Before It's Too Late

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0:41Acast helps creators launch, grow, and monetize their podcasts everywhere. Acast.com I'm Danny Whitescorn, and this is Behind the Title. I'm delighted to be joined by Daniele Fiendacker today. His organisation Hard As Nails is doing some amazing work to destigmatise all the challenges that exist with men's mental health today. This woman said to me, I just want to let you know you saved two men's lives. And I was like, I was just gobsmacked. I can't do the work I do around inclusive leadership without being vulnerable. When you are vulnerable, people just appreciate it. We're covering some really important topics, so please come along and I must advise there is a trigger warning to this episode.

1:33Daniele, welcome to Behind the Title. It is wonderful to see you again and to have you on the podcast. It's wonderful to be here, thank you. I guess for those that don't know you and what you do, it would be great if you could just give a little introduction to you, your background, what you're up to now and why it was important for you to come on to the podcast today yeah i think it's fair to say i've had a bit of a squiggly career uh as my friends uh helen and sarah would say i used to work in advertising so i was the ceo of profero uh i worked there for 10 years i was managing partner and head of innovation at chel uh so i've been i've been in the industry but i left the industry about uh i think it's nearly a decade ago now um to move into inclusion diversity which is quite quite an unusual choice for a white, straight, neurotypical cisgender man without disabilities.

2:26But I ran a business called Utopia with Nadia Powell for five years. And for the last three years, I've been running Token Man Consulting. And I do three things, really. I do inclusive leadership. I'm really proud. I work with Roxanne Hobbs on Channel 4, for example. We engage men with inclusion diversity. So that means supporting men, inspiring men to give them the tools for what is a changing world and then actually recruiting men to become better allies and agents of change and the third string to my ball which is probably one I'm going to hopefully spend most of next year is coaching it's just been for me qualified to become a coach three years ago one I didn't expect people to think I'm a good coach but it turns out that you know the people I've coached loved what I've done with them so and it's just been amazing just to see how much people can move from the first session to the sixth session you know it's transformative for people I was I was given a coach a short while ago and it was it was interesting it was different we'll get into that in a second and why was it important for you to come on the podcast today firstly if someone like Curtis Weir introduces us and say we need to speak I know there's something behind that you know he's he's uh i used to work with him at pharaoh um he's a lovely man uh wonderful man and if he says we're going to connect we're going to connect and i think we spoke i mean firstly the podcast behind the title is really interesting because to a certain extent i haven't really had a title for quite a while now co-founder's not really a title uh i know some people have small business call themselves ceos and that's just not me right i just you know for me i found that titles often hinder rather than help um but also that kind of you know it's really interesting because i when i used to run creative social which was a collective of creative directors and and i tried to create a new series of stuff we did so many events but one was called creative social at home and it was the the the foundation was basically going to people's creative directors homes and get them to do a talk in their house so i actually i actually did the pilot in my flat and I had 30 people in my flat and I did about collecting and I sold vinyl toys.

4:38So I think firstly, the title just, I think the reality is, and we'll go on to, you know, it also reminded me of what happened when I left Perferro. You know, I'd been in Perferro for 10 years and it'd become my identity to a certain extent. It became everything. It was everything to me. My identity was so wrapped up in it. But what I didn't expect after leaving was two months after leaving people just said to me wow you look so much better that was the realized first time I'd realized just how much stress I'd been under for the last decade you know it was a decade you know we built an agency from I joined there's 22 of us you know by the time I left there's 300 of us with 10 offices around the world each of which I was you know heavily involved in setting up it was relentless and while I had that amazing energy and I loved it and it didn't feel like work I hadn't realized just how much stress I've been putting myself under and also you know I've had mental health issues myself probably about three four years ago and I've also seen the benefit of people leaning in asking the right questions but I've also seen some of those people who I think should have known better not supporting because of what I represented.

