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

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...

Our A2A Course is live and at 40% off until Friday, May 29th at 1pm ET. Visit https://focusnowtraining.com/a2a-course to sign up NOW!! Marcus Aurelius said it nearly two thousand years ago: we all love ourselves more than other people, but care more about their opinion than our own. On this episode of Men Talking Mindfulness, hosts Jon Macaskill and Will Schneider sit down with Andy Riise... army...

What happens in the space between a trigger and your reaction? That gap — the one most people don't even know exists — is where everything changes. In this special episode, Will and Jon break down the concept live during the Awareness to Action (A2A) course launch webinar, walk the audience through a real-time breathwork exercise to experience the gap firsthand, and explain how training this skill...

Have you ever been mid-conversation with your partner, felt your jaw tighten, your stomach drop, your brain go sideways — and some part of you already looking for the exit? That's not a character flaw. That's your nervous system treating your partner like a threat. EJ and Tarah Kerwin are couples therapists, founders of Relationship Renovation, and parents of twins born on their honeymoon. EJ — a...

Leaders are exhausted from a job they're not actually doing. They're exhausted from the performance of doing it. The mask, the armor, the carefully calibrated version of themselves they put on every morning before walking into the office. In this solo episode, Jon breaks down what leadership theater is costing you, your team, and your family. Why most leaders are running on imposter syndrome and d...

We've got a new course, Awareness to Action, launching May 27. Text MTM to 33777 or hit this link to stay in the know: https://focusnowtraining.com/a2a-course-interest Episode notes: We almost didn't make it past the first few episodes. Jon was filming from a yellow Fiat with black racing stripes in a Starbucks parking lot, stealing their wifi. Will was in his old apartment. The dogs walked throug...

Who are you when everything you've built your identity on gets taken away? For Dennis Connors, that question wasn't hypothetical. A teenage USA rock climber turned Marine Corps intelligence operator, he served three combat tours in Iraq supporting Tier 1 Special Operations, ran 250 interrogations, and came home with multiple undiagnosed TBIs, severe PTSD, and two strokes — the second partially par...

Text A2A to 33777 to stay in the know about our upcoming Awareness to Action Course! Carl Jung said that when a man deals with his own shadow, he does something real for the world. On this episode of Men Talking Mindfulness, host Will Schneider sits down with Connor Beaton, founder of Man Talks and author of Men's Work, to get into what shadow work actually looks like for men and why most of us ha...

You've read the book. You nodded at every page. And then you changed absolutely nothing. Sound familiar? Nir Eyal helped Silicon Valley build the systems that capture your attention — then turned around and wrote the books on how to fight back. Hooked became the playbook for habit-forming products. Indistractable showed you how to resist them. And now Beyond Belief cracks open the real reason most...

Stop pretending you're fine on 5 hours of sleep. You're not. On this episode of Men Talking Mindfulness, hosts Jon Macaskill and Will Schneider bring back Robert Sweetman, former Navy SEAL, sleep scientist, and founder of Sleep Genius, to talk about what actually makes the difference between garbage sleep and real recovery. Rob's approach starts with a concept he calls the sleep dojo. The same way...

One concept. That's all we're covering today. And if you only took one thing from 260-plus episodes of this show... it might be this. Viktor Frankl survived the Holocaust and came out the other side with an idea that Jon and Will think about almost every day. Between what happens to you and how you respond, there's a gap. A space. And inside that space is where every good decision you've ever made...

Mindfulness is a $2 billion industry. It's in apps, corporate programs, retreats, and workplace wellness modules. And men are more burned out, disconnected, and distracted than ever.  So is mindfulness  actually working? Sean Fargo is a former Buddhist monk who spent two years in a Thai monastery before deciding the world needed these teachings more than the monastery needed another monk.  His pla...

"I spent five years hurting a good woman by staying with her but never fully choosing her." That one sentence, written by Bryan Reeves, has been read by tens of millions of people. On this episode of Men Talking Mindfulness, hosts Jon Macaskill and Will Schneider sit down with Bryan... former U.S. Air Force captain, relationship coach, and author of the book Choose Her Every Day or Leave Her... to...

We're doing something a little different. Shorter episode. One idea. No fluff. Here's the truth... most mindfulness advice wasn't built for men. "Just meditate for 20 minutes." "Download this app." "Take a breath and relax." Cool. None of that lands for the guys Jon and Will talk to every week. Not because those guys are anti-mindfulness. They just haven't found an entry point that makes sense for...