This episode is supported by Movember, the leading charity
changing the face of Men's Health.
Welcome back to the To be a Boy podcast with me, Elliot Ray and
my Co host Jodie. Really happy half term.
Are you melting in the? Heat.
I'm sure the UK is either like really cold and raining or just
Sahara desert temperatures. So get your fan, relax, get in
the car, take a drive with the windows open the AC and enjoy
today's episode. We are doing a rerun for you.
John Amici was brilliant, superb, fantastic, like all the
words to describe how good he was.
And he spoke so openly about what it means to be a man in
today's world and the dynamics of being a black, tall big man
and how people respond to him and how we can create more
inclusive workplaces and what boys need from us.
And it was such a good episode that we thought, you know what,
for this half term, let's rerun, let's spin it back, let's do it
again. So we are delighted to offer you
John Amici. Today we are joined by John
Amici, organizational psychologist, New York Times
bestselling author, and former NBA player.
John is one of the most powerful voices we have on leadership,
culture and what it means to thrive as a human being.
He challenges us to think differently about identity,
belonging, and the stories we tell our boys and men about
themselves. I was introduced to John and his
work by my partner who's also an ex basketball player and
honestly, if he could have posters in his bedroom, if I let
him have posters in his bedroom, you would be front and centre.
We'd have just a massive John Amici poster in our bedroom.
So I really want to start with sport because sport is really
important at my house. I have two boys and for my boys
and my partner, it's become such a central play, such a central
role in their lives and it didn't play a big role in my
life growing up and it feels to me like sport plays a particular
role for boys. So, John, I'd like to start by
asking you what sport did for you when you were growing up.
So I had a I've had the worst and the best of experiences in
sport. I started playing basketball for
reasons unrelated to sport, money, professional athlete life
or lifestyle. I started because I thought I
could find a place where I would fit in, where people wouldn't
look at me and be afraid. Where people would look at me
and see my potential rather than imagine me a criminal.
And that's exactly what I found in a tiny, rather urine smelling
gym in Chorlton, near Manchester.
I walked in the front door for my first basketball training
session, and I kind of ducked through this tiny little door
into a gym where people were already playing, and everything
stopped. People stopped.
They looked at me and they ran towards me, which in my regular
life is a terribly frightening thing to happen.
But in this context, they grabbed me by the arms and they
were like, this guy is on our team.
And that was the moment I knew I was going to play basketball and
do it in every way I possibly could.
And it was nothing to do with the game.
I'd never played the game. I'd never touched a basketball.
It was simply the idea that what a difference it was to walk into
this space where you felt that people wanted you there, were
not afraid of you, almost envied the things that other people
found frightening about you. And then when you get into the
sport, you suddenly realize that there's a real intimacy to it.
I think he's on the base. When sport is done well, one of
the best things about it is it provides access to men who often
denied it or more accurately, deny themselves real intimacy,
especially with other men. It provides a space for intimacy
where people can, when we think about sport at it's best, how
when even if you're not playing, if you're just watching sport,
your team loses and you can hug the man next to you and, and
nobody misunderstands what is happening.
Where when there is success, you can be jubilant and and
frivolous and frolicky with other men and nobody
misunderstands. It provides A context for very
normal, very healthy behaviors that men sometimes, all too
often, are denied outside of it. And that's what sport did for me
at its best. It did some mad stuff too, but
that was the beginning and that's what it can do at its
best, I think. And do you think, are there are
there other things that it taught you about masculinity?
Do you think there's something about team sports for men rather
than individual sports that really helps them thrive and and
learn about interaction with other whether the boys and
whether the men there were the things that things you think it
gives you. So, so there's a difference
between amateur or kind of community level sport and
professional sport. Because in professional sports
and athletics, there are no individual sports.
I know you might be thinking of runners or shot putters or
whatever else, but there's no such thing as an individual
sport with with with them or with basketball players too.
And it's not just the people on the court with you or on your
team, it's this extended group of people.
So you learn those lessons in professional sport, regardless
of whether you are a single person in the eye of a an
audience member or a fan in community sport.
I think there is a difference because so many young people
find provision for individual sports lacking.
And so the best they might have is a run club that they can join
with where everybody's kind of doing their own thing.
Does it teach some lessons of teaming?
It depends. It depends when you throw a
group of people together ostensibly with the goal of
playing a sport on the same team, sometimes that creates A
cohesive unit, especially if there's a leader or a coach
either on the floor as a player, as a participant, or as a an
actual, more official coach who demands it.
But throwing people together to play sport has never been an
indicator that it will turn into this magic thing.
Sport is not magic, is not has no special qualities.
Football doesn't have a special quality that Zumba doesn't,
right? It it just, and I know people,
they hate that, but it's true. Basketball doesn't have a
special quality that chess doesn't.
It is simply a substrate where it with the right people, with
the right mindset, with a coach who wants to create that
atmosphere, whether that person be a player, a participant or an
actual official kind of older mentor kind of figure.
That's when it works. Otherwise, it's just a group of
people. Lord of the Flies.
Was there anything you think that you had to unlearn from
playing sport? Was there anything that because
you grew up playing basketball and you spent so much time in
those sports teams, was there anything that you, once you
stepped away from sport, you thought, I really have to
unlearn this thing? I mean, I started very late.
I started at 17. Most people who play basketball,
especially professional basketball, they start 5 or 6.
And so for me, it was just a massive learning curve.
