332. Inside the Insecure Male Ego: What Women Need to Know with James Dakin

[00:00:06] [SPEAKER_02] Welcome back to Girl, Take the Lead and I'm your host, Yolanda Canny. Today, we're going inside the insecure male ego. And I have to tell you that there were moments in this conversation when I found myself thinking, Oh, so that's what's going on.

[00:00:25] [SPEAKER_02] Because if you're a woman who has ever been talked over, dismissed, underestimated, mansplained to, or walked away from an interaction wondering why you didn't say something in the moment, this conversation may feel very familiar.

[00:00:43] [SPEAKER_02] My guest is James Dakin, a leadership transformation specialist, behavioral coach, author, and speaker with more than 30 years of experience helping people change how they see themselves and what they believe is possible. And I also get to congratulate James because his new book has become an international number one bestseller, reaching number one in leadership in the US and number one in career advancement and professional development.

[00:01:13] [SPEAKER_02] What makes James's perspective, especially interesting is that he doesn't approach his conversation. Simply as a coach looking in from the outside, he has done the work of recognizing that he himself had become the kind of insecure man. So many women spend their lives navigating. So he gives us an insider's glimpse into what may actually be happening when a man dismisses a woman.

[00:01:43] [SPEAKER_02] He doesn't know who misses us, challenges us, or simply makes us feel smaller. But this conversation isn't really about understanding man for the sake of understanding man. It's about us. Because what if understanding the dynamic gives us more choices about how we move within it? Maybe we don't need to shrink. Maybe we don't need to shrink. Maybe we don't have to go to war.

[00:02:12] [SPEAKER_02] Maybe there are moves available to us that we haven't considered. Yeah, let's get into it. Here you go. James, welcome to Girl, Take the Lead!. So excited for this conversation and to hear more about your book.

[00:02:27] [SPEAKER_00] Thank you very much, Yolanda. It's a privilege to be here.

[00:02:30] [SPEAKER_02] Yeah. So why don't we start? If you would introduce yourself to our audience and tell them a little bit about you.

[00:02:36] [SPEAKER_00] That would be great. Well, so I'm James. I'm a Herald from England, from the north of England. And I have spent the last 30 odd years of my life being a transformational coach, which sounds remarkably consultancy and very important. But actually what it means is I have no idea what I wanted to do in my life. But I discovered a knack for coaching people either in sports to begin with and then just generally through life because of the upbringing that I had.

[00:03:05] [SPEAKER_00] And it lent itself very nicely to being able to identify what people were great at, what people were struggling with and who they really were, which I didn't really understand at the time. But I was discovering this as I went. And so I've worked with, you know, multinational organizations and boards right down to kindergarten, primary school teachers and assistants and children and everybody in between, really, of which I think means I'm old.

[00:03:33] [SPEAKER_00] But I've worked with a fair few people and my passion is people. My passion is helping people become what they've always been, but maybe haven't believed they are.

[00:03:47] [SPEAKER_02] That sounds so good. And you've reflected that in your book. So let's tell our audience a little bit about your book, because that seems to be a lane now that you've gone down to really help women.

[00:04:00] [SPEAKER_00] Well, well, yes, it is. And I think that the number one elephant in the room, which I think we can't avoid, is the fact that it is a book primarily but not exclusively for women. And I am not a woman. So I am the poster boy for the patriarchy. I am middle class, middle aged white male.

[00:04:20] [SPEAKER_00] And so the very fact that I've written a book and it might be for women will be enough to have women all over the world throwing porridge and spaghetti at their laptops when they listen to this. And I really understand it because, let's face it, what's more patronizing for a woman than a man trying to mansplain to them what they should be? Now, the book isn't that. And if I said that three years ago, I still believed that authors were a different subspecies of human.

[00:04:47] [SPEAKER_00] I thought they had a different DNA to the likes of myself. And I was it never occurred to me that I would be an author. I would write a book at all. Perish the thought that it would be about women. But I discovered many years ago that I had grown up into a product of my upbringing and my upbringing was pure patriarchal, old fashioned, traditional men's roles, females roles, segregated accordingly.

[00:05:14] [SPEAKER_00] And the opinions, mindset and belief about men and women I began to discover were utterly toxic and unhelpful and wrong, I think, you know, to take the emotion out of it. And it was because my partner at the time, who's the mother of my children, she's now my ex, we're no longer together, but she is my closest and best friend and to whom I owe so much of my own development.

[00:05:44] [SPEAKER_00] She turned around to me once when we had children and said, James. Now, she said this with no anger, no attack. It was just a statement of fact. And there were 21 words which changed my life. And she said, James, I hope our daughter never grows up to become a man, to meet a man like you. And I hope I'll never, I hope our son never grows up to be one.

