FYI - We don’t get too much into the importance of your connection with the therapist..

This goes without saying but that might be the first and most important part of the process!

Give a listen and hit us up if you have any comments/questions!

Dave & Andres

For the video consumers: We’re working to get that aspect back up and working, but the reality is our cartoon avatars are much more pleasant to look at.

ROY PEREZ BENAVIDEZ

DETAILS

• RANK: MASTER SERGEANT (RANK AT TIME OF ACTION: STAFF SERGEANT)

• CONFLICT/ERA: VIETNAM WAR

• UNIT/COMMAND:
  DETACHMENT B-56, 5TH SPECIAL FORCES GROUP (AIRBORNE),
  1ST SPECIAL FORCES

• MILITARY SERVICE BRANCH: U.S. ARMY

• MEDAL OF HONOR ACTION DATE: MAY 2, 1968

• MEDAL OF HONOR ACTION PLACE: WEST OF LOC NINH, CAMBODIA

CITATION

Master Sergeant (then Staff Sergeant) Roy P. Benavidez, United States Army, who distinguished himself by a series of daring and extremely valorous actions on 2 May 1968 while assigned to Detachment B-56, 5th Special Forces Group (Airborne), 1st Special Forces, Republic of Vietnam. On the morning of 2 May 1968, a 12-man Special Forces Reconnaissance Team was inserted by helicopters in a dense jungle area west of Loc Ninh, Vietnam, to gather intelligence information about confirmed large-scale enemy activity. This area was controlled and routinely patrolled by the North Vietnamese Army. After a short period of time on the ground, the team met heavy enemy resistance, and requested emergency extraction. Three helicopters attempted extraction, but were unable to land due to intense enemy small-arms and anti-aircraft fire. Sergeant Benavidez was at the Forward Operating Base in Loc Ninh monitoring the operation by radio when these helicopters returned to off-load wounded crewmembers and to assess aircraft damage. Sergeant Benavidez voluntarily boarded a returning aircraft to assist in another extraction attempt. Realizing that all the team members were either dead or wounded and unable to move to the pickup zone, he directed the aircraft to a nearby clearing while he jumped from the hovering helicopter, and ran approximately 75 meters under withering small-arms fire to the crippled team. Prior to reaching the team's position he was wounded in his right leg, face, and head. Despite these painful injuries, he took charge, repositioning the team members and directing their fire to facilitate the landing of the extraction aircraft and the loading of the wounded and dead team members. He then threw smoke canisters to direct the aircraft to the team's position. Despite his severe wounds and under intense enemy fire, he carried and dragged half of the wounded team members to the awaiting aircraft. He then provided protective fire by running alongside the aircraft as it moved to pick up the remaining team members. As the enemy's fire intensified, he hurried to recover the body and classified documents on the dead team leader. When he reached the leader's body, Sergeant Benavidez was severely wounded by small-arms fire in the abdomen and grenade fragments in his back. At nearly the same moment, the aircraft pilot was mortally wounded, and his helicopter crashed. Although in extremely critical condition due to his multiple wounds, Sergeant Benavidez secured the classified documents and made his way back to the wreckage, where he aided the wounded out of the overturned aircraft, and gathered the stunned survivors into a defensive perimeter. Under increasing enemy automatic-weapons and grenade fire, he moved around the perimeter distributing water and ammunition to his weary men, reinstilling in them a will to live and fight. Facing a buildup of enemy opposition with a beleaguered team, Sergeant Benavidez mustered his strength, began calling in tactical air strikes and directed the fire from supporting gunships to suppress the enemy's fire and so permitted another extraction attempt. He was wounded again in his thigh by small-arms fire while administering first aid to a wounded team member just before another extraction helicopter was able to land. His indomitable spirit kept him going as he began to ferry his comrades to the craft. On his second trip with the wounded, he was clubbed from additional wounds to his head and arms before killing his adversary. He then continued under devastating fire to carry the wounded to the helicopter. Upon reaching the aircraft, he spotted and killed two enemy soldiers who were rushing the craft from an angle that prevented the aircraft door-gunner from firing upon them. With little strength remaining, he made one last trip to the perimeter to ensure that all classified material had been collected or destroyed and to bring in the remaining wounded. Only then, in extremely serious condition from numerous wounds and loss of blood, did he allow himself to be pulled into the extraction aircraft. Sergeant Benavidez' gallant choice to join voluntarily his comrades who were in critical straits, to expose himself constantly to withering enemy fire, and his refusal to be stopped despite numerous severe wounds, saved the lives of at least eight men. His fearless personal leadership, tenacious devotion to duty, and extremely valorous actions in the face of overwhelming odds were in keeping with the highest traditions of the military service and reflect the utmost credit on him and the United States Army.

