The case for male vulnerability with Luke Bateman

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1:09Head to Scribd.com to claim yours. That's S-C-R-I-B-D.com. Must be 18 or over. When I talk about patriarchy, I talk about the socially enforced mutilation of your internal world as a man. That's a powerful phrase. Say that again. the socially enforced mutilation of your internal world. And it happens so silently and invisibly. Hey everyone, it's Adam Grant. Welcome back to Rethinking, my podcast with Ted on the science of what makes us tick. I'm an organizational psychologist and I'm taking you inside the minds of fascinating people to explore new thoughts and new ways of thinking.

1:54I first learned about Luke Bateman from his Instagram posts about how patriarchy has hidden costs for men and boys. But his posts are eye-catching in more ways than one. Sometimes he records from inside the cab of a tractor in rural Australia where he lives. He doesn't look like the kind of guy who would talk about his feelings. As a former pro rugby player, he's jacked. But appearances don't tell the full story. when I was playing as a professional rugby player, one of the toughest, strongest men in the world. That is the weakest that I have ever been. Luke is massively popular on TikTok. He built his audience by posting about his love of fantasy and romantisy novels.

2:34And in 2027, he'll publish his own debut fantasy novel. So we had a lot to talk about here.

2:43I have a ton of questions for you, But the thing I want to ask you first is, how did you go from being a professional rugby player to an outspoken book lover and feminist? That is not the typical arc. No, it's not at all. That question comes with a very, very long story. And I'll try to give you the shortest version possible. So growing up, I grew up in rural Queensland in Australia. I grew up on a farm surrounded by very blue collar rural men. and I was always such a massive nerd growing up. I was always like a geek. I was very soft. I was very kind, and that was never reflected in the world around me, so I always felt really weird growing up, and I played a lot of rugby, and I was fortunate enough to become professional at that, but this whole time I kind of lived these two different lives where I had like the public version of me, which was the big, strong rugby player, and then the at-home version of me, which was the soft fantasy reader.

3:42I was living my dream. I was a 21-year-old on hundreds of thousands of dollars a year playing professional rugby, living my absolute dream. And I was the unhappiest that I've ever been. So I fell into addiction and depression and had a really, really dark, hard season of life while I was playing rugby. And I ended up in rehab and had to go through a recovery, a lot of 12-step meetings for my addiction. And through that whole process, I read lots of books, lots of psychology books, lots of self-development books. And I started doing it because I just wanted to save my own life from addiction and depression and suicide, et cetera.

4:23And through that process, I really started discovering the narratives, the conditioning, the ideologies that shaped me without me even knowing about them. And I started to learn about all the systems and the cultures and the narratives that I grew up within. And through that process, I just ended up being where I am, very outspoken around mental health, around patriarchy, around male conditioning, narratives, shame, all those kinds of things. And when we use the word feminist, I also want to caveat this, I absolutely am a feminist, but I haven't done any of that groundwork in feminism. There are women out there who have been doing it for decades.

5:07There are so many strong, competent, capable women that have been groundbreaking in that area. And so I am very much just a benefactor of all of their hard work. I don't speak for women. I speak with women. Well said. So I want to talk about feminism and masculinity. I also want to talk about books. Where do you want to go first? Mate, wherever you want. I'm happy to follow this ship anywhere. Let's start on the gender front because I think you just teed it up effectively. I think that's how I first discovered you was you'd recorded a series of videos about masculinity. And it was surprising. First of all, I didn't expect somebody who looks like you to be talking about the shame of what I think about in psychology is precarious manhood.

5:56My read of the precarious manhood evidence is it's a better version of what people are trying to get at when they use the phrase toxic masculinity. And I hear toxic masculinity and I think you've immediately alienated most men by saying being a man is toxic. So let's not do that. Instead, let's talk about the science, which says the problem with masculinity is that it's precarious. It's hard to win, but it's easy to lose. And so you're constantly having to prove your manhood. But the moment you show weakness, you have utterly failed to live up to it. And that seems to be the trap that a lot of men get into.

6:29And so it was with that lens that I first came across your wisdom and your unexpectedly candid reflection. And I'd just love to hear you sort of talk a little bit about, did you live precarious manhood as a rugby player? Was that part of your addiction story? Oh, absolutely. And 100 % the addiction, the depression, that is all tied up in that precarious manhood. Because I grew up, it was men didn't cry. Men worked hard. Men weren't emotional. Men weren't soft. Men weren't weak. Men weren't vulnerable. Men carried the weight. That's what men were. And especially once you then you got into the rugby environment too, where it's very ruthless.

