Episode 91: How to Trust Yourself Again as a Leader

Episode Summary

Most men aren’t broken—they’re carrying weight they never unpacked.

In this episode, Coach Mo sits down with trauma-informed coach Ronald Roseboro to expose the hidden layers of trauma, silence, and identity that many high-performing men carry. From father absence to emotional suppression, this conversation goes straight at the root of why leaders struggle with self-trust, burnout, and emotional control under pressure.

Ronald breaks down how unhealed trauma shows up in decision-making, relationships, and leadership—and why ignoring the “internal check engine light” only makes things worse. This episode challenges the stigma around vulnerability and offers a real path forward: rebuild trust within yourself, brick by brick.

If you’ve been pushing through while something feels off… this one will land.

CTA:
Take the Burnout Mirror Assessment to identify the energy pattern you’re operating in and where to start your reset.

Key Takeaways

• “If it’s hysterical, it’s historical.”
  Your reactions aren’t random—they’re tied to unresolved experiences you haven’t processed. 
• The Check Engine Light Never Lies
  Ignoring internal signals (stress, anger, fatigue) doesn’t fix the issue—it compounds it. 
• High Performers Mask Trauma Well
  Success doesn’t mean alignment. Many leaders are winning externally but leaking internally. 
• You Can’t Man Up If You Don’t Speak Up
  Silence isn’t strength—it’s suppression. And suppression always shows up somewhere. 
• Rebuild, Don’t Run
  The answer isn’t escape. It’s rebuilding your identity and self-trust from the ground up.

Transcript

Welcome And Guest Intro

SPEAKER_02 0:13

Welcome to the let's take a look at my channel. Welcome to my team with stuff for four minutes. Let's talk about four minutes. And when I'm here, explain your mindset. Tell me your limit. Subscribe now and join me on YouTube at 1 coaching. So let's get your website. Welcome to another episode of the Let's Stick About It podcast. I'm your host, Coach Mo, and I'm here with another amazing guest. His name is Ronald Roseball, aka Coach Ron. What's up, brother?

SPEAKER_01 1:10

Hey, brother. Thank you so much, Coach Mo for having me on. This is amazing.

SPEAKER_02 1:15

Absolutely, man. I'm privileged to have you here. Before we jump into our discussion today, where are you checking in from?

SPEAKER_01 1:23

Yeah, born and raised in Charlotte, North Carolina. I'm definitely Arhill by nature.

SPEAKER_02 1:30

Oh my goodness, man. It had to be a disappointing loss, man.

SPEAKER_01 1:33

See, that's why we have another coach.

SPEAKER_02 1:38

That's right. Who have they made a hire yet? I haven't really been following.

SPEAKER_01 1:42

Yes, I believe Michael Malone seems to be a very good pick.

SPEAKER_02 1:50

Okay. He was the coach for the Denver Nuggets at one point. I think so. Okay.

SPEAKER_01 1:56

I think so.

SPEAKER_02 1:58

Okay.

SPEAKER_01 1:58

Yeah, Coach Kate is very familiar with them. So when someone told him that, hey, listen, Tarha is going to pick up Michael Malone, he took a deep sigh. Good sight.

Coach Ron’s Calling And Credentials

SPEAKER_02 2:06

Yeah. Let's get into the show, man. Tell my audience who you are, what you do, and the type of value that you bring.

SPEAKER_01 2:14

Absolutely. So I am a trauma-informed coach. I also have a certification in professional life coaching. Along with that, I picked up another certification in sexual addiction recovery as a coach. And those certifications mean a lot to me as far as providing and offering services in our community. Oftentimes, it's men, we are the last to go into a counselor or therapist's office or either connect with a life coach because all the stigma that goes along with that. So I picked up those certifications right after my bachelor's degree. Then I went back to graduate school to get a master's in human services counseling. So I just want to be as effective, as real, as raw, but as helpful as I can, primarily to men in our community.

SPEAKER_02 3:05

That's amazing, man. Congratulations. I'm sure it took a lot of perseverance navigating through that. But help us understand why this path, why trauma-informed type coaching?

