November 26, 2025 • 37 mins
Warren Phillip, the General Manager of Essentially Men, experienced a personal journey of transformation, that coupled with the importance of mental health support for men has seen his work impact countless others. Speaking about his experience, Warren revealed how attending a retreat with his son over a decade ago became a turning point in his life, helping him confront his emotions and improve his relationships.
Warren described his life before the retreat as one focused on career success, where he worked long hours as a Chief Financial Officer, often at the expense of his family relationships.
Feeling disconnected from his wife and children, he realised he needed to make a change. His first step was attending a week-long retreat organised by Essentially Men, a program designed to help men connect with their emotions and build meaningful relationships. Initially skeptical, Warren found the experience transformative, as it introduced him to the concept of sharing his feelings in a safe and supportive environment.
The retreat led Warren to participate in additional workshops and eventually join the organisation’s service team, where he supported other men on their journeys. Over time, he became deeply involved in the community, which fosters trust, active listening, and vulnerability among its members. This involvement helped him integrate the lessons learned into his daily life, leading to stronger relationships with his family and a deeper sense of self-awareness.
Warren’s story highlights the growing need for mental health support among men, particularly younger generations. He noted a shift in the age of participants attending Essentially Men workshops, with more men in their mid-30s seeking help compared to the mid-40s demographic seen in previous years. This change reflects a broader societal trend of increased awareness and reduced stigma surrounding mental health issues.
Essentially Men’s flagship program, “Men Being Real,” offers a weekend retreat followed by seven weeks of integration sessions. These sessions help participants apply the tools they’ve learned to their everyday lives. Many men go on to form independent support groups, fostering long-term connections and providing a safe space to share their experiences.
Warren’s journey from a high-powered corporate career to leading Essentially Men underscores the importance of prioritising mental health and relationships. His story serves as a powerful reminder that seeking help and embracing vulnerability can lead to profound personal growth and stronger connections with loved ones.
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Speaker 1 (00:08):
You're listening to a podcast from News Talk SEDB. Follow
this and our wide range of podcasts now on iHeartRadio.
Speaker 2 (00:18):
Greetings and welcome. I'm Hamish Williams and you're listening to
the podcast version of The Nutters Club, a show about
mental health broadcast weekly on News Talk SeeDB. Each week
we meet people who talk about their own experiences with
mental health in the hope that it might help you
with your own. The show is broadcast live on Sunday
(00:40):
nights on News Talk SeeDB right across New Zealand and
around the world. This week, myself and psychotherapist Carl McDonald
spoke with Warren Phillip, the general manager of Essentially Men,
about his own personal transformation through the Essentially Men workshops
and community, and the shifting trends and mental health that
(01:00):
he's helping address. Let us know what you think, as
well as what you learn from our chat on any
of our social media platforms.
Speaker 3 (01:08):
Just search for the.
Speaker 2 (01:09):
Nutters Club ends it it's given to this week's episode.
So mc warren, tell us a little bit about yourself. Then,
where were you born? Where'd you grow up?
Speaker 3 (01:17):
Yeah, I'm a rare breed. Actually I'm an Auckland are
born and bred westy Lad, very proud westy Lad. Up
until about a year ago, I was still living in
new Land, so I've spent my whole life in new Land.
Grew up there on a bit of land. Parents had
(01:37):
three quarters of an acre at a big glasshouse in
the backyard. Grew up with my sister and it was
quite rural. So yeah, just stayed local and Newland Primary
Blockhouse Bay Intermediate, Green Bay High School, Auckland UNI.
Speaker 2 (01:54):
And yeah, what was it like growing out for you?
I mean when it sounds like, you know, you kept it,
like you said, really local. So did you have a
good community around you?
Speaker 3 (02:04):
Yeah, it was mainly just family. We had. The big
section was because we had a big glasshouse and out
the back so mum and dad grew tomatoes commercially as
well as working full time. So we had a bit
of an expression which was that everyone worked in the glasshouse.
So from a really young age, my sister and I
(02:27):
we were out in the glasshouse learning how to grow
tomatoes and everything involved with that. So it was kind
of a tight small community rather than a big community.
There was a few locals that mom and dad knew
really well, and we hung out with them. But yeah,
mainly family.
Speaker 2 (02:46):
So did the horticultural of the gardening bug. Did this
influence you at all when you sort of got to
high school years?
Speaker 3 (02:54):
Not really, No, Probably the biggest influence was it was
actually out for dinner with my sister last night, and
neither of us eat tomatoes. The joke in the family
is that you know, you don't eat the profits. So
but yeah, to this day, neither of us really like tomatoes.
(03:14):
My sister's got a really green thumb. I love gardening,
but I'm more the destroyer. I love chainsawing down a
tree and the big stuff, So not really a green thumb.
I don't think.
Speaker 2 (03:27):
Get on the end of a weed whacker and yeah.
Speaker 3 (03:29):
It's the best time. My right on, I love my
right on. You have a right on? Yeah, there you go.
Speaker 2 (03:35):
So, look, you mentioned going to university. What were you studying.
What was sort of the dreams and the ambitions at
that point of your life.
Speaker 3 (03:41):
Yeah, in high school I had a look at careers
and to be honest, try to decide what would make
the most money and figured out I was really good
with numbers and decided that accountancy was the way to go.
So I went to Auckland UNI a long time ago now,
(04:05):
probably in the eighties, and studied commerce and graduated eighty four.
I think I just turned twenty and came out with
a commerce degree in accountancy and commercial law. It actually
just seems like a really long time ago now, to
(04:25):
be honest.
Speaker 2 (04:26):
So exciting time though, you know, the fast paced eighties
and everyone was chasing money on the stock market. Did
you get part of its wrapped up and all that
at the time.
Speaker 3 (04:37):
No. Probably the closest I got was early on in
my working life there was a few of us went
to Hong Kong to work for a couple of months,
and one of the guys that I went with was
doing the big share market thing and making lots of money.
And I remember when we went to Hong Kong, it
(04:57):
was just before the crash, and he was skouting that
he'd borrowed twenty grand and he'd he had a portfolio
with forty and then by the end of the the
trip to Hong Kong he was not quite so happy
because he'd borrowed twenty grand and had a portfolio worth
twenty grand. So I never really dabbled in the share market.
(05:19):
I think I'm too conservative by nature, to be honest.
Speaker 2 (05:24):
So you've started the scene at this point of your life,
you'd started an accountancy career. Have you gone on to
be the dizzying heights of some palatial glass accounting firm
or where is your life, your ambitions, your work taken you?
Speaker 3 (05:42):
Yeah, definitely followed that accountancy drive for a long time
up until about five years ago. So I followed it
for about thirty five years. Took me right through to CFO,
so chief financial officer roles for sort of mid size
(06:04):
corporates in New Zealand and Australia and some reasonably big roles,
sort of a staff of three hundred and you know,
turning over I don't know, fifty million dollars, so that
sort of scale. So I did that for a long time.