Everything in terms of the unlearning, I haven't unlearned
a huge amount. I think the thing that I've had
to adjust my mindset around is the fact that most people
misunderstand. I work a lot in in businesses
and large organizations and the number of men who love to talk
about sport as an analogy and by doing so make it clear that
they've never played sport as any level that's important or
interesting. And I mean even community based,
right? Because they talk about it in
this way that misunderstands it. Most of your time spent in sport
is spent in preparation and recuperation, not in
performance. And that's the opposite of what
most examples in workplaces or even in education are about.
So I had to kind of understand how people mutate sport for
their own purposes to get people to run through walls of fire and
burn themselves out, where sport is not about that.
It's about sustainable performance over a year, which
requires a very different man mindset than treating a person
as if they're disposable. That's really interesting, isn't
it? And you think that, do you think
that translates directly to work as well that actually we burn
ourselves out when we're working and we're constantly trying to
perform and actually we need to, I'm going off off tangent a
little bit here, but I found that really interesting and I am
definitely a proponent of this. I think we spend too long, we
work too hard, and actually if we took a step back and spent
more time resting and recuperating and finding joy,
that actually our work would be much better.
Yeah, well, I mean, it wouldn't just be much better, it would be
much better for longer. I don't think work should have a
body count, right? I think with very few exceptions
of things in the military and perhaps things like fire
services, very few jobs should have killed you, whether it be
in a very real and physical way or whether it be in a kind of
debilitating mental and emotional way.
Just don't think it should in in sport.
And this is not universal and there are definitely flaws and
problems because sports, no panacea in the sport business
world is no better broadly. But if you look at people as if
they're an investment, you you look at them over a long term,
you say you're going to be with me for three years.
How do I get the best out of you for three years?
How do I make you want to stay here for three years and not
leave for another team? But unfortunately, most
workplaces look at people as if they're widgets that are easily
replaceable. And when they break, it's kind
of like, oh, hum, Elliot's dead, let's find another Elliot shaped
widget. And, and that's a very different
approach to human beings, I think, and and a very horrible
one. I've definitely been a widget.
You mentioned that you started playing basketball at 17.
So up until you were 17, you're a a normal kid, a normal boy
doing normal things. And then you found out you're
really good at basketball and then you became an NBA player.
Like that's a massive change to go through in a quiet small
space of time. How did you adapt to to that
change and and when did you enter the NBA?
So from start, from picking up a basketball, it was six years
later where I played in the NBA. I'm still the only person in the
world of basketball to have done that.
It's again, I can't emphasize enough that the reason I hate to
sweat to this day, I do not like I do not.
I've never had, you know, that thing that people talk about,
What's it called? Runners high.
You know, I've never experienced that.
In. My life, right?
So I don't like to exercise. I, I mean, I'm sore today
because I went back to my trainer who I only have and he
knows this because I am, I'm cheap and so if I'm paying
somebody to work out with me, I won't miss the workout, which is
the only reason that I go right. And I'm sore today and I resent
it. My neck hurts and it's really
stiff. I've got deep heat on my neck,
which is just ridiculous and not helping.
And so that is who I was a 16 year old.
I like Greg's steak slices and I like, I like reading books and
that's who I was then and it's who I am now.
If I could have a Greg's anything right now while I'm
doing this, I would do that. So I got a credit card, by the
way, just because it gave me a a weekly Greg's.
My wife loves Greg's. She we actually looking at
investing in Greg's and buying Greg's shares like when we see a
new Greg's pop up and the new design with the the open window,
she's Yep there. For the podcast as well.
Greg, are you listening? He's a kind of inclusion at
Greg's. Give us a message.
Right. Let's get on to them.
This was the thing that drove me, though.
And I think this is another thing that people forget, right?
In workplaces, in organizations, in sports, in schools, the
motivator doesn't have to be the same as everybody else's.
It doesn't have to be related to some big audacious goal.
I met a group of people who made me feel like a human being, like
a full and proper person who I really felt cared about how I
was if I twisted my ankle. The pair was genuine and not
just about a disappointment in me not being able to perform,
but about my pain being meaningful.
And I just knew that I would do whatever it took to never leave
that environment in the school of motivation.
Most people think this is nerdy, but you can cut it out.
Most people think that there's kind of extrinsic motivation,
pay me enough and I'll do it. And then intrinsic motivation,
you don't have to pay me and I'll do it.
And I've never found anybody who's that intrinsically
motivated in in our capitalistic world.
But there's actually things in the middle and one of them is
something called interjected regulation.
It's not important, but what it essentially means is sometimes
it's not you and a connection to the the outcome, whether it be
finishing your homework, cleaning your room, whatever
else it might be behaving well in public.
It's actually a third thing. And that third thing for me was
not like the NBA and and glory and money for me, it was this
third thing here that kept me tethered to the work required to
deliver. It was this idea of these people
who cared about me, these people who made me feel like I was a
proper human being and not an alien in in the midst.
A scary one at that. I think people forget that
that's another form of motivation that we can take
advantage of if we build relationships.
That, I mean, that is just such a beautiful way of putting it.
And my, I want this was a question I wanted to ask you.
My, my partner coaches the local football team.
He actually hates football, but he does it because our youngest
really likes football. They needed a coach.
There's nobody to train them. So he took it on and he says
he's got more out of it than he thinks the kids have.
He's he loves coaching and the other men that he does it with,
they've bonded. They spend time together.
They go to the pub together to talk about the teams.
So it gives them access to, you know, a new social life as well
as he says some of the kids that he coaches, he knows he's having
a positive influence on them and that some of them have had
really hard times recently. And he knows that them coming to
football is grounding for them and he loves giving back in that
way. And you've spoken a lot about
the positive influence that the coaches in Stockport, I used to
live in Stockport, Stockport had on you when you were growing up.
