From Bullying To Balance: Rethinking Manhood And Power with Garry Turner (UK)

What if the strongest thing a man can do is feel? Gary Turner joins us to unpack a lifetime of conditioning—from schoolyard bullying to corporate stoicism—and rebuilds masculinity on a foundation of empathy, courage and community. His story moves from numbing and burnout to a quiet revolution: dropping the strongman script and choosing presence over performance.

We dive into the mechanics of unhealthy masculinity without shutting the door on the men we hope to reach. Gary explains why he swaps the word toxic for unhealthy, how macho industry cultures reward control, and why supremacy and patriarchy trap everyone in roles that hurt. He shares a visceral moment of “spiritual bankruptcy” on a beach—everything he chased, nothing he felt—and the insight that worth can’t be borrowed from status. From there, we explore what healthy strength looks like: building with care, protecting without possession, listening before leading and pairing ambition with humility.

The conversation stretches beyond self-help and into systems. We trace how colonisation, binary thinking and scarcity narratives fuel violence and despair, including why men die by suicide at higher rates. We flip Maslow on its head, acknowledging Indigenous roots and the idea that we are born actualised and held back by design. We champion yes and over either or, show how community dissolves loneliness, and talk candidly about young men, the manosphere and the digital pull toward red-pill ideologies. If Ubuntu—“I am because you are”—guides the future, then a small committed minority can tip the culture toward wholeness.

Tune in for a grounded, compassionate roadmap: reclaim your self-worth, unlearn what dims your humanity and build together with love. If this conversation moved you, follow the show, leave a review and share it with someone who needs to hear, “You are already enough.”

Music, lyrics, guitar and singing by Dr Ariel Rosita King

Teach me to live one day at a time
with courage love and a sense of pride.
Giving me the ability to love and accept myself
so I can go and give it to someone else.
Teach me to live one day at a time.....

Chapters

• 0:00 Meet Gary Turner And The Mission
• 2:10 Defining Healthy Versus Unhealthy Masculinity
• 4:02 Industry Culture And Language That Shuts Men Down
• 6:04 Systems, Patriarchy And Decolonising The Self
• 8:50 What Healthy Masculinity Looks Like
• 11:42 Spiritual Bankruptcy And Rebuilding Worth
• 14:42 Sitting With Discomfort And Power
• 17:12 Why We Perpetuate The System
• 18:55 Suicide, Violence And Connection
• 20:45 Rethinking Maslow And Indigenous Roots
• 22:38 From Binary To Yes And
• 24:05 Community Over Loneliness
• 25:22 Ubuntu And Tipping Points
• 26:42 Young Men, The Manosphere And Risk

Transcript

Dr Ariel R King: 0:44

Hello and welcome to another episode of The Business of Life with Dr. King. Today we have a very special guest, Mr. Jerry Turner. Welcome.

Garry Turner: 0:54

Thank you very much, Dr. King. Lovely to be with you.

Dr Ariel R King: 0:57

It's wonderful to have you here with us. Could you please introduce yourself to our audience?

Garry Turner: 1:03

No, sure. So thank you all for joining us today. My name is Gary Turner. I am the founder and business developer of the radicality ecosystem, but I'm also a very big advocate for healthy masculinity in the workplace and in our communities, Dr. King. So that's probably my much more I could say, but that's probably enough for now.

Dr Ariel R King: 1:22

I love that. Healthy masculinity. Can you tell us more about that and also why did you decide to get into that subject or that subject became important to you?

