From Pain to Purpose: The Journey of Resilience and Vulnerability with Reggie D. Ford

What if the very things that helped you survive and become resilient are the things that are keeping you from healing?

That is the question Shanon explores with bestselling author, TEDx speaker, resilience expert and founder of Vulnerability Muscle Framework, Reggie D. Ford. 

Reggie’s life story began with trauma, violence, and severe dysfunction shaped by poverty. Because his life started with such devastating circumstances, he normalized a life lived in constant survival mode. But, the strategies that helped him survive were not the same strategies that helped him heal.

By harnessing the power of vulnerability, he was able to transform his pain into his purpose and pull himself out of the darkness and suffering to create a clear sense of meaning and direction in his own life. 

One of the most important takeaways from this conversation? Leaning into and recognizing the power of vulnerability can help you break the curse of generational trauma and discover your own true potential.

This is a deeply vulnerable and heartfelt conversation about survival, using success as a shield, finding meaning in adversity, and embarking on the lifelong journey of healing. 

Reggie’s inspiring story shows us that we can redefine what’s possible in our lives when we stop performing for worth and start living from it. 

You can keep up with Reggie on Instagram, LinkedIn, Youtube, and his website.

Transcript

Copy Transcript Copied

All right, y'all, what if the very traits that helped you survive, the toughness, the striving, the achievement, the emotional armor, eventually became the same things that kept you from healing? What if vulnerability is not weakness? And what if healing is not separate from leadership? And what if the legacy we leave is not just what we build, but what patterns stop

with us and what hope moves forward through us. My guest today is Reggie Ford, TEDx speaker, bestselling author, resilience expert and founder of the Vulnerability Muscle Framework. But what makes this conversation especially meaningful is that Reggie doesn't just speak about resilience from a distance. He's lived it. His story begins in severe dysfunction shaped by poverty.

addiction, violence, and trauma. And yet he has transformed that pain into purpose, helping leaders, teams, families, and communities build lives rooted in psychological safety, mental wellness, vulnerability, and hope. And now with his new children's book, I Am the Rose, he's extending that message to the next generation. This conversation is about trauma,

healing, leadership, self-worth, legacy, and what becomes possible when we stop performing for worth and start living from it. Welcome back to the Redefine What's Possible podcast, where we explore the stories, science, and mindset that help us expand what we believe is possible in our health, leadership, and lives. Today's conversation feels especially meaningful.

I actually met Reggie in a pretty unexpected way. My Aunt Kim ran into him in a hotel lobby in Tennessee, and she said, Shanon, you need to connect with this guy. And she was absolutely right. Since then, we've had a few virtual conversations, and one of the things I've appreciated most about Reggie is his willingness to go beyond the superficial. He's thoughtful, honest, vulnerable.

and willing to talk about the deeper things that a lot of people feel but don't always know how to say. Reggie, welcome. I'm really glad you're here for this conversation today.

Reggie D. Ford (02:45)
Shanon, what a beautiful introduction and invitation to the listeners and to me. I am so moved by you and every conversation that we have has been fantastic. So I cannot wait to see where this goes and that other people will be invited into what we've shared with each other. Yeah.

Shanon Tysland (03:05)
Yeah, let's dive into it. So

Reggie, I'd like to start at the beginning. People can look at your bio and they see the TEDx talk, the books, the degrees, the leadership work, the speaking, the success. But before all of that, there was a very different beginning. And I want to be careful not to rush past that because sometimes people hear a powerful story and skip straight to the inspiration.

So before we get to what you've built, what did your early world actually feel like?

Reggie D. Ford (03:44)
I appreciate that because you're right, we often skip to inspiration. We skip to the highlights and the things that make us feel warm and fuzzy inside. And I think that strips us of true humanity and what it's like to live a full, whole, complete life. And my life has been that. It has been whole.

I was asked recently what has been the greatest part of it all by one of my classmates. And I thought he was talking about the program, but he was talking about life. And it was, my answer was the duality of where I've been and where I am, the goods, the highs, the lows. The beginning was marked by a lot more.

heaviness than what I am carrying today. You mentioned in the introduction, I was born to, I wanna give this the weight and significance that it deserves, but I was born to a 14 year old mother.

who had love in her heart.

strength, courage, and resilience to bring a child into this world and who had a lot and a lot of scars. A lot of scars that shaped the way that she parented, that shaped the way that she loved and showed up. And that was passed down to me, those scars.

before I can even remember I have scars on my body that I've heard stories about how they got there, but I'm not quite sure those are the accurate stories. And I have also heard the stories of how good of a child I was and how I didn't cry and how I didn't make any noise or ruffle any feathers. And what I know now from my research and observation is that

A child is supposed to cry. A child is supposed to ask for their needs and have those needs met. And what I learned early on was that my needs probably wouldn't get met or in crying out for those needs, I might be harmed.

So that was a big part of my upbringing was to learn from that so that I wouldn't ruffle any feathers and to be the people pleaser to adults, to everyone, be the perfectionist, be the sacrificer and the caretaker. And those things shaped my early life. On the other side of that, my dad was in the streets just to be frank.

Um, starting, think I was born in 1991 and in I think 1992, if I'm correct, his criminal record started with drug, uh, drug distribution, um, violent criminal charges. And then ultimately when I turned eight, um, attempted murder. And so I didn't see much of him growing up, but I admired him.

for what I knew of him. I wanted to be just like him. I'm named after him. I loved him. I love him.

That's heavy for me right now, but I love him. And yeah, so those things shaped me, but I turned all of that pain into fuel.

It was fuel to do well in school, to seek the love and approval from people around me. And that turned into a lot of early success that snowballed into young adolescent and then young adulthood success. And now, you know, looking at redefining success and what that means because the definition that I had before was incomplete.

And so that has been a part of the early journey. Football was a huge part of that. It helped me stay sane and it gave me an outlet to express myself in ways that nothing else could.

School was a safe place for me most of the time and showed me the brilliance that I possessed and so many people along the journey. Good, helpful, supportive, loving people that I am so grateful to.

