October 12, 2025 • 21 mins
One in four men have no mates. That’s not just sad — it’s dangerous.
In this episode, Lachie sits down to unpack why male loneliness is skyrocketing. From data shared by the Australian Men’s Health Forum to stories from the coaching trenches, this conversation dives deep into what’s really driving isolation among modern men.
You’ll learn:
- How being socially lazy erodes mateship
- Why neglecting yourself kills connection
- The danger of thinking you “don’t need help”
This one cuts through the surface-level talk. It’s about responsibility, awareness, and taking the first step back toward brotherhood.
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
SPEAKER_00 (00:00):
Why is male loneliness skyrocketing?
I stumbled across this stat lastweek and it blew my mind and I
wrote it down here.
But one in four men have nomates.
I couldn't believe it, so I hadto go fact check.
I went on to the AustralianMen's Health Forum and just saw
(00:21):
more data around this.
And that prompted me to want togo down a rabbit hole where I
have watched a number of YouTubevideos, I've read a number of
articles, and I've startedthinking about this within my
own life and where this puts meand how this could impact
myself, but also people likeyou, you know, the men who want
to feel valued, want to feelseen, want to feel heard.
(00:45):
I am going to share in thisepisode three reasons why I
believe male loneliness isskyrocketing.
And I want to share why I thinkit's important that you as an
individual, you as a man who issitting there, really starts to
prioritize your relationship,much like you would with your
health, much like you do withyour career and your finances,
(01:05):
and much like you do with youruh health.
I'm sorry, your family.
Because there are stats provingthat relationship breakdown, not
having a close circle of matesis negatively impacting your
health, not only mentally butphysically.
As I've been diving down therabbit hole, you know, we see
(01:26):
lots of influencers and men outthere who are pulling men into
negative spaces.
And what I mean by that isgroups of men who have values
that aren't beneficial tosociety.
And you are probably listeningto this and you might be
thinking, yeah, I know some.
And to me, when I think aboutlike what is causing me to be
(01:47):
lonely, what is mateship?
To me, mateship is those men whocare about me, they're the ones
who check in on me, who make theeffort, they challenge me, they
hold me to a higher standard,and I do believe I can lean on
them in the challenging times,but I'm also creating some epic
memories with them along theway, you know, those mates where
you're just like, that's who Iwant to tell about this.
(02:08):
You may not have that.
And if you don't, then thisepisode is for you, and you may
have that.
This episode will still be foryou because you need to be
mindful of these things, okay?
Because you can observe life,and you may have male sons, guys
that you went to school with,friends in your life now who you
(02:32):
are seeing getting pulled intoanother direction, one that from
the outside looking in, you'relike, that's not good, that's
not healthy.
How do I help them?
And the reality in the mostsimple form that I've thought
about is it's just we're seekingall of us, myself included, to
feel valued, to feel seen, andto feel heard.
(02:53):
And so many of us don't havethat.
And what happens when you aren'tfeeling valued, when you aren't
feeling seen, and when youaren't feeling heard, it doesn't
change the fact that it's stillsomething that you create, uh
you crave.
And so when we crave something,we will find a way to get that.
And you it's we see peoplefalling into all kinds of groups
(03:17):
that maybe aren't aligned withwho they are as a person, they
aren't what you value.
When I was younger, it was whatI was doing when I was partying
a lot.
Like I would wake up on a Mondaymorning or a Sunday morning
going, Oh, what have I done?
It's like I just don't likedoing this.
But I kept doing it because inthe moment I felt valued, I felt
(03:38):
felt seen, and I felt heard, andI didn't feel lonely, I felt a
part of something bigger thanmyself.
So three things, let's dive intoit.
The first one, socially lazy.
Yes, us men, majority of us aresocially lazy.
When I was reading this, I washaving light bulb moments go off
(03:59):
in my own mind where I'mthinking, that is me.
I didn't see that as an issueuntil I heard what I'm about to
share with you.
We're socially lazy in the factthat when you get in a
relationship, when you get intoa career, when you start a
family, when life gets allconsuming, we sacrifice our
(04:21):
social relationships becausefriendship is difficult.
But as a man, we adopt thisresponsibility that we need to
protect and we need to provide,and that is a completely
different conversation.
But that means we don't everlearn to develop the friendship
and we don't invest in thefriendship.
So to me, like anything, ifyou're going to the gym to get a
(04:46):
result and to sustain goodhealth, you have to go
consistently.
It's not about doing full daysof training, it's about doing
your 30 minutes to an hour everysingle day, or I do every single
day to get the result.
And when you get to your idealbody or your ideal strength, you
don't stop.
