The Art of Manliness - April 03, 2014


Episode #9： Wayne Levine and BetterMen.org

Topics
men's coaching male relationships men's weekends and initiatives
Hosted by
Brett McKay
Mentioned
Wayne Levine Your Nuts Joneses
Episode #49： The Way Of Men With Jack Donovan

Episode Stats


Length

21 minutes

Words per minute

173.03

Word count

3,695

Sentence count

267

Harmful content

Misogyny

9

sentences flagged

Toxicity

13

sentences flagged

Hate speech

12

sentences flagged


Summary

Summaries generated with gmurro/bart-large-finetuned-filtered-spotify-podcast-summ .

Wayne Levine is the founder and director of the West Coast Men's Center, where he coaches and mentors men and facilitates men's groups. He is also the author of the book, Hold On to Your Nuts: The Relationship Guide for Men, and he earned his Master's in Clinical Psychology from Antioch University in Los Angeles.

Transcript

Transcript generated with Whisper (turbo).
Misogyny classifications generated with MilaNLProc/bert-base-uncased-ear-misogyny .
Toxicity classifications generated with s-nlp/roberta_toxicity_classifier .
Hate speech classifications generated with facebook/roberta-hate-speech-dynabench-r4-target .
Topics generated with Qwen2.5-3B-Instruct.
Hosts, guests, and mentioned names generated with spaCy (en_core_web_sm), reconciled against Wikidata.
00:00:00.000 Brett McKay here and welcome to another episode of the Art of Manliness podcast.
00:00:20.620 Now men today face a variety of challenges and personal struggles.
00:00:24.700 Many feel that their life is empty, their relationships with women hurting,
00:00:27.480 and that they just don't have any control over their lives.
00:00:30.780 What steps can a man take to turn their life around?
00:00:33.600 How can they start feeling like the man they've always wanted to be?
00:00:36.520 Well, our guest today is in the business of helping men find the answer to these questions.
00:00:40.680 His name is Wayne Levine, and many of you might be familiar with some of his work here on the Art of Manliness website.
00:00:46.060 Wayne is the founder and director of the West Coast Men's Center,
00:00:48.880 where he coaches and mentors men and facilitates men's groups.
00:00:52.240 He's also the author of the book, Hold On to Your Nuts, the Relationship Guide for Men.
00:00:56.000 And he earned his master's in clinical psychology from Antioch University in Los Angeles.
00:01:00.640 And Wayne lives in Oak Park, California with his wife of 25 years.
00:01:04.700 Wayne, welcome to the show.
00:01:05.940 Thanks for having me, Brett.
00:01:07.360 Well, it's good speaking to you again.
00:01:09.400 And so, Wayne, men's coaching.
00:01:11.560 Tell us a little bit how you got involved with working with men.
00:01:15.560 I got involved with men at a time when I had no men in my life,
00:01:20.660 except for the guys who I was working with and some of my employees.
00:01:25.000 And one of my guys said, hey, you should come to this open house we're having.
00:01:29.760 And I knew that he had something to do with some sort of men's group, but I didn't have any details.
00:01:34.860 So I went to this open house that these guys were having.
00:01:38.040 And I gathered in this hall with like 40 or 50 men.
00:01:41.580 And we started off by playing war ball inside this place.
00:01:44.760 And it was insane.
00:01:46.640 What's war ball?
00:01:47.940 War ball.
00:01:48.540 It's like dodgeball inside with more than one ball.
00:01:53.560 It's crazy, right?
00:01:55.180 Yeah.
00:01:55.380 So balls are flying all over the place, you know, off the walls.
00:01:58.460 And then they start talking about some issues that are going on amongst the men.
00:02:03.820 And I, you know, I heard them talking in a way that I had never heard men talking before.
00:02:09.200 You know, I don't remember any of the specific content.
00:02:13.260 This was a long time ago now in the early 90s.
00:02:16.280 But I thought, I don't know what's going on here, but I want some of this.
00:02:20.840 And all of a sudden that night, I could feel that there was some solution to this problem that I'd been carrying and this cyclical feeling I would have of missing something, this isolation.
00:02:35.480 I had a wife and I had two little kids and everything was fine and a business, but I was lonely oftentimes.
00:02:41.960 I didn't have guys to hang out with and I could just see guys on the other side of the street working in their garages thinking, how come I'm not with them?
00:02:50.660 What's going on?
00:02:52.040 So it began this journey where I did a men's weekend, was involved with these guys for a long time, and learned about myself, learned what it meant for me to be a man in the company of these other guys.
00:03:04.880 And it put me on this path that now that's what I'm doing all the time.