About five years ago. It was just before COVID had
(06:26):
Actually I was sort of starting to think that maybe
I wasn't in the right place anymore. You know, I'm
the numbers guy and the company and I'm the guy
at the table saying what about the people? And it
started to feel like maybe I was a bit out
of sync with that world.
Speaker 2 (06:46):
What else was going on in your life? Then? That
made you start questioning things in a way that was
different to you what you had done previously.
Speaker 3 (06:56):
Yeah, probably the big turning point for me, just trying
to think time frame was probably about fifteen years ago,
and I'd been very successful in terms of my career
and to be honest, earning some quite good money. And
I'd realized that my wife was a stranger to me.
(07:21):
We felt like flatmates, and my kids really didn't know me.
I was the guy that came home late at night
and put them to bed and you know, maybe tucked
them in and read them a story. But basically I
was kind of the stranger who came to dinner. And
I started thinking about that and going, well, that's crazy.
(07:44):
I wanted I wanted a family. I've got a family,
and I'm spending all my time at work, and so yeah,
that was that was kind of the starting point leading
up to sort of the five years ago. And immediately
(08:05):
one of the things that happened was I started looking
for a different job. So I used to commute like
an hour each way and a lot of time in
the car, and I found a job locally and it
turned my sort of hour commute each way into five
minutes each way, and suddenly I had some time time
(08:27):
for the kids, and that was kind of the start
of starting to look about what was in my life
and what was more important to me rather than just working.
Speaker 2 (08:38):
It's really interesting, isn't it, Because you know when you're
in those you know, in that situation where you know
you're winning good money, You've got a big job title
chief financial officer. You know that sounds pretty fancy when
you say it out loud, but you can kid yourself
into thinking, you know which I'm assuming. You know you
were leaving early, you were getting home late, and you
(08:59):
sit there and you go, well, but I'm doing good.
I'm doing good. But for you, did it not feel good?
Speaker 3 (09:05):
A simple answer is no, Like, like I felt good
at some level. I felt like I was providing, Like
my family had good resources and they could do things
like have holidays and didn't really want for anything. But
I kinda was going through life thinking, I'm sure there
(09:26):
are people out there who were actually happy like I
just felt. I used to joke that I was the
cash flow for the family and that that kind of
felt like my role.
Speaker 2 (09:37):
Did that make you happy?
Speaker 1 (09:38):
No?
Speaker 3 (09:38):
God, no, I guess it fed my ego, Like, like
you said, you know, chief financial officer, it's a big title,
and I felt like I was the man at work
but coming home and my kids are looking at me
like they don't know me. That that didn't make me happy.
Speaker 2 (10:04):
When you decided, Warren, that you needed to make change,
how hard was it because it sounds to me like
you had change on your mind for a long time.
But then the thing is too you know, the love
for your family you don't want to risk at all
by suddenly, you know, throwing it in to go and
do a job that perhaps is not going to pay
as much because all of a sudden you feel maybe
(10:26):
I'm going to be putting my family at more risk.
It might be you know, not getting as much money
and not as much opportunity. How did you manage to
have that conversation with yourself to then make that bold
move to go, Okay, I have to do something different
that perhaps doesn't involve the bottom line.
Speaker 3 (10:44):
Yeah, And if I'm being really honest, I didn't. I
didn't have that conversation with myself. I was I kind
of felt quite lost, like and how I got to
that point was my wife of the time actually started
having the conversation with me around not enjoying this relationship.
(11:10):
There's got to be more more between us than just flatmates.
So she started pushing me to actually look at myself
and look in the mirror, and you know, who's the
man I see looking back at me? And I found
that really quite difficult. My go to support person was
(11:33):
my wife. I didn't I had workmates, and I had
teammates like I played sport, had people acquaintances, but I
didn't really have any real friends. So when I had
issues challenges in my life, I'd talk to my wife,
and all of a sudden, my wife saying, I don't
like you so much anymore. I'm not even sure I
(11:53):
love you anymore. So that was really difficult because I
didn't know what to do with that. I didn't know.
I didn't the idea of actually talking to someone about
that didn't even occur to me. It's like, how do
I figure this out by myself? How do I sort
it out?
Speaker 2 (12:13):
So what did you do?
Speaker 3 (12:19):
Well, Funnily enough, my wife actually was doing a weekend
retreat for ladies and she found a brochure from essentially
men and at that point they were running a rights
of passage program for fathers and their sons, and she
(12:41):
gave me the brochure and suggested that it would be
something really cool for me and my oldest son to do.
And I'm not really sure why I agreed to it,
but I guess it felt like a week in close
connection with my son couldn't be a bad thing to do.
(13:02):
So I went off and did that, and that was
my first introduction to a Sally men. Had a week
with my son doing a whole bunch of really cool things,
and kind of went into it with the idea that
this will be really cool for him, and in the
(13:26):
process realized that there was a lot in this for
me and as of for instance, there was a whole
bunch of other dads. They're doing the same thing with
their sons. And one of the things we did every
every morning was we'd have a check in. There'd be
a small group of us, about four or five, and
(13:46):
we'd check in. And I discovered that there were men
out there that were actually sharing some of what was
going on for them with other men they trusted, and
I didn't have to keep it to myself. I didn't
have to figure it out all by myself. I could
(14:07):
actually talk to other people about it.
Speaker 2 (14:13):
What was that like to be able to suddenly have
everybody else articulating those thoughts that for so long had
just been rattling around your own head.
Speaker 3 (14:23):
Ah. It was quite confronting, actually, because it's like, I've
spent my whole life being this like I'm I'm the man,
I'm you know, providing for my family. I you know,
big boys don't cry, keep it in, harden up. And
to suddenly be in a situation where it's okay to
(14:45):
share how I was feeling to cry. Was yeah, pretty confronting, actually,
it was. It was quite difficult. I remember getting to
the end of that week week with my son and
(15:06):
talking to one of the guys there that is it
helped organize it, and just saying, it feels like this
door is being cracked open, and I'm really worried it's
going to slam shut, and I'll just go back to
the way I was.
Speaker 2 (15:24):
So Look, Warren, at this point, you know, you've gone
to this essentially mean week for the for the first
time you've gone with your son. But like you said,
this door had been opened and you're worried about it
it closing. Why are you worried about it closing. I mean,
it sounds to me that you know that actually you
were enjoying that door being open. What do you think
(15:45):
was going to close it?
Speaker 3 (15:49):
I think for me, there was the idea that I've
been away, if you like, at some level, on holiday
with my son, and it's easy to do these things
on holiday, but when I go back to the normal world,
to my real world, that I'll just fall back into
the old habits, you know, get up early, go to work,
(16:10):
come home late, just just revert back to what was
my normal. And I think that was the worry. I
worry that once I move outside of this what felt
like an artificial environment, it would all stop. I'll just
go back to normal.
Speaker 2 (16:30):
So you needed to find a way to actually apply
some change in your life that could mean that you
were able to keep this way of thinking and feeling. Yeah,
keep it going. So what did that look like once
you got home from the week long retreat with you boy?