You keep investing in it so thatyou can maintain it.
The same goes for arelationship, like a mateship.
(05:08):
When you're at school, and thisis what they say in the data
that I read, that the best timesto make friends, the best times
to get mates is going throughschool, secondary school,
college because you're forcedtogether.
There's a lot of social outings.
After that, it becomes morechallenging.
But it does not mean it's not asimportant, it's probably more
important because we need thatsocial connection, but we're
(05:31):
dealing with so many, so muchresistance to it.
And men, we love to catch up atevents, unlike women, and this
is once again a generalization,which you maybe listen to this
and you go, that's not me,that's okay.
But for most men, we want tocatch up at an event.
That's like how we socialize.
We go to the game, we go to thepub to watch the game, we go on
(05:54):
a camping trip or whatever itmay be.
And the great thing about thatis we can make those happen.
The challenge with that is thereis a lot more resistance to
making that happen than if wewere just to say, and I would
just to say to you, hey, I wantto go, do you want to go catch
up?
Let's go grab a coffee.
For no other intent than I justwant to find out what's going on
(06:15):
in your life.
How are you going?
How's your family?
How's your career?
What are you excited about?
What are you struggling with?
Very rarely do we do that.
Even I notice it in my own life.
I'm like, oh, do you want to gofor a run together?
Do you want to come on a hike?
Should we go for a camping trip?
And while there's the intentthere, it's also once again a
(06:38):
lot harder because when you'rethinking about let's go on a
camping trip, I need to get timeoff work.
Can I be away from my family?
Can I afford it?
We're putting all theseroadblocks or little hurdles in
place that get in the way, andsometimes it doesn't happen.
You may have noticed that, andyou may be going, Oh man, that's
so true.
(06:59):
And I I was as I was writingabout this, I'm like, man, I do
that all the time.
And therefore, a catch-up thatcould have just happened at a
coffee shop then gets pushed acouple of months, and then
there's months between seeing mymates, and that's where
friendship becomes difficult, orwe make it more difficult than
it needs to be.
So, what are some things youcould do?
(07:20):
And I want to ask you aquestion.
If you didn't make the effort,how many of your mates would be
around?
I have a number of mates on myphone in my favorites, I don't
have my phone on me, in myfavorites, that I'll aim to call
every week or every two weeks.
And I do that because I wentthrough a period where I did
(07:40):
feel extremely lonely.
And I realized that I needed tostart investing time.
I needed to start just callingand checking in what's going on,
even if it's for three minutes,doesn't matter.
But I wanted to start makingthat effort and then going for
coffees, and I drive toToowumba, which is essentially
two hours from where I am, justto see my mates, because that's
(08:02):
important to me.
So what are you gonna do if youfeel like you're being socially
lazy, like I have been, to turnthings around there?
What can you do?
Another example of this is ifyou're in a long-term
relationship or in anyrelationship, eventually,
because we're trying to provide,we're trying to look after the
family, we sacrifice andoutsource our social events.
(08:25):
It might be your wife or yourpartner who starts going, hey,
this weekend we're doing this,or next weekend we're doing
this, or we're gonna go forcoffee with this.
And all of a sudden, your socialcalendar is designed by your
partner, and that's not a badthing.
Well, actually, it is becauseyou're still being social, but
we see it all the time whenrelationships break down, that
the wife or the partner willkeep the relationships and
(08:48):
you'll now be on the outer andyou've got no one.
And we don't have those skills.
And I might make a separatevideo if you'd like it, just
comment in the comments below.
And just a quick side note asyou're listening to this, if you
have thoughts, insights,opinions, perspectives, drop
them in the comments.
Like I'd love to hear from youguys because I want this is a
conversation that's bigger thanme.
(09:09):
It's it's for all of us men outthere.
But as we start getting ourrelationships outsourced, uh we
lose the ability to build thoserelationships, right?
Friendship is difficult, it'ssomething that requires
repetition, it's something thatrequires you building a
relationship with yourself,which is what I want to go on to
for point two.
But point one there is thatwe're socially lazy.
(09:31):
I'm going to the footy thisafternoon to watch the grand
final, and I already caughtmyself this morning being like,
oh, it's on at 6:30 tonight,I've got to work early in the
morning.
Maybe I can just text my mate.
It's a hour, actually, I'm gonnajust watch it from home.
And that's what I want to do.
That's in here, this is what mymind's telling me to do.
(09:52):
But because, and I think thisthis episode has come at the
perfect time, that's me beingsocially lazy.
I'm prioritizing work over myfriendships.
Why do we always prioritizeeverything else over ourselves,
our friendships, and the thingsthat matter most?
