Latest / The Data Shaman Podcast - Quant Mind, Shaman Soul / F*ck It, I Quit: From Law Firm COO to MoveMen, with Brian Henderson

Transcript

F*ck It, I Quit: From Law Firm COO to MoveMen, with Brian Henderson · The Data Shaman Podcast - Quant Mind, Shaman Soul

• 0:14
  SPEAKER_00: Hello everyone, I'm here with Brian Henderson, and we are recording the TV's podcast from Hong Kong.
• 0:21
  SPEAKER_00: Brian, welcome.
• 0:26
  SPEAKER_00: So this season I call it fuck it.
• 0:30
  SPEAKER_00: I crit.
• 0:31
  SPEAKER_00: And I'm trying to capture all of those, let's say, feelings, all of those emotions that come with moving away from a corporate world and actually starting something for yourself.
• 0:47
  SPEAKER_00: And we talked about it a couple of weeks ago, and I, of course, I did a bit of stalking online.
• 0:54
  SPEAKER_00: And you used to work for a very big law firm.
• 0:58
  SPEAKER_00: So how did your change from being sort of like a corporate lawyer to then starting your own brand movement, your own business in Hong Kong?
• 1:11
  SPEAKER_00: How did it come about?
• 1:12
  SPEAKER_00: Tell me a bit more about yourself.
• 1:14
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, well, let me go all the way back.
• 1:16
  SPEAKER_01: I just think in the real deep context is helpful.
• 1:19
  SPEAKER_01: So I grew up in Belfast.
• 1:21
  SPEAKER_01: So Belfast in my time was the terrorist campaign, bombs, and shooting going off when I was four years old.
• 1:27
  SPEAKER_01: So like I've always been very anxious and very like hyper hyper-vigilant, I guess, ever since.
• 1:34
  SPEAKER_01: And so I was very keen to get out of there as soon as I could.
• 1:37
  SPEAKER_01: So I went to university in UK.
• 1:40
  SPEAKER_01: And you know, I always felt like in those days we always knew, even this is in the 1980s, that you kind of have to sell your soul to go and work in a big corporate law firm.
• 1:52
  SPEAKER_01: The ideal was you join one of the top firms, you work like crazy, and retire with enough money and probably feeling exhausted and physically not that great by around about 50 or 55 years of age.
• 2:06
  SPEAKER_01: So even in the 1980s, people knew that was the deal.
• 2:09
  SPEAKER_01: That was the deal.
• 2:11
  SPEAKER_01: So we kind of all went into it with our eyes opened.
• 2:14
  SPEAKER_01: And you know, I really quickly realized actually I didn't want to be a lawyer.
• 2:18
  SPEAKER_01: I actually started as a lawyer.
• 2:20
  SPEAKER_01: Didn't really enjoy the law enough.
• 2:22
  SPEAKER_01: Some really exciting exciting work, but just was not sufficiently committed or passionate to make a career of it.
• 2:29
  SPEAKER_01: But I could see that lawyers were not brilliant at managing people.
• 2:33
  SPEAKER_01: So I thought, well, I kind of want to stay in the profession because I've invested a lot of time getting my qualifications and the experience.
• 2:42
  SPEAKER_01: And but so I wanted to go away and do an NBA and then come back into law firm management.
• 2:47
  SPEAKER_01: Because law firms were just starting to merge and get bigger and go global at that time.
• 2:52
  SPEAKER_01: So it was actually quite an exciting time.
• 2:54
  SPEAKER_01: So I went off and I did an MBA and I joined a big law firm in London.
• 2:59
  SPEAKER_01: And spent 13 years there, and we did like global mergers and integrations and setting up whole new structures and new compensation arrangements and just incredible, incredibly rewarding experience.
• 3:13
  SPEAKER_01: Different leaders, different times, mostly great, some a bit more demanding and difficult to work with than others.
• 3:19
  SPEAKER_01: Mostly great.
• 3:21
  SPEAKER_01: At some time in Paris, fantastic, really enjoyed it.
• 3:23
  SPEAKER_01: But you always hit some kind of a ceiling in a firm like that.
• 3:26
  SPEAKER_01: Okay.
• 3:27
  SPEAKER_01: So few opportunities at the very most senior level.
• 3:31
  SPEAKER_01: So I then I wanted to come to Asia.
• 3:33
  SPEAKER_01: We had the global financial crisis, markets were bad, European economy was looking pretty sick, the UK economy probably one of the sickest, and maybe with the exception at that time.
• 3:43
  SPEAKER_01: So I thought, well, I want to get out of here and go to Asia, because high growth markets, at that time, quite a strategic focus for the big law firms.
• 3:52
  SPEAKER_01: So we've got a job here in Hong Kong.
• 3:55
  SPEAKER_01: And another great big global law firm managing as a chief operating officer.
• 4:00
  SPEAKER_01: And also, again, like, you know, demanding culture.
• 4:04
  SPEAKER_01: Lawyers are very hardworking, they put in all hours, they're very cynical, they're very smart, they're just they're very autonomous.
• 4:11
  SPEAKER_01: You can't tell a lawyer what to do.
• 4:13
  SPEAKER_01: Just very independent.
• 4:15
  SPEAKER_01: So, you know, so it's just a demanding environment to be in.
• 4:19
  SPEAKER_01: But again, great projects.
• 4:20
  SPEAKER_01: We did mergers in Asia, we created the first joint venture with a Chinese law firm.
• 4:26
  SPEAKER_01: We moved for in here in Hong Kong from Central to Quarry Bay, one of the first really big law firms to do that.
• 4:31
  SPEAKER_01: So exciting fun work.
• 4:33
  SPEAKER_01: But it just takes that sort of environment takes its toll after a while.
• 4:37
  SPEAKER_01: And we had a big global restructuring going on.
• 4:40
  SPEAKER_01: And that was very kind of confusing and difficult to navigate.
• 4:45
  SPEAKER_01: And then, you know, I had a I had a change of boss somewhat unexpectedly.
• 4:49
  SPEAKER_01: And so, yeah, things by that time I had some personal life issues going on, and you know, buying an expensive flat and my partner's health not being great.
• 4:56
  SPEAKER_01: Social unrest, you know, flashbacks to Belfast.
• 5:01
  SPEAKER_01: And designed and all of that.
• 5:03
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, so that was that was that resulted in a burn out.
