Forging Resilience
Join us as we explore experiences and stories to help gain fresh insights into the art of resilience and the true meaning of success.
Whether you're seeking to overcome personal challenges, enhance your leadership skills, or simply navigate life's twists and turns, "Forging Resilience" offers a unique and inspiring perspective for you to apply in your own life.
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Forging Resilience
56 James Elliott: "Who are you, really?"
What happens to resilience when the uniform comes off? This profound question lies at the heart of my conversation with James Elliott, a former British Airborne Forces soldier whose journey from the battlefield to Harley Street offers unique insights.
Through his work with elite athletes, special forces, and cancer patients, he's discovered that resilience isn't about suppressing emotions or "toughing it out" – it's about developing a robust sense of self that transcends external roles and circumstances.
Our discussion takes a provocative turn when James explains why the military recruits from disadvantaged backgrounds. Contrary to the belief that "council estate kids are tougher," he argues that vulnerability makes individuals more psychologically malleable – easier to shape into effective soldiers. This pattern creates a dependency where purpose, identity, and belonging become inextricably tied to military service, leaving many veterans struggling when that structure disappears.
James advocates for a proactive approach to transition: "Find a sense of who you are outside the uniform while you're still in it." His personal journey exemplifies this philosophy, from working with rugby players as a strength coach to pursuing multiple academic degrees. He's become, in his words, "the very version of myself that I needed as a child."
Perhaps most powerfully, James challenges us to define ourselves beyond what we do. When he asks clients "Who are you?" many respond with roles and titles – things that could be taken away. True resilience, he suggests, comes from knowing your essential qualities and values that remain regardless of circumstance.
Whether you're navigating a military transition, career change, or personal reinvention, this episode offers transformative insights into building lasting resilience through self-knowledge, emotional intelligence, and continuous growth. As James reminds us: "A master is an individual who has failed at every possible eventuality in a very limited subject."
James's book "Think Yourself Resilient" is available on Amazon and in Waterstones. His new Patreon "The Vault" launches March 31st with regular content sharing his expertise on resilience and mental performance.
Connect with James through his website.
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Welcome to Forging Resilience, exploring for a different perspective on strength and leadership, join me as we discuss experiences and stories with guests to help gain fresh insights around challenge, success and leadership. Today, on Forging Resilience, I'm joined by James Elliott. James is a resilience coach, a psychotherapist who served with British Airborne Forces. He's got a background in war and psychiatry from King's College London. He's worked with elite athletes, special forces and executives, helping them master mental resilience under pressure. He's also the author of Think Yourself Resilient and he brings a unique blend of psychological insight and practical strategies to help high performers thrive. Thank you very much, chat gpt james, welcome to the show mate. It's great to have you here hey, mate, that was great.
Speaker 2:Thank you, yeah, that was good. Um, one of the things that um, particularly as my career is like pushed off in a slightly different direction, um, so, so one of the things that I'm working on at the moment is um p, which is psychoneuroimmune endocrinology. So I'm quite keen to point out the fact that I've very much gone down. I mean, I still practice and I'm a psychotherapist with his own clinic, but I actually work on a cancer rehabilitation project for cancer survivors over the age of 55. Looking at this, so I just I don't necessarily want the audience to think, oh, this is another resilience coach. I'm a, I'm a master of science in war psychiatry and I've been published sort of 20 odd times now and, yeah, I wrote a book. But I work on harley street. I'm actually now the head of psychotherapy for a clinical high street.
Speaker 2:So, um, my work now has become like, really like super specialized um, I'm actually doing um another well, it's degree equivalency, so another level six and because the studying is just, is never ending.
Speaker 2:So one of the things that when people do start talking to me and say that you know, I've like, you know I'm chasing, I'm sitting in research in academia, like I get access to this, like amazing information in these studies, so very much like sitting there understanding how resilience develops. Because our understanding of resilience is is like this ever-evolving thing, and and and and psychology as a whole is is an ever-evolving thing because, um, because technology is improving so much so how we can actually observe the processes of the brain is greatly changing the way that we understand resilience. Like it's just loads of like fascinating things, like the way the brain interprets pain through the anterior cingulate cortex. It's the same feeling that actually we get when we feel rejected. So a breakup causes literal physical pain and that's the same regions of the brain are identified and it's like loads of fascinating stuff that we're discovering about the brain and I just really love sitting in that environment.
Speaker 2:Now it very much went from you know, like seven years ago, smart principles to you know like real basic stuff. You know like actually what they're doing is they are um, uh, that they're sort of charging um atoms with radiologically, with atoms, feeding them to mice. Because we understand that certain proteins and certain um foods go to the brain, like, say, for example, amino acids break down and they're the building blocks for dopamine and messaging within the brain. So then we kind of radiologically charge these atoms, feed them to mice and then we can see how mice's brain communicate and then we can then see similarly, within imaging, within human brains, who are understanding how the brain communicates better, which is then changing how we understand people, generate thoughts and pattern and cognitive recognition and emotions and everything. So, like our understanding of human behavior is becoming increasingly technical and that just is forever changing beast.
Speaker 2:So, getting to sit, um, you know, in a clinic on harley street and being involved in things like age research, kings and being involved with the European center of preventative medicine, like I find myself, I've twice now I've been in the Royal society of medicine and had to talk about my work and what I'm finding, which is just the most bizarre thing considering. You know, I left, I left the army, I left the airborne in in in 2020. And and now I find myself sitting in the Royal society of medicine talking about, well, actually like, particularly when it comes to the process of measurable stress, I'm sorry, measurable success, if we can get people to really appreciate the journey rather than the outcome. You know, talk about things like paradoxical intent. We're getting spikes of dopamine, so I'm getting people to enjoy the process of cancer recovery more than focusing on the outcome, and it's actually that is then securing the outcome, um, which you know, if we put that into military terms, it's learn to enjoy tabbing.
