Dr. Zac Seidler on the New Science of Men’s Mental Health | EP 685

In this raw and timely conversation, John R. Miles sits down with Dr. Zac Seidler, global director of men’s health research at Movember and one of the world’s leading voices redefining masculinity. Together, they explore how modern men are facing a silent crisis—one rooted not in strength or stoicism, but in disconnection, loneliness, and loss of mattering. From the heartbreaking story of losing his father to suicide to leading Movember’s groundbreaking new report The Real Face of Men’s Health, Zac shares what he’s learned about the “friendship recession,” why so many men struggle to ask for help, and how culture, compassion, and community can save lives. This episode is both a mirror and a call to action: a reminder that helping men heal isn’t just a men’s issue—it’s a human one. Read the full show notes: https://passionstruck.com/mens-mental-health-hidden-crisis-dr-zac-seidler/Listen + Watch + Go DeeperAll episode resources—including guest links, my books You Matter, Luma, and Passion Struck, The Ignited Life Substack, and the Start Mattering store—are gathered here:👉 linktr.ee/John_R_MilesTo learn more about Dr. Zac Seidler and Movember, visit Movember.com.🧠 About the EpisodeThe Friendship Recession: Why one in seven men report having no close friends and what it’s doing to our collective well-being. Healthy Masculinity Reimagined: The difference between masculinity and manhood and why flexibility is the new strength. Belonging Over Biohacking: Why connection matters more than cold plunges, and how authentic friendship can be life-saving. Grassroots Healing: How barbershops, basketball courts, and bike shops are becoming hubs of hope through Movember’s Making Connections program. The Real Face of Men’s Health: A landmark new report revealing the data, disparities, and the urgent call for cultural renewal.🌍 Join The Ignited Life CommunityIf this episode stirred something in you, The Ignited Life is where the transformation continues. Each week, I share behind-the-scenes insights, science-backed tools, and reflections to help you turn intention into action.🔗 Subscribe free at TheIgnitedLife.net💪 Support the MovementEveryone deserves to feel valued and important. Show it. Wear it. Live it.🛍️ Visit StartMattering.comConnect with John Pre-Order The Mattering Effect: https://matteringeffect.com/Book John to Speak: https://johnrmiles.com/speaking/Keynotes, books, podcast, and resources: https://linktr.ee/John_R_MilesChildren’s Book — You Matter, Luma: https://youmatterluma.com/Substack: https://www.theignitedlife.net/Support the Movement: https://startmattering.com/. Every human deserves to feel seen, valued, and like they matter. Wear it. Live it. Show it. DisclaimerThe Passion Struck podcast is for educational and entertainment purposes only. The views and opinions expressed do not...

Speaker names marked ? are inferred from speaking time and the show’s known hosts — they are not voice-verified.

• 0:00John R. Miles?

  Coming up next on Passion Struck.

• 0:02Speaker 01

  I think with anyone, if you're going to get up each and every day and do something that really matters to you, that you have a sense of purpose and meaning around, it has to resonate on a personal level. It has to light your fire one way or another. And really, there are many different interweaving narratives that led me to where I am today. The more I reflect on it through conversations like this, I pick up different threads along the way that really turned me into the man that I am and led me down the path to doing the work that I do.

• 0:37John R. Miles?

  Welcome to Passion Struck. I'm your host, John Miles. This is the show where we explore the art of human flourishing and what it truly means to live like it matters. Each week, I sit down with changemakers, creators, scientists, and everyday heroes to decode the human experience and uncover the tools that help us lead with meaning, heal what hurts, and pursue the fullest expression of who we're capable of becoming. Whether you're designing your future, developing as a leader, or seeking deeper alignment in your life, this show is your invitation to grow with purpose and act with intention. Because the secret to a life of deep purpose, connection, and impact is choosing to live like you matter.

• 1:24John R. Miles?

  Welcome back, friends, to Passion Struck, episode 685. I'm your host, John Miles, and I am so glad you're here. Whether you're a longtime listener or one of the many joining us for the first time, welcome. You're part of a global movement to live intentionally, to create a world where people feel seen, valued, and like they truly matter. If this show has ever sparked reflection or changed for you, here are three ways you can help it reach others. First, share this episode with someone who needs it. Second, leave a five-star rating or review on Apple Podcasts or Spotify. It's the best way to help others discover these conversations. And third, join our rapidly growing community hub at theignitedlife.net,

• 2:09John R. Miles?

  where I share weekly frameworks, reflections, and behind-the-scenes insights to help you live with greater purpose and connection. Last week, we wrapped our series, "The Forces That Shape Us," exploring how unseen dynamics guide how we think, lead, and live. Claude Silver showed us on Tuesday that every organization is shaped by two forces: fear and belonging, and that the future of leadership depends on replacing control with connection and compliance with compassion. Then on Thursday, Nick Thompson reminded us that resilience isn't built in comfort, but in motion, that sometimes, running isn't about speed, it's about staying in the race. Today, we begin a powerful new journey: "The Irreplaceables," rediscovering human worth

• 2:54John R. Miles?

  in an age of acceleration. In a world obsessed with speed, automation, and metrics, what truly makes us human? This series explores the qualities no algorithm can replicate: empathy, imagination, integrity, and love, and why our humanity is our ultimate competitive edge. And we're starting this series in a month that could be not more fitting: November, or as many know it, Movember, the global movement dedicated to changing the face of men's health. My guest today is Dr. Zach Sidlin, the Global Director of Men's Health Research at Movember and one of the world's leading voices on men's mental health. But his work isn't just professional, it's deeply personal.

• 3:36John R. Miles?

