Nick Papadopoulos is an executive coach who has led men's groups for over 22 years and co-wrote The Men's Group: A Novel of Messy Friendships. One of his clients, a COO, came to him with a newborn at home, no intimacy in his marriage, a father dying of cancer, and a losing battle with his CFO. He'd tried talking to the neighborhood dads over beers, but all they wanted to discuss was the beer and the game. He needed a real conversation.We unpack why men's circles shrink as their lives get bigger, how a partner ends up as a man's therapist, coach, and priest all at once, and why "shoulder to shoulder" is where most guys connect but can't be where it stops. 

Dr. Ken Martz has spent nearly 30 years working in mental health. He’s written 16 books, worked with anxiety and panic for decades, and knows firsthand what happens when being productive, driven, and “fine” becomes a substitute for noticing that your system is overloaded.

In this conversation we unpack high-functioning anxiety in men, why the same drive that makes you successful can eventually start working against you, and how to tell the difference between healthy stress and a nervous system that has been running at full throttle for too long. Because the problem isn’t ambition. It’s having a gas pedal without a brake.

Brian Alsruhe has spent nearly 30 years under the bar. Strongman, powerlifting, coaching world champions and did a stint in counterterrorism before turning toward clinical mental health work.

In this conversation we map how Brian trains men for capacity in the gym, how Tim trains for it in the therapy room, and why the same program can break two very different men for two opposite reasons: the guy with no capacity who snaps at the first hard week, and the guy on the edge of burnout who runs any plan perfectly on paper and still falls off a cliff at home. Neither one has a willpower problem.