ManTalks Podcast

I’m a big believer in balance, and I think the dance between yin and yang (or masculine/feminine, or whatever polarity names you like) provides a ton of insight. So, this week’s mini ep is all about giving your masculine energy purpose and direction. Masculine energy can help you structure your life, mind, and career, but—hard truth here—it’ll only get you so far by itself. Without external purpos...

This is a heavy and fascinating ep, my friends. Our workplace can be one of the single greatest factors in our mental health, so I wanted to sit down with one of America's leaders in business ethics and masculine psychology, Dave M Mayer. We dive deep into the research to discuss the ways "one-dimensional" masculinity impacts the work we do, the language we use, and the backlash men might get when...

This was inspired by a conversation I had with a client of mine. When you're living in a time of crisis, how in the world  do you maintain gratitude? When the faith in our abilities as individuals, communities, even as a species is shaken, it's easy  to gorge on the soup of fear and leave any idea of thankfulness behind. The way out? We need to (myself included!) build a relationship with the fear...

What if you could change your patterns—permanently? What if there’s more to you than just a body or just a mind? These are just two of the questions that ignited Dr. Nicole LePera’s (aka the hugely popular @the.holistic.psychologist) pursuit of a more holistic style of healing. It was an honor to sit down with her and share journeys of healing, how important it is to face your unhealthy patterns o...

The internet is an ocean. Just like our actual oceans, there’s incredible diversity and beauty. There’s also a solid and growing amount of garbage. Why is it like this, and why does online discourse often leave us exhausted and angry? This week, I propose this: What if the internet is an expression of humanity’s collective unconscious? Listen in for my perspective, and let me know what you think!...

I’m excited for this one! On November 4th, JAMA Psychiatry published a study with an impressive claim: psilocybin was (get this) at least 4 times more effective on major depression than the usual antidepressants. Plant medicine is a big fascination for me, so it was so rewarding to speak with one of the authors that study, Dr. Alan K Davis. Alan is on the bleeding edge of both the research and the...

I get a large number of requests from men, women, and clients to discuss this topic. Surprisingly, a number of people have also asked, “Can a woman actually be a narcissist too?” So I dug into the research, consulted some therapist and coach friends of mine, and decided to tackle the topic gently but directly. The word “narcissist” gets used as a label way, way too often, and waters down the issue...

I recorded this ep last spring--part of a miniseries on Jungian archetypes and the fantastic book, King, Warrior, Magician, Lover . Considering the need for healing and wisdom in the face of so much uncertainty and change, it felt like a good time to pull it out of the archives. This is a deep dive into the archetype known as The Magician. An integrated, healthy one heals, transforms, enlightens,...

I recorded this yesterday, after election day, and wanted to both weigh in on things and also zoom out a bit and take a look at one of the more pervasive aspects of 2020: ambiguity. At the end, I give some helpful tips and some hard-hitting prompts to help you navigate. When there are so many possibilities and so many variables, the mist of ambiguity is obviously the result. When we combine that w...

We dug into several things in this session, but at the core were the aftereffects of a family member’s struggle with alcoholism. This and other addictions like it impact countless families, and the effects ripple outward into our own lives in many different ways. For those of you listening, if anything resonates and you want some help or insight, please don’t hesitate to DM me and check out a doct...

This week’s mini-ep is just me thinking out loud on what desire really means. It seems like our culture has built a massive framework around desire, or more accurately, built it to imply your lack of something, and therefore need to “get it”. But the big secret is the final source of contentment--the satisfaction we’ve been outsourcing for years--is only found within. To be clear, I’m not denying...

How do we understand each other, especially when we disagree? This week, I sat down with one of the leaders in nonviolent communication, or NVC, Oren Jay Sofer. If you're unsure of what nonviolent communication actually is, you'll have a solid grasp after this! For Oren, language runs deep. It’s intimately connected to universal, fundamental human drives, social structures, and even our physicalit...

This week’s mini-episode is a personal one, and about one of the most ancient and powerful rituals we as humans can practice: memento mori--being mindful of the inevitability of death. I dive into how memento mori works as a contemplative practice, its history, and why it’s more than just some personal development tool. Modern culture works hard to avoid even the idea of death, to the point where...