[00:06:10] [SPEAKER_00] And that was about as brutal a bit of feedback as I could ever have. And I had grown up into the most chronically insecure man, controlled emotionally by the boy. And because the boy's emotional development was arrested at about the age of 10 when my parents split and I was sent away to boarding school out of the blue. And, and I was doing multiple things. I was working with a number of organizations at the time.

[00:06:38] [SPEAKER_00] And women were beginning to come to me that I was, I was working with them, I was coaching them. And they would just come to me with, with challenges. I cannot work with that man. How do I work with that man? How do I get the chief executive and the board to listen to me? How can I stop my manager speaking to me like that? And what they all described, and this is both in the UK.

[00:07:04] [SPEAKER_00] And I was at the time incredibly privileged to be working with some astonishingly successful and remarkable women in America. And they would be saying the same thing to me, but about relationships about, you know, my husband, I love him very much, but I just don't think it's doing it for me anymore. And, and a whole variety of the same story.

[00:07:28] [SPEAKER_00] And I would begin by asking them to describe what it was and what they wanted to get out of it as a result. You know, what was their end game in business? It was, I want to be respected, validated, understood, heard, listened to, included, basically treated like all the other men in the room and equal with equity in the room, not just equality. And it was similar in relationships, but they wanted in relation, personal relationships. It was the women were saying, I want to be met.

[00:07:58] [SPEAKER_00] You know, they are lovely men, but I'm not mad. And some of them were less lovely men. But I want to deepen my relationship. I want to meet someone, I want to be met. And I would give them ideas and scenarios and structures and techniques to try with these men. And then they began to come back to me and they were going, oh my God, James, it worked. He's got it. My favorite one was he's got a personality.

[00:08:28] [SPEAKER_00] And they had all these success stories. And I remember thinking after the fourth one, and it was a spectacular success story from their perspective, from the woman's perspective, which meant they had done something to transform the relationship with the male that they were speaking, they were talking about. He was always a senior man. And they were being treated how they deserved and wanted to be treated. And that's a really important caveat. Yeah.

[00:08:57] [SPEAKER_00] And I began to think, well, maybe, just maybe, I might possibly have something of value here. And that was the start of that journey. Simultaneously, I was doing Mindvalley University, an organization, a global personal development organization, if you like. And I was at a workshop. And I was in a deep meditation in the middle of a workshop. It was a sound workshop, which I had never done before or since. But it was an amazing experience.

[00:09:27] [SPEAKER_00] And in the middle of it, I was given is the only way I can describe it, whether it was a vision or I was given or I created it. Anyway, during that meditation, I was given a phrase and I was given some visuals. And the phrase was healing the divide. And that was the gender divide. And the visuals were all about the work I was going to be doing with men and with women to bring them together.

[00:09:52] [SPEAKER_00] Because we live in a world at the moment where so many principal leaders have an agenda to tear us apart. And much of the narrative and much of the wording around gender war and very unhelpful terms like this, which I think is nonsense, by the way. And, you know, we are there's a male there's a male loneliness epidemic. Equally nonsensical and nonsense. And I'm not disputing loneliness at all.

[00:10:20] [SPEAKER_00] But I think these are phrases which are designed to ignore some very important responsibilities, which is the man. And he's not taking it. And what do men do when we don't want to take responsibility? We project it onto women. And we've trained women.

[00:10:39] [SPEAKER_02] She laughs because she can see that.

[00:10:41] [SPEAKER_00] Yeah. I mean, how many listeners of yours will recognize that they may have children or whatever else, but they have to remember their husband's mother's birthday. They have to sort the children, the holidays, this, that, the other. And at work, they're always trying to fill the silence, stop anyone feeling uncomfortable, accommodate, play small. Many, many ways in which women play small and adapt to their surroundings.

[00:11:11] [SPEAKER_00] And so that was the start. And I created an online program called Healing the Divide. And then the book came out of that. And what I never saw coming was Healing the Divide was my way of introducing myself and getting out 30 years of learning, experience and everything else.

[00:11:32] [SPEAKER_00] Writing the book multiple times had me go deeper into myself every time, deeper into my conditioning, my training, the expectations, the belief systems to a point now. And look, you know, I will be a work in progress for my entire life.

[00:11:50] [SPEAKER_02] We all will be.

[00:11:51] [SPEAKER_00] It's highly comfortable.

[00:11:52] [SPEAKER_02] We all will be.

[00:11:53] [SPEAKER_00] We all will be. And I don't claim to have all the answers. But what I do appear to have discovered are some jigsaw pieces to the bigger picture, which are my contribution to this dynamic. And all of the various, you know, my upbringing at the hands of a hugely abusive alcoholic father and just the irreparable damage he caused to my sister and to my mother.