Speaker 2:Learn to enjoy moving with weight, like, take enjoyment from it, because then you actually you're far more likely to you to to be really good at it. You know, you're far more likely to go on selection if you really enjoy tabbing. So, if we can take that process and put that into something as complex as cancer recovery and there are many complex things to it, but that's just one element like if you can learn to enjoy that, so, um, my point is is that like I really love what I do, but I definitely like the, the whole psychotherapy the real technical side of psychotherapy for me is has now just like absorbed everything that is I do and it's actually really exciting, you know, because stuff changes in the world of resilience, but stuff is really changing the world of neuroscience and human behavior, which is fascinating, you know, yeah, 100% mate.
Speaker 1:So what led you to start this journey of, of, of looking at, or resilience, or starting your own yeah, it's just, it's like I've been around, like most people have.
Speaker 2:So, like, like, like, I imagine, like 99 of your audience like recruited from poverty and there's a real reason that we recruit from poverty in in the army and and the marines, right, um, but like, elements of like, the technical jobs in the navy are slightly different slightly, but like, lots of the navy still recruit from poverty and the RAF don't really tend to recruit from poverty that much. Right, it's. It's very much a sort of combat arms, combat support I'm seeing to do so you would obviously include more marine commanders in that as well. Um, and the reason for that is is because when those individuals come from poverty, they're not actually more resilient, they're more vulnerable, and vulnerable people are far easier to radicalise, right, like, if you've watched Adolescence, you can appreciate that vulnerable people it's easy to fill their heads with nonsense. When people, like don't necessarily receive psychological safety that they need at home because they've got angry dads, it's far easier to then recruit that person and that's just that is the nature of it and people go no, no, no, it's because council estate kids are tougher and like, but like, that is not what the data suggests at all. Like you're not, you're actually more, um, vulnerable and easy to radicalize and then like far easier to mold into a quite and quite better soldier.
Speaker 2:So, like most people, I grew up in that environment. You know, like drug dealing dad went to prison, didn't have a great relationship with school, didn't have a great relationship with with my mom, and then left home at 16 in and out of like sofa surfing but sleeping rough, like having difficult um experiences during the army. At 18, like I you know, and I went in, it was like where's your dad? It was like, oh, he's in prison. Where's your mom? Oh, she's like, she ain't here. And he was like, yeah, you'll be in the airborne, like and and then I absolutely loved it.
Speaker 2:So, like most people come from that. But you come around, like you know, like when you grow up with a drug dealer and you see how he is and you see his emotional reaction to the world, you see like how angry and volatile and damaged that person, it's like he he was. He was a football hooligan. Like he he was. You know like it was like football factory, you know, coventry away, blackburn robins, all of that. That was like taking me and he would go have fights in car parks and take loads of coke and just be a nightmare, standing on the terraces throwing bottles like that was his, that was his thing. And and then, you know, given the illusion of being a business owner, so you could import these drugs and distribute them, and, and. And you know, given the illusion of being a business owner, so you could import these drugs and distribute them, and, and and growing up you know that is that is like atrocious mental health, like he had atrocious. He obviously had atrocious.
Speaker 2:Seeing like him with his addiction issues, like being able to hold his eyelids open as a child you could just stand and hold his eyelids open because he was like passed out. You know, like on the sofa, on the floor, whatever, like cocaine-fueled rages, like you would see that. So having these early exposures as a child and seeing that, and then being in the military and seeing like positive mental health and seeing really negative mental health and seeing how, like we have real terrible health behaviors and I know that's something the army and the military full stop working really hard to address but like there was still like really negative health behaviors. You know everybody smoking hung over before a fitness. You know, four mile and a half. Like we look back at that and we laugh and we go like they were the most like. There were some guys there who were functional alcoholic athletes, like guys who could turn up after, you know, having sung eight points of Guinness the night before, blast out a sub eight minute mile and a half, and you'd be like what? Like looking back, you go like what is going on there? But they were, but there's a lot of like emotional vulnerability to that and there's a there's a lot of of poor mental health behavior. So it's been like you know, it's something that we've kind of been around and and for me I had I really struggled with my mental health, um, and actually getting involved at Colchester Rugby Club was a massive thing for me.
Speaker 2:Um, I ran their straight condition. I was like long-term downgraded um, uh, um sort of twice in my career I was long-term downgraded. I had a heat stroke on SF selection and like I was really ill off of that, and then I had a parachute accident in Kenya, um, and I was, I was knocked, knocked out after that. Um, so like being like a couple of times long-term downgraded and being able to like get involved in community stuff outside of the army like really kind of highlighted to me the importance of, like key psychological skills, so being able to work with these like young rugby players and and actually help them develop themselves in their confidence. It wasn't just about strength and condition, it wasn't just about press-ups and deadlifts and sprinting um, it was actually about the conversations that you had, you know, um, and I'm always reminded of um, uh, one of the players there who was kind of like my first mindset, really client, although like completely unintentionally, completely organically, like we just trained together and became like good friends.
Speaker 2:And the coach at the time said, no matter how the guy's like six foot five, like 19 stone, but like just a really softly spoken, very intelligent, lovely guy. And he said, like he could be a championship, not if, if not premier league player, like when cultures from national league, and said, like, no matter how much I scream and shout in his face, he never gets angry. And I'm like well, why do you keep doing it then? And he's like well, I've got to get him ready for the game. And I'm like but you're not getting him ready for like. And so I had this conversation with him and the reason why he wasn't getting angry wasn't because of lack of motivation and like that's just the really, really easy way out that most people would just be always because he's lazy. It's not because he's lazy, it's because he didn't have confidence in him, in himself, right, he didn't believe in his own capacity to do it.
Speaker 2:So then, having this conversation, developing this personal mantra of strength and confidence, then I remember that it was like the first game I've run, the pre-season training, did all this work with him like literally kick off. It couldn't have been any more. Like from a movie could kick off when one of their players caught it. He just runs up and just literally just pulls a ball out of his hand with at one hand, pushes him over and stomps towards the try line. And it was just like people like wow, and he's like you've made him angry. I was like no, I've made him confident.
