Reading, Talking, and Finding Friends: Shay Leighton’s Tough Guy Book Club

Nick: You might think that when you’re reading a novel, you’re just reading, but really we’re opening a door to another world across Australia and in a growing number of cities overseas. Men meet in pubs on the first Wednesday of the month to talk books, banter hard, and somehow end up talking about life. The movements called Tough Guy Book Club.

It started in Collingwood over a decade ago, and it’s become a network of chapters where tough means, curious, kind, and up for a proper conversation. My guest today is the founder, Shay Layton. We’ll get into the rituals that make strangers feel welcome by books for a brilliant Trojan Horse for mental health conversations and how you scale a community without losing its soul.

I’m Nick McEwan-Hall, and this is _The Mental Health Couch_. Real Talk with people doing interesting things; where work and wellbeing intersect. Let’s get into it!

so joining me today is Shay Layton social actress, community organizer, and the creator of Tough Guy Book Club.

Shay, welcome to the podcast.

Shay: Thank you for having me.

Nick: Shay every, month on a Wednesday around the country and around the world groups of guys getting together and reading books. Tell me a little bit about how that all started.

Shay: Okay. So yeah, that’s Tough Guy. Book Club we meet on the first Wednesday of the month at seven o’clock in your local pub. we’ve been going for 13 years. We started in Collingwood, Australia. And it started when I realized a couple of things that I think many men have realized over the years, which is I didn’t have enough friends and I hadn’t read a decent book in years. And I was, I was pretty unhappy to be honest. And and you can continue to go that way or you can try and make changes about it and Tough God Book Club is what came from that.

Nick: Amazing. Yeah. I think a lot of people can relate to that idea of, friends being harder to maybe form as you get older and,

Shay: in entirely,

entirely. How do you, how do you make friends as a, how do you make friends as an adult man? You know, like you, you kind of meet ’em at, work or you meet ’em through a partner, like their partner’s friends or something. But, but we’re not socialized to meet new men in spaces. Like imagine walking up to, a bunch of guys in a pub and saying, hi, I’m Shay.

We should, we should hang out sometime. We, we don’t have a community in which we can do that in.

Nick: Yeah, you’re so right. I, I, as you described that I’m trying to picture. Would I do that? And it’s, the answer’s probably no. I probably wouldn’t do that. You know? Yeah. And so was that the, sorry you go.

Shay: yeah, and, and the thing that we find a lot is I talk to lots of men about friendship running this organization. And the thing I hear so much is I’m like, oh, do you have a friend? And they’re like, yeah, I’ve got a friend. He’s, he’s married to my, my wife’s friend. And you’re like, okay, what’s he like?

And they’re like, oh, he’s okay. Wait, wait. Your, your only friend is a guy that you hang out who’s just, okay. Like, I think we can do better than that. And I think that, that there are, we’ve gotta do something about that essentially.

Nick: Yeah, I think it’s a worthy thing to go after, isn’t it? It sounds, so simple and eloquent when you describe it like that, but was it like that at the very start when you had that realization about, Hey, I’ve, I, I’m finding it hard to find friends or to form friendships and to create that book club. Was it sort of just a gut instinct thing that grew or was it kind of really clear to you and you just built it?

Shay: Well, it was a combination of things. Firstly, that, I didn’t have a lot of friends. Not only because of, you know, like not only because how society is, but also what I was like, and how I lived my life. And so I didn’t have a lot of friends at the time because of that. But the other thing as well is that, you know, I’m a community organizer.

I’ve been involved in community organizing for most of my life, but community organizing has always seen as this thing you do for political change.

Nick: Hmm.

Shay: But what about for social change? You know, can, so the idea of seeing a problem and fixing it in a political sense is always what we do through community organizing.

But what happens if the problem is not political in nature? What if it is social in nature? And so. I trying to, as opposed to going to solve a problem, going to, trying to find a way to solve a problem with people who are experiencing the problem. You know,

because that’s the, the center of a community organizing framework is not just to solve a problem, but to solve it with the people who are experiencing it.

So they are empowered through the process.

Nick: It makes so much sense, like doing it with, rather than for or to a community or something like that. It’s like doing it with people makes so much sense. Standing.

Standing by them. Yeah.

Shay: there’s this, there’s this paper, I think it’s McKnight from back in the nineties called Services Are Bad for People. And it just talks about that, that thing that we all kind of inherently know that if you, if you helicopter in and solve, try and solve, a like service, an area that has a problem, then. The people are not becoming empowered or stronger in that space. You need to go in there and sit with them and, and ask them how they wish to solve it themselves and then ask them to get, be involved.

Nick: Yeah. I mean, it makes so much sense, doesn’t it? I’m thinking as you’re talking about different things and different times in my life when people have either came in and suggested things or maybe sort of pointed me in the direction of a, a. Of a thing, whether that’s a service or a help or something. And, and then times where people have sort of sat with me going, yeah, I’ve had the same sort of experience.

You know, like, and I’m finding it equally as frustrating and what are we gonna do about it? It’s like, ah, yeah, okay, well this is what we’re gonna do about it. Right? And then it kind of becomes a bit magnetic. I find people kind of go, Ooh, yeah, I wanna do that. I wanna do that with you. It’s nice.

Shay: And, and what we are gonna do about use the word we there and that, and that we is really important here. So what are we gonna do it? If we are experiencing it, what are we gonna do about it? And the, the lack of. Lack of friends and the lack of reading and the, the kind of isolation that some guys experience within, you know, their lives is something we’re experiencing.

So what are we going to do about it? This

is not something that needs to be fixed by, by other people. You know, like

we’re, this is a problem that we are, we are experiencing and potentially creating. So it needs to, it’s up to us to be part of the solution.

Nick: Yeah. It’s, it strikes me as a very empowering way to engage with something Right? To say how are we going to do it? And, and we also means you who are involved, right? Like, it’s how are we gonna do it? Yeah, yeah, yeah. So the, the idea of a. Book club, like in particular, what was the driver in terms of saying, yeah, I’ve gotta do this thing and it’s gonna involve reading books.

Like where did that bit come from?

Shay: I had never gone to a book club before. So I didn’t even know how they ran. Like I didn’t even Google how to run a book club. But the, the idea, it actually started as a chess club. That’s a, that’s another story. That’s another story. It started as

a chess club for like 15 minutes before I changed my mind. but the idea of, you know, communities are made by communities that’s made by shared values and shared stories and shared rituals. So the idea of bringing people together to talk about big ideas.