• 5:07
  SPEAKER_01: So I was diagnosed eventually with depression and anxiety.
• 5:10
  SPEAKER_01: Um actually because I went to the doctor, just my regular doctor, because I couldn't sleep.
• 5:15
  SPEAKER_01: I was getting two and a half hours of sleep a night, and I had a really upset tummy.
• 5:19
  SPEAKER_01: And just got fed up with fat.
• 5:21
  SPEAKER_01: And she said, Okay, well we can help you with those things, but you know, do you think you'd benefit from seeing a psychiatrist?
• 5:27
  SPEAKER_01: And like I almost cried with relief because I knew that's actually what I needed.
• 5:32
  SPEAKER_01: I was just exhausted and just not interested anymore.
• 5:35
  SPEAKER_01: Just going through the motions and feeling pretty miserable.
• 5:40
  SPEAKER_01: So yeah, I was so that was just time to quit, like for lots of reasons.
• 5:46
  SPEAKER_00: I see.
• 5:49
  SPEAKER_00: To be honest with you, I really resonated with that because you mentioned about depression and anxiety, and I said tick-tick, I have those.
• 5:58
  SPEAKER_00: But something that you said really brought me back in my early twenties when I had a mohawk, I went around with a kilt, I used to play in the drama in a metal band, which was about selling yourself.
• 6:13
  SPEAKER_00: You know, you you said something along the lines of you knew you had to sell yourself to go into corporate.
• 6:19
  SPEAKER_00: And wonder what is the toll on a man identity of going into corporate.
• 6:29
  SPEAKER_00: Do you think is it such a sort of like is it such what's your take?
• 6:34
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, that's a good question.
• 6:35
  SPEAKER_01: And uh yeah, I guess what I felt over the years is that you do you have to behave in a certain way.
• 6:42
  SPEAKER_01: And especially here in Hong Kong.
• 6:44
  SPEAKER_01: Leaders are meant to be strong and leaders are meant to be the ultimate decision makers.
• 6:49
  SPEAKER_01: It's our job to tell people what to do.
• 6:51
  SPEAKER_01: Like nobody in Hong Kong wants to be given responsibility to come up with an idea and run with a project and take r responsibility and ownership without their boss approvings.
• 7:01
  SPEAKER_01: So it's a very top-down leadership style and expectation.
• 7:06
  SPEAKER_01: And I also found when I was sort of struggling mentally and emotionally, there's nobody to talk to.
• 7:12
  SPEAKER_01: Nobody to talk to, not even HR people or anybody like this, so few people at your level.
• 7:19
  SPEAKER_01: And I didn't have close friends outside work that I could really talk to about how I was doing.
• 7:25
  SPEAKER_01: So I think you just learn to bottle a lot of stuff up.
• 7:31
  SPEAKER_01: Become this sort of tough and you know, together and always on, always professional.
• 7:38
  SPEAKER_01: But inside you're feeling exhausted, you're feeling like, I don't know why I'm working so hard, enjoying it, or feeling a bit miserable, something's off, there has to be another way.
• 7:51
  SPEAKER_01: And the thing I had was like, I had lost touch with this sweet little like 10-year-old boy that I used to be.
• 7:59
  SPEAKER_01: Very loving and very kind and very sweet and you know, very open, very sensitive.
• 8:06
  SPEAKER_01: And all that got somehow really, really pushed down, and I kind of lost touch with that little boy, because for sure I still have that hyper-vigilant sort of sensitivity.
• 8:16
  SPEAKER_01: Like if it bangs the door behind me, for sure I'm gonna jump succeed in the air.
• 8:21
  SPEAKER_01: So it's just the way my nervous system uh works.
• 8:24
  SPEAKER_01: But yeah, you gotta be like insensitive and tough and all those things.
• 8:28
  SPEAKER_01: I just write so.
• 8:30
  SPEAKER_01: So yeah, I think it's the There's kind of like a grief with that.
• 8:33
  SPEAKER_01: There's kind of like a grieving loss of connection.
• 8:37
  SPEAKER_01: And I think that's why a lot like you know, there's still always early a few years back, not that long ago, that found 70% of C-suite executives want to quit their job to get a better quality of life.
• 8:48
  SPEAKER_01: So a lot of senior leaders feel this pressure, but they have no way of expressing it and no outlet, and they don't see alternatives like you kind of get caught on that hamster wheel.
• 9:00
  SPEAKER_00: Do you think though the modern workplace again Hong Kong is quite conservative in many ways, but do you think the modern workplace still allows or is allowing people to, as you said, express maybe a different way of living the corporate world, or is this just something that is not human and I say that with bunny hears?
• 9:29
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, yeah, yeah.
• 9:30
  SPEAKER_01: Well, I I don't know.
• 9:31
  SPEAKER_01: I mean other people can talk more more eloquently and on a more informed basis about generational differences in the workplace, you know, that's a huge topic.
• 9:41
  SPEAKER_01: And Gen Z probably have a very different way of being in the workplace than I do, and you hear about lying flat syndrome in in China in particular.
• 9:50
  SPEAKER_01: You know, so that's but that I think is coming from a place of despair.
• 9:56
  SPEAKER_01: Like in my generation, there was hope that you could succeed, that you would make enough money to be able to be financially secure by mid-50s, latest 60.
• 10:05
  SPEAKER_01: You could hone you could own a home, you could buy a car, you know, you could support a family.
• 10:10
  SPEAKER_01: That was all entirely achievable and actually not difficult.
• 10:12
  SPEAKER_01: You know, we had more than enough job offers.
• 10:16
  SPEAKER_01: But the current generation don't feel they can do that.
• 10:19
  SPEAKER_01: Like they feel like I'm gonna get out of my parents' home, I can never buy a flat, which means it's gonna be really hard to get married and have a family, and I'll never pay the school fees, and they don't see a meaningful future.
• 10:32
  SPEAKER_01: So I think that's a real big challenge in the workplace at the moment.
• 10:35
  SPEAKER_01: There are people that just get me through the motions.
• 10:38
  SPEAKER_01: In fact, even many other generations as well, there's always people that just go for the basic amount of money they can get to pay whatever their basic needs, and they live a lifestyle accordingly.
• 10:48
  SPEAKER_01: And some of us are just very driven to achieve, and that's why we get pushed and we push ourselves so hard, and we struggle in in a different way.
