The Untold Podcast
UNTOLD Podcast is where business, family, and life collide—raw, unfiltered, and brutally honest. No fluff, no fake success stories—just real conversations about the highs, the struggles, and everything in between.
The Untold Podcast
James Ray: Why Most Men Are Living a Lie (Authenticity, Responsibility & Peter Pan Syndrome) | Part 1
What does it really mean to be an authentic man?
In this Part 1 of our two-part conversation, Ash and Chris sit down with James Ray — author of Responsibility: The Authentic Man and leader of the Extreme Character Challenge — to tackle the raw, unfiltered truth about modern masculinity.
From the toxic idea of “manning up” to why so many men are stuck in Peter Pan Syndrome, James pulls apart the myths of manhood and shares the real traits that define authenticity:
- Admitting when you’re wrong
- Saying sorry and owning your mistakes
- Asking for help (yes, really)
- Knowing your purpose
- Embracing adventure and risk
This isn’t a self-help lecture — it’s a brutally honest conversation about responsibility, growth, and the dangers of hiding behind bravado or comfort.
👉 Part 2 drops next Tuesday. That’s where Chris opens up about a powerful moment of stillness, James talks about health, resilience, and the Extreme Character Challenge, and we explore the practical ways men can reset their lives.
📚 Check out James’ book Responsibility: Becoming the Authentic Man:
https://www.amazon.co.uk/Responsibility-Becoming-Authentic-Myles-Dhillon/dp/B0D6DN8WZJ
🌍 Learn more about the Extreme Character Challenge (XCC):
https://www.xcc.org.uk/
🎧 Listen now and join the conversation.
New episodes every Tuesday at 5am.
Hi, I'm Ash and I'm Chris, and welcome to the Untold Podcast.
Speaker 2:Hello everyone and welcome back to the Untold Podcast season two. It's just me and Chris for this season, but we have a fantastic guest with us today. His name's James Ray. He's an author of Responsibility, the Authentic man, and also runs the XCC, the Extreme Character Challenge. So, without further ado, welcome James, and thank you so much for taking the time to come and tell us about you.
Speaker 3:Thanks, ashley. Thanks Chris, thanks for having me. Welcome to the podcast, thanks.
Speaker 2:How are we all doing today?
Speaker 3:Yep doing pretty good. Pretty good so far. Yep Just driven a white van around the M25 and had no drama, so pretty good.
Speaker 1:That's good for a radio. I'm out the window. I'm out the window.
Speaker 2:A little bit we had.
Speaker 3:Fix FM on.
Speaker 2:Fix.
Speaker 3:Radio on the tunes yeah.
Speaker 2:Yeah, Fix Radio and that's for the event tomorrow. That's right At the. Illinois Showground yeah, looking forward to it. Fix Fest number one. I am gutted that. I can't be there.
Speaker 3:Yeah, we'll miss you Today.
Speaker 2:obviously, given your background, you're the author of the book the XCC Challenge. I just want to dive into what it really means to be an authentic man. What was the inspiration for the book?
Speaker 3:The question of authentic man for me is about it's hard to say what is a man. You know, people say, like man up or be a man, you've got to be a man. The problem I have with that is that you can be a man by genetics. You're born one or the other. That's the what I believe. So it's like that's it. You're a man and even if you decide to change, you still choose one or the other. It's not like there's this middle space, and so I think the reality with with this is if, if being a man is um a birthright or or a thing that you just inherit and just step into, then it doesn't mean anything because you didn't choose it and you didn't do anything about it. So that's where this idea of um authentic man came up, because we I started thinking with my friend Miles there, um, about this idea of what is it actually we're trying to get at? Initially, initially, the working title for the book was Solid Bloke, becoming a Solid Bloke, and it's that idea. You know, it's like, oh, he's a solid bloke. And if you said to me, if actually you say, oh, chris, you're going to meet him, he's a solid bloke, immediately I'm thinking, oh, he's a good guy. You say he's a good bunch of toxic out there, especially around masculinity, and so somehow we have to distinguish. But then my thinking was that solid is is kind of a good, like solid bloke is good enough, but it does also have this undertones of kind of geezer. But also, sometimes solid isn't really what you want. Maybe you want, um, solid could be like stuck like a rock, yeah, or solid buff, you know. So he's like he's solid, he won't move, he's solid like a rock that will never change, or something like that, whereas maybe you want, if you're like fluid, someone a bit more adaptable. So if you say adaptable, oh cool, yeah, he's flexible, oh nice, uh. So suddenly I was thinking, well, the solid thing doesn't really work. And so we land on authenticity, because ultimately that I think that word encapsulates what I believe effectively, what you see is what you get. That's what I think authentic is in terms of authentic man. And so this concept of authentic man is this idea that hopefully I'm the same to you as I am to anyone, and hopefully, as I show up in one room, it's pretty much not identical, as there are some ways that you should change. For example, I used to be a school teacher. And if you're a teacher in front of kids, you know and you were swearing at the football at the weekend you don't bring that same kind of bloke to the classroom just because inappropriate, they're children. But that doesn't mean you're fake, it just means that you're adapting to environment. But hopefully you're the same sort of person. So if those kids said, oh sir, do you like football? Your answer should be yes, it shouldn't be no. What made you? What gave you that idea? Because again you're starting to cover up parts of your life.
