#55: Are You Playing Small? The Truth About Your Untapped Superpower with Tyler Dickerhoff

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Eric:  Welcome to the Empower Podcast. I'm your host, Eric Pfeiffer, CEO of Empower. Coaching leadership isn't about titles or positions. It's actually about the influence and impact we have on our environments. This is where we get to learn how to operate well under pressure, lead with confidence and drive meaningful results.

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Eric: Good. Alright,  great. Thank you. Thank you for the encouragement. You're so encouraging. Thank, I wanna, I wanna give a little back drop. First of all, for our listeners, my throat is a mess 'cause I'm still fighting a virus, so forgive me for all the throat clearing.

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Eric: Yeah. I'm sorry. For, for our listeners, Tyler is, uh,  is, uh, shiny bull. A cleanly shaven man. Handsome at that. But it's not until you spend concentrated time with people that you really get to know them.

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Because I know that's so much, um, a part of what you're doing with your work in this season. And then you are. Getting ready to release a  book.

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Two things that you said in there that, um, I, I'm  proud, I, I, I say it with pride, I say it with, um, significance that you mentioned. One that I truly did show up as genuine and authentic and person. Um, I have a mentor that, uh, he is the epitome of that to me. And people are like, oh, you know, he is great. He's written a lot of books.

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Tyler: You, you, you, you know, help others accomplish more than what they thought they could. I'm like, I appreciate that  because that is, is part of my purpose.

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There's something that, that came up in the last, it's come up this week, but it's, it's been in the last, now I would say 16, 18 hours with a, a conversation with someone. And when you talk about the difference between  superpower and you kind of, I think layered it in very well, superpower, if it's done right, is in service of others.

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Tyler: it's not serving others because I'm not maximizing what I'm uniquely gifted at to bring out the best in others, but I'm not acting in a way as to hurt and  harm others. It's essentially I'm isolating and I'm placing myself on an island and I'm doing whatever.

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Tyler: Okay. In my business background, if someone says, or if you present yourself as  irreplaceable, you've just, you've ended your life.

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And then your friend was also doing that for you. And I think for our listeners too often people go through a lot of life without being able to identify their quote unquote superpowers. The unique contributions that they  bring to any context that. Has the capacity to lift others. Mm-hmm. And when it's in service of others.

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Eric: Right. How, how the superpowers are first exposed or experienced or discovered. And then this journey of learning to use those superpowers in a way that is in service of others. So on that note, let's use that as the kind of framework for our conversation today, and take us back as far as you want. And kinda walk us through because you don't get to who you are and what you're doing today without going on a, on a pretty lengthy  journey.

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Ended up in California as a nutritionist for dairy cows. So I lived in, predominantly throughout my  living time in California. I lived in Bakersfield, worked with dairy farms, and I created diets for cows to make them productive and healthy and cost efficient for dairy farmers. Um, along that journey, uh, I got kicked in the teeth a few times, um, whether it was oh 7, 8, 0 8 financial, you know, issues, whether it was my own.

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Tyler: My job was actually working with the farmers, not taking care of the cows. Were happy, but the farmers were like, either it was, you know. I didn't have a, a right business sense or interactive sense and stuff that I just wasn't aware of. And,  and one of the things that, again, we go these superpowers and kind of, they can become your achilles heel, they can become your quote unquote kryptonite when you rely on 'em so much that you almost, um, overdo it.

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And then we got to a point where my wife and I, um, my wife had been exposed to network marketing. Never thought she was gonna, you know, ever do anything like that, decided hey. I can do this. Um, and so that became very much a business career for both of us. We also opened a gym, um, and it was in that, again, new industry, a new phase, and having a culture very much that was aligned to growth and personal  development.

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And, um, it, it's the  story of two Johns one, a very close friend, John Rulon, who, um. Had a, wrote a book called Giftology Phenomenal. Um, and he Cutco business and he taught me this is like, Hey, if, if I were to ask you, Eric, what's your favorite knife? Your sharpest knife, you could probably describe exactly where it's at in the kitchen, which drawer, which cabinet, what it looks like, right?

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Eric: Oof. Okay, so  now take that, that principle, which is so powerful, and walk me through, walk our listeners through what did it mean then for you to become the sharpest knife? What does, what, what does that actually, practically look like for you in that season?

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What is your purpose? WI tell this story in my book about a, uh, uh, a situation that happened in my life  when I was 14 growing up on a farm. Um, my brother, my younger brother who was three, died in a farming accident. I drove over him and why that story is important is. Going back and through this journey of evolution Fi seeking mentorship, and why is this so hard?

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Right. I'm not telling you about situation that most leaders don't have In some extent. Yeah. It's

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And I, it's an accident. It was an accident and it was an accident. It was an accident, and he keeps grilling and finally I'm fed up. I'm like, here's the deal. Point to my left, I'm gonna go in that barn and milk those cows. If you wanna come with me, great. If not, we're done. And as a 14-year-old and a, and a middle aged, you know, police officer, uh, you know, sheriff asking me questions, I  think about the intensity, the, the, the, the resolve to be in that moment.

