Running Towards Healing: Black Men Tackling Mental Health and Vulnerability with Trojan Gordon, Lionel Mullin & Greg Patmore

Welcome to the Start Line, a podcast about running, eating, life and everything in between. Okay, it's Jules, I'm back flying solo again. To introduce this episode of the Start Line In another change of planned programming, we've decided to skip the ladies this week so we can bring them and the great chat we had about menopause and running next week in celebration of International Women's Day. So this week the guys are taking over. We have such a brilliant, brilliant conversation led by Trojan, one of the co-founders of the Mancipated Run crew, as you know, if you listen to this regularly, alongside Lino Mullen and Greg Patmore, who take over the panel and talk from a male perspective, and it was just such a brilliant conversation. It's the second time we've run this. Erc did a panel of discussions last year and it kicked off with a conversation with the guys talking about black male mental health, running, issues that affect black men, and you know the conversation went through a whole range of things from mental health, as I've said, accountability, what a safe space is, what does vulnerability mean, the impact and benefits of therapy, the importance of black male spaces and relationships, and I don't think there are many places or spaces where black men can get together and talk and really just have that space to be honest, to be frank, to be emotional, to really share things that women may share all the time. You know, women have a lot more freedom to express themselves emotionally, whereas men are supposed to just be strong and, you know, be able to carry the weight of emotion or not show emotion. And so this conversation was really important for us to include, to give the black male voice a space to talk, to be free to be emotional, to feel safe in doing so, and I'd just like to thank Trojan and Lino and Greg again for sharing all that they shared in almost an hour hours worth of conversation, which, as usual, could have gone on for two if not three hours, and also a great thank you to our audience who listened so respectfully and allowed the guys the space to just explore the various topics. Hopefully you will enjoy it as much as we did if you do. As I always say, please do share the podcast, please remember to follow us on your favourite podcast platform so you do not miss a drop of the podcast when a new episode is released, and rate and review us if you can on our podcast. It really helps us with discoverability. So next week we will be back, as I said, with the final of our ERC Conversations recorded live from the National Running Show in January. Gosh, I mean, this series has been stretching on. I can't believe we're at the end of it now and hopefully I will be back to introduce this episode with either one of my sisters so you won't have to put up with listening to my voice alone next time. But if you do want to leave a comment or share your feedback or suggestions of topics you would like us to cover, please always feel free to drop us a message or DM on Instagram or Facebook or in our inbox. If you head to our website, thestartlinepodcom, you can either leave us a voice message or send us a message there. But yes, thank you for your listening is and we hope you enjoy this conversation. Okay, so we are back for our final session. It's Jules from the Startline Podcast and Emancipated Run Crew. We've got our final session today at the National Run Show. We're at the Run Club Hub sponsored by England Athletics, so thanks for their hospitality and today's final session. You know today's sessions have been about kind of challenges and overcoming injury, running with the menopause. This last session is about focusing on our men and how running impacts or helps assist with mental health, because obviously, for our men there tends to be a lack of the space to have conversations around mental health and mental health does have impact. Men, you know, between 25 and 40 there's a high prevalence of suicide and we just want to explore and I'm going to bow out of this conversation because it you know, we want it to be a safe space for men to have the conversation honestly about how they have found running a movement to kind of help with their mental health issues and supporting their mental health. So Trojan, co-founder of Emancipated Run Crew and my running brother, is going to expertly lead this session which we first ran. Trojan curated our series, erc series of talks and we ran the session and it was really positively received and so we thought we would bring this conversation to the National Run Show to have it again and also record it for the Start Line podcast. So thank you, trojan, and our brilliant panellists, greg and Lionel. So I will leave this over to you, trojan.

Thank you, jules. Thank you for that lovely introduction and allowing me to say it's to be created for us to have this important conversation surrounding mental health, but particularly within Black Men. Before we start, I'd like to introduce our panellists, lionel and Greg, who I was asked to introduce themselves a minute time cap, keep it short, keep it sweet, keep it moving Right. So Lionel.

Yeah, hi, hi. My name is Lionel. I've been running for three years. Professionally I'm a consultant. I work with businesses. I look at how businesses work and it's a question of it's kind of problem solving. So I look at situations and I try and figure out what is the best way for them to work effectively, either as a team, as a whole organization or as individuals. Man About Town is the profile that I've got on the Halo group. I love the arts so I love to go and visit, whether it's film, television, photography and otherwise. Don't have any children, but I do have eight godchildren. So four friends, four family members, have entrusted me to look after their children in the absence of them. Not sure if that's a great idea, but fortunately I've not been tasked with that responsibility just yet. Man.

Greg. I am Greg, I'm officially a cyclist, that's why I do and how most people know me. And then I fell into running. And I've been falling into running ever since. Father of two kids, art lover, swimmer, runner, challenger. I just do a lot of things. So, yes, pretty much me. I don't know much more to say about that. Father of three, that's great, that's great.