ADDITIONAL DETAILS

• ACCREDITED TO: HOUSTON, HARRIS COUNTY, TEXAS

• AWARDED POSTHUMOUSLY: NO

• PRESENTATION DATE & DETAILS: FEBRUARY 24, 1981
  

  THE PENTAGON (COURTYARD), PRESENTED BY PRES. RONALD REAGAN

• BORN: AUGUST 5, 1935, CUERO, DEWITT COUNTY, TEXAS, UNITED STATES

• DIED: NOVEMBER 29, 1998, SAN ANTONIO, TEXAS, UNITED STATES

• BURIED: FORT SAM HOUSTON NATIONAL CEMETERY (MH) (A1-553), SAN ANTONIO, TEXAS, UNITED STATES

• LOCATION OF MEDAL: NATIONAL MEDAL OF HONOR MUSEUM, ARLINGTON, TX ; WHARTON COUNTY MUSEUM, WHARTON, TX

Congressional Medal of Honor Society. (n.d.). Roy Perez Benavidez | Vietnam War | U.S. army | medal of honor recipient. https://www.cmohs.org/recipients/roy-p-benavidez

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In this episode we cross the globe to have a chat with John Toomey, Global Chair of the Men’s Wellbeing Initiative, International Speaker, Author of “In it for the Long Haul” and host of the Masculine Intelligence (FKA: Good Bloke Not Woke) Podcast (among many other things). We discuss workplace culture and its effects on mental health and how personal responsibility plays into that.

You can learn more about John and his many projects at:
https://wellbeingthoughtleaders.com/

If you want to know more, you can go to https://www.managedminds.co/ and check out Avi’s services.

TranscendCounselingLLC@gmail.com

For more information visit his website at:

https://www.transcendcounselingllc.com

You may notice that you can see our faces in this episode - like Dylan going electric, we’ve gone video for this interview.

It’s still pretty SFW, don’t worry.

Last night’s episode had an interaction between Dr. Robbi and the other head of the ER in which they really open up about their stress and how its built up over time and that without the proper things in place - outlets, community, self-care, time away, friends, etc. - it will swallow you up.

We’re excited to begin having expert guests on our podcast in the areas of addiction (porn, substances, etc.), executive skills (time management, prioritizing, initiating, etc.) and public policy and mental health. Check us out and connect with us to let us know what you think…Thanks and have a great weekend!

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In my clinical work with teenage boys and young men, the most common presenting issue is not always what appears on intake forms—anxiety, irritability, academic decline. It is something quieter:

Silence.

Not the absence of words, but the absence of emotional expression, meaningful connection, and psychological permission to be known.

Over the past decade, research has begun to quantify what many clinicians have long observed: while men and women report similar levels of loneliness, men are far less likely to access, utilize, or benefit from social and emotional support systems.

This gap—between internal experience and outward communication—may be one of the most significant, yet under-addressed, contributors to disparities in longevity, life satisfaction, and overall health.

The Gender Gap in Longevity and Health

Let’s begin with the most striking statistic:

• In the United States, women live approximately 5–6 years longer than men

  • Men: ~73.5 years

  • Women: ~79.3 years

This gap is not purely biological. Behavioral and psychosocial factors play a substantial role:

• Men are less likely to seek medical care

• More likely to engage in high-risk behaviors

• Less likely to seek mental health support

• More likely to die by suicide and substance-related causes

From a psychological perspective, one pattern stands out clearly:

Men are more likely to suffer in isolation, even when they are not objectively more lonely.

Loneliness vs. Connection: A Critical Distinction

Recent large-scale data complicates the popular narrative of a “male loneliness epidemic.”

