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: Faith, Resilience & The Extreme Character Challenge | The Authentic Man Part 2
In Part 2 of our conversation with James Ray, author of Responsibility: Becoming the Authentic Man and leader of the Extreme Character Challenge, we go deeper into the struggles, faith, and resilience that shape men’s lives today.
This episode unpacks:
- Prayer, spirituality, and why suffering exists
- Why dark days build resilience and human connection
- How mindfulness and stillness can reset your mind
- The story behind the Extreme Character Challenge (XCC)
- Practical advice for fathers raising boys with integrity
- The power of delayed gratification (yes, including the Marshmallow Test)
If Part 1 challenged what it means to be an authentic man, Part 2 pushes further — exploring how faith, resilience, and character are forged through hardship, risk, and community.
📚 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/
🎧 Subscribe for new episodes every Tuesday at 5am.
hi, I'm ash and I'm chris, and welcome to the podcast.
Speaker 1:It's a really strange feeling sitting here listening to you talk about all this, because it I said to ash earlier on, I wanted to touch on your like spirituality side of things, because I'm not a believer of event of it's difficult to say I'm not, but I'm, I don't. I don't really think about anything like that. I've never really been in a position to think about it and, uh, I find it quite interesting that people do have religion, because how do you find like my wife had an MRI scan the other day and I stood outside while there was two guys there and their dad was having an MRI scan. It was really poorly and they were praying. I could see they were physically praying and I thought to myself, why are they doing that? And then I thought actually no, it must be lovely to believe in something because you've got something to believe in and you're praying to somebody or something to allow your father to be okay. But then what happens when the father isn't okay? How do you deal with that side of things? You know, I mean it's because you're believing in something, but if something doesn't happen, then how do you deal with that belief sort of failing you, sort of thing? Because I'll be honest with you.
Speaker 1:When I saw them praying, I actually prayed for my wife. Wow. So what was I praying to exactly? But I just felt like they're praying. So maybe that's what I should do for my wife, because I love her, and if they love their dad, then maybe that's what you do. So I, I prayed and she was all right. So I'm kind of thinking am I actually a believer? It's, it's a route. Like I said two minutes ago, the last few months have been very strange for me, but, um, I just kind of wanted to get your sort of side of that, really how you deal with that yeah, thanks for asking those two questions.
Speaker 3:I think let's separate the two issues um, because I think it's easy to discuss. So let's talk about um, why would we pray, or what's the benefit of god, if you like, in our life faith, and then let's separate what happens when it doesn't work for you, because I think if you put the two together it can get confusing. So, first thing, to your point, I was actually going to say to you I don't believe. There's a guy called GK Cheston. He says if you believe in nothing, you actually believe in everything, and so the reality is we all have some belief. In fact, I would say like, if you look at, you can go to some churches um, so I'm a priest in the church of england and you can go to some churches more like charismatic, this sort of american style bands and whatever and you'll get a whole load of people with their hands in the air hallelujah glory, and a lot of people find that was super weird. But if you take that exact, let's say it's a man as well, pick him up, put him in an arsenal shirt or a Tottenham one or whatever you want to wear, and then stick him on the stands while his team are playing and that action and everyone's like, oh, it's perfectly normal, that, I believe, is an action of worship. It's just that he, on a Saturday might be worshipping Tottenham and on a Sunday might be worshipping God. Of course, then if you ask which is worth your worship, even a Tottenham fan might admit Tottenham are not worth your full absolute, your whole life. And there are people who are devoted to things wholeheartedly and I love devotion but I think that ultimately, my answer to why would we worship, why would we pray, why would I talk to God? My view is a he exists, whether I want him to or not, so that's almost your point is like well, other people are believing it, why wouldn't I? And so I've had plenty of atheists who say, oh, I don't think god exists. That's fine. God doesn't actually need you to believe in him to exist himself. But I believe that most meaning and purpose is found when you find out why you're here, and so that sense of why are we here, what's the point, suddenly comes real when you start to find the answer to that, and I think that god plays huge, the biggest part of that, because, ultimately, if he is the creator and also, by the way. When I say he, I don't really see him as a, I definitely don't see him as a bearded man, but I think he is the only.
Speaker 3:It's a kind of a word we use to help us understand. In alcoholics anonymous, or na, they talk about a higher power. It's the idea, this idea that there is something greater beyond all of us that we can depend on and lean into and that gives us purpose. It's a bit like sat-nav on your phone. You don't have to use it, you can get where you want to go If you know your route. You know your route.
Speaker 3:But I've never lived before, so I've never done this. I've never, ever, sat in a room with you guys. Even though I pretend like, oh, I know what I'm doing, I have no idea what I'm doing. I don't know when we're going to finish, don't know what I'm doing, I might trip up on the way out, I don't know what's going to happen.
Speaker 3:But if this is an idea that actually God does know, he knows you guys already, he knows me already, he knows what we're going to be like Suddenly there one. So oh, that's handy. So I see God often a bit like that, in terms of like, just what's the best way to live my life. How do I know? I don't. So who knows? He knows he created life. But then to go to my point which I've been emphasizing about outside, that's one nature. So when I look at nature, a field, even, let's say, a woodland, or a sea, or a mountain, those images they're almost untouched by humans in many areas. So it does something to us where it reconnects us with this, like I'm not actually in charge.
