IDL132 Season 3: DIG: Discovery Through Adversity with Thomas Williams
Why should you make intentional time for discomfort in your routine? Have you ever wondered how much untapped potential and strength you have? How many conveniences do you have in your life?
Welcome back! Today’s guest is Thomas Williams. He’s a speaker and an author, and together we enjoy an engaging conversation about adversity. We discuss the value of adversity, and how you can learn about yourself by making difficult decisions. Thomas also shares his experiences with mentors, and what it means to dig deep.
Meet Thomas Williams
Thomas R. Williams is the author of Dig, Permission to DREAM, and The Relentless Pursuit of Greatness. He is a Professional Speaker, NFL Player Engagement Ambassador, and Philanthropist.
As a professional speaker Mr. Williams is a member of The Jon Gordon Speaking team and communicates with great passion and purpose on “The Energy Bus” and “Training Camp.”
One of Thomas’ main passions is coaching both college and professional athletes on the inevitable transition to life beyond the scoreboard. Thomas serves as an NFL Player Engagement Ambassador, teaching college student athletes about character, leadership and the NFL evaluation process.
When Thomas isn’t traveling the globe impacting lives, he is serving as the Director of “Pursuits of Greatness.” His nonprofit was developed to help college student athletes prepare for life after their playing career, by giving them custom tailored suits once the athlete has exhausted all athletic eligibility.
Visit Thomas William’s website and connect on Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, and YouTube.
IN THIS EPISODE WE DISCUSS:
How much untapped strength do you have? 06:38
Seek out intentional discomfort and small changes 7:25
Convenience kills discipline 10:40
The importance of mentorship 10:00
Choose responsibilities over feelings 22:52
How much untapped strength do you have?
Unless you experience situations of high stress or difficulty or you need to overcome difficult mental or physical challenges, you may never truly know how much strength you have inside of you.
Suffering is not pleasant but with the right mindset, you can turn it into a moment of realizing your deeper strength, untapped potential, and come to understand a little more of what you have to offer yourself and the world.
“So many times a lot of us think that we’ve hit our limits, we’ve hit our peak, and that we’re tapped out, and I’m here to tell you that you haven’t even hit your limit. You couldn’t even imagine the capacity of the strength that you have. ”
Your mind stops you way before your body does as a way to protect you. However, you often have much more within you. You are stronger – mentally, physically, and emotionally – than you may realize.
“Internally, we have so much more [than what we think] and we never reach it because we stop at the place where we get uncomfortable as opposed to the place where we’re actually uncomfortable. ”
Seek out intentional discomfort and small changes
Your life is sustained and also limited by your habits and routines. You will not develop or challenge yourself if you stick to your daily routines without ever pushing yourself further.
If you want to experience it, schedule some time into your routine for these growth challenges, such as:
- Trying a new workout at the gym
- Going to a country where English isn’t widely spoken or spoken at all
- Putting yourself in a situation where you experience things that are totally new for you
“When you get uncomfortable, whether it’s going to the restroom in public and having to pay a dollar and seeing their circumstances, or they point you to your room and it’s smaller than a twin-sized bed … be grateful, be gracious … and then when you step outside it’s actually because you have less that you can be happier. ”
Convenience kills discipline
The greatest place to be open to growth is when you are outside of your regular comfort zone.
Putting yourself in a new environment where you have to try different things, problem-solve, communicate in a new way, and think fast all challenge you to develop yourself beyond who you currently are and what you currently know and think about the world.
“When you talk about anybody getting outside of their normalcy and they’re actually in adversity, that’s the greatest place to grow, and what I mean by that is that convenience kills discipline.”
The importance of mentorship
Mentorship is one of the most critical things that you could ever award yourself with because it has two things:
- Humility: you may feel a desire to work with a mentor because you can feel that there is more that you can be doing, or doing better, but you don’t know how to.
- Admiration: working with someone that inspires you and, on the flip side, to work with someone that sees greatness in you and wants to help you wield it.
“The only shortcut in life is learning from the mistakes of others … I can take five years to learn this painfully myself, or I could ask [for] advice and seek mentorship. ”
Whom can you ask for mentorship that shares your values, desires for the future, and vision for your skills?
Choose responsibilities over feelings
Most of the time, feelings are fleeting. They shift day to day and can sway you from the commitments that you made.
One of the cornerstones of discipline is working on the commitments that you made to others as well as yourself.
Sure, your feelings may be strong and you will know when they are asking you to make a change, but most of the time you need to pick your commitments over the fleeting feelings of a day.
“My responsibility is to keep my commitment. My responsibility is [to be] a father to show up even when I don’t want to … that responsibility [should] drive our feelings as opposed to our feelings driving our responsibility. ”
Resources, books, and links mentioned in this episode:
BOOK | Thomas R. Williams – Dig: Discover Your Depth, Determination, and Destiny Through Adversity
Attend the next Ideas on Stage web class
Level Up Your Leadership with the free 4 Days To Maximum Impact Course!
