Man Down with Matt Rudd

Graham Allcott 0:07

My guest today is Matt Rudd. Matt is a writer and columnist and deputy editor of The Sunday Times magazine. He's also the author of several books, his latest being ‘Man Down: why men are unhappy and what we can do about it’. So in this episode, we talked about mental health, shared parental leave, and taking paternity leave more seriously, we talked about the trap of busyness and why you're better off with a bronze medal than a silver one and much more. The book is entertaining and thoughtful, just as you'll find. So let's get into it. This is Matt Rudd. So I'm with Matt. Rose, how're you doing?

Matt Rudd 1:22

I'm very well, thanks. I'm looking forward to this. I'm going to be I want to be a ninja by the end of it. You're the master and I'll be the apprentice for this conversation.

Graham Allcott 1:34

Well, let's see what we could do. So I mean, they say that the collective noun for lots of middle-aged men is a podcast. So here we are as the middle-aged men on a podcast. And we're going to talk about your book. So the reason I introduced it, that is your book is man down why men are unhappy, and what we can do about it. So yeah, it just feels like a really important conversation to have. Should we just start with the, I guess the that central sort of question, because I think you can't, you know, you break it down. And there's lots of subjects in the book that sort of spring off from that, which just provides some really interesting narrative. But you kind of also say at the beginning, I'm not going to really answer the question as well. So like, if I said to, you know, like, why, why are men unhappy? And what can we do about it? What's that? What's the sort of first answer that you'd give? Before we get into the detail?

Matt Rudd 2:31

I think perhaps, I should start by explaining what happened that led to this because I was I didn't have a kind of crisis or something, something, something obvious where I was kind of forced into a reckoning with my life. What happened is, I was just waking up at three o'clock every morning, with these kind of circular, catastrophic thoughts. And it was all what if this happens, what if that happens, and my normal response over the years was just to kind of find ways to block all of those things out. And in my mid 40s, it just became so much that I was I was in a real state, but not not an obvious crisis, where you have to take action. And I tried everything. I tried self help books, I tried, you know, lycra biking, all these physical exercise. I tried heavy drinking, I tried. No, I kind of, I've done it all. But what I hadn't done is kind of sat down and thought it through my approach was all about blocking. And so in a panic in this state, my what I did is I started talking to other friends, who to me look like they would, you know, sailing through midlife happily. And it was interesting, you'll know this, when you see friends in the pub, it's often quite sort of superficial. You just have a few jokes, how are you fine, or you know, and, and that's it. But when I kind of forced them to, to have a serious conversation about why they were managing better than I was, it was clear that they weren't. That resulted in a in an article for my newspaper, and I was really genuinely worried before we published it, because here I am, white middle age man, apparently successful, having a big old whinge about how awful it is to be a middle aged man who's doing okay. And I reported all these other men who on paper look successful, and their own experiences that inner turmoil. We published it and I was expecting a backlash and it was completely the opposite. And actually, half of the people who got in touch since have been people who were Unfortunately married to all these midlife men aren't. So So thing that became became the book.

Graham Allcott 5:07

Yeah. And it's interesting, isn't it? Because, yeah, there's there's that sense when, sometimes I get asked to either be involved with or speak to, or whatever, you know, men's groups and like the idea of men's groups, you know, I would like class myself, as someone who's very interested in gender, I would say that I was a feminist like, etc, etc, etc. But that feels like this. Like, I have to have a bit of a nervousness about discussing what it is to be a man or to be in, or like, the nature of what being a man, it's like, it feels like something that, you know, like, somehow, because because there's that sort of emotional disconnect, we just we don't talk enough about how the idea of what a man is, has evolved and changed quite a lot over the last 234 decades.

Matt Rudd 6:00

Yeah, I think that's, that's very true. But what was interesting, and over the last three or four years, I've spoken to hundreds of men, I would say, is that there is this idea that we need to be kind of strong and silent, and, and power on. But once you once it doesn't take long, actually, it's a sort of a second point thing, or a second lemonade, or whatever you want, sort of break through that I mustn't talk about it. And then and then then, in my experience, there was this kind of great, sort of opening up. And for me, that was a, it's a, maybe it's quite a specific way, you know, someone who interviews people for their job. But that was what started to make me feel better, was the realisation and it's a cliche, but that we're not, we're not alone. And I've been in men's groups as well. And it does it is it can feel quite forced. But I can only say that I'm so glad that I started talking about my own, even though it doesn't seem like a lot, even as I keep saying there's no big crisis, I have started to feel better, since I found out I wasn't alone, and that every single other bloke who looks like they've got it all together, as in the same is in the same boat. And I've had so many emails and letters from, you know, from women who because this is the other thing, it's off the gender thing we're often seen as if we're in opposition. So if I start talking about my situation, that is in some way, sort of not taking the opposite sex into account, but we all you know, a lot of us live in units with our, with our loved one with our wives and partners. And I think, you know, it's, it's up, it's up to, willing to work on what you know, what they need. And it's also, you know, men need to do the work as well. And it's taken me, you know, it took me 47 years, to get to that point where I kind of finally paused, had a look around and thought now I need to do something about this myself.

