Howard

I wrote it, and I looked at it. And I was like, if I post this, one of two things is gonna happen. People are gonna think I'm a loser. But so what, like cares, I do care. But say what? Like, let's just be brave about it. And the second thing was, what if something awesome happens?

Alex

Welcome to stories of men beneath the surface. I'm Alex Melia. Join me, as we discover what it means to be a man in the modern era.

Today's episode is about the risk of losing our identity, if we lose our job, and learning to ask the question, What else defines me? Howard has had a tough few years, on top of the pandemic, his father passed away, and he went through a divorce. Then he was made redundant from his job as a lawyer. It was the first time in almost two decades that he didn't have a job. And he was stuck.

Howard

It was getting past lunchtime. So sat in my pants on the couch thinking this is the cliched unemployed guy, right? And I'm sat there thinking, Oh, my, how am I gonna do? And I knew I had these 2000 followers on LinkedIn. And I know that I got a job through LinkedIn before. And I thought, I'm just going to say it. It's been shipped three years, I've lost my job. I feel like a failure, that classic innate thing where you think you're a failure for not having a job. I'm pretty sure it's not failure, but I still feel it. And I just think it's important to say that if you think that someone can get through three years, well, that's shit. And they can still be turning up to work every day, if you can employ someone like that, and give me a call, maybe someone out there will say something or offer me something that actually makes me go, that's what I want to do. I think I want a bit validation, as well. I wrote it in my boxer shorts on the sofa, on my iPhone, I genuinely thought I get 15 likes and a recruiter recording. I thought, This is me telling the world basically, like I was completely caught up in the idea of what people think of me. And also terrified that it would even make a sound, it'd be like a pin dropping in, you know, on the floor like nothing. In the back of my mind, I was thinking, I'm a fairly accomplished lawyer. If I write this, it could be, you know, all my career, because people might think, well, we're not employing him again. But also, I did think there must be young people out there struggling if I'm struggling, so maybe it will be at least something for them to see. I wrote it and I looked at it. And I was like, if I post this, one of two things is going to happen. People are gonna think I'm a loser. But so what, right? cares, I do care. But say, well, like, let's just be brave about it. And the second thing was, what if something awesome happens. And I just sort of took it genuinely, like in a film, as I took a deep breath. I was like, fuck it, Bob.

And I posted on a Friday afternoon, which is arguably the worst time to post anything on LinkedIn. I obviously went back on it a couple of times in the afternoon, like just cuz I was nervous about it. And I saw like, you know, 25 Likes 30 Likes now, at least people are like, Yeah, at least it's getting out there. And then about nine o'clock at night. It was like 300. And I was like, none of my posts have ever got 300 lights. So I was like, This is real. And then Saturday morning, there were two and a half 1000 likes on 818 100 comments, 670 direct messages, 16 different job offers in the first three days.

Alex

Tell us kind of the comment that meant the most to you in the comment that you didn't like,

Howard

the best one was someone who said Hi, are you Mr. quinlivan son, he taught me English. He was the best teacher I ever had. And I said back saying yeah, you know, I was like, so excited. Like, oh my god. Yeah, that's my dad. She went there when a really lovely message saying, just to let you know, I'm a lawyer because of him is amazing. And because of my dad passed away, you know, but and then so many other people then went, Oh, my God, the power of LinkedIn, can you see it? You know, because they could watch that conversation real time. And I was like, thank you so much. It means so much to me. And it would mean so much to him because that he loved his job. He loved his students. The worst comment, get a job.

Alex

Someone says get a job. Why did that upset? Yeah,

Howard

it was a shitshow it was something like it was gonna get a job. And another one, which was also was equal to that was like, you know, boohoo lawyer loses his job. I was like, well, if you'd read the post, you'd understand that it's much more about losing your job. But also, I was like, that's two out of 1800 comments. You know what I mean? I'm, that's not bad.

Alex

Yeah, I expected it. Amazing, isn't it? You know, because usually you'd get a few more haters on board than that. Let's talk about why you felt like you were a failure and how that makes you address who you are as a man. Because we do have this sort of attachment to an identity thing of that this is my job. And this is who I am, I lose that job, and I'm almost less of a man. Why did you feel like that?

