Under the Hood Talk Presents: Pod Talk

Under the Hood Talk
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Pod Talk, a podcast from the nonprofit Under the Hood Talk, creates a space for thoughtful dialogue on modern masculinity. Featuring a diverse array of experts, practitioners, and thought leaders in men’s work and mental health, the show delves into the challenges and complexities of manhood today.

  1. Oct 2

    Music as a Way In Feat. Mathew Alvarez of Sad Boy Radio

    Henry sits down with Mathew Alvarez, creator and host of Sad Boy Radio, Chicago's #1 music podcast centered around mental health, for a conversation about what it means to build a life around the thing that saved you. Mathew reflects on the gap between how things look from the outside and how they actually feel, and the quiet reckoning that comes when you finally stop pretending those two are the same. Along the way, they talk about family, culture, and the unspoken rules that shape how much of ourselves we let the people we love see. And of course, they talk about music, and why the stories artists tell can make it easier to tell our own. Since launching Sad Boy Radio in 2021, Mathew has covered events like Rauw Alejandro's tour, Sueños Music Festival, and Lyrical Lemonade's Summer Smash, and interviewed artists from Def Jam, Atlantic, and Interscope, along with ESPN journalists and an NBA player. A conversation about honesty, belonging, and learning to be at peace with what you have. Follow Mathew and Sad Boy Radio for more.

  2. Sep 17

    The Bachelorette Contestant Who Changed the Conversation on Mental Health

    Jamie Blyth was a young college student, and at the lowest point of his life, battling panic attacks and social phobia so severe he considered ending it. In this episode, he joins Henry on Pod Talk to talk about that period, and the long road that took him from isolation to hosting his own show, Stepping Into the Fire, where he explores how struggle and adversity shape people into something stronger. Jamie opens up about what it actually felt like inside a panic disorder, the fear of fear itself, and how a chance moment on the first season of The Bachelorette turned his private struggle into a very public platform overnight. They get into what it meant to write his book, Fear Is No Longer My Reality, and why facing fear head-on, not avoiding it, became the actual measure of success in his life. The conversation also touches on what he's learned from his own podcast guests, from Mike Tyson's lessons on discipline to Ed Rapp's fight with ALS, and how those conversations keep sharpening his own understanding of resilience. A candid, honest conversation about panic, fear, and what it takes to keep stepping back into the fire. Follow Jamie and Stepping Into the Fire on YouTube, @steppingintothefire and Instagram, steppingintothefire.show

  3. Sep 2

    The Dude Therapist on Marriage in the Parenting Years

    Therapist, author, and podcast host Eli Weinstein joins Henry for a wide-ranging, practical conversation about what it takes to build a family. Eli's debut book, From I Do to We Do: Navigating Marriage in the Parenting Years, came out of his own search for guidance as a new father, and this episode is full of the wisdom he wishes he'd had. They get into why love alone isn't enough to hold a family together, and why treating your relationship as a single unit, a team, matters more than winning any individual argument. As Eli puts it, if you're tallying, you're losing. They also talk about the difference between vague and concrete communication, and how incomplete thoughts get lost in translation. The conversation turns personal too: how men in particular struggle to find spaces for compassion and advice. Eli shares practical tools for shifting out of a negative headspace, the power of giving yourself permission to take pleasure in the moment, and how the patience we show our kids is a patience we can extend to our partners too.

  4. Jul 9

    Raising Boys When Masculinity Feels Broken

    In this episode, Henry sits down with Ruth Whippman, author of BoyMom, for a conversation about boys, masculinity, motherhood, and the emotional lives of young men. Ruth is a British author, journalist, and cultural critic living in the United States. A former BBC documentary director and producer, her writing has appeared in The New York Times, Time, New York Magazine, The Guardian, HuffPost, and elsewhere. She is also the author of America the Anxious, which was named a New York Post Best Book of the Year, a New York Times Editors’ Choice, and a Paperback Row pick. Fortune described her as one of the “25 sharpest minds” of the decade.Henry and Ruth discuss the pressures boys face from an early age, the influence of online spaces, the appeal of figures like Andrew Tate, and the difficulty of holding boys accountable while also taking their suffering seriously.This conversation looks at boyhood with both compassion and clarity. What are boys being taught about manhood? What are they learning to hide? And how might parents, educators, and communities help boys grow into men with emotional honesty, accountability, and a deeper sense of connection?

