The Tyler Dickerhoof Show

Most high performers aren’t losing to their competition. They’re losing to the voice in their head that says you’re not enough, so keep going.

Dr. Dave Jones knows that voice well. As a kid he learned early on that scoring goals got him attention, so he scored a lot of them. It worked until 1994, when a slap shot in Kalamazoo shattered his nose and took his identity with it. Then came a coach who said “Let’s go” instead of “Are you okay?” Weeks later, it turned into a moment where a 21-year-old sat alone in the stands asking, What am I doing with my life?

Today Dr. Dave is a sports and performance psychologist. He has spent 25 years working with NHL and NFL athletes, CEOs and ministry leaders. He founded M is Good, a Christian advertising agency that has served more than 1,000 ministries. He also wrote Plan the Win, a book about the toxic motivators that quietly run our lives.

In this conversation, host Tyler Dickerhoof and Dr. Dave look at:

• Why “everything is awesome all the time” is a lie, and why believing it makes you think something’s wrong with you
• The four toxic motivators (fear, lust, anger and pride) and how they show up in the locker room and the boardroom
• Why the CEO and the athlete fight the same monster. It just changes shape into people, power and positions.
• What the Carolina Hurricanes teach about culture: four lines, no superstars and no room for ego
• How Dr. Dave defines a win: glorifying God with your talents while you’re still in the valley
• The two roads to faith, and why it matters which one you mean
• Why gratitude is one of the most powerful performance tools in sports psychology
• The thousand shots principle: expecting results you never prepared for is where frustration lives

Connect with Dr. Dave Jones at: https://misgood.com/

Take the free Toxic Motivators Assessment and get Plan the Win: https://plantowintoday.com/
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/dave-jones-ed-d-87847312/
Read his book Vision Wins: 7 strategies for mental toughness in life and sports https://misgood.com/vision-wins/

Tyler's Lead Without Hiding Challenge: https://www.tylerdickerhoof.com/lwh-challenge

You might be capable, accomplished and well respected, and still carry something you never say out loud. It could be a piece of your past, an old fear, or a feeling that you don’t quite measure up. You’ve gotten good at managing it, and you’ve had a polished answer ready for years.

That hidden story still costs you. It shows up when you avoid a hard conversation, when you need people to like you, or when you can’t be fully present with your team or your family. It keeps you from leading, loving and living with your full potential.

In this episode, host Tyler Dickerhoof talks with Tori DaCosta. She is a former Fortune 50 leader, the founder of Journey Stone, and the author of No Name Bastard.

Tori spent years hiding the fact that her parents weren’t married, quietly ashamed of a story she didn’t choose. Near the end of an executive MBA, she realized “something was missing.” That moment led her to write a book about the stories she’d kept hidden for decades.

It also gave her a gift she now uses with leaders: she can see the hidden thing holding someone back, even when they can’t name it yet.

If you’re tired of performing and ready to lead as your whole self, this conversation gives you a path forward.

In this episode, you’ll learn:

• Why hidden shame keeps its grip until you face it, name it and grow from it
• How people-pleasing works as a prison, and the question that shows whether someone truly cares about you
• The Control, Manage, Influence framework, Tori’s practical model for emotional maturity under pressure
• What adult “temper tantrums” look like, including the quieter ones like going silent and passive aggression
• Why the most emotionally mature person in the room has to go first, and why that is a leader’s job
• The “check it at the door” mistake: what happened when Tori told her team they had permission to be human, and why it made them more loyal, not less
• The “nice” leader trap: how being liked can quietly sabotage accountability
• When to share your story and when not to. Tyler’s test is whether it enhances the relationship or turns into victimhood.
• How to stay human in the age of AI by thinking on your feet and having real conversations

📖 Read the book: No Name Bastard by Tori DaCosta, available on Amazon, Kindle and audiobook
🌐 Work with Tori: https://journeystone.com/
📱 Connect with Tori: @ToriDaCostaLeadership
👩🏼‍💼 LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/toridacosta/

🔥 Join Tyler’s Lead Without Hiding Challenge: a three-day workshop for leaders ready to stop hiding. Learn more at leadwithouthiding.com

You care about the team you lead. You say yes more often than you should. You take on the extra work so your team doesn’t have to. And now you’re running on empty.

