179 - Lewis Hackney: The Fourth Man in the Pub

Join men’s mental health advocate and Sandbach, England native Honored Guest Lewis Hackney as he discusses how and why he is running 12 kilometres a day for an entire year, his own experience with suicidal ideation and what contributed to that, what it means to create your Level Zero, why he works with men, his podcast, starting his own nonprofit, being named one of the 100 Men and Boys champions by the Centre for Policy and Research, the mixed reception of his message, the concept of finding your second peak, why he always says “I want to be a granddad” when he doesn’t yet have children, the generational impact on men, what his challenge’s finish line looks like, his advice to both women and men about this topic, and more!

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Transcript

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Hello and welcome to this episode of the Feeding Our Young® Podcast. If you heard the intro that just preceded this very beginning, uh maybe you skipped it, some people do, but if you heard it, um then you know what's coming up. If you didn't, even if you did, I'm gonna just throw out a little trigger warning. We don't usually start off this way. Today is a kind of a very special episode. Well, I don't have in studio a former nurse, I don't have a nursing student. And yet this is a topic that is very important uh to every single person, um myself included, my my guest included, uh, and we're gonna be talking about suicide. Um so for those that may have an intimate acquaintance with that topic for whatever reason, be it a loved one, family, friend, whatever the case may be, um please know that that is the discussion here. My heart, of course, is that I'm not always going to be, you know, we're not going to just laugh through this topic because it's not a uh a topic that deserves that sort of treatment. And yet on the other s the flip side of this too, this is we're not gonna walk away from this episode depressed and and that sort of thing. My heart is to just kind of shed light on the topic, um, because the gentleman I have in studio today, um, you know what, I'm gonna let him do most of the talking about why he's here. So without further ado, the one the only, Lewis Hackney. Lewis, good afternoon to you, sir. Good morning to me. How are you doing? I'm doing really well. Thank you so much for having me. As you said, I'm not a nurse. It is a subject that probably does come up in this space. It's probably a conversation that sort of needs to be had. So it's really nice to be brought onto a podcast that's reaching out and touching onto a topic that, is really important to me. As you said, it is about suicide in particularly. male suicide, think it's almost a topic on its own which we will definitely get into for sure. And yeah, for those that haven't listened right now, I'm currently in the midst of a challenge here in the UK. The numbers are stark. We lose 12 man every day in the UK to suicide and I'm running 12 kilometres for every single one of those. This is an issue that affects most men across the Western world. Thankfully, I don't live in America. Otherwise I would be running a hundred kilometres a day, which is insane to think about as well. But yes, thanks very much for having me on. Lewis, I so I, you know, uh as a background to everybody there, I see Lewis, you know, I'm part of some of these groups that are, you know, find a guest, be a guest, and I see Lewis's story, and it just I I I couldn't turn away, you know. I'm I'm looking at him going, my goodness. Um of course those that have listened to this podcast know that I'm a runner myself, but the thought of doing 12 kilometers, which for those here in the US we're talking about seven and a half miles a day every day. Without fail for a year, that boggles my mind. the fact that he said, you know, I he said, I'm doing this for uh, you know, the 12 men a day we lose to suicide in the UK. And I, you know, again, looking that up, I was like, Well, what's the US side of that? And like a hundred men a day in the US. I've I mean, we're a bit more populist, I think, you know, per capita and all that. But that being said, it's just it the irony also is not lost on me that this is a podcast for nurses, nursing students, which is mostly comprised of women. Um, that being said, you know, so we're not trying to mm ignore the plight of the women suicide side of things, but truth of the matter is it's about an eighty percent ratio. eighty percent of suicides are committed by men. Part of that we can get into and all that, you know, uh reasons have to pertain to the methods by which, you know, men do it compared to women and all the things. But just the fact, Lewis, that you are running twelve kilometers a day. For the sake of the twelve men that are lost a day to suicide. I I don't even I let's start with the non-serious part of this. Like the runner in me just goes, How? What are you what are you uh were you a runner before this and how are you doing this? No, is the short answer. I wasn't a runner before, which probably makes it slightly more impressive as well. I honestly don't know. I think there's an element of just pure stubbornness, right? The fact that I'd set a challenge. The astute among you will have realized that I started this on the 12th of July, which is in the middle of the year. So there is sort of no real, I'm waiting till the beginning of the year. It very much was, I'm doing this, so let's get going. Yeah, 12K is a decent amount of time. It's a decent amount of distance, seven and a half miles as you said. I'm not unfit. I have been active most of my life, but as a man in my sort of mid thirties that started to slide, other priorities have taken shape and I'm not as fit as I once was. I'll be brutally honest, when it first started, it was hell. We don't... I imagine. Yeah, we don't tend to have many nice days here in the UK. Um, when I started it, it decided to be the hottest weekend of that year. Um, so not running in a very long time, running 12 kilometers. came back, I was extremely exhausted. I was not much use for the rest of the day, uh, much to the discomfort of my partner. Those sort of first four to six weeks were, are we doing something? I'm a bit tired. Maybe we'll have to see what we're like a little bit later. but yeah, no, it, it, it's slowly become more manageable and it's very much now at a point where it's a mental challenge. It very much