Show Notes
- Mentoring Men
- Kinstugi Heroes
- Unstress Health Podcast – The Man Cave
- Unstress Health Podcast – Men’s Health with Dr Rob King
Timestamps
0:00 – Introduction
3:49 – Ian Westmoreland’s career transition: From IT to mentorship
10:00 – Founding Mentoring Men and addressing men’s mental health
21:00 – The challenges of fatherhood and vulnerability in men
39:07 – Kintsugi Heroes: Transforming adversity into inspiration
49:22 – Life’s challenges: Work-life balance and personal health
53:40 – Closing thoughts: The power of stories and community
Mentoring Men to Transform Lives in 2025 – Ian Westmoreland
Dr Ron Ehrlich [00:00:01] Hi, Dr Ron. Here it. I want to invite you to join our Unstress health community. Now, like this podcast, it’s independent of industry and focuses on taking a holistic approach to human health and to the health of the planet. The two are inseparable. There are so many resources available with membership, including regular live Q&A on specific topics with special guests, including many with our amazing Unstress Health Advisory Panel that we’ve done hundreds of podcasts over listening to with some amazing experts on a wide range of topics. Many are world leaders, but with membership we have our Unstress web podcast series where we take the best of several guests and carefully curated specific topics for episodes which are jam packed full of valuable insights. So join the Unstress health community. If you’re watching this on our YouTube channel. Click on the link below or just visit Unstress health.com to see what’s on offer and join now. I look forward to connecting with you.
Dr Ron Ehrlich [00:01:18] Hello and welcome to Unstress. My name is Dr Ron Ehrlich. Well, today my guest is Ian Westmoreland and Ian has been recognised in Australia, received an Order of Australia, which is an Australian honour that recognises Australian citizens and other persons for outstanding achievement and service. And that certainly describes Ian. He has dedicated certainly the last 10-15 years of his life, maybe more to servicing and supporting, particularly men. He initiated a program called Mentoring Men, and it’s rather sobering to know and a recent report from the Australian Government that suicide, for example, is the 16th most common cause of death across all of us. But there continues to be a large difference between the sexes. More than three quarters of people who died were men, making it the 11th most common cause for men. And the median age is rather, disturbingly, 45.8 years. So, you know, yes, we do focus a lot on women’s health and children’s health and family health. But men’s health is our focus today. On one level, another initiative that Ian is very passionate and has started is something called Kintsugi heroes and Kintsugi is well, I won’t spoil it. It’s a way of putting together things that are broken, but it’s a much more eloquently described thing that he talks about in this program. Look, Ian is a legend. I think he’s so inspiring. I was so looking forward to catching up with him and hearing some of these wonderful and really important initiatives. I hope you enjoy this conversation I had with Ian Westmoreland. Welcome to the show In Ian.
Ian Westmoreland [00:03:12] Good day Dr Ron! And we were introduced a month or two ago and I’ve been so looking forward to this conversation. And when we were introduced, I was frankly blown away by the number of things that you are not only passionate about, but the effect that that passion has on so many other people. You know, we’re going to be talking about mentoring men. We’re going to be talking about heroes. But I’m really interested in you at this point and say what? What’s driven you to this kind of passionate approach.
Ian Westmoreland [00:03:49] Great, great question. Let me share a little bit of my background. I’m not qualified in anything formally. A lot of lived experience, but I worked in the commercial world for over 40 years and managed to work my way into fairly well-paid positions as an IT manager. So I worked in Melbourne for for 20 plus years and then a couple of years in New Zealand and then came to Sydney where I am now, and we went from being relatively poor and me trying to support my wife and four kids to relatively well-off. And in 2013 I started to increasingly think there’s more to life than just making money and delivering software changes. And then on the 10th of September 2013, I got on the train to come to work, and I continued to read a book that my youngest daughter had given me. And what I read that morning on the train transformed the thinking for the next stage of my life to the point where in May 2014 I quit paid work. So I’ve been a full time volunteer since then. So that’s as the time a recording that’s over over ten years. And I felt led down a path. I felt I found my purpose, my mission. And that’s that’s been an evolving, amazing journey, which I’ve incredibly educational for me. I like to think there’s a new improved Ian which is much better than the, the original Ian at the start of that journey and that journey continues. I still, still still live in the dream.
Dr Ron Ehrlich [00:05:31] What, what was the book?
Ian Westmoreland [00:05:34] I get asked that a lot, right? And I always preface it by saying everything I do, whether it be through mentoring men or Kintsugi heroes. I don’t care what the culture, beliefs, background. None of those things matter to me. In my own case, I’m a Christian, and what I read was a Christian, a book that basically questioned the purpose of all of us Christians, what we should be, what we should be doing with our life. And what I read that day resonated so strongly with me. And there was a there’s a clear reason why it resonated with me, which I can explain, but it was a message for me. And that was the first of a bunch of things along this journey where people have come into my life and influenced that all the way through, you know, even to this conversation here.
Dr Ron Ehrlich [00:06:27] What’s been some of the what’s been the biggest lesson you’ve learnt along that way?