  After losing his father to suicide at age 20, Zach dedicated his life to understanding how men suffer in silence and how we can help them reconnect before it's too late. In this conversation, we explore why so many men today feel unseen, disconnected, and replaceable; how loneliness has become a public health crisis; what Zach calls "a friendship recession"; why vulnerability and flexibility are the new measures of strength; and how the simple act of calling a friend can be both life-giving and life-saving. As Zach says, "We don't need more perfection for men, we need more connection." If you've ever felt the pressure to appear fine when you're not, or wondered How we can help men and boys feel like they matter again.

• 4:21John R. Miles?

  This episode is for you. Now let's step into episode 685 on men, identity and the mattering crisis with Dr. Zach Seidler. Thank you for choosing Passion Struck and choosing me to be your host and guide on your journey to creating an intentional life. Now let that journey begin.

• 4:44John R. Miles?

  I am absolutely thrilled today to welcome Dr. Zach Seidler, all the way from Australia. Welcome Zach, how are you today?

• 4:53Speaker 01

  Great, John, thank you for having me.

• 4:56John R. Miles?

  Before I jump into the first question, I just have to tell you how jealous I am because you're sitting in one of my most favorite cities in the entire world, Sydney, Australia. Man, I am so jealous you get to live there.

• 5:09Speaker 01

  It is a beautiful part of the world down under and yeah, I'm very lucky to call it home. And anytime I've been offered to go and live anywhere else, the beaches here just call me back. So it's home for the foreseeable future.

• 5:22John R. Miles?

  Man, well, I loved it when I was there because you had the beaches, but you also had the bush and you had the mountains only like, what, an hour and a half away. So really have this magical ability, if you're an outdoorsman, which I am, to do all these different types of things.

• 5:39Speaker 01

  And the best coffee in the world, which we will always hold on to for dear life.

• 5:44John R. Miles?

  Well, I bet you Italy and some other places would fight you for that.

• 5:48Speaker 01

  It's worth the competition. Yeah.

• 5:52John R. Miles?

  Zach, you are one of the most recognizable voices in men's health worldwide, but I know that this work is really deeply personal for you. Can you share a little bit about your backstory and what drew you originally into this field?

• 6:07Speaker 01

  Thanks, John. I think with anyone, if you're going to get up each and every day and do something that really matters to you, that you have a sense of purpose and meaning around it, it has to resonate on a personal level. It has to light your fire one way or another. And Really, there are many different interweaving narratives that led me to where I am today. The more I reflect on it through conversations like this, I pick up different threads along the way that really turned me into the man that I am and led me down the path to doing the work that I do. But the things that really jump out at me, I'm one of four siblings and so there were lots of voices and opinions.

• 6:51Speaker 01

  I'm third in the pipeline and so I think third children, not to bring up middle child syndrome, but we are often the peacekeepers. We are often the ones who are sitting at the dinner table trying to work out what's going on. And so from a very early age, I was always trying to understand my two older brothers. So I have two older brothers and one younger sister. And so having two older brothers, especially when it comes to men and masculinity, understanding the policing and the competitiveness and the bullying and the banter and all of these different styles of communication. And my two older brothers are very different as well. So I started to see how this type of interaction can take place. So I was born into a family of storytellers.

• 7:35Speaker 01

  And so psychology really became an obvious profession to me in many ways because I was curious about why people did what they did. It was always very surprising to me that people often chose the worst option out of a slew of options and didn't seem to actually activate towards their potential. That's something that matters deeply to me and I know to you as well, John. But the thing that really, I think, started my journey towards this men's health work was that my dad, for a very long time, suffered from depression. And I was not privy to it for a long time. It was taking place throughout my childhood.

• 8:15Speaker 01

  He was a family physician and my mum did a cover up with him whereby whenever he went to hospital for treatment. Happened to once every three years or so. There was this narrative that he was at a conference and none of us questioned it because we had full faith in them and we had no reason to question it. But as I got older and I became sixteen, seventeen, I started to cotton on to what was happening. And then I started to get pulled into those conversations of trying to get him out of bed when he couldn't get out of bed and making sure that he was eating and trying to shake him into a sense of things are going to be okay and we're going to get through this. And that went on periodically for a bit.

• 8:58Speaker 01

  And then sadly, when I was twenty, he, we were all away, lots of our family were away. I was off with my girlfriend at the time in Portugal and my other brother was in Brussels. We loved to, to travel and

• 9:14Speaker 01

  he, he decided to take his own life at that time. And it entirely shook my world, John, as you'd expect, losing. He was an incredible man and there's so much of him in me that I'm so proud of. But it was a really difficult time, but it also set the course for where I was going to go from there because I didn't actually need answers per se. Lots of people want to seek answers. I'm not angry at my father. I know the pain and suffering that he was going through. But what I do want to seek is an understanding of how to help others in those dark moments, to know that they have other options, to know that there are people around them who can understand and care for them.

• 9:57Speaker 01

  And that's what's really central to my work now. Through this lived experience ideology, I'm trying to actually, I'm not doing this because of how my dad died. It's actually because of how he lived in many ways because he was so curious, he was so open, he was so interested and I want to bring that to my work.

• 10:15John R. Miles?

  I'm so sorry to hear about your father and as you and I were talking before we joined the show, I lost someone very close to me about a decade ago named Tim and.

• 10:27John R. Miles?

  Tim didn't show any of the signs, didn't show depression, certainly didn't talk to any of us before he took his own life. But the circumstances behind that, I later really discovered that we can be surrounded by people and still be completely isolated. I think Vivek Murthy and Juliette Hutt Lundstad have both given a lot of visibility to this feeling of loneliness. And it really sent me on the mission that I'm doing today to figure out, why do we flourish? And why at times does some of us get so stuck in life?