[00:12:21] [SPEAKER_00] That damage, and I only began to really discover the horrors of it towards my sister, especially when I was a late teenager. But I couldn't fix it. I couldn't make my mother happy. I couldn't make her life better. I couldn't save my sister from the most horrendous abuse it's possible to consider.

[00:12:41] [SPEAKER_00] And without knowing it, 40 years, 50 years later, that had translated itself into one of my burning passions is to ensure that any woman I can reach never has to feel powerless in the face of the patriarchy ever again, or insecure male behavior ever again. Not because I'm a magician, but because I've spent so much of my life as that man.

[00:13:10] [SPEAKER_00] And so the book is not written for women telling women how they are. The book is written to explain to women this system that they've been up against their entire life, which remains hidden, and which will explain to them why when they're trying to be heard, when they're trying to make the point, the way they are going about it is guaranteed to fail.

[00:13:33] [SPEAKER_01] Yeah.

[00:13:34] [SPEAKER_00] And it explains why that happens in these environments with insecure men, and there's a big caveat there.

[00:13:42] [SPEAKER_01] Yeah.

[00:13:42] [SPEAKER_00] Why it's designed to fail. And then if you are sick and tired of playing smaller than you know yourself to be, you're sick and tired of not being taken seriously. You're sick and tired of your brilliance, your genius, your intelligence, your experience, your intuition, your insight, not being heard, and you want to do something about it now. The book is designed to give you tools, techniques, understanding strategies to give you more choices as to how to go about it.

[00:14:11] [SPEAKER_02] Yeah. Well, I loved your book. I think the chapters, especially, you know, where you would, it's like talking to you right now. The way you wrote is like your voice coming through, like,

[00:14:28] [SPEAKER_00] Do you know that is the single greatest thing you can say? Because when I wrote it, I dictated it, I spoke it.

[00:14:35] [SPEAKER_02] Yeah, it definitely, you can hear that in what you read.

[00:14:39] [SPEAKER_00] And I had a real desire that if you hear me talk, or you read an article that I've written, or you read the book, you'll hear my voice running through all three of them. Yeah. And that was really important, which is why editors can't stand my book, because they're going, this sentence is too long, you need to, and I'm going, that's not the point. It's engagement. So thank you for that.

[00:15:02] [SPEAKER_02] Yeah, no, it really does. And you walk, I think there's a lot of gentleness in walking through it. I think you understand how painful for most women it is. I had this situation at my exercise class just a week or two after you and I first met each other.

[00:15:26] [SPEAKER_02] And they were all women in their 70s, who could tell you very completely how they had been dismissed in their careers. It is, it's not something easily forgotten. They could tell you the exact words that were said that you know what the setting was what it what happened.

[00:15:50] [SPEAKER_00] And then what does that tell you about the impact?

[00:15:52] [SPEAKER_02] I know. I know. I know, I just kept going. And it was a knowingness for the women that were in this little circle talking. I could, I could see it like, Oh yeah, Oh yeah, that happened to me too. You know, like, I was dismissed that way or, yeah, I got, got told when I got pregnant, like, Oh, I thought you were going to be one of the, you know, you weren't going to have a family, you are going to be in. But I know how to do the end, I'm going to be an intersex.

[00:16:21] [SPEAKER_02] You know, so it was so amazing how deep and long those hurts live there and how they can really get undermined. Now you have, I think, five steps there you've outlined. I think our listeners would love to hear a little bit more about that framework.

[00:16:46] [SPEAKER_00] So I was asked last year an interview. James, you've done this for 30 years with the great, the good, the small, the big. What's the secret of your success? What models have you used? And I very confidently and incredibly arrogantly went back and said, I don't use models. Good God, no. Models, not for me. And then imagine how upset I was when I then went back and reviewed all the work that I've done with companies and teams and individuals and discovered that I've been working to a

[00:17:16] [SPEAKER_00] framework my whole life. And I didn't know that. And that upset me greatly because I know how to eat humble pie. But I said to you at the beginning of the show, my passion is to help people reconnect with who they truly are. And so the model, what I discovered was if you wish to become a leader, and I don't necessarily mean hierarchically, but you want to lead or you want from a female perspective, freedom, which is the model in the book.

[00:17:45] [SPEAKER_00] And freedom in this context is the ability to live the life on your terms rather than the social dictates that are expected of you, like those women you've just been describing. You have to be able to influence people. You know, the most successful people are wonderful influences. So for those that haven't seen the model, imagine a triangle. And at the top, we have freedom. And then we have influence underneath that.

[00:18:14] [SPEAKER_00] Now, in order to have influence, you need presence. And in order to have presence, you need to have confidence. These are the layers coming down. And then at the bottom of that, you need to have self-awareness and self-acceptance. And I discovered that that's what I've always worked on with every single piece of work I'd ever done. And then I looked at it the other way around. So when I work with people, it's like, who are you being? Who do you want to be? Why aren't you being them?