Graham Allcott 8:13

And it's also Yeah, like you said, it's not a binary thing is it? So it's, I, I'm very passionate in the idea that it's up to men to play their role in advancing things like, you know, closing the gender pay gap, for example. And so it's, it also stands to reason that it's up to all of us to, to look at mental health for men like, like, none of the like, often these things are couched in this idea of binary, like, if you're in favour of even discussing the emotional well being of men, then you're somehow anti women or anti feminist and like, actually, it's about, like, we need a kind of collective viewpoint on all of these issues. Right. Like, that's kind of kind of the point, right?

Matt Rudd 8:56

Yeah, that's exactly. And I'm lucky enough to be married to someone who has been on her own journey. And she, she does a lot of work. And I've, until I reached the this point, I was I don't think I was dismissive. I just wasn't interested. And, and she, you know, she was working really hard at sorting out her own mental health. And I just thought that her journey, leave her to that. And so so it is, what I'm trying to say is we each need to do our own our own work. I didn't think that was necessary. I thought my job and this is something that's been was really in common with all the people I spoke to was, you know, the sort of very traditional, I must be a provider. I must keep it all together. I've, you know, I've got three kids, so I've got to make sure they're provided for and that was my role. And actually, it felt too indulgent to start thinking about myself, and I think that's the big mistake that a lot of men sickly midlife men make. But because of the way society is structured, it's completely understandable.

Graham Allcott 10:08

And it felt reading the book like there. I mean, you talk to a lot of people who, like who, like you say on paper, they've got everything going, and then what what they're actually expressing is a very, very kind of deep sense of malaise, and sort of not, not feeling like their life is amounting to anything, even though they're ticking all the boxes, career wise, and, and sort of, you know, their personal lives and so on. Digi, I'm just interested in what that was, like, in terms of your process, writing the book. So as you're, as you're kind of talking to these people who, as you say, Should in many ways have, you know, the best sort of ratings of happiness and should be the most satisfied with their lives. And there's just something really uneasy about some of the quotes in the book. Did you? Did it sort of contribute to a sense of malaise for you did it did it kind of set off? You know, I know you're writing it also through COVID? Did it set off any sense of, you know, what is this all about?

Matt Rudd 11:09

Well, that's where I have that kind of feeling already. And, and for me, it was, it was amazing to realise that no matter how far up whatever ladder you're going, that's, that's not that's got nothing to do with happening. And I, I intentionally focused on people who, you know, on paper were successful. Because, you know, this is the sort of the luckiest group in one of the luckiest parts of the world. Imagine if those people weren't happy. And, you know, therefore, the whole model that we've constructed, we need to think about so I talk about how, from a very young age, we're taught that, that success equals happiness starts with the Goldstar at primary school, then you've got to pass your exams, then, you know, if you're one of these guys, you probably go to university, then you're at the bottom of the career ladder. So you've fight your way up, or is every sort of five years stage of life. There's something in this sort of short to medium future, which you have to be aiming for. And, and until you've ticked that part of parts of your life, you're you can't find happiness. So it was ridiculous. So speaking to people, now I spoke to a 23 year old young Oxford graduate who was just not envisaging I asked him about happiness. And he, he was just think he's, you know, setting out to be a lawyer. And he was saying, that's just not even on the horizon, maybe in 10 years time, and it was repeated over and over until you hit the mid 40s, where you have this choice, I, as I say, you, you can either plough on to the gold watch, or you can stop and everything falls apart. And it's really quite a shocking, it's a shocking realisation that that's, that's those are your two options in there. You know, there are men who go and sit in the bath so they can have a bit of time and space to themselves, or they're going get single tickets to the cinema. And there's kind of these desperate attempts to have a little bit of me time, because that's all they'll give themselves. Because they feel like if they think about their situation too much, the whole house of cards will fall down.

Graham Allcott 13:45

And you said something in the book that was along the lines of like, the few months that you spent writing, it was like stepping off the hamster wheel, at least on Friday, Saturday and Sundays. Yeah. Yeah. So was that was that your own version of that in terms of, you know, I was able to, to kind of take the take the step off, but obviously, you're doing it to write a book, which is just again, you know, it's a success signifier to many people.

Matt Rudd 14:13

It's, it's the chickens way of doing it. But as we were talking before, before we started recording, it's it. When you read about, you know, you read you read a lot of stories about people who say, if the narrative is I wasn't happy, so I changed this, and now I'm happy and the thing that they're changing, it might be, you know, I chucked in my boring city job and became a self help guru. Or I chuck this in and now I'm living in Bali and I'm an entrepreneur or whatever it is. And for, for me, when I read those stories, it's just completely unattainable because you've, you've got You mortgage you've got your kids, you've got a job that you're kind of, you're no longer really climbing the ladder. But if you don't climb the ladder, you're viewed with suspicion, it got all of these these these plates spinning. And so when some sod tells you go and be an entrepreneur in Bali, you just immediately shut down. So, yeah, I, when I was writing the book, it meant I didn't work Fridays, and that was quite nice. But of course, I what I was a big chicken and I had still had the safety nets, and I still have the job. And I think the, the realisation is that it is a good idea to think about these things. And the House of Cards won't necessarily collapse. If you do, you don't need to make some dramatic decision in your life to find happiness. But it it Well, for me, it was at least two years of, of not the writing of it, but two years of feeling quite nervous riding my circular catastrophic thoughts through to some kind of sensible analysis of where I was.