Garry Turner: 1:33

Yeah, sure. So it's it's very personal, right? It's and I think it has to be for particularly us men to even start to realize the difference between healthy and unhealthy masculinity. So for me, I was bullied as a kid, age 12, 13, was bullied repeatedly for two years by a gang of boys. And at that time, Dr. King, you know, what is this? I'm talking mid-80s. I really personally, as Gary, I didn't have the emotional maturity. I didn't have the networks around me that made me feel safe to be able to say, hey, I'm I don't know what this thing is in my body. I don't know what that feeling is. So what did I do? I did what all of us men are conditioned to do, and I stuffed it down. And what I did for the next 20 years, a whole range of different dysfunctions, whether it be drug use, excessive alcohol, you know, women, whatever the dysfunction was, I went through it through that period of my life. And what I realized literally about 10 years ago, and through some coaching, through some support, was that was my issue. My issue was I had such an unhealthy relationship with masculinity, with the societal pressures, you know, be the man, man up, you gotta be the strong one, don't show weakness, all of the traditional unhealthy, toxic masculine traits. And what I've done over the last decade, Dr. King, is I've unlearned that journey myself, is I'm really passionate to create spaces, particularly for men, but for anybody, however they identify, to connect to themselves, head, heart, gut, in a way that allows them to thrive, in a way that allows their organizations to thrive.

Dr Ariel R King: 3:02

You know, I think the topic is so important and almost, you know, the opposite of the femininity, why it's important for we women to understand our femininity and what that means. And when it comes to masculinity, can you tell us more about toxic? What parts are toxic and how do we determine what's toxic in toxic masculinity?

Garry Turner: 3:25

Yeah, so for me, from my lived experience and from my observations in industry for the last 25 years, so I still work within the chemicals industry. That's that's an industry I serve. So very macho, very traditional alpha male. So I try and reframe it from toxic masculinity to unhealthy. And there's a reason I do that, Dr. King. You know, language carries power, and as soon as we use the word toxic, it sort of shuts down debate, you know, innocently, but it shuts down the ability to engage, particularly for a lot of men. So where I'm trying to come through is saying what's unhealthy and what's healthy. So unhealthy masculinity for me is unconscious domination, control, manipulation, oppression, let's call it what it is, genocide, right? These things happen because mainly men have had the experience that I had growing up, which is you have to be a certain way, you have to conform, you have to provide. That's the unhealthy masculinity. That's a conditioning in the same way that women have been conditioned to be the provider, you know, been conditioned to stay quiet, stay small, all the rest of it. And my invitation, in the same way that you've done with your brilliant platform, is how do we consciously blend the balance of our masculine and feminine traits in a way that allows us to thrive and for us to heal and for us to co-create futures that actually allow everybody to be included? And I think that's where this the balance between unhealthy and healthy comes to me. Unhealthy really is lack of consciousness. You know, you're really doing something because you're being told to do it, you know, you're really doing it from a place of low self-worth and low self-power.

Dr Ariel R King: 4:56

I think that's so important, unhealthy to healthy. And I know in in various societies all over the world, actually, there's this issue of healthy and unhealthy. And I think that it doesn't just affect the the males in our society, but as a result, uh affects literally the entire society.

Garry Turner: 5:18

I completely agree. And I think, you know, understanding that we are all still operating, you know, again, however we identify, we are all operating within a traditional patriarchal, oppressive system, right? And we all get harmed by it. And I think this is the thing, Dr. King, I've learned more and more the last five years. So something that may surprise you, it certainly surprised me that I even wanted to go on this journey, is I've been on a personal decolonization journey for the last five years with a guy based in the Philippines who is really helps me understand supremacy culture, patriarchy, how it intersects with racism, xenophobia, you know, sexism. And by going on that deep inner journey myself, not only of healing myself from the early childhood trauma, but understanding systems and realizing that doesn't matter how who I am, what I look like, what I have, we are all being harmed by these same systems. And that's a massive insight for people.

Dr Ariel R King: 6:12

That that really is. It's amazing to me that what we're also talking about when we talk about healthy, being a healthy male or a healthy masculinity, it's interesting that it's also connected to various parts of what we do all over the world and and various parts of our lives. Uh, for example, you're talking about how we live, how we work, where we live, how we form families, and so on and so forth. You know, I'm so interested in the healthy. Can you tell me more about healthy masculinity? I really love that, and I'd love to learn so much more about that.

