The Art of Manliness - How to Help Disengaged Young Men Reclaim Drive and Direction

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00:01:21.120 Brett McKay here, and welcome to another edition of the AOM Podcast,

00:01:25.380 which since 2008 has featured conversations with the world's best authors, thinkers, and leaders

00:01:30.040 that glean their edifying, life-improving insights without the fluff and filler.

00:01:34.480 The AOM Podcast is just one part of the McKay mission to help individuals practice timeless virtues through thought, word, and deed.

00:01:40.960 Also, be sure to explore our articles in artofmanliness.com,

00:01:43.540 read the deeper dives we do in our Substack newsletter at dyingbreed.net,

00:01:47.260 and turn our content into real-world action by joining the Strenuous Life program at strenuouslife.com.

00:01:52.340 Now on to the show.

00:02:01.420 Not long ago, the primary concern people had about boys was that they were wild, impulsive, and out of control.

00:02:07.400 Getting into fights, pushing limits, and stirring up trouble.

00:02:10.240 Today, the problem has flipped.

00:02:13.000 The more common challenge isn't reckless behavior, but inert passivity.

00:02:17.420 More and more young men are anxious, apathetic, socially isolated, and seemingly uninterested in doing much of anything at all.

00:02:24.020 Vince Benevento, the founder of Causeway Collaborative, a male-specific counseling center,

00:02:28.140 and the author of Boys Will Be Men, Eight Lessons for the Lost American Male,

00:02:32.240 has spent nearly two decades working on the front lines of this shift.

00:02:34.980 As a therapist, coach, and mentor who specializes in helping young men between the ages of 14 and 30,

00:02:40.620 Vince has worked with both the combustible and the checked out,

00:02:43.260 and developed a clear, experience-honed framework for what actually helps guys get unstuck,

00:02:47.640 take ownership of their lives, and move forward with purpose.

00:02:50.420 In today's conversation, we unpack what Vince has learned through years of work with boys and men,

00:02:54.560 and how his approach, which is rooted more in action than in talk,

00:02:57.940 can be applied not just in the therapist's office, but by parents and mentors.

00:03:01.260 We dig into why traditional therapy often fails young men,

00:03:04.860 and how to give them the drive, accountability, and sense of connection they crave.

00:03:08.680 We discuss the importance of teaching young men to build life brick by brick, 0.95

00:03:11.880 and helping them find their wild, their thing, and a good group of friends.

00:03:15.580 After the show's over, check out our show notes at aom.is slash boysintomenn.

00:03:19.120 All right, Vincent Benevento, welcome to the show.

00:03:32.000 Great to be here, man. Thank you, and happy to be on, for sure.

00:03:34.440 So you are a therapist that specializes in working with men between the ages of 16 and 30.

00:03:40.760 How'd you end up working with this demographic?

00:03:43.500 So if my wife was on the show next to me, she would say that it kind of all worked out,

00:03:47.600 because this is the only thing I'm good at. You know what I mean?

00:03:50.400 So I found my way to something that people would say that I've done relatively well.

00:03:55.840 But I mean, truth was, like many people in this field, I have my own story.

00:03:59.800 So I was a lost and wayward young man.

00:04:04.480 I was a guy who struggled with addiction.

00:04:07.820 I was a guy who struggled with pretty profound mental health challenges.

00:04:12.360 I came from a broken home, dealt with divorce.

00:04:14.960 My dad came out when I was young.

00:04:17.080 So I had some stuff, and my stuff is different than everybody's stuff.

00:04:21.420 But I had some stuff that required that I had to do some personal work at a pretty young age.

00:04:27.180 And so I needed support.

00:04:28.900 I was very resistant to receiving it personally, mostly because I wasn't ready to do the work.

00:04:33.640 But I really couldn't find anything that spoke to me in terms of what I felt engaged to do.

00:04:41.320 And so I started puzzling and being curious around what kinds of things young men would be open to and willing to do.

00:04:50.660 And years later, came up with some stuff that has been useful when supporting young men trying to get their lives on track.

00:04:57.620 One of the things you argue at the very beginning of the book is that talk therapy is largely useless for men between the ages of 16 and 30.

00:05:05.700 Why is that?

00:05:07.100 Yeah, yeah.

00:05:07.560 And a pretty bold statement from a therapist of like, you know, 12 plus years or 15 plus years, whatever it's been, you know, 15 total, 12 as a licensed practitioner.

00:05:16.260 And so, yeah, it's a bold claim, but I stand by it.

00:05:18.980 I mean, I think young men especially don't have a lot of rich life experience to process through and to, you know, pick apart in ways that men, women, you know, more mature individuals do.

00:05:32.400 And so I think part of what we practice and preach is the notion that therapy or the therapeutic support process for young men should be much more about doing and not talking.

00:05:43.240 You know, men and young men in general, this is generalization, but usually true, learn better from doing.

00:05:49.040 And so, you know, men, because they learn through experience, gravitate towards frameworks like mentorship and coaching, you know, as opposed to kind of traditional talk therapy, which tends to be a little more nebulous and a little more open ended.

00:06:02.700 So, you know, we try to impress upon the guys we work with, you know, the setting of small goals, the step work in achieving those goals, the literal experience of going out into the community and doing the thing, you know, can be a little more impactful than sitting and talking about something that someone may or may not do in the week in between sessions.

00:06:21.340 And just in addition and sort of separately, you know, I think back to when I was like 16 and pissed off, right?

00:06:28.060 And I didn't have the emotional fluency to talk about my issues in the way that I do now, you know, and I would contend that men, as we know, and young men are typically slower to mature than their female counterparts.

00:06:39.740 And, you know, particularly within the emotional realm.

00:06:42.140 And so I think, you know, I didn't have the language to describe what I was feeling until years and years later and hours of work and therapy.

00:06:51.340 And so I think if somebody is not engaged in that kind of process of self-discovery, it may be more productive and beneficial to do a thing rather than talking about a thing that you might not do.

00:07:00.960 All right. So your approach is a little less conversation, a little more action with these young guys.

00:07:06.000 Yeah, for sure. For sure. Absolutely. Yeah.

00:07:08.060 Something you describe in the book is in your career, you've encountered two types of young men.

