“The Tap” That Brings Men Back
Heroic Men leader Kevin O’Brien says a personal invite — and a few small daily acts — can break isolation and rebuild faith
MILWAUKEE — Kevin O’Brien has trophies on the shelf behind him — the kind earned with “blood, sweat, and tear,” as he puts it — and he laughs when his friend and host Sean teases him about turning the camera away.
But on the latest episode of Heroic Hotline, the board member with Heroic Men and the Catholic Men’s Leadership Alliance wasn’t there to talk about awards. He was there to talk about what he calls “the tap” — the simplest form of evangelization: touch a person, make a personal invitation, and build real friendship.
“Men respond to challenges,” Sean tells him. “They don’t want a participation trophy.”
“No, not real men,” O’Brien replies.
And in O’Brien’s telling, the “tap” is a challenge that matters — because the stakes are men’s lives, families, and faith.
A personal invitation, not a program
O’Brien and Sean frame it as something any man can do.
“It’s just personal invitation,” Sean says. “We can all do this, right? Like you don’t have to be a business tycoon or have a philosophy degree or theology degree to do this, do you?”
“Well, you know, it’s interesting,” O’Brien says. “Not only do you not have to do that, you actually are called to do that by Christ and of course His Church.”
He steps back and names what he sees as the “fruit” of apostolate work — men becoming better men because they’re given “resources and tools” to grow in faith, virtue, and friendship.
“The tap — touch a person — handshake,” he says. “It’s about a personal invite. It’s about that personal connection. It’s about developing relationship — not only with Christ primarily, the highest good, but also with each other.”
O’Brien says there’s a cultural resistance baked into the problem.
“Being an American and being Canadian … from an American perspective, there’s this like, ‘Hey, we can do it on our own’ thing,” he says. “And so there’s this lack of almost — inviting guys feels literally so awkward — that connection from … I’ll use the word masculine intimacy.”
He puts the need plainly.
“Our souls need friends,” he says. “The connection is not only human — it’s even deeper — and it can be spiritual.”
He points to an old line he says has guided his thinking.
“St. Thomas Aquinas said this,” O’Brien says. “He said true friendship can only be formed by those striving to grow in virtue.”
Then comes the practical question.
“Okay, well where do I find those guys?” he says.
A conference as the on-ramp — and the parish as home
O’Brien says their approach has been to keep it “very simple” and create an easy entry point through a big annual men’s conference — an event he describes as both “micro but macro.”
“We use the conference as our evangelization annual,” he says. “Getting 4,000 individuals coming with their sons and create this massive tsunami of goodness, right?”
And he says most men arrive because someone personally invited them.
“90% of the guys that come to our conference experience are tapped,” O’Brien says. “They’re tapped in.”
Then he gives the script the way men actually speak it:
“‘Hey, Sean, … got a group of guys coming. … I’d love to have you come. … It’s going to be a day event. It’s like a little mini retreat. … You bring your son. … I promise. … You know what? I’ll buy your ticket and you pay me if you like the experience. If you don’t, no problem. It’ll cost you nothing.’”
It’s not marketing copy, he argues. It’s proof somebody cares.
“Guys — to have the opportunity that somebody cares enough,” he says.
But O’Brien says the event is not the finish line.
“Beyond that … we want to send them back into parish-based men’s groups,” he says. “Why the parish? Because that’s where your local family is. And Christ is there so that relationship can happen.”
Sean says he’s seen that “plugin” multiply.
He recalls a conference where a young man started a book club for younger dads.
“It continues to this day,” Sean says. “It’s broken off into other groups … it’s continued to grow.”
Now, he says, they’re pressing the same idea with younger men who live online.
“Let’s take it offline,” Sean says. “Meet, have a coffee, a beer … build that authentic friendship.”
Isolation, despair — and why the tap matters
O’Brien doesn’t soften the problem he thinks the “tap” is meant to confront.
He references what he calls a “study on the crisis of manhood,” and he describes a pattern men in ministry circles are seeing: isolation, despair, and deaths that follow.
“Men are suffering,” he says. “They’re isolated.”
He describes the spiritual logic he believes is at work.
“Satan knows if I put them in their little … isolation in their man cave all by themselves, I can get them,” he says. “If I get to the man — strike the shepherd, scatter the sheep — if I can get to the father, I can get to the family.”
So, he says, the Church needs men who evangelize simply, personally, and face-to-face.
“Our approach is keep it very simple,” O’Brien says. “Do the personal invite.”
Sean says the hunger is obvious.
“There’s a need for that,” O’Brien agrees. “There’s a hunger. The data shows that.”
He describes the kind of friendship he’s trying to build: men who are not already great, but who are “striving to be great.”
“Form battle buddies,” he says.
He ties it to Scripture and proverb.
“Sharp people sharpen each other like iron sharpens iron,” he says. “You become like the people you hang out with.”
And he argues that men who have been given more are expected to give more.
“When much has been given, much is expected,” O’Brien says. “Christ expects more.”
“Shaky leg” faith — and the urgency to share it
O’Brien tells a personal story about losing his faith — not because he hated it, he says, but because he didn’t understand it.
“I lost my faith because I didn’t understand what we believed or why we believed what we believed,” he says. “No one had the courage — and my parents just didn’t know.”