Graham Allcott 16:10

And there's I mean, there's a really just incredible little sort of thought experiments and then backed up by interesting research and stuff in it sort of takes you on a bit of a journey through the book. And one of the sections that really struck me was you got a chapter called men and babies. And do you know what it really reminded me of I saw the comedian Russell Kane a little while ago, and he was talking about, you know, he's a really good sort of observational comic, Russell Kane and sort of, you know, good at really just sort of describing back to these, you know, these things that were kind of universal experiences. And he said, one of the few things that he's never really seen observational comedy done about, but it's such a universal thing for dads is that feeling when, you know, your partner's just given birth, and then you go home, and then you're just totally useless at home. They're still in hospital, and you're and you're kind of like, what can I do but have a shelf? Or, like, what am I going to do and all of the sort of systems in your brain kind of saying to you need to be useful need to be useful, because you're in this high stress mode, and then you get home? And it's like, I think our batch cook some soup or something. And, and you know, it, there's some really interesting interviews in there that brought back a lot for me around my own experiences with that, where it's really just looking at, you know, just the whole the whole notion of what is a man's role around birth? And then how does that get supported through work. And the bit that I was really interested in was the bit that you talked about with the ways to fix the ideas around shared parental leave, because feels to me like that was a really like good intention, but actually had some sort of unintended consequences that weren't so great. Like the idea that once you share that parental leave between mums or dads, what happens is, you think you're valuing dads more, but actually, what you're doing is taking that away from the mums and devaluing mums and stuff, and it hasn't really worked. Do you want to talk about your ideas around what to do differently around? Sort of workplaces of supporting pregnancies? I just thought that was amazing. Yeah,

Matt Rudd 18:19

well, we, the good news is that in the time, you know, my eldest is turning 16 This year, and I had a week off for the for him, and then a couple of weeks for the next two. And, you know, we live in kind of small nuclear families, they say it takes a village to raise a baby or whatever the expression is, and that's not how things work. You know, 15 years ago, one week off, and then my wife is on our own for the next the next 15 years. And then I just had to go back to the, the office and my colleagues went Everything okay. And I said, Yes, fine. And that's it. You know, maybe someone got a cake, I can't remember. Yeah, the good news is it is dramatically change changing, we are getting more Swedish. And as you'll know, in that chapter, I went and spent a bit of time with the most annoying dads in Britain, which are the they worked for an insurance company, which announced that it was doing giving everyone parental leave, regardless of gender. What Aviva Yeah, vive viva. That's right. It was you know, so most of the dads took six months. And they were just they just had the temerity to sit there and describe how wonderful the first few months of their new family's lives had been. You know, they were they were able, you know, this wasn't kind of trying to interfere with the mother's primary role, but it was they were there to support they created you know, a relation a deeper relationship with their kids. And off they go, they're set up. And Aviva said to me that their product, you know, the productivity of their of their employees had gone up since they introduced this policy, which is amazing. Because when we write articles in the paper about this, isn't it? Shouldn't we be more Scandinavian? Shouldn't we allow dads to be involved in early parenting as well? You always get people going, well, how are we going to pay for that, and, oh, it was fine in my day, and you know, it's the mother should be quite traditional views. What it does is, you know, it just sets you off. And also gives you a little, this is gonna sound really wrong, but it because it's not a break, but it gives you a break from work. So you come back, you know, all excited, probably a bit relieved to be getting back to work. And that's all good for the employer. So I would be really surprised if in another 10 years time we're not we don't have proper shared, that it's one of those things where there's, there's no, there's just no downside, there's I can see it,

Graham Allcott 21:11

that's the thing that Aviva thing is 52 weeks. Leave, regardless of you know, whether that's maternity or paternity, 2026 weeks of that on full pay. Yeah. And then what you found was that two thirds of staff that have either that have that as an option, take it, and only 5% Stick to the idea of two weeks. So it's clearly a popular thing. And if anyone's listening to this, or watching this, you know, in the HR departments of for large corporates, then I guess the message is go and look at what Aviva are doing right in that area.

Matt Rudd 21:46

And since I wrote that I got that was quite a new policy. But there have been lots of lots of other companies. I mean, it has been smaller to middle sized companies are doing it, but it's just, it's just definitely going to happen. And don't and don't forget the other, you know, this, I've pretty much finished this book, in the first wave of the pandemic. And a lot of the things I'm winching about in man down, suddenly, rather alarmingly happened like a sort of magic wand, you know, the asking for a kind of a more flexible, porous relationship between work and life, something you talk about a lot, having a role in early parenting, being at home, some all of that stuff suddenly happened, it's not quite how one would have wanted it to happen. But there's a lot of very dramatic social change that's been forced upon us by by the pandemic, I just hope, sort of that, you know, the, the positives of that can be can be kept and sort of consolidated

Graham Allcott 22:55

a theatre, isn't it? And when you think back to so one of the stats that really shocked me in the book was in 1982 43% of dads had never changed the nappy. And then now it's like, 3%. So I suppose when you think about it, like that, we've been moving the workforce away from it being, you know, that sort of traditional family model of man as provider, women, his parent, and, you know, things have really moved on from there. But then we necessarily haven't been, you know, talking about how that how the policy support that? And then what is the, what's the workplace his role in supporting that? So is there anything else along those lines that you think is, is changing that we need to think about and do more of to kind of shift shift things, you know, just in a better direction?