00:03:10.040 And it's pretty remarkable because back when I was 32, 33, I had no close relationships with men.
00:03:18.700 And, you know, now I've got more than I know what to do with.
00:03:21.360 Fantastic.
00:03:22.260 So, Wayne, how is exactly what you do different from traditional therapy?
00:03:26.720 You say you're not a therapist, but you're a counselor or a coach.
00:03:29.860 What's the difference?
00:03:31.140 Well, I went to school to get my master's in clinical psych, and the plan was to become a marriage family therapist.
00:03:38.540 When I went to school, I found out pretty quickly that being a therapist may not be the thing I wanted to do because I found that they weren't teaching me anything about men.
00:03:51.300 None of the students were learning anything specifically about the needs of men.
00:03:54.860 We were learning about every population out there, young, old, of color, gay, lesbian.
00:04:01.320 Everyone had attention given to them except men.
00:04:07.160 And so it became clear that I needed to find another way of sort of presenting myself.
00:04:13.360 So although I was very close to becoming a licensed therapist, I decided not to.
00:04:18.260 And one of the other reasons I didn't do that is because there are very strict rules, especially in California, around what therapists can and cannot do.
00:04:28.160 And one of the things therapists can't do is have dual relationships with their patients, meaning that the only relationship I can have with you is a therapist-patient.
00:04:40.380 That's it.
00:04:41.300 But my original vision was to build a community of men of which I was a part.
00:04:49.200 So I had no interest in having patients.
00:04:52.360 I just wanted to work with men.
00:04:54.160 And so it was a whole different way of looking at it.
00:04:57.840 And so far, the guys in this area are responding to that.
00:05:03.020 And a lot of these men who've come for help have become friends.
00:05:06.800 And they were volunteers on the men's weekends that we do.
00:05:10.720 And we're doing things together.
00:05:12.120 And we're building community.
00:05:13.780 And we're doing things with our families together.
00:05:16.040 So it has nothing to do with therapy.
00:05:18.680 It has nothing to do with the diagnosis.
00:05:20.420 It's just guys getting together and taking care of each other.
00:05:24.300 Fantastic.
00:05:24.760 You mentioned that when you were going to school, that there wasn't a lot of stuff out there in the textbooks or in the classes on men's issues.
00:05:34.740 I mean, so how did you find out?
00:05:36.520 How did you learn how to deal with men?
00:05:38.520 Apart from being a man, in your own experience, what did you do to kind of create, find out how to deal with men?
00:05:45.720 Well, I think that looking back now, I can see that this has been my spiritual journey.
00:05:52.260 I mean, I'm doing my higher purpose work now.
00:05:55.840 So there was something that was driving me that was sort of out of my control, I think, the whole time.
00:06:01.880 You know, my father died when I was nine.
00:06:04.540 So I grew up without a father.
00:06:06.740 And it's fairly ironic to see that I am now father to many men.
00:06:12.180 And I had been looking for that all my life.
00:06:14.740 And I think that that search for father led me on this search to take care of myself, to figure out what it means to be fathered, what I was missing.
00:06:25.940 And after I did the men's work the weekend and I was involved with these guys for a couple of years, I learned a lot of tools.
00:06:32.880 I saw hundreds of men dealing with their issues and I learned how they were being helped to find the truth to commitment to being held accountable with these other men.
00:06:46.720 And that's really where I got my chops.
00:06:49.060 And then, of course, I read, you know, all the books out there from the 90s about men's work and communities of men.
00:06:55.920 And then I think, really, I rely mostly on my own experiences.
00:07:02.120 And I figured whatever helped me will probably help a lot of other men because as special as I once thought I was, through this work I've realized that I'm not so special.
00:07:13.900 I'm very much like the other guys.
00:07:16.140 The details of my life are uniquely mine.
00:07:19.100 But we can get we get distracted by the details.
00:07:22.740 And for the most part, I think 95 percent, we we all respond to the same things because we have a lot of the same needs.
00:07:31.120 I imagine you've seen hundreds and maybe even thousands of men with your work.
00:07:35.440 What are some of the biggest problems that you see facing men today that reoccur in the people that you meet with?
00:07:43.200 Right.
00:07:43.540 I I I work with men, but I also work with couples.
00:07:46.840 I work with women and fathers and sons.
00:07:49.100 And so I've I've gotten a pretty comprehensive view of what's going on for the guys.