• 11:06John R. Miles?

  And so I'm so glad that each of us has taken a circumstance like that and used it to propel ourselves to a place where we're trying to help others in our own individual ways. So, thank you for sharing that.

• 11:23John R. Miles?

  So, a lot of my guests know what Movember is, because you've been transforming the global conversation around men's health for two decades now. But just in case someone doesn't understand Movember, can you maybe give the origin story?

• 11:41Speaker 01

  Definitely. So, I'm very lucky to work for a, what started as a practical joke organization, really, in many ways. There was this discussion around, where did moustaches go? That was really a conversation between two friends in a pub in Melbourne. They were just discussing at the time, there were so many breast cancer charities. That was really, they were creatives, they were working for breast cancer charities. And they were wondering, because lots of their friends were going through either cancer journeys of their own or mental health journeys. And they were wondering, where was a space, a place, an organization that was trying to understand and support men and boys? And so this was in the very early 2000s.

• 12:25Speaker 01

  There was, moustaches were very much not a thing at the time. There were no hipsters hanging out with moustaches. And so they started to consider, maybe there's a way that they can turn this joke of growing moustaches in the month of November as a means to act as a Trojan horse. We call it health by stealth in many ways, which is that in order to get men into this conversation, you're going to have to find a way to access them, to connect with them, to make it matter to them. And humour is often a really good way in. So growing a heinous moustache that makes you look like a star is often a really good way of going about that. And so a couple of them, there were 20 friends, they said, let's grow moustaches.

• 13:09Speaker 01

  Whoever grows the best moustache, we're going to raise some money. And they raised 10 grand at the time. It wasn't very much. And then they went again the year after and they grew a number of different groups in again. They had a couple of hundred then, and then they got to 100, 200,000 dollars. And from then on, it just blew up like wildfire and they went across Australia and then have moved now into over 20 countries. And what started as really connective tissue between friends, I really believe that to be the case. It was a means for every year, having barbecues, going to the pub, connecting with one another, talking about your health and wellbeing, having conversations about prostate cancer

• 13:53Speaker 01

  checks, having conversations about your mental health. And it went from this really small niche community thing to the fact that we now have a community of over 6 million men across the globe. We work in the States, we work in Australia, the UK, Canada. We've got offices in six of these markets and.

• 14:16Speaker 01

  It's really an incredible privilege to work for one of very few organizations who sells men health and who offers it to them in a way that we know resonates. And so we've obviously been around for over two decades now and we've evolved, we've matured into our later, you know, young adulthood as we consider our impact. We used to do a lot of partnering with other organizations. We wouldn't have our own programs or interventions internally. We would just move the money that we fundraise out into other organizations. And now we've realized bringing in expertise is really key to building the organization

• 14:56Speaker 01

  in the sector. And so we set up around two years ago, the Movember Institute of Men's Health, and that's where I sit. I've been at the organization for about six years now, and I run the research team. So I look after fifteen internal research staff all over the world who are all experts in men's health, mental health, suicide prevention. They're the best of the best. And we get to work in collaboration with people all over the world. And the best thing about it, we're not academics in our ivory tower. We have millions of men that we are responsible for their donor dollars. We are making sure

• 15:36Speaker 01

  that this grassroots machine is being tended to by, you know, having this cycle of information whereby if we're building evidence, we're not going to put it in a journal that no one's ever going to see. We're going to make sure that we translate it and that it comes back to that guy on the street who is struggling so that he knows that we've got his back.

• 15:58John R. Miles?

  Well, thank you for sharing that. And I understand that 2025 is a really critical inflection point for the organization. What is it about this moment that's so pivotal?

• 16:11Speaker 01

  I'm sure that all of your listeners would be very aware of the conversation around men and boys that's taking place now. It seems to have just blown up. There is always a time and a place, you know, for a topic in our social context. And I think that we are at the point where, you know, the crisis of masculinity, the epidemic of loneliness, the suicide epidemic, all of these media narratives that everyone is probably hearing about our boys and how they're not going through school and they're suffering in the education system. These are all interconnecting and it's leading to a fever pitch in many ways. And so what we're doing is we are doubling down on our work in the US where we've got a really strong team across the States, based in LA and New York.

• 16:56Speaker 01

  And we're at a pivotal point where we're starting to understand the true extent of the difficulties for men and boys. I think everyone is coddling on to that now. And you cannot push this back down, like the cat is out of the bag in many ways. And we're realising that without healthy men, we're going to struggle to have healthy families and healthy communities. I think for a very long time, we have failed, we have failed to engage men and boys. We have failed to understand, to really connect with, to empathise and to solve many of the problems that they are dealing with on a day-to-day basis. And so health outcomes are now trending in the wrong direction, such that now is the

• 17:38Speaker 01

  time to intervene and act with what we know after our 20 years in the business and all of the other organisations that we're very lucky to partner with and work alongside. Like, this is a serious concern that very few people seem to have solutions for. There is a lot of alarmism, John, as I'm sure you've seen. The language is constantly turning up the rhetoric over and over. It's becoming deeply politicised. And what we're trying to do is calm everyone down and go, this is the stats, this is the facts, this is what is required if we're going to make sure that we're looking after men and boys in our community. And the really interesting thing is that throughout our polling, we continue to see

• 18:23Speaker 01

  that this is actually not a contested situation. This is not something that people in the community are saying, oh, this gender wars thing, it's too politicised, it's too polarising. The vast majority of the electorate want to look into this, want support for men's health. And importantly, women and girls are actually more likely than men and boys to want this stuff to happen, to want to be helping out men on the ground, because they know how difficult it is. They're dealing with this in their classrooms, in the household. This issue around poor men's health, it affects us all. It filters down into communities and...