Matt Rudd 23:46

I mean, the government doesn't, hasn't really had much of a role they did introduce, I think, in 2015, they introduced kind of shared parenting leave regulations, but it doesn't work because it was kind of statute tree pay. So you're asking both parents to, to effectively not have a salary, and that's just not gonna happen. So it has to come. It has to come from employers. It's interesting at the moment, you know, there's a lot of talk about how well this week at least, How excited everyone is to get back to the office and how tired we all are of working from home, which is absolutely understandable. But I've been getting back to the office for months now. And what we're doing is we're having a kind of, there's a sort of hybrid system emerging where we will do two or three days a week in the office, and it's just all you know, and if you need just before the pandemic, I think caution huge STEREOTYPE ALERT. Dads escape to lots of the kind of the Labour around choose till the mums that tended to organise the play dates, and the late drop offs, and the rugby matches, and all, all of that stuff. And I think, you know, that that will certainly for me and the dads in my area, we're all we're all much more involved because we don't have the excuse of being in the office all the time anymore, we're at home. So of course, we'll arrange that thing and fill out that form and all the endless bureaucracy from schools. And that's just only a good thing again, because it you know, it's it's, it's more equitable, in a very basic way, that I think a lot of the dads you know, this idea that men are being dragged, you know, into the all of this parenting work, reluctantly is completely wrong. I think, you know, those no one changing a nappy in the 98 No, Dad's changing a nappy in the 80s. That's just a really sad set, you know, we're broke, we need to break that cycle for all the other reasons in the book, listen to this, that that's all linked to the reason why, you know, men have such high rates of unhappiness of depression, and you know, worse Yeah. And

Graham Allcott 26:17

in the book, you talk about a lot of the things that you've tried and a lot of the things that other people that you're interviewing have tried to kind of mitigate that sense of malaise or despondency. What do you think is ultimately, the sort of root cause of that then? So why Why, Why are men so unable to really, you know, sort of articulate feelings, or certainly to do that on the first pint, or in the first first part of the conversation?

Matt Rudd 26:47

I think it goes back, I haven't really managed to explain this, right yet. But the whole the whole way things are set up, it's that you need a particular job, or a particular, you know, you need to keep up with the neighbours, you need a particular car. You there's a pursuit. And and it's it's too simplistic to say, you know, that it's a pursuit of materialism. Because it's really more complicated than that it might be the type of job you have, or where you live, who your friends are, that it's not strictly materialism, it's this. It's a comparison. So you're, it's, it's when I said earlier, it's all about passing tests. What that really means is, there's pressure to do better than the person next to you to succeed. And I, that my favourite example of that is the that study, they did have to go completely off track. The study, they did have a Olympic medalists, the bronze medal, if you must, I'm sure you've talked about this before. But the amazing thing that they photographed all of their faces on the podiums, and the gold medalists were really happy big smiles. The Bronze medalists were really happy big smiles. The silver medalists had this kind of rictus grin. And it's if anyone gets a chance to look it up, it's really funny looking at the miserable silver medalists, and how much less happy they are than the bronze medalist, because they were so near to getting a gold and the bronze guys just relieved that they got on the podium at all. They're just happy. Yeah. And it's, it's a really simplistic way of looking at it. But it's also so, so true. If you're constantly comparing yourself to other people, and society and all that, you know, from from school all the way through, is teaching you what success looks like. Then, then it's you know, you're never going to be happy. And, you know, when you pop up, when it finally just becomes impossible to, you know, carry on, there isn't an A next immediate five year plan, you've, you know, you've had kids, you've got a family, you're living somewhere, you know, whatever it is, whatever you've ticked us, there's nothing obvious next, and you're suddenly gazing out across this sort of hinterland and thinking well, what's ahead of me now? Oh, just getting older and trying to make it through? Or which is not answering your question. But it explains why in the pub with your 45 to 55 year old mates when you ask how they're feeling. I mean, if they if they opened up and told the truth, it would be shocking. And that's and that's what I did. And that's it was shocking. But eventually, after quite a lot of work, it feels really, really good to have done it.

Graham Allcott 29:50

Yeah, it felt like there was a couple of sort of through lines or a couple of sort of subjects that just kept kept coming back like 3d Burke and one of them was that the with the which we'll we'll come back to I think and let's stay on that subject of sort of status and, and sort of comparison and status and sort of validation and that sort of error. The other one was kind of career ladders and feeling trapped by the sort of career ladder or the hamster wheel that you're on. I thought that sort of just kept kept sort of popping back up. And then the other one was, like mortgages and like the sort of housing housing costs, and what that's meant for getting on the housing ladder, how difficult that is, how much of a burden that puts onto people. And so like, those just felt like they were like, really sort of constant themes through the book, but just staying on that status one for a minute. So you interviewed Adam, Kay, who's the Doctor Who, who wrote that book, this is going to hurt. And he described this idea that when he stopped being an NHS doctor only been on this treadmill for many, many years of, you know, sort of rising up the ranks. And he sat there with his family, and he's not a doctor anymore. And he's always been a doctor, he's always been defined by his career success. And then he suddenly just sat there just as a man who is no longer a doctor, right? So do you think that's something that we need to think more about is just how, how do we define ourselves away from job titles? And away from the sense of our own state?