5:59Was there a time then in that period where you were in a senior position? And actually even current day, where on the outside, everything, polished, veneer, exterior, but on the inside, feeling the opposite? The answer is no. And that's because, you know, I can't do the work I do. around inclusive leadership without being vulnerable so if I go back to 10 years ago I had no idea that that stress that stress was putting on me yeah I didn't leave because of that I left for other reasons um so I don't think there was ever a time and listen I'm I'm I have I'm I have many privileges but I'm also privileged right uh you know we did eventually sell prefera And I made good money from that.

6:48So I've never really felt the pressure or felt the need to show a kind of faith. And now because I've been doing what I've been doing for eight years, I'm really open at the moment. I'm struggling with work, really struggling with work. You know, we're not, you know, there's a number of reasons for that. But, you know, the reality is the EDI industry is really, you know, under pressure. that's partly because of Trump coming from America I think we're seeing people feeling they don't need to lean in anymore but I also think the EDI industry has to take some responsibility for the fact that it hasn't meaningfully engaged white straight men and also I think it's left behind a whole other marginalized group which is the white working class men so I think we're we are going to start hopefully we'll start to see a shift where people do start engaging men but you know i talk about vulnerability i can't not you know i i wrote a post um on linkedin a month ago saying that over the summer my mental health was really bad uh and it's just amazing just how much people appreciate hearing that that's why these conversations are so important because we have to understand that um being vulnerable doesn't even though it's it's vulnerability by definition is exposing yourself to emotional physical harm the reality is when you are vulnerable people just appreciate it and I just did an event on Wednesday I didn't think I was going to cry on stage but I did cry on the stage we'll probably talk about the story today at some point I just had so many notes and people just saying thank you for that you know thank you for showing me what vulnerability can be and that it's not a weakness.

8:36When I launched Behind the Title, I don't think I ever expected, I think as you just alluded to, I don't think I'd ever expected the sort of feedback that I've had around either someone identifying, someone saying thank you, it's really helped me with a specific topic. um and and one of the questions we ask is you know was there a time in which you wish you'd said something different you wish you'd spoken up and out and i think that we are in an era now where that's changed and people are more vocal um but all of a sudden when you provide people the platform like you know you're here today unanimously everyone says the same thing which is i wish i wouldn't have chased the career yeah i wish i wouldn't have put that before everything else family friends you know children mental health i think is a really difficult subject it doesn't matter whether you're male female um whether you're gender neutral you know whatever it may be it's difficult and it kind of it can handicap you in so many different ways and the idea of just two people coming together is what I've learned through my journey in recovery one person sharing their experience with another and all of a sudden you just feel like there's a weight lifted because someone suddenly identifies you know there's an openness and honesty now I won't spoil your thunder I will let you introduce Harla's Nails because that's what I want to talk about today is the impact that that can have on everyone's mental health but specifically men's mental health it's worth saying that i do lots of men only spaces uh i run brave spaces across the year uh men only spaces and they're places for people to have conversations they wouldn't normally have we've covered things like grief sex and intimacy uh the changing nature of men uh what it feels like leaning into inclusion diversity uh friends and family you know we've covered absolutely everything and we every single session i do with men only we start with the feelings will and I get people to identify a feeling and again it depends where they are on their journey it's the first time they're doing it I just say just just maybe just choose what how you're feeling now but if you want to be a bit more vulnerable choose a feeling over the last two weeks that's made you feel really uncomfortable think of a time where you felt uncomfortable and identify that feeling and then I put them in pairs to talk about it the impact is unbelievable and these are men who often have never spoken to anyone in their organization about their feelings and even their partner about their feelings you know um bell hooks wrote the brilliant book will to change uh and she's and bell hooks you don't know bell hooks she's the first feminist that understood the damage the system did on men as well and did a lot of work but she talks in that book specifically about men becoming disconnected with their feelings um and i'm spending you know a lot along with a lot of other men uh i run a group called good men with james routledge so we're trying to bring all those men together to actually create change and that's going to be part of that change you know getting men more emotionally literate uh coming back to harder's nails so harder's nails uh i'm co-founder of harder's nails i co-founded with sam conniff uh if anyone doesn't if anyone hasn't read sam's book uh be more pirate you should it's a brilliant book synopsis basically he he goes into the history of of pirating and shows what we can learn from it And actually, if you look at things like diversity, inclusion, diversity, pirates were some of the most inclusive and diverse people ever.

