The Evolved Caveman: Stress, Relationships, and Emotional Mastery for Men

What Aren’t We Addicted To?! We can be addicted to alcohol, nicotine, marijuana, narcotics, exercise, sex, shopping, social media, gaming and more. What is addiction? And how do you know if you are addicted? Most importantly, what do you do about it? Join Dr. John for a penetrating interview with clinical social worker and substance abuse counselor, Steve Peterson. Steve has been doing this work s...

After coming back together after a short, but painful breakup, Joree and I consciously adopted daily and weekly habits and tools to strengthen our relationship. While we had always put time and attention into our relationship, it didn’t always result in the connection or alignment that we both needed to feel seen, heard, validated or fulfilled. In this episode, we go into detail, sharing what we d...

“Kill yourself.” “The world would be better off without you.” This is the inner voice of a client of mine. This voice has been existent within him for over a decade. I always assumed this was simply extreme depression. But what if it’s not? What if this voice originates from someone other than his true self? What is the brain is porous and can absorb energies from outside? What if spiritual posses...

Lying. Ghosting. Stalking. Sexual assault. Bread crumbing. There is a lot that has changed in today’s dating world. The vast majority of people now meet their partner via online dating sites (e.g., OKCupid, Match, Tinder, Bumble, etc.). What are the best ideas about how to expertly maneuver this ever-changing landscape? Join Dr. John with Irina Manta (Law School Professor) and Michelle Lange (Psyc...

Paraphrasing Tim Ferris, “I don’t know any billionaires who don’t do psychedelics.”  Why is this the case? What do they know that you don’t? The field of psychedelics is undergoing a renaissance. It has been called the 5th wave of psychotherapy. The research results are impressive. The FDA has fast-tracked both MDMA and psilocybin as break through treatments. It is expected that MDMA will be legal...

Here’s the true story of two therapists who fell in love, then struggled in their relationship with some repetitive, seemingly unbreakable patterns that lead to a painful breakup and how they eventually healed to be better than ever. In my Season 5 premiere, me and my now-again fiancee, Joree Rose, LMFT, share our very vulnerable journey over the past year of what led to our breakup and how we wer...

Bonus Summer Episode of The Evolved Caveman Podcast! Trigger alert! This episode discusses the topics of suicide, self-harm, depression, narcissistic parental abuse & anxiety. This is a deeply personal, difficult & revealing interview WITH MY DAUGHTER!  In the hour long interview, Molly bravely shares her story beginning with her junior year in high school which she absolutely crushed with...

When I was a graduate student back in the 1990’s, it was a career killer for scientists to admit to believing in God, Source or something larger than self. Much has changed since then. Despite my strong scientific training at UC Berkeley, the older I’ve gotten the more I lean into spirituality. Science is one lens through which I view the world, but it is limited. Not everything can be explained v...

Personal development isn't for just the spiritual or effeminate man.  It’s for every man. It is a necessary and courageous journey into your inner world. It takes balls. It requires stepping into your fear of the unknown. This is where the real treasure can be found - contentment, happiness, satisfaction, purpose and fulfilling relationships.  After all, all the other realms have been explored - t...

What happens when you walk away from the pinnacle of success? What happens when you walk away from the traditional path to success? If it’s not just wealth & power, what does success truly mean? Where is the room in “success” for happiness? Why is looking inward to critical for success & happiness? How does authenticity enter into the equation of a successful life? What happens when we sto...

The old term is Multiple Personality Disorder. (MPD) The new term is Dissociative Identity Disorder (DID). Different terms for the same psychological condition - a core self surrounded by a myriad of other personalities that vary in age, personality, sex, and temperament. Normally, MPD develops as a result of severe and repeated trauma at a young age. This trauma causes the core personality to spl...

In a recent FiveThirtyEight poll, 60 percent of men surveyed said society puts pressure on men to behave in a way that is unhealthy or bad. Men account for 80 percent of suicides in the United States, and 3 in 10 men have suffered from depression. Ed Adams and Ed Frauenheim say a big part of the problem is a model of masculinity that's become outmoded and even dangerous, to both men and women. The...