is. I have to get up. have to do it. We're back to a really sunny part of the year here in the UK. So the past few days have been really early mornings. I'm waiting till this evening to do this run. So it's, it's sort of positioning it in that way now. So yeah, it's got past the physical and moved very much into the mental for the, the latter part of the challenge. And I know you want to talk a little bit more about that, so let's let's just continue with that theme because you you know you want to talk about what running every day for a year teaches you about the male mind. So go ahead and open that up if you don't mind. Yeah, I think this sort of goes back to that sort of first point that you were making around obviously this podcast and its audience and it being primarily for women. But I imagine there are a lot of women listeners and people that are listening to this that have men in their lives, as you have sort of alluded to. And I think it's quite important to sort of broach that topic and start to create a conversation around how those differ. As you say, those numbers are oh scary. We've got 80%, 75 % of suicides being swayed towards men. And as you said, that isn't putting any plight or anything like that on women. It's just the fact. And there's probably the same amount of women that are in similar situations to men. It's just men seem to go a little bit too far and start to think about these dark thoughts and start to go along these sort of tracks. I think what would be sort of really useful is maybe sort of going back onto my own journey really and talking about that. So four years ago, I moved back from London, I moved back up north and I was living in a flat at the time with my girlfriend at the time. And I just had these horrendous suicidal ideations, this sort of idea of how I would kill myself. We lived on the 10th floor. We had a balcony and I just had very vivid visions of walking out onto the balcony and stepping over the balcony as, as simple as that. And as, and as visual as that, was quite harrowing and quite, quite hard to sort of talk about. But the next, the next day I went into the bathroom, splash water all over my face and essentially said to myself, that can't be where we go back to. have to start to, to make changes and start to. look at different ways of getting out of this situation. I'm extremely cautious and extremely wary that a lot of men have been in that situation and have gone the other way, which is scary and sad to sort of talk about, but that is the truth and is something that I have basically dedicated my thirties to is to try and sort of slow that and stop that. So what that led me to... sorry. And Lewis, if I may interject two here for a moment and just ask you, in that moment, since we're in your moment, was there a triggering event? Was it or it just was this overwhelming feeling that you couldn't ignore? Yeah, it was, it was an amalgamation of things. was, I think the breaking point was that leaving London sort of reverting back to home, sort of coming back to your, your hometown, if you will. Um, I'd put myself under immense pressure in my twenties, this sort of idea of success that I had created. I was very successful in London. I was running a marketing agency and we were doing very well. That all came to. ahead and a close during COVID as a lot of businesses sort of did. And I essentially was left questioning what is a man? What makes a man in this sort of modern society? I felt like I'd lost all my purpose and all of those things. So yeah, it was more a combination of extreme burnout with sort of final breaking points of pressure that were like, I don't feel like a man anymore. I feel like I've failed in the traditional sense. So that was sort of where that came from. you and and continue with your story, I just wanted to find out where you were, you know, in a in a headspace, you know, 'cause I think that could be said of a lot of males, right? Yeah, for sure. think it's one thing I'm always cautious of saying. And one thing that I try to say is it doesn't matter what your breaking point was. It was your breaking point. And that's sort of the most important thing is like learning what that is and learning how to sort of work from that. So once I'd splash the water on my face, I had said to myself, I have to make a change. have to do something about this. And at that time I was extremely unfit. was not doing any exercise. I was eating lots of Uber eats, Deliveroo's, these kinds of things. And I just set out on a simple goal, which was 10,000 steps. I'd seen it on the internet somewhere. I was told that it was useful and I set off and started doing my 10,000 steps to the point where probably seven, eight days into it, I looked down at my watch and I'd done like 9,300. It was about half 10 at night. Me and my girlfriend at the time was on the sofa. I stood up and I started doing laps around the flat to try and get to the 10,000 and just started walking around the kitchen and round and round and round. And that really started to create a mindset for me, which was this sort of idea of doing something every day that you know you can do. And it just sort of levels you up. So that sort of idea of creating what I've now coined sort of your level zero. And then we look to sort of level that up as we go along. So for me, it was about creating that level zero. As I've now gone on this journey and I've done lots of things in the men's space and we'll talk about that. This new challenge, this 12K a day, that became my new zero. But what I sort of learned from it is that As I've gotten into the latter days, there really isn't any excuse. Once you've removed all excuses, as in the weather's rubbish, the uh my shoes, my shoes are broken. need to buy some new shoes. Once I'd removed all those possible excuses with the simple fact that I said I was doing it every day, it's really hard to not make that a new norm and you level for me. And that moving forward is that new level zero so that working out or doing some form of exercise for me every day I feel post challenge will be almost impossible. Man, I I'm just I'm I'm sitting here already inspired by you. Uh, you know, look I I'm gonna take a moment. you know, the mic is yours and I I I want your story to ring true. Um part of the reason why this of course resonates with me, everyone knows that I'm a runner. I make no bones about that. Um and at the height, like I was running the average, an average of a half