• 10:58
  SPEAKER_00: That is that is interesting because those are the questions that I keep on asking myself, and for the reason how I'm asking other people to understand.
• 11:09
  SPEAKER_00: So, thank you.
• 11:11
  SPEAKER_00: So you had this period of again I'm gonna minimize it by tribulation, personal tribulation, meeting psychiatrists, having sort of diagnoses, they're probably and you mentioned also some family illnesses or situation that affected your your outlook, I guess.
• 11:30
  SPEAKER_00: So and then you went into wellness and you started movement.
• 11:40
  SPEAKER_00: What what what was behind that?
• 11:44
  SPEAKER_01: So that was a response to my own lived experience of struggling with my mental health.
• 11:50
  SPEAKER_01: Because the film I was at, they had an employee assistance program, they had a helpline, they even had somebody come and give us a lunch and learn on the symptoms of depression and anxiety.
• 12:01
  SPEAKER_01: And I was sitting there, I kind of looked like bingo sheet, and I was ticking off all these symptoms, including full heights.
• 12:08
  SPEAKER_01: Like, I've got all these symptoms.
• 12:10
  SPEAKER_01: And I turned to my colleague who was sitting next to me, and I said, I think I've got all these symptoms, and she just looked straight back at me and said, Yeah, me too.
• 12:20
  SPEAKER_01: I thought I just went back to work and assumed well, but it must be just the way it is, so I guess that's normal.
• 12:26
  SPEAKER_01: So kind of crazy.
• 12:27
  SPEAKER_01: So you know, I got thinking, Wow, how could we not understand actually what is at stake here?
• 12:34
  SPEAKER_01: Because it took me about 18 months to recover.
• 12:38
  SPEAKER_01: Feel like, you know, I had my full energy back and feeling more positivity and joy in life.
• 12:44
  SPEAKER_01: It's a real dark, dark valley to pass through.
• 12:49
  SPEAKER_01: And so, you know, like a lot of people who have adverse experiences, you want other people to learn from your experience and not have to go through what you went through.
• 12:58
  SPEAKER_01: So I thought, wow, okay, if a firm that has like good intentions, but you know, still wasn't able to fully support me for whatever reasons, there must be lots of other workplaces where that happens.
• 13:12
  SPEAKER_01: And that's what I set up when I first company is called Whole Business Wellness.
• 13:16
  SPEAKER_01: So it was in a corporate mental health and wellness, and mainly involving, telling my story, explaining what is burnout, and using a psychometric indicator to assess burnout to help people and teams and even whole organizations to understand how their workplace stress affects the employees and what can the employees do about it.
• 13:36
  SPEAKER_01: So there's always things you can do as an individual in terms of your own self-care.
• 13:40
  SPEAKER_01: There's also things you can do as a team in terms of how you work as a team and share the work and how you communicate and so on.
• 13:46
  SPEAKER_01: And the culture you you want to create.
• 13:48
  SPEAKER_01: And then there's stuff at an organizational level, which is a bit more about what resources can we provide and how do we prioritize and help support our work our workplace so things are a bit more balanced.
• 14:01
  SPEAKER_01: So that was the intention with the initial company.
• 14:05
  SPEAKER_01: Kind of winding down now because I'm finding that market is just very difficult.
• 14:09
  SPEAKER_01: Companies have way more existential crises on their to deal with like AI and trade wars and political market uncertainties.
• 14:18
  SPEAKER_01: The focus is just not there, senior execs just you know, have the bandwidth to go really deep into the cultural and systemic operational business model changes they would need to make.
• 14:28
  SPEAKER_00: And to trade off and probably if yeah, sorry, if I may add, uh there is also again, maybe I'm I'm overreaching, but there is also an element of selling yourself to sell your product that uh again.
• 14:45
  SPEAKER_00: I see myself as a as a coach.
• 14:47
  SPEAKER_00: Sometimes you feel like, yes, I want to do this as a vocational, but sometimes it's effective you're selling something and you need to adapt to the market.
• 14:58
  SPEAKER_00: And apologies for interruption.
• 15:01
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, yeah, yeah.
• 15:01
  SPEAKER_01: Well, uh you know, in a way, I am the product of my company, yeah, exactly.
• 15:05
  SPEAKER_01: So it's it's just about my lived experience and my sharing and the insights and wisdom that I've learned through that experience that you know intended to help others avoid.
• 15:15
  SPEAKER_01: Some of the challenges that I face personally.
• 15:17
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, yeah, yeah.
• 15:18
  SPEAKER_01: You're right.
• 15:18
  SPEAKER_01: I'm I'm saying myself, it tends to be word of mouth.
• 15:21
  SPEAKER_01: Um like any small business, it's it's just hard work.
• 15:25
  SPEAKER_01: And you know, over the years I've also done a lot of work with the Women's Foundation.
• 15:29
  SPEAKER_01: So that is a feminist geo supporting women and girls in Hong Kong.
• 15:33
  SPEAKER_01: And my role in there was mainly to engage men.
• 15:36
  SPEAKER_01: So how do we engage men in gender equity issues and help them become active allies?
• 15:43
  SPEAKER_01: So I've always done that work, and part of that work is about discussing male privilege and masculinities, and part of masculinities is what we call the manbox.
• 15:52
  SPEAKER_01: It's a limited range of emotional expression that's acceptable.
• 15:56
  SPEAKER_01: So men are allowed to be angry and bang the table and show from frustration.
• 16:01
  SPEAKER_01: Within reason.
• 16:02
  SPEAKER_01: But we're not allowed to be soft and gentle and you know loving and all those things.
• 16:09
  SPEAKER_01: Nobody ever talks about working dads.
• 16:11
  SPEAKER_01: Nobody knows how many kids dads have in the workplace.
• 16:15
  SPEAKER_01: Nobody even asks side.
• 16:18
  SPEAKER_01: So the softer side, not not acceptable.
• 16:21
  SPEAKER_01: And then we were hearing about the manosphere and the toxic influencers and the incel movements.
• 16:27
  SPEAKER_01: Like the young men who feel like a woman can get only 20% of guys are going to be attractive to women, or as women program in finding a male partner.
• 16:38
  SPEAKER_01: So if they get angry about that.
• 16:40
  SPEAKER_01: So, you know, we had all this toxicity and also some evidence that young men are dropping out of school, they're not doing so well, they're not getting to university.