[00:18:42] [SPEAKER_00] And how do I help you become him or her? Very high level. That's generally what it's about. And so we start on self-awareness. And then we build in self-acceptance. Now, the moment we start to accept who we are or more of who we are, we immediately become more confident through osmosis. It's, oh, I am this. I can do this. We become more confident.

[00:19:08] [SPEAKER_00] The moment we become more confident, we instantly have more presence. We're smiling more. We sit up a bit straighter. We walk a bit straighter. We have a bit more presence, which instantly makes us more influential. Just because when we, you know, anybody who's lived in the corporate world for long enough will know the experience of having somebody walk through the door and the room goes, oh, thank goodness, Claire's here.

[00:19:36] [SPEAKER_00] And equally, they can go, oh, no, Claire's here. And sometimes it's the same person depending on the look on their face. But generally, they're different people. And so when you have that much more influence, if you learn strategies for how do I influence him or her specifically, because they can be radically different people with very different agendas, then you're able to bring more of who you are.

[00:20:05] [SPEAKER_00] And if we build the confidence inside, you will be more able to take a wider range of actions and decisions than if you were cowering in fear and self-doubt. And so that's the model. It's the five steps to freedom. And what's beautiful about it is that you woke your way up. I'm free. And then you become much more aware of what you've done and what you're doing. So your confidence becomes even greater. So you have more presence and greater influence. And I'm free.

[00:20:34] [SPEAKER_00] And it goes up and up and round and round. And then if you get a knock, which happens to all of us in life, and you suddenly are filled with vulnerability. Maybe you have a parent or a child who's just had some really bad news about them or your jobs suddenly become vulnerable. And we become, we feel vulnerable. You can look at this model because when you get to know me, you'll understand that I like really simple things because I understand them.

[00:21:03] [SPEAKER_00] And so you look at this very simple model and you go, where am I shaky? I'm shaking in my confidence. Let's go look for the evidence of my self-awareness. Let's go look at the evidence. And then I can build back again. So you can see where you're lacking. I'm doing really well, but I'm not getting the result. Well, maybe I'm not influencing well enough. So we can look at the influencing thing. So it's a very simple, very easy to understand model.

[00:21:31] [SPEAKER_00] That doesn't claim to have all the answers, but it does give us all a framework, which we can all relate to, irrespective of where we are. And the book was written to meet you where you are today, not where you're trying to be. It's the whole purpose of the book is to meet you today. Yeah.

[00:21:51] [SPEAKER_02] And you have us work through questions and things to reflect on. And I thought that was just so, so good. Um, one of the things that I will admit having been a woman in corporate for 42 years, influence can show up sometimes as inauthenticity. Like I'm not being myself.

[00:22:20] [SPEAKER_02] As I've gotten more, what more wisdom with age, I've begun to see that it's just a strategy that there's different, like any game, you know, you can make a move. You can try this, you can try that. And it's not quite so tied to being inauthentic. I don't know. What do you see there?

[00:22:47] [SPEAKER_02] Because I do think that was a big one for me. Like I'm not going to go kiss this person's or placate them or whatever. That is just not me. I was arrogant enough to think that I was better than that. Right. And I know it stopped me in my tracks from growing and moving up because I didn't see the game.

[00:23:16] [SPEAKER_02] You see the game at having been an insider farm, which I think is so important to help women understand and not take it quite so seriously and try different things and not be so stuck in themselves.

[00:23:36] [SPEAKER_00] Well, we all have an ego. Now, in the world, according to James, the most fragile creature on this planet is the male insecure ego. And when you as a woman understand it, honestly, you'll just be like, is that it? Is that it? To which the answer is yes. Whereas the female ego is very different. No, it's a great set of questions. So let me answer them for you to the best of my ability.

[00:24:06] [SPEAKER_00] The world of me is that you have influence and you have manipulation. They can both appear the same and they can both generate the same outcome. You get what you want. In my world, manipulation usually means somebody loses out. If I have to manipulate you, I'm going to use coercion, guilt, blackmail, pressure threat, and I will manipulate you to get what I want.

[00:24:36] [SPEAKER_00] And there is usually a cost associated with that to somebody else. If I'm able to influence you, it means I can inspire you and motivate you to say yes. And I'm going to bring you with me and we will both benefit from that. So it's not the end result. It's how I get there. And so when you talk about inauthenticity, for me, that's showing up it's in your best interests,

[00:25:02] [SPEAKER_00] but actually it's manipulating you because there's a threat. Whereas it's in your best interests, let's discuss how, then that for me is much more authentic. I'm very happy for someone to say, listen, I need this from you. You're going to get nothing from it. But that's authentic because I'm being balls out, honest and direct. And there's no hidden agenda. If I'm manipulating you, there's a hidden agenda.