Matt Rudd 31:24

It's so difficult because yeah, so you know, doctors have very high rates of of depression, so to lawyers to to have the kind of professions that we're, you know, we're taught are good professions. And, you know, so what's the answer? No one becomes a doctor or a lawyer. No. But Adam talks about, you know, being funnelled from a very early age lawyers you talk to, you know, they've already kind of doing work placements when they're still at university, there's no, there's really no simple answer this for people, particularly for people who've already got to set my stage, what's really shocking, is how, how, how little thought is given to, you know, what you want to do at a young age. So right now, my 15 year old is being asked to set up some work experience for the summer. And, you know, traditional parent might be going well, you've got to find your career and choose what you want to do, why he's 15, you know, what's the point of doing that, and trying to encourage sons and otters to just spend a little bit more time thinking about, it's not even what they want to do, because they might want to be a lawyer or a doctor, or whatever it is. It just feels certainly in my case. And in the case of the people, I spoke to that, that there's, there isn't enough time, just sitting, sitting with things, considering things because of the pressure to always be thinking about the future.

Graham Allcott 33:12

Yeah, it feels like it's some of that's getting worse, right, like, so there's the bit in the book where you talk about someone who's just graduated like a few weeks ago, and doesn't really know what they do, and just how crushing that feels to them that some of their friends are already in jobs. And it's like, you have your whole life ahead of you to, you know, to get on to the right career, and to get the right job, at least take a few weeks right now to figure that out. But people are really struggling with that, you know, and even like, like you mentioned, you know, with with your kids being sort of, sort of pushed into over specialisation or being pushed into making decisions about the entirety of your future when you're when you're still a kid. And you should, you should still be in more of an exploratory sort of thoughtful mode, rather than in a kind of, you know, doing an

Matt Rudd 34:02

execution. Yeah. And it doesn't need to be an extreme, you know, it's not take five years to find yourself or anything like that. But that that guy I spoke to I was, I was talking to him and he was asking whether he should do what he described as a panic masters because so he didn't, because he didn't want to have a kind of blank on his CV where it didn't look like he done anything. So he was proposing doing a panic masters so that there wasn't a year or whatever missing. And I was talking to him just general careers advice for about half an hour. And then I asked, you know, how long this blank had been and it was like, six weeks. And that is just such complete pressure. You know, that. That's that's where we are with competition. And I can imagine it must be really annoying to have me, you know, 46 year old You know, saying Come on 23 year old, just take your time, make sure you do something that you're happy about, or, you know, as you mentioned, banging on about mortgages don't discuss a mortgage with a 22 year old because it's a whole, it's so much worse for the next generation as well. Yeah, just so there's two parts to this, there's the small things you can do as an individual, to make yourself happier, as and you're far better at, you know, that sort of personal, personal way of improving yourself than I am. And I'm still really struggling with it. And there's only a couple of things that worked. And they were really hard. And then there's the huge systemic thing which is, which is not something that individuals can do, because I think it is annoying, saying all this stuff to the younger Gen. I know my sons find it really, don't worry about your age level, don't worry about your GCSE results, son just enjoy life, that's just too much. But we need to there needs to be a complete systemic change in how we how we raise kids as well,

Graham Allcott 36:11

I guess a lot of us in our 40s and older are in a better place to chip away at the systemic factors for the younger generation, because we're in charge of HR departments and you know, putting this out on podcast and kind of having some of those conversations about what we can change I guess, just on the on the personal part of that I liked the bit in the book where you talk about the do you call it the D gratitude journal or something. You give a list of all the things that you're unhappy about, as well as the gratitude journal. I thought that was really amazing. I don't

Matt Rudd 36:45

know if that's a recommended approach. Perhaps but, you know, life that this you know, we're talking about quite big things like, you know, marriage life jobs, but there's a lot of really annoying stuff in the world as well, that and I, I, I mean, I spend a lot of my day job as a colonists getting quite annoyed. Last week, I was annoyed by how many different toothpastes I

Graham Allcott 37:12

read, I read that and it like totally resonated so much. It's really tight.

Matt Rudd 37:19

I mean, I do want to ask would write 800 words about I don't know all the different USB cables and it sounds quite pure Ireland, but it does feel as if life can be very irritating. And I think that sort of stuff chips away. So without any qualifications, I did recommend a D gratitude journal wife writes a gratitude journal which is which is really lovely, and it works with her I'm sounding patronised patronising now, but I I have stuck. I'd still do a deep gratitude journal. Yeah. It's, you know, the thing that I that really worked for me. And as I said, before, we started this conversation. I'm, I'm really only, you know, the bit that I really struggled with, was getting from sort of step zero, where I'm just blinkered and not thinking about things at all, to the point step one, you know, where I might be able to pick up one of your books and actually sit and read it is so that, that's the bit where just turning it turning a bloke from completely blinkered to okay, I now need to find ways to make me happier. And the way I did that was with the oldest self help trick of all, which was the forest bathing, which I know you do. I probably I think I did it for six months, and every single day, and for the first five and a half months, I hated it. And it was all I was doing is sitting under a tree in the woods, just worrying about, you know, whether I should get mortgage insurance, you know, so it was it was because I've taken you know, the audio book or the Walkman or your podcast outside my ears, and I was sitting on the moss worrying and my previously My reaction was to carry on listening to music or something. But I really forced myself to do it and are finally after six months, the panic stops and I've started to feel better. And it is