Speaker 2:Um, so it was like that explosion. I was like wow. So conversations with people can really change and I always do my own mental health stuff at the time, like starting my own, dipping my toe into therapy and having these conversations around. You know all of this baggage that I brought with me, particularly you know, dragged from from childhood. You know like abandonment issues and and abuse and violence and trauma and and like so many of the guys and girls in the military, like all still have which is the inevitability of recruiting from that socioeconomic demographic.
Speaker 2:You know you're five times more likely to be exposed to chronic stress and trauma if you come from a low socioeconomic demographic than you are if you come from a middle-class family, so like, you'll recruit people who are five times more likely to have something traumatic or incredibly stressful in their childhood and that inevitably even if that doesn't give people what we would identify as trauma, which is where an individual is stripped of their capacity to survive a situation or to influence a situation, where someone else is being stripped of their capacity to survive but if you can then identify that actually, that those those chronic, chronic stresses as a child and traumatic exposures as a child may not leave that individual traumatized, but it will definitely leave them, almost definitely leave them with maladaptive behaviors, things like angry responses, poor coping mechanisms, poor health behaviors, poor social behaviors.
Speaker 2:And actually then working with Cortis Rubber Club really showed me that if you can have these conversations with people, you can actually change the way that they perceive themselves, change the way they perceive the world around them and then produce better behaviors.
Speaker 2:What we're talking about here is a really basic form of cbt changing how someone thinks and and that's really what kind of just pushed me into that and kind of fast forward a few years and I'm I'm actually now part of the, the apjis, which is the army parachute jumping instructors platoon. Basically the army took over the low level um parachute in, so, um, like the 16 aerosol brigade less for the pathfinders, the 16 aerosol brigade parachuting, that we had some raw marines in there as well and some 148 battery guys. But um, but that that low level parachute and um, and yeah, and just like taking this different methodology, rather than like screaming and shouting and effing and blinding at these guys, like actually trying to like do a little bit more around coaching and saying like, like jumping out of an aircraft is like, objectively, a really scary thing to do like I would joke with the guys and say that my first 10 jumps were night jumps because I had my eyes shut every time.
Speaker 2:like you know, like when, when someone's like say, like if your mum said to you, oh, if your mates all jumped off of a bridge, would you jump off as well? Like the airborne forces is living proof that yeah, I would. What are you talking about? If I saw my mates go, I literally have to go. Are you joking? Like I can't not go? So we often talk about that and so, yeah, that's it. I did have these conversations with guys about I. So I did have these conversations with guys about I have to calm themselves, like understanding that it is scary, like trying to like relate to them more you know, and like when I turned up, um, do you swear on this podcast?
Speaker 1:yeah, yeah, go for it. Yeah, yeah, sorry mate. Yeah, I should have asked it before we started.
Speaker 2:I apologize but the um, the RAF instructors used to say some of them, not all of them, some of them were absolutely fantastic, but you should say don't be afraid to fire a few fucks into them. And it's saying I'm like you. Like you have no idea the stress that these guys are under. Like, like these guys have to perform every single, every single day. Every time someone wears a Marimba they have to perform that day, or or or a green, but they have to perform that day. Like you're in you. Like you can have a shit day Cause you're in the RAF. Like nobody cares. But like these guys, particularly on courses, everybody's constantly looking at them. Fire a few. Foxington does them no favors. Like, if you think you swearing that that guy is going to motivate him to do something better or faster, you are greatly overplaying your hand.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I'm going to. I'm going and it went back to what you're talking about at the rugby club with that lad that you're working For me. I start to shut down and I can almost link that back to yeah, you talked about at the beginning about the recruiting from vulnerable parts of society and my question around that is really am I right in thinking then that is because they have taken a conditioned way of behaving and just adapted to that. So, no matter what they're feeling or thinking, they're suppressing that to to conform or behave in a certain, a certain way.
Speaker 2:yeah, yeah, that's, that's definitely an element of it. So like emotional suppression, so like guys who have never been in an environment where they would turn around and say I'm not okay with that. There was um, uh, it was um. I say there was a study done right, and I I can't stand it.
Speaker 2:When I'm watching a podcast someone says, oh, a study show, all right, first and foremost, just because you've got a study could show anything in the world. That's primary research. It doesn't actually mean anything like science isn't as sexy as everyone thinks. It is like. Secondary research is where we find like the really interesting stuff happens, so that you can recreate those results in a different context or environment. That's where something has like scientific cadence. So you could say a study shows to explain this. And I'm sorry, I will answer your question, I promise. But I say to people all the time well, a study showed that actually 90 of the british army could run a sub eight minute mile and a half. And they're like well, that's, that's rubbish, that's not true. And I was like you're right, because the study was done on the army endurance team. So like can you do you see like the flaws and saying like a study, because a study is not representative of the general population. It's not the same context, environment, experiences, whatever.
Speaker 2:But one of the things is that, um, and it's in robert sapolsky's book behave, which is just an amazing book about the neurobiology of human behavior, human beings at their best and their worst. It's so interesting and basically it was kids who had had like middle class upbringings and children had like working class and actually like poverty, and it was about how children interacted with doctors, and so the children from middle class backgrounds were far more likely to ask, to challenge, to question, to really want to know like why am I doing this, what's the point of this, whilst the children from working class backgrounds are far more likely to be like yes, sir, no sir, yeah, ok, and it was like that's interesting because I know that as a culture we've kind of changed and there's been like there's like a much more anti-science rhetoric now, so that you probably really struggle to recreate those results now in a modern society. But it was done a while ago before kind of anti-science really became the forefront of culture. But the point was was that those kids were less likely to stand up, for what they actually felt was that those kids were less likely to stand up for what they actually felt, whilst children who come from emotionally validating backgrounds were far more likely to think. I feel this way and I'm right to feel this way, which is correct, right, so, you're right.