• Men and women report similar rates of loneliness overall

• About 16% of adults feel chronically lonely, and ~38% report occasional loneliness (we’ll address this more in depth in future episodes)

• Among adolescents, ~40% report some level of loneliness by age 14 (this has likely been exacerbated by the combination of technology dependence and overparenting)

However, the difference is not in how much loneliness exists—but in how it is processed and expressed:

• Men are less likely to reach out for emotional support

• Less likely to talk frequently with close friends

• More likely to report not being part of a meaningful community

In clinical terms, this reflects a gap in:

• Emotional communication (saying how you feel)

• Help-seeking behavior (saying what you need)

• Relational maintenance (meaningful connections)

Life Satisfaction and Social Closeness

Another paradox emerges in the literature:

• Women tend to report higher life satisfaction overall, largely due to stronger relational networks

• Social relationships are one of the strongest predictors of subjective well-being and longevity

At the same time:

• Men often rely heavily on one primary relationship (e.g., a romantic partner)

• When that relationship is absent or disrupted, their social ecosystem collapses more easily

Emerging evidence suggests that men experience larger gains in life satisfaction when entering stable relationships, highlighting both the importance—and fragility—of their relational structures.

The Psychology of “Silent Stress”

In therapy, I often conceptualize male distress not as an absence of emotion—but as unprocessed, unshared, and unregulated emotional load. When thinking about my clients and the ones who exhibit the most growth, it’s never based on their grades, jobs or financial status - it’s based on their social wellbeing.

This distress often manifests as:

• Irritability instead of sadness

• Withdrawal instead of vulnerability

• Risk-taking instead of help-seeking

• Numbness instead of articulation

This “silent stress” is particularly dangerous because it:

• Limits access to corrective emotional experiences

• Increases physiological stress load

• Reduces opportunities for co-regulation

And over time, it contributes to poorer mental and physical health outcomes.

The Five Protective Factors: What Actually Works

Across both research and clinical practice, five factors consistently emerge as protective mechanisms for men’s health, longevity, and life satisfaction:

1. Communication: Teaching Emotional Language

Men are not inherently less emotional—they are often less practiced in expressing emotion.

Interventions:

• Explicit teaching of emotional vocabulary (especially in adolescence) - It doesn’t have to be your typical or basic terms either, but rather more complex emotions of combinations (“I’m feeling really overwhelmed and disappointed.”)

• Cognitive-behavioral techniques linking thoughts, feelings, and behaviors

• Normalizing vulnerability in male peer groups

Clinical insight:
When boys can name emotions, they are far more likely to regulate them.

2. Acceptance: Redefining Masculinity

Many boys internalize early messages such as:

• “Don’t be weak”

• “Handle it yourself”

• “No one wants to hear that”

These beliefs directly interfere with help-seeking.

Interventions:

• Narrative therapy to challenge rigid masculine norms (Examples of healthy or positive masculinity = accepting all range of emotions)

• Psychoeducation on emotional health as strength

• Exposure to diverse models of healthy masculinity (e.g., Keanu Reeves)

3. Community: Building Structured Belonging

Men often connect through shared activity rather than emotional disclosure.

This is not a weakness—it is an opportunity.

Interventions:

• Group-based programs (sports, clubs, service learning)

• Mentorship programs

• Peer-based therapeutic groups

Research shows men are more likely to engage when connection is:

• Structured

• Purpose-driven

• Activity-based (e.g., gaming, fishing, etc.)

4. Stress Management: Externalizing Regulation Skills

Without healthy coping strategies, stress becomes internalized or behaviorally expressed.

Interventions:

• Behavioral activation (exercise, movement-based regulation)

• Mindfulness adapted for male engagement (short, practical, goal-oriented)

• Biofeedback and physiological awareness training (identifying changes in body and brain under stress)

5. Self-Care: Making It Action-Oriented

Traditional self-care messaging often fails with boys and men because it is perceived as abstract or passive.

Reframe self-care as:

• Performance optimization

• Recovery training

• Mental conditioning

Examples:

• Sleep routines framed as “mental performance”

• Exercise linked to mood regulation

• Structured downtime as “reset”

A Developmental Perspective: Why Early Intervention Matters

By adolescence:

• Patterns of emotional suppression are already forming

• Peer relationships become central to identity (by the time children are teenagers, they equate life satisfaction more with their friend groups than family life)

• Social rejection carries increased psychological weight

Given that 40% of adolescents report loneliness, early intervention is not optional—it is essential.