00:07:14.100 The first type of guy is acting out, doing dangerous stuff, maybe has an addiction, is drinking, getting into fights.

00:07:21.340 The second type of guy is pretty much the way you describe him is anesthetized.

00:07:26.180 He just doesn't want to do anything. He just wants to sit at home.

00:07:30.740 And you argue that the second type of guy is harder to work with. Why is that?

00:07:37.180 Yeah, yeah. So, you know, on first blush, right, it seems almost unreasonable to make that assertion.

00:07:45.320 I mean, the second guy is just kind of not doing a lot. He's not doing anything dangerous.

00:07:50.080 He's not doing anything risky. He's not a danger to himself, not a danger to others. Right.

00:07:54.360 So how could that guy possibly be more difficult? You know, I think back to I was the first kind of guy.

00:08:00.700 I was the fighting, drinking, driving, acting out, you know, like getting into trouble, but just like the oppositional externalizing kind of guy.

00:08:09.280 And when I, you know, go back 25 years to when I was that kind of guy, you know, I was a mess, but there was energy, you know, and momentum associated with that mess.

00:08:20.240 Right. Like I had a girlfriend. I had a job. I had a car that I paid for, for money that I saved through my job.

00:08:27.640 I was going to college. Right. So there is progression personally, and there's goals that are being set and achieved.

00:08:35.080 And that guy's doing stuff. He may be doing the wrong stuff, but he's doing stuff nonetheless.

00:08:41.040 The second guy isn't really doing anything. And this is the curious phenomenon that I talk about a lot in the book.

00:08:47.240 It's like this sort of I call the second wave because, you know, I saw the first kind of guy 15 years ago when I started my business.

00:08:53.860 And now we see the second profile of just, you know, anxious, isolative, apathetic, highly dependent young men who are not seeking to individuate in any way, shape or form.

00:09:06.500 They're not excited to go get a job. We have guys who don't want to get their license.

00:09:11.780 They'd literally rather have their mother drive them around in the car because they're so anxious about driving a car that they can't even consider the notion of having their own vehicle and taking themselves to and fro.

00:09:23.340 And so, you know, the first kind of guy at least was doing a lot of stuff and was busy in the world and had energy and it was misdirected.

00:09:31.600 But you could direct it. It's very difficult with this sort of second wave to cultivate, you know, an active process with a guy who's so inert.

00:09:41.420 And this is where we have to move in the direction of really connecting with an interest and connecting with like the soul of that person to get them engaged in something that they care about so that we can start moving them in any direction whatsoever.

00:09:56.640 Yeah, I've noticed this as well in my work with young men. So I've coached flag football. I'm a leader at my church's young men's group.

00:10:05.240 I remember in flag football, you'd see those two types of guys. One guy was like super aggressive, had that just that kind of killer instinct, but he kind of messed stuff up.

00:10:15.580 But I could work with that because like, oh, he's got this energy. I can direct that. We can refine his skill and he'll get better.

00:10:20.600 Then you have the kid who just like, just a nerd, like had no drive at all. And it's just like, I can't work with this. And then in church, like you see the same sort of thing, kids where it doesn't matter what it is, they'll be engaged.

00:10:33.140 They're excited. Even if they think the activity we're doing is kind of boring, they'll try to make something out of it. And then you have the boys where it's just like it's pulling teeth.

00:10:42.400 You do everything you can to get them engaged. And they're just like, meh, it's so hard. So they lack that, you know, the Romans called it thumos, sort of that fire in the belly, that drive.

00:10:54.340 And I'm seeing it more and more in young men as you are. What do you think is going on with this younger generation? You talk about how you see this a lot in Gen Z guys.

00:11:05.780 What do you think is going on where you've seen this lack of thumos and drive in young men? 0.99

00:11:10.100 Yeah, I don't think it's any one thing. I think it's a crock pot filled with a bunch of different things that make it hard to do this work with young men, and make it hard to connect with people in general.

00:11:21.960 I think there's a tech piece for sure. There's a tech piece and a subsequent isolative piece in association with that. We see a lot of skill erosion.

00:11:30.820 So like, as everything has become both automated and immediately accessible, we can have things done for us rather than do things ourselves.

00:11:41.740 And so, you know, the old example that I used to give was like, not so long ago, in like the early 2000s, like I used to know how to get places, you know, and like now I just don't, because I just throw it in the ways just like everybody else.

00:11:55.480 So I'm not paying attention to where I'm going anymore. And so that's like one very small detail of the day in which we live where, like, we're not exercising our brain, we're not exploring, we're not engaging with our surroundings.

00:12:06.720 We're just passively moving through our day. And that happens, you know, more readily than we would care to admit.

00:12:12.600 There's an instant gratification piece where like, I'm hungry. And so I just ordered Domino's and they send me a, you know, 44 ounce Coke and a pepperoni pizza for, you know, with the fee is $31.

00:12:24.800 And I just swipe that or my parents swipe that. And, you know, there's no reward based system where you do a task and you get a reward and then you can subsequently use it for whatever purposes you see fit.

00:12:34.880 So there's not a lot of delayed gratification and sequencing and work that goes into achieving goals.

00:12:42.660 And I just think more broadly, because we're so flooded with information and kind of information that scares us, this pervasive culture of fear that we live in has raised the stakes in terms of the cumulative anxiety that we all experience as people, but specifically young men.

00:12:58.320 And so, you know, young men are not excited to go get their first car and drive fast like they used to.

00:13:04.140 Now, I'm not saying that that's behavior that we should, you know, relish upon our boys, but boys used to be excited about getting their car and shining it up and driving around fast.

00:13:13.360 They're not excited about that anymore. They're scared and they're scared of things like that.

00:13:17.680 And they're scared of talking to a girl and they're scared of getting a phone number and they're scared of going on a date, which is why they watch porn and lock themselves in their room incessantly.

00:13:27.700 And so this fear that is pervasive in our young men has caused us to opt out of taking healthy risks.

00:13:35.240 I'm not talking about inappropriate risks like the risks that I took when I was a younger man.

00:13:39.460 I'm talking about healthy risks, age-appropriate developmental risks.

00:13:43.520 And that, I think, has robbed us of, you know, some of the heart work and the soul work that is really important to being a young man.

00:13:50.980 You also talk about how parents might have unintentionally contributed to creating this second type of young man.