Speaker 3:And what I think about, with masculinity especially, is often the problem with a lot of men is we end up covering up who we are, and we either do it because we want to be accepted by other men so that kind of bants, I've got to be tough, I've got to be cool, got, I've got to be cool, I've got to be funny, all of that stuff or we're covering up because we're basically afraid of who we are, we're ashamed of who we are, and so it's that feeling of I'm actually going to cover up because I don't want you to see the real me. And I think both those scenarios either you're covering up to try and impress people. Be someone you're not, or you're covering up to try and hide who you really are. Both of those things, for me, have got real problems around masculinity. So the final thing really the authentic man is.
Speaker 3:The book is called becoming. There's a sense by which becoming the authentic man is this journey that we're all on to never quite get there. So my thinking is that no one person is is the authentic man. There is no sense. Like that guy I get asked a lot like can you give us a male role model? If, if it's not these toxic influencers online, then who is it? My problem with that answer is like well, if I say someone, the chances are like within a week or a month or a year or five years, they're going to do something stupid because they're human. And then the risk is like you've put them up on a pedestal and suddenly they've fallen off. I'm a bit older than you guys, older than you guys, but David Beckham used to be like the, the top bloke, and then, of course, he he messed up on the football pitch and he suddenly he's gone from being like what a great guy, the hero of our nation, to being a fool. And so the problem I have is if you put any one man in any one space, he's gonna make a mistake.
Speaker 3:So my thinking was well, actually there's great bits of each of you, like I've already heard, I know actually a little bit better than you, chris, don't I, but actually already there's so much about you. The way you, your work ethic, your way you want to try and help people, your mindset, which around kindness. Also the way you want this podcast to help people speak more about the reality in their life. All of this, I think, is like the beauty of authenticity is real. So you're excellent in those areas. I don't know well enough to know where you're not excellent, but I know there'll be stuff in your life, like me, where you'll be like yeah, I'm not very good at this, though, but Chris was talking about. Well, I can't come to a fixed risk. I've got to do daddy duties, and so clearly you're a focused dad. So, like, brilliant, you've got these areas.
Speaker 3:So what my thinking was and the thing in the book is why don't we start to piece together the all of those best bits in any area money, sex, sport, you know, health, fitness, work, whatever it is, fun, seriousness, intellect, whatever you want? You can start to piece together and say, essentially, all of that is my idea of brilliant masculinity, but no one man embodies all of it, and that's kind of why it's nice to have each other We've got each other in our lives to say, well, actually, I really admire this guy for this, this, but he's not brilliant at everything, and so you know, I think that that's the kind of approach and it, um, I feel like for me, it's the hope for our young men. It's like you don't have to be like any one man, but you can be like many men yeah.
Speaker 2:So what would you say then? Is the the top five ingredients if we're looking at? If you was to make the most authentic man, what would be the top five ingredients that you'd put in that mix?