To talk about the kind of stuff that, you know, the average guy in the pub doesn’t get into then, like was the idea of putting men together and trying to have some big conversations, not just about the weather or about what your job is or what, what the football team has done, but about like the actual large things in life.

’cause I can remember, I can remember being a teenager and staying up all night, you know, sitting at some terrible, cheap plastic, you know, outdoor furniture table and. And talking about all of these huge things in the world. And then somewhere along the way, I became a 30-year-old guy that only worried, talked about money and work

Nick: Yeah.

Shay: and, and how do we get, how do we get back there? How do we get back to a space where big conversations are happening and people are open and free to ha to talk about things that are more interesting than just, you know, cash or weather.

and so we do that through stories. So we

do that through stories because when. To have a great conversation. You and I need to find out what we share. We are, we are doing that even through this conversation. We’re working out what we share. We’re joining those things together so we can discuss them together. But if you give people a story, a place in which to start, then you can talk about amazing things because you’re already part of a conversation.

Nick: It is so, so true. I like in my, most of what I do is teaching people about mental health and a lot of the time I’m sharing stories about people I’ve helped or people that have told me their stories. You know, we talk about a story and straight away when we say, when we give a story. After we’ve just given a structure or some facts or some data or whatever it might be.

When we tell a story, people go, oh, but like, what about if that this happened? Or, what about if that happened? And we get, suddenly we’re into the depths and we’re into the nuance, and we’re into the detail, and it allows people to sort of get into it, get into whatever we’re learning, just in this different way.

So, yeah, stories are important. They’re, they’re super important and, and books are such a, such a vehicle to story, right.

Shay: Entirely, and that’s the, you know, like people are collections of stories and stories

are how we interpret the world as well. Like you said before about when you’re teaching something, if I ask you about your life, if I’m like, explain yourself to me. You don’t list your weight and your height at me. You tell me what it’s like to be a human, to be you as a human, right.

You tell me about yourself and, and that’s a collection of stories and, and so. Communities work the same.

A collection of stories together is, is is the thing now.

And what, and books are a vehicle for that, you know? And books are a vehicle for that collections of stories. Telling each, sitting around, telling each other stories is how we built the world and it’s how we will still build the world.

When you teach kids how to count you, you’re telling ’em how many apples I’ve got three apples, I

Nick: but yeah. Yeah,

Shay: apple. That’s a story. That’s not just the numbers,

Nick: yeah, yeah, yeah. Or like counting sheep, that kind of thing.

Shay: Yeah.

Nick: Yeah.

Shay: even in that, that notion of like, you know, I take away two apple’s eye. There’s an eye, there’s a, there’s a protagonist within the story.

So it’s a story. It’s not a, it’s not a math problem.

Nick: that’s true. Actually. I hadn’t thought about that sort of stuff as a story. Yeah. Even under you now about my little nephew who’s two and a bit, you know, and it’s never just. Oh, we’re going to the park. Well, even we’re going to a park is part of the story, right? So we’re gonna, the park, you know, what are we gonna do at the park?

We’re gonna do this, and where are we gonna go on the way to the park? So there’s all this story, and he’s learning these words and he’s learning how to ask for things through that story. It’s really, it’s really nice frame actually, to think about what’s going on for him as a two and a half year old.

It’s like, yeah, it’s story. Absolutely it’s story.

Shay: And I think, and I think that’s one of those things that you can forget somewhere along the way as an adult man,

you know, like as, as an like a, a really sort of in a traditional sort of masculine. A black way of, you know, not, not realizing you’re halfway through a story and not no longer thinking about what you want that story to be.

Nick: Hmm.

Hmm.

Shay: and reading the stories of other people is how you can see other ways to be, you know, you’re

never alone when you have a book. You have the stories of men throughout all of history.

Nick: It’s incredible.

Shay: to be,

Nick: Yeah. It’s a, it’s a nice, provocation. It’s like something to think about, isn’t it? I, I think, one of the things we do here is we, distribute sort of curated care packs to people that have been bereaved by suicide. And in the UK version of that, which is what ours is based on, there’s a, a.

It’s called the Little Book of Hope, and it’s literally stories from people who’ve been through that experience and just telling their story about it and. It gets so much love and so much feedback from people who receive that bag that they say. That is the thing that helped me so much. It helped me connect with my experience to which feel felt very isolating through to a world of people who’ve had this experience.

And instantly, I don’t feel as alone. Instantly. I feel safer instantly. I feel like I can get through this, you know, just through simple kind of two page stories, like really short stories. They’re, yeah, they’re powerful, aren’t they?

Shay: And that’s, you know, there’s the, an overused quote that I always mangle from James Baldwin about, you think your, your pain is individual and alone until you read stories of other people,

you know.

Nick: true. So true. Yeah. Interesting. And so as you are, as you’re talking, I’m talk, I’m thinking about. The pub, I’m thinking I’m putting myself in a pub, which is not an environment I get into very often, to be honest with you, Shay. But, you know, I’m thinking about a pub and I’m thinking about a group of guys.

You know, it’s a tough guy, book club, and I’m wondering what that looks like. I’m, I’m wondering about someone who’s listening to this going, yeah. What does it look like? You know, the tough guy book club. What does it look like? It’s in a pub. It’s a group of guys. It’s the first Wednesday of the night of the month.

But yeah, what is it like, you know, who’s there, what are the people like? That kind of thing. I think about the whole thing. I’m just really curious about it.

Shay: Our, so we’re a men’s book club, to start with. But other than that, we have the most remarkably diverse group of men you’ve ever seen. One of the great things about a pub, of course, is it’s an important third space within your neighborhood. and it’s a, it’s a, it’s a space where a lot of people feel comfortable.

A lot of people feel comfortable within the pub who wouldn’t feel comfortable somewhere else.

You know, if I invited them to the library or if I invited them to the town hall or,

Nick: that’s

Shay: and, and, and the pub is a place that, you know, we didn’t really put, we didn’t invite men to pubs. To start a book club. We just went to the pub and started a book club with the men who were there. But, but there, but there we’re a remarkably diverse group of people. Like we’ve got, I think it’s currently, 93 is the oldest person we have, oldest man, we

have, and I think 19 is the youngest currently, you know, we have 160 locations. We’re in seven countries, so we’re a lot of different places. but across that there’s a, there’s a really broad. level of readership. Some people come ’cause they’re like, I don’t read, I, I wanna start. Where do we start? Some guys will be like, I read five novels a month. I have, I’m published.