00:13:56.340 What's going on there, you think?

00:13:57.640 Yeah, you know, I think it comes from a good place.

00:14:01.340 And I've seen over the course of 15 to 20 years of doing this work, 15 years of, you know, running my own business, 20 years in mental health in general.

00:14:10.920 I have seen parents' awareness of mental health skyrocket, skyrocket.

00:14:16.800 Parents are knowledgeable.

00:14:18.280 They understand the resources.

00:14:20.120 They speak the language.

00:14:21.620 They even understand, you know, basic symptomology.

00:14:24.120 Even parents who haven't been through, you know, around a therapy with a kid or, you know, have had a kid with mental health challenges.

00:14:30.320 Your baseline parent understands and speaks the language of mental health.

00:14:34.340 That was not the case when I first started.

00:14:36.900 And so that has bore a lot of fruit in terms of the way we engage with our kids emotionally, but also just in terms of how you triage an issue and a situation.

00:14:47.180 So it certainly comes from a good place.

00:14:49.340 I think the unintended consequence is we pathologize, right?

00:14:54.360 Like we pathologize a lot of behavior.

00:14:56.440 Parents pathologize.

00:14:57.540 And so if your kid is acting out, he's depressed, he's anxious, you know, he's got a mood disorder.

00:15:03.560 And those things may very well, in fact, be the case.

00:15:06.840 And so far be it for me to say in all situations that's not true.

00:15:10.320 But sometimes he's just not accountable to his behaviors.

00:15:13.560 Or sometimes he's acting out and being manipulative.

00:15:16.440 Or sometimes he just doesn't feel like doing it and he goes in his room and he games for seven hours instead because he has the autonomy to do so.

00:15:24.440 And there aren't the checks and balances in the system that will make it so that he can't do those things.

00:15:28.260 And so I don't think that mental health is always the reason why someone is struggling.

00:15:34.100 And I think parents, you know, jump to conclusions sometimes around, you know, pointing a finger at their son's pathology as being the rationale for what's happening when, in fact, a behavioral approach can yield better fruit.

00:15:49.060 Yeah, and going back to that idea of anxiety, I think a lot of parents are anxious these days for their kids because, I mean, life in the 21st century, it is pretty complicated and complex.

00:16:01.540 For sure.

00:16:01.960 And there's this anxiety that, oh, my kid is not going to be able to make it.

00:16:05.920 It's just there's a lot more you have to do to establish yourself in the world economically.

00:16:10.600 So a lot of parents are like, I'm just going to do this for my kid.

00:16:12.980 And I remember when I like when I went to college and here's a great example, when I went to college, my parents were like, oh, you want to go to college?

00:16:19.940 Great.

00:16:20.580 And that was it.

00:16:21.480 And I had to like fill out all the forms.

00:16:23.680 Yeah.

00:16:24.100 And I had, you know, I was like, Dad, I need this, you know, this IRS stuff for the VASA, you know, things.

00:16:29.580 They're OK, here you go.

00:16:31.260 But I had to do it on my own.

00:16:32.560 They were just they wasn't like they were holding my hand.

00:16:35.160 And then I see parents, you know, my peers today who've got kids going to college, they're doing all this stuff to get their kid into college.

00:16:42.540 You know, signing them up for these prep classes, doing these elaborate college tours, helping them refine their essays.

00:16:49.720 And I'm thinking like that that did not happen 20, 30 years ago.

00:16:54.280 Not even not even close.

00:16:55.500 No, not not not even close.

00:16:56.960 And talk about, you know, it's a really good call by you, Brett.

00:16:59.920 But like talk about contributing factors to the collective anxiety.

00:17:04.180 You know, I remember filling out those applications literally in pencil at my dining room table in the year, you know, 1998, you know, so like it's not that long ago.

00:17:15.400 And I did them all by myself.

00:17:17.040 And there was no private SAT tutor.

00:17:18.760 And there was no educational consultant to pick my colleges for me.

00:17:21.980 And no one filled out my FAFSA stuff like I did it.

00:17:25.140 First kid sink or swim.

00:17:26.880 Figure it out.

00:17:27.640 Go to college or don't.

00:17:28.700 It's on you, junior.

00:17:29.420 Ready, set.

00:17:29.860 So the world is just not that way.

00:17:32.840 And I, you know, I mean, listen, I know a lot of people in this space.

00:17:37.920 They do extraordinary work in this space.

00:17:41.180 You know, the college space, the private university space and the game that is getting your kid into the best school humanly possible to set them up on a trajectory for life.

00:17:50.200 And what I can tell you is the emotional pressure that kids experience as a result of like this conveyor belt that has been socially constructed for them, whether they fall alongside it or not.

00:18:03.260 And by the way, I got kids who mostly don't fall on that conveyor belt and are trying to be shoehorned into it, you know, has a lot of challenging consequences for kids and for families.

00:18:13.140 And I see a lot of kids who parents elect to send them to college because there's no other option.

00:18:20.300 Like you have to drive around with a sticker on the back of your car that says where juniors going to college, whether they should be going to college or not.

00:18:28.080 And so I get a lot of parents who call me in November, you know, the following semester and say, hey, you know, he didn't make it.

00:18:34.900 What do we do now?

00:18:36.220 And I think that the college is for everybody and you have to go to a top 50 school framework is not one that every single person should subscribe to.

00:18:46.300 Not every parent, not every kid.

00:18:48.200 And I think the people who are having awareness of that in advance are far better suited than the people who are learning that lesson on the backside.

00:18:56.900 And then, you know, when parents do, because it comes from a good place again, they want to help their kids succeed.

00:19:01.860 For sure.

00:19:02.140 But when they do that stuff for their kids, sort of the unspoken messages, you can't do this.

00:19:07.260 I got to take care of it.

00:19:08.360 And then that just carries over to other areas.

00:19:10.620 They're like, well, yeah, you can't get a job on your own.

00:19:13.760 I got to like pull some levers to do that for you.

00:19:16.080 So it just disempowers these young men who are already disempowered.

00:19:20.480 Absolutely.

00:19:21.140 Yeah, 100%.

00:19:22.120 Yeah.

