10 Tips for Building Your Village and Eradicating Loneliness
10 Ways to Build Your Village and Eradicate Loneliness
If you haven’t read last week’s post on the foundations of connection, start there—it’s the foundation for what I’ll dive into today. In that post, I outlined a few mindset shifts for cultivating meaningful relationships.
I’m taking it a step further with practical, actionable steps to help you build and sustain deep, lasting connections.
These are tools and frameworks that have helped me move from a state of intense isolation and loneliness in my mid-30s, to a rich network of nourishing connection now in my early 50s.
Here are 10 ways to foster the relationships that will become your support system for years to come - your village.
1. Set the Intention for Connection
Everything starts with intention. If meaningful relationships matter to you, make them a priority. Take a moment to reflect on why connection is vital in your life.
Write down what you want in your relationships - more depth, consistency, or a stronger sense of belonging? Setting an intention helps you act purposefully instead of waiting for relationships to happen by chance.
For me, my intentions are to:
Continually nurture and deepen the connections I have in my life
Build connections and surround myself with growth-minded, philosophical people (especially men), who ask the big questions of life and who are successful in many areas of life
Create spaces for people to connect with each other on a deep level
2. Carve Out Time for Connection
We schedule workouts, work meetings, and meal prep—but do we schedule time for relationships? If you want to build deeper connections, make space for them in your calendar.
Set reminders to check in on friends, schedule meetups, and follow up on invitations. Think of it as meal-prepping for your social life: a little effort in advance leads to meaningful nourishment down the road.
I set aside an hour each week for connection planning. During that hour, I’ll send a few check-in messages, revisit my database to see who I want to connect with and who I haven’t connected with in a while, plan some get-togethers, and map out my life for more connection.
3. Reach Out and Let People Know You Care
Small, consistent gestures go a long way. A simple text to say, “I’m thinking about you,” or a quick call to check in can brighten someone’s day. Sometimes a well-timed message can completely change someone’s day, or even someone’s life. This is very low-hanging fruit.
If remembering to reach out is a challenge, set a weekly or daily reminder to connect with a few people in your circle (I have a daily reminder on my phone that pops up at 10 am reminding me to reach out to someone I care about).
Relationships thrive on small moments of care and attention.
4. Find Commonalities
Shared interests create natural opportunities for connection. List your passions, interests, and biggest goals - whether it’s hiking, cooking, or social activism - and look for people, groups, events, or online communities centred around them. Use AI tools like ChatGPT to help you discover them*
By doing what you love, you’ll naturally find like-minded people who share your values and interests.
*p.s. I developed a custom ‘Wayfinding’ GPT to act as your coach to help you live with more authenticity and connection. Give it a try!
5. Join Existing Communities
If making new connections feels daunting, start by joining established groups. Book clubs, fitness classes, community organizations, and volunteering groups are built-in opportunities to meet people. Being part of a group with a shared purpose provides an easy on-ramp to building friendships.
Again, AI can be super helpful in helping you identify some communities that would provide value to you.
I suggest joining a maximum of two or three communities, and investing as much of your time and energy as you can into them. Going deep rather than wide will yield better results over spreading yourself too thinly across many communities.
I’ve invested my time and energy into just three communities over the past few years; these investments have reaped innumerable benefits and made my life richer in countless ways.
Some of my closest friends in the world are people I’ve met through these three communities:
Front Row Dads (a community of growth-minded men)
MMT/Mastermind Talks (incredible community of badass entrepreneurs)
Wayfinders (my own community of adventurous, growth-minded entrepreneurs)
6. Create Opportunities for Connection
Sometimes, all it takes is one person to initiate. Be the one who organizes a casual get-together, a game night, or a coffee meetup. You don’t need to wait for an invitation—extend one.
Everyone is hungry for connection these days, so taking the initiative to unite people is often met with enthusiasm, and often results in deep and lasting bonds.
7. Build Your Own Community
If you don’t see the type of community you crave, create it.
Start with something simple—perhaps a monthly dinner with a few friends or a discussion group around a shared interest. Many of the strongest communities start small and grow organically as people recognize the value of belonging to them.
A community can start with as few as 2 or 3 people: Just invite a friend or two, aligned around a shared purpose, and then ask if they know anyone suitable. All it takes is a handful of people who keep inviting their friends, and an idea can snowball into a movement.
8. Schedule Recurring Meetups
Consistency strengthens relationships. Rather than always making one-off plans, establish recurring meetups: a monthly potluck, a weekly workout, or a quarterly retreat. When social interactions become part of your routine, they require less effort to maintain and deepen naturally over time.
I have several groups of people with whom I have recurring meetups, from weekly coffee to monthly accountability/support groups, the beauty is in a) not having to keep going back and forth to schedule something and b) seeing the same people over and over, thus continually deepening bonds.
9. Practice Authenticity and Vulnerability
The depth of our relationships is directly tied to how authentic and open we are willing to be. Meaningful connection isn’t built on surface-level interactions—it thrives on honesty, shared struggles, and genuine conversations. When you share your real self, you invite others to do the same, creating trust and closeness.
Storytelling questions and prompts are my favourite way to invite authenticity and vulnerability. Here are 5 of my favourites:
Tell me about a moment or period in your life that defined who you are today.
What's your underappreciated/under-recognized gift?
Share a moment in your life when you made a decision that changed your path in ways you didn’t anticipate.
Share a story about a painful experience that, with time, became a source of wisdom, strength, or growth in your life.
Tell a story about a time when you followed a spark of curiosity that led you somewhere unexpected.
10. Expand Your Comfort Zone
Some of the most incredible relationships come from unexpected places. Be open to reaching out to people you admire, attending events alone, or even starting conversations with strangers. Growth and connection happen when you step beyond what feels comfortable.
Building Your Village Takes Time, But It’s Worth It
Loneliness isn’t solved overnight. Like anything meaningful, building your village takes time, patience, and consistency. But the rewards—a support system that truly sees you, deep connections that uplift you, and a sense of belonging—are more than worth the effort.
Keep at it, this is the most worthwhile work in the world.
Which of these tips will you implement first? I’d love to hear your thoughts in the comments. And remember, if you’re looking for deeper insights on connection and authenticity, check out my ‘Wayfinding’ custom GPT for more guided exploration on this journey.
Let’s build our villages—together.
Four More To Explore
Join me on Instagram, where I post short videos and daily posts about living more authentically and with more connection.
Check out my upcoming Adventures and Retreats with Wayfinders, where I take bold entrepreneurs to some of the wildest places on Earth, or consider our community membership if smaller events and workshops are more feasible.
Subscribe to my public events calendar on lu.ma, where I host online and in-person events to help people live with more soul and more connection.
Subscribe to my channel on Youtube, where I’ll be posting long-form video content about connection and authenticity.