Nick: Yeah. Wow.

Shay: but those two people get to speak on an even an even keel about books in that space. and you know, we have rules.

We have some rules, and one of them is no work talk, which is, you know, the first, the first rule of tough guy book club,

Nick: Yeah. Yeah.

Shay: and, and that really takes a lot of the, sort of the socioeconomic division out of the room as well.

Nick: Yeah.

Shay: you can, men are so socialized to say, like, what do you do for a living?

Like, what’s your, what’s your work? That’s how we introduce each other to

each, like, and, and it’s all small talk. It’s meant to keep things to a, to a surface level. so we get rid of that, which means that people actually have to talk about them themselves,

not

Nick: mm

Shay: the stuff, you know, not the, not the collection of responsibilities that they, they might be.

Nick: Yeah. A a dot point list is not a story. Right. Like a dot point list. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, yeah. What I do, where I live, how old I am, it’s not a story.

Shay: Exactly. And so we ask people to explain themself when they first turn up. Like, go on, tell us about yourself and what people tell us. Well, it’s up to them.

Nick: Yeah. Interesting. I’m just thinking about what would I say? What would I tell them? Yeah. And having read up a little bit about the rules, I think I’d have to be a bit prepared about it. Yeah. Interesting. I like that. I was wondering when we’d get to the rules, ’cause the rules on your website are really straightforward.

It’s like we don’t talk about work that’s, that’s, no, we don’t do that. It’s the first rule of Topco Book Club and I think it makes so much sense when you describe it. And you’d explain it. It’s like, well, the reason we’re getting together is to get beyond some of that stuff and build that friendship, which is not about who.

Well, it’s about who you are, but it’s not about what you do. It’s not about how you, what boxes you tick or any of that stuff. It’s actually just about you as a person.

Shay: Entirely, you know, and, and you’re gonna, you’re gonna talk about your ideas when you’re here. It sets the tone of that place, it sets the tone of all tough couple clubs that in this place you’re expected to talk. But when you talk, people will listen. But what you’re gonna talk about is not just like the weather and your day job.

You’re gonna talk about things that are important to you. Why talk about weather in your job when you can talk about revenge or the nature of evil.

Nick: That sounds far more exciting.

Shay: Yeah.

Nick: That sounds far more exciting. Yeah. Nice. Okay, cool. And you mentioned in there that. It’s grown. I mean, it’s massive, right? Like it’s huge in different countries and things. And I was reading, I can’t remember where it was, maybe it was on your website or on socials or something about the Singapore War chapter and, how that sort of started.

And Singapore was close to my heart having lived there for a couple of years as a teenager with family. So I kind of, when I, when I saw that, I was like, yeah, interesting. How, how would. Book club work in Singapore. And it just struck me that it was quite, it might be quite different to here in s but then I thought, well, maybe not, you know, maybe not, but I’m curious about that cross-cultural thing as well.

’cause we’re a really kind of multicultural society here in Australia, but when you

take that concept somewhere else, sometimes it translates, sometimes it doesn’t. And I’m, I’m curious about what that looks like. Yeah, it sounds really hopeful what Singapore’s doing, but yeah.

Shay: Well, we’ve, we’ve always been overseas. we, the second chapter of Tough Guy Book Club was in Portland, Oregon in the us and that’s because one of the, one of the Colinwood originals, one of the seven guys who first came along to T Guide book club, had to go back to where he was from. Where he was from, was the US and, and was like, can I open? Can I do a tough go book club there? And that’s when we realized we were gonna be more than one place. Like

we never intended to. This was never a, you know, no one gets paid here. This is a

non-for-profit, it’s a charity. And stuff like this is not about expansion or growth for growth’s sake. It was just like, how can we get more men reading and can we do what we do here?

Can we replicate what the, the what we’ve done so well in Collingwood? Can we do that elsewhere? And we worked out, we can. And, and it’s about, training the people who, who become the volunteers, the officers of our clubs, and the people who run those and keeping them close. We run as one giant, big organization.

We’ve got 265 volunteers who run this organization and, we work as a giant big team. It’s definitely not just me here, it’s

Nick: I get,

yeah, yeah, yeah. Well, I think, I think that’s how lots of good community stuff happens, right? We’re talking about like. Building community and, and all that sort of stuff. Like that’s, yeah, that’s what it takes, isn’t it? And that becomes the story of the club, right? The story of the club is we are a group of people who wanna do these things for other groups of people.

It’s, yeah, it’s incredible. What a great, what a great story to, to tell about the growth and the expansion. And it also reminds me about something about like. We’re all just human, like we’re humans in different contexts, right? So like, I’m a human here in, in Melbourne, you’re a human here in Melbourne, you know, there, there’s humans in Singapore.

There’s humans in the States. Like at the end of the day, like we have differences, but I think maybe we have more in common than different.

Shay: Entirely. Entirely. And, and you find that when you’re at a table, at a pub, at Tough God Book Club, discussing with people who are incredibly not like you. You

are gonna meet people who are incredibly different to you, and you’re gonna talk with them about stuff. And sometimes you’re gonna find out you have more in common with them, and sometimes you’re gonna find out why they think what they think.

and, I think there’s a, I think there’s a wonderful joy in, you know, meeting new people and learning about them and, and finding out people who are different to you and what they’re about.

Because you, from that, I think you realize that people are just people and you, People are better than, than sometimes in this current political climate.

We give them credit for, you know, it’s, pretty hard to hate someone when you, when you know ’em.

Nick: Yeah, know them. Know them in the way that your book club members get to know each other, right? Like it’s a

Shay: Yeah.

Nick: type of way.

Shay: Because, you know, calling each other names online for the last 10 years has not improved the way that men communicate. But if you get ’em back to the, if you get ’em back to the pub and put ’em in a table and put a book in their hands, it kind of works out.

Nick: Yeah. Nice. How does, how does it, I mean, I can imagine the conversations around that, that table and around that book that the club’s reading and, and the people that are there. I imagine the conversation can get pretty spirited, can get pretty, you know, intense in all the good ways and all the, maybe not so right ways, but how does that kind of.