00:19:22.480 And the job example is a perfect example because, you know, most of the people, I mean, I'm in Westport, I'm in Westchester, I'm in West Hartford, Connecticut, like, you know, pretty affluent pockets with a lot of, you know, high profile, high influence people.

00:19:35.060 And so when their kid is struggling, you know, usually dad will come into the center and say, hey, I'm going to get my kid a job and such and such.

00:19:41.940 What do you think?

00:19:42.460 And I say, don't you dare get your kid a job.

00:19:45.680 Instead, let's support him in the process of him finding it for himself and navigating and figuring out where his strengths are and where his weaknesses lie.

00:19:53.700 And that'll position us much better to help him down the line than it will if we just scoop something up and put it in his bread basket.

00:19:59.800 So in your book, you've laid out several principles that guide your approach to helping young men that come to your clinics, these sort of disengaged young guys.

00:20:08.460 I want to walk through some of these.

00:20:09.760 The first one is brick by brick.

00:20:12.720 And this is about helping young men build a life for themselves.

00:20:17.080 Why is this the first principle in your philosophy?

00:20:20.060 Because I think that to do anything of substance in your life, men have to commit themselves to a long focused approach.

00:20:26.080 And I think the world sends quick fix messages.

00:20:30.740 The world sends messages around both instant gratification and overnight celebrity.

00:20:36.720 I'm advocating a different message.

00:20:38.680 I'm advocating that anything I've ever built, whether it's been, you know, my marriage or my relationships with my kids or my business or, you know, meaningful relationships, any of those things that matter to me deeply were patient in their growth process.

00:20:54.580 Were things that were step by step, one after the next, after the next, after the next, were filled with trial and iteration and reset and debriefing and learning were messy at times.

00:21:06.120 And were not a straight line, none of them.

00:21:08.980 And I think that's the case, you know, when you build something of substance, you know, across life, you don't usually finish exactly the way that you start.

00:21:16.680 And when you make a blueprint for something, typically these unforeseen challenges that come up along the way.

00:21:21.480 And as long as you keep working step by step, day by day, brick by brick, it's a good mantra to set you up for success in whatever you're doing.

00:21:29.940 So how do you help a young man start becoming a builder?

00:21:33.520 So a young man who can, you know, look for a job, find a job, apply to college by themselves, build a relationship.

00:21:41.420 How do you help a young man who just hasn't done that before?

00:21:44.760 Because he's one of those passive anesthetized type young men.

00:21:47.540 Yeah, yeah. I mean, I think you begin with the acknowledgement that at some point, every person hadn't done it, right?

00:21:56.440 So like, you know, me, you, everybody, we all had to get started somewhere.

00:22:00.820 And so for me, I get really excited about vision work.

00:22:04.580 And what I mean by that is helping a young man get excited about crafting a vision for where he wants to go.

00:22:11.460 Young man or man, because we see people as young as 14 and we see guys, you know, into their early 30s.

00:22:15.620 So crafting, co-crafting, leading, sharing a vision for what ignites you, what feels right, what have you felt purpose in doing, what have you done that's been exciting for you, and just dream boarding it and vision crafting and helping them get excited.

00:22:33.620 One, because, you know, if this is their first blush with mental health supports, it debunks their preconceived notions about what it is.

00:22:42.160 I want a guy coming into my office and feeling good enough that he wants to come back the next time of his own accord.

00:22:47.480 And typically, this kind of vision work will draw them in in that way.

00:22:50.560 And so we start with vision crafting and developing a sense for where you want to go and what you want to do and what you want to be.

00:22:56.820 And from there, we get tangible.

00:22:58.960 We do research.

00:23:00.020 We answer questions.

00:23:01.100 We go out and we learn through experience and service and shadowing and job acquisition and all these different processes.

00:23:06.720 And we teach and instruct and we fill in the gaps as needed.

00:23:10.420 So it starts very broad and very opaque, you know, to just cultivate enthusiasm, and then we get down to it sort of step-by-step, brick-by-brick.

00:23:20.380 So that's that action part.

00:23:21.880 You're not just having a weekly session where you're talking about things.

00:23:25.160 No.

00:23:25.400 Maybe you have that session to lay out the vision, but then you're going to assign this guy homework, and then there's going to be follow-up.

00:23:32.160 It's like, all right, did you get that application?

00:23:33.820 Yes.

00:23:34.260 Okay, did you fill it out and turn in the application?

00:23:37.080 I mean, that's what it is.

00:23:38.320 It's a lot of coaching and mentoring.

00:23:40.660 For sure.

00:23:41.000 And it's positioning a guy to be better off than when he started.

00:23:44.940 And I don't just mean broadly around the process.

00:23:47.100 I mean, in that hour, part of what I'm trying to do is I'm trying to get you farther in the hour you come see me that week than you were when you came in.

00:23:55.420 So, you know, you come when you go see Vince and you think to yourself, wow, we're going to get a lot of stuff done today.

00:24:00.100 So, like, one of my favorite processes to do with a guy, and it seems so simple, is to come in and work with a guy who's never had a resume before.

00:24:09.460 A young kid, you know, 15, 16, 17, you know, now sometimes 18 years old, but listen, let's bang out your resume.

00:24:16.280 And literally hand the kid a piece of paper that reflects to him everything he's done in his life to walk out of that session.

00:24:24.680 And it doesn't have to be sexy and it doesn't have to light the world on fire.

00:24:29.020 And I started doing this 15 years ago, and I know you could throw it in your chat, GBT, you could do it in two seconds.

00:24:34.260 But the co-constructing of that process to build what you've done and to reflect to you what you've done so you can hand it to your parents and be proud of it, or you could put it in somebody's hands and go look for a job.

00:24:47.060 Now that's actually reflecting to you self-worth about your own achievements and positioning you to get excited about the next thing we're going to do next week.

00:24:54.840 So that's just one example, but it's a pretty good one.

00:24:57.220 It's a very simple exercise that denotes how we get kids moving forward in that very tangible way.

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00:27:16.980 And now back to the show.

00:27:20.360 And so I think if you're a mentor or a parent, you can start doing this with your kids now.

00:27:25.760 For sure.

00:27:26.000 Take those basic life skills that you just take for granted, and then actively, like, we're going to do this.

00:27:32.100 Like, we're going to make a resume.

