THE MAN BEHIND
THE CONVERSATION
I'm Michael Turner, host of Don Talk — Conversations with Mike Turner, a podcast about the conversations men carry but too often leave unsaid.
For more than two decades, I built a career in collegiate athletics, executive leadership, venue operations, and large-scale live events. Before that, I was a four-time Big Ten champion and two-time All-American at Purdue University.
I knew a lot about discipline, achievement, leadership, and pushing through. What I eventually learned is that none of those things teaches a man how to understand what he's carrying—or how to talk about it.
My experiences with fatherhood, relationships, career transitions, therapy, friendship, disappointment, and personal growth forced me to ask different questions about strength, identity, and the man I was becoming.
I don't host Don Talk because I have all the answers. I host it because I've learned the value of asking better questions—and having the conversations men too often leave unsaid.
Strength without truth becomes weight
FROM PERFORMANCE TO PURPOSE
The titles changed. The environments changed. But each chapter taught me something about performance, leadership, identity, and what it means to become a better man.
ATHLETE
Purdue University
Four-time Big Ten champion and two-time All-American. Sport taught me discipline, preparation, resilience, and how easily performance can become identity.
leader
20+ YEARS OF LEADERSHIP
Collegiate athletics, executive leadership, venue operations, and major live events taught me how to lead people, manage pressure, and carry responsibility.
father
Fatherhood Changed the Questions
Fatherhood challenged my understanding of strength. Providing mattered—but so did presence, honesty, vulnerability, and learning that I didn't have to have every answer.
host
Don Talk
Eventually, the questions became bigger than me. Don Talk became a place for men to put words to what they've been carrying—and have conversations about identity, relationships, mental health, fatherhood, purpose, and growth.
THE TREAD THROUGH ALL OF IT
achievement can tell you what you've accomplished
It can't tell you who you are
WHY DON TALK EXISTS
STRENGTH WITHOUT TRUTH BECOMES WEIGHT
REAL MEN. REAL TALK. REAL LIFE
Men are often taught how to perform strength long before we're taught how to understand what we're carrying.
We learn how to provide. Compete. Lead. Protect. Push through. Keep moving.
But strength can become a performance when there's no room for honesty.
Don Talk exists to make room for the conversations underneath that performance—the ones about identity, relationships, fatherhood, mental health, purpose, pressure, disappointment, healing, and growth.
This isn't about having all the answers. It's about asking better questions, telling the truth about what we're carrying, and giving men language for conversations they may not know how to start.
what we talk about
The conversations men carry but don’t always know how to start
identity
Who are you when the roles, titles, expectations, and accomplishments are stripped away?
Mental health
Therapy, emotional health, pressure, healing, and challenging the idea that silence equals strength
fatherhood
What fatherhood teaches men about presence, responsibility, vulnerability, and themselves
purpose & transition
Career changes, aging, reinvention, disappointment, success, and figuring out what comes next
relationships
Love, friendship, communication, trust, conflict, and what men often leave unsaid
manhood
Examining what we were taught about being a man—and deciding what is worth carrying forward.
The conversation continues
You don’t have to have the answers.
just better questions
Don Talk is where men and the people who care about them come together for honest conversations about identity, relationships, fatherhood, mental health, purpose, and growth.
REAL MEN. REAL TALK. REAL LIFE.
Let’s have a conversation
The best conversations don't always start behind a microphone
Have a guest recommendation, topic idea, collaboration opportunity, media request, or something you think we should talk about? I'd like to hear from you.