We often make the mistake of equating longevity with success when it comes to marriage. “Wow! You’ve been married 30 years? Congratulations!” “Well, we’ve been miserable for the last 10.”  Longevity does not equal success in relationship. Were we living back in tribal times, a marriage of 15 years would have been a massive success since we would be dead at 30. Now, for the first time in human hist...

Is meaningful work an oxymoron like exact estimate, working vacation or virtual reality? Can we have our cake and eat it too with work that we get paid for that we truly find meaningful and fulfilling?  Studies have shown that meaning is an integral part of a happy, thriving life. Meaning gives us passion and motivation and creativity. It buoys our mood when things get tough. I’ve known this perso...

Wow! What a talk! Vulnerability. Honesty. It does not get a whole lot deeper or more helpful than this one. What an absolutely amazing man Bob Conlin is! How we experience ourselves as men largely through our body and our ability to be active and strong.  And what happens when that goes away (temporarily or permanently)? A frank talk about how physical limitations (e.g., surgery, back pain, vasect...

Shame is the dominatrix of the other emotions. It dresses in a leather suit with a zippered mouth, armed with a cat o’ nine tails. It can outlast and overpower any other emotion. Shame makes other emotions get on their knees and lick it’s high-heeled shoes.  Shame is the quiet belief, in our darkest moments, that we are unworthy of love, connection and belonging.  So what if shame is actually the...

Given our recent COVID pandemic, banking crisis, economic difficulties, layoffs, financial worry, relational challenges, depression, anxiety and more, the topic of resiliency has never ever been more important and needed. Resiliency, the ability to bounce forward following difficulty, is a learnable skill. And all of us have been wildly gobsmacked by challenge, stress, and trauma over the past 3 y...

Good vibes only. Think positively. If you’re depressed, you’re just not praying hard enough. Inspiration porn. We are bombarded with messages to be positive and happy on the daily. It is a Western ideal to pursue and prioritize happiness. But can we have too much of a good thing? The answer is yes, we can, according to research. Happiness cannot be pursued directly. It cannot be pursued as an end...

How does a “recovering asshole” come to be a reputed men’s coach and Coach of the Year? What is a “recovering asshole”? Someone who is sarcastic, one who pushes buttons, and gets a rise out of others. Someone who was raised with a lot of judgment around status, wealth and women. Someone who roasts others in order to make themselves feel better and make the other feel smaller. Be honest. Are you a...

What if something were impacting your arguments with your spouse? What is something that happened as an infant dramatically influenced how your romantic relationships work out? What if it were readily changed? Would you want to know about it?    It just so happens that our attachment styles, those relational blueprints that develop when we are very young, have a huge impact on how we connect and d...

Narcissist. The word is so overused as to apply to everyone and no one. What’s going on? Well, narcissism is an important issue to me personally, as I have a great deal of personal experience dealing with these folks. I’ll get into that a bit on this episode. And narcissism is truly a big deal when you consider that potentially 1 out of every 10 people has full blown Narcissistic Personality Disor...

One of the largest issues I’ve seen with men is the over identification with “the thinker” - the thoughts in our heads. Many of us think that we ARE the  thinker, not realizing that there is vastly more to us than mere thought. There are emotions, values, bodily sensations, interconnectedness, and the spiritual dimensions. It’s a one-two punch between the Man Box Culture in which we are socialized...

You know these people: The book smart student who wouldn’t survive 5 minutes on the streets of the big city. The guy with poor grades that everyone likes and makes a great team captain. The manager that doesn’t understand coding at all yet can inspire his team to outperform others. What’s the difference? The difference is between traditional intelligence (IQ), emotional intelligence (EQ), and the...

The experience of failure sucks - often resulting in depression, self-loathing and identity crisis. But if you follow the rules of failure—seeing beyond the mess and picking through the good stuff left in life’s shit heap of life’s catastrophes — you can bounce forward from failure into success.  Embrace the F-word and let hard times make you stronger. Because after it sucks, FAILURE RULES!  SOME...

This is a bonus episode of The Evolved Caveman Podcast as anger has been on the rise worldwide since the start of COVID. This episode was originally recorded in 2021 during the height of COVID. However, the gems included within will dazzle for eternity.  My esteemed guest is Dr. Thomas DiBlasi, an anger management expert and psychologist. So check this out…Two anger management experts riffing on a...