Ian Westmoreland [00:06:33] How judgemental I guess I was. It was. You know, the people really wanted employment. They could find it, you know, and and and I realise that wasn’t right. Possibly homophobic in some cases. And I would never say I was racist. In fact, I think I’m probably now the least racist person I know. But. But the elements are just around misunderstanding how to support someone who’s got cancer or how to talk to someone with a disability, how to win when someone’s grieving, what to do, what to say. So there’s been all these lessons as we’ve covered and met people from a broad range of backgrounds with the broad range of experiences I’ve learnt from every one of those interactions, they’ve been my teachers.
Dr Ron Ehrlich [00:07:28] Yeah, I guess. I mean I’ve, I’ve only been. Well I think we have similar age and you maybe a little bit, maybe have a few months on me. But you know after all this time I think it’s fair to say that the more I learn the more I realise I don’t know. And that is exciting. I mean, to many people, they love certainty. They crave certainty. They must have certainty. But there’s something about not knowing and finding out that is incredibly empowering, isn’t it?
Ian Westmoreland [00:07:58] Well, I think we should never stop learning. And I every day I learn new things. And I think that’s really important, you know, what are the challenges? I see? With the world and social media. It drives this. People take a position on something, whether it be immigration or whatever, and they’re so entrenched in that position. And I what I like to do, I have a model where there’s a wire that almost but doesn’t quite reach to extreme points. So what? Positive. Negative. Yes. No. Right. Whatever. And as we have these conversations, we hear information and we may move that beat along one way or another, but that encourages this openness to learn. But there are some people. That they are so entrenched to either extreme, they would never consider any information you could size them. What information would you need to hear before you changed your position? Let’s say it’s climate change and you’d hear there’s nothing you can say that would change. And we meet these people and unfortunately, what social media does, we start to associate with people who not only agree with our initial thoughts, they push us further left or further right and we just lose this. We’ve lost this meaningful dialogue in this respectful discussion around different points of view. And it’s incredibly sad. It’s incredibly sad. So I think if these people had a mind that was open to being educated or hearing a different view, the world would be a much better place.
Dr Ron Ehrlich [00:09:46] Yeah, no, I totally agree. But your passion for helping people has over these last ten years, of course, has been recognised. You are an I was order of the what does that stand for Order of the Australian.
Ian Westmoreland [00:10:00] I tell people it’s an old angry man but it’s it’s it’s or I think it’s the Order of Australia medal.
Dr Ron Ehrlich [00:10:08] Yes. And so it has been recognised and and the two well two of the things that you I know have been involved in is as we said, mentoring men and and Kintsugi heroes. And we want to talk about both of those. Tell us about mentoring men, because let’s think I think we both agree that being a man is challenging for many, many reasons. And this is probably many of those reasons have driven you to start mentoring men. But tell us about mentoring.
Ian Westmoreland [00:10:39] Of probably first, I just share why I started it. And I mentioned after I had this life changing moment on the train, I felt led and started mentoring kids in Sydney, in Sydney high schools and I was being trained at multiple schools. Then I started mentoring in primary schools as well and then actually became a coordinator for another family mentoring program. So I was actively involved as a volunteer in three mentoring programs. And then in one of the Sydney high schools I was being tried a young guy and in our discussion he shared with me that his father had suicided. His mum was an addict who was in and out of rehab. He was living with his grandparents, which he hated. And then he just turned and it looked me in the eyes and he started crying and he said, Ian, help me. And I’ve learnt one of the things I’ve learnt is I have a lot of empathy which can be good, maybe sometimes not good. After the mentoring session finished, I’d debrief with a program counsellor and she said like everything’s confidential. Other than what you share with the counsellor. And I share what was going on and look, I guess looking for advice. And she surprised me. She said, You know, you okay? And I just started crying myself over the Situation. And I was flat for about 2 or 3 months. I couldn’t work out why. Then all of a sudden it dawned on me, I’m slow on the uptake. I wanted to have a mentor just like all these kids I’ve been mentoring. I should clarify mentoring such a broad term. For most people in business, they assume it’s someone with acquired skills, knowledge and experience, who guides, directs, advise is someone else. And that’s not what I’m talking about. What I was providing, what I was looking for is life mentoring and is predominantly listening and it’s supporting and it’s encouraging. So I did a Google search to look around for my nearest life mentoring organisation for men, and there was nothing, nothing suitable. And as a demographic, we probably struggled more than most other demographics. So it motivated me to start mentoring men. And there was an encounter with our local federal MP maison Julian Lisa, who’s been a huge supporter. I went to an event he he put on it, partnered with Lifeline to promote the suicide prevention course, and he got up at the event and shared about the suicide of his father over 20 years earlier and how he missed the signs and how this course was so important to him. And I don’t know why I went to that thing. I never met him. I had a vinyl, a manilla folder with my proposal to establish mentoring men like Weird thing to do. As soon as he finished speaking, I made a beeline for him. He saw me coming and I said join. I told him the impact his talk had had on me. I said, Where was the support that could have helped prevent your father from suicide? I started telling me about mentoring men and he was fully on board. He said, Come and talk to me in my office. Went and saw him. He signed on as our ambassador. He launched, officially launched mentoring men at the ESC with Golf Club in November 2018. And now for the next coming up to six years. He’s been an amazing support. He got us to Canberra is introduced us to a number of players and he continues to be a fantastic support. So just briefly, mentoring Men is a free program. We try not volunteer men like me who support other men going through life challenges, job loss, relationship breakdown, loneliness, isolation, anything at all. The support is through a long term, 1 to 1 mentoring relationship. So through that relationship, trust builds and men start to feel encouraged to have that super power of vulnerability, openness, because there’s trust there. It’s incredibly therapeutic when you start talking about what you’re feeling, what you’re experiencing, and know that you’re being heard, know that you’re not being judged. It’s an amazing it’s an amazing experience. So it’s continued on. I stepped aside as a CEO at the end of 2021, but thousands, many thousands of men have engaged. I’m confident that hundreds of thousands of men will will engage in this program. So we we run this amazing facilitation workshop. We still run suicide prevention training that join later that encourages that time. We run a bunch of things to help the men continue to connect. We run peer support groups, so it’s very much a grassroots organisation and the relationships I’ve developed through that just been amazing. That’s all part of the education journey and, and the feedback we get from that program.