12:23Yeah. Including, you know, someone who's lost a leg, you know, they'd get benefit, you know, they'd get disability benefit. And now women, women had the vote to write as in that community. Hundreds of years before women had the vote to write in the UK, for example. So it's a brilliant book that just says, you know, just breaking those rules. And it's an amazing book. But we started Hard As Nails really as a, we're basically encouraging people to get their nails painted, to open up meaningful conversations around healthy masculinity, harmful stereotypes and male mental health. That's the synopsis.

13:03uh we've we've already done uh we did a couple of pilots um which were extremely successful i would have said uh going back to the mental health bit the bit that i'm really grappling with at the moment is i think most of the men that came step forward in the pirate in those pilots had already hit rock bottom at a certain point they understood the damage the system did on them but often it takes a man to hit rock bottom in order to understand that i want to hit them before i want to get to them before they hit rock bottoms as we know some people that hit rock bottom don't make it out right the suicide rate is shocking uh here in the uk and around the world um and then we we did we did a big pilot 400 people we've recruited uh that was incredible uh i think you know we did we did so much research we did uh pre post during we had the most lovely thing was we had a whatsapp group during the two weeks 110 men on that whatsapp group we had over a thousand messages in two weeks and just the conversations were just so heartwarming people sharing their experiences how they were feeling uh one one gay guy uh you know it was just lovely he just said you know i was really hesitant coming into this because i you know a large proportion of people went into the were straight white men i was really hesitant coming into this i just didn't know what to expect to be in this kind of group and he said and he just said do you know what you've you've just made me feel so welcome and it's been so inclusive but also I've just seen this generosity of spirit this kindness I just didn't expect uh you've actually changed my again come back to that stereotype you know I can imagine if you're a gay man you know you've had a lot of harm from white straight men yeah so there's I understand that so to create a space where actually we had these just wonderful conversations um and it even got even started getting what was lovely after the first week you started getting to nail tips you know what type of nails you're doing what colors people started taking photos and I would say I would say of and we're going to talk about you know your experience as well because I want to hear about it but you know I would say that a quarter of the men who get their nails painted will do it again it's worth just quickly going to the origin story so sam basically sam went to um a harry stars concert with his daughter and he said uh to his daughter it's your weekend we can do whatever you want she said dad i'd love to go to nail salon with you and get our nails done so he went he got really cool chrome gels and really happy when they went to the style the harry stars concert loads of people wearing nail polish that's the thing for stylists harry styles has his own brand called pleasing so you know he really has embraced it um and then he got to sunday night and he said to his daughter i've got a week worth of meetings could you take this off uh and she just laughed at him said dad you can't i can't it's shellac you have to go back to the salon he goes but i can't i've got any time to go back to salon so he had to wear them for the whole week and so he he then he started opening up conversations and Sam being Sam didn't know what to do with it but he just wrote a blog post that says performative nonsense or something interesting and they just wrote a kind of faux press release for a campaign called Hardest Nails and what was really interesting is I read it uh someone that I coached in one of the men's group I did shared it um and I read it and I said Sam we should speak it took about three months to speak and I just said Sam I think you've got something in there i don't think it's allyship because i think if it was allyship it'd be performative it'll be look i'm painting my nails what do you mean by performative it's just a gesture without actually creating any change fundamentally so you know brands do it the whole time turning their flag to the rainbow it does have an impact right and we've seen this year when it happened and companies