Garry Turner: 6:47

Yeah, so healthy for me, and I think we can observe it when it works well, is a healthy, healthy men for me, and I believe I'm increasingly a healthy man myself, comes from when we can be strong. Absolutely. We want to provide for our family. That's not a problem. We want to build businesses, we want to build people. That's a really good, positive, strong masculine traits, right? We want to build, we want to provide, we want to support, we want to guide. There's nothing wrong with any of that. It's only when that is missing the health, this this part, which is listening, empathy, care, love. Yeah. For too long, masculinity has been represented as controlling, dominant, dominating, right? And that's what the Andrew Takes of the World like us to believe. It's even what certain political leaders want us to believe, right? Is be the strong man and then everyone else falls behind you. But we all know, I now know, Dr. King, that the healthy masculine comes from embracing those brilliant masculine traits of building, looking after, providing with love, care, humility, vulnerability, awareness.

Dr Ariel R King: 7:55

That is just amazing. Um I'm stunned. And sometimes, you know, I have all of these thoughts and questions. I I think also it's about getting back to who you are, the core of who you are as a person. And healthy masculinity, I believe, is I mean, if I can say, is getting to know the essence of who you are, and the essence of who you are or who men are, is not necessarily the dominant, the aggressive, the, you know, do what I say because I say it, this type of thing. But actually, the core is those that want to work at times in cooperative, those that want to uh serve, protect, but also have a deep feeling of who they are, you know. I mean, it seems like something's missing when it's unhealthy masculinity. And that's really a shame.

Garry Turner: 8:49

That's that's beautiful. I really appreciate you bringing that in because this probably one of my biggest uh insights was what I call, affectionately, Dr. King, I call it, um, spiritual bankruptcy. So this is me, if I can paint a picture for you and your viewers and your listeners. So Bournemouth on the south coast of the UK, it's a beautiful part of the world, one of the best beaches in Europe, absolutely stunning. And I took myself down there for three days back in about 2013, 2014, because I felt completely burnt out. I was like, I've got the nice salary, I've got the nice job, I've got an amazing partner, I've got the house, I've got everything that this system, this world, this education has told me matters, and I feel empty. And I don't mean just mentally empty, I mean whole-bodied, like just spent. And I just did not know how I could feel so hollow on the inside of me when I had everything that the external world told me mattered. And that spiritual bankruptcy for me was probably the biggest gift I've ever been given because it allowed me to reset from that place of worth and go, ah, oh right, okay. So it's it's nothing wrong with having a good salary, nothing wrong with having a great relationship and having a holiday, but it doesn't define my worth in the world. That was huge. Probably my single biggest insight that allowed me then to rebuild who I thought I could be in the world. Because as long as we're chasing external worth from the money, from domination, from colonization, from acquiring a business, if we believe that's who we are at our essence, we just keep repeating these unhealthy patterns.

Dr Ariel R King: 10:23

This is true. I think in society we're we're telling each other that's that's who we are, and that's who we need to be, and and this is where we need to try to focus our lives. I think that I think that unfortunately for many of us, we come to a point of being spent or drained and feeling like, well, why why exactly am I here? Why am I doing this? What is this about? And and as you said, if I if I have everything that I've been told is important and I've gone for it, and I've worked for it, and now I have it, and I still don't feel that satisfaction, this this core knowing that the world is good, I'm good, and everything is okay, right? This this core satisfaction, then I can understand when you say that it's spiritually lacking, that there's something lacking there. Can you tell us more about that? I think that's so important.

Garry Turner: 11:17

No, sure. And again, it's a very personal experience, right? And it's excuse me. I would also say I would not have been able to sit in that discomfort, Dr. King. And this is another learning for me, which I hope's helpful. Is for us men, we've been conditioned that we don't need to sit in discomfort. Right? We can go and dominate someone else, we can take over their country, we can run their oil supply, we can beat them up. You know, we can release whatever discomfort we feel as men, it is our right to take that out on anybody else, no matter what they look or sound like.

Dr Ariel R King: 11:55

That's such a good point.