Speaker 2:So if a child grows up in an environment whereby the dad would hit them if they spoke out about his behaviour, if the platoon sergeant or the section commander becomes what is effectively a replacement father figure, they're then also far less likely to then speak out. If, when that corporal or that sergeant is behaving in a way that makes them feel uncomfortable, because that's just, they're just not used to, they just wouldn't, why would you say anything like that's? That's a really bizarre thing to explain to certain people. You know, like that there's loads of stuff like and we see that quite generationally at the moment whereby I explained to my daughter that know, like, like there's loads of stuff like and we see that quite generationally at the moment whereby I explained to my daughter that it was like socially acceptable to hit children, like when I was, when I was growing up, like and I would never, I would never hit her, I would 100, throw her in the sea. She's 13 at the moment, so, like everyone can really relate to that. I would 100 throw her in the sea sometimes, but like, and she was like, so you just get hit. It's like, yeah, that was just like kids used to get smacked in public. She's like that's really like abusive. And it's like, yeah, but like, so that kind of level of like she comes up in an environment where that's not okay, but we grew up in an environment where that was okay and so we never like questioned that.
Speaker 2:So it's exactly that, really like you're taking children who would never have had that validated experience, go into basic training and would never speak out about, necessarily, things that were going on. So there is an element of that. There's also, um, if we were to look at from like a humanist approach and take like maslow's approach to maslow's hierarchy of needs, people whose like needs aren't met, so like if your basic needs like food safety, shelter, like, and then like we move up, you know like, uh, belonging and esteem, like if the army provides those things for you, like I, I come from poverty in and out home, like struggling, like didn't like myself, I was all of a sudden the army is forgiving me all of those things. You're, you are just so much, then more likely to then form this subconscious, subconscious reliance upon the army. You're going to need it.
Speaker 2:That was one of the things that was said to me before I left the army. I went in for an interview. She was a civilian, she was a civil servant. I was on the army mental resilience team and I was like really unhappy with the way things were being shocked, the way things that army hq were managing and or not managing or delivering things, and I said, like this is not okay, that's not okay, that's not okay. You put me in a really difficult, said like this is not okay, that's not okay, that's not here. You put me in a really difficult position professionally. This is not okay. She went you'll never leave the army because you need it too much. And I was like I'm not at that age where I'm like ready to leave, so like cool, like I'll see you later, um, uh, but that so, yeah, so when you need the army provides these things for you and you're, then you're far more likely to then rely on that and then, and then it gets really interesting because then, particularly then, when it comes to like belonging right army hashtag, this is belonging, it's actually really powerful and like it was a really successful recruitment campaign.
Speaker 2:The the raw marines 99.9 need not apply was actually really unsuccessful because you just had hardly any applicants because people thought, well, I don't have it then. But actually lots of these people turn up thinking I don't have it. The whole point of like basic training is actually character development. We don't, you're not, expected to be a raw marine on day one week one. Right, you're not. You're not expected that, but you're expected it at the end of like phase one and then phase two training and the commander course. So it's actually a process to get there. Like it's not, like you're expected to do the tarzan course in day one week one. So, because that 99.9% need not apply, it was cool, but you actually turned so many people away from that.
Speaker 2:Well, actually this hashtag this is belonging was psychologically very clever because lots of people, particularly young men who lack purpose and identity, crave, crave that and crave to be part of a tribe. And it's this whole um, uh, like, if we kind of go back two and a half million years ago, we have these like subconscious drives that kept us alive. We still have those, so like this desire to be part of a tribe that ensures survival and that we have a role and a position on a social hierarchy within that tribe still very much exists. So the army really plays on that. Because then we've got like tribal identity through beret color and badges and and and courses and whatever, and like people fighting each other because you wear slightly different colored berets, like you'd be really good mates on civic street, because you're both mad into fears, they're both like a rut for it.
Speaker 2:But like what do you mean? He's got a green beret, oh, he's got, he's got a room one. Well, I'll fight him then like ridiculous, but actually it's really essential because that means very good soldiers and actually therefore has that created very resilient people, because this is really interesting. So if you could take someone's traumatic childhood and then use that as a sense of manipulation, you can meet the needs that they have through giving them purpose and identity and a roof over their head and food. And like looking after, like the court, like the call, really like looks after you and the the army is like no, this, the air, quote-unquote, airborne brotherhood, like we'll look after you. And so actually then you develop this like really intense sense of loyalty. Because how do you, how do you convince young men to like charge off of a landing ship and storm a normandy beach? And basically you convince them that the wellbeing of their tribe is more important than them as an individual. So it's more about check your flash, royal. It's more about like come on airborne. It's more about like this is your part of this bigger thing and actually this bigger thing is more important than you are, and so people then really committed. That's how people charge off, because it because it's this I'm defending my tribe and it actually makes very resilient, very tough soldiers. Like guys go to Afghanistan and really deliver because they've got purpose, they've got identity, they are being stoic, they're in control, like they've got command of themselves. They're composed like that. I remember seeing like disasters, right, and then just seeing NCOs who were just so composed and just being like in awe of that level of composure and just being like even just anything from people being injured in training and just a guy who's just seen thousands of broken legs and arms and whatever, and just being like, okay, okay, god, this is what we're going to do. Like never seen them flustered, but so composed, so awe, inspiring. You know, wow, that level of resilience is amazing. That guy is so tough, so robust, like that was the word that we loved in the military, right, robust, you don't really see it anymore, um, but like robust was the word we used to use, right, that guy's a robust individual and and just really admiring that about them and then we just kind of take that and go right, but that's a resilient individual. But this is where resilience becomes, I think really interesting, because then what happens to that individual when you take that away? What happens to that resilience? I think identity is one of the key factors of resilience, like identity and emotional intelligence, right. So identity is one of the key factors.