• 16:49
  SPEAKER_01: You know, as for a we were recruiting young lawyers, it would be 60-40 female to male or even more, maybe even 80-20.
• 16:57
  SPEAKER_01: Very hard to find good quality young men coming out of university these days.
• 17:02
  SPEAKER_01: And the research is showing that young young people under the age of around 25 or 26, women actually make more money now than their male colleagues and peers.
• 17:11
  SPEAKER_01: So, you know, objectively there are some challenges for those young men.
• 17:14
  SPEAKER_01: From my career's not on track, I'm not going to be an attractive partner, therefore I'm going to leave a life of loneliness and bitterness and potentially violence or resentment and you know all sorts of consequences of that.
• 17:28
  SPEAKER_01: And also in my own personal story, you know, I mentioned my partner got ill and it was pretty serious for a while.
• 17:35
  SPEAKER_01: And I was fortunate because of my network through the Women's Foundation to have some female friends that I could go and just share how I was doing and have a bit of a cry and get a little bit of support.
• 17:46
  SPEAKER_01: And I realized that my male friends don't have that.
• 17:49
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, and then my partner is their primary emotional support.
• 17:52
  SPEAKER_01: But if she, as in my case, was the problem, then who do they turn to?
• 17:56
  SPEAKER_01: And they got basically nobody.
• 17:58
  SPEAKER_01: And also because of that suppression of emotion that we have to do as men, we don't actually have the skills or the language or the ability even sometimes to feel what we feel.
• 18:09
  SPEAKER_01: So we're very out of touch.
• 18:10
  SPEAKER_01: So that's just very toxic and dangerous for health, physical health of all sorts, not just mental health.
• 18:17
  SPEAKER_01: So I felt, okay, well, I need to pivot more towards them.
• 18:20
  SPEAKER_01: And try and create a safe space where men can actually explore their emotional experience.
• 18:25
  SPEAKER_01: Like, why do certain things trigger me in ways that I just don't even understand because it seems so out of proportion.
• 18:31
  SPEAKER_01: Or how do I deal with my stress?
• 18:33
  SPEAKER_01: How do I deal with my anger?
• 18:35
  SPEAKER_01: How do I deal with my own self-doubts?
• 18:37
  SPEAKER_01: Like everybody thinks imposter syndrome is a woman thing, but I think so many men that have so much self-doubt and so much self-criticism.
• 18:45
  SPEAKER_01: And we don't know how to work with that.
• 18:46
  SPEAKER_01: And we don't we can't admit it.
• 18:48
  SPEAKER_01: Like you can't admit that you're weak or you're not sure or you need help, or that you doubt yourself, you've got to be like honor in control, successful and a winner.
• 18:56
  SPEAKER_01: So that's why we have move men.
• 18:58
  SPEAKER_01: And I call it move men because I use mind-body connection to do this work.
• 19:02
  SPEAKER_01: Because literally men often cannot feel anything from the chin, that like they're totally out of touch with their body.
• 19:08
  SPEAKER_01: So So we start there, we start with movement to help them relax, to help them notice to actually I do have a body and I can start to feel what parts of my body are tense or which parts are relaxed.
• 19:19
  SPEAKER_01: Well, our emotions tend to show up a little bit around the head and shoulders and face when they get a peat of embarrassment or something like that, or like frowning because of anger or whatever.
• 19:29
  SPEAKER_01: But a lot of the emotional experience is somewhere in the chest and belly.
• 19:32
  SPEAKER_01: So you have to be able to what's going on down there.
• 19:35
  SPEAKER_01: What's that?
• 19:36
  SPEAKER_01: It's vagus nerve stuff.
• 19:37
  SPEAKER_01: Like the vagus nerve covers all those organs in the centre of the body.
• 19:40
  SPEAKER_01: And it's passing information to the brain all the time, and it's all you know, information around how safe am I and how attached am I to my tribe, basically.
• 19:51
  SPEAKER_01: In the workplace you're feeling, I'm not sure my boss really appreciates me, or I'm not sure I can actually trust my boss.
• 19:56
  SPEAKER_01: Your nervous system is saying there's a risk you're out there, so they see it as a life-threatening risk on nervous systems because they don't know any better.
• 20:04
  SPEAKER_01: And that's where we get all these complicated emotions that maybe we don't quite understand because clearly I'm not any kind of physical threat, even if my boss is a bit toxic and demanding.
• 20:15
  SPEAKER_01: But the nervous system is saying you've got to get out of there.
• 20:17
  SPEAKER_01: You gotta get out of there.
• 20:20
  SPEAKER_01: So that's the work we do with Movement, is trying to explore all of that.
• 20:23
  SPEAKER_01: And we use meditation and breath work, maybe chigang, and then mind meditation and mindful dialogue, so really just sitting with it, being quite reflective, doing the inner work, trying to notice what we're feeling, knowing what we feel, and bringing some compassion to whatever stuff we have.
• 20:42
  SPEAKER_00: And this is a mainly a group, these are group sessions, right?
• 20:49
  SPEAKER_00: In case a person that listens to these sort of like wants to get a glimpse of how do they logistically look like and work.
• 20:59
  SPEAKER_00: Because I can I can see that people might have an AAA meeting kind of like in mind, but I guess it's a bit different.
• 21:09
  SPEAKER_00: So how do they work?
• 21:12
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, so you never have to say I'm Brian, I'm an alcoholic.
• 21:16
  SPEAKER_01: I've never had that.
• 21:17
  SPEAKER_01: So the way we work is we we have certain values.
• 21:21
  SPEAKER_01: So strengthen vulnerability and authenticity.
• 21:24
  SPEAKER_01: Like those things make us stronger, we value we're learning together, and so on.
• 21:30
  SPEAKER_01: So we have certain values and we have certain ways of behaviour, like civility, curiosity, generosity, and orthodacity in that sense of speaking only from your own experience.
• 21:41
  SPEAKER_01: But it's also a very safe process because I never ask people to tell me like what sort of a row they're having with their partner or what stage their divorce is at, or who's getting custody of the kids.
• 21:53
  SPEAKER_01: They don't need to tell me that, and they don't need to tell the group.
• 21:56
  SPEAKER_01: It's not a men's circle where you just share and you blah.
