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Speaker 1: You're listening to the Saturday Morning with Jack Team podcast

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Speaker 1: from News Talks at Me.

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Speaker 2: So I went to David Sadaris last night. If you

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Speaker 2: don't know David Sadaris, he is, I mean, where have

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Speaker 2: you been?

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Speaker 1: What do you read?

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Speaker 2: He is just it's kind of hard to describe him.

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Speaker 2: He's he's an irreverent American slash British but American writer,

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Speaker 2: radio contributor, all round humorist. He's just he's he's an

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Speaker 2: extraordinary writer, like a New York Times bestseller however many

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Speaker 2: gazillion times over, and he writes these personal essays that

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Speaker 2: are kind of irreverent, observational, little vignettes on life. And

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Speaker 2: there's something that is just brilliantly funny about David Sadaras.

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Speaker 2: So I was really really excited to go and see

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Speaker 2: him last night Auklands town Hall, and he was reading

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Speaker 2: some of his work and kind of reading some of

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Speaker 2: his diary entries. But this really interesting thing happened when

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Speaker 2: I was there. He was he was talking a little

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Speaker 2: bit about his process. And anyone who knows David Sadaris

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Speaker 2: knows that his stories sort of they come across as

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Speaker 2: effortlessly easy. They're just like the stories that you would

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Speaker 2: tell around a dinner table, or you would talk about

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Speaker 2: your weekend away or something like that. And anyway, he

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Speaker 2: was talking about his process, and he explained that when

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Speaker 2: he's touring the world and he's reading his pieces, often

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Speaker 2: what he does is he goes and he reads a

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Speaker 2: piece that he's written, and he considers the audience reaction.

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Speaker 2: He listens to the audience laughter, and then as soon

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Speaker 2: as he's finished performing, and as soon as he's finished

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Speaker 2: all of his book signings and things, he goes back

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Speaker 2: to his hotel room and he writes the piece again,

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Speaker 2: or rewrites the piece again, or edits the piece again.

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Speaker 2: And he said that sometimes he'll do it twenty times.

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Speaker 2: So he'll read the same piece, and as he's reading

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Speaker 2: it to an audience, he'll wait for their reactions and

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Speaker 2: he'll write little notes on his papers, and they'll go

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Speaker 2: back to his hotel room and he'll edit it. He'll

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Speaker 2: change a word here, or he'll change the structure of

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Speaker 2: a scene.

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Speaker 3: It's there.

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Speaker 2: And the thing that I just found really amazing about

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Speaker 2: that is when you read his stories, you get no

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Speaker 2: sense that it's been agonized over. You get no sense

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Speaker 2: that it's something that has been like excruciatingly difficult, but

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Speaker 2: it's one of those things that shows you kind of

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Speaker 2: genius takes work like he's really had to, He's really

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Speaker 2: had to work at his craft to shape the stories

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Speaker 2: into the brilliant little vignettes and essays that they are.

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Speaker 2: So Yeah, it was an amazing evening. And you know,

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Speaker 2: he was a full crowd at the Auckland town Hall

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Speaker 2: last night, which comes as no great surprise but a

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Speaker 2: real privilege to be there for David Sadaris. And I

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Speaker 2: love it when you you know, you have a writer

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Speaker 2: like that or an artist that you love, and you

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Speaker 2: get a bit of an insight into their creative process

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Speaker 2: and it surprises you and you realize that actually, you know,

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Speaker 2: he's almost the sort of writer you could think, well,

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Speaker 2: well I could write a story like that. How hard

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Speaker 2: can it really be? And then you realize, actually, it's yeah,

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Speaker 2: it's genius, that's how hard it is. Anyway, pleasure to

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Speaker 2: be there tonight. If you are looking for a good

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Speaker 2: new read before midday today, we're going to recommend a

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Speaker 2: new book from Elis Feeni. Speaking of New York Times

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Speaker 2: best sellers, She's been a best seller who even many

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Speaker 2: times over as well. So she's got a brand new read.

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Speaker 2: I'm going to recommend you right now though it is

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Speaker 2: eleven minutes past eleven, Jack, time to catch up with

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Speaker 2: klindical psychologist Doogle Sutherland from Umbrella Wellbeing more than a.

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Speaker 3: Doogle Sure, Jack, Hey, jealous of you going to see

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Speaker 3: David Sedaris last night. That would have been a great experience.

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Speaker 3: I love I love his I love his box. Yeah,

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Speaker 3: hilariously funny, aren't they.