Because when it's all said anddone, I don't want to tell my
(10:12):
work about things.
I want to tell my friends aboutthings.
When I want to go on holidays, Idon't want to go on holidays
with my work, I want to go onholidays with my friends.
And that requires investing inthat.
So I want you to think aboutthat.
And that last question that I'llrepeat now is if you didn't make
the effort, how many of yourmates would be around?
Are they making effort?
Because if they're not, youcould just have a conversation
(10:34):
with them and be honest, justsay, hey, Lockie, and pretend
you're talking to me.
Correct me if I'm wrong, ormaybe don't start with correct
me if I'm wrong, but I feel likethis rel this mateship or
friendship is one way at themoment.
I'm always making the phonecalls, I'm always organizing the
catch-ups.
(10:54):
I'm worried that if I didn't dothat, that we wouldn't speak.
I just wanted to know what youthought about this, and then you
can try and understand wherethey're coming from or what they
think, and they might be like,oh no, no, I would.
I'd reach out for sure, andmaybe they would, maybe they
wouldn't.
But that's a conversation, andthat's what friendship's about.
You've got to have toughconversations, you've got to
(11:16):
challenge each other, you've gotto grow together.
Now, point number two,neglecting ourselves.
We do this so easy.
When I have men do the sevendomain scorecard, which you can
find in the link below, the manthat can scorecard, we look at
the domains of life from yourhealth to your mindset to your
relationships to your finances,etc.
(11:37):
And quite often there's parts ofourselves that we are
neglecting.
And if you can't be workingtowards being the best version
of yourself, how can you giveyour best to others?
And once again, we've got thisbelief, right?
Like we have to be the man orwhat is a man, and then there's
this contrast of being a manversus being a friend, and the
(12:02):
pressures that I adopted andthat I experienced, and I'd love
to hear from you, is I need toprotect and I need to provide at
all costs.
I need to make sure my wife andfamily always have food on the
table.
I need to make sure that theyfeel safe and I need to be
achieving.
I need to be earning more money,I need to be getting more
status, I need to be gettingmore recognition.
(12:23):
And as a result of that, whenI'm faced with a decision, let's
use the example of thisafternoon between I have to work
tomorrow and I want to go to thefootball tonight.
Nine times out of ten, orprobably ten times out of ten,
I'd choose work.
Because that to me is being aman or what I thought.
But now I'm starting tochallenge that, and I'm really,
(12:44):
really, really excited tocontinue chatting with you all,
reading more, watching morearound this, and starting to
reshape how I show up, lookingat my calendar, learning what to
say no to, and reprioritizingthose things.
Because if we only provide forothers, you know, giving
yourself to your family and yourwife and your friends and your
colleagues and you neglectyourself, how can you ever learn
(13:10):
to be a great mate?
How can you ever feel likeyou're valued, seen, and heard?
Because if you aren't valuingyourself, if you aren't seeing
yourself, and if you aren'thearing yourself, it's going to
be very hard for you tocommunicate that with the world
outside you.
When people say, What's wrong?
What will you answer if youhaven't slowed down enough to
(13:31):
know?
When people say, What are youexcited about?
How will you know if you haven'tslowed down enough to answer
that?
This is why it's so importantnot to neglect yourself.
But it is one of the reasons whymale loneliness is skyrocketing,
is because we don't know who weare at our core anymore.
We used to have an idea, but nowwe're just going through the
(13:53):
motion and protecting andproviding in whatever way that
looks like for you.
And we feel so disconnected.
Yes, you may be winning onpaper, but on the inside you
feel unfulfilled.
You may be in what looks like aloving marriage, but you're
asking yourself, like, how longcan I keep doing this for?
Because something's missing.
(14:15):
And the only way you're gonnaget clear on this is you have to
come back to yourself.
You have to make time toprioritize yourself.
And there was one study I wasreading where they're like, men
need two days a week, like twodays, but two catch-ups a week
with their mates.
Just like we say, you know, youneed X amount of minutes
exercising for good physicalhealth, we need something for
(14:35):
good social health.
If you, you know, if I'm workingwith men, we do a time audit, we
go, where's your time beingspent?
Because that can help us seewhat you're prioritizing.
And I would ask you the samething.
If you look at your calendar,and if you're not using one,
start using one.
But if you go, okay, I'm notmissing time here, all I see is
work, work, work, work, work,work, work, work, work, work.
(14:59):
No, you can then go, okay, I'mgonna schedule a phone call, I'm
gonna schedule a catch-up, orI'm gonna schedule a walk or
just a coffee, whatever it is,start making time because male
loneliness is killing more menthan we realized.