Sign up for the roundtable at: hello@theimpactdrivenleader.com
Check out the Practice Of the Practice
About the Impact Driven Leader Podcast
The Impact Driven Leader Podcast, hosted by Tyler Dickerhoof, is for Xillennial leaders who have felt alone and ill-equipped to lead in today's world. Through inspiring interviews with authors from around the world, Tyler uncovers how unique leadership strengths can empower others to achieve so much more, with real impact.
Rate, review and subscribe here on Apple Podcasts or subscribe on Stitcher and Spotify.
So many times a lot of us think that we’ve hit our limits, we’ve hit our peak, and that we’re tapped out, and I’m here to tell you that you haven’t even hit your limit.
Thomas Williams
Podcast Transcription
Tyler Dickerhoof (00:00:08) - Hey, welcome back to the Impact Driven Leader podcast. This your host, Tyler Dickerhoof. If you're listening on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Stitcher, or wherever you listen to podcasts. Man, I'm so grateful you're here. Either you are a subscriber, one of the many subscribers to this podcast, or somebody got great value out of this episode and they shared it with you. And for that, I am tremendously grateful. One because I get to spend time with you. Two that you get to hear from my friend Thomas Williams. Today's guest on this podcast is Thomas Williams. Thomas is a speaker. He's an author. He and I have done an event together. We did an event a couple of years ago. We're friends and I'm so excited to have this conversation. Not only do we two friends that get to catch up, but as well we get to talk about life's adversity, challenges as leaders, as parents, this melting pot, the seeds of change that we're in right now, but more importantly, a topic that I'm going to discuss in this podcast.
Tyler Dickerhoof (00:01:07) - And then I'm going to follow up in our next episode where I discuss mentors. I'm going to share in the next episode how I chose one of my mentors and mentor I discuss in this episode and as well in this conversation with Thomas, Thomas shares a lot, and he talks about mentors in his book dig. The byline title of that is Discover Your Depth, determination, and Destiny through adversity. Not only do we talk about digging and digging deep and and learning to go, but also what it means that, you know, adversity. If we force ourselves into adversity, that actually builds our resilience. Thomas shares one of these points in this conversation. I'll get into so much more afterwards, but that convenience kills discipline. I'm excited you're here if you're watching on YouTube. As we continually grow and subscribers there, you also get a piece of each one of these episodes that I release through the week as I leave a just a quick 2 or 3 minute live video shows on YouTube on social channels as well.
Tyler Dickerhoof (00:02:15) - But if you're a subscriber on YouTube, you will get that notification and love to have you join me throughout the week. Again, thanks for being here and I'll catch you at the end of this conversation. Thomas. Good to see you, man.
*Thomas Williams * (00:02:36) - Oh my man. What's up brother? How are you doing?
Tyler Dickerhoof (00:02:38) - I'm so excited. I'm so excited to have this conversation. It's been a minute since we've caught up, so it's been an opportunity where now, 20 minutes into this conversation of just catching up, talking about life, and you just shared a piece with me that I knew, you know, from previous conversations that you've taken adventures in life, you, you know, at one point in life when you got done playing professionally, you went to Australia. You just told me about, you know, Amsterdam. And then we were talking about the latest trip you had, Peru. And one thing that I want to ask is we jump off into this conversation. We're going to talk about your book, dig.
Tyler Dickerhoof (00:03:09) - But tell me about the correlation between the yearning for that adventure and digging deeper in what you learn in those adventures, and how that really does apply to this book.
*Thomas Williams * (00:03:22) - Yeah, man. You know, it's it's funny that first and foremost, people, people have been asking me about, like, the book, like how much of this book is your story? And I think that there's it has nothing to do with me because it's a fable. But I think it has everything to do with the past, as well as some of the places that you want to go and some of the things that you want to accomplish. And so for me, I had to dig deep in Peru. And so I'm about a week back home, kind of back at elevation. And it's wild because you think you come to the Mile High. My family and I live in Denver. You come to Mile High and you're up there, and then finally you get to a place like Peru and you look down at your watch and it looks at 11,500ft and you're like, excuse me? What do you mean? I'm I'm double of what I just came from.
*Thomas Williams * (00:04:10) - And one of the things about the trip to Peru, I thought it was going to be relaxation, but it was actually about me stepping into several different comfort zones. Obviously, I went to the place where everybody takes Instagram pictures and went to Machu Picchu, and then somebody points to me and says, hey, see that mountain over there? That's that's the one people actually come here to climb. And I'm thinking, all right, fine, I'll go do it. And so I start out on this journey of climbing and I was freaked out. Tyler and several parts along the way. I actually tried to tried to go back and I tried to go back down to the bottom, but something inside of me was I kept seeing my family's face of, you know what? If my family was here? And I told them, hey guys, we're done climbing, we're done going. And they're like, yeah, but is this the end? And I turned to him and I go, no, it's not the end.
*Thomas Williams * (00:04:59) - But but it's the end for me. And what I learned in those moments, Tyler was first and foremost, I was praying to God as I was climbing up. It's called One-Eyed Picchu, which means young mountain. Machu Picchu is old mountain one two. Picchu means young mountain. And so I'm climbing young mountain. And as I'm going up there, I just keep praying to God. And God says, each time you come into an adverse situation, you think that it's you and you, but it's actually you and us. And I'm literally climbing and God goes, you call on me because I'm the strongest one. You know, I call on the Trinity because they're the strongest that I know. So when he was telling me it's wild because he was telling me that every adverse situation I'm in is that it's me and them. That's why he said us. And so he brings the father, the Holy Spirit in Jesus into all of the situations. And that's what was able to get me to the top of the mountain.
