Men Talking Mindfulness: Mental, Physical, & Emotional Fitness to Elevate Performance and Resilience for Leaders and Teams Under Pressure!

Out of every punctuation mark in every language, Vaisesika Dasa argues the question mark is the most powerful.  Why, because a question is a hook that pulls the answers already around you closer. Vaisesika Dasa left an ordinary path at 15 to become a monk, chasing questions most people never stop to ask. He has spent his life studying a traditional line of Vedic teaching and translating the Bhagav...

Howard Behar helped grow Starbucks from 28 stores to more than 15,000 and at 80, he found himself in a treatment center for depression. Howard is the former president of Starbucks North America and the founding president of Starbucks International, a longtime advocate of servant leadership, and the author of It’s Not About the Coffee and The Magic Cup. He returns to Men Talking Mindfulness for one...

The average man today is walking around with meaningfully less testosterone than his grandfather had at the same age — and the fix the military is reaching for may be aimed at the wrong target. Dr. Mark Gordon returns to Men Talking Mindfulness for his third appearance to unpack the quiet war on male hormones. He’s a pioneer of hormone-and-brain medicine, Medical Director of the Warrior Angel Foun...

The parts of you that feel most alive — the vigor, the wonder, the real friendship — aren’t gone. They’re just waiting for you to make a little room for them again. Ed Hinman is a U.S. Naval Academy graduate, an eight-year Marine Corps veteran, and an executive protection specialist at Gavin de Becker & Associates — who left a paved path to chase what he loved, earned a master’s in history, an...

In 1998, Alexander Love’s father was murdered. Years later, he sat down — on Zoom — with the man who did it. And what he found there was not what anyone expected. Alexander Love is an acupuncturist, developmental coach, and senior faculty at the Newfield Network, where he created the Lumina Process — an integrative approach to shadow work weaving together Eastern wisdom, Integral theory, parts wor...

The crisis almost never arrives all at once. It builds — quietly, gradually — and then one day, people break. Dr. Adjoa Smalls-Mantey has stood in two of the most extreme places a human can be. As an emergency psychiatrist in New York City, she sits with people at the absolute edge of crisis. Off the clock, she looks for her own edge on the sides of mountains —. A physician-scientist trained at Ox...

One of the biggest reasons why many men are suffering with loneliness is their lack of emotional intelligence and emotional literacy.  Dr. J.J. Kelly, the Punk Rock Doc, is a clinical psychologist who runs a practice called The Unorthodox. She is the author of the Holy Shit book series and recently wrote a piece for Vice on why men are so damn lonely.  In this returning appearance, she joins Jon a...

What if the reason intimacy carries so much weight for men is that it’s the only place we’ve been given permission to be fully human? Dr. Celeste Holbrook is a sexologist with a PhD in health education and thirteen years of practice working with couples. Her book, Missionary Position: A Slightly Irreverent Guide to Sex After Purity Culture, helps people rebuild their relationship with their own bo...

Trying harder to focus is making it worse. And there’s a reason for that. There is a very intimate relationship between your body and your mind. It's actually the health and harmony of your body that determines the state of your mind. Once you know this, you change the game on what focusing is and then how to actually get back to focusing on what matters.   So we brought in Janel Penaflor to help...

Everyone is talking about peptides. Dr. Mark Gordon has been developing and proving the science behind them for 25 years. This man is the authority on peptides!  As a physician, researcher, and the Medical Director of the Warrior Angel Foundation for over a decade, Dr. Gordon has treated thousands of veterans, first responders, and athletes with neuroinflammation-driven conditions: TBI, PTSD, depr...

A man walked into a room with a gun, a grievance, and nothing left to lose. The person who talked him down had spent 20 years learning one thing: the moment you make someone feel understood, the whole situation changes. Meet Derek Gaunt; he spent 29 years in law enforcement, 20 of those on hostage negotiation teams in the DC metro area. Now an instructor and expert coach at the Black Swan Group —...

What if everything you’ve been taking to boost your energy, sharpen your focus, and fuel your body was covered by one single food? Dr. Catharine Arnston discovered algae sixteen years ago while researching how to help her sister heal from breast cancer, and it changed the entire direction of her life. NASA has endorsed algae as a complete food for space travel. The United Nations has called it one...

