In this episode, Nick speaks with Anthony A. Dicks, Jr., who runs a management consulting company for nonprofits and leaders in various businesses. They talk about faith, purpose, callings, and how we must give ourselves the freedom to evolve.

What to listen for:

“Jesus almost made me flunk out of college.”

“There’s a time when a child learning how to walk has to learn how to walk consciously. They have to force themselves to put one foot in front of the other. And then, you know, after stumbling or falling and all the rest of that stuff, they eventually. They walk, and then it becomes subconscious and not necessarily conscious. This is the challenge about learning how to become something when you’re of age.”

“You just have to have the courage to keep doing the what until you figure out the why.”

About Anthony A. Dicks, Jr.

Anthony is a leader’s leader! His passion for leadership development is seen through his work with emerging nonprofit leaders. He has spent over two decades preparing people with diverse responsibilities to reach their optimal leadership potential. He currently transforms leaders as the Senior Leadership Consultant for 180 Management Group.

Resources:

Check out episode #82 about how we can be swayed in life based on the “shoulds” and “should nots” instead of what life actually is.

Check out episode #85 about fearing failure and continuing to strive in the face of fear.

Interested in starting your own podcast or need help with one you already have? Send Nick an email or schedule a time to discuss your podcast today!

[email protected]

Thank you for listening!

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Watch Clips and highlights: www.youtube.com/channel/UCk1tCM7KTe3hrq_-UAa6GHA

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Your Friends at “The Mindset & Self-Mastery Show”

Nick McGowan (00:01.436)

Hello and welcome to the Mindset and Self Mastery show. I’m your host, Nick McGowan. Today on the show, I’m Anthony Dicks. Anthony, how are you doing today, man?

Anthony A. Dicks, Jr. (00:11.594)

I am outstanding, Nick. Thank you so very much for asking. How are you? Amazing. Thank you.

Nick McGowan (00:16.624)

I’m great. Yeah, man, I’m excited for you to be on. We were shooting the breeze a bit before we got started. And I do that with everybody. I like to talk and kind of get into, just shoot the breeze. But there are some conversations where I’m like, all right, we should just hit record and start on with this thing. The other times where we get into conversation, I’m like, ah, we should have hit record. We should have started this. So I think we’re gonna have a great conversation. I…

you know, why don’t we do this? Why don’t you just get us started? Tell us what you do for a living and what’s one thing that most people don’t know about you that’s maybe a little odd or bizarre.

Anthony A. Dicks, Jr. (00:50.702)

Well, the first question is much easier to answer than the second. So I am the senior leadership consultant for 180 Management Group. It is a boutique management consulting firm. And I am responsible for the leadership portion of that, being a leadership coach, consultant, trainer, speaker, all of that good old stuff. When it comes to the second question, I have been raised in public almost. My dad is a preacher, right?

And so, and I’m a preacher. I serve currently as a pastor and a whole host of other things in that regard outside of the secular market space. So I’m so used to people knowing so much about me. So what would people not know about me in maybe both contexts? I don’t, cause I done got older now. I almost flunked out of college. Yeah. Yeah, that’d be right. So that’s something that

Nick McGowan (01:44.39)

Ooh, go on.

Anthony A. Dicks, Jr. (01:49.862)

some people, you know, if they get a chance to know me a little bit, I’m not slow. I’m not obtuse, but I when I say slow, I don’t mean, you know, how to hopefully they don’t police too many terms on it, but you know what I’m saying. Yeah, I, I went through an identity crisis because of the call to preach.

Nick McGowan (02:01.877)

You’re good. Yeah, yeah.

Anthony A. Dicks, Jr. (02:12.626)

So Jesus almost made me flunk out of college. No. I’m just kidding. It was really, it was really me, but wrestling with all of that and what my future would be, you know, Jesus and, you know, a girl maybe, helped me, you know, choose something other than going to class. Yeah.

Nick McGowan (02:17.158)

Well, we’re a few minutes in, you’re already blaming Jesus. This’ll be good.

Nick McGowan (02:35.432)

Well, typically if somebody says, I almost flunked out of college, it’s like, all right, well, what drugs were you hooked on? Or what girl were you chasing? Or how much were you drinking? Or why were you forced to go to that school when you should have gone to some other school? So it’s interesting for you to bring that up and go, well, I was called to do something else and…

Anthony A. Dicks, Jr. (02:45.36)

Yep.

Yep.

Nick McGowan (02:55.232)

callings are deeply important to me. I know there’s a deep purpose that we all have and a lot of people have a hard time finding it or figuring out what they’re supposed to do. And sometimes it can change throughout the course of life. Like your calling right now may look a little different than it does in two, three years. It may look different in 10 years. I mean, I told you before we started recording that I played in church bands for 10 years. I was at church Wednesdays and Thursdays and Saturdays and Sundays and doing all these things.

Anthony A. Dicks, Jr. (03:04.098)

It’s true. And it’s true.

Anthony A. Dicks, Jr. (03:12.22)

Mm-hmm.

Nick McGowan (03:25.526)

I haven’t gone to church in, I don’t know, seven, eight years, something like that. But I have a deeper relationship with God than I did even back then. My calling has changed a bit more and being able to do those things. So talk to us a bit about what that looked like and really how you managed your mindset through that and what you thought as you were kind of being torn from either side. Because if you’re being called to something much larger, it doesn’t matter what you think and what you want to do. You’re being called to something much larger.

