Sam Jolman has been on Tyler's list for a long time. They share a city, a community of helpers, and a lot of the same clients who have quietly made their way to both of them. Tyler first heard Sam's name at one of the lowest points of his life, at the top of a therapist referral list he never got to use. What a gift, he said, that it worked out the way it did. Because now they get to be friends.

This conversation went a lot of places. They talked about what it means to be a person on a journey in an age when there are a thousand podcasts and reels telling you how to fix yourself faster. Sam has been doing this work for twenty years and his word for it is slow. Healing is slow work. The cold plunge feels good in the moment but it is the long relationship with the cold that actually changes you. That distinction matters, and it showed up everywhere in this conversation, in how we hold shame, in how we talk about masculinity, in how we approach the things we are most afraid to look at in ourselves.

Sam's book, The Sex Talk You Never Got, is about recovering the lover in every man. Not the mechanical version of sexuality that most people were handed, but the version that is about desire, wonder, passion, and the heart's deep need to be wanted. It is a brave and honest book from a brave and honest man. And this was, without question, one of the most alive conversations Tyler has had on this podcast. Sam has a move in his therapy office where he throws two fists in the air to celebrate his clients. By the end of this one, it felt mutual.

Subscribe to Tyler's Substack: tylerhill.net/monday Instagram: @thuhTYLER Website: tylerhill.net