Rene  0:00  
There was this nickel arcade. You go in there, it's you know rundown. You know clearly somebody got a good deal on these arcade games and was like, let's just rent out this corner of this shopping center. And I remember taking my daughter there, and she would just be like, this is the place. Like she that was her thing, and one day she did like a little project, and they asked her what's her favorite thing to do, and she said going to the nickel arcade with my dad, and it was a good reminder of like kids don't care, kids don't care what car you drive, kids don't care how much money you make, like I was living in a studio apartment, we had to share a bed for a little bit, but like she didn't care. She was just there to party and have a good time, focusing on her, focusing on like being a dad for her saved me through a lot of those rough times and allowed me to say, okay, this is why I'm doing this. I'm doing this for her. I'm doing this to be involved in her life. I'm doing this to make money so I can afford a car that can drive us to places, you know, and that was my drive. If I didn't have my oldest daughter, I honestly have no clue what I would be doing today.

Steven Evans  1:25  
Thank you so much, Renee, for being here and for bringing your story and sharing it openly with our audience. I'm so excited for them to hear and also just to learn and glean as much as possible. And what we'll do is we'll go through your story from the beginning, and then we'll proceed through the transition moments, the sort of crucible stories around your identity and how it's shifted or evolved over the years as you've gone through those moments. But before we get there, I'd love if you wouldn't mind 10 seconds just introducing yourself.

Rene  1:53  
Hey, Steve. Good morning. My name is Rene Garcia. I am a psychotherapist based out of the North Texas region. I have a private practice called Garcia Mental Health, where I specialize treating men, specifically men of color, BIPOC men, with various mental health issues. I also help couples, and I'm just excited to be here today, man. Talk about mental health and all sorts of different stuff.

Steven Evans  2:16  
Definitely, I'm so honored to have you here. Well, I guess you know the best place I think always to start is at the beginning, and if you could bring us back to that moment when you were first leaving home, who was you know that person that was jumping into the quote unquote real world, and what were some of the lessons that you were taking with you then?

Rene  2:34  
I was born and raised on the north side of Houston, Texas. My wife always likes to give me trash that we didn't live in the city, but I had a Houston address. All right, but we were on the north side of Houston. Houston's a big ass city. Close enough, yeah, close enough. And I would say I had a very typical lower middle class, middle class kind of upbringing, and it was about 18 where I decided, you know what, I'm gonna go. I wanted to get away from Houston, but I didn't want to get too far, so I decided to go to University of North Texas, which is in a little town called Denton, maybe about 3040 minutes north of Dallas. And because I was in the marching band, I got to move in a little bit earlier than the regular students. So that was probably my first taste of like, all right, I'm getting away from home doing this. I don't think a lot of my friends had left for college at that time. I had a good core group of like 10 to 12 guys, and so it was really my first time getting away and you know saying I'm going to go do this and establishing myself. An event happened that I won't get into, but an event happened that made me feel very much like I was not part of the group, and I felt as though I was up in Dallas area, kind of on my own. So I latched on to some core friends, some people in the marching band that I had met, and one guy specifically, and he had a best friend, and then these guys just became my support system. So when we talk about transition periods, that to me was probably the biggest one I'd had up to that point. Is that just being out there by myself, not knowing anybody, and then latching onto two guys that were very different in very different ways from my core group of friends is something I think has really, really molded me early on in those years leaving Houston.

Steven Evans  4:21  
Yeah, and it sounds like there's a lot of, I guess, identity formation there. Meaning, you know, you decided to one step out on your own, two, but also to join a group of friends and to sort of figure out who you were, not necessarily in their reflection, but with their assistance, right? So it wasn't just you by yourself; you were always willing to be open about that. It sounds like,

Rene  4:44  
yeah, and and there's a racial ethnicity part of this story as well. That a lot of my core group, I was one of the few minorities in our core group from Houston, and so when I came up to Dallas and North Texas, it flipped basically. All of my friends were either first-generation Hispanic, Latinos, Black, you know, Asian. Like my whole like kind of ethnic experience changed too. And on top of it, the two guys that I ended up just becoming best friends with eventually one would come out as gay, the other one would come out as bisexual, and so like I can't tell you how like frat boy like world I came from to now it was life changing in a really positive way and I think it's something that I feel molded me to who I am today as well.

Steven Evans  5:30  
Wow, and like was there anything that maybe you were bringing with you from home? You know, maybe lessons learned that enabled you know friendship or that transition into school.

Rene  5:41  
You know where I grew up. We were in an area where it was kind of hard to find like an in-between person. So like what I would call myself. So we have a saying in Spanish: "Nide the aquí, ni de ay. Like I'm not from here. I'm not from there. And it's usually people that are not originally from a Spanish-speaking country, or there may not be first generation. But at the same time, I have a very Latino name, Rene Esteban Garcia. You know, like I have a white passing voice. I had a white passing look at the time, but like you know, you see my name and you knew I was not a white person. And so I think I went to Dallas and came up here, being like, I had a drive for cultural connection. I think, and I think whenever that event happened, I felt alone, and I felt you know what I really want to dig into more about this. And I joined a Latino fraternity. Basically, all of my friends throughout college were primarily Latino, and to be honest, I'm good with all of my friends at this point. But I would say I'm probably closer to the guys I met in college and the guys that you know I built a lot of these more cultural connections, and I think that has been something that has played a significant role, not only in who I am as an individual, but also the work that I do professionally.