SPEAKER_01 3:18

Yeah, great question, coach. I think this is my calling. Not I think I know. This is my calling as far as discipling. As I can remember in the rearview mirror, as I take a look in my own life, I did not have a blueprint of masculinity. I had a father that was present, yet he was emotionally, mentally, and spiritually MIA. So I basically had to learn on my own through the bumps and bruises of life. I had to connect with my peers in my neighborhood that were just as worse off as I was, as far as not having a true blueprint of masculinity. So this is pretty much my call, that this is my lane. And like I said, it's one of those lanes that I don't take for granted. And it's very important for me to show up.

SPEAKER_02 4:08

Let's jump into that because I'm I'm a black man too, right? I grew up without a father and just trying to figure it out on the fly as I'm getting older, right? Speaking more so in that teenage, young adult years, not necessarily having a mentor, guidance, masculinity, male figure in your life to say, put their arm on your shoulder and say, nah, man, don't do that, do this and this. And so we naturally, as young black men, we through the stereotypes that we see in particularly certain neighborhoods that you come up through, that's your identity, that's your influence. Me, being in the hood on the up and come up, you can't show any weakness. Any type of vulnerability that you show, whether it's emotions, sharing feelings, you consider weak. And you're not characterized as a masculine. So you hide that, you mask it, and you just carry it internally, trying to navigate it the best that you can. At least that was my experience. You don't share. You just deal with it, you just suck it up. Because you do that, the mistakes in our world amplify. Not to mention being a black man through the stereotypes that we have to overcome, carrying this notion that we have to prove ourselves our worth to society. With that being said, that's part of my journey and why I became a coach from a leadership standpoint to help teach not just black men, but men, all people I prefer to work with my brothers and my sisters, don't get me wrong, but it's not enough of us that's involved in coaching the way that you and I are. So, what are your thoughts of this notion of what I just described, of what your experiences being a trauma-informed coach that men carry, and how valid of what I said, how much validity comes with what I just said about my experience and compared to the men that you work with.

Systemic Roots And Generational Trauma

SPEAKER_01 6:41

Absolutely. I think, coach, what you voice is the clarion call for many, it is the reality for many. We are completely different from our counterparts for many different reasons. When we talk about systemic racism, institutionalized racism, when we talk about how black men are viewed as being pathological, which is another era, no, it's a lie. And so we have so many various issues that set us apart from so many other races. So even when you look at the impact of slavery, now if you know anything about epigenetics, basically deals with transgenerational trauma. That it's been scientifically proven that a person can endure trauma and it be passed down for generations to generations from the RE uh gene. And so when we look at the trauma that we've endured and how we've had to suppress that, now you're looking at so many of us, we have various layers and blankets of trauma that it's very difficult to find. The real man is there, the authentic one, but he's under so many blankets and layers of trauma. Not just systemic racism, but also from abuse, physical abuse, mental abuse, emotional abuse, sexual abuse, which is very taboo. And if you mention something about that, then of course your man card gets taken, and people are looking at you sideways as if something is wrong with something wrong was done to you. And I'm a firm believer that whatever we don't work out, we will eventually act out. And so what you just described, so many men wrestle with, and so we suffer in silence. And you can find, and because I was one, you can find them at the at your local bar, you can find them at the church, you can find them working overtime, excessive hours, buying more toys, more motorcycles, et cetera, et cetera. But there's something that's there that needs to be healed that is indicative of an injury that took place. It is called trauma.

SPEAKER_02 9:09

So help me understand like your approach to helping these men. They've been beat up. Whatever that abuse is has been, right? And we naturally carry it. How do they regain trust within self to be able to open up to communicate to coach Ron or to Coach Mo? How does that process happen for an individual? And I know it's different from every man, but what's your approach to help them get their decision trust back within self?