School-based, family-based, and community-based efforts must focus on:

• Emotional literacy

• Social risk-taking (initiating friendships)

• Safe environments for vulnerability

Implications for Clinicians, Schools, and Families

For Clinicians:

• Prioritize engagement over insight early on

• Use action-based interventions before abstract processing

• Build trust before challenging defenses

For Schools:

• Integrate social-emotional learning with a focus on boys’ engagement styles

• Create structured peer interaction opportunities

• Train staff to recognize “quiet distress” (changes in behavior, motivation, socialization, etc.)

For Parents:

• Model emotional openness

• Encourage—not force—communication (This may look like you saying out loud, “You know, I’m really overwhelmed and need a few minutes alone.”)

• Focus on shared activities as entry points for connection

Final Reflection: Breaking the Silence

The gender gap in longevity is not simply about biology. It is about behavior, connection, and the capacity to be known.

Men are not dying younger because they feel more.
They are dying younger, in part, because they share less of what they feel.

The most powerful protective factors we can offer boys and men are not complex:

Teach them to talk.
Help them feel accepted.
Give them a place to belong.
Show them how to manage stress.
And make self-care something they can actually use.

When we do this consistently—across childhood, adolescence, and young adulthood—we are not just improving mental health.

We are extending lives.

For more, listen to In the Garage with Dave & Andres

Looking at this list of role models by decade helps us visualize a snapshot of what was popular and influential at that time and we will get to that, which is the point of this article, but first let’s see some superlatives in case you don’t have the patience or attention span to read the whole thing.

Now’s a good time to let you know that as I am neither a scholar nor an academic, and the closest library to me has been closed since a drunk driver crashed into it and subsequently burned it down, I used Claude AI to compile this list. It took a few iterations because apparently AI can’t fathom that there has ever been such a thing as a right-wing role model and really struggles with what the USA looked like demographically at the turn of the century, so it hit me with role models whose legacy is probably greater than their impact while alive due to the predominantly white makeup of the USA and combined with how common it was for them to be insanely racist. Eventually, I got the AI version of a compromise list wherein it had to acknowledge that PewDiePie probably has etched his persona into the YouTube Generation, and it made me concede that turn-of-the-century civil rights leaders were influential enough to cross racial lines.

I would like to thank AI for reminding me to do my own research and to not be so intolerant.

Having said all that, and maybe too much, here are the superlatives from this list - then we’ll get to the takeaways:

Most Prolific: LeBron James (Mentioned for 3 decades having the most overall broad appeal)

Since his arrival on the scene, he has demonstrated that off-court he can be a powerful force for good. Unfortunately for him, he is terrible at choosing teams that make you care about his philanthropy. Yes, somehow Cleveland seems as superficial as Miami and LA. Anyway, good for LeBron - he’ll be remembered as one of the all-around greats.

Most Entertaining Decade: 1980’s (Everyone was either an actor, musician or athlete…except the president who used to be an actor)

Actually, kind of weird when I look at this list that neither Michael Jackson nor ET made it, but otherwise I can’t argue with this lineup:

Ronald Reagan

Michael Jordan

Bill Cosby

Arnold Schwarzenegger

Bruce Springsteen

Magic Johnson

Rush Limbaugh

Eddie Murphy

We’ll circle back to Dr. Cosby in our next section except to say, I watched the Cosby Show before I knew what watching shows was, and I watched the syndicated runs almost religiously.

The big surprise for me was that Rush Limbaugh was influential in the 80’s. I thought he was incubating in the 80’s and spewed forth in the 90’s. Otherwise, I remember looking up to all these guys - Springsteen because he was born in the USA, Reagan because he sent the first teacher into space, Johnson not really because I lived in the Chicago area and we had Jordan, Jordan because he came closest to being a demigod and I saw every movie from Eddie and Arnold during this decade and they all hold up…..I said they all hold up.

Aged the worst from their peak influence: TIE - Father Charles Coughlin, George Wallace, O.J. Simpson, Bill Cosby, Lance Armstrong. (Role Models scoring a 1 on the “How have they aged?” index)

I would characterize these guys as the filth flarn flarn filth of the annals of history. Now, I think Lance Armstrong may be getting a bit of a bum rap being lumped in with racists, Fascists, rapists and murde…kidnappers. All he did was take some PEDs and subsequently won the Tour de France for 7 years in a row, but he still did it after having like every cancer known to man and surviving just to get to the point where he could cheat the American imagination. The victims of his fall from grace were other cyclists but the over $500 million that was raised by the LiveStrong Foundation to fund cancer research should at least have gotten him an extra point to separate him from these other freaks.