Steven Evans  6:48  
Right, totally, and and I guess you can already see the sort of strings that sort of lead you to you know the future state, which is awesome. I will definitely go there. And was there something underneath that you know you felt at that moment you needed to do to matter. It sounds like reconnection was one of those things. Perhaps was there an element of performance, maybe goal orientation, something like that.

Rene  7:11  
I don't know. I look back, and because I have so many of these conversations now in the work that I do as a mental health professional, I had a lot of self-esteem issues. Like there was like this kind of like doubting myself. There's a lot of like I didn't believe in the work that I was doing, and in fact, I was kind of rejogging a lot of memory, getting prepared for today. And I was thinking back of I was registering in my junior year, and I just remember looking at the classes, and I was just lost. And I was like, "What am I doing? And I called my mom, and I was like, I don't know, I have no idea what I'm doing right now. And she goes, Well, don't register. Just take this time off. And so I ended up taking the spring and the summer time off from college. I just didn't go, and and I worked full time as assistant manager at a restaurant, and I hated that so much. Like nothing will make you want to finish your degree more than working 40 plus hours a week at a restaurant, and I was like, "This sucks. I don't want to do this for rest of my life. And I was like, "Okay, I'm just gonna wrap up and finish. I'm gonna see where the world takes me. So I ended up going back into school after I took off those two semesters, and changed jobs. Started just working at a restaurant, and that's probably the next big transition. Is after all that, and I got my life directed, and I was kind of getting ready to graduate, and then I find out I was going to be a dad unexpectedly around 23, and my first daughter was born October 18, 2007, and that was a transition, Steve, a very big transition.

Steven Evans  8:39  
Absolutely, I mean, children. One, you're already, you know, dealing with your own sort of personal identity, and then you're, you know, trying to build out who that is. But then you now have the responsibility of another human who is themselves their own universe. So it's always interesting the the connection. I mean, what was that transition like, where

Rene  9:00  
you had to integrate this new human into your life. Yeah, it was terrifying, and I think looking back now, it was tough decision. But the best decision we could have made is that her mom and I decided to co-parent and not even try to, you know, be together. I know she didn't love me, I didn't love her, but we both knew that we were taking parenthood seriously, and so that was really life changing. Having that conversation with my parents was probably the hardest thing I've ever had to do. I remember it vividly. My mom was extremely supportive. My dad was supportive, but as he's an accountant, so he thinks in dollars and cents, and wisely so. I think that was his bigger concern of like, okay, what's the financial ramifications of this? And both were right. I needed both. Looking back, I kind of needed both of their feedback. But luckily, they never made me feel ashamed. They never made me feel less than. They just said, "Okay, we're gonna love this child. And really, all of my family, to be honest, like even my extended family, my brother was great. My extended family, if they did, they'd. Never did it to my face. I'll put it that way. You know, they were everybody was always supportive. In my head, that's not what was going on. In my head, I was thinking, "I'm the screw up. I'm the example now. Don't be like Renee. And that was kind of hard. But I did have this like drive of, "Oh, I got to figure. I got to figure this out. I need to figure out where my life is going at this point, so I got to take care of this kid.

Steven Evans  10:22  
So amazing! Like so much to unpack there. It sounds like you know your family was supportive, but also gave you the sort of insight and that you needed at that moment. I think that's an incredible support network. I think that's so great. Being able to move forward through the transition moments with that support is undoubtedly helpful over the years. So when it comes to this moment of sort of making a choice, right to co-parent, to be in this child's life, walk me through how that sort of affected your decisions after graduation. What did you decide to do?

Rene  10:57  
Really, kind of crazy situation. So everything happened. My daughter was born up here in the North Dallas area, and she was from an East Texas town. So, because we weren't going to be together, she said, "Look, I can't do this. I'm going to go back home to East Texas with my parents, and they're going to help me out until we figure out everything. And at that time, it was very hard. I helped move them out there, and it was about a three-hour drive, and I tried the three hours driving back to Dallas because the thing I was thinking was I'm going to miss first words, I'm going to miss first steps, I'm going to miss all these things. But again, I look back; it was tough. But I also am glad that it happened that way because she found a husband who has been an amazing stepdad to my daughter. I found my amazing wife, and we've been able to do it. Yes, there have been rough times, and I'm gonna trip. But now my daughter's about to get into college this next week. We're all about to move her in together to the dorms on Wednesday, and so I'm emotionally preparing for that now, Steve. But yeah. But as far as like the decision making, I had graduated, and I was like, I need to do something. I graduated with a degree in sociology, and I was like, you know, I don't know what I want to do with this, but I know I need to get working. And I was kind of preparing to go into either the beverage business, like you know, reps and stuff like that, or the restaurant business. My mom had gotten a job at a community college up in North Houston, where they lived, and on that campus, they had a private university based out of San Antonio that had a satellite program there. Well, she started working for this satellite program for this university, and she goes, "You know, Renee, I could really see you doing this program. And she sent me information to be a marriage and family therapist, and she goes. You know, you talk to people. You're empathetic. I can see you doing this, and so I go to this informational to this hear what they have to do. And lo and behold, one of the deans of the program was an actual theorist. She'd actually written a book and had a whole approach to doing therapy, and she was there, and like it was just very fulfilling. And I was like, "Wow, I could. This is awesome. But again, that self doubt, right? This is kind of a theme I've had my whole life. Okay, can I do this? Am I supposed to do this? Like, what am I really? Like, my dad's an accountant, my mom's an accountant. Like, you know, like I come from a business background. My dad's family is a lot of educators. You know, a couple of health people. Like, my mom's sister was a nurse, but like, I didn't have any other connection to the medical or health industry, but I was really inspired by this, so I said, "You know what? I'm going to do it. So I registered. I had to take a prerequisite class, and then I got into my post grad, and that has been literally life changing. My program, I still think about it today, and I've been a clinician now for about 16 years, and it started me working there, developing the skills there, the people I met there, the models that we used, the theories-like all that stuff-is still sourced to me all these years later, and it was absolutely life changing. And it allowed me to get into a career because ultimately, the mother of my daughter and I said, "Look, we don't know what's going to happen, but we kind of want to get back into Dallas because at that time for me to go to that school, I had to move to Houston. So I went to Houston. I was living with family. The mother of my daughter was living in East Texas, and that's when we started like doing.

