The Tyler Dickerhoof Show

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
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 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
🌐 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: thethingswehidebook.com
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