Even itself out, you know? How does that sort of flow? I guess I, I, I think I’m, I’m thinking because we’re not gonna be able to say, well, yes, everyone’s gonna agree about everything all the time, and nor should they. That’s not the point, I

Shay: Geez. If you had to, I tell you, if you go to a book club and everyone agrees all the time, you’re doing it wrong. Because,

and, and that’s like every great conversation is you’ve gotta have differing opinions or it’s not a conversation, it’s a lecture. Right. This is

not. Tough global club’s not an agreement community.

It is, most of the time we just argue about books, you know, argue about right and wrong and books and what’s good and what’s bad, and that’s great. And, and when and when. People, people are way more reasonable in an argument than again, we’ve, we’ve learned to believe over the last 15 years of being online all the time.

Even the people you most wholeheartedly disagree with, if you sit ’em down at a pub and they’re a member of your club. They’re within your community. ’cause this is the other thing as well, these aren’t strangers. Tough Couple Club is a local neighborhood, local neighborhood club. So you’re going to run into these people.

They’re a

part of your neighborhood. And so when you understand that people are part of your neighborhood, everyone who’s, who listens to this, who lives, who grew up in a small town, understands that there’s what you do today has echoes tomorrow. You

know, and, and so. How you act around people is way more reasonable when you’re at the pub talking to them, knowing that this is another person.

You know, it’s not, it’s not some, some alias online. You’re

not screaming into the void at someone else. You’re, you’re talking to a person, you’re looking at their face and seeing how they react. And people become way more reasonable when that happens. Don’t get me wrong, things get heated, things definitely get heated, especially after a couple of points.

But, but, but they, things always generally work out because. This is, this is reading as a team sport.

Nick: Yeah.

Shay: is reading, you’ve, there is a other person on the other side of the team, but you, the other, the other team in the sport. But you don’t hate them. It’s just a, it’s just a game. And at the end of the game you get to put it away.

Nick: Yeah. Interesting. Yeah. I’m curious about like people, so when I teach people about mental health and we talk about wellbeing and so we often, it often comes up this idea of connection and having people that you have good, solid relationships with of all sorts of different shapes and sizes and structures and stuff.

But, I can imagine lots of people coming to something like the Tough Guy Book Club, looking for some of that support, you know, looking for that sort of connection and not so much looking for like a professional support, but looking for maybe a little bit more than just coming and meeting some people.

I’m wondering how, how, how that kind of happens at the club, you know, or, or does it, I mean, maybe it doesn’t and, and how does it happen? You know, how do we, how do you, how does your club meet someone where they’re at?

Shay: Well this, you know, that’s one of the things, a couple of, there’s a couple of things in there. Firstly, like our club’s goals are to read more, talk more, have more friends and people join for those three reasons. So not everyone joins because they want more friends. Some people join ’cause they wanna read more.

Some people just join because they want to do some midweek drinking. You know what I mean?

But

Nick: Yeah.

Shay: we just, fine. That’s good too.

Nick: yeah, It’s part of the club.

Shay: But the, some people join, because they realize, like many men do that we are going through a remarkably lonely time. You know, I’ve been talking with some university students recently about, even though they’re very interconnected with their phones constantly, they feel quite lonely.

And that’s, I think, the shallowness of, of connection that’s happening there. And one of the things about. Men, you know, so we’re going through what you and calls the epidemic of male loneliness, and it’s been going around for a while. We’ve been talking about, we’ve been talking about similar things for

Nick: Yeah. Yeah, yeah.

Shay: but the, but the, the thing that has been really obvious is that the traditional locations where men make friends have disappeared. So the, if we’re going through the epidemic of male loneliness right now, it means that we weren’t going through it before 20 years ago. Right. Because if you’re going through an epidemic, it means you weren’t going through it previously.

So what has changed? So we have to look what’s changed. And if you look at, you know, men without our community, and I mean locally, look at your neighborhood. So what I found a long time ago was that we’ve gotta, I live in the graveyard of the civic world. You know, around me there is empty masons. Like temples, there’s empty churches, there’s empty football clubs, there’s empty, there’s all these infrastructure of classics. Classically, kind of like men’s civic organizations that have disappeared. Grandfather wasn’t, better at making friends than you. He just had more opportunities because he was in

more things. So if you look at, you know, Robert Partner’s work on bowling alone. We’ve gone from a place where traditionally. Men in Australia, in Melbourne, middle-aged men like myself, would be a member of like six and a half, let’s say five civic organizations.

So Churchy Union, a political party, the Lions, the Masons, the Buffalo Club, the football

club, the CFA, all of these different organizations where men meet and work on stuff together. And then now, 50 years later, statistically as a middle aged man in Australia, I’m a member statistically of Zero. Civic organizations, which means that the community is radical.

Like how a man interacts with the community and how community inter the community interacts with men has radically changed

in a really short amount of time. And we’ve done nothing to deal with that. And then they’re, and then men are a bit odd and they’re a bit lonely, and people are like, what’s wrong with the men? We’ve got rid of all the things,

we got rid of all the things, that were, that were, that were classically there because, you know. The reason why, so like, we’re not socialized to walk up to strange groups of men in the pub and go, Hey, let’s be friends sometime. is because we are, we, a lot of us were raised to make friends while working on something.

Nick: Hmm.

Shay: It’s the reason why guys make work friends a lot, you know?

But, but if you’re working on, if you’re in the local Lions club and you, you do charity work. Working on that together is how you meet people who have shared values and it creates, and working on those things together creates shared stories.

And those shared stories are what builds friendships.

Nick: It’s so, clear when you describe it that way, that. Yes. These things that we do, these clubs, whatever they are, whether it’s a book club or like you said, the Lions or the Masons or Yeah, sporting clubs, religious groups, like whatever it might be. Yeah. Provide that opportunity for that connection and to get to know people around a shared value.

And I love that you mentioned values there because I think. Values really drive people, don’t they? It’s like, yeah, I have a value that’s at play here when I’m in this club, whatever the club is, I’m here because I want to give back or I want to help, or I believe in that cause, or whatever it might be. So when you’re in a room like that, yeah.

Like you’ve described a couple of times, it’s so clear that there’s gonna be people there that you have something in common with, even if it’s just that you’re there at the pub at the same time.

Shay: Exactly. Maybe, maybe it’s just that you have read the last seven books in a row, the same as that person.

You now have something in common with them because you’ve read the same seven books, you

Nick: Yeah.