Rene  14:09  
Okay, I'll get my daughter for a month or two, or like, hey, let's switch it off. So it almost kind of felt a little like joint custody right there. It was kind of half and half until she started school. When school started, it was a little bit different, but like that was great because my parents, my family got to spend a lot of time when she was little, and I really have fond memories of that time as well.

Steven Evans  14:25  
Yeah. Oh wow. And it sounds like, from I guess the career perspective, it really was such a powerful time where the people you were meeting were investing in you, but also you were able to sort of blossom there. It sounds like was there anyone who came alongside you then a mentor or maybe a friend that you met that you know really kind of lit you up or something like that.

Rene  14:48  
I have two. Probably the first one is I was still waiting tables at a restaurant in Houston while I was in grad school, and I was I don't know. Last last time you had a new job and something like that, where like you just go around and say like who you are, what do you do, whatever. And so I was in this restaurant, and I was like, oh, my name is Renee. Like I just moved back from Dallas, and I'm going to grad school. My goal is to have my own private practice and be a therapist. Well, one of the guys in the training class at the restaurant and one of the managers kind of started dogging me. They're like, "Oh, really? Oh, you're gonna be a oh oh real smart guy over here with this practice. And they started laughing, and I was like, "I got to get out of the restaurant business. So like, I was like, "This is nothing wrong about the restaurant business, but I just feel like there's some people that were like they didn't look beyond a week or a month or a year that they were just like, I'm just gonna do this now. And at that point in my life, I was like, "No, no, no! I need to get my stuff together. I got, I got a plan for this kid. So, a email list serve. This is aging me right now. There's an email list serve that went around, and it said, "Hey, my name is David. I'm looking for an intern to help me with my substance use program that I run. This guy, I went to a three year program. I was the first year. He was in his second year. Then he worked with people with drug and alcohol problems, and he said, "Hey, if anybody wants to be an intern in this, I'm looking for an intern. 14 bucks an hour. I'll help you get your intern license and help. And I said,

Rene  16:14  
"Let's do it. And so I started working as a clinician that summer of 2010, working under him, and he was a huge mentor. He had-I won't tell his story, but like long time of recovery from heroin, turned his life around, decided to be a clinician, and just really kind of took me under his wing. And and I helped. I was with him for the next two years. So he was a huge person. He was a huge mentor. When I left his job to go to another one, I was in a puddle of tears. I was super emotional because he he literally was kind of like another dad to me. Like he just like taught me everything he knew, and I felt like really allowed me to see a world of therapy and counseling that I had not seen before. So he was a huge one, and then the second one was my first practicum instructor teacher. Her name is Adriana. She was just a supervisor in our world. Just because you graduate from college and you get a license doesn't mean you can automatically start practicing therapy. You have to get a license and then you have to do a supervision. Think of like doctors who do like internships at hospitals and stuff like that. We have to do a certain amount of hours and then we're a fully licensed clinician. Well, she was my practicum instructor, supervisor, and like she was just like challenged me, and even to this day, I just saw her a couple months ago, and she's just this person where I can just depend on. You know, these people where you can just say, I know that if I go to this person, they're going to be there to challenge me to have me think things a certain way. And she allowed me to see what a real therapist is, and now she is actually the head of the program that we graduated from because she was in the program as well too, and so now she runs it today to this day. And I can't imagine all the good things she's going to do for it. So yeah, I think those two people, educationally and professionally, were the ones that I think of as far as guides.

Steven Evans  17:55  
Yeah, absolutely. And walk us through sort of that psychological terrain of these years where you go to school, you're thinking about what you want to do next. You're trying to figure that out, but then all of a sudden, you know, you have a child into the picture, which then you know you have responsibility, and you know on your mind, how do I kind of really turn my life around so that I can take care of this person? And then you know you decide to jump into a graduate level program where it's putting you on this accelerated path to helping others, right? So there's a lot of those decisions that I feel like lead you along those paths. I mean, just walk us through that transition of, hey, I'm on my own, to now I'm not on my own, to now I'm going to really use this rocket ship to change my life.