*Thomas Williams * (00:05:56) - And I think in most situations I have felt like it's just me and me, whether it's running the household, whether it's family with Taylor and parenting with our kids, I always feel like it's me. And that's a heck of a lot of pressure when you feel like it's just you. But anytime I'm able to channel into the Holy Spirit that he gives me strength that I didn't even know that I had. And a couple of days after hiking one two Picchu, I'm on the side of another mountain getting ready to zip line. And so you're you're about 1500 steps. Just almost picture a ladder climbing hand over hand, foot over foot. And you're doing this for 90 minutes. And a couple of times I tried to quit and making it to the top of this mountain and zip lining down where I thought zip lining would be the challenge. I couldn't wait to jump on that zip line and get down off of that dang mountain. The challenge was climbing up, and what it's shown me is that I don't even think.
*Thomas Williams * (00:06:53) - I can't even imagine how much strength that I have inside of me. And so, so many times a lot of us think that we've hit our limits. We've hit our peak, we're tapped out. And I'm here to tell you that you haven't even hit your limit. You couldn't even imagine your capacity of the strength that you have. See, our minds think that we have one level of strength or capacity, but actually internally, we have so much more than that. But most of the time we never reach it because we stop at the place where we get uncomfortable, as opposed to the place where we're actually uncomfortable.
Tyler Dickerhoof (00:07:25) - How much do you find that it's important for you to go on those journeys to stretch?
*Thomas Williams * (00:07:32) - It's so, so important. So important. Because having the family, like there's a lot of routine, right? Bedtime, bath time, we go and jump in the car to schools and all of these things. And so we become kind of what our life's perspective is. So any time I can get out of my comfort zone and I can take off for three, five, seven days and go to a place where English isn't the first language, which now I'm automatically in an uncomfortable predicament.
*Thomas Williams * (00:08:04) - Living conditions aren't just walk out and go to a Starbucks and, you know, go to target if you need any items. It's so many things that are new. And so for me, this allows me to open up my perspective and saying my situation. Even though I might feel that it's mundane, it might feel regular. It's actually a luxury to walk in my shoes. It's a luxury to to have the normalcy. But more than that, it encourages me to be creative in the mundane, in the routine, in the structure. And when you get uncomfortable, whether it's going to the restroom in public and having to pay a dollar and seeing their circumstances, or they point you to your room and it's smaller than a twin size bed. And I'm like, my daughter has a bigger bed than this. And it's like, be very grateful, be gracious, have an appreciation. And then when you step outside, it's actually because you have less. You can be happier as opposed to more. This was the first time that I've taken only a carry on.
*Thomas Williams * (00:09:11) - I had a carry on backpack and a carry on stroller, and I had a pair of pants shorts. I mean, I had so little. But even though I was so excited because there was so much to explore in the outside and then learning about all of the people inside of their culture and history of what they've experienced.
Tyler Dickerhoof (00:09:29) - The title of your book dig is Discover Your Depth, determination, and Destiny Through Diversity. I think there's a point here, though, that I wrote down a forced adversity drives resilience training. You talked about only taking a few items in your book. You tell the story of a young man who's senior in high school, whose family moved locations, he moved to schools, his father lost his job, and now they needed to kind of pick up what life was. It was this fable of adversity. And yet you tell the tale of resilience. But there's one piece that I think you you mentioned earlier from a faith perspective, when we share that and that guidance of mentorship. But in the book you talk so much, use so many examples of mentors and how much do you find either yourself now that you've gone through that can be better equipped to mentor others or how in those moments of adversity have gone through, and that resilience training? Have you found that man mentors were the ones that actually helped guide me through that?
*Thomas Williams * (00:10:39) - Yeah, so, so good.
*Thomas Williams * (00:10:41) - Right? When you talk about anybody getting outside of their normalcy, in their actually in adversity, that's the greatest place to grow. And what I mean by that is that convenience kills discipline. Anything that we've ever been convened to is that it actually killed our discipline. And so inside of the story, like you had mentioned the student, he transitioned schools. He loses what he thought was the best thing ever for him, going into maybe one of the most important years, his senior year in high school. You've got to find new friends. You've got to find a new routine, a new grocery store. Dad, you know, your almighty superhero loses his job. And so now he might be experiencing some type of anxiety. Depression. Mentorship is one of the most critical things that we could ever find. Because inside of mentorship, there's two things. There's humility. I got to come to you because I need. I need some advice. I need some direction, I need some clarity. But then there's also another side of admiration.
