The Self Trust Solution | Real Stories. Real Self-Trust.

Read the full episode breakdown + show notes:https://www.theselftrustcoach.com/blog/ep194-too-many-ideas-decide-first

You keep waiting to feel ready for a decision you have not actually made.

Daniel Ruke has launched more than 1,775 brands for clients including Disney, Marvel, and Epic Games, and runs Game Changers Business Club and his agency Blink. At thirteen he believed he had to pick art or technology, and one sentence from his mom changed what he thought a decision could hold. Dawn and Daniel dig into what happens when capable people treat wanting more than one thing as a flaw instead of information.

In This Episode, We Explore:

• The Box That Does Not Exist: Why the pressure to pick one niche, one offer, or one version of yourself often comes from other people's limits, and how to tell whose rule you are following.
• Three Spinning Plates: Daniel's case against "focus on one thing" and how a small, playful experiment can feed your main business instead of competing with it.
• The Lobby and the Inner Room: How fear and all-or-nothing thinking get separated from the wisdom you already have, and why the decision has to come before the feeling of readiness.
• The I Behind the AI: Why the person directing the tool matters more than the tool, and how to build a living document so AI reflects what you actually believe.
• Comfort as Hidden Fear: Why "I'm still working on my vision" can protect you from finding out whether it works.
• Vision Firm, How Light: How 30 and 90 day data windows keep you from shrinking the goal every time a result disappoints.

Episode Chapters:00:00 The 13-year-old who thought he had to choose05:38 Why entrepreneurs keep limiting themselves11:02 The Lobby, the Inner Room, and deciding first18:39 The I behind the AI23:26 What he would tell his 13-year-old self26:00 Comfort as hidden fear29:00 Consequences and the 90-day data window32:00 Vision firm, the how held lightly

Connect with Daniel Ruke:LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/danielrukeWebsite: https://www.ruke.comGame Changers Business Club: http://www.gamechangersclub.com

Join the Conversation:This one is for the coach or expert who has been told to pick one niche, one offer, one version of herself, and has kept quietly adding, rebuilding, and waiting instead of deciding. If a slow month has ever made you shrink a goal you were sure about, start here.

Where are you standing?

Know where your Floor is firm.Know where it's still moving with results.Know where to work next.

Three minutes.

theselftrustcoach.com/where-are-you-standing

Read the fullepisode breakdown + show notes:
https://www.theselftrustcoach.com/blog/ep193-the-cost-of-self-abandonment

She had already started pointing her school families toward other schools when she realized the business wasn't the problem. The question mark in her leadership was.
Renea L. Moss, also known as Rai Renea, is an award-winning author, speaker,and performer, and the founder of Forge Independent Schools. For years she poured into everyone around her and called it strength, until a health crisismade the cost impossible to ignore. Underneath her story is a self-trust question every leader eventually meets: do my needs count as much as everyone else's?

In This Episode, We Explore:
• Self-Abandonment Dressed as Strength: how serving everyone can look like leadership from the outside while quietly costing you everything on theinside

• Either/Or Leadership: why "either they're happy or there are rules" left Renea's school confused, stalled, and running on her exhaustion

• Over-Ownership: what changes when you stop owning things that were never yours to own, from an employee's performance to a stranger's opinion of youroutfit

• Removing the Question Mark: why direct leadership is not unkind, and how wishy-washy directions quietly invite "what can I get away with"

• Rai Renea, All of Her: why Renea stopped splitting the educator from the performer, and why it takes so much energy to not be you

• No Apology in My Throat: the spoken word album born from refusing to apologize for who she is

Episode Chapters:
00:00  Welcome and introducing Renea L. Moss
01:14  Pouring into everyone except herself
06:14  Boundaries, business fires, and a health crisis
14:19  The ER doctor's question and choosing herself
16:15  "Too sexy for this environment" and owning her full expression
22:11  Leadership without the question mark24:39  Almost closing the school, and deciding to stay27:40  It takes so much energy to not be you
32:39  No Apology in My Throat, rest, and what's next

Connect with Renea L. Moss:
Website: https://reneasworld.com/
Books: Mumblings of a Maniac, The Book of Rebellion, and the memoir How a Honeybun Almost Took Me Out.