7:13It's cutthroat. These are meant to be your teammates, but you're in this highly competitive environment. And any form of weakness is a vulnerability that somebody else can exploit. So you have to live 24 seven invulnerable. You could never, never show weakness. And it's such a lie. Like I was the weakest, most vulnerable, just like a young boy that didn't know anything, didn't know what was expected of me, didn't know who I was, didn't know what I stood for, didn't feel like I belonged in the world. And yet I had to show up every day and be this strong, tough character that was impenetrable. That was the biggest, toughest, meanest, strongest person, you know, and the juxtaposition of what was happening internally and what I was pretending to be externally, like they just were at war with each other.

8:07And the only way that I could survive that was through addiction, was through numbing it. I had this, all of this pain, this noise inside of me that was just screaming at me. and the only way that I could numb it was by drowning it, drowning it in substances and drowning it in gambling and drowning, you know, and it led me to a place where I should have been living my dream, but I wanted to end my life. Wow. Luke, I wonder if you could paint a picture for me of what that tension looked like, you know, in a typical week as a rugby player. So what did you have to suppress? What were you wanting to express that was not acceptable?

8:42Don't get caught reading a fantasy book, whatever you do. Well, you know, exactly. Reading was a big thing. Reading was never allowed. The only books you could read were masculine books where they were either autobiographies of other sports stars. If you pulled out an autobiography of another male athlete, that's okay. You're allowed to do that. But if you pulled out a book about fairies and dragons and witches and wizards, you would just get slammed. The boys would ridicule you. And when you want to talk about what I was suppressing or what I wasn't allowed to express, it probably, you know, I was suppressing 90%.

9:17The only things that were accepted to express was anger, aggression, toughness, meanness, you know, those things were really rewarded and idolized. And I even say to people, we weren't allowed to express our emotions, but even physical pain was something that we weren't allowed to express. You were ridiculed for being in physical pain. You're a rugby player playing a high contact sport and you were glorified for being the bloke who played through an injury. He broke his arm, but he finished the game. To sit down and say to one of your teammates, I'm struggling or I feel scared or I feel like I'm this, I feel like I'm that.

10:04That wasn't allowed. That was not allowed. Wow. I mean, it's upsetting, but it's also, it's the norm. I think about what you just said about emotion. And I think about when psychologists study gender differences and what emotions are acceptable versus unacceptable. It's exactly what you described. Men are allowed to show anger because anger is tough. That's part of manning up and demonstrating your strength. But do not dare express sadness or anxiety because those are soft, weak emotions. And I mean, at some level, it seems like a vicious cycle because the more that you can't express whatever dejection or worry that you're experiencing, the more that you suppress it, the worse it gets.

10:49You don't get help. You don't get support. and then you have to work harder at suppressing it. And at some point I can see how that quickly leads you down a path of turning to alcohol or to gambling or to whatever kind of addiction, to your point, will numb the pain. To numb it, yeah. And it's so interesting. And as you said, when you're talking about precarious manhood, you never reach a place where you're a man because you have to continually prove it over and over again. but we were never really told what to be. We were told what not to be. So all of a sudden you go, okay, well, I know what I can't be.

11:28I can't be girly. I can't be weak. I can't be soft. I can't be emotional, but I never got told what to be. So you spend your life, then I spent my life just running from being this, but I wasn't running towards anything. I wasn't aiming for anything. There was no, there was no objective. It was just sprint as fast as you can away from this. And hopefully you end up somewhere good. And then we, you know, and then we wonder why so many men end up in such bad places. We never ever tell them where to go. We just tell them what they have to run away from. And that, that daily experience of running, basically it sounds like trying to prove that you're not this negative stereotype.

12:09Like I'm not weak. Like, you know, putting that together with precarious manhood research, it lands you at a place where it doesn't matter how many times you demonstrate how tough you are. One moment of weakness is enough for like that entire, I don't know, is it a Jenga tower? Is it a Lego tower? Yeah, yeah. Lego tower. Like that tower just comes falling down. Crumbling. And like, what was that like? Is it like, okay, you know, I thought he was tough, but he's really not. Or he used to be tough, but he's lost it. And that was also the way that you were shamed, you know, you were shamed sort of back into it.

