My Story - The Man Behind the Mic

Corey Baum shares his personal journey from emotional suppression and living behind masks to authentic leadership and fatherhood. This vulnerable narrative serves as both confession and invitation, revealing how breaking generational patterns begins with facing our deepest truths.

• Growing up learning to adapt but not express emotions in a home where conflict was either invisible or explosive
• Developing survival strategies: being useful, likable, easy, invisible when necessary
• Carrying shame and doubt underneath a high-achieving exterior
• Escaping through overachievement, alcohol, and pornography
• Living a double life - appearing confident while inwardly feeling unworthy and afraid
• Finding a breaking point with the realization "I can't live like this anymore"
• Taking intentional steps toward healing: therapy, journaling, breathwork, men's groups
• Transforming fatherhood by modeling emotional honesty and presence
• Discovering authentic leadership that begins at home
• Building the Evolve Men Project as a mission to help men break free from isolation

Head over to www.evolvedmenproject.com, 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.

Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
You're listening to the Evolve Men Podcast, episode
number two.
Are you ready to break freefrom hesitation, self-doubt and
isolation?
Do you want to lead withconfidence, build powerful
connections and live boldly?
I'm Cory Baum and I'm here toshare the most impactful
strategies and mindsets thatI've learned through coaching,
leadership and real-worldexperience.

(00:21):
Together, we'll forgeunshakable confidence, master
social dynamics and create alife rooted in purpose,
brotherhood and bold action.
Inside you'll get the tools andinsights to become the
strongest, most connectedversion of yourself.
Let's dive in.
Hey, welcome back to theEvolved man Podcast.
I'm your host, corey Baum.
Welcome back to the Evolve manPodcast.

(00:41):
I'm your host, corey Baum.
Today's a different episode.
In the last one, we talkedabout 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 andthe interviews and the

(01:02):
frameworks and whatnot, I wantto take you behind the curtain,
not just as a coach, but as aman.
Before we go any further, Iwant you to know that I speak
from experience when I talkabout breaking through
limitation, building realconfidence and becoming the man
that you're meant to be.
I want you to know where it isthat I've been, what it is that

(01:24):
I struggled with, and thepatterns that I've lived in
right, the damages that I'vecaused, the pain that I've
carried and how I've started toclimb out of it.
Not perfectly, but I'vecommitted fully to making the
climb.
So let me take you back right.

(01:45):
I didn't grow up learning how tolead.
I grew up learning how to adapt.
My parents were young, tryingto figure out their own lives.
Emotions weren't exactlywelcomed.
Conflict was either invisibleor explosive.
You didn't talk about how youfelt, you just managed it

(02:10):
quietly.
And so I learned to read theroom fast and I got good at it.
If I sensed tension, I'd shrink.
If I felt anger coming, then Idisappeared.
If someone needed me to be acertain version of myself, then
I'd become it, and that becamemy survival strategy Be useful,

(02:31):
be easy, be liked, be invisibleif you have to.
And that worked.
On the outside at least, Ilooked like a responsible kid,
the good one, the achiever.
I looked like a responsible kid, the good one, the achiever.
But underneath I was alreadycarrying this sense of shame and
doubt.
This like low buzzing fear thatwho I was might not be good

(02:57):
enough.
If they actually saw the realme.
I was afraid that they'd leave,and so I learned to perform and
I got really, really good athiding behind these masks.
So fast forward to my teens andearly 20s.
By then, emotional suppressionwasn't just a coping strategy,

(03:17):
it was part of my identity, itwas second nature.
I had no clue how to process afeeling, let alone express it,
and when you don't feel safeexpressing things, you find ways
to escape them.
And so I escaped throughoverachieving, overthinking,
avoiding conflict, alcohol butthe biggest one really was porn.

(03:43):
Not because I was overwhelmedwith emotion, but because I
wanted something that I couldcontrol, something that would
give me that like instant hit ofsomething.
I don't know if it was dopamineor excitement or aliveness or
what it was, but for a moment Icould feel powerful and chosen,
like I was enough, and then itwould pass, and then the shame

(04:08):
would creep back in again.
But I'd keep going back,because in that moment it gave
me what I didn't know how togive myself, because I didn't
have the tools, because no oneever taught me how to sit in my
pain without numbing it, becauseI had this thought that if I
just kept achieving that, if Ikept producing that, I could

(04:31):
outrun, maybe these parts of methat I didn't want to face, and
so I built a life, a career,relationships, like in this
entire image of who I thoughtthat 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 peoplethinking that I had it all
together.
Right, but inside I was.

(04:53):
I was slowly dying Right andlooking back, the scariest part
was that nobody had any idea.
Was that nobody had any idea?
No one knew just how lonely Ifelt, how lost and ashamed I was
.
I was carrying these secrets,essentially living a double life
.
Right, the version of me that Ishowed the world was confident

(05:18):
and capable and well puttogether, but behind closed
doors I was chasing validationlike it was oxygen.
I was lying to myself andeveryone around me, and the
truth is, I couldn't have beenfurther from confident.
I knew how to look confident.

(05:38):
I knew how to act like Ibelonged, but deep down, I was
still that shy, reserved kid,the one who overanalyzed every
interaction, who hesitated tospeak up, who constantly
questioned whether or not hebelonged in the room.
I was terrified of being seen,not just physically but

(05:59):
emotionally and I worried thatif people got to see the real me
, that they wouldn't like whatthey saw.
I didn't think that I wasworthy, just the way that I was
right.
So I played it safe.
I played on the edges, right, Ikept my armor on, but
underneath it all, I was justtrying not to get rejected.

(06:21):
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?
It wasn't that I didn't want toconnect.
It wasn't that at all because Icraved the connection.
I just didn't believe that Iwas worthy of it without this
mask.