Speaker 3 (16:48):
One of the first things I did there was a
guy in my home group, Steve, and he lived locally
as another Westy lad, and I rang him up and
said can we get together for a coffee? And we
just went down to linnm Hall and had a coffee together,
and my ender was to turn this into a regular
(17:12):
thing so that we'd get together and we'd talk. And
I was quite disappointed because at the end of the
coffee I suggested that to him and he was like,
oh God, no, I don't want to do that. So
at that point I was kind of like, well, I
wasn't quite sure. I think that was my master plan
(17:34):
and it didn't come off, so I wasn't quite sure
what to do. The penny dropped for me that essentially
men runs a number of different workshops, and I'd done
one that was designed for fathers and sons, but there
was one out there that was just designed for men,
and I thought, well, if the week long thing was
(17:58):
that great when it's designed mainly for my son, then
maybe the one that's designed for men would be worth doing.
So I basically signed up for the next one coming
and went and did that. The interesting thing for me
was I went and did that workshop, and I have
(18:22):
to be honest, I was quite disappointed. It wasn't as
powerful as as the week long experience with my son.
And yeah, and to be honest, looking back on it,
I was kind of standing on the edges, afraid to
jump in. It was new and different, and I didn't
really understand what was going on.
Speaker 2 (18:44):
What sort of things we're doing in the workshop. Just
to give us an idea, what were you doing and
talking about? How was it structured?
Speaker 3 (18:52):
Yeah, the Friday night is there's a whole bunch of
stuff done to sort of build the container of the weekend.
The invitation for the weekend is to show up and
be vulnerable and actually talk about what's going on in
your life with a whole bunch of men that you've
(19:12):
just met. So one of the first things that goes
on is about building a relationship and building a community
for that workshop so that there's some safety and so
on the first night there was some like there was
a trust walk that was that happened, so your eyes
(19:33):
closed and distrust and you get led on a bit
of a journey. But there were also some times to
check in with other men, sort of one on one,
because the large group can be a bit scary, whereas
one to one feels a little bit easier. Sure.
Speaker 2 (19:53):
Sure, So so that was that was that workshop, and
you came away from that and you thought, oh, okay,
you know it wasn't one hundred percent my cup of tea,
but I can still see value in what I'm doing here.
So what was your next your next step with this then?
Did you look for something more or did you think
perhaps you had some ideas?
Speaker 3 (20:15):
Yeah, I the next stept for me, And to this day,
I don't know why I decided to do it. I
just have no recall whatsoever. When these workshops are put on,
there's the men like myself who are the new men,
the participants who have just shown up for the first time.
(20:35):
But there's another group of men who show up to
support those men, and they're called the service team. And
I decided about a year after I'd done that first
workshop to come back on the service team and help
help some other men experience experience that. And I found
(21:01):
for me that being on service team was quite frigging
for a number of reasons. One was I knew what
was coming, so I'd kind of dropped that, Oh my god,
I don't want to open up too much here because
I don't know where the hell this is leading, so
that it disappeared because I knew where it was going,
(21:21):
and there's something quite alive in me about giving So
that opportunity to support other people made a real difference
for me in terms of the experience of the weekend.
And I guess the final bit was because I was
in there in a role. If things got too much
(21:44):
for me, then I just disappear into the kitchen and
clean some dishes or something and just have a break
from it all. While I kind of recented, so.
Speaker 2 (21:53):
There's always some dishes to be done, and no one's
ever going to say no to the guy that says
just going to pop into the kitchen decent tidying up.
Car McDonald, I want to bring you in here in
terms of what we're talking about with Warren and what
I'm hearing out how important it is for people to
be able to have that opportunity to work in a
(22:13):
group setting. Is this something that it's different for men
compared to women or is it just done in a
different way, And what is it about men's mental health
that perhaps requires to be able to get a bunch
of blokes together to actually make it work.
Speaker 4 (22:31):
Yeah, it's a great question, I mean the simple an
is it different? Not that different? I mean, I remember
when I started my relationship twenty five odd years ago
and my partner had a book group as you went
to every month, and I'm not sure how much talk
there was actually about books, to be honest, but you know,
it's about creating those spaces where the support can then happen.
(22:52):
And that requires trust, and it requires connection, and it
requires some degree of commitment right to come together and
talk regularly. So it could be really informal like a
book club or if you know, as a lot of
men sadly find themselves isolated without the natural skill to
actually make these things happen of their own accord, and
something like essentially Men's fantastic because what it does, of course,
(23:14):
is it gives you the experience of the value of
it and the intensive and then provides you with an
ongoing support group for a number of weeks.
Speaker 3 (23:22):
I think we're talking off.
Speaker 4 (23:23):
For about seven weeks as part of the program, but
then a number of those groups go on for quite
long times. And I think the thing is is that
once you've got that permission to talk, it's not that
men can't talk, it's that actually we need the spaces
where we feel safe, where we can trust people, and
where we can know that other people are going to
go there too. Because you don't want to be left hanging. No,
(23:45):
you know, I mean it's really hard to talk if
you don't know if other people are going to step forward.
But if you have that trust and you have that
commitment from everybody in the room, then actually groups can
be incredibly powerful, an incredibly powerful way to support each
other and actually, you know, to build resilience and good
mental health habits.
Speaker 2 (24:04):
So Warren talk to us about the mechanic sen of
essentially men. So you know, you ended up, you know,
you have you know, your group that comes together and
then it turns into sort of its own independent group
from there that is sort of self managed. It took
us through how this all works.
Speaker 3 (24:23):
Yeah, so the weekend workshops called Men Being Real And
as part of that workshop, there's the men that are
on that workshop, including the team meet for seven Tuesday
nights and the Tuesday nights we call it integration and
it's about it's really neat to have a powerful, amazing
(24:45):
weekend experience, but it's kind of like, how do I
integrate this into my life? How do I take the
things I've learned and make them a day to day
part of who I am and how I am? And
that's what integration is about. And on the last of
those seven nights, the goal is to form a men's
(25:05):
group with the men the participate from the men being
real weekend. And obviously there's some logistical things that can
get in the way of that, like geography is a
great one. Men don't want to drive for a couple
of hours to come to this thing once a week
or a fortnight. But generally a group will form and
(25:28):
these guys will make a commitment to come together generally
once a fortnite, often in a community hall, and there
are some rules about how they come together, not really rules,
they're more guidelines. For instance, often when at the start
(25:50):
of the evening, there'll be a grounding, so it's like,
you know, you've been out in your life, you've been working,
you've been doing whatever. Let's just take a couple of
minutes to you know, maybe be silent and just kind
of center ourselves on what we're doing now. And there's
some some guidelines around speaking. So the idea is that
(26:15):
when a man is speaking, the other men are listening,
and so there is we call it active listening. So
it's not just iol shut up while this guy has
his say. It's actually listening to what he has to
say and giving him some attention, and we try to
(26:36):
veer away from offering solutions and advice because often what's
needed is to be seen and to be heard. Sometimes
a man can ask for advice or you know, I'm lost,
I don't know what to do here, any ideas, guys,
But generally it's enough to actually just let it out
(26:56):
and tell his story and how he's feeling about it.