Speaker 3:Okay, well, I've got four off the top of my head and I think in the fifth one I'm talking the four off the top of my head. I always say these same four things when I think you meet, if you want to meet or be a bloke, who's really authentic or solid. First one I think you need to be able to admit when you're wrong, and that can sound really negative, like why would you start with that, like of all things. But I think one of the main problems for all humans, but especially for men, is to be able to say I'm wrong, I actually don't, I made a mistake there, that wasn't brilliant. Because if you can admit when you're wrong, you're also saying I'm not perfect, and so then you're kind of adapting. So first, admit when you're wrong. Second one is they're kind of linked. They go in a process admit when you're wrong. Second one is they're kind of linked they go in a process Admit when you're wrong, say sorry.
Speaker 3:That's about accepting that you've made a mistake and then owning your mistake, because it's all right to say yeah, I was wrong there. I was playing a game with someone recently and he said oh, I'm going to have to take a bit of a hit here on these cards because he played a couple of bad cards and instead sorry, or yeah, that's me. He sort of made it out like well, I'm just gonna have to take a hit, and I was like yeah. So basically, you're saying you're wrong and are you sorry, do you care? And so saying sorry says I accept, it's me and I don't want to do that again. So admit when you're wrong, say sorry.
Speaker 3:And then the third one again. A real sticking point for men is to ask for help. So admit when you're wrong, say sorry, ask for help, because it's crucial that we don't just sit in that place of okay, I'm wrong and I'm sorry, but I'll do better. And then the question, of course, is how are you going to do better if that's what you did yesterday? How are you going to be better tomorrow? And unless you say I'm going to find help, I'm going to find other people or other wisdom that's better than this or other skills, I don't believe people are going to change. It's like you're not going to change, you'll be exactly the same tomorrow. There's that saying, isn't it? If you do what you've always done, you'll get what you've always got. So if you'll be the same. So admit me wrong, say sorry, ask for help.
Speaker 3:And then the fourth thing is know your purpose and in a way that is like know your place, know your mission, know your calling, know your challenge in your life, know what your your commitments.
Speaker 3:So it kind of feels like know your place, know what it is you're on this earth to do. I think that really is a much more positive one than the first thing in the sense of like. It's like saying if you know why you're here, you can stay in your lane, you can cheer other people on, you can really look at life with a different um focus than if you're constantly worried like what am I doing? Why am I here, what's my role? And that insecurity around that makes men often quite, quite threatening. And then the fourth thing I would say, just to add on, is something around men being adventurous or taking risks and I think that's a really big thing for men is actually like live your life, take a bit of adventure, get out of your comfort zone, don't sit, don't try and create the easiest life for yourself. Try and create a life that's exciting and adventurous. And fulfilling.
Speaker 3:Yeah, and I think that's where fulfillment comes from, those things. So I would say yeah, five, five top tips for men being being authentic man admit when you're wrong, say sorry, ask for help, know your purpose, know your place and also go on adventure.
Speaker 1:Don't get comfortable, don't get settled I kind of feel like I come under an umbrella of responsibility. Take responsibility for your own actions yourself, everything you do in life. Really, like I know I said a minute ago I was really looking forward to this. Everything you've said is a journey, isn't it, basically? And I was saying to you a couple of weeks, a couple of months ago, when my son was born, three years ago, and like that, I completely changed, I become that responsible person and my thought process completely changed and everything that you've said there, I just basically saw myself growing, as you were saying. So it is really really true what you've said there. I've really resonated with a lot of that.
Speaker 3:And I think, well, thank you for that. And I think the reality of that word responsible is it's like responsibility is different from being responsible, because responsibility being responsible is like a temporary position Okay, I'll be responsible for 10 minutes if I have to but actually taking responsibility is saying this is on me and I will do something about it. And often, as men, we're quite good at saying like you go for it, mate, but I'll basically watch and if you mess up, I'll be the first to be like ah, look at you, you thought you could do this. Who do you think you are? And so men have this thing where we can sort of cheer each other on, but we're basically waiting to chop each other down, whereas actually taking responsibility for me looks a bit like me saying to you I'm cheering you on and also, by the way, you can have some money, you can have my time, you'll always have my kind words or my support and I won't undercut you, I'm not looking to to chop you down. And I think that's the role, ultimately, of the father. When you talk about that transition, suddenly you realize I've got to be responsible here, I've done something and here's the outcome. The outcome is a kid. Now it's my responsibility to do something. But being a responsible dad for 10 minutes at the weekend, that's not going to cut it because the kid will see through that in seconds and also it's basically fake. So that's where the whole life has to change and say I've actually got to shift my position here.
