Ep 274 Victim, Survivor, or Victor? Leading After A Traumatic Attack w/Erika Rothenberger

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 oneThe drawing exercise that showed her what she had been hidingWhy trauma always finds a way out, and why facing it head-on mattersThe pink rubber band and how discomfort builds resilienceWhy grace sits in the middle of "grit, grace, and glitz," and why it's the part most leaders skipA 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 elseEveryone 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 episodeAudacious Expansion by Erika RothenbergerGrit, Grace & Glitz podcastAudacious Woman SummitConnect with Erikaerikarothenberger.comConnect with [email protected]

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 namedThe difference between happiness and joy in your work — and why most driven people never find the second oneIncubator vs. incinerator: how Sean went from burning through people to multiplying themWhat delegation requires before you can let goHow running a Montana Longhorn ranch became a masterclass in stewardship over controlConnect with Sean on LinkedIn or at SeanConlon.comSomething 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 isWhat it looks like to help hundreds of humanitarian aid workers grieve the loss of their entire professional identity — and step into their power anywayWhy 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 themThe 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 boundariesThis 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 ZeledonInstagram: @be.act.changeLinkedIn: Esther ZeledonMentioned in this episode:Creating Your Limitless Life by Dr. Esther ZeledonThe $40 Billion Question FrameworkBe 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 priceHow to move your clients from seeing you as a vendor to treating you as a partnerWhy your best clients may not be telling you the truth — and how to find out what they actually thinkWhat has to happen inside your organization before growth can happen outside of itHow to stop relying on heroics and build a team that can sell the way you doConnect with John:📘 Define Value, Drive Growth — available on Amazon🌐 uvpsolutions.com📧 [email protected]

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: 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 colleaguesWhat that period taught her about the same hiding pattern she sees in leaders every dayWhy being promoted for individual brilliance is often the thing that derails great leadershipAnd 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: 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 Story athttps://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 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: bradsugars.com | 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 joshzolin.comConnect with Josh on LinkedIn👉🏻 Save your seat in the next Lead Without Hiding Challenge HERE.