Rene  18:39  
So working with David and getting my internship license was probably the one of the better professional decisions I could have done because by the time I graduated with my master's, I already had a fully licensed what they call an LCDC licensed chemical dependency counselor. So, not only did I have my master's level licensures, but I also had almost like a resume builder that hey, I've been doing this work for two years prior before I even graduated, and so my last year of my master's program, I had to do an internship at a psych hospital. So by the time I graduated, I had two years of working as a chemical dependency counselor and one year working at a psych facility on my resume, like one of the best career decisions. Did I make 1000s of dollars, kind of like you know, like six figure salary out of college? Of course not. We don't have the same payment structure as masters of MBA and stuff like that, or engineers. But I did have about three different job offers by the time I graduated from my master's, and it felt nice to have options. And so I took the best option. And then on top of it too, I got to really prop up the program. Is that I graduated with skills, and I think that's an argument I have a lot with undergraduate and even some postgraduate programs. Is what skills are they being graduated with? Did you do suicide assessments? Did you do intense clinical work before you graduated? And are you ready to take on? Actual clients here once you graduate, and I felt like this program gave me all of that on a silver platter. I didn't have to go find any of these things, and so I felt very comfortable and confident that I was going to get a good career. And I did. I worked at a large hospital system out of Houston called Memorial Hermann, and they had a substance use program that I worked in their rehab, and I did that for a number of years, and during that time, the mother and my daughter met a great man, my daughter's stepdad, and they ended up getting married. And he is in more the electrical trades, and he found a job. And they said, "Hey, we're going to move to Dallas. And I said, "Oh, okay, all right. Well, now's the time. I got to start looking to see what's out there. So I remember it was October 2013, and I remember that date because it was a Halloween party, and I was dressed as Fred Flintstone, and I did it at work. And my boss, the CEO of the whole company, who's super approachable guy, he goes, "Hey, man, we're opening up a clinic in Austin. If you want to go out there, man, we definitely need some help because I kind of had built a reputation at this time. I specialized in these kind of satellite programs and building them up. I had done about three or four for David, and then I had done about two to three with this current company with Moira Herman. And so he goes, "Hey, man, if you ever want to go out to Austin, let me know. And I don't know how much Texas lore you have, but like Austin, for a very long time, has been at least in my eyes one of the coolest places in Texas to go to. Crazy expensive, but still like an awesome town. I grew up going there. My cousins live there. It's just a really cool town. I go, hey brother, I go listen, man. Thank you for the offer. If I didn't have my kid, I would totally take it. But if you open up an office in Dallas. Let me know because I'm trying to get up there because my daughter is now up there. And he goes, "Whoa, just to let you know, we're gonna try and open up an office in Dallas here pretty shortly. So if you want it, we'll make it happen. And so negotiations happened. They gave me a little pay raise and they moved me out there really hard leaving. I had a partner at the time, and obviously leaving my parents was tough. My brother was tough. I love Houston.

Rene  22:06  
Houston's my home, and but again, I needed to be there, and I knew I needed to be there. I knew I was missing out not being there, so it was life changing. That relationship didn't end up working out for other different reasons, but I got to be close to my daughter. I got to see her every week. I got to see her every other weekend. I got to like you know have a lifestyle with her, and I was living on my own again. I lived in a different part of Dallas. I haven't lived before, but like I got to be a dad. I don't think my daughter and I have the relationship now if I wouldn't have done that. There's a side of me that wanted to push through and do the PhD, and I still think about it to this day. But like, she wouldn't know me, or she would hate me. I don't know which would be worse. Right,

Steven Evans  22:47  
that's amazing, and such a strong picture of love as well. I think that's something that is a driving force in sort of the moves that you made during that time. Perhaps not taking the the role in Austin may have been difficult, challenging. You know, it may have hurt a bit, but then knowing, hey, like you said, I want to be closer to my daughter. I don't want her to grow up hating me or not knowing me, and as a result, I have to make this this choice to move to Dallas, like living on my own. And those decisions not easy.

Rene  23:17  
I think about it often. What my life would have been like if I stayed in Houston, and I knew I would have been fine professionally. I knew I would have been okay just being close to family. But the people that go no contact with their parents-I know that's like a kind of a big thing right now. That to me is one of the biggest fears of my life. Like I do something to my kid that she's like, I don't want to ever talk to you again. That to me is one of the scariest things.

Steven Evans  23:42  
Yeah, you know, so scary. Yeah, absolutely. No, I hear you. And walk us through then the working years when you're seeing patients, you know, day to day. How do you manage the the work of it all while you know managing the family situation as well?