Father Coughlin: The Radio Priest

He started innocently enough with a Sunday morning broadcast of his sermons on a local Detroit radio station in 1926, but in 1929 when his station was acquired by a larger network, the owner nudged Father Coughlin to focus more on politics than religion.

Also in 1929 a lot of people lost a lot of money.

When everyone is jobless and broke, having a sympathetic religious figure available is going to be a comfort to many, and so it was that at the height of his popularity Father Coughlin had what amounted to a third of the USA tuning in. Things were going well until Father Coughlin felt betrayed by the FDR administration’s lack of including him on the cabinet. After that, he got a lot more Fascist and Antisemitic. He would broadcast that an “international conspiracy of Jewish Bankers” were responsible for the Great Depression and the Russian Revolution. He also felt the Kristallnacht was a justified retaliation for Jewish persecution of German Christians. I cannot confirm, nor deny, that a lot of sows went un-milked following this event.

Once the USA was embroiled in WWII, Coughlin expanded his conspiracy re: Jewish Bankers to include that all of WWII was caused by them. Finally in 1942, in a move that might be considered a hampering of free speech rights, FDR’s administration put the screws to the Catholic church to, and I’m paraphrasing here, “shut this freak the fuck up.” They complied, and Father Coughlin was relegated back to just being a regular priest at what had to be the most Fascist-leaning parish in the country. The lesson is this: if you want to look good in the history books, try to avoid siding with Hitler and Mussolini.

George Wallace: Beloved Segregationist

On the surface, one might ask “how did the guy that famously blocked the door to University of Alabama to keep out black students make the list of role models?” I would say, “good question, simple answer: even as recently as the 1960’s, a lot of people were giant dickheads and someone needed to be the face and voice of all those dickheads.” Wallace learned pretty early on in his political career that having a moderate stance on integration was not going to get you far when he ran for governor of Alabama and lost to the guy that was endorsed by the Ku Klux Klan.

Wallace was endorsed by NAACP.

In 1962, he tightened up his persona, doubled down on racial segregation and won the governorship. After taking the oath of office, he gave a lovely speech in which he gave the following quote:

“In the name of the greatest people that have ever trod this Earth, I draw the line in the dust and toss the gauntlet before the feet of tyranny, and I say segregation now, segregation tomorrow, segregation forever.”

The following year is when that famous photo of him blocking the doorway to University of Alabama was taken. It’s right about here that I concluded that learning too much about this career populist politician is equally as unpleasant as slowly ripping off a fingernail, so I’ll burn through the highlights:

• He ran for president four times, with his best showing (and the best showing of any 3rd party candidate ever) in 1968, getting 13.5% of the vote and 46(!) electoral votes.

• While running for president in 1972, he was shot by a man named Arthur Bremer, leaving him paralyzed from the waist down. Bremer’s diary was published after his arrest where he states that he was only motivated by the fame and not political ideology.

• He won the governorship of Alabama for the fourth and final time in 1982, but by then he had re-rehabbed his image and even appointed two African-Americans to his cabinet.

He died in 1998 leaving behind a legacy of racism, hypocrisy and, oh by the way, apparently did nothing to really elevate the state of Alabama beyond “backwater” status.

Bill Cosby and OJ Simpson: Not much else to say…

…Except that they were both in Ahmad Rashad’s wedding party?? When I googled, “picture of Bill Cosby and OJ Simpson together” I expected something on a golf course or at a fundraiser dinner, I certainly did not expect this. I have so many questions that will never be answered about the reception after this ceremony. I remember as a kid struggling with the math on how could Ahmad Rashad, sports commentator who looked so young, be married to Mrs. Huxtable? She had to be like twenty years older than him.

But no, turns out Cosby was just creepy and cast a woman eleven years his junior.

Also, OJ was the first choice to play the terminator in the film “The Terminator”. Imagine the direction that franchise would have taken.