marathon every single week. Um so 13.1 miles every single week. For about two and a half years straight is what it ended up being before I took a break this last winter. And every run I dedicate to someone who's inspiring or something that's inspiring, maybe a group of students that I just finished teaching, or, you know, whoever. Um, my wife has had a few dedicated to her. She deserves more than one. Um, you know, my kids each, that sort of thing. And so the fact that you're doing this for this reason, like just automatically, to me resonated. Um, you know, to shed a little light on on on me personally. Um, you know, I'm almost 50, turning 50 this year, and um very excited about that. That being said, I I do have the I guess uh the fortune of saying that in 50 years, almost 50 years, not once have I reached that point that you experienced, Lula. So I cannot say that I know how you and others have felt at that moment. The closest I came was after the death of our first son, by accident, and and there's I'm not gonna go into that here and now. But the part that I will open up for the context of this conversation is that he and I, my wife I I worked at the t or I was going to nursing school at the time, and my wife was, you know, picking up odd jobs here and there cleaning homes, particularly on the weekends, and so that was the time sorry. That was the time where Micah and I would hang out. We would do our things. He died at sixteen months of age. And so I was primary caretaker of him in that time. After he had died in 2003, I was doing prereqs, like I said at the time, working full-time. Um and after he had died, my wife semi-shortly thereafter continued with cleaning home. She didn't want to give up that commitment, and it helped her to stay busy. What that left for me was many a many a lonely weekend um where what I was used to was no longer and I distinctly remember in one of those moments just being curled up on the couch bawling. and it was in that moment I didn't there was no ideation, there was no desire to kill myself, but the pain was so great that I completely understood in that moment. why someone would do so. Um and why when the pain is so great and you just want it to end and you n you know, for some that feels like the only way to make that pain end. Um, fast forward to recent times and I've mentioned this on the podcast once or twice, but one of my children, their best friends, I I say children, their adult offspring, one of my one of my children, their best friends in high school, committed suicide. A male Um and this was I i i it it devastated of course his family. It devastated we watched the devastation in our own child, and then that led to a devastating diagnosis in their life last summer. It was one of the preceding factors that really triggered that diagnosis and has then went on to attempt to wreck our family. And so I I bring both of those cases up. So that those that are listening know, you know, this is why we're bringing this on to this subject, onto this podcast. Obviously, as nurses, we deal with mental health. we have to take care of our own mental health, all the things. But this is more from a perspective of seeing the devastation that rots in the families and the friends of those loved ones that we lose. And so that's just to open my personal door, you know, to echo. your personal door. I thank you for being transparent, Lewis. I guess let me ask this then. Uh you know, obviously you being a man, uh and experiencing that, that that tends to inform that, but why men? Uh why why that particular space? Yeah, I think first and foremost, thanks so much for sharing. think those words are really powerful. Thanks so much for sharing. think a lot of men don't get to hear that and we just sat with it. We've not, I've not created a solution. It's not anything like that. I think that's one of the sort of things that men will be rushing to, which is, you tried this? Have you done this? Let's do this. Yeah, for sure. uh And I, yeah, I, I... I think sometimes it's okay to just to just sit and just say thank you and it's it's when you share it, it feels good, right? There was obviously a little bit of welling, but you feel a lot better for saying it again for sure. But yeah, why men? I think. It's just as simple as that. Like the, work with boys as well. So I go into schools, I deliver workshops to boys sort of age 12 to 16. Um, and I also want to create, create better men. And I do some work with, with men as well. And I just think there's just been a huge gap in society. I think the question, what makes you a man is a question that is not really asked. It's sort of pre prescribed. It's something that. we think we know the answer to, but society has changed so much in the last 10, 15, 20 years. We've had a huge feminist movement, which has been absolutely fantastic and 100 % needed. But there was zero conversation with young men like myself at the time, young boys today, and maybe even some older men as well in regards to what does feminism actually mean? you now? What does that actually equate to? How do things change? What can you do? And very early on with this, I actually sort of said a sentence that I still stand by, which is, is arguably the best time to be a man, not because of patriarchy sort of holding on to its traditions and you being able to power your way to the top and get a job off a golf course and all of those things, but more And I think this really ties into your audience. And I hope there's some sort of nurses listening to this, that you can do whatever you want. And if you're compassionate, if you're empathetic, you have an interest in medicine, why not go into nursing? There's not really any conversations when it comes to boys and young men around what they can do and what they are capable of. We've been having those conversations with women and girls. but we're struggling to have those same conversations with men and boys. So that's why men. Awesome. And so I I mean and and I part of that I think has to do with right the ever changing role of man in society. Um I've always joked with my peers, you know, i i if if we're talking past lives and I'm not, you know, saying this is something we're br a proponent of, whatever. But if I am who I am, exactly who I am, say even fifty years ago, uh, you know, I don't have a job, uh my family doesn't eat Because there were very traditional roles, right? You had the father that went off to work, and you know, you know, a a father