Rene  23:56  
Well, Steve, great question. I would say I had my first professional failure being up here in Dallas because the hospital system I worked out of Houston they were the second largest employer just under the city of Houston. So like every place you go in Houston, you will see a sign Memorial Hermet Home. They have hospital systems, X-ray labs, all these different things. So, like coming out here and putting up a sign in Dallas saying, "Like I'm with Moira Herman, like no one knew. It was a crazy, weird name. We were starting from nothing, and I take responsibility for it. It just didn't take off. I'd say they gave me about two years, and a number of things happened between there and a couple of bad relationships, partner-wise, business-wise, that didn't work out. And what happened was, is my supervisor at the time said, "Look, I think we're going to go a different direction. We'd love to have you back here in Houston at the main rehab to help with this program. And my spidery sense went up. And I said, "Well, if I don't take that, what happens? And she goes, "Well, then we're gonna have to let you go. So this was around the fall of 2015, and it hurt. I remember having a conversation with the mother, my daughter, and saying, "Hey, this is what's going on. By this time, I had been seeing my daughter all the time, getting her like nonstop. We're integrated. It was like finally, I got this life that was I just loved. It was great. She goes, "Well, okay, I understand it. Like maybe you should talk to her about it. And I think she at this time was eight or nine, and I remember it distinctly because she was in the back of my car, and I said, "Hey, Lex, you know, just let you know, there's a chance of me having to move back to Houston because my job here just didn't work out. And Steve, I remember this sound like it was yesterday. She didn't cry. She didn't, at least to my face, she didn't cry, she didn't yell. She just took a deep breath, and her body just got tense. And I said, "All right, I can't leave. I just can't. So, how it worked out? The apartment that I was in said they said my boss at the time said, "We need you back here basically within the next month. So I talked to the lease of my apartment, and they said, "Well, in order to break your lease, it's about three or $4,000. And I said, "Okay. So I talked to my boss back home from Houston, and I say, look, would you all be willing to help me with these three to $4,000 to help me move back, or are you willing to wait until February when my lease ends and then I'll just wrap up and go there? Well, they talked about it, and they said, yeah, that's way too much money. Just stay in there until February, help transition the new guy that they hired in this new market or whatever, and then you can go back. We'll take a wild guess what I do, and it was resume, resume, resume, application, application, applicant. I was like, okay, cool. I got like four or five months to find a gig because I do not want to have to move back to Houston. So I'm like sending out resumes like left to right, left to right. Finally, two weeks before I had to move out of my apartment and everything and go back, I found a a job and I ended up moving in with my friend Oscar for a month or two until I found like a living space, saving some money, but it allowed me to stay here locally. Unfortunately, that job was not a good decision. It was a rehab facility that paid me good money. But I don't know if you've been to a place where you're like, "Wow, there's a lot of new people here. We don't have anybody that's been here past two or three years. That's kind of weird. And if you're in a place that's been around for a while and you only have people that have been here like a year or two years, something's not good. So that didn't last too long.

Steven Evans  27:45  
Yep, I hear you. And then that time probably was while you know it confirmed your direction. I feel like it's also a time of searching, right? Not only are you sending out resumes, but you're also internally trying to decide. Okay, what is my next phase, right for yourself,

Rene  28:02  
and and the self esteem thing came in, right? Like I had never had this happen before. I was angry. I was upset. I felt I wanted to blame other people, but honestly, it was on me. I could have done some things differently. I could have been a little bit more active. It was definitely a tough time around that time. That significant relationship ended, and so I did feel kind of like I don't know what I'm doing here, but I knew I was close to my kid, and that was always the support I needed at the time. I'm just saying, okay, she knows me. I know her. We're in each other's life. She's excited to see me. We were having a relationship, and that's all I ever wanted. And I look back, and I think I probably shouldn't have been in as many relationships as I should have because no matter what happened, that was the most satisfying thing. It's just being around my daughter at the time. It made me the happiest, and I think that was probably unfair to previous partners, if I'm being honest. But I think that was the thing that kept me going through a lot of this rough time. So yeah, so this job I ended up being at to less than a year because the writing was on the walls, and I just didn't want to do this. And then I found a new. This is probably the next transition. Is I left the direct care area, which what we call like providing care directly to clients, and then I went to the managed care side, which is the insurance side, and I started doing that end of 16, and that is that was a big transition as well.

Steven Evans  29:17  
Wow! Yeah, wow, and I guess totally, it sounds like it changed the type of work you were doing.

Rene  29:24  
Yeah, it's not uncommon that people in our business have multiple gigs, multiple jobs, multiple things like different things that they're into. Even at the top level, like a psychiatrist, like it's not uncommon for a psychiatrist to do a little stuff here, a little bit of things there. So I kind of already knew ahead of time that like I I'm in a hustle mode, and that's okay. I like actually like that, and I had to leave this place, and I found this gig here, and I started doing it, and I started doing the care. and And in our business, I'm not going to sit here and defend the insurance company. What I will say is, is being on the other side, there's a lot of stories that don't make it to the public. I felt like I was doing work. That I felt was valuable, and then on top of it too, it allowed me to open up my private practice shortly after that. Because again, there was people higher ups, like even like director type chairs, and they're like, "Oh, I got another job later on. I'm gonna do this. I do supervision. I do testing. I oh, I help this board. And so it gave me the permission to say, "Okay, I have this nine to five job, and now I'm gonna dabble and start opening up my private practice, and I'll I'll see what comes out of that. So 2017 February is when I officially opened my private practice. That felt very good. That was like a huge accomplishment. No one in my family had done like their own business. There's a big learning curve. Open up your own business is really scary, but it's also one of the easiest things you can do. Like anybody can open a business. You know, you just have to have a product, have a service, and have a model, and have a plan, and and then you're good to go. And I think that was really cool.

Steven Evans  30:48  
Going through the various changes of work allowed you to find sort of that direction professionally that really made you feel fulfilled. Right? It was not the first thing you arrived on, but it ultimately was the thing that kind of rose to the top, and you know, you mentioned through these changes that having your daughter was something that helped you feel very tethered. Was there anything else that helped you feel grounded in that time?