This was a powerful interview, and I’m grateful to have had the chance to listen to Reggie’s peace-oriented mindset and his perspective on a highly divisive period in American history. We dove into understanding the origins of modern activism and activist groups, Black Lives Matter, why discussions fall apart, and how we might repair them. Listen in for an honest, real conversation, and if it reso...

Part 2 of You Ask, I Answer is here! Some great questions came in and as always, it’s a pleasure to answer them. This week’s mini-ep covers setting and understanding boundaries with a partner, the “code of conflict”, how to know if it’s “the One”, and enhancing/perfecting long-distance relationships. If this episode resonates with you, let me know! Leave a rating or review, or send me your questio...

I often tell clients, “say yes to the man you want to be”, and Lee Chambers is someone who decided to shout it! From running a seven-figure business to losing his ability to walk, he’s seen a lot. I was amazed by his struggles, but moreso by his deliberate, intentional reframing of them. Lee’s story is an incredibly powerful example of how mindset and action work together to define who you are and...

I genuinely enjoy getting questions from listeners, so this Q&A will be a two-parter! This week, I touch on three big questions: why some people crave the extreme, how to move on from a relationship full of love but doesn’t meet your needs, and when to walk away from a partner who is ambivalent about the relationship. If you know someone who can relate to these questions, share this with them!...

I like to occasionally feature a shadow-work session with someone I’ve never worked with before, and this one got powerful fast. My guest came to me wanting to work on the intersection of his sexuality and his religion; he feels fulfilled by being a leader in his community, but he also feels a clash between the pressure to “be religious” and be a sexual being at the same time. This expanded into a...

By the time you listen to this, my incredible wife Vienna and I will be on the road, heading into a new chapter of our lives. It seemed like the perfect time to talk about “moving” through crisis (see what I did there?). Because, like so many of our friends, clients, and listeners, the last several months threw a lot of plans into disarray. So we sat down together to discuss clinging to expectatio...

You’re going to want a comfy chair for this one. This week, my guest is Daoist Monk Yun Rou. Yun Rou is a brilliant interpreter of ancient ideas for a modern ear--if you’ve read his book The Mad Monk Manifesto you’ll know what I’m talking about. We got heavy into social media and how it affects us, why you might know more about Daoism than you think, and how Daoist philosophy can offer us a differ...

This is a really important topic for me; it’s one of the reasons I started ManTalks. In this episode, I check out why men seem to only turn things around after everything’s on fire.  I dive a bit into the shadow aspects of modern masculine culture, and how they amplify the problem (hint: shame is a big player).  Every man’s journey is different, but there’s one thing we all need--and I mean need--...

What does resiliency mean? How do you build the ability to bounce back after an event that shakes you to your core? How does it change you? To help answer these I spoke with adventurer, author, entrepreneur, humanitarian, and keynote speaker John Beede, and we dove straight into the hard stuff. It was a real pleasure to chat with John about what drew him to mountains, his struggles and victories,...

If you’ve been paying attention, you’ve no doubt seen a spike in mental health issues over the last year. Most reasons are pretty obvious, of course, but there are other aspects you might not have considered. So I wanted to think out loud about what these are, how they work, and what we can do to mitigate the symptoms. In some ways, a mental health crisis is already here, and if we don’t talk abou...

For our 300th episode, I wanted to cover something so common we take it for granted, and so critical we can’t live without it: breathing. Most of the time, it’s something we do unconsciously, but how we breathe and what we’re taking in are critical. We don’t really give it a lot of thought, but James Nestor is dedicated to changing that. When he and I sat down to talk about the nature of breath, t...

This week I wanted to cover something a ton of people are experiencing right now: transition fatigue. Each of us has a natural limit on how much change we can take at once. When we hit that limit, issues can start cropping up that’ll impact you and your relationships in a pretty big way.  In my opinion, transition fatigue isn’t talked about enough, so I wanted to cover it here and in my weekly new...