Shanon Tysland (08:38)
I really respect that reflection. And I think that what you shared matters because so much of who we become starts with adaptation, right? And I feel like just what you shared, like you're adapting to what is love, right? What are you learning about love? What are you learning about how you should show up or cry or show any emotion? And that adaptation is

it helps create who we are. And so, kind of taking that one of the things I think a lot of high achieving people can relate to is learning how to become very competent on the outside, while still carrying something unhealed on the inside. You become disciplined, right, you might become productive, driven, capable.

Maybe even exceptional and from the outside it looks like success, but underneath it can still be survival. Did you mention football and being good in school? Did achievement become kind of a protection for you?

Reggie D. Ford (09:54)
Yes, you hit it on the achievement. remember like one of the things that was always applauded in my family was all of my A's, my straight A's for as long as I can go back. And so if I couldn't see smiles and see the excitement from other people with anything else I did in life or any way I showed up and just was in life, it was through that achievement. And so

I attached and clung to that early on. then with sports, never, I, we were, we were poor and I couldn't afford league entry fees and things like that. And until I was introduced to a program called Backfield in Motion, huge program in Nashville that allowed me to play organized football completely free. No, no payment for the registration, no payment for the pads, no payment for anything.

and they transported us and fed us and tutored us and all of it. And so that gave me this new arena to achieve. The arena where I started playing wide receiver and cornerback.

switched quickly there to quarterback because I wanted to be in charge while I achieved as well and I was really good. I was good from day one. I didn't know what I was doing but my body could move and my mind can move very quickly and fast to adapt.

I think that's one of the greatest skill sets I've possessed in my life was the adaptability to different new challenging environments. And that is what football is. Every half a second is something different, a snapshot of something different. And to react in quick time helps you succeed. And so I clung to that. If I can score touchdowns, if I can get the A's, then I'll get the girls, and that feels

Shanon Tysland (11:30)
Mm-hmm.

Reggie D. Ford (11:59)
was like love and just chasing that for a really long time until I had a reckoning with myself that you know maybe there's something more out there.

Shanon Tysland (12:13)
I appreciate that. And as someone who has a teenage daughter, right, we were talking before the show about perfectionism a little bit and getting A's and what all that's about. I'm curious as a teenager, did success feel safer than vulnerability? And as a teenager, were you aware of what vulnerability was?

Reggie D. Ford (12:40)
You're asking all my favorite questions right now. And in particular, the way that you're asking them of the feelings behind them, because we can hear the objective stories. can read the objective stories. Very, very rarely do we get what was the feeling underneath that. So I really appreciate that. And I also want to say because I feel more subdued today than than I usually am, but that's a.

One, I just finished my last class for my master's program that has been a magical experience and that was very emotional. Our James Powelski, a leader in the positive psychology world, told us we would feel a vulnerability hangover.

and we are feeling it and I'm feeling it. but then also my voice is more subdued than normal too, because in having accomplished all of what we accomplished, me and one of my dearest friends in the program, Jason, was walking. We were walking through the streets of Philadelphia, screaming at the top of our lungs in excitement and celebration for all that we were.

and the journey in life that we had lived, remembering just how small of an odd it was that the two of us, through all that we have gone through, I love you, Jason, we're in that position. And so just wanted to say that because I feel like, oh, there is weight, but it's good weight. But yeah, vulnerability and success and achievement felt safe.

Achievement, I'm gonna go, it's deeper than that. Success and achievement felt like the only thing. It felt like the only thing that gave me worth.

It was more than safety. was my identity.

because what I truly wanted, and this is me looking back in retrospect because a teenager, a child doesn't necessarily have the vocabulary, the language, the capacity to know, but I was looking for love and community and success came with those things or the achievement that I was attaining came with those things.

names in programs and trophies and the certificates that came at the end of the year. Like the only certificate I didn't get was perfect attendance because my mom, despite pushing me very hard in school, she recognized those days when I just.

needed to stay home and I applaud her for that. She gave me mental health days before those were a thing and probably because I was a little ornery about it but I got mental health days when I needed them so but vulnerability was it wasn't a concept. It wasn't a concept that I knew that I lived that I

wanted to even wanted to show because it felt like weakness. It felt like giving someone the knife that would ultimately stab you in the heart. And I was too wise from my experiences to do that. And so I just, I kept to myself.

If someone had asked me the question that you asked me today about feeling, I was really good at masking what it was and portraying the good positive feelings and not letting you in to see anything deeper. And now I'm not afraid of that because I know.

the strength and power inside that rest inside me. I control what I experience in life. And so I can give you the knife.

And I don't give everybody the knife, but I give you, I give a lot of people when I stand on stage, when I am on podcast, I trust those people and I trust you Shanon with that knife. And when you are able to find people that you can trust with that vulnerability becomes a little bit easier. And as you work with it and work toward being more vulnerable, it's just, it's this cycle that grows.

and it's a muscle that strengthens and I've done that and I've processed so much and yeah so today versus teenage me totally different approaches to that.

Shanon Tysland (17:41)
Thank you for sharing that. I'm

curious, Reggie, when did you start to realize that the strategies that help you survive were not the same strategies that would help you heal?

Reggie D. Ford (17:56)
Not that long ago. I wrote my book, Perseverance Through Severe Dysfunction, and I started writing it in 2019 and I finished and I published it in 2021. And when I started, it wasn't I wasn't even planning on writing a book. It was just my journal through a very difficult time of life. And in the.

What led to writing that the catalyst was family experiences that were so catastrophic and unlike anything I could have imagined when I first stepped foot on this earth that I was trying to make sense of it all. And in doing that, writing was my outlet for most of my life, either writing songs, poetry, short stories and

And that's what I was doing. was trying to make sense of it all. And there was this clear thing that popped out while I was writing and reflecting. And it was the normalization of the life that I had lived in survival. I had normalized bottling things up. I had normalized.

not sharing anything with anyone. I had normalized perfectionism. normalized resorting to violence as a way to express emotion. And those things were not only normalized to me, they were normalized in a particular environment that I was in.

