43 min
83 - Mitch Hermansen (Movember Foundation) The Explore84 Podcast
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- Self-Improvement
The month of November has become synonymous with moustaches and men’s health, all because of the Movember Foundation. Movember’s Western Canadian Lead Mitch Hermansen joins the podcast this week to talk about the foundation’s history and mandate, and why there’s no such thing as a bad moustache.
Like many great ideas, Movember started over a round of beers. Back in 2003 a couple of friends were drinking a few cold ones all the way down in Melbourne Australia and they got onto the topic of 1970s fashion. At the time it seemed like a lot of 70’s fashion was coming back into style but the moustache hadn’t come back yet. So they got out a napkin, wrote down the names of 30 friends to email and ask if they were man enough to join them in growing moustaches for November, with three simple rules: they had to start the month unshaven, had to grow just a moustache (no beards!), and at the end they’d celebrate with a huge party. And that’s exactly what they did, 30 guys, 30 moustaches, and a great time.
The guys realized immediately they were getting a lot of reactions about their nose neighbours, and thought that they should consider attaching a cause to their big hairy idea. Inspired by the pink ribbon campaign for breast cancer, they started doing some research and discovered that there was little to no funding going on for prostate cancer, which also meant no research being done. Being the number one type of cancer that affects men it became obvious this was a cause worthy of their conversation starting ‘staches and along came the tagline: “Changing the face of men’s health”
From year one with 30 guys and $0, they grew like hair on a young man’s upper lip to 450 guys raising $54,000 in their second year, and then to 10,000 guys raising a million dollars in year three, and it has exploded from there. Today the Movember Foundation operates in over 20 countries with over 5 million moustaches being grown every single year.
Movember’s mandate has expanded to include testicular cancer, the number one cancer affecting young men, and in 2012 men’s mental health and suicide prevention was added to their mandate, as for men between the ages of 15 and 45 suicide is the leading cause of death, taking the lives of more men than prostate or testicular cancer. Mitch explains a bit of how this has happened, and the fact that you just can’t talk about men’s mental health without also talking about masculinity. Many men try to mask their feelings rather than “showing weakness”, and coupled with not learning the skills to talk about these problems like many women do it is critically important to start learning them now. Movember Foundation offers some great tools to learn to talk to your buds about mental health without making it weird, including the ALEC model which you can learn more about on their website.
So this Movember be sure to start some conversations with your moustaches, get your prostate checked, check your testicles for lumps and bumps, and pick up the phone to check on your bros.
—
The Kondrat Podcast: website | facebook
Alberta Beer Festivals: website | twitter | instagram
Mitch Hermansen - Movember Foundation: website | twitter | instagram | facebook
The month of November has become synonymous with moustaches and men’s health, all because of the Movember Foundation. Movember’s Western Canadian Lead Mitch Hermansen joins the podcast this week to talk about the foundation’s history and mandate, and why there’s no such thing as a bad moustache.
Like many great ideas, Movember started over a round of beers. Back in 2003 a couple of friends were drinking a few cold ones all the way down in Melbourne Australia and they got onto the topic of 1970s fashion. At the time it seemed like a lot of 70’s fashion was coming back into style but the moustache hadn’t come back yet. So they got out a napkin, wrote down the names of 30 friends to email and ask if they were man enough to join them in growing moustaches for November, with three simple rules: they had to start the month unshaven, had to grow just a moustache (no beards!), and at the end they’d celebrate with a huge party. And that’s exactly what they did, 30 guys, 30 moustaches, and a great time.
The guys realized immediately they were getting a lot of reactions about their nose neighbours, and thought that they should consider attaching a cause to their big hairy idea. Inspired by the pink ribbon campaign for breast cancer, they started doing some research and discovered that there was little to no funding going on for prostate cancer, which also meant no research being done. Being the number one type of cancer that affects men it became obvious this was a cause worthy of their conversation starting ‘staches and along came the tagline: “Changing the face of men’s health”
From year one with 30 guys and $0, they grew like hair on a young man’s upper lip to 450 guys raising $54,000 in their second year, and then to 10,000 guys raising a million dollars in year three, and it has exploded from there. Today the Movember Foundation operates in over 20 countries with over 5 million moustaches being grown every single year.
Movember’s mandate has expanded to include testicular cancer, the number one cancer affecting young men, and in 2012 men’s mental health and suicide prevention was added to their mandate, as for men between the ages of 15 and 45 suicide is the leading cause of death, taking the lives of more men than prostate or testicular cancer. Mitch explains a bit of how this has happened, and the fact that you just can’t talk about men’s mental health without also talking about masculinity. Many men try to mask their feelings rather than “showing weakness”, and coupled with not learning the skills to talk about these problems like many women do it is critically important to start learning them now. Movember Foundation offers some great tools to learn to talk to your buds about mental health without making it weird, including the ALEC model which you can learn more about on their website.
So this Movember be sure to start some conversations with your moustaches, get your prostate checked, check your testicles for lumps and bumps, and pick up the phone to check on your bros.
—
The Kondrat Podcast: website | facebook
Alberta Beer Festivals: website | twitter | instagram
Mitch Hermansen - Movember Foundation: website | twitter | instagram | facebook
43 min