Anthony A. Dicks, Jr. (03:29.262)

Mm.

Mm-hmm.

Anthony A. Dicks, Jr. (03:54.762)

Right? See, that’s the thing. Being called to something larger when you’re in this age and stage where you think you’re as big as you get. Right? So in college, you don’t have a lot of foresight as to, you know, who am I going to be in the future? You have some maybe and inkling, but you don’t really have all of that stuff worked out. And when you couple the stage in which you begin to sense a call,

Nick McGowan (04:03.699)

Yeah.

Anthony A. Dicks, Jr. (04:24.47)

with the age that you are, it just muddies the water. It just muddies the water. And so for me, I was going through an identity crisis. This is really the long and short of it. God was asking me to be something I had never been before. And so when you’re being asked to be something that you’ve never been before, and you’re being held accountable for how well you are, that thing that you are being called to be, that you’ve never been before, it’s almost like a catch-22. I don’t know how to do this well.

Anthony A. Dicks, Jr. (04:53.506)

but I’m gonna be held accountable if I don’t do it well. And wrestling through that and trying to figure out well, how do I position myself to do this well? Ultimately, you know, I failed at a whole host of other things. So yeah, I hope that answers your question, but immaturity, while you’re being asked to evolve into a vision you didn’t have for yourself, that leads to a lot of stupid decisions.

Nick McGowan (05:22.736)

Sure, yeah. I want to go down this path a bit because honestly I’m really happy that this is how this is started. We’re five minutes into this and we’re already on to this. The calling in life and your purpose is so deeply ingrained I think in all of us, but we get so used to doing the things that we feel like we should be doing. Like you should be in college to be able to get a job, to then have a career, and be in that career where you can get a pension and you can

Anthony A. Dicks, Jr. (05:34.67)

Mm-hmm.

Anthony A. Dicks, Jr. (05:48.793)

Mm-hmm.

Nick McGowan (05:52.69)

retire and you can do all these things. And it’s crazy to me to think about how, I don’t know, maybe that was a 20-30 year span where that was actually the case. But those people had kids and they hated themselves. They hated the job that they were in for 40 years and they then tried to survive off of 40% of what they couldn’t live on anyway. And they’re just in this tough spot and so many people will go through midlife or later in life crisis trying to figure out how do I do

Anthony A. Dicks, Jr. (05:54.98)

Mm-hmm.

Anthony A. Dicks, Jr. (06:05.89)

Right.

Mm-hmm.

Anthony A. Dicks, Jr. (06:13.099)

Right.

Nick McGowan (06:22.79)

and they’ve just calloused over what their purpose and their calling was. But then again, as a 20 year old kid or 22 year old kid, what the hell? You don’t know anything. Oh my god. But we all thought we knew everything in the world. I remember being 22 and having a consultant company and flying all over the place and doing all these things. And I looked back a few years later and was like, what’s wrong with me? Yeah, why do people pay me money? What is wrong with them? I mean, I’ve taught some good things, but there was…

Anthony A. Dicks, Jr. (06:25.774)

Mm-hmm.

Anthony A. Dicks, Jr. (06:29.726)

Right. Anything. You know what I’m talking about? Right.

Right.

Anthony A. Dicks, Jr. (06:44.316)

What was I doing?

Nick McGowan (06:52.57)

ego that all of us in our early 20s do, but when you have that call to do something different that’s there. So I want us to get into that because I feel like there are people that listen to this show that are like, look, I’m stuck in this tough job. I’m stuck in this relationship. I’m stuck in this whatever. They’re stuck because they don’t know how to really get out of it to be able to do the thing that they feel called to do. And if they do, they are terrified because they’re like, I don’t know how to do that.

Anthony A. Dicks, Jr. (06:56.003)

Mm-hmm.

Anthony A. Dicks, Jr. (07:11.006)

Mm-mm.

Nick McGowan (07:21.436)

I don’t know if I’m gonna be any good at it, the fear, the negative self-talk, and just all the BS comes up and starts to run through your mind, and then hold you back where you and I both know that sometimes you just gotta start the damn thing. Just start walking, start moving along. So what did that look like for you as you started to piece together like, I don’t know how to do this, but all right, dude, let’s do it.

Anthony A. Dicks, Jr. (07:24.81)

Yeah.

Anthony A. Dicks, Jr. (07:33.779)

Mm-hmm.

Anthony A. Dicks, Jr. (07:40.566)

Well, I don’t know how to encapsulate like a 20 plus year journey in a short amount of time because you stumble along the way. Like let’s say a child learning how to walk, right? There’s a time where a child learning how to walk has to learn how to walk consciously. They have to force themselves to put one foot in front of the other. And then, you know, after stumbling or falling and all the rest of that stuff, they eventually.