00:27:33.720 We're going to – I did this with my kids.

00:27:36.200 Like, they wanted a bank account.

00:27:37.700 I was like, okay, let's go to the bank.

00:27:39.920 And I made them talk to the bank teller.

00:27:42.100 I love that.

00:27:43.040 It's great.

00:27:43.440 You're going to have to figure this out, and I say, here's all the stuff you need to get, your social security number.

00:27:47.680 You have all this information.

00:27:49.220 And, I mean, it was – like, the thing is, like, this stuff can be tedious and it's boring, but it's important work.

00:27:56.020 100%, yeah.

00:27:56.600 And, I mean, I even think about, like, when my kids were young, we'd go out to dinner, and, like, I remember watching people – you know, their kids were, like, 10, and they would order for their kids in the restaurant, you know?

00:28:06.460 And, like, you know, when my kids were, you know, 5, 4, and 2, like, they were ordering food for themselves just because building that requisite skill is essential for everything.

00:28:16.360 You know, like, you need to have a conversation with somebody, look them in the eye, and to whatever extent is age appropriate, engage with another human being, right?

00:28:23.740 Now, the hardest part is the consistent and persistent commitment on behalf of the parents because you're going to get resistance very often.

00:28:33.640 It's so much easier to just opt out on, you know, one or two or three occasions, and then a habit that you're trying to cultivate gets extinguished because you don't consistently curate it.

00:28:43.240 So, you know, these kinds of – you know, the bank example that you gave, it's fantastic.

00:28:47.360 Like, we should be trying to impart these life lessons and skills to our kids beginning as young as is appropriate.

00:28:54.040 It just takes a lot of energy to do that over time.

00:28:57.000 Here's another example.

00:28:57.720 This is with my daughter.

00:28:59.100 She's 12, and she got this bad grade on an assignment.

00:29:02.560 And she thought, I did the work.

00:29:05.180 I don't agree with the teacher.

00:29:06.620 And she was really upset.

00:29:07.880 And she asked, Dad, can you, like, email?

00:29:10.000 I'm like, no, I'm not doing that.

00:29:12.240 And she's, okay, I'm just going to write him an email.

00:29:14.040 I was like, no, you're not going to write an email.

00:29:15.820 Like, I want you tomorrow have a conversation with him.

00:29:19.440 That night, like, we role-played it.

00:29:20.780 I was like, I'm going to be your teacher, and you're going to be you.

00:29:23.700 Talk about how you're going to approach this without getting emotional and accusatory.

00:29:27.680 And we workshopped it.

00:29:29.000 And then she did it. 0.67

00:29:30.280 She had this tough conversation with an authority figure, you know, challenging him on a grade.

00:29:34.900 And it worked out great.

00:29:36.060 Like, he saw, okay, I messed up there.

00:29:38.720 You know, it was really productive, and I was really proud of her.

00:29:41.680 And I could see that she was proud of herself that she did that.

00:29:44.240 Right.

00:29:44.960 Right.

00:29:45.180 No, yeah, and that's how you build esteem.

00:29:48.180 Esteem and, you know, purpose and self-belief is cultivated by kids doing for themselves independently

00:29:56.180 with support and with guidance.

00:29:59.280 But, you know, had you written the email to the teacher, you're kind of robbing your daughter

00:30:03.880 of that rep.

00:30:05.240 And part of what we're always trying to do with parents is helping them support but not

00:30:10.180 do for and enable.

00:30:11.680 Okay, so that's brick by brick.

00:30:13.820 So just start helping these young people, young men in particular, start doing things

00:30:18.580 on their own.

00:30:19.200 And it's going to take a lot of support, but that's important.

00:30:21.600 The second principle is name it to tame it.

00:30:24.500 What do you mean by that?

00:30:26.300 Being radically honest with yourself about your strengths but also your challenges.

00:30:33.380 And I'm speaking mostly in terms of the realm of mental health diagnosis and stigma.

00:30:39.720 You know, I'm pretty transparent in the book around my own struggles with, you know, substance

00:30:43.920 use and my mood.

00:30:45.700 And I've, you know, had a diagnosed mood disorder since I was 19 years old.

00:30:49.920 I was hospitalized for it when I was 19 years old.

00:30:52.680 And I was an alcoholic for, you know, years prior and years post until I was able to kind

00:30:57.820 of clean my life up and get my act together.

00:30:59.660 But it was really my ability to acknowledge and come to grips with those two diagnoses that

00:31:07.920 were the prescription for me getting well.

00:31:10.280 And the acknowledgement of the limitations I now faced as a 19-year-old kid in college

00:31:17.000 who was a substance user who needed to figure out how to manage my life.

00:31:20.880 It was those limitations that actually provided me with freedom and helped me relearn how to

00:31:26.900 exist as a human being in the world.

00:31:28.520 And so, you know, that was a very difficult process that was shameful and humbling for

00:31:35.060 me.

00:31:35.420 But to come to terms in an honest way, which occurred over, you know, a series of years,

00:31:41.300 you know, gave me information, helped me take the right steps, helped me understand my boundaries,

00:31:47.180 things that I can do, shouldn't do, and positioned me to be successful really for the rest of my

00:31:52.800 life, truth be told.

00:31:53.620 Yeah, so you're primarily focusing on working with young men who have a diagnosed mental health

00:31:58.560 issue.

00:31:59.480 But I think this is applicable even if a young man doesn't have a mental health problem.

00:32:03.340 Like you said earlier, a lot of young men, they're, you can call them emotionally illiterate.

00:32:09.080 Like they have these emotions, but they don't know what they are.

00:32:11.860 And because they don't know what they are, they don't know how to manage them.

00:32:15.600 Right.

00:32:16.280 And so helping young men learn how to recognize, okay, I'm feeling frustrated.

00:32:22.620 I might think it's anger.

00:32:24.460 It's not anger.

00:32:25.060 It's just more of a frustration.

00:32:26.640 When you frame it like that, it's like, okay, I can do something about that now.

00:32:30.080 Or, you know, if I'm, I do this a lot with young kids who are feeling scared, like nervous

00:32:35.340 about something.

00:32:36.220 A lot of them will say, I'm just really anxious.

00:32:38.200 And I'm like, no, hey, look, yeah, you're nervous, but that's good.

