I am Mike Baker. Depending on which door you came through, you might know me as the CEO of Heritage Health, a community health center in Coeur d’Alene, Idaho. Or as the author of the thirteen Human First books. Or as EndoDad, from the endometriosis advocacy work. Maybe you heard a song, caught an episode of Still Here, Still Trying, or saw a piece of the AI-assisted art I make under the name Infinite Canvas AI. Somebody shared something, you searched my name, and now you are wondering whether all of that can really be one person. It is. This page is the short version of how that happened.
The healthcare work
I found community health through AmeriCorps in 1999 and never left. An FQHC is a clinic that sees you whether or not you can pay, and I liked that idea enough to spend my adult life inside it. For the last seventeen years I have been the chief executive of Heritage Health, serving North Idaho. Twenty-seven years of community health leadership shapes everything else on this site, because it taught me to pay attention to people. If you are curious about that side of things, the speaking page covers the talks I give on mission and margin, and the essays get into the rest.
The advocacy
My wife, Kellie, and my daughter, Sammie, both live with endometriosis, and I watched them fight to be believed inside the field I work in. That pulled me into women’s health advocacy as EndoDad, into a book called Believe Her the First Time, and into I Believe You, a guide for the people standing next to someone in pain. If you landed here because someone you love is hurting, start there.
The books, music, art and podcast
I make things to work through what I cannot stop thinking about. The AI-assisted art came first, then the music, then the podcast, then the books, thirteen of them so far, on endometriosis, Alzheimer’s, marriage, men, AI, faith, leadership and my own wandering ADHD brain. The songs run from love records for Kellie to an ADHD run that includes an album called Side Quest, which tells you most of what you need to know about how my head works. The podcast is a video show where I talk through what I am still in the middle of. None of it was a strategy. Writing, music and pictures are just different instruments for the same stories.
Start wherever you like
- Find the book closest to whatever is going on in your life right now.
- Read the essays — Just an Ordinary Tuesday is where most weeks start.
- Watch or listen to the podcast, Still Here, Still Trying.
- Hear the music, all sixty-something releases of it.
- See the art from No Permission Needed and the rest.
- The endometriosis work, if that is why you are here.
- The longer story, if you want to know how one life turned into all of this.
- Say hello. I read everything myself.
Thanks for looking me up. Whatever brought you here, there is probably more of it inside.