Role Models Throughout History

OK, I let that first section run on a little too long but at least everyone is better for now knowing that your wedding party will not be the worst in history. We’ve reached a pivotal point in the article where I either drone on for another 20,000 words, or I keep things concise, let’s find out together! What I’m doing here is breaking down decade-by-decade who was considered very influential and seeing if there is a through-line to all of this, like does this tell us what type of figure was missing from the lives of people during that time period? I wish I could group more decades together and not have to do such granular analysis, but as it turns out, the USA really had a decade-by-decade identity during the 20th century. I do think that changes in the 21st, but we’ll cross that bridge when we get to it.

1900’s: Turn of the Century

This framework winds up being pretty standard for each decade, but what is interesting is how each individual is framed. That there is a distinction between boxer and bare-knuckle boxer is curious, but the idea that a black man in 1908 - only 45 years after the civil war - became the heavyweight champion of the world is pretty mind-blowing. I did look up what the deal was with Sullivan, and apparently he managed to bring bare-knuckle boxing out of the sketchy underworld into the mainstream and was, at the turn of the century, the most famous athlete in the US.

Also note that you’re going to see preachers like Billy Sunday over several decades because before radio and TV were ubiquitous, evangelism was the entertainment.

1910’s: The USA Starts to Find its Footing in the World

I was pretty surprised to find out that Charlie Chaplin was a superstar by 1915. I really thought movies were a thing of the 1920’s. I also can appreciate that apparently boxing was the only sport in the US for the first twenty years of the century, or at least the one everyone cared about the most - I blame Ty Cobb. Presidents get a lot of love as well, which tracks if that’s one of five people you know outside of your community. But man, Wilson seems like a tough guy to admire. I guess people were pretty forgiving back then…

1920’s: The Roaring 20’s and The Great Crash

…Whoops, I guess not that forgiving. Can’t blame them for not looking up to the presidents during this decade which seemed more interested in the business class than the common man. Thankfully they deregulated the market and the US boomed along gloriously without any issues at all. Babe Ruth and Charles Lindbergh may have been as popular and looked up to more than any two people in any other decade, and I base that on gut feeling and this country’s love for home runs, real-crime stories while maintaining a blissful ignorance of where a man goes to the bathroom when he is flying for 33 hours straight.

1930’s: The Great Depression and the New Deal

As we discussed, Father Coughlin found a way to bring the church to your home, and probably at the most critical time for people who had to consider whether or not to heat their home with the 200 pounds of wood of which their radio was made. The radio also brought the president into the home for the first time and his calming influence got presidents back on the list! Also Jesse Owens ended racism by winning gold at the Olympics. Well no, but it was a nice moment for the country and a sign of things to come for Hitler vs. the USA.

1940’s: WWII and the Start of the Cold War

Hard times call for hard men, if I can say that. You’ve got three soldiers on here that were heroes of WWII and one even went on to become president. Army lore says that Audie Murphy was awarded every possible medal except the ‘Good Conduct Medal’ (I even got one of those). I am not thrilled that three different Yankees over three separate decades made these lists. There had to be baseball in some other city, right? I should have tried to remind my AI colleague that there were cities outside of New York.

1950’s: The Cold War

Fun fact for you young’uns: the Giants used to be a New York team before moving to San Francisco in 1958, so yes another New York player makes the list. Now, you can say (hey!) that Willie Mays did a little better with the fans than Jackie Robinson and had much broader appeal at the time, and his legacy is pretty pristine as well. I would like to see the survey that asked people who was someone to emulate where they replied Hugh Hefner, but he did affect my life more directly than anyone on this list outside of Eisenhower, so I’ll allow it.

It’s a good time here at the middle of the century to take stock of who the US was looking up to. If I do a summary we can see that even though it was off to a slow start, the US really liked baseball, and was pretty OK with its presidents. Even the musicians that were looked up to (Elvis, Armstrong, Sinatra) were pretty cool by the day’s standards and still have followings to this day.

If you would have asked me to predict this list, I would have thought more writers would be on here as that was the most accessible medium of half of this time period we’re looking at, but I get it, this is a masculine list for a time when men were men and they looked up to the toughest men that were out there.