But my environments shifted. And what I needed to, in the newer environments, wasn't the same thing that I needed in the previous ones. And yet I kept clinging to those old mechanisms that helped me survive.

And then I got into environments where it wasn't even about survival. I was beyond survival. I was trying to live. I was trying to thrive. And I was in a place where I could do those things. And yet I still clung to those coping mechanisms that were rooted in survival, still to this day at times. And it was in writing where I just, it just was so clear. I normalized, I normalized.

and it was so deeply ingrained, the neural pathways that we set early on in life, our brain makes association and those associations are rooted in survival. Like don't walk past that bush because that bear came out of that bush.

and then I go a different route I avoid or I come with a spear I'm ready to fight or I got my Nikes on I'm ready to run you know and and so those those I think the the depth of the trauma and how much it impacts us

And I believe that the depth of the trauma that is experienced may predict the attachment to those associations. And so I shared a little bit about my upbringing and...

That's only the tip of the iceberg because I look back at adverse childhood experiences, ACEs as they are often referred to as in physical abuse, emotional abuse, neglect, sexual trauma, household dysfunction. The list goes on. And before I was five years old, before I ever stepped foot into a school,

I had a perfect 10 out of 10 ACE score. The perfectionism started early.

And the correlation between those scores, the higher the score, the worse the health outcomes are likely later in life from physical health, emotional health, and all in between. And I clung to what kept me safe in that environment where I developed 10 out of 10 ACEs.

Then I ended up in environments where it was so foreign. I felt like an alien in many of the environments. My experience would have said, you're an alien in many of these environments. And I didn't need those coping mechanisms. And yet I still clung to them. And that process...

continues today not nearly as much as it was but peeling back the layers of the onion day by day through therapy through safe people through connection and community is how it's started to unfold.

Shanon Tysland (23:55)
Wow. So what I'm taking away from that is the distinction of normalizing a behavior in a certain environment. And then when that environment changes, we still have this behavior. And maybe we didn't even realize we had the behavior, but now it's such a stark environment that we're in. It's like, whoa, there's a different.

Maybe I'm safe to be a different way. And what I would I would like to dive into that because I think we're all swimming. We don't see the world as it is. We see the world as we are and we see the world as the environment that we're in. I'm curious if you reflect back.

If there was, if you would have known different, would have you tried on some different behaviors or would have you stayed with the default behavior?

Reggie D. Ford (25:06)
I don't think I would have changed anything because I recognize that my journey has made this person that I am today. And in order to love my being every day today, it's having love and appreciation for each of those elements that created me. And so had I...

dropped some survival mechanisms or opened up a little bit earlier or completely avoided some of the mistakes and pitfalls that I had in my life, those lessons wouldn't now be ingrained in me to have this person, even one element of it. Like if one thing changes, the butterfly effect, if one thing changes, then who am I today?

I love the person that I've become because of that. And so I wouldn't change it. And to anyone out there who has experienced something similar, I also want to say that those survival mechanisms and that the behavior, your reactions, whatever it may be, to not shame those things, because if you're doing that, if you're exhibiting that, then they were needed at a point in time. And so it's about...

finding gratitude and appreciation for those, hanging on to the things that may still benefit you, but then having a different relationship to the maladaptive ones that may no longer serve you. And so I don't shame it. I don't regret it. I have...

caused harm to people because of those survival mechanisms. I've not seen reality for what it always has been because of those survival mechanisms. And yet, I still am appreciative of them because though deep down inside of my brain and my body, they were screaming, survive, survive, survive.

even when it may have been an emotional threat and not a physical life threat, they were trying to protect me. So I appreciate them.

Shanon Tysland (27:23)
resonates so much Reggie. I think one of the principles that I fall back on just in my life is everything that is happening to us is happening for us. And in the moment I can't see it. I don't understand it. It drives me crazy. And then five, 10 years passes by and I'm like, that's why that happened. It helped shape me to get to this moment right here. Thoughts on that?

Reggie D. Ford (27:52)
You have such a beautiful way of reflecting and meaning making. And that takes intentionality. That takes a level of awareness and it takes time. And I don't know if in the world full of distractions, if we give ourselves that time. Some people aren't afforded that time and it's a privilege to have that time. But for those who do,

I encourage that, to spend time reflecting on that because there's this, you know, the saying, everything happens for a reason. And you may not ever, and you may believe that, you may not believe it. I've met people who are,

strongly against that saying because they don't feel like what they experienced was worth anything or meant anything. But I think if you are able to make meaning out of it and practice gratitude in the way that you just exhibited that you can find something good out of it. mean the grossest atrocities of our world, they do something to us, they shape us and they for so

Some people shape them in a way that gets them close, very close to a breaking point and maybe even a point of no return. But I think that's a very, very small percentage of people where it's to a point of no return. For most people...

we are able to find redemption. We are able to see the rainbow and to come out of that darkness with post-traumatic growth, with a clearer sense of our own purpose in life, with something powerful and beneficial that resulted from something very, very hard.

And I think you have done that in your life. I've done that in my life. Many people have. And maybe even done it without having the awareness. And I encourage you, sit down, write about a difficult story and how it shaped you and what meaning has been made out of that. It's so, so beneficial.

Shanon Tysland (30:09)
Thank you for that, Reggie. And I think you talk about this message of we are enough, I am enough. And it sounds so simple, but it is not easy. And I think a lot of people, whether they're leaders, athletes, parents, entrepreneurs, high performers have spent so much of their life trying to earn worth rather than to receive it. What does...

You are enough mean to you now.

Reggie D. Ford (30:44)
You are enough. You are worthy of all the greatest things have to offer. And I love you simply for being you. It means.

not being motivated and driven by the external, but having a deep, deep knowledge, self-knowledge, inner knowledge, that that statement, you are enough, is a fact inherent to every single human being walking this earth, every single species, every single period. There is nothing that you can do.

to make you more enough or less enough that you are perfectly imperfect just the way that you are. And I say that to others, but that is what I repeat to myself because so much of my life was, even if I didn't know it, the means.

was perform, get the validation for an end of external love, totally disregarding the internal of all of that. And now, because it's inherent in us, that we do not have to do anything to achieve love, to achieve fulfillment, to achieve enoughness.

the means in the end almost equate to each other. just, I show up, I am. I am. And because I am, I am enough. And.