Speaker 2 (27:02):
When you think about your own experience with this, what
has been the for you, What has this done for
you that you didn't have previous and what does that
look like in your day to day life.
Speaker 3 (27:21):
I recently got married for the second time earlier this year, actually, congratulations,
thank you. And I've been with Meg for about ten years,
so I was already on my I guess personal journey
when I met her, and I talked to her about
(27:43):
the type of man I was twenty years ago, and
she says to me, I've never met him. I don't
know him. And so the things that are different for
me are that it's I have the way I am
on the planet. Is it's okay to show my emotions,
(28:03):
It's okay to actually talk about how I'm feeling, It's
okay to cry if that's what I need. And one
of the big differences in me is that I'm actually
brave enough with her to actually open my mouth and
tell her what I'm thinking and what I'm feeling and
(28:24):
how that was for me. And like any relationship, we're
not perfect. We have our moments. But the difference is
that we will actually generally once we've cooled down, so
it might not be straight away, but sort of fifteen minutes,
half an hour later, we'll come together and go, we
(28:46):
need to talk about that. What's going on? And so
the she calls it the courageous conversations, you know, the
courage to go, I didn't like what went on? Can
we talk about that? And to actually talk about it
without without blaming, the act of listening, actually shut up
(29:08):
and listen to her, listen to what she has to say,
and as hard as it is, and I'm not always
that fantastic at it is, to take on board what
she said and rather than blaming her and saying you
did this, and you did this, actually, the difference in
(29:29):
me is I feel more able to look at what
did I bring to this, So rather than blaming her,
it's like, well, what was my part in this? But
for me, it also means that our relationship is deeper
and closer because we have those courageous conversations, which mean
(29:54):
that the good times are better because there's a deep
level of trust and honesty in the relationship.
Speaker 2 (30:01):
So for a start, it sounds me like you've got
a better relationship with that other person in your life.
And if you Meg, thank you well done. And also too,
you've got a better relationship with yourself. What about relationship
with your kids?
Speaker 3 (30:19):
My kids now are pretty grown up. They're sort of
in there mid to late twenties, and a few years
back I had a bit of a chat with them
about what I was like as a dad, which was difficult,
(30:40):
and both my sons, we all three of us, have
agreed agreed that I'm doing a much better job in
the last ten to fifteen years than maybe I did
in the first ten or fifteen years. And you know
that that's lovely. It's I have a pretty close relationship
(31:02):
with both of them. My oldest is recently married, and
so you know, he's kind off and doing his own thing.
But it's really cool because he'll ring me. He kind
of parents me a little bit and wrings me and
you know, Dad, we need to catch up. Let's catch up.
It's been too long, you know. So Yeah, lately I
(31:26):
think I'm doing pretty good.
Speaker 2 (31:28):
I mean, Warren, in terms of what you're doing now,
I mean, how did you come to be the general
manager of this? I mean at one point, you know,
you're just turning up to go for a weekend with
your son, and I mean, by all means it's delivered
a measurable good for you. But how did you end
up finding yourself running the show?
Speaker 3 (31:48):
It was a surprise, put it that way. Yeah. So
I came to essentially men in twenty eleven so and
for thirteen years just at a whole bunch of service
teams and helped out and gave back. I was a
part of the community. And a year or so ago
(32:09):
the lady who'd been running the office for fifteen years
was retiring and I said, well, you know I can,
I can help out do the finances for you till
you find someone sure.
Speaker 2 (32:21):
I mean, you had experience in that, that's in your wheelhouse.
Speaker 3 (32:23):
Yeah, And that, over a few months led into a
conversation with the trustees who said, well, actually we think
you could do a hell of a lot more and yeah,
and they just suggested that I replace the lady when
she retired and take on a hell of a lot more.
(32:45):
And I thought, why not. I'd kind of stepped away
from the corporate world. I'd been doing handyman work for
three or four years, semi retired, kind of just cruising
along a bit, And I thought, okay, I give that
a crack. I'm obviously passionate about the organization, and I thought, yeah, okay,
(33:06):
I feel like I can make a difference.
Speaker 2 (33:09):
How long you've been in the role now for one year,
one month, one year, one month, okay. In terms of
the need that you're seeing out there in our communities
for essentially men, and the challenges that we see that
men are facing with their mental health, do you see
there being any kind of common thread in terms of
(33:32):
what it is that men aren't receiving or what the
need looks like most.
Speaker 3 (33:37):
Yeah, there's been an interesting shift, like I've been evolved
for over a decade, and the shift has been downward,
downward in age. So the men who are showing up
for our workshops are younger and so probably mid thirties
rather than mid forties, and what I'm seeing with those
guys is often a lack of hope, like they're really
(34:02):
just you know, what's the point, feeling really anxio, just
socially awkward, just really struggling to find their place in
the world and wondering why bother?
Speaker 2 (34:18):
Is that a good thing though?
Speaker 3 (34:19):
That?
Speaker 2 (34:19):
Do you think it's better for them to be coming
in their mid thirties rather than their mid forties?
Speaker 3 (34:23):
Oh? Absolutely, yeah, so it's a good thing. Yeah, yeah, absolutely.
Speaker 2 (34:28):
I think the point here is that, you know, we're
actually seeing a shift and that people are coming to
look for support and resources when it comes to their
mental health a lot earlier, rather than waiting until the things,
you know, hit a crisis point. Because the challenges of
your mid thirties, let's be honest, they probably that's when
they start emerging. Tends to be a little bit like
(34:50):
I mean, you'll appreciate this as an accounting term, a
compounding interest, which means it just gets bigger and bigger.
I mean, Kyler, we seeing this reflected than anything else
as well, in terms of the age that men are
starting to access mental health services.
Speaker 4 (35:04):
It's really interesting, actually, I was issue just reading something
this week, and the article is putting forward this idea
that actually, the midlife crisis has kind of gone as
any It was always a pretty statistically shaky kind of
idea to start with. What we're actually seeing is that
people are hitting crisis all over the place, so you know,
good news and then the bad news. But actually I
think that the more optimistic version is that, you know,
(35:27):
as we've talked about a lot on this show over
the years, awareness building is great. The stigmatization has been huge.
It's been generational. Like I mean, I've seen the change
in my lifetime, and you know, my kids generation won't
think twice about talking about mental health issues or seeking
help if they need it. So I'd like to think
(35:47):
that whether it's essentially men or whether it's people turning
up and officers like mine earlier, it's not only a
good thing. But actually I think it's just that raised awareness.
People now know these things are out there, they know
to look for them, they're not probably shy to talk
to workmates about it and to give it a crack.
Speaker 2 (36:03):
Well look, despite my disappointment at the midlife crisis is
no longer a thing, I was hoping for a brand
new sports car a read one.