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And those things were relationships. And so that, that hard work, that willingness to just do, to be all the utensils in the drawer did not win me favors. If anything, it separated me, not in a good way. And so what I had to almost relearn is say, oh, back off a little bit. You don't have to be so forceful, just figure  out what's the one thing that you can do.

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Again, coming back to this, what is your superpower? Identifying it, but knowing each one of us have it, but sometimes it, it, it's pretty benign. Unless you have someone that comes beside  you and says, Hey Eric, you know what you're really good at when you do this, man? Oh, everyone else performs better. And I thought about John Wooden.

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And so I came up with this acronym. Best it's be Aware. Now  as a leader, you get to help other people be aware, but there's also taken inventory. It's like, what do I do that man, man, it just lights me up. I, I just, I get excited and it, it's like I, it's easy to do. Okay? Just be aware again, understand, where's that knife?

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Really, I need to work on my finishing moves when I'm a defender. Really, it doesn't really compute. That isn't how I can serve the team. So  be aware. That's enough. The next one, serve whatever you're doing with whatever that is, needs to be in service of others. How's that helping the people around you? And the last one, I think as a.

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So if I'm a forward and I'm back defending and all of a sudden I'm within the six and I see ball, I just shoot at goal, that's not gonna help my team. Is it? That's an own goal. Well, to vice versa. If you're a defender and you  know, if I see the ball in the six, I am passing it out. I am clearing it. It's a frack.

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Eric: Okay, so let me, let me pause you here because  is this acronym, which I think is beautiful, best, is this in the new book?

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You seemed ready at any moment to help to serve and. But you didn't get there  overnight. You weren't born with that knowledge and that, that kind of wisdom. So you, you had to get there. So I'm assuming all of your life experience, then your time as, uh, in, as a mentee of John Maxwell, and then in engaging with other people, you have slowly but surely discovered more and more the authentic version of who Tyler Dickoff is.

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Eric: Coming out here in June, you just, you just, you just alluded to it so. You're alluding now to the  challenge of not just discovering our superpowers, but leveraging them in service of others or operating according to this acronym. Best.

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When I talked to some of my coaches that worked with me, starting when I was eight, doing different things. I was in four H and doing different competitions and stuff  who worked with me from eight until 18, and I asked him a couple years ago as I was working through, it's just like, how did my brother's Jeff death change me?

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And that's where if I look at like my siblings, my parents, and the, the  things that uniquely we have is kind of this hard workers, well grew up on a farm, just kind of cultural, but it's also very unique to a detriment. Because that hard work, that intensity has become a bulldozer. It'll just push through people or it create, puts us on an island where you are the only one that can do this, so therefore you're stuck there.

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Hey, there's plenty of time for me to be the knife for Thanksgiving. If that's all I am the knife for Thanksgiving, great. I let somebody else be the knife for Christmas and Easter and special holidays of fine. You can have more than one knife in your kitchen.  Right? And it's, as a leader, it's understanding that.

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And so we're gonna like overplay ourselves in in different situations  and we're gonna force our value into other people's lives. We're gonna be bigger and smarter and faster and funnier and more intense. And we're, we're gonna, you know what I'm saying? We're gonna, we're gonna, we're gonna impose our value

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Eric: My value is not in, can I prove to you that I have value? My value is in can I communicate your value? Because when we're doing things in service of others, what we're actually communicating is you are valuable and I want  to serve your value. So it's, it's an interesting concept that rather than trying to garner our own personal value or establish our own value by demonstrating all of these different skills and intelligence and, you know, things, we actually demonstrate our real value when we recognize and serve the value of other human beings.

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John wrote the for of my book. Great for that. But I've sat with him. I said, the greatest problem leaders have is, is what we've  bounced around, but we haven't directly said. The biggest problem leaders have is insecurity.

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It's a human  condition. As long as people have been alive, they've written and documented it. Thousands and thousands of years. And what happens is, to your point, we can either overdo it, be that super intense. Or I identified in myself, there were kind of four ways that I would show up. I call 'em the four walls.

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You have a childcare issue. Too bad. The job needs done. Right. And, and going back to the story with the trainer, being sick is like, okay, sorry. Just I grew up on a farm. There was never sick days. Sorry. Just do it right. And, and that insensitivity, and it can show up in a lot of different ways. It can be to the  point where as a leader, you stop hearing from other people.

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Intensity. Yep. And let me,  I'm gonna reference from your excerpt. So you, you're talking about intensity as the, the temptation to push harder, move faster, and overwhelm, overwhelm others in order to feel safe.