Howard

Eco I think, so if I was to unravel it, I would say that I went into law because I wanted to impress my parents. And because although I wanted to be an artist, they weren't prepared to fund me going to university to know about in a commune for five years or something. So I was told to get a proper degree. Basically, my parents were lovely in many ways. But one of the things they were it was also academic academics, they were both teachers. Had I know that I could have done a history degree and then transferred into law, if I wanted to, I probably would have done that. But I went did a pure law degree to impress my parents to impress everybody to say, I've got a law degree because it sounds good. So you have this immediate thing around 17 years of age where I want to impress people that has pervaded my life throughout my career. The idea that when I say to people, oh, I'm a lawyer, there is something attached to that. That must mean he's intelligent. And that's me. He's, he's hardcore. And so there's this kind of a shroud myself, and as many lawyers do, we shroud ourselves in this sort of veneer of invincibility. And so failure is the other side of that coin, that if you are completely, completely connected and attuned to this idea of yourself that is inviolable, cannot can't be broken, as it were, then if someone takes that away from you, ultimately, that's a large part of your psyche that is stripped away and you have to look at yourself go well, am I then now I know that I'm all these other things. And to be honest with you, I'm lucky because I've always known that on my LinkedIn profile, I've always had the work me and the Mimi, because I split myself into when I first started working as a lawyer, I had wetsuits in a van, I had suits in the van, and I give out all the Magistrates Court, I fit in a surf in between back and forth. So I always knew who I was at that point. But the problem is, is you're you're told, don't play, don't be stupid knuckle down, do your job, get a career. So my parents always rolled their eyes when I was said I was surfing because they're like, Oh, he's just a waster. He's just gonna waste his life. Oh, you know, and it wasn't seen as as valuable as being a lawyer was seen as valuable. And I wanted my parents to be proud of me. I went to do my diploma in law, my legal practice course, which was the hardest year 18 months, actually, because I fail my exams first time of my life. I mean, there were lots of messages saying, maybe you sure this is for you. Like if I look back, there's a bit of us signposts along the way. But I've sort of rumbled along, coasting most of the time, trying to chat up girls, and just generally trying to have as many relationships as I can. While studying,

Alex

what I wanted to talk about is going back to what we said about the ego, the first few years of me, starting my business, I've had my business for nine years. But the first three years was just constant failure. And we wrapped this failure into who we are as people, the way that we see what we do in our jobs in our careers, we put it as part of us as people, but it's not who we are. I agree. So it's very difficult for us to separate that,

Howard

especially if you've wrapped yourself in it like deliberately, if you've actively said, I am going to be this. And that's, I think that's where we have to take some personal responsibility, I was conscious that I had said, I will be this and I will be a success, whatever that was. And basically, each time I got a little taste of that success, whether it was passing exams, or getting a certificate, or whatever it was, I felt good about myself. So there's that thing where you get pleasure you derive pleasure from winning cases, you know, taking on new clients, KPIs, your billing, it's all kind of funnels funnels into this dopamine kind of feeling you get,

Alex

you mentioned expectations, and we create these expectations for ourselves. And if we beat them or surpass them, great. But sometimes we create these massive expectations that we can't possibly meet. And I think that's where we've got to be careful when we create those. So you created certain expectations for yourself. And when you've not been able to live up to them, that's when it's caused the feelings of I'm a failure. I'm this and that. And it doesn't, it doesn't help us at all, as men,

Howard

the expectation was also the kind of the thing you're chasing, you never catch. And because it remains an idea, it's very easy to it's easy to create it because you don't have to work very hard to create an expectation that's in a bubble up here. It's not really tangible, you don't actually really have to look directly at it very hard. So it remains this sort of amorphous kind of esoteric thing. And you never really know what that is because you never achieve it. It's that constant thing of like, come on chase me, chase me and you'll eventually get there you'll feel fulfilment. And of course we know fulfilment isn't about necessarily chasing dreams, it's about centering yourself in what you've got. And, you know, I've I've always been lucky that I've had a lot of things. I don't think I've lost sight of the things I've had, but I always wanted more and I thought that winning I thought that If success was constantly the chase, even now, I couldn't tell you necessarily what that was. But I didn't feel like I was enough.