Dr Ron Ehrlich [00:15:30] Is, Yeah. I mean, it’s interesting that you should relate this story of you as high school talking to a young teenager, I’m guessing, who who breaks down and cries and feels very vulnerable. And there you were probably, I’m guessing, in your 50s or 60s, walking away and and relating to your mentor, your own mentor or counsellor and feeling similarly emotional. So here we have the teenager and the adult similarly breaking down. There’s something about men and a stigma around vulnerability that doesn’t set us up for much for that. That kind of emotional regulation, does it?
Ian Westmoreland [00:16:23] Yeah. I wonder what this is. Is it like if you ask most people what a real man is, you probably get a cross between, you know, James Bond, Indiana Jones and Clint Eastwood, this tough guy. And I reflect back. My dad used to take me and my two brothers and some of his mates and their sons and we go camping in the Strzelecki is in Gippsland area, Victoria, and it was all about guns and shooting and, and killing. And I remember one of my dad’s mates, he’d lie on his back with a three, a three very powerful rifle. It’d be trying to shoot wedgetail eagles out of the sky, which I just love watching these birds soar and they would go spotlighting of a night. And I guess I would have been about ten. And I hated it. And as a ten year old, while they went out of a night time, I would just stay back in the tent clearing. What sort of man am I? Why don’t all want to go out and kill things? And I guess the new improved. That’s totally fine. It’s okay if you don’t want to go out and shoot and kill things, but we will sort of go down these we’re educated through, I don’t know, through through the media, through films or whatever, that we’ve got to behave in a certain way. And now I’ve far more comfortable with who I am. My grandkids sometimes paint my toenails and that’s that’s all good. You know, it’s so I, I would challenge that view. In fact, often I’m asked to define man and what a man is and. I find it far easier to define what I believe a real man isn’t. A real man doesn’t perpetrate domestic violence. Real man doesn’t abuse people. So to me, that’s easier. And anything other than those things you don’t do. That’s open, open slather.
Dr Ron Ehrlich [00:18:17] Yeah, I think it’s interesting. I mean, if I know in my own life I’ve grown up in a very male dominated home with a brother, a very dominant father. And that was the model in which I grew up. And it wasn’t a lot of encouraging men encouragement to to discuss, share feelings, emotions and all that. And then having really grown up and I always say I grew up when I had my two daughters and then grew up in a household with my wife and my two daughters and the energy very different. It kind of gave me a bit of an insight into into what sets us up for failure as men on an emotional and mental health basis.
Ian Westmoreland [00:19:05] I don’t know what is. I was just reflecting in on my my father was in World War Two. He was in he met my mom in England. He was in the R. F. He virtually never talked about the war, never said anything about it. And it was this thing that you didn’t express your emotions. And I don’t know if it’s just within our culture. I think it’s probably more in our culture. I think some of the other cultures, you know, Italians or whatever, that there’s far more likelihood to to share what we’re really feeling, that huge weakness within our culture. But I think that’s getting better with these. I mentioned the peer support group, which I go to, and often there’s tears there, but there’s a bunch of men who were on my team. We share, we support one another. We say, What’s really going on? I’d love to see that that continuing grow and around this open sharing. I think it would help address a lot of the issues we’ve got within community. Domestic violence is one of the key things. But if someone’s feeling that but I feel like and I talk to other people about that, not be judged and, you know, it could be one of the key things around prevention. Yeah. So I’d love to see this more open, honest communication, particularly amongst men. But I, I don’t remember my dad ever saying I love you. Never doubt it for my mum. Never. But it wasn’t the thing. But all of my kids and I’ve got 12 grandkids, all of my 12 grandkids know that I love them and I say it and hopefully I demonstrate that as well. I share my vulnerability with them and I’m seeing they’re more likely. There’s still a long way to go. They’re more likely to to follow that.