So thank you for the introduction, and one of the things that we've been doing this month is participating in their journey, and it's the thing of the great thing about their journey is about the introduction of movement whilst thinking about a mental well-being, and quite a few of our community have been participating in this activity. So how has the general been feeling and can you all share in how it's improved or impacted on your mental health?

Yeah, thanks a lot. I'll go first. I think that we'll just in January. What's great is that it gives you a point of reference, it gives you something to, it gives you a challenge, it wakes you up in the morning or it leaves you last thing at night. Let me do something. What can sometimes happen post Christmas? The enthusiasm goes, the days get, you know, the days are tend to be shorter, it's darker and whatever else. You can get into a bit of a funk, you know. But Red January gives you an appointment with yourself in that sense. So to be active, you know, get those endomorphins. You may know that that's the case, but get those things. Get those juices. You know flowing is the worst. So for me, red January is very, very important.

I have, I would. I would agree, as someone who was active throughout December, it was very easy to enjoy the excess of New Year's even New Year's Day and, you know, slightly start tapering off, but knowing that having the challenge to do, having to be accountable, really helped. It isn't the easiest time of year it's icy, it's cold, there's a million and one reasons not to go out, but you know people are looking towards you and you're looking towards them, so it helps really motivate and keep you going, especially with dark days. Mental health you need it.

So, building on from that, what do you think is the biggest challenges for back men have when it comes to the mental well being and having that mental well being supported?

Talking about it, being honest about it. A lot of guys we have been raised in a way to be tough, to bottle it up, to man up, and it's a challenge for someone to simply say I need help, I'm not in a good way. It seems easier to blame you, on someone else my Mrs give me a hard time, my boss is being tough, I don't have money, I'm blaming million and one and things around it rather than to take accountability and say I don't know how to navigate where I am right now, I'm not liking my job, I'm not liking my life set up, I'm having issues with my family and people around me. Once you take accountability of what you can control within yourself, everything opens up. What starts with you, and I think one of the things I love from running with the ERC is the open and frank conversations we have had about mental health in a male space and how we can encounter that and how we can change that current perception.

Yeah, it's just, you know, to build on that point, the accountability part for me is absolutely key. And if you think about masculinity in general, irrespective of race masculinity, you know you're meant to be tough, you're meant to be strong. You know there are those, all those stereotypes, when you, when you layer in race on top of that, and there's a hyper masculinity around black male identity. And to your point about you know, being open, being vocal, the risk of that is vulnerability. And so when you, when you contrast that hyper masculinity with that vulnerability, it becomes self perpetuating and it could be a real spiral. In that sense, you don't want to appear vulnerable as a man, as a black man. So therefore, you, you, you clam up. You don't want to reveal exactly what's going on, necessarily.

And to that point I mean recently. One thing has been shocking to me, has been really really hard to me to kind of look for at from the sidelines, is my young male friends dealing with social media posts out and you see these kind of channels where women, women say, oh, a man can't be honest with his woman because he is, he's showing their his weaker and what that leads to. And I literally heard these words come out on my friend's mouth. I had to, I had to catch them and say you're 25 years old, you're 25 years old and if you're believing this, stop, please stop. Have an honest conversation. If the person you are with, or people you surround yourself with, see that as a vulnerability, see that as something to take advantage of, move from them.

Yeah, it's for the life of me I forgot his name, andrew Tate. Yes, if you think about that in terms of young men, again, irrespective of race, but young men, if that's within the realms of social media, if that's the standard bearer, if that's the benchmark, then it makes it very difficult. In that sense, irrespective of you know, parents, friends, family if people are connecting and that's your definition of manhood, necessarily it's, it's not making anything any easier in that sense.

Yeah, I mean, I guess I guess, when you're talking about vulnerability, what you're talking about is men not feeling safe to be themselves. Yeah, right, and so what we need to be trying to create is a space where men can be themselves in an authentic way. So on one end of the spectrum, you have Andrew Tate who's telling you how to be yourself. But if you, if we had to act against that, and as we were talking earlier about accountability, vulnerability basically is talking about not being safe. Right, if you don't feel safe, then you were going to withdraw and put on the front. So how can we create spaces in which men can be themselves? Forget about vulnerability, move up to one side and say you know, let's encourage people to feel safe, to be themselves, to be accountable. How do you demonstrate that?

I think it starts from a brotherhood. I think it simply starts from saying, hey, what's going on? Checking in on each other and building that brotherhood. Let's go play football. One of the things I remember from the longest time and I look back to this now more so because I don't see it around as much the barbershop as much as I cast about having to wait in queue. I booked my time at two o'clock and I'm not getting my hair cut to six. There was a brotherhood there, there was a conversation there and things will just get discussed. And it may be conversations you didn't want to have and it may be you really agree with a particular text on the head, but you can engage in something and you only knew about each other and you all checked on each other and I've only seen so and so in a time, Anyone anyone's heard from him, and so on and so forth. I think we need to kind of bring that back in every space. We can be it running, cycling, lifting weights in the gym, whatever checking in on each other physically or even social media. Like, do it by the group text.