Speaker 4 (36:11):
Please well you'll be fine, just you can just say
it is.
Speaker 3 (36:17):
Well.
Speaker 2 (36:17):
That's it for this episode of the Nutters Clubs, thanks
to our guest Warren Phillip, general manager of Essentially Men,
as well as my co host, psychotherapist car mc donk.
If you like what you heard and think it might
help someone out there, then please share this episode on
your own channels or with family and friends. And if
you ever want to be part of the show, give
(36:38):
us a call or text when we broadcast live on
news Talks here B eleven pm Sunday nights, New Zealand
standard time. Check out news Talks HEREB dot co dot
MZ for local frequencies or a link to the live stream.
A big thanks to New Zealand on Air for their
ongoing support in making the show. Take care and always
(36:58):
remember the world is a better place with you in it.
Life that isn't easy, it is, however worth it.
Speaker 1 (37:10):
For more from Newstalk st B, listen live on air
or online, and keep our shows with you wherever you
go with our podcasts on iHeartRadio
You're listening to a podcast from News Talk SEDB. Follow
this and our wide range of podcasts now on iHeartRadio.
Speaker 2 (00:18):
Greetings and welcome. I'm Hamish Williams and you're listening to
the podcast version of The Nutters Club, a show about
mental health broadcast weekly on News Talk SeeDB. Each week
we meet people who talk about their own experiences with
mental health in the hope that it might help you
with your own. The show is broadcast live on Sunday
(00:40):
nights on News Talk SeeDB right across New Zealand and
around the world. This week, myself and psychotherapist Carl McDonald
spoke with Warren Phillip, the general manager of Essentially Men,
about his own personal transformation through the Essentially Men workshops
and community, and the shifting trends and mental health that
(01:00):
he's helping address. Let us know what you think, as
well as what you learn from our chat on any
of our social media platforms.
Speaker 3 (01:08):
Just search for the.
Speaker 2 (01:09):
Nutters Club ends it it's given to this week's episode.
So mc warren, tell us a little bit about yourself. Then,
where were you born? Where'd you grow up?
Speaker 3 (01:17):
Yeah, I'm a rare breed. Actually I'm an Auckland are
born and bred westy Lad, very proud westy Lad. Up
until about a year ago, I was still living in
new Land, so I've spent my whole life in new Land.
Grew up there on a bit of land. Parents had
(01:37):
three quarters of an acre at a big glasshouse in
the backyard. Grew up with my sister and it was
quite rural. So yeah, just stayed local and Newland Primary
Blockhouse Bay Intermediate, Green Bay High School, Auckland UNI.
Speaker 2 (01:54):
And yeah, what was it like growing out for you?
I mean when it sounds like, you know, you kept it,
like you said, really local. So did you have a
good community around you?
Speaker 3 (02:04):
Yeah, it was mainly just family. We had. The big
section was because we had a big glasshouse and out
the back so mum and dad grew tomatoes commercially as
well as working full time. So we had a bit
of an expression which was that everyone worked in the glasshouse.
So from a really young age, my sister and I
(02:27):
we were out in the glasshouse learning how to grow
tomatoes and everything involved with that. So it was kind
of a tight small community rather than a big community.
There was a few locals that mom and dad knew
really well, and we hung out with them. But yeah,
mainly family.
Speaker 2 (02:46):
So did the horticultural of the gardening bug. Did this
influence you at all when you sort of got to
high school years?
Speaker 3 (02:54):
Not really, No, Probably the biggest influence was it was
actually out for dinner with my sister last night, and
neither of us eat tomatoes. The joke in the family
is that you know, you don't eat the profits. So
but yeah, to this day, neither of us really like tomatoes.
(03:14):
My sister's got a really green thumb. I love gardening,
but I'm more the destroyer. I love chainsawing down a
tree and the big stuff, So not really a green thumb.
I don't think.
Speaker 2 (03:27):
Get on the end of a weed whacker and yeah.
Speaker 3 (03:29):
It's the best time. My right on, I love my
right on. You have a right on? Yeah, there you go.
Speaker 2 (03:35):
So, look, you mentioned going to university. What were you studying.
What was sort of the dreams and the ambitions at
that point of your life.
Speaker 3 (03:41):
Yeah, in high school I had a look at careers
and to be honest, try to decide what would make
the most money and figured out I was really good
with numbers and decided that accountancy was the way to go.
So I went to Auckland UNI a long time ago now,
(04:05):
probably in the eighties, and studied commerce and graduated eighty four.
I think I just turned twenty and came out with
a commerce degree in accountancy and commercial law. It actually
just seems like a really long time ago now, to
(04:25):
be honest.
Speaker 2 (04:26):
So exciting time though, you know, the fast paced eighties
and everyone was chasing money on the stock market. Did
you get part of its wrapped up and all that
at the time.
Speaker 3 (04:37):
No. Probably the closest I got was early on in
my working life there was a few of us went
to Hong Kong to work for a couple of months,
and one of the guys that I went with was
doing the big share market thing and making lots of money.
And I remember when we went to Hong Kong, it
(04:57):
was just before the crash, and he was skouting that
he'd borrowed twenty grand and he'd he had a portfolio
with forty and then by the end of the the
trip to Hong Kong he was not quite so happy
because he'd borrowed twenty grand and had a portfolio worth
twenty grand. So I never really dabbled in the share market.
(05:19):
I think I'm too conservative by nature, to be honest.
Speaker 2 (05:24):
So you've started the scene at this point of your life,
you'd started an accountancy career. Have you gone on to
be the dizzying heights of some palatial glass accounting firm
or where is your life, your ambitions, your work taken you?
Speaker 3 (05:42):
Yeah, definitely followed that accountancy drive for a long time
up until about five years ago. So I followed it
for about thirty five years. Took me right through to CFO,
so chief financial officer roles for sort of mid size
(06:04):
corporates in New Zealand and Australia and some reasonably big roles,
sort of a staff of three hundred and you know,
turning over I don't know, fifty million dollars, so that
sort of scale. So I did that for a long time.
About five years ago. It was just before COVID had
(06:26):
Actually I was sort of starting to think that maybe
I wasn't in the right place anymore. You know, I'm
the numbers guy and the company and I'm the guy
at the table saying what about the people? And it
started to feel like maybe I was a bit out
of sync with that world.
Speaker 2 (06:46):
What else was going on in your life? Then? That
made you start questioning things in a way that was
different to you what you had done previously.
Speaker 3 (06:56):
Yeah, probably the big turning point for me, just trying
to think time frame was probably about fifteen years ago,
and I'd been very successful in terms of my career
and to be honest, earning some quite good money. And
I'd realized that my wife was a stranger to me.
(07:21):
We felt like flatmates, and my kids really didn't know me.
I was the guy that came home late at night
and put them to bed and you know, maybe tucked
them in and read them a story. But basically I
was kind of the stranger who came to dinner. And
I started thinking about that and going, well, that's crazy.