Speaker 3:And every person on this earth, no matter how important they are, they're going to die. You know, whatever the president of the united states or the president of russia or whoever it is, whatever they think of, they're going to die. Whatever the president of the United States or the president of Russia or whoever it is, whatever they think of themselves, they're going to be dead soon and they'll be forgotten quite soon. I wonder if you know the name? Quick test for you and any listeners do you know the name of your great-great-grandfather or grandmother? I don't. Do you know where they lived? Maybe an area, a town? Do? Maybe an area, a town? Do I know where they met, what their favourite colour was, or car first, car, whatever? No, so that's quite frightening because and say some listener does know great. What about your great, great? It doesn't take long before you're like I'm going to be forgotten by my own children's children.
Speaker 1:There's a big post on social media at the moment. Isn't it about people just pushing themselves out of their comfort zones and saying, in a hundred years nobody's going to know who you were. Nobody's going to, somebody else is going to live in your house.
Speaker 3:All the things you say now are like try me. So this goes back to my point earlier about taking myself from the centre of the story, thinking I'm super important, I know everything not really that special in terms of like the great scheme of things. So actually, if god is permanent, if god is constant, if he is the higher power, why would I not want to tap into that and find my true meaning, find my true purpose? And also I feel like it's like coming home. You feel loved. But obviously religion is not shown like that. Religion is often shown as a bunch of rules to dominate you so that you can be either controlled, suppressed or minimized, and I think the minimizing is maybe helpful. It's like nice to not feel that I'm the most special person here. It's nice to recognize that I've made mistakes. You should say sorry for them.
Speaker 3:But I think that's a real difference between what I would say is faith and religion. I very, very, very rarely say I'm religious. I normally always say I have a faith, because I think they're different. So if you take that one aside, then just go quickly to your unanswered prayer. I think you're totally right that those guys are praying for their dad in hospital and hopefully he's fine, but he might not be. You said a quick prayer for your wife. Unfortunately she was Whether the prayer was answered or whether you hadn't prayed it, which I don't know about that. And also, I don't really think it's like gambling, where you put like hedge it, put a bit on red and a bit on black and hope for the best. For me. That doesn't really work. For me, the process of prayer is still that surrender of saying I'm not in charge here and I can't control this at all, but I do hope and depend on something bigger happening and I want the best for my wife and so I would pray for that reason. And then the final thing is, if it goes wrong, which is the tragedy of many people's lives, like why, why does God allow suffering? That's a super hard question to answer and most of the time the answers are rubbish because, like, his child dies, why did God allow that? It's a really difficult question. I don't believe in some ways there are answers. The only way I understand it is as soon as God starts controlling.
Speaker 3:So say, say, I have a child who's sick. Um, he heals that child. Three odd, oh few thanks very much. So now I have a five-year-old who's sick as well. Can you heal that one? Yeah, five, six, seven, eight, nine, ten, how old do we need to get before it's like, well, no, now you can let them go. So god has to kind of get going until we're about 80.
Speaker 3:And then there's that feeling of like, okay, well, if he's in a helium of cancer, what about? Um, something a bit less serious, I don't know, like frequent migraines, really bad migraines, could. Can you heal that as well? And if it were, if it's migraines, what about just headaches, just normal ones? And so then you end up with this, with god basically just doing all the jobs in our lives, fixing everything.
Speaker 3:And, to your point earlier, actually as hard as this sounds, if god starts fixing everything, making it perfect, then what kind of life have we got, where there's no suffering which connects us, challenges us, changes us, but also God just sort of does it. So we just wait. It's a bit Truman Show, isn't it? Where do you remember? You're walking around in this world that you're not really doing anything. God's sorting it all out and you just do your bit and he fixes it.
Speaker 3:So I think that's the only way I understand that suffering has to be in the world, there has to be some pain, as hard as it is. But there's a great thing called the alpha course you've ever seen. It's like a question mark on a red, red background called alpha, and they have a really good conversation around this around why does god allow suffering? And I think 28 million people have done that course who find answers like that's helpful. Thank you, but what I love is having a conversation. We've got to talk about it. It's not taboo and also I don't think there's any right answer what I've said. There's plenty of people who disagree with me. That's fine as well.
Speaker 2:I feel that and I've learned this a lot the last sort of six months is that we need the dark days. We need them and you have to learn to be able to be mental resilient. Mental resilience is a big thing that I'm sort of okay that, like you said earlier, that happened, that happened, that happened, that happened, oh my god, um, victim mindset is a thing, it's a real thing. Um, and I always thought that I had a positive mindset until my wife said to me the other day she goes, can you give me something positive? That happened today and I was like yeah, yeah, wow, and I think that I cherish these dark days. I cherish the dark moments because they build us resilience. Someone once said to me, said imagine an elastic band and you fling an elastic band. The further you stretch that band, the further it's going to fly. Think of that as the dark days, the hard times. The more you're testing, it's preparing you to go further in the future. That's what I think that's super helpful.
Speaker 3:And also I'd add one more thing that I I like you more because of your dark days. There's something around human connection that happens in pain. You, chris, paid attention to a family struggling and had an empathy for them and had a feeling for them, and then sort of changed your own behavior. Because if we don't have any of this stuff in the world, well then, if you're fine and you're fine, well, we've got nothing to talk about. Really, we've only got like oh, you've got a nice car, you know how big's your house. It's all benign, all the stuff that we do end up to, it's like none of that matters. What really matters is you're right, and when you say no, I'm not all right. And can you help me or can we chat? So I've got a friend right now. He's just messaged me. His wife's just asked him to sign a prenup. They're married. She's just asked him suddenly, after x years of marriage, can you just sign this prenup, in case we? What? Yeah, so he's just out of blue, what? So he, I'm?
