Aug 2, 2026 · 52 min · 15 segments
Why are some people able to overcome adversity while others struggle to bounce back?Hugh van Cuylenburg is the founder of The Resilience Project, bestselling author, and one of Australia’s leading…
Hugh, we are living through, uh, a loneliness epidemic.
You've spent 15 years teaching people gratitude, empathy, and connection.
Why does it feel like we're becoming more disconnected right now?
We [laughs] had this example in our own house last night, where the kids had had a really, really bad day at school.
Then they went to basketball training, and they were just exhausted, and we said, "Yeah, you can have screen time for half an hour before dinner." And I was just reflecting on screen time for us back in, would've been when we were around the same age as my kids are now, it was late '80s, and it was, like, cramming onto the couch together, like me and my brother and my sister, and we would've been watching a sh- Inspector Gadget or, um, I dunno, whatever cartoon was on at the time.
Mm.
It was like the only kids' show that was on, so we'd all sit together on the couch and watch it.
And then my son wanted to... my oldest son wanted to watch, um, Star Wars, so he watched that on his iPad.
but, uh, she didn't wanna watch either of those two shows, so she was on her iPad watching that in three separate rooms.
And I'm just sitting there going, "My gosh, what has happened? This is...
we're so, we're so disconnected here." Like, this experience is so different, and that's an example from a household with three kids.
There are countless examples that I, I come across every single day where I just think, "20 years ago, this scenario here looked so different." I was picking my kids up from school the other day.
There's a no phones policy whilst you're in the school, and so I understand why the kids, as soon as they leave school, they're all checking their phones.
Um, but I just saw five boys who, um, kinda reminded me a little bit of, like, what me and my mates kind of looked like physically when we were back sort of in the late '90s.
Um, but all five of them are sitting there on their phones and not talking to each other at all.
I think one of the big problems that's causing disconnection these days is that we're never really bored anymore.
Hugh, we are living through, uh, a loneliness epidemic.
You've spent 15 years teaching people gratitude, empathy, and connection.
Why does it feel like we're becoming more disconnected right now?
We [laughs] had this example in our own house last night, where the kids had had a really, really bad day at school.
Then they went to basketball training, and they were just exhausted, and we said, "Yeah, you can have screen time for half an hour before dinner." And I was just reflecting on screen time for us back in, would've been when we were around the same age as my kids are now, it was late '80s, and it was, like, cramming onto the couch together, like me and my brother and my sister, and we would've been watching a sh- Inspector Gadget or, um, I dunno, whatever cartoon was on at the time.
Mm.
It was like the only kids' show that was on, so we'd all sit together on the couch and watch it.
And then my son wanted to... my oldest son wanted to watch, um, Star Wars, so he watched that on his iPad.
but, uh, she didn't wanna watch either of those two shows, so she was on her iPad watching that in three separate rooms.
And I'm just sitting there going, "My gosh, what has happened? This is...
we're so, we're so disconnected here." Like, this experience is so different, and that's an example from a household with three kids.
There are countless examples that I, I come across every single day where I just think, "20 years ago, this scenario here looked so different." I was picking my kids up from school the other day.
There's a no phones policy whilst you're in the school, and so I understand why the kids, as soon as they leave school, they're all checking their phones.
Um, but I just saw five boys who, um, kinda reminded me a little bit of, like, what me and my mates kind of looked like physically when we were back sort of in the late '90s.
Um, but all five of them are sitting there on their phones and not talking to each other at all.
I think one of the big problems that's causing disconnection these days is that we're never really bored anymore.
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