Mitchell Phelps is a father of one (number two is weeks away), Cleveland-based community builder, and the man behind the Daddy's Trollers Social Club. In this episode, Mitchell gets real about the self-imposed pressure men carry into fatherhood, the financial stress they manufacture, the provider identity they inherit from society, and the moment his wife asked him to prove they weren't okay, and he couldn't.

He walks us through his 12-week parental leave with his first child, what it actually looked like to be present through the hard parts, and how he navigated loneliness after relocating to a new city with a newborn. A therapist's simple question, "have you been around people?" changed everything. That led Mitchell to connect with the Daddy's Trollers Social Club, a community for dads that started in Dallas and now has roots in Cleveland.

We also get into male postpartum depression (1 in 10 men experience it and most don't even know), why "daddy bootcamp" is missing the mark, and three practical steps to find your people when you don't know where to start.

If you've ever felt the pressure and couldn't explain where it came from, this one's for you.

Sam is a loving husband, father of a three-year-old, and expecting baby number two this July.

He's a self proclaim workaholic who has spent his career in sales and never really knew how to turn it off.

So what happens when someone like that gets four months of paternity leave?

In this episode of the Soul Sessions Fatherhood Series, Sam shares one of the most vivid descriptions of entering paternity leave I've heard (using a scene from The Matrix to explain the mental shift from constant noise to a blank slate).

We talk about how he redirected his high-achiever energy into fatherhood, the question he used to snap himself back to presence, what it really felt like returning to work as a new dad, and why the second leave is going to be a whole different challenge.

This one is for every high-performing dad or soon-to-be dad wrestling with the tension between ambition and being present. Sam doesn't have it all figured out but he shows up honestly, and that's exactly what this series is about.

Evan Coleman went back to work when his son was 21 days old. The second time around, he had 13 weeks — and it changed everything about how he thinks about fatherhood, work, and what companies still get wrong about paternity leave.

In this conversation, Evan and Damon get into how to structure your leave strategically, how to build a support system when family isn't nearby, and the mindset shift most new dads miss before baby even arrives.

If you're a high-performing dad trying to figure out how to show up fully — at work and at home — this episode is for you.