Still Here, Still Trying: Real Stories About Keeping Going

Season 2, Episode 18:

After 27 Years, What Makes Someone Your Person?

Today is our 27th wedding anniversary.

Yesterday, Kellie and I attended a celebration of life for a couple who had been married for 66 years. During the service, someone shared a J.R.R. Tolkien quote about marriage that followed both of us home:

“Nearly all marriages, even happy ones, are mistakes… But the ‘real soul-mate’ is the one you are...

Season 2, Episode 17: Wherever You Go, There You Are

How much of what you call “who I am” is still open to change?

A good friend used to say, “Wherever you go, there you are,” when we were in high school. Back then, it was something funny we said. Thirty-plus years later, I’m fifty, raising a family, leading an organization, and wondering how many decisions I’m still making based on an old idea of ...

The Team in Front of You: What Hockey Taught Me About Trust, Leadership, and Performance

Four beer-league hockey games. One very average goalie. Four completely different results.

In one game, I only let in two goals. In the others… several more.

My skill did not suddenly change, and neither did my effort. What changed was the team in front of me.

When teammates communicated, covered the extra player, cleared rebounds, and trust...

Two years.

That was the “good” outcome.

People with endometriosis commonly wait four to twelve years for a diagnosis. Our family received an answer in two—and somehow that made us lucky.

That is completely unacceptable.

This episode is not a takedown of doctors. Most healthcare providers I know have enormous hearts and entered this work for the right reasons. But good people still need better training, clearer informa...

The Work Should Lead Back to People

MikeBakerHQ has changed, and this episode marks where the work is headed next.

For the last few years, Mike Baker has explored artificial intelligence through art, music, writing, and a long list of creative experiments. Those tools helped him bring ideas to life that once would have stayed inside a notebook or in his head. They remain part of his creative process, while the website now places more...

Good intentions matter, but the people closest to us experience our follow-through, attention, tone, and the work we leave behind.

In this episode of Still Here, Still Trying, Mike begins with a very 2026 attempt to connect Google, Apple, Outlook, and an AI assistant named Mira to finally solve the family calendar. Somewhere between the daily brief and the birthday reminders, the technology led him to a harder question: What is it l...

Something is shifting.

You can feel it in relationships beginning to heal, communities finding their voices, and people becoming less willing to live under fear, division, and toxic leadership. You can also feel it in the growing desire for something more grounded: real connection, honest conversation, time outside, meaningful work, and a little more joy.

In this episode, Mike explores the Human First thread running through Still Her...

Season 2, Episode 11Why I Released 10 Books at Once: The Human First Story Behind Mike Baker HQ

Why did Mike Baker release 10 books at once?

In Season 2, Episode 11 of Still Here, Still Trying, Mike talks through the heart behind his 10-book release and the larger Human First world taking shape through Mike Baker HQ. This is part release-week author note, part map for readers and listeners who found one piece of the work and want to ...

This week on Still Here, Still Trying, Mike records a quick road episode from his hotel room in Carlisle, Pennsylvania while attending the U.S. Army War College.

This one is intentionally simple. No studio setup, no Mira intro, no closing song, no extra polish. Just a portable mic, bad hotel lighting, and a few thoughts worth capturing while they are still fresh.

After a week surrounded by military leaders, civilian leaders, professo...

This week on Still Here, Still Trying, Mike talks about the kind of week that makes life feel full, beautiful, hard, and a little too fast.

After a few episodes focused on the upcoming Human First books, this one brings the question home. Sammie graduated. The family went to the Oregon Coast. Jacob was there, recently moved to Moscow and building his electrical company. Cameron was home before heading back to New Zealand. Kellie was...

This week on Still Here, Still Trying, I’m pulling the camera back on the full Human First book series, releasing June 30.

Last week, we started with Believe Her the First Time and the question at the heart of that book: when a woman says her body hurts, do we believe her before she has to prove it? This week, I’m walking through the bigger body of work behind the series and the question underneath all nine books: are we...

Human First: Believe Her the First Time

The first book in the Human First series starts with women’s pain, endometriosis, and what love does when belief becomes action.

The Human First book series releases July 1, and this episode kicks off the run by going straight to the heart of the first book: Believe Her the First Time: A Father’s Guide to Endometriosis, Pain, and Showing Up When It Matters.

Since writing The Optimist...

What Are We Doing With the Life We Still Have?

Memorial Day, hockey, family, and the ordinary joy we almost miss

Episode 51 of Still Here, Still Trying starts at the rink and moves into something much deeper.

After a weekend playing in the Inland Northwest Girls Hockey Foundation tournament, Mike Baker reflects on hockey, Memorial Day, family, growing up, grief, gratitude, and the life we still get to live. He played on two teams, sha...

What Kind of Community Do We Want to Be?

Episode 50 of Still Here, Still Trying is about what happens when good people get tired of the noise, step back from public life, and leave the room to the loudest voices.

Mike Baker reflects on leadership, local politics, healthcare, Idaho women’s health, and the cost of staying silent when the edges keep pulling communities toward fear and division. This episode is not a partisan rant....

Everybody looks fine until you realize most people are surviving quietly.

This week’s episode almost didn’t happen. I was tired, late, and running on fumes, which made me realize that might be the exact thing worth talking about.

In this episode of Still Here, Still Trying, I talk about the kind of exhaustion people carry when life keeps asking more from them than they’ve had time to recover from. The kind of tired ...

Episode 48 | Season 2, Episode 4 Beautifully Unfocused: How to Love Someone With ADHD

If you love someone with ADHD, there’s a good chance you’ve misunderstood them at least once.

And if you have ADHD, there’s a good chance you’ve spent a lot of your life feeling misunderstood before anyone ever asked what was actually happening inside you.

This episode is a field guide from the inside.

I’m talking about t...

Episode 47 | Season 2, Episode 3 Build Your Life, But Don’t Lose Your Soul

Everybody loves the message: build your life, chase the dream, start the thing, stop waiting.

I do too.

But there’s a harder question underneath all that ambition:

What kind of person are you becoming while you build?

In this episode, I’m talking about ambition, power, men, women, leadership, and the ugly truth that some people chase success so ...

The Real Cost of Always Being Right

What if the thing you’re most certain about is quietly costing you the people you care about?

In this episode of Still Here, Still Trying, I get into something that’s been bothering me more and more. The way certainty has taken over how we think, how we talk, and how we show up with each other. It feels like strength in the moment. It feels like clarity. But underneath that, something e...

I almost quit paying attention to all of this.

Not life. Not my work. Not my family. Just the noise. The constant pressure to pick a side. The way conversations turn into fights before they even begin.

Something feels off right now.

And if you sit in it long enough, it starts changing you.

This episode kicks off Season 2 of Still Here, Still Trying. It’s not polished or balanced for the sake of it. It’s just honest.

We&rsquo...