web. I am on, it's dave-the-coach.co.uk, and I do the usual email connections and things like that. But mostly it's, mostly it's LinkedIn. That's the place I play most of all.

Wonderful. And we will include all of Dave's links in the show notes. So please feel free to connect and to follow and absolutely connect with Dave. As you've seen, this is a tidbit of the conversation that we have had. And I can tell you that when we were off camera, we laughed a heck of a lot. So humor is absolutely a part of the joy of having a conversation with Dave. Dave, thank you. You, you again have made my day, and I really, really appreciate it. So wishing you all the wonders and wealth from the Chilterns, you know, the area of natural beauty as they describe it. I hope that you continue to have a beautiful summer. And, you know, we'll look forward to being able to put this out to everybody as soon as possible. Thank you again.

Thank you. This has been, this has been delightful. I'm so grateful to you, Cynthia. Thank you so much. It's, yeah, it's made my day. It's made my day.

Well, thank you, everyone. Please make sure that you hit the subscribe button to find out when we drop the next one. We've got a few more in the queue that we're working on. And we're also, again, as as you folks seem to be loving, dropping those shorts. So there's no shortage of new content that's continually dropping over the continuing weeks and months ahead. So please subscribe, and if you have any questions, make sure you hit that comment button and let us know what you're thinking or what you want us to be talking about. Thanks and have yourself a great day.