How I Built a Life I Actually Want to Live #681

How do you go from broke, directionless, and feeling worthless at 23 — to running a multiple 6-figure coaching business that has reached over a million men?

In this episode, Lachie Stuart shares his full origin story — unfiltered.

From the $25 personal development event he almost said no to, to the bricklayer on stage who changed his life, to 6 men in a Brisbane café, 58 marathons in 58 days, and the book, documentary, and keynote stages that are coming next — this is the journey in full.

This episode covers:

• The mindset that had Lachie believing he was unworthy of success at 23
• The $25 event that changed the entire direction of his life
• How he built an audience on Instagram with no plan and no strategy
• The men's circle that started with 6 people and reached thousands
• His NLP master's, the Foundations Workshop, and Strong Men of Value Academy
• 58 marathons in 58 days — and the personal breakthrough that followed
• The Life Performance System — making coaching measurable and trackable
• What's coming next: book, documentary, keynote circuit, and a 2027 challenge

Free Experience Bank PDF: https://www.lachlanstuart.com.au/experiencebank

Work with Lachie (waitlist): https://www.lachlanstuart.com.au/coaching

Book Lachie for Speaking: https://www.lachlanstuart.com.au/speaking

Transcript

Why Men Feel At A Crossroads

Lachlan Stuart 0:00

For the last decade, I have been working for myself running a men's health program called the Man That Can Project, where we run workshops and coaching to help prove to men like you that you're capable of so much more than you believe. I was asked a question the other day. How the hell did you get to where you are? And look, pretty valid question. I thought the best time for me to answer this is after a workout because I'm pumped up, I am fired up. So I've been going back and forth with this bloke for a few weeks. He's been asking questions, wanting to do some coaching, but hasn't really aligned with where we're at. And so instead we have just decided to answer, I'll answer a few questions for him. Anyway, the question for him was he's at a crossroad in his life and he feels like he's here for more, but he doesn't know what that next step is. He's sort of my age, you know, 35 to 45, and in a good career, but you know, has that feeling, and I'm sure you may have experienced that before. And I'd put out an episode the one before this, where there's two things that hold people back from building a life that they want. And the first point could be they're spending so much time, or you may be spending so much time consuming or absorbing how other people are living their lives that you don't feel like yours is enough, and that's a common thing. The second thing is that you know deep down that you aren't giving life a red hot crack. You're coasting, you're cruising, and there's parts of you where you start going, I wonder if I could achieve more, I wonder if I could earn more, I wonder if I could experience more, but you just allow the fear to hold you back. And so they're two of the main things, and it's two different roadmaps. So you can go back and watch that last episode, the two things that hold people back from living the life that they want. But when this gentleman asked that, then I started reflecting like, how did I get to where I am? Because the life that I'm living right now, truth be told, is the life that I decided I wanted to live roughly about a decade ago, about 12 years ago now. It first started when I was in a rut. And look, when you're at 23, which I was at the time, I call a rut just a lack of experiences, right? I used to make it so dramatic in that my life is falling apart. And it felt like it was. But if I were to give my younger self some advice, it's like, dude, just get out and have more experiences. You're so young, there's so much you're yet to learn and experience. Just have a crack and try new things. Learn from the feedback from those. Upon going through that process, I was working out, hey, you know, I wanted to be successful. My whole life I've been told that to be a man of value, you need to be financially successful. And in order to do that, you either had to be a professional athlete, a movie star, rock star, or a doctor, lawyer, or, you know, can go to university. And I wasn't going to achieve any of those. So then I started having these thoughts like, I'm not worthy, I'm not good enough, I'm never going to be able to support myself or be successful. Wasn't a fun time to be me. And I'm sure you maybe have had periods like that in your own life. I know I'm not alone. The data definitely points to that. But I got to a point where a bloke reached out to me. He said, Hey, Lockie, I've got a couple of tickets at this personal development event and a few weeks. I'd love you to come along and you seem a little bit down and a little bit lost. And I thought about it and I was like, Yeah, tell me a bit more. He's like, I don't really know too much, but it's meant to be really empowering and it costs you 25 bucks. So instantly I'm thinking, man, that's the either like a cart and a beer for me on the weekend, you know, back when a cart and a beer was affordable. Or I go to this event and I was at a point where I felt so stuck. I just knew deep down, I had this feeling in my tummy that I had to do something different if I wanted to experience something different. I said yes to the event, went