Spoken word album: No Apology in My Throat.
Join the Conversation:
This one is for the business owner who answers the 9 p.m. message, softens every direction so no one gets upset, and has quietly started wondering whether it's time to close the whole thing down. Before you decide the business is the problem, listen for the question mark.

Where are you standing?
Before more strategy, more effort, or another decision — know where you're standing.
Three minutes. Your results, your floor, your next move.
https://www.theselftrustcoach.com/where-are-you-standing
 

Read the fullepisode breakdown + show notes:
https://www.theselftrustcoach.com/blog/ep192-you-knew-all-along
She knew her business partner was a problem the moment she met her, and she ignored it for two years anyway.
Katie O'Malley is an executive coach and leadership educator, and the founder of (en)Courage Coaching, where she helps individuals, teams and organizations build authentic leadership and healthier workplace cultures. Her work has been featured in Fast Company and Thrive Global, and she delivered a TEDx talk in Boston in 2025.

Underneath the resume, Katie spent two years overriding thesame instinct in her marriage, her business partnership and her father's care, until her body forced her to stop.

In This Episode, We Explore:

• The First Instinct: How Katie's body flagged her future business partner as a problem before her mind had the words for it.
• Whose Voice Was She Actually Hearing: Why she believed the people calling her "too critical" over her own gut, and where that belief started.
• Thriving Business, Disappearing Self: How her business kept growing while she was disconnecting from her own life outside of it.
• The Pattern Across Three Relationships: What her father, her ex-husband and her business partner had in common, and how each one used the same line againsther.
• Write It Down, Say It Out Loud: The two-step practice Katie now uses to rebuild trust in her own read.
• The Decision She Made Without Asking Anyone: Why moving to the suburbs became proof that her instinct was already working again.

Episode Chapters:
00:00  Welcome + Meet Katie O'Malley
00:54  The Season Everything Collided: 2023
03:20  The First Instinct: Meeting the "Would-Be" Business Partner
09:00  Why She Overrode Her Own Read

13:00  Thriving Business, Disappearing Self
16:41  Naming the Pattern Across Father, Husband and Business Partner
21:48  Rebuilding Trust: The Decision, the Body and the Permission She Gave Herself
34:45  Building enCourage Coaching and the enCourage Foundation

Connect with Katie O'Malley:
Instagram: @encouragecoachchicago
Website: www.encouragecoaching.org
LinkedIn: linkedin.com/in/kateomalley
TedX Talk on YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HUNGPk978uE
Join the Conversation:
This one is for the coach or entrepreneur who has already called it, quietly, in a meeting, in a partnership conversation, in her own body, and then talked herself out of it because someone she trusted told her she was too critical tobe right.
Where Are You Standing?

Before more strategy, more effort, or another decision — know where you're standing.

Three minutes. Your results, your floor, your next move.

https://www.theselftrustcoach.com/begin
Ready to Fix the Floor in place?
The Floor: Your Build

The launch didn't perform the way you wanted.
And somehow that reopened a decision you thought you'd already made.

That's the Floor moving.

This is where you fix it in place.

https://www.theselftrustcoach.com/the-floor-your-build

https://www.theselftrustcoach.com/the-floor-your-build

Read the full episode breakdown + show notes: https://www.theselftrustcoach.com/blog/ep191-the-thought-that-isnt-new

What if "I don't know enough" isn't an honest assessment of your ability, but a familiar thought that has followed you into every room you were already qualified to enter? Loren Finger's career has crossed industries, professions, countries, and identities: executive recruitment, corporate law, nonprofit leadership, and CEO, before she built EmpowerHer Careers to help mothers navigate what comes next.

This episode traces one recurring thought all the way back to her final year of school, and what changed once she recognized it as a decades-old pattern instead of a fact about her ability.