Nick McGowan (07:47.774)

We’ve got a little bit of time. Yeah

Anthony A. Dicks, Jr. (08:07.502)

they walk and then it becomes subconscious and not necessarily conscious. This is the challenge about learning how to become something when you’re of age. That is when you’re a baby, people celebrate your fall to encourage you to get back up again. So when a baby is trying to walk and they’re doing it consciously and boom, you say, oh, yay. So you are celebrating their fall to encourage them to get back up. After you do about nine,

People stop doing that. You know what I’m saying? You fall and then they may denigrate you. They don’t celebrate you in such a way where I know you were trying, come on, get back up again. And so stumbling along the way, learning that I may have known the what of my call, but not the why of it. And still, with that trepidation, not being hesitant to execute the what,

Nick McGowan (08:38.188)

Yeah

Anthony A. Dicks, Jr. (09:05.946)

I have a misunderstanding of the why. I know what you asked me to do. I know what you told me to do. I know what you’re calling me to do, but I don’t really understand the why. And that’s where the mistakes are made because I don’t know the reason of my purpose. I don’t know the why of my person. And I don’t wanna sound like Simon Sinek or anything like that, but I don’t know if you can always start with why.

Anthony A. Dicks, Jr. (09:32.738)

you might get the why along the way as you’re alluding to. Like you just keep putting one step in front of the other. You just keep making the effort. You just keep trying, keep trying. And then eventually the why is unlocked and you can look back and say, now I understand why I had to learn what I learned in college in order for me to do what I’m doing now. It didn’t make sense to me then. It does make sense to me now, as you kind of alluded to in your example of being a 22 year old consultant with people paying you.

Nick McGowan (09:49.598)

Mm-hmm.

Anthony A. Dicks, Jr. (10:01.666)

which is the other side of the challenge. Like when you think you’re good at something and then people pay you money and kind of confirm that you are, it can obloviate your ego. Like it just blows up even more. And then now you’re a rich fool. They’re paying you for a rich fool’s wisdom. And so as you move along that time and that span and you look back, that’s when the understanding comes. It comes eventually, not necessarily immediately.

Nick McGowan (10:08.777)

Mm-hmm.

Yeah.

Nick McGowan (10:16.361)

Yeah.

Anthony A. Dicks, Jr. (10:30.966)

You just have to have the courage to keep doing the what until you figure out the why.

Nick McGowan (10:34.888)

Yeah, and it’s a great point even with the Simon Sinek book to start with why. I’ve got that in my sea of books and I’ve read through some of that. I don’t think I’ve actually finished that book, but I’ve watched a lot of different Simon Sinek stuff. I really enjoy Simon, but I think that’s a great example of where people can take things out of context or you can selectively pick how you want that to relate to your life. Where somebody might say, well, I have to start with why or I can’t start. You and I are like, sometimes I don’t understand why, but I’m just going to keep doing it.

Anthony A. Dicks, Jr. (10:46.383)

Mm-hmm. Yeah, he’s the man.

Anthony A. Dicks, Jr. (10:52.236)

Mm-hmm.

Anthony A. Dicks, Jr. (10:56.619)

Yep.

Anthony A. Dicks, Jr. (11:01.558)

Mmm.

Nick McGowan (11:04.962)

the thing because intuitively I feel like I need to go do this and then the why shows itself and it becomes clear as you put the body of work together. But there are a lot of stuff that just like going to college. People are told you should do this. This is how life should be and you go alright cool I’ll do this and you kind of move along. And I never went to college. I think I ended up in a couple college classes because I was at some party the night before. I was like yeah what the hell I’ll go to a class see what this is like. But never actually

Anthony A. Dicks, Jr. (11:09.677)

Right.

Anthony A. Dicks, Jr. (11:15.017)

Mm-hmm.

Anthony A. Dicks, Jr. (11:20.17)

Right.

Nick McGowan (11:34.902)

because I remember having a conversation with a counselor who was like, well, you’re an art kid. We get in music school, we’re not gonna make any money, or we get in art school, but you’re not gonna make any money. Or we can get you some other school where you can get a career. And I was like, no, screw this, I wanna go do the things that I wanna do. But I was told you should do these things and there was shame that came along with it. So even with that start with why, having that start.

Anthony A. Dicks, Jr. (11:41.314)

Mm. Mm-hmm.

Anthony A. Dicks, Jr. (11:49.355)

Right.

Nick McGowan (11:58.104)

is the crucial point to it. Like there have been a lot of people that have been on the show that have talked about, just keep moving, just keep going, just keep walking on the things.

Anthony A. Dicks, Jr. (12:04.47)

Right, right. Just like Nemo, just keep, not, who was it? Just keep swimming, just keep swimming, just keep swimming, swimming. Dory, that was who it was, Dory. Yeah, just keep swimming. See, I was in the ballpark.

Nick McGowan (12:09.756)

Yeah, yeah, Dory, yeah, it was still the right movie. Yeah, we were in the Pixar park, I guess. But on your path, knowing that your dad was already called to do that.

Anthony A. Dicks, Jr. (12:26.562)

Mm-hmm.

Nick McGowan (12:26.94)

And then you were feeling some of that. I’ve talked to different PKs that are like, you know, I was raised this way. And as a pastor’s kid, I assumed that I was gonna go this path. And then some of them go kind of crazy, almost like the complete opposite side of it, or like a little bit of a rum spring in a sense. They’re like, I understand that. I wanna go do all the hard drugs and I’ll be back. And then there are other people that kind of fight with it. So did you see that coming growing up, how you grew up and then, or what?

Anthony A. Dicks, Jr. (12:40.77)

Yeah, yeah, yep, yep. Mm-hmm, mm-hmm.