Graham Allcott 39:34

something that I think a lot of people find very scary or unsettling is the idea of just being alone with your own thoughts just in whatever form that is. I was talking to someone recently who they said what do you do? What do you do when you go for a run? So I'm training for a half bath at the moment so decent quite long runs. And I said I just run and they're like what there's no podcast in your ears or there's no me Music and I mean, I'm a big music fan as anybody but I was like, No, I just just think and stuff happens. And you know, and actually, what's interesting is that I'm sure, I'm sure you'll know this too is that you often write the best parts of your book or whatever is when you are just alone with your thoughts and just something crystallises that you've been working on that morning or ever, like, I just find that it's actually a very productive thing to have nothing on your mind to because it actually just kind of sets sets the stuff that you need to do when you get back to your desk. Isn't Isn't that cheating, though?

Matt Rudd 40:37

Graham, was I thought, well, I, I mean, I thought the points of I mean, it's, they call it forest bathing, but it's it's kind of meditation really, which I also find really difficult. But I didn't think you were supposed to be planning planning your day, or a paragraph, or something.

Graham Allcott 40:57

No, so I'm not planning it. And I'm not going there with the intention that that's what's going to happen. But often, when I'm going for a run, then what happens is just, I can feel my brain just putting things to get this, it's not like I'm leaving my desk and saying, I'm stuck on this thing, let me work that out on the run, it just magically happens, or just new ideas calm or whatever, I just find that like, once I put my brain into a really different modes, it just comes up with the stuff that matters a bit more rather than being sort of bereft and stuck in the detail which which you know, sort of can happen when I'm young I'm writing

Matt Rudd 41:33

a half marathon is a very midlife thing to do, if I may.

Graham Allcott 41:39

Very true. I mean, I, it was quite funny I did, I ran the London Marathon about 10 years ago. And it did feel like the elephant in the room when you go to when you run it on the mouth, and you have to go to like the XL Centre in Docklands and go around this big exhibition where you pick up your, you know, your sort of race number and all that stuff. And, you know, you have to sort of be there in it. And that it felt like the subtext of the entire visit to the XL Centre, which is like an hour, hour and a half that you're there sort of thing. You know, when I met, there was like some Olympians doing signing things, there's like some fun stuff to do when you're there. And a lot of it is just, you know, companies trying to hawk their products on you. But it felt like the subtext of the whole thing is like, we are not going to die. Like whatever age the people who were there, it felt like everybody was just trying to cling on to this idea that we're okay, we're, you know, we're healthy, we're not, we're not gonna die, we've got we've got a marathon in us, so we're okay, just, it just kind of had a weird, there's definitely a weird vibe to that whole thing.

Matt Rudd 42:42

I mean, I've done all of those, I've done the sort of the mud races and all of that stuff. But and again, you know, with with a male friendship group, but you know, with, with all the apps, you know, with the map, my run and all of that stuff, and for me now, I'm I mean, I'm moving along my journey, I now run without any, any measuring, I'm not measuring myself didn't care. Yeah, it's probably because I'm so old now. I just couldn't face it, it would just be depressing every week. But you know, happiness is deleting my run.

Graham Allcott 43:22

Yeah. So you actually that time, you know, we're just talking about the sort of the opposite of the gratitude journal felt like the time that you were the most disgruntled in the book, because when you're talking about technology, so do you want to just talk a bit more about that? And just you're

Matt Rudd 43:38

not really Yeah, and I've seen your, your brilliant sort of how to control it. And, and I haven't looked at how you how you empty an inbox, yes. But I've got I looked before we had this conversation, and I've got 120,000 emails in my inbox. Technology, as you know, the sort of taught, you know, timesaver have all this technology, and you'll be able to spend more time with your kids. And obviously, it hasn't worked out like that on a on a kind of macro level with when separated from our kids by the iPad between us. And, you know, we were promised by you know, I think in the 1930s Was it the 40s. Asimov was predicting that we'd, you know, robots would be doing all the work, and we're working 10 hour weeks and it just hasn't happened. So I don't really want to talk about it other than say, I've been our, our clever, we'll see called smart thermostats, because it had developed a mind of its own and was deciding when it wanted to heat our house and I battled with it for weeks, and then I ended And that's the answer. And I also spent a bit of time that some artists had done a kind of an approximation of a post apocalyptic world. And I was a caretaker in this dome that they'd set up. So there was no electricity. Everything had to be grown or recycled. Just and it was just helped. It was next to a really beautiful lake and national trust property. It was just, I think you could tear a lot of the stuff down, and we'd be happier. But now I'm sounding like an old fart. He remembers the days I remember the days when they're only two channels. You know, that's not. That's not the answer, either.

Graham Allcott 45:44

Yeah. I mean, and so what's your what's your relationship with your phone? Like, cuz you said, that comes up a lot when you're interviewing people everyone's talking about, like, the phone is almost like a symbol of work life balance.