Dr Ron Ehrlich [00:21:00] The another aspect that I’ve noted in my in my own journey is the social support networks that women build up around them and that men build up around them. It’s quite a different story there, too, isn’t it? Social support.
Ian Westmoreland [00:21:16] Yeah. I think women get to generalise here. Women will get together for no other reason than getting together for men. Often there’s got like it’s sport. It’s got to be a reason that’s happening and you see that. So I’ve played tennis for over 60 years and the guys who get up and we’d have this social tennis competition, tennis where most of the gets injured, they just wouldn’t turn up. So that banter, that post-match banter that was going on would just stop. And I believe that a lot of people, particularly high profile sporting identities, struggle because a lot of their identity came from the sport. They pull out of it. And it’s a it’s a real challenge for them because they’re not getting that social connection that they’re not doing. The thing that you said that that women are more likely to do.
Dr Ron Ehrlich [00:22:07] Now, I know. And the the other one is also fatherhood. Fatherhood, You know, like when I again, when I reflect on my daughter’s experience, even as a two or 3 or 4 year old, they they were nurturing, even though we didn’t encourage any gender stereotypes, they were there practising, nurturing. And all this while my nephews, who were a similar age, were out making toy guns out of anything I could get their hands on. And so something. And so when we find ourselves in in parenthood and fatherhood in particular, we really challenge. It’s an education again, isn’t it? Yeah.
Ian Westmoreland [00:22:54] I remember one of the insane things I once thought. As girls do what you just suggested. Boys also do what you suggested because of why they brought up. But there’s when you you have kids and no doubt at all that in general I’m always that that they go down this path. Can make a comment as well. I found fatherhood incredibly hard, far harder than grand parenthood. And when you think about it, women mothers are prepared for motherhood. They go through a whole bunch of physical changes, chemical changes. There’s a lot of things happen for men. None of that happens. All of a sudden, there’s is this baby there and it’s like. And often the mother’s changed as well. The mother’s about. The relationship can sometimes change. Yeah. So it’s it’s really hard. I and I guess you can look at my father’s model which was really almost hands off and a lack of emotion, a lack of authenticity. And he was always working like 2 or 3 jobs to so to put food on the table. So there was a lack of of that connection there, which you’re trying to address later on. But I think there’s an important need for fathers to get a lot more support and someone to go and ask the questions to. Yeah. And I just occur to be most of the young kids I made taught at school came from broken families. Most of them never had a male role model. So we’ve got a arguably absolutely critical role that’s often not been fulfilled to the detriment of of the kids and society. And even if they are, there is just such a hard role, hard role to do.
Dr Ron Ehrlich [00:24:48] Hi Dr. Ron. Here it I want to invite you to join our Unstress health community now, like this podcast, it’s independent of industry and focuses on taking a holistic approach to human health and to the health of the planet. The two are inseparable. There are so many resources available with membership, including regular live Q&A on specific topics with special guests, including many with our amazing Unstress Health Advisory Panel that we’ve done hundreds of podcasts over listening to with some amazing experts on a wide range of topics. Many are world leaders, but with membership we have our Unstress web podcast series where we take the best of several guests and carefully curated specific topics for episodes which are jam packed full of valuable insights. So join the Unstress health community. If you’re watching this on our YouTube channel, click on the link below or just visit Unstress health.com to see what’s on offer and join. Now. I look forward to connecting with you.
Dr Ron Ehrlich [00:26:01] So there’s two parts to this. One is the mentor, you know, somebody requiring mentoring, but there’s the person providing the mentoring. And they called the mentee, know how to. Okay. What’s the what’s the what’s the relationship terminology?
Ian Westmoreland [00:26:17] So the mentor in the case of mentor remain. The mentor is a volunteer bloke. He goes through a training course and provides their time and listening ear to another bloke. And the we call him mentees. I just it’s like I guess like me, someone reaching out to actually just get that relationship where they can they can start to share what’s going on in their journey and. They they meet often. I used to think it had to be at a coffee shop or something like that. But then I’ve realised for a lot of men it’s too confrontational where there’s emotion. I don’t like people see me cry like it’s. So we go for a walk. Or it could even be virtual. Like mentoring. Through mentoring, you met a young guy. WA amazing young guy. Just brilliant. Just a brilliant guy. But I’m also mentoring someone in Johannesburg. Not through mentoring, mate. So. And I love doing that. I get as much or not more out of it than they do. Ron can I share a story ?
Dr Ron Ehrlich [00:27:20] Absolutely.
Ian Westmoreland [00:27:21] I mean, told a young guy in 2015 in Sydney and he had incredibly high truancy rate. And we just chat about sport and you know, there’s a kind relationship early on when I turn up to school, often it wag it as we call it, and then later on he was always there any excuse to pick different days he was going away and that was the end of the we did two terms of mentoring. That was it. Forgot all about it. No, not forgot all about it. But there’s no interaction. Last year I had a phone call from the mentoring organisation Rise and they said this young guy had reached out to them asking if he could contact me. Sure. And so I said, Here’s my number. We caught up for coffee. He want to tell me the role, the impact that mentoring had had on his life. He’d been the people. The voices around him taught him he’s heading for jail. He had no future. He saw no benefit of school. There’s a whole bunch of stuff I wasn’t even aware of. And a he’s now a carpenter. He’s studying to be a master builder. And I actually read a men’s breakfast at my place a couple of weeks ago, and he came along to the men’s breakfast. And I’ve got it getting emotion out.