• 19:04Speaker 01

  We need to be doing more to make sure that we can uplift and find answers for why some of this stuff is happening and a way forward.

• 19:14John R. Miles?

  Hang tight. We've got more from Zach Seidler coming up right after the break. Please support the brands who make Passion Struck possible. It's one of the best ways you can help this mission reach more people.

• 19:31John R. Miles?

  You're listening to Passion Struck on the Passion Struck Network. Now, back to my conversation with Zach Seidler.

• 19:39John R. Miles?

  Maybe with that backdrop, maybe it's good to define, when you think of masculinity, what do you think defines a compassionate man? I know it's someone who cares for himself and others, but so often when we look at the symbols of males who are out there, that's not the version of strength that's being displayed. And I think it takes courage to show compassion and in that courage, you end up showing real strength. But I'm interested in your thoughts.

• 20:13Speaker 01

  Well, John, this is a very messy conversation that everyone loves to weigh in on. And thankfully I have a PhD in the topic, so I think I can attempt it if nothing else. When we go out to our community and we ask them, what does the term masculinity mean to you? Most of them now, because of the way in which this narrative has been driven, they'll tell us that when they hear masculinity, they hear toxic in front of it. That's the way in which it works for them. And that's very isolating. It's disengaging. It angers many of them and it leads them to distance themselves from the conversation, which is really not what we want. We want to call men in. We don't want to call them out and we want to find a way to work alongside them towards

• 20:57Speaker 01

  that compassionate version. And so we often are starting to use the term manhood. And there's a really key difference between masculinity and manhood as we see it. Masculinity is very, very static stagnant form, which is like, this is how to be. This is what to do. I don't believe that there is any single way of acting as a man that is sufficient, because you will always fail in some ways with these unassailable standards. And so masculinity is the what and manhood, manhood is the how, manhood is the process, manhood is this iterative journey of evolution. It is stuffing up and growing and learning and practicing.

• 21:41Speaker 01

  And I think that we should all be on that journey consistently towards that compassionate goal of helping oneself and helping others. And I think that the way in which we're having this conversation around masculinity means that we end up telling men and boys a lot about what not to do and not very much about how to be, about how to go about moving through the world. And so when I think about that compassionate model that we're striving for, John, fundamentally, the thing that jumps out at me is flexibility versus rigidity. The thing that I am seeking to bestow upon your listeners and men and boys across the

• 22:21Speaker 01

  globe is striving for flexibility, is realizing that there is strength in understanding that in each different context, if you are sitting with a different person, if you are in a different room, you do not need to be the same man as you were an hour ago. There are this homogenous blob, this idea that men are one thing and one thing only is where these stereotypes come from. It's where we're so limited in our understanding of men's emotionality, of men's mental health issues, of men's strengths and capacity, because we box them in and you end up with, he must be the breadwinner, he's the handyman. And I'm like, what if I want to be a jazz musician? And what if I want to be an artist? And what if I want to be?

• 23:03Speaker 01

  It locks people off to the point where they don't see masculinity as something for them. And it's, it is for everybody. It has to be inclusive. And the way to go about that is through that flexibility, which goes, okay, there is time and a place for things like self-reliance, stoicism. Yeah? But there is also a time when you need to be vulnerable, when you need to lean on others, when you need to connect and be that compassionate, empathetic version. And I think that it's that flexibility that we're not doing very well at the moment. We're trying to create caricatures of ourselves, I think, and it's always going to fall short of the complexity of humanity that we require to flourish.

• 23:47John R. Miles?

  Thank you for that backdrop. When I think of change and what drives change, I often think of cultural moments that bring something to bear and bring eyeballs on it, but get people to move. In my mind, one of the things that started this movement was Scott Galloway's book Adrift, which I was fortunate enough to interview him about. But I think it laid kind of the table stakes and exposed what was going on. Which cultural moments are you hopeful for, whether it comes from sports, film, celebrities, that could actually expand

• 24:26John R. Miles?

  the definition of masculinity, or men's health, or all the things we've been talking about in a healthier way?

• 24:36Speaker 01

  I think that this notion of breaking down stereotypes is really important. Often here with our football players, we're getting more and more guys who are coming forward and talking about the fact, the biggest, strongest guys are saying, I suffered with anxiety, or I've experienced depression. And that's a huge move forward for us in many ways, having these men come out and talking about something other than tackling one another for a living. But the thing that I find really interesting is that they often say, I suffered with, I overcame. They only share their story once they feel like there's a sense of completion. And my response to that is always, but this is the messiness of life. It's not done. And

• 25:18Speaker 01

  the normality of dealing with mental health difficulties in our everyday lives, that they show up when we least expect them, and they follow us in many ways. They are a part of us. They are often a beautiful part of us. I've had plenty of anxious days and weeks in my life, and it's driven me to connect, to work harder, to understand myself. There is great beauty in the way in which my brain works, and I'm aware of its fallibility in some ways, and its shortcomings, but. I'm not going to try and say I beat it, I overcame it. So I try to think that when it comes to the way in which these cultural moments are moving forward, I really want to see the messiness.