Okay. So, with that being in mind, how do you create a safe space? Because if you're using the barber shop as a metaphor, as a safe space, how do you create safe spaces for men to be able to have these conversations in an honest way, in a way they can show the whole range of human emotion in a way that they don't feel? Because I guess the danger you have is you have and you take on one end of the spectrum and say to be a man is X, y and Z, and it's quite aggressive and it's quite closed. But we also want to sort of create an alternative space in which people can access what you're talking about. And so how can we be more accountable in creating spaces that enable men, particularly black men, who white society shows that many spaces for them is particularly unsafe? So, whether you're talking in the workspace you're talking about within relationships with each other, because black men are taught to fear each other and within the wider society, how do you create a space where black men can feel safe to be themselves?

That's a really good question, I think. Certainly one thing from experience and whether it's through work, whether it's at the gym, just sometimes just to open yourself up, and what I mean by that one very, very simple example is that in particular, when you see another black guy, if you're in a white space, for instance, it is an acknowledgement, it's a little nod, it's a little check, a little wink or a little like yeah, it's cool. And to open your hands, to smile, it disarms, it kind of brings down the innate tension where sometimes in the space of other black men, there's just an atmosphere, there's a vibe. Maybe black women experience that, but certainly speaking from a male perspective, it's a way to kind of let's just bring the temperature down. I come in peace, my hands are open, I'm not carrying anything, things are fine. In terms of creating a space, it's in some ways it's a little chicken and egg. How do you create the space to enable people to be open? People aren't going to be open unless you create the space necessarily. So it does take some, some Vanguard, some pioneers. It takes a certain amount of sacrifice in some ways that enables people to feel safe to open up, and it may not be immediate that people do open up. It might be that, let's say, for instance, you're at the gym or if you're cycling together. It may take the third, the fourth, the fifth session, it may take the 10th phone call, the 10th text message before somebody says, oh, I'm ready now, greg, you're ready, I'm ready. But it may take somebody else a little bit more time, and so you need a certain amount of patience in some ways, and it takes a certain self-sacrifice and effort to create those spaces. It might be that you nobody turns up the first week, you don't get a response to that phone call. But you need a certain amount of time necessarily. We don't always have that time, but it takes that time, I think.

I think what you said there about having a song to lead it is important and you've got to be very careful with that. You don't want someone to lead it that has this negative connotation. You want someone that's going to be objective and open to. They may have their own opinion, but they're going to allow the conversations to occur. So again, I'm thinking about my old friend's old house and unfortunately my friend's father died during Covid. But my friend's father's there and he knows we're doing all sorts, we're drinking, we're playing, we're having, but everything's okay until he says stop. And then he's allowing you to go between the lines but at certain points, now stop. So you can have these conversations, you can argue with them, you can tell me that Arsenal or rubbish and Magnet said better, and we can have a whole conversation about the invincibles and your history and everything else. But at a certain point, when it gets too agitated or too animated, that person comes in and says okay, now stop, shake hands and let's leave it as that. I think that's important.

And I guess what you're talking about is relationships and creating spaces in which allows conversations and feelings and emotions to be shared, that feel safe, and so we can have difficult conversations, we can share our emotions, but also it's about building a relationship to allow those emotions and those connections to be shared. So what you both are kind of leaning into is about people turning up, people demonstrating and people leaning in to create spaces to allow other people to step in and to open up. And our first, in some ways, is about what do we do individually to allow other people for safe with us?

I think what ERC, for instance, for example, is doing very well. So, erc, you're attending park runs weekly at locations. We're not centering around any one particular person, but it's around the community, and that local community can come together and it can run together and do that. But afterwards, if you want to go off and have a conversation with someone because you're feeling something, you can also do that. You build these connections with people, you build these bonds with people that make you feel safe and I then think, actually, bro, can I take a minute of your time? I've got some in my mind I want to talk to you about.

And I usually an allergy of onions. It is just layered in that sense. A virtual running club like ERC, or a gym or a barbershop, all these different spaces. It may take a few occasions just to unpick, unpeal those layers that you do feel safe, that oh okay. I've seen somebody else explain how vulnerable they are and I've seen that they've not been ostracized for it, They've not been pilloried for it. I may not be ready right now, but then over time I may be ready to share something and it's kind of, you know, building friendships. It can take time, you know. Yes, we may run together at a park run, but it may be a few weeks before you actually figure out oh, I didn't know that about you. And even if you've known somebody for years, you may not really know them. I know an aspect of them, but then you peel off another layer, another ring on that onion, as it were, and it's like, oh, oh well, I didn't realize that that was your background, and those are some of the things you may have been struggling with, you know, in that sense, but certainly, creating those, creating those touch points, using the park run tour as an example, I think it's absolutely fantastic Because, again it's. There are moments where you may be the only person on that tour, and then there's other occasions where, slowly, over time to use that phrase from I think it's Feel the Dreams. You know that film, you know build it, and they will come.

