Speaker 1: 0:00

You're listening to the Evolve Men Podcast, episode number two. Are you ready to break free from hesitation, self-doubt and isolation? Do you want to lead with confidence, build powerful connections and live boldly? I'm Cory Baum and I'm here to share the most impactful strategies and mindsets that I've learned through coaching, leadership and real-world experience. Together, we'll forge unshakable confidence, master social dynamics and create a life rooted in purpose, brotherhood and bold action. Inside you'll get the tools and insights to become the strongest, most connected version of yourself. Let's dive in. Hey, welcome back to the Evolved man Podcast. I'm your host, corey Baum. Welcome back to the Evolve man Podcast. I'm your host, corey Baum.

Speaker 1: 0:44

Today's a different episode. In the last one, we talked about what this podcast is for, who it's for and why it matters. But before we go any further, before we get into the strategies and the stories and the interviews and the frameworks and whatnot, I want to take you behind the curtain, not just as a coach, but as a man. Before we go any further, I want you to know that I speak from experience when I talk about breaking through limitation, building real confidence and becoming the man that you're meant to be. I want you to know where it is that I've been, what it is that I struggled with, and the patterns that I've lived in right, the damages that I've caused, the pain that I've carried and how I've started to climb out of it. Not perfectly, but I've committed fully to making the climb. So let me take you back right.

Speaker 1: 1:45

I didn't grow up learning how to lead. I grew up learning how to adapt. My parents were young, trying to figure out their own lives. Emotions weren't exactly welcomed. Conflict was either invisible or explosive. You didn't talk about how you felt, you just managed it quietly. And so I learned to read the room fast and I got good at it. If I sensed tension, I'd shrink. If I felt anger coming, then I disappeared. If someone needed me to be a certain version of myself, then I'd become it, and that became my survival strategy Be useful, be easy, be liked, be invisible if you have to. And that worked. On the outside at least, I looked like a responsible kid, the good one, the achiever. I looked like a responsible kid, the good one, the achiever. But underneath I was already carrying this sense of shame and doubt. This like low buzzing fear that who I was might not be good enough. If they actually saw the real me. I was afraid that they'd leave, and so I learned to perform and I got really, really good at hiding behind these masks. So fast forward to my teens and early 20s.

Speaker 1: 3:14

By then, emotional suppression wasn't just a coping strategy, it was part of my identity, it was second nature. I had no clue how to process a feeling, let alone express it, and when you don't feel safe expressing things, you find ways to escape them. And so I escaped through overachieving, overthinking, avoiding conflict, alcohol but the biggest one really was porn. Not because I was overwhelmed with emotion, but because I wanted something that I could control, something that would give me that like instant hit of something. I don't know if it was dopamine or excitement or aliveness or what it was, but for a moment I could feel powerful and chosen, like I was enough, and then it would pass, and then the shame would creep back in again. But I'd keep going back, because in that moment it gave me what I didn't know how to give myself, because I didn't have the tools, because no one ever taught me how to sit in my pain without numbing it, because I had this thought that if I just kept achieving that, if I kept producing that, I could outrun, maybe these parts of me that I didn't want to face, and so I built a life, a career, relationships, like in this entire image of who I thought that I was supposed to be. I knew how to win. I knew how to be impressive. I knew how to be. I knew how to keep people thinking that I had it all together. Right, but inside I was. I was slowly dying Right and looking back, the scariest part was that nobody had any idea.

Speaker 1: 5:02

Was that nobody had any idea? No one knew just how lonely I felt, how lost and ashamed I was. I was carrying these secrets, essentially living a double life. Right, the version of me that I showed the world was confident and capable and well put together, but behind closed doors I was chasing validation like it was oxygen. I was lying to myself and everyone around me, and the truth is, I couldn't have been further from confident. I knew how to look confident.

Speaker 1: 5:38

I knew how to act like I belonged, but deep down, I was still that shy, reserved kid, the one who overanalyzed every interaction, who hesitated to speak up, who constantly questioned whether or not he belonged in the room. I was terrified of being seen, not just physically but emotionally and I worried that if people got to see the real me, that they wouldn't like what they saw. I didn't think that I was worthy, just the way that I was right. So I played it safe. I played on the edges, right, I kept my armor on, but underneath it all, I was just trying not to get rejected. I was scanning every room, every interaction for potential danger. Will they like me? Did I say the wrong thing? Do I even belong here?

Speaker 1: 6:32

It wasn't that I didn't want to connect. It wasn't that at all because I craved the connection. I just didn't believe that I was worthy of it without this mask. And that belief kept me small. It kept me guarded. It kept me invisible, no matter how visible I seemed on the outside. And the deeper that I got into that life, the harder it became to to imagine ever getting out of it. Right, it was like. It was like drowning in three feet of water, right, but being too embarrassed to just stand up and get out of it. It was.