12:45You would literally, exactly as you said, like the words, I was like, oh mate, you know, you used to be tough or, oh, you didn't, you didn't act like this last time. Or the last time this happened, you did this, you know, and you were shamed back into that narrative, into that box. And it was always just so policed by the men around you, policed into an inch of your life. As soon as you stepped out of that, it was, no, no, back in here. And whatever we can use to shame you back in, we'll do it. So part of that is sports culture and especially, I would imagine, professional sports culture. But you also alluded to the fact that this was part of your conditioning growing up.

13:26Yeah. Talk to me about that. You know, growing up, I was surrounded by really hard men. and they were all farmers, truck drivers, rig workers, mechanics. These were men who worked long hours in hard physical labor jobs. They were real men. These were the real men. Not the men in the city, not the men wearing suits. These were men in overalls covered in grease and dirt who were working with their hands. That was the epitome of what a real man was. And those men, And I saw it with both. I have a stepfather and a real father. And I love them both. I love them both so deeply. Love them both so deeply.

14:07But both of them, I've never, ever seen either of them cry. I've never seen either of them cry. And even now with my real father, I've never once spoken to him about my addiction. Never once. He will listen to a podcast like this, say. He'll listen to a podcast where I speak about it. And he'll go, oh, I listened to your podcast with Adam Grant the other day. And I'll go, oh, did you like it? And he'll go, yeah, it was good. I'll go, is there anything you want to talk about? And he'll go, no, no. So just that, you never ever delved into the emotional world. You never delved into vulnerability.

14:42There was never place, there was never space for weakness. That's not their fault. I don't blame them. I love them. These are men that I love deeply. But they were never given those tools. And so they didn't have the tools then to give to me. That's what they knew. Yeah, some of this seems to be generational. We come from a generation of men who did not know how to talk about emotions, and frankly, who didn't know how to manage their own emotions. Yeah. Because of the kind of upbringing you're describing. It seems to me that there's growing recognition when I talk with my students, for example, or with my kids, that vulnerability is not the opposite of resilience.

15:20That vulnerability actually builds resilience. It's what's really resonated with me and some of the research I've done is that when people have the opportunity to express the emotions they're experiencing, they can get the support they need, but they can also build their own skills to handle those emotions. And over time, that makes them better at regulating them. And so I think about vulnerability is actually a skill that allows us to become more resilient. Yes. How do you think about that? And how do we, I guess, bust this false dichotomy? Vulnerability is a superpower. vulnerability is quite frankly i think the strongest thing that we can do i started seeing you know therapists and they would say when you feel angry or when you feel this do this here's a tool for you and i go i don't know when i feel that way i've never named that emotion i've never experienced that emotion i don't know so you're giving me a tool to go from b to c i can't even go from A to B.

16:19That's missing for me completely. So I had to start developing that. And the only way we do that is through vulnerability with other people and with ourselves to sit down and go, oh, Luke, you're feeling really scared right now. What is that? Oh, that's anxiety. Okay. What are you anxious about? You've got this coming up. You've got this meeting in an hour. You're doing a podcast with Adam Grant. You feel a little bit anxious about what you're going to say and how that conversation is going to go. Hey, that's okay. So now I know why I'm feeling that, but the reason I'm feeling that is because I'm excited and I want to speak well.

16:53I want to do well. I want Adam to gain something from our conversation. This anxiety is not something to be feared. This anxiety is something to be embraced because this is you preparing to do well. So you cannot do any of that without vulnerability. So vulnerability is actually the pathway to strength, to competency, to having wonderful experiences in life. I love the way you articulated that. And along the way, you just delivered a masterclass in the cognitive reappraisal strategy of emotion regulation. Yeah. Well played. That's classic reframing. Thank you. Yeah. Man, that sounded nice over the past couple of years.

17:37That's taken about six years of therapy to get to. Well, I think it's paid off. We can conclude at this point. So talk to me a little bit about how do you think boys should be raised differently in light of the revelations you've had over the last six years? I think that we need to be much kinder to young boys and really validate their emotions and validate their weaknesses. And just to say to young boys, when they're having these big emotions, when they're sad, when they're crying, when they're angry, whatever they're feeling, validate them and say, that's okay. You're feeling an emotion. We are feeling beings who think, not thinking beings who feel.

18:25And to really validate that in young men and say, hey, you are an emotional being. Your emotions are the most beautiful thing about you. That doesn't make every emotion like, okay. That doesn't make your responses. Okay. There are acceptable and unacceptable responses, but every emotion is acceptable. That's really what I want to see. That is such a different vision from what the manosphere is offering right now to boys and young men. Such a different vision. And I find it compelling. I think it's a really promising antidote to the male loneliness and depression that we're seeing to some of the violence, I think that we're observing.

