Podcast Archives | The Art of Manliness

Most people assume that if a goal is hard to achieve, getting there has to feel hard too. We tend to believe that extraordinary results require extraordinary suffering. But my guest says the secret to success isn’t gritting your teeth; it’s making the path enjoyable. His name is Jia Jiang, and in his new book, Easy Discipline, he argues that consistency comes from designing your work and your life so that doing the right thing becomes something you actually want to do. Today on the show, Jia explains the difference between hard and easy discipline, why “eating bitterness” isn’t the best way to go after your ambitions, and how to make your work feel more like play without lowering your standards. Along the way, we discuss Soviet hockey, Japanese tea ceremonies, rejection therapy, one-action goals, and the power of pursuing aims that are an expression of who you are. Resources Related to the Podcast Jia’s previous book: Rejection Therapy Jia’s 100 Days of Rejection Therapy videos, including asking for a “burger refill” AoM Article: Motivation Over Discipline AoM Podcast #954: The Feel-Good Method of Productivity Connect With J

Many of us grow up believing that midlife is when things start going downhill. Your body’s breaking down, your best work is behind you, and you may fall into a full-blown existential crisis. But a lot of what we think we know about midlife turns out to be based more on pop culture than actual research. My guest says the reality is much more encouraging. Her name is Margie Lachman. She’s a professor of psychology, the Director of the Lifespan Lab at Brandeis University, and the author of Primetime: A New Vision for Midlife. Today on the show, Margie discusses what age range constitutes midlife — and how it’s not just a matter of chronological age — and whether people really become less happy and experience a midlife crisis during these years. She explains the surprising ways your mind continues to improve even as some abilities slow down, and why this stage of life often represents a peak combination of creativity and judgment. We also talk about the real challenges that come with midlife and how adopting the right mindset and habits can mitigate those downsides while helping you make the most of what Margie argues can truly be a sweet spot in life — a time when you still have much of your physical and mental vitality, and it’s coupled with seasoned experience and wisdom. Resources Related to the Podcast Seasons of a Man’s Life by Daniel Levinson AoM series on Levinson’s research Transformations: Growth and Change in Adult Life by Roger Gould Passages: Predictable Crises of Adult Life by Gail Sheehy <a href="https://www.artofmanliness.com/character/advice/podcast-598-journeying-from-the-first-to-the-second-half-of-life/" target="_blank" rel="noopener" data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?q=https://www.artofmanl

George Washington is perhaps the most familiar figure in American history. But most people really only know the image of him they see in marble statues and patriotic paintings. Behind those symbols was a real man: ambitious, self-taught, intensely concerned with honor, and constantly wrestling with the immense responsibilities history placed on his shoulders. In celebration of America’s 250th birthday, we’re taking an extended look at the life of the man more responsible than anyone else for the nation’s founding. Here to unpack that life for us is H.W. Brands, a historian and the author of a new biography of Washington, American Patriarch. Brands traces Washington’s journey from a young Virginia surveyor to military commander, founding father, and first president. Along the way, we discuss how Washington’s upbringing shaped his character, why he became a surprisingly effective military leader despite losing more battles than he won, how he held together a fragile revolutionary army, how he shaped the presidency through the precedents he set, and whether a leader like Washington could still succeed today. Resources Related to the Podcast H.W.’s previous appearances on the AoM podcast: Episode #696: Theodore Roosevelt, The Last Romantic Episode #908: Would You Have Been a Patriot or a Loyalist? AoM Podcast #223: George Washington, Benedict Arnold, and Valiant Ambition <a href="https://www.artofmanliness.com/character/self-improvement/self-education-george-washington/" target="_blank" rel="noopener" data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?q=https://www.artofmanliness.com/character/self-improv

