Dominick

In this episode of The Missing Conversation, host Steve Evans sits down with Daniel — a marketing executive, lifelong musician, and recently published author from Santa Cruz, California, who grew up in a Midwestern home full of laughter but without any language for emotion, and spent decades building selves that weren't quite his own.Daniel reflects on the boy who learned early that feelings were meant to be kept to himself, and who found in music the one place he could safely feel — and then, alongside it, the drinking that promised the same connection and began a thirty-year addiction. He traces the identities he wore to avoid his own loneliness: the tortured artist, and later the "thankless provider," whose sacrifice he used to excuse everything he couldn't face.He speaks candidly about the widening gap between the man he had to be to provide and the musician he still longed to be, the loop of using substances to escape work and work to justify the substances, and the night his wife finally said it had to stop. He shares the turning point that followed — thirty days at a recovery retreat, learning for the first time to sit with discomfort instead of numbing it — and the slow, unfinished work of waking up from what he calls a "sincere delusion."With striking honesty, humor, and hard-won humility, Daniel explores emotional sobriety, the difference between easy connection and the real kind, and parenting from awareness rather than autopilot — landing on what turned out to matter most: not the big highs he once chased, but the ordinary, genuine moments with the family that was in front of him all along. (Content note: this episode discusses addiction and recovery.)

In this episode of The Missing Conversation, host Steve Evans sits down with Travis — a licensed therapist and men's coach from Costa Mesa, California, whose senior year of high school was upended when his parents separated, beginning a long stretch of instability he'd spend years learning to understand.Travis reflects on the quiet cost of that upheaval — the anger he internalized while trying to keep the peace, the way he moved through school and relationships to avoid being alone with the pain — and on the older men and steady friends who became his anchors when home no longer was. He traces the moment a college professor met his numbness with an invitation that changed everything: to sit down with a therapist, and finally begin to unpack what he'd carried.He speaks candidly about walking away from a path he had no passion for, finding his calling in the very work that healed him, and the relationships that guided each turn — the mentors he sought out over coffee, the couple who helped him find his own "why," the wife he built a family with. He shares the honest strain of early fatherhood — home births, colic, the sheer exhaustion — and how he and his wife learned to externalize the hardship rather than let it become the story of their marriage.With warmth, humor, and a therapist's hard-won self-awareness, Travis explores the leap he finally took — leaving the security of a corporate role to build work that gives rather than drains him — and what it cost and required to trust his own gut. He lands on what turned out to matter most: that the depth of his relationships shaped everything, that no man should walk it alone, and that the truest work of a life may be giving back what you were once given.

In this episode of The Missing Conversation, host Steve Evans sits down with Sabino — the son of Italian immigrants, raised in a tight-knit family where his grandfather arrived with eight dollars to his name, who built a decades-long technology career and recently stepped away from it to reflect on what it was all for.Sabino traces the resourcefulness he inherited watching his father travel all week and still tackle every weekend project, and the belief it planted in him: that whatever stands in front of you, others have done it before, so put your head down and go. He recounts the humbling of a first college failure — a D that broke him — and the professor who met him not as a student but as a fellow human, and taught him that it's how you rebound that matters.He speaks candidly about the mentors who took a green twenty-something under their wing, the gift he found for helping people connect the dots others couldn't, and the shift from leading by example to drawing greatness out of a team — a lesson in management that quietly remade him as a father. He shares the "means to an end" duality that made a relentless career bearable: the private vision, sparked by a book read on a plane, that one day he would step away to give back. And he opens up about the terror of nearly losing his young son to illness, and how it reset everything he thought mattered.With warmth, humility, and hard-won perspective, Sabino explores the discomfort of trading a life of "what's next" for the open space of a new season, and where he now pours his energy — family, mentorship, and financial literacy for young people who lack the nudge he was given. He lands on what turned out to matter most: raising two children who can carry a greater impact than he ever could alone, and paying forward the blessings of a family that was always there.

In this episode of The Missing Conversation, host Steve Evans sits down with Jeff — a man from Cedar Rapids, Iowa, raised in a competitive, no-coddling household to figure things out on his own, who built a successful thirty-year financial career on a self he now describes plainly: money, ego, and what other people thought of him.Jeff reflects on the identity he spent fifty years constructing, and the single morning that dismantled it — and on the choice he named out loud to his sons in the hours after: two roads, one of anger and despair, one of love, hope, and inspiration. He traces the honest reckonings that followed, the ones no one prepares you for: the conversation with the mirror that ended thirty-six years of drinking, and the granddaughter, Brightn, who arrived like a light three weeks after the darkness.He speaks candidly about rebuilding himself from the ground up — trading the man who measured his worth in dollars for one measured in purpose — and about carrying that forward through further loss with a discipline he had to choose, not feel: that pain is unavoidable, but suffering is a choice.With unflinching honesty, humor, and a refusal of easy labels, Jeff explores presence over rumination, vulnerability as his real strength, and the difference between surviving and being reborn — landing on what turned out to matter most: that your story doesn't end with what happened to you. It can begin with what you choose to do next.Content note: This episode discusses suicide and personal loss. If you're struggling, call or text 988 (U.S.) for the Suicide and Crisis Lifeline.