What do you what would you say too?
Because I feel it's really important to encourage other
people to get involved in community activities, to
community sport, not just for the kids, but for them.
Is there anything that you would say to other men who might be
interested in coaching team? So I'd say that I love the
perspective that your partner's got right, the idea that a
demonstration that sport legitimizes and indemnifies men
for intimacy, which I think is really important.
But I would also say this, don't experiment with young people.
So if you're interested in being a coach in a developmental
setting, it is more important, not less important that you have
the interpersonal skills, the conflict de escalation skills
around the technical skills. It is just far more important
because as you've just pointed out, Julie, you can very be
quickly become important to a young person who will then
escalate the number of things that they'll bring to you to a
point where being well meaning won't cut it.
And, and well meaning isn't a protective factor for young
people, especially those who are in distress or who have
difficult lives. Expertise is a protective
factor. And this is not me saying that
everybody who coaches in communities needs to be a
counselor or a therapist. It's simply that you should be
at least the kind of person who's going online looking at
video resources that are available.
BPS website, ABP website is a psychological British
psychological Society and the association business
psychologist even. And there's lots of other
counseling websites out there where you can just look at very
simple resources that will help you do with the common things
that will occur when you are around young people who begin to
trust you. And that's that's why I'd say
there's lots of brilliant things that will come from it.
This idea of creating, you know, a real connection with other
coaches and feeling a sense of worth because you're really
delivering value for young people.
But just remember, being a brilliant tactician is is
irrelevant in most of these environments.
I don't remember when I saw it, but it's a while ago.
There was a piece of research that said what kids, the kids,
the teams that performed best. It wasn't about the technical
skill in football, basketball, whatever else of the coach.
It was about the interpersonal skill of that coach that led to
the team developing the dynamic where they could be successful.
Yeah, yeah, I I can see that that would make a big
difference. And you do.
I can see for my partner Tom, that when there's some of the
kids that have had really difficult, challenging few years
or lives, he feels this massive sense of responsibility.
And I know that you could very easily be a negative force as
well as a positive force because you are in a powerful position
as a coach, aren't you? And that I'd love to talk to you
a bit about identity, which you you've talked a lot about very,
very powerfully. What do you think it means to be
a man today? That's a really big question.
And do you think it has changed since you were younger?
So I pause because it is complex, but complex doesn't
mean that it's difficult. I pause because the way we're
talking about masculinity now is very akin to the way politics is
talking about. If we're in a, a regressive era
of way back when politics, the idea of there was a point in the
past where everything was brilliant, where the sun shone
more often, where everybody's pockets were full of cash, where
everyone could afford a house, where everyone was doing well.
And that is the Nexus of Make America great again, Make
Britain Great again. It's the Nexus of that.
And what we're having is the same thing with masculinity, an
idea that people are throwing back to a mythical time that
never really existed without facing the facts that in that
time, men died in their 40s of black lung.
They were absent from their families because of the number
of hours that they worked where the, you know, where the the
maternal mortality rate was ridiculously high, where all of
these terrible things were happening and men didn't have
it. Great men had no emotional lives
of their own and we're we're harping back to it as if it's
something quite different. So masculine to me is better
described by saying I'm not arguing against the idea of
strength and independence, but I am arguing that strength doesn't
equate to cruelty. I'm a six foot nine, 160
kilogram black man. There were very few rooms I go
into where if I wanted to turn every table over and throw
people asunder, I couldn't. There are very few rooms where
if I wanted to misbehave, there is nobody in that room that
could stop me. But to me, strength doesn't
equate to cruelty or dominance and it shouldn't justify
entitlement. And I don't understand why men
can't get their head around that.
Be strong, but that doesn't mean entitled, it doesn't mean
dominant and it doesn't mean cruel.
That's all independence. I'm big on independence.
I live alone, have a partner, don't live with them.
Like it this way. Independence doesn't mean
isolation. And that's another thing I can't
really understand what happened when we started to suggest that
independence meant not just isolation, but a sense of
emotional independence, which is stoicism.
But stoicism that justifies violence when masculinity feels
challenged, feels weak to me, more than strong.
So I suppose masculinity to me is like everything else born,
demanded to evolve. And if it doesn't evolve, it's
not going to be fit for purpose. And it isn't fit for purpose.
Now, I know people have real qualms with this idea of toxic
masculinity, and I'm always interested with that.
But if I told you that a chemical in your water was was
killing people at an unprecedented rate, people were
harming themselves or others at an unprecedented rate, if I told
you it was leading to heart attacks and family breakdown, if
I told you all of these things about this chemical, would you
describe it as anything other than toxic?
And that's what's happening with the way that masculinity is
currently being performed. And it is being mostly performed
because, and I don't know if it's just a function of
insecurity, but that's a big part of it.
John, how have you found? So you said you're at 6 foot 9,
it's very tall and you're you're a black man.
How have you found, I guess within this conversation of
masculinity and how you're received by people?
Obviously there's some people who know who you are.
And so that comes with a different perception and maybe
they will treat you in a different way in comparison to
when they don't know who you are.
So have you found it's different when you walk into a room and
people have no idea who you are? Do you, do you, do you feel a
different sense of they are threatened by you, your
identity, your masculinity? Versus when Jon Amici comes in
the room and he's here to do a talk for us because we are
paying him to come and talk to our leaders.
I'd be fascinated to hear what your thoughts are.