Garry Turner: 11:57

And when we rem when we realize that's not who we are as men, it's not. Our essence, as you said beautifully earlier on, is loving, caring, and the builder, the supporter, the connector. The systems are all around us for the last 600 years of colonization have taught us men, in particular that that period of time, that we have a right to dominate others, which is completely false and completely unhealthy to men as well as women and other genders.

Dr Ariel R King: 12:28

I think that's so, I think that's so important because what you have is when you have the domination, then collaboration it is doesn't exist. And unfortunately, domination leaves everyone wanting for more, and and everyone feeling as if they don't have the possibility for finding what's truly important to them. Can I ask this system? We must have it for a reason. Why does the system exist? Why do we continue to perpetuate the system?

Garry Turner: 13:01

That's a what a beautiful question, may I say. We perpetuate the system, in my opinion, because we don't believe it is possible to have an alternative. It's as simple as that. We we have been so conditioned, and this is what colonization has done brilliantly. Is there, particularly the binary, you know, there is only this or this way. So if we're going this way, the other way is way too uncomfortable, way too difficult. You know, just bear in mind, Dr. King, there are many people, unlike me, I've got a lot of privilege. There are many people that are literally working two or three jobs just to survive in this system, yeah, just to get by and put food on the table. Those people don't have the privilege that you know you and I have today for 30 minutes to even talk about this. Like they don't even get the ability to look up and go, like, what am I doing? They physically, mentally, you know, at least core level, do not have the space or time to even look at the system. That's what colonization does brilliantly. So there is the possibility to reimagine. There is the possibility to do things differently. And I think we're starting to see that the old world is collapsing and it needs to, to be honest.

Dr Ariel R King: 14:14

I I think that more people are owning who they are and are having the courage to say, I'm not happy with this. I'm not happy with the way things are going. And obviously, there must be more because I'm feeling it, right? I'm feeling empty, I'm feeling drained, I don't feel satisfied, I don't feel happy. And I think that people are starting to realize, but at the same time, we have a very, very high rate, unfortunately, of people committing suicide. Can we talk a bit about that?

Garry Turner: 14:45

No, that's a really, really important point. And again, the ratio of men to women, right? You're looking at two or three times more men than women take their own lives because of these systems. Something I'm very behind me on the wall, there's a, if I may mention it, Dr. King, White Ribbon is an international charity against which is all about reducing men's violence against women and girls. I think part of the opportunity to reduce suicide in men, to reduce harm all around the world, regardless of who we are, is to join those dots and realize that if we have systems where men can feel, combined with systems where women can bring their wholeness, suddenly the patriarchal system doesn't make any sense anymore. And that's why the systems are designed, even through education, you know, redlining in the US, you know, all of these systems are real, right? They stop people connecting. And when we on mass, and it's gonna come from the masses, it's not gonna come from the power structure. When we as on the masses come together and say, Dr. King, you don't look or sound like me, and I know that I've got privilege because I live over here, but you're paying twice the rent that I am. Why is that? When that curiosity kicks in and we're able to see each other with the humanity that we both possess, and we are both curious about something without needing to be right or wrong, then the space expands for possibility. The space expands for dialogue, and that is not what the power structure wants.

Dr Ariel R King: 16:13

That makes all the difference, doesn't it? If you're spending your time and energy struggling to eat and to stay warm. So, you know, Maslow hierarchy of laws, of and at the bottom is food and uh comfort, and then at the top is self-actualization. What does that mean? Somehow I've been able to do the best for myself, learn for myself, and somehow I feel as if I've hit the pinnacle of being a human being. But what's really interesting, I think you're saying, is that at this point, as a result of this unhealthy masculinity, what that really is, is unhealthy humanity. Right?

Garry Turner: 16:53

Yes, yes, it absolutely is. And what I love about um Maslow's hierarchy as well is I find it really interesting. Excuse me. I wrote a piece on this a while back and I flipped it. Because I was just like That's fabulous brother for you. I was like, no, no, no. Food is important, connection is important, love is important, but we are already actualized. We are already by being born, we are blessed with the opportunity to become who we're here to become. That is actualization. The difference is it's how do we unfold that actualization as we grow? Or is that actualization continue to be capped by the colonized systems that we're being conditioned into? So we are so my belief is we are already actualized, we are ready to become whoever we're meant to become, but the systems suppress us doing that, and they do it by design.

