Introduction
Achievement drives most men through their thirties and forties, then somewhere past fifty it quietly stops working as well. Dr Suzy Green, the clinical and coaching psychologist who taught positive psychology on the world’s first Master’s degree in Coaching Psychology at the University of Sydney, has spent more than two decades teaching and studying all aspects of the science of well-being.
In this episode of Don’t Let The Old Man In, she joins Pod to unpack the science of flourishing in midlife, why so many men lose their sense of mattering once their status starts to fade, and what to do about it.
Why this conversation matters
Suzy has known Pod for 25 years, since she taught him positive psychology as a master’s student, and this conversation has the ease of two old colleagues comparing notes on what they have both learned since. She walks through Dr. Marty Seligman’s PERMA framework, then digs into the part of it most men wrestle with in midlife: achievement. For decades, it is the thing that drives us, through careers, mortgages, and providing for a family. Then, often without warning, it stops delivering the payoff it used to.
Suzy calls on Canadian researcher Gordon Flett’s idea of mattering, and its darker twin, anti-mattering, to explain what actually happens when a man is no longer the one running the meeting or holding all the answers. She also introduces William Bridges’ transition model, and a phrase she and Pod both like better than ‘neutral zone’: the messy middle. It is the uncomfortable stretch between an ending and whatever comes next, and Suzy’s argument is that rushing through it is the mistake most men make.
What we discuss
- The PERMA framework, and why achievement fades as a driver once men move into their fifties and sixties
- Character strengths versus performance strengths, and why knowing the difference matters more as we age
- Mattering and anti-mattering, and what happens to a man’s sense of significance when he is no longer the one running the room
- William Bridges’ transition model and the messy middle between an ending and a new beginning
- Post-traumatic growth versus post-traumatic stress, and what tends to determine which way someone goes after a major setback
- Why gratitude and mindfulness are the two practices with the biggest measurable impact, and how to actually make them stick
- Why men tend to build friendship differently to women, and why side by side conversations work better than face to face ones
- Forgiveness as something you do for yourself, not for the person who wronged you
Why midlife men should listen
If you have spent your life being good at things and are not entirely sure who you are without that, this episode gives you a way to think about it that does not involve a five step framework or a retreat in the desert. Suzy has spent 25 years watching men move through exactly this transition, and she talks about it with the warmth of someone who has sat with hundreds of them in the room. She is direct about what the research says and honest about what it does not yet know, which is rarer than it should be.
Guest info
Suzy Green
Dr Suzy Green is a Clinical and Coaching Psychologist, D.Psyc (Clin) MAPS, and the founder and CEO of The Positivity Institute. She left school at sixteen and later returned to study as a mature age student, going on to complete her doctorate in clinical psychology.
Suzy is the author of The Positivity Prescription, now in its second edition, built around her six-part framework of Mood, Motivation, Might, Meaning, Mindfulness and Mindset. She has conducted world-first research into evidence-based coaching, holds two honorary academic positions, and works with senior executives, schools and organisations across Australia and internationally on the science of wellbeing and performance.
She is an ambassador for the Starlight Children’s Foundation.