Kristen Hadeed knows that place well. She started Student Maid at 19 to buy a pair of jeans. Forty-five people quit on her in one day. She wrote a bestseller about it. Then, more than a decade in, she caught her reflection in a window and didn’t recognize the person looking back.

In this episode, host Tyler Dickerhoof, and Kristen Hadeed dig into the belief that was causing her to drown in shame: “It’s my job to keep people happy.” Where it started. What it cost her. And how she let it go.

In this episode, you’ll learn:

• How to spot the hidden belief driving your leadership decisions
• Why saying no is kind, both to you and to the other person
• The weekly 1–10 capacity check-in Kristen’s team uses to stop burnout before it starts
• Why Navy SEALs train at an 8, not a 10
• How to stop feeling like you have to earn rest
• One simple question that helps you trust your own answer
• A three-line mirror exercise that changes how you talk to yourself

Connect with Kristen:

Website: https://www.kristenhadeed.com/
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/kristenhadeed/
Subscribe to The Impact Driven Leader Newsletter: https://impactdrivenleader.beehiiv.com/subscribe

Join The Lead Without Hiding Challenge: https://www.tylerdickerhoof.com/lwh-challenge

Some of the most complacent leaders are also the hardest working.

That sounds backward. But Marty Hofmann learned that drive and complacency can be the same thing. When you're always chasing the next result, you never stop long enough to be present with the people right in front of you.

Marty grew up on a farm in Iowa, spent eight years as a youth pastor, and built a $15 million real estate portfolio that started with a single $5,000 duplex. He's the author of Kill Complacency, host of the podcast by the same name, and founder of The Forge, a community that helps people stop drifting and build their lives on purpose.

He's also a guy whose wife once told him, "I'm over this." He had been providing for his family without being present with them.

In this conversation, Tyler and Marty talk about the hidden cost of being "Rammy," the word Marty's family used for pushing through people to get results. They get into why validation drives so many leaders, what it cost Marty with his older kids, and the simple practice that turned his life around.

The answer to complacency isn't working harder. It's being intentional.

In this episode:

• Why drive and complacency are often the same problem
• What it means to be results-oriented instead of people-oriented, and what it costs you
• The string illustration: why you can't push people, you have to lead from the front
• Marty's 7 F framework: faith, family, fitness, future self, finance, friends and fun
• How five years of tracked Monday date nights rebuilt his marriage
• Starting with your future self and working backward to today
• Where his need for validation came from as one of ten kids
• The one thing to do first if you sense you're drifting

Resources:

• Marty's book, website and resources: killcomplacency.com
• Kill Complacency on Amazon
• Lead Without Hiding monthly challenge: leadwithouthiding.com

Warning: This episode includes a detailed account of a violent assault. It also mentions sexual assault, eating disorders, and growing up with alcoholic parents.

On the morning of June 16, 2022, Erika Rothenberger pushed back a meeting by 15 minutes. She texted her kids to have a great day. Then she pulled into the parking lot she had used for over 10 years.

A man she had never seen before was waiting.

What happened next changed everything.

Erika is a civil engineer. She has spent more than 20 years in construction, where only about 11% of the workers are women. She had the hard hat, the corner office, the family. She thought she was living a big, bold life. What happened to her that day in June showed her she had been playing it safe. She had also been packing years of pain into a dark "basement" she never meant to open.

In this conversation, Erika sits down with show host and longtime friend Tyler Dickerhoof. She tells the story of what happened to her that day and the three and a half years of trials that came after.

She also shares the moment in her backyard, hood up and body bruised, when her children's laughter reminded her she had a choice. She could stay a victim. She could survive. Or she could thrive.

She chose to thrive. The thing that carried her through was human connection: her husband, her sister, her friends, and people she barely knew who showed up.

