Life or Death: The #1 Leadership Blind Spot That Will Cost You Millions With DeDe Halfhill

DeDe Halfhill is the Founder and Principal Consultant at TAIOH Partners, a leadership consulting firm. As a retired US Air Force Colonel, keynote speaker, and advisor, she has over 25 years of leadership experience, including advising the Commander General in Iraq and the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs. DeDe has developed the Master the Unseen™ framework — the hidden and emotional dynamics shaping alignment, trust, and momentum in teams.

Here’s a glimpse of what you’ll learn:

[3:05] Why leaders must acknowledge humanity in the workplace
[5:42] How emotional undercurrents impact organizational performance and KPIs
[11:32] Reframing negativity in teams as a sign of care and commitment
[17:18] Tips for making team members feel seen, valued, and heard in meetings
[23:56] How leaders’ ideas and core values can become liabilities when overused
[29:11] DeDe Halfhill talks about uncovering blind spots in leadership
[36:57] DeDe’s story in Brené Brown’s Dare to Lead about loneliness in the military
[45:35] What is the accountability ladder, and how can leaders deploy it in their teams?
[55:37] The difference between having all the answers and proving your worth
[1:04:22] DeDe’s identity shift after leaving the Air Force

In this episode…

Leaders often believe that data, KPIs, and dashboards tell the whole story of their organization. Yet, beneath the numbers are unspoken emotions and hidden dynamics that drive or derail performance. When leaders avoid difficult conversations or overlook the emotional undercurrents within their teams, they risk making costly mistakes and missing opportunities. How can leaders confront these invisible forces and lead more effectively?

Retired Air Force Colonel and leadership advisor DeDe Halfhill emphasizes the importance of curiosity, reframing negativity, and making team members feel seen and heard. Leaders can engage in coaching techniques to uncover the fear behind resistance, promote accountability, and recognize when their strengths and ideas can become liabilities. By addressing emotions directly and building trust outside of crisis moments, leaders can foster resilience and connection and boost performance.

In today’s episode of the Up Arrow Podcast, DeDe Halfhill, Founder and Principal Consultant at TAIOH Partners, joins William Harris to discuss uncovering the leadership blind spots that can derail performance. DeDe talks about reframing dissent as care, the identity crisis leaders often face after major transitions, and the importance of acknowledging humanity in the workplace.

Resources mentioned in this episode

Quotable Moments

“You can't address what you can't see, but what you can't see is affecting everything.”
“Almost all of this is a reframe. How do I get to the fear underneath?”
“Every leader, if you are leading period dot, you should go through a fundamental coaching class.”
“Arrogance is less about what we say and more about how little we listen.”
“Stop, listen, and get curious. The most magical question I ever asked was, ‘Tell me more.’”

Action Steps

Acknowledge emotional undercurrents in your organization: Emotions are always present, whether leaders address them or not. By surfacing and navigating these feelings, leaders can prevent unseen forces from sabotaging results.
Reframe resistance as care: Instead of labeling team members as difficult, consider whether their pushback comes from genuine concern. This shift builds trust and often uncovers valuable insights.
Practice curiosity before judgment: Asking “what’s really going on?” helps leaders identify the root causes of behavior. Curiosity opens the door to more accurate problem-solving and stronger relationships.
Invest in coaching skills: Learning to ask open-ended questions and listen without judgment transforms leadership. Coaching skills help leaders notice, support, and grow their people more effectively.
Create space for people to feel seen and heard: Even short meetings can provide validation when leaders listen fully or reschedule intentionally. When employees feel valued, engagement and performance rise.

Sponsor for this episode

This episode is brought to you by Elumynt. Elumynt is a performance-driven e-commerce marketing agency focused on finding the best opportunities for you to grow and scale your business.

Our paid search, social, and programmatic services have proven to increase traffic and ROAS, allowing you to make more money efficiently.

To learn more, visit www.elumynt.com.

Episode Transcript

Intro 0:03

Welcome to the Up Arrow Podcast with William Harris, featuring top business leaders, sharing strategies and resources to get to the next level. Now let's get started with the show.

William Harris 0:16

Hey everyone. I'm William Harris on the founder and CEO of Elumynt and the host of the Up Arrow Podcast, where I feature the best minds in e-commerce and elsewhere to help you scale from 10 million to 100 million and beyond. As you up arrow your business and your personal life, most founders think their biggest problems are in the numbers, the KPIs, the dashboards, the reports, but the truth is, what's really driving your business isn't on a spreadsheet at all. It's the conversations you're avoiding, the emotions you don't see, and the fears no one is talking about. And today's guest has spent her career helping leaders get under the hood and face the things that actually make or break companies. DeDe Halfhill is retired Air Force colonel, a leadership advisor featured in Brené Brown's best selling book, Dare to Lead, and one of the most respected voices in the hidden dynamics that shape teams and cultures. She's been in rooms where the stakes were literally life or death, and she's now bringing those lessons to founders and executives who are scaling businesses in some of the toughest environments in the world. DeDe Halfhill, welcome to the Up Arrow Podcast.

