Straitup Legacy: A Man's Life Worth Living

Michael
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The world is louder than ever, and the expectations on men have never been more complex. But you aren't here to just 'get by.' You’re here to lead. Welcome to Straitup Legacy, I’m Michael Strait. This is the space where aspiring good men stop reacting to life and start designing it. We’re diving deep into the challenges we face—from the boardroom to the living room—to help you emerge empowered, authentic, and completely transformed. It’s time to become the man your family needs and the man you were meant to be. Let’s get started.

Episodes

  1. Jul 19

    Unmasking Shame: Why Men Trade Authenticity for Approval

    Today, we are pulling back the curtain on a silent epidemic that has been undermining the empowerment of men since the beginning of time and has worsened in today’s multi-media world. Look at how we praise men in our society. We celebrate the builders, the fixers, the high-achievers, and the men who get results at all costs. We are taught from a very young age that our value is entirely tied to what we can produce, what we can buy, and how well we protect our exterior image.  I know for me, my worth was measured through the lens of whether I had the validation and/or approval of the father figures in my life.  And later as I got older, of my larger community.  But if you look closely beneath the surface of all that frantic doing, you will often find an agonizing engine driving the machine for most of us that many of us find it too hard to look at: shame. The underlying fear that we are fundamentally not enough. The terror that if we ever slow down, if we ever stop performing, the world will realize we don’t measure up. We trade our authenticity for approval, and in the process, we lose our souls. Joining me today to unpack how shame drives our need to perform, and how we can break free from the trap of conditional love, is my guest, Charles Sue Wah Sing.

  2. Jun 16

    Why Peace Feels Boring

    Most people have had some version of volatility in how they were raised and the environment that they grew up in.  We are conditioned to perform - to be praised when we do things well and to be reprimanded or punished when we don’t.  For a lot of people and most of you know the volatile childhood that I had, our version of love and what stable and safe looks like is some kind of intensity or emotional punch and as we’ve grown older, we’ve become conditioned to look for that in our lives and to see it as our version of normal.  The intensity is our version of intimacy - our version of love and attention.  How do we break this cycle?  How do we re-train our nervous systems to value the more ordinary things in life?

  3. May 20

    Jerry from Ohio: The Richest Man in Scottsdale

    One of the 5 pillars of this show is Radical Authenticity.  To be authentic is underpinned by our ability to be present.  For me to tune in to who I really am at my core I have needed to learn how to be present.  If I’m not present then I’m getting triggered by the world around me and younger parts of me could be running the show of Michael leaving no room for me to show up as who I authentically am today -A 58 year old aspiring good human who has the scar tissue to know the version of me that has me feel whole and at peace - the “Authentic me”.So, how do we get present in a world that seduces us not to be?  Today, I want to take you with me on a bike ride through the heart of Scottsdale, Arizona. It’s an incredibly affluent place, a bubble of wealth and comfort that for good reasons and not so good reasons, I live in. But on this specific morning, underneath a desert pergola, I was stopped in my tracks by a young man who owns next to nothing, yet possesses a spiritual wealth that moved me to weep.Grab a seat, slow down for a second, and let’s talk about Jerry from Ohio: The Richest Man in Scottsdale

  4. May 3

    Beyond the Matrix: Reclaiming Your Soul in a World of Noise

    We’re coming out of a pandemic that still leaves its’ imprint on what our lives and worlds look like, the middle east is erupting, we’ve had events that have caused us to question our trust for leaders around the world and inside all of it is what’s going on inside us - the pendulum of our masculine and feminine energies, which all of us have, throughout history have swung in polarized ways due to the actions and ways of beings of all the people that inhabit our beautiful planet.  In this episode, my guest Cori Capp, who is a light worker and spiritual guide, talks with me about masculine and feminine energies that are inside all of us and how finding the balance of them in the world and in ourselves will help us grow as people and as a society. You can find more about Cori Capp, my guest today on Instagram at Coach.Cori.