Speaker 3:You've probably heard about Peter Pan syndrome as well. Jordan Peterson talks about that Peter Pan, obviously you remember from the story. He's trapped in Never, never Land, the boy that never grows up. And I think a lot of men are trapped in Peter Pan syndrome. There's guys that basically want to stay mucking about doing the stuff they did as a kid for the rest of their lives. And, by the way, I've got no problem with mucking about, I'm quite up for fun. But I also have to accept that I am moving old, older, like you said, this journey of my life. Every day I'm older and as soon as I get married or as soon as I take a job, or as soon as I have kids, as soon as I get a house, suddenly I've commit to things that require some attention. And and it's pretty I think it's kind of like this Peter Pan syndrome when people are just like, yeah, whatever I got with my missus. We've got a kid now but I'm not sure if I'm going to marry her. All this sort of stuff is like you're already well into commitment and responsibility but you're sort of backing out of it as quickly as possible to go and play with your mates down the pub.
Speaker 3:And as Peterson talks about, uh, peter Pan, of course he's king of the lost boys. You know it's like, well, who wants to be king of the lost boys? Why would you want that? And then he's got this kind of tinkerbell, the fantasy girl, which is basically porn as well, this fantasy of like this life. But the reality for Peter Pan is Wendy is his, is his potential bride or his potential, uh, soulmate.
Speaker 3:But Pan wants to run away from that and he's constantly laughing at hook. Who's got the ticking clock of time chasing him, all this stuff. And and actually I think for a lot of men in their 20s, 30s, 40s and 50s they get trapped as peter pan. And if you want to know if it's you, if you're down the local boozer on a sunday night at closing time knocking back your sixth or eighth pint because you don't want to go home, or it could be Friday night or Saturday night. But if you're that guy every night of the week doing the same thing stuck, you're probably stuck in pan syndrome. You need to get out of it and I would say take responsibility, grow up.
Speaker 1:It's funny you say that because in the local town where I live, you drive past the same pub that you used to drink in 25 years ago and there's still people that are my age. They're still there on a Saturday and Sunday afternoon and you just think to yourself when are you going to grow up? I suppose those people probably never will.
Speaker 3:Yeah of course, in some ways, like you know, maybe that is their life, maybe that is what they do. My concern would be, if they're stuck in those patterns of behavior that are cyclical, keep going round and round, then what you need to do is change. I said earlier, if you do what you've always done, you'll get what you've always got. So in order to create a new life for yourself, you've got to change something, and probably it's going to be that kind of habit of just sitting, doing being idle, essentially drinking, and for many people it's drinking to forget, it's drinking so that you can pass out and go to sleep, escapism reality of your life and if your reality of life.
Speaker 3:Some people have some terrible lives, obviously, and I, you know, I have a lot of empathy for that. Obviously part of the reason I run a charity is to help people, but the reality is that you are the captain of your own ship. You've got the keys to your own freedom in your pocket. So if you don't change something, if you don't get away from that cycle and they say that you're the sum total of the five people you hang around with. So if those five people have been those people in the pub the whole time, then you're going to end up exactly like the people you're sitting with, and if you're fine with that, maybe that's okay. I'm not necessarily knocking it. It's just that for the majority of people, they're gonna look around and think now, these aren't the five best people in my life, they're not the five people that I was hoping to be like, so you have to shift the environment yeah, and I think, before we move on from that, we've mentioned journey.
Speaker 2:Now this is something that I've learned massively you watch these influencers, you watch these people. If you're not getting up at 5am and doing ice baths, if you're not calorie counting, if you're not macro count, if you're not doing this and going to the gym and this, this, this and it's really, really, you're taking so much and you watch these people. What I've realized is, every day is a journey and originally, when I was going to do a podcast on my own, it was going to be called Front Foot Forward. And over the last two years, I want to focus on what can I do tomorrow, or what can I do today to make tomorrow better?
Speaker 2:And I think we're talking about these people in the pub and they're still there and they're in this circle of stuff and they look and they think, right, oh, my God, there's so much to change. They're straight back in the pub, whereas if you break that down right next week, I'm going to walk the dog three days a week, I'm going to go to a gym. I might do yoga. I'm going to not go to the pub on Sunday night. I'm going to try and change these habits. Slowly, slowly, slowly, it's a lot easier to do?