So when you think about relationships, we talk about relationships and connections and creating spaces that enable us to come together and feel safe and vulnerable. Why do you think? Why are male relationships important, particularly amongst Black men? Why do, why are these relationships important?

Simply because I can. I can see myself in you, you can see yourself in me. If we can see it, if I can see myself in you, then I feel more akin to talk to you about things that I struggle with. Just because a father is a father doesn't mean that the son will be his friend, and so the son will not talk to the father, and likewise the father will not talk to the son, but the son may talk to the uncle or the neighbor or the milkman or whoever else that he, whoever he, finds himself in. And it's important to have people that you can sound off to, because if you're in your own head and you're dealing with stuff and you're bouncing the same ideas off, you're never going to find an answer, and that can be destructive. We've seen, unfortunately. You know, male suicide is a real thing and it's a crazy statistic. I don't know the number of some books in my head, but when I first read it the first time, it did me in Just to jump in there.

So you know, male suicide is the biggest food model for men. And when you think about male relationships, as we get older we tend to lose our connections to other people. So the key thing about male relationships is it keeps you alive.

And to that point, right there, it's a life saver. To that point right there, on your hand, if you can count on me, people you knew from school, they know to this day that you would say are you in a circle? Yeah, yeah. The one I have a problem with you I guess the question is do you want to be in a circle, there may be reasons why they're not there.

But I guess the key thing really is about how do we maintain good male relationships? What? Because when you look around, as men get older, we tend to lose relationships and one of the things that tends to happen is that men can be very end up enabloaning, take up substance abuse whether it's alcohol or drugs and fall into depression. So when you think of black men, high rates of mental health, high rates of being sections, so there's a thing about disconnection. And the importance of having groups like ERC is about community, about connections, about creating those spaces to now people to connect. So there is a great thing about ERC is that there is a diversity of men and women, old and young, straight, gay or queer and what I have here so it's a great wide range of difference within that community. However, there are relationships between the men that are particularly strong and particularly inspiring and that show or create a space for other men to connect. So there's a value in having close male relationships where we can connect and talk. So can you give an example where you may have experienced that yourself?

Yeah, I think with ERC, what's important is that, excuse me, and on the female side as well, but in particular with the men, there's a diversity and, as you mentioned about the intersections of age, of sexuality, of just location in London, and when you throw those three things into the mix, you see a range of different black men. We come in all different shapes and sizes, and I think that, given that running is at the core of what we do, it's actually there's a vulnerability in running in itself, especially if you run together. If you run in isolation, it's a bit different. You can say that you ran 16K but no one was there to see it, necessarily. But if you're there together at a race or something as simple as a park run, when you finish you're like I might be the top of my game at work, but at a park run, all of a sudden, boy, what's happening?

Yeah, given running past you.

I'm going to want to chase you chase up the fastest person on the planet as a woman and you go beating your egos and getting at you.

Exactly, and it's you know for people playing this back. You necessarily know, but we just came from a session of ultra runners. Now, if somebody said to you you join ERC, who are the Ultra runners? Line them up. It's two women, all of them women it's their fantasy, yeah, and there's probably more. It's that, dina as well. I think it's like three women off the top of my head, you know, and you think that may not necessarily be the fastest at a given distance, but in Ultra that's not the point. So back to the question around what does groups like ERC not only ERC, but what do groups like ERC offer? It is that diversity. It is that range of personalities, that range of identities, that it shows you that you don't have to be a certain person. There isn't one identikit personality or behaviour. You can be a range of different things, but accountability the word you used earlier, greg, just using that as a bedrock that's really important. If you see some toxic behaviour, you hear some toxic conversations, then it's your duty in some ways, as part of creating that safe space. Is that you call it out Now. We've not needed to do that at ERC just yet. Personally, I've not needed to do that, but in terms of creating the space, those are things you need to be ready to do.

Yeah, I'm not saying that. I think because of the relationships of the men in the group, it self-regulates, there's a level of self-regulation and there's a level of respect and there's a level of intergenerational relationships. I guess that space that's created feels particularly safe. We've spoken quite a lot about vulnerability. It's a word that keeps on jumping up. I'm just curious what does the word vulnerability actually mean? Give me your perspective, because the reason why I'm just giving you a little context is because the way it's kind of been framed, my interpretation as if it's something that we should be afraid of, it's something that there's a negative tinge to it, and I think that we will always be in situations that make such a vulnerable that it's a normal human emotion. However, for me, before I give my definition, I'm just kind of curious where you're coming from when you use that word. What space are you coming from using that?

word From my bit. I work in cybersecurity and part of my job is spotting vulnerabilities in our network, areas where people can access our network and do serious damage. So that is a weakness in that space. But in my space, and why I've learned to discover through relationships I've had, through therapy that I've had, is that vulnerability is actually an ally. It's an asset If I can be my complete, 100%, most authentic self with you, drop all the armor. There's a line in Casino Royale with Daniel Craig where Ava Green is speaking to him and she says oh, there he goes the armor's back on. He said no, you stripped it from me.

