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Being a man today often means carrying responsibility without a clear map for meaning. Work used to define everything. Service, provision, and endurance were enough. Now, many men are left asking who they are when the old scripts no longer hold. They often wonder what strength is supposed to look like in a world that’s changed.

In this episode, host Timothy sits down with military veteran and entrepreneur Scott DeLuzio. They have a grounded, wide-ranging conversation about masculinity, service, leadership, and identity after uniform. Drawing from military culture, entrepreneurship, fatherhood, and generational change, they explore how men are shaped by systems that prize competence and toughness and what happens when those systems fall away.

You’ll hear us break down:

• The military’s masculine culture: Why structure, hierarchy, and shared mission accelerate growth and how that culture can both build and limit men.
• Combat vs. support roles: The unspoken hierarchy inside the military, why most service members are enablers rather than fighters, and how that reframes masculine worth.
• Teamwork and leadership after service: Why veterans often succeed in entrepreneurship by rejecting the “do it all yourself” myth.
• Scarcity vs. abundance thinking: How competition for attention and status undermines men, and why collaboration creates more room for everyone.
• The provider identity collapse: How our grandfathers’ work-based purpose shaped masculinity and why that model no longer sustains modern men.
• Fatherhood and overprotection: How today’s parents have created safer childhoods, and the unintended cost of limiting failure, risk, and resilience.
• Letting boys struggle well: Why strength is built through responsibility, exposure, and earned competence, not constant rescue.

We highlight the tension men feel between duty and meaning, protection and growth, independence and belonging. This conversation doesn’t offer easy answers or nostalgia. It provides something more durable: a clearer understanding of how men are formed, what they’ve lost, and how they can rebuild purpose without abandoning strength.

The American Masculinity Podcast™ is hosted by Timothy Wienecke — licensed psychotherapist, Air Force veteran, and men’s advocate.
Real conversations about masculinity, mental health, growth, and how men can show up better — as partners, leaders, and friends.
We focus on grounded tools, not yelling or clichés. If you have questions or want a tool for something you're wrestling with, leave a comment or send a message — your feedback shapes what we build next.
Note: While this doesn’t replace therapy, it might help you notice something worth exploring.

Send us a text

Being a good therapist isn’t just about technique. It’s about presence. It’s about knowing how to hold space without flinching, how to challenge without shaming, and how to stay steady when someone finally tests whether you’ll leave as everyone else did.

In this episode, licensed therapist Timothy sits down with trauma clinician Bianca Thomas for a raw, deeply grounded conversation. The discussion centres around men in therapy, gender dynamics in the clinical room, and why so many men struggle to feel safe opening up. Together, they unpack what actually helps men heal and where the mental health field still falls short.

You’ll hear us break down:

• Why do men test female therapists? How boundary-pushing, sexual comments, and humour are often safety bids, not disrespect.
• Vulnerability vs. emotional collapse: Why men fear that “opening up” means losing control, and what healthy vulnerability actually looks like.
• The gender gap in clinical training: How modern therapy education often overlooks male socialization and leaves clinicians underprepared to work with men.
• What builds real safety in the room? Directness, credibility, humour, and consistency.
• Rupture and repair: Why conflict in therapy isn’t failure, but one of the most powerful healing tools when handled well.
• Sex, shame, and silence: How sexual dynamics show up in therapy, and why avoiding them does more harm than naming them.
• Why do men need other men? The role of community and “me too” moments in helping men finally seek support.

We stay with the pressure men carry every day, the pull between connection and self-protection, between showing up and staying guarded. This conversation doesn’t promise quick wins or clean solutions. It offers something more useful: honesty about what men actually need to heal, grow, and stay in the room.

The American Masculinity Podcast™ is hosted by Timothy Wienecke — licensed psychotherapist, Air Force veteran, and men’s advocate.
Real conversations about masculinity, mental health, growth, and how men can show up better — as partners, leaders, and friends.
We focus on grounded tools, not yelling or clichés. If you have questions or want a tool for something you're wrestling with, leave a comment or send a message — your feedback shapes what we build next.
Note: While this doesn’t replace therapy, it might help you notice something worth exploring.

Send us a text

Joining the military isn’t just a career choice. It’s a moral, psychological, and identity-defining decision that reshapes who you are, what you belong to, and what you carry long after the uniform comes off.

In this episode, Air Force veteran and dual-licensed psychotherapist Timothy Wienecke offers a clear-eyed, deeply personal breakdown of what military service actually gives, and what it takes. Drawing on over a decade of clinical work with veterans and his own lived experience, Timothy walks listeners through the realities civilians rarely hear before signing on the dotted line.

This isn’t a recruiting pitch. And it isn’t a bitter veteran rant. It’s an honest conversation about power, purpose, loss, and responsibility. It’s meant to help people make one of the most consequential decisions of their lives with their eyes fully open.

You’ll hear us explore:

• Purpose, structure, and direction: Why the military can be life-saving for people who feel lost and why that structure is so powerful.
• The real benefits include housing, healthcare, education, and skills development. And how they can set you up if you use them intentionally.
• Brotherhood and belonging: What makes military bonds so deep, and why they often come at the cost of your civilian community.
• Identity loss and assimilation: How military culture reshapes obedience, authority, and selfhood. And why parts of who you were may not come back unchanged.
• The job vs. the branch myth: Why your military job matters far more than the uniform you wear.
• Combat, hierarchy, and shame: The rarely discussed guilt carried by non-combat veterans in a warrior culture.
• Moral authority and killing: What it actually means to give up control over how your labour is used. And the moral injury that brings many veterans to therapy.
• Active duty vs. Guard and Reserve: Why “part-time service” often carries full-Timothye risk with less support.
• Who thrives and who struggles? The values, expectations, and red flags that predict whether service will be growth-building or deeply damaging.

This episode holds the tension at the heart of service. The pride and the anger. The gratitude and the grief. The ways service can save your life. And the ways it can cost you parts of it.

There’s no right or wrong answer to whether you should join the military. What matters is making the choice informed, intentional, and honest. This conversation doesn’t tell you what to decide. It gives you the clarity to decide for yourself.

The American Masculinity Podcast™ is hosted by Timothy Wienecke — licensed psychotherapist, Air Force veteran, and men’s advocate.
Real conversations about masculinity, mental health, growth, and how men can show up better — as partners, leaders, and friends.
We focus on grounded tools, not yelling or clichés. If you have questions or want a tool for something you're wrestling with, leave a comment or send a message — your feedback shapes what we build next.
Note: While this doesn’t replace therapy, it might help you notice something worth exploring.