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And, and, and this, the, the best way to describe it is, say  for example, you have an employee and you're like, man, they're just, they're not cutting the mustard. Right. They're, they're just not, and you're like, but if we have a conversation with them, it's just gonna be hard. They're gonna get defensive. I, uh, you know what?

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I need to leave an  abusive, difficult job or relationship. But man, oh, if I leave it could be worse. Or, you know, then I don't have a job, so I'm, I'm just gonna stay there. It's the inactivity as as a expression of our fear and insecurity of what's on the other side of that wall.

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Tyler: He just walks away, right? You go up to your boss and you're like, Hey, we need to have a conversation. He's like,  and just leaves. Or the person that is like, I don't wanna work on a team. I just want to be all by myself. So no one's accountable to me.

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Eric: And they're in that season where they're dating and  you know, connecting with other people. And my son the other day goes out on a date and. He asked this girl out, really proud of him, right? He didn't even slide into her dms, just went up to her, said, Hey, I'd like to get your name and number.

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Tyler: Ghosting in the fact that it's not, it, it, it's, and again, that's where inactivity in isolation can get very similar. They share a corner inactivity is like, oh, I know I need to say, but maybe they'll just find someone else as opposed to, I'm not even going to engage what I might need to do.

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No, it's rejection. It, it, it's rejection. And rejection is directly, am I worthy? Do I have value? And so it comes back  to that and, and so I saw that, man, these walls would show up. Now I lean against the wall intensity the most. That's the one where I feel the most comfort, but. I've been insensitive. I, I've, you know, chosen inactivity.

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Eric: I want our listeners to get this book. I can't wait to read it. I'm super excited. 'cause you're putting. It, it's not that the concepts you're talking about are foreign to me, but what I love about what you're doing is you're, you're, you're putting unique language and, and metaphors and imagery like these walls is a powerful imagery around what we hide behind to protect against our own insecurities, our  own doubt about our own self-worth.

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That's not, I'm, I told you this earlier, right? I'm getting older. I  like, I look at some of these pictures of me for the book. I'm like, man, I'm getting old. Right? That's what I see. Here's the reality. When we look in the mirror, it's at our intentions. When we look through the window, it's our actions. We can look in the mirror and, and people say, oh, the uh, A leader's gotta look in the mirror like you can.

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Eric, you and I, we, we have this language. We're sitting in a meeting and you're like, Tyler,  you're getting a little intense. Thanks, man. Sorry. I wasn't sure how I fit here. My insecurity was showing. Great. I got it. I understand. And, and vice versa. Eric, dude, you checked out what happened? Like, we, we gotta handle this situation.

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Tyler: And then own it. 'cause whatever you see. Is reality. Now, I, I don't have to absolutely agree with it, right? I can go ask you, I can ask Don, I can ask Kelly, my wife. I can ask, you know, six other people and they're all gonna have a little bit different perspective. But guess what? They're not going to have my perspective.

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Tyler: when the walls are lined with windows, that's when you're  authentic.

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Number two, we also need those windows because we need the feedback that you mentioned earlier, which is we need people to help us identify those superpowers. The unique contribution, like what are we, the sharpest knife in the, in  the, in the, in the kitchen for,

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The difference between insecurity and, and, and fixing that insecurity and getting to authentic vulnerability, which leads to a  connection. It utilizes utilizing the tool of empathy. I define empathy as putting your arms around someone and walking with them. That means you have to go at the same pace as them.

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None of us need that. But authentic vulnerability is what can I share? How can I engage? How can I expose who I am to enhance our connection? And if I do  that, then I can lead you, then I can influence you and vice versa.

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Still the same wood. So if we think, oh, I, I am who I am, all you're doing is a piece, a log  that's giving everyone splinters, stop,

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Eric: In a minute or two, what  is your purpose? What is your mission? What is it that, what is it that you are wanting to leverage your superpowers in service of others for?

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Eric: You know what's interesting to me is when you, you said you were, your kind of  purpose statement is to help other people accomplish what they didn't think was possible.

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I mean, for any human being. If they, if we would choose to adopt a life. Mission or purpose statement of to help other people accomplish more than they thought possible. We would become an asset in absolutely every environment we went into that that is, I think, the secret to unlocking our value.  For ourselves and for others.

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Buy five, buy 25. Buy it for your organization, because give them, you're alluded to it earlier. It becomes a common language, and now all of a sudden, you know, how well can people face their fears and insecurities, right? And all of a sudden we talk about the things we hide. Just as a, as a moment  to, to end here, uh, I listened to the podcast with Carl Lens, former pastor at Hillsong United and Carrie Nho.

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The Tyler Dicker Ofof Show, as you see here, where great guests like Eric, multiple  time guests like Eric, great conversations like this. Um, you can find that stuff there too.

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Eric: Hey, thanks for tuning into this powerful episode. Today's conversation is a great reminder that  leadership isn't just about what you do, it's about who you are becoming.