[00:25:30] [SPEAKER_00] Now, the other part within that is women will say to me, why should I change? As you were describing so beautifully. Why should I change? He has to change. And they often say this with anger. And I said, you know what? You're right. He absolutely should change. They absolutely should change. They've done this. They did this to you. You have every right. You go, girl. You go tell them. You go do this. Has anything changed for you? And they go, I'm going to, I will, I have an, no.

[00:26:00] [SPEAKER_00] And I said, yeah, funny that. I said, do you want stuff to change? Well, I do, but they have to. I said, but have they? I said, I'm not going to take a side. I'm just going to be Switzerland. Has anything changed for you? No. Is it important to you that it does change? Or can you live with the fact that you're always going to be angry? No, I'm tired of that now. I want it to get better. Describe better to me.

[00:26:26] [SPEAKER_00] And they will describe the relationship that they wish to have with said individual or others and so forth. And it's like, right. Number one, the patriarchy has been created by men for men to protect men. We have got so many ways of dismissing a woman who's brilliant. Hormonal, PMT, ball breaker, bitchy, not a team player, time of the month. I mean, you name it.

[00:26:54] [SPEAKER_00] We have got more terms than are necessary, frankly, to describe what is fundamentally, I think she might have a very good idea. It might make mine not look as good. I might not look as good as I want to. Therefore, she is a threat. I need to dismiss her. The eye roll in the meeting. The sideways glance. The slight exhale of breath. Just a bit louder than normal. Just when you've said, can I please speak.

[00:27:23] [SPEAKER_00] Just enough for the room to know. Oh, really? Her? Again? And it's all done to diminish. Belittle. Whilst at the same time, communicating to other insecure men. Hey, it's just her. Look, it's okay. Look at me. It's all right. And I used to do most of those things. I know how they're done. I know why they're done. I'm brilliant at them. And now that I've learned what it actually is all about, which is my insecurity. It's got nothing to do with her at all.

[00:27:53] [SPEAKER_00] I can make it about her if she's a threat. And other than that, honestly, when I look back at how I used to be and what I know now, and I have teenage children, girl and boy, it is excruciatingly embarrassing. Now, I don't beat myself up for it because I knew no better then. But my contention with men today is there's enough information out there for us to know better. And it's incumbent upon us to change.

[00:28:21] [SPEAKER_00] But we won't because we're lazy. These are big sweeping statements before men start shouting at me. But fundamentally, as men, we're lazy. Tickle our tummies, feed us, tell us you love us, and fundamentally, we'll do whatever you want for us as a sweeping statement. So will a Labrador puppy, by the way, with remarkably similar things to train. And with that, the woman then gets to choose what she actually wants as an outcome. And if the outcome is change, whether you like it or not,

[00:28:51] [SPEAKER_00] whether it's fair or not, and whether you believe you should or not, you will probably have to do the change. You'll probably have to lead the change, which is why I don't think women need to become leaders. Because I already believe you're the most natural leaders on the planet. Part of your life experience is to make life and death decisions. Men don't do that unless they've trained and been promoted into very senior, very specific roles. Every woman on this planet gets to make life and death decisions.

[00:29:22] [SPEAKER_00] You're hardwired for the most emotionally challenging, painful decisions you can make whilst taking care of those around you, whilst looking after everybody else, whilst wondering what the impact will be on others, as well as yourself. That's extraordinary.

[00:29:40] [SPEAKER_02] Well, James, I think you have just won the hearts of anybody listening to hear that. In that clip, I'm going to make sure it's like all over social media. I thank you for bringing that forward because I do think that we're hard on ourselves. Real hard.

[00:30:01] [SPEAKER_00] Oh, brutal. Brutal. But you're trained to be.

[00:30:05] [SPEAKER_02] And...

[00:30:06] [SPEAKER_00] The expectation is that you will appease. You will make me feel better. You'll... Here's one for you. So have you ever experienced this? You've had a partner who you have been telling, you're explaining to a partner how something they've done has impacted you. You might be angry, annoyed, just a bit miffed, or hurt. And you're trying to explain how you have... how you're feeling. And you end up

[00:30:36] [SPEAKER_00] helping him feel better about himself.

[00:30:39] Because...

[00:30:41] [SPEAKER_00] Do you reckon...

[00:30:42] [SPEAKER_02] That's never happened.

[00:30:45] [SPEAKER_00] Because what happens with the insecure male is that you say, this is how you have impacted me. I hear you're a bad person. It's you. You've let me down. You're not as good as you think you are. I'm going to leave.

[00:31:01] [SPEAKER_02] Yeah.

