Pod brings you real and candid conversations with experts, celebrities and ordinary men about navigating midlife.
The ups, the downs, the surprises, the opportunities, the secrets and how to do it on your terms, gracefully or even disgracefully!
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Latest Episodes
When in doubt, reach out: Nicholas Epley on talking to strangers and making friends in midlife
Talking to strangers is one of the quickest ways to feel happier, and most midlife men avoid it. We keep our heads down on the train and tell ourselves that making friends in midlife is harder than it used to be. Nicholas Epley, professor of behavioural science at the University of Chicago Booth School of Business and author of A Little More Social, has spent more than 15 years testing whether any of that is true.
In this episode of Don’t Let The Old Man In, he tells Pod O’Sullivan why social connection is a choice, and why we so often choose to avoid it.
Ian Westmoreland discovering purpose at age 59 and a half, and finding gold in the cracks!
Men’s mental health in midlife rarely gets talked about until something breaks. For Ian Westmoreland OAM, the turning point came on a Sydney train at 59 and a half, and it led him to walk away from a senior IT career and build two charities: Mentoring Men, which offers free life mentoring to men across Australia, and Kintsugi Heroes, which shares real stories of people overcoming adversity.
In this episode of Don’t Let The Old Man In, Ian talks about finding purpose after a corporate career, why men need to be heard rather than fixed, and what stage three melanoma taught him about gratitude, legacy and the meaning of success.
Why identity change and burnout looks different in men: Dr Kat Page on good work
Dr Kat Page is an organisational psychologist and the author of Good Work: Transform Your Work from the Inside Out. She has spent two decades asking one question (what makes work good for us?) across mining sites, hospital wards, universities and boardrooms.
In this conversation, Pod and Kat talk about burnout as a systems problem rather than a personal failing, why burnout in midlife men so often looks like cynicism, what real recovery takes and what it means to give yourself permission to be human in a culture built around coping.
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