to the event, I took my mum, she was my safety blanket, and I went with Tommy, who invited me. And as we walked into this event, we opened the doors, it was at the convention center. And if for anyone who's been to a Tony Robbins style event, that's what this was like. There was loud music, people jumping on chairs, high-fiving, and it just blew my mind. Like I was so overwhelmed because I had no idea what the fuck was going on. Like these guys had drunk the Kool-Aid, as far as I was concerned. I remember walking down the aisle to find a seat, and I'm just thinking to myself, if anyone touches me or tries to hug me, they're gonna get a punch in the ribs. Like I didn't want to be a part of it. I sat down, mum on the right of me, Tom on the left of me, and we started listening to speakers come on stage, and there was one specific guy who changed my life. He was a bricklayer and he was telling the story around how he didn't want to live, he didn't feel like he had a reason to get out of bed, and he was questioning like if I have to live this life on repeat for the rest of my life, I don't want to do it. I'm sitting there at the time I was working as a builder, and I just was like, this guy's telling my story. Everything he's saying, I can relate to. And he continued to talk, and he shared how a friend, his actual sister had reached out to him, my mate, so there's another parallel, and he just trusted them and tried something different, started reading books, attending more events like this, and started his own business. And I just felt so inspired, like for the first time in a long time, I felt this fire inside of me that I could create anything, you know, this this feeling, and I didn't know what it was that I was gonna create, but I just felt a new lease on life, and I remember turning to my mum, and I said to mom, I said, I'm gonna do that one day. I don't necessarily know what the hell he's doing, but it's making me feel good, and I want to spread the love because I you know prior to that, I didn't like my life. Fast forward, I got out of that room, I started reading as many books as I possibly could. I started posting motivational stuff on Instagram, and fortunately, my girlfriend was a great writer. I was terrible, so she would take my post and be like, hey, maybe if you'd explain this a little bit more or spell correct there. And eventually I learned to get better at storytelling, still something I would love to improve. Then social media led to videos, I started doing videos, and my audience was growing. People were following my content, and I was getting messages from men and women saying that story you shared about your insecurities while living in France, I really resonate with, and it's you know, got me into some trouble as well. And then I would get messages from women who would say, Hey, my partner needs to listen to this. How can I help them? And I would go back and forth with messages time and time again. I just kept documenting the journey, and it got to a point where I was at a crossroads. I was wanting to finish up building because I wanted to move down to Brisbane to be with my partner, Amy. Uh so I started Uber driving, and Uber was great because it helped me learn to communicate and build rapport really quickly. But I knew it wasn't sustainable because I had no money. And I remember I just wanted to get to a point where I had$1,000 in savings. I believed that would save my, or would change my life. I'd feel free. And along the way, I was meeting some pretty cool people in Uber, some who are still my great friends to this day. And I got one day, you know, I went on a holiday with my wife, and we're in Europe. I got a message from someone, and they asked me a question, and I just remember being asked that question so many times before, and I thought to myself, I've got to do something about this. Imagine if I could find a way to get paid to do what I'm already doing, that would just be so rewarding. Like I would have my own business, I could potentially control my income, and I'm doing it anyway, so it just made sense. I put a video up on social media and I said to the Brisbane crew, I said, Hey, when I get back from Europe, I'm gonna run a men's circle because what I lacked in my life, and what I believed a lot of these men who were reaching out to me were lacking was community and access to men who they could ask questions to, mentorship almost. And so that's what I did. I put that up. I reached out to a cafe in Brisbane, and six men rocked up. I was blown away. I remember prepping for it. I was writing like my whole life story and I had a big plan. But as soon as I got in the room, I was like, fuck the story, let's just see what happens here. And it went like this I said, hey, this room is a space where we're not going to judge, we're not gonna give advice, we're just here to share. And if you want to share your own experiences that may be able to help someone here, please do so. But it stays in this room. And after a couple of months, we were having 30 men from all walks of life rocking up at these events, doctors, lawyers, bricklayers, students, personal trainers. And I was just blown away because they would come in feeling heavy, they would leave feeling light, but then they would come back the next month feeling heavy with the same problem. And so my problem-solving brain jumped on. I was like, well, it's awesome what that they're here talking, like it's so important for men to