Yeah, it's I think for a lot of people hearing the way that I operate now, you know, because the external validation it drove me and motivated me I accomplished things and I succeeded and I created things for the world for myself and for a lot of people but they think that it will somehow Turn me complacent or turn the world complacent if we all Sit and say we are enough. So why would I? Go out and do something else. Why would I innovate?

if what we have and what we are enough but the distinction is that when you know that you're enough when you feel and believe that you are enough

You love yourself and you you have such great self-worth Then you know what you deserve as well and you deserve that innovation you deserve the beautiful things that life has to offer and you go after those things you chase them and But it's rooted in intrinsic motivation which is shown to produce the the harmonious passion towards something that doesn't result in burnout, but a continuous process of creation

and innovation and development and not in the extrinsic that is fleeting that leads to burnout that harms us in the long run.

Shanon Tysland (34:02)
Hmm. So do you feel like it's so hard for people to believe they're enough because they need the validation like their their condition for that external? I need to be told I'm enough versus going inside and having a knowing.

Reggie D. Ford (34:22)
Well, our society, and when I say our society, it's more of Western society that is the root of, we come into the world and that is the norm. When I talked about normalization, was normalization on the micro level of my life and the things that I had experienced, but normalization on the macro level is similar. We normalize,

achievement and we normalize the success and that's why for the individual the mechanisms that result in self-sacrifice and perfectionism get reinforced because the system said yeah that was good keep doing it and

And so it's deep. have to work against what our society is telling us to feel that sense internally. And that takes a lot of self introspection. It takes introspection that is a skill. I don't believe that the way in which I think is...

Well, I believe the way I think is unique, I don't think the ability to think the way that I think is unique. I think we all have the ability to go inward and to reflect and to have unique and novel thoughts. But.

Our society has, I mean, especially when you, everybody has the same phone, maybe two or three phones. We now with viral memes, we watch the exact same funny videos. We all just converge into this one being and that strips us of the beautiful humanity that we have, the complexity and the uniqueness of each and every individual. It's like if you walked outside and saw a tree

every single tree looked the exact same. You would stop appreciating trees for what they were. And at the same time, each and every one of those trees is imperfect. They may have something going on with its root system, a hole in the middle, some branches that are falling off, but we still look at those trees and we think they're beautiful. Every sunset is different, but yet we don't look at sunsets and go, ew, that's ugly compared to yesterday.

And, but yet we do that with humans. And I feel like that is one of the greatest, unfortunate circumstances that we have as people. There is something I wanted to share about just how the difference between believing consciously and believing subconsciously are two different things.

Shanon Tysland (36:50)
It's amazing.

Reggie D. Ford (37:14)
I can sit here and can tell you I believe that I am worthy. And yet my actions may not show it. My subconscious beliefs may not be there. And that is the hardest part.

is how do we bring subconscious to the conscious? How do we bring that to the forefront? And I don't think that that is a game that we play on our own. We need other people in our lives. We need other support and other resources in our lives to help break down some of that blocking that prevents the subconscious from becoming conscious to reveal to us.

Oh man, that is showing up in a way that abandons myself. I never thought of it that way. That's the hard work.

Shanon Tysland (38:02)
So when we're talking about enough, Brene Brown has this saying, there are two types of people, those that believe they're worthy of love and belonging and those that don't believe they're worthy of love and belonging. And when she breaks that down in her research and she gets to like, why do you believe that you're worthy of love and belonging?

the answer for the group that does believe it is just because I believe it. And so I'm curious, what does it take to get the people that maybe don't have that belief to actually consciously, subconsciously believe it? What does that entail?

Reggie D. Ford (38:47)
When you find out the answer, let me know. No, seriously, I do not have a complete answer to that question. I wish we did as a people. think that is belief is a very strange thing because it guides so much of our life. If you think about

Shanon Tysland (38:52)
Yeah, right.

Reggie D. Ford (39:16)
There's a model that I wanna paint for people in positive psychology and it's rooted in cognitive behavioral theory as well. But you have the ABCs, you have the A which is an adverse experience, an adverse event.

The B is the belief that results from that experience. And then the C is the consequence, which are the feelings or behaviors that result from that adverse experience. And so often if we're operating an autopilot, we go from A to C, right, without ever reflecting on the B. We get in a car accident and we start cussing the person out that was speeding past us and, you know, why would they do that?

of anger, the feelings and the behavior resulted from that A. But the B...

And the B could be different for everybody, right? The B may be that they think that I am insignificant and that my car wasn't nice enough to be driven appropriately around, or how dare they lower my status in life. Like whatever it may be, that belief is different for everybody.

And so when we reflect back on those beliefs, it's like, can I dispute that belief? Do I have evidence from my past to dispute that belief? Well, I got in an accident and I've been in an accident before. I've even caused accidents before and it had nothing to do with that other person. Okay, wow. Now that belief of they thought I was insignificant is kind of shattered.

Okay, is there evidence to prove the belief? Because maybe sometimes that belief is pretty accurate. But then when you get to that work of just challenging that belief, it helps to reshape how these consequences show up. And so I want to take a real life example, especially related to kind of this perfectionism. Let me think for a second.

Okay, let's take a test, a kid taking a test. The adverse experience that that kid faces, or adult taking that test, is that they received a failing grade. And then you jump to the consequences of that, and they withdraw from school, they hide, they don't wanna challenge themselves as much.

They beat themselves up. They feel the feelings underneath that or that they are somehow not good, not smart. The belief, I failed this test. I believe I am stupid. I believe that if I were good enough, I would have passed that test. I believe that the people that gave me that test now will think I'm incompetent.

go on so on and so forth. Now there's so much evidence in your life, everybody's life, to combat those negative beliefs that we have about ourselves and bringing the subconscious conscious is a matter of finding itty bitty moments like that and going back to previous times in our lives and saying hmm well

there was this other experience where I didn't make the basketball team. Let me work through that. And it brings, it slowly brings some of that subconscious conscious and then we work on it and hopefully start to rewrite those beliefs about ourselves.