is a physician and women, you know, women can be nurses and you know all of that. Uh and yet if you put me you drop me into a construction site today, ah yeah, I don't I don't know what I'm doing. There's no way like that sort of thing. So you have all these traditional roles and in conjunction with that you had already mentioned the pressures that sometimes we put on ourselves, right? Um, whether that's to be the provider or to be successful. What does success look like? Um, and that is its own struggle. And so I thank you for opening up as far as that goes. So th that's the why that you're working with men and boys. What's the how? because you there's multiple things that you do, and I'd love for you to just kind of um brag upon yourself here for a moment. Yeah, for sure. Not a full plug. So I host a podcast. I've interviewed over 100 men. uh Primarily in and around the men's space, some friends, colleagues, coworkers, that kind of things as well. Essentially just asking that question. What, what is a man? And then just going in into more depth, what we like about the men's space right now, what we want to see more of. And that's sort of, sort of the theme, but also touching on topics that are really important. So mental health being one of them and more recently been looking at actual physical health, because not only is suicide a really big sort of killer of men, there are a number of other diseases that take men far too young, so prostate cancer, uh testicular cancer and cardiovascular disease and all of these sort of things um tend to happen to men in their sort of 50s. I think the statistic is one in four men don't reach 55, which is just crazy. um And that's linked to all of those and suicide being one of them. um So yeah, just starting to have those conversations. I then set up my own nonprofit. here in the UK, we go into schools, we deliver workshops, resilience, critical thinking, positive masculinity, essentially. opening a conversation for boys and listening, not telling, not saying what they should be doing, what we think they should be doing, just listening and trying to create skills that help them shape who they want to be as men. I think we've listed off a number of things, provider, protector. successful. These aren't bad things. It's just that you have to come to them yourself. You don't want them pre-prescribed. So that's the idea. And then more recently, I joined a another charity here in the UK. So the association for, for male health and wellbeing that's designed to help lobby government to start to push these things forward and start to have more conversations, as well as sort of being the overarching body. of all the other bodies underneath. And as part of that, I was named one of the 100 Men and Boys champions by the Centre for Policy and Research Men and Boys, which had the likes of Gareth Southgate, who's the former England football manager, Stephen Graham, who was from the show Adolescence, which I think sort of made its way across over there, and David Gandy, who is the male model. That that's incredible, Luz. That's uh absolutely incredible. And and like I said, like that work that you're doing tirelessly, uh both physically and emotionally, and everything involved there. I you know, I I can't thank you enough for that because uh, you know, obviously like you're making an impact just on me having this brief encounter. Uh I you know, we'll have a half hour together or whatever. And It it really opens my mind to this topic. It really opens my heart to this topic that already had a presence in my life and yet still it just brings that awareness. You know what I mean? I let me ask you this then. Let me let me go a step further in how do you feel your message has been received, both specifically in regards to this challenge that you're doing, but also in the work that you're doing in that space with boys and men. Yeah, it's been mixed is probably the fairest approach to it. This challenge specifically has been amazing. When you talk about the numbers and the overarching sort of idea of men killing themselves, people don't want that. So for every conversation that I have around that, it's always been positive. It's amazing how your knees, all of those sort of uh standard questions that you expect from those kinds of challenges. But All very positive, nothing from that. With the work that I'm doing day to day where it's sort of actually trying to have these more in-depth conversations. Sometimes it's really good. Sometimes it's amazing. Sometimes it's exactly what you want to hear. We need this in our school. These are the conversations that people need to be having. We do have a real problem with this. What we're doing isn't working. On the flip side of that, we do have... still some pushback, mainly from the far extreme sides of feminism where this sort of idea that we've not done there so we can't help boys yet, which is sad and this sort of idea of zero sum. So if you're helping one, you're not helping the other. And we're big enough as a society that that isn't the case. can do both at the same time. And it's very easy to argue that if you have quote unquote, good men, quote unquote, good women, then you're going to have quote unquote, good relationships, which as a society is mutually beneficial. So that's a shame, but it's expected you're pushing men's rights in a society that still feels that women are, are left behind. And in some cases they are, but I think for the majority, of Western sort of civilizations and sort of where we're at, I think from a legislative point of view is equal equal. We're just sort of working through some harder sort of built in stigmas. And I think a lot of that comes from not having conversations with boys about what feminism means to them. And I guess sort of like the flip on that and sort of to maybe bring it to you to... piece it together is are you seeing more people coming into nursing that are male and if not why do you still think that's the case? Interesting. And that's a that's a great question. I, you know, I've been in the career now 19 years, bedside, and um I it's relatively still true today, the same percentage. And I I this is I have no statistics to back this up. I have not done the official deep dive on that. That being said, just experientially, about 10%. About 10, you know, maybe we're getting just north of that. Maybe we're maybe finally hitting about 15%. But in my limited experience in my town and in the nursing