Erika and Tyler also talk about:

• What leading in a male-populated industry taught her, and what she learned from a female-populated one
• The drawing exercise that showed her what she had been hiding
• Why trauma always finds a way out, and why facing it head-on matters
• The pink rubber band and how discomfort builds resilience
• Why grace sits in the middle of "grit, grace, and glitz," and why it's the part most leaders skip
• A mentor's question she still asks herself: "Do you want to win the battle and lose the war?"
• Her BOLD method for turning your hardest story into a light for someone else

Everyone gets a wake-up call. Erika's came in a parking lot. Yours may look different, but the choice is the same: what will you do with it?

Mentioned in this episode
Audacious Expansion by Erika Rothenberger
Grit, Grace & Glitz podcast
Audacious Woman Summit

Connect with Erika
https://www.erikarothenberger.com/

Connect with Tyler
Tyler@TylerDickerhoof.com

Sean Conlon raised capital, scaled hard, and exited big. Then COVID shut down all seven of his wedding venues and left him with nothing left to control. What followed wasn't just a business reset. It was a complete reorientation of why he builds companies differently today.

In this conversation, Sean and Tyler get honest about the identity trap hiding inside high performance, and what it looks like to trade an empire mindset for a kingdom one.

You'll learn:

• Why the thing driving your ambition might be an idol you never named
• The difference between happiness and joy in your work — and why most driven people never find the second one
• Incubator vs. incinerator: how Sean went from burning through people to multiplying them
• What delegation requires before you can let go
• How running a Montana Longhorn ranch became a masterclass in stewardship over control

Connect with Sean on LinkedIn or at http://SeanConlon.com

Something hit a nerve? Reach out to Tyler, he'd love to go deeper.

Join the next Lead Without Hiding challenge: LeadWithoutHiding.com

What happens when everything you've built — your contracts, your identity, your network — disappears in a single week?

Dr. Esther Zeledon, founder of Be Act Change and author of Creating Your Limitless Life, knows that answer firsthand.

In this conversation, Esther takes us back to the wound that started everything: a 10-year-old girl watching her father lose his PhD funding, her family's world unraveling mid-school year, and the obsession with advocacy that grew from that moment.

That obsession eventually carried her into humanitarian aid, where she grew a $700K project into a $100M initiative and invented the $40 billion question along the way.

Then January 2026 hit. USAID cuts. Half a million dollars in signed contracts gone in a week. Two months in bed. And then — the pivot that only someone who'd already left once could make.

In this episode, Tyler and Esther explore:

• The $40 billion question: why asking people to dream impossibly big is actually the most practical leadership tool there is
• What it looks like to help hundreds of humanitarian aid workers grieve the loss of their entire professional identity — and step into their power anyway
• Why the organizations we serve can quietly convince us we're nothing without them (and Tyler's four monkeys story that perfectly captures why)
• The difference between saving people and serving them
• The universal fear underneath every high achiever: Do I have value? Am I enough?
• Why the hardest work Esther has ever done isn't coaching others — it's her own boundaries

This is a conversation about what hides beneath titles, credentials, and missions. And what emerges when all of it gets stripped away.

Connect with Dr. Esther Zeledon
Instagram: @be.act.change
LinkedIn: Esther Zeledon

Mentioned in this episode:

• Creating Your Limitless Life by Dr. Esther Zeledon
• The $40 Billion Question Framework
• Be Act Change

You know your product. You've got clients, revenue, a team. But growth has gotten harder and you're not sure why.

Here's what nobody wants to admit: the disconnect between the value you think you deliver and the value your clients actually feel is probably wider than you know. And that gap is costing you deals, loyalty, and the kind of growth you know you're capable of.

In this episode, host Tyler Dickerhoof sits down with John Ravaris — founder of UVP Solutions and author of Define Value, Drive Growth — to show you exactly how to close it.

John spent 35 years inside family-owned businesses learning that sustainable growth isn't a sales problem or a marketing problem. It's a value problem. And it's fixable.

By the end of this conversation, you'll know:

• Why price objections are almost never really about price
• How to move your clients from seeing you as a vendor to treating you as a partner
• Why your best clients may not be telling you the truth — and how to find out what they actually think
• What has to happen inside your organization before growth can happen outside of it
• How to stop relying on heroics and build a team that can sell the way you do

Connect with John:
📘 Define Value, Drive Growth — available on Amazon
🌐 http://uvpsolutions.com
📧 john@uvpsolutions.com

Most leaders think they're in control of how they lead. They're not.
Underneath every decision, reaction, and every room you walk into is something that's running the show. A fear that never got named. A wound that never got faced. A wall that got built so long ago you forgot it was there.