Shanon Tysland (43:12)
I like that. so Reggie, for the person listening right now who has maybe built their life on that striving, producing, getting the grade, fixing, caring, performing, whatever that is, where do they start if they want to move from proving themselves to peace?

Reggie D. Ford (43:33)
Well, in the book, I talk about the process of perseverance and the result of that is peace. But the process of perseverance goes from pain to passion, passion to purpose, purpose to power, power to peace.

And the pain part is being honest and being vulnerable and reflecting back on what may have caused the need to prove in the first place.

Because like you said in the Brene Brown studies, the people that believe it believe it because it just is. It's the fact. I'm worthy. And if that belief has been ruptured somewhere, that is the pain part is where did that pain show up in my life? And then what meaning, what beliefs that I start to make about myself that are associated with that pain? That is some of the hardest work in the world.

Because it's like, okay, there's a door that leads to, it's dark when you first walk in there. But every step that you take, you start to see a little bit more light and a little bit more light and a little bit more light until it's revealed. But while you're in that darkness, there are arms reaching out for you. There's slime under your shoes. You feel pricked and poked by these thorns and it's, nevermind, let me get out of this door.

That's easier, but it leaves us feeling like we need to prove something, like we're unworthy. And so the pain aspect is staying in it, sitting in discomfort, not forever, but long enough to reach the light. Then passion.

You know, so much of what we do is rooted in that pain that we experience. But passion, passion can, I like a model that shows passion in two different ways. There is obsessive passion and harmonious passion. And obsessive passion is what a lot of folks who feel that way, that they need to prove something, they're operating from an extrinsic motivation. They are doing things that are not for themselves, but for something or someone else.

And it can lead to really great things. You you think about a Michael Jordan, greatest player in the world. For some, and at one point, I would argue is and but when you ask him about his experience or his feelings and he has interviews about this, like he wasn't always happy during those times, but he achieved greatness. From how our society defines greatness. And yet it left him.

unsatisfied, may have caused some very harmful things in his life, who knows, because he's had some significant losses that people question and and so the obsessive passion is not the goal, it's the harmonious passion. The thing that you feel in your your soul and your spirit you're called to do just because you're called to do it.

There's so much tautology in the goodness of life when you're just operating for the ways in which nature had created you to be. Like we are human beings. And so when you be, when you are, then things start to flow naturally and easily and harmoniously. And that is the goal is to operate from that harmonious passion to convert maybe that pain into something that is beneficial to the world. That's where purpose comes in.

because purpose is a guiding principle, it's a why, it's direction and passion alone doesn't get us to the point, it gets us to movement and motion and energy but purpose gives it guidance. Then power is all around understanding yourself.

and building the resources and skills and tools that you need to fully integrate your past so that your future starts to branch out. We were talking about Angus Fletcher's book, Primal Intelligence, which I just finished and heard him lecture multiple times now.

And he talks about, you know, when our worlds are chaotic and our paths get fragmented, that that is a root cause for a lot of shame and a lot of guilt. And oftentimes it may lead to a narrowing future where we only see one possibility, right? Like all of this chaos. And so I'm going to be defined by that path.

And you're not, you're not defined by the path You're not defined by the hardest things of your life, the biggest mistakes that you've made. Your future is branching because every moment there is a possibility of new choice. There's a possibility of making different decisions and you are forgiven. You have redemption and there's restoration in this life that we've lived to have that branching future, to have so many possibilities. And that is what peace is. It's the integration of that past.

as with branching future. And so, yeah, it's possible. It's not a straight line process. Healed is not a word. We are continuously healing, and healing is the process by which we approach wholeness. So we're steady becoming more whole each and every day to bring the fragmentation together.

Shanon Tysland (49:26)
I love the concept of we're not healed, we're healing, right? It's that active process. And I think you also have this phrase of the vulnerability muscle. And that immediately reframes vulnerability as something active. It's a muscle, something practice, something strengthened. It's not weakness, it's not a collapse, it's not oversharing. It's a muscle.

Can you share for our listeners what the vulnerability muscle is?

Reggie D. Ford (49:56)
Yeah, when I started to speak, it was from a place of perseverance and things that, you you can overcome difficult things to see a different life. then I wrote the book and the speaking, and then I looked back and I sat down and I reflected and I was like, what is actually happening here? How have I gotten to this point? And what it was was my ability and my willingness to be vulnerable.

My saying yes to vulnerability has changed my life for the better. Saying yes to writing the book, saying yes to walking into a therapist's office, saying yes to having the hard conversations and exploring the depths of my life has changed my life for the better. And...

the first so vulnerable, so I'm looking back at it I'm like, okay, vulnerability, there's a power to this. And how do I, how have I seen it show up and what is a way that I can communicate it to the world and show its benefit?

and so it's a framework and it's an acronym that spells muscle and the M is Probably the hardest part for many but it's model the behavior Model the vulnerability and it creates again this the cycle the self-perpetuating cycle where when you start to do it Your community or those who you're doing around will be more vulnerable. I think that's one of the things we this Shanon we we have not known each other for over a year and we have deep

deep conversations and so, you know, and that came from very early on, one of us modeling vulnerability and then it being reflected back and then we feel stronger and safer to communicate that. So the first pillar is model the behavior. The U is very difficult. The U is understand yourself.

with this extra added piece that will help you understand others. You said it earlier, we don't see the world as it is, we see it as we are. And when you understand yourself, I believe that you're able to understand the world just a little bit better. I think back to the ways in which I may have been very critical of others. Let's say someone who I viewed as lazy.

Right? Why am I so critical of that lazy person? It's because if I sat down and operated in the way that they are operating right now, I would beat myself to a living pulp about it. I beat myself up about it. And so when I see that, you're like, get up off your ass. Like, what are you doing? but that was more of a reflection of how I would have viewed me if I was that person right there. And so I was like, wow.