(07:44):
I wanted I wanted a family. I've got a family,
and I'm spending all my time at work, and so yeah,
that was that was kind of the starting point leading
up to sort of the five years ago. And immediately
(08:05):
one of the things that happened was I started looking
for a different job. So I used to commute like
an hour each way and a lot of time in
the car, and I found a job locally and it
turned my sort of hour commute each way into five
minutes each way, and suddenly I had some time time
(08:27):
for the kids, and that was kind of the start
of starting to look about what was in my life
and what was more important to me rather than just working.
Speaker 2 (08:38):
It's really interesting, isn't it, Because you know when you're
in those you know, in that situation where you know
you're winning good money, You've got a big job title
chief financial officer. You know that sounds pretty fancy when
you say it out loud, but you can kid yourself
into thinking, you know which I'm assuming. You know you
were leaving early, you were getting home late, and you
(08:59):
sit there and you go, well, but I'm doing good.
I'm doing good. But for you, did it not feel good?
Speaker 3 (09:05):
A simple answer is no, Like, like I felt good
at some level. I felt like I was providing, Like
my family had good resources and they could do things
like have holidays and didn't really want for anything. But
I kinda was going through life thinking, I'm sure there
(09:26):
are people out there who were actually happy like I
just felt. I used to joke that I was the
cash flow for the family and that that kind of
felt like my role.
Speaker 2 (09:37):
Did that make you happy?
Speaker 1 (09:38):
No?
Speaker 3 (09:38):
God, no, I guess it fed my ego, Like, like
you said, you know, chief financial officer, it's a big title,
and I felt like I was the man at work
but coming home and my kids are looking at me
like they don't know me. That that didn't make me happy.
Speaker 2 (10:04):
When you decided, Warren, that you needed to make change,
how hard was it because it sounds to me like
you had change on your mind for a long time.
But then the thing is too you know, the love
for your family you don't want to risk at all
by suddenly, you know, throwing it in to go and
do a job that perhaps is not going to pay
as much because all of a sudden you feel maybe
(10:26):
I'm going to be putting my family at more risk.
It might be you know, not getting as much money
and not as much opportunity. How did you manage to
have that conversation with yourself to then make that bold
move to go, Okay, I have to do something different
that perhaps doesn't involve the bottom line.
Speaker 3 (10:44):
Yeah, And if I'm being really honest, I didn't. I
didn't have that conversation with myself. I was I kind
of felt quite lost, like and how I got to
that point was my wife of the time actually started
having the conversation with me around not enjoying this relationship.
(11:10):
There's got to be more more between us than just flatmates.
So she started pushing me to actually look at myself
and look in the mirror, and you know, who's the
man I see looking back at me? And I found
that really quite difficult. My go to support person was
(11:33):
my wife. I didn't I had workmates, and I had
teammates like I played sport, had people acquaintances, but I
didn't really have any real friends. So when I had
issues challenges in my life, I'd talk to my wife,
and all of a sudden, my wife saying, I don't
like you so much anymore. I'm not even sure I
(11:53):
love you anymore. So that was really difficult because I
didn't know what to do with that. I didn't know.
I didn't the idea of actually talking to someone about
that didn't even occur to me. It's like, how do
I figure this out by myself? How do I sort
it out?
Speaker 2 (12:13):
So what did you do?
Speaker 3 (12:19):
Well, Funnily enough, my wife actually was doing a weekend
retreat for ladies and she found a brochure from essentially
men and at that point they were running a rights
of passage program for fathers and their sons, and she
(12:41):
gave me the brochure and suggested that it would be
something really cool for me and my oldest son to do.
And I'm not really sure why I agreed to it,
but I guess it felt like a week in close
connection with my son couldn't be a bad thing to do.
(13:02):
So I went off and did that, and that was
my first introduction to a Sally men. Had a week
with my son doing a whole bunch of really cool things,
and kind of went into it with the idea that
this will be really cool for him, and in the
(13:26):
process realized that there was a lot in this for
me and as of for instance, there was a whole
bunch of other dads. They're doing the same thing with
their sons. And one of the things we did every
every morning was we'd have a check in. There'd be
a small group of us, about four or five, and
(13:46):
we'd check in. And I discovered that there were men
out there that were actually sharing some of what was
going on for them with other men they trusted, and
I didn't have to keep it to myself. I didn't
have to figure it out all by myself. I could
(14:07):
actually talk to other people about it.
Speaker 2 (14:13):
What was that like to be able to suddenly have
everybody else articulating those thoughts that for so long had
just been rattling around your own head.
Speaker 3 (14:23):
Ah. It was quite confronting, actually, because it's like, I've
spent my whole life being this like I'm I'm the man,
I'm you know, providing for my family. I you know,
big boys don't cry, keep it in, harden up. And
to suddenly be in a situation where it's okay to
(14:45):
share how I was feeling to cry. Was yeah, pretty confronting, actually,
it was. It was quite difficult. I remember getting to
the end of that week week with my son and
(15:06):
talking to one of the guys there that is it
helped organize it, and just saying, it feels like this
door is being cracked open, and I'm really worried it's
going to slam shut, and I'll just go back to
the way I was.
Speaker 2 (15:24):
So Look, Warren, at this point, you know, you've gone
to this essentially mean week for the for the first
time you've gone with your son. But like you said,
this door had been opened and you're worried about it
it closing. Why are you worried about it closing. I mean,
it sounds to me that you know that actually you
were enjoying that door being open. What do you think
(15:45):
was going to close it?
Speaker 3 (15:49):
I think for me, there was the idea that I've
been away, if you like, at some level, on holiday
with my son, and it's easy to do these things
on holiday, but when I go back to the normal world,
to my real world, that I'll just fall back into
the old habits, you know, get up early, go to work,
(16:10):
come home late, just just revert back to what was
my normal. And I think that was the worry. I
worry that once I move outside of this what felt
like an artificial environment, it would all stop. I'll just
go back to normal.
Speaker 2 (16:30):
So you needed to find a way to actually apply
some change in your life that could mean that you
were able to keep this way of thinking and feeling. Yeah,
keep it going. So what did that look like once
you got home from the week long retreat with you boy?
Speaker 3 (16:48):
One of the first things I did there was a
guy in my home group, Steve, and he lived locally
as another Westy lad, and I rang him up and
said can we get together for a coffee? And we
just went down to linnm Hall and had a coffee together,
and my ender was to turn this into a regular
(17:12):
thing so that we'd get together and we'd talk. And
I was quite disappointed because at the end of the
coffee I suggested that to him and he was like,
oh God, no, I don't want to do that. So
at that point I was kind of like, well, I
wasn't quite sure. I think that was my master plan
(17:34):
and it didn't come off, so I wasn't quite sure
what to do. The penny dropped for me that essentially
men runs a number of different workshops, and I'd done
one that was designed for fathers and sons, but there
was one out there that was just designed for men,
and I thought, well, if the week long thing was
(17:58):
that great when it's designed mainly for my son, then
maybe the one that's designed for men would be worth doing.