00:32:41.600 It's not like something bad's happening to you.

00:32:43.460 So yeah, it's just getting you ready to take on this challenge.

00:32:46.060 You're like, oh, okay.

00:32:46.780 Yeah.

00:32:47.060 That reframe helps them be more proactive with life.

00:32:52.180 Yeah.

00:32:52.620 And, and those clarifying questions, Brett, I think are super important, you know?

00:32:56.240 So, okay.

00:32:57.080 You're angry.

00:32:57.860 What does that look like for you?

00:32:59.120 Like, how does your anger show up in different situations?

00:33:01.840 Are you blowing holes through the wall?

00:33:03.620 Are you yelling at mom?

00:33:04.700 Are you swearing?

00:33:05.520 Are you not doing your homework?

00:33:06.560 Like, you know, what do you do when you're angry?

00:33:09.240 And from there we can develop ways to address that in different fashions,

00:33:13.220 depending upon how it shows up.

00:33:14.860 But I think, you know, like you said, also, it's the emotional fluency piece.

00:33:19.560 Guys don't understand basic emotions besides sadness, which they typically can't articulate

00:33:25.440 and anger.

00:33:26.620 And so, I mean, I remember being a guy at 19 years old who was so confounded with my emotional

00:33:33.380 world and so limited in my ability to articulate it that I just showed up as angry literally

00:33:39.020 all the time.

00:33:40.220 And I think it was essential for me to become, you know, better equipped at communicating where

00:33:46.500 I was emotionally, right?

00:33:48.340 I'm ashamed because.

00:33:50.240 I'm fearful because.

00:33:52.160 I'm sad because.

00:33:53.680 I'm lonely because.

00:33:54.820 You know, these are all nuanced offshoots of anger that boys and young men and men experience,

00:34:00.280 but naming them well and naming them precisely, again, gives the prescription about how to

00:34:06.920 approach, you know, the solution going forward.

00:34:09.540 Yeah.

00:34:09.720 It's like Rumpelstiltskin. 0.84

00:34:11.660 Remember that story?

00:34:12.780 Right?

00:34:12.960 Like, once you know his name, you have power over him.

00:34:15.720 It's the same thing with your emotions.

00:34:16.480 That's exactly right.

00:34:17.260 Once you name it, like, you have power over it.

00:34:19.440 Yeah.

00:34:19.820 All right.

00:34:20.520 So it's just all about helping these young men become more emotionally literate and not

00:34:24.480 confuse maybe frustration or shame or anxiety for anger.

00:34:31.400 Because I think that's what a lot of young guys do whenever they feel those things.

00:34:34.640 Like, they express it through anger.

00:34:36.380 It's probably not anger.

00:34:37.680 It's something else.

00:34:38.180 But help them understand that.

00:34:39.660 And those messier ones, the fear and the shame and the hurt and the regret, like, those

00:34:47.040 emotions that are, like, dirty words to boys and young men, like, giving yourself permission

00:34:53.240 to hold the ability to articulate that and to communicate it.

00:34:56.940 And I think this is where parents can move mountains, like, in their ability to model that

00:35:02.820 in a healthy way for their kids in a setting of difficulty or challenge or conflict in the

00:35:09.700 home.

00:35:10.460 You know, like, when you are fighting in front of your son, how do you speak to your spouse?

00:35:15.280 How do you speak to your son?

00:35:16.460 How do you speak to your daughter?

00:35:18.120 And what do you do to communicate your own emotional response in the moment?

00:35:22.240 These are the ways that parents can do incredible things to support their kid, you know, moving

00:35:27.520 more towards emotional fluency.

00:35:29.500 Another principle that you have in your philosophy towards helping young men is you got to help

00:35:34.140 them find their wild.

00:35:36.200 Why is tapping into your...

00:35:37.860 Well, first off, what do you mean by you're wild?

00:35:39.600 What is that?

00:35:40.720 Yeah.

00:35:41.320 Wild for me is a rejuvenation of the soul.

00:35:43.820 And I think about it as losing it, right?

00:35:47.740 So like, it's becoming reacquainted with the things that make us feel alive.

00:35:52.700 I think there's a very primal, natural peace that is deconditioned out of us as men as we

00:35:59.520 move through life.

00:36:00.300 And as we move from, you know, young men, competitive, moving through, you know, physical prowess activities

00:36:08.720 that cause us to evaluate ourselves against other people and compete in large groups or

00:36:14.120 packs.

00:36:15.020 You know, when you're driving around a minivan, doing a Girl Scout cookie drive and, you know,

00:36:21.080 reporting to the same cubicle for 10 hours a day, five days a week.

00:36:24.700 Those things are the opposite of wild.

00:36:27.240 So I think that as the lifespan continues, and, you know, I've talked to guys in their

00:36:32.020 30s, 40s, and 50s all the time, they just don't feel alive.

00:36:35.380 And they feel bored and they feel underappreciated and they feel like their value is waning and

00:36:41.520 they're not alive.

00:36:43.340 And I think the process of finding your wild is reengaging with your soul and finding the

00:36:50.100 things that used to make you feel alive again.

00:36:52.440 How do you do that?

00:36:53.780 So this is for older guys.

00:36:55.820 We'll talk about helping young guys find their wild, but let's say you're a middle-aged guy

00:36:59.560 and you're feeling just kind of that middle-aged burnout, malaise.

00:37:05.200 How do you capture that wild again?

00:37:08.020 I think it takes effort.

00:37:09.580 I think it takes effort.

00:37:10.900 So you have to seek it.

00:37:13.640 You have to plan a trip with your kid and, you know, go ice fishing somewhere.

00:37:18.080 You have to finally stop complaining about the job that you hate and develop a strategy

00:37:23.720 and walk out and start again.

00:37:26.060 You have to take your wife on a getaway to an island that you plan because she plans literally 0.99

00:37:31.860 everything.

00:37:32.940 You have to, you know, make plans with a guy and go away.

00:37:36.780 You have to try a new hobby and do a new thing.

00:37:38.600 You have to put yourself out there.

00:37:39.820 And so I think, you know, a lot of the men that I talk to are highly isolated and they

00:37:45.380 go through their routine and they sit in their house and they, you know, particularly in the

00:37:49.300 winter, they are not actively doing new things that cause them to reevaluate the world around

00:37:55.500 them and test themselves to be better.