  5. Jun 20

    Learning to Love Yourself with Ofasu Jones-Quartey

    In this episode, Henry sits down with Ofosu Jones-Quartey for an honest and wide-ranging conversation about his inner journey, including the moment he hit rock bottom and discovered that self-compassion, not self-criticism, was the only way through. They discuss his creative process, Buddhist concepts, what it means to hold yourself accountable without tearing yourself apart, and why self-compassion is integral to life's journey. Ofosu also opens up about his relationship with his father, showing affection in front of his own children, and what it means to be the person in your family who decides the cycle stops here. Ofosu Jones-Quartey, known artistically as Born I, is a rapper, meditation teacher, and author of Lyrical Dharma: Hip-Hop as Mindfulness. His latest album Komorebi weaves Buddhist philosophy with deeply personal lyricism, and his Hip Hop Sound Baths are immersive events blending guided meditation, sound healing, and live performance. A conversation about presence, creativity, healing, and the quiet radical act of being kind to yourself. Lyrical Dharma and Komorebi are both out now. Follow Ofosu @bornimusicofficial.

  6. Jun 10

    Inside One of the Largest Men's Work Organizations in the World

    In this conversation, Henry and Boysen Hodgson discuss the ManKind Project and the process of understanding and reshaping what it means to be a man in the 21st-century. It's a conversation about vulnerability, emotional intelligence, community, and what it looks like for men of all ages to uncover who they are and who they want to be. Boysen Hodgson is the Director of Operations for the ManKind Project USA, the co-creator of the ManKind Podcast and the author of "The New Macho," a credo for emotionally mature masculinity that's been resonating with men across the country. Through the ManKind Project, he's part of a nonprofit that supports nearly 10,000 men every week through transformational programs and ongoing men's groups. Boysen is one of the most thoughtful voices in the conversation around modern masculinity. He brings over two decades of experience facilitating men's groups, and he's here to talk about what it looks like when men do the inner work. Whether you're on your own journey of self-discovery or just curious about where the conversation around men's identity and men's work is headed, this episode is worth a listen.

  7. May 27

    Save Your Relationship!

    When is a relationship worth fighting for and when is it time to cut and run? In our latest episode of Pod Talk, Henry sits down with two New York couples therapists to explore what it really means when two people stop connecting and begin to drift apart. Patrick McCormick is a former ad man turned licensed psychotherapist based in Brooklyn, NY. He specializes in helping men, couples, groups, and co-founders build healthier, more honest relationships — whether that's in boardrooms or bedrooms. In a culture that lionizes winner-takes-all individualism, Patrick believes that learning to truly relate and collaborate is nothing short of a radical act. Jordan Dann is a psychoanalyst, traumatologist, and educator whose work weaves together depth psychology, attachment theory, and nervous system science into a powerful framework for relational healing. Drawing on Somatic Experiencing, Gestalt, and psychoanalytic perspectives, Jordan helps individuals and couples transform unconscious patterns into conscious, embodied choice. She is the author of Somatic Therapy for Healing Trauma and co-editor of Experiential Therapies for Treating Trauma, and teaches clinicians internationally. She also serves on faculty at Gestalt Associates for Psychotherapy, where she trains therapists in relational, embodied approaches to healing. Together, Patrick and Jordan join us to dig into some of the questions we don't ask often enough: What is conflict actually for in a relationship? Why does difference — in values, in temperament, in need — so often feel threatening rather than enriching? And what does it really look like when a friendship, romantic partnership, or family bond becomes dysfunctional, and what, if anything, can be done about it?

  8. May 13

    Boys & Neurodivergence — A Therapist Breaks It Down

    In this episode of Pod Talk, Henry sits down with Shelby Bronfman, a licensed speech pathologist and social cognitive therapist based in Boston, to talk about neurodivergence — what it looks like, how it develops, and what it takes to manage it in environments that often don't make room for it. Shelby draws on years of clinical work, much of it with young boys, to explain why neurodivergence tends to go unaddressed for so long, and why masculinity makes that worse. She walks through the cycles that form early: the standards boys hold themselves to, the shame when they can't meet them, and how those patterns repeat. She also gets into masking — the ongoing effort to suppress neurodivergent traits just to fit in — and why that work, invisible as it is, adds up. But the conversation isn't only about what goes wrong. Shelby talks about the role families play in either easing or compounding stress, why grace is the foundation of any real recovery, and why the goal has never been to push conformity but to give people more tools and fewer reasons to be ashamed of how their brain works.

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About

Pod Talk, a podcast from the nonprofit Under the Hood Talk, creates a space for thoughtful dialogue on modern masculinity. Featuring a diverse array of experts, practitioners, and thought leaders in men’s work and mental health, the show delves into the challenges and complexities of manhood today.

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