Anthony A. Dicks, Jr. (12:57.314)

So there were several different stages to that part of my development. And that was when I was born into the house, my dad was already leading a church. So I got to see him preach and all the rest of that stuff. And as a child, of course, you emulate what you see. So there’s some imitation there. But there’s no real, I didn’t have any sense of anything then. And then as a pastor’s kid, you put it, as a male, you put into positions where you have to speak. And so

being a speaker and orator, being on stage, stuff like that, I was put there, not voluntarily. I was voluntold, this is what you’re going to do. And then experience some success there. And then by the time I got to like eight years old, I was doing pretty good with public speaking and stuff like that. But then I got stage fright. So I avoided the stage for a good little while. And I didn’t like being on stage at all. It made me nervous. And then when I went to basic training for the United States Army Reserve and for Lindenwood.

Nick McGowan (13:31.913)

Yeah.

Anthony A. Dicks, Jr. (13:54.25)

uh, not Fort Lennon, it was in Fort Knox, Kentucky. That’s where my basic training was. My AIT was in Fort Lennon. Where I, um, I began to hear, or get this sense and feeling again. Cause I had avoided it. I told myself, I don’t want to be what my daddy is. They don’t make no money. I don’t want to be what my daddy is. So, if famous last word is right, I never, um, and then eventually of course, God does what he does.

Nick McGowan (14:11.828)

Yeah.

Anthony A. Dicks, Jr. (14:21.35)

and I assume that responsibility to preach. And then eventually, of course, to pass in a whole host of other things. And the thing that I appreciate, one of the things I appreciate about my daddy is, and not enough people do this. When we were growing up, we wanted to be grown, right? And so grown becomes a static state where once I’m grown, I’m ahead of answers. My parents ain’t be able to tell me nothing.

They talk about them being grown. That’s why they know how to make these decisions. Like, all right, now I’m old enough, I’m grown. Well, I realized that being grown is not static. Being grown is dynamic. And you have to give yourself space to continue to evolve. You gotta continue to evolve. And one of the things my dad gave to me was, he gave me the space to evolve, to even if we’re in the same lane, to not be what he is.

And I had to learn to give that to my children. I give you the classic example. You said that when you were being a guide at a council about college, they said, well, you’re the arts guy, right? You’re not gonna make any money. You can pursue the arts thing, but you’re not gonna make any money, right? You can pursue the arts. Well, did those guidance counselors know that YouTube was coming? Did they know that the iPhone and the iPod was coming? Because right about now, if I’m not mistaken, the study shows the new billionaires and millionaires on the planet.

all in content creation. That’s kind of artsy. So maybe the arts guy is the one that’s gonna be making money and not the people who are choosing all of these rigid careers. But they didn’t have the insight to see that. But if they created a lane, why don’t they say, well, let’s just see how Nick evolves. Let’s just see how Anthony evolves. And that’s one of the gifts my dad gave me, just giving me the space to evolve. Now it didn’t always feel like it was a lot of space. Like there was some hard guard rails.

But there was still a language that said, just give yourself the freedom to become something that you may not have saw yourself as, and you might actually like who you become.

Nick McGowan (16:32.02)

So do you find yourself doing that with your kids now? Being able to still have some sort of guard rails, but like softer guard rails and letting them just move about freely?

Anthony A. Dicks, Jr. (16:42.078)

Yeah, I try to. I can’t say that I’m the best at it. I have helped, like my wife helps me. I give an example. She did this early on in our marriage. When we got married, I was trying to teach my son how to take out the trash. Guess how I was teaching him how to take out the trash? The same way my daddy taught me, right? I knew the what of my daddy teaching me how to take out the trash. I didn’t understand the why. So when my son was able to do it, I was trying to teach him how to do it. My wife said…

Nick McGowan (17:01.416)

Yeah.

Anthony A. Dicks, Jr. (17:11.014)

let him figure out how to do it on his own. Let’s just see how he do it. He does it. I was trying to hold him accountable, like that ain’t how you do it. You do it like this. That ain’t how you do it. You do it like this. The trash ain’t taken out till it’s done like this. And when she encouraged me to give him space to evolve, I backed off some and was impressed that he brought some things to the table about taking out the trash that I would have never thought of.

So me being rigid was getting in the way of his creativity. It was getting in the way of his ability to evolve. And so I try to maintain that posture. I’m by no means the perfect father, by no means the perfect parent, but I try to maintain that posture. And it’s not easy. Cause there’s some decisions that your child or any child will make for the parents. It’s like, I wouldn’t do it that way. But in that regard, I might be being so short-sighted. I may not be able to see how them doing something

Nick McGowan (18:01.013)

Yeah.

Anthony A. Dicks, Jr. (18:04.738)

while they’re in school. You’re taking the classes, but you’re also doing graphic design. You’re taking the classes, but you’re also vlogging, doing videography. I may not see how that unfolds for them in the future. And they blossom and become the great butterfly they’re supposed to be because they can’t become the butterfly they’re supposed to be in a cocoon I make for them.

So I gotta let them, I gotta give them space to evolve.

Nick McGowan (18:28.476)

Yeah, it’s gotta be tough.