*Thomas Williams * (00:11:52) - So the old person that sits at the top of the hill has admiration for the young mentee, because the saying is youth is wasted on the young is so evident. I wish I had your energy to complete what I know. Yeah, wish I had your energy to complete the knowledge that I have. And so when we're in a mentor mentee relationship, we're literally sitting on two opposite ends of the spectrum from one another. You are what I used to be. Young, bright eyed, bushy tail full of energy, piss and vinegar, as they say. And you on the other side is you're actually showing me of who I will become. Who, who, who can I expect to become? What's my energy? What's. What's the person that I'm going to look like in the mirror? What are they going to look like? And so one of the greatest things, if we can ask people for advice and for help, to give us the knowledge and wisdom so that we can have the same amount of energy to complete the information in the wisdom and the knowledge that we have.
*Thomas Williams * (00:12:53) - That's where we have a chance. You know, I remember hearing a couple of years ago the quote of learn from the mistakes of others because you can't make them all yourself. And what that really speaks to me is learn from the mistakes of others. So you don't have to take the five years, ten years or three hours that it took to make the mistake because it's great to get to the destination as fast as possible. Yeah, you want to enjoy the journey, which they say in the traffic stops, but what if we can get there a little bit faster? What if we can get there a little bit sooner so that we can actually enjoy it?
Tyler Dickerhoof (00:13:29) - Yeah, that. The thought that comes to my mind is the only shortcut in life is what you just said is learning from the mistakes of others that, as you said, can take five years to learn this painfully myself. Or I can just ask the advice, seek the mentorship. You did that, you know, 15 minutes ago when we're talking about looking at buying property, doing those things, and it's it's that humility and it's also understanding, who do I ask who I know shares the same values, shares the same interests, or shares the same desires.
Tyler Dickerhoof (00:14:01) - Ultimately that then there's an accordance in their advice, because I think that's important too. Right.
*Thomas Williams * (00:14:09) - So so good. You know, it's okay, Thomas. And so in the book dig, there's four points for principles. And for first and foremost, it's something's either pushing you or something's preventing you. And most of the time when we're trying to get to a destination, we think that things that are preventing us, well, I can't do it for this, but actually, when you flip those on its head, those are the things that are pushing you. I remember when I was in sixth grade, my mom came home from a parent teacher conference and she said, your sixth grade teacher told me that by the time you're 16 years old, you'll be shot, stabbed, killed in the leader of a gang. And Tyler, in that moment, that could have been everything to prevent me, because my sixth grade teacher had already put a limitation on me. But in that moment, I use it as my driving force.
*Thomas Williams * (00:14:55) - The second principle in point in the book is if you can't find the example, find the proof if you could. If you don't have the example that this can get done, that this can be done in my household and my neighborhood, in my community, you have to find the proof. Before 1954, the whole entire world thought it was physically impossible to break the four minute mile. But Roger Bannister came along in the spring of 1954 and broke the four minute mile. And then in that same year, right around 50 people also broke the four minute mile. So now in the span of that year, do people just get faster and stronger and like they become better? No. They found the proof that it could be done. And so, so many times when we're looking for a mentor, we just think that somebody who's, you know, speaking towards that thing or speaking on that subject, that they're an expert matter, but they're actually not. I've been lucky to have the mentors, and I've found this and all of the mentors that I have.
*Thomas Williams * (00:15:53) - They are or have been to the place that I want to go. Ed Santa Padre, High School coach, he had trained other athletes who had gone to college. So I just have to ask him, okay, coach, what do I need to do? And that's what I asked him all the time. Ken Norton, junior in college, he had played in the NFL. He he even though I didn't have the example growing up of what a professional athlete look like, I had the proof every single day. Coach, how many times did you do push ups? How many wind sprints did you do? And now outside of sports, have John Gordon, who I can text, I can call John. How should I start this speech? Hey, John, when I write this book, what characters do I need to include? Everybody who I just mentioned they've done or are doing exactly what I want to do. So most of the time, we just think that somebody who speaks about a topic speaks about a theme, that they know what they're doing.
*Thomas Williams * (00:16:48) - You got to pull back the cover, ask them what was it like when they did that? So that's the thing about examples and proof. Thirdly, what we have to find is we're not looking for that moment of what we're doing that brings our heartbeat alive, that brings us excited that that just makes us so pumped up. We actually need to look for the quitting moments in every single moment or every single thing that we're pursuing and that we're going after. There's a quitting moment. And in those quitting moments, we have to get so excited, so pumped up about it. And I'll give you the example today, what I'm talking about. Going into my senior year, I went to my coach's office and I say, coach, what's the reason to fight for this dream of playing professional sports if you don't even feel like you can win? And I was like, just allow me to quit and enjoy my senior year. He looked at me and he said, Thomas, if you give everything you have to the NFL and they still don't want you, maybe they don't deserve you.
*Thomas Williams * (00:17:50) - And in that moment, Tyler, I was going to quit. I was already on my way to turn in my jersey to hand in my towel and everything like that.
Tyler Dickerhoof (00:17:58) - And like I read a piece about this in the book.
*Thomas Williams * (00:18:02) - There you go. Right. And so just on the other side of that, just on the other side of that, Coach Norton gave me the privilege and the permission to know that I'm on the same level as my dream, as what I'm going after. And so he gave me the opportunity to level up. But if I would have quit, I would have never come to that realization. And now what I teach, what I teach in to instill in my children, as well as the audience in the groups that we talk to, is that get excited in those quitting moments. Now, I'm not saying that every single quitting moment is going to produce the moment that now all of a sudden you're going to reach that goal. But what's going to happen is there's miracles in the quitting moment.