Dr Ariel R King: 17:46

And you know, if if people will look at the pyramid, what you even talked about is almost an upside down pyramid. So it starts with the I am, right? I am because I am. This this right, we are already who we need to be without the self-averization, as you say, is there, and what was interesting is that if you turn it upside down, it goes this way, which means that uh that's that's so opposite of going into self, because that that turning of that just that allows you to say, I'm starting with me, but I'm going outward. And Maslow is the other way, right? I'm starting kind of outward. Let me see if I can figure it to go to me. And you're saying, I believe, is that when you start with yourself, when you understand who you are in the beginning and the essence of who you are, then everything else is possible.

Garry Turner: 18:37

100%, 100%, and I'm living it. I'm living and breathing it, Dr. King, to the point where I've written articles or written blogs about this. That I'm sitting here looking at my gorgeous wife, Jackie, with a little dog in our home, just look just just across the way. And I'm very grateful for that, and it's all beautiful. And that human being is my wife, and me as Gary, inside, although you're seeing a sentient being with you know glasses on and a face and whatever, inside I am 100 plus X bigger, braver, more expansive than I was when I was that kid being bullied when I was age 12, 13. Right? People need to understand this spiritually. You know, it doesn't you don't have to be religious to be spiritual, you have to be willing to unlearn the patterns of conditioning that we've all been brought up on and to ingrain curiosity like you've never believed that you've you're allowed to have. And then suddenly you just have this complete different landscape of possibility. And I may, if I may just add as well, Dr. King, I wrote that article a few years ago about inverting Maslow's hierarchy. I'm not sure if you're aware of this or not, but I only found out recently the original work of Maslow was done with the Blackfoot tribe in the US, in North America. So it was actually a co-opted approach. The work was actually more in line with what I intuitively wrote about. The pyramid is co-optation of the original work, which was indigenous.

Dr Ariel R King: 20:05

So let me colonize Canada and the United States of the Americas. That's amazing. That no, I had no idea. And I mean, as we're talking about it now, as we I mean, everything is spontaneous, so as we're speaking, I'm learning and hearing all this. That's amazing to me. You know, so I'm wondering when we unhealthy masculinity is such an important such an important topic. And unfortunately, since everything is connected, that means that everything around us, including unhealthy femininity, uh Um masculinity, femininity. Of course, there's some languages that don't even have uh he, her. There's some languages that don't actually have this dichotomy. So when you when you're looking at all of that, you're also looking at the possibility of the interconnectedness between unhealthy masculinity, unhealthy femininity, and even more importantly, unhealthy humanity.

Garry Turner: 21:05

I think this is a really, really beautiful point you're bringing for me, which is around the so I speak about a lot a lot about the yes and rather than the binary, either or. Yeah. And I think the more I try and remind myself, which I do literally in every conversation, I'm doing it now with you live, right? In our conversation, beautiful conversations today, is the antidote to that unhealthy anything is yes and. It's never either or. It's never one or the other, it's always and what else? What am I not seeing? Who else needs to be in the room that isn't in here? You know, what mistake have I made that I've not owned up to, but someone else has learned from in the past? You know, as if we that very simple yes and versus either or is tackling one of the intersecting supremacy culture patterns of binary thinking. As per Temper Oaken's work.

Dr Ariel R King: 21:56

I mean, it it it takes courage to understand that no matter where you start from, no matter what you think that you might be missing or losing, that you have courage and you have belief in yourself that you will get to wherever you need to be. And understanding that it's okay. You don't need to be perfect, you don't need to have all the answers, you don't need to have all the right actions. But what you really need is to start with that I am because I am.