It has to be tough. I don’t have any kids. I was raised with a brother and a sister and we were all a bit different. Again, I was kind of the artsy kid. My brother took after my dad and my sister has kind of gone the education route since. But everything was raised a bit differently. But we are told by our parents, just like you probably, like especially with your son, tell them this is how you do the trash because this is what makes the most darn sense. This is how you

Anthony A. Dicks, Jr. (18:38.839)

Yeah.

Anthony A. Dicks, Jr. (18:45.441)

Okay.

Anthony A. Dicks, Jr. (18:55.596)

Yeah.

Mm-hmm. Yeah.

Nick McGowan (18:59.958)

to do it. So if I do it and I think I’m intelligent, you should do the exact same thing. But being able to have that freedom within yourself to go, you know what, let him figure it out. And sometimes it takes somebody outside of you who loves you, it can kind of slap you in the back of the head and be like, just let him take the trash out on his own. Like,

Anthony A. Dicks, Jr. (19:11.074)

Yeah.

Anthony A. Dicks, Jr. (19:17.93)

Yep. Yeah, that’s, it wasn’t a slap per se, but you know, it was a strong encouragement. It was like, it was a strong encouragement.

Nick McGowan (19:22.204)

Shit.

Nick McGowan (19:27.937)

We’re not promoting domestic violence here. Do not slap your spouse, even if it’s to take the trash out. But that thought of we all do it. We all have that, well, I figured this thing out. This makes sense to me. So I think somebody else should. But we do need to take into account personality types, history and context, and of course trauma. So assuming…

Anthony A. Dicks, Jr. (19:40.683)

Mm-hmm.

Anthony A. Dicks, Jr. (19:46.17)

Yep. Yeah.

Nick McGowan (19:52.628)

Let’s take your child out of the picture. Let’s talk about the people that you work with from a management perspective. There are people that have traumas even just within different companies they’ve worked for, bosses they’ve had, let alone their own personal traumas from being a four-year-old kid that they learned, oh, to be safe, I need to do this thing. So when you help people and give them kind of that flexibility to learn on their own while you’re still being hired to give them wisdom and training and instruction, how do you also then take into account

Anthony A. Dicks, Jr. (19:56.766)

Yeah. Mm-hmm.

Anthony A. Dicks, Jr. (20:01.838)

Mm-hmm.

Anthony A. Dicks, Jr. (20:19.598)

Mm-hmm.

Nick McGowan (20:22.302)

traumas, their personality type, and in the context of that person.

Anthony A. Dicks, Jr. (20:27.906)

Well, there’s some practical ways in which you can take into account their personality type through certain assessments, like the Enneagram, Myers-Briggs, I personally ascribe to the disc from a professional perspective. So you can do those things there. Empathy is a big deal. So really taking into account how, what factors would I want someone in my position to consider if they were coaching me?

Nick McGowan (20:33.088)

Sure. Yep. Disc.

Nick McGowan (20:53.92)

Hmm.

Anthony A. Dicks, Jr. (20:58.462)

Right? There is magic in our uniqueness. And whenever we stop looking at each other for our uniqueness, we really can’t celebrate who that person is. You are human in general, but you’re Nick in particular. And there are some particular things about Nick. There’s some particular things about Anthony that they bring to the table that are unique assets to the world in which they live.

Some of those things are trauma. But if anybody has survived from it, no one, I don’t think that anyone who is functional in any regard, as a professional, as a human, just as a person, who has not developed mechanisms to overcome trauma, not just to cope with it. Like there’s some people who have trauma and they are coping with it. But those are particular traumas that probably need

outside help, but there are other things that they’ve experienced from a traumatic perspective that they have developed systems to overcome. Now everybody, what I cope with, you may have overcome and what you cope with, I may have overcome, but we’ve got mechanisms to overcome. The question is, how do we employ them to continue to bring out the best in us? And so really having conversations to investigate those lanes and hopefully an ear to hear where that trauma may have come from.

because I think one of the things that you shared that was so helpful, home may be one of the first places you experienced from a buddy, it’s not the only. And so because people spend so much time at work, there are things that you can experience at work that are traumatic too, that cause you to feel like you’re inadequate, that cause you to feel like you are invisible or insignificant, that causes you to wrestle with a lack of confidence or causes you to cope.

in certain ways where you seek to dominate conversations instead of being a little bit more relaxed, where you hold back your feedback because somebody told you that when you talk, you never make sense. Those things can happen at work and have a very strong effect on someone’s psyche to where it’s traumatic. And when we’re having conversations for leadership consulting and coaching, we investigate those lanes subtly and provide solutions so that they can.

Anthony A. Dicks, Jr. (23:21.714)

employ what they already have. Like you already got it in you to overcome trauma. How have you overcome it in the past? Well, why won’t that system work with this particular trauma? Let’s try it and kind of investigate it and see where it goes.

Nick McGowan (23:34.016)

That’s an interesting thing. We do figure out ways to either cope or ways to overcome or ways to get through it.

I really think a lot of it can tie into our overall winning strategy that you figured out at one point as a little kid. This is the way that I win. This is the way that I stay safe. This is how I am not abandoned. My core wound is straight up abandonment and not being loved. And I know that came from being a little kid. And that still translates into even times with my business partner or my girlfriend where we’ll talk through things and I’m like, this directly ties to my core wound.