So I basically signed up for the next one coming
and went and did that. The interesting thing for me
was I went and did that workshop, and I have
(18:22):
to be honest, I was quite disappointed. It wasn't as
powerful as as the week long experience with my son.
And yeah, and to be honest, looking back on it,
I was kind of standing on the edges, afraid to
jump in. It was new and different, and I didn't
really understand what was going on.
Speaker 2 (18:44):
What sort of things we're doing in the workshop. Just
to give us an idea, what were you doing and
talking about? How was it structured?
Speaker 3 (18:52):
Yeah, the Friday night is there's a whole bunch of
stuff done to sort of build the container of the weekend.
The invitation for the weekend is to show up and
be vulnerable and actually talk about what's going on in
your life with a whole bunch of men that you've
(19:12):
just met. So one of the first things that goes
on is about building a relationship and building a community
for that workshop so that there's some safety and so
on the first night there was some like there was
a trust walk that was that happened, so your eyes
(19:33):
closed and distrust and you get led on a bit
of a journey. But there were also some times to
check in with other men, sort of one on one,
because the large group can be a bit scary, whereas
one to one feels a little bit easier. Sure.
Speaker 2 (19:53):
Sure, So so that was that was that workshop, and
you came away from that and you thought, oh, okay,
you know it wasn't one hundred percent my cup of tea,
but I can still see value in what I'm doing here.
So what was your next your next step with this then?
Did you look for something more or did you think
perhaps you had some ideas?
Speaker 3 (20:15):
Yeah, I the next stept for me, And to this day,
I don't know why I decided to do it. I
just have no recall whatsoever. When these workshops are put on,
there's the men like myself who are the new men,
the participants who have just shown up for the first time.
(20:35):
But there's another group of men who show up to
support those men, and they're called the service team. And
I decided about a year after I'd done that first
workshop to come back on the service team and help
help some other men experience experience that. And I found
(21:01):
for me that being on service team was quite frigging
for a number of reasons. One was I knew what
was coming, so I'd kind of dropped that, Oh my god,
I don't want to open up too much here because
I don't know where the hell this is leading, so
that it disappeared because I knew where it was going,
(21:21):
and there's something quite alive in me about giving So
that opportunity to support other people made a real difference
for me in terms of the experience of the weekend.
And I guess the final bit was because I was
in there in a role. If things got too much
(21:44):
for me, then I just disappear into the kitchen and
clean some dishes or something and just have a break
from it all. While I kind of recented, so.
Speaker 2 (21:53):
There's always some dishes to be done, and no one's
ever going to say no to the guy that says
just going to pop into the kitchen decent tidying up.
Car McDonald, I want to bring you in here in
terms of what we're talking about with Warren and what
I'm hearing out how important it is for people to
be able to have that opportunity to work in a
(22:13):
group setting. Is this something that it's different for men
compared to women or is it just done in a
different way, And what is it about men's mental health
that perhaps requires to be able to get a bunch
of blokes together to actually make it work.
Speaker 4 (22:31):
Yeah, it's a great question, I mean the simple an
is it different? Not that different? I mean, I remember
when I started my relationship twenty five odd years ago
and my partner had a book group as you went
to every month, and I'm not sure how much talk
there was actually about books, to be honest, but you know,
it's about creating those spaces where the support can then happen.
(22:52):
And that requires trust, and it requires connection, and it
requires some degree of commitment right to come together and
talk regularly. So it could be really informal like a
book club or if you know, as a lot of
men sadly find themselves isolated without the natural skill to
actually make these things happen of their own accord, and
something like essentially Men's fantastic because what it does, of course,
(23:14):
is it gives you the experience of the value of
it and the intensive and then provides you with an
ongoing support group for a number of weeks.
Speaker 3 (23:22):
I think we're talking off.
Speaker 4 (23:23):
For about seven weeks as part of the program, but
then a number of those groups go on for quite
long times. And I think the thing is is that
once you've got that permission to talk, it's not that
men can't talk, it's that actually we need the spaces
where we feel safe, where we can trust people, and
where we can know that other people are going to
go there too. Because you don't want to be left hanging. No,
(23:45):
you know, I mean it's really hard to talk if
you don't know if other people are going to step forward.
But if you have that trust and you have that
commitment from everybody in the room, then actually groups can
be incredibly powerful, an incredibly powerful way to support each
other and actually, you know, to build resilience and good
mental health habits.
Speaker 2 (24:04):
So Warren talk to us about the mechanic sen of
essentially men. So you know, you ended up, you know,
you have you know, your group that comes together and
then it turns into sort of its own independent group
from there that is sort of self managed. It took
us through how this all works.
Speaker 3 (24:23):
Yeah, so the weekend workshops called Men Being Real And
as part of that workshop, there's the men that are
on that workshop, including the team meet for seven Tuesday
nights and the Tuesday nights we call it integration and
it's about it's really neat to have a powerful, amazing
(24:45):
weekend experience, but it's kind of like, how do I
integrate this into my life? How do I take the
things I've learned and make them a day to day
part of who I am and how I am? And
that's what integration is about. And on the last of
those seven nights, the goal is to form a men's
(25:05):
group with the men the participate from the men being
real weekend. And obviously there's some logistical things that can
get in the way of that, like geography is a
great one. Men don't want to drive for a couple
of hours to come to this thing once a week
or a fortnight. But generally a group will form and
(25:28):
these guys will make a commitment to come together generally
once a fortnite, often in a community hall, and there
are some rules about how they come together, not really rules,
they're more guidelines. For instance, often when at the start
(25:50):
of the evening, there'll be a grounding, so it's like,
you know, you've been out in your life, you've been working,
you've been doing whatever. Let's just take a couple of
minutes to you know, maybe be silent and just kind
of center ourselves on what we're doing now. And there's
some some guidelines around speaking. So the idea is that
(26:15):
when a man is speaking, the other men are listening,
and so there is we call it active listening. So
it's not just iol shut up while this guy has
his say. It's actually listening to what he has to
say and giving him some attention, and we try to
(26:36):
veer away from offering solutions and advice because often what's
needed is to be seen and to be heard. Sometimes
a man can ask for advice or you know, I'm lost,
I don't know what to do here, any ideas, guys,
But generally it's enough to actually just let it out
(26:56):
and tell his story and how he's feeling about it.
Speaker 2 (27:02):
When you think about your own experience with this, what
has been the for you, What has this done for
you that you didn't have previous and what does that
look like in your day to day life.
