Mike Swartz is a mental fitness and empowerment coach who describes himself as "proudly sensitive, vulnerable, and emotionally intelligent." After two decades in corporate leadership - including running a commercial landscaping company - he made the leap to coaching through the Co-Active Training Institute and Positive Intelligence. His passion is helping young men navigate careers, relationships, and the emotional openness they've been told is weakness. Mike and I met through CTI training, and over the past year we've walked alongside each other through some of the hardest seasons of our lives. I'm so glad to share his voice here.
Erin: You describe yourself as "proudly sensitive, vulnerable, and emotionally intelligent." That's not a phrase most men would lead with. What shifted for you?
Mike: For a long time, I struggled with what it meant to be a man. I succumbed to the societal messages around the stereotypical male archetype - provider, tough, sucks it up and gets shit done. I never identified as that kind of person, and for a long time I felt inferior because of it.
In 2022 I was running a commercial landscaping company - a job I had incredible imposter syndrome about. During that time I went through a leadership development program that included a 360 assessment. The feedback from peers, managers, and employees was incredibly positive - but what stood out was the delta between how others saw me and how I saw myself. The coaches helped me realize that my ability to be sensitive, understanding, and create safe spaces for others was a huge reason why people trusted me. That allowed me to start truly loving the parts of myself I used to see as weakness.
Erin: You've been through one of the hardest chapters a person can face - publicly, painfully, with your kids watching. You talk about "bringing bubbles to the world" even in hard seasons. How do you hold onto that when life is genuinely heavy?
Mike: Our family trauma started unfolding in January 2025. For the better part of that first half of the year, I struggled to lessen the hold that all the hard stuff had on me. I was alive, breathing, and around my kids - but I was not present at all. Then there would be these little moments of joy that reminded me there is life to live. I started learning how to hold the hard things but not let them hold me.
My kids and I talk about Bubbles in two parts - creating joy and living in the moment. But one of the biggest things I've taught them is that sometimes living in the moment means sitting with the hard emotions when they bubble up. I let them see me when I'm hurting.
Last June, my 8-year-old was waiting for me to come play games with him, and I had this wave of emotion hit me. He saw this, came over, and asked if I was okay. I started crying and said I was feeling overwhelmed. He put his arm around me and said, "It's okay, dad. What emotions are you feeling when you feel overwhelmed?" I'm grateful because I know my kids are going to go out into the world and continue spreading this kind of humanity.
Erin: You made a major career pivot to coaching during one of the most tumultuous seasons of your life. What kept you going?
Mike: Losing a spouse to incarceration put all the responsibility of supporting the family financially on my shoulders. It takes two to three years on average for a coaching business to build to a sustainable level, and sometimes I lose sight of that. I get impatient and let the fear and doubt creep in.
What keeps me going is that I know in my heart and soul that the work I'm doing is incredibly important. In nearly every conversation, the person reinforces that the world needs me to keep going. That fuels me and helps me trust myself to do the work.
Erin: You work with young men on vulnerability and emotional openness - things many of them have been told are weaknesses. What's the biggest barrier you see?
Mike: The consistent struggle I see is that men haven't been taught how to truly identify the emotions they're experiencing, which creates a lack of confidence in talking openly about them. Most men are stuck on the innermost circle of the emotion wheel - using words like happy, sad, angry, and afraid. In truth, our emotions go much deeper than those labels.
The emotion wheel is a fantastic tool that allows them to explore what other words might describe what they're feeling. I also use two coaching modalities in tandem. The Process coaching arm of the Co-Active model is a powerful way for men to go deep into their feelings. Positive Intelligence helps them appreciate the "alert signal" of a negative emotion, explore what's underneath, and shift into a positive mindset to move forward.
Erin: If someone reading this is a man who knows he's been holding back emotionally - at work, at home, in life - what would you want him to hear?
Mike: Don't be afraid of your emotions. They have much to tell you, and there is so much you can learn about yourself in the process. Doing this work - exploring your own emotions, using vulnerability with others, expressing compassion and empathy - is what is going to make you an even more incredible human than you already are. Above all else, the thing that makes us human is the depth and range of our emotions, and you owe it to yourself to fully embrace that experience.
What strikes me most about Mike is that he doesn't just talk about vulnerability - he lives it, publicly, in front of his kids, in the middle of one of the hardest seasons a person can face. The moment with his 8-year-old asking "what emotions are you feeling?" is proof that this work ripples outward. If you're a man who's been holding back, or if you know one who is, I hope Mike's words land the way they landed for me.