In this episode, host Tyler Dickerhoof shares his new book — The Things We Hide — and reads from the opening chapters.

Tyler opens with the moment that changed everything, the afternoon his three-year-old brother Joel died on their family farm, and the wall a fourteen-year-old boy built in the hours that followed. A wall that would quietly run his leadership, his relationships, and his life for the next twenty-five years.

In this episode you'll learn:

✅ The four walls leaders build from fear: Intensity, Insensitivity, Isolation, Inactivity
✅ How to identify the core insecurity driving your leadership before it costs you the people around you
✅ Why your greatest growth won't come from doing more, only from being more yourself
✅ The one exercise that changes things for you: naming what you've never said out loud

📖 Get The Things We Hide — available now: http://thethingswehidebook.com
🔔 Subscribe for weekly conversations on leadership, self-awareness, and what it actually takes to lead well.

What if the greatest obstacle to your leadership isn't your experience? What if it's the disconnect between how you think you're showing up as a leader and how your team experiences you?

Caroline Webb, economist turned McKinsey partner turned executive coach, and author of the brand-new book Leadership Intelligence joins show host, Tyler Dickerhoof to discuss her time at the Bank of England forecasting national economies. And later spending three decades inside the world's most high-stakes boardrooms studying one question: what is the human brain doing when a leader tries to lead?

What emerges from this conversation is something rarely discussed: the most important variable in any organization isn't market conditions, competitive pressure, or strategy.

It's the interior life of the person at the top. You, the leader of it all.

In this episode:

• Caroline shares the moment she stopped hiding an 8-month health crisis from her boss and colleagues
• What that period taught her about the same hiding pattern she sees in leaders every day
• Why being promoted for individual brilliance is often the thing that derails great leadership
• And the neuroscience of why stress makes leaders either aggressive or invisible — and how both responses shrink the very solution space they need most.

You can connect with Caroline at: https://carolinewebb.co/

And grab a copy of her book Leadership Intelligence: Science Backed Strategies for Mastering 21 Everyday Management Challenges

🔥 Tyler's Lead Without Hiding Challenge: http://leadwithouthiding.com — offered once a month.

There's a version of success nobody warns you about. The one where you've built something meaningful, achieved significance, and then handed it over. Suddenly the thing that defined you for decades is gone, and you're left wondering who you are without it.

Matt Friedman built Wing Zone from $500 and a fraternity kitchen into a 140-location franchise across six countries. He spent 27 years pouring himself into that brand. And when he finally sold it, he discovered something uncomfortable: he had no idea what came next, and he'd been hiding that from himself for years.

In this conversation, Matt pulls back the curtain on the quiet identity crisis that follows a major exit, the arrogance that crept in during the peak years, and why the things he never examined about himself were exactly the things that held him back as a leader.

He also shares what it took to rebuild — not the business, but himself — and why the five years between selling Wing Zone and stepping in as CEO of Epic Wings were the most important of his career.

If you're a leader approaching a transition, sitting in one, or quietly dreading the moment your title no longer tells you who you are, this conversation is for you. Matt talks honestly about what to plan for, what most people get wrong about exiting, and why the most important work you'll ever do isn't building the company — it's deciding who you want to be when it's done.

Learn more about Matt on LinkedIn Here.

Or visit his website and grab a copy of his book The Wing Zone Storyat

https://mattfriedman.com/

88% of organizational changes produce no lasting results. Harvard-trained behavioral scientist Jeff Wetherhold says the reason isn't resistance, it's that we've been teaching leaders the wrong skills for decades.

In this conversation, Jeff and host, Tyler Dickerhoof, revel why inner work alone doesn't translate into better leadership, why "buy-in" is a trap, and why directive communication is quietly destroying trust inside organizations.

Jeff brings more than 20 years of clinical change science into a surprisingly practical conversation about what it takes to lead people through uncertainty, how to listen for motivation and demotivation, why reflecting beats questioning in hard conversations, and how vulnerability stops being a buzzword and becomes a real skill.