• 22:00
  SPEAKER_01: About whatever your your problem is.
• 22:02
  SPEAKER_01: Because that's helpful a little bit, and maybe you get some empathy from others who are maybe in the same position.
• 22:07
  SPEAKER_01: So it can be cathartic to tell your story, but it doesn't change how you feel about it ultimately.
• 22:13
  SPEAKER_01: You still still have the same problem.
• 22:15
  SPEAKER_01: So what I'm trying to do is trying to help the guys to understand and develop the skills and the confidence to be able to manage whatever comes up.
• 22:24
  SPEAKER_01: So we have the introduction of the what are we doing here?
• 22:27
  SPEAKER_01: What are the rules of behavior?
• 22:29
  SPEAKER_01: And then we just have some sort of short icebreaker, so just make a new friend, pretty informal, maybe related to whatever the theme is.
• 22:36
  SPEAKER_01: Then we have a quick check-in, just a few seconds to hear everybody's voice and understand roughly what they're bringing into the room how they do, but very short.
• 22:45
  SPEAKER_01: And then we'll do some sort of little movement and or breath work.
• 22:48
  SPEAKER_01: Just uh connect, kind of stand up, move around, help the guys relax.
• 22:52
  SPEAKER_01: And we do this in a circle typically because I don't want any sense of hierarchy.
• 22:56
  SPEAKER_01: Men are very at who is the top dog here.
• 22:59
  SPEAKER_01: It's the alpha male and the mile, the beat in the gamma.
• 23:02
  SPEAKER_01: I think kind of instinctively just want to know w where we sit in the pecking order.
• 23:08
  SPEAKER_01: So you know, I just make them do stuff that anybody with any body shape or any ability can do.
• 23:12
  SPEAKER_01: Very simple, gentle movement.
• 23:15
  SPEAKER_01: And we're all doing it together, and we may all feel ridiculous or whatever, it may all feel a bit a bit strange.
• 23:22
  SPEAKER_01: Okay, we all just do it, and it's fine.
• 23:24
  SPEAKER_01: So that kind of flattens the hierarchy, we sit my circle.
• 23:28
  SPEAKER_01: And then we'll move into some kind of slow down and meditate on this thing that triggers me.
• 23:33
  SPEAKER_01: So for example, I'm having a divorce and we're having a dispute about child custody or something.
• 23:39
  SPEAKER_01: So I just invite the guys to notice what they notice internally when they bring that to mind.
• 23:45
  SPEAKER_01: So everybody's just sitting quiet and guiding the meditation, everybody else sitting in silence.
• 23:49
  SPEAKER_01: And I'm just guiding them through what do they notice in their body, like where do they feel it?
• 23:53
  SPEAKER_01: When I really think about this next court hearing or whatever it is, like where do I feel the tension, the sickness, the gut punch, the frustration, whatever the emotions are.
• 24:04
  SPEAKER_01: So just helping them to notice their own experience and take a little bit of distance and perspective on that.
• 24:10
  SPEAKER_01: So I can sort of say, okay, this is I have a feeling I'm feeling anger, I'm feeling frustration, I'm feeling resentment, I'm feeling whatever.
• 24:16
  SPEAKER_01: So they can bring a little bit of compassion to that.
• 24:19
  SPEAKER_01: Okay, yeah, this is tough.
• 24:20
  SPEAKER_01: This really sucks.
• 24:21
  SPEAKER_01: So that is how I'm feeling.
• 24:22
  SPEAKER_01: So just feel and allow.
• 24:25
  SPEAKER_01: And then we go into a dialogue practice, which is a very structured way of practicing.
• 24:29
  SPEAKER_01: So typically it's three or four minutes each, separate speaker listener.
• 24:33
  SPEAKER_01: So if I'm speaking, you're just listening and you're just offering your presence, you're paying attention, but you don't need to ask questions, you don't need to worry about summarizing.
• 24:41
  SPEAKER_01: You don't need to validate anything.
• 24:43
  SPEAKER_01: You're literally just offering your presence.
• 24:46
  SPEAKER_01: Which is very liberating for you.
• 24:47
  SPEAKER_01: Because you could just listen.
• 24:48
  SPEAKER_01: And it's very liberating for me, because I can just share.
• 24:51
  SPEAKER_01: And I don't need to worry and I don't need to worry about you being interrupting or answering questions or whatever.
• 24:57
  SPEAKER_01: And all I'm sharing is what am I noticing when I think about this next court hearing?
• 25:01
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 25:02
  SPEAKER_01: I'm noticing that my cheeks are getting red, I'm noticing my head is throbbing, I'm noticing my fists are clenching, I'm noticing the sick feeling in my gut.
• 25:10
  SPEAKER_01: I'm noticing the story that this is so bloody unfair, I'm noticing I'm so confused because I don't even know how we got here, and yeah, all of that.
• 25:17
  SPEAKER_01: So it's just noticing and sharing this is what I'm noticing.
• 25:21
  SPEAKER_01: And then we swab.
• 25:22
  SPEAKER_01: And so I will look at the listener, look at the speaker, you sharing your experience of whatever the topics in our topic.
• 25:29
  SPEAKER_01: Probably we will find our inner experience is quite similar because our biology is healing.
• 25:37
  SPEAKER_01: Or it may be different.
• 25:38
  SPEAKER_01: Either way, we're going to learn quite a lot from having this shared practice together.
• 25:42
  SPEAKER_01: And then we'll have a little bit of time just to share between us ourselves, like a debrief.
• 25:46
  SPEAKER_01: What did you notice?
• 25:47
  SPEAKER_01: Oh, I noticed I felt so connected when you said this, I felt that.
• 25:51
  SPEAKER_01: I think like we felt the same thing.
• 25:54
  SPEAKER_01: So you connect at a very deep human level, even with a complete stranger, like it could be someone you've never even met in the community before.
• 26:00
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 26:01
  SPEAKER_01: And you get this deep sense of connection.
• 26:03
  SPEAKER_01: And then we might have a second round of that, and then we will have some group sharing at the end, which it's kind of like a circle time, but you don't go round the circle.
• 26:12
  SPEAKER_01: Not everybody has to share.
• 26:14
  SPEAKER_01: And so we just invite whoever would like to share, just to put their hand up.
• 26:18
  SPEAKER_01: And you know, I noticed this, this is what I learned, and I can see my pattern, I can see how I could manage it more skillfully.