He says he drifted. And he believes many men have too.
“There’s so many men that have drifted,” he says. “And it’s our job to go out into the deep and bring them home.”
When he returned, he says, he was stunned by how rich the Catholic faith is.
“It’s so rich. It’s so deep. It’s so freaking awesome,” O’Brien says. “When I kind of came back, I’m like, ‘Why the heck didn’t anybody tell me this?’”
He describes the feeling he wants men to leave with after a good talk.
“We hope you have shaky leg,” he says, “meaning that you’re just so inspired that you want to like, ‘I’m ready to go, coach. Put me in.’”
Hope, mindset — and brothers in the valley
The conversation keeps circling back to what happens when men stop pretending they’re fine.
Sean says peer support becomes real when men realize they’re not the only ones struggling.
“In these small men’s groups where men start opening up,” he says, “they realize that men are struggling the same way they are.”
He jokes about the universal experience of being a dad.
“My teenage daughter knows everything and I’m an idiot,” Sean says. “Well, yeah, that happened to me, too.”
O’Brien says hope is the word to watch.
“What is a weapon of Satan? Despair,” he says. “When you start to realize … others have entered into [this], there brings comfort.”
He brings in a framework he discussed with his own men’s group: self-mastery, mindset, and what men consume.
“What are you consuming on a regular basis?” he asks. “We have 6,000 thoughts. Most of those are negative.”
He quotes another line he likes.
“Show me your friends,” O’Brien says, “I show you your future.”
And he frames suffering as the place strength is forged.
“Christ talks about embracing your daily crosses,” he says. “Don’t run away from it. Run towards it. Because in that suffering, in that sacrifice is your strength.”
He offers a modern example of why brotherhood matters.
“The Navy SEALs found that the main reason guys don’t ring the bell … is because of the guy next to him,” O’Brien says.
Practical reps: text a brother, bless your kids
Even as the conversation stays big-picture, both men keep turning it into “takeaways.”
O’Brien says outreach has “levels,” depending on where a man is.
Sometimes it’s a conference invite. Sometimes it’s a men’s group. Sometimes it’s a simple text.
“Just start texting your guys,” he says. “Hey listen — I’m just praying for you today. Hope you have a great day. That’s it.”
He believes the Holy Spirit can do more with that text than a man expects.
“That could change a life,” O’Brien says. “That individual could be suffering. He’s like, ‘Wow, I got somebody … that cares for me.’”
Sean says he does it too.
“I was in Poland just recently,” he says, “you take a picture of a beautiful altar or something and you send it to a brother and say I’m praying for you.”
O’Brien takes it closer to home.
“Texting each of my kids — ‘Hey Shane, just praying for you today …’” he says. “Guys, you want to build relationship with your own children? … Hey, I love you. I’m fasting for you today.”
Sean laughs at the logistics.
“I’ll have to get these thumbs working with eight kids and 17 grandkids,” he says.
O’Brien pushes the point: start with the people closest to you.
“If you cannot text your wife and kids to tell them that you love them and are praying for them, brother, you need to call us,” he says.
Then O’Brien tells a story he calls a “gift” — a lesson shared by speaker Doug Barry after a priest asked him a simple question.
“‘Are you blessing your wife and your children?’” O’Brien recalls.
Barry, he says, wasn’t.
So Barry went home with holy water and tried.
“He’s so nervous,” O’Brien says. “This is his wife. … He is outside the door … he throws the holy water from the door. It lands on her head. … He bolts.”
The next morning, O’Brien says, Barry’s wife told him she had a strange dream — like a rainstorm.
Then she told him what it meant to her.
“‘I know that you not only try to protect us physically, but you’re trying to protect us spiritually, and I’m grateful for that,’” O’Brien recounts.
O’Brien says Barry kept doing it — and now the fruit is visible.
“To this day … all of them still do this,” he says of his own children. “They come, ‘Dad, will you bless me?’”
It took reps, he says, like any muscle.
“We just don’t know that you’re uncomfortable until you get the reps in,” O’Brien says. “Then you build comfort with it.”
Sean agrees, adding his own detail.
“Up here we have St. Joseph’s holy oil from St. Joseph’s Oratory,” he says. “The kids … used to come to me to bless their boo boos.”
From giving to going: coffee, prayer — and a monthly reminder
As the episode winds down, Sean describes an idea he hopes to scale: a simple challenge tied to Giving Tuesday.
“Challenging men to pray,” he says. “What brother do you want me to take for a coffee or a beer … take that man out just to let him know that you see him, you’re there.”
Then, he says, take the cost of that coffee and turn it into a monthly donation — a recurring reminder to pray and reach out.
“Every time that comes out … it’s a reminder that I should pray for this guy or reach out to this guy,” Sean says he heard from a board member.
O’Brien says that’s the point: keep it doable, keep it personal, keep it growing.
“There are levels,” he says. “As they grow, they can take on more.”
The episode closes with logistics and an open invitation.
O’Brien’s Milwaukee-area conference is March 14. Sean laughs that it’s the same date as theirs — close to the feast of St. Joseph.
“Welcome everybody,” O’Brien says.
And Sean signs off with the same refrain that ran through the whole conversation: take it offline, shoulder to shoulder, and keep tapping.