Yesterday was International Men’s Day and the laughter still echoes within the walls of The Stallion Plaza. From the VR headsets that had grown men giggling like teenagers, to the karaoke session where even our most reserved colleagues found their voices. It was not just International Men’s Day, it was a day when the walls came down, quite literally, as the men of #TeamUnion gathered for a fireside chat that felt more like a long-overdue conversation among friends.
Amid the celebrations, something profound emerged. While social media buzzed with well-meaning posts about men’s issues, our own discussion revealed a truth that rarely makes the headlines: the real burden men carry is not about feeling too much or too little. It is about operating under an invisible script that was written long before any of us arrived on the scene.
You know the script. It is the quiet voice that whispers: Provide. Solve. Absorb. Stay silent. It is the unspoken expectation that a man should navigate financial pressures alone, shoulder workplace stress without complaint, and present a façade of having it all together, even when everything feels like it’s unravelling behind closed doors.
What we realised yesterday was that this script does not build strength, it builds blind spots. When you are carrying undiscussed financial strain, your decisions become clouded. When workplace stress simmers beneath the surface, it colours every interaction and judgment. When emotional weight goes unprocessed, clarity becomes impossible. And when you’re expected to have all the answers, you stop asking the questions that could actually set you free.
The conversations about mental health and vulnerability matter deeply, but they often miss the structural reality. The pressure isn’t just emotional; it’s woven into the very fabric of how we’re taught to move through the world.
The most successful men in their careers, their finances, their relationships, aren’t those who carry the heaviest loads in silence. They are those who have learned to lay their cards on the table. Who discuss strategy over coffee with trusted mentors. Who process big decisions with people who truly know them. Who have created spaces where “I’m not sure” is not a weakness, but the beginning of wisdom.
There’s liberation in naming this. When you speak the pressures aloud: the financial anxieties, the competing demands, the fear of not measuring up, they lose their power to sabotage your decisions from the shadows. You shift from reacting to strategising. From managing survival to leading with purpose. From carrying weight to solving problems.
Because here’s the truth we embraced yesterday, ‘being a man doesn’t grant you special privileges or automatic strength. It simply places you within a set of cultural expectations, many of which exact a heavy toll that no one should pay alone’.
At Union Bank, we understand that financial wellbeing isn’t just about numbers on a spreadsheet but the weight you carry when you walk into our offices. It’s about the stress that follows you home from work; it’s about the clarity, or lack thereof, that shapes every decision you make about your future.
That’s why when you sit down with one of our relationship managers, you’re not just meeting a financial advisor. You’re meeting someone who sees the whole picture. Bring your questions about investments and savings, yes, but also bring the pressure you’re under, the decisions keeping you awake at night, and the dreams you’re working towards but haven’t told anyone about. We’ll help you see it all clearly and work through the strategy together. We’ll help you move from reacting to life’s demands to making deliberate choices that truly serve you.
So, amid the International Men’s Day celebrations, yesterday reminded us that the strongest men aren’t those who stand alone under the weight of expectation; they are the ones who know when to reach out, when to be real, and when to rewrite the script entirely.