Alex

I think that's what it comes down to is we feel like, I'm not strong enough, I'm not smart enough. I'm not ambitious enough. It made me think about when we talked about expectations, it made me think of when you were telling your story, and you were saying about, I hoped it would get 10 Likes 20 Likes 30 Likes or whatever. And, you know, went on to have this huge impact. And the reason why I think it was so impactful is because it was so relatable, we're in this really difficult economy right now, that's inevitably only going to get worse, there's a lot of people losing their jobs. And I'd be curious to know how many of those people maybe you can tell me from the comments how many of those people who just lost their job recently, or feel like they're on the verge of losing, or they have this rational fear, they're going to lose it. That's why I think it was so powerful. But my question to you is, how would you have felt if it not even got five likes? Because you've created this expectation? It's going to get this many likes? And it did not achieve that? Well? How would you have felt,

Howard

I genuinely thought if I get like 100 likes or 50 likes or something, which is more than an average, as long as it's done better than my average post. I'll feel like I've achieved something. And then of course, let's see what happens after that. So if we took about an expectation, I think it was realistic to expect it to do slightly better than my other posts, but not to go crazy. So so how would I have felt? If it hadn't got the attention? I think I would have felt pretty shitty about it. But I think also, I was quite proud of myself for even having done it. I mean, it's not like, you know, I'm going to punch my boss in the face, or, or I'm tearing up my practice certificate or something of that. But what I am doing is saying, if you as an industry define success as this, well, I'm not that anymore. And if I define myself as this, I'm not that anymore. So what the fuck am I? And that's what I said at the bottom. I said, I, I don't know who I am anymore, basically, is what I said. And that was the most, that's the line that most people picked out was like that hit them.

Alex

When you're putting at the bottom of this post, I don't know who I am anymore. You're reassessing who you are as a person. So I almost feel like when you put that post that you're exposing your ego out to the world, and you're seeing what how are people going to respond?

Howard

Yeah, well, exactly that, but also, let's just do away with the crap. Like, you know, why am I hiding this? Why do I care? What people think why? And obviously, I do care. But I'm asked myself like, why? And quite a few people said to me, like, you know, it's really courageous to actually say, I don't know who I am anymore. So me as a lawyer, I'm just tearing that away and going, do you know what, I don't know who I am, I'm something. Maybe the world will tell me rather than me trying to tell the world. If I throw it out there, ideas will come to me. I think I got I got really good at it from a young age, self reflection, but also, like just saying, there's there's worse going on. So let's just keep going sort of thing and kind of bouncing and bouncing and bouncing. And as I've got older, I think things have affected me more. But I've still become really, really adept at looking like nothing bothers me. I talk very positively about things. I don't positive people, I don't leave much room in my life for negative thoughts or moaning or don't watch the news and shit like that. I probably have been carrying quite a lot. And I probably have been not to say I'm some sort of, you know, amazing person. I mean, the opposite in the sense that I've been carrying a lot, but not really addressing it. And I've carried it for a lot of other people. And I've always been a kind of a bit of a fixer for people. And I've always been that person that people latch on to when they're struggling because I can give them a perspective. But I think that over time, what I've done and looking back at my marriage even what I did was I carried a lot for the people but not didn't really ever. Like I pretended it was okay. I don't think I ever really went Is this alright?

Alex

It's quite tiring as well, isn't it? You know, when you're, when you're pretending everything's okay. And you're it tired me out? I don't know about you, but it's really exhausting to not actually be who you authentically are.