The modern idea of retirement was built on a bet that turned out to be wrong. It assumed people would spend most of their lives working and only a relatively short period of time retired. Instead, many Americans now reach 65 healthy, active, and with an entire third of their life ahead of them. Yet we’re still using a retirement model designed for a world in which old age was shorter and fewer people expected decades of life after leaving the workforce. My guest says that outdated assumption creates some unfortunate unintended consequences. It causes people to stress excessively about money, postpone meaningful experiences with family and friends, and sometimes sacrifice the very things that make life worth living in the first place. He argues that by rethinking retirement — not necessarily eliminating it, but reimagining it — we can enjoy more of our lives now while actually feeling more secure about the future. His name is Derek Coburn, and he’s a financial advisor and the author of Let’s Retire Retirement. Today on the show, Derek explains why the traditional retirement model came about, why it may no longer make sense for many people, and how working even a few years past 65 can dramatically change the math of retirement planning. We also discuss the surprising psychological challenges many people face after they stop working, why purpose matters more than leisure, and how thinking differently about retirement can free you up to spend more time on what matters most right now — whether that’s traveling, strengthening your marriage, or making the most of the limited summers you have left with your kids. Connect With Derek Coburn Derek’s website (including his retirement calculator) Derek on IG <img style=" display: block; margin-right: auto; margin-left: auto;" loading="lazy" decoding="async" class="aligncenter size-full wp-image-193950" src="https://content.artofmanliness.com/uploads/2026/06/71WUTjpbnL._SL1500_.jpg" alt="" width="325" height="502" srcset="https://content.artofmanlin

We all want two things that can seem at odds with each other: to be our own person and to belong. We want to stand apart from the crowd, but we also want to be connected to it. When that balance gets out of whack, we either lose ourselves in tribalism or drift into isolation. My guest today says many of the problems in modern life stem from our inability to hold these two impulses in tension. His name is Luke Burgis, and he’s the author of The One and the 99: Forging Identity in the Age of Social Contagion. Today on the show, Luke explains how becoming a true individual can give you the strength to be a part of a community. We discuss the difference between a solid self and a pseudo self — and what role families and rites of passage can play in moving us toward one or the other — why modern politics feels like a dysfunctional family, the dangers of performative religion, and much more. Resources Related to the Podcast Luke’s previous appearances on the AoM podcast: Episode #714: Why Do We Want What We Want? Episode #910: Thick Desires, Political Atheism, and Living an Anti-Mimetic Life The True Believer by Eric Hoffer Education of a Wandering Man by Louis L’Amour AoM Podcast #1,025: The Life and Legacy of Louis L’Amour <a href="https://www.a

Life rarely unfolds according to plan. A relationship implodes. A move or job change doesn’t work out. Or you simply fail in a goal you’ve set for yourself. My guest has spent almost two decades researching and field-testing how to get back on track when smaller slip-ups and larger upheavals knock you off course. His name is Steve Kamb, and he’s the founder of Nerd Fitness and the author of How to Try Again: An Approachable Guide to Navigating Chaos and Making Change THAT STICKS. Today on the show, Steve shares practical principles for dealing with life’s frustrating and demoralizing setbacks. We discuss why sometimes the best move is to pause rather than push harder, how to accept reality without resigning yourself to it, why treating change as an experiment can help you beat paralysis and take action, why you should treat consistency with your goals the way you do showering, and more. Resources Related to the Podcast Steve’s previous appearances on the AoM podcast: Episode #42: Level Up Your Life With Nerd Fitness & Steve Kamb Episode #170: Level Up Your Life Steve’s AoM guest posts: Don’t Be That Guy: The Taxonomy of Lousy Male Friends How Superheroes, Movies, and Video Games Taught

Walking is one of the most powerful health tools we have. It improves cardiovascular fitness, boosts mood, sharpens cognition, and can even be a predictor of how well you’ll age. But all those benefits depend on something we rarely think about until it starts hurting: our feet. For many of us, walking is so automatic that we never consider the mechanics that make it possible. Yet the way we move, the shoes we wear, and the strength of the muscles in our feet can have a profound impact on how comfortably and efficiently we walk. When something goes wrong at our physical foundation, the effects can ripple upward, leading to pain not just in the feet, but in the knees, hips, and back. My guest today is Dr. Milica McDowell, a physical therapist and the co-author of the new book Walk. Today on the show, Milica explains why walking speed may be a hidden vital sign, what gives you your signature walking style, and how to spot and address injury-inducing inefficiencies in your gait. We then talk about feet: whether you should worry about pronation, how to rehab plantar fasciitis — and no, it’s not stretching — the best kind of shoes to wear, and much more. Resources Related to the Podcast AoM Article: Solvitur Ambulando — It Is Solved By Walking AoM podcast episode with Manoush Zomorodi AoM Article: I Started Taking a Walk Every Morning. Here’s What Happened to My Health <a href="https://www.artofmanliness.com/health-fitness/fitness/20-rules-for-walking/" target="_blank" rel="noopener" data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?q=https://www.artofmanliness.com/health-fitness/fitness/20-rules-for-walking/&source=gmail&ust=178031