Speaker 1:It's just about setting realistic goals, isn't?
Speaker 3:it, it is setting yourself unachievable ones, yeah, and I think also something you said which is like front foot, this idea that you've got to do something. I passivity, they say especially as man's number one sin, if you like, is big mistake. Being passive, being inactive, that kind of couch, so the guy sitting on the couch watching the football, telling every player how to play, telling every manager how to how to organize, telling the wife what how to cook the food, telling the kids how to do their stuff, but not doing anything himself, and so my challenge to those guys is always you're the one that needs to do something. It doesn't really matter what it is you do, but one of the things actually you just said I think is really important. It's like I would say if you want to change your habits, first thing I would recommend is go outside more.
Speaker 3:Just, either it be a walk, dog walk, stand outside Apparently looking at trees is good for you, but just go outside, because the risk we have inside is we become different animals and beasts to who we really are. We become kind of like trapped by the confines of our circumstance or our situation, which is why, of course, prison is such a painful experience for many people, because it's locked inside, away from the natural beauty and, I think, outside. The great thing about outside is that so much can happen to you that you can't control and suddenly it puts you back in your place. It can just start raining, or it can be super windy or cold or beautiful. It suddenly gets surprised by something, or a little bird will fly past or a leaf will flap down near your feet. Whatever it might be like. It's actually an amazing experience.
Speaker 3:But I would say to most people like if you want to change something, take the first step and if you don't know what to do, just go outside more. Get outside every day for a period of time, start walking, start thinking and to your point about getting up at 5am and do this and do that and do the other. The other thing I would recommend massively is almost the opposite of that go and find some stillness. Go and be totally still, and it's hard to still your mind, but the reality around stillness is that you can actually start to think about what's more important, or you can start to accept what's more important, whereas we're full of noise, like my phone is buzzing all day, people interrupting me with demands and suggestions and sales pitches or whatever it is, and actually what I really need is a bit more peace, so I'd recommend that massively.
Speaker 1:Do you remember when I did that? Do you remember? So I, I, basically I work, my job is TikTok, I do TikTok lives. So I I, four, three days a week get up at half five in the morning and I start at six. I got up at five o'clock the first time I done it and went and sat in my studio and it was silent and I burst into tears. Wow, first time I've ever cried like I'm not a crier, I'm like you know, I'm quite a I'm not.
Speaker 2:I'm not.
Speaker 1:I'm. I am a solid man, but I've become more emotional over the last few years since I've had my son. But I just sat in the studio and I just listened to nothing and I just burst into tears because it was the first time that my brain had allowed me to to shut down. I didn't have any distractions, I couldn't, I wasn't have to think about my wife, my son was asleep, my brain was fully active on myself and it just, I don't know, it was a weird sensation. We actually recorded a podcast that day and I came in and I was like boy, it's like today has been a weird day for me. I was crying for like 15 minutes. So it does do something to you, definitely does do something when you take time in silence, 100% what was going on?
Speaker 1:no-transcript fully soundproof, so there is no noise in there whatsoever unless something is turned on. So yeah, it was a really really strange experience for me. Really strange. I didn't like it, I'm not gonna lie, but then the more I think about it was actually quite I wouldn't. I'm not a spiritual person, but it kind of made me a bit awakening, like makes you realize actually you do need to take a bit of time to yourself yeah, I see that not.
Speaker 3:Also. That's part of the reason I should probably explain to any listeners that one of the reasons I've written a book for men I work solely with men is because I think actually from many guys and women are fantastic. I mean, most of the time I spend my time trying to catch up and be as good as all the women I know in my life, and I think that's for many men is true, but the reality for a lot of guys we don't stop and we do carry that sense of responsibility and burden and maybe you know it's my job and my thing and I better do this and I've got to do that and so suddenly to to have some stillness, which is why we take men away in the wilderness through the Extreme Character Challenge. The reason we do that is to try and help guys just have that space where, much as we want to think, we're one thing or the other, spiritually, mentally, morally.
Speaker 3:I think a lot of people as well have this sense in their life. There's things they want to fix, but just never time enough to really think about it. Health is the obvious one. Most people I meet have some kind of health ambition that they're not achieving, but they just don't have the time to really say stop, I need to change, I need, and obviously then often things like some heart failure or something happens and then people like, right now I have to, and I think it's a shame if we have to get arrested in that way, like really hit before we change. But I think ultimately that's as human as how we react.