Rene  31:13  
You know, I was lucky that a lot of my fraternity brothers and friends were still here locally in Dallas, and so like I wasn't alone. Just being able to call somebody, go play pool, go play darts-you know, just do something that we enjoy doing was great. And you know, I think back about that time, it's a little bit of a blur because I felt like I was just working so much. I think that was probably the thing. I was working a lot. I was trying to get a certain income, I had finances, I had student loans, I had like all those different things to where I was just trying to make ends meet. And the time that I would have my daughter, it was just vacation time. You know, it was just like, okay, let's go do something. And there was a insecurity about the life I was providing for my daughter. I didn't have like the best apartment. I wasn't making the best money, and so I would kind of hustle to see. Okay, how can we make some some money stretch a little bit? A great example was close by. There was this nickel arcade. You go in there. It's you know rundown. You know clearly somebody got a good deal on these arcade games, and was like, let's just rent out this corner of this shopping center. Let's just throw as many games as we can in there. Let's get some BS little gifts and some tickets. And I remember taking my daughter there, and she would just be like, "This is the play. Like she, that was her thing. And one day, she did like a little project, and they asked her what's her favorite thing to do, and she said going to the nickel arcade with my dad. And of course, I was just like, I was like, and it was a good reminder of like kids don't care, kids don't care what car you drive, kids don't care how much money you make. Like I was living in a studio apartment, but like she didn't care. She was just there to party and have a good time, and just to go do stuff. And I was always doing that. Like, okay, what's going on this weekend in Dallas? Let's go do that. Let's go to this event. Let's do that. And so, focusing on her, focusing on like being a dad for her, saved me through a lot of those rough times, and allowed me to say, okay, this is why I'm doing this. I'm doing this for her. I'm doing this to be involved in her life. I'm doing this to make money so I can afford a car that can drive us to places. If I didn't have my oldest daughter, I honestly have no clue what I would be doing today, which is sad because I have friends that I graduated with. They were like lawyer, accountant, tech industry. They had all this drive, and I just remember being like, I don't know what's gonna happen. We'll see what's happened. But then I had my kid, and I was like, "That was the thing for me. I need to go accomplish things. And so that was the thing to push me through-just her and and a lot of friends, and just trying to be this version of myself that was there for her.

Steven Evans  33:52  
Wow! And and bring us then to today, where the work you're doing, but also sort of how you know opening your private practice led you to this point.

Rene  34:02  
We all had kind of a similar approach going into 2020. We had the same Facebook post, right? This is the year of vision, 2020. It's going to happen, right? And for me, it was a little bit more because the summer of 2019 Father's Day weekend was a significant time for me because that was the time I'd get my daughter for the summer. So basically, like every Father's Day, it was go time. It wasn't just a weekend for me. It was like, okay, this is my time, my summer time with Lexi. What are we gonna do? Let's go do stuff. So I got her that weekend. My lower back had kind of been hurting, and I was like, man, something's weird. I don't know what's going on, and I remember getting barely any sleep that Friday night. And I woke up, and I was just in pain. And I was like, I don't know. I feel like terrible. And so I had called the mother of my daughter, and I go, I'm so sorry. I feel like crap. I don't know what's going on. Like I don't know if I need to go to the doctors or whatever. So I. Remember, her stepdad came to pick her up, and it was kind of a weird because it just rarely happened. And I could tell my daughter was like, "This is what's going on. And I ended up going to an urgent care, and they said, "Oh, you might have some flu symptoms. Here's some Theraflu. And I was like, "Okay. And I just my whole body hurt. I was like, "What's going on? And so that night again, could barely sleep. The next morning, I wake up Sunday. I could barely walk. Like I was like literally like my legs were like not working, and I was like, "What the hell's going on? So I did a stupid decision, but I called an Uber and I said, "Can you take me to an emergency room? Because I didn't want to pay. I didn't want to pay the ambulance fee, but I did that, and I barely walked down the stairs from my second story apartment. They picked me up, and I end up being hospitalized for the next probably 1011, days. Wow! I had a condition called Guillain-Barré, where it impacts the spine, and essentially I was paralyzed from the belly button down. Wow! And I was in emergency room there. My bladder was about to explode because my functioning was just not working. I couldn't use the restroom, and my stomach was hurting. And so they finally put a catheter in me, and they go, "I think your lower extremities are losing function. And I go, "Okay. And so I'll sit in there in the emergency room. It was a standalone emergency room next to a hospital, and they go, we're gonna transfer you over to the hospital. We need to start working on you immediately. Well, in the next day, next couple days, they got fluid from my spine. They ended up giving me a really high powered steroid, and I was in the hospital for those next 1011, days. And I remember calling my parents. Remember calling my parents. They were in South Texas visiting family, and I go, "Don't get scared. Just you know, don't worry about. I'm in the hospital. They're trying to figure out what happened. I can talk. I just can't move my legs. Sure enough, two days later, they had driven all the way from the very, very tip of Texas all the way up to Dallas for the next two days. My brother was there. My brother had planned on taking off the time anyway, so he was like, "Go up there and spend it with you. So all three of them were there, which is you know clearly you know one of my more memorable moments. Now thinking back at my family, they were all put there while I was laid up in the hospital. Meals terrifying, it was scary, and then on top of it too, the insurance company that I worked for denied coverage. They denied my step down to a residential, and here I am had put in all these hours, and I was like, you know what?