Shay: and so those, and so how do people, how is it good for people in a, in a way, when it comes to friendship? Well, it’s how people can make friends. It’s

not the only way and tough guy book club’s not for everyone. We’ve got a very specific kind of thing. but it is an example of. We need to. People have talked a lot in sort of design and architecture, about third spaces,

you know, in all the town planning, people talk about third spaces.

It’s important. Third spaces I do as well. Pubs are important. Third spaces, they’re an important men’s third space that you can go to. They’re not just about drinking, but they’re about community comradery.

Nick: Yeah.

Shay: but, but we. Well, we think about those as physical locations where important third spaces don’t have to be important.

They don’t have to be third space, like they don’t have to be physical locations.

a civic organization is a third space

that exists outside of a building and and those are what we have lost a lot of over the years. Not just the buildings, but the actual organization, the actual community

Nick: Yeah. Yeah. I, it strikes me like the, as you described, the 200 or so, like chapter leaders around the world, that’s a third space. Like your, your group, there is a third space that you can kind of come to and talk to and connect through and, and within. Right. It also reminds me of, I have a very dear friend, and I’ve known him for many, many years, and probably, I would say at least every fortnight, unless something happens, we go to the same cafe and we eat the same.

Well, I eat the same food. He often looks through a menu and, and we’ll choose something different. But we have this kind of ritual, and it’s this particular place and that place, you know, it’s, it’s a cafe. It’s a cafe on the, if you compared it to all the different cafes in. The same suburb you go, yeah, it’s the cafe.

You know, like there’s nothing that special about it, but it’s become this place that that’s where we go. So when I go and pick him up, it’s not a conversation about where are we going. It’s like we’re just going to this place. And that place has been somewhere as a result of us doing that so much when things are been really difficult for either of us, we’ve been able to go to that place.

We’ve been able to go there. And even when times were really, really tough for my mate, you know, and he was struggling with just. Health and life and things, I would say to him, why don’t I come and pick you up and we go for brunch to this place? And it was an instant yes. It was like, yep, let’s do that.

Like the, the bar is lowered in the best possible way. It’s like that third space just. Facilitated so much for us, and every time I go there now I think about it and I think, I’m so glad this is here. I’m so glad this is here. And yeah, it’s a cafe and yeah, we know the people there and we can, we call them by name and whatever.

We don’t know much else about each other. but it’s so nice, it’s so nice to be part of that, that space. It’s just, yeah. And the, and the, and I kind of can’t put words to it, but the amount of. Goodness that it’s provided to me and my friend over the years is immeasurable. Immeasurable. If it closed, I’d be devastated.

Shay: there, there’s also, I’m, I’m so glad you used the word ritual in there as well. Ritual, because this is in, in, in community. You know, we’ve talked a lot about story.

but one of those aspects of, of what makes a community is, you know, shared rituals, shared language, shared stories, whether you think you’re within the community and whether other people think you’re within the community. having those five aspects is what makes you part of your community with your, with your friend there. And

you have a ritual that you do together and not in a,

you know, religious sense, but

we don’t have a better word for it. Like, in, in, in a, a, a thing that a group of people does that signifies that they are together,

Nick: Yeah.

Yeah. It’s like a. Like a routine almost. It’s, but I, I think, yeah, ritual’s interesting. I I, I, I don’t think about it like a religious kind of ritual, but it’s a, it’s a process we go through and if I think about rituals, they have meaning, right? Like they have this meaning that’s probably gonna be a bit different for everybody involved in that ritual or involved in that space.

And that’s, that’s great. That’s good. That’s, that’s part of the deal. But yeah, for me, I think the ritual, it can, I kind of. The concept connects through to values and connection and stuff. For me, it’s like, yeah, that’s what we do. That’s our thing. That’s, that’s where we go. And it’s so good, you know, it’s just such a good thing.

It fills our cup, right? It kills our cup, and, and in, in several instances, it’s been a real safety net too, like a real safety net, you know? It’s like, yep, we’ve got that. We can do that. It’s amazing.

Shay: and, and this is why friends are so important.

So now it gets down to the why friends are so important is that, you know, at Tough Guy Book Club, we have a, a saying we’ve been using for a long time, which is there’s no problem large enough that you can’t solve it with enough friends.

Nick: Hmm, I

Shay: And, and it seems like a, it seems like a simple, like a simple little kind of mantra, like a axiom. But, but have a think about it. Like, how many friends do you need to move a couch? You need two.

How many friends do you need to move a house? You need eight.

How many friends do you need to build a house? Well, what, 50, a hundred.

How, how many people does it take to build a house? So the idea of the idea of friends being, solving problems, friends solve problems when you, when you meet with your friend at that cafe there. It’s that you’re together with someone else.

Nick: Hmm.

Shay: And so tough guy Book Club is a great way to find people who are like you or not like you and be friends with people who are both like you and are not like you.

And so doing that makes your life a little bit easier.

And you know, I’m on a mental health podcast, but tough guide book club’s, not really a mental health organization.

But I tell you, if you read more, talk more and have more friends, you’ll probably have better mental health.

Nick: Well, this is the thing, isn’t it? I mean, mental health is not just. Crisis. You know, it’s not just when we’re having really poor mental health. It’s actually about the preventative and the, the kind of restorative and, and protective stuff that we do, and connection and relationships and being part of society.

Just, it does, it provides that safety net under our mental health. So I don’t think there’s many things that we kind of engage in. As a human in the week, that kind of wouldn’t be good for our mental health as long as we’re doing it in the right way. Of course. And there’s obvious exclusions to that. But, you know, most things as humans are good for us, you know, when we engage with them the right way.

So I think, yeah, the club, book club is probably, it’s like, it’s like you said, you’re not a service, you know, it’s a, it’s a club. It’s a group of people supporting each other, but that’s kind of inherently a good positive mental health thing. It just kind of is.

Shay: Yeah. And, and just that, that community aspect of it as well is

Nick: Hmm.

Shay: people have to, people are as involved in this organization as they want to be. And you get what you, you get out what you put in. There

are people who are throughout this whole organization, across different countries, involved and super finding ways to, to build more community, build more. Build more friendship, build more a dense lattice work of community is something I talk about quite a lot.

Like what does that look like in your neighborhood? How, how many points of contact? Because within, you know, the mental health space, they talk about resilience, quite a lot. Too much I think, but resilience as opposed. Individual resilience, but

community resilience, if you think of yourself as interconnected with the people around you, then you can, you can take more, you can take more, impact because it’s shared amongst the people around you.