One other stat was that men withno friends, it's just as
dangerous as smoking 15cigarettes a day.
(15:21):
Now I haven't had a chuff on adairy for a number of years, but
if I had to punch 15 darries inone day, wouldn't be feeling
good, I wouldn't be able to runand have the adventures and all
of the things that I love abouthaving good health.
So think about that.
Stop neglecting yourself.
And if you want help and supportwith that, one at the moment I'm
(15:42):
taking on two more clients, butnext year I'm working on putting
together a new program, and thatwould I want people's feedback
because I don't want to justbuild what I think, I want to
build something that is going toprovide value to a lot of
people.
So the more you connect with me,whether it's on in the comments
below or on social media, andjust ask questions, share your
(16:04):
opinions, your thoughts, yourinsights.
It will then help me createsomething in the new year that
can help you become the man thatcan.
Now, thirdly, so firstly waswe're socially lazy, secondly,
we neglect ourselves, andthirdly, you don't need anything
from others.
It's just like we do itourselves.
And the challenge with that iswhen we don't feel like we need
(16:28):
anything from others, we startisolating ourselves.
Right?
I don't need support with that,I don't need to ask for help.
Every time we're doing that,we're pushing people away from
our lives.
Think when you were younger atschool, we're all wanting to be
seen, valued, and heard, andwe've got heaps of friends,
heaps of associates, heaps ofpeople we go to school with, and
we know as we get older, thatcircle shrinks because we start
(16:51):
realizing I don't need that.
I don't need to be challenged bythat person, I don't need to be
around that person, and we buildour core group, but then also we
start realizing I don't needthat.
My wife can do everything, eventhough they can't, and we
shouldn't put pressure on themto do so.
And just like we can't beeverything to one person, one
person can't be everything tous.
So when you think about that,you need to go, okay, well, I
(17:14):
don't need uh maybe I don't needthat conversation, maybe I don't
need that social outing.
What is the ripple effect ofthat though?
If you stop making the effort tohave those social outings, if
you stop asking for support orguidance or mentorship, you're
shrinking your circle becausepeople stop start sorry, stop
(17:36):
thinking to themselves, Lockiedoesn't need help or Lockie
never stops, never comesanywhere, so why would I invite
him?
And then when I wake up one dayand I go, Man, I feel lonely.
Where is everyone?
And because we haven't beenflexing that social muscle, how
do I engage with people?
How do I build rapport?
(17:56):
How do I have fun?
Who am I?
We don't know how to then buildfriends after that as well.
So there's multiple differentvideos we could build off the
back of this and talk about andhave discussions.
But there are three reasons whyI feel male loneliness is
skyrocketing.
And you may be feeling lonely asyou watch this, right?
You may not feel like you'revalued, seen, or heard.
(18:20):
But I do believe that if youdon't start prioritizing
yourself, it's going to feelvery challenging for you to ever
be valued, seen, or heardbecause you don't value
yourself, you don't seeyourself, and you don't hear
yourself.
So, how can you then communicatewith the world around you?
Secondly, stop being sociallylazy.
Make the effort, go the extramile to catch up with mates.
(18:42):
And if you find that there's toomuch time between the catch-ups,
just remove the friction.
And what I mean by that isremove the all the boxes that
you have to tick to makesomething happen.
So, for example, camping, a lotof moving parts.
Just go, can we do a coffee?
And if you can't do that becauseyou live far away or work's
busy, you either got to askyourself, what is the most
(19:04):
important thing to prioritize,or you just go, let's just do a
phone call and like both grab acoffee and go for a walk.
And I've got one of my bestmates, Etienne, lives in France,
and we catch up at least once amonth, or maybe not once a month
now, but regularly enough, andwe'll always FaceTime each other
and find out what's going on.
But the friction otherwise is Ione of us has got to fly to the
(19:26):
other country and cost money,time away from family, all of
those things.
So it's not as achievable asfrequently as it is picking up
the phone.
I'd love to hear from you guys.
Drop it in the comments, send memessages on socials around why
you think male loneliness isskyrocketing.
One in four men does not have afriend.
That is a dangerous place tolive.
(19:48):
Not only because when we feellonely, where there's a high
chance we will take our life,but also we will seek out a way
to feel part of something biggerthan ourselves.
And when you're on those onlinechat rooms that a lot of men are
finding themselves in, that'snot a good place to be.
So let's get part of theconversation.
(20:08):
I'd love to hear from you.
My name is Lawrence Stewart, I'ma men's life coach, and I
specialize in helping you gainstrength so that you can lead
better in your life.