Anthony A. Dicks, Jr. (23:47.522)

Hmm.

Anthony A. Dicks, Jr. (23:52.11)

Mm-hmm.

Anthony A. Dicks, Jr. (23:59.2)

Mm-hmm. Hmm.

Anthony A. Dicks, Jr. (24:13.183)

Yeah.

Nick McGowan (24:13.498)

with this. And it takes the self-awareness to be able to see that, but it also takes us going through those things to understand that sometimes we set up mechanisms and situations for ourselves to actually push us deeper into a winning strategy instead of going, hold up a second, why am I actually feeling this and how do I do something with it? So the fact that you look into these subtly, I can understand, like, we don’t want to just straight up say, look, your trauma from when you were five years old is affecting everything you’re

Anthony A. Dicks, Jr. (24:29.714)

Mm-hmm.

Anthony A. Dicks, Jr. (24:41.907)

Right. Not too many people will pay you for it directly, right?

Nick McGowan (24:43.298)

reason why you’re stopping yourself, that might be a bit much for some people. Some people might be like, thank you Anthony, I appreciate that. How do I fix this? It’s been 40 years. No exactly. But being able to understand that is a crucial component, at least I understand it to be that way, where you have to know what those things are and how they relate to either your winning strategy or something that actually ties directly to you. So do you get into that within your coaching?

leadership management.

Anthony A. Dicks, Jr. (25:14.422)

Yeah, of course. And again, as you said, we kind of do it subtly. We can introduce concepts. One of the things about people is when they feel safe enough, they’ll tell you just about anything you need to know to help them grow if you’re listening to it. Listening to how people talk about their family, listen to how people talk about their experiences and how they process it. When you have an idea of what…

Nick McGowan (25:28.404)

Mm-hmm.

Anthony A. Dicks, Jr. (25:40.294)

a healthier leader sounds like, you can hear some of the unhealthy things, the trauma, and you can begin to guide conversations, interject certain things to keep them exploring in such a way where it’s healthy, like you said, so they can develop their own winning strategy. Most of the times when people overcome, they overcome usually with an answer or strategy they reach themselves. Because if I give you the strategy, then you may not be equipped

to apply the strategy, because it’s mine. It’s like, if, let’s say you got two athletes and you want both of them to score, well, if you give a baseball player the objective to score, he’s gonna use a baseball bat. You give a basketball player the objective to score, he’s gonna use a basketball. A football player is gonna use a football. So all of them wanna score in their respective games, but they have different tools to go about doing it. And if I, if my primary tool is basketball, if I’m talking to someone whose primary tool is baseball,

Nick McGowan (26:12.448)

Sure.

Anthony A. Dicks, Jr. (26:38.982)

I can’t give you my winning strategy because it won’t work for the game you’re playing. So we can just talk about the game enough or talk about winning enough, you can develop your own strategy to do that. And there are, one of the beautiful things about what I do is being able to see breakthrough in the midst of a conversation, right? Breakthrough that I can’t take credit for, but breakthrough that I do get the privilege to see because we’ve just had…

great conversations where really the environment, the person felt safe enough, even as an executive. One of the things that, you know, leaders don’t often have context where they can bring down their defenses because so many times people are parsing their words, trying to figure out what their agendas are, what their motives are and all that. They don’t really have a safe space where they can talk freely without judgment of any type. And the coaching mechanism.

consulting mechanisms really provide context to have those conversations so that they can bring down those defenses and really develop strategies to help them, as you said, win and move forward. Cause that’s really what it’s all about. And when they can come up with those strategies on their own, it’s gold. It’s real gold.

Nick McGowan (27:55.776)

Sure.

Yeah, you then own it because you’ve been able to piece it together. It’s almost just like helping somebody get to the point where they go, oh, I see how this works because they piece those things together. For the most part, the winning strategy, it’s interesting. When I first learned about that, I thought of it in a sense of like, oh, this is how somebody wins. This is like a positive thing. But in all reality, that winning strategy is kind of a negative thing because it’s how you’ve tried to win in the world to be safe or how you’ve tried to do these things to make sure that you’re okay in your little piece of the world.

Anthony A. Dicks, Jr. (27:58.91)

Mm-hmm. Exactly.

Anthony A. Dicks, Jr. (28:04.85)

Exactly.

Anthony A. Dicks, Jr. (28:18.882)

Hmm. We ain’t in the past. Yep.

Anthony A. Dicks, Jr. (28:26.135)

Mm-hmm.

Nick McGowan (28:27.614)

and understanding how you do those things. And so from a leadership perspective, especially management, there are a lot of managers that are like, well, I was taught by this manager, or this manager, or this manager, you do these things. But if you don’t take into account the traumas of your employees, the day and age, and the stuff that’s happening, then you can’t understand that. But you hit on something major that I think a lot of people just talk about as like a nice buzzword, it’s empathy. And being empathetic and understanding, and trying to understand from that perspective.

Anthony A. Dicks, Jr. (28:36.363)

Right.

Anthony A. Dicks, Jr. (28:43.968)

Mm-hmm.

Anthony A. Dicks, Jr. (28:52.545)

Yeah.

Anthony A. Dicks, Jr. (28:56.77)

Mm-hmm.