Matt Rudd 45:56

Yeah. And I think, I think when I finished writing the book, I would have been able to give you an honest answer that it's under control. It's not the most important, you know, I do have, I do have, we have dinner with our cell phones, all those things that people say you need to do no phones in the bedroom. But it's all it's all gone to pop during the pandemic, in CO write a sequel to this book, which will just be totally bleak. Because it has been, you know, it's been the work from home thing for those who have been able to do it, I think has been a revelation. I've spoken to so many blokes who just loved getting to know their families again. But the reality is, it's been a very intense period. we've relied a to huge degree as we are right now on technology. It's gonna be quite hard to row back from that,

Graham Allcott 46:57

for sure. There's a couple of quick things I wanted to ask you about before we finish, but just on that thing of sort of careers and career ladders. So my friends, Helen Tupper, and Sarah Ellis wrote a book called The squiggly career, which is all about moving away from the idea of the career ladder. Do you have any thoughts about, you know, like, how we need to redesign the idea of the career ladder in terms of it feels like that's the source of a lot of people feeling trapped, isn't it is being on the career ladder? What What can we do differently around just the traditional notion of careers

Matt Rudd 47:34

individually. I mean, I read the the squiggly book, and the risk with that is, is it's just more plate spinning. Because, you know, you've got, you've got more than one side hustle going. And it becomes, I mean, in a, in an ideal world, you find a thing that you're passionate about, and that's your job. But I'm, I'm quite traditional about that. But then I thought that my, I had found my passion. And the problem is passions, passions change over time. So no, I thought the ultimate happiness when I was in my 20s, was getting a byline in a national newspaper, which is just as sort of shallow and egotistical as the people who took jobs because they paid very well. I don't know I think things are going to be changing anyway. And I'm really sorry that I just don't have simple answers. But you know, jobs for life aren't don't really exist anymore. And a lot of the reasons for that and not good. And I kind of I do worry quite a bit about the about the future. Without getting too too depressing. Have you got to the bit where I meet the happiest man in Britain? Oh, god.

Graham Allcott 49:01

Yeah, the Loch Ness thing?

Matt Rudd 49:03

Have you got? Yeah. Oh, sure.

Graham Allcott 49:05

Yeah, if people don't eat yet. I've, I've actually got two other questions if that's alright, as well. So tell us about Loch Ness, because I guess one of the things I was gonna ask you is like, do we all just need to move to lock this? Because like, he sounds amazing.

Matt Rudd 49:20

I'll be quick because I've got to go and pick the kids up in a minute. Isn't that great? Okay. No, so, so happiest guy spent a whole book talking to miserable people. And I'll tell you the ending so your listeners don't need to buy the book. So he he was in his 20s and he'd set up a burglar alarm installation business. And he had a girlfriend he had a mortgage. He was building his company, but he spent all day fitting burglar alarms for the older people who tend to be the main market for burglar alarms. And they spent the whole Coffee Break that he shared with them saying, Oh, I wish I was your age again. And it was all about this sort of, he had this tidal wave of sexagenarian regret. So he listened to them and thought, I don't want to end up like that. And Akasa fairly middling story short, he finished with the girlfriend, got rid of the mortgage, and got rid of the business and spent 30 years living in a caravan next to Loch Ness. And that's so that's a bit like when self help gurus say check everything in and find your passion. It's annoying hearing about a guy who's lived in a caravan for 30 years. Next a lot. Loch Ness, and you are so of course we can't all go and live in caravans next to Loch Ness because they'll wreck it. Arts. What I What was amazing about him is that, you know, he's been interviewed by people before and he's always a bit he's the Nessie Hunter a bit of a weirdo. But he wasn't weird at all. He talked to me about the lights that changed on the lake, as I asked, you know, doesn't get boring. And he spoke for about five minutes about this changing light and how it made him feel. And I just thought that is he's he's living in the moment, like everyone always tells you, you should. And I've, I often think about that when I'm just walking or you know, walking from one meeting to the next or getting on a train or just if he can find happiness with a change of lights and a freezing cold lake in winter in Scotland. Then I can find little bits of momentary happiness in my daily life. So we need to bottle well he he did not not all going live next to Loch Ness.

Graham Allcott 51:53

Yeah. And he also said something like, Did he say something like, the when the weather changes and stuff like adventure comes to you, I thought that was a really just a very powerful idea that he's just sat in this one place is one body of water, but the event just coming because things are changing. And like that just feels like a very grounded rooted way of seeing the world which is extremely powerful.

Matt Rudd 52:19

He should become some kind of teacher but he's not interested in it. He's which is even better. That's what I love about him so much. He's just very happy.

Graham Allcott 52:28

So the the final question, just to bring this back to where we started was, we're talking about the idea that, you know, it's up to it's up to men, as well as women to be focused on gender equality and feminism. And it's up to women as well as men to be thinking about mental health of men too. And I just wondered like what you it. There's so much in the book about what you learned about men and their disconnection from their emotions? Is there anything in the book that you found surprising and learn about women,