Reggie D. Ford (52:52)
Now understanding myself through emotional intelligence, through looking back, through story, narrative identity. I do a lot of work in narrative identity.

It's understanding ourselves what has created the motivation, the drive and the beliefs that we have to how that have affected how we show up today. And that's huge. That is internal vulnerability. don't need to, you don't share that with other people when you're doing some of that self-reflective work, but it's internal vulnerability, which is extremely hard. The S is self-care is sacred, not selfish.

And all of this, I mentioned earlier, the vulnerability hangover, right? There is an emotional weekend, there's emotional times in our lives, and it's not meant to be sustained in perpetuity. You're not just showing a point in your heart out day in, day out, every single, no, like, that's just not real life.

You have to you have to energize reenergize yourself and so self-care is sacred not selfish it's about self-regulating finding tools to help you regulate in the moment and to build resources to help you process and regulate when you're not in a heightened moment and So there's a lot of mindfulness mindfulness. There's a lot of nervous system regulation in that pillar as well

the Where we C is choose curiosity over criticism you know Asking one more question is is better than making an assumption a lot of times ask one more question because our minds are are kind of lazy and they want to get to they want to get to point A from a to b to a to z real quickly and so they'll fill in the blank, but

A lot of times that makes miscommunication. We miss out on different things. so, and it prevents people from feeling safe to be vulnerable. Like all of this is intertwined so that we create a system of psychological safety where people do feel safe to be vulnerable. And so choosing curiosity, asking that one other question, or even asking this one question if you have beliefs, what else could be true?

And that may lead to more questions because you have to figure that out. What else could be true? If I think that they have wronged me, disrespected me or whatever, but what else could be true? What could be going on in their life? What could be happening in the world? The L is then listening with the intent to understand, not to respond.

We listen with, you know, we process things really quickly and then we have an idea. We jump to our idea. And one of the beautiful parts about our conversation, is that after someone speaks, oftentimes, and this is a different way than we've usually communicated, where you have some questions, but after we speak, there's usually some silence. Because we feel.

what has been said and there's no response that is right there on the tongue. And so listen to understand, do a lot of exercises around active listening, around active constructive responding and listening in a way that creates more engagement versus disengagement.

Then lastly, it's about evaluating and evolving. you know, it is a part of our society. It's testing. It's looking at data. It's looking at how it changed. And so, like, when you go through an emotional intelligence workshop, you went in with a score. You went in with a belief system. You went in with something. But then you came out with something.

and to see the effectiveness of it all, we want to know.

if it's working or not. And so that's the evaluation piece of it. It's seeing how have things changed in your life. And that may just be a simple conversation. We're talking now and I hear that you pause and you ask me one extra question when a month ago you would have ran and done the work or went on about your business. We can evaluate in that way too. So it's not necessarily all assessments, but we see how our behavior, how our feelings, how our emotions have changed.

as result of embracing vulnerability, creating greater psychological safety and taking care of ourselves along the process.

Shanon Tysland (57:32)
That's a brilliant acronym, MUSCLE, like each of those letters. For me, the C, choosing curiosity, really resonates. And it is. It's asking that one more question. It's staying in there to, hmm, Stephen Covey as The Seven Habits Of Highly Effective People seek first to understand and then to be understood. And it's leaning into that. so.

I just really appreciate that. "C" all of it is great. So Reggie, your memoir is entitled Perseverance Through Severe Dysfunction PTSD and it's such a powerful title because it acknowledges both the pain and the choice not to stay trapped in it. When did you begin to realize that some of what you were carrying wasn't just yours?

Reggie D. Ford (58:03)
Absolutely.

Mm.

the subtitle to the book, Breaking the Curse of Intergenerational Traumas of Black Men in America. And that intergenerational piece is, it came in the writing process.

The PTSD was something that I wrote down after I received that diagnosis and then understanding later on that it was actually complex PTSD, CPTSD. But I...

I was writing and I'm trying to understand. Curiosity is one of my top character strengths and I've tried to understand and ask questions about who I am, how I am, why I am without judgment, but just understanding. And in the writing process, I really started to uncover so many different things about who I was.

that were given to me, that I inherited. Inherited trauma, intergenerational trauma, often synonymous. And I looked back at just the assumptions that I would make about the world. And I could hear my mom. Or I would see the ways in which I jumped to

Knowing like it wasn't even a belief. wasn't an opinion or idea was knowing that person is lying to me with very little evidence. And thinking about where I've seen that in the past with different people in my life, dad or mom or And it's like, whoa, I have inherited a lot of this. And where where is it coming from?

And so I went to uncover, I went to ask questions and I wanted to know, you know, where does it start? And more importantly, like that's good to find origin, but how do we break it? How do we disconnect from it? Because it does not have to be a part of our story. It does not have to shape our identity. And...

That's the process that I've been on finding, you know for many many black Americans, know, we trace things back as far as we can which is slavery that we can't go before I was having a conversation about just how this is a great story. I'm glad I'm glad I have the opportunity to share this I was in Italy and this was last summer

and sitting on the beach and a waiter came up to me and he goes, where are you from? He's black. Where are from? And I said America. And more than black, he's African. He said, no, where's your dad from? I was like America, where's his dad from? America. And before I'm like, I don't know

He said, I'm from Senegal and you are from, I said America. And he just, was baffled that I didn't have an answer that was rooted in a country in Africa because he's like, you got it, it's there, but you just don't know. And I think about, you know, so many black Americans who do not know an answer to that question. And you can't even trace the name because the names are changed and.

so was very, it was very difficult to uncover so much and then, you know, have an answer go back to a time where there was very little agency in my community. and seeing how the abuse and atrocity that was experienced by my ancestors, you see the patterns were not that far removed. So, you know, one of the coping mechanisms of my great grandfather was to drink. Well, I found out that his

His, I want to say his grandmother was born to a white woman and a black man and she was thrown in a pig trough and left for the pigs to eat. Well, the enslaved people at the time grabbed her out of there and raised her. There is trauma living in that little girl who became a mom and grandma. There's trauma that lives in her body.