00:07:54.260 The first thing that comes to mind is isolation.
00:07:58.360 Men are isolated from each other.
00:08:01.520 They're isolated from each other nowadays because of career, because of geography, because of the Internet, because our culture doesn't support us to get together.
00:08:13.600 And a lot of the places where men used to gather are no no longer exist.
00:08:18.020 We're isolated because we are taught that we need to do things by ourselves.
00:08:23.540 And we have very distorted views of what it is to be a man.
00:08:26.980 And so guys are isolated by their confusion and by their shame and their sense of weakness that asking for help is some somehow unmanly.
00:08:39.440 So the best thing that happens in circles like ours at Better Men is that we bring the men together.
00:08:45.760 I mean, if you just bring men together, you're more than halfway there.
00:08:49.420 So all the all the groups and churches and temples and everywhere where they get together, that is the most important step.
00:08:57.060 So why are why are male relationships so important?
00:08:59.660 You seem like you're talking about this a lot.
00:09:01.560 Why?
00:09:01.760 Why?
00:09:02.080 Why is that so important?
00:09:03.700 Well, men these days are highly feminized, which means that we view the world through our mother's eyes, through women's eyes. 0.56
00:09:15.140 And that happens because of what happens in our families.
00:09:20.120 It happens because of what mass media presents us with.
00:09:25.300 And because as boys, a lot of us are not did not have and continue to not have enough masculine influence in our lives, we're feminized.
00:09:36.780 And so one of the things that we need is to be initiated into manhood.
00:09:42.720 Now, that initiation used to happen just naturally back in the day, up until the 1800s and the Industrial Revolution.
00:09:52.040 Boys were brought up by men. 0.55
00:09:54.400 They were raised by the men. 0.70
00:09:56.420 Men were close to home.
00:09:58.540 The boys were taught trades.
00:10:00.600 They were taught what was expected of them as men in their community by their fathers and uncles and grandfathers and brothers and neighbors.
00:10:07.400 When men started going off to work, the women started raising the boys. 1.00
00:10:10.860 And I think that's where the imbalance began.
00:10:14.940 So we cannot learn how to be the best men we can be unless we're in the company of other men.
00:10:22.160 That makes sense?
00:10:22.820 Yeah, that makes perfect sense.
00:10:25.060 We're going to take a quick break for your words from our sponsors.
00:10:28.120 And now back to the show.
00:10:30.020 So you talk about you have these men's groups.
00:10:33.160 What do you do?
00:10:34.280 You say getting a group of men together is half the battle.
00:10:38.160 What's the second half?
00:10:39.140 Well, in our groups, I facilitate them.
00:10:44.740 And so we check in and we find out quickly what's going on with the men.
00:10:51.200 And I father the men.
00:10:53.860 I teach the men a certain way of asking tough questions, holding each other accountable, minimizing the advice, and just finding out what's going on with the men.
00:11:04.100 And what happens is now the other men learn how to do that.
00:11:08.140 And so we start feeling more comfortable in the company of men.
00:11:14.820 We start opening up to help, whatever it looks like.
00:11:18.700 We start growing comfortable with trusting our own guts, which is something most men get to a point where they're not trusting their instincts anymore.
00:11:28.800 And so it takes time to start trusting what's going on inside of us.
00:11:32.900 And so being with the men helps us to work all that out.
00:11:36.120 And, you know, what we say all the time is how you show up here, meaning in our circle of men, is really how you're showing up everywhere.
00:11:42.080 So all the things that you do that sort of tear your relationship down, all the things that you're doing that aren't working with your kids, all the problems in your life will eventually show up in the circle of men.
00:11:55.300 And we can respond to it.
00:11:57.220 And you can get honest feedback, and then you can get some ideas on how to change it and be that man and husband and father that you would like to be.
00:12:05.980 And apart from the isolation that a lot of men are facing these days and not being initiated into manhood, what are some other problems that you see men are facing these days?
00:12:19.300 Well, one of the biggest issues that we're dealing with all the time is the subject of the book that I wrote, and it's a relationship manual for men.
00:12:28.820 And so men, for the most part, they don't have the tools they need to be the men they want to be in their long-term relationships.