[00:31:02] [SPEAKER_00] So I'm defending my character and you're trying to talk about and experience about your perspective. Men say... Women say, this is how men have shown up. And the first comments are men going, not all men! The phrase which is guaranteed to annoy more women more quickly than anything else. Not all men! No. But tell us which... Just please... If you could walk around with a signpost to say it's not me, that would be really helpful because you all look lovely

[00:31:32] [SPEAKER_00] until you do something horrendous. And we can't tell the difference. So frankly, it's all men until you demonstrate otherwise. So I get it.

[00:31:43] [SPEAKER_02] So James, we could go on forever talking. I mean, I think I have smiled through this entire episode because I could relate to almost everything you were saying. I was like, oh yeah, oh yeah, oh yeah. I think before we go though, I do have one thing on my mind. One of the things that I noticed with the women that were in this little circle after my exercise class was we all in the moment

[00:32:11] [SPEAKER_02] could not come back with a response to an insult that we were given. But in years later in our heads, we've gone over and over. Oh, I wish I had said blah, blah, blah, blah. And I find that, do you help your clients with those quick responses? Oh yes.

[00:32:41] [SPEAKER_02] Because I think it does take a bit of freedom, a bit of openness, a bit of understanding about the other person to be able to speak in that moment that something like an insult happens.

[00:33:00] [SPEAKER_00] So, I'm going to be less generous than you. I don't think you necessarily need to understand the complete ass who's just belittled you in public casually or directly in order to be able to very calmly hold your space, hold your ground, keep your power. So there's a whole thing about women giving away their power, losing their power. I don't buy it. I've worked with enough women

[00:33:30] [SPEAKER_00] around the world to know that it's inherently within you all the time. You can't lose it and you can't give it away. You can ignore it, bury it, not use it. And if you do that for long enough you forget you have it. And other people come in and they behave with power, with authority and you just assume you no longer have it. And I reintroduce women to their power because they've never lost it. Now just knowing that gives a lot

[00:34:00] [SPEAKER_00] of women confidence that this isn't it. Whatever it is, there's more because they've been hiding. They don't have a confidence issue. This is another myth that I'm uncovering with women. The amount of men that say to me, oh she would be brilliant but she needs more confidence whilst never looking at the culture they've created which prevents her from ever speaking up. And she hasn't got a confidence issue. She has an adaption issue or an adaption habit. And if you have intelligent women will adapt

[00:34:29] [SPEAKER_00] themselves to their environment to keep safe and we've trained you that being liked is being safe. That's also a myth. Being respected will keep you safer. Being liked will mean they'll let you go with an apology. Being respected means they won't dare. And so it's about teaching women that there are phrases they can use in certain instances so the self awareness is to understand when it's happened. Now women, similar for men but women in a meeting

[00:34:59] [SPEAKER_00] will feel the slight before they've necessarily heard it and translated it. Their body will tense. They will know something has happened even if the man is smiling generously they will feel the truth in his words which will be to diminish you to some extent somehow. Or they will talk over you or they will take up your time or they will come out with a statement that's untrue or they will come out with a derogatory remark to tell the world.

[00:35:28] [SPEAKER_00] And these kind of men they believe their voice is the evidence but it makes them remarkably vulnerable to a confident woman who doesn't back down. And what I teach people is a whole range of techniques. In the book itself there are a whole range of techniques phrases sentences to use in sequence designed to lead the man to where you want them to end up. Now if we take the example you

[00:35:58] [SPEAKER_00] said what about in a meeting when they they've done that there's a phrase that I teach women when you've received a slight maybe about your work and this requires you by the way to know that it's not true and it requires you to be good enough to know that you know it's not true. And the phrase is could I just stop you a second Charles a minute could I please stop you know we use politeness because in English society if somebody asks you a polite question the law is you have to say yes so we use niceness

[00:36:28] [SPEAKER_00] and politeness not to trigger his early warning defence system. Now remember all insecure men have an early warning defence system designed to be triggered the moment they think there's a threat to how they wish to be perceived. or how they perceive themselves. Very largely divorced from reality in most cases as most of your listeners will know. However it's excuse me Charles can I just stop you a moment please and then we pause because we want him to say

[00:36:58] [SPEAKER_00] yes because in doing so he gives us the floor. We say that's a very moment. Now what that does is it does two things. It stops his flow number one and it gives him a response that he is absolutely not expecting so it's confused him

[00:37:28] [SPEAKER_00] but there's no threat because you've been really nice and you've asked if you can ask a question and you've said rather than that's not true that's really interesting so we're going to practice curiosity here and that's a really interesting statement and that buys you a couple of seconds the room will not speak the room is now waiting to see what on earth is happening because this hasn't happened before because she's always just accepted it and gone

[00:37:57] [SPEAKER_00] with it

[00:37:58] [SPEAKER_01] and she

[00:37:59] [SPEAKER_00] hasn't she's smiling so if you're smiling you haven't taken offence and if you're curious you can't take offence even if you want to go try that I love it and from there you have a whole range of options the number one being handing back the accountability from when it's come so the example in the book is called Vanessa's story and that's a really interesting statement