Speaker 2:One of the things that guys struggle with the most and it my my single, most common piece of advice that I give to people when they're on their way out of the military is to find a sense of who you are outside of the uniform whilst you're still in the uniform. Like do stuff on civvy street. There were like layers to this for me. So, like working with cultists of rugby club, I was like, oh my god, like there are actually really good people outside of the army. I thought every good bloke Was serving, yeah, yeah, yeah. Like every civvy was an absolute knobhead apart. And like, and then the only good people in the army were the people who were actually in my FST. Like they were the only good ones ever. Like isn't it lucky that the four best people on the planet were all in this single FST together? So best people on the planet all in this single fst together. So there's. So there's that um and then.
Speaker 2:And then like when I went to bryce norton and I went to go work obviously as part of the parachute training school came under the raf, that was. That was like a real eye-opener for me, because then I was. I mean, I sat with this guy, kingy, who's now. He's now on the red devils, he's an absolute legend. He was um, um, he was an mfc at the time from two para and so we worked together loads and, um, I remember saying to him like, are we the bad guys?
Speaker 2:It's like that, that a mitchell and webb scene, where they're, where they're, the nazis in the uniform with the skull and crossbones. Are we the baddies? And I'm like, are we the bad guys? What makes you say that? Well, our instructors are like mega, like we didn't have anything on. So we all went for a costa and they brought us all cappuccinos and brownies and we just sat here and just chilled out and then, like, we all went to the gym and they're just like, yeah, lads, what time did you want to start tomorrow? Like, yeah, you're all grown-ups. Why would we shout at you, do you know? I mean, nobody's come into my room and trashed it. I haven't had to do a single room inspection and it's like yeah, I think I think you're right, I think we're the bad guys, but there's this whole sense of oh, actually like there's more to me and there's more to the world than these four walls of the brigade.
Speaker 1:I completely get that and I'm really curious to hear your opinion, but I guess those sorts of changes don't come overnight and it goes back to what you're talking about. Well, we just touched on, before we started recording that, some of those qualities, if we managed to give people those qualities before they tuned, or draw them out during training yeah, for the old and crusty man that I am, or that that might be listening what, what, what are we taking away from people then? In terms of if because, yeah, there's always that when I was in training it was harder type of thing mentality, um, yeah, so, yeah. So to go there, james, what, what would that look like then? Surely that's going to make people I'm just throwing this out, there's not necessarily my opinion it's going to make people less resilient or less tough on the battlefield but yeah, you know you're right, but you are right, like, so the process that we've got makes really resilient and tough soldiers.
Speaker 2:So then do we do it in basic training, when, when, when, um, when I was in base you know what I? I assume they still do it and I imagine that in some degree everyone's had it whereby you have like a lecture I remember this lecture because this guy said something and it blew my mind, but this guy had this, we had this lecture, and this guy said, um, he was like a 22-year W01 on his way out the door. He said guys, treat the army like a 22-year resettlement, like start doing your civilian qualifications every year, almost as if you're preparing to leave the army. And I couldn't hear that at the time. I was like, what do you want to do? I'm never going to leave the army. I'm literally, I am actually Bellerophon riding Pegasus into battle, like don't ever speak to me again.
Speaker 2:Um, but that, like you couldn't hear it. So it's actually really important psychologically because you have to convince people that their beret, their cat bites, their wings, their whatever, is the most important thing on the planet, because then they're going to, they're going to dedicate themselves to it, they're going to train hard, they're going to want to be super motivated, they're going to love it. That's all they're going to want to do. You can't then say to someone actually, like this is all a little bit of a pantomime, and when you get out you'll realize that. Like don't say that to them now, because then, like, when it comes, if you, if we were to have done that, gets to the storming of the beaches of normandy, the funk thing goes down and bloke's like why would I go out there?
Speaker 1:yeah, what you've been talking about yeah, it's absolutely not happening.
Speaker 2:So you can't. You can't do that right, because that's not. That doesn't work. So people do have to be committed. Okay, cool, but then it comes to what happens.
Speaker 2:I'm going to get out because, clearly, between radicalizing someone to love their beret and that is the word, that is the terminology it is radicalization, like it, it just is. When you look at it, as many different perspectives you want, you're like oh, yeah, that's, that is 100. Like you don't need a family if the army wanted you to have a family, it would issue you with it. And like all of like the, if it wanted you to have a wife, you'd be given one, a basic training. Like absolutely mental, like the most important thing. Like people getting like the tattoos, you think, like people did four years and I've got the tattoos. They're potentially going to live 20 times longer than that, yeah, and yet you've still, and, but like I'm not. You know, I don't want people to think that I'm taking a swipe at them for having because I, I had them. I mean, I've, I've got loads of tattoos now anyway, and I'm like they, they're covered. But my point is that there's nothing necessarily wrong with that, but it is just a reflection of radicalisation, people who get married in uniform. When you look at it objectively, you're like it's actually quite a strange thing to do. You're wearing your work uniform but you love it and it's part of who you are and it's really important that it is that. But then what happens if, like you do, eight years, you get out and you look at your wedding photos in 30 years time, you think it's actually quite strange that I wore my uniform that day, so that so I think that there's, there's, it's layered and it's really interesting. But yeah, so then when people then get out, what do we do to then de-radicalize it like it's?
Speaker 2:Because, as everybody who's been through the resettlement process would probably agree, it's a very flawed process. Um, the army and the enhanced learning credits and whatever haven't actually helped me in any way whatsoever. And yet I studied military psychiatry at kings, which is the only place where they'll take psychological research from. So I went to the place where the army gets psychological research from, became like trained, trained there, finished my master's there. I was like a psychic, qualified as a psychotherapist. I'm doing like more work around further qualification in psychotherapy Never had a penny Like because, because the army doesn't recognize those courses, which is, which is, which is Matt.