• 26:25
  SPEAKER_01: You know, I can offer myself a little bit more compassion.
• 26:28
  SPEAKER_01: So it's just harvesting the collective wins wisdom and insight at the end.
• 26:33
  SPEAKER_01: So that's basically how the practice looks.
• 26:35
  SPEAKER_01: So it's quite different from a typical men's circle, quite different from peer non-mitting.
• 26:41
  SPEAKER_01: So it's not it's not peer support in the sense of just sharing your story, percentage of a little bit of empathy.
• 26:49
  SPEAKER_01: It's actually the deep inner work that will allow you to navigate these ups and downs with a little more ease and grace, a little bit more freedom.
• 26:58
  SPEAKER_00: That that is the that is very beautiful, the way that you describe it.
• 27:02
  SPEAKER_00: And uh I'm reading right now the book by Barry Stevens, Don't Push the River, which is about the start of the gestalt framework.
• 27:14
  SPEAKER_00: And it I can see a lot of a lot of similarities to the way that Fritz Pearls and those other psychologists start to be able to like these ways of human ways of taking out the awareness out of yourself, because often, as you said earlier, we bottle up a lot of things inside of ourselves, inside of our body, so that's only about our face effectively is doing the talking, literally and pun intended in this case.
• 27:44
  SPEAKER_00: But no, it's it is it is it is very powerful when you do something like that.
• 27:48
  SPEAKER_00: And I will put in the show notes in case people want to join the WhatsApp group because that seems like the main way of of communication, of getting sort of like getting the next uh meeting, the next sessions, the next uh sort of like events that you're that you're doing.
• 28:04
  SPEAKER_00: I I have a bit of a of a I'm a bit selfish sometimes when I do these interviews.
• 28:10
  SPEAKER_00: And these communities got more than 150 people now.
• 28:14
  SPEAKER_00: You i'm sure that you are doing these, you have talked with many different men on a daily basis.
• 28:22
  SPEAKER_00: Do you have an advice to somebody?
• 28:26
  SPEAKER_00: Maybe going through a tough time, maybe going through something that maybe they do not know how to how to deal with.
• 28:34
  SPEAKER_00: What would be your advice?
• 28:37
  SPEAKER_01: Uh give me a call.
• 28:38
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, I mean ask ask for help.
• 28:40
  SPEAKER_01: So asking for help as a man is an act of extreme vulnerability for a lot of men.
• 28:48
  SPEAKER_01: For example, if I go to the supermarket and I'm trying to find something that I don't buy often, I will walk around that supermarket for 10 minutes trying to find it, rather than just stop and say, can you just tell me where the brine sword is?
• 29:02
  SPEAKER_01: So I don't want to admit that I don't know.
• 29:05
  SPEAKER_01: I mean it's just not rational, but it's just the way I am.
• 29:08
  SPEAKER_01: Like asking for directions, be like, no, no, no, let me try and work it out.
• 29:12
  SPEAKER_01: Even though I am really, really bad at navigation, I really do need to stop and just ask for a bit.
• 29:17
  SPEAKER_01: Except in Dublin where I had two people say, Oh no, it's that way.
• 29:20
  SPEAKER_01: That was very confusing.
• 29:22
  SPEAKER_01: So asking for help for guys is very, very hard because it feels very vulnerable.
• 29:26
  SPEAKER_01: Like I should know, I should be in control, I should have my act together.
• 29:30
  SPEAKER_01: This feels so weak, feels so kind of helpless.
• 29:33
  SPEAKER_01: It just doesn't feel good to ask for help.
• 29:35
  SPEAKER_01: But particularly if the stakes are high and you really are struggling.
• 29:38
  SPEAKER_01: And like if it's the first time you've lost your job, or the first time you've been made redundant, or the first time you had a baby, or the first time you've split up with your partner of many years.
• 29:48
  SPEAKER_01: You know, the first time you've had a really difficult, toxic boss, you know.
• 29:52
  SPEAKER_01: These are tough moments for guys, and we haven't faced that probably, but maybe if it's the first time.
• 29:58
  SPEAKER_01: And so we do really need a little bit of help and a little bit of support.
• 30:02
  SPEAKER_01: But we feel like I've got to figure this out, because that's what guys do.
• 30:05
  SPEAKER_01: We just figure we have to be independent and rugged and tough and just get on with it.
• 30:11
  SPEAKER_01: So yeah, so ask ask for help, even if it's just talk to a friend, say, look, I'm feeling kind of confused, I'm feeling a bit lost, I don't know what to do.
• 30:18
  SPEAKER_01: Speak to a friend, you can certainly reach out to Movemen, you can reach out to me.
• 30:22
  SPEAKER_01: You know, in parallel with Move Men, I've been cultivating a one-to-one practice.
• 30:26
  SPEAKER_01: So I call it Moody mentoring and healing.
• 30:29
  SPEAKER_01: Because I'm not a coach and I'm not a therapist, I'm not a counsellor.
• 30:33
  SPEAKER_01: But what I am doing is kind of exactly the same as I described for the Moon Man, helping people to really unpack what is this whole emotional experience and helping them go a little bit deeper in terms of where does that come from.
• 30:47
  SPEAKER_01: Because it will always come from some sort of younger version of you experience, probably from childhood.
• 30:53
  SPEAKER_01: Possibly even pre-verbal.
• 30:55
  SPEAKER_01: Gabor Mate is a global expert on trauma.
• 30:59
  SPEAKER_01: And he says that he explains it really well.
• 31:01
  SPEAKER_01: He says, as a young child, like as a baby, you have two primary needs.
• 31:05
  SPEAKER_01: One is for attachment.
• 31:07
  SPEAKER_01: So if your carers are not attached, if you're not attached to your carers, that's an existential threat.
• 31:12
  SPEAKER_01: Like you're gonna die if you don't get fed.
• 31:18
  SPEAKER_01: So you have that need.
• 31:19
  SPEAKER_01: You also have a need to be authentic and to express yourself.
• 31:22
  SPEAKER_01: Because that's all you can do.
• 31:23
  SPEAKER_01: You can just cry and yell when you're hungry or when you're wet or you're poop-pooed or whatever.
• 31:28
  SPEAKER_01: Or you're tired.
• 31:30
  SPEAKER_01: Um authenticity.