Rene  37:22  
I did so much for you guys, and you guys can't give me a couple days that to to learn how to walk up the stairs to my second store. I'm I'm six one at the time, 270. How am I supposed to learn how to walk up stairs if I can't go to a rehab to learn how to get my legs back? So that was also a pain. I had to jump on the phone, and my FMLA didn't kick in, so basically I didn't get a paycheck for four months, which is also really really tough. And so I finally got everything back. It was really life changing, and I kind of vowed. I was like, I'm gonna give myself a year or two, and then I'm out of this job because I I cannot after all this, you know. So I'll come back to that. Probably the best thing that happened out of that time, number one, was everybody was there. I got to see some. There was a lot of people that reached out and were supportive, and it was very nice to kind of see like who came out of the woodwork and was there. There were some people that I thought would be there to support that were not, but you kind of have to let that go. You know, you're just got to focus on the people that were there. And then shortly after that, I met my wife. I started dating her in September of 19, and that was literally life changing. So that happened, and I was going into 2020, being like, "I got this new girl. We're dating. Things are awesome. This is the year. So the end of 2019, I revamped all of my marketing, all of my stuff, and I said, "Okay, what kind of therapist am I going to be? At the time, a majority of my clientele was men of color, and I said, "You know what? I'm going to do this. I said, "This is it. I'm going to do telehealth. I'm going to work with men. 2020. Let's do this. Nice. And then COVID. COVID. COVID hit like a train shut down, everything shut down. I was still working at the insurance job. Nobody was calling me. And then I'd say around May, April, June, I got a promotion at my job at the insurance company. So I said, "All right, I don't know what's going to happen in the world. My friends were losing their jobs left and right. I got scared. I said, "All right, I'm just going to dedicate to this. And then more people start calling, people start saying, "Hey, I lost my job. I want to talk to somebody. Hey, I want to talk to a therapist. Hey, I want to talk to a Latino therapist. So then that summer, July, was my first waiting list on my private practice. I got an abundance of flow of people in, and it was amazing. And so with COVID and everything going on, I was just juggling those gigs, and I think that is that was definitely a huge transition for sure.

Steven Evans  39:45  
Wow! And when you're, you know, kind of going through this hospitalization phase, I mean, that must have been one traumatizing, just not knowing what's going on. Yeah, that that's that's always scary. And then kind of coming out of that and meeting your partner, that. It's an awesome story as well. Can you walk us through maybe you know the thing that you maybe didn't expect but arrived and you had to deal with as a result of kind of going through that time? Whether it was leaving the hospital, meeting your partner, what was something that you know kind of hit you but you didn't expect?

Rene  40:17  
Well, I worked a lot of my early career in the substance use disorder field, people with drug and alcohol problems. You have to give it. You have to give it over. You have all this other stuff in your life that are going good, but you do not have control over this, and so you have to kind of let it go. And the underlying theme of that is surrender. And I have never had to surrender before. I never had to just be like, okay, I just need to sit and just back off. And this was the first time I had to kind of depend on the doctors, depend on the medicine, depend on my family. I literally could not walk. I couldn't wipe my butt. I had neuropathy in my legs. Like it was just terrible. And so we're guys, and I really don't give a shit. You know, we're talking about really honest stuff here. I had some ED that went along with it, which is something that had never happened before, and that was kind of being in your mid to late 30s on ED medication was also like something that was not on my bingo card for that year. You know what I'm saying? And so it was just a number of life changing things that happened that impacted me. And then, of course, you know, thinking would I be able to walk my daughter down the aisle when she got married? You know, would I be able to dance with her ever again? Those were life changing conversations I had with myself, and so I think physical therapists, occupational therapists, are doing literally the work of miracles. They helped me walk again. They learned helped me how to, you know, take care of myself again, and it was just like a really wonderful time being able to be cared for by other people. And then I was, I was changed my perspective in dating too, because I was doing the swipe thing, I was doing the app thing, and I I met my wife on Bumble, and obviously I was attracted to her physically. But the other thing too is in her profile, she was like, I just don't want to do any more of the nonsense. I just want something serious, and I was like, I too want something. I'm ready. This is something I changed my perspective, and I'm telling you, man, like her and I were just like from day one. It was like okay, and what's funny is because we really kind of met and bloomed our relationship 2019 to like 2020. A lot of people didn't meet her in person until kind of like later on because of the pandemic and stuff like that. And literally everybody, all of my friends who knew me would meet her and they'd be like, okay, yeah, that makes sense, you know, because we were just same personality, same values, same energy, and I truly met my partner there, and it was very obvious. And so, yeah, I proposed to her April 3, 2021, at our favorite chocolate shop in Dallas, and then we got married november 18 of 23. Then we decided to redo all of our kitchen 24, and it was a huge taking on. But we it was a we got the house during the pandemic and needed a lot of work. We knew it was a fixture upper, and then we made the bright idea of like I went on a work trip and I met a coworker, and she was kind of in her 60s. And of course, you do the whole coworker thing, like what do you do, like where you from, whatever. And she asked me, "Do I have any kids? I said, "Well, I have one daughter, you know, for a previous relationship, you know, me and my wife. I don't know if we want to have kids or not. And then she goes. You know, Renee, I'm at this age, and my husband and I have decided we're never gonna have kids. And she goes, and honestly, I love my life. I'm very happy. She goes, however, there's a side of me that thinks I wish we would have tried. If we would have tried and didn't work out, that's okay. But it's something I always think about, and and that conversation struck me like a lightning bolt.