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Speaker 2: They're so funny. They're so funny and so but he

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Speaker 2: does it. He's I reckon he's the all time master

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Speaker 2: of the tangent. That's what I reckon he is. You know,

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Speaker 2: he like he starts out a story on one subject,

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Speaker 2: goes off on a wild tangent, and the tangent might

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Speaker 2: last five thousand words, and then brings it back round

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Speaker 2: again at the end, and it's just it's just brilliantly clever. Yeah,

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Speaker 2: he's an incredibly clever man.

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Speaker 3: I'm amazed about how he one person can have so

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Speaker 3: many hilarious things that have happened their lives.

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Speaker 2: It was a really good thing last night. Someone asked him,

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Speaker 2: because he took questions from the audience, someone said to him,

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Speaker 2: do you think that you have an interesting life, like

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Speaker 2: an abnormally interesting life, or do you think that your

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Speaker 2: life is And he said, no, No, it's just that

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Speaker 2: I look for the kind of the funny.

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Speaker 1: You know.

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Speaker 2: He's like an observational comedian. He looks for the funny

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Speaker 2: things in everyday life and is able to kind of

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Speaker 2: shake them in a way that is really relatable but

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Speaker 2: also just so funny. Yeah, but he loves sorry.

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Speaker 3: Apparently, he loves people telling him dirty jokes when they're

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Speaker 3: when they're lining up for their books signed. If you

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Speaker 3: can tell them the worst terrible joke you can you

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Speaker 3: can think of, he loves it.

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Speaker 2: Well, he actually shared some of those last night, so

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Speaker 2: I won't be repeating them on here right now. No, no, exactly. Yeah, yeah,

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Speaker 2: but it was that funny thing, you know, because when

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Speaker 2: I read his books, I'm always like, oh, it just

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Speaker 2: seems so it's so easy, so the story that the

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Speaker 2: storytelling is so relaxed, and yet it's actually taken, you

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Speaker 2: know how, even many iterations to get each piece into

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Speaker 2: that form, which I just I think it's Yeah, I

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Speaker 2: think it's wonderful. Hey, anyway, you have spired a very

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Speaker 2: interesting survey it's come across your desk looking at a

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Speaker 2: kind of global mental health crisis and how it's impacting workplaces.

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Speaker 2: Because the thing is, we've talked about wellbeing in the

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Speaker 2: workplace for many years now, but even though for many

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Speaker 2: people last year was an especially stressful year, certainly when

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Speaker 2: it comes to kind of economic conditions, a lot of

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Speaker 2: workplaces have been pulling back a bit on wellbeing measures.

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Speaker 3: A yeah, they have. It's ironic in a way, isn't it,

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Speaker 3: Because I think everybody kind of universally acknowledges that, you know,

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Speaker 3: we want to refund on twenty twenty four and don't

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Speaker 3: want to go through that again. And it was terrible

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Speaker 3: for you know, people losing their jobs or worrying about

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Speaker 3: losing their jobs. And yet at the same time, lots

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Speaker 3: of organizations and an effort to save money sorts, oh,

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Speaker 3: we'll cut back on the what can we do without?

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Speaker 3: What are the what do we see as the as

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Speaker 3: the nice and nice to hand, And so they cut

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Speaker 3: back on And I'm veering away from using the term

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Speaker 3: well being nowadays because I think it's becoming a bit tainted.

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Speaker 3: But if you think about it, they're veering away from

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Speaker 3: pushing away a little bit from providing support for people's

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Speaker 3: mental health. I think if we can put it that bluntly,

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Speaker 3: and that's and I think that's exactly the opposite thing

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Speaker 3: that they should be doing, which links back into that

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Speaker 3: survey that I that I spied. It came out just

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Speaker 3: before Christmas, so one of those ones that you know,

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Speaker 3: I kind of read it and went, oh, I tuck

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Speaker 3: that away and come back to it. But it was

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Speaker 3: it was from Deloitte's in the UK, and they looked

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Speaker 3: at stays, particularly looking at the financial sector, and they

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Speaker 3: found that, you know, high rates of burnout in the

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Speaker 3: financial sector, and they priced that at a cost of

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Speaker 3: about ten thousand dollars per person per year. And you

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Speaker 3: think about that in terms of, you know, if we

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Speaker 3: thinking about productivity, you know, we're thinking about making sure

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Speaker 3: that we are really wanting to get our economy growing,

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Speaker 3: then you think about the cost of ten thousand dollars

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Speaker 3: per person per year across our economy. It's staggering. Really.

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Speaker 3: I think it has a real effect on how much

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Speaker 3: we produce as a country.