Howard

It is. And it's also stressful, because you're kind of at war inside yourself. If you imagine the sort of the spectrum of the things you have to be in your day to day life, you know, whoever it is, if some parts of those aren't real, or you can't be real, so some parts of barriers. You're constantly in a battle of what's going to come out and in what way subconsciously, certainly in the last couple of years, she is I've recognised more and more that that ability to shroud myself in positivity and happy go lucky Enos has sort of worn quite thin, and I'd have become less good at pretending and also just less putting up with it, I think was one of the reasons why I'm now separated. Because not to say that my wife was an unpleasant person. But we certainly didn't see eye to eye on certain things. And I felt that actually I was just doing a lot of supporting and there wasn't a lot of support the other way. And I decided actually I started I started getting to the point where I was, I was kind of done with it. I just thought I'm starting I'm starting to run out of energy and pretending that I can just carry all this stuff. The litmus test is the fact that I became a pair And I did not want that to start affecting my daughter, I wanted to have an authentic relationship, a proper trust relationship, my daughter, I wanted her to show her that you can be open and available and vulnerable and talk about things, particularly as she's grown up now, you know, we articulate our thoughts and feelings. I thought, well, I need to be the best person I can be right? So I need to stop this bullshit.

Alex

I would just think about the British men, and it's the self deprecating humour that we have as British men where we have a go at ourselves in a jokey way. Douche nabad or whatever, but we kind of mean it to a degree, but we're just trying to cloud it in I'm just gonna put some humour around this. Well, why do we do that? Why do you do that?

Howard

I used to think I did it just to put people at ease. Because being a lawyer and being approachable, you know, are difficult to combine. So there is an element of enjoyment in being a lawyer. But super important, personally serious. But I always liked the fact that underneath that I was always like this giddy little kid. And I think I'm still a giddy little kid in some ways. But because I knew that that was a normal, or at least wasn't normal for the industry. I thought, well, how can I? How can I put other people at ease? So they can see a little bit of me? And have a little joke them? But also because we it really is it? For me, I think it's real me coming out, I think is that I think they almost like to tell tales, where they I'm telling on myself, where I'm like, I'm joking about this, I'm not real, you know, it's that kind of thing. It's that kind of slightly behind the hand, kind of like stage whisperer going, you can trust me, I'm not one of those dickheads. And so there's a little bit of that, I think there is a little bit of insecurity there as well, and that you're not going to get taken seriously. So you may as well get ahead of the curve and put people at ease. So they don't take you that seriously. I also think it's self sabotage. I think there's an element of sabotage in there as well, where you almost put yourself down. Because the lie is that I'm putting other people at ease all the time. The truth is that I'm putting myself at ease so that people don't expect too much from me. So I think I'm managing expectations. Because I don't want the pressure of someone saying, That guy's amazing. He's amazing. I find it very uncomfortable. And people say, for example, you're really intelligent, or you're really articulate, I find compliments quite difficult. Like my girlfriend is very, very vocal about that. She finds me physically, very attractive, but you'd hope with a girlfriend, they would. But she's, she really says it. She makes a point of saying she comes up. She's like, No, he's amazing. And I'm like, I don't know what to do with that. Because I am the one who gives the compliment. Thank you very much. I'm the one I'll tell you, you're sexy.

Alex

When I used to get compliments in the past, I would almost kind of say, oh, no, you're not right, or I disagree with you. And I would just back them away. And it took me a long time of actually improving my self esteem to go off. Thank you very much. I would just make a joke out of it. And then and I'd almost say you're wrong for saying that. So I'm almost making the person feel bad that they've, they've said that, have you had that as well.

Howard

I don't think I've ever told someone don't say that to me or something like that. But I have, for example, with my governor, I've gone yeah, yeah. You know, almost like I've gone, I'm making I'm making light of it. Or if someone has said, This guy's really good at something I've gotten? Well, only because the last guy, you know, died or something, you know, like I've sort of, I still shave the edges off, I still try to manage that expectation quite quite a lot. And I still kind of want to back people away from thinking I'm amazing. In case I let them that. I really good analogies in law, for example, there are you know, you have these things like these awards, right, where they say the greatest law, you know, I'm 50, top lawyers, or you're ranked in chambers, because I, I personally dislike that. Because I think it's self aggrandizing. And I know why people do it, I understand the concept of the industry saying, We've got to have a standard blah, blah, blah, you. We all know how it works. And there's referees and all this kind of stuff. But you know, it's like buying an award at a table sort of thing. But I think it's good for people's egos to say, Hey, I'm a top lawyer here I'm talking about for me, it makes me want to be sick in my mouth. Because I can't bear that for anyone let alone myself. But for the thought that I would put myself forward as a ranked lawyer to make makes me so uncomfortable. Not not just because the weight of expectation, although there is that. It's also just that feeling of going. I'm amazing.