Note: This is a rebroadcast. A lot of young men today struggle in finding their footing in adulthood. They feel lost, directionless, and unsure of who they are and how to confidently and competently navigate the world. Part of the reason for this is that most young men today lack something which was once a part of nearly every culture in the world, but has now almost entirely disappeared: a rite of passage. My guest today didn’t want his son to flounder on the way to maturity, nor to miss out on having an initiation into manhood, so he set out to create a 6-year journey for him that would help him move from boy to man. His name is Jon Tyson, and he’s the author of The Intentional Father: A Practical Guide to Raise Sons of Courage and Character. Today on the show, Jon unpacks the components of the years-long journey into manhood he created for his son, beginning with how he brainstormed those components by doing “The Day Your Son Leaves Home” exercise. We then discuss how old Jon’s son was when he started his rite of passage and why it began with him having a “severing dinner” with his mom. We get into what his rite of passage consisted of, from the kickoff ceremony to the challenges, experiences, trips, and daily rituals Jon used to impart values and teach his son the “5 Shifts of Manhood.” Jon shares how moving his son’s focus from being a good man, to being good at being a man, helped him get remotivated to continue the process, why his rite of passage included a gap year after high school, and how Jon celebrated the end of his son’s journey into becoming a man. We also discuss whether Jon did something similar with his daughter. We end our conversation with some key principles any dad can use to start intentionally helping their kids become well-rounded individuals who can confidently step out on their own and into the world. Resources Related to the Podcast AoM Article: The Importance of Fathers AoM Article: The Importance of Male Rites of Passage AoM Article: Male Rites of Passage From Around the World AoM Article & Podcast: Man’s Need for Ritual AoM Series on the origins, elements, and future of manhood <a href="https://www.artofmanliness.com/charact

With the Old Breed is widely considered one of the greatest war memoirs ever written. Penned by Eugene Sledge, a Marine who fought with the 1st Division — the old breed — in the Pacific campaigns of Peleliu and Okinawa, the book is unflinching, deeply human, and so vividly written that you can practically feel the heat, mud, exhaustion, and terror coming off the page. But Sledge wasn’t a professional writer. He was a biology professor who started jotting notes on scraps of paper tucked inside the New Testament he carried in his breast pocket. He wrote the book decades later, partly to process his own trauma, partly to leave a record for his sons. One of those sons is my guest today. Henry Sledge has spent years carrying his father’s legacy forward, and he’s written his own book — The Old Breed: The Complete Story Revealed — that pairs his father’s combat experience with previously unpublished material and his own perspective as Eugene’s son. Today on the show, Henry and I talk about why his dad wrote With the Old Breed, what made fighting in the Pacific uniquely hellish, and how Eugene managed to come home and live a full, honorable life despite carrying the war with him for the rest of his days. Resources Related to the Podcast China Marine: An Infantryman’s Life After World War II by E.B. Sledge HBO series The Pacific Ken Burns’ The War <a href="https://www.artofmanliness.com/character/manly-lessons/on-the-70th-anniversary-of-vj-day-eugene-b-sledge-puts-your-first-world-problems-into-perspective/" target="_blank" rel="noopener" data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?q=https://www.artofmanliness.com/character/manly-lessons/on-the-70th-anniversary-of-vj-day-eugene-b-sledge-puts-your-first-world-problems-into-perspective/&source

Back in 2019, David Epstein joined me to talk about his book Range and why generalists often thrive in a specialized world. Now he’s back with a new book that explores a seemingly opposite idea: the power of constraints. In Inside the Box, David argues that limits — deadlines, boundaries, and even setbacks — are often the very things that spark creativity, sharpen focus, and help us actually get meaningful work done. Today on the show, David shares how, in a world of endless freedom and options, constraints might actually be the thing you need most. He shares the surprising true story behind the creation of the periodic table, explains how a broken arm changed the course of his own life, and explores why giving people too much leeway can actually kill innovation. We discuss what Pixar did right that doomed companies like General Magic got wrong, why brainstorming sessions are usually ineffective, how to identify the bottlenecks holding back your work and life, and why learning to settle for “good enough” may be the key to getting more great things done. Resources Related to the Podcast David’s previous appearance on the AoM podcast: Episode #512 — Why Generalists Triumph in a Specialized World Pixar’s Tin Toy AoM Article: Curing Your Restlessness — Limiting Your Choices The Goal by Eliyahu M. Goldratt David’s This American Life