SPEAKER_01 9:43

That's very interesting. Thank you for that question as well. I think that's a question that we rarely ask. So it's very difficult in gaining the trust, developing a rapport with another man, specifically black man, if in fact his memory of a black man is being absent. Whether he is physically absent or he is present, but mentally and emotionally and spiritually absent. The only blueprint that he has, the only go-to that he has is what he has seen or have not seen. And it's so easy to build up resentment, mistrust in the very one that let you down. I always say that women are the first nurturers. That is absolutely true. Men are the first teachers to offer guidance to pour into that young man, to remind him of who he is, or if he doesn't know who he is, to bring him to a place of self-awareness and self-discovery to celebrate him and to impute into him or pour into him autonomy, having the freedom to be himself, so much so that he has an ironclad confidence to take on the world, regardless of how many doors that are shut in his face. Now, to your question, how what my approach is to basically show up. I think our presence is so necessary because so many men have become accustomed, unfortunately, to absentee men. And also men that were present but had an ulterior motive or a perverted agenda to touch them improperly, to do something against their bodies, to violate them. And so there's that mistrust that's there, and also there is a bucket against any type of res memory or resemblance of what they came out of. And I always say this that if it's hysterical, it's historical. If something is hysterical, there's history attached to it. There's a reason why the young man is acting up and flipping out and going ballistic.

SPEAKER_02 12:04

Break that down hysterical. I like that analogy which you just presented. Can you give us a little bit more insight about that?

SPEAKER_01 12:11

Absolutely. So let's just say, for the sake of a visual, that I cut myself down to the muscle tissue on my arm. And it's gonna take a while for that arm to heal. So now I'm going through the healing process as far as the stitches, bacteria, septics, etc., etc., having it wrapped, but it is still wounded. It has not fully healed. So in the course of the healing process, someone accidentally hit my arm or just slam a door without acknowledging that I was behind them and it hit that arm. Not only is it going to hurt, but I'm going to become hysterical because the wound is still fresh. The wound points to an injury that took place that I have yet to heal from. So my emotionalism that you sense is not too far-fetched. I should not be judged, but that emotion that I have is an ouch moment of a trigger that points to a bigger issue that I have yet to heal from. A history, an event in time.

Speak Up Before Pressure Blows

SPEAKER_02 13:36

You're hitting a nerve for me. Because I think back in my past, being an athlete, I was a baller. I played football, right? My father not being involved in any of that. He's just a non-factor. I carried so much anger because of that. Because there was a display, I felt displaced where, particularly when I got to the college ranks and plan, everyone is bringing their families to celebrate the success of the win or the loss, whatever. The other players in their families are there, and there's no representation of Maurice Mabry, my father. That affected me. I carried a lot of anger with that, right? To the point where when Father's Day came around, everyone's celebrating Father's Day. That meant nothing to me. And it triggered me. It triggered me because I didn't know what that was. I didn't know what that meant. I didn't have a vision of what fatherhood looked like. I never experienced the possibilities of a grown man teaching me something as a young black man. So that was non-existent to see what my friends and other athletes got to experience that triggered me. And I carried that anger a long time through my 20s and not even knowing I was carrying it. That's the key. I didn't have the self-awareness to know that I was carrying it until later in life. I like what you're saying because it really relates to what a lot of black men experience in our communities without a father present. So that's why to this day, it's really important for me to be present for my daughter in everything that she does. Just, man, just show up, just be there. It makes the difference in it all. Back to the subject, though, that experience really helped big picture, helped me frame the swag framework, self-awareness, white power, line action, and grit, in particular the self-awareness piece. Right. I think if we can help men, young men, become more conscious about what they're thinking, what they're feeling, and be intentional about the good aspects of it. I think that's the first step to helping people navigate out of these dark places that they've been in. What are your thoughts about that?