So then he quits it in my six.

And that's the point where I was with someone and I had completely allowed myself to be completely open to that person. Every word they said could cut me or could raise me, but I let myself open to that. I was actually proud to be in that moment and I still longed to be back in that moment with someone else in the future. I don't see it as a weakness.

It sounded quite aggressive, though it sounded quite. That's the question, in the sense that you're afraid to be attacked or harmed in some way.

I think we're kind of wired to feel the world attacks us. So we go into the world every day with our shield and ready to do battle. Every day we're masking, we're dealing, we're handling, we're coach switching. Oh, they're holding nine yards. When you come home you don't want me doing that I want to drop my shield by the door. I want to sit there with no armor on, because that armor's heavy.

The armor is a lot, so what does home represent to you then?

The safest space ever. If I can't melt into a thousand pieces in my home, that is not a home, that is a dwelling.

So how do you get to that sense internally?

One of the things I used to do, which I learned through something I went by watching on TV way back when and the particular host made a very clear point that when you come home, it's very important to have that time to calm down and settle. I didn't do that initially. I was living at home and all that you know, with the kids and everything I was like I'll come home and it's straight away, right, dad job, you got to do this you got to do that. Handle the kids blah blah blah, blah and I took a certain point where I don't know what had happened, but something had happened and I said listen, no, no, no, no, let's go stop. This can't work. I can't come in and you just drop everything on me. I get you had a hard day, but give me a minute. Let me go upstairs, take off my work clothes, get changed into something else, because that also helps the mind. If it's going to be a shower, it's going to be a shower, yeah, everything. Let me do all that. Sit for a minute and then I'll come downstairs, I'll pour me a glass of water and let's go through it, ease me into it gently, right, no, just drop them bombs on me.

And you can imagine that it's even more difficult if you work from home. You know, so, you can imagine, since, I mean, you know, prior to COVID, you know, if you work in technology, working from home wasn't a big thing necessarily, but it's become much more prevalent and that separation between work and home it becomes blended in your. Maybe always on duty, you're always on edge. So if you can't feel safe in your, if you can't feel comfortable in your own space, it just it heightens that tension. You know level, see, even if it's something where you know you're working from home. I mean, this is what I do at home. So I live on the one bedroom flat. So, with that one bedroom flat, in terms of how I work, I work on my table, which is where I eat, but where I sit when I work is not the same side of the table where I eat. So when I switch from work to home I'm in the same physical space, but just change of angle, just mentally, it's like having a shower. In that sense you know what I mean. So, likewise, if you're, if you're coming into spaces like ERC, for instance, it's, it is that kind of a mental shower. It is that switch from one angle to the next. It's a running club, but it's not. But it's not quite the same. It offers more than just that. You don't just turn up, run and bounce. I mean, you can do that if you want to, but there's more to it than than just that, and I think that part of creating that space is that there's a familiarity.

That is also an angle that gives you an opportunity to be a broader version of yourself Well into that point and I'll I'll preface it and say I don't like working from home. I see the benefits of it. I don't like it. I currently I'm in a house share situation, so I work for my, I work for my bedroom. Your bedroom is your place of rest. It should not be your place of work. Now, with the ERC situation, we've had the situation when you've come to support me in a run. Well, do my Goggins challenge run with me. We had a good conversation, but we stopped. We got a deeper conversation and we traveled, went to get coffee, got a long journey back with unpacked a lot more. Yeah, I'm still thinking from your point of view about the 10 things that. Oh, okay, I didn't see that and so, yeah, you can just take the running. I could take the running and just leave and I'll say thanks guys, I'll see you next week. But when you're part of a community, lean on that community. Find the people in the community that you have something that, that something, something that you share, values you share or perhaps it's not those values you share, but something the values that contradicts yours and you'd want to understand it better. There's a safe space for me to say I don't fully get your thing, but could you tell me more about why you feel that way? Because I know you're safe and I know me. You can have a conversation. We may not necessarily agree and you may not convince me to change my mind, but it's a safe space.

And you know it's a mind definition of vulnerability. It's a, it's a sign to tip, that's telling you that you're not safe and I think your, your response is kind of reflection of that. That. It's a reaction that the situation or the context that you in doesn't feel safe for you. And the responses that you tend to withdraw or put the armor on and and desire to take this armor off is saying that you want to reach a space where you feel safe, right, or that you want to be in a context in which you feel safe in able to then act from that space. So, whether you go through that process of having a separation between work and home, or having a separation between how you engage with your family or not, or whatever, or having spaces where you can connect with people and have those conversations in which you can dig a dig a little bit deeper and I know we went in and out of time, but my last question really my last two questions, so it's two parts Describe to me what's the safe space for you, number one and number two if you was to speak to a younger self about how to look after your mental wellbeing, what advice would you give yourself and why?