Speaker 2:So, like the resettlement processes is flawed in that way, but also psychologically. How is it flawed? Because we actually need guys to start realizing who they are outside of the uniform. What's this? So where actually need guys to start realizing who they are outside of the uniform whilst they still wear the uniform, but then without effectively diluting the culture of a unit? Because then if you've got loads of guys who like there's actually a lot more to life than this, there's a lot more to life outside of the wire than than they've led us to believe, the problem is is that going to dilute the culture within?
Speaker 1:is. Is that something that you find yourself doing with, with the high performers that you work with, the, regardless of background, or is it just part of it?
Speaker 2:depending, but yeah, I mean so if we were to put that into like high performers it's. It's people who no longer love the game that they do. You can't have them around the high performers because because they infect them. It is that, like you know, when you get a rotten piece of fruit and you put it in a basket with with healthy fruit, it will infect the healthy fruit. Like you see that all the time.
Speaker 2:How many guys are like in troops or squadrons or platoons, whatever it might be being like, oh shit, this shit, shit, and everyone's just like just get rid of them. You have to now remove them from that environment because they undermine the process for everybody else. And it's exactly the same in all, all of the high performance, be it a fight team, be it a um, like the paralytic rowers, be it like like the police that I worked with, like they that was quite interesting. They're having some real like difficulties in culture and if you want to like change the culture, you have to change the language of the environment that's used. So if you want to make something a high performance uh team, if you want to make it a high performing environment, you need to change the language you're using that. Everything needs to be focused upon generating the highest performance possible.
Speaker 2:So then, if you've got individuals who actually go against the grain with that, who then use negative language to describe their experiences within the team, you're going to really struggle to create a high performance environment and actually think that's that's actually a really interesting point. So, yeah, so then what then happens? Do we then? Do we then like lengthen the resettlement process and make it like two years? Do we make it more mandatory that people actually have to do civilian qualifications whilst they're, whilst they're serving? I think that's always a really interesting thing whereby guys and I've definitely found it that bracket when people are you know, people getting like special little certificates.
Speaker 2:It sounds like I'm really belittling of them and I'm sorry, I don't mean it like that, but they get certificates like well done, because this soldier finished his diploma this year and I'm like, yeah, but because he's on the bits like what do you want from me? Like I've been, I've been out of the door for like seven months this year on just nonsense exercises as well, not like anything good, like I don't have the free time to do that, okay, cool, but then is that something that we should then be enforcing? Should people have enforced education? Can you enforce education like we tried that when we were at school, yeah, and like most of us fell out of that, get on yeah, right, exactly so that, like they're really complicated answers.
Speaker 2:Do we need like a total culture change? I always say to people that these things are really complicated and therefore the answers are really complicated. I saw on a podcast this woman. She's like I don't want to get political and complicated. She was like a right-wing influencer, I do with a socialist influencer and the socialist influencer said you want me to come up with a really shortppy answer, but if you think you've found a simple solution to a complex problem, you probably haven't found a simple solution to a complex problem. You're probably being simple-minded. So there's no like easy solution to this.
Speaker 2:For, like, how do we then create resilient people that maintain that sense of resilience when they leave the army? Because we can identify that things like purpose, identity, emotion, intelligence are like key factors to supporting that resilience. How can we teach people to maintain that sense of purpose, identity, emotion, intelligence as they leave the military? How can we encourage them to maintain that without actually damaging the culture of the units that are currently serving, particularly if they're really high performing units? You know, like, if you know we're boarding like raw marine boarding parties, special forces teams, sfsg, whatever it might be like, if you're going to undermine those processes of those people have to believe that the most important thing is their barrier, not not letting their barrier down, and you've got someone being like, oh, actually, it's all just a bit of a pantomime, guys, and a bit pointless. Us doing this, you're going to reduce the effectiveness of that unit. So, like, how do we do that? And I think it's really interesting. I think that, like, a longer resettlement process would help guys and I think, giving them that sense of identity, because that identity is like really important and like lots of like people who are like far more intelligent than like, any of us could ever really hope to be.
Speaker 2:You know, like you, victor frankl, who wrote about man's search for meaning, you know, wrote this incredible book where he was in auschwitz and and and kind of developed a sense of purpose and identity that enabled him to survive that horrendous experience. I don't like, I don't know if you have or if any of your readers have, read that book, but that is like a, that is an incredible read, like, oh my god, like you, just you just love this guy at the end because he's just like. I just want you to survive, like, and you kind of obviously know that he does because it's an autobiography, but there's still like this part, you know where you're like. I hope this isn't like an anne frank thing, where you're like yeah, yeah, you know, yeah, yeah, I get it.
Speaker 2:Oh my god, that book is like such a read, um that, or like friedrich niss and he talks about, you know, like purpose and identity. Or I'm a man who lacks purpose, seeks pleasure. You know we get then these guys who then really struggle with that and then they leave and their resilience falls apart. So clearly, identity and purpose are like really, really important things to developing that sense of resilience. And you know there are guys who have been some of the most amazing soldiers, like real, like absolute legends in their own right, who then really struggle with symmetry because they're like but I don't know who I am yeah, yeah, yeah.
Speaker 1:No, I've I've seen that and I've had snippets of experience of that and I guess it's. It's understanding who we are having a some sort of process, but also knowing when to regulate certain behaviors at certain times. To question. So for me, when I'm feeling a certain way, what am I bringing back home through the front door, when I show up in front of my family?
Speaker 2:Yeah, yeah, for sure, yeah, yeah. Those questions are so important and lots of people don't ever ask themselves the facts. I've asked people like who are you? I've asked people like who are you? The amount of people who then give me a list of nouns but that's not who you are, because that could be taken from you and that's, like you know, like really heartbreaking. But everything from the colour of your beret to your fatherhood are things that could be taken from you. And actually, you know, like Marcus Aurelius writes about this, you know like being stripped of who you are can happen at any moment.