Speaker 2:We react to those shocks that's true for a lot of people, though. You have to get to rock bottom. You have to have something like this is a quite a good story. My dad is. He's a big bloke. He's just had a hip-hop. He's just had a knee-up. He's been waiting for these for he was waiting for these for four years. He was too big, they wouldn't do the operations because of his bmi. For years he was trying, he was doing bits and pieces, he was eating better, he was that, but he just couldn't. He couldn't do the exercise, he couldn't.
Speaker 2:We went away skiing one year, took my two kids, my wife, my sorry my three kids, my stepson, my wife, um, my brother, my brother's fiance, who's married tomorrow, and we had a chalet at the top of the mountain. It was a good 30 minute walk to get from the top of the mountain to the bottom where the pubs and the bars are, and the sledging wasn't. He could only do that walk once a day and we went on that trip and he was mortified. He couldn't watch his grandchildren go sledging. He couldn't possibly put on a skiging. He couldn't possibly put on a ski boot. He couldn't. He was really struggling. He came back from that holiday and I think he lost seven or eight stone in that year and then had the op, then had the hip hop on the knee up and that was something not that it was something triggered in him and he was I can't live like this anymore. And he said after losing all that weight he felt like a new man.
Speaker 3:Yeah, because he wasn't carrying it around with him yeah, and also I mean there's a chapter in the book called fun and healthy. So all the chapters like dualisms, two things that you think that might not be together there's. These two obviously are, but fun and healthy. There's a bit where we tell a story of a guy in a supermarket can't catch his own kids and and obviously there's those moments in life where you realize I'm not fit for purpose, I'm not fit for life, and actually I think it's a beautiful realization because it can kick you into doing something different.
Speaker 3:And again, for any of your listeners that are sort of similar age, anyone under 50, basically, I heard Bear Grylls was being interviewed the other day and he said he thinks he's going to live to 150, maybe 200. And the interviewer laughed at him, it was like ha. And then he was like are you serious? And Bear's like yeah, I'm deadly serious, I'm 50 now, but I will definitely live to 100 or expect to live to 100. And by the time I would live to 150 more years with AI. Do you not reckon that I've worked out a way of keeping me someone like moderately fit and active and healthy? Meet someone like me alive for another 50 years? So the interviewer you can see him like actually, yeah, probably good point. And she's like by the time we then get to that 150, do you not think they've worked out another way of making me more like robotic or whatever? And I think I I sort of smiled initially because I know bear a tiny bit and I was thinking that's typical of him to be like fully focused and all in and he's got 150 more years of his life planned out.
Speaker 3:But so I was smiling, thinking well, I don't know, I'd probably prefer to diet 100. But then I also thought that's a genius way to think. It's actually super helpful for me now I'm 45 to start thinking there's no way I can start imagining my body can decline in 10 or 20 years. I've got to keep it going, I've got to keep some sense of health and wellbeing, got to be careful how much I eat. Just because the service station I just stopped at is full of Monster, munch and Yorkie bars, you know it doesn't mean I can just chow them down.
Speaker 3:And I think that's again this sense of responsibility for ourself and realising, like your dad did, ashley, that he said if I want to hang out with my grandkids and have any kind of life with them or memories with them. I need to be present, I need to change and I think it's again a beautiful thing for us. Many men, that most men that I meet majority have got some weight to lose. I'm the same as well, but it's just the fact. In the UK, if you look around, most men are overweight.
Speaker 1:It's very rare you meet guys sort of of underweight, um, and I think that's just a challenge for us, just like eat less, move more.
Speaker 3:It's the last thing on your priority list, isn't it? Yeah, and also we comfort eat, and then the beer doesn't help, and then you haven't got time because you're too busy doing this. I get it, but of course our bodies were designed for so much more. We're supposed to be so active, apparently, um, most adult humans I don't know if it's men and women or both, whatever Apparently most people don't sprint ever after the age of 20. And most people only jump like probably jump in the air once or twice a year. That shocked me, yeah.
Speaker 1:I was like what yeah?