What is the manosphere, and why are young men gravitating towards it? Elliott Hulse has been on YouTube since 2007. With over one billion views across his channels and 2.4 million subscribers, he’s been mentoring men longer than most of the manosphere’s biggest names have had smartphones. He was filmed for Louis Theroux’s Netflix documentary on the manosphere — three hours of footage with his fami...

Harvard Business School Professor Joseph Fuller joins Jon Macaskill and Will Schneider to break down decades of data showing that men are quietly falling behind in education, the workforce, and health outcomes. Joe explains why this is the first generation since the Great Depression where young men don't expect to match their parents' lifestyle, how the job market shifted away from traditional mal...

What if the things we say and do to support our bravest are actually the things putting them at risk? Dr. Shauna Springer is back. A Harvard-trained psychologist and Chief Psychologist at Stella Mental Health, she’s spent over a decade as a trusted “doc” to warfighters and first responders. Her new book, Fallout: 10 Common Beliefs That Kill Our Bravest and the Truths That Can Save Them, dismantles...

What if the move most men never make in midlife is the one that changes everything? Greg Scheinman has had two seven-figure exits — one acquired by Disney CEO Michael Eisner. He’s coached over 100 executives, completed HYROX Nationals, and at 53 is in the best shape of his life. But things weren’t always that way. Greg has been through alcoholism, depression, the loss of his father at 17, and hit...

Dr. Varpas de Sa Pereira, US Marine veteran, former USASOC Special Operator, and clinical psychologist at the VA, joins Jon Macaskill to break down warrior withdrawal syndrome and why traditional diagnoses like PTSD and adjustment disorder miss the mark for so many veterans. Dr. Varpas uses a substance abuse model to explain why military service functions like a drug and why separation produces re...

What does a man do when no one is coming to save him? Hal Hughes is a registered psychotherapist, former police officer, and federal corrections officer who survived two traumatic brain injuries, a bipolar and PTSD diagnosis, and an opiate addiction that nearly killed him. At his lowest, he was on eight psychiatric medications and undergoing electroconvulsive shock therapy. Today, Hal runs Hughes...

Father's Day is almost here, so Jon and Will sat down to talk about what fatherhood actually asks of us. Not the highlight-reel version. The real one. This episode is about forgiveness. The kind you give your kids, the kind you give your own father, and the kind you eventually have to give yourself. We get into how holding onto resentment quietly wrecks the connection you say you want, and what ch...

Dr. Lisa Larkin, doctor of internal medicine and 35-year women's health specialist, joins Jon and Will to explain what men need to know about menopause and perimenopause. She covers why women age completely differently than men (fits and starts vs. gradual decline), the biological reasons behind declining libido, sleep disruption, mood changes, and body changes in women's 40s and 50s, and why comm...

The longest relationship you'll ever have is the one inside your own mind. Most men have never been formally introduced. Jimmy Wightman — former London DJ turned global meditation teacher — joins Jon and Will for an honest conversation about what a consistent medit3 IN THIS EPISODE: How Jimmy's Meditation practice saved his relationship in real time Concentration, sensory clarity, and equanimity a...

Retired Navy SEAL Jocko Willink joins Jon and Will to break down what "discipline equals freedom" actually looks like in daily life. They cover getting up early and imposing your will on the day, recognizing over-training before it wrecks you, extreme ownership as a leadership tool and a life tool, the detachment story that changed how Jocko leads, humility as the single most important trait in a...

What happens when you stop doing things virtually and actually show up for each other? Jon, Will, and returning MTM guest David Valadez reflect on a weekend in Colorado Springs that started with an excruciating Spartan 10K — 7 miles of mud, hills, barbed wire, and shared struggle — and ended with something harder to measure. Every wall and climb was a reminder that we are stronger together than we...

What does a dedicated meditation practice look like off the cushion and in the real world? On this episode of Men Talking Mindfulness, hosts Jon Macaskill and Will Schneider sit down with Chris Lee... former Green Beret, 18 Delta medic, author of Beyond the Battlefield, and newly signed president of Machine Mentality alongside Nick Lavery. Chris came on to talk about why meditation is the quiet su...

Steven Pressfield spent 27 years writing before his first novel was published — enduring 21 jobs, living in 11 states, and at times out of his car. Finally, at age 52, Steve finally, what Joseph Campbell calls, “Seized the Sword”. Since then, he’s written over 20+ books and sold millions of copies. His most famous works are: The War of Art, Turning Pro, Gates of Fire ( Gates is on the US Marine Co...