And it is heightened cortisol levels. is, you know, emotional, emotional outbursts. It is things that she can't even control because of how she was brought into this world. And you fast forward to my great grandfather who drank.

And then that led to violence and harm in the house and everything else. And then my grandmother's there who ultimately gets addicted to drugs at a very young age. so we're not that far removed from those things. And when you tie this through line through it all, it's like, man, there's a lot of trauma. There's a lot that is subconscious. There's a lot that has impacted the nervous system. And

But there is also resources and there is growing accessibility to healing parts of that. Again, healing because it's not a destination. But if I can do my job and maybe someone else down the line will start to feel a little bit more and a little bit more and a little bit more peace as we go along.

Shanon Tysland (1:04:14)
I feel like we could have a podcast episode just on what you just talked about right there. There's so much depth to that. And I'm curious when you reflect on that, like, where does forgiveness play a role in moving forward?

Reggie D. Ford (1:04:18)
Absolutely.

It's essential. Forgiveness is essential and forgiveness, we hear this, but it's true. Forgiveness is not about the other person. It's about you.

Who is it? it Buddha or Gandhi? Two greats. Let's say it's Buddha, you know, holding a grudge is like drinking poison and expecting the other person to die. Please correct me if that's wrong, but I'm human. Please forgive me. And so.

Shanon Tysland (1:05:07)
Yeah. Yeah.

Reggie D. Ford (1:05:11)
Yeah, forgiveness is essential and I've had to learn forgiveness because the adaptation and the ways in which I was brought up and conditioned, it was grudge holding for forever to a point where it stripped people of their own ability to change and grow and learn from their past and mistakes and do something different.

And I believe that people have the capacity to do those things. so forgiveness is about honoring that in humans and seeing that we are not continuously plagued by the atrocities that were put onto us by others. And it's absolutely essential.

I've, one of the things that, man, one of the things that people often say about me, especially when I talk about relationships in my life, mainly my mom. When I mention my mom and how I talk about my mom, people are awestruck at the level of forgiveness that I possess. Very difficult relationship.

And, you know, when I hear mom, my associations with mom are totally different than most people's association with mom. And yet, I miss her. She's still around. She's still living, but I miss her. That gives you any indication on that relationship. And I love her. And I want nothing but peace for her.

And I've had to do the loving and the wanting from afar because boundaries are important too. Part of that self care is sacred. It includes boundaries. And boundaries are important when people are so far down a path that reality is hard to see and everything feels like a threat.

to them. It's really hard to live in relationship with people like that. And so, but I have forgiven her because I know more of her story. She's, her story has been revealed to me from her and it's, and from my own research and I am able to recognize that there's a human underneath all of it.

And we're all humans and we're just doing our best. And so forgiveness is recognizing that in others. My flaws are your flaws, your flaws are my flaws. And I can't fault you for that. I can forgive you.

Shanon Tysland (1:08:10)
That's beautiful. Reggie, I want to shift a little bit to your new children's book, I Am the Rose. And we just talked a little bit about the stories we inherit, right? Like your mom has a story, you had a story. And even just you sharing right now about being in Italy and asking, where are you from? Like there's a story there about, well,

Where am I from? And what am I inheriting? And I think when we think ahead to the future, right, the children that we raise today are inheriting a story. And what do we want that narrative and story to be? In your children's book, I have a copy right here, it's called I Am the Rose. I got it a couple of weeks ago and read it to our two youngest, our five-year-old and seven-year-old. And I think this adds

such a beautiful, important layer to your work. And to me, your memoir feels like a man making sense of pain. But this children's book feels like a man trying to make sure some of that pain doesn't get passed on. So why a children's book and why not, Reggie?

Reggie D. Ford (1:09:31)
you

I've wanted to do this for a while but you know, I talk about breaking the curse of intergenerational trauma and How do we again going back to evaluate? How do we evaluate that if there is not a generation after and so I do not have any kids but there is a generation there multiple generations of young people that have come after me and This is a way of reaching them. Like you said to instill in them

the concept of resilience and love and self-worth and hope and

It was inspired by my own story and how the importance, you know, there's research on the developing child and the number one greatest factor that always comes out of how do you build resilient children. It's loving, caring, supportive relationships, particularly adults.

And you surround them with positive adults that it's not that that pain won't happen in their lives. Like we're not naive enough to think that it's not that they won't experience hardship. It's about the buffering experiences, the positive protective factors that come on the other side of those bad experiences. And so it the book is about that. It's about a kid who is asking the question is curious why.

Why are things hard? Why are things hard? And he's lacking support from his parents and he's having a difficult time in school and he's questioning his own self-worth and yet grandma is there. And grandma is this beacon of hope and light and a protective adult around him who...

Reminds him just how powerful he is The boy finds a rose and runs to his grandma and like grandma. I found a rose growing out of the concrete outside They go look at it and she reminds him that that rose is you You know through all of life life's difficulties your beauty and your light Reflect in your eyes. You're strong. You're important. You're smart. You're beautiful and

You know, that is the message that I want every young person to hear. You know, when that mistake happens, when you trip and you fall, that is not what defines you. You are worthy just because you are. And that is the message for the future generation and every generation. I wrote it as an inner children's book.

and an inner children's book to me, I don't know if it's a genre of things, but it is a book that adults will read to children, but it also speaks to the inner child in that adult. And so while the target age is five to eight, I'm hoping that it's really, you know, zero to a million. Anyone can pick this book up and learn something from it.

Shanon Tysland (1:12:51)
Yeah, I would say it's not just a children's book. It's a conversation tool and your reflection questions you have at the end of the book are just so powerful and it's talking about resilience and self-worth and hope and just beauty and hard places. And yes, my five year old and seven year old are like thinking and I can see their wheels turning and

They're just speaking their truth and it's beautiful. But as dad, I'm reflecting on myself. Like, where do I need hope in my life? Where's hope in dad? So I think it's gonna be for everyone that reads it is gonna have some takeaways. So excellent job. Thank you for putting that out there.