Speaker 3:First of all, I was the only person to start. I was the only person he told for a while. So all I can say is mate, that's awful, you know, do you want to have a chat? But I love him more for telling me than not telling me. If he hadn't told me then I know him all his life. But he's never told me. This whole thing inside of me which is imagining your brain thinking what's she doing? What's going on? Why am I doing this? Why should you ask me to sign this? And actually, for him, there's that sense of just telling someone, just as liberating but also has made me feel more special to him and a little bit I've got my eye on him, a little bit like I care about him and he's in, and if he didn't open that and that's what me and chris said about doing this podcast we've not done this and we've.
Speaker 2:We've sort of it's a way to be open, it's a way to sort of let it out. Otherwise, you internalize everything and that's why, like messages, emails and things, you read it how you're feeling that day. If someone sent, if I send, you a message and I didn't mean it james, where are you late? We're doing the podcast're doing the podcast you might take that as oh sod him, we're not going, whereas if I send you a voice note James, how you doing? Man Just wondered how you're getting on that comes across completely differently. And opening.
Speaker 2:The best thing I ever did was a mindfulness course. I was in a bad way. I owed a quarter of a million quid in my business and I had a couple of grand in the bank and I had no idea. But everything my brain was telling me worst case scenario, every single thing. So I did a mindfulness course and it was amazing, like learning how to deal with your emotions. She explained it as all these things, you have to acknowledge them. She said imagine you're lying on your back on the grass and the clouds are coming across the sky. There are, get them in your vision, acknowledge them and let them pass. And then there was imaginary shelves and things like that and, honestly, it changed my life, just to understand that my brain is a muscle and I have to learn to control it.
Speaker 3:Brilliant and also there's just a way as humans, we just don't know, we don't understand how brilliant and complex and ugly we are. It's those things together of like. We have to be aware.
Speaker 2:I'm definitely ugly. So I want to talk to you about XCC. Yeah, because it's a charity, it's a challenge. Where did it come from? Where? How did it start?
Speaker 3:Tell me more. So I grew up I'm one of four boys, so I'm the second of four brothers and my son. I've got a son and he is, I think, the seventh all-male generation. So it's my son. I've got two sons, the seventh generation of all men, obviously through my father's line. So I've had this sort of male experience.
Speaker 3:Then I was in the Royal Navy for a little bit as a reservist. I then taught in a boarding school this sort of male experience. Then I was um in the royal navy for a little bit as a reservist. I then taught in a boarding school where I had a 50 teenage boys living in the same house as me and I was looking after them and, um, then I uh yeah, just male experiences and obviously a rugby team, whatever sports teams, and so through all that I noticed that men are basically beautiful and amazing, but also broken and quite frightening. So there's that kind of combination between they can be really powerful when they're on form and I think society still leans in a benefit of men generally. It's generally good for us worldwide, definitely you could say that. So generally men have got power and control generally across the world. So there's this beautiful kind of group of people that have a lot of potential and yet also super broken. And so if you look at most prisons, of course they're populated by men obviously men-only prisons but most prisons are male prisons. I spent a bit of time in a police force and they basically spend most of their days hunting men. Their clients are men, and if you look at most troubles in the world, there'll be men behind them. So it's not that women don't feature, it's just that this is a trend.
Speaker 3:So I kind of had that awareness in my mind of like men are so brilliant and beautiful, but also so broken and so full of capacity to damage. What if we can change that and just keep the beautiful, brilliant side shining and also learn to deal with the broken side? And so, um, obviously I started working with young people, and young people are great. Um, really enjoyed those times. But there's a I sort of had this feeling like a lot that's wasted on the young, because they rightly so. Young people have a kind of cockiness to them. It's like, yeah, but you're a bit of a dick, so that that's going to happen to you but not me. That won't happen to me, I'm going to be different, and so you can talk about anything, even stuff they're struggling with. Yeah, but I'm just struggling for now and I'll be fine. And so young men especially have all those problems of loneliness, their problems of porn, problems of anger, but they'll work it out, they're still discovering.
Speaker 3:Yeah, and this is the whole world's ahead and don't worry, I'm going to meet someone fantastic, and they're going to sort my life out. It's in their mind. But then, of course, life goes on until about 20 odd 25. Many people by 25 and 26 to 30 are like it's not going as I thought it would. Actually, I'm not yet where I wanted to be quite bad, and so I really found it interesting to engage, start to engage, with men of that kind of age and then, of course, carrying, like, say, to 30 to 50, you've got this whole band of like seriousness happens.
Speaker 3:Quite a lot of heavy stuff happens, big commitments that change you forever. You know, we've talked about them already having kids, getting married, buying houses, like getting serious jobs where you have people working for you. A lot of that stuff happens in this age, and so there's a feeling by which, if we create space for men in that age to really try and be to almost like better themselves but also get the best of themselves, then that's an opportunity. And so from my outdoor experience, the feeling was you've got to get guys away. If you keep, if we stay in this environment, we'll connect a lot. We could hang out here for quite a long time, we would connect a lot. But we out here for quite a long time, we would connect a lot, but guaranteed, if we go outside and go on a long walk, we'll connect more. Just because one of us will fall over or something or like trip into something or bump into something, or something will happen, or a car will come and I'll put my arm on. You'll be like hang on, and suddenly we're connecting and like touching each other. It can sound weird, but that's what very human is to actually be physical, and so the whole physical experience is super powerful.