[00:38:29] [SPEAKER_00] what evidence do you have that it's true and then she said nothing and the answer was well Jeff told me that things have happened oh really oh no that's okay thank you for that is Jeff always 100% reliable in his knowledge so notice that she's not defending herself she's not taking offence she's asking very innocent questions

[00:38:58] [SPEAKER_00] at no stage can he react because you're not threatening him it is really unfair on the mail because they cannot get out of it they have put themselves in the bear trap and you are simply helping them dig at the moment we will help them get out to the other end and when there is no information we then move into a double whammy which is look because I totally disagree with what you've said that you've bought the time to say I now disagree

[00:39:27] [SPEAKER_00] but I could be wrong now the moment you say I could be wrong you do two things if you are wrong that's okay you've bought yourself the get out of jail free card because look I could be wrong and I disagree and I'm okay being wrong but by definition you've given him permission now to be wrong and for it not to be an issue because the elegance of the feminine is that we are not going to humiliate him we're not going to make him feel bad we're going to ally ourselves with him

[00:39:56] [SPEAKER_00] especially if they're an important senior man but we are not appeasing or giving our power away you are owning it you are present and you are running this conversation you are leading this conversation and what Vanessa said to her senior manager was look I really enjoy you you've worked really hard I love working for you I am never prepared for you to appear not to know what you're talking about on my watch so the insecure male

[00:40:26] [SPEAKER_00] to stay open requires three things I need to feel loved safe and wanted so on my watch I'm not prepared for you to look ignorant every leader's big fear is safety I've got your back I'm an ally I'm here to help you I've seen a risk to you and I'm helping you not and she said call me up first call me first and I can tell you what's going on and so the

[00:40:56] [SPEAKER_00] very next week she called me up and said you'll never guess what he said what's that he called me up in his opening line hey Vanessa it's whatever his name was Charles tell me what you know about this and she goes I've got everything I wanted but loved safe and wanted in a corporate context loved respected and valued appreciated so appreciate him value him have him feel those things he will feel no threat that's loved safe I've got your back I will never

[00:41:26] [SPEAKER_00] humiliate you but I need you to understand something because you're about to look an idiot and wanted I really enjoy working with you and as long as I'm working with you I'll keep you safe but to do so and now you put in what you're wanting from him and because you've linked what you want from him to his safety vulnerability and insecurity he will see you as an ally and you now get the relationship you want now why isn't this manipulation because in getting the

[00:41:56] [SPEAKER_00] relationship you want from him he gets a much better service instead of information and he looks better more importantly he feels better about himself in conversation with you and he starts to learn that when I'm with Vanessa when I'm with whomever I feel good if I behave like this there's a much bigger chance than when another woman he's working with he will start to clock I mean they're men so you'll have to do this many times as we understand

[00:42:25] [SPEAKER_00] but if enough women lift where they are and when a woman rises everyone rises with them so the more men we get to understand how to behave better and differently so that they benefit as well we can lift the playing field and some of the men won't have the faintest idea what's ever happened but they're benefiting from it

[00:42:49] [SPEAKER_02] this is so good I think you have just put the playbook out for us and really help us navigate the waters and I am so grateful for your book and for you being on the show and speaking with such clarity about very emotional and complex issues conflict is

[00:43:18] [SPEAKER_02] always a

[00:43:19] [SPEAKER_00] big one

[00:43:21] [SPEAKER_02] conflict

[00:43:21] [SPEAKER_00] you've been trained not to

[00:43:23] [SPEAKER_02] I know it's like a boy

[00:43:24] [SPEAKER_00] I call it change without conflict now it's not that there isn't confrontation but as a woman I really want you to understand that when you're up against what appears to be an impermeable layer you don't have only two options which is give in or go to war there are a whole series of options in the middle which can in the majority of cases because most men are nice people with bad habits yes there are some distinctly

[00:43:54] [SPEAKER_00] unpleasant characters but there are everywhere you go but the majority of men were raised to be nice guys but we've got really bad habits so we are able to be changed not that it is not your responsibility to change us so you're not you are leading us to behave better for your benefit and because it's elegant and it's influencing I will benefit as well and so will those around us so it's a mutual lifting of the playing field

[00:44:24] [SPEAKER_02] that's so beautiful so how can our audience reach you follow you find your book and I know you have a little special offer for them so maybe so

[00:44:37] [SPEAKER_00] so jamesdakin.co.uk is my website and on there you'll find my writing I write a lot on Substack I use Substack primarily to explore the kinds of topics we're talking about today much more in depth much more emotive much more emotionally based very much around the genders and of course men are not the enemy and women are not responsible for fixing us