00:12:40.740 Whatever they learned from their mom and dads in terms of what it means to be a man, what a relationship or a marriage looks like, a lot of us didn't see very good examples.
00:12:51.680 And so we go out in the world, and we just keep repeating it.
00:12:55.020 And as much as a lot of men would prefer not being like their fathers, they end up being like their fathers.
00:13:03.120 And so we teach tools for them to understand how to behave with their women, how to take care of their women without compromising who they are.
00:13:14.980 So obviously a lot of our time is spent dealing with that main relationship.
00:13:20.560 Going back to the initiation, you know, you talked about how it happened naturally, and we've talked about that on our own site, about rites of passage that used to happen naturally.
00:13:32.480 So what can men do now to be initiated into manhood?
00:13:36.500 Because, you know, a lot of men don't go to church where there's usually lots of different types of rites of passages where boys come into men.
00:13:43.900 Lots of men aren't joining up, you know, fraternal organizations where there was once a rite of passage.
00:13:48.960 So what do we do now?
00:13:50.760 Right.
00:13:51.360 Well, a lot of what happens, a lot of the ceremony that happens in organized religion really has very little to do with manhood.
00:13:57.760 I mean, it's more these days about the party and comparing, keeping up with the Joneses, especially in the Jewish community with bar mitzvahs. 0.72
00:14:06.220 A lot of it's really empty.
00:14:08.560 What men can do now is there are men's weekends and there are retreats offered all over.
00:14:15.060 The Mankind Project has a weekend.
00:14:17.640 BetterMen.org, we have our weekend.
00:14:20.420 Sterling Men's Weekend is still going on.
00:14:22.520 There are a lot of guys out there who are doing things.
00:14:24.220 And at these initiations, these initiatory weekends, it's the beginning of an initiation process.
00:14:32.700 It's obviously, it's only, you know, 24, 48, or 72 hours.
00:14:38.180 It's not like the old tribal initiations where the boys are taken out for weeks or months at a time and they're really put through the paces, you know.
00:14:45.900 But it's a beginning.
00:14:49.160 And I think that what men need to know is that they can be initiated into manhood, they can feel very differently about themselves as men, but they have to be committed for really for the rest of their lives.
00:15:01.700 They have to be committed to this journey of learning because once you're 30, 40, 50 years old, it takes real effort to learn new behaviors and to see yourself differently.
00:15:12.500 And to be consistent so that the rest of the world responds to you differently.
00:15:17.780 So doing a men's weekend, being in a men's group, doing reading, reaching out to the men in your life, revealing yourself, opening up, telling the truth, and, you know, getting past the shame that there's really anything inside of you that should not be explored and that cannot be shared with another man who is on the same path.
00:15:40.500 Excellent.
00:15:40.860 So we've been talking a little bit about some of the problems that men are facing.
00:15:44.000 We have isolation and just problems in general with relationships with women. 0.80
00:15:48.720 What are some things that men can do today, you know, right away to start turning their life around?
00:15:53.340 Well, you know, at the risk of repeating myself, it's looking for the relationships they already have with men and deepening them.
00:16:04.060 Going to your father and thanking him for doing a great job and for helping to make you a success and being with him on his terms and getting help to let go of the anger.
00:16:20.660 And so counseling, you know, counseling is good.
00:16:23.840 So guys need to do that.
00:16:24.940 But I would really encourage men to look for male counselors.
00:16:27.500 And those male counselors need to be men who have done their own work and that are really firmly planted in their masculinity.
00:16:36.640 I think it's a real trap for men to go to women counselors. 0.79
00:16:40.020 I think that men need men. 0.88
00:16:42.460 And so we need to fight for that.
00:16:44.980 And I think that those guys who are fathers, spend time with your sons.
00:16:53.580 You are being an example to them in everything you do every day.
00:16:58.040 And so getting together with other men who have boys your age, going out and having fun, and opening up, and putting into practice and, you know, making some of those changes and being that father that you wished you had, I think that's another good thing that can happen.
00:17:15.300 Definitely.
00:17:15.780 So, Wayne, just from your experience dealing with men, what are some kind of characteristics that men have who have been initiated into manhood?
00:17:23.980 I mean, is there something like divining characters and you can look at that man and say, that man is comfortable with his masculinity and he is a man?