Speaker 3:And then we began to think well, what if you could then connect mind, body, soul, which I believe are those most important things in our life? So the physical we need to keep it active. Then the mental, the moral, the the stuff we're talking about friendship, loneliness, anger, depression, mental well-being, all of that stuff, but chat about it in a way that isn't like one hour intense and even, to some extent, I wouldn't be surprised if people have started tuning out on the podcast, because it can get quite heavy. Whatever you're doing right now is like wow, I'm listening to this guy's too much, and so, whereas, if we can have this conversation slowly over three day, four days. We can. I can slow down a bit, you. I can hear from you guys more, much more interesting what you have to say, really, than what I have to say, so we can connect.
Speaker 3:And then, finally, that sense of the spiritual. We talked about it a moment ago, but we just have to make space for that. Otherwise the risk in our lives if we shut it all out and block it out and just be purely, um, like we're present, I'm here now and what I'm doing now is the only important thing, without any kind of future, there is no sense of now. Because now is like if we all knew we're going to die tomorrow, we probably wouldn't be sitting having this chat. We're doing other stuff, and so we've got to have some sense that tomorrow exists, that there is another day. Then we live our days like that. So I think the spiritual then comes in as like why are we here? What's the point? What are you bothering for? And to have those conversations outside enable people to have their own views and allows people to disagree, but also mostly to to reflect and to listen.
Speaker 3:And so the xcc is this extreme character challenge, your idea being that there's no point just doing a physical challenge, but it but people want to feel this physical challenge and I like that.
Speaker 3:There's no point doing a sort of spiritual challenge, because I don't know what's going to challenge anyone, maybe nothing.
Speaker 3:And also there's no point doing a moral challenge because, um, you could just say, oh, you know, we didn't don't have the same morals. But actually if you chuck it all together and say it's actually about your character, what who you really are as a human, maybe I would talk to her about is the authentic man, the authentic you. What's the real you? Who's the you that only some people get to see, and how can we encourage him more, how can we grow him and how can he change and evolve and be challenged and be kind of the best version of himself? And so the extreme character challenge was born out of that. And uh, yeah, we've taken thousands of men. We go into wild place in the uk and for it's sort of 72 hours, thursday night till sunday, um, and we run about five of these events a year. They pretty much sell out, um, and then we have an amazing, amazing response. The only reason I really do it again is because it's the outcomes are amazing.
Speaker 2:So I'm hoping actually you'll be saying that in a much less time I'm I'm nervous about it because I'm nervous about finding out who I am, because I really I'm really looking forward to stripping back. I'm really looking forward to no phone, no vape, no tv, no tiktok, no anything for four days yeah, we take all that stuff away from you, take the car keys, all of it.
Speaker 3:And the reason for that is we just take control of you because, again, we've discussed already, but most of us spend most days I do, I certainly do controlling my time and myself, my bank account. I know what I can do today, what I can't, I know what's in my fridge, what I'm going to eat, what I'm not, and that's fantastically liberating if you've never had that, but after a while that's a burden that you just could do without, and so we take that off you. And also, the other thing is that adventure is defined as an activity with uncertain outcomes. So there there's that trepidation. We like it because it's like I don't know what's going to happen. It might rain, it might be like super windy and like gale force winds and, yeah, we just have to carry on doing what we're going to do.
Speaker 2:And we don't even know at the moment.
Speaker 3:I know it's in Wales. Yeah, I don't know where we're in Wales.
Speaker 2:Wales is a big place, who's 11.? I showed her the list of things and the FAQs Don't take, you're not allowed to bring anything. No snacks, no, nothing, or it will be taken away. And you're going to get that's it, you're. And she was like oh my God, dad, are you going to be all right? I said I'm going to be absolutely fantastic, dad.
Speaker 2:The hardest thing that's going to be for me is to not be able to speak to you for three or four days. That's going to be the hardest thing for me is to not be able to speak to you. Everything else I'm ready for it. I'm like come on, let's do this. Come on, james, let's have some fun in a different way that I would normally have fun. And I'm like you say, get outside. So my friend who's um nick goldsmith. He's got a book called rewild your mind and everything that he does for the veterans that he works with is all about bushcraft, being outside, living with nature, grounding yourself, and I think it's important and I'm really looking forward to it. And it's such a shame Chris can't come along for the journey, I know yeah, I kind of swerved that one, didn't I?
Speaker 1:It was a good excuse for it.
Speaker 2:Maybe you'll have a go at the next one. Yeah, and I like the fact that it's all secret. I've watched all the videos on your website on youtube I can find and people are like all they say is it was fantastic. And then in the thing it says you don't know what you're doing, we don't know what we're doing, but it's gonna be great, like just come I don't know what open-minded yeah, and I think that's that sense of adventure, isn't it?
Speaker 3:Imagine Yellowstone's on at the moment, all those sort of old, the prairies and the kind of pilgrims story, and even back in the day in the UK there's plenty of spaces where you'd have to go on a journey. It would take you two or three days and you couldn't. You'd tell people you're leaving and then you'd arrive and you arrive and maybe tell them three weeks later you arrived there. But with mobile phones now and everything's so instant, even speaking with your family, which of course, I believe is a good thing. There's that sense by which this is these are kind of heavy burdens that we have to carry that constant.
Speaker 3:People would know where I am right now and they know what time and every minute of all my days is known by me and many others, and actually just have some freedom from that then to have a a bit of fun with just a bunch of random blokes and there'll be, like I don't know, 150 guys there and there's that sense of like, why 150?