school that I attended and now teaching students on the flip side, it's still roughly about 10% of that population is male. And again, why you know, why not more? Why have there not been inroads to that? I don't know. Um, you know what I mean? Are most men bent towards other careers? Sure, probably. I don't know. I I would hope it's not a stigma that's attached to that. Um I I what I don't see and in Let me back up. Let me let me take this another direction too. One of my former Honored Guests, he's uh north of fifty, and went back to school to become a nurse uh post being an attorney. Um for those here, his name is Noel Pittner. You can go back and listen to his episodes very early on in the podcast. I don't have the exact number in my mind, you'd think I'd have these things memorized, but I do not. Uh single digits though. I mean he's way back there. And he was one of my very first nursing students, which was fascinating to me. Because here's a gentleman about my age, a little bit older than me, who I'm now teaching. And you know, it it was a very interesting dynamic. And yet he talks about in his episode. Back in the 80s, he made a first attempt at kind of nursing, and he talks about why. And he said back then, very much there was a stigma even from those instructors that are supposed to kind of help him along his way. You know, you know, as a male student and and from peers and things of that nature. Fast forward now to the late, you know, to twenty you know, these twenty twenties, late twin of after two thousands. And that stigma doesn't seem to exist as much anymore. Um I don't I didn't see it as a student myself, and I went into nursing school, started in 2005, 2006, right around there, and didn't see it from my faculty, didn't see it from my peers, didn't see it from that sort of thing. So there's been advances. Uh why we don't see more male nurses in the field, I don't know. So very good question. Yeah, I just, I just find it all really interesting. It's like, um, it's interesting that he came back to it in his fifties. There's a lot of conversations and there's a book written, I forget the author, but the title is finding your second peak. And it's sort of a, a twist, but sort of exploring a midlife crises, what used to be buying a Porsche, a leather jacket and a blonde. is now changed into sort of trying to find some purpose, trying to sort of do all of those things and, and actually give back to society. I think one thing that men also hold onto, which does have a bit of negative stigma around it, maybe because it's still for the wrong reasons is that idea of legacy. Like, what am I leaving behind? Like that sort of bigger than I, but I do think that's important that you've you've given more to the world than you've taken. And like really cheesy sort of link to this is there's the film with George Clooney where he goes and fires people for a living. Again, I forget the name. I'm really bad with films names. But in that film, he speaks to a guy that they're making redundant. And as part of that, he says, how much did they pay you to give up on your dream? And the guy like is like still very upset that he's being fired, but he's talking about what he was doing before, how he wanted to be a chef, how he wanted to do all of these things and ended up in corporate corporate America, essentially selling his soul. And I think that is still in society is this sort of idea that we still need to provide. still need to do X, Y, and Z. And I'm still trying to work out how to word this, but it sort of links back to. those partners in that, and that sort of journey that you go on, right? So if you're wanting to be the struggling artist, wanting to be the chef and these kinds of things, you need to find a partner that is okay with that. You need to have those tough conversations. You can't have the sort of male provado around it that I'm still going to provide. I'm going to do X, Y, and Z. It needs to be a very clear conversation and you need to find people, your yin to your yang, if you will. Those people exist. I think what men try to do is they try to have it all and that isn't what is plausible. You've got to be honest and true. Like if you want to go down certain routes, that does mean that you might not be as financially successful if you went down the solicitor route or the lawyer route rather than the nursing or another vocation, right? Mm-hmm. Yeah, no, very much so. And and just briefly, that is it was a 2009 dramedy titled Up in the Air. Uh Up in the Air for those that want to see it. I'm kind of curious now myself because I have not seen that one. I'm a I'm a big movie buff, so. Um Lewis, I I I I wanna I I feel like of many of the things you wanted to talk about we've touched on. I don't necessarily want to drag this out for the sake of dragging it out. That being said, I do have a this question in the back of my mind that doesn't even fit nice and neatly with what you you just came off talking about. Um, but the thought occurred to me too is, you know, we're talking about men. And, you know, we've kind of touched on the whole patriarchy type of thing, you know, that we've come from background, uh, both in the UK, US, this historical, you know, um patriarchy. But that being said, and that's not what we're being proponents of here, do you see th I guess this is a question that popped in my brain. Do you see, especially working with the young, you know, adolescents? Um, 'cause w you know, one of the statistics that pops to mind is w the greater a number of male suicides tends to happen when you get into those senior years. You know what I mean? Greater than seventy five years old, greater than that sort of thing. So uh first and foremost, have you worked with men in that population group? Let me ask that. I've not had the opportunity to work with people of that age. I do know that that is, it's actually one of the like leading causes of death for men in their nineties, which is absolutely crazy to think that someone in their nineties is more likely to kill themselves than die of old age. I think it's something that needs to be spoken about. have a, there's a slightly younger age as well now where maybe like a divorced dad. with, with grownup kids. So they may be coming up to retirement. So they've no longer got a job. So they're no longer Steve the mechanic. They don't have a wife cause they're divorced. So they're no longer a husband, but if their parents have passed away, so they're no longer a