SPEAKER_01 16:29

Yeah, absolutely. And I love the swag moment that that's really making a difference uh and changing the mindset of so many men, specifically our young brothers. We have to create an environment for men to be able to voice themselves, to vent. I think that uh an analogy would be a pressure cooker. If you don't take the pressure off of that pressure cooker, now you have something that is very explosive within the kitchen. And I think that's what we have. That when we see road rage, gang violence, domestic violence, so much that seems to be from a world standpoint that have perpetuated a lot of the trauma upon young black men that we're speaking of, they're quickly to be labeled as being pathological, throw away, just lock them up, they're no good, don't invest. When in fact, we're still talking about a trauma injury that have yet to be healed. So it's very important that we create an environment so that men can show up. It's interesting that we always hear in social media it becomes a mantra to man up. How can you man up if you don't speak up? And a lot of men that suffer in silence, they feel that they have no Larynx, they have no voice box because many of them are speaking up through the various activities that I pointed to earlier. But we what we look at as being pathological really points to something that is emotional, psychological, and spiritual that needs to be addressed. If I have a toothache and that the dentists have uh have come to the conclusion the reason why you have this toothache is because there is no bone that is underneath it. We're gonna have to pull it. It would do me no good to go to a podiatrist that specializes in feet. It would do me no good, and I have a toothache, to go to a cardiologist, one who specialized in the heart. And so we you have to go to wherever, not just the root problem, but where it can be appropriated and fixed at that particular time in that environment. So we have to have a safe environment for men to speak and without shame as we continue to show up and and come up with a you played football, a game plan. We've got to have an effective game plan. And there's so many men that want to understand what manhood is, they're tired of making the mistakes over and over again. How many shots of tequila can I drink at the bar? How many women can I sex on a weekend, just trying to get away from all of the things that torment them constantly or workaholics? And again, we look at the behavior, but we don't offer a solution to get to the root problem of the behavior. And that's where, like swag movement and so many other movements are very important to come up with a game plan.

SPEAKER_02 19:38

Absolutely. We naturally navigate in certain areas of our lives not knowing what we don't know. We become conditioned in certain patterns. Just like part of my upbringing and culture, it was you don't go to the doctor. You know, I go to the doctor now, but you just deal, you suck it up, you deal with it. But if we don't have insurance, we can't afford those payments to go pay for the doctor. So you gotta suck it up. And or even in my case, I was I'm very pain tolerant. So if I did have an ache or something like that, I ignore it and just keep it moving. And but it takes it to this context of you know where we are hurting internally, and we just keep it moving and we ignore it. That's the piece that about the consciousness of what I'm talking about, right? There's a signal within self that's blinking. Hey, this is an issue, hey, this is an issue. We ignore it, we bypass it. As those signals continue to alert us, it becomes more intense, it becomes more intense, intense, intense. And over time, we have a burst. That burst is a maybe an emotional breakdown, maybe it's a lash out on a certain situation, maybe because you've been carrying whatever the issue you've been dealing with internally for a duration of time, you consciously ignore it. At some point, it's gonna pop. Yes. When it pops, it can lead to just what we started off with this in this conversation about certain traumas that people are dealing with in their lives. They radiate to that trauma because they've been carrying it so long, the trigger pop and you go back.

Warning Lights And Getting Help

SPEAKER_01 21:39

Absolutely. When you mentioned that, I'm I'm so glad that you did because I thought you were gonna go there as far as pain tolerance. There was a time when my check engine light kept coming on and off in my truck. And I was like, what in the world? This is I just bought this truck. And so ignored it. Then it it became more and more common. Constant and consistent. I could no longer ignore that I have a check engine light that's flashing on my dash. Someone told me we need some some gas treatment. Maybe you had some gas bad gas in your truck. So I added the gas treatment and it seemed to help for a little while, but then the check engine light came back on again. So it came to a place where I had to now take that truck back to the dealership. Not a jackleg mechanic that's around the corner that just wants to get his hands dirty, but somebody who was certified, somebody who knows about a GMC truck. They went to school for this. They were tried and tested for this. Now some Johnny came lately, and when they put it on the diagnostic to run the analysis, went inside the truck, drove the truck, they came back with the conclusion of the matter that you have a misfire on Spark Plug 15. But while we're there changing 15, let's change the other one as well that's right beside. And when they did that, had no more problems. But what if I had ignored all of the warning signs and continue to drive that truck? Now we're talking about, I don't know,$5,000 later, a brand new engine that I did not have to spend. If I had taken account of the warning signs that were there and take it to someone that can help me, and that's something as black men, we have a problem with not all of us, but many of us. We know it all. You can't tell me nothing. I got this, my dog, dude. I'm good. When you know your check engine life has been going on for ye all for years. Your girl's been telling you about it or your wife, your home has been saying, Hey man, why are you just just going off for no reason? The check engine light is flashing in your soul, saying that it's time to pull over, it's time to get it checked. Yes. And it's it's time to recognize just because we get ourselves checked, that doesn't make you weak. That actually makes you strong.