Yeah. I mean, that is a very different
experience for me. I don't leave my house very much
unless I have to because the experience apart from that, but
the experience of being in public with other people is
painful. It's really painful because you,
although it, this will feel fragile to lots of people, we
are impacted by how we see other people see us.
And I know when I leave my house that I'm a monster.
And I know this because of how other people react to me.
And they react to me like I'm a monster.
When I walk into a lift and they are going to walk into a lift
with me, they might take the next lift.
And I can't explain that unless I'm a monster.
When I walk into a space with people and they take their
belongings, their valuables and hold them closer to themselves,
I can't explain that unless they see a monster when I round the
corner. This happened to me when I lived
in my old house last year. I rounded a corner and a couple
were walking towards me with coffees and they they dropped
their coffees and the, the the man actually of the two shrieked
as I rounded the corner like a meter or two away from them.
So it wasn't like I walked into them.
And the only way I can explain this, and I've known this since
I was 13, right? I know that I'm a monster and so
I avoid interactions if I can because it's harmful to my
emotional well-being and I curate them otherwise.
So everything you're looking at right now is curated for the
benefit of mostly white people, but everybody to see me in a way
that is useful for me and less harmful the the blue around my
head here. This is 40 hours work here.
It's light around my head and dark around the edges.
Makes me look lighter, which makes me feel safer to people.
I am massive, but you couldn't tell until I said so because
there's so much space around me. That helps you to see me in
context. Books, Old school science
fiction, which I'm really into, right?
I bought that lightsaber. I bought these things because
I'm really into them, but they make people feel safe because
oh, yeah, I remember Star Wars, the TARDIS.
I, I remember Doctor Who and awards Pop came over here.
So other people have recognized that I'm good at something.
They don't know what it is, but something.
And all of this is for the audience to see me in a way that
is least corrosive for me and most helpful for our
interactions. And so, yeah, it's a very
different experience if I shift things up and if I just wore
what I wanted to wear and which I don't in public at least.
Thank you for saying that as you were talking.
I feel that deeply and I think a lot of people listening will
understand that. You've spoken about how that
changed the way you navigate, but in professional settings,
are you able to use that as a power?
I have found that we've, we've, what you've spoken about, you
can either shrink in that or you can use that as a strength.
And I choose to for the most part use that as a strength.
I would love to hear how you use your identity, your body, your
height, etcetera as something that helps in your professional
life. Really judiciously, right.
I spend a lot of time on stages far away from people, which is
helpful. I do this thing actually with
groups when it's not a stage but just a larger room where I will
talk to them about whatever we're talking about.
And then I will, I will demonstrate what it is to be
conscientious about your identity by simply walking
closer than I've been. And I don't change my facial
expression, but I just walk closer to them.
I walk and you can see and everybody in the room can feel
the tension that people feel even though they know.
This is Professor John Amachi. He's a psychologist, he's a, an
educator. Even with all of that, all the
ideas they have about blackness and size and that combination,
it makes people feel frightened. So it's not useful for me.
I'm a psychologist. I work with people in the most
vulnerable moments for the most part, usually when things aren't
going well or aren't as well as they'd like them to be.
So being frightening is not useful.
So I have to do everything possible to not be frightening.
The truth is that I'm a nerd. That is the most core identity
of me, right? I'm a nerd.
I love Greg's, I love Star Wars, to a lesser extent, Star Trek,
though if there was a universe I was going to live in and it
would certainly be the Star Trek 1, not the Star Wars one.
I love Doctor Who's, even the woke ones from nowadays.
And so these are real things about me and a more informative
if people want to get to know me, which is another reason why
this is here, to create connections of stuff that's
meaningful to me as opposed to stuff that's not really.
But yeah, I can't use it in the way that some people do because
intimidating people is rarely useful.
The most bold thing that I'll do with anybody coach.
About 20% of the people I coach don't want to be coached and
they don't want to be coached by me.
But they have no choice. They have behaved poorly and now
they are being mandated coaching in order to keep their job.
And these people can sometimes be uncivil.
And the most strong that I am is to have them say something to
me. Like when we start our
conversation, it's and I'll say something like it's clear that
you're a bit hot right now, so I'm going to go and make some
tea and I'll turn my camera off and my audio off and I'll be
back in 5 minutes. And that's as strong as it gets.
I set a boundary. I walk away, actually don't need
to go away and make tea because I've got my thermos flask right
there. That's it.
So it's not like I can just say shut up you, what the hell are
you doing? Because everybody loses.
It's one of the failures of masculinity, actually, to bring
it back to that this idea that people don't realize that
intimidation and violence, whether it's actual physical
violence or discursive violence, leads to a mutual failure almost
inevitably. Yeah, you talk about this
powerfully in your new book, how you remain calm under pressure
and under stress. I just before we move on to
that, I really would love to know firstly, how you process
that. You described yourself as people
seeing you as a monster. That's a big thing to process
emotionally, but also what you would say to other big black
men, particularly boys in secondary school who may feel
the same, what you would what, what message you'd want to give
to them. It's exhausting, it's
frustrating and it off. There were points in my life
where I just wanted to RIP people asunder.
I wanted to become the thing that everybody thought I was.
There's this brilliant it almost won an an Oscar.
I think it is called Nimona. I don't know if you've seen it.
It's a cartoon. I highly recommend it.
It's a, it's about a young girl who is a monster in a, this
mythical environment where everybody's very afraid of
monsters. And she gets to the point where
she wants to destroy everything. And then she looks around her at
what she's wrought and then tries to, to kill herself.