Speaker 2:Um, so, actually having this really strong sense of like adjectives and verbs and adverbs to who you are, uh, are really powerful, because I'm taking that essence of who I am, regardless of the environment or context or uniform or people around me, whatever it might be, I'm taking that essence of who I am and I'm taking that with me onto civvy street. And the way that I found out that essence of who I am is I replicated my behaviors outside of the uniform and that's create, that's helped create this. So like for me, like mentoring and compassion and and being inquisitive about people, that's that's, that's really great reflection of my character, my personality, my identity, and that fits in whether I'm in a uniform or whether I'm in a suit or in a hoodie, on a podcast Like that. So that sense of self, so that development of sense of self, when I say to people like my clients, they go. I say, right, who are you? And I go, right, well, I'm a rugby player. You've probably got about three years of that left mate. So that's not who you are, that's what you do, and there's elements of nuance to that answer. But yeah, so it's really fascinating.
Speaker 2:So getting people to find out who they are outside of the military and removing that sense of actually associating your identity to a series of nouns, is really important, important and I just find it really um, um fascinating getting people to identify who they are and, like you talked about, like that emotional intelligence is so important and I kind of like break emotional intelligence down into a variety of factors, you know from self-awareness and emotional control, which is really important that people understand. Emotional control and the advancement cycle spoke about before in in neurobiology of like, really like, the neuroscience of human behavior is like advancing in leaps and bounds, like understanding. You know, uh, you know, the chin paradox is a great book for, like just originally, just really breaking that down so you can just really understand human behavior. I've got this quote which is nothing about human behavior makes any sense until you view it through the lens of evolutionary biology.
Speaker 2:So, like people like understanding their intrusive thoughts based from the perspective of evolutionary biology, then, taking this humanist approach that actually all human beings are inherently good, we just misguided, and then how can I re-guide myself? Like that's just, that's the basis of my sort of um, uh, resilience-based psychotherapy and that's just how you can support people better with that process. And so that's pretty much how it works and it's just. You know, it's just fascinating to help people develop that sense of emotional intelligence and identity and then give them that purpose like what are you doing with your life? Like what is your legacy? What do you want it to be?
Speaker 1:big questions to ask, and yeah, and not something that that just pop out of thin air. Um, like I, I want to take you right back to the beginning, please do. You mentioned that, as you've touched on now the development of understanding of neuroscience and the incredible thing that the human brain is. It's never-ending. On your whatever qualification or quest for knowledge, which seems to be to me never ending, what's the next step for you? When's? What's the what's?
Speaker 2:So I'm doing another level six diploma at the moment which is like a degree equivalency or something like that. I've just I'm on a great course at the moment I'm really enjoying, which is another psychotherapy kind of getting a little bit more into the weeds of stuff. Once I finish this one, I'm probably going to push my phd. So I would like because I I feel that at this point I would have amassed enough knowledge and more more about having the confidence in my knowledge.
Speaker 2:Like I think, like lots of guys who leave the military, pursue academia, we always kind of feel really out of place because it's not like, it's not like. We smashed it at school, smashed it at sixth formal college, smashed it at university, smashed it at like post-grad, and then here we are, like it's not, it's not simple, like we're often, I, I often feel like a lack of confidence in my knowledge. So I'm forever chasing that next thing and that next thing and that next thing to just to be confident enough to go for the, the next um academic. So for me it will probably be the phd and it would probably be in something like applied neuroscience, do you?
Speaker 2:think that will be enough um, well, I think that, like, if we talk about um, uh, like, paradoxical intent. Paradoxical intent is that if you focus on the process of something, you pretty much guarantee its outcome. So, learn. So I love learning. I sit and I'll read something and I'll go, wow, shit, that's amazing. And then I've got to put it down, close the laptop, I've got to spend 30 minutes conceptualising it and understanding it and putting it into relatable terms and just going through that, and then I go well, what's the next thing? And then learning.
Speaker 2:So I don't know, like, at some point, I think that it's not necessarily chasing the accolades, chasing the knowledge. So, like a PhD is like it's quite a monumental thing to to have achieved. And like, um, it's like people have written these, like 80,000 worth theses. It's just like incredible, like, yeah, I said like to um, to one of the tutors at university oh, can I use my book? And he went no, that's not how it works. Like, that's that that my friend would be cheating and I was like, yeah, it would be like that's not an original piece of research.
Speaker 2:No, like you are not. You are not a phd worthy subject. I was like, no, that's a fair point. Yeah, okay, um, yeah, so that. But um, yeah, like I don't know, like I just enjoy, like I there's other things. I think that this is kind of like the beauty of like learning later in life, isn't? It? Is that because I'm choosing to be there.
Speaker 1:I enjoy it yeah, yeah like for you yeah, right.
Speaker 2:So, like I don't know, would I want to do something like in physics? Yeah, like, yeah, probably, like space is amazing, right, like there's the more like it's hard to not get caught up in magic. You know, like I, I had this discussion with um, a friend of mine who's who's a philosopher, which makes me sound like such a nomad that I've got philosopher friends. He is an actual philosopher. And I was like saying I think science and magic are the same things. And he go okay, explain that to me. And I was like if you take a magnet and you spin it in copper wire, it creates a flow of electrons which we then use to generate electricity and fuel our homes and light our tellies and all that. And he was like, yeah, that's magic. I get that it's explicable through science, but that doesn't take away the wonder of it. He was like that's a really lovely way of looking at things.
Speaker 2:But it is right in this universe of magic and there's loads of things that, like that, are just so like magical. The anthropic principle is magic. Like we live on a planet and the chances of like life on a planet are, like, so tiny, and then the chances of like intelligent life are so tiny, and then, for some reason, we're, we're, we're conscious yeah, so tiny it's, it's, it's incredible, it's.
Speaker 1:You're right, it's a miracle. It's.