• 26:00Speaker 01

  I want to see people not offering varnished, well-realized, fully completed stories about their masculinity. You know, I was thinking yesterday about how we can move forward and suggest to boys in school what it means to be a man. The teacher asked me, how can I educate my 12-year-old boys in school about how to be a man? And I said, that's not how it works. You need to show, you need to fundamentally show how this happens. You need to just show up and you need to sit in the mud with them and go, hey, I'm 30 years older than you and I have no idea what the hell is going on most of the time. This idea that like this intergenerational understanding where we've,

• 26:46Speaker 01

  I've wrapped my head around it and now I'm going to tie it with a bow, everything is okay. And now I can bestow knowledge upon you. I think that idea of masculinity is actually getting us away from grappling with our insecurities, the difficulties of day to day. Sometimes we feel awesome and sometimes we feel like shit. And that's just the way that it works and we should be able to find a narrative that can hold all of those truths at the same time. So I often talk about role models and role modeling, John. Role models, everyone believes that male role models will save us all. If we just have one more NBA player who tells us that he went through something, we're going to be okay. It doesn't work, it doesn't happen like that.

• 27:30Speaker 01

  We need role modeling, we need the verb of doing. We don't need to put another person on a pedestal because they will fall off. And that is the thing about masculinity, it's extremely precarious. People always fall off because it's impossible to stay up there because you cannot be perfect in this world. We need an openness to the fact that we are trying, that there are attempts at trying to connect with oneself and others. And you know, the problem is that you put someone up and you say, this is healthy masculinity. This is something we talk about a lot at Movember. This idea of this is healthy masculinity and this person is the bastion of truth. We should all be striving for this. And who is to say what healthy or positive masculinity looks like?

• 28:15Speaker 01

  And so when that person does something that's at odds with how we define it, then they're off. And then a boy who was looking up to him goes, oh, I can't try to be him anymore because he's cancelled. He's no longer the guy. That's a very dangerous way of moving through the world rather than having fathers and teachers and uncles being these on the ground, connective forces to actually walk through that difficulty alongside some of our younger generation as well.

• 28:45John R. Miles?

  That's interesting. I've been talking to one of the pastors at the church I go to about getting involved with more of the young adult initiatives that they've got going. And he and I were having a real in-depth discussion about this because he was just telling me that if you show up and give them a speech, it could be the greatest speech in the history of speeches with the best data and the best intentions. It's not going to move the needle at all. He was saying is what is going to take it is you showing up every single week because the real change doesn't happen in that macro discussion. It's going to happen in the small groups where

• 29:26John R. Miles?

  they start feeling comfortable enough to start sharing with you and asking questions. And it's going to be when you start giving them advice one-on-one that you start changing the narrative and you start changing lives. And I think that's what you were alluding to when you were saying that this isn't going to come from a ballplayer coming out there. It's going to come from people working in the trenches and doing a bottoms up type of movement where they see you modeling the behaviors and seeing the good and the bad that each of us as humans carry with us.

• 30:02Speaker 01

  So I think the interesting thing, John, is that we sell the moment. And whenever you ask someone, it's like, when did you change your life? They're always going to talk about the moment someone they read something. They saw something on YouTube and they decided I'm going to shift my life narrative. I'm going down a different path now. But as a psychologist, I can tell you that is not the case. There was a year or two years of sitting, of reading, of thinking through things, of osmosis of different narratives that were coming past them. And it just so happened that the tipping point was when they heard someone say something in a TED Talk. But that moment is not the thing, it's the hard yards of openness and willingness and curiosity

• 30:47Speaker 01

  that kind of happened throughout it. And that's the same thing with young men. If we're gonna go and try and bring them on that journey, it is the showing up, it is the week in, week out, understanding of how this stuff looks, of sitting in the trenches with them, of working through stuff with them. That's how they're going to develop and evolve and understand what it means to be a man. They're not gonna get it through a five-minute keynote where you offer your best soundbites. That's as much as I've attempted to do that in my time. And early on in my career, I probably believed that I could change people's opinion and thoughts of themselves really quickly. But you do enough therapy and I've sat aside enough men to know

• 31:33Speaker 01

  that it is a very strange, curious journey that often leads to the behavior change that we're seeking.

• 31:42John R. Miles?

  Yeah, I know. I always get the question about my first book, Passion Struck, like, how did this come to you? And how did you know that these 12 components that you have in your framework are the right components? Well, because I lived them, it was all through me-search. I spent two years after I'd interviewed tons of people, playing with them in my own life to see if they actually worked and would make a difference. But you're right, even with all that, I was starting to move the needle and I knew I wanted to do something different. And Tim's death certainly was on that last trajectory of what finally pushed me over the line. But I'd been thinking about it for years up until that point. I just was engulfed by fear of taking the leap.

• 32:27John R. Miles?

  And he finally gave me that last push to do something about it. So I completely agree with what you're saying. Well, Zach, I'm going to switch gears on you because one of the things I know you're excited to talk about is you have a report that by the time this episode airs will have just come out. It's called "The Real Face of Men's Health," and it's one of the most comprehensive looks at men's health in the US that's ever been done. What surprised you most about, what surprised you most as the data came together?

• 33:02Speaker 01

  We're really excited about this report. It's been a long time in the making, John, and our entire team has been working extensively alongside some researchers from the University of Pennsylvania as well. So we've got the best of the best to do the data crunching. And the really interesting thing, and lots of people in the men's health space have spoken about this, is that there's a lot of ideas being thrown around and not a lot of really well-understood data on the state of American men, really. It's a very diverse, very complex picture, and it takes a very concerted effort to sit down and try and break some of this stuff down and understand what it looks like for different groups of men. And that's what we're really trying to do. We're not doing this men versus women

• 33:47Speaker 01

  argument. We're really clear on the fact that there is so much diversity, there is so many different ways that different groups of guys show up. And if we don't understand that black men and white men and Native American men, and there are so many different ways that they interact with the health system, that their cancers and their mental health and, you know, the ways that premature mortality happened for different groups, we've really just obfuscated the whole thing to date. And if you go on plenty of websites, whether it's CDC or otherwise, you don't really get a very good picture. You don't get gendered, desegregated data for lots of this stuff. So we've not been able to pin down what is happening for American men when it comes to their health and wellbeing.