*Thomas Williams * (00:18:42) - And fourth, and most importantly is you got to run towards the roar. We got to run towards the roar in life, running towards a roar comes from an old African proverb is that when you take the hyenas or just just use hyenas in this situation, they're all at this waterhole and they're bathing and they're drinking and they're communing together. And so what happens is that the lions take the oldest, loudest roaring lion, unathletic, can't run, can't do anything other than roar. And they put them on one side of the irons. And then on the completely different opposite side, there's the fast, ferocious, athletic, hungry lions that are waiting. So that loud, roaring lion roars as loud as it possibly can. And what happens is it freaks out the ions that are in the waterhole, and they run in the completely opposite direction, not knowing that that's exactly where the lions wanted you to run. But if you just ran towards the roar, ran towards that fear, then you would have actually, in essence, kept yourself alive.
*Thomas Williams * (00:19:45) - And so that's the thing that we have to do, is we have to run towards that roar inside of doing the things that we ultimately want to accomplish.
Tyler Dickerhoof (00:19:57) - All right. In the middle of this conversation, I just want to take a moment to invite you. If you're not a subscriber to the Impact Driven Leader newsletter, to go to the impact Driven leader backslash free course, you're going to get the four days to Maximum Impact video series as well. Submit you into my email sphere where you can learn more about the impact driven leader community. So now back to the rest of the episode. There's a when you talked about seek the quitting moment. It reminds me of a lesson that I've learned from one of my mentors, John Maxwell, is don't quit something, go to something. And it's really kind of, as you describe that element of having that mentor that encouraged you and spoke belief in you when you talked about Ken. But there's also that idea that when we come to those moments, are we just going to quit to like, oh, it's easier.
Tyler Dickerhoof (00:20:56) - It's like when you talked about climbing the mountain, I'll just quit. But no, you're reminded and as you told the story and I think about the example myself as a father, it's like if I quit now, what example does that show that? Oh, it got hard. It got a heart. So I'm just going to bow out instead of and I think there's, there's moments where, yeah, the best decision is I got to cut and run, but go to something, run to the raw. Meaning if there's a line in the sand and there's ultimately a time as you know, seek that mentorship, but also go and run into it, you know, don't quit because you're, you know, oh, I'm going to choose the easier path or the less intimidating path, or I don't want to fight through just to fight and be, you know, farther along in six months. Understand, if I do, where am I going to run to? Where am I going? That's what you know, as you shared that the elements that I've been told and I've learned myself, that's a it's a hard thing to to I really way as a father.
Tyler Dickerhoof (00:21:58) - That's something that trying to guide my 15 year old son through. Right now he's in the midst of doing exactly that. And we had family discussion last night, and it's been a a trying six, seven weeks of being in a difficult situation that isn't right to now kind of trying to make a decision. And part of it is like you got to fulfill your commitment. But also I'm encouraged by this and saying, okay, remind it again, there's one thing to quit and there's another. What are you running to? What are you going to and what's that going to look like? What are you going to give to this next adventure? Because where you've been, you either haven't been or you haven't felt that passion and desire, that love, that commitment to go to it.
*Thomas Williams * (00:22:45) - Yeah. It's so good. You know, Tyler, one of the things that I'm really heavily influencing people on is the theme of responsibility over feelings. So many times our feelings lead our actions. But feelings are fleeting, right? When people like people ask right now like, are you happy? That's a that's a 5050 question, right? I think the answer is I'm fulfilled.
*Thomas Williams * (00:23:09) - And I think when we when we are led by responsibilities. Right. And so when you talk about Maxwell, right, he talks about values a lot. Right. We're led by values and things of that nature. And I think we have to understand like what are your responsibilities. You know, the same thing with with our daughter. Our daughter, you know, is in swimming. And her feeling is I don't want to go to swim class. I love swimming, but I don't want to go to a swim class. And it's like, well, we signed up to do this many sessions and so your responsibility is to complete that. Now, once that's over, it's not called quitting because you didn't want to sign back up or you didn't want to go into swimming for next season. But your responsibility is that I felt really good in the moment, and I'm going to sign up. And my responsibility is to keep my commitment. My responsibility is as a father to show up even when I don't want to.
*Thomas Williams * (00:23:58) - No, I don't feel like showing up at 4:00 in the morning, 5 or 6:00 in the morning. I don't feel like it, but my responsibility is as an athlete, as a teammate. I don't feel like practicing today, but my responsibility as a teammate is somebody who's contributing to the energy of this team. I need to keep going. And so that responsibility drives our feelings as opposed to our feelings driving our responsibility. We'll get those same type of things in those efforts. And when you talk to as a father, where does your confidence come from? Your confidence. My confidence as a father comes from I'm not teaching you anything. I'm not willing to go through myself. So in those moments where I'm hanging on the side of the cliff at 400ft, I can't come home and tell my kids, yep, you got to do tough things in life. Sometimes you got to do some things that you don't necessarily want to do. If I would have climbed down, you know, I'm going down the ladder on the side of the mountain and I quit.