Oh, a safe space definition I guess we talked about. You know a lot of those things about being able to be your yourself. You know there are. There are no rules, certainly within the ERC, about how you speak. You don't have to have a certain tone or whatever else, but it just means there's a plurality, there's a mix of all tones, always speaking a valid. You don't have to be from a certain part of London or you don't have to be from London necessarily. All things are valid. So I think, in terms of a safe space, it just means that there's room for everybody and we actually emphasise, we promote, we champion difference. There's a connective tissue between us. We've all got ERC t-shirts but they come in different colours, they come in different shapes and whatever else. So there's a unity in that difference. That, for me, is a safe space. We don't have to fall into some kind of cardboard, cut out. You have to be like this or bounce, necessarily. And then, secondly, in terms of what would I say to my set up? Actually, maybe do the first part first.

Okay, I'm going to explain what you just said. I mean one of the things I've had from the youngest ages, because I'm mixed race, grew up in Nigeria. I was too white for the black kids and when I was in the UK I was too black for the white kids and then, what's weird is I was all lost with the Jamaican kids, or mixed race, because I was too African and I was like what? And I said, because I spoke a certain way, oh, I speak white. No, I speak proper. That was the way I was raised. Why are you trying to put me in this hole? I didn't try to put you in a hole, I'm just doing my thing. I know. Looking back on it now, school was not a safe space for me. Most of my early working career was not a safe space for me and most of the world is not a safe space for me because it's still trying to put me in, pigeonhole me in certain things. I had a colleague of mine, a black colleague of mine, when I first met him the first time and I walked up to him and shook his hand and said how the devil are you? He was like what, what, what.

What he says in the wild go on.

I'm like why would I do that in a working environment? Yeah, why would I? Yeah, this ain't it, this ain't it. So a safe space for me is where I could be my most authentic self, whatever that means, and you're not going to judge me on it. I ain't going to judge you on it. You're you, you're me. We get on. It's cool. If you don't like it, you can go. You can go too.

Thank you.

Yeah. So in terms of what I would say to myself, my younger self, I would go easy on myself to some extent, that you don't have to be the best top of everything. And you know my ego is huge and I credit my ego for getting to me to where I am, but my ego is actually the result of many of my failures as well. So you know, going easy on yourself in some ways, that it's okay to fail. And you know, speaking on the technology side, you know the idea of launching something and failing fast, learning from your, your mistakes. So, having the opportunity and again it's, it's easier in a safe space we keep using that phrase but it's having the opportunity to experiment, knowing that you might actually fall over, you might actually scratch yourself, but because it's a safe space, the recovery, you know, should be quicker and you do something else or you can learn from your peers and whatever else. You don't have to get it right every single time, you don't have to be fearless. Fearless, yeah, yeah, absolutely. So that's what I would certainly say to myself. Well, rather, listen to the nice and different thing, but that's something I would say to myself as a father.

This is this question for me hits every single time. I see so much of myself in my sons and all the mistakes they make and I'm like, oh, I know you're gonna do next, you're gonna do this, that and this. And so you try and have one of them advanced to say don't do that, that, that, that. And they do it anyway and make a mistake. I've had to learn that that could be, that's gonna happen. What I can be is that safety net? Why can't be? Is that not the judge? I'm just there to listen. So what did you learn? How did it feel? Okay, good, right, take your ticket. Licks is a woman. Yeah, right now, then get dressed tomorrow's another day. Kindness, yeah, kindness. Yeah, absolutely no, you're gonna make a million or mistakes. You're gonna have a million one successes. But if you could be kind to yourself to let yourself fail and go again, there's nothing to stop you from being everything you want to be, and more.

Thank you. So it's great to end the session. Kindness and being fearless. We like to open the floor to our guests. Does anybody have any questions that they'd like to ask my soulful pananist?

Hello, I'm Donna. I think you've touched a lot of things. Sorry it's been a long day, but I think for me I was just thinking around the world we live in, right? So we live in a quite a westernised world. We live in quite an individualistic society and when you look at collective countries, they're more collective, like you've just talked about communities. Mental health actually is lower, and when we're thinking about men's mental health, I'm just thinking of young boys right now, irrespective of race, sexuality but you talked about your younger selves, but we can think of it in hindsight and what you've touched on as well in terms of demands I heard that earlier in the sessions with us young ladies and thinking about the demands we have as adults. But for the younger generation, I'm just wondering, with you touched on talking about how do you feel connecting? Connecting is really important. What would you say to young men listening to this podcast that might be thinking, yeah, that's a load of rubbish, that's not going to touch me, it's not going to affect me. How do you think? What would one word would you say to those young men that might be listening? As a mother of two young boys, I'm wondering what they'd be thinking or listening.