DeDe Halfhill 1:15

Hi. So nice to be with you today.

William Harris 1:17

Yeah, I gotta give a quick shout out also to Melanie Marshall, former deputy bureau chief of the BBC, previous guest on the podcast, wonderful person. She's one who made the introduction for us to be able to bring this episode to everybody. And I have to ask, did you know she told me that her nickname for you is Colonel rock star?

DeDe Halfhill 1:40

Oh no, she did not tell me that, and I'm gonna have to, like, scold her for that, but I will say in dare to lead, Brené refers to me as a bad ass. But I will tell you, I think between the two of us, Melanie is definitely the bigger bad ass, like she has told me stories we were comparing war stories of our time in Iraq, and the environment she was in was so vastly different from mine. So I Yeah, mad respect for her.

William Harris 2:09

Yeah. We talk about that on the podcast. I mean, you know, she's split second decisions. When you actually hear the bullets going over your head and you're like, that's, uh, you've got to be able to make a decision. You can't just stand there, yeah, one more quick interruption. Then we'll jump right into the good stuff here. This episode is brought to you by Elumynt. Elumynt is an award winning advertising agency optimizing e-commerce campaigns around profit. In fact, we've helped 13 of our customers get acquired, with the largest one selling for nearly 800,000,001 that IPO Ed. You can learn more on our website at Elumynt.com, which is spelled elumynt.com, okay, DeDe, as I mentioned, you've led at the highest levels in the Air Force, where leadership decisions are actually life or death, and now you work with founders and executives. When you talk, when you walk into a room of leaders, what's the invisible thing you often see that they don't

DeDe Halfhill 3:05

their humanity. You know, I talked to, I talked to so many people, and because I'm in a space that many people feel is soft, this idea of emotion, they're often, push back and say, Yeah, that's great, but that won't work here. And what I tell them, given the background I come from, is that what you do may be unique. You might be in the military, you might be in the construction field, you might be in finance, you might be starting your own business. What you do may be unique, but your humanity is not and it's not that they don't see it. It's that they think they can hide it. But when you get in a room with them, especially a room where a container has been built, where they can start to take some of those protective measures off, when they can step into who they really are, you see, you see everyone's humanity. Sometimes I joke. I'll go into an organization and I'll work with a team of people, and I always end up leaving feeling like, can I give you a resume? Because I would love to come work here, because I always love I'm not, but I always love the teams, because you get to see who they really are. And I remember a quote from Brené Brown. She said, You can't hate people up close. And when you see, yeah, when you see people's humanity, you just can't help but have a deep love for everything they're trying to do in the world.

William Harris 4:43

That's a great quote. It reminds me of one that I've said often on here, which is, I believe from Josh McDowell, Rules without relationship leads to rebellion, and I that's one of the reasons we're a completely remote team. But I like to make sure we fly everybody out here at least once a year for our team science. It because of that exact reason. It's like, we need to sweat a little bit together. We need to, like, do some things together, and when we do then that's no longer just one more Asana task that came across on your desk right now. This is no this is a, you know, a request from so and so, and I love them, and I want to help them. And of course, I will dig into this and do my best work for you, versus like, oh my goodness, how many of these am I going to get today? And so I love that quote there that you shared for Brené um, it's, it's often you, you said that leaders spend too much time staring at KPIs and not enough time addressing the emotional undercurrents. Why ignoring that not just incomplete, but actually dangerous.

DeDe Halfhill 5:42

Oh, goodness. You know, I often tell leaders you can't address what you can't see, but what you can't see is affecting everything you can. And that's kind of my bumper sticker for understanding that we spend all of our time over here really trying to monitor the KPIs, right? We've got measurements in place. We're tracking the numbers. We're getting regular updates when all along there's this invisible force over here, this idea of the emotions that are in your organization, the things I call the emotional undercurrents of your your organization, they are going they're there, whether you want to admit it or not, and they are either supporting or they are sabotaging all these things you're measuring. But it feels the space over here, this space of emotion feels really messy. It can feel a little scary. It definitely feels new. We've not been trained most of us, at least, I think I can say people my age. We've not been trained in how to navigate that space in a way that leads to a productive outcome. We've we've been used to relying on our authority versus engaging in our humanity. And the problem is, if you lack the desire, the ability, you know, the skill, to go into that space, you actually are measuring all these other KPIs blind. Don't really you are abdicating responsibility for the possibility of where the KPIs could go. And so I really believe that as a leader, if you are not engaging in that emotional undercurrent, then you're not really leading. You're holding down the

William Harris 7:32

fort. Let's say that people are listening so far and they're like, I still have a little bit of a bah humbug attitude of others. Like, I don't know if I buy into this a whole lot. Is there an example you can think of where ignoring these, as you said, like, maybe the softer things or the emotional things, has led to something damaging for business?