stopped doing it what a negative impact in seeing this there's a benefit of that but if you're putting your logo as a rainbow flag every pride and not changing one how people in the lgbtq plus community feel within your business but also how your communications your media actually portray those people you that's performative right you're not make any difference uh and i just said tim i don't think it is about allyship but i need to do it in order to understand and what was i did between christmas and new year so i didn't have business meetings so i had a very different experience i painted your nails last week last week you did so tell me how what that felt like and what that's done it's it's interesting i said i grew up with a a mum who had a beauty nail salon and so I was you know when you when you generously offered your time to come on the podcast you said could I come and paint your nails as well and so we can talk about you know Harder's Nails and what the initiative is about and and I don't think I had any reservation whatsoever and when we were sitting down I think I said to you when we were there we were in a public place I think I felt more uncomfortable comfortable about less about you painting my nails but more about putting other people out because we were painting nails in that environment and that was the first thing and actually the whole way through I was I was I was just conscious in fact I didn't say it there but there was a woman directly opposite us who kept on kind of turning her nose up and I couldn't tell if that was because of the smell or perhaps it was just the perception of two men you know painting nails or indeed it was just that's not the environment to do that sort of thing it was so nice to just sit and you know we were just gassing away about whatever um now when we left I had to go and get something um from a shop nearby and i was standing in the shop and the guy was helping me and my nails were visibly on show and i and i i remembered i was gonna i was gonna send you a message but i didn't but i remember saying to the guy oh i just painted my nails for an experiment social experiment he's like i don't care do you really say that i did no but i'm saying he said i don't care i love it i love it i love it why are you just well you don't need to justify yeah i think i said this to you as well like on the day and also just before i go through stages where i bite my nails terrible habit terrible habit in fact i cursed my dad because i got it from him um and for years i've tried to stop and tried different methods and so actually after you painted them and as I was kind of walking I was looking at them and you can really see the imperfections in your nails if you've got them painted or you've got something on there if you bite them and so I got home and and I'll be honest I took it off I didn't take it off because I felt uncomfortable maybe I did maybe I did take it off because I uncomfortable maybe I did but I think I felt more uncomfortable because my nails felt dirty because I didn't they were like half bitten and um now this is the kicker right uh is on Tuesday afternoon I booked an appointment at the nail salon because I hadn't bitten my nails for a few days and I didn't want to bite them again and so I went in there and I got a manicure I didn't get them painted but I got a manicure and it was the most liberating experience I've had as me time for a long moment I sat there for 25 minutes and we're doing their thing and got a nice little ham massage with some you know aloe vera or some you know cocoa butter cream I don't know what it was and I walked out and for the whole week I haven't bit my nails and so what it did teach me is a couple of things is is number one a nail salon is not just for a female number two it's helped me formed form a better habit you know in the for five days now i've not bitten my nails and i know that if i keep up long enough i will probably change that behavior long term and number three i can now pass that on to someone else and encourage them you know if they just want to take a bit of me time and look after themselves you can go into a nail salon now i'm not necessarily sure if that's the aim of the initiative but it partly is so uh and that's why we put the mental health bit in there because um and it's also what you know you it's really interesting you say that nail salons just not for men i mean i i never i i did a talk at another agency recently and and the question the question that just the opening question is how did you go from advertising CEO to become a nail technician because I'm now a trained nail technician.