And I think that is the trap that many young black men who
are perceived as big and strong and violent and criminal and
whatever else comes with the, the stereotypes they want to
eventually the frustration builds the point where they want
to, to act out. And then at some point, they see
what that they've become and what and that they've validated
what these people think of them. And they then want to harm
themselves. And all I would say is there is
a core of you that you must hold on to.
There is a picture of you that is not corrupted by the
ignorance and malice of strangers.
There is a picture of you, an image in a mirror of someone's
eye that can show you who you are.
And you have to hold on to that every single day.
You have to hold on to it. For me, it was my mom.
And I used to, I used to look at her every once in a while.
We'd all read books together because we're nerds as a family.
And I would be reading a book and my mom would be reading a
book and we'd and I'd be looking up and I'd be reading my book.
And then every once in a while I'd look up and my mom would be
looking at me. And when she looked at me, I
knew who I was. I could see it in her face that
I I'm her big clever boy. And so in the midst of these
looks from strangers, in the midst of these fear that
radiates off people, when I walk by in my mind, I just remember
my mom's long since gone, but I just remember that I am a big
clever boy. Hold on to that.
That's amazing. So our youngest is 2 1/2 and
she's massive for her age. She's wearing 5 to 6 clothes
like wearing Primark shopping in the primary school.
It's the. Thing they don't tell you right
about big, about big kids, they don't tell you it's just very
expensive. It's very expensive and she's
growing very quickly and she's for a 2 1/2 year old.
She's so nimble and fart on her feet.
And so we take her to playgroups for her age and you can see that
other parents are very worried and because they're thinking,
wait a minute, this kid is this kids four or five years old.
Why are they here? And they're black and she's got
big hair punches and, and I'm just very aware of that, that
she's going to be a big black girl in this in the big black
woman in this world. And that's going to come with,
you know, ups and downs and whatnot.
And so I think what you've shared here is really just
helped me to understand that we need to teach her that whatever
comes in her life, she is our and we love her.
And so that's, that's incredible.
Yeah, that was so powerful. I was really, really touched by
the video response you did to the TV series Adolescence.
And you said, and I'm going to quote you, the hand wringing
around the plight of working class implicitly white men seems
to have more compassionate energy than the conversations
about the apparent behaviour from young men from other ethnic
and minority communities. I'd love you to expand a bit on
that. Yeah, I found, I found that
program problematic. Not not from an artistic point
of view. I get it.
I can see how it's great art, but you just couldn't replace
that protagonist with any other ethnicity.
You couldn't replace them with what might be considered an
oikh, right? Even if it was a white really
working class or or or struggling family, you couldn't
replace that dynamic and have people feel the same empathy
towards the protagonist. I couldn't explain.
I couldn't, couldn't rationalize even with the dynamic that was
at play, how we could go through a program and, and who the
victim was would feel uncertain as we went through that.
There was a victim and the victim was a girl and her
family. Full stop, full stop.
That was it. You, you were called, I don't
know what it was, but you were called the name and you murdered
someone. There's a victim here and it's
1. And it to me, it was such a such
an interesting take on the crisis about masculinity, which
is a crisis of men's making. And this is not me being cruel.
I am empathetic about this. But you can't create change if
we don't talk about the status quo.
What is actually happening And what is actually happening is
men are deciding that there are rules that they are willing to
follow despite the fact that they are caustic and harmful to
them. And we've decided that.
And not on masks, Not just on masks, but individuals are
deciding in their various communities, and that is leading
to behavior that is harmful to others.
And yet when we witnessed that behavior, especially with this
adolescent show, we're supposed to feel sorry implicitly with
that program for the boy. And I don't feel sorry for the
murderer. I feel sad that we're in a
situation where so many young people can make so many bad
choices, so many parents be under equipped to challenge that
at an early stage. Because by the time your son is
already following Andrew Tate and Jordan Peterson and all of
these other ridiculous caricatures of even men in any
modern sense and any real sense, by the time they're already
embedded in that, you haven't even been too late.
I'm not saying they're a lost cause, but there's an earlier
stage where you start watching boys mock girls for things that
they can or can't do, and you intervene there.
There's a stage where they start bulking because one of their
friends families has said that doing the dishes is woman's
work, and you intervene there. There's a stage where people
decide that boys can look lasciviously at girls and women,
and that's OK. And you intervene there.
And that's where you teach people what's appropriate.
There's this massive differential in in in the
perceptions of men and women about what beautiful is in terms
of relationship building, and you intervene there.
Was always interesting to me as a gay man is the idea that most
straight men don't seem to realize that the thing that
they're trying to develop to be attractive is for other straight
men. It's it's not for women.
The thing that they're doing to be attractive.
The the cash being thrown around the bottles with the sparklers
in them the cars with the very loud engines that those
ridiculous gym T-shirts they've got all the all but like a a
small fraction of cloth your nipples are fully explode.
This is not I I don't have a huge amount of experience with
women, but I know that that's not for women.
I know that. And so this is how we intervene
right by helping people see the ridiculousness of this
performative masculinity and start early with that.
So that's why the program really bothered me because it felt like
whilst he was trying to get this message about, look how harmful
this form of masculinity is, it still looped back to it's not
really their fault. It's, you know, and then you
hear people talk about even people I really respect.
I did a response to Prof G, he's a gallop, Scott Galloway.
And and I, I did a response to him because even some things he
talked about, it's not the fact that men have to swipe.
I haven't been on a nap for a while, but right 100 times to
get one response from a woman is not a woman's fault.
And even that's a weird framing of it.
If you are the kind of person whose profile scares women away,
that is the fault of you, not the fault of women.