• 34:33Speaker 01

  Now, we know that men have long lived shorter lives than women, but in two thousand and twenty three, the data was showing us that it's about five point three years difference. And now US men lag significantly behind their counterparts in other wealthy nations. And for some groups, obviously for black, American Indian and Alaska Native men specifically, the gap is even larger. So we're at the point where nearly half of all male deaths in the States happened before age seventy five, and many of these deaths could be prevented. So we are really focused on that idea of how we can be a preventative service here,

• 35:13Speaker 01

  how we can, as Movember, bring together lots of different organizations across the States and find a way to create these solutions to understand that men show up in many different forms, they look and interact in many different ways, and we need really nuanced answers to go about supporting them. Our organization is focused on that community building. We're focused on that idea of connection and how we can get men understanding their own health and wellbeing, understanding what matters to them, and then going about creating a system around them that is going to be responsive to their needs. Now, that's something that I don't think we're doing very well.

• 35:58Speaker 01

  We do a lot of talking at men, we do a lot of saying, go to the doctor, why aren't you doing this, haven't you had your blood checked? All of that stuff happens and has happened for a very long time, and we have spent a miserly amount of time actually looking at the system that we're pushing them into. So if you tell a guy that he needs to go and see a psychologist like me, or go and see his family physician, and he goes, I went, it sucked, it was the worst time, he didn't understand me, he didn't speak my language, I'm never going back. That is a really bad use of our ability to advocate, of our ability to actually promote health and wellbeing. And so at Movember, we've actually evolved into this understanding of the systemic and

• 36:42Speaker 01

  structural barriers here by going, if we're telling men to talk, if we're telling men to look after themselves, are we actually ready to listen? Are we ready to respond? Do we have the right people in the right places? Who know what to deal with in those moments? And so we're trying to take a really holistic understanding of men's health. It's not purely physical. It's not purely mental. It's relational. It's emotional. It's spiritual. It's this full understanding of how men show up in the world. And we want to show them that there are many different facets that they should work on. But the most important thing, John, the title, The Real Face of Men's Health.

• 37:27Speaker 01

  We are so clear on the fact that men's health affects everybody. And so the real face of men's health is often the daughter of a guy, is often his sister, is often the employee that he's working with, who is feeling the ramifications of his poor health. And so we're trying to understand and leverage this masculine ideal of looking after others, of service, of altruism. We're trying to use it to our advantage because men can lean into that. You're not only doing this for yourself, because I know that's uncomfortable for many men. You are doing it for those around you that you care about, that you are trying to uplift, that you love.

• 38:10Speaker 01

  And looking after yourself is the greatest way to lean into that ever evolving, flexible, strong manhood that we're seeking.

• 38:20John R. Miles?

  Well, one of the things you brought up, Zach, and that I want to hit on from the report is social connection. The report says social connection is essential to health and wellbeing. But many men are increasingly disconnected. And I have just turned in a manuscript for my next book called The Mattering Effect, where I term this the disease of disconnection. And as I was looking at the report, and I'm glad I now have this because I'm going to incorporate some of it back in the manuscript. The report explores something called the friendship recession. And it really struck my eye. I knew, looking at the belonging report and other things,

• 39:04John R. Miles?

  that this was a factor. But I didn't realize that one in seven men now say that they have no close friends. And it is really alarming because...

• 39:16John R. Miles?

  That impacts not only mental health, but it also impacts suicide risk. Because if you don't have that close friend to go to, who are you talking to?

• 39:28Speaker 01

  Exactly. And John, I will say, because I get the privilege of working across many different countries. The friendship recession is something that is showing up in many Western countries, but is fundamentally a US phenomenon. It is worse for American men than it is any other. And so I will say that there is something uniquely going on in this moment of disconnection across America, and I spent a lot of time there over the past couple of years, whereby we're seeing this cleaving away of and this splitting of various groups who cannot see eye to eye, who cannot speak with one another, who cannot disagree in purposeful, meaningful, respectful ways.

• 40:10Speaker 01

  And I think that technology has a lot to answer for when it comes to this. There's obviously great benefits in social networking as it was proposed all those decades ago. And now I think it is actually leading to the breakdown of our social fabric in some ways, such that we are unable to actually have really deep, meaningful connection with others because of the fact that this offline face-to-face contact is becoming increasingly anxiety provoking and stressful for lots of young people especially. What I will say, John, is that when we have one in four young American men, so 15 to 34, reporting feeling lonely a lot of the previous day,

• 40:53Speaker 01

  that's more than in any other wealthy country. And you add in the suicide rates with the fact that suicide is the fourth leading cause of premature death among US men, and men are 3.6 times more likely to die by suicide than women in America. We have a serious issue on our hands, and it's funny because you wouldn't expect that we would be talking about friendship as the solution. You know, this, it's so dramatic that surely there's a drug that can fix everything. But the drug is connection. The drug fundamentally is around how we can find a way to bring people back together in the round, in the town hall, to actually be alongside one another