son and they may be have been in a bit of an awkward situation. Daughters grown up moved X amount of miles away son. didn't really have much of relationship with because of the divorce and how that sort of went. So really, he's not really a... dad in the traditional sense or a granddad if that sort of expanded from that and he's very much been stripped of everything and has just become a man and that's a demographic that one I'm really worried about and two I think what leads into sort of those later things where just like there is no purpose, you don't feel useful and all of those things and it's trying to bridge that gap. One thing I will say is it's very, hard to get through to men from those points, especially the older you get, the more sort of barriers you have up, the more sort of scars you have, the more... way you look at the world is a little bit cynical maybe. So they are very hard to reach. There are some amazing things out there. Here in the UK we have an organization called Men in Sheds. So it's literally sheds uh in like allotments and those kinds of things. And men of that sort of age. we'll head down to the shed and they will go into the shed and there'll be something to do. It might be a broken mower. It might be planting some stuff in the, so there are, are organizations that are, are doing amazing work, but it's, it's really just finding that way of getting into them. And I think here in the UK, that's one organization that's done a really good job at it. Incredible. And I I appreciate your discussion. basically it it's boils down to a case of identity, right? Um we've talked about that here on the podcast, about, you know, you are more than a nurse. for those that are nursing students that are d desperately trying to become a nurse, yeah, that's gonna be part of who you are, but don't let it be everything uh that you are, whatever your career, whatever your profession, whatever you do, um, because if that is everything you are, and you're like, well, I'll never lose this, like you said, you know what I mean? I'm happily married now for uh a number of years and I don't you know I don't see my wife and I in any trouble, etcetera, you know, but I can't say no that that would never happen. She may die, I may die. Who knows you know what I mean? That those life changes that you cannot protect yourself from um may occur. And so those identities that you have are important, but should not in and of themselves m be the be all and end all of who you are. Um but Going back to the age discussion here, and again, like I said, I I I promise I'm bringing this back around. you don't know me very well, but I I definitely squirrel off and but I come back. but the other part of that question that I had that I kind of dovetailed off into, you know, especially like I said, especially working with those teenage males, do you find there is a generational component to this, whether it's pertaining to our sense of identity, masculinity, etcetera? And the reason why I asked that is because You know, my father, he just died this last uh li b just over a year ago. And he was very much his dad, I remember him telling me that his father wasn't lovey, touchy, that sort of thing. I remember my grandpa before he had died, you know, he would made it a point to say, I love you and he'd give us uh grandkids a kiss on the head, you know, at bedtime if he was home and and that sort of thing. Um, but my father didn't get that and and it sounded like his peers or his siblings didn't get that either. And then So he made it a point, my dad made it a point, I'm gonna make sure that my kids know that I love them. And um and so he would tell that to us. He'd tell us how proud he was. But yet, comma, there was also and and with respectful discussion, there was also it was it was very much a relationship had on his terms. you know, I couldn't just ring him up and say, Hey Dad, I'm having this really hard time. He that was not kinda his thing. His thing was, I'll reach out to you when I'm ready and okay, now you guys can come up and have dinner and all the things. My grandfather, he was kicked out of the home. Uh, you know, he ran away from home in his teens, joined the military because of the religious upbringing in his home, which was Jehovah's Witness. And I'm not trying to anyone out there of Jehovah's Witness persuasion. That's not this is not a treatise on on what I think about that. It is just straight up he was like told to join the church or get out. And he said, okay, I'm gonna get out and he joined the military, served in World War II and all the things. So his relationship with his father was even more strained. Um and the good news is neither my grandfather or my father died at the hands of suicide. Those we do not self inflicted things. Um so do you see a generational component to this, even if you want to speak on your own personal experience as well. Yeah. So there's, from a personal point of view, there's a sentence that I've, I've always said, I don't have any kids at the moment. Um, but when asked that question, I always say, I want to be a granddad. Now that in itself sort of maybe answers what you're asking, which is this sort of idea that You may feel like you have a little bit more of a responsibility to create an upbringing for specifically sons, right? I think father daughter relationships are different, but this sort of idea of making a good relationship uh with your son sort of hinders their growth. want to almost create. resistance and help them build resilience and these kind of things. But once they have kids, you're very open to sort of be that loving guy, which suggests that it's in there, right? It suggests that it's something that isn't lost. There's definitely a movement. There's definitely a change. There's definitely more conversations around it in regards to how boys are brought up and sort of touching on that empathy side of things as well and having that from both parents. I think personally there is an element of dad and mom and I think they are different characters and they need to instill different values into the child. I think that's totally acceptable and totally needed. One thing that we're seeing is ironically probably the opposite of that which is men want to be loving fathers. They want to be present in their kids life. And we're just seeing larger and larger divorce rates, single family homes, family court issues and things sort of being dragged through in that sense. I'm really