Speaker 3:What are we all going to do? But I quite like the mystery of just saying we don't know, let's just see what happens, because that's something playful about that as well, and normally if we go out with our mates, I'm like, well, we'll go here and then we'll go there and we'll go there, right. And so it's kind of like, okay, fine, all decided, everyone making plans, booking things, saving money here, and so it's actually, when you're outside, just go. One of the reasons we don't tell you where we're going to go is because if it's raining, like when the wind's blowing from the West to the East or whatever, we might try and make it fun, we'll try and take some risks, we'll try and make it wild and feel a bit ballsy, but at the same time we'll have to adapt because whatever happens will happen. A river might flood, a bridge might collapse, whatever it is like, well, we just have to work our way of getting over and I'm I'm really looking forward to the human connection.
Speaker 2:I love people, certain people, I love people and I love human connection and this is something I've been having a lot of conversations with. Human connection is at the lowest it's ever been. We live for our phones, we speak for our phones, we send videos for our phones and this whole human connection. I'm really looking forward to losing the technology, losing everything, and having human connection again yeah, we're talking the book.
Speaker 3:You might remember if you listen to it online actually didn't you on audible. But there's that chapter on connection, connect and abandon, connection, abandon. So the whole connection thing for me is massively important around loneliness and suicide, for men especially. But also just that feeling like if you, if I gave you all more money than you've got, so let's say we 10x your income, so whatever. Say you earn 20 grand, you're now going to earn 10 times that 200 grand. Say you earn 50 grand, you're going to earn 500. Wow, we're getting to big numbers. What starts to happen is people will just start thinking well, I will buy that bigger house with those gates and, of course, instead of being now living in a terrace house with your neighbours where it's like morning mooring and you're both putting your bins out together, it's now someone else is putting my bins out for me and I open the gates for my limousine to drive in and out. And then what's happened to my neighbour?
Speaker 3:A friend of mine used to play football at a high level, played for England, whatever and he moved to an area called Beckinsfield, near us. Actually it's where James Corden lives and blah, blah, blah his family from, and there's loads of people that live around there. Apparently it's the most expensive place to live outside London. And I went to see him in his house and I said how is it? And he's like it's boring, I don't know anybody here, I can't meet anybody. Because he's a bit of a footballer. There was a little bit of a tiny celebrity stage so he couldn't easily just walk down a road because people would sort of stop him. So he'd probably drive normally. But he's like where can I go? What? How do I meet my neighbors? Because the local pubs all sort of whatever they call like swanky pubs, bistro dining, whatever it is, so it's not like the local and and so they've all gone.
Speaker 3:Then he's like the high street's, just high street, I don't. Waitrose is the supermarket. But he he didn't necessarily want to meet people in waitrose in his mind and so he's like it's like he wants to meet someone like playing. He was quite a geezer and wanted to meet like darts club or something, but they're not gonna have a darts club in this area. So what he realized he'd done is essentially earn himself out of his friendship groups into a place where he didn't know anybody. They're all bankers and whatever they were, and he was like they were all 20 or 30 years older than me and none of us. I've never met them. I waved once to my neighbor across the road, that was it, and so it made me really think at that moment. I remember saying the thing careful you wish for james, careful you don't wish yourself into this kind of disconnected world and that's what I love about the irish.
Speaker 2:I've got a couple of friends in ireland and they live on a place it's called mill street. It's a road. There's pubs on it. No matter what time of day, you can walk in that pub and you can have a pint or a lemonade or, and you'll have a conversation with a bloke sitting at the bar next to you hello, mate, how you doing what you've been up to this week? And they just talk. And the community on this street, the plasterer and those, the electrician, they all help. Oh, mate, I need you to borrow your van. Can I borrow your van? You know where I is. I'll be there in half an hour. I need a.
Speaker 3:I've been you a pint and anyone listening to the whole podcast, they're going to think well, we've come full circle. Are we saying something different to what we're saying earlier, which was, you know, those people stuck in that pub culture? But this is now a different reason. I think there's definitely football support. I love the fact people have season tickets next to someone around them, but we've had these season tickets for 20 years or whatever they've had. I love that. I love the pub culture where it's let's go, meet people connect, have a space where we can meet. It's what we're talking about earlier. Was that that sense of like I just go to the pub to drown my sorrows and when everyone's gone home I'm still the one there because I don't want to get involved in my life. So slightly different context there, but I love that. I think that's fantastic.
Speaker 1:It kind of takes you back to the COVID times, doesn't it? When we were all outside the houses hitting pots and pans and stuff and you were sitting outside with your neighbours and you're all connecting with people that you'd never. I've lived on my street for 10 years and I hadn't spoken to probably 99% of my neighbours and for three months all three months all I did was speak to my neighbors and we all loved each other and then, as soon as the pots and pans went back in the cupboards, you're all talked to suppression, isn't it? We're all taught to hate each other and you know nobody wants to say hello in the street and it is.
Speaker 1:I expect the xcc is becoming very popular because you are losing the community side of things every single day. The pressures are on your shoulders as a man and you know it's this stag do thing, isn't it? You know, when you go on a stag, do women go? Why are they acting like that? Why are they laughing and joking and pouring beer over each other? It's because that kind of caveman, adventurous, wanting to have fun sort of comes out of you, doesn't it? And and I don't think females can really understand why men are like that, but it's just. I feel like it's a natural thing. When you get with your friends, you let your guards down.