And what we do know from tons of research looking at
attractiveness for women, it won't be because you've got a
mole on your face. It won't be because you've got a
couple of extra pounds on you. It will because of something you
say or an image you have in your background that frightens women
and do something about that rather than say, well, you know
what's problem, Jolie? Women nowadays are just too
picky. Yeah, exactly.
Yeah, Yeah, exactly. Yeah.
The the whole 2080 theory that 80% of women go for the top 20%
of men in terms of wealth and in terms of status and in terms of
attractiveness has been disproved so many times.
Are you are you empathetic with the notion that the reason why
boys are so attracted to these very toxic masculinity
influences is because they don't understand what masculinity is
anymore? The idea that we haven't got a
role for men anymore because women have moved more into the
workplace, because so many more women are breadwinners, because
so many, because we, we have tried to create this equal
playing field across the board. Men have lost the sense of what
who they are and what their role is in the world.
And so they're attracted to people who are telling them,
hey, you can be rich. Hey, you can have loads of hot
women hanging off you. You can have a yacht, you can.
All you need to do is, is do follow my course and go to the
gym 24 times a day. And so do.
Are you empathetic with this notion that men don't understand
what the world wants for the men anymore?
No, it's bollocks. It's that's the technical term.
It's just, it's utter, utter bollocks, right?
It's not real and it's not true. Women tell men all the time
because we are talking about straight men.
And this is one of the things I just want to start with.
There are plenty of toxic gay men too, but this particular
brand of this, this is a straight male problem, right?
Can I just say as well, the data shows it's a middle class
problem as well. Very much so, very much so, yes,
that's also true. And and there's a real classism
to the to the alpha male type of narrative because wealth is
intrinsically alpha and anything else is intrinsically beta,
right. So there's an idea of your
personal failing if you haven't somehow managed to own tube, you
get Bugattis or something. I don't have a car.
I haven't had one for 30 years. Hasn't impacted my testosterone
even and not my age probably has, but not my lack of a
Bugatti. No, the the the reason.
So I'm not empathetic about this because it's not true.
It's not real that people don't know what's expected them.
They may not like what's expected them, but that's
different. But the reason that this alpha
male nonsense is so attractive to me, to my mind anyway, is
because. It offers the same bomb,
soothing bomb that Reform offers, the same soothing bomb
that Trump offers in America, the same soothing bomb that all
of these carnival hucksters offer, which is the fundamental
reassuring blanket of Elliot. It's not your fault.
That's it. That's why it's attractive,
whatever the other formula that comes with your £100 a week
subscription to their special plan, whatever else is in there,
the fundamental truth of it is what's wrong with those women
over there? What's wrong with those other
men who aren't alphas over there and how it's their fault.
Just like it's poor people in boats.
That's why you can't afford a house.
Not the people who've bought up half of Mayfair but don't live
there. Right it it's that idea of a
simple narrative. I don't know.
I don't. I wrote this in a paper years
and years ago. But the idea of one should never
underestimate the horrors that seemingly moderate human beings
will commit when convinced. It leads to the idea that it's
not their fault. They will do.
People will do awful things. If you look at the people, all
Port is a psychologist who studied the Holocaust and how it
escalated. He has a scale called the
antilocution scale. It shows how you can escalate
from antilocution, saying bad words about a group of people to
murdering them. And when you look at how men
treat women and the escalation of violence and the hundreds of
thousands of people, what is over 1,000,000 violent crimes
against women are reported every year, 100 women killed annually.
That is a that stems from being able to say girls are this women
are bad trash. Those other words that we use
around women. There's a there's a, there's a
logical pathway that elevates to dehumanizing anybody calling
people in boats cockroaches to the point where you can burn
them in their rooms. So this pathway is well trodden.
We understand it well. This isn't about not knowing
masculinity is. This is about not liking the
work of real masculinity and instead buying into the fault of
the innocent. I don't want to be really basic
here and say what do we do about it, but I'm going to.
I know you. To me, you and Elliot are like
positive influence, masculinity influences.
You talk positively about what it means to be a man.
You don't lead with division and anger.
You lead with togetherness and hope and lessons of positive
strength. How do we what why do you think
it is, though, that the vast majority of boys and the the
data is showing this are listening more to not Andrew
Tate anymore. Actually, it seems they're
moving away from Andrew Tate. They've realized that he's just
a horrible pig, but they are listening to the influences that
are that are leading with these messages of of division and
anger. What do we is there anything you
feel we're missing? What can we do to besides in our
parenting and in schools reminding boys of healthy
masculinity? How do we get them to listen to
them to positive influences more like you and Elliot?
I mean, I don't know that the answer is going to be listening
to Elliot or me in particular. I do.
I want my boys to listen to you. It is.
I'm happy for that, right? If it were to happen, I'd be
happy for it. I'd welcome it.
But the reality is that we, we have to.
There's a delusion in place that allows boys and men to in what
they think is in good conscience, but it's actually
some kind of cognitive dissonance endorse these types
of horrible people, right? They haven't moved away from
Undertake because they think he's a pig.
They've moved away from Undertake because he's wearing,
if we were to use another analogy, he's actually wearing
the Nazi flag and they need to move to somebody who isn't
wearing it but is saying all the right words, right.
So he's just too obvious is why they've moved away from him.
But it's not because they don't agree with them.
It's just he's too obvious. And you align with him and you
can instantly find yourself on the outs.
You align with somebody else who's a little more subtle and
you can still find yourself perhaps not publicly pilloried.
So we have to delete. Do we have to defeat this
delusion, right? There's nothing to reclaim with
masculinity. We should remove this language.