19:05I can also though envision a lot of pushback, you know, like from the crowd that says, stay hard. Like I think the fear in the manosphere is that we're going to raise a generation of men who cannot provide, who cannot protect, who are basically emasculated. What do you say to that audience? I mean, the first answer should be like, I can out squat you and out bench you. So shut up. I was going to say, I don't think. Let's go. I really think that that's one of the reasons why my voice is quite important in this because I am a hundred kilo, six foot rugby player, very traditionally masculine man who speaks with a deep voice.

19:50So by default, that argument is defunct with me straight away. And when we talk about protecting and providing, it's really externally focused. And I'll speak on both parts. So when we talk about protecting people, we as men are always like, we have to protect physically. We have to be able to fight other men or whatever. But 92 % of abuse and violence cases against women come from men that they know, be that a partner, brother, father, cousin, whatever. So when we have this protector narrative, the man that people need to be protected from is you. Wow. That is the person that people need to protect from.

20:40And when I went through addiction, the person that I harmed the most was my mother and I I hold so much guilt around that the person that I harmed the most was the person who loved me the most the person who helped me the person who loved me unconditionally the woman who supported me and just wanted me to get better sorry I'll get a bit emotional the person that my mother needed to be protected from was me her son. And so when we have this protected narrative, it's so debunked about, oh, we have to be these big, tough men. Protection comes from community because as men, how we protect other people is by sorting our own internal worlds out so that we don't express our emotions through violence, aggression, and anger.

21:28That's how we protect people. And now I move on to the providing one as well. When we talk about providing, the manosphere, men, we always talk about financially. So you are a financial provider. So that gives you a really, really tiny percentage of men who will be able to do that, especially now with the cost of living that we see, there is such a small minority of men who will actually be able to financially provide for a partner and for children. This usually takes two income household to be able to do this. So now as a man, you're given this narrative of to be a provider, you have to earn X amount financially, that's becoming really hard for people to do.

22:04So immediately now you fail as a man, your manhood is taken away from you. And now you will try to gain that manhood back through other means, which is usually taking it from people more powerless than you, women and children. Providing is providing a safe space emotionally, physically, and spiritually for other people so that they can grow, so that they can be the best versions of themselves so that they feel safe to be able to be and do what they want to do. That is how we provide to other people, especially as men, like providing spaces where people, regardless of gender, race, class, whatever, feel safe so that they can prosper.

22:47Wow. That is how we provide. I mean, Luke, this is a major rethinking moment, I think, for a lot of people. you've completely reoriented the way that we talk about what it means to both protect and provide. So just to recap, you're saying a man's first responsibilities are protect vulnerable people from you and the harm that you could do and provide an environment in which everyone can thrive. Correct. And I'll even take this a step further too. That starts with yourself because men don't provide and protect for themselves, you know, like providing a safe internal place where you get to live and belong because I didn't belong in my own internal world for so long.

23:33So providing a safe place where you get to be the human that you are and protecting yourself from all the narratives and conditioning that you're getting put on top of you. And once you provide for yourself and protect yourself, then you can extend it to others around you. And I mean this, we also need to be providing and protecting for other men, you know, providing that space where they get to step out of that masculine narrative too. Today's episode of Rethinking with Adam Grant is brought to you by Olympic Hospitality. The Olympic Games are coming to Los Angeles in 2028. This is a once in a generation event that you will not want to miss.

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26:13What do your former rugby teammates think of this new philosophy of yours? Do they call you a cuck, a beta? Mate, I get called a soy boy cuck or a beta, things like that. I get called that all the time. And so it's really interesting to me. It's really interesting. Is that your first reaction? Oh, that's interesting. Yeah, I do. It doesn't piss you off? Not one bit. That's a compliment to me. That is truly a compliment. That is how I know that I'm doing the right work is when someone calls me a soy boy cuck. That's how I know that I'm doing the right work. Wow. Okay. That's a slightly different framing than the one that I've adopted, which is, wow.

26:53Somebody feels really threatened by the idea that there might be men who believe that women can be strong and capable. Well, no, true. That's why I know that I'm doing the right work because I'm threatening the male ego, the male narrative, because for men to change, it comes with a complete disintegration of their identity as a man. Over the past few years, I've really lost pretty much all of the people that I, all of the men that I was involved with in rugby league, except for a really small few. Once I stopped drinking, doing drugs and gambling, those men fell out of my life because I was like, we weren't friends.