Speaker 1: 7:09

It was after I became a father, honestly, and when I, when I looked at my son's tiny and perfect, unformed, and I saw something that I wasn't ready for, I, I saw a mirror. Right, I saw me as a boy. I saw all this stuff that I didn't deal with. I saw the, the emotional silence right, the, the emotional silence that I grew up in. And I suddenly, and suddenly, I realized that I was doing the exact same thing. I was there, right, I was doing the things, but emotionally I was somewhere else and I hated that, right, because I knew what it felt like to have a dad that couldn't access his own heart. I knew that emptiness would turn into exactly the same thing and I wanted to break the cycle. But I had no idea how to and I didn't even know where to start.

Speaker 1: 8:05

But that awareness, it planted a seed and, over time, the cost of living out of alignment, it caught up with me, right, the secrets, the affairs, the compulsions, the lies, like they all started to rot me from the inside out. And one night I found myself alone, sitting in the quiet, no distractions, no simulation, just me, right. And I remember thinking to myself like how have I just not given up, right? How have I not just checked out fully? I was so far from the person that I wanted to be that I couldn't even see the road back anymore. But then something cracked for me, and it wasn't like lightning, right. It wasn't some cosmic voice, and it was just this like simple sentence. And it was I can't live like this anymore. And that was it. Right, that was everything.

Speaker 1: 9:11

Now, I didn't. I didn't change overnight, right, there was no magical switch, but I made a decision and then I made another one and another one, and I reached out for help. I started going to therapy. I started journaling and practicing breath work. I joined a men's group, a number of different coaching programs and started going to leadership trainings. I started having the conversations that I'd been avoiding for years and, maybe most importantly, I stopped hiding, I stopped numbing, I started telling the truth. I started rebuilding from the ground up, not to be better than anyone else, not to impress anyone, but because I wanted to be someone that I could respect again.

Speaker 1: 10:06

So let me be real here. The healing is not linear, right. It's not this line, right, it's not pretty, it's not Instagrammable, it's awkward and messy and humbling and boring and painful and slow, right. But every layer that I peeled back gave me more access to something that I probably hadn't ever felt, and that's myself. Right, I confronted my shame. I owned my betrayals. I sat in discomfort instead of running from it, right, and I started to realize that this wasn't just about fixing me, it was about meeting me for the first time, right, maybe ever Right.

Speaker 1: 10:57

And that's when fatherhood really started to transform too, because I wasn't just doing the dad thing anymore, I wasn't showing up or I was showing up as a whole man. Right, I started having real conversations with my kids. I let them see when I was struggling. I modeled, expressing my emotions, not perfectly, but honestly right. I apologized when I messed up. I owned my humanity and slowly, slowly, a new cycle started to begin, one with more presence and more laughter, more connection. Right, I wasn't trying to be a perfect dad, I was trying to be a real one, as was trying to be a real one. As I kept evolving through this process, something became really clear to me that I wasn't meant to stay small. I wasn't meant to hide, I wasn't meant to just get through life. I was meant to lead. And I don't mean from some mountaintop with a megaphone, I mean the kind of leadership that starts at home, that grows in the quiet moments, the kind that says you know, I've been in the dark and I'm still here and I'm not going back, and that's what led me to coaching. That's what led to the Evolved Men Project.

Speaker 1: 12:28

This isn't just a podcast. This isn't just a business plan or a brand strategy. This is a mission. A mission to create a space for men to drop the mask, to start to break these generational patterns, to lead with emotional strength, spiritual clarity, deep integrity, right To be seen, to be heard and to be held by other men, without competition or ego or performance, because no man becomes his best self alone, and too many of us have suffered in silence for far, far too long.

Speaker 1: 13:10

I'm not sharing my story for sympathy, right. I'm sharing it because I know some of you are living your own version of it. Maybe you're carrying shame. Maybe you're stuck in a cycle and you don't know how to break free. Maybe you've built a good life but feel hollow. Maybe you're wondering if it's too late to change. But I'm here to tell you it's not. There's still hope. You're not broken, you're not alone, you're not beyond redemption, and the man that you've been does not limit the man that you're becoming. That is what this podcast is for Not inspiration without action, not information without integration, but real conversations, real tools, real brotherhood, to walk with you, to challenge you, to support you, to remind you that you're not crazy and you're not alone.

Speaker 1: 14:14

You're just evolving and it's messy, I get it, but I'm here to tell you that it's worth it. Guys, I don't have all of the answers right, I'm not a guru, but I'm in the work, and if you are too, then I've got your back and you don't have to do this alone, so let's evolve together. All right, guys, that's what I've got for this episode. Until next time, I'm Corey Baum. This is the Evolve Men Podcast. Head over to wwwevolvemenprojectcom, where you'll find free resources on confidence, leadership, relationships, communication and personal power Everything you need to start applying what you've learned here and take your growth to the next level. The tools are there. The next move is yours. Until the next time, men, stay strong, lead powerfully and live boldly.