00:37:57.600 Part of being wild is competing against yourself and testing yourself to see what you have the

00:38:03.580 capacity to do.

00:38:04.480 And that requires planning and time and resources, but I think the yield is worthwhile.

00:38:11.660 What about a young guy, one of these, you know, anesthetized young men we've been talking

00:38:15.500 about that just have like no wild in them.

00:38:18.280 Maybe they've never found their wild.

00:38:19.980 How do you help them find their wild?

00:38:22.200 Yeah.

00:38:22.380 I think when we think about what has been lost in the society that we live in now, it's

00:38:28.540 this male mentorship, male specific mentorship.

00:38:32.000 So, you know, 200 years ago when you decided that you wanted to become a blacksmith, your

00:38:38.360 dad was a blacksmith and your grandfather was a blacksmith and your great grandfather and

00:38:42.460 his father were also blacksmiths.

00:38:44.200 And so you grew up learning everything from them and mentoring under them, which not only

00:38:50.360 showed their favor and their investment in you, but it taught you all the requisite skills

00:38:54.920 that you need to learn.

00:38:56.140 Now we've deconditioned men.

00:38:58.640 They don't do physical things.

00:39:00.220 Young men, especially, we're not, you know, young men are not often doing physical things

00:39:04.700 or many of them can kind of extricate themselves from doing physical things by just doing, you

00:39:09.540 know, work behind a screen, behind a door.

00:39:12.420 So I think we mentor young men and show them and teach them and reflect our favor and investment

00:39:18.720 in them.

00:39:19.760 We take them literally out into the world, into nature, like our predecessors and sit around 1.00

00:39:25.840 and tell stories and blaze a trail and hike and climb and grab a pole and fish and engage

00:39:31.420 in nature to be reacquainted with their physical wild.

00:39:34.920 And we communicate with them in ways where we demonstrate what they have the capacity to

00:39:40.320 do.

00:39:40.900 We teach them a skill.

00:39:42.800 We let them learn a skill.

00:39:44.720 We show them that they are capable of a thing.

00:39:46.800 And they begin to believe in themselves over time by trying new things and succeeding.

00:39:51.440 Yeah.

00:39:51.900 I think as a mentor, as a, as a father, one thing you do for boys, teenage boys is to expose

00:39:58.420 them to as many different things as possible so that they can find, like you talk about this

00:40:02.540 in the book, is that you can find their thing.

00:40:04.220 Cause a lot of young men, they might not be excited about anything.

00:40:07.600 It's just, they haven't found the thing that, that excites them and they might not know

00:40:12.500 they'd be excited about something until they actually try it.

00:40:15.600 So I do think as a parent, you might have to sort of nudge kind of like, Hey, you're

00:40:20.460 going to do this thing even if you don't think you want to do it because there's a chance

00:40:24.860 you might like the thing that I'm having you do.

00:40:28.060 Yeah, for sure.

00:40:29.460 Yeah.

00:40:29.580 I've saw this.

00:40:30.080 We did this, we went, we took some boys rock climbing at church one night and this one

00:40:34.720 kid, he was kind of, you know, a little, little passive, not confident and he didn't

00:40:38.940 think he was going to like it, but then he ended up liking it.

00:40:40.520 He actually signed up for a membership later on and became like a rock climber.

00:40:44.160 That was great.

00:40:44.700 It's a perfect example of finding your wild.

00:40:46.200 You have to expose them to stuff.

00:40:47.980 Yeah.

00:40:48.020 You talk about relationships in your book and this idea of mentorship, but also relationships

00:40:53.780 between just having friends, men having friends.

00:40:57.540 And you talk about a lot of the young men you work with, they don't have any friends.

00:41:02.580 Why are young men so lonely these days?

00:41:04.000 Like what's going on there?

00:41:06.120 Yeah.

00:41:06.640 Yeah.

00:41:07.040 It's, uh, it's really sad, you know, but the number one reason for referral documented

00:41:14.060 by the client coming into Causeway is to make friends.

00:41:18.060 And I, we have countless kids who come through the center who set the goal of having one friend,

00:41:24.920 not talking about girlfriend.

00:41:26.100 I'm not talking about boyfriend.

00:41:26.940 I'm talking to one friend.

00:41:28.400 And so to me, that just speaks to where we stand, like where it is difficult for young

00:41:35.300 people to connect authentically with one another.

00:41:38.000 It is easy for people to remain isolated.

00:41:41.900 And so, you know, I think we have to work to practice relationship.

00:41:47.360 And I think we see a lot of guys who are marginalized socially and who struggle socially, you know,

00:41:55.160 guys on the spectrum, guys who have social challenges, guys who've been bullied, guys

00:42:00.060 who are depressed and anxious, guys who, you know, haven't had a lot of success in making

00:42:05.080 friends.

00:42:05.480 But our message to them is to find their tribe and find their people and cultivate the relationships

00:42:12.800 from there.

00:42:13.920 So, you know, if it's an online community of people and those relationships are fostered

00:42:18.760 predominantly online, we can start there and then potentially scale up to person to person

00:42:23.360 engagement from there.

00:42:24.880 If they're kids who have a specific interest, be it in, you know, Legos or in music or in

00:42:31.340 building something out of wood or in fishing or in whatever, there are communities of people

00:42:37.460 who can develop relationships with them, with shared experience, with shared interests, which

00:42:42.900 makes it a lot easier.

00:42:44.380 And so part of where I think mentorship as we do it is effective is, you know, we can model

00:42:51.180 those skills that have eroded over time.

00:42:54.500 We can take Junior to grab a cup of coffee down the street and just kick it with him and

00:42:58.520 get him feeling comfortable talking to someone in a public space.

00:43:01.840 We can help him, you know, go down to the town green and throw the frisbee disc around

00:43:06.480 and have him do an activity that he can then do with someone else.

00:43:10.380 We can have him just walk around the grocery store and chat with somebody and, you know,

00:43:15.640 get a sense of what the body language is as we're watching him so that we can help him

00:43:19.180 read a conversation more effectively.

00:43:20.560 So when we're doing mentorship with guys who struggle socially, there's a didactic component

00:43:25.760 where we're teaching and we're gap filling and we're helping them understand the things

00:43:29.520 that they can do differently through feedback exchange.