1960’s: Rock, Racial Justice & Vietnam (With Some Activism Thrown In)

Man, the Sixties were nuts. Even the guys that don’t have “activist” as part of their occupation were activists - except maybe the president - but he checked out pretty early in the decade. Actually, one could say he was an activist for lunar travel making the Sixties the decade of activism. Looks like in this decade if you wanted to look up to a civil rights icon, your cup raneth over. I don’t even dislike the Bob Dylan inclusion in this group, he fits better with these guys (minus George Wallace who was the antithesis of everyone else) than if he was nestled up with a bunch of musicians. Up until last week, if you had asked anyone how they felt about Cesar Chavez, and if they didn’t think you were talking about the boxer or his son, they would say he’s basically the patron saint of the farm worker. Now, there are a lot of cities in California scrambling to find replacement names and signs for all the Cesar Chavez Blvds due to the revelations of his sexual abuse of several children and the rape of a coworker at the UFW.

I was once on a project in Peoria, Il which happens to be the hometown of Richard Pryor and so there’s a street named after him. While he lived quite a life of debauchery, it was all pretty much out in the open, so there’s no real risk in naming a street after him - seriously, what revelation could possibly cancel him? I guess if he was also into abusing children. But aside from that, he could have been found to have killed someone and it wouldn’t change his legacy. So he remains probably the only person to have a street named after them and also to have set themselves on fire while smoking crack.

Getting back to the point, there’s a conservative estimate of between 100-200 streets, schools, parks, monuments, etc. that will need to be changed as a result of Cesar Chavez being quite a dirtbag in his spare time.

We also landed on the moon this decade. I guess since it happened with six months to go until the Seventies, Neil Armstrong got no love.

1970’s: 60’s Hangover, Gas Shortages & Disco

No shock that people weren’t exactly looking up to any of the three men that were president this decade and looked elsewhere for inspiration. In fact, it seems that people were looking in every possible corner for someone to look up to. The best thing I can say about this list is that if you put yourself in the 1970’s, OJ Simpson was the best at his craft and someone to try and emulate. Richard Pryor hadn’t set himself on fire yet, Muhammad Ali’s comeback was one for the ages and Dirty Harry was a draw in the theaters. Conversely, Bruce Lee didn’t outlive the Nixon Administration and Harvey Milk, while an inspirational story was basically national news for about a year before his assassination in 1978.

I don’t blame AI for struggling to find something good about this decade, but Dave and I were born in 1978 and 1979, so maybe I should’ve sprung for the extra deep-thinking model.

1980’s: Cocaine-inspired Questionable Design Choices

As someone who has lived in South Florida for over 30 years, I can still see remnants of the pastel-colored, neon-lighted chic that was the standard design down here for the entire decade.

On a side note: It did hit me hard from a selfish mortality standpoint that we just recently passed the 40th anniversary of being in 1st grade and watching the Challenger explode live. Hell, I think it’s been like 20 years since the last shuttle launch.

1990’s: Like the 60’s but Without the Activism or Achievements

I have to wonder if it was a sign of how the country was beginning to really be divided that we have this many different people on the list or maybe there is just more information on the 1990’s. I also love that it reads like an West-coast/East-coast sandwich. When I try and think back to this time in the country, other than music, everything seemed more of the same. Maybe we sapped the ability for Americans to innovate musically because it’s been pretty dry for the last 20-30 years. I do still remember watching MTV when they broke the news that Kurt Cobain had died.

I guess it’s pretty impressive that the World Wide Web was invented in 1989 and by 1999 I was spending like 10 hours per day on America Online. I guess sometimes a list is so indisputable that I don’t have anything to say about anyone.

2000’s: Y2K, 9/11, We Get a Chance to Field Test All of Our Military Gear

As someone who was in basic training on 9/11, I love seeing the first responders up there. Soldiers and first responders got a lot of love during the first half of this decade. We spent so much time focused on war, we started emulating the people we saw on TV or video games. I say video games, because Tony Hawk had been the most well-known skateboarder for at least 15 years, but Tony Hawk’s Pro Skater came out in 1999 and was one of the most fun games of the 2000’s.

Ok, let’s take a look at the second half of the century and see what changed…

This is interesting. The total count of role models counted were 7 more than the previous 50 years and yet their unique occupations count dropped from 24 to 18. Musicians exploded to the top of the list going from 3 to 9, baseball players drop completely off the map to be replaced by basketball players and people decided they wanted to laugh. Ostensibly, it seems like boxers stayed relevant, but really that’s Ali twice.