SPEAKER_02 24:17

Absolutely, man. You preach in the choir because that's what I talk to leaders about, right? High achievers is really the market that I work with. They're going, they got to do it, and they're carrying the weight, and they're not letting people know that they're leaking internally. It goes back to the truck engine light. There's they're being indicators within that's telling you, slow down, take a break. But no, I gotta push through it. I gotta get this ROI. I can't afford to take a break. If I take a break, what are people gonna think about me? So many people are relying on my input. I have to be present to help them. We carry that. And over time, just like you gave the example of the truck, the light comes on, it goes off, it goes on, it goes off, and you think it's just gonna naturally go away. That's the mindset that we carry. And the same as a leader, you you know what I'm saying? It's the same as a leader. We think the I just need more rest. That's not necessarily the case all the time, it's the emotional baggage that we're carrying as leaders as well. And so I love what you said. You went and got a diagnostic from a professional. That's exactly what I try to do for leaders give them a diagnostic. I created this, Coach Ron, I created this burnout mirror assessment. And that's all it is. Just take a diagnostic, take about five minutes of your time, maybe 15, 20 questions, something like that. And it spits out an archetype of the type of energy and burnout that you're carrying. And you now have a starting blueprint of what type of burnout that you're carrying. And then you navigate from that point. I love what you're saying, and because this applies across the board to any situation, because it starts with our awareness and trusting self to acknowledge the warning signs, the real alert signs within us, acting upon that. That's the consciousness, the self-awareness that I was talking about when it comes to the swag framework.

SPEAKER_01 26:28

Yes, absolutely. And in doing so, when we recognize the warning signs, it's not only finding ourselves spending more than we need to, but we find ourselves stuck on the side of the road. What if I had ignored the warning signs? The engine blew, and now I'm on stuck on the side of the freeway, a dangerous freeway. I'm not sure about Sacramento, but we are some crazy drivers out here in North Carolina. Right. And so I put myself in danger. What about this? I put my family's lives in jeopardy being stuck on the side of the road, and there's so many men that are stuck on the side of the road of life.

BRIC Method Rebuilds After Ruin

SPEAKER_02 27:08

That's right. How, man? How do you help your clients? What's do you have a methodological approach that you take to help your clients?

SPEAKER_01 27:16

Yeah, I have the BRIC method, B-R-I-C-K. Now it stemmed from a book that I wrote called The BRIC Method, and it basically morphed into a program for men. And the acronyms for BRIC is Breakthrough, Resilience, Identity, Clarity, and Kickstart. And there's so many men that just don't know where to begin. They see the ruin and they're carrying around. Just imagine that you get a notification that there is an F5 tornado that's getting ready to hit California. And now you get another indication or notification that now it's on its way to, God forbid, Sacramento. Now you become more concerned. Now you understand now it's on its way to hit your neighborhood. So now you grab all of your loved ones, your things as much as possible to carry away or drive away, and you leave the scene. And now you're assessing the damage. Your entire neighborhood is completely destroyed. The house that you inherited from your great-grandparents that you spent thousands of dollars to renovate have so many memories attached to it, it is in ruin. You come back to ground zero with nothing more than just rubble that's in your hand. The kitchen sink is tossed two miles down the road, or the bathroom is thrown hundreds of yards away, and all you have are bricks. And what we oftentimes do as men, we take those bricks and we begin to gather them. We put them in a backpack and we put it on our back and we walk around from place to place, city to city, state to state, relationship to relationship, job to job, entrepreneur and entrepreneurship endeavors. We do all of the things in life that are high earning achievers, but we're weighted down by the memories of the destruction that happened in our lives. And so we're carrying those bricks around. But where I come in with the brick method, I have learned to show up for my clients to help you rebuild now. Either we can you can carry the bricks around, and those bricks get heavy after carrying them around after a year, five years, decades, still carrying around the memories of brokenness, underachievement, not good enough, rejection, dejection, low self-esteem, imposter syndrome, addiction. Let me help you unpack that. Take those bricks out, and we can rebuild right here. No, we're not going across town, we're not going to another state. We're going to rebuild at the place of ruin. So I just basically helped them walk through the process of uh rebuilding one brick at a time.