  5. Apr 17

    The Defensive Man: Why 'Being Right' Is Costing You Your Relationships

    In the spirit of our growth as men, in this episode, I wanted to talk about some of the things that I’ve learned and also a theme that I’ve been hearing from different people in the latest chapter of my life.  I started reflecting on my own life and how at different times I’ve reacted the same way.  There have definitely been times in my life when people who cared about me were wanting to give me feedback for my own good and I shut down.  Some younger part of me that wanted to be seen as perfect, or solid, or accomplished.  Anything but needing improvement. As men, we’re programmed to want to provide, to achieve and so much of our culture measures how well we do financially and have we succeeded in the eyes of our neighbors - our houses, our cars, the kinds of schools our kids go to - you name it.How do we create a space within ourselves to allow the space for others to express themselves about how they are feeling?  And maybe even how they are feeling about us?  This is so important for our romantic relationships and for those of us with female partners, it’s even more important - they’re so wired to want to express themselves and they do in their female relationships with regularity.

  6. Apr 5

    Living With Presence in a Chaotic World (The "Disembodied" Problem)

    We live in a world designed to keep us from the neck up. Between the screens, the data, and the constant digital noise, men are becoming 'floating heads'—detached from the very skin they live in. I know from this happening in my life and to me this detachment wasn't just a loss of feeling: it was a loss of power.  When we lose touch with our somatic selves, we lose our intuition, we lose our ability to stay present with our families, and I know what’s true for me in those chapters of my life - I wasn’t the leader or the father that I wanted to be.  In the spirit of understanding ourselves and pushing through the seduction of today’s world and what it wants us to be, we’re walking this line of our shadows with Ross McKenzie in this episode. Ross is producer of the well known movie Bipolarized and his story is one that we can all learn from.  https://rossmckenzie.com/ https://bipolarized.rossmckenzie.com/

  7. Mar 25

    Building the Village Before You Need It

    Most of us plough through life as if it’s something that we have ‘to do’.  And while we’re in the midst of all that we’re doing we forget how to 'be'.  We forget who we’re aspiring to be.I’ve always subscribed to the philosophy that hidden inside life’s hardships there are gems.  Precious little things that lie inside the hardest times and the hardest moments that we face as people…as humans.As I’m talking for this Podcast, I am recovering from cancer surgery just 4 days ago.  And while the days following the surgery have been painful, uncomfortable and incredibly humbling there have been gifts given to me that, until this diagnosis hadn’t quite hit me the way they have now.In this episode, I share some of these thoughts as it relates to living out our normal lives in the wake of a serious diagnosis and a perspective that I'd not been afforded before it was given to me.

  8. Mar 1

    The Mask or the Man? Redefining Modern Male Leadership

    With the recent world headlines, leaders around the world and their values and judgements have come into question leaving many of us wondering ‘have we placed our trust in the right people’? The Edelman Trust barometer, a long standing reliable source of how people are feeling about those we put our trust in to lead us, is at an all time low and worse, the Edelman Institute’s data shows that people are turning toward an insular way of life.  A ‘Me vs We’ mentality.  In recent world events, most of these well recognized leaders and their fall from grace have been men, calling into the deeper question - what is the impact to the balance of healthy energy in the world between genders?  What is the impact on our daily lives and most importantly what does this mean for us as men, and our part in all of it?  With me in this episode is Dr. Jesse Hanson, Somatic Psychologist and Neuropsychologist and host of the Podcast Lead With Heart, who joins me in wondering out loud about the impact to healthy manhood and what this means for us as men in our daily lives.

  9. Feb 22

    Plugged In, Checked Out: Why I Pulled the Plug on Social Media

    We live in a world where the average person spends more than 40% of their waking lives connected to screens and the internet.  In this episode we'll ponder on what the impact of this is to us as individuals and us as a society.  Is the digital era costing us the vital time and space that we need to evolve as humans or is there a cost to it?  Is there a cost to our children and their children?

  10. Feb 3

    The 5 Pillars of a Life Worth Living

    In this episode, I'll talk about the foundations that I work hard to live my life by.  I'll talk about 5 tenets that a life worth living can be aspired toward.  These are the foundation of this podcast and the qualities that I've witnessed in some of the greatest men I've met and been inspired by.

  11. Jan 23

    Conquering the Male Loneliness Epidemic: One moment, one man at a time

    Straitup Legacy: A Man's Life Worth Living

  • 11 Episodes

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About

The world is louder than ever, and the expectations on men have never been more complex. But you aren't here to just 'get by.' You’re here to lead. Welcome to Straitup Legacy, I’m Michael Strait. This is the space where aspiring good men stop reacting to life and start designing it. We’re diving deep into the challenges we face—from the boardroom to the living room—to help you emerge empowered, authentic, and completely transformed. It’s time to become the man your family needs and the man you were meant to be. Let’s get started.

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