And, and that notion of the solution not being in the self, but within the community is, is, is inherent to a lot of my work.

Nick: Yeah, it sounds like it, it, it, it reminds me of some, I do a lot of work with regional Victoria and a lot of regional Victoria’s been through, you know, bush fires, floods, whatever, and, and there was the recovery process. Is about building resilience and it is all about communities being connected together to kind of ride waves as they come.

Right. And, and building that safety net and that lifeboat before you need it, is a key part of that process. It’s empowering the individual as a community to go, well, yeah, if this was to happen again, what would we do? And we’re ready, we’re prepared, and, and as a result, we are resilient.

Shay: Mm-hmm. That’s exactly it. That’s exactly it.

Nick: Yeah. Wow. It’s so cool. What about, what’s, what about the sorts of books that the club reads? I’m, I’m, I was reading the, the Rules on the website as well and, lots of funny frequently asked questions in there about, you know, do you read books by women? And it’s like, well, of course we do. Yeah. It’d be stupid not to kind of thing,

Shay: Yeah, that’s, that’s 50% of the world. You

Nick: Yeah, exactly.

Exactly, exactly. but I suppose, you know, reasonable, reasonable question.

Shay: people ask thing because we’re a, we’re a gendered organization. We’re, we’re, we’re a men’s reading. Like organization, and so people can quickly get the wrong idea.

when, when a group of men are together and separate people can immediately get the wrong idea.

And,

and I understand why. It’s because, traditionally, you know. All male groups have excluded other people to collude power and, and, and maintain control and keep others down. But the, if you join Tough Guy Book Club, you’re not gonna get any more power. You’re gonna get more friends, more hangovers, and you have more books on your shelves, but you’re not gonna, you’re not gonna get any of that stuff.

But,

so people can get a bit wary about a, a men’s organization. But, we read all kinds of stuff. recently, I think the lineup has been Tony Morrison, Ernest Hemingway. Becky Chambers

Nick: Okay. Pretty to to us. Yeah.

Shay: yeah, that’s, and oh, and also, so that was, so that was, song of Solomon by, by Tony Morrison, to have and have not by Ernest Hemingway alone in, alone in Berlin by Hans, oh, I dunno how to say their last name.

And then this month’s, Becca Chambers are a long way to a small, angry planet. Which is, a just remarkably hopeful book and in, in, in the, in the difficult times we live, I think of reading a bit of hopeful stuff is, is good as well.

Nick: Yeah. Nice. And how do you, how does the club, how does this group of people around the world work out which book’s next? I mean, there must be this kind of never ending list of books that you could read, but how, what’s the process there? How does that come about?

Shay: Yeah, so the, the, all the clubs read the same book at the same time and meet on the same time. So we are, so we’re all one club reading the books and, we put together myself and, a handful of people who give me advice, put together a reading list every year. I pick them about a year in advance, and, it kind of follows the same rhythm every year. But I try and make a, I try and make a bit of a, a theme for the year. like it’s, it’s not for anyone else, it’s just because I have to pick 11 or 12 books from

every book written in the human

history for thousands of people.

Nick: Oh my God. What a, what a task.

Shay: it, but it’s, but it’s important to understand that Tough Guy Book Club doesn’t read good books.

It reads interesting books.

And, and, and that’s a, it’s a, it’s a strange notion because trying to pick. a remarkably diverse group of people across so many places, the, the thousands of people trying to pick books they all like would be maddening, would be, would be maddening. so, but the, but we’re not really a, like the book club, we’re a discuss the book club.

So

books that are interesting to talk about.

Are what we’re going for.

So the thing I promise everyone is if you join Tough Guy Book Club, you will read books you hate sometimes you go, they can’t all be winners. And the ones that you like, someone else hates, and

the ones you hate, someone else likes because we’re diverse.

And that’s just how books go. I.

Nick: I love it. I, I was, I’ve, I’ve got open some of the frequently asked questions. One of them is, what if I don’t finish the book and I’ll read quote for quote, come in Anyway, everyone gets busy and no one gives a damn. We’re not your boss. And anyway, the beer is still cold. The conversation will still be rowdy.

I reckon you’ll come up with something to say and it’s just Yeah. That’s so reassuring to read that. Right, because I, one of the things I would think about is like, oh, what if I don’t like the book? Or what if I don’t want to read the book, or what if I can’t read the book? Yeah, come anyway. Like it’s actually about that connection bit.

It’s just, yeah, but what a

Shay: and we’re, and we’re a discussion, and we’re a discussion club. And if you’re talking about, you know, revenge or resilience or right and wrong. How children get treated by fathers. You’re gonna have something to say about it. You know, like

you’re gonna have something to say,

Nick: hundred percent. So. The, okay, so like what a tough job to kind of choose those 12 books. You know, what a hard job and

Shay: there’s a lot worse. There’s a lot worse jobs in the world. Trust

Nick: Oh, I’m sure there are, but still, you know, like trying to keep the general public kind of happy is a tough gig, right? Like it’s a really tough gig, but I, I also hear it’s not about keeping people happy, it’s about actually having interesting conversations, which might include some unhappiness, and that’s okay.

And that’s that resilience piece. But I’m curious about the stories now. You must have, now you’ve read a lot of stories, but I’m curious about what are the stories you’ve heard kind of in those conversations or through the work of the book club that that really just stick in your mind as like, that’s why we do it.

That’s why we have this book club. That’s why we have 200 people around the world who do this. Like what are those stories like? Is there any that sort of stick out for you in your memory? Thinking about Tough Guy. Book club. Book club, and kind of. Yeah, those stories and the people, I guess that’s what I’m asking you about, like the people and the stories and Yeah.

What stands out for you?

Shay: Yeah, I’m lucky enough to have people tell me a whole, a whole bunch of. Great stories about the things that they’ve gotten from our community. And again, it’s from our community. It’s

from all of the people who run this organization, but, but they’re always the simplest stories. I’m not gonna use any names, but

you know, someone who started with us 10 years ago who said they haven’t read anything longer than a magazine since high school,

Nick: Yeah.

Shay: they were like a 30-year-old man, you know?

And so that’s like 12 years worth of not reading anything. And now when I go to their house for a beer, they’ve got this, they’ve got this big, long, big, long bookshelf, and there’s every single book we’ve ever read. And there’s another bookshelf next to it, which is all the other books they’ve read in between,

Nick: Hmm.