There's nothing to reclaim. Masculinity is personal and
flexible. If we help young boys to realize
masculinity is personal, personalized, and flexible, and
calls to reclaim masculinity are these mask attempts to to
reverse hard earned rights for women.
That's fundamentally it, right? And it's it, it masks these,
these the resentment for the rights that women have earned
and hardened and not completely earned.
And then a, a reorientation around strength too.
The the idea that real strength means allowing people choices
and rights and you can't with strength ease your own pain by
stripping other people of their rights or dignity.
These types of things. And then helping men to find
ways to genuinely connect with other men in really intimate
ways. Because toxic masculinity to me
stems from men's choices to be absent of genuine intimacy and
instead embrace fear and hatred that is usually towards women
and other men. It's one of the things that's
confusing as a gay man, why I look at so many men who seem to
hate women whilst desiring them. They covet this thing that they
hate and that's bound to cause really negative emotional
stains, right. So maybe it's back to the
beginning and saying at an early age, when your boy starts
talking about how much they love their friend, endorse that
without fear. When, when they start talking
about interest, whether they be deep in the library, in books or
writing poetry or playing a sport that's not a somehow
appropriate for boys, I don't know, endorse these things.
Recognizing that masculinity in its ultimate form, in a
contemporary sense, is personalized and flexible and
will evolve over time. Because that's how we're all
still here, right? As human beings, we're all still
here because we're not still wearing loincloths pretending
that they're still Saber toothed tigers.
How do you see this showing up in the workplace?
And they do a lot of consultancy and work with corporations.
Do you see what we've spoken about here in terms of this kind
of masculine idea and energy showing up through leaders in
the workplace? And how does that show up?
Oh, for sure. Leadership is still
intrinsically entwined with masculinity.
Is is remarkable. Really.
There's lots of people who think that strength in terms of
overbearingness of intimidation, our leadership qualities and
traits. There's lots of people who think
independence of thought. And I think independence of
thoughts can be important, right, in critical thinking, but
they mean by independence of thought and imperviousness to
the, to the evidence or opinions of others.
And, and they think this is leadership.
And they also think it's, this stems from a masculine
patriarchal archetype. And I just think I want to win,
right? So I'm anybody who knows me,
even in passing. I am strong, opinioned and
willful, and I like to be right. But more than I like to be
right, I like to win. And so my certainty is tempered
by that. I want of the people's opinions.
I'm open to being wrong because being right is not as important
to me as winning and masculinity.
The opposite is true. Every moment is about a win
instead of instead of it's about being right, sorry, instead of
considering this long term thriving win.
And so that makes a life that is constantly at battle and never
consensual, never collaborative, never intimate in terms of
building relationships. And you talk about this as well
in your latest book, It's Not Magic, The Auditing Skills of
Extraordinary Leaders, which I was very thankful I got a copy
of a few weeks ago. So I've been having.
But it's brilliant. It's explores the mindset and
intentions needed to truly influence others.
What lessons from that do you think could help us as parents,
teachers or coaches when we're raising boys?
I think the first chapter talks about cultivating an authentic
presence, right? I think there's way too much out
there about this. What's it called?
Executive presence, which I think is, is like how to do man
cosplay for everybody, how to do masculine cosplay is what
executive presence is. To me.
It's nonsense. But being able to cultivate an
authentic presence, it's very obviously you, even if it's
curated for work, but it's calm and credible.
It's such an important thing. Anybody who's a parent watching
this knows you're, you're feeling it today in one way.
I told you earlier about my sister who sent her, my niece
off to school this morning with a big drama about having the
right kind of bag. And the idea that we have can
have an authentic, firm, robust, but calm and credible presence
is just important every single morning, right?
For teachers, every single lesson, every, every moment and
for leaders broadly so important.
I think that's one of them to think of one of the chapters I
talk about how to navigate fractious environments and I
think we just I mean, we could describe the current moment in
many things, but it is certainly a fractious environment full of
change, full of disruption, full of conflict.
Being able to manage that is important.
One of the things that men miss out on is reflective practice if
they follow the norms of of that kind of toxic masculinity,
because one of the things about toxic masculinity is about
having an experience, whether it's a bar fight or a knockdown
dragger argument with your partner or something else.
And then it happens and then you it's gone.
That's, that is a tenant of masculinity.
It happened. It's gone.
Why are we still talking about this?
Many women listening will know that phrase.
Why? Why are we still talking about
that happened yesterday, two weeks ago.
Yeah. I cheated on you two years ago.
Why are we still talking about this?
It's, it's this idea And, and in the book, I talk a lot about how
reflective practice is a key to this and not in this woo woo
way. I'm a scientist.
But the idea that you have an experience and then you dedicate
time to thinking about it, it's implications for you in the
future to enable you to grow and adapt and learn and be a better
person and to allow your masculinity in this context to
evolve. So I think that's really
important. Yeah.
These are the types of things that help us.
And again, the reason the book is called It's Not Magic is
because none of this stuff is complex.
It is energy expensive. It is effortful.
But there is nobody who's currently a capable operating
member of society who can't use one or many of these tools.
And I think that's a great lesson for parents as well.
But you know, with my boys, if they behave in a way that I do
not like, then spending time with them, talking to them.
Why did you do that? How did that make you feel?
How do you think that made somebody else feel that
instilling that reflective practice in them is something
that any parent can do and will hopefully have positive
influences on them as they're growing up?
It, it really, by the way, it really will, it's not even a
question. It will have a positive
influence because even what you just described there, which is
really, it's really, it's kind of basic, but really clever.