If you'd like to ever do somework for with me, no for me,
with me, make sure you reach outon whatever platform, head to
the manletcamproject.com, and Ilook forward to helping you
(20:29):
change.
But most importantly, if you gotvalue from this, make sure you
hit subscribe because when yousubscribe, it lets the
algorithms know that people aregetting value from this.
Have a great week.
I look forward to chatting withyou soon.
Why is male loneliness skyrocketing?
I stumbled across this stat lastweek and it blew my mind and I
wrote it down here.
But one in four men have nomates.
I couldn't believe it, so I hadto go fact check.
I went on to the AustralianMen's Health Forum and just saw
(00:21):
more data around this.
And that prompted me to want togo down a rabbit hole where I
have watched a number of YouTubevideos, I've read a number of
articles, and I've startedthinking about this within my
own life and where this puts meand how this could impact
myself, but also people likeyou, you know, the men who want
to feel valued, want to feelseen, want to feel heard.
(00:45):
I am going to share in thisepisode three reasons why I
believe male loneliness isskyrocketing.
And I want to share why I thinkit's important that you as an
individual, you as a man who issitting there, really starts to
prioritize your relationship,much like you would with your
health, much like you do withyour career and your finances,
(01:05):
and much like you do with youruh health.
I'm sorry, your family.
Because there are stats provingthat relationship breakdown, not
having a close circle of matesis negatively impacting your
health, not only mentally butphysically.
As I've been diving down therabbit hole, you know, we see
(01:26):
lots of influencers and men outthere who are pulling men into
negative spaces.
And what I mean by that isgroups of men who have values
that aren't beneficial tosociety.
And you are probably listeningto this and you might be
thinking, yeah, I know some.
And to me, when I think aboutlike what is causing me to be
(01:47):
lonely, what is mateship?
To me, mateship is those men whocare about me, they're the ones
who check in on me, who make theeffort, they challenge me, they
hold me to a higher standard,and I do believe I can lean on
them in the challenging times,but I'm also creating some epic
memories with them along theway, you know, those mates where
you're just like, that's who Iwant to tell about this.
(02:08):
You may not have that.
And if you don't, then thisepisode is for you, and you may
have that.
This episode will still be foryou because you need to be
mindful of these things, okay?
Because you can observe life,and you may have male sons, guys
that you went to school with,friends in your life now who you
(02:32):
are seeing getting pulled intoanother direction, one that from
the outside looking in, you'relike, that's not good, that's
not healthy.
How do I help them?
And the reality in the mostsimple form that I've thought
about is it's just we're seekingall of us, myself included, to
feel valued, to feel seen, andto feel heard.
(02:53):
And so many of us don't havethat.
And what happens when you aren'tfeeling valued, when you aren't
feeling seen, and when youaren't feeling heard, it doesn't
change the fact that it's stillsomething that you create, uh
you crave.
And so when we crave something,we will find a way to get that.
And you it's we see peoplefalling into all kinds of groups
(03:17):
that maybe aren't aligned withwho they are as a person, they
aren't what you value.
When I was younger, it was whatI was doing when I was partying
a lot.
Like I would wake up on a Mondaymorning or a Sunday morning
going, Oh, what have I done?
It's like I just don't likedoing this.
But I kept doing it because inthe moment I felt valued, I felt
(03:38):
felt seen, and I felt heard, andI didn't feel lonely, I felt a
part of something bigger thanmyself.
So three things, let's dive intoit.
The first one, socially lazy.
Yes, us men, majority of us aresocially lazy.
When I was reading this, I washaving light bulb moments go off
(03:59):
in my own mind where I'mthinking, that is me.
I didn't see that as an issueuntil I heard what I'm about to
share with you.
We're socially lazy in the factthat when you get in a
relationship, when you get intoa career, when you start a
family, when life gets allconsuming, we sacrifice our
(04:21):
social relationships becausefriendship is difficult.
But as a man, we adopt thisresponsibility that we need to
protect and we need to provide,and that is a completely
different conversation.
But that means we don't everlearn to develop the friendship
and we don't invest in thefriendship.
So to me, like anything, ifyou're going to the gym to get a
(04:46):
result and to sustain goodhealth, you have to go
consistently.
It's not about doing full daysof training, it's about doing
your 30 minutes to an hour everysingle day, or I do every single
day to get the result.
And when you get to your idealbody or your ideal strength, you
don't stop.
You keep investing in it so thatyou can maintain it.
The same goes for arelationship, like a mateship.
(05:08):
When you're at school, and thisis what they say in the data
that I read, that the best timesto make friends, the best times
to get mates is going throughschool, secondary school,
college because you're forcedtogether.
There's a lot of social outings.