*Thomas Williams * (00:24:55) - I don't have as much passion. I don't have as much fierce and ferocity when I'm telling my children those same things, because I'm not willing to do those same things. And that's why mentorship is so important, because the mentors are either in the position that the mentee wants to be or they've been there. And so what's the easiest way to tell people or show people how to get somewhere is going to yourself?
Tyler Dickerhoof (00:25:17) - Yeah. Well, and I think that comes back to the example or proof. And, you know, one of the after reading the book and thinking about it and you share this story in there about Roger Bannister, as you did a few moments ago. And, and thinking about it, it's like there's someone who was courageous enough to say, why not? He ran to the roar of, oh, it can't be done. Oh, let me show you. And I think that there's so many ways in life, the example, the things that you've gone through in life, the the things that I've gone through, every single person has gone through some type of adversity in some way, shape or form.
Tyler Dickerhoof (00:25:52) - Yeah. And that gives each one of us the opportunity to be the example and be the proof. And it's choosing to say here we, you know, 69 years later, you know, 70. Such a a long time since Roger Bannister accomplished that feat. And it has more relevance or as much relevance today as ever, because what are the things around us, whether it's in, in leadership or as you're talking to organizations about positivity and and being the the organizations that people really deserve to have and saying, oh, it can be done. You can be a nice person and be a very accountable, efficient leader. You don't have to be that hard, that callous, that, you know, almost disconnected leader to get high performance. Quite honestly, you'll find that it doesn't last, right? It doesn't. And instead be the proof to say no, I'm going to be the kind, nice, encouraging, appreciative person in our society is starting to really show. That's where people perform the best.
*Thomas Williams * (00:26:59) - Yeah. And where do you in your in your opinion or your experience? What examples have you had where people have actually been the nice leader. Been the effective leader. Been the positive leader as opposed to, you know, the opposite end of the spectrum of that? It's much fewer.
Tyler Dickerhoof (00:27:25) - It is fewer, and it's fewer because it's almost as the exception instead of being the rule. I mentioned earlier about my son, one of the difficulties he's going through is he's playing for a very difficult leader, a leader who is unwilling to meet players. He's told me, quite honestly, I don't have the time to speak their love language. I don't have the time to encourage them. I don't have the time. That's not me. So I'm not going to do it. And my son is sitting here and he's evaluating the experience and what he's put into it. It's like, I don't want to play professionally here. There's another area I want to play professionally. And that environment is so much different into what we're weighing here is seeing.
Tyler Dickerhoof (00:28:11) - All right. Not everything is off face value. You get into it and it's gonna be challenging and tough. But then it's also it's like if you have a mentor in your life who you identify this is not the healthy way, meaning it's not the right way. Why do I need to keep submitting myself to that? Once I've realized, okay, there's a better path. And I think that's the challenge that, you know, why am I so pursuing of this podcast and relationships with you? And you mentioned John Gordon relationship by the him and why? Because I've committed to wanting to be better. And or I realize that's the great miss in our society is not only do we have. Corporations and organizations where leaders choose to be, you know, pull away. I read a great book here in the last couple of days, and it talked about how in a lot of organizations, the higher you climb, the more that you lose perspective about what people are going through. And so you become this separation in the anxiety and tension of, I have to keep this role to where your empathy actually dips.
Tyler Dickerhoof (00:29:16) - And it makes so much sense because now, oh, if I don't hold everyone accountable, then everything go to waste. It's like, but your job is to encourage and through encouragement and invitation that holds people accountable. Because if they're either going to fit in or fit out. And so, you know, to this point, I think that's the great wrestle generationally that you and I are I feel committed to to say I once was, but now I've been around so many other people that are better examples to say, that's not the way.
*Thomas Williams * (00:29:52) - Yeah. And I think there's also something really cool with what you're saying. And it reminds me of of a secret sauce that I've heard and learned a long time ago is that leaders need to be led. And so once a leader stops being led and they only think their job is to be a leader, then they lose. Exactly. What you talked about is that perspective with the ground or with the ground floor. They get up so high because you simultaneously as you're leading and you're being led, you understand both sides.
*Thomas Williams * (00:30:26) - You understand what it's like to be lead. So this is what I need to. These are what my my people who are following me are experiencing as well as this is what I'm supposed to do and being led. But any time you cut that off, it's like somebody who's constantly feeding but not feeding themselves or being fed, then there's going to be a deficiency. And anytime there's a deficiency, then somebody's going to lose out and lack thereof.
Tyler Dickerhoof (00:30:53) - It as you're saying that. And I think, you know, sports are played professional football. You played college football. You played with some of the most notable coaches the sport has seen. And I think back to an episode that we saw last fall for people that are NFL fans, they probably saw this. Where? Oh, Hamlin. Um, yeah. Yes. Tomorrow DeMar Hamlin collapsed on the field, had a heart incident. And Sean McDermott who was one of your coaches was the coach there. And you saw him visibly. He was shaken not because he had a football game to play or win.