27:32We just drank together. We just did drugs together. We just gambled together. We weren't actually friends. We never connected. You just had a shared hobby or a shared habit. And once you removed that, the relationship was a charade. Yeah, exactly. This is such a tightrope walk from my perspective as a psychologist, because on the one hand, you often do have to challenge people in order to get them to change. On the other hand, And if they get too defensive, we end up with the kind of reaction that we were talking about earlier with toxic masculinity of, you know, people either they go on the attack or they tune you out.

28:07How do you think about the right version of this message that gets people to really let go of some of their past beliefs to maybe walk away from the old notion of masculinity that they were clinging to and actually be open to a new identity? Yeah. So funny that you asked me that because I had this question for you. Because I was going to say to you, no, yeah, no. Because I was actually going to ask you, I was going to say, you know, in terms of what the research says, like, what is the right language that doesn't make people defensive? Because I do struggle at times, you know, especially as soon as you mentioned the word patriarchy, men just switch off.

28:48And they go, that's a woman thing. That's a feminist thing. you know they're immediately on the defensive but so yeah it's going to be one of my cuts to you but I always say to people I like to invite I like to be very invitational yep I say to men I say hey if you want to you know hear about this this is an invitation you don't have to change you don't have to do anything I can give you a bit of information we can have a conversation you don't have to do anything with it if you want to I'm always here I'm always open reach out to me whenever you want. I don't always get that right. I stuff that up all the time.

29:22Yeah, I get that wrong all the time. Me too. And there's been times where I reflect on it and go, wow, I really did just alienate that person from the way that I said things. I need to be more invitational. So I get it wrong all the time. But yeah, I do try and really lean into that inviting people in instead of calling people out mentality. Yeah. I think one of our past guests, Loretta Ross, talks about that as calling people in as opposed to calling them out. And it gets such a different response from people, right? Because they don't feel like they are being shamed or judged or deemed worthless.

29:56They're kind of welcomed into a learning opportunity. Yes. And it's so much easier to approach the interaction with curiosity that way. But delivering the invitation is not easy, especially at scale, right? To say, hey, dudes, I want to invite all of you. If you've ever felt like masculinity is not serving you well, I have a different vision. No. Yeah, it doesn't work. It's much easier to do one-to-one, to say, hey, Luke, I'd love to hear a little bit more about what's going on in your head. Yes. And especially when you know a little bit about that person too, because you can tailor it for them.

30:33Whereas you are right. When you try to do it en masse is really, really difficult. And there are things for me, there are words, and patriarchy is one of them. there are kind of like these words where they have to be said. It's sort of like, I know that this is going to alienate people as soon as I say it, but I cannot say this authentically without this word, you know? I think so too. And I think, well, I think there are a few different ways to approach this, but one of the things I've been thinking about lately is you can often start this conversation by saying, Hey, I've been hearing a lot of talk about patriarchy and it turns out There are a lot of different definitions about it.

31:15So let me be clear about what I mean. I'm talking about a world in which a lot of women are denied the opportunities they deserve. I think that's unfair and unjust, and I want to fix that. Yes. If you want to call that patriarchy, let's do it. If you have a different word for it, I'm okay with that. But if you think it's okay to live in a world in which women are basically told, no, there are things you can't be because of a sex or a gender that you didn't choose. Yep. Then if you think that's okay, I don't have a whole lot to offer you here. Yes. I don't think we're going to have a relationship of any kind.

31:53If you agree that's wrong, then we can figure out language that works for you. Mate, that is such a great way to frame it too. And I think my version of that is like, when I talk about patriarchy, I talk about the socially enforced mutilation of your internal world as a man. And that's really the angle when I think of patriarchy. Obviously, you know, patriarchy is so broad and all encompassing. But that's really an area of the patriarchy that I work within or speak against per se. One of the other things I wanted to ask you about is there have been a whole series of studies now showing that when men advocate for women or for feminism or for equality or equity or egalitarianism, fill in your favorite word.

32:35They get celebrated for it. Like you and I are what good guys. Who would have ever expected us to care about someone who doesn't look like us? but when a woman raises some of the unfairness or injustice and advocates for her group, she gets dismissed as self-serving, as whining, as complaining. And that like the fact that you and I can have this conversation and we are going to be criticized less than two women who are having this conversation is part of the problem. How do you think about solving that? oh, it makes me furious. You know, how we go about changing that? I think, oh, it's such a big question.