After that, it becomes morechallenging.
But it does not mean it's not asimportant, it's probably more
important because we need thatsocial connection, but we're
(05:31):
dealing with so many, so muchresistance to it.
And men, we love to catch up atevents, unlike women, and this
is once again a generalization,which you maybe listen to this
and you go, that's not me,that's okay.
But for most men, we want tocatch up at an event.
That's like how we socialize.
We go to the game, we go to thepub to watch the game, we go on
(05:54):
a camping trip or whatever itmay be.
And the great thing about thatis we can make those happen.
The challenge with that is thereis a lot more resistance to
making that happen than if wewere just to say, and I would
just to say to you, hey, I wantto go, do you want to go catch
up?
Let's go grab a coffee.
For no other intent than I justwant to find out what's going on
(06:15):
in your life.
How are you going?
How's your family?
How's your career?
What are you excited about?
What are you struggling with?
Very rarely do we do that.
Even I notice it in my own life.
I'm like, oh, do you want to gofor a run together?
Do you want to come on a hike?
Should we go for a camping trip?
And while there's the intentthere, it's also once again a
(06:38):
lot harder because when you'rethinking about let's go on a
camping trip, I need to get timeoff work.
Can I be away from my family?
Can I afford it?
We're putting all theseroadblocks or little hurdles in
place that get in the way, andsometimes it doesn't happen.
You may have noticed that, andyou may be going, Oh man, that's
so true.
(06:59):
And I I was as I was writingabout this, I'm like, man, I do
that all the time.
And therefore, a catch-up thatcould have just happened at a
coffee shop then gets pushed acouple of months, and then
there's months between seeing mymates, and that's where
friendship becomes difficult, orwe make it more difficult than
it needs to be.
So, what are some things youcould do?
(07:20):
And I want to ask you aquestion.
If you didn't make the effort,how many of your mates would be
around?
I have a number of mates on myphone in my favorites, I don't
have my phone on me, in myfavorites, that I'll aim to call
every week or every two weeks.
And I do that because I wentthrough a period where I did
(07:40):
feel extremely lonely.
And I realized that I needed tostart investing time.
I needed to start just callingand checking in what's going on,
even if it's for three minutes,doesn't matter.
But I wanted to start makingthat effort and then going for
coffees, and I drive toToowumba, which is essentially
two hours from where I am, justto see my mates, because that's
(08:02):
important to me.
So what are you gonna do if youfeel like you're being socially
lazy, like I have been, to turnthings around there?
What can you do?
Another example of this is ifyou're in a long-term
relationship or in anyrelationship, eventually,
because we're trying to provide,we're trying to look after the
family, we sacrifice andoutsource our social events.
(08:25):
It might be your wife or yourpartner who starts going, hey,
this weekend we're doing this,or next weekend we're doing
this, or we're gonna go forcoffee with this.
And all of a sudden, your socialcalendar is designed by your
partner, and that's not a badthing.
Well, actually, it is becauseyou're still being social, but
we see it all the time whenrelationships break down, that
the wife or the partner willkeep the relationships and
(08:48):
you'll now be on the outer andyou've got no one.
And we don't have those skills.
And I might make a separatevideo if you'd like it, just
comment in the comments below.
And just a quick side note asyou're listening to this, if you
have thoughts, insights,opinions, perspectives, drop
them in the comments.
Like I'd love to hear from youguys because I want this is a
conversation that's bigger thanme.
(09:09):
It's it's for all of us men outthere.
But as we start getting ourrelationships outsourced, uh we
lose the ability to build thoserelationships, right?
Friendship is difficult, it'ssomething that requires
repetition, it's something thatrequires you building a
relationship with yourself,which is what I want to go on to
for point two.
But point one there is thatwe're socially lazy.
(09:31):
I'm going to the footy thisafternoon to watch the grand
final, and I already caughtmyself this morning being like,
oh, it's on at 6:30 tonight,I've got to work early in the
morning.
Maybe I can just text my mate.
It's a hour, actually, I'm gonnajust watch it from home.
And that's what I want to do.
That's in here, this is what mymind's telling me to do.
(09:52):
But because, and I think thisthis episode has come at the
perfect time, that's me beingsocially lazy.
I'm prioritizing work over myfriendships.
Why do we always prioritizeeverything else over ourselves,
our friendships, and the thingsthat matter most?
Because when it's all said anddone, I don't want to tell my
(10:12):
work about things.
I want to tell my friends aboutthings.
When I want to go on holidays, Idon't want to go on holidays
with my work, I want to go onholidays with my friends.
And that requires investing inthat.
So I want you to think aboutthat.