In This Episode, We Explore:

• The Pattern, Not the Fact: how Loren traced "I don't know enough" back to childhood exams, long before it ever touched her business• Confirmation Bias in Real Time: why we scan for evidence of what we don't know while ignoring the evidence sitting right next to it
• Permission to Redecide: why a career decision made by an earlier version of you doesn't have to be honored by the version of you today
• The Golden Handcuffs: what keeps capable women in roles that no longer fit, even when the flexibility they're protecting is minimal
• Rules That Aren't Real: how self-imposed rules keep people boxed into careers and decisions long after the rule stopped serving them

Episode Chapters:

00:00 Welcome and today's theme

05:00 Loren's early definition of success and the move to New York

10:00 Reaching the law career goal, and what shifted after motherhood

15:00 Resigning as CEO and losing her sense of identity

22:00 Discovering coaching and permission to redecide

28:00 Tracing "I don't know enough" back to childhood

36:00 Breaking self-imposed rules and the golden handcuffs

42:00 Advice for the mother questioning her career today

Connect with Loren Finger:

website: https://empowerhercareers.com/

Instagram: @lorenfingercoaching

Free Get A Job You Love Masterclass: https://empowerhercareers.com/get-a-job-you-love-masterclass

Join the Conversation:

This one is for the mother who has built a career that works on paper and quietly doesn't fit anymore, who keeps hearing "I don't know enough" right before her next move, and hasn't yet questioned whether that thought has ever been true.

Where Are You Standing?

Before more strategy, motivation, or effort, know where you're standing in relation to your Floor, the foundation you're building your business from.The free assessment takes three minutes and shows you where your Floor is firm, where it may still be moving with your results, and where to work next.

Know where you're standing. Then know where to work.

Do your results keep putting things back up for a vote?The offer doesn't work quickly enough, and suddenly you're questioning the business. The response is quieter than you expected, and what you decided was possible starts feeling negotiable again.

The Floor: Your Build is where we stop that cycle. Fix the Who and the Whether in place, so every result can teach you more about the How without sending you back to reconsider everything you already decided.

Fix the Floor with The Floor: Your Build

https://www.theselftrustcoach.com/the-floor-your-build

Read the full episode breakdown + show notes:https://www.theselftrustcoach.com/blog/ep190-knowing-it-vs-living-itHe could teach self-trust before he was actually living it.

Dr. Ken Martz is a licensed psychologist with more than 30 years in mental health and addiction treatment, and the author of the international bestseller Manage My Emotions.

This episode traces his path from a panic attack in a post office line, to a hospital gown, to building the Unshakeable series for high-performing men moving from anxious to unshakeable.

It's about the gap between understanding something intellectually and actually choosing to live it, and why closing that gap is a relationship shift, not a strategy shift.In This Episode, We Explore:

• Knowing vs. Living: why understanding a concept, even well enough to teach it, isn't the same as choosing it
• Internal Metrics vs. External Metrics: the shift from tracking revenue and perception to tracking laughter, gratitude, and authentic presence
• The Backpack of Micro Wounds: how small, unregulated stressors accumulate for years until a single moment forces a reckoning
• No Hospital Moment Required: why the body can change gears in seconds once it's actually invited to
• A Relationship Shift, Not a Strategy Shift: why the work underneath performance anxiety is a relationship with yourself

Episode Chapters:00:00 Welcome and today's theme01:22 The exam story and chasing an undefined perfect05:15 The post office moment and the hospital gown09:00 Why capable people dismiss burnout as a capacity problem15:40 Outsourcing your worth to other people's perceptions20:15 Internal metrics versus external metrics26:30 What clients try first, and why it doesn't work34:15 Advice for the high performer who recognizes this

Connect with Dr. Ken Martz:Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/dr.kenmartz/Website: https://drkenmartz.comAdditional resource: Author of Manage My Emotions, creator of the Unshakeable Men series and Unshakeable Prime, Leadership, and Relationships programsJoin the Conversation:This one is for the high performer who can explain exactly what needs to shift, sometimes for other people, and still finds themselves living the opposite of it. If that gap feels familiar, this conversation is for you.Where Are You Standing?Before more strategy, motivation, or effort, know where you're standing in relation to your Floor, the foundation you're building your business from.The free assessment takes three minutes and shows you where your Floor is firm, where it may still be moving with your results, and where to work next.Know where you're standing. Then know where to work.https://www.theselftrustcoach.com/identity-assessment-pageReady to Fix the Floor in place?The Floor: Your Build is a self-paced, structured experience designed to help you build from a Floor that holds, so you can keep uncovering the How without reopening the Whether of what you've already decided is possible.https://www.theselftrustcoach.com/the-floor-your-build

Read the full episode breakdown + show notes: https://www.theselftrustcoach.com/blog/ep189-certainty-follows-the-decision

She had six chairs, one booth renter, and no proof any of it would work, and she moved anyway.