Matt Rudd 53:02

the one thing and this, this will sound cheesy, but as I mentioned before, when we when we did the article, the first article that led to all this, I had expected women to be annoyed with what I was saying angry, which was really wrong of me, because as I said, it was it was the it was really the opposite of that. And I, I mentioned briefly that I wrote a part of it about I wrote a piece about men failing to address you know, their physical and mental health, jokey little column, and one of the readers forced her husband to read it because he'd been having a niggle on his chest. And he had life saving heart surgery two weeks after he finally went to get a checkup. And the you know, he he had dismissed his wife as a someone who was nagging him, but obviously all she really did was love him and want him to look after himself. And he needed to hear it from a random stranger in a newspaper before he listened, so, you know, we knew it already. And it's, I'm not gonna make any any generalisations here, because that is terrifying. But I think, you know, women want men to address their issues, you know, for really positive reasons. And as I said, a lot of us live in a unit anyway, we live with each other. And women have made here again, with a generalisation but you know, women are better in general, at listening to podcast well being podcast thinking about their lives talking to their friends. And men tend in their middle life to sort of set off on a kind of grumpy intellia not talking about their feelings rose, the willingness, the enthusiasm with which women responded to what I've written. And then force the partners to read what I've written has been, you know, shouldn't have been the surprise, but it has been

Graham Allcott 55:25

Yeah. So let's bring this to a close. So you you said there that you'd given us the ending. So people didn't need to go and buy the book. But maybe this is the perfect sort of allegory for the whole thing is it's about the journey, not the destination, right? It is. There's so much throughout the book. So the book is man down. Do you want to just let people know where they can find you? And obviously, you've got your Sunday Times columns, everything as well. So maybe just where where can people follow you and read more of your work?

Matt Rudd 55:53

Well, that's it. I don't I'm, I'm just I'm just siloed in a newspaper. But some, I'd have some amazing messages on on the Twitter on the DM, and I always try to respond in an entirely unqualified unprofessional way. And if anyone comes at me with really difficult stuff, I'll just forward it to you. I'll fill up your inbox, see how you like it.

Graham Allcott 56:21

Sounds great. Matt, thanks

Matt Rudd 56:22

so much for thanks very much. It's been a real pleasure. Thanks for having me.

Graham Allcott 56:26

So there you go. Matt Rudd. I really enjoyed the book. And I think I was, you know, slightly nervous about talking to Matt, because I think sometimes it can seem like if you're talking about men's issues, you're sort of somehow prioritising them, or you are seeming to be little women's issues or stuff that affects women. So I think it's pretty clear from that conversation really, that, you know, these things need to be on the table and hand in hand. And there's a lot that men need to do to really be allies around feminism. And there's lots that women need to do around men's mental health, too. It just feels unfortunate that it's so difficult to have those kinds of conversations for sort of fear of being seen to side with one side of an argument or another the whole time, but really enjoyed talking to Matt. And there's some really good stuff that we didn't get into in the book just around some of the kind of reshaping of not just the whole stuff around Sharon shared parental leave, but also some of the stuff around women taking career breaks, and how we need to kind of reframe that to be seen as Do you know what if you've taken three years off, and you've, you know, gone and brought up your kid, the extra skills that you get from that we should be celebrating that on people's CVS rather than looking at it as gaps or deficits and so on. So I just think there's so much in the book just in terms of thoughts and observations that can really influence you know, how we see the world and obviously, the stuff around Aviva is approached to share parental leave, I just thought was really worth highlighting as we had that conversation. So yeah, shout out to Aviva, as well, and others like them. So I just want to say a big thank you as ever to Emilie and Pavel my team on the podcast making everything happen, and also to our sponsors on the show Think Productive. So if you're interested in learning more about how think productive can help you to get your team to a place of doing their best work and making space for the stuff that matters, then head to think productive.com. To find out more. I'm also available by the way to run keynotes and events around the topics of work life balance, and around my book, How to be a productivity ninja. And at the moment, I'm not sort of taking on talks around the new book topic kindness, but I'm going to be doing a bit more of that and kind of sharing some my thoughts on kind for leadership as we sort of head through the year. So if you're interested in becoming to talk about kindness within your business, then drop me a line anyway, and we'll get you on the list. And once that starts to develop, I'll let you know more. As always, if you want to just drop me an email and tell me what's up on what's happening in your part of the world, it's Graham at think productive.co.uk. And my mailing list as ever, is if you just go to grey market.com forward slash links, you can get the little signup thing there for my weekly rev up for the week email. So one productive or positive idea every Sunday 4:05pm. UK time ready for the week ahead. Last week's was about Miles Davis kind of blue and how he recorded the whole album in just seven hours last week as in as I'm recording this thing as a couple of weeks ago, actually on the email going out. But yeah, often, you know, more often than not actually I'm writing it just a couple of days before so they're fairly fresh ideas. They're fairly in the moment and often people say hey, that's just popped into my head. And it's really interesting doing actually getting that sense that there's so much of our human experience which is just so universal, you know, people having the same kind of thoughts, people feeling tired, people feeling inspired all at the same time all around the world and just kind of going through the seasons often. So that's been really fascinating just to do it as a regular practice. I don't batch them up, I don't do so. for seven weeks at once and then not think about it, I literally am writing every week and it's quite helpful actually, it's been good for my writing practice too. So that's rev up for the week if you go to Graham Allcott calm and we'll be back in two weeks time with another episode, some really good ones in the pipeline and looking forward to sharing those with you.

So see you again in two weeks. Keep subscribed. Until then, take care bye for now.

✔ Links:

Matt Rudd at The Sunday Times: https://www.thetimes.co.uk/profile/matt-rudd?page=1

Matt on Twitter: https://twitter.com/MattRudd

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