Dr Ron Ehrlich [00:28:44] And I feel emotional hearing.
Ian Westmoreland [00:28:47] To see this young guy who was in fact, he did a promotional video for Raise if people want to check. His name is Alec. Alec, A-L-E-C . He had 62 title and that went to two. Then like then the next year. And it doesn’t get any better than helping another bloke or young young man in in life and just with all of what I’ve done. That the sacrifice of just that one person. Would have been worth it. But how many? And we never know. Like I had. I had no idea. I I’ll tell a funny story. We we turn up there and arise. You might have 12 or 15 mentees, school mentees and 12 or 15 mentors turn up. And they set up a circle of chairs they call is that Gita session. And all the kids sit together. They’re all nervous. So all the mentees and you come in and all the mentors sit together and they they play this game to try and mix up the group. So slots like musical chairs, they take chair y and somebody goes in the middle and they might say everyone with a blue jumper on like what? You’ve got to tell everybody. The blue jumper has to get up and find another chair and they all and mix it. So I was one of the ones up in the middle. So I got up, I said, everyone who loves AFL and not one person got up and and they all thought it was hilarious that the young guy Alec, if they got AFL guy AFL and that was the start of this this relationship there and yeah it’s. It is. You learn a lot through this price. I could. I could write you a book about the lessons I learnt from these young guys. And so if anyone’s listening to this, what to give back? You want to get some fulfilment, become a mentor either for kids or through mentoring men or something like that.
Dr Ron Ehrlich [00:30:47] And how did the course you put them through is a short self-paced course or is how what how does what does that look like?
Ian Westmoreland [00:30:56] So it’s a two day course. There’s a number of activities, so there’s a lot of learning. But the primary aim of the course is to help men identify their own capability to mentor. So it gets into things like nearing paraphrase in this case, studies. The biggest. Lesson for me was on the second day and I thought when I saw the course, so I had an input into the course, I didn’t develop it and I had this thing called a talking circle. But the guy gave these rules is an object that was passed around from the people in this group and you’re asked to share exactly what you’re feeling. And I thought, this is going to suck. I don’t want to do that. And fortunately, I was in first. I remember the very first course in November 2018. First guy I missed my dad. His dad passed away. And the thing is, now, when it erupts, you’ve got this object, You just say whatever’s on. There’s no judgement. Next guy. I can’t get access to my kids. My mom gambled way our house and then. By the time it came to me, okay, here’s what’s going on. So that was that standout around vulnerability and these guys, because trust had built up over the first day and I went to probably the next 15 runnings of that course until they said, you don’t need to turn up any more. But I. It just built such empathy and and connection for me and yeah, so that so that that was the nature of the course of some fun exercises as well.
Dr Ron Ehrlich [00:32:29] Yeah. Yeah. I think these courses around the volunteering have so much to offer you as an individual doing it. I mean, in my own case, I’m just became an ethics teacher at my local primary school and did a full module program on that. And, and it is improved my interaction with my grandchildren so much, you know like I know no a now no longer have all the answers where I rather go, Wow, that’s just so interesting. Why did you say that? And does anyone else want to add anything to that? You know, and it just changes the whole dynamic. So I can imagine this mentoring thing, you know, course and program and opening up would have such a positive impact on the mentor, let alone the me say.
Ian Westmoreland [00:33:17] I think a default position for many men when they someone talks about a problem we immediately go into solution mode.
Dr Ron Ehrlich [00:33:24] Solution.
Ian Westmoreland [00:33:25] You know and and often people are just telling us because they just want to share their situation and a benefit of the workshop. We realise that’s not what you do. In fact, if you do that, you then created a dependency that if you talk about a project to go and talk to Ron and his, he’s going to tell me what to do. But there’s power is someone can actually speak what they’re feeling, what they’re going through. I know they’ve been hurt. Very often the answers become clear to them, to themselves. And one of the questions I ask, you know, could be if you run, if you share, you’re going through something. I said, well, run it might of yours is going through your experience, the experience, what you’re going through now, what suggestions would you make to that? What advice would you give? And it’s sort of like it then they are they start to clarify it. And and so it’s rare that I would give advice. I may share some of my own experience. So I just thought of it. Very funny story that one young girl I share.
Dr Ron Ehrlich [00:34:25] Sure! Share again, share again.