Chelle Neff is the founder of Urban Betty, a four time Inc. 5000 salon company in Austin, Texas, built from six chairs into a business with nearly 100 team members across three locations. Every real structural shift along the way, the move to a commission model, hiring a business consultant, finally stepping back from doing hair herself, came after she had already made the call, not before she felt ready to make it.

In This Episode, We Explore:

• certainty Follows the Decision: why the feeling of readiness never arrives first, and what Chelle did instead of waiting for it.
• The Booth Renter to Commission Shift: what avoiding that decision actually cost her, and what finally forced the change.
• Asking for Help as a Turning Point: the loan from her grandfather, her first hired assistant, and the business consultant she says changed her life.
• Fear of Stepping Into Her Power: why fear, not a skill gap, delayed the decisions that grew her business.
• The Slow Exit From Doing the Work Herself: the year long taper from five days a week to zero, and the physical signal that told her it was time.
• Community Over Gatekeeping: why she stopped protecting what she knows and started answering every message from other salon owners.

Episode Chapters:

00:00 Meet Chelle Neff and the six-chair beginning of Urban Betty

02:30 Holding doubt and inner knowing at the same time

04:34 Self-trust in concept versus self-trust in practice

07:00 The fear beneath the shift to a commission-based model

14:15 What she'd change: bringing in a business consultant sooner

17:38 Quitting doing hair and stepping fully into leading the business

19:50 Community, gatekeeping, and building a personal platform

23:27 Certainty follows the decision, not the other way around

Connect with Chelle Neff:

Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/urbanbetty/

Website: https://urbanbetty.com/

Personal platform: chelleneff.com

Join the Conversation:This one is for the business owner who already knows which decision she's avoiding, the pricing change, the hire, the client she needs to let go of, and is waiting to feel more certain before she'll finally make it.

Where Are You Standing? Before more strategy, motivation, or effort, know where you're standing in relation to your Floor — the foundation you're building your business from.The free assessment takes three minutes and shows you where your Floor is firm, where it may still be moving with your results, and where to work next.Know where you're standing. Then know where to Work.

https://www.theselftrustcoach.com/identity-assessment-page

Ready to Fix the Floor in place? The Floor: Your Build is a self-paced, structured experience designed to help you build from a Floor that holds — so you can keep uncovering the HOW without reopening the WHETHER of what you've already decided is possible.

https://www.theselftrustcoach.com/the-floor-your-build

Read the full episode breakdown + show notes:https://www.theselftrustcoach.com/blog/ep188-self-trust-before-the-evidenceSix months into her business, with no marketing background and no proof it would work, Maggie Olson agreed to spend $40,000, half of what her company had made that year, on a single bet.Maggie Olson is the founder of Nova Chief of Staff, the leading destination for Chief of Staff education, certification, and development. Before starting Nova, she spent 20 years in retail, food and beverage, and technology, including building the Chief of Staff model at T-Mobile from scratch. This conversation follows the decision that shaped Nova's early growth, and what it actually took to make it, before there was any evidence it would pay off.In This Episode, We Explore:• Choice Before Evidence: why Maggie's $40,000 sponsorship decision had to be made before proof existed, not after, and why the wait for proof first was never actually available to her.• The Momentum Cycle in Action: how repeated decisions built the kind of confidence no amount of planning could have handed her in advance.• Clinical Evaluation Beyond the Outcome: why the decision would have taught Maggie something true about herself even if the sponsorship had failed.• Identity Lag and the Unfinished Update: why Maggie, three years and thousands of students into building Nova, still catches herself unable to fully believe she is financially secure, even when the results say otherwise.• Returning to the Inner Room: the practice Maggie uses to hear her own decision underneath fear and outside noise, including unplugging completely until she can feel the pull toward yes or no.Episode Chapters:00:00 Welcome and Introduction to Maggie Olson02:00 What a Chief of Staff Actually Does09:00 The $40,000 Decision12:00 The Competing Voices Inside Her Head15:00 From Gamble to Self-Trust Decision19:00 The Life Event That Changed Her Relationship With Herself30:00 Self-Trust Inside the Chief of Staff Role36:00 Advice for Anyone Waiting to Feel ReadyConnect with Maggie Olson:Instagram: @maggieolsoncosWebsite: www.novachiefofstaff.comJoin the Conversation:This one is for the founder a few months into something real, staring at an opportunity that costs more than she has made so far, waiting for the fear to go quiet before she says yes. It will not go quiet first. You get to decide anyway.Take the Self-Trust Identity Map. Before strategy. Before motivation. Before more effort, you need to know where your identity is operating from. Because that is what determines everything that follows.It's free. It takes three minutes. And it will give you a precise read on where your identity is actually operating from right now, and exactly where to focus next.https://www.theselftrustcoach.com/identity-assessment-pageWant to go deeper? The Floor: Your Build is available now. Self-paced, structured, and built around the same framework.https://www.theselftrustcoach.com/the-floor-your-build