It would seem that without major wars in which we could feel good about our participation, the country decided to distract itself with entertainment, which is a shame because if the country had known about Roy P. Benavidez, we might have a soldier up there for people to look up to. Maybe they should have made a movie about his courage in Vietnam starring Arnold Schwarzenegger and Eddie Murphy.

2010’s: Just Like the 2000’s but With More Wifi

The 2010’s list begins to show how people started moving away from broadcast TV and radio to streaming services. Podcasts and YouTube gave people a new on-demand form of entertainment that no longer felt like it was being filtered through 20 layers of executives. I love that AI distinguishes an “early” Elon Musk and a “later” Elon Musk. I can’t imagine he wasn’t as completely insufferable in the 2010’s as he is in the 2020’s but the USA loves a visionary business person.

I would like to confess that even though I am of Latino heritage, and watched the regular Super Bowl halftime show this year, I still can’t name a single Bad Bunny song, nor even tell you what he sounds like.

I would also like to confess that while he seems to completely suck, the fact that PewDiePie managed to monetize what, in college, we used to call “getting high and watching my buddy play Final Fantasy VII”, makes me really jealous of him.

2020’s: Masks? No Masks?

6 years in and we have basically the same list as last decade. The influencers are a little more prevalent with the youth culture, i.e. Andrew Tate and Mr. Beast. I struggled to understand that in every iteration I went through, Pedro Pascal would not be shaken off this list. We’re talking about a guy who, while a fun actor, has been steadily working for 3 decades. Maybe I’m old, but his best role was as Oberyn Martell in Game of Thrones 10 years ago. I had to look up who Theo Von was and turns out he’s basically Mitch Hedberg with a happier ending (so far).

I guess since we spent most of the 2020’s in-fighting about masks, vaccines and election integrity, no one bothered to find someone new to emulate. Maybe it’s that things are taking longer to happen and yet time is going by at a seemingly faster clip that if you were a fan of Kendrick Lamar and Bad Bunny last decade, there hasn’t been any reason to look up to anyone else?

If there’s a through-line to all this, I would have to sum it up thusly: Our role models are as much a product of the culture as the culture is of them. If movies and music are stale and unimaginative, then the musicians and the actors that are looked up to are not going to change much. Where you see change in the types of role models we look up to is a key indicator of what cultural shifts are occurring in society. The list from 2010’s to 2020’s basically shifted around some internet influencers and that would indicate to me that the growth and change in our culture is there - on social media. In the 80’s when Michael Jordan and Magic Johnson (and others) turned basketball into a dynamic, action-packed sport, people started looking at baseball as boring, onerous, and in need of some steroids. When our wars stopped being “just” and started being controversial, we ceased to look to our military for heroes. When the country decided it was just tired, we barely could find people to look up to. These role models embody, for better or worse, the direction our culture and country are looking to go. Some will break our hearts and some will forever keep a special place there, some will be embarrassing to think about and some will fill us with pride when we think back to their contributions to who we are.

So take heed. To see two large lists of role models remain basically the same over 16 years, especially considering that hasn’t happened before, could be a harbinger of complacency as a nation. Just like you wouldn’t drink out of a stagnant pond for risk of illness, a cultural stagnation may be just as bad for us as a society.

Sleep well!

Citations

United States Holocaust Memorial Museum. “Charles E Coughlin.” Holocaust Encyclopedia. https://encyclopedia.ushmm.org/content/en/article/charles-e-coughlin.

Britannica Editors. “George Wallace”. Encyclopedia Britannica, 21 Jan. 2026, https://www.britannica.com/biography/George-C-Wallace. Accessed 23 March 2026.

Hurtes, Sarah. "Cesar Chavez, a Civil Rights Icon, Is Accused of Abusing Girls for Years." The New York Times, 18 Mar. 2026, www.nytimes.com/2026/03/18/us/cesar-chavez-sexual-abuse-allegations-ufw.html.

There has always been a debate regarding what impacts mental health and wellbeing more, biology or environmental factors such as our experiences as children, relationships, stressors, etc. In upcoming episodes we’ll look closer at the data that has changed (and data that has roughly stayed the same) and how it’s impacted men’s mental health.

We’ll explore topics like job markets and their changes, economic instability, divorce rates and relationships, societal expectations and more.

For more, give us a listen at https://substack.com/@inthegaragewithdaveandandres