Nick McGowan (28:56.874)

You talked about the disc assessment, the enneagram, things of that sort. I know that I’m a major four three when it comes to the enneagram, so I’m super feely and emotional and all of that. And I’ve dealt with different sixes at certain times. That fours and sixes are like oil and water, and we just don’t get along at all. But understanding those things can help us then have those deeper conversations. So how do you help people understand

Anthony A. Dicks, Jr. (29:00.524)

Yeah.

Anthony A. Dicks, Jr. (29:14.966)

Mm-hmm. Yeah.

Anthony A. Dicks, Jr. (29:22.044)

Mm-hmm.

Nick McGowan (29:26.814)

time, not even within themselves, but with their employees or their upper management. How do you help them understand how to look at those things and make those quick decisions where you can then say, all right, this is what this person’s thinking. And I have other questions to be able to find out some more information about it.

Anthony A. Dicks, Jr. (29:43.382)

Yeah, that’s the method to the madness. When you, people learn from doing or learn from experiencing, not necessarily experience as in past performance, things of that nature, but there are some experiences you can have where you can learn from those experiences. And so in management, when you’re talking to leaders, the way you guide them through the resolution of the conflict can often model ways

that empower them to work through the content as well. Because they remember what it felt like to reach the aha. They remember what it felt like to say, oh, that’s the strategy. How did he do that? What kind of questions did he… So that kind of reflection is critical. And really, one of the things that I just think is just super duper important, because you laid out so many different things about how you take…

Nick McGowan (30:20.557)

Mm-hmm.

Anthony A. Dicks, Jr. (30:39.606)

these factors into account when you’re leading and managing someone about personality and trauma and all the rest of it.

What you believe about yourself is important to understand if you’re ever going to lead others on both ends of the spectrum. If I’m high strung and I believe a whole lot about what I can produce, right? If I believe that, then I need to have a healthy perspective of that because if I lead people based on how I feel about myself,

Nick McGowan (30:55.776)

Hmm.

Anthony A. Dicks, Jr. (31:14.534)

I feel like I can do it, then I’m going to tell you can do it. When, as my wife told me, sometimes you’re asking people to do things that they just can’t do.

Nick McGowan (31:17.28)

Mm-hmm.

Anthony A. Dicks, Jr. (31:25.214)

Right? It’s like, you and Mike, you were in New Mexico, right? And so you said that’s a few hours from Colorado. And I know Colorado football is a big thing lately. And so.

Nick McGowan (31:38.5)

on here.

Anthony A. Dicks, Jr. (31:41.078)

They say Deion Sanders is one of the coaches who is great at coaching, even though he was a great player, because most great players aren’t great coaches. Why? Cause they’re asking the kids to produce what they did when the kids may not have that capacity. So when you, when you think you have a whole lot of capacity, if you’re not careful, you can misjudge the capacity of others and, and be a burden to them because you’re asking them to do things that they’re just not capable of doing. That’s one end of the spectrum.

Nick McGowan (31:50.342)

Yeah.

Nick McGowan (32:08.819)

Hmm

Anthony A. Dicks, Jr. (32:10.546)

other end is you don’t think enough of yourself and because you don’t think enough of yourself you want more for other people than you want for yourself but that’s not healthy either so you got to have that healthy perspective and when you reflect on your self perspective you say you know what the same grace I give myself is the same grace in space I need to give somebody else if you remember what it felt like being misunderstood for something you said

Nick McGowan (32:39.168)

Mm-hmm.

Anthony A. Dicks, Jr. (32:40.538)

it helps you when you misunderstand what somebody else said. And so giving people the tools to have that kind of self-reflection, slow down and ask those types of questions, I think are empowering, especially when it comes to resolving a certain amount of conflict and really just leaving at their best self.

Nick McGowan (32:59.764)

Yeah.

Great points, especially being able to understand, I’ve been through this before, so let me help somebody. I think there’s also, not to throw a monkey wrench into the middle of it, but I guess I’m about to. There’s also the times where you can lead from a perspective, sort of like what we talked about before, of like, well, I believe this to be true, so you should do it like this. My personality type and my traumas and my context and all of my wisdom and experience have led me to this thing. So then they force from that angle.

Anthony A. Dicks, Jr. (33:06.091)

Mm. Mm-hmm.

Anthony A. Dicks, Jr. (33:20.878)

Mm-hmm.

Nick McGowan (33:30.682)

and instead of…

literally understanding that you have a different human in front of you to be able to work with that human and not just go with that angle. And I find that that’s really tough. Like I’ve seen so many different coaches that are just coaches, coaches and coaches, coaches and coach, coach. It’s like, how did you, how did you get started? When did you get started? They’re like, Oh, a few months ago because I was bored because the pandemic hit or whatever. And it’s like, okay, do you have anything that you’ve actually been through? And there are certain people like I was a reluctant coach.

Anthony A. Dicks, Jr. (33:37.034)

Right.

Anthony A. Dicks, Jr. (33:52.194)

Mm-hmm.

Anthony A. Dicks, Jr. (33:56.514)

Mm-hmm.