22:25But when you do the training, there's a part of the section which says, if a man comes in, they're not going to get polished. You know, it actually says that in their stuff. So you just need to put clear polish on it. And you're like, I'm like going, wow, you're just, you know, you're just making this broad assumption from the outset. I believe in breaking stereotypes. So I'm in the process of breaking stereotypes i wore skirt on stage on wednesday uh you know for the first time like a kilt like no skirt skirt skirt sir i'll show you the photo afterwards um but you know even then again we'll come back to you know these kind of stereotypes why it works so well these kind of stereotypes are so ingrained yeah that that roxanne who i run it with two years in a row we had the biggest discussion we had and it was definitely wasn't heated we we have such an amazing relationship but the biggest discussion we had was whether I could wear a skirt or not and two years in a row the answer we and we came up to it together was no but this year we managed to go let's get everyone in the audience to vote and whether I should wear a skirt I didn't put any I wasn't allowed to lead I just said just vote and it was beautiful because I know what I know the people in that room and 77 % said yes yeah 11 % said no 12 % said unsure but I did feel the the uncomfortableness of it.

23:49Yeah, I did go into the room, I could see people looking. There was a lot of people who've come up to me since saying, one person in particular said, at a break when I was doing a workshop for a client said, I just wanted to apologise because I'd assumed you're gay. And I said, firstly, don't apologise. Yeah, there's nothing wrong with being gay. So the fact you thought, that's absolutely fine. And actually, I take it as a compliment, because again it's a stereotype but most gay men i know are really stylish so i'm like going yeah it's like it's like so but please you know there's no need to apologize and and but but it's interesting isn't it how we stereotype people based on that in fact when i did the school when i i did my first school the other day uh uh i painted 34 out of 36 the boys uh big nails but i asked them all at the beginning of each boy circle I said how many of you assumed I was gay 90 % assumed I was gay you make the people make these assumptions um so anyway so I when I came back from that experience my own experience I said Sam this isn't about allyship this is about masculinity this is a visual representation of the man box where the man box are the things that put men into boxes.

25:06So, and it is one of the pillars. One of the pillars is physical attractiveness. Men need to look good, but God forbid, if they actually did something like grooming, you know, paint the nails. And again, you know, I had someone made a comment the other day, you've got more wings than your wife. It wasn't meant to be a compliment. Let's just put it that way. And so for me, so for me, and it's like, why if anyone, and we do know this, you know, I just painted, I painted for international men's there, I painted five men's nails from basically who worked in biker bars. Yeah. And they were all, you know, you know, tats, rings, and all of them, all by one, painted their nails regularly before.

25:50And they're like, do you know what? This is not an issue for us because we grew up being others. Wow. Yeah. And you say, again, you go to that stereotype. They were just the most lovely people. and you get this stereotype of bite, you know, you think, wow. And it's the complete opposite. And so stereotypes are really harmful. Why is such a powerful question? It's the first question I recommend people go, why have you got your nails? But why? Why not? I actually say, why not? Yeah. And so they have to force them to think about what is it that's going through it. And I think what really, and it's really interesting, is if you think about this experiment and we know, because we were following everyone through the whole two weeks because we had the WhatsApp group.

26:33What happened was people came in really excited, got their nails painted. A lot of them felt very uncomfortable. I mean, the best example is, have you read Billy No Mates, the book Billy No Mates? It's by Max Dickens. So Max, a lovely man, he went to get married and he realised he didn't have a friend to ask to be his best man. Yeah, and we know there's a loneliness epidemic academic across men. And so he did research around him, he wrote the book Belly No Mates. But he was part of our prototyping, you know, when we did the kind of pilot. And I remember him telling us afterwards that he got his nails painted and we all did it together at Shoreditch Nails.

27:15That's where I trained. You know, it was a lovely experience. You know, the first one we did was six, the second one was 14. I can't tell you what a wonderful experience having the whole salon full of men, you know, getting their nails painted, excited. And I kind of that kind of, but he, he, he got them painted. And then that night he was meant to go to see his, he supports Manchester United. I'm not going to judge him. And he was meant to go and see a match and he got to the, he didn't really, didn't really think about it, went towards the pub, put his hand on the door. And as he put his hand on the door, he saw his nails and he went, nah, he just went home and he just didn't, he just couldn't, he just didn't, he wasn't in the mood to be, to get the stick or to get the, or to justify or, and you know, so, so what, so what really, what's really happened with this experiment is firstly, men come into it thinking, we saw this on the WhatsApp, men coming into it thinking, I'm going to get these mails painted and then I'm going meaningful conversations with other men.

28:18So it's about them. You know, I'm helping them. What happens is they'll get to day two, day three, no one said anything. No one said anything. And they're like going, so what they have to do, but they're still feeling really uncomfortable, right? Most of them are still feeling. So what they have to do is they have to take that finger and have to point it back at themselves. and they have to go, what is it? What is it that stops Max going into the pub? And so while I keep on saying it's not an allyship campaign, it is about men getting to understand how the system hurts them, what they can do around that.