33:18And I truly, I'm not sure I have a really spot on answer for that, but I really do think it has to begin with men opening the door. As I said at the beginning, I don't speak for women. I would never do that. That is not my place. I do not speak for women. I speak with women and opening the door and saying, hey, come on through. Now, everybody here, listen to this voice. I think that that's how we help because those doors are closed to women. So we need to open those doors and give them access to that space and make sure that when they're talking, their voices are heard. And once again, the issue is that we have to do that.

34:02That shouldn't be the case. That should not be the case whatsoever. But if that has to be the first step, then I'm happy to begin there. Well, that's actually really well articulated. And it's also consistent with the research that Kristen Bain and her colleagues did on amplification, on the importance of a man saying, hey, she was speaking. Or, hey, I actually want to build on the point or reiterate the point that she made. and the thing for me is what she's saying benefits us yes she's advocating for women but everything she's saying benefits men so much and it pisses me off that you have to like you have to present the benefit to men so that they will listen you know i've had a very similar reaction to the now legions of books and articles and white papers that have said like gender diversity in workplaces is good for the bottom line.

34:57We should not have to make the financial argument. You should be able to make the moral argument that anyone who's qualified deserves a shot, full stop. You know, it's also interesting, Luke, when I talk with men about this dynamic, I think often about Kristen Pressner's, she has a flip it test. And she says, look, one way, you can gauge bias is, would you react differently if a man said this versus a woman said this? And I actually think her test would work very well with your videos. I think I would challenge any man to go on your Instagram and watch you talk about masculinity or to watch this conversation and ask yourself, would I be less receptive to some of these points if a woman made them?

35:43word for word. If the honest answer is yes, then we've got a lot of work to do. And the honest answer for most, I would say, you know, for a very high percentage of men would be yes. I guess the other question there is if a dude who wasn't buff made these points, would you be less likely to listen? Yeah. Or even, you know, I have friends, you know, I've got a lot of gay friends and they even say, you know, if this man was gay, Would then it mean less to you? I think once again, the answer would be yes to a lot of men. If you will only hear this message from a manly man, it's time to think again.

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39:03okay so i want to make sure we talk a little bit about books yes please and you know i actually think it's a perfect segue from the masculinity conversation because we're in the midst of a reading crisis and a literacy crisis globally. Reading is down. Book reading in particular is down. And that is disproportionately true for men and boys. We know that throughout the developed world, boys' literacy rates are far below girls. We know that women are more likely to read books and buy books than men. I think this is a massive societal issue when it comes to raising a generation of critical thinkers, when it comes to building empathy, when it comes to creating the kind of inner world and interiority that you were talking about.

39:49So what can you tell us about how to get boys and men to read? I guess would be the first question. And then a follow-up, women read men. How do we get men to read women? Yeah. How to get men and boys into reading is by making certain that at a young age, we are giving them the stories that they want to read. That's the number one key. If we don't give them the right story to engage them, I think we lose them. So it really, once again, this has to start young. The other, I would even say it doesn't have to be reading. It doesn't have to be a novel. I would love it to be. I mean, I think it's the best thing to do, but if they're not a reader, they don't enjoy reading, there has to be other ways.

40:35And I really like audio books for that. And also I am okay with screen and TV. If that's this onboarding process through that pathway, I'm more than happy with that. So we need to make sure we're engaging young boys in storytelling and that they have the stories that they want to love. And then what was your second question? Sorry. Well, I guess, so I think that there are actually two versions of this question. One is how do we get boys and men to read stories about girls and women? About girls, yes. And then also to read female authors. Well, I think we're very fortunate in today's world that there's more women authors than male authors.

41:16So we're very lucky that there's a lot to choose from in that sense. And how we get men to read those books is once again, I think we have to find the right story for them because it's not about the author, it's about the story. And I personally would love to move beyond gender and go, hey, you need to read this story. This is the genre that you love. This is a story that you love. This is a character that you will connect with because women write beautiful characters, regardless of gender and beautiful stories that men can connect with. So I really wouldn't frame it. I think the framing has to be different.

41:55Not so much, we need men to read female authors. We emotion that they connect with, that move them, that give them visceral reactions in some way, shape or form. That's a great segue to the lightning round. Okay, fantastic. Rapid fire questions for you. Here we go. First question is, what are your favorite fantasy novels? Magician by Raymond E. Feist, The Painted Man by Peter V. Brett, and Assassin's Apprentice by Robin Hobb. They're great. Wow. You didn't even hesitate there. No, mate. Hey, books are my thing. books are my thing. What other authors would you recommend for getting boys or men into reading?