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Speaker 2: Well, this is the thing. It's easy from an employer's perspective,

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Speaker 2: right to think, well, you know, support for mental health

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Speaker 2: and stuff is a nice to have, but actually, if

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Speaker 2: your work, like you know, so many businesses say that

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Speaker 2: people is our number one is a number one asset, right,

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Speaker 2: but if your people are not in a good place,

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Speaker 2: it ends up costing the business. It effects a business's

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Speaker 2: bottom line.

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Speaker 3: Absolutely. And if you think about some of those, if

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Speaker 3: you delve into some of those symptoms of burnout, things

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Speaker 3: like you know, the core symptoms of burnout are exhaustion,

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Speaker 3: making mistakes at work, in poorer work performance. It's just,

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Speaker 3: you know, it's obvious how that would have an impact

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Speaker 3: on productivity. And that's you know that I'm talking sort of.

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Speaker 3: I guess that's particularly around you know, white collar workers.

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Speaker 3: To coin a horrible term, but but but people who

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Speaker 3: are in you know, stereotypically blue blue collar jobs. If

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Speaker 3: you're exhausted and tired and not concentrating, you know, a

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Speaker 3: slip up there and through your mental well being, a

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Speaker 3: slip up there could have quite catastrophic consequences for you

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Speaker 3: or people around you. You know, you inadvertently put your

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Speaker 3: hand in the mincing machine because you're a bit tired

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Speaker 3: and distracted, and so it's it's you know, there's some

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Speaker 3: real costs there. I think that that if only we

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Speaker 3: sort of if we took off the label of well

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Speaker 3: being and just looked at it in terms of human performance,

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Speaker 3: that then maybe that's that maybe people would go, oh, actually,

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Speaker 3: maybe we should be investing in this if if we

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Speaker 3: really think people are our number one you know, assets,

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Speaker 3: want to make sure that asset is finally tuned and

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Speaker 3: working just as well as it really can be, if

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Speaker 3: we really want to get our productivity levels up.

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Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah too, right, So what would be your advice

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Speaker 2: THENTO businesses and employers who maybe have been pulling back

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Speaker 2: a little bit on some of the mental health and

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Speaker 2: even though you have the term well being support.

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Speaker 3: Yeah, look, I think it is. Firstly, there's that I

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Speaker 3: think change, change how you think about it, and you know,

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Speaker 3: be persuaded by the evidence. There's truckloads of evidence now

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Speaker 3: that that. In fact, I think world health organizations said

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Speaker 3: that globally, twelve billion working days a year are lost

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Speaker 3: due to depression and anxiety and that's a cost of

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Speaker 3: well over a trillion dollars. Now that's globally. But if

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Speaker 3: you stop thinking about it as well being and thinking

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Speaker 3: about it as mental health or human performance, however, best

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Speaker 3: you want to think about it, but but think about

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Speaker 3: it through the lens of well sorry, through the lens

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Speaker 3: of productivity. I think that might quite dramatically change what

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Speaker 3: you do. And for people in businesses, the staff, it

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Speaker 3: may be that just in this economic time, you have

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Speaker 3: to adopt a bit of a pragmatic approach and maybe

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Speaker 3: you sort of turn down the volume on the term

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Speaker 3: well being and talk about mental health and how well

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Speaker 3: you can perform if you are at your peak, and

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Speaker 3: that may have perhaps more purchase when you are asking

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Speaker 3: for things from your employer. And I think to it

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Speaker 3: at a meta level. You know that I know the

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Speaker 3: government's really keen to get you know, New Zealand, you know,

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Speaker 3: productivity up this year and this is going to be

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Speaker 3: the year when we really have an economic turnaround. And

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Speaker 3: I think they would do really well to look at

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Speaker 3: these as well and think, actually, what can we do

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Speaker 3: to support the people of New Zealand to enhance their

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Speaker 3: mental performance, enhance their their mental health atwork, because we

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Speaker 3: know that that's probably going to be a key to

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Speaker 3: getting the economy going again. So I think it can

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Speaker 3: happen both at an individual level and an organizational level,

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Speaker 3: and then at a political national level as well.

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Speaker 2: Very good, Thank you, Dougal, appreciate your time. As per

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Speaker 2: that is Doogle Sutherland. He's a clinical psychologist with Umbrella

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Speaker 2: Well Being. Before midday, we're going to listen to some

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Speaker 2: new music from Young Franco. Young Franco is a Brisbane

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Speaker 2: based DJ who kind of mixes up all DISCOI tracks

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Speaker 2: with new artists and has lots of collaborators. It's really

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Speaker 2: kind of summary, dancy light music, so looking forward to

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Speaker 2: playing some of that.

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Speaker 1: For more from Saturday Morning with Jack Tame, listen live

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Speaker 1: to News talks 'B from nine am Saturday, or follow

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Speaker 1: the podcast on iHeartRadio