I don't know about one word that would convince them. I would ask them to look around them, look to your left, look to your right. Who are you with? Can you say that at any given time, you can reach out to your friend and say I'm feeling this way or that way, and they will have your back? That's the kind of people you want to have around you. That's the circle you want to keep around you, because that's the circle that will do you well in business, personal life, anything in life. If you're going to business, if you're going to go into business and your friends are coming to you ask for discounts, they're not your friends. You're trying to start a business and your friends are asking for discount. I don't care how long we've known each other. You see me struggling to put them together. Help me, help it and in time, I will help you help it. I don't even need to say this to each other. You're my brother. Let's be brothers and keep pushing forward.

Yeah, I think it's a really. It's a great question and a great response and it's, I think, tied to that vulnerability is trust, and you asked a question earlier on about friendships how long do they last? The people you're with now are you going to see them in 5, 10, 15, 20, 25? Some of us may have friends from school or from college or maybe an old workplace, but underlying some of that is trust. So, if you are setting up a new business, for instance and that's a really great example, because, without putting myself in the back, but putting myself in the back, it is something that I do in terms of if I'm supporting somebody, they may offer me the discount. But if you're setting up something new, you have to give, you want to be able to support people. But I think certainly to your sons and I say this to my god sons as well it's about it's trust and they may get burned in some of their friendships, in some of their relationships. So, yes, you've got to be mindful as well, but building up a sense of trust amongst those friendships is really important. And as an adult without children but plenty of god children sometimes it's going to a steel band recital that it's not really my thing, but I'll go because I'm there to support my god son. Have you just not listened to it?

Boy, that's you. You guys hold that L.

Right, but it's. You know that phrase about being the person you would have liked to have had, or being the person you'd like to see around you. Do you know what I mean? So being that type of adult, being that male in our family group, which is predominantly women, you know, but being that male person, not necessarily role model, but that male person who shows up, you know, is there, you know goes along with them on. You know, yeah, I want to do this, I want to be, I want to get into rugby. And you slip into some rugby. It's cold, it's wet, but you're there. And then next week they want to do something else. They want to be a chef. You know what? Okay, I'm going to go along with you on that journey. I'm going to be there. I'm there to support your ideas. Some of them might be crazy, you know, but I think that the being present is really important and I think that, as a, you're a father and you're a mother. Sometimes it's great for having somebody outside of that, so it feels like we're eight god children. I'm a super uncle.

You get the best of both worlds. You could influence and you can dip.

I can dip, I can dip, but it also means then that not necessarily good cop, bad cop, but you can be an alternative voice for that young person, necessarily, and show that these things are possible. We're here in Birmingham today. I was here two weeks ago with my god daughter's brother. He's got an interest in marine biology. Now he lives in Stonebridge. Now you wouldn't necessarily associate Stonebridge with marine biology, but as his uncle, I want to be here and support that, you know, reinforce that idea. You know, and I scooped it up. So I've got an interest in marine biology myself. But even if I didn't, I'd want to be here with him on that journey, so with your sons it's great to your question, what's the circle, like you know? So having uncles, cousins, other family members, other friends just being around, just you know, if they were to come to an ERC event, it would be great to see. There's so many different flavours, so many different varieties of black manhood, you know, and all of them are valid.

I think also to that, to your point. I think honesty the word that we use there is perfect, because if you can't be honest with the people you call your your boys and they can't be honest with you, you're not going to have that relationship, which is never going to stay or grow or develop. You need people you could be fully honest and they can be honest with you. You messed up. You're that guy. I've had this conversation with friends one of my friends right now we have a really painful conversation about honesty and how he's failed people in his life and it's hard for him to hear it, where he's taking the licks, he's listening to conversation and actually moving forward it. I think that honesty has to come from vulnerability.

Yeah, you know my very short edition, just add what the guys have been talking about. I think there's two things really we need to listen and give young people the space to listen to what they have to say and give them the power to vocalise their thoughts and their feelings in a way that makes sense to them. I think they need to be able to trust themselves and build in internal trust in their voice and their feelings and, again, to vocalise it in a way that it could be heard. I think quite, I've quite, for young people in particular. They're usually told what they shouldn't be doing and there's a lot of instruction, right, usually well meaning. But I think what's more useful for young people is to empower them to a trust, their feelings, trust, know what's right for them, right, and so they can feel safe in whatever space to occupy. Right, and so they are. They could be empowered to show their feelings. Not that it not that they're being vulnerable, they're just being human. We humanising people right and by using the vulnerability it feels. It feels as if you're doing something and you're just being a human being, right. And to and to be able to express that you are frightened, you upset you're, you don't feel safe is a human expression, that it should be normalised, whether you are male or female, but in particular when you're being usually dehumanised in wider society. So we need to try and find ways in which we can humanise young black boys to become young black men, to can then demonstrate how we can be, how we can connect with women in their relationships, their children may, if they have them, and the wider community as a whole. So I think it boils down to being able to trust yourself that you can do that and we have to start that as a wider community, but obviously start off at home if I can just quickly add to that.