(06:41):
And that belief kept me small.
It kept me guarded.
It kept me invisible, no matterhow visible I seemed on the
outside.
And the deeper that I got intothat life, the harder it became
to to imagine ever getting outof it.
Right, it was like.
It was like drowning in threefeet of water, right, but being

(07:04):
too embarrassed to just stand upand get out of it.
It was.
It was after I became a father,honestly, and when I, when I
looked at my son's tiny andperfect, unformed, and I saw
something that I wasn't readyfor, I, I saw a mirror.
Right, I saw me as a boy.

(07:26):
I saw all this stuff that Ididn't deal with.
I saw the, the emotionalsilence right, the, the
emotional silence that I grew upin.
And I suddenly, and suddenly, Irealized that I was doing the
exact same thing.
I was there, right, I was doingthe things, but emotionally I
was somewhere else and I hatedthat, right, because I knew what

(07:50):
it felt like to have a dad thatcouldn't access his own heart.
I knew that emptiness wouldturn into exactly the same thing
and I wanted to break the cycle.
But I had no idea how to and Ididn't even know where to start.
But that awareness, it planted aseed and, over time, the cost

(08:11):
of living out of alignment, itcaught up with me, right, the
secrets, the affairs, thecompulsions, the lies, like they
all started to rot me from theinside out.
And one night I found myselfalone, sitting in the quiet, no
distractions, no simulation,just me, right.

(08:34):
And I remember thinking tomyself like how have I just not
given up, right?
How have I not just checked outfully?
I was so far from the personthat I wanted to be that I
couldn't even see the road backanymore.
But then something cracked forme, and it wasn't like lightning

(08:55):
, right.
It wasn't some cosmic voice,and it was just this like simple
sentence.
And it was I can't live likethis anymore.
And that was it.
Right, that was everything.
Now, I didn't.
I didn't change overnight,right, there was no magical
switch, but I made a decisionand then I made another one and

(09:22):
another one, and I reached outfor help.
I started going to therapy.
I started journaling andpracticing breath work.
I joined a men's group, anumber of different coaching
programs and started going toleadership trainings.
I started having theconversations that I'd been

(09:42):
avoiding for years and, maybemost importantly, I stopped
hiding, I stopped numbing, Istarted telling the truth.
I started rebuilding from theground up, not to be better than
anyone else, not to impressanyone, but because I wanted to
be someone that I could respectagain.

(10:06):
So let me be real here.
The healing is not linear,right.
It's not this line, right, it'snot pretty, it's not
Instagrammable, it's awkward andmessy and humbling and boring
and painful and slow, right.

(10:27):
But every layer that I peeledback gave me more access to
something that I probably hadn'tever felt, and that's myself.
Right, I confronted my shame.
I owned my betrayals.
I sat in discomfort instead ofrunning from it, right, and I
started to realize that thiswasn't just about fixing me, it

(10:51):
was about meeting me for thefirst time, right, maybe ever
Right.
And that's when fatherhoodreally started to transform too,
because I wasn't just doing thedad thing anymore, I wasn't
showing up or I was showing upas a whole man.
Right, I started having realconversations with my kids.

(11:12):
I let them see when I wasstruggling.
I modeled, expressing myemotions, 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 presenceand more laughter, more

(11:35):
connection.
Right, I wasn't trying to be aperfect dad, I was trying to be
a real one, as was trying to bea real one.
As I kept evolving through thisprocess, something became
really clear to me that I wasn'tmeant to stay small.
I wasn't meant to hide, Iwasn't meant to just get through
life.

(11:56):
I was meant to lead.
And I don't mean from somemountaintop with a megaphone, I
mean the kind of leadership thatstarts at home, that grows in
the quiet moments, the kind thatsays you know, I've been in the
dark and I'm still here and I'mnot going back, and that's what

(12:21):
led me to coaching.
That's what led to the EvolvedMen Project.
This isn't just a podcast.
This isn't just a business planor a brand strategy.
This is a mission.
A mission to create a space formen to drop the mask, to start

(12:41):
to break these generationalpatterns, to lead with emotional
strength, spiritual clarity,deep integrity, right To be seen
, to be heard and to be held byother men, without competition
or ego or performance, becauseno man becomes his best self

(13:02):
alone, and too many of us havesuffered in silence for far, far
too long.
I'm not sharing my story forsympathy, right.
I'm sharing it because I knowsome of you are living your own
version of it.
Maybe you're carrying shame.
Maybe you're stuck in a cycleand you don't know how to break

(13:24):
free.
Maybe you've built a good lifebut feel hollow.
Maybe you're wondering if it'stoo late to change.
But I'm here to tell you it'snot.
There's still hope.
You're not broken, you're notalone, you're not beyond
redemption, and the man thatyou've been does not limit the

(13:46):
man that you're becoming.
That is what this podcast isfor Not inspiration without
action, not information withoutintegration, but real
conversations, real tools, realbrotherhood, to walk with you,

(14:06):
to challenge you, to support you, to remind you that you're not
crazy and you're not alone.
You're just evolving and it'smessy, I get it, but I'm here to
tell you that it's worth it.
Guys, I don't have all of theanswers right, I'm not a guru,
but I'm in the work, and if youare too, then I've got your back

(14:30):
and you don't have to do thisalone, so let's evolve together.
All right, guys, that's whatI've got for this episode.
Until next time, I'm Corey Baum.
This is the Evolve Men Podcast.

(14:58):
Head over towwwevolvemenprojectcom, where
you'll find free resources onconfidence, leadership,
relationships, communication andpersonal power Everything you
need to start applying whatyou'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, staystrong, lead powerfully and live

(15:20):
boldly.