28:57So I spend a lot of time talking about the man box. I get people looking at the man box and going, okay, which of these things really impact you the most? How can you combat them? So, you know, one of the seven pillars is, you know stereotypical gender roles you know so men men are breadwinners and work and women are carers and once you start seeing that you go okay what are we doing that fits within that stereotype what could we change i'm intrigued to know from all the conversations you've had are there certain triggers within the men that you've spoken to through your experiment that tend to take people into a worse place with their mental health than others Of those men that I know in the corporate space who have had mental health breakdowns, they've all been related to one thing.

29:43And that's the pressure to be the breadwinner. That need to provide for your family and the stress of that and the worry of that. Today, my wife is the breadwinner. She's earning more money than I am. And that's the first time in our time together, 25 years, you know. And I'm feeling it. And it's not logical. It's not, you know, I know all the stereotypes. It doesn't mean I don't feel it. It's so ingrained with us. So I think that, and again, coming back to what we've created is we create a system where I hear people say men are selfish. I'm lucky. I get to speak to most of the men I work with are wonderful, right?

30:27But actually, even if I look at my dad, for example, my dad worked so hard, but he never bought himself anything. he never treated himself he never had anything he did everything he could for us me and my brother there's absolutely no doubt about that and actually i see it time and time again men are men are so focused on their careers because they feel that need to do the breadwinner they often drop everything else uh and that does damage on them and everyone around them and so we've created this space where you know and we mentioned it before but no you know very few people on their deathbed said I wish I worked harder yeah I think the number one reason for men is I wish I spent more time with my kids I think you spend on average and this for all the parents listen to this this might be a very depressing stat for you but it's also a stat that's really important especially if you've got young kids is do you know how long if if you think about a parent's lifetime with their kids what percentage of the time have they spent together in total by the time they hit 18 do you know the figure oh it's a good one what percentage that they've spent together so up to 18 what percentage does that represent of the time you've spent together their whole lifetime 20 percent 90 so once they hit 18 you've only got 10 left so if you've got to the top of your career and your kids 16 17 you've missed you've missed the biggest chunk of time you'll ever spend with them it's funny i went the other way i thought i was looking for a loan number no no no actually what the point i now understand is as you said like you've missed it you've missed it and also you know we're seeing we know we know from the stats the stats you know a man who i was being someone from the police force yesterday he was talking about a progressive police group who have given their dads three weeks paternity pay.

32:23That's progressive in the police force. The police force generally get one week fully paid, one week statutory. Wow. And we wonder why these men, we're seeing these bad apples in the police force, which we are, and there's bad apples in everything. But we're seeing a system because we're not, we're perpetuating the system. We're not getting them. The men that I know that have spent three months, I'm childless, not by choice, so I don't have kids, but I speak to a lot of fathers. But those men that did spend that time, the impact on them is unbelievable. Do you feel, though, between what you're doing and lots of other organisations around men's mental health

33:12versus this female empowerment and getting kind of more women in senior positions, do you think they were at odds with each other? They shouldn't be. Yeah. Are we not creating the same problem over there? A lot of it's pendulums, right? You know, you get a pendulum. The pendulum had to go that way. You know, if you think about the barriers that women still face in the workplace are immense. If I go back to when I started Token Man, Token Man was really started specifically to help create gender equality. I soon moved into just inclusion and diversity. but a lot of the work I still do is getting men to be better allies and agents of change and creating workplaces that are truly inclusive for women and other historically marginalized groups.