• 41:37Speaker 01

  and to be able to just look eye to eye and really hang out. And this is the thing. Men are telling us that it's all they long for. There's a reason that they watch podcasts where for three and a half hours where guys are just hanging out, talking with one another. It's because it's something that they desire. It's something they they want. But the vulnerability that is required to put up your hand and say that I'm lonely, to call a friend and pester him until he he goes to the bar with you. I think that is becoming one step too far for many men. And it's very sad to witness that. And I'm hoping that we get to a point where guys realize that prioritizing their work and their

• 42:17Speaker 01

  family is very important, but deprioritizing their friendships is having dire ramifications on their health. And I always say that calling a mate is life giving and it is life saving in so many ways. And that's what Movember's underlying DNA is about. It's about belonging and community. And I think we're throwing around these terms so much now that we're losing sight of the practical orientation of doing the thing, getting out there. And something a dictum that I live by is this idea of text weekly, call monthly, see quarterly. If you don't have that as your like the lowest bar of hanging out with friends, that is a problem. That is where this stuff is happening.

• 43:02Speaker 01

  And it's not only this idea of older men. Many older men are actually, they're the ones sitting in the cafe for three hours, reading newspaper, talking with their friends, playing dominoes, whatever it might be. The younger men are the ones who are actually surprisingly struggling the most here. And that's why I'm really concerned about the next couple of years.

• 43:21John R. Miles?

  I am so glad you're talking about this because I've been researching this nonstop for eight years. And after 400 plus interviews and talking to everyone from neuroscientists to psychologists like yourself to spiritual leaders, I finally figured it out. And that's what my book is about. It lays a roadmap for how do you fix this? And like anything in life, though, it's not something that you just.

• 43:55John R. Miles?

  Hand someone and it's going to happen. It's going to take a ton of intentional effort and a major paradigm shift to change the very systems, because that's what this is going to take, is systematic change to get this to be one-on-one change. Because it's rampant. It's not just social media. It's permeating through every aspect of our lives today, starting from the time when we're kids, when we first learn, as so many of the Gen Alpha are learning, but as the Gen Z grew up. And I think that's why they are especially plagued at such a young age with this mental health struggle that they're going through. And I've got a son who's 27, who's right in the middle of it.

• 44:40John R. Miles?

  So one of the things, as a solution, I wanted to talk about is Movember's Making Connections Initiative is one of my favorite parts of the report. And it goes into barber shops and basketball leagues and biking, all becoming entry points for mental health support. What have you learned from these grassroots efforts?

• 45:03Speaker 01

  The fundamental underlying mantra for us is go to where men are. Don't go to where you wish they were. And so I think that is, when it comes to programming and intervening and connecting with men, it is so important that you firstly make small steps. You don't show up somewhere and blow up the entire system that they exist in and say, no, we're going to do it this way. You sit alongside them, shoulder to shoulder. You understand how they are engaging with one another, and you find a way of creating incremental change. And so our Making Connections program is a perfect example of that, where we went into totally different communities across the US.

• 45:47Speaker 01

  The bike shop is in Hawaii. It's incredible. It's for indigenous young guys who are coming in, they're fixing their bikes. And by way of that, they happen to have mentors who are around who can talk them through this program of

• 46:04Speaker 01

  Becoming man and culture and community and what mental health and vulnerability look like. And then in Chicago, we've got this incredible sport community hall where these guys are coming to play basketball. They're coming to hang out with one another and it's using these opportunities, these micro moments that you have to start to show that there is more, that we can turn this stuff up in many ways by building in the right mentors and the right leaders in many places and actually placing it in the community itself. That's what we really want to be doing more of at Movember. That's really foundational to our organization because we are a grassroots community org. We've got guys across the globe, they're growing moustaches.

• 46:48Speaker 01

  We want to make sure that we come back to where they are. We want to come back with something in their local community that is actually going to build that muscle, as you're talking about in many ways, John, that muscle of connection. And what's really important is we sit in the trenches with them and we try to go, all right, we know you want this. We know you want to hang out more with your friends. You want to have deeper conversations with them. What is getting in the way? What is getting in the way? And we need to find ways to, with other organizations, start to knock down those walls. Because that is the issue that we're facing at the moment is that the barriers are so high.

• 47:30Speaker 01

  The fear is so great that if we create more hurdles for them to do this work, we're never actually going to achieve what we're seeking to. So that's our ongoing mantra in many ways, which is going into communities, connecting in ways that make sense with these guys, doing it through this health by stealth Trojan horse situation. We're not going to hit them over the head with it. We're going to be light, we're going to have humour. It doesn't need to be this dark mental health conversation in the corner. You can do it in whatever way makes sense. And especially if you're coming into marginalized minority populations, you need to do it in a way that makes sense, that is co-created with them and for them,

• 48:11Speaker 01

  rather than this idea of, let me take this thing that I did in Australia and we're just going to drop this in here and hope that it works.

• 48:19John R. Miles?

  Zach, for the man listening right now who feels isolated, stuck or ashamed, and they need help, they don't know how to ask for it. What's the first step you'd tell them to take?

• 48:33Speaker 01

  Leaning into action is always a very difficult thing to do, but is never as scary as it seems. And the thing that builds up over time when we don't act is the fear metastasizes. It becomes something divorced from reality most of the time. This is where anxiety and rumination breed in the silent moments where you're on your own and you're saying, oh, I shouldn't text my friend because he probably doesn't want to hear from me. And then you move from he probably doesn't want to hear from me to he's really busy and then he doesn't care about me and then he never really liked me in the first place. And you can just go and go and it becomes a really dangerous cycle.