Connect with Jeff at http://jeffwetherhold.com.

What hides inside you controls you. What you face transforms you.

In this episode, host Tyler Dickerhoof sits down with Brad Sugars — founder and CEO of ActionCOACH, the world's number one business coaching franchise with over 1,000 locations across 80 countries. Brad built a global empire, yet for years quietly avoided the spotlight. It took Gary Vaynerchuk telling him to "suck it up" in front of a thousand people to shift that.

What followed was a deeper question: what are you hiding, and what is it costing you?

Brad and Tyler dig into the real reasons business owners refuse to get out of their own way, the three stages of growth from manager to CEO to chairperson, and why the business is always building you whether you're ready or not. Brad shares his formula for goal-setting and action, why "how" is the enemy of every great goal, and what it took to blow up everything he built and rebuild it for a billion-dollar vision.

If you're a business owner stuck in your own business, a leader who finds it lonely at the top, or someone who's been playing small because of a wound you haven't named yet, you'll enjoy this conversation.

📲 Find Brad: http://bradsugars.com | http://actioncoach.com | Instagram @bradleysugars (DM him the word "playbook" for his success framework)

On this episode, host Tyler Dickerhoof, sits down with Josh Zolin, former Hollywood stuntman turned CEO of Windy City Equipment, an eight-figure HVAC company he inherited from his father and built into an Inc. 5000 business.

Josh unpacks the leadership shift that changed everything for him: moving from telling people what to do, to asking questions that help them conclude it themselves. He goes deep on authenticity (and why the word itself can breed inauthenticity), the difference between power and force, what it really means to lead with empathy, and how vulnerability in a boardroom — or a termination meeting — can be your greatest asset.

Josh is also the author of Blue Is the New White and host of the podcast Everything They Don't Tell You.

Learn more at http://joshzolin.com

Connect with Josh on LinkedIn

👉🏻 Save your seat in the next Lead Without Hiding Challenge HERE.

Host Tyler Dickerhoof sits down with Erika Alessandrini — executive coach, facilitator, and author of Maybe It's Me — for a raw, honest conversation about what it really costs to be a high performer.

Erika spent over two decades in corporate leadership before a brutally honest 360 review cracked open something she couldn't ignore: the results were real, but so was the damage.

This conversation takes you down the childhood wounds that drive adult overachievement, the difference between controlling and leading, and why the people who need this work most are often the last ones to see it.

Key Talking Points:

• Why high performers stay stuck: the beliefs that fuel chronic overcommitment and under-satisfaction
• Erika's 360 feedback wake-up call, and why she still didn't believe it at first
• Growing up with an alcoholic father and learning that performance = protection
• The difference between control and shared power. Why one destroys relationships
• How fear disguises itself as responsibility and caring
• The "justification + postponement" pattern that keeps high performers stuck for years
• Erika's nonprofit work at Aileron and her new program, Becoming a Leader at Peace

Connect with Erika on LinkedIn

Learn more about Erika: Website

Get a copy of Erika's Book: Maybe It's Me

Subscribe: The Impact Driven Leader Newsletter

Ten seconds left. Down by one. His teammate is one point away from a milestone most players never reach. He has the shot. He doesn't take it. That single decision is the philosophy behind this episode.

Record-setting former Wisconsin high school basketball coach and author Hunter Price joins host, Tyler Dickerhoof, to expose the lie almost every team believes: that everyone in the room "cares." They don't. Not really. And until you can tell the difference, you're coaching, managing, or leading blind.

Hunter introduces his framework of four team archetypes: the Sloth (selfless but doesn't work hard), the Vortex (works hard but selfish), the Ally, and the Heartbeat — the rare person whose work ethic and selflessness pull the whole team forward.

Tyler and Hunter dig into real world leadership examples including:

• Why comparison was the biggest mindset shift Hunter had to make to grow as a leader
• The generational shift from "what" to "how" to "why," and why today's teams need to trust you before they'll follow you
• Calling people "up" instead of calling them "out"
• Why hiring an assistant is really a test of pride and humility
• An unfiltered MJ vs. LeBron debate that turns into a lesson on leadership identity

Whether you're coaching a team, running a company, or leading a family, this conversation will change how you think about what it means to care.