00:43:32.020 But there's a heavy, heavy relational component because we're leveraging the relationship and

00:43:36.940 the trust that we've built with somebody to get them to do a thing that they wouldn't

00:43:40.980 otherwise try.

00:43:42.360 And I think that's the difference.

00:43:44.000 Parents struggle with their kids because they can't just get them off the dock.

00:43:48.060 They can't get them to try the thing.

00:43:49.800 We're typically successful because we have the quality of the relationship where we can get

00:43:53.820 a kid to buy in and at least try something.

00:43:56.040 And hopefully he'll like it more than he thought he would.

00:43:58.400 I've got a friend.

00:43:59.580 He doesn't have any sons, but he has a son-in-law and he noticed his son-in-law didn't have a

00:44:04.480 lot of male friends.

00:44:06.380 And, you know, he's like, this is a problem.

00:44:07.860 You need to have friends.

00:44:08.940 You're a young guy.

00:44:09.560 You should have friends.

00:44:10.620 And he's like, well, I just, I don't know how to do it.

00:44:12.280 Like, I just, I'm just so busy with work and I just don't know where to connect with

00:44:15.440 guys.

00:44:16.180 And he says, here's what we're going to do.

00:44:17.640 I'm going to host, we'll call the mastermind group at my place once a week.

00:44:21.560 And just invite some guys, you know, you don't have to be best friends with them, invite

00:44:26.520 them over and we'll just talk shop.

00:44:28.420 We'll talk about work.

00:44:29.440 We'll talk about life.

00:44:30.340 And he has to model, like, it's like this like 50 year old guy.

00:44:35.280 Basically he says, I'm doing, uh, he says, I'm doing remedial work here with these young

00:44:39.140 men.

00:44:39.540 I had to like model what it looks like.

00:44:41.600 And it's a lot of work, but it's like, it's paying off.

00:44:43.740 Like these guys are starting to connect.

00:44:45.040 They're starting to form some friendships and it's, it's enriching their lives.

00:44:48.680 For sure.

00:44:50.340 For sure.

00:44:50.840 And I gotta be honest, Brett, like I actually did it in my life.

00:44:53.980 So like when I started to reevaluate, like the way in which I was spending my time and

00:44:59.440 I really dialed back my commitment to work, I found out that I was almost spending too

00:45:04.060 much time at the house.

00:45:05.640 Right.

00:45:06.160 And like, you know, started working from home more and, you know, me and my wife were around

00:45:10.160 each other too much.

00:45:11.080 And I was around the kids, maybe a little too much.

00:45:12.720 And like, I felt that there was like this sort of missing piece for me.

00:45:16.940 And it was in the name of like relationship with other guys.

00:45:20.060 And so I just started asking guys to go grab coffee.

00:45:23.540 And it was something that I didn't do for like a decade professionally.

00:45:27.120 And I just started like, you know, if I met a guy and I hit it off with him at the ball

00:45:30.880 field or like in town or like our wives were friendly, but we'd never really hung out before.

00:45:35.880 I would just grab coffee with somebody.

00:45:37.460 And it got to the point where four or five, six hours a week, I'm just like having a coffee

00:45:43.040 with a friend, which is like good.

00:45:46.220 It's good balance for me as a man.

00:45:48.560 It helps me, you know, getting out into the community and meeting and talking to people.

00:45:51.840 It makes me visible.

00:45:53.000 It gives me things to talk about it in instances, you know, some of them that allows me to help

00:45:57.680 somebody and see a need and meet a need.

00:46:00.020 So, you know, I think male relationship as guys is something that we must continuously practice,

00:46:06.440 even if we're decent at it or pretty good at it, because the force that the accountability

00:46:11.020 provides is also very important.

00:46:14.000 Like we need to have other guys reflecting how our decisions feel to them, you know, and

00:46:21.220 it makes us better versions of ourselves.

00:46:23.400 Yeah.

00:46:23.520 It's the whole iron sharpens iron.

00:46:25.460 That's right.

00:46:25.920 Yeah.

00:46:26.440 That's right.

00:46:26.840 Well, Vincent, this has been a great conversation.

00:46:28.820 Where can people go to learn more about the book and your work?

00:46:31.580 Yeah.

00:46:31.880 I appreciate it very much.

00:46:32.800 And it's been awesome.

00:46:33.740 Thank you.

00:46:34.080 So you can check us out at our website, causewaycollaborative.com.

00:46:39.580 That's the organization.

00:46:40.940 I have a personal website, which is sharperformen.com.

00:46:45.920 My Insta is Vince underscore Benevento underscore LPC.

00:46:49.920 And obviously the book is available on Amazon and we hope you guys check it out and enjoy it.

00:46:54.860 All right.

00:46:55.120 Well, Vincent Benevento, thanks for your time.

00:46:56.580 It's been a pleasure.

00:46:57.300 Thank you, Brett.

00:46:57.900 Really appreciate the time, man.

00:46:58.920 Thanks.

00:47:00.280 My guest there was Vince Benevento.

00:47:01.740 He's the author of the book, Boys Will Be Men.

00:47:03.620 It's available on amazon.com.

00:47:05.180 You can learn more information about his work at his website, sharperformen.com.

00:47:08.820 Also check out our show notes at aom.is slash boysintomen.

00:47:11.900 We find links to resources.

00:47:13.120 We delve deeper into this topic.

00:47:14.340 Well, that wraps up another edition of the AOM Podcast.

00:47:25.020 If you haven't done so already, I'd appreciate it.

00:47:26.780 If you take one minute to give us your view and help a podcast or Spotify, it really helps out.

00:47:30.360 And if you've done that already, thank you.

00:47:32.020 Please consider sharing the show with a friend or family member who you think will get something out of it.

00:47:35.920 Word of mouth is the primary way we grow.

00:47:37.700 So, as always, thank you for the continued support.

00:47:40.240 Until next time, it's Brett McKay.

00:47:41.660 Remind you to listen to the AOM Podcast, but put what you've heard into action.

00:47:44.940 We'll see you next time.

The Art of Manliness - February 03, 2026

How to Help Disengaged Young Men Reclaim Drive and Direction

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