Nick McGowan (34:03.142)

being a coach for people because they were like, can you help me with this? Can I pay you for these things? I’m like, yeah, because I’ve been through a lot of shit and stuff that’s actually helped me get to the point, but I’ve had to work through it. But one of the things that I’ve struggled with is what I’m talking about, where I’ve said, well, from my perspective it’s this. And I had to understand and get kind of slapped in the face a few different times of like, I’m preaching about what has worked for me instead of understanding what is

Anthony A. Dicks, Jr. (34:06.794)

Right.

Anthony A. Dicks, Jr. (34:10.532)

Mm-hmm.

Anthony A. Dicks, Jr. (34:28.483)

Mm-hmm.

Nick McGowan (34:33.002)

actually relate to these things, which I think gets back to the empathy like you talked about.

Anthony A. Dicks, Jr. (34:34.647)

Right.

Mm-hmm. It’s really what you believe about you and making sure that matches what you believe about people. Right? Because the same agency you had to come to the answers that you are touting are the best answers for this particular situation, somebody else has that capacity. If I’ve got the capacity and agency to come up with solutions.

then the person I’m in front of has the capacity and the agency to come up with those solutions. If I don’t like when someone gets amid or amongst my creative process, then I’m not going to get in the way of their creative process. Because in order for it really to work for us both, if we’re in this thing together, they have to reach certain conclusions on their own.

I’ve seen over and over and over again where you give someone the answer, either they don’t apply it or they don’t commit to it even after they enact the decision. They go back on it. Why? Because as you said, they didn’t take ownership of it. And if they come to that conclusion on their own, it’s easier and I think better, better for them. We could just be guides. We’re like guide rails. You got to, Jim Collins in the book, Good to Great, of course, talked about

Nick McGowan (35:49.865)

Yeah.

Anthony A. Dicks, Jr. (36:03.434)

A level five leader, I think he says, leads people with these two things in mind, freedom and responsibility. You got to give people the freedom to do certain things, but the responsibility to keep them anchored. And responsibility is the guard rails to that freedom. Almost like when we were talking a little bit early, I was thinking about the Garden of Eden, how when you were talking about the artist and being counseled about, you know, an artist is not gonna make any money. They…

That was almost saying the only way to gain wealth is through a career when God made Adam and Eve, he gave them a lot of right choices to make. Only one bad choice. You can eat off all of this other stuff, just don’t eat this one thing. And I think if we learn from things like that, that there is, as the old song was saying, more than one way to skin a cat, there’s more than one way to solve this challenge, to solve this issue.

then we can give everybody space to evolve in such a way where we could all get along as they say, and really, really be happy and find, the big thing is to really find meaning. Because that’s what the why gives you. When you find the why of your purpose, then you understand your life’s meaning. I’m not just doing something that’s menial. I’m not just doing something that’s mundane, but I really understand the meaning of this. I feel joy in this. I get…

Nick McGowan (37:10.602)

Hmm.

Anthony A. Dicks, Jr. (37:27.258)

Even if it’s challenging, I feel rewarded in engaging this because now I know what it means and I know what it means not because someone gave me the answer but because someone provided me with enough freedom to arrive at the answer myself.

Nick McGowan (37:42.344)

Hmm. It’s a simple thing to talk about. It’s not easy to do. But it is one of those things where you can look at and go, huh, yeah, that makes a lot of sense. We should all do that more often. But along those lines, what sort of advice would you give to somebody on their path towards self-mastery?

Anthony A. Dicks, Jr. (37:51.336)

No, no, see.

Anthony A. Dicks, Jr. (38:02.93)

I would give them this advice. Give yourself the freedom to evolve. Evolving is not rebelling. Evolving is you growing into who you were made to be. It is you continuing to give yourself space to develop, to change. And some of the hardest, well, really, I believe one of the hardest things a person can do is give themselves permission to evolve. I don’t have to always be what I’ve always been.

Nick McGowan (38:42.333)

Mm-hmm.

Anthony A. Dicks, Jr. (38:43.886)

I can maintain my core values and continue to explore other avenues that doesn’t change me to my core. It just may change how I express who I am at my core. I don’t have to always be the lead guitarist. I don’t always have to play for churches. I could do something and still maintain my core values. I’ll just find another way to express those core values. Why? Because I’ve evolved. Whether I’m talking at a radio station, doing a podcast.

or YouTube. We didn’t always have radio. We didn’t always have YouTube. Didn’t always have podcasts, but you’re doing the same thing at your core because you gave yourself the space and grace to evolve.

Nick McGowan (39:25.62)

beautiful way to be able to put that man. All right, okay, Anthony, I appreciate your time. I appreciate being on with us, getting in everything you’ve gotten into. Before I let you go, where can people find you and where can they connect with you?

Anthony A. Dicks, Jr. (39:30.882)

Thank you for having me.

Anthony A. Dicks, Jr. (39:36.662)

You can connect with me a few different ways. You can go to LinkedIn. I’m on LinkedIn at LinkedIn.com backslash IEN backslash AA Dix Jr. I think that’s how the URL goes. The website for the company at which I serve is 180managementgroup.com. And if you’d like to connect at a different level, you can follow me on IG at AA Dix Jr.

Nick McGowan (40:00.328)

Awesome. And we’ll have all that in the show notes. Again, Anthony, it was fantastic having you on. I appreciate your time today.

Anthony A. Dicks, Jr. (40:05.474)

Thank you so much, Nick. This was a blessing, man. I appreciate it. This was good.