Ian Westmoreland [00:34:27] So this this guy at one of the high schools, he told me how much he liked this girl, but he wasn’t sure what to do. And. And I, you know. Did you buy flowers or whatever? So I immediately because I related to this too, I was incredibly shy in high school. So I started going into all the things that I experienced at the same age. And I must have spoke for about five minutes. And then he said to me, and that’s great, but we’re here to talk about me, not you. And I just cracked up and he’s he’s that same kid, though, said something incredibly powerful to me one day. He said, and you know, I see the school counsellor. I said, Yeah. He said, I’d rather talk to you than the counsellor, which blew me away because you’ve already heard me talk about my failings as a mentor. And I said to him, Why is that? He said, The counsellor sees me because that’s his job. That’s what he’s paid to do. And he’s the. Listen, I know you’re a volunteer. And you were here because you care about me. And it’s a huge advantage that the mentors have. There’s no ulterior motive. There’s not a financial thing or whatever. They’re there because I want to make a difference in someone’s life. And even though you might and say the best thing and, you know, it’s it’s I’m certainly not the world’s best mentor, but the fact that you turn up and you’re there and you care, it’s it’s more important than anything else.
Dr Ron Ehrlich [00:35:52] It’s interesting to reflecting on the art of conversation. And to use a tennis metaphor, I think one of the things that the problem with men, particularly when they do talk, is they play a serve rush the net and put it away for a win a game. Whereas women tend to enjoy standing on the baseline and rallying. And I’ve often used that metaphor to describe the difference between the way men and women discuss things.
Ian Westmoreland [00:36:23] Yeah, it’s like, we’ve got to get to the answer as quickly as we possibly can. And yeah, and let me solve your problem for you. And sometimes what people say initially is their problem is not the real problem. That’s not that there’s this other things behind that. It’s just is just something there. And I one of the changes I guess I’ve learned when I started mentoring men, I had this attitude that the whole objective was to try an equal number of mentors to the number of mentees in the program. And interestingly, it was far easier to train mentors than it was often to bring mentees in for the reasons you talked about before. But what I’ve seen now and I’ve spoken to the new CEO of Mentoring Men about this, I believe our focus should be to train as many men through this workshop as which we can’t hundreds of thousands, regardless of whether there’s a mentor name, provide a mentor. But then in their interactions we have they they’ve recognised the skills that they’ve got. And in the work environment with the neighbours, with the family, with the friends or whatever. And it’s you’ve obviously picked up this conversation. I talk a lot, but all of a sudden I’ve been interaction and it’s all away and shut up, put on the mentoring mentor hat and just be quiet and listen and focus and maybe ask a couple of questions. And that’s I’d love to see, said hundreds of thousands of men in the community who had that awareness to actually try to listen. There’s a lot of people out there struggling. I used to think everyone had it together and I now realise the vast majority of people don’t have it together. And if we, you know, we’ve moved away from the village, we’ve moved away from most kids growing up with a male and female role models to unfortunately, that’s far more often not the case. But if we’re in tune with that, we realise that, you know, within our neighbourhood or whatever, I’d love to see that happen. More and more people go through this free mentoring workshop.
Dr Ron Ehrlich [00:38:33] Well, the, the whole idea of asking questions and listening to answers and I can tell you, having done 600 podcasts now, it’s an excellent way of practising that on a regular basis. Here’s another question for you, because you another thing that you’re passionate about and that you’ve instigated is kintsugi heroes. And I think I’m right in saying Kintsugi is a wonderful metaphor for what it is it actually addresses. But I wondered if you might share with us that what is Kintsugi and what are Kintsugi heroes?
Ian Westmoreland [00:39:07] So, Kintsugi, is that Japanese artform where broken pottery is put back together and I got a hold up. There’s that one Japanese can Kintsugi master in Australia. And I went to workshop in Sydney three weeks ago. So this is my handiwork. So broken pottery is put back together using a precious metal like gold. And not so much with my piece, but when you do it, the end result is far more beautiful, far more valuable than what the original piece was. And it’s a metaphor for the lived experience that we go through. We help people reframe how they see that adversity, see the power, see the strength, see the knowledge, that ability to help other people through that. So Kintsugi Heroes, we record people’s stories, overcoming adversity, stories around every type of adversity. A very first one was around grief. The guy shared about the death of his wife and the ongoing experience he had with that. We cover trauma with bushfires, floods, domestic violence, physical disability, mental illness, any sort of adversity theme. And then we published those stories via various. So we we have video and audio podcasts. We have we edit them for radio broadcast. So they broadcast nationally on the Vision Australia National Network. We produce books. This is the very first book we did, which is around the stories of people impacted by the Black Summer bushfires in the Alpine area of Victoria. This is a recent book we did around people impacted by the floods in the Hunter Valley in New South Wales. We did our first photographic exhibition, we shown at Kirribilli Neighbourhood Centre. It was around social housing. Incredibly powerful exhibition of the residents of Greenway. And you walk in, this is powerful portrait and there’s a QR code. When you click on the QR code, that person starts telling you their story in their own words. We just produced our first short film around the relationship between animals and our mental health. This amazing story of a young girl at five years old went to bed and woke up 100% blind. And then the role of a pet dog to encourage her out of the out of the bedroom. And