How does one go from a challenging childhood to a thriving career and a life of purpose? Join DBB as Ron Acosta, a former Walmart executive-turned-Chick-fil-A owner-operator, shares his transformative journey with host Andy Wilson.
With a career spanning 28 years at Walmart, Ron's story takes us through his remarkable transition from corporate success to a more balanced life that integrates faith and family.
He opens up about an introspective retreat in Colorado that catalyzed his personal growth and set him on a path of healing and redemption. Get ready to be inspired by Ron's unwavering resilience and the divine interventions that marked his journey.
Ron shares deeply personal stories of overcoming adversity, starting with a childhood shadowed by abandonment, racism, and abuse.
These early challenges were met with an unexpected glimmer of hope during his time at Walmart, where an encounter with Sam Walton ignited his belief in his own potential. Through faith and counseling, Ron reshaped his life's narrative, finding success and purpose in the business world and beyond.
As he recounts pivotal moments such as reconnecting with his estranged father and establishing a marriage ministry with his wife, Ron's story becomes a testament to the power of healing and redemption.
Our global reach now extends to 34 countries, thank you to our international listeners for your incredible support! As we look forward to more engaging topics and guests in 2025, we express our heartfelt gratitude to Ron Acosta for sharing his compelling journey with us.
His story of resilience and faith is both humbling and inspiring, offering valuable insights into how personal growth can strengthen not only individuals but also their families and communities.
For those eager to learn more, Ron's book "Unstoppable Grace" provides a deeper dive into his life's transformative experiences.
More About this Episode
Unstoppable Grace: Leadership, Identity, and Healing Beyond the Title
There are moments in life when success becomes a disguise. On the outside everything looks strong. The career is impressive. The résumé is enviable. The leadership role commands respect. But beneath that surface, something quieter and far more dangerous can take root. A loss of joy. A fractured identity. A belief that your value is tied entirely to what you produce.
This is not just a personal struggle. It is a widespread issue among leaders, executives, entrepreneurs, and high performers. We are praised for being driven, rewarded for outworking others, and often celebrated for sacrificing everything else along the way. Yet few talk about the cost. Fewer still talk about what happens when the title disappears.
The story behind Unstoppable Grace is a powerful reminder that leadership, faith, resilience, and healing are deeply connected. It is also a reminder that our past does not have to define our future, and that grace can reach places we never thought possible.
When Performance Replaces Identity
For decades, success was defined by performance. Advancement meant affirmation. Promotions felt like proof of worth. In environments like Walmart, where opportunity is vast and expectations are high, it is easy to absorb the belief that hard work alone determines value.
That belief can carry someone far professionally. It can also hollow them out internally.
The danger is not ambition. The danger is tying identity to achievement. When performance becomes the source of self worth, joy quietly erodes. You may still feel motivated, but fulfillment fades. The pressure to remain the best replaces the freedom to simply be present.
This pattern often starts long before adulthood. Childhood experiences shape how we pursue success later in life. When affirmation is absent early on, achievement can become a substitute for belonging.
The Long Shadow of Childhood Trauma
Many leaders carry unspoken wounds. Abuse, abandonment, racism, addiction in the home, or being told repeatedly that they would never amount to anything. These experiences do not disappear when adulthood arrives. They embed themselves into behavior.
Growing up amid alcoholism, racism, sexual abuse, and abandonment creates a survival mindset. You learn to stay alert. You learn to achieve. You learn to protect yourself by being indispensable.
But survival strategies that help you endure childhood can quietly sabotage adulthood.
Being told you are not enough creates an inner voice that never rests. Being abandoned creates a fear of loss that drives overwork. Being abused creates shame that discourages vulnerability. All of it can coexist with professional success.
The business world often celebrates resilience without asking what created it.
Walmart and the First Taste of Belief
For many people, the first time they hear that they are capable of more comes outside the home. In this story, Walmart became that turning point.
Hearing words like “you can be whatever you want to be” changes a person. It ignites hope. It replaces limitation with possibility. It can also reinforce the belief that success will finally heal everything that came before.