Speaker 3:It's the camaraderie isn't it and also, ultimately we are a bit silly. So it's just like sometimes we're just a bit dumb and I agree it's hard to explain. Most men tend to sort of get it, even if they don't like it, and I also have a lot of empathy for guys like I don't really like people pouring beer all over each other. I also get that. But I think that even those men I understand, I sort of get why it's happening, whereas I agree that a lot of people, a lot of women, would look at it. I just don't understand this at all. But to go back a tiny section, I think it's exactly the link I was going to make between COVID and XCC is that XCC? We call it a reset or a restart and or a restart, and that's what covid was. The sadness, of course, apart from the hideousness of the whole experience, is that all those things we promised to do. How quickly did I forget my neighbors? How quickly have I moved away from community, back into online, on in my head or whatever, away from cooking with my family like this is great, actually, we're gonna have, we're gonna start ordering from the local milkman every day and to actually just go to tesco. It's much easier. And so I think the xcc often often does provide that reset of like what's important, and just to go again five steps back, actually, in terms of your daughter asking like even the food thing. One of the reasons we say to guys, don't, don't bring any food, we'll sort it, is because a lot of people don't know what they really need to eat and also what's good for them. And I've got a mate. He all his life he's had a mars bar every day. He's super fit and healthy and nothing really on that front, but he just, he just likes mars bars. He says it has one every day, but any day that he can't get hold of one by about six o'clock hasn't had one. He starts to get a bit twitchy, like I haven't had my mars bar today, and so one really good thing for him is just one or two days without your mars bar realizing you don't really need your Mars bar, do you? It's just a habit, behave it. It's kind of innocent.
Speaker 3:Vaping is kind of a similar one. It's like you're going to stick this in your mouth every day that you've got it. What if you haven't got it? You'll just start being like, well, I can't live without that. And then suddenly it's like 28 days to break a habit in terms of like kick it. But I think the three days, the reset. Three days there's a reset of your brain, which is why they're three day often fast. Three day, water, fast three day. And so the reality around those three days, your brain says I can do this. So then you might. You'll come home and still want to vape, and still want to vape, but then you've got a choice to be like I'm going to stop that and 28 days later you'll stop the cravings. And so I think that's the challenge of those three days away just creates space. I can't wait.
Speaker 1:I really want to do it now.
Speaker 2:I might see if I can get my wife's appointment cancelled, ah yeah, moved, yeah, before we wrap this up, james. So just sort of a little bit for men listening right now who can't jump on an xcc what's the one practice that you would say they could start tomorrow to just to take more responsibility in their life?
Speaker 3:one thing.
Speaker 3:It's hard on that because I bet there's 100 yeah, the first thing I'd say is like do an audit. If there's one thing you should do, then it's audit your life, and just by that I mean two columns what do you like about yourself right now and what do you dislike about yourself and the stuff you like? Hopefully the list is reasonably balanced. The first thing will be many people won't be able to write one or the other. The sad one is you can't write anything that you like about yourself. Too many men could write a load of stuff that they're brilliant at and very few things they're bad at. But let's just have it say there's stuff I like and stuff I dislike. Just looking at the stuff I like, thinking how can I do more of that? And the stuff you dislike, how can I do less of that? And that I think will be the trigger for any kind of change, like why don't I just do this and I on a piece of paper in front of me?
Speaker 3:And if you're struggling with your pen hovering at a paper to write anything you like, you need to find out that you're beautiful and brilliant. You need to find some friends who can tell you that. If your list of what's amazing about you is super long, but your list of what I don't like about myself is super short. You need to get some sense of reality. You're not that great. You're a bit of an ass actually and you as you think you are. And so I would say those lists should almost be balanced 10 odd words each, 10 key things. And if you can't, again you could ask someone who loves you like what do you like about me? What's good about me? Let's just put that down. What can I change? How should I shift? Write that down. But I would say the first thing you want to do is know where you are to start, and I would say that any advice on top of that will be useless if you don't actually appreciate.
Speaker 2:I've got a problem here. It's the identification, isn't it?
Speaker 3:I guess yeah it's like talking to an alcoholic Before they admit they're alcoholic. There's no point saying, right, mate, you drink too much, because they'll be like, nah, I'm all right. Or mate, yeah, you've got a problem here, nah, I'm all right. But the problem, they can look up to you and you say, yeah, what you can do about it, and that's a massive. There's loads of options. But until you realize you're not going to change it goes back to that responsibility again, doesn't it?
Speaker 3:yeah, and then you've got to take responsibility, but the order is that first revelation of like I am not who I think I am, or I'm not, or I'm gonna soon be not. You know, again some of you guys were listening and girls are listening you'll be, you'll be about to do things in your life that you could stop right now. That if you stop now you'll get away with and you'll be okay. But if you carry on, let's just. Let's just talk about, like an affair, cheating on someone. There'll be plenty of people listening who've got half an eye on someone that they shouldn't have half an eye on. Let's keep it for men just for now.
Speaker 3:They say there's a bloke out there looking at a girl and he's married and he shouldn't be looking at that girl. You shouldn't be thinking about texting and you shouldn't have got a number off your mate and you shouldn't have asked her about that thing. That's like not that's okay to ask about that, like oh, who do you have to? And there's just information. But the guy will be there sitting thinking about that thing and if he stops today he'll save himself. But the problem will be he won't stop today because he won't do this audit.
Speaker 3:He'll carry on the I'm all right, I'm not going to do anything I know myself. And then in three years time he'll look back and say my marriage isn't done, my kids hate me, I'm shacked up with this girl, but it turned out she didn't really like me or she was actually annoying and as bad as my wife anyway because that tends to be the things, like we're all about and he might look back in three years and say I wish I just hadn't had that first contact. And so many of us will make those decisions. So often we say what am I doing? Prioritise the things I want in my life and the things I don't want and then work hard to keep myself on that list. I like that. I like that.