he rides horses Now she lives at it picked an amazing story and we’ve got a number of those lined up after after that. And we’ve got this huge event taking a big risk at called Pod Stock, which are running at Wodonga in Victoria. In fact, I’m heading down there this week and it’ll be a two day storytelling event. We’ve organised the book, the major venue, the Cube in Wodonga as well as the art gallery next door, and the idea is will have concurrent sessions going in both auditoriums with panel discussions around every type of adversity theme. So I’d love to see this become an annual event that travels round to regional areas and just encourages all the things we talked about before, people sharing and supporting each other, open conversations. So we just finished a project around connecting seniors to help address loneliness and isolation in the Hornsby area, and we ran a multicultural dinner and the place is packed. We said that on on food and stories. So we had Indian people dancing to Indian food, and we had Spanish people dancing and sharing their stories. And then Patiala and then Ukrainian food and Ukrainian storytelling. And the feedback we got was just fantastic. It helps address some of these. I guess the the challenge that people have sometimes the the uncertainty, the ignorance, the lack of awareness of other cultures. Then we run a couple of events. We set up a community choir. Now that runs out a thali and because that’s another great way of connecting. So it’s constant learning experiences. And the reason why I wanted to do this as a teenager who lack confidence, self self-esteem, I shared that before I latest saw the power of books of stories like the Nelson Mandela type stories. To inspire me, give me some confidence to to move on. And I what I thought, here’s a really good idea. This is in August , I wrote to three community leaders to let them know about this idea. And back then it was printed book. But to get people to share their stories that would give the into the worlds hope and inspiration. And one of the guys I wrote to was Dick Smith, the well-known entrepreneur. And he sent me back a handwritten note and it said, and this is a great idea. And then he added, You do it. And I so it sat there for 30 years and and obviously the technology’s changed, but now we’re doing it and it’s incredibly exciting. So I love the journey.
Dr Ron Ehrlich [00:44:27] Because this whole idea of the not just the social connection, but sharing not just a story of adversity, but overcoming adversity, is that social connection tragedy or can challenge and and inspiration. It’s a wonderful combination.
Ian Westmoreland [00:44:47] This young guy reached out to me a week or so ago, and he is studying journalism in law and he what to do an article on someone in the mental health space. And he came around and recorded, ask me some questions and took some photos. But through my vulnerability. It just stopped at one point and then started to tell me about this six years of intense bullying he had at school being held down on this school oval by a dozen guys. And the trauma and not being able to talk to his his parents about it and only coming to surface when he was crying on the on the bus. And it went to the school welfare person then the embarrassment when they brought in the principal and they further embarrassment where they forced each of these bullies individually to come in and apologise and then post HSC to be go into a school function where they randomly allocate kids to tables and they randomly allocated the main bully sitting next to him at the table. Now, in this discussion where he shared this, you could see the impact and he was in a really, really low place at that point. Now he’s kicking goals. I said to a mentor he had on Just listen to Me. In fact, later on I sent him an email. Just tell him how impressed I was with him. And I just saw Amazing Future. But one of the things I said to him, how would it have been if you if someone else who had a similar experience to you had been shared their story with you and that you get through this and there’s going to be this. He said it would have been absolutely brilliant. He said, these stories and this is tough stuff. I mean, sexual abuse comes out in a lot of these stories and it’s horrendous. But having someone else gone through that stuff can make a can make a huge difference. So that’s yeah, it made a difference for me. And mine was relatively minor compared to the huge stories that these other guys have been accusing him.
Dr Ron Ehrlich [00:46:55] Because I guess it’s not just people feeling isolated and lonely in in life now, but when something like that happens to you feeling like you’re the only one that it’s ever happened to. That is a huge liberation, isn’t it? You know that you’re not.
Ian Westmoreland [00:47:12] It’s. It’s illogical. But you’re right. It’s like when we. No one else has had this before. No one else has felt this. I’m an ambassador for a group called Parents Beyond Break-Up, which is predominantly dads going through relationship breakdown and the suicide rate of men to women’s about 3 to 1 when men are going through separations about 12 to 1. It’s one of the reasons, I think, for some of the horrendous things that happen. But these men think, well, I’m not the only one who’s experiencing this, but through this group. And they run their own peer support groups, it makes a huge difference. So yeah, my dream. How good would it be if every community at the local library or the community centre, whatever, once a week a group of people got together, maybe with a facilitator and listened and shared stories and bring back that that village concept. So instead of being these isolated pillars where I’m thinking we’re the only ones to experience this, actually realise that there’s a lot of wisdom in that out there and shared shared experiences. We just listen.
Dr Ron Ehrlich [00:48:22] Well, I mean, for tens of thousands, if not hundreds of thousands of years, we would that’s all we had. Sit around and talk and tell each other story.
Ian Westmoreland [00:48:32] We’d call it in Australia. How much could we learn from our indigenous Australians around things like this? Yeah.
Dr Ron Ehrlich [00:48:38] I know. Well, it’s a theme that I often do say that I believe we have so much to learn from our our ancestors, our first nations people about connection and respect for people and country.
Ian Westmoreland [00:48:50] Absolutely. And even looking after the environment as well.