Read the full episode breakdown + show notes:https://www.theselftrustcoach.com/blog/ep187-telling-yourself-the-truthHer panic attacks stopped the day she finally said the true thing out loud.Tara Campbell spent 26 years as a COO before founding Tangent Advisory, and this conversation traces the year everything she'd built on the outside stopped matching what she knew to be true on the inside. She and Dawn unpack the real difference between self-abandonment and self-honoring, and why practicing small truths, not confidence, is what rebuilds trust in yourself.In This Episode, We Explore:• Self-Honoring vs. Self-Abandonment: the real difference between staying quiet to keep the peace and speaking the truth in a way that's still aligned with you.• The Identity Gap: what happens when you give credit to your wins instead of the person who made them.• Practice as Expression: why small, low stakes truths build trust that no amount of confidence can front load.• Old Stories: how to test whether an inherited belief about who you are is still true.• Timing: why the years that felt like delay were never wasted.Episode Chapters:00:00 Welcome and the season that started with panic attacks04:29 Choosing internal peace over the status quo09:02 The shedding: closing a marriage and examining old rules13:00 Telling the truth out loud and the panic that stopped14:30 Self-abandonment vs. self-honoring22:04 Conditional trust, external validation, and the Identity Gap30:42 Trusting the timing of it all37:28 Building Tangent Advisory and where to connect with TaraConnect with Tara Campbell:Instagram: @tangentadvisory (business), @tatstar (personal)Website: https://tangentadvisoryllc.com/Also launching a new podcast, What I Make Up About That. Follow @whatimakeupaboutthat on Instagram for the launch.Join the Conversation:This one is for the woman who has done the internal work, therapy, meditation, the personal inventory, and still feels a gap between how steady she feels inside and how unresolved her outside life looks. If you have been swallowing a true sentence because saying it out loud would make it real, this episode is for you.Take the Self-Trust Identity Map. Before strategy. Before motivation. Before more effort, you need to know where your identity is operating from. Because that is what determines everything that follows.It's free. It takes three minutes. And it will give you a precise read on where your identity is actually operating from right now, and exactly where to focus next.https://www.theselftrustcoach.com/identity-assessment-pageWant to go deeper? The Floor: Your Build is available now. Self-paced, structured, and built around the same framework.https://www.theselftrustcoach.com/the-floor-your-build