I

Shay: because reading’s like a, reading’s like a muscle, and if you, you, you practice, you get stronger.

so that’s a good one. But just I’m, I’m lucky enough to be regularly told. We have a camp every year where all of the, you know. All of kind of the, the, the diehards myself just go for a big camp and, and I get to meet guys from all around the country who, who, you know. Tell me about how they weren’t sure what they were doing.

They didn’t have enough friends or, or they, they hadn’t read a book in years. All that. They were going through some stuff and they didn’t know how to speak to people about it,

because that’s the other thing as well. This is, this is not just. You know, to read more, talk more, have more friends. We’ve talked about the reading and the, and the, and the, the have more friends, but the talking’s important as well.

You know, I wasn’t, I’m like raised in the eighties. I wasn’t, I’m not the best communicator about the things that are important to me. and I think a lot of people within my, you know, within my demographic understand that. I know that notion. And, you know, especially when we were starting this club and I was. Remarkably unhappy. How’s a real piece of work? Like I was really, I was acting out, I was doing all kinds of stuff. I was, I was hurting myself and other people. and, and that was because I just wasn’t able to communicate that. I, I think I’d just made a bit of a mess of my life and I was really sad,

you know, and, and being not able to communicate that to anyone properly created this really negative

thing I was doing. And, but these days, you know, I’m surrounded by remarkable people that I’m able to talk to. And, and years of talking about right and wrong and talking about the stories of other people have given me the capacity to discuss the things that are important to me with other people.

hopefully that’s one of the things that this club does, is it, it shares the, the language of, you know, there was this guy, there was this, there was this guy, this is a long time ago. this is when we were first starting out and we were reading a book. we are reading a book, which is asked the dust by, John Fonte. And the person sitting across from me, I asked the question, why is the guy in the book so mean to the woman in the book? You know, why is he so, why is he so mean to her? And, and this guy, big guy, neck tattoo, real serious guy. He said, I think it’s because of, I think it’s because of his father. Now I’ve read that book like 10 times and there is almost nothing about the protagonist’s father in that book. And at that moment I realized he was talking about himself because even when you don’t wanna discuss something through the, through the stories that you sharing with someone else, you can discuss the big things in life. And he was wearing book armor, right? That guy’s, not the

kind of guy who’s gonna talk about that kind of thing, but he, he wore someone else’s story to discuss something that was important to him.

Nick: Hmm.

Shay: And I, I think you can, I think you can build a community around that.

Nick: That sounds like you have,

Shay: Yeah.

Nick: like you have. Yeah. It’s a really, it’s a, it’s a very, kind of evocative story that you’re telling there, because I think, you know. Yeah, there’s a whole bunch. I’m just thinking about like with the work that professional sort of mental health workers do, you know, psychologists, psychiatrist, counselors, all the rest of it.

social workers, whoever else. And often it is about that story and it does allow people to sort of say, oh, even like, you know, oh, what would you do if this was happening? Yeah. Or like the classic, you know, a friend of mine. Is having this issue. You know, like, and I, you know, I was just been wondering like, what would I do, you know, that kind of thing.

It’s like that third, that third person ish kind of approach to it does allow people to kind of crack the window a little bit and let you kind of look in. And professionals have been doing it for years, but it’s, it’s this kind of high. Practice thing, but I think actually you’re right. We all, we all do do it.

Yeah. We all do do it. I’m wondering if, you know, have you got a resource for that? You know, that sort of thing. I think it’s so important.

Shay: and I think that, you know, and the difference between Tough God Book Club and those more traditional spaces of, of help. that guy’s not walking in to go and see a psychiatrist. You know,

he’s, he’s not, he’s not, he’s never doing that. So, so the, the, the one thing, like, and like we’re talking about the serious aspects of Tough Coball Club here, but I, I also wanna reiterate, it’s also a lot of fun, you

know, like, it’s not, it’s not all serious work, but, but, but I mean, that guy is, that’s one of the things that we kind of pride ourself on, is that, that guy’s not going along to, to his local.

Nick: yeah,

Shay: a mental health check. He’s not,

so him being able to talk with his, with his contemporaries, with his, with the men of his neighborhood about something like that, in a space where, you know, he feels comfortable enough to do that at his local pub because like the first, like the, you know, one of the first rules of community organizing is find your people and go to them.

So.

Nick: yeah.

Shay: I just went and found my people. My people were already in pubs and, they were already complaining about their lives. So, but no, my people, my, but I went to go and, you know, find my people. And my people were already in pubs and they, they probably used to read a lot when

they were a teenager, but somewhere along the way it went down the list of priorities.

Nick: Hmm.

Shay: and, and you’ve, you’ve, you find yourself, you know, again, you find yourself. Yeah, everyone I talked to used to read a bunch when they’re a teenager and now they’re 30, or they’re 40 and they can’t remember the last time they read a good book. Or they can never find time.

And never find Time is an interesting one,

but when you, but when you make it a responsible, when you make kind of reading a bit of a responsibility, the, the thing that, like I said before is we made reading a team sport.

Nick: Yeah.

Shay: I can’t, I can’t, I can’t go out tonight. I’ve gotta read the book for club.

Nick: Yep, yep. Yeah. Gotta

Shay: reading is so inh. Yeah. And in, and reading is so

inherently good for you that, that, you know, we’ve just given someone an excuse to do something that’s good for them and only for them,

Nick: yeah.

Shay: and made it a responsibility that they can, ’cause men are great at taking on lists of respon, becoming lists of responsibilities.

You ask a person, Hey, what do you do? And they’re like, here’s my job, here’s, I’m a, I’m a, I’m a good, I’m a good dad, I’m a good husband. I’m a good, you know, middle manager of a, of a paper factory.

Those are responsibilities. Let’s add, I’m a person who finishes the book every month for Tough Guy Book Club to it.

Nick: Yeah. I’m a book finisher. That’s what I

Shay: Yeah, that’s exactly it. Yeah.

Nick: yeah, yeah. That’s what I do. It’s, yeah, it reminds me of some of that sort of, Atomic habits kind of stuff. You know, where people go instead of saying, you know, what do you, what do you want to, what goals do you want? Just turn it into, oh, I’m someone who finishes books.