42:38I love Robin Hobb. She is phenomenal as a writer. There's an Australian author called Matthew Riley who writes, they're like action movies. And I always say to people, that's the best point for men to start. Matthew Riley. Start with a Matthew Riley book, read it, and then we can sort of bring you over to something new. But I think one that sticks out to me is Red Rising by Pierce Brown. Red Rising is a really good novel and a lot of young men and boys and young men really love that book. Yeah. What do you think is the worst advice people are given about how to be a man? The worst advice that people are given about how to be a man is that they need to be protectors and providers, that their manhood is externally factored.

43:20Any piece of advice that comes with an external factor, bad advice. Okay. So what's your alternative? What would be your best advice? The best advice I would give to a man is to start with yourself, to learn about who you are internally. That's the number one step. That sounds hard, but it's not that hard. And just learn who you are internally. Learn who the 12-year-old version of you is and what they need from you. That's the first person that you need to provide and protect for that 12-year-old self that lives inside of you. Okay. So you're hosting a dinner party to try to talk about healthy masculinity.

43:56Anybody alive or dead, who are you inviting? Well, I mean, the very first person that came to my mind is Bell Hooks. Straight away, Bell Hooks. She's number one. Oh, man. This is probably a bit self-serving, this one, but I would love for Plato to be there. I would love for Plato to be there. I think he would have lots to offer. Alexander and Marcus Aurelius. I think they're probably, I don't know whether they're men who would speak great on positive masculinity though. Maybe we're going to enlighten them at the dinner. Jamila Jamil, love her. I admire her so deeply. And a woman who I just spoke in Australian Parliament with a couple of weeks ago, Jess Hill, she's phenomenal.

44:44And sorry, and I'll also add Robin Dunbroff, whose book I just finished, Real Men on Top, a phenomenal thinker. Great group. Okay. What's something you've rethought or changed your mind about recently?

44:58So many things over the past few years, but you know what, actually, this will be a little bit left field, but I was always a massive believer in soulmates and that my person will be out there. And I've really changed over the past six to 12 months, my mind about love and partnership and romantic relationship. And that's actually come a lot through the wonderful work of Bell Hooks in her book, All About Love. And I've really changed my view sort of around, oh, there's someone out there for me. They're waiting for me. And now I know I'm like, oh no, there's someone out there who I can build a life with.

45:35So that's what I've really changed my mind around recently. I have some data to add to that, but - Please. I'm not at liberty to talk about them until my next book comes out. All I could say is chapter one of Vive is going to validate that view with evidence from social science. How's that? Fair enough. All right. Well, I'll just live my life as a dumpster fire until then. No worries. All right. Last part of the podcast is office hours time. Did you come with a question for me that we didn't already discuss? Well, I did come with a question. And this is a question that I ask myself daily, I think definitely weekly.

46:12And this comes from my own personal experience because I obviously went through addiction and rehab and what I would call the dark night of the soul, the rock bottom. Do we as humans have to hit rock bottom to change our lives or can we reach it? Is there a way that we can reach it? Is there a way that we can teach young kids if we can reach it without that extreme level of suffering and hardship? Oh, that's such a great question. My read of the data is no, you don't have to hit rock bottom to want to change your life or even to change your life, which is good news for most people, but bad news for you because there would have been a less painful path.

46:50Where were you six years ago, Adam? You didn't have to suffer like you did, Luke. You didn't. I don't think we can ever predict or control the timeline for when we want to change or for when other people want to change. Here's the way that I would analyze it from all the research I've read is I don't think most people actually do the cost benefit analysis. But in order to change, people have to feel that there are gains and those gains clearly outweigh the losses. And the problem is that when it comes to most change, the gains are, they're sort of ephemeral or ethereal or uncertain. I can't see them.

47:25I can't touch them. I can't taste them. I don't know if they're going to come, but the losses are vivid and visceral. Yeah. And I think the reason that so many people end up changing after hitting rock bottom is they have nothing left to lose. They're just at a point. They're like, okay, I've hit rock bottom. How could this possibly get worse? So they don't have the hesitation from a certain loss. And they also think, you know what? The gain may not come, but if the possibility is there, can't get worse. Why not give it a shot? Yeah. And so if that's the perspective that often leads people to change when they're at rock bottom, I think then the question is, how do we help people along to that perspective sooner?