struggling to, to actually deliver that. So still having the same issue, father isn't around, but there's a man on the other side of that that wants to be around. We're definitely seeing it. So a lot of the work that I do is in low social economic spaces. What that tends to create is still a passing down of this traditional roles. So we're seeing groups in the UK, low social economic groups that are really holding on to that idea of traditional masculinity, provider, protector, sole income in some cases. Whereas if you look at the more liberal side of that, you might have a doctor. an electorate or a lawyer and a business owner. They're two high earning parents. They can juggle their time off. They can increase their time with kids and stuff like that. So It depends. It's almost like a postcode lottery in that sense, a zip code lottery where you're born and what sort of hands you're dealt. It's a, it's a fine battle between men wanting to do it and men being able to do it and men just not wanting to do it as well. So it's, it's a tough question to ask. We're seeing glimmers of hope, but as this space grows and as things start to come into it, Along with that comes bad characters and things that put pressure on it and start to undo some of the good work that's been started to be done. But yeah, as a whole, I would argue that boys are having a better upbringing than their previous generations. Yeah. Yeah. Incredible. Incredible. And I uh you're one of those forces, and I'm honored to have made your acquaintance to be able to discuss this topic. I'd I usually say before we close in our traditional manner, and we're gonna close in a very untraditional manner here, because you're not a nurse, you're not a nursing student, we'll still close in a similar manner. But before we do that, was there any other topic about this, anything else that we did not get to cover that you definitely wanted to make sure was covered? No, I think it's a really important conversation to have. I maybe just sort of tying it back to, to nursing and boys and men in your lives as well. So maybe looking at it sort of, sort of as a, as a whole is sometimes when you say you want men to talk, what do you actually mean by that? So what I mean by that is A lot of, a lot of women will say that, or they'll say, we want men to talk more and want more openness. Now, sometimes you're not prepared for what they've got to say. So I think before you use those words, I think you need to know, you need to sit with yourself and say, am I prepared to have the information that sort of put on me? Because I don't know what's going on in that, in that guy's head. I don't know what that is. And the flip side of that is also like, who are you? as a man when it comes to opening up and like the right person that you're opening up to. So in this scenario, I think that when there's a lot of men that are in that provider protector role, it's very hard to open up to their partner because it that instantly disbalances the whole thing. It completely shifts the power and shifts and changes everything. And ultimately there's a very high chance that that relationship will break down. But people that are available are professionals and that kind of things. And it goes back to what you're saying about like having your independence, having your identity and creating those networks that exist for you as a man. Um, and as part of that, one of those may be, maybe a nurse, but I think someone as a medical professional, I think it's really important that you sort of ask that question yourself as well. Am I ready to take on the potential information that's about to come to me? Very good. You're already you're already getting ahead of me. I've written down here the way I wanted to close, and I'm like, my gosh, you're already touching on it. I'll still we'll still hit it the way we want to hit it. Um so before I ask my closing semi-traditional questions, um, describe for us one last thing, and that is what does the finish line look like? You've already given a date, give that date again. Do you have a p any particular special plans? Is there gonna be coverage? Is there media? Like, what's going on? Yeah, so 12th of July, 2026, so 46 days left. I will be running at a track here in Stoke. I will be doing 30 laps of a 400 meter track. We've got friends, family, other people coming. We've got a stand. There'll be a nice finish line barrier. We're going to have some food, some drink, a real victory lap. As you may, the astute amongst you will have noticed that 366 is actually one day more than a year. So it's very much is a victory lap, very much my Tour de France moment going through the Champs-Elys, very chilled, not really an official 12K, but I will be doing the distance. It's more of a, this has gone full circle kind of moment. Uh, I wish I could be there. I want to be there. my goodness, that's incredible. All right, well then, uh looking forward to that. And of course everyone that the forty-six days he's referring to is from the day of recording, which right now is May 27th. but his episode I'm hoping will drop here about mid-June. So still plenty of time to you know, send him well wishes and is there any way people can contact you or if they want to see what you're up to, do you have any websites? What w w how can people see what's what's going on? Yeah, best best place to find me is LinkedIn or Instagram. Both of those are at Lewis Hackney. Same for for YouTube as well. um And then it's just giving forward slash crowdfunding forward slash Lewis Hackney. Again, all very simple. You will you'll find me also just Google man running 12K every day. There isn't there isn't many of us. you there's not a long list? That's so strange. Um all right, well then our uh traditional slash opening slash closing questions, and they are five, uh and they are very brief. Um but first of all, where are you from? I never did cover that. What part of the UK are you from? Yeah, I'm from the UK. I'm from a small town south of Manchester called Sandbach. Awesome. And then uh I loved this part because you just took this upon yourself. What are three words you would use to describe your current challenge? It's it's three words has always been tough. I will always always stand by that. But relentless, unglamorous and necessary. I and I loved those words. I just love that it's you have to be relentless to do what you're doing. Unglamorous, you've already covered that and necessary because of the heart