33:54That's really important. I don't think they should be mutually exclusive. Everything that I've learned is that the things that men need to do and learn to become better leaders, to become more inclusive, to become better human beings are the same things that will actually help everyone else. Yeah, if we can teach men to be more vulnerable, more empathetic, more self-aware they're gonna be better leaders in the workplace right and in fact uh of that the people i've done two surveys one is on men leaning in and one it was on male people who are trying to be male allies uh 97 said as a result of the work they've done because it does take time they're either a better leader and or human being who wouldn't want to be that right i think where we i think what we have lost sight is i do feel like i do think and i feel it i really feel it with the people i speak to we're seeing with young boys you know i think men are being demonized right now i don't think they're being celebrated in in any way of any form of life people say to me every day is international wednesday my god even as a white straight man doesn't feel like that uh even though i have huge privileges and i recognize those privileges well it well it's interesting because because because growing up i i don't think i grew up in either house i i lost a parent my mom when i was seven and my dad brought me up along with you know my some of my older siblings but i now am with my partner who is from who's like a stoic southeast londoner and her family are very uh they're tough yeah they're they're hard as now and i i find it interesting because anytime i try and have a conversation um around any of this stuff it's it's almost it's acknowledged but it's but it's so this is so every time i speak to the men because i am i do work with men who start to see the benefits of sharing their feelings but i always give them proviso and i say i think a partnership needs to be a partnership right and i think that as men start expressing their feelings they need a partner that's able to deal with those feelings and actually support that person um instead it feels like instead we've created this word called man keeping where all of a sudden again men are the problem because all of a sudden we're putting emotional burden on women.

36:28I understand it. I do understand it. I'm not sure how helpful it is. But we do have to recognise that when we've created a system where men are told not to ask for help and have never asked for help not to show their feelings, when all of a sudden a man does do that, women aren't necessarily equipped to deal with that. Yeah. And so it takes time on both sides. And I think if we look at this changing system that we need, it needs us all to learn, unlearn and relearn. I talked about crying on stage on Wednesday, but it was so lovely because it's only the second time it's happened. I'd love to hear that story.

37:06Yeah. So it's only the second time it happened. And I'll tell you the story. But what was lovely is as I was crying, Rox came over to give me a hug. So again, Roxanne Hobbs is definitely one of my biggest allies. you know she's taught me so much um been very patient with me um but she came up to give me a hug but at the same time the whole place went into a round of applause and it was like a warm hug and it's the second time it happened you know it happened to me on stage in in spain uh when i spoke at cdc um and all the women that asked me to come and speak just as soon i cried on stage there as well just started clapping and it was just like it was so good so come back what's the story so the story is simple and um I get emotional about this stuff because I've lost two people to suicide you know I don't I don't want to I think we talked earlier the things you didn't say I wasn't mentally health first aid trained when my cousin came over here um we knew she'd been suffering but I didn't ask her the questions I now know we should have asked right so I have that tools.

38:15I have those tools now. So, you know, and I've done it. You know, I've asked someone I didn't know very well on a call, stranger, are you having suicidal thoughts in front of everyone else? Right. And because I knew that that, I needed to know that, you know, and actually people think by saying that you're going to put people's thought, that's just been completely disproven. Anyway, so I'm giving you a context. So I, and I didn't expect to cry by the way, uh but i put i put a photo we want me and sam on sky news and i was painting gareth who's the center's nails live and what was hilarious about that was that that was only the third time i'd ever painted someone's nails i wasn't qualified at that point i was in the process being qualified but it was literally the third time he kept on for weeks i was very impressed with myself um but i was and because i've i'm doing this hundred man project which is about looking which you're part of now Danny but you know it was part of redefining what masculinity could be so I paint 100 men's nails and I asked them what the three words you would like masculinity to be associated with when you think about a more healthy form of masculinity so because I had to hit 100 men it's really hard you know that's that's I think it was an average thing like initially it was like four week I had to do and I hadn't realized what a pressure put myself on So I went to a do lectures training.