And that last question that I'llrepeat now is if you didn't make
the effort, how many of yourmates would be around?
Are they making effort?
Because if they're not, youcould just have a conversation
(10:34):
with them and be honest, justsay, hey, Lockie, and pretend
you're talking to me.
Correct me if I'm wrong, ormaybe don't start with correct
me if I'm wrong, but I feel likethis rel this mateship or
friendship is one way at themoment.
I'm always making the phonecalls, I'm always organizing the
catch-ups.
(10:54):
I'm worried that if I didn't dothat, that we wouldn't speak.
I just wanted to know what youthought about this, and then you
can try and understand wherethey're coming from or what they
think, and they might be like,oh no, no, I would.
I'd reach out for sure, andmaybe they would, maybe they
wouldn't.
But that's a conversation, andthat's what friendship's about.
You've got to have toughconversations, you've got to
(11:16):
challenge each other, you've gotto grow together.
Now, point number two,neglecting ourselves.
We do this so easy.
When I have men do the sevendomain scorecard, which you can
find in the link below, the manthat can scorecard, we look at
the domains of life from yourhealth to your mindset to your
relationships to your finances,etc.
(11:37):
And quite often there's parts ofourselves that we are
neglecting.
And if you can't be workingtowards being the best version
of yourself, how can you giveyour best to others?
And once again, we've got thisbelief, right?
Like we have to be the man orwhat is a man, and then there's
this contrast of being a manversus being a friend, and the
(12:02):
pressures that I adopted andthat I experienced, and I'd love
to hear from you, is I need toprotect and I need to provide at
all costs.
I need to make sure my wife andfamily always have food on the
table.
I need to make sure that theyfeel safe and I need to be
achieving.
I need to be earning more money,I need to be getting more
status, I need to be gettingmore recognition.
(12:23):
And as a result of that, whenI'm faced with a decision, let's
use the example of thisafternoon between I have to work
tomorrow and I want to go to thefootball tonight.
Nine times out of ten, orprobably ten times out of ten,
I'd choose work.
Because that to me is being aman or what I thought.
But now I'm starting tochallenge that, and I'm really,
(12:44):
really, really excited tocontinue chatting with you all,
reading more, watching morearound this, and starting to
reshape how I show up, lookingat my calendar, learning what to
say no to, and reprioritizingthose things.
Because if we only provide forothers, you know, giving
yourself to your family and yourwife and your friends and your
colleagues and you neglectyourself, how can you ever learn
(13:10):
to be a great mate?
How can you ever feel likeyou're valued, seen, and heard?
Because if you aren't valuingyourself, if you aren't seeing
yourself, and if you aren'thearing yourself, it's going to
be very hard for you tocommunicate that with the world
outside you.
When people say, What's wrong?
What will you answer if youhaven't slowed down enough to
(13:31):
know?
When people say, What are youexcited about?
How will you know if you haven'tslowed down enough to answer
that?
This is why it's so importantnot to neglect yourself.
But it is one of the reasons whymale loneliness is skyrocketing,
is because we don't know who weare at our core anymore.
We used to have an idea, but nowwe're just going through the
(13:53):
motion and protecting andproviding in whatever way that
looks like for you.
And we feel so disconnected.
Yes, you may be winning onpaper, but on the inside you
feel unfulfilled.
You may be in what looks like aloving marriage, but you're
asking yourself, like, how longcan I keep doing this for?
Because something's missing.
(14:15):
And the only way you're gonnaget clear on this is you have to
come back to yourself.
You have to make time toprioritize yourself.
And there was one study I wasreading where they're like, men
need two days a week, like twodays, but two catch-ups a week
with their mates.
Just like we say, you know, youneed X amount of minutes
exercising for good physicalhealth, we need something for
(14:35):
good social health.
If you, you know, if I'm workingwith men, we do a time audit, we
go, where's your time beingspent?
Because that can help us seewhat you're prioritizing.
And I would ask you the samething.
If you look at your calendar,and if you're not using one,
start using one.
But if you go, okay, I'm notmissing time here, all I see is
work, work, work, work, work,work, work, work, work, work.
(14:59):
No, you can then go, okay, I'mgonna schedule a phone call, I'm
gonna schedule a catch-up, orI'm gonna schedule a walk or
just a coffee, whatever it is,start making time because male
loneliness is killing more menthan we realized.
One other stat was that men withno friends, it's just as
dangerous as smoking 15cigarettes a day.
(15:21):
Now I haven't had a chuff on adairy for a number of years, but
if I had to punch 15 darries inone day, wouldn't be feeling
good, I wouldn't be able to runand have the adventures and all
of the things that I love abouthaving good health.