I know we're running out of time, but that listening is so important because, by me being an adult, if I'm listening, it gives them a voice. It allows them to develop that muscle, exercise that muscle of a voice, and with that voice comes the vulnerability, comes the strength, comes the the confidence. You know what I mean. So, yeah, I do, I do a lot of listening, a lot of listening to rubbish as well, you know, but being patient because you know what it's like for me as somebody born in 1970 is very different for somebody who was born in 2010 very, very different, very different thank you. Thank you for the question that lovely advice.

I have one very short question, because we've obviously got a short question answer.

We can't answer because the question is not the problem. Yeah, so if you could keep it short.

No, talk the truth. My question is around how you learn to find your voice, because of a lot of issues that men tend to have is the inability to talk, and you three, you know, obviously are very emotionally intelligent and you can articulate your feelings very well. Has it always been that way? Have you always been able to, and how did you find your voice? How did you learn to express yourself?

can I ask that question first? Well, so the answer what Lionel said is no, and I think someone who was born in the 1970s alongside with Lionel, we were silenced a lot. We were told what to do, told what to think, told how to behave and a lot of things was a lot of. That reason is because it was designed to keep us safe. Right, if you do these things, you will be safe, right, but the problem with that is that it makes you feel very unsafe because when situations happen when you want to speak up, right, you don't have the tools to do so, which is a lot of harm then gets created, or internal harm gets created. So how I found my voice really was going through counseling, straight up to sit there and to someone to ask me a question, and I had to think of what my answer was and to articulate that. And I think whilst going through that process, I realized that this was probably the first time someone was actually answering me what I thought, with my expectations to a correct answer. I had to come up with my own answer and I had to sit with the answer, knowing that it may not be the answer that they want to hear. Right, and I think it's going through that process of learning what my answer is to whatever question and learning how, what my feelings will communicate some communicating to me and how to respond to those feelings in a way that was honest, and that's a process that most men generally are not equipped, are not brought up to equip. We are told how to behave, what we're supposed to do. There's a narrative that, whether it's intentional or unintentional, that people get stuck in, and I think there's a lot of unlearning that I personally had to go through to to negotiate my own voice and how to articulate them.

Greg. Um, I think I I don't know, I think actually was kind of born with it a little bit, and I tell you what I mean by that From a young age, I think. Or maybe it's actually the influence of the women around me at a young age. My first 10 years of my life I grew up in Nigeria, surrounded by women, and my father was in the UK. My mom took me to Nigeria. I don't know if I had a part to play in it, but I know from a young age I've felt what people feel. Don't understand what to do with it, but I feel what people feel. Now, you know, as a bit over-thinker, you then start layering that with. You start thinking, oh, is that how they feel about me? But no one said that. You, just you're picturing that and you over-think everything and you start kind of going through scenarios and by thinking that and going in different ways at it and tackling your head, I found it opening me up to the what-ifs. However, I think where I truly became actually aware and actually intelligent was through therapy, was through having tough conversations with people at certain points, going through some hurtful times at other points and being having to be accountable for it and eventually get into a point where actually needed to go to therapy, because I was lost. I was completely lost and I was completely broken into and having to re-enter a world I had not been part of for 13 years. I didn't know where to start and so I went to therapy and I was giving the tools to actually reflect and correctly analyze a situation and think well, not correctly, but better analyze a situation and be mindful that this was not the only answer, but I should focus on how I want to move through it and how it services me better.

I haven't actually gone through formal therapy, but I say formal, but I've gone through therapy through bad relationships, and that if I want to make a change, then there has to be some kind of change in behavior and it's kind of learning on the job, which is not always the best thing to do, to be honest. That's where the therapy comes in, and you're probably better off doing it that way, necessarily, but wanting to get better results and actually looking in the mirror and thinking the only consistent thing between these different jobs where I've been successful and crashed out or been in a relationship and crashed out, the consistency between them is me. Now, that word accountability, some of that's come up a number of times, greg, you nailed it earlier on, and it is that. Well, what can I do? What's my responsibility in this? What's my part in this? And it is fortunately being slightly a gobbly person, always chatting, but then trying to train really, exactly, really, as if, but really training that tool rather than it just being freestyle, freeform, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. How can I really use this? How can I really make a change, both for myself and those around me? So I've benefited from the counseling of friends and family in that sense not formally necessary, but certainly friends and family and it's been on the basis that if I really wanna see change then I have to do something.

And you know what? Just a quick section that if you're listening to this, please understand that when I talk about therapy and when children talk about therapy, it's not the only way. Counseling happens around those around you who love you and care for you and are gonna be honest with you and you may not like what I got to say, yep right, but if you go in there and listen without prejudice and take on things, you will learn so much about yourself and so much about people who love you in your life.

And on that note, I think we can call it a wrap. Can I say a huge thank you to Trojan for expertly curating and leading the conversation, to Lion and Lionel, lion and Greg for being so honest and vulnerable, which you know. I think that is a real vulnerability when you talked about looking in your work context. That weakness in this context is absolute strength and I thank you all for sharing your experiences and being vulnerable and using the safe space to explore conversations which are difficult but really, really are essential. So thank you so much.

Thank you very much. Yeah, thank you.