And for a while, it feels like it does.
Career growth brings structure, recognition, and belonging. It offers clarity in a world that once felt chaotic. It becomes more than a job. It becomes an identity.
That is why losing it hurts so deeply.
The Grief No One Talks About
When people lose a job, especially at a senior level, society expects them to move on quickly. Find the next opportunity. Stay positive. Be grateful. Look forward.
What is rarely acknowledged is grief.
Grief is not limited to death. It also follows the loss of purpose, community, routine, and identity. When someone spends decades defining themselves by their role, losing it can feel like erasure.
Failing to grieve does not make the pain disappear. It pushes it underground where it emerges as anger, anxiety, depression, or despair.
Ignoring grief is not strength. It is avoidance.
Faith, Anger, and the Breaking Point
Faith does not eliminate struggle. In many cases, it intensifies the questions.
Why would God take away something that felt good? Why close a door that seemed aligned with purpose? Why allow pain after decades of loyalty and effort?
Unprocessed grief often turns into anger. Anger at institutions. Anger at people. Anger at God.
When abandonment wounds from childhood meet loss in adulthood, the emotional collision can be overwhelming. The mind begins to replay old messages. You are alone. You are not enough. Everyone leaves.
This is where many people suffer silently.
Mental health struggles among men are often hidden behind productivity. Anxiety is masked by busyness. Depression is disguised as irritability. Suicidal thoughts are buried beneath responsibility.
The breaking point does not arrive loudly. It arrives quietly in moments when exhaustion removes resistance.
The Importance of Intervention
Healing rarely happens in isolation.
Professional counseling is not weakness. Medication is not failure. Asking for help is not a lack of faith. It is wisdom.
Therapy creates space to peel back layers that self reflection cannot reach alone. It helps connect present behavior to past experiences. It reframes identity. It names grief.
Medication can stabilize the nervous system enough to allow healing to begin. It does not replace faith. It supports the body while the heart and mind recover.
Too many people avoid help because they believe they should be able to push through. That belief costs lives.
Rediscovering Joy and Purpose
Joy is not the same as happiness. Happiness depends on circumstances. Joy is rooted in meaning.
When performance no longer defines worth, joy can return. Slowly. Gently. Often unexpectedly.
Purpose begins to shift from proving oneself to serving others. Leadership becomes less about control and more about stewardship. Work becomes a platform rather than an altar.
For some, that shift opens doors to new opportunities. Chick-fil-A, for example, offers an environment where faith, leadership, and community intersect naturally. It allows leaders to bring their whole selves to work.
Purpose expands when time and emotional energy are reclaimed.
Marriage, Restoration, and Ministry
Unresolved trauma often damages relationships. Workaholism may not look like betrayal, but it creates distance all the same.
Healing restores presence. It invites humility. It rebuilds trust.
When a marriage survives a deep struggle, it becomes a source of wisdom for others. Ministry does not always start in a church. Sometimes it starts in the scars.
Helping couples on the edge of divorce requires honesty, empathy, and lived experience. It requires acknowledging failure and demonstrating growth.
Strong marriages shape children, communities, and future leaders.
The Full Circle of Grace
Grace does not erase the past. It redeems it.
Reconciliation with an estranged father after decades of absence is not something effort can manufacture. It is a gift. Being able to bring that father to faith, to be present at the end of his life, and to experience closure is grace in its purest form.
Grace interrupts cycles. It heals generational wounds. It restores what was stolen.
That is why it is unstoppable.
A Message for Leaders and High Performers
If your identity is wrapped in your title, pause. If your worth rises and falls with performance, reflect. If you are avoiding grief, acknowledge it. If you are struggling silently, seek help.
Success does not heal trauma. Faith does not eliminate the need for support. Strength is not found in endurance alone.
Healing is available. Purpose can be rediscovered. Joy can return.
And grace will meet you exactly where you are.
Unstoppable Grace is not just a book title. It is a truth that reaches beyond careers, beyond pain, and beyond the stories we tell ourselves about who we are allowed to become.