Tyler Dickerhoof (00:31:27) - And he didn't care about that, as you saw afterward and beyond. It was like, dude's a person. And that's what I worry about first. And if we take that same experience as that conversation we were just having. Was that the reaction of oh, first I'm worried about oh football now. Oh, you know, the optics. I need to be worried about the player. We never saw or heard that he was absolutely first worried about the player. The game didn't matter. And yet as that example. And I just think about that and I think about you having a relationship with Sean and think about that's what great leaders do. They're not worried so much about the production and what's going to happen in, you know, how do we meet our numbers and everything else they're worried about? Oh, dude. Thomas, how are you? Okay, that's my first priority. Because if I worry about. Are you fulfilled? Are you safe? Are you making. Are you. You know, know that you have a place here and that you're valued beyond anything that you can do.
Tyler Dickerhoof (00:32:27) - What I've learned is people will give beyond for those people. They will give beyond their, you know, they will climb to the top of that mountain. And not give up like you did for your family as the example. People will do that for leaders that care more about them than anything else. And yet we've struggled in our society almost in this change of leadership, to really say that, oh, that's the real way.
*Thomas Williams * (00:32:57) - Why do you think we've struggled?
Tyler Dickerhoof (00:32:59) - Well, I think it's things that we've talked about, things that we've presented about together. It's it's this change of generations. We see this generation of baby boomers, this leadership style, this is the way it's going to be. And and just this is our expectation. And yet we have a different generation that's saying, oh, it doesn't have to be like that. And yet we have this conflict, this, this mashing of C's and not understanding that how we got to where we're at was not by being so dictatorial. It was actually by caring.
Tyler Dickerhoof (00:33:34) - And yet when we had this generation of layoffs and not caring and, and I'm going to get mine is what we brought about this leadership style that is like it's all about the shareholders. It's all about chasing the profit. And it's like, you go back 50 years, you read enough about businesses in the 50s and beyond. It was, hey, you're going to be here. We care about you as a person. We're doing this business for you now. There's some profit there. But it quickly got changed and morphed. And that's where I think the tide is so changing. And people like yourself and John have done such a tremendous job of saying, no, we can be positive about it. We can absolutely be encouraging through the process. That's the better way.
*Thomas Williams * (00:34:21) - Yep. And I think, you know, Tyler, as you mentioned, it reminds me of the first conversation I had with John Gordon in person and he said, focus on the he said, so many times we focus on the fruit and we neglect the root, and that's when the tree dies.
*Thomas Williams * (00:34:35) - And, you know, the root is people. I think one of the things we're trying to figure out right now is like, how far is technology going to take? You know, I and we're thinking to ourselves that technology is going to overrule people. And I don't have that answer, I don't know. That's way above anything I could ever think or fathom. I'm just the guy who knows how to turn on his cell phone and barely can text. But what I do know is that people will always be here, and understanding how you treat people will always be the common denominator, always be the common denominator. And that's the legacy. And and, you know, sharing with you real quick one of the legacy pieces of this phase of life, you know, whether it's on the things side or whether it's on the people side and people meaning what's the legacy that you leave? My mom taught me at a very young age, you know, we were we were outside and we were doing yard work on a Saturday, and my mom wanted me to hang a pot.
*Thomas Williams * (00:35:37) - And she was like, Thomas, come over here, let me show you how to hang this pot. I was like, I'm mom, I don't need to learn how to hang a pot. I'ma make so much money, I'm gonna pay somebody to do that. And she said, Thomas, let me tell you something. I don't care how much money you make, I don't care the status or fame that you endure and that you accomplish, she said. Never forget that you're reason and purpose here on earth is the way that you affect human beings. I say that that happened in the mid 90s. A few months ago, I was on a flight headed from California to the East Coast. I can't tell you where I was, but there was a woman in her three kids and she was having an issue with her card. I think because she was from a foreign country, her card wouldn't pick up on the scanner, getting snacks on the plane. And I overheard it and I just walked by and instantly I saw my mom in her.
*Thomas Williams * (00:36:29) - I saw my mom on a plane with me and our car didn't work. Whether it was insufficient funds or anything like that. And I went up to this flight attendant and I said, hey, can I buy whatever they want on? Right. It's ten. It's a snack box, right? Ten bucks. 15 bucks. And she her eyes started to water. This is the flight attendant. She went back there, told the person in the back of the story, came back and said, hey, don't worry about it, it's on us. But that was extremely nice. I don't say this to toot my own horn. I say this to toot the horn of my mom, who taught me in that moment of it's not about where you're sitting on a plane. It doesn't matter your job. It doesn't matter. The way that you're able to affect other human beings is the most important currency. And in that moment, again, it wasn't the fruit, it was the root about people. It's about people.
*Thomas Williams * (00:37:18) - Now, she might not know who gave that to her, but I guarantee you, in a moment's notice, she did it for somebody else in that day or in that week, because it was done for her. And so, again, caring about people is undefeated. People are the common denominator in sports, in teams and organizations, in homes. It's about the people.