SPEAKER_02 30:17

Yeah, I love that, man. And congratulations. I it's it just sounds like that's a powerful program in how you help help your clients. And it goes back to what you were saying, what we both were saying, ignoring those signals. And so you, if you ignore those signals, the trauma, the whatever the issue is that you're dealing with continues to repeat itself. And it and then that becomes the pattern within it, right? So it goes back to trusting self. You have to trust self and make to make the decisions that you want to get better. But what gets in the way of that is that punk ass inner critic, man, because it's loud and it's and it's coercing your mind to think don't do that, it's gonna be a bad result, blah, blah, blah. So you don't trust self in doing that because that narrative in the mind sounds to be sounds really true, it sounds really valid. You you stay in the pattern. It's just easier to stay in the pattern because the inner critic is also coercing you to think that since you don't know what the future or the outcome is going to be, it's gonna be bad. We can't put ourselves out there. So let's just stay comfortable in the bad pattern that we're currently in and do nothing. When I hear what you're doing, nah, let's reset the foundation brick by brick. Let's get to the core and build this baby back up.

Resources Discovery Call And Closing

SPEAKER_01 31:51

Because a lot of our comfort zone becomes a danger zone. So, yes, you're right. Yeah, man. How can people find a book? Absolutely. So you can find my book or the brick method. Is there a Samson in you where I draw a parallel between the life of Samson and men and how we always find up ending up in the lap of Delilah, taking our strength, taking our dignity, self-respect, etc. I have many other books, but you can find that one-on-one coaching, group coaching. Also, sign up for Samson Restored is basically a movement of accountability, uh strength for our brothers. And we're all at different places and stages of life, but one thing is for sure, we just want a sense of belonging and we want to have a sense of purpose and identity. And that's what the Samson Movement offers. You can go to my website for all of these and more. You can also shoot me an email if you care to. I also have a free ebook, costs you absolutely nothing that you can download from my home page. But even more than that, if you would like to sign up to just for a brief discovery call. It's a free discovery call just to see if we are a perfect match because I would love to work with you regardless of where you are in your stage of life. The main thing is for us to recover and to move forward to be the best version that we can possibly be. So all of that you can go to theshamefreefe.com. Theshamefreelife.com.

SPEAKER_02 33:27

Man, I appreciate you, brother. Any lasting thoughts, words of wisdom you'd like to lead the audience before we check out?

SPEAKER_01 33:35

Yeah, and the immortal words of C.S. Lewis, he said that you can't go back and change the ending, but you can start where you are right now, and you can make the necessary change. And so I think that my word of encouragement for so many is that it's not about what you had to endure in life that defines you, but your resilience and tenacity to gain more out of life despite what you had to endure. That's what defines you. You're not defined by your past, you're not defined it by your failures. The only person that has the authority to rewrite a chapter in your life is you, and the pen is in your hand.

SPEAKER_02 34:23

There it is. Just take a step, whether it's reaching out to your website or even reaching out to take the burnout mirror assessment, in which you can find that at the inner arena leadership.com forward slash burnout mirror. Take the first step, whatever that looks like for you. Coach Ron, thank you, my brother. I appreciate you for coming on this video. That's another rep in the inner arena. You didn't just listen, you leveled up your swag. That's awareness, my power, align action, and grit. If this hit home, share it, subscribe to the Let's Stick About it podcast, and lock in with me on YouTube at Swan Coaching. Until next time, stay aware, leave with your mind, act in the moment, and keep your twin.