Speaker 2:What advice would you give a father who wants to raise a boy into a man with integrity and resilience?
Speaker 3:that's a great question, a big one. The first bit of advice is very much linked to what I've literally just said. They say the best way to love your children is to love their mum. So that's for us men, obviously, for women to be to love their dad. So, whether you're together or not, it might be too late for many people like, well, I can't, you know, spit up, but the best way to love your children is to love their moms. That's the first challenge I would have for any parent. What your kids ultimately want you to be is in harmony with the other most important person in their life, and and it I just, I'd almost challenge anybody in any context to say that's not true. Most kids like if we, if you could, two could just have some peace and let's assume they're together and you could have some love. That kid feels so safe, so secure, so known, so accepted. So the first thing I'd say for all parents is love each other, prioritise each other as parents.
Speaker 3:But then, in terms of a father raising a son, I think there's a combination of two things that are held in tension, and I would say one is teach them challenge, challenge, teach them risk and then tell them. Back them up, go for it. I'm here, I'm going to watch you, I'm going to support you, I'm going to make it. Don't set them up for failure. Don't set them up on that rope swing, where they're not as crap and they know they're going to end up in the drink and like you know. You see guys like that's like, what are you doing? Like using your kid as your little bully playmate? Have you not grown up out of the playground? Did you just want to bully you? And now you're bullying an eight-year-old, so that it's not that, but it's like. But then don't tie the knots, all for them and do it. Or I've set you up a rope swing and now come must, do it. It's not that either. It's that's middle ground of saying, right, do you fancy a rope swing? Do you reckon you could tie that? Can you climb up there, do you? I'm gonna stand here, I'm a bit nervous about this bit or if you can't, you just call me at any time. I'll be here and then tie that knot. How, what sort of? What have you done there? We'll wrap it around five more times. Then that's what I would do. That it's that kind of chat like help, help, help and then, yeah, you did it. There's that sense of adventure and then balance with that. It was back to our conversation earlier.
Speaker 3:I'd say, for any man with a son is also teach him to know his own heart, teach him to be able to cry, not like um, anything like oh, you know it's raining on my birthday. I'm crying. You know, I've got a flat tire on my bike, I'm crying. We don't want that kind of collapsing, but we do want to have young men who know it's okay to to express their emotion, but also what are your emotions, and to be vulnerable. Yeah, what were you even thinking right now? Why would that be? Why is that funny? Also, why is that sad?
Speaker 3:I've got a 15 year old and he tells the most hideous jokes as most 15, I mean really anything in society that's taboo. He's got a joke about it and I cannot even begin to repeat them in recorded because I'd get cancelled in seconds. That's the jokes he's got, and a lot of it's just light touch. A lot of it is just him testing this sense of like. I'm not allowed to say any of this. Am I really? And the answer is no, you're not, and so that's why you're getting great pleasure I say it, but occasionally I'll challenge on something like why is that so?
Speaker 3:Why is that so offensive?
Speaker 3:Just testing, do you, do you get? Do you get it and you can you understand that? Why that would be really offensive for this person if they're in that situation and it's that 15-year-old brain which is like an animal, like a monkey really. Sometimes I leave it just having a laugh, but other times it's just a check of are you okay on that? Why is that so wrong? Or why would that person ask you to do that? Why do you think they're asking you to do that? It's because they care. That's right.
Speaker 3:So, trying to help them understand that empathy so that we don't grow up men who are just either one tough like adventurous, wild, total, don't care about the consequences, or I don't want to have a whole bunch of men that only care about consequences and feelings and can't have a little adventure. We don't want this risk adverse kid who who stay safe. The COVID motto is like their mantra for life. I don't think it's a great mantra, it's okay, it's not bad advice, but I would say we should be thinking about people's wellbeing and some of my wellbeing is for me to take risks. I need to be allowed to be risky and stay safe says no, stay at home, sit on your sofa, that's why you stay safe. Bad advice in most contexts. Of course I'm not saying be reckless, but I am saying safety isn't the number one importance and things like a pen knife a great example playing with fire. Kids should be allowed to play with fire.
Speaker 3:When have they lit a fire recently? Do they now to open and close a knife and sharpen something like go for it, it's dangerous, you might cut yourself, you could have a go, and obviously the risk here for many men is they'll feel like I want to tell them that, but my wife or missus, she's always saying no to that sort of stuff. And that's again a marriage conversation to say, well, the partners have a chat, work it out. At some point they need to embrace some kind of danger. Maybe you're it's too young, cause they are only three and you've given them a first Swiss army life. Maybe that is too young, fair enough, but what? When can they play with fire? What does it look like to make that safe? Because if we don't teach them and then they get to 16, 17, 18, I mean you guys, you certainly Nash, but also anyone working the trades knows. Well, then they come out. They're totally useless, literally can't do anything. You've not done a thing in your life.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I think yeah, there's a fine line at the moment, isn't there between helping them, like you said, not setting them up to fail, but allowing them to fail and make their own mistakes by learning that person in the playground, you might get bullied. You are going to have hard days. It isn't all unicorn and rainbows and setting them up for that, because life is full of that. No matter where you are in your life, you're going to face challenges. You're going to and I think that is the what you've said is really important that we have to help them, Not do it for them, but let them do it and say I would do it like that, this is how I, and let them learn their own way. I feel that's a really important thing.