Speaker 2:For me, it's an absolute miracle yeah, it is, it is, it is. It's the anthropic principle basically tries to like understand, taking to account all of the factors that exist, like for life to exist, and it's everything from like the strength of gravity is like perfect. If it was a tiny bit more, the universe would have collapsed in on itself by now. If it was tiny bit less, we'd have float, everything would have floated away from each other, we'd all frozen. It's like perfect, and like the moon is like the perfect distance and the sun is a perfect distance. And people are like well, there must be life out there. And so like people like professor brian cox goes yeah, I mean kind of there must be, because for every grain of sand there's like a million different, there's a, there's like a million stars, every grain of sand in the world. So like there kind of must be. But also like people don't realize just how unlikely it is that that life is going to be anywhere near us, like it's going to be so infinitely far away that we're never going to be able to make contact with them until we learn like to travel faster than the speed of light or learn to remove the issue of space.
Speaker 2:So like fascinating stuff like that I'm like, well, why would my journey end like I've done resilience and I'm doing resilience and I love it and I love what I do, and like there's just such an amazing feeling like, uh, picasso says, the meaning of life is to find your gift, but the purpose of life is to give it away.
Speaker 2:So I love this stuff and I love finding out about human behavior in the brain and I help. I love helping people. Like, for me, I've become the very version of myself that I needed as a child. Yeah, like, if I'd have seen me as a child I've been like he's not okay, he needs supporting that, that that kid needs defending. I'd have jumped in and I've got, I've had this, this real privilege of being able to become this version of myself so I can look after kids who would have been like me, and that's a really beautiful and wonderful thing to have in my life. But, like, does that mean that I stop here? I'll keep going like I'll keep learning and doing stuff and fascinating and you know and like I have.
Speaker 2:My daughter's becoming her own person and there's stuff that she's really interested in. That's like educating me and like that's becoming fascinating. You know, she's really into art and I'm not particularly good at art, I don't really get it, but she actually loves it. She just like sits and that people are. That's modern art, that's rubbish. She's sitting there going. That's actually really impactful and I'm like, oh my god, what are you on about?
Speaker 1:explain that to me, that's a banana duct tape.
Speaker 2:But yeah, so, so that, and I think it's you know, there's just so much to learn and I think that actually lots of soldiers who have this um, unfortunately had such negative experiences in education. As they get older, they get exposed to education again, but this time it's on their terms, and because it's on their terms, actually enjoy it a lot more and next thing you know they're like oh my god, I love this.
Speaker 2:They're reading books and they're talking about philosophy and maths and art and sciences and whatever it might be, and that's a really beautiful thing. So so, yeah, I mean just yeah, adore it, and I just don't know that the education should ever end like. One of the things that, like, we're really struggling with is the high rates of dementia, and one of the greatest things against dementia the opposite of dementia is neuroplasticity, which is where the brain reforms and learns stuff and effectively, um uh, dementia is like the brain just just crumbling in on itself. So, like by constantly learning, it's one of the best things you can do against dementia. So keeping active, because we need something called bdnf, which is brain derived neurotrophic factors, which is basically like growth hormone for the brain. It's not quite, but like for the purposes of that, that's perfect bdnf, um. So being active, um uh, um, learning, constantly learning, constantly reading, like if you're constantly reading and learning, and like your brain stays active and continues to grow, and um, uh, one of the the key elements is resilience. So purpose, identity, social structure, all that type of stuff is like the greatest combatant. So really like resilience-based behaviours, constantly learning and physical activity, and you could be I mean I certainly do in my book argue that physical activity and resilience go hand in hand. But just for this, like those are three things that are effectively going to likely prevent you against dementia, alzheimer's dementia um, also most likely to prevent you against, um, cortisol related illnesses, like cancer, like we're noticing a lot of links now between cortisol and so stress and and cancer and of uh, like, social isolation is one of the biggest risk factors to suicidality. So, um, yeah, effectively, by adopting the behaviors of resilience, uh, which include well-being and and constantly learning, constantly.
Speaker 2:Just, what's the next thing? What do I want to learn about? What do I want to know about? Like, always be able to like challenge your mind and challenge your brain, like always just be able to put your ego to one side and go. Do you know what, like it was shakespeare said? Is it shakespeare? He said that a fool believes himself wise, but a wise man knows himself a fool, like you. Just, I don't know anything about anything. Like I know I know about one percent of resilience and I wrote a book about it called think yourself resilient I I wrote the book about it. But like, that's just the one percent of of, of of of it that I know reasonably well, like that that there's. So what is it? A master is an individual who has failed at every possible eventuality in a very limited subject. That's what a master is right. You've got it wrong and learned, and you've got it wrong and learned so many times. You're not the best at it, so so that love it, mate.
Speaker 1:James, I could stay chatting for for much longer, mate, but I know you've got um a hard stop very soon. But is there anything else you'd like to mention before we start to wrap it up today? Uh?
Speaker 2:I've got a book. It's available on amazon and it's available on uh. It's available in waterstones. It has been for a little while. If it's not on the shelf, don't worry about it. You can still get waterstones online and you can still get on amazon. And actually what I've just started is a patreon which drops the 31st of march and in that patreon I'm basically it's called the vault and I'm saying everything I know, you can know and I've it's got sort of 30 pieces of content on there, but I'm basically just going to keep uploading, like all the information that I know. I'm going to upload it onto a patreon and then, if it's just a recurring subscription platform, you just every day I'm going to try and put something on there. Definitely sort of three, four new pieces a week are just going to get uploaded and uploaded and uploaded and uploaded on there like videos and articles and stuff that I've written and blogs and whatever it might be is going on there Brilliant.
Speaker 1:Well, we'll put the links to that in the in the show notes, mate. Thanks so much for your time today, james. I didn't go anywhere near where I half planned, but it's fascinating to listen to you speak and share a bit of your wisdom, mate.
Speaker 2:So yeah, thank you Glad to mate, thank you so much for your time.