Your Tribe Is Out There

You just haven’t found them yet.

In prison, you don’t get to choose your people.

You work with what’s in front of you. A yard. A block. A limited pool of human beings thrown together by circumstance, not compatibility.

You find the ones you can trust. Or at least the ones who won’t make things harder.

It isn’t necessarily your tribe.

Not really.

It’s survival arithmetic

And for a long time, I thought that was just how it worked. That the idea of finding your people… genuinely your people, the ones who see the world the way you do, who are building toward something, who light up when you talk about ideas instead of just nodding politely… was a luxury for people in different circumstances.

Not in here.

I was wrong.

I have found many tribe members in here and out there. I found my partner who I adore in here while she was out there. The world really works in mysterious ways but I’m certainly not questioning this one. It was meant to be. She’s the Queen of my Tribe.

This week I had a meeting this week with Leilani Whitney.

She runs Dial A Mate Mental Health Australia… a mental health initiative in Australia built around one of the simplest and most overlooked ideas in the space. That sometimes what a person needs isn’t a clinical intervention. It’s a conversation. A real one. With a real human being who gives a damn.

Leilani had posted a video of herself doing a full, unself-conscious, don’t-care-who’s-watching dance. No explanation. No apology. Just joy, broadcast publicly. It made me laugh as I’m sure it did to many others. She posted it on LinkedIn, which is not normally the medium that you’d see something like that. So, I applauded her for her individuality and for bringing joy to anybody who watched.

Next minute Katie Shields is replicating it and challenging me to do the same.

Next minute I’m dancing around the gym of a detention centre like an absolute idiot.

Not a care in the world.

And it was brilliant.

People laughed. People joined in. People seemed to genuinely enjoy it.

More importantly, so did I.

These people are my tribe.

For your viewing pleasure, I have left all three “dance offs” below:

Here’s what I’ve discovered in recent times that has genuinely changed something in me.

There is an entire world of people out there doing extraordinary things quietly. People in the lived experience space… mental health, addiction recovery, criminal justice, disability, domestic violence, grief, trauma… who have been through the fire themselves and come out the other side with something to offer.

Not because it’s a career move.

Not because it’s fashionable.

Because they simply cannot imagine doing anything else.

People who understand, without needing it explained, that the system doesn’t get it right and want to do something about it. People who speak the same language. Who have the same arguments with the same walls. Who celebrate the small wins with the same disproportionate enthusiasm because they know what it cost to get there.

I had no idea how many of these people existed until I had a look around… and I’m still mind blown by it all.

The moment I did… the moment I started putting this work out publicly and specifically and honestly… they started appearing. From across the sector. Across the country. Across the world.

Not in the room I was physically in. Or a detention centre for that matter.

But real. Present. Consistent.

Some people I care about very deeply don’t have much interest in the things I’m building.

They love me. They support me. But they don’t light up when I talk about lived experience, systems reform, mental health or prison advocacy.

Sometimes I find myself wishing they did.

But we’re all wired differently.

That’s why finding your tribe matters.

Not because the people you love aren’t enough.

Because no single person can be everything.

My tribe. I feel in recent weeks. a lot have come to the surface… and for a man who has been in custody 5 out of the last 6 years… that’s incredibly endearing.

Now I want to name something that lives quietly in a lot of men. I done a webinar at 3 in the morning to the LEAD Community Foundation in Nigeria on Monday and the topic was Men’s mental health, so I feel this is relevant. For anybody who wants to watch/ listen to the webinar, you can find it below:

There is a false belief so embedded in us that most have never said it out loud.

Nobody listens to men.

Nobody supports men.

If I speak up nothing will change. If I show vulnerability, it will be used against me. If I ask for help, I’ll be met with indifference at best and contempt at worst.

I heard this recently from a man processing something serious. Real harm. Real silence. Real institutional failure. And his conclusion… not said in anger, said in resignation… was that men simply don’t get the support. That the world has decided certain voices don’t count.

I understand where that comes from.

I’ve lived in systems that reinforced this rhetoric daily.

But I want to take it apart. Not with a speech. With what actually happened.

When I started sharing this work… from inside custody, on a hotspot, with no budget and no institutional backing… people showed up. People cared. People were encouraged.

Not just people who’d been through the system. Not just men. Not just Australians. People from across the lived experience spectrum… women, practitioners, advocates, survivors of things I’ll never face… getting behind the work because the work was right.

Sharing it. Amplifying it. Turning up to sessions. Sending messages at odd hours that said simply… this matters, keep going.

I am a man. Speaking about things men are told to stay quiet about. And the response has been one of the most humbling experiences of my life.

The belief that nobody is coming for men is understandable.

But it is not accurate.

What is accurate is that the tribe doesn’t always look the way you expect. It doesn’t always come from where you thought it would. It doesn’t announce itself. It doesn’t wait at the obvious door.

It finds you when you make yourself findable.

Tribe is not about proximity.

That’s the thing nobody tells you when you’re surrounded by the wrong people and starting to conclude that the right ones don’t exist.

Proximity is circumstance. Tribe is alignment. Values. Direction. The shared belief that things can be better and the shared willingness to actually do something about it.

You don’t find your tribe by waiting for the room to change.

You find them by showing up. By doing the work publicly enough that the right people can see it. By being honest about where you’ve been and specific about where you’re going. By making yourself visible on the frequency that matters.

The lived experience world is full of people who will not flinch at your story. Who will not require you to minimise or perform or pretend you’re further along than you are. Who will simply say… I see you. I’ve been somewhere like that. Keep going.

That is what is out there.

That is what is available to every single person reading this.

So wherever you are right now.

Whatever walls you’re navigating… literal or otherwise.

If you have started to believe that your people don’t exist, that nobody is listening, that speaking up changes nothing…

I need you to picture something.

A man in a detention centre.

Dancing around a gym like nobody’s watching.

Because for the first time in a long time, he forgot to be guarded. He forgot to be strategic. He forgot the walls entirely. He remembered who he was and that he simply doesn’t care what naysayers think.

Because his tribe found him.

And reminded him… loudly, joyfully, completely without warning… that life is still happening. That connection is still possible. That hope is not something you manufacture alone in the dark.

It shows up in a dance challenge from someone who gives a damn.

It shows up in a meeting with a person building something beautiful from scratch.

It shows up in a message at an odd hour that says simply, keep going.

Your tribe may not be in the room you’re currently in.

But it exists.

Right now.

Doing the work.

Waiting for one more frequency to tune in.

Start broadcasting.

They’ll find you.

Stay Unshackled, My Friends.

Stephen