of this. Um, the third of the five closing questions, because I when I run, I have to I have to listen to music. I I can't hear myself breathe. It just drives me crazy, especially for a two hours at a time. So, what are three of your favorite songs in life right now? Do you use music when you run? And what are your three favorite songs in life right now? So before this challenge, I did not listen to music when I ran. I also didn't really run that much as we've sort of colluded to as well. But um I do listen to country music. That is my sort of go-to. I'm not like crazy into... um popular music. So Luke Holmes has very much been getting me through. He'd done a track called Backup Plan, which basically says in there that you... you can't give up. If you get to get back up, you just got to keep going. So every time that comes on, that really gets me going. And more recently been listening to Ella Langley and Choosing Texas, which is obviously quite apt with the podcast that we're doing today. Special place in the heart for American country music. And then Go by the Chemical Brothers, which is obviously taking a bit of the world by storm at the moment as it's being used in the most recent Tegga Harrington film where he's a bit of a nutcase but I do enjoy how much hype that song gets through the veins. Incredible. I and I'm looking forward to those too and using them for my own uh personal running purposes. But the last two questions, and you've already touched on them in a way, because you were thinking forward thinking and you cut me to the chase, but I typically ask nurses and nursing students what's their one piece of advice for the listening audience, which of course is primarily nursing students, but also now has grown to include many nurses as well. So because today's discussion has been so gender specific, let me ask these questions separately of each other, and it they are both your final pieces of advice. But for the women listening, which are many, uh many more than the men, I would assume. But for the women that are listening, and I'm kinda hearkening back to my own family's exper you know, experience with my uh offspring's best friend, you know, that caught his family by surprise, um, and totally devastating as already can be imagined and all the things. Um, seeing what that dad went through, seeing what that mom went through, I I can't imagine, I don't want to imagine. But I know that she had talked many times too about, you know what I mean, like he just never said anything, we never saw it coming. And these are popular, I don't want to say popular, common refrains when these things happen, especially with teenage suicide. So what would be your advice to the women in the audience listening, whether they be the significant others of males, mothers of males, or daughters of males that they would be concerned about? Yeah, I think the first thing to touch on, which I didn't actually say, which I think is really important statistic, is that on average a suicide affects 150 people. So I think that's probably the first thing that's really powerful about that is like, as you say, it's very, very berated through your family and it's obviously countless others as well. And that is really important to state. I think one thing that I always look at when I'm speaking to boys and I'm speaking to men, I'm speaking to women that are interested in helping men and boys. is if you're not in a position to listen, help them find someone that is going to listen or create a space where they feel more comfortable to open up. There is a, there is also a point where they don't necessarily need to open up this sort of, I call it the fourth man in the pub. So we got three, four guys in the pub. Three of them are drinking and talking. The fourth one is just drinking, listening, having a good time, goes home, doesn't say much to his partner, but him just being present and him just being in that space was all he needed as a release. He didn't need to be involved in a sense of like, I need to get things off my chest or I need to talk about the football or whatever. It just, I just needed to be in that space. So create those spaces. And then when you're sort of dealing with individuals specifically, it's creating that purpose and saying, thank you. I think those are the two most powerful things you can do for men and boys. Thank you. And then the flip side of that of course is your pieces of piece or pieces of advice. Final piece of advice, which have already been plenty. For those gentlemen that are listening in this space, maybe they identify with some of the things you've said and how they feel or have felt in their past and or warning them about what could wait await them in the future. What would be your advice to them? Suicide is a definite solution to a finite problem. It's hard to say that things will get better when you know that you've been in those tough situations yourself. And I'm not saying that it's easy to get out of those situations, but if you're willing and you don't want to go down that route, if you work and you work hard at it, you can get out of the space that you're in. Said if not for you, then for the hundred and fifty people that would be negatively impacted by the loss of you for sure. Uh Lewis, I can't thank you enough. Like my heart is just full. Um, I've got a couple more sessions today. I don't even know how I'm gonna get through them. We're gonna I'm gonna I got a little recovery space here. So it is an honor to meet you, and I cannot thank you enough for sharing first of all for your mission and for then sharing this mission with others. No, thank you so much for having me. Genuinely love sharing, love talking. Really appreciate you. Thank you, Eric. And I appreciate you, Lewis. And so anyone out there who wants to follow what he's doing, whether it's the actual running events or uh more importantly, the deeper uh issues that he's tackling as he continues with his nonprofit, which I would be remiss if I didn't mention was the Foundry C-I-C. And you can check out his podcast. We didn't really bring that up earlier, but his podcast is called the Truuman Podcast. T-R-U-U-M-A-N podcast, found wherever podcasts are housed. Otherwise you can donate to his cause. You can find the links for his socials all on the Feeding Our Young® website. Just go to that feedingouryoung.org and click on Honored Guests, scroll down to about the middle, and you'll find Mr. Lewis Hackney smiling there back at you.