talk, but they're not changing anything. And the definition of stupidity is doing the same thing over and over again and expecting a different outcome. I wanted these men to change because I listened to them. I had heard how deeply they cared about their partners, their quality of life, how much they wanted to overcome their insecurities and feel confident and build a fulfilling life that I wanted to be able to give it to them, or at least give them tools and experiences and resources that could help men do that because I was on my own journey and I was proving all of that to myself. So I did believe, and I still do believe, it's possible for every man. After that, I walked away from an event and I was like, okay, I need to get my next set of skills. So I did my master's in neurolinguistic programming, which was learning about like limiting beliefs and deep trauma and how to how to move and motivate people. But over the years, you know, I've studied psychology and didn't finish it yet, but I still will. I have been learning all of these tools, and I've been fortunate to start working with some very successful athletes, some very successful business owners and thought leaders, and being around and going to workshops with some of the best of the best. And I'm always learning new tools, and I have understood that the bigger your toolkit, the better you'll be prepared for the challenges that life throws at you because it will throw things at you. And not every tool is appropriate for the right job. So we need to expand on that. From that, I decided, hey, well, what's the bare minimum that men need to learn from if they come into a men's circle and they want to improve? What could I give them that's going to at least empower them enough to know that they can start building their toolkit? Similar to when I went to that event, I created the foundations workshop and I ran my first foundations workshop in 2019, which was a two-day event, and it was awesome. I sold out three of them in a row before bloody COVID, and it was, you know, I was obviously funneling my way through. Don't get me wrong, I wasn't perfect with this, but their transformations were still amazing. Seeing men have personal breakthroughs, seeing men develop the ability to feel seen, seeing men set a vision and learn how to set a goal for the first time, seeing men confront shit that they'd been avoiding for their whole life was just so empowering. But one of the most beautiful things was seeing all these men who didn't know each other on the Friday afternoon support each other through it. That was powerful. And still one of my favorite workshops. And for whatever reason, I stopped running them and I'll bring them back at some point. But from there, you know, I was traveling more and I wanted to, you know, part of the building the business for myself was still like, okay, well, how do I serve and support these men? How do I allow myself to live a life that I love and keep it keep it flexible with what I want? And that's when I started the Strong Men of Value Academy, which was an online academy that I ran for six years. And it was phenomenal as well. Once again, it was more focused on helping men set goals so create their vision for where they would like to see themselves. And I think it's very important for us to think about that. Where would you like to be? Where are you now? What has to happen in the middle there? What skills do you need to develop? Who do you need to surround yourself with? What habits do you need to change? What fears do you need to overcome? That happened and it was incredible. We had men from all around the world, from Ireland, the UK, Australia, New Zealand, Scotland, where else have we got? America. Like it was awesome. And I couldn't believe I created that. And once again, men from all walks of life were getting on. They were able to support each other to achieve their goals. They were experts in things that I wasn't, so they were able to support men in ways that I couldn't. And that was really empowering to see. And then finally, you know, this whole time, I have still been pursuing what I want in my life in terms of, you know, I want to lead by example. I don't just want to run an event and be like, oh, I started this group, so that's all I do. Like I've been pushing myself to see what I'm capable of. I've been building new relationships. I've been living in different countries because I, you know, life to me, a great life is just collecting those experiences, seeing what I'm capable of, failing forward, laughing, crying, doing all of those things. And what, you know, after the 58 marathons last year, so I ran 58 marathons in 58 days. You can just Google it, Google 58 Marathons, Loughlin Stewart, and you can read about it. But if you want to, you don't have to, but save me talking about it here. After that, I decided it was time to close that down for a while. The reason being was I was going through a very big growth period. I feel like it was the most significant personal growth period I had had since 2014 when I went from not loving my life and having any purpose or direction to then running a business and empowering thousands and you know, tens of thousands. I've reached over a million people on the podcast, for Christ's sake, like a lot. To then now it's like my the people that I was working with, and you know, I was working with some pretty impressive people before, but now I'm working with like multiple eight and