39:38And just in the first workshop, when we went into a little circle, there was me, one other man and seven women. Because there was one other man, I just said to him, I didn't give any context. I just said, can I paint your nails at lunchtime? And he just went, yeah, why not? I was like, wow, that's amazing. so you know I painted his nails at lunchtime then and when I finished I walked past this woman said to me are you have you got anything are you to do anything to do with Harder's Nails I said yeah I'm the co-founder she said oh yeah I co-founded it with Sam she goes yeah I follow Sam and I said I just want to let you know you save two men's lives and I was like I was just gobsmacked and I was like okay tell me more she said well we go into hospitals uh that's what i do as a business you know our charity go into hospitals to open up conversations so that people can actually come in and talk about stuff and we saw you on sky news we thought actually what a lovely initiative we're going to go into the hospital and we're going to offer to paint men's nails and so they did it and they did two sessions for it and she said during those two sessions two men came up to us and told us I had suicidal thoughts and we've now give we've now given the support but everything around them and they're alive today so you you've helped serve those two men's lives and it just was it was you know I think to a certain extent you know that's why I feel passionate about this you know we've got we have an opportunity with Hardest Nails that it can be the most impactful thing I've ever done but we have a challenge you know we need to get funded we can't just you know we can't do it out of anything so that's our challenge at the moment what do we do next how do we fund it and and just look at those models but if in a year's time we haven't done something major i'd be really disappointed because the impact the impact and i think i talked about it earlier i said it wasn't an allyship position but our researchers have said if your results were any better no one would believe them we have never seen anything have such a significant impact in such a short space of time so what happens when people do get their nails painted is their view of masculinity shifts to a much more healthy view within one week within one week just having the nails painted secondly their level of empathy shifts significantly so actually even though we haven't created an allyship campaign i think deep down i always knew that actually it would help men be more better allies through just having that increased empathy as we draw this to to a close um aside the fact that i'm i'm actually going to get another manicure today um uh if you could give people permission to think feel do say act in a different way um what would that be i think first thing the the advice i'd give to everyone specifically the men and then i'll go to everyone else and women are non-binary people but specifically the men go and have a look at the man box yeah look at this just type into google man box you'll find it straight away it's by equimondo so look look that up and actually start to look at the seven the seven pillars and work out which one is holding you back to being a better okay it depends where you are in your life i don't try and be a better man i try and be a better human being yeah yeah fundamentally but whatever you what trying what can you do to be better what can you do be better for yourself yeah and we had professor green yesterday uh on wednesday at the event and he said something he was talking about specifically around fathers and he said if you to be a better father to your boy you need to do the work on yourself first and i thought that was just brilliant because we all have to do the what you know it's called the work for a reason you know the document everyone asked me what what movie do you think people should watch when it comes to this space and i could reel off 10 movies and i'll probably do i'll give i'll give five in a minute but the one that i always talk about is the work which is an amazing documentary in Foulson Prison where Foulson Prison every year is amazing you have to apply for it but 35 civilians go into the prison and get therapy from prisoners it is unbelievable and you just see you just see the damage that masculinity does in that but again if anyone's interested do watch After Sun the films you have to watch for me after sun nowhere special make sure you've got tissues for that one uh another round uh and uh all of us strangers are must watch films finally never heard any of them oh you have to watch them i promise you i've just made your life richer love that um danielle thank you so much for coming on today um for anyone that wants to understand more about hard as nails go online yeah just type i i I now test it on people's phones.

44:49If you type in hard as nails, you get, you get first one. The first search tends to be a, there is a nail salon, I think in Brixton, that's hard as nails with a Z, but about four or five down, you will find hard as nails. We are, we are, we are, we are coming up. And if they want to follow me, just follow me on LinkedIn. I, I used to for a year and a half. I posted every day on LinkedIn, but I just got tired. But I still do post. And if people want to get involved or their organizations get involved, get in touch with you just link link in with me fantastic send me a note amazing thank you so much for coming on I can't tell you I mean this is such an important topic and I think you know we've kind of veered away from maybe the normal format that we would but I think to elevate the subject of men's mental health alongside everyone else's mental health it's not exclusive I think is absolutely critical and the work you're doing which is why I want to support it is really important.

45:46So I look forward to people hearing this episode. Thank you so much. Thank you.

46:15Daniele Fiandaca: to the flavor and nutrition your body craves. Go to cachava.com and use code fitness. New customers get 15 % off their first order. That's K-A-C-H-A-V-A.com code fitness.