So think about that.
Stop neglecting yourself.
And if you want help and supportwith that, one at the moment I'm
(15:42):
taking on two more clients, butnext year I'm working on putting
together a new program, and thatwould I want people's feedback
because I don't want to justbuild what I think, I want to
build something that is going toprovide value to a lot of
people.
So the more you connect with me,whether it's on in the comments
below or on social media, andjust ask questions, share your
(16:04):
opinions, your thoughts, yourinsights.
It will then help me createsomething in the new year that
can help you become the man thatcan.
Now, thirdly, so firstly waswe're socially lazy, secondly,
we neglect ourselves, andthirdly, you don't need anything
from others.
It's just like we do itourselves.
And the challenge with that iswhen we don't feel like we need
(16:28):
anything from others, we startisolating ourselves.
Right?
I don't need support with that,I don't need to ask for help.
Every time we're doing that,we're pushing people away from
our lives.
Think when you were younger atschool, we're all wanting to be
seen, valued, and heard, andwe've got heaps of friends,
heaps of associates, heaps ofpeople we go to school with, and
we know as we get older, thatcircle shrinks because we start
(16:51):
realizing I don't need that.
I don't need to be challenged bythat person, I don't need to be
around that person, and we buildour core group, but then also we
start realizing I don't needthat.
My wife can do everything, eventhough they can't, and we
shouldn't put pressure on themto do so.
And just like we can't beeverything to one person, one
person can't be everything tous.
So when you think about that,you need to go, okay, well, I
(17:14):
don't need uh maybe I don't needthat conversation, maybe I don't
need that social outing.
What is the ripple effect ofthat though?
If you stop making the effort tohave those social outings, if
you stop asking for support orguidance or mentorship, you're
shrinking your circle becausepeople stop start sorry, stop
(17:36):
thinking to themselves, Lockiedoesn't need help or Lockie
never stops, never comesanywhere, so why would I invite
him?
And then when I wake up one dayand I go, Man, I feel lonely.
Where is everyone?
And because we haven't beenflexing that social muscle, how
do I engage with people?
How do I build rapport?
(17:56):
How do I have fun?
Who am I?
We don't know how to then buildfriends after that as well.
So there's multiple differentvideos we could build off the
back of this and talk about andhave discussions.
But there are three reasons whyI feel male loneliness is
skyrocketing.
And you may be feeling lonely asyou watch this, right?
You may not feel like you'revalued, seen, or heard.
(18:20):
But I do believe that if youdon't start prioritizing
yourself, it's going to feelvery challenging for you to ever
be valued, seen, or heardbecause you don't value
yourself, you don't seeyourself, and you don't hear
yourself.
So, how can you then communicatewith the world around you?
Secondly, stop being sociallylazy.
Make the effort, go the extramile to catch up with mates.
(18:42):
And if you find that there's toomuch time between the catch-ups,
just remove the friction.
And what I mean by that isremove the all the boxes that
you have to tick to makesomething happen.
So, for example, camping, a lotof moving parts.
Just go, can we do a coffee?
And if you can't do that becauseyou live far away or work's
busy, you either got to askyourself, what is the most
(19:04):
important thing to prioritize,or you just go, let's just do a
phone call and like both grab acoffee and go for a walk.
And I've got one of my bestmates, Etienne, lives in France,
and we catch up at least once amonth, or maybe not once a month
now, but regularly enough, andwe'll always FaceTime each other
and find out what's going on.
But the friction otherwise is Ione of us has got to fly to the
(19:26):
other country and cost money,time away from family, all of
those things.
So it's not as achievable asfrequently as it is picking up
the phone.
I'd love to hear from you guys.
Drop it in the comments, send memessages on socials around why
you think male loneliness isskyrocketing.
One in four men does not have afriend.
That is a dangerous place tolive.
(19:48):
Not only because when we feellonely, where there's a high
chance we will take our life,but also we will seek out a way
to feel part of something biggerthan ourselves.
And when you're on those onlinechat rooms that a lot of men are
finding themselves in, that'snot a good place to be.
So let's get part of theconversation.
(20:08):
I'd love to hear from you.
My name is Lawrence Stewart, I'ma men's life coach, and I
specialize in helping you gainstrength so that you can lead
better in your life.
If you'd like to ever do somework for with me, no for me,
with me, make sure you reach outon whatever platform, head to
the manletcamproject.com, and Ilook forward to helping you
(20:29):
change.
But most importantly, if you gotvalue from this, make sure you
hit subscribe because when yousubscribe, it lets the
algorithms know that people aregetting value from this.
Have a great week.
I look forward to chatting withyou soon.
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