Speaker 3:I mean like maybe just reach something, but that'll be it. And then once then, in six more months, I have to reach something else and jump again. So I read that and was like like, right, I'm going to start jumping more, surely I've got to be able to jump, you know, and then sprint. Okay, I get it, and I also have to be a bit careful with hamstrings or whatever. But then I was thinking definitely, if I go for a run, at the end I want to try and run fast, I want to try and run. Surely I should be able to sprint a bit.
Speaker 2:It's quite interesting because obviously I'm coming on the XCC challenge in like what is it five weeks?
Speaker 3:now, yeah, it's coming up.
Speaker 2:So I went to a boxing class before I went to Spain and they were like right, you've got to skip. I'm like skip and I thought I can skip God.
Speaker 2:And that was jumping and when you it jarred through my whole body, my whole body was like whoa. And you get the realisation that these things that we should do and you watch these people doing on Instagram these really trim it's calisthenics, isn't it? Yeah, that's right, and they're hanging off poles and they're doing these things and I'm like I would love to be able to do that, but the work and and again, you watch it, that guy's doing it I'll never be able to do that. Well, actually, if you broke it down day by day, in six months' time you might be able to do a handstand on one arm.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I bought a DVD probably 10 years ago. I can't remember what it was called, but it was. Everybody was buying it. It was like a big set. You get six, six DVDs in there. It was all calisthenics and stuff and me and my mate we put dust sheets across my, my wife's parents garages because I had a triple bay garage. We went in there and started doing these DVDs. I took a little telly in there. We did it once. We were like we're not doing that again. I think that was it, but it is. Once you get to a certain age, you just think right, it's a workout, you just go to the gym and you lift a few weights or you run on the treadmill.
Speaker 3:In some ways the risk of that is, again, I'm not necessarily advocating that everyone needs to be totally ripped. In fact again, we talk about it in the book almost all the guys I've met who are totally ripped they're basically men. You know, generally if you're heterosexual you fancy women. They don't really care what you look like, they care who you are and I think that's a really important thing. So I'm not a massive advocate and again, I do talk about this in the book in terms of fit for purpose is my motto. So I want to be able to sprint, just in case my kid is running towards a road. I want to be able to catch him in five steps. That's why I want to sprint. I mean, sounds like a bit heroic.
Speaker 3:Or I want to be able to sprint to the bar before last orders or whatever in case you need it, yeah, but what I don't want is to be I'm not, I'll do that just like. No, I can't do that like a pull-up or something. No, I can't, why I'm too heavy. And so instead, for me, it's not about me saying, okay, I'm going to swing around a pole like a fireman, I'm going to do it, just in case I need to do one or two, and I want to just be able to rather it like that idea. We just go to the gym to try and maintain something, which is basically degrading. I want to always be thinking, well, what could I get sharper at or a bit stronger at, and I think that's something as well around our culture, the passive side of us men, we. Just the risk is we'll lean back and be like, yeah, whatever, my those days are gone, instead of thinking yeah, actually just press into that.
Speaker 2:So, yeah, I think it's worth worth reflecting on. Yeah, and I think exercise is very good for the soul. Even I um, we had the four dogs, as I said to you earlier, and I was coming home every day and walking these four dogs and during that time I was sort of doing a bit of a water fast. Um, I was still eating dinner, but during the day I wasn't literally just drinking water trying to, and I lost like five kilograms in a week just by. I didn't go to the gym, I just got some exercise in, I just walked with dogs for an hour every day and didn't eat stuff. And I always find that when I'm in a dark place, binge eating, doing nothing, and I'm like stuck in that, and then once you get out of that and you push forward, you know actually no, this is my body, I've got to look after it. I need to do the steps. I need to do this because otherwise I'm just going to keep going backwards, downhill yeah, and I think you're right to um, connect the two.
Speaker 3:That's the saying, which is we don't have a body, we are a body, and so our body and our mind are so closely connected. We call our extreme character challenges the wilderness stuff. For men. We call them mind, body, soul adventures, and the point, I believe, is that all those three are connected. So when you sit in a chair in silence, you burst into tears and then you feel something.