48:07And I think there are two ways of answering it. One is we try to make the gains more immediate and more tangible, more concrete. Exactly. And I think that comes through role modeling, through seeing examples of other people changing. It comes through personal experimentation and saying, you know what, I'm going to try this for a week. I'm not going to give up on the first day because change is uncomfortable and it usually does not go smoothly. I think the other part of it is saying, okay, let's minimize the losses. Let's figure out how to run experiments that are low risk, that don't have major costs.

48:42So maybe if you want to confront a healthier masculine identity, maybe the first move is not, I'm going to post a video baring my soul on Instagram. Maybe the first move is, I'm going to record a voice memo and send it to two people that I think might actually hear it, who I really trust. Yeah. And get their reactions to it and talk to them about it. And if that vulnerability is not as costly as I thought, maybe then I can go the next step. Hmm. That is such good advice. And it really ties back into my thing about being a provider and protector, providing a safe place or a safe space where someone can do that, or they can go, oh, I can do this without the cost and the risk.

49:30Exactly. That's fantastic. Thank you. Oh yeah, that's a great bridge. And I think the one other thing that I think gets overlooked in this conversation is you want people to change without having to suffer, essentially. And I think what that means is we have to try to replicate the process that people go through after they hit rock bottom in our daily lives. There's actually a great study on this by Madsen and Desai, where they looked at every launch of a vehicle into space in the history of humankind over half a century. And what they wanted to know was after one launch, did you show learning and performance improvement in the next launch, whether it was a space shuttle or a rocket or Soyuz.

50:16And what they found was that essentially learning happened more after failure than success. Yeah. And it happened more after big failure than small failure. And if you break that down, it's the organizational equivalent of hitting rock bottom, right? When a rocket explodes, everybody does the thorough analysis and reflection and reorientation and radical rethinking of how are we going to operate. Yeah. We throw all our old traditions out the window. We question all of our, like, don't ever, ever question this best practice. Like everything on the list of best practices is now up for debate. And so you don't have to have a catastrophic failure to do that.

50:59you can sit down and do that analysis anytime but we don't feel the urgency around it until we hit rock bottom no that's great my capsule exploded many times adam so

51:14how many times did you hit rock bottom before you started seeking help or how many times did you crash i should ask 30 yeah 30 wow yeah yeah it was bad i was i just lived at rock bottom. I just sort of like dragged myself along the bottom for ages. Yeah. So it's, it's that process of collapse and reconfigure, go again. Wow. Well, I'm sorry that you went through it. Oh, no. I think maybe you didn't have to, but I'm glad you did. I don't want anybody else to go through it, but I'm glad I went through it myself because it really has added so much to my life. I think there's clearly a lot of post-traumatic growth there.

51:57And my favorite part of it is I just think you've been providing such a service to the world by sharing your experience and your wisdom. And I think we need more Luke Bateman in the nonfiction realm as well as fiction. But I'll come over. I'll come over. I promise. Thank you for coming on. That was awesome. Thank you so much, Adam. Rethinking is hosted by me, Adam Grant. The show is produced by TED with Cosmic Standard. Our producer is Jessica Glazer Our editor is Alejandra Salazar Our engineer is Asia Pilar Simpson Our technical director is Jacob Winnick And our fact checker is Paul Durbin Our team includes Eliza Smith Roxanne Hilash, Banban Chang Julia Dickerson, Tansika Sung Manivang And Whitney Pennington Rogers Original music by Hans Dale Su And Alison Leighton Brown

52:48You posted about the four stages Of writing a third draft what are they the four stages of writing a third draft are the stage where you think you're the best writer in the world there's never been a better sentence written in history and then the second stage is crying in the shower you want to burn the whole thing down and never ever look at it ever again the third stage is wanting to hire a hitman for your editor and then the fourth stage is just not caring anymore I picked up a lightsaber and just started pretending to be a Jedi I have my room.

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55:21That's Ryosuke Takashima, who at 26 became the youngest elected mayor in Japan's history, running the city of Ashiya. His answer to that distrust? Stop assuming citizens can't handle it and start designing solutions together. Sometimes citizens think, oh, this is my personal problem or personal issue. So it's the kind of waste of time to speak up. But this is not true. If someone speaks up and others agree with it, that personal issue becomes social issue. Hear TED Fellow Ryosuke Takashima's story and full conversation only on TED Talks Daily.