In this episode of The Missing Conversation, host Steve Evans sits down with René — a psychotherapist from the north side of Houston who built his practice around men of color, and who spent much of his own life quietly at war with his self-doubt.René reflects on leaving home for college and the search for belonging that reshaped him — how an unexpected friendship and a hunger for cultural connection molded the man and the clinician he'd become. He traces the transition that changed everything: becoming a father at twenty-three, the hardest conversation of his life with his parents, and the drive that fatherhood finally gave a young man who'd never quite known what he was working toward.He speaks candidly about the mentors who fathered him professionally, the professional failures and self-doubt he had to own rather than blame away, and the choice he made again and again to put his daughter above his own ambition — turning down the better city, the bigger title, the PhD, because presence mattered more. He shares the crucible of a sudden paralysis that forced him, for the first time, to surrender and be cared for by others.With warmth, humor, and disarming honesty, René explores the tenacity that carried him from restaurant floors to his own practice, the love that finally arrived when he stopped chasing it, and the fulfillment he's never known until now — landing on what turned out to matter most: that his gut had been right all along, and the work of a life is learning, at last, to trust it.

In this episode of The Missing Conversation, host Steve Evans sits down with Dominick — a men's health researcher at Johns Hopkins who grew up on food stamps in central Massachusetts, raised by a single mother in a house full of tension, without a father of his own to model the man he might become.Dominick reflects on the pivotal moment his sophomore year when he realized his life was on him — riding his bike to sign his own scholarship papers — and on the truth that it took a whole village to make it happen: the uncle who offered consistency, the priest who knew his family, the people who bought his uniforms and drove him to practice. He traces how, without a father to copy, he built himself "à la carte" — taking a little from each of the men in his life, idealizing the pieces worth keeping.He speaks candidly about the quiet, lasting weight of poverty — how it narrows a young man's vision to the immediate and follows him into adulthood — and about the curiosity and empathy that pulled him outward, from a dorm-room morning watching Mandela walk free, to the Peace Corps in Ethiopia, to a life of service across the world.With warmth and humility, Dominick explores marriage to a partner he never had to convince of the big things, the immediacy that shaped every decision, and standing now at the edge of the empty nest — concerned, but not worried — landing on what turned out to matter most: that relationships are central to who he is, and that a man is built, and rebuilt, in the company of others.

In this episode of The Missing Conversation, host Steve Evans sits down with Sundeep — a New Jersey son of immigrants who left home at eighteen with no plan and no vision, only the pull to get away.Sundeep reflects on how those early stumbles shaped him, and on the quiet privilege of even having room to ask what a good life is. He traces the people and moments that redirected him — the mentors who taught him ownership and service, the rock-bottom year that made him want to be good at something, and the wife whose nudge changed the entire trajectory of his career.He speaks candidly about tying his worth to how much money he could make, the difference between who you are and what you produce, and the hard-won lesson that you can only really learn a thing by living it — mistakes and all.With humor and honesty, Sundeep explores fatherhood as a way of honoring the people who raised him, the humbling gap between being a provider and carrying the invisible weight of a family, and the truth that turned out to matter most: that inaction was his deepest regret, and every time he chose to act, his life compounded into something better than he could have planned.

In this episode of The Missing Conversation, host Steve Evans sits down with Dan — a men's mental health counselor from a difficult home, who realized as a teenager that he was on a path toward becoming the angry, wounded man his own father had been.Dan reflects on the quiet, invisible moment that changed everything: a choice between two paths, and the decision to stop obsessing over what he didn't want to become and start building a vision of what he did. He traces the men who shaped that vision — the friend's gentle father, the pastor who simply listened, the mentors he sought out and stitched together into a model of the man he wanted to be — and how his own hurt became the seed of his life's mission.He speaks candidly about the loneliness he still fights, the daily battle to stay on "path B" rather than drift back into inherited patterns, and how marriage and fatherhood exposed the wounds he thought he'd already healed — teaching him that we're hurt in relationship, and we heal in relationship too.With humor and hard-won honesty, Dan explores grieving the dreams a fuller life asks you to give up, the freedom found in taking responsibility for your own wounds, and the truth that turned out to matter most: that it takes a village to make a man, and no one becomes who they're meant to be alone.

In this episode of The Missing Conversation, host Steve Evans sits down with Larry — friends call him LG — a former Naval Academy basketball player turned Silicon Valley executive, raised on manual labor and modest means in Charlottesville, Virginia.Larry reflects on the bet his family took on him — spending their savings on one basketball camp that changed his trajectory — and traces the mentors, teammates, and his wife Deirdre who shaped him along the way, especially the toxic first job that taught him what fear does to a person left unsupported.He speaks candidly about tying his self-worth to providing for his family, the weight of being a Black man in corporate America, and the year his son's college fund disappeared — and the discipline it took to keep that loss from becoming bitterness.With humor and honesty, Larry explores fatherhood as an ongoing negotiation between advisor and provider, becoming an empty nester alongside his wife, and the full-circle experience of caring for his own father — landing on what matters most: keep trying, give yourself grace, and make friends along the way.

In this episode of The Missing Conversation, Steve sits down with Jack — a New Jersey-raised attorney who built a life and career through hard work, showing up, and an unrelenting commitment to excellence. Jack traces the moments that shaped his identity as a man: leaving home for Rutgers and discovering he genuinely loved to learn, the leadership and drive he developed by throwing himself fully into everything he did, and the humbling crucible of law school that taught him when to step back and let others speak. He reflects honestly on the parents whose 16-hour workdays modeled the life he now lives, the freeing realization of how little we truly control, and the way fatherhood reshaped him — making him more present, more deliberate, and more attuned to who has "it" and who doesn't. With dry humor and hard-won self-awareness, Jack explores ambition, humility, partnership, and the single decision that shaped his life more than any other: recognizing the right person the moment she walked into the room, and choosing her.