Speaker 3 (27:21):
I recently got married for the second time earlier this year, actually, congratulations,
thank you. And I've been with Meg for about ten years,
so I was already on my I guess personal journey
when I met her, and I talked to her about
(27:43):
the type of man I was twenty years ago, and
she says to me, I've never met him. I don't
know him. And so the things that are different for
me are that it's I have the way I am
on the planet. Is it's okay to show my emotions,
(28:03):
It's okay to actually talk about how I'm feeling, It's
okay to cry if that's what I need. And one
of the big differences in me is that I'm actually
brave enough with her to actually open my mouth and
tell her what I'm thinking and what I'm feeling and
(28:24):
how that was for me. And like any relationship, we're
not perfect. We have our moments. But the difference is
that we will actually generally once we've cooled down, so
it might not be straight away, but sort of fifteen minutes,
half an hour later, we'll come together and go, we
(28:46):
need to talk about that. What's going on? And so
the she calls it the courageous conversations, you know, the
courage to go, I didn't like what went on? Can
we talk about that? And to actually talk about it
without without blaming, the act of listening, actually shut up
(29:08):
and listen to her, listen to what she has to say,
and as hard as it is, and I'm not always
that fantastic at it is, to take on board what
she said and rather than blaming her and saying you
did this, and you did this, actually, the difference in
(29:29):
me is I feel more able to look at what
did I bring to this, So rather than blaming her,
it's like, well, what was my part in this? But
for me, it also means that our relationship is deeper
and closer because we have those courageous conversations, which mean
(29:54):
that the good times are better because there's a deep
level of trust and honesty in the relationship.
Speaker 2 (30:01):
So for a start, it sounds me like you've got
a better relationship with that other person in your life.
And if you Meg, thank you well done. And also too,
you've got a better relationship with yourself. What about relationship
with your kids?
Speaker 3 (30:19):
My kids now are pretty grown up. They're sort of
in there mid to late twenties, and a few years
back I had a bit of a chat with them
about what I was like as a dad, which was difficult,
(30:40):
and both my sons, we all three of us, have
agreed agreed that I'm doing a much better job in
the last ten to fifteen years than maybe I did
in the first ten or fifteen years. And you know
that that's lovely. It's I have a pretty close relationship
(31:02):
with both of them. My oldest is recently married, and
so you know, he's kind off and doing his own thing.
But it's really cool because he'll ring me. He kind
of parents me a little bit and wrings me and
you know, Dad, we need to catch up. Let's catch up.
It's been too long, you know. So Yeah, lately I
(31:26):
think I'm doing pretty good.
Speaker 2 (31:28):
I mean, Warren, in terms of what you're doing now,
I mean, how did you come to be the general
manager of this? I mean at one point, you know,
you're just turning up to go for a weekend with
your son, and I mean, by all means it's delivered
a measurable good for you. But how did you end
up finding yourself running the show?
Speaker 3 (31:48):
It was a surprise, put it that way. Yeah. So
I came to essentially men in twenty eleven so and
for thirteen years just at a whole bunch of service
teams and helped out and gave back. I was a
part of the community. And a year or so ago
(32:09):
the lady who'd been running the office for fifteen years
was retiring and I said, well, you know I can,
I can help out do the finances for you till
you find someone sure.
Speaker 2 (32:21):
I mean, you had experience in that, that's in your wheelhouse.
Speaker 3 (32:23):
Yeah, And that, over a few months led into a
conversation with the trustees who said, well, actually we think
you could do a hell of a lot more and yeah,
and they just suggested that I replace the lady when
she retired and take on a hell of a lot more.
(32:45):
And I thought, why not. I'd kind of stepped away
from the corporate world. I'd been doing handyman work for
three or four years, semi retired, kind of just cruising
along a bit, And I thought, okay, I give that
a crack. I'm obviously passionate about the organization, and I thought, yeah, okay,
(33:06):
I feel like I can make a difference.
Speaker 2 (33:09):
How long you've been in the role now for one year,
one month, one year, one month, okay. In terms of
the need that you're seeing out there in our communities
for essentially men, and the challenges that we see that
men are facing with their mental health, do you see
there being any kind of common thread in terms of
(33:32):
what it is that men aren't receiving or what the
need looks like most.
Speaker 3 (33:37):
Yeah, there's been an interesting shift, like I've been evolved
for over a decade, and the shift has been downward,
downward in age. So the men who are showing up
for our workshops are younger and so probably mid thirties
rather than mid forties, and what I'm seeing with those
guys is often a lack of hope, like they're really
(34:02):
just you know, what's the point, feeling really anxio, just
socially awkward, just really struggling to find their place in
the world and wondering why bother?
Speaker 2 (34:18):
Is that a good thing though?
Speaker 3 (34:19):
That?
Speaker 2 (34:19):
Do you think it's better for them to be coming
in their mid thirties rather than their mid forties?
Speaker 3 (34:23):
Oh? Absolutely, yeah, so it's a good thing. Yeah, yeah, absolutely.
Speaker 2 (34:28):
I think the point here is that, you know, we're
actually seeing a shift and that people are coming to
look for support and resources when it comes to their
mental health a lot earlier, rather than waiting until the things,
you know, hit a crisis point. Because the challenges of
your mid thirties, let's be honest, they probably that's when
they start emerging. Tends to be a little bit like
(34:50):
I mean, you'll appreciate this as an accounting term, a
compounding interest, which means it just gets bigger and bigger.
I mean, Kyler, we seeing this reflected than anything else
as well, in terms of the age that men are
starting to access mental health services.
Speaker 4 (35:04):
It's really interesting, actually, I was issue just reading something
this week, and the article is putting forward this idea
that actually, the midlife crisis has kind of gone as
any It was always a pretty statistically shaky kind of
idea to start with. What we're actually seeing is that
people are hitting crisis all over the place, so you know,
good news and then the bad news. But actually I
think that the more optimistic version is that, you know,
(35:27):
as we've talked about a lot on this show over
the years, awareness building is great. The stigmatization has been huge.
It's been generational. Like I mean, I've seen the change
in my lifetime, and you know, my kids generation won't
think twice about talking about mental health issues or seeking
help if they need it. So I'd like to think
(35:47):
that whether it's essentially men or whether it's people turning
up and officers like mine earlier, it's not only a
good thing. But actually I think it's just that raised awareness.
People now know these things are out there, they know
to look for them, they're not probably shy to talk
to workmates about it and to give it a crack.
Speaker 2 (36:03):
Well look, despite my disappointment at the midlife crisis is
no longer a thing, I was hoping for a brand
new sports car a read one.
Speaker 4 (36:11):
Please well you'll be fine, just you can just say
it is.
Speaker 3 (36:17):
Well.
Speaker 2 (36:17):
That's it for this episode of the Nutters Clubs, thanks
to our guest Warren Phillip, general manager of Essentially Men,
as well as my co host, psychotherapist car mc donk.
If you like what you heard and think it might
help someone out there, then please share this episode on
your own channels or with family and friends. And if
you ever want to be part of the show, give
(36:38):
us a call or text when we broadcast live on
news Talks here B eleven pm Sunday nights, New Zealand
standard time. Check out news Talks HEREB dot co dot
MZ for local frequencies or a link to the live stream.
A big thanks to New Zealand on Air for their
ongoing support in making the show. Take care and always
(36:58):
remember the world is a better place with you in it.
Life that isn't easy, it is, however worth it.
Speaker 1 (37:10):
For more from Newstalk st B, listen live on air
or online, and keep our shows with you wherever you
go with our podcasts on iHeartRadio
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