• 31:32
  SPEAKER_01: But over time we learn that some parts of ourselves are not acceptable to our carers.
• 31:40
  unknown: Okay.
• 31:40
  SPEAKER_01: So if I express my anger by throwing my toys, my mum is gonna get cross with me.
• 31:45
  SPEAKER_01: And then I'm gonna get super anxious because oh my god, maybe mum doesn't love me if I throw my toys.
• 31:50
  SPEAKER_01: So I will suppress my anger.
• 31:52
  SPEAKER_01: Okay, anger is not okay.
• 31:54
  SPEAKER_01: You know?
• 31:55
  SPEAKER_01: So I will compromise my authenticity and my self-expression in order to go please my mum.
• 32:01
  SPEAKER_01: Okay?
• 32:02
  SPEAKER_01: And you will do exactly the same with your boss, and you'll do exactly the same with your partner.
• 32:07
  SPEAKER_01: Oh yes.
• 32:08
  SPEAKER_01: Right.
• 32:08
  SPEAKER_01: So it's just helping people to see that this conditioning starts way, way young.
• 32:12
  SPEAKER_01: And the fact that you're getting triggered by somebody today is because your nervous system is remembering something that happened when you were very small, or some way of responding to that sort of situation when you were very small, and when you didn't have the emotional capacity to be able to deal with it in a more mature and adult way.
• 32:30
  SPEAKER_01: And so that younger part carries that struggle and that pattern.
• 32:35
  SPEAKER_01: And you've got to be able to find that younger part and find out how it's doing, how it's feeling, what a support does it need.
• 32:42
  SPEAKER_01: Just offer it a little bit of tenderness and kindness and reassurance.
• 32:46
  SPEAKER_01: Actually, it's now an adult in the room and that you've got this and that it can relax but you know, not have to do its job of protecting you by suppressing.
• 32:59
  SPEAKER_01: So, yeah, so that's how I do one-to-one work.
• 33:01
  SPEAKER_01: It's kind of profound, takes a little bit of time and patience.
• 33:05
  SPEAKER_01: But it's it's really important.
• 33:07
  SPEAKER_01: So you don't need to go necessarily even to see a psychiatrist.
• 33:10
  SPEAKER_01: I mean, if you've got excuse me, proportional anxiety or psychosis or something for sure, you need medical help, and I would always refer people to professional help when they need it.
• 33:20
  SPEAKER_01: But for most of us, just being able to do that inner work, that inner expiration, be held in a safe space with someone like myself.
• 33:28
  SPEAKER_01: And there are others who do similar work, and in Hong Kong, you know.
• 33:31
  SPEAKER_01: It's so so helpful.
• 33:33
  SPEAKER_01: And it doesn't need to be scary or threatening or difficult.
• 33:37
  SPEAKER_01: So much people are about seeing a therapist, so partly why I call it mentoring, because mentoring has no stigma.
• 33:45
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, so you you do the work, right?
• 33:46
  SPEAKER_01: It's not it's not it's not pathologizing life struggles.
• 33:50
  SPEAKER_01: I think there's a tendency to pathologize trauma and pathologise depression and anxiety.
• 33:56
  SPEAKER_01: And these are just normal experiences, that's me.
• 33:59
  SPEAKER_01: That's a while.
• 34:00
  SPEAKER_00: We we like collect labels.
• 34:02
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 34:03
  SPEAKER_00: Because they they provide a simplification of what actually is going on.
• 34:08
  SPEAKER_00: By the way, I I've been again, I've been hearing a voice now for uh forty minutes, and I cannot believe that you were in a global law form.
• 34:22
  SPEAKER_00: You moved completely into these so spoken, very caring, very compassionate.
• 34:30
  SPEAKER_00: Again, I know that you don't want to call the word therapist therapies, but I think I'm gonna use it here sort of like therapeutic person.
• 34:39
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 34:40
  SPEAKER_00: Do you have a miss your whole life?
• 34:43
  SPEAKER_01: No, no, no, no.
• 34:45
  SPEAKER_01: No, I mean that was all about uh you know performing and achieving uh creating a sense of I don't know, worth in the world.
• 34:55
  SPEAKER_01: And I get I get my sort of so I call it midita.
• 34:58
  SPEAKER_01: Midita is uh um Sanskrit word and it means vicarious joy or joy in the happiness of and so that's kind of how I that's kind of my intention.
• 35:08
  SPEAKER_01: I get so much joy from helping people.
• 35:11
  SPEAKER_01: Like yesterday I had two people in tears in one of these sessions because it just opened up a whole bunch of stuff, really flooded with a lot of emotions, in a very healthy way.
• 35:20
  SPEAKER_01: Like they needed to feel what they were feeling, and they weren't they weren't re-traumatizing or anything.
• 35:24
  SPEAKER_01: They were just for the first time in maybe a very, very long time able to feel what they could feel.
• 35:31
  SPEAKER_01: So, you know, for me, even though we didn't completely resolve their issues in one session, which this isn't gonna happen, there was still enough of a shift.
• 35:42
  SPEAKER_01: And one of them went away saying, This was so amazing, I really want to set time to reflect.
• 35:46
  SPEAKER_01: That's her way of being, journaling.
• 35:49
  SPEAKER_01: And the other one said, I want to sign up for next week.
• 35:52
  SPEAKER_01: And anyway, they both felt some sense of catharsis or some sense of relief or some insights that they didn't have before, some understanding that really just helped them be with their situation.
• 36:03
  SPEAKER_01: And for me, that's just like I love that.
• 36:05
  SPEAKER_01: That just leaves me feeling, you know, even taller than I actually am.
• 36:08
  SPEAKER_01: Well I'm pretty tall already.
• 36:10
  SPEAKER_01: And you feel like your heart is full.
• 36:12
  SPEAKER_01: And it's just so rewarding and so lovely to see them making soft progress, even if they're still facing struggles.
• 36:19
  SPEAKER_01: So Yeah, so I get all that joy.
• 36:21
  SPEAKER_01: I mean, like I said, I, you know, I'm reconnecting with the energy of that ten-year-old little me, who was very loving and very very sensitive, very attuned to other people, probably very much already a people, please say.
• 36:33
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, so the other thing actually, which is quite funny and ironic in a way, is the first open day I went to university, my local university, was actually the psychology department.
