Episode 112: Mike Elliott

When Mike Elliott’s marriage ended, he found himself collapsed on his kitchen floor, shaking and crying out, “I don’t want to die.” In that moment, the successful adult man disappeared—and Mike recognized something much older underneath: the infant who had once been separated from his biological mother and was terrified of being abandoned again.

That realization began a much deeper journey.

In this episode of At the Podium, Mike reflects on being adopted, the grandmother who became his safe place, and the extraordinary experience of reading the journals his birth mother left behind. What began as a story he once carried with embarrassment eventually became something he describes as an honor.

Our conversation widens into masculinity, vulnerability, relationships, personal responsibility, and the mythology of the self-made man. We also wrestle with a harder question: when powerful, high-performing men begin to heal their own wounds, what responsibility do they have for the collateral damage they may have caused along the way?

Today, Mike uses what he has learned to work with men seeking greater connection with themselves and the people they love through his platform Relational Authority. His story is a reminder that healing is not simply an individual pursuit. Again and again, we are shaped, challenged, and ultimately transformed in relationship with others.

We don’t heal alone.