Garry Turner: 22:25

100%. And knowing that you do that in community, one of my big mistakes previously, Dr. King, was that I thought I had to do it on my own. And that's where the loneliness bit gets really, really hard and the world looks very, very heavy when you think you do it on your own. So whether it's a coach, whether it's Dr. King, whether it's a community group, whether it's a 12-step program because you need it, because like maybe there's Alcoholics Anonymous. Whatever the community looks like for you, whether it's two, three, four, or a thousand people, my invitation is don't do this on your own.

Dr Ariel R King: 22:56

That's so important. I want to thank you for that. And community is everything, isn't it? Because we are not lone people. I think that one of the issues when we're talking about um unhealthy masculinity is this idea of well, you just go out and conquer, you know, you just make it happen. We forget that we're actually beings living in an ecosystem with other beings. And how my energy that I put out affects you, and your energy that you put out affects me. And that we are social beings. We literally live because, you know, I am because you are. That's that's absolute, and that's it, that's a truth.

Garry Turner: 23:38

You give me shivers bringing Ubuntu into it at this juncture. I think it's just so true. It is so true, and I think businesses, big business in particular, does not value that at the moment, and I think that's going to change very quickly. You know, we see a lot of unhealthy masculine leading oil companies, financial service companies, you know, government industry, government associations. The masses, I can't remember who it was, Dr. King. I think it uh I think Chevanay or Chevana, I think her name is. She John, she spoke about the fact, or she'd written about the fact that you only need 3.5%, 3.5% of a mass to be going in a different direction to tip the system. So it's not 60%, it's not Pareto, 80, 20%, it's not 90%. You only need three and a half percent of people going in the same direction to take the system in another direction. And that's coming. I'm not just being hopeful. I really, really believe that's coming.

Dr Ariel R King: 24:33

Can I ask you, do you think that young people are experiencing this in a different way? Young males, uh, you know, when I say young, it's it's usually 18 to 30, 18 to 35. You know, for me, that's young. So, do you think that they're starting to see it in a different way and perhaps behave in a different way? Or do we do we see something different with young people?

Garry Turner: 24:57

This is a great question. So I'm going to use other people's experience. So I've got a young stepson who's 25. I don't see him experiencing it in a massively different way to me. What I'm observing is there's definitely, and again, so I'm hoping to get someone on my podcast actually called In the Business of Healthy Masculinity. And it's a guy called Josh Sargent, who's a 15-year-old young man from the UK. And he wrote a brilliant piece recently about how he nearly got into the manosphere. So, what it was like literally being dragged into the red pill culture of being a teenager and how certain parts of the world, certain factions, certain cults basically are trying to drag young, disaffectioned men who can't get dates, who think their worth is linked to you know who they surround themselves with online and this sort of thing. So there is a very different world for 15 to 13 year olds that I don't think you or I can even start to imagine, honestly, Dr. King. So I'm really interested and I'm looking to try and dive into that a bit more so I can actually have a better feel as to what they're experiencing. Because one thing's for sure, they're not willing generally, they're not willing to take the same rubbish that we were conditioned with. So that's a good thing, but they're being pulled in a lot more nefarious and difficult directions because of the use of technology and AI. There's diff there's different risks that we've never had to deal with in the past that I think are exponentially more dangerous than we've had to deal with in the past.

Dr Ariel R King: 26:27

That's such a very good point. Such a very good point. And uh unfortunately, many of the systems that we have now are the same that they were, you know, a hundred years ago, if not more. So they they're dealing with the same systems that we have, but with very, very different lifestyles and very different expectations and so on and so forth. Thank you. Our time has almost ended. May I ask, would you like to uh have any last words for our audience?

Garry Turner: 26:55

I think my last words first here for you. Thank you for creating a beautiful space for us to explore today. That's really, really appreciated. And for anyone that's watching or listening, the conversation, I just wish for you to remember and reclaim your self-worth. No matter how old you are, where you work, hear those words. Reclaim, remember your self-worth. You are already enough. That's that's all I have to say.

Dr Ariel R King: 27:20

That was beautiful. Thank you so much. And for our audience, remember if I am not for myself, who would be for me? If I am only for myself, what am I? If not now, then when? That was by the great philosopher Hello. And I added, if not me, then who? Thank you so much for joining us.