Dr Ron Ehrlich [00:48:54] It’s so in this, you know what you’re doing, what you’re who you’re whose lives you’re affecting is so wonderful and and inspiring. I just wanted to take a step back and just ask you this one last question before we go. And that is because we’re all on a on a journey through life in this modern world. We’re all individuals on that journey. What do you think the biggest challenge is for us as individuals on that journey?
Ian Westmoreland [00:49:22] The biggest challenge for me. There’s two challenges is work life balance. And I get asked that, What’s the secret? I’ve got no idea. I talked about all the positives, incredible fulfilment that it had on this journey, the lessons learned. But, you know, I’ve got a daughter who I love, and she said to me at one point, Dad, you care more about these men than you care about your own family. And she’s quite vocal and she was emotional at the time. But does an element of not an element truth, but that was a reality. I was spending sometimes Viking’s sacrifices around my family to get mainstream men done, and my wife would have similar views to that. So I guess. That’s that’s been one of the biggest challenges. And. Are going through a health challenge as well at the moment. I got been through a cancer journey, got diagnosed with stage four melanoma last week. So I’m incredibly upbeat, incredibly positive. And I I’m loving what I do, continue to love what I do. So. I don’t know the answer. I. Yeah, I’ve got no regrets about the things that I’m trying to do and I see the impact that it has. But some people. Feel, you know, some of the things I’m doing, I’ve got wrong and I fully understand that, you know, and they’re probably right.
Dr Ron Ehrlich [00:51:06] It’s it’s it’s a fine balance. It’s a fine line We walk, isn’t it? Yeah. In in life and yeah, I think a lot of people would share both of those stories, sadly, with you in finding that balance in work life and the ubiquitous diagnosis of cancer is something that is affected and continues to affect many people have may I think the statistic is one in 1 in 2 men, 1 in 3 women over the age of 60 will get a diagnosis of cancer.
Ian Westmoreland [00:51:37] Yeah. And part of the challenge is I’m supporting other people through cancer journeys at the moment is you are bombarded with it almost invariably well-meaning people. And you know, the voice I’ve got around died around exercise gone, walk barefoot on the grass, go and have a cold shower, don’t eat meat, eat, eat keto. Take these supplements. Surgery. No radiation, no immuno. And it’s just. Wow. How do you take all this in? And then ultimately, like you might make a decision on this and it’s one of the real challenges and you yeah digits. Yeah I feel for people and and in my case I’m going back on self-funded immunotherapy. But what do people do who can’t afford that? And ultimately there’ll be surgery, possibly surgery to remove this lump from a lung. So but again, I’d give what you go on the waiting list to get that sort of stuff done. So it’s a it’s just such a difficult road. I far prefer the prevention, like mental health. Let’s go and prevent it. And and you know, maybe we should be eating less processed foods. Maybe we should be exercising more and maybe we should be doing more meditation and maybe more talking at all and sharing stories. Sharing. There’s a number of things we should be doing. Maybe there should be less marriage break. Like all these things lead to stress, which can lead to which can lead to illness. So not I don’t have the answers.
Dr Ron Ehrlich [00:53:15] I just know that that’s that’s certainly raised some important points for us to consider. And and Ian, I just want to thank you not only for joining us today in sharing the story, but for all the wonderful work that you are doing and all the very best going forward for you.
Ian Westmoreland [00:53:32] Thank you so much for the opportunity to chat and for you to listen and all that stuff that I said. So thank you so much.
Dr Ron Ehrlich [00:53:40] A pleasure. Well, we have we will, of course, have links to mentoring men and kintsugi heroes. I think the whole issue around men communicating their feelings, their emotions much more than we do. I think when I look as I mentioned, when I look at the way I was brought up and the way he hit, we’ve done programs before with Matt Delfino and we might actually re-release that in this same week, The Man Cave, which is a wonderful initiative going into schools that are encouraging young boys to communicate their feelings and emotions. And rather than just crawl into a cave, as many men tend to do when asked what’s wrong? Nothing. They will reply to their partner or their friends. Nah, I’m fine. No problems at all. And yet they are mentally crawling into a cave all on their own. Well, it’s nice to know there are others in that cave that we can be talking to and that it is so important for us to do that, to expose, to to talk about our vulnerability and to share that with other men, but other people. It doesn’t have to just be men just to get used to sharing our emotions. Well, mentoring men is one of those. And of course, Kintsugi Heroes is full of very inspiring stories and we’ll have links to both of those. I hope this find you will. Until next time. This is Dr. Dr Ron Ehrlich. Be well. Feeling stressed. Overwhelmed. It’s time to Unstress your life. Join the Unstress health community and transform stress into strength. Build mental fitness from self-sabotage to self-mastery. And together, let’s not just survive, but thrive. Expert led courses, curated podcasts, like minded community and support, and much more. Visit Unstress health.com today. This podcast provides general information and discussion about medicine, health and related subjects. The content is not intended and should not be construed as medical advice or as a substitute for care by a qualified medical practitioner. If you or any other person has a medical concern, he or she should consult with an appropriately qualified medical practitioner. Guests who speak in this podcast express their own opinions, experiences, and. Conclusions.