Read the full episode breakdown + show notes:https://www.theselftrustcoach.com/blog/ep186-comparison-trap-after-successJen Recla's business was working. That is exactly when the comparison trap got louder, not quieter.Jen Recla is a leadership coach and the founder of Recla Coaching & Consulting, where she helps senior leaders build resilient, high performing teams after nearly 15 years across healthcare, nonprofit, and public sector organizations. Her second year in business hit real momentum, and the comparison spiral got sharper anyway. This conversation is about what happens when the safety you used to borrow from a job title has to be generated internally instead.In This Episode, We Explore:• The Comparison Trap: why the spiral got louder as Jen's results got better, not quieter.• Structure as the Downstream of Self-Trust: the difference between borrowing stability from a corporate title and generating it on your own.• The Lobby and the Inner Room: what changes when "am I doing enough" gets asked from curiosity instead of verdict.• The Gap and the Gain: measuring progress from where you started instead of the distance still ahead.• Data Over Drama: treating a quiet season, or a failed workshop, as information instead of proof of failure.• The Hollywood Chapter: what a season of shame in her twenties still teaches her about uncertainty today.Episode Chapters:00:00 Welcome and Meet Jen Recla01:06 The Comparison Trap When Business Is Actually Working04:26 Corporate Structure vs. Building It Yourself09:36 "Am I Doing Enough?": The Lobby vs. the Inner Room18:22 The Summer Spiral of 202421:26 The Gap and the Gain: Data Over Drama24:00 Going Backwards: Hollywood, Shame, and Resilience29:36 What Self-Trust Looks Like Today and Where to Find JenConnect with Jen Recla:LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/jenniferrecla/Website: https://www.jenrecla.com/Free Tool: No Time to Think? Start Here!, https://www.jenrecla.com/notimetothinkJoin the Conversation:This one is for you if your business is actually working and you still catch yourself measuring your progress against someone six months behind you. You know the numbers are fine. The doubt arrived anyway.Take the Self-Trust Identity Map. Before strategy. Before motivation. Before more effort, you need to know where your identity is operating from. Because that is what determines everything that follows.It's free. It takes three minutes. And it will give you a precise read on where your identity is actually operating from right now, and exactly where to focus next.https://www.theselftrustcoach.com/identity-assessment-pageWant to go deeper? The Floor: Your Build is available now. Self-paced, structured, and built around the same framework.https://www.theselftrustcoach.com/the-floor-your-build

Read the full episode breakdown + show notes: https://www.theselftrustcoach.com/blog/ep185-the-promise-you-keep

She's spent 20 years helping other people finish their hardest work. Her own sat unfinished for three years.

My guest this week is Jenn Farrer, certified executive coach, keynote speaker, and author of Make Them Think: How to Coach for Ownership, Insight, and Action. Jenn has coached and trained thousands of executives, athletes, and teams. But this conversation is about the season most people never see, nearly three years into what was supposed to be a six month creative sabbatical, with nothing finished but a Notes app full of half-started ideas, and what it actually took to change that.

In This Episode, We Explore:

• Staking the Ground: why putting your own point of view out is a different kind of vulnerable than helping other people think
• The Real Fear: the specific worry underneath the freeze, and why it has nothing to do with actual competence
• Clearing the Creative Backlog: the phrase from a meditation teacher that finally moved Jenn off the sidelines
• The Public Deadline: what a twelve week timeline revealed about self-trust that years of achievement never had
• Data, Not a Verdict: how to receive feedback as information instead of proof of who you are

Episode Chapters:

00:00 Introduction: The Hardest Thing She's Ever Done

01:18 Three Years Into a Creative Sabbatical With Nothing Finished

03:29 The Vulnerability of Staking the Ground

08:57 Why This Felt Harder Than Surviving a Stroke

11:21 The Real Fear: Being Seen as a Hack

17:31 The Turning Point: Clearing the Creative Backlog

22:56 Making the Twelve-Week Deadline Public

28:36 Redefining Self-Trust: From Outside In to Inside Out

Connect with Jenn Farrer:

Instagram: @jennfarrer

Website: https://jenniferfarrer.com/

Additional resources: Make Them Think, available on Amazon and at barnesandnoble.com

Join the Conversation: This one is for the expert who can solve everyone else's stall in five minutes and has been circling their own for years. You already know how to do this. The book, the framework, the offer, whatever it is, is waiting on the same permission you'd give a client on day one.

Take the Self-Trust Identity Map. Before strategy. Before motivation. Before more effort, you need to know where your foundation is operating from. Because that is what determines everything that follows.It's free. It takes three minutes. And it will give you a precise read on where your decisions are actually coming from right now, and exactly where to focus next.

https://www.theselftrustcoach.com/identity-assessment-page

Want to go deeper? The Floor: Your Build is available now. Self-paced, structured, and built around the same framework. https://www.theselftrustcoach.com/the-floor-your-build