You know, what it does is it helps people to be prescient.
It helps people to be able to predict the future because once
they've examined what led up to an argument, it's not just
looking at the argument or the disruptive thing or the how you
got kicked out of the classroom that day.
What led up to that? The moment you start to examine
that, you suddenly, when you're in the midst of that build up,
the next time you suddenly, oh, I know where this is leading.
So at least you can say absolutely, yes, I want all that
smoke. I'm going to follow this pathway
to its inevitable end. But you also have another
choice. We can say this led to an
argument that really damaged my relationship with my partner and
do I want that? And I'm going to avoid it by
saying, look, last time we this happened, it's led to a really
big argument. So I'm going to, I'm not walking
away from you. I'm just going to, I'm going to
go out in the garden and I'm going to take 30 minutes and
deescalate. Just imagine it's like you can
see your life split into the what ifs and that reflective
practice that you just described allows people to do that.
I'm. Also going to make a note that
John Amici said something I said was basic but really clever.
Yeah, you get a tattooed on your on your own.
Yeah, yeah. Next episode we're going to see
it. See, now, now you've said it.
I'm going to expect it. I'm going to tune in.
I don't know. I don't know where it's going to
go. Is it going to be like a
necklace around the right across the chest?
Even even better. Even better.
It has a comeback for season 4, John, so you can see there the
tattoo. I might get by myself as well.
Listen, I don't, I know, I don't know how long, I don't have any
tattoos, I don't know how long it takes to get done, but I I
can just simply watch the next few episodes and see what
happens. I this afternoon I'm out.
Looking back, what do you wish your younger self had known
about being a man? I don't.
It's a big question as. Well, it is, I suppose.
I had. I was so fortunate to have a
different kind of mum and a different kind of family.
That was always a weird, emotionally literate kid.
What do you? Mean different kind of mum and
different kind of family. So I had a mum that never
imposed on me anything other than the idea that masculinity
was personal and faxable and if I was doing it, it must be.
If it was doing it and it was doing no harm to myself or
others, it was an appropriate form of masculinity if I wanted
to. We used to go on holiday to, to
real. It's kind of mandatory for
people from Stockport, Real sunset there for those who've
been a certain age, right? And then we go to Rudling Castle
as well. Loved it.
And I remember going to Rudling Castle and ending up being
absolutely intoxicated by this woman who was sat there on a
bench wearing a big fur coat. Surely Bassey.
Oh, wow. I didn't know.
My mom knew, I didn't know. And I just sat there talking to
this woman in a big fur coat about her fur coat.
And I thought it was perfectly appropriate.
And my mom didn't say anything about it.
And it was perfectly appropriate, right?
And it's just like that is the, the, the, the experience I had.
I was definitely assaulted from the outside about ideas about me
as a person. Was I really a man if I spoke
like I spoke? Because I spoke like I speak,
right? Was I really a proper masculine
man if I didn't play sport? Because I wasn't really a fan of
it? You know, I didn't play until I
was 17. I avoided rugby at my school.
I was assaulted by that externally.
But the picture I had in my head internally, I'm her clever boy.
OK, and finally, what advice would you give parents raising
boys who want them to grow into kind, resilient men?
Tell them early. Tell them often that
masculinity, if it does no harm to them or to other people, is
who they are. That it will be personal and
flexible and evolve over time. Show them with your actions,
with the look on your face, that when they do stuff subject to
doing no harm to them and others, that you don't worry
about whether it's normative, whether it hits some kind of
ridiculous stereotype or marker of masculinity.
That you just want them to be operating in a way that helps
them create connection. Encourage them to have close
friends who are boys. Encourage them to do stuff in
your house, not just stuff out of the house.
Don't rely on that idea that many people do that boys can be
left on their own to do stuff outside.
And it's not that they can't ever do that because I think
it's important for every child to be able to do that.
But allow them to do stuff in your house.
Encourage them, whether it's the my sister loves was jig jigsaws.
I don't really understand what they are, but she likes them
very much. And encourage them to do stuff
with you that you might think that they no longer want.
And then the other thing is many families in all the best will in
the world, they believe there's a point where intimacy for boys
with them as parents becomes less important and fathers start
shaking their son's hand instead of hugging them and mothers,
they they acquiesced the first rebuff.
You know that teenage mom don't. We're family.
The wild consent is important. We're a family that shows our
affection, and I'm going to tell you that I love you and you're
going to say thank you because that's what we do when people
say things that are meaningful to us.
I my son left for secondary school today and tried to just
give me a wave, buy more buy more and I grabbed his face and
kissed it all over and said I love you.
But know this, know this Jolie, right?
He, not today, perhaps, and hopefully never, but he will at
some point experience somebody trying to impugn his identity
and tell him that he is awful or misshapen or something else, and
just at the right moment will flood back into his mind that
image with a completely new context.
Not rejected, not embarrassed, but like sunshine in the dark.
That's what. That's what we can do for each
other. It's lovely.
Thank you, John. Amazing.
What a conversation this has been.
I'm going to have to go now because I'm I am a mess.
Don't get your tattoo, Jody. Got your appointment at 10?
Hey, when the Greg's passing. That's been amazing, John.
Thank you so much. It's been.
Incredible. Thank you so much.
Yeah, but what a conversation. We're so grateful to you.
And go and buy John's book. It's Not Magic.
The ordinary skills of extraordinary leaders.
It is absolutely brilliant. And there we go.
There is a copy of it on the screen.
Thank you, John. Thank you so much.
It's my pleasure too. Take care.
Hey everyone, thank you so much for listening.
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