Rene  43:44  
I was like, you know what? Let's try. Let's just see what happens. If it doesn't work out, and my wife and I really had been 5050. I don't know. We want to have kids when I'm not, whatever. And the first month, brother, the first month, my wife got pregnant. Awesome. Yes. So she got pregnant right during the time we were doing all these renovations for our house, and it was chaotic. But they finished all the Reno. We love our kitchen. We love our house, and then our daughter was born april 25, 2025. And yeah, brother, I you know the joy and fulfillment I have today is something I've never had before. My job is killing it. My daughters are healthy and happy. My wife is literally. I just look at her. I'm just like, I don't know how I got you. I don't know how you weren't snatched up before this. Honestly, like I lucked out finding her single and grab like holding on to her with a bare hold because she literally there's nobody perfect more perfect than my wife for me and so yeah and so this will probably lead to the next big transition was January of this year I got laid off of 26 and I have been doing my private practice since then and it has also been. A huge transition as well, and I'd say the fulfillment thing is just as significant today.

Steven Evans  45:05  
Wow, that's such an amazing story, and like it's incredible the people who have come alongside you in your journey, but also the people you found finding your partner and having the conversation with a coworker that you know sort of ignited this new vision in you, right? For a child, right? I think that's just incredible, incredible story. And when it comes to the gratitude and fulfillment that you feel as a result of the work that you're in, I think that too has come about from your consistent. If I could give you this compliment, is just that stickitiveness, right? That tenacity. No matter what has come your way, you've been able to kind of rise above, even if it was something that maybe you did yourself, right? It was like you know I made a mistake or I made a wrong turn, but I decided, hey, I'm going to own it and I'm going to make the right you know turn the next time, and just that consistent iteration and getting better and better has led you here, man. So that's awesome.

Rene  46:00  
Yeah, I appreciate that. You know, like this is probably the low self-esteem voice coming out right now. But I mean, like I don't think I'm anything special. I think there were things that I was very interested in. An opportunity opened up, and I said, "I'm going to take it. Like I'm going to take this. My boss, my David, putting out that email. Does anybody want this? Yeah, because I was sick of the restaurant business. This guy's going to help me do this. Yeah, I'm getting paid peanuts, but like this is something further on. I think that future vision, for better or worse, is something that I think I've always kind of had. Is like, okay, what am I moving towards? And I think I had started doing a lot of stuff for my private practice, kind of like around 24 to like October 24, end of 24, like I got a CPA, I started doing stuff a little bit differently. Started taking insurance, not the what company that I was working for, but like you know insurance for other providers. I started kind of opening up different availability, and because I knew this was eventually going to happen, so by the time I got laid off in this January, everything I was going to do in 27 or 28, I'm just doing it now, and so I think that's the thing that I I really am grateful to have is that future vision of like, okay, this is something bigger. This is something I know will eventually happen. I just did a certification, a sex certification class this last couple of months because I know in the future this is where I want to start moving my practice, helping sex education, sex issues with men and couples, and I think that's something that I just want to keep doing. Is I want to keep moving forward. My problem is being in a jacuzzi and enjoying today. I need to be better at that. That's that's the thing I need to probably work on. But yeah, the future vision is something I've always tried to focus on for sure.

Steven Evans  47:39  
Wow, wow, and I guess so. In closing, you know, looking back across the full arc of your life, but not the version perhaps that you designed, but the one that you actually lived. What's the thing that turned out to matter the most to you? Not necessarily like a lesson or advice, but just sort of what your own life showed you that you couldn't perhaps have seen from the beginning.

Rene  47:59  
I needed to trust my gut. My gut was telling me these things a long time ago. Go into psychology. I always love psychology. I do a private practice, like you know, like that. I think I had so much doubt in me. I was in a constant battle against my gut. My gut was telling me all these things that ended up being correct, but I would just challenge it so much because I just had so much self doubt. So I think like going back and listening to my gut is something I really try and do today. My gut's telling me something. I need to listen. You know, I need to make sure I'm I'm listening to it because it has rarely done me wrong. A lot of the guys I work with, I like to ask them this question: What's going on? What's going on your body? I call it temple. What's going on your temple right now? And all my clients, if they ever hear this, they're probably gonna laugh because I do ask them this question a lot. Like, what's going on your temple? Like, how are you connecting with your body? What is your body saying? And I think that says a lot. I think sometimes we get too stuck in our head. Sometimes we gotta listen to what our body is is saying.

Steven Evans  48:56  
Yeah, yeah. Oh man. Well, thank you for being here and for sharing your story with us, and and for telling us the truth, it's been awesome to talk to you. I love the conversation.

Rene  49:06  
Awesome, I appreciate the time, and best of luck with the podcast, man.

Steven Evans  49:08  
Thank you, thank you. This has been the Missing Conversation. I'm Steve Evans. Thanks for listening. If something in there found you, if a moment hits somewhere you weren't expecting, just let it be there for a while. You don't have to sort it out right now. That's what this is for. Take care of yourself out there. And if you know a guy who needs to hear this one, you probably already know who he is. Send it to him.