That’s who I am. You know, as opposed to, oh, I wanna read more books. It’s like, no, no, no. Rephrase it as I am someone who finishes books and you, you’ll soon start finishing books. You know,

Shay: Now, and now it’s part of your, now it’s part of your story.

Nick: Yeah, exactly. I’m just thinking about your, your mate who we were talking about just a couple of minutes ago about who has said, you know, that guy’s never gonna go and have that conversation with a GP or a mental health professional.

And I, I wonder if, maybe, I wonder if maybe through the vehicle and the community of the clubs that maybe that person is someone who might go do that. If there’s that community around them who’s kind of going, Hey mate, you know, like. Or sharing a story maybe of their own, like I just, that probably happens and we don’t even know about it.

Right? But I, I love to just think about what’s possible with these things, particularly when we are thinking about people in ways that. It might be, and I know you weren’t applying a stereotype when you told the story, but I think a lot of people do. They go, oh, men don’t talk about this stuff, or Men do this, and women do that, and they’re different.

And it’s like, well, actually, human beings do a whole range of stuff and some of

Shay: Yeah.

Nick: stuff and other, you know, and, and some of these ones do this one. But I, I can absolutely see how a strong, supportive community that’s safe, like in that real true sense of the word, would allow someone to either say, this is what I need, or.

Allow another club member to g gently kind of prompt someone to say, Hey, you know, how are you? Like, we talk about tough stuff here. I wanna talk to you about how you’re going. Like, you know, you don’t see yourself today or whatever. Like, I’m sure it’s happening anyway. You just, it’s, it’s that pleasant sort of it side effect almost of, of what you’re creating.

Like I’m sure it’s happening. Yeah.

Shay: Well, one of the, one of the things you see from, you know, the Harvard Longevity Study is that when people are surrounded by people who care about them, they are more likely to. Seek help for problems

because the people around them care enough about them, enough to harass them to go to the doctor.

no, but, but like, you’re literally just someone, someone who cares about you, just saying, I think you should go and get that checked out.

You know, like that,

that is, and that’s sometimes just the thing you need.

And so, so in that way, having more people around you, being a part of a community, being part of a neighborhood is the thing that does that.

so it. It definitely does end up that way because the people around you who care about you do to push you towards stuff

Nick: Yeah, it makes so much sense. We’ve had such

Shay: and about the language of, and, and about the language of, you know, men don’t do this, men don’t do that.

You gotta be a little bit careful about these things because like we

said before, it becomes part of people’s story is that the, this, this sort of deficit language of like, oh, men won’t go and see a doctor.

Nick: Hmm.

Shay: kind of just tells young men that they won’t see a doctor.

Right. And it’s become self-fulfilling.

So we have to be careful about like how we communicate this stuff to, because, you know, as an example of how you can change the outcomes of these things when you, when you do, you know, Anna Burkey, Australia Reads, did a report earlier in the year, great report on Australian reading. And the first indicator, like the second indicator down of whether men will grow up, young men will grow up to be men who. Who read when they’re, when they’re adults is seeing men, they see themselves becoming reading

Nick: Yeah,

Shay: and like the first one’s socioeconomic and I can’t fix that one. Someone’s

smarter than me has gotta do that. But the second one is if you’re a young man and you see men reading, then you think reading,

then you think that reading is something men do. And I ask this question a lot, which is, if you if you grow up and your mom’s always reading books and your dad’s always on his phone, who do you think reads?

Nick: yeah.

Shay: So

these things do matter, you know, because they become stories that change our community and our, and our way of life.

Nick: Yeah, it’s so true. I think, I think I completely agree with you about the languaging. I, I think I hear a lot of those sorts of, sorts of myths and they, they are myths really about people and, and about men and women and all this sort of stuff. When I teach people about mental health and there’s a lot of misinformation out there, it’s a lot of sort of myth.

But, but sometimes with this stuff. Stuff that was once upon a time, a myth is now a fact. And sometimes things were facts are now a myth and it changes, it evolves and you know, so I think it’s kinda like, well, some men do, some men don’t. Some women do, some women don’t. Whatever, insert whatever it’s reading, going to the doctor, talking about their mental health, you know, whatever it is.

Shay: and again, you’re talking about 50% of the world, so pretty diverse,

Nick: Yeah. It’s like people, right? Humans, people in. Even in a context, we’ve had such a good conversation. I’m curious about if there’s kind of anything else that’s kind of on your mind about, that you want the listener to hear about or any, any kind of message you want to kind of make sure that people hear is,

Shay: Not, not that I can think of. Well, to be maybe go and join a club.

Nick: yeah.

Shay: join a club. Like any club. find some, find some people in your neighborhood who have a shared interest and go and participate in that because that, that number about involvement in civic organizations. That number should be shocking to everyone

and, and it is one of the things that I believe is one of the ways we dig ourselves out of this.

We get out of this hole we’re in

where everyone seems to hate each other and everyone seems to be lonely.

Nick: It’s a hot, hot, hot world at the moment in a lot of ways, isn’t it, in terms of division and separation and all that sort of stuff. There’s so much of that in the news just at the minute. It’s, yeah, it’s incredible. But maybe the simple solution is go find people who are like you and get involved in a club, get involved in a community, like you said, whatever kind of club that is.

Whether it’s the tough guy book club or something else. Yeah, whatever it might be. It’s good advice, shape.

Yeah. Thank you so much for sharing the story about Tough Guide Book Club and you know, how it came to be and the ins and outs of it. And yeah, if anyone wants to check out the, the website, I really encourage you to do it.

It’s really clear about how it works and what goes on and yeah, a couple of people that I know take part in your, your clubs as well and they just speak very highly of it. So yeah, well done, Shay, of building this over the last, what is it, 12, 13 years long time.

Shay: years now.

Nick: Yeah, and, and to the 200 and odd people that actually run these clubs around the world, congratulations.

It’s a massive thing, probably making bigger impact than we might ever know.

Shay: Yeah, that’s, that’s how these things work. thanks for having me.

Nick: Thanks, Shay. Take care. Oh, Shay, that was great. I’ll stop.

Big thanks to Shay Leighton for pulling back the curtain on Tough Guy Book Club. If this sparks something for you, find your local chapter and grab a seat at the next meet. Curiosity is the only ticket. If you’ve found this useful, share the episode with a mate and leave us a review. It helps others find the show.

I’m Nick McEwan-Hall and this has been the Mental Health Couch. See you next time.