Speaker 3:This is mind, body, soul, and I think the reality about what you're doing is when you move your body, you can also move your mind. They say also for men, uh, that men talk best side by side. So one of the reasons I take hundreds of men, thousands a year, on side by side adventures is to allow guys to talk without staring at each other, because there is that awkwardness if we meet for a coffee or a beer and I want to tell you something that I'm not that proud of, it's like an odd environment to stare at another bloke and then sort of tell him your deepest secret, whereas actually if you go for a walk or things like golf, help people or whatever it is, just go walk side by side, but you're also moving physically. So your mind is somehow subliminally telling yourself we're moving, we're not where we were two steps ago. And of course then nature kicks in and I think there's something, something beautiful around.
Speaker 3:I've said already about being outside, but I think also that sense of creation, created, or the natural being unspoiled and it's not got this kind of like heaviness that our man-made environments have, there's more of that freedom. The sky is big, the weather does what it does, the ground is soft or whatever it is, or it's annoying, and you're not in charge, there's no way you can control it, and all of those things together have an effect on us mind, body, soul. So I think I I totally agree one of the best therapies for a lot of people is sleep and exercise outside, not just pumping in a kind of down basement gym sort of thing.
Speaker 2:Yeah, so how do you deal with a bad day?
Speaker 3:Good question. For me, often the body and the stress are connected, so I can feel stress in my body often, and for me difficult days are. I'm quite a positive person, so I don't have many difficult days. But partly that's a mindset of realizing what's difficult, or what's my perception of difficult, and I think often I try to remove myself from the center of the story. So let's say I get a speeding ticket and then I get to where I was going and then I can't park anywhere. Then I get to the meeting and nothing happens that I was hoping for. Then I leave that meeting and can't miss lunch. Go to another one, I'm late and I don't know. Again that's another bad meeting. Get home and kids have had a terrible day and wife's going out with her mates and doesn't want to speak to me and there's nothing on TV. You know, that's kind of like well, starting to really feel.
Speaker 3:One way of looking at it is as I've just told you, and I can look and think, well, I've had a terrible day. Another way to look and well, I drive quite fast and if you drive over the speed limit you're basically exposing yourself to the traps. So you got trapped. But it wasn't personal. No, no police officer or no cameras waiting for james. So I kind of think like that. It's like well then, so you did what you did and you got what you got. And then of course you go to the meeting late and you're stressed. But why should all these people do what you want? And so for me, a lot of that stress in my mind is about just liberating myself from the center of the narrative. I think my kids call it like when you're like central character in a game. It's like central character mindset. This whole game revolves around me, and I think the world these days tries to tell us this a lot. Our whole social media, but also our shopping. It's all self, so self-oriented. It's social media. But also our shopping. It's all self so self-oriented, it's geared entire. My social media does not care about my marriage, doesn't care about me as a father, it cares about me as a consumer, and so it drives me to places.
Speaker 3:Again, let's talk about porn. You know I'm married, so I believe I shouldn't really be looking at other girls naked and so, but my phone doesn't care. My phone would definitely want me to look at other girls naked. The longer I linger on those pictures, the more of those it's going to show me. So one way for sort of de-stressing or how to deal with stress, start saying I need to take control over the impulses that are coming in and actually say enough. And then a final thing I'd say, which you haven't really touched on, is the spiritual side, but I believe that prayer helps. I think that actually saying a prayer or giving it up, letting it go and asking for help for me, that that prayer enables so much more of a liberation of me that you can find yourself de-stressing, just breathing and almost allowing a prayer to be a breath.
Speaker 3:I talked earlier a little bit about being silent. You could say meditation. I don't use that word very often, but in this context it could be like just being meditative and thinking well, whatever's happened, today will be, will be, but tomorrow will be another new day, new opportunity. So I think there's a lot around all of that, and other times life's just hard, it's just crap, isn't it? I've got a friend. He says that life is like train tracks and their train tracks are battles and blessings and battles and blessings and battles, and blessings and battles. And they run side by side and you can't think, yeah, you know, the day your dog dies could be the day you win some new business in your company, and life doesn't care. Life doesn't say well, do dog dying on tuesday and win new business on wednesday, and I'll help you out. It's like those two things can happen at the same time.
Speaker 1:So I think, as humans, we just have to learn to adapt, but also be expectant that it's not all going to go well as I want it to if you like what you're listening to today, guys, please do like, subscribe and share the life out of this podcast so we can get it out to as many people as possible and for season two.
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