[00:45:01] [SPEAKER_01] those are

[00:45:02] [SPEAKER_00] two phrases I would love everybody to been trained not to be emotional so we suffer with that and women are not responsible for our well-being and happiness hence there's no male loneliness epidemic for you to fix but jamesdakin.co.uk is my website you can find me on sub-stack you can find me on linkedin but if they go to jamesdakin.co.uk

[00:45:32] [SPEAKER_00] forward slash Yolanda then they will get their very own dedicated landing page and on there is my flagship program online program called Turning the Tables and you can get that for a whopping great big discount if that speaks to you if not it's no problem but it's my way of saying of supporting you with the wonderful work you do and the podcast that you have and bringing generations

[00:46:01] [SPEAKER_00] together and encouraging dialogue and coming together which is what this is about continuing the conversation the learning the opportunities and yeah so the website and sub-stack you'll find a lot of what I talk about in sub-stack in the articles

[00:46:22] [SPEAKER_02] so cool lastly what would you tell your 20 something self today James

[00:46:30] [SPEAKER_00] so it's so I've been thinking about this now there's a difference between what I would like to say to him and what I believe he would hear I would like to say believe in yourself which every parent tells their kids usually when the child's a teenager and they have no idea what that means or who they are which is very confusing for us but I would say you're okay you don't need to heal the world you're alright just

[00:47:00] [SPEAKER_00] as you now what I mean by that is you don't have to prove yourself to me to be lovable you don't have to prove yourself to me to be worthy of my affection yeah there is trust and behaviour and so forth of course there is but the belief that I'm not good enough drives the behaviour that I have to constantly prove myself

[00:47:30] [SPEAKER_00] which means I'm not able to just sit and be I can't say I mean in my relationship which ended with my ex all I needed to have been able to do was say I'm really sorry I've done something please tell me what it was and it doesn't matter whether I did it or not she's telling me about her experience and I

[00:48:07] [SPEAKER_00] and once she's been heard we can discuss and she might say listen I get it I get you didn't mean to and I'm sorry for overreacting but that's okay because I don't need that at that moment because it's not about me it's about her

[00:48:23] [SPEAKER_01] so

[00:48:23] [SPEAKER_00] to have the confidence as the men and I've just written about this today actually to have confidence as men to ask the question I was asked what can we do and I said right here's the thing men if you're feeling brave sit down with your partner and say I'm going to ask you a question I would like you please to be honest with me which in itself is a stretch for some but let's go with the yes is there so what have you been trying to tell me that I haven't been able to hear yet

[00:48:53] [SPEAKER_00] or some variation on that and then shut up and just listen and if you find yourself wanting to justify explain defend don't that's your ego talking you've got the woman who loves you opposite you she's almost certainly been trying to noisy irritating

[00:49:22] [SPEAKER_00] always trying to tell you something woman suddenly stops talking don't think finally she gets it because she's plotting her leaving and she's plotting her departure

[00:49:31] [SPEAKER_01] she's

[00:49:31] [SPEAKER_00] given up go ask her and then if you're the woman on the receiving end be gentle because it is the most vulnerable terrifying place for men to go especially if they've been trained not to get in touch with their emotions so deal with it because I've had to all of my life

[00:50:01] [SPEAKER_00] get on with it

[00:50:03] [SPEAKER_01] be

[00:50:04] [SPEAKER_00] honest with us be kind and honest

[00:50:08] [SPEAKER_02] it's a wonderful place to end our episode James thank you thank you for being here and sharing so much with us sure appreciate it

[00:50:17] [SPEAKER_00] it's been an absolute pleasure thank you so much for having me

[00:50:20] [SPEAKER_02] what a great conversation right I feel totally understood so here's what I'm taking away one the idea that we often call a confidence problem may actually be an adaptation maybe we learn to make ourselves smaller stay quiet keep the peace be liked or manage the reactions of the people around us and two there was that conversation we had about influence

[00:50:50] [SPEAKER_02] for a long time I think I put influence or what I called playing the game in the same bucket as being political placating someone or somehow not being authentic but James

[00:51:20] [SPEAKER_02] maybe maybe maybe maybe strategic doesn't mean abandoning who we are maybe it simply means realizing that we have more than one move available to us and three we haven't lost our power there may have been times when we didn't use it times when we buried it times when

[00:51:49] [SPEAKER_02] James thank you for giving us such an interesting and very different way to look at these dynamics and congratulations again on becoming an international number one bestseller and this conversation has definitely left me with something I want to explore with you in our next soundbite is playing the game really inauthentic because for a long time I thought it was as you have gathered

[00:52:19] [SPEAKER_02] but what if being strategic doesn't mean abandoning who we are what if having more ways to respond actually gives us more power not less and that's where we'll go next until then remember you are enough thanks for listening talk to you soon bye