Reggie D. Ford (1:13:39)
Thank you, thank

you. I appreciate it. The exercises in the back are my favorite. They're all rooted in empirically backed research of strength building and gratitude and like you mentioned, the questions are, they're deep and it's one of those books that I hope that you read it to your five year old today and then in 10 years you come back and they're 15 and you pick it up and you read them and the questions, they can shift how

they are interpreting those questions and it can last for a really long time. So thank you for that. I appreciate that.

Shanon Tysland (1:14:15)
Nice. Yeah,

nicely done. So Reggie, I want to end this main part of our conversation with legacy. But I think that feels like this thread running underneath so much of your work. And when I look at your story, you have the memoir, your TEDx talk, the leadership work, the vulnerability muscle, and now this children's book.

I don't just see someone telling a story, I see someone trying to change what gets handed down. When it's all said and done, I'm curious, what legacy do you hope to leave?

Reggie D. Ford (1:14:55)
There are multiple factors there. One is something that I've been...

preaching about. don't preach, but it's something that I feel like I've been preaching about since I was maybe a teenager. Because of my story and the uniqueness of it, where I started to where I got to very early in life, I was often recognized as the exception. You're exceptional. You're exceptional. And part of my legacy, I hope.

is to create an environment and change systems to where my story is no longer exceptional, but it is the expectation. I hope that everyone has the opportunity, the access to what has created the change in my life. We're not there yet, but I do think it's possible.

And so taking the exceptional and making it the expectation is one aspect of it. It's funny in this heavy weekend, we were talking about this similar, a similar question and the answer that came up.

This is kind of funny. So, are you familiar with the show Dexter at all? So Dexter, any Dexter fans out there? me some love. it's dark. We can go into the subconscious of why I love Dexter so much. But he is a serial killer who only kills other serial killers.

And so he feels very vindicated in that and has a code around it and can't just go kill anybody. He has to kill serial killers. Well, that's beside the point, but he keeps after each and every one of those a trophy, right? And for him, it's a, because he's a blood splatter expert or whatever for his day job, he keeps the drop of their blood.

We're talking about legacy here. But that made me think about trophies in a very different way. You right now I'm sitting in my office and in my safe, there's a gun. There's a gun and it's not my gun. It's the gun of a man who felt safe enough to call me.

in a time when he no longer wanted to be on this earth.

And that gun was gonna be the tool that he used to take himself away. But in the moment of clarity, he called me and told me to come to him and I rushed. And I rushed to him and he gave it to me. Said he didn't want it. And in saying he didn't want the gun, it was telling me that he wanted to live.

And so I do not anticipate on collecting trophies that are guns or any other tool that people will use against themselves.

Shanon Tysland (1:18:29)
Mmm.

Reggie D. Ford (1:18:34)
the memories and the experiences that I have, the lives that are impacted, the lives that want to be lived, that want to continue going on, that want to break their curses, that want to grow and heal the world in a similar way that I do, that turn my story from exceptional to the expectation. That will be my legacy.

Shanon Tysland (1:18:59)
Wow, that's a valuable perspective. Thank you for that. And Reggie, so we're gonna wrap this up and I just wanna shift gears slightly, not away from the depth of this conversation, but into a few short reflections, a little rapid fire, if you will. What's one belief you've had to unlearn?

Reggie D. Ford (1:19:18)
Okay, I'm ready.

that my worth was tied to... performance.

Shanon Tysland (1:19:34)
What does vulnerability mean to you in one sentence?

Reggie D. Ford (1:19:40)
Vulnerability means trusting yourself enough to trust others.

Shanon Tysland (1:19:50)
What's one practice that helps keep you grounded?

Reggie D. Ford (1:19:55)
Yoga. I've practiced yoga since 2016 or no 2014 and it has been revolutionary.

Shanon Tysland (1:20:06)
Give me some Shavasana any day. Was one truth you hope every child knows.

Reggie D. Ford (1:20:07)
Mm-hmm.

That you are loved.

Shanon Tysland (1:20:18)
What would you say to your younger self?

Reggie D. Ford (1:20:24)
How much time we got? I would say, appreciate the journey and it gets a whole lot better.

Shanon Tysland (1:20:26)
You

Last question, Reggie. When you hear the phrase redefining what's possible, what does redefining what's possible mean to you?

Reggie D. Ford (1:20:50)
It means creating a world where not only women, but men and all people recognize the power of being, quote unquote, emotional, and the ways in which when we lean into that, how we can discover what our true potential is.

Shanon Tysland (1:21:18)
Thank you. Reggie, thank you. This has been an awesome conversation. What I appreciate about you is you just don't talk about resilience from a polished distance. You bring honesty to it, humility to it. You're just present. Every answer, you are present and thoughtful. And you've lived the tension between survival

in thriving and are probably still in that as we all are between achievement and worth and strength and vulnerability. And now you're helping others build lives, teams and conversations rooted in courage and truth and strength. And I especially love that I am the Rose extends the work to children.

Because maybe one of the most meaningful things we can do is give our next generation language for resilience, self-worth, and hope before the world teaches them otherwise. Before we close, Reggie, for people who want to learn more about your work, connect with you, bring you in to speak or pick up your books, what's the best way for folks to find you, connect you, and buy your books?

Reggie D. Ford (1:22:35)
Yes, so the easiest Reggie D. Ford, reggiedford.com, reggiedford. I hang out mostly on Instagram and LinkedIn and YouTube as well.

Shanon Tysland (1:22:50)
Fantastic, we'll put all that in the show notes. And for our listeners, thank you for tuning in to the Redefine What's Possible podcast. I hope today's conversation gave you something meaningful to sit with, maybe a question to reflect on, maybe a belief to challenge or a new sense of what healing, courage and possibility can look like in your own life. And if this episode resonated with you, share it with a friend, a family member,

or someone who may need to hear it. And until next time, keep redefining what's possible. Thanks, y'all.