• 49:16Speaker 01

  What we're hoping for is that we can promote that understanding that the other guy on the other end of the phone wants this just as much as you do. He is waiting for your call and there is no right or wrong way of doing this. There is just leaning into that action and going, this is actually in line with my values for trying to connect with others. And the most important thing is that we need to get better at dealing with rejection. Because often we go, he says, sorry, man, I'm busy, I can't do this week. And you go, okay, I'm never going to try again. Like that cannot be the way. We need to be relentless. And I often talk about it with dating, like men don't just give up when a girl says no,

• 50:01Speaker 01

  they don't say, oh, well, I can never date anyone again. But seemingly, when it comes to male friendship especially, that rejection is too much and they deprioritize it. They say, I don't need this anymore. And that's really not in line with their values. That's not authentic. I want men to be seeking this authentic self. And so that means understanding what matters to you, what you really want in life and trying to go about seeking that. And, you know, the fact that friendship should be top of the list, I really believe that to be the case. This should not be about being an entrepreneur. It should not be about the cold showers and the creatine and all of this biohacking stuff that's very isolating.

• 50:42Speaker 01

  You watch these videos of many of these men who are offering workout regimes and they're on their own in the gym. There's no one around them. They're these isolated monks in many ways. We want to build up more of this fun, this connection, this, this beauty of community. And so this podcast, no doubt, will be released around the month of November, John. You can see right now that I'm bearded. I will not be for very long. I will look like Borat very soon. And having that ability during the month of November to call your friends and say, let's go and have a barbecue. Let's go to the bar and connect. Let's go to a football match and talk about what's happening in our

• 51:27Speaker 01

  lives. Someone just has to be the ignition to get this stuff going. And that is, that's what the type of manhood that we're seeking. It's leaning into the discomfort. Yeah, it's not just about punishing oneself. That also means putting yourself out there and realizing that you need others to survive. That is what being human is all about. And that's how we're going to flourish, is connecting with others. And that's what our movement is all about. So we want more of that.

• 51:57John R. Miles?

  So Zach, my last question for you is, if you could write the story of masculinity for that next generation I mentioned earlier, Generation Alpha, what would its central theme be?

• 52:08Speaker 01

  Well, John, I'm about three months away from having a son of my own. So I'm thinking deeply about this at the moment and the world I want to bring him into and the type of masculinity that I want to espouse to him. And I think it is around that openness and curiosity. I, I want the defensiveness, the fear, the shame to really be tackled. I think that is what is getting in the way of so many men, you know, achieving their potential and instead moving towards an idea of aspiration. I hope that we can start selling what is possible, what men should be striving towards, not what not to be. There's a lot of discussion around what

• 52:49Speaker 01

  not to be, and that is not a very motivating conversation. Instead, we should be saying, here is, and it's not in competition with others. It's your internal journey of self-development that requires. An understanding of what you're striving towards, what matters to you, what are your values? None of these are discussions that your everyday man is having. And I really hope that this doesn't just exist in the podcasting world. It happens on the ground, in the workplace, on the football pitch. There should be conversations around how to be your authentic self. And that's, you know, a humanity situation. This is not merely a masculinity one. It's something that we should be really grappling with. And it doesn't

• 53:33Speaker 01

  need to be painful. It can be iterative. It can be messy. And that journey is the thing that we should be sharing with one another.

• 53:41John R. Miles?

  Love it. Zach, it was such an honor to have you today. If people want to find out more about the movement, where's the best place for them to go?

• 53:48Speaker 01

  Head to Movember.com. And we're looking forward to all of those moustaches and all of the women as well, who are so incredibly supportive of our movement coming in November this year.

• 53:59John R. Miles?

  Awesome. Thank you again so much for joining us on Passion Struck.

• 54:03Speaker 01

  Thanks, John.

• 54:04John R. Miles?

  That's a wrap on today's conversation with Dr. Zach Seidler. This episode reminds us that mattering isn't something we earn, it's something we rediscover through connection. Here are three takeaways I hope you carry forward. First, true strength is flexibility, not perfection. Second, vulnerability is how we reclaim belonging. And third, connection is medicine. One call or conversation can change or even save a life. If today's episode moved you, pay the fee, share it with someone who needs to hear it. Leave a five star rating or review on Apple Podcasts or Spotify. It's how we grow this movement for intentional living. And subscribe to the Passion Struck YouTube channel, where you can watch full episodes, shorts, and behind the scenes clips that bring these conversations to life.

• 54:49John R. Miles?

  And if you're seeking more tools to live with purpose and intention, join our rapidly growing community at theignitedlife.net, my Substack, where each week I share workbooks, frameworks, reflections, and stories that help you stay grounded and connected in a world that never stops accelerating. Finally, don't forget to preorder You Matter Luma, my first children's book and the first story in the mattering verse. It's a story for every child and every adult who needs a reminder that they make a difference. That they're irreplaceable. Coming up next on Passion Struck, we continue our series, The Irreplaceables, with Dr. Zelena Momini, who reveals the science of emotional fitness. We explore why happiness isn't the goal, but wholeness is.

• 55:32John R. Miles?

  How attention has become the most valuable human currency, and how to reclaim it from a world constantly pulling us away from what truly matters.

• 55:39Speaker 02

  We're always going to have things that are thrown at us. So that's inevitable, having the noise of life consume us. So the real work is in the micro habits, the day-to-day functions that we employ, the boundaries that we cultivate around our days and our time in order to choose how to respond to things versus just be super, super reactive. So most of the time, people have content and information coming at them. It all feels very urgent. Our brain is in fight or flight. Someone else's emergency is also ours, and it becomes very sort of nebulous and contagious, right?

• 56:16John R. Miles?

  Until next time, lead with empathy, act with intention, and as always, live life passion struck.