Tyler Dickerhoof (00:37:37) - You know to that point. So often people are like, oh, you know, you played sports. It doesn't apply here. I my background is in agriculture. We've talked about, you know, that it's something that I to that point of staying humble and realizing, yes, I could have, but no, I choose to do it myself. There's something so gratifying to me of doing things with my hands that remind me of my abilities. Right? And not getting beyond that, not thinking too much myself. But it also comes to this that it doesn't matter. Where we're at in the world, doesn't matter what industry, doesn't matter what profession you have.
Tyler Dickerhoof (00:38:20) - There are people there. And I think the greatest opportunity as parents, as adults, we talked a little bit about mentorship earlier is to give people the proper expectation and training of what their professional world should look like. And I think that is the great crossroads we're at. And I'm seeing firsthand. And I'm committed to and and we've talked about, you know, your coaches and previous coaches. And I look at that and you've had great examples and you probably had some examples that weren't so special. But yet the commitment to what you're doing now is saying that, you know what? Wherever those people are in the world, I'm committed to helping them see that example of be the kind person. It's always about people and if nothing more, the greatest impact you will ever have. And and I saw this and I love and appreciate this and to your exact point earlier, getting to the root of connection and generational impact and purpose, that's what you're about, I love that, I appreciate that, I think that's why we've become good friends is because that's where we're aligned in understanding.
Tyler Dickerhoof (00:39:30) - It's about people, it's about connection. And when we embrace adversity. And dig down into our greatness, man. We can help other people through their, you know, connecting with them to see their impact and their purpose.
*Thomas Williams * (00:39:48) - Yeah, that's spot on. You know, one of the things is that I wrote this book because we're one of two people. We're either the mentor or the mentee is you're a mentor. Always have a story ready for the people that you're you're being called to lead. Always have an encouraging word. And then if you're the mentee, have the humility to ask. Ask the question, hey, how or what would you do? When we can ask those questions, we'll find the answers. And then when we become the proof. Because somebody else is not going to have the example. Then we're going to have a specific story, a personal story, one that we went through when we were in their same shoes. So again, we're either on one side of the table or the next.
*Thomas Williams * (00:40:32) - But remember, you're always going to go to the next side of the table so that you can look back and help somebody else.
Tyler Dickerhoof (00:40:38) - Thomas. Thank you so much, man. It's been great catching up. Great having you share about your book. I thoroughly enjoyed it after I was about, I don't know, seven eight chapters through, and I then ordered two more copies to give my sons. It was something I realized, man, they need to read this and I'm excited for them to read it. So Dan, thank you.
*Thomas Williams * (00:40:59) - Super pumped Tyler. Thanks for having me on man. Thanks for catching up and always. I appreciate your energy as well as the impact that you have in this world.
Tyler Dickerhoof (00:41:17) - Thanks so much. As I'm sitting here and I'm thinking about the points that I want to bring up, and I look down at my notes, there's something that didn't get recorded. It didn't even make my notes. But I want to share. This is the value of a mentor. I shared in the conversation that Thomas asked me before we started recording.
Tyler Dickerhoof (00:41:39) - How about living on property? I live on property. I have ten acres, we have cows. And he asked about that experience. He and his family are looking at being in that position. And then afterwards we continued the conversation about my son. I shared with him the dynamics of what was going on, and he is a great friend. Just sat and listened. He offered some piece of advice, but he said this Tyler, I'm grateful to be walking through this with you, not only the example that you're going through, but we can have these conversations and go through this together. But then I then will be greater prepared. When I'm leading my three children. I see as I reflect on that. Thomas doesn't have social media. He's one of those that left its halls of challenge back in 2019. That's something. That's a piece and part of him. He talks about that when his conversation with John Gordon. But I'm thankful for this, that the times that we do get to interact, man, it means so much more because I know it's not just the trivial bits and pieces every day.
Tyler Dickerhoof (00:42:43) - That's not to take away from social media. You're might be listening because of social media. That's great. That's a great avenue for it. But I want to caution this to you. Mentors are people that sit and listen to what you're going through. They're not necessarily people that comment on your stories or your posts. They're willing to just say, hey, tell me more about that. Tell me about what you're going through. Share with me now I can learn or we can learn together. See is I think about the different points in the four different elements that Thomas shared, whether it be pushing or preventing. Whether it be example or proof, it's seek the quitting moments or what I would say as well. It's those moments of crossroad moments and then lastly run towards the roar. This is what I know and this is what I encourage you in life. When you find people that will run with you, you'll run for longer and you're run faster. Who are those people around you that are willing to run towards the raw? I know it can be somewhat tactful.
Tyler Dickerhoof (00:43:50) - My hope is that you're building a community that's listening, actively engaging with you in these conversations. That's what we do with the impact driven leader community, the roundtable, because we have conversations where we're running to the raw together, getting better as the challenges I shared that are so in our face today, not in our face in a bad way, but our our opportunity. To be at this crossroads. Thanks again for being here. I hope he got tremendous value out of this. I hope you'll grab Thomas's book. It's a fun, quick short read. As I mentioned, I bought the book after reading it for my two sons. Hopefully my three kids end up reading it because I know they're going to get value from it. Thanks for being here. Till next time, have a good one.