00:17:32.520 Well, I think that we innately feel that when we're in the presence of a fully realized man.
00:17:41.100 And you're with somebody and you're like, I want to be like that guy.
00:17:45.500 Or I like being around this guy.
00:17:48.460 So what are the qualities of those men that you really like being around?
00:17:51.680 Well, they listen.
00:17:54.600 They're not fully in their egos.
00:17:57.300 They understand commitment.
00:17:59.080 You can count on them.
00:18:00.440 Their word means something.
00:18:02.180 They understand the differences between men and women.
00:18:06.920 And they don't treat you like a woman. 0.98
00:18:09.540 And they don't treat their women like men.
00:18:12.140 Those are just some of the things off the top of my head.
00:18:13.940 You know, that's a really important sort of notion of treating men like men.
00:18:18.820 We're not brought up understanding that.
00:18:20.760 Now, as boys, if we're left alone, boys will treat boys like boys.
00:18:24.960 They get it.
00:18:26.020 And they'll treat girls very differently.
00:18:28.300 But somehow it gets lost along the way.
00:18:30.380 And the way we deal with each other as men can be fantastic.
00:18:36.760 And I think a lot of that's lost these days, you know, because we have to treat everyone the same.
00:18:42.040 You know, there's no difference.
00:18:43.520 This deconstruction of gender is just appalling to me.
00:18:46.400 And usually it means, like, treating everyone like a woman. 0.97
00:18:50.100 That's what I mean.
00:18:50.660 Well, more so, of course.
00:18:52.260 Because what are you going to do? 0.61
00:18:53.100 Punch a woman in the arm and say, what's going on? 1.00
00:18:55.340 Right? 0.98
00:18:56.020 But for men, it's okay to do that sometimes. 0.88
00:18:59.600 Right?
00:19:00.040 There are things that we do as men. 1.00
00:19:01.900 There are stupid things that we do as men that we need to do that would be ridiculous for women to be involved with. 1.00
00:19:09.480 Like, I can't give you details, but we do some of that on our weekends. 1.00
00:19:14.840 Believe me, if my wife could see the idiocy on our men's weekend. 0.98
00:19:21.000 But she has an understanding of that. 0.99
00:19:23.340 She knows that we're very different.
00:19:25.560 And she doesn't care what I do as long as I'm happy doing it.
00:19:29.720 Yeah.
00:19:29.900 And I think good women all over feel that way and want to support their men that way.
00:19:34.260 Especially if they see the results in their own lives and the relationship they have with their men.
00:19:38.240 That's all that matters.
00:19:39.360 And so healthy women, that's all they care about. 1.00
00:19:41.940 Those women who are just busting balls because they're so insecure, they're not doing their men any good. 1.00
00:19:48.460 And, of course, it's an indication that the men are not taking care of their women either. 0.98
00:19:52.260 But as I'm working with women more and more, I've got some women's groups going on.
00:19:55.800 And I have a feeling I'll have more women that I'll know what to do with soon. 1.00
00:19:59.780 They need to learn a few tools about how to not bust their men's balls and what it really means to support them. 0.60
00:20:06.340 Because it's very difficult for the men to get over these wounds, especially the father wound that we deal with. 0.91
00:20:13.080 And so we all have something to learn.
00:20:15.500 Definitely.
00:20:16.340 Well, Wayne, thank you very much for taking the time to speak with us.
00:20:19.220 It was very interesting.
00:20:20.460 And hopefully we all learn something and take something from this.
00:20:23.500 Right on.
00:20:23.840 Well, you know, I appreciate talking to you and your audience, the guys that are men and women at Art of Manliness are terrific.
00:20:31.260 And when I've done writings and gotten their comments, it's always been a great dialogue.
00:20:36.420 So I appreciate what you're doing.
00:20:38.120 Well, thank you, Wayne.
00:20:39.220 Our guest today was Wayne Levine.
00:20:40.840 Wayne is the founder of BetterMen.org, where he coaches and mentors men and facilitates in men's groups.
00:20:46.800 If you'd like to find out more about Wayne and his work, check out BetterMen.org.
00:20:54.660 That wraps up another edition of the Art of Manliness podcast.
00:20:58.260 For more manly tips and advice, make sure to check back at the Art of Manliness website at ArtOfManliness.com.
00:21:04.640 And remember, we got a book on sale, too.
00:21:06.560 It's The Art of Manliness, Classic Skills and Manners for the Modern Man.
00:21:10.260 You can find it at Amazon.com or any other major bookstore.
00:21:13.000 And for more information about the book, check out the website at ArtOfManliness.com slash the book.
00:21:18.320 And until next week, stay manly.