• 36:44
  SPEAKER_01: And this would have been like 1983, two or three, a long time ago.
• 36:49
  SPEAKER_01: And in those days, psychology was still like the Rorsach's splotch diagrams.
• 36:53
  SPEAKER_01: It was all pretty sketchy and not really at all science-based.
• 36:57
  SPEAKER_01: Not really at all evidence-based.
• 36:59
  SPEAKER_01: Freudian dream analysis and all that stuff, which is a bit maybe flaky these days.
• 37:03
  SPEAKER_01: You know, whereas it all was just a sensible, conventional, reliable, predictable career.
• 37:09
  SPEAKER_01: You know, so even then I felt like I am actually compromising some part of my authenticity, because actually I really was interested in the psychology, and you know, maybe life would have been very different if that's the direction.
• 37:23
  SPEAKER_01: But I did feel it's pressure to like compromise my authenticity, to please my parents and my teachers, and you know, whatever, and compete with my peers and all of that stuff.
• 37:33
  SPEAKER_01: So yeah, anyway, it's a very long answer.
• 37:36
  SPEAKER_01: But that's that's how I got the context in which I kind of got to where I got to today.
• 37:41
  SPEAKER_01: Because I always had that.
• 37:43
  SPEAKER_01: I was just in the right place.
• 37:45
  SPEAKER_01: Being empathetic was somehow either seen as a threat to the leadership you just wanted to be hard-not commercial, or it was seen as being a bit weak and people didn't understand it because they're just used to bossing people around.
• 37:59
  SPEAKER_01: So, you know, I always felt like servant leadership would have been more my natural way of being, and that's what I tried to do, and my team members like they literally love me because I was so supportive to them.
• 38:11
  SPEAKER_01: And I love them back.
• 38:12
  SPEAKER_01: But in Hong Kong that is very countercultural, because they expect you to be the directive leadership type.
• 38:19
  SPEAKER_01: So I always felt like I was not going to be able to really thrive in that context because it's not true to me.
• 38:28
  SPEAKER_01: So something always felt a bit off.
• 38:30
  SPEAKER_01: There's always a bit of tension or dissonance I felt through.
• 38:35
  SPEAKER_01: Especially my time in Hong Kong, but probably also in previous parts of my career that I mentioned.
• 38:40
  SPEAKER_01: Of course.
• 38:42
  SPEAKER_00: Last question, and then I promise that I'll let you go for your uh coffee in the morning.
• 38:46
  SPEAKER_00: Um well not coffee in the morning for your I don't know, third guess.
• 38:51
  SPEAKER_00: Um looking back, do you think let me rephrase a question?
• 38:58
  SPEAKER_00: Would you have taken this step of starting on your own of quick incorporate earlier than when you did?
• 39:09
  SPEAKER_01: Well, I mean I actually did do that.
• 39:11
  SPEAKER_01: So when I was transitioning from being a lawyer to being a law firm manager, I did actually take two and a half years off.
• 39:18
  SPEAKER_01: And I would have been around twenty-nine, thirty years old at that point.
• 39:23
  SPEAKER_01: Um and I decided to take that break and I did an executive MBA for that two of those two and a half years.
• 39:29
  SPEAKER_01: And also we had two kids during that time, and I was actually the stay-home parent, and my partner went back to work pretty quickly.
• 39:36
  SPEAKER_01: So and then I was just like, you know, hustling, trying to do a bit of consulting and trying to make ends meet as best I could.
• 39:42
  SPEAKER_01: So I was contributing a little bit to the household, but getting myself an MBA, which I felt I needed because lawyers don't have management training, it's just not part of our professional training.
• 39:52
  SPEAKER_01: So I felt I needed to get an MBA so I could actually manage, you know, often.
• 39:58
  SPEAKER_01: So it's not the first time that I quit my job and with nothing to go to and had to hustle.
• 40:04
  SPEAKER_01: You know, so that that experience was like okay.
• 40:07
  SPEAKER_01: It's hard.
• 40:08
  SPEAKER_01: But it's possible.
• 40:11
  SPEAKER_01: Well, I learned that when I was 30-ish.
• 40:13
  SPEAKER_01: You know, hard but possible.
• 40:14
  SPEAKER_01: And now I'm more financially secure, luckily.
• 40:17
  SPEAKER_01: I was about 55 and I had digitally saved for my whole career because I come from a sort of Scottish heritage and very frugal.
• 40:26
  SPEAKER_01: Yes.
• 40:26
  SPEAKER_01: You've never had a flashy car, you know, none of that stuff.
• 40:29
  SPEAKER_01: Never found the need to have flashy, expensive holidays or eat out a lot, you know, none of that.
• 40:34
  SPEAKER_01: So I had enough financial stability to know that I would be okay, even if I made no money.
• 40:40
  SPEAKER_01: And I honestly don't make any money.
• 40:46
  SPEAKER_01: I get paid for my domestic helper from the movement.
• 40:49
  SPEAKER_01: So, you know, it's good.
• 40:50
  SPEAKER_01: For me, it's not about the money at this stage of life.
• 40:53
  SPEAKER_01: It is about the Mudita thing.
• 40:55
  SPEAKER_01: It's how do I how do I help others and you know, just help them get through their own life's challenges with a little more a little more ease.
• 41:04
  SPEAKER_00: That's that no, that is wonderful.
• 41:07
  SPEAKER_00: And Brian, thank you very much for staying on for such a long time.
• 41:10
  SPEAKER_00: I really appreciate your taking the time and and again, I can say that I'm a happy member of the movement.
• 41:17
  SPEAKER_00: I still need to come to one of the sessions, but I'm looking at the WhatsApp group and safe to check where the when the next one is.
• 41:24
  SPEAKER_00: Um so uh if people want to know more about you, where can they find you?
• 41:29
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, so they can find me at Brianhenderson.hk.
• 41:34
  SPEAKER_01: And they can find moveman at moveman.hk.
• 41:38
  SPEAKER_01: We can find me full of stranger cobs.
• 41:41
  SPEAKER_01: And the loud birds find and always happy to have I keep my colours full.
• 41:53
  SPEAKER_01: It's not that I've noticed.
• 41:57
  SPEAKER_00: Thank you very much.
• 41:58
  SPEAKER_00: It's not having one.
• 42:01
  SPEAKER_01: I just hold it close and quiet till the moment lives it high.