Alex

So how to wrap up then tell us did any of those job offers you got after the LinkedIn post lead to anything

Howard

off the back of the first LinkedIn post, which was the kind of the really open one and obviously subsequently since then, the CEO of the company that I will hopefully be joining very, very soon. They got ahold of me and then the CIA said, Look, we love the values. We are absolutely looking for someone like you. We are driving change within the business and we are a family business. We got these kind of values, we think you'll align with those. Also, there's been a lot of change recently. So although I'm going there to do a specific job in relation to to the my legal acumen, a large part of this will also be helping drive that change. shouldn't just, you know, have alpha authentic voice. And then I asked and said specifically, like, you know, one of my things, I want to keep doing the LinkedIn stuff, he was like, knock yourself out. And then he pointed me to a few other colleagues of his there who are smashing it on there. And they're like, We want everybody to have their own voice. We want you to talk about your business, your expertise. We believe everybody has their own brand and their own offering their own perspective. Just go for it.

Alex

Terrific. That's amazing that you did one LinkedIn post went big, and then you get a job from that. Yeah,

Howard

I do. But I, I think that actually there are lots of people looking for people who To be honest, in this day and age, you know, look at our politics. I don't wanna get too political. But we all know, we all are Bush Thomases are going off like crazy right now. Everybody's bullshit, I'm just getting off. So if you can speak any, even even a tiny bit of truth about how you feel about industry, or business or whatever, I think it resonates anyway, because we are in a sea of horseshit right now. So one of the most amazing things that came out of this was the fact that I got so many of these direct messages. And some of them were, you know, a bit out there as bit screwy, whatever. But one of the so many of them was going, by the way, I don't want to comment on this, I don't want my colleagues seeing it. And I don't want my boss seeing it. So I can't say anything. I can't let your post but that was amazing. And I thought to myself, isn't that incredible? That day, even on LinkedIn, they people are so uncomfortable with being themselves and being authentic, that they don't even want to like the posts, they don't want to comment on it. They don't want, you know, and these are relationships with people I've had for a long time. One in particular stands out, and I'll be very quick, just, she was someone who used to instruct me. And I don't have a personal relationship with her at all. She got in touch with me via message and said exactly that. I don't want people to see this. But what you said really hit home. I mean, a big thing recently. And, you know, this is someone I would go to, to get work from, you know, very, very high up into Korea, they sent me the, and she's like, I just she said, I just can't say out loud. But thank you so much.

Alex

How it story made me think about the way that we view social media. Now, the love that we have for ourselves is constantly being wrapped up in how many likes how much engagement we get on our pulse. Social media is really changing the way that we see ourselves. Let's be honest with ourselves, it's undeniable that when we get likes and followers and compliments on our pulse, we feel better about ourselves, we feel we have more confidence. So I'm not saying it's a bad thing. But there definitely needs to be some kind of balance there. How it story made me think that if you get a lot of engagement on a post, and you feel amazing about yourself, you're then constantly looking for the next post. If your previous post went viral, you're then looking for the next viral post to outdo the one that you did before. So perhaps it's this never ending cycle of constantly trying to do better than your previous post in order to feel happy. What if you never get that viral post again? What if you don't get many likes and comments at all? How do you feel about yourself afterwards? How much of our identity is tied up in our job? Should we put more emphasis on what we do outside of the nine to five? Howard got into law because he wanted to impress his parents, a lawyer equals intelligence in society. But it made me think if he's not a lawyer, then what is He Who is he as a person? I'm incredibly fortunate because I've never had any pressure from my parents to go into a particular career path. And it's a reminder that we're much more than what we do. So who are you without your work? It got me thinking. If you met someone new at a party, and you weren't able to talk about your work, what would you say about yourself?