nine-figure business owners, professional athletes still, which I've been doing, but more and more, and every day I'm getting men reaching out to want to work with me, which is very humbling. But there's a limitation to that because if I were, you know, I want to continue walking my talk, it is about knowing my boundaries, right? Knowing that I don't want to work with more than I'm capable of working with because I don't want to sacrifice my own hobbies, my own dreams, my own aspirations in order to achieve that. Yes, I'm leaving money on the table, but to me, success isn't just defined by money. And this is a really big thing we talk about with anyone that I work with or the programs that we've run is like defining what success looks like for you and who you must become. And that's put me in a position now where I'm, you know, fully booked for one-on-one coaching again. My pricing has gone up to a point where I probably won't increase it anymore. I don't think, I don't know, but it's five figures to work with me now, which once again I'm humbled that people pay for it. I'm grateful to be in that opportunity. But it doesn't stop scratching the itch of I want to help more men because men are still dying by their own hands, men walking away from their families, men are feeling neglected or feeling like they're a burden, and I want to be a big part of the solution for that. And that's why, you know, I haven't ventured into business coaching or anything like that. The men that can still go in strong, because that is what I'm extremely passionate about. And this, you know, I'll wrap up in a second, but now where I'm at, the money that I'm earning has now afforded me to really dive into working out how to make things tangible. Because coaching, for what I have seen in the men's space, especially, hasn't been tangible. It's like, how do we make you feel good? And that's important, right? We all want to feel good. But I want to give you tools and I want to give you data that you can track that can prove to you that the modalities that you're working and the frameworks that you're working are having an honest improvement in your life. So you can turn around and go, hey, if I do this, it's gonna deliver this outcome. And that's why I developed the life performance system and my full capacity program, which is amazing. And the results we've been getting and the data I'm able to give to people is phenomenal. And I know it's only going to grow. And now that that's full, I'm working out how do I bring this to a scalable model where we bring back an online community with face-to-face workshops, still delivering these protocols. And, you know, part of me wants to launch it yesterday, but I also want to do it properly. I want to make sure it's highly valuable. I also want to make sure that it delivers transformation. I want to make sure that it delivers experiences and connections. And it would, you know, it's it's something that I want to be a part of. I think that's selfishly the most important thing. Whenever I'm designing or building something, I feel like I want to be a part of it. Then it's going to be good as well because, you know, it it comes from a genuine place. So that's how I've got to where I am. You know, I'm very fortunate. I've run my own business since 2016, 17. I've interviewed over 640 men on my podcast. I've, you know, been fortunate to travel the world, speak on stages. And sorry, that's another thing now. I forgot to talk about this. How could I forget to talk about this? The a big and an exciting part for me is the keynote speaking that I've been doing. I've got a book that will be out in the next sort of six weeks and a documentary. And the thing that I'm humbled about with that, it has given me an opportunity to speak on more stages and impact more people. And the book is phenomenal, if I do say my so myself. But that then will obviously open or cast the net even bigger, where we're reaching more men, we're impacting more men, and they're obviously then having access to the full capacity program and being part of the community. And that's what I'm excited by. And I know that I just got to keep delivering there, and I'm excited to meet the people that we meet along the way. And yeah, I'm grateful. I'm not stopping. I'm continuing to challenge and push and grow myself. I know I'm not perfect. I know there's things that I'm always working to improve on, and I'm committed to that. And I'm just enjoying the journey as well. I'm fucking loving it. It's anyone who's been part of the journey so far, giving me feedback, I'm very grateful. This is still just the beginning. I still feel like I'm so young in this journey, but yeah, that's where I'm at. I'm currently full capacity with coaching. I'm bringing back an online one with some workshops, and I'm gonna run that for a while. And you're gonna see me on stages all over Australia, and hopefully, I'll be breaking the keynote speaking circuit in America, and I do have another big fitness challenge for 2027, which I'm currently training for. So that's how I've got to where I am. I guess that's where I am. I I run a multiple six figure coaching business and I have impacted or reached millions of men on the podcast. I've worked with over 1200, getting close to 1,300 men, run workshops. Yeah, very grateful. Thank you for listening. If you have any questions on that, I hope that answered your question to the gentleman who asked it. That was fun to talk about. Peace.