Speaker 3:One final thing, if I can add, especially for teenage boys. They get a bit older, another thing that's got. It's not trending in society anymore. But I would say, teach them about delayed gratification and if you have to teach yourself while you're doing it, teach yourself that that's the idea that you wait for something you could have now, because having it tomorrow might actually be better for you, like, say, a new car. But it could also be that girlfriend, or it could also be that that night out with the mates or that you know again, you look on instagram now and if you're not in mykonos every summer, you're a loser. So if you're that in my mind when I grew up, that used to be like 20 year old guys would go there. Then they got dropped down like school leavers. Now it's dropped down like 16 years. Then it goes down like well, when you're about 14, 15, isn't it time to go off on my first overnight with my girlfriend?
Speaker 3:My argument would be let your kids be kids and extend that delayed thing of like. You don't have to have it today when you wait till tomorrow. If you still want it tomorrow, let's have a chat. If you still want the next day, maybe let's have a chat then and we've done that a lot with our kids and actually most of the time you realize that they go off the fad, they change. But also that delay process means they appreciate it when they eventually do get it more. But if they have it straight away, everything they want right now, the risk is they've got no sense of resilience but no sense to wait for anything and they have. They're not knowing about multiple messes later in life. And if you think about relationships, you know if you can't commit and wait and think about it, especially things like having kids just start to be like, yeah, just have them now, let's have a kid. We want a kid, want a puppy, let's get a puppy. Hang on a second. All of this requires massive of responsibility. How's that going to work for you?
Speaker 2:and I think teaching teenagers delayed gratification is a gift to them, but it's super uncool I love that we've got so much value in this and I reckon that that little bit at the end because I am that person, I am like I want a new motorbike. Get the idea I'm gonna go and buy one tomorrow, that's it, I'm gonna go and buy it. And then you're like I should have bought that one or a new car. I did it when I was a kid.
Speaker 2:I remember I crashed my first car I had, was gonna buy another one and I said to my old man I'm gonna buy this car. He said don't do it. I said yeah, yeah, I'm gonna go and buy. Yeah, I really want it. He said don't do it, it's your money, I'll let you do it. I went and bought an old Mark II Volkswagen Golf First time, picked it up, went into Sainsbury's car park with my mates come in, went over a speed bump, both the front lights fell out and that was a lesson that I will never forget and I should have delayed that graduation a bit to this um on where your list is probably getting bored of me now.
Speaker 3:But um, it's called the marshmallow test. You probably came to come across. It was years old now, but if you google the marshmallow test it's pretty famous. So they basically stuck some cameras in a school classroom of some age kids let's say they were five, six, seven years old, something around that.
Speaker 3:Obviously, with permission, um, psychological experiment they stuck a marshmallow on everyone's desk and then they said, right, we're going to walk out of here now, and if that marshmallow is still on your desk when we come back you get two. Okay, well, kids like what? So off they go. So you can imagine, I didn't say we're coming back in a minute, they just said we're going to go out when we come back. So the first thing that happened, like four or five of the kids just straight down because, like that's your marshmallow, right, it's yours, but if it's there when you get back you get two. So the loads of kids start wolfing them down. Then it's a nice bit where another kid's like licking around the table, another one is sniffing some other kid, some other kids looking out the window, other kids sitting on their hands, eyes closed, can't even look at it, all this stuff.
Speaker 3:But what they did was then track those kids into adulthood and they found out that predictably. Now when you start to realize it's like the ones that waited had a more fulfilled life than the ones that got their instant gratification, who were generally less fulfilled throughout life, and most of the standard stuff that breaks down in life broke down for those kids around instantaneous gratification versus the ones who were like I'll just wait. And so there's that real sense, obviously an underdeveloped thing in life, and I would bring it back into a faith context. Often people think that the idea of god is like telling you what you can't do and I would often say it's well or it's telling you stuff that is good for you and stuff you shouldn't do because it's bad for you, and ultimately that kind of links in my mind to this delay gratification, like why not wait? Wait another day, see if you want it tomorrow, see if you still need it, and obviously you wait a bit. You get a bit older and realize I don't need that and that's it.
Speaker 2:I've made so many mistakes with that in my life I've made so many mistakes.
Speaker 1:I was literally having this conversation yesterday, my wife exactly same conversation. I was, up until my son was born, anything I wanted us when I bought instantly anything that my wife wanted. When I went and bought. Now I never, I never, saved any money. I didn't do anything. Now I save all of my money. I don't go out and buy things willy nilly. You know I need a new car. I haven't gone and bought one. It's just mad how the journey just changes, like as you go through life and, like I said a minute ago, like for me, I don't really care about anybody else. Now I feel like I've gained so much out of this.
Speaker 2:No, this has been great. Should we wrap this up?
Speaker 1:Yeah, james has got to get to fix this.
Speaker 2:Right, thank you, James. That's been great. I really appreciate it. And for anybody watching Responsibility, Becoming the Authentic man, this is James' book. I've listened to it. Now I've got a copy of it. I'm going to read it, but I promise you it's got some real golden nuggets in there. We'll link the copy of the book in the show notes and I'm also going to send a link to XCC Now. The next one is the 9th to the 12th of October in Wales. There are still tickets available. Check it out.
Speaker 1:XCCorguk. Thank you so much, james. I've gained a lot.
Speaker 3:I really did appreciate your time. It's been a real pleasure. Thanks, guys. Hopefully it's helpful.
Speaker 1: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.
Speaker 2:And for season 2, we want you to be involved. So we have the Untold phone. Please send us funny jokes, dilemmas, anything you want to 07511 272 459. And who knows, maybe we'll feature you in the next show.