Excavating Joy: An Elusive but Crucial Element for Today’s Emerging Men

Author, teacher, and entrepreneur Paul Cumbo will share insights on the crucial importance of joy for today’s teenage boys and young men. Based on nearly twenty-five years teaching in all-male classrooms along with roles in service learning and spiritual formation, Cumbo will offer perspectives on some of the forces that are eroding—or at least burying—the deep joy essential to healthy development for too many of today’s young males. From there, he’ll share thoughts on how shared journeys predicated on service to others can help young men re-engage with their emotional core, connect deeply with others, and rediscover an animating joy that runs far deeper than the shallows of deceptive ‘happiness’ that leave so many feeling desolate and lonely.

Paul Cumbo is a husband and father of three based in Buffalo, New York. A veteran educator, Paul is in his twenty-fourth year teaching at all-boys college preparatory schools, and is the author of five books. His 2020 novel Wilderness Therapy gained national recognition as the Writer’s Digest Best Self-Published Book Award in the young adult category. His most recent title, published globally through the Globe Pequot Publishing Group, is A Path to Manhood: Encouragement and Advice for Young Men. The book spent two weeks as Amazon’s #1 new release in two categories, including men’s health and men’s gender studies. In addition to his teaching career, Paul is the cofounder and principal of the Camino Institute, which offers service-based retreat experiences based out of its campus in the mountains of the Dominican Republic—including an annual young men’s seminar.