Connect with Hunter: http://v3content.org

Ever walked out of a meeting agreeing with everything, then immediately started venting about it in the hallway? That's called back-channeling and it's a silent culture killer.

On this episode of the Tyler Dickherhoof show, Tyler sits down with Laurie Maddalena, certified speaking professional and author of The Elevated Leader, to unpack the six leadership saboteurs quietly wrecking teams everywhere.

• Lack of self-awareness
• Lack of focus
• Lack of delegation
• Lack of team engagement
• Conflict avoidance
• And passive leadership

Laurie shares a raw story from her own career — watching a brilliant CEO give his team the silent treatment for three days after a disagreement — and what it taught her about psychological safety, insecurity, and why "toxic boss management" shouldn't be an employee's job.

In this episode you'll learn:

• Why the shift from traditional to facilitative leadership demands a completely different skill set
• The parallel between today's AI overload and the email/cell phone disruption of 2006
• Why delegation is really a driving lesson: bumps, scrapes, and all
• The "80% rule" that frees up your time and grows your team

Connect with Laurie: https://www.lauriemaddalena.com/

On LinkedIn: @lauriemaddalena

What does a heavy metal guitarist turned military weapons storage CEO know about leadership? A lot more than you'd expect.

Tom Kubiniec built Secure It Gun Storage into the global leader in military armory design — supplying the U.S. Army, Marine Corps, and law enforcement agencies worldwide. But for years, he kept hitting the same ceiling: $5 million in sales, three different companies, same problem every time.

The culprit? He was managing when he should have been leading.

In this episode, Tom shares the mindset shift that took his company from $5M to $18M in four years, and why the hardest part had nothing to do with strategy.

You'll hear:

• Why delegating felt like becoming irrelevant (and why he did it anyway)
• The "generals don't dig foxholes" principle that changed everything
• How near-bankruptcy forced him into an $800M market he never saw coming
• Why telling people what to do — instead of how — unlocks performance you didn't know your team had
• The fail-fast framework he uses to course correct without losing momentum

Connect with Tom on LinkedIn

Or visit his website at: SecureItTactical

YouTube: @SecureItLegacy

What if everything you've been told about leadership only covers 10% of the picture?

Mark Miller, co-author of the international bestseller The Secret, former VP at Chick-fil-A, and co-founder of Lead Every Day, joins show host Tyler Dickerhoof to expose why 82% of managers still can't lead effectively, and why most leadership training is destined to fail before it starts.

In this episode, Tyler and Mark dig into:

• The iceberg model of leadership and why most organizations are only developing the visible tip
• Why promoting your best doers into leadership roles is quietly destroying your team
• The difference between delegating and developing, and the fear that keeps leaders stuck
• The 5 fundamentals every leader must master (and the one that matters most)
• Why busyness is the real leadership crisis — and how to escape the quicksand before it buries you

Connect with Mark Miller:
📱 678-612-8441
🌐 http://leadeveryday.com

The Secret, 4th Edition is available now.

She had the apartment, the travel, the income, the friends — everything that should've meant she'd "made it." Then she fell 20 feet and everything stopped.

Christie Garcia is a leadership coach, Forbes Coaches Council contributor, founder of the Mindful Choice Leadership Academy, and author of Your Ego Is Showing.

In this episode, she and host Tyler Dickerhoof, unpack the three ego types — the Complier, the Protector, and the Controller — and why every single one of them is just insecurity wearing a costume.

They get into why "self-awareness" isn't the same as ownership, why high achievers are often the most insecure people in the room, and why your ego thrives in the climb but sabotages you the moment you become a leader, a parent, or a partner.

Christie also shares the framework she now uses to help executives — and her own kids — recognize when their ego is driving instead of them.

If you've ever wondered why success didn't fix the thing you thought it would, this conversation will hit close to home.

Connect with Christie at: http://mindfulchoiceacademy.com

On LinkedIn: @ChristieGarcia

If this episode brought value into your life, a rating and review helps more people find conversations like this one. Thank you!