When I first started the AoM podcast nearly 18 years ago, many people didn’t even know what a podcast was. This was a time before Conan, the Kelce brothers, and your sister-in-law all had a show, and there were only about a hundred thousand podcasts in existence. Today, there are roughly 4 million. That’s a lot of options for the limited slots you’ve got available in your listening time. So today, allow me to offer 7 reasons the AoM podcast deserves one of them: 1. There’s no fluff. A lot of podcasts open with ten minutes of the hosts catching up about their weekends before they get around to the reason you hit play. You won’t get that on the AoM podcast. It’s all meat, and meat that’s been edited carefully and ruthlessly; we not only cut filler like ums and uhs, but longer stretches that didn’t end up going anywhere. The result is a tight, value-packed show where everything left in is worthwhile. 2. The episodes don’t run longer than an hour. I don’t have two hours to sit and listen to a podcast, and I’m guessing you don’t either. The AoM podcast respects your time: in addition to being tightly edited afterwards, the rigorous preparation I do before each interview (starting with the fact that I actually read the guest’s entire book!) allows me to draw out the guest’s best insights in a focused way. Our episodes thus come in under an hour, while still capturing someone’s most useful and interesting ideas. You can often digest an entire episode on your commute, listening to half on the way to work and half on the way home. 3. I let the guests talk. I’ve listened to interview podcasts where the host brings on a Nobel Prize-winning expert and then treats them like an Ed McMahon sideman — talking over them, interrupting mid-sentence, or turning every answer into a segue back to themselves: “That reminds me of something that happened to me.”   My philosophy is simple: if I’ve invited someone on because they’re the expert, I should get out of the way and let them be the expert. One of the most common compliments I get about the show is that guests actually get to talk. 4. Limited, predictable ad placement. Some podcasts cram in as many ads as they can and scatter them wherever. You’ll be in the middle of a fascinating story and suddenly there’s an ad for a mattress. We run ads in just two predictable places: at the top of the show and in the middle. And when that mid-roll break comes, I announce it so you’re not caught off guard.  Instead of trying to maximize revenue by maximizing ads, we aim to keep them tasteful and minimally intrusive. (I realize many people would love a show with no ads, but some advertising is necessary to keep a free show running.) 5. Non-political. Politics and current events seem to make their way into nigh near everything these days — from entertainment to sports to podcasts that are ostensibly about other things. But the AoM podcast doesn’t get political. That’s intentional. The world’s got enough bickering, hot takes, tiresome slants, and blowhard pontificating. I want the show to feel like a break from all that, where the focus is on timeless stuff that doesn’t fit into partisan categories and remains evergreen. 6. Family friendly. In a time when many podcasts come marked with the explicit E symbol, you’ll never hear strong profanity on the AoM podcast. You won’t be hit with crude content, either. You can play it in the car with your kids without keeping your hand hovering over the volume knob. And you won’t hesitate to pass an episode along to your sons or nephews. 7. Genuine variety. We’ve covered history, fitness, personal finance, philosophy, literature, marriage, parenting, mental health — and a lot of territory in between. Last week the subject was the mystery of courage; this week, it’s about healthy bowel habits.  This isn’t a podcast that hits the same topic over and over and over again. You’re not going to get bored with it from week to week, and odds are there’s something in the archive that speaks directly to whatever you’re currently interested in.  Because of the wide variety of topics the AoM podcast delves into, listening to it regularly is a chance to improve every single area of your life. If you’ve made it this far, you’re probably the kind of guy who’d get something out of the show. So open your podcast app, search “Art of Manliness,” and hit follow. That way, the next time you’ve got a drive, a walk, or a spare stretch of time, you don’t have to think about what to listen to — you’ve already got something worthwhile queued up. Follow the AoM podcast on Apple Podcasts Follow the AoM podcast on Pocket Casts Follow the AoM Podcast on Spotify Follow the AoM Podcast on Overcast Follow the AoM Podcast Podcast Addict This article was originally published on The Art of Manliness.