DeDe Halfhill 7:56

Yeah, you know. And when I talk about this work, I often talk about it in two places. One, we have to understand the emotional undercurrents of our team. And two, we have to understand the emotional undercurrents within what are the emotions we're experiencing? And so the number one story that comes to mind when you ask me that question is, I was talking to a founder recently who was having some personnel problems, and he didn't. He He was uncertain about how to talk to this woman who was on his team. He didn't know the right way to say it. He felt like he was going to hurt her. He felt like he was going to say the wrong thing. So he didn't, he wouldn't talk to her, to the point where he was, he was coming up against losing investments because of his inability to talk to her, and because he was losing investments, he was about to lose his company, and so he was being stopped. The fear he had of that conversation was more powerful than the desire he had to see that business go forward. Wow, that goes to show you, like, how strong that fear can be. And if we lack the skills to identify that in ourselves, to navigate in that that in ourselves, as well as our teams, we can make some really bad calls. We can make some really bad decisions, things that we have to clean up later,

William Harris 9:19

the fear of conversation. I think we've all probably run into that at some point in time in our lives. And what's interesting is even work wise, personal wise, or whatever, the way that I've helped reframe that in my mind, and I don't remember where I heard this, but I like it is this idea that you're robbing that other person of the necessary feedback that they need to be able to do something better, right? And so it's like, and so it's like, if you don't have your kids, you know, if you don't have your kids help with some of the chores, you're robbing them of developing those skills that are necessary for them in life. If you don't have this conversation with that employee, you are robbing of them of the skills that they need to actually go on and be further. You're robbing the rest of the team of what you know, their. Deserving of and the hard work that the company could grow. And so, you know, when you reframe it that way, maybe hopefully helps to get a little for that fear, a little bit,

DeDe Halfhill 10:08

yeah, and really, that's, you know, you nailed it on the head when you said it's a reframe. Because almost all of this is a reframe. When we see people, let's, let's say you have an organization and you're going through change, and you see people really digging in in that change. Or you have someone on your team, this is a very classic one. You have someone on your team who always says, that's never

William Harris 10:30

going to work, sure. The naysayer,

DeDe Halfhill 10:33

the naysayer, right? What would it look like to reframe that as William really cares about this team, and there's obviously some fear there around what this new direction will mean, or what this new possibility will do for us. How do I get to the fear that's underneath that nay saying versus just thinking William is difficult to work with? So how do I how do I see William more as a human who is trying to navigate a real concern because he cares about this team in this company over William's just a naysayer. So

William Harris 11:15

I'm going to ask you that question. How do you reframe that? How do you actually get to that point where you're like, boy, this person has just been negative on everything. It's bringing the team morale down. Even if you in your mind, you're like, all right, I'm willing to give them the benefit of the doubt. Then what? How do you go about that conversation?

DeDe Halfhill 11:32

Yeah, I think you know it all starts with curiosity, and I hate to say something so simple, but as leaders, the more we can stop and ask ourselves, what's really going on, what's going on underneath the surface, what's going on behind the curtain, and how do you get curious enough so that you can get some core data? Because, you know, we had talked previously, and you mentioned higher, so, higher, slow, fire, fast. And I thought about that like, what does a leader really need to do to understand when is the call to make? Like, when is that call to be made? And I think it comes down to really like, Can I keep this person is, is this dissent coming with care? Which is what I said, like, really cares about this organization? He's not just a naysayer. He's not being difficult. Does he really care about the organization? And is he coming to me with concrete alternatives? He cares and he's giving us alternatives. I think that's when we keep like, Okay, this is a keeper, because he means, well, right then we have to look at where does fear fall on that spectrum? Is he coachable? Can he navigate the fear to the point where he's willing to try, or does the fear stop him dead in his tracks? And if he can't even step into the space to try, then probably not going to be a great member of your team, right? And then if there's any kind of blame, harm, secrecy, like that's when we really need to let go. And I think that's the thing the military really taught me, that a lot of organizations, because a lot can just release people. I think we're creating an environment, one a huge environment of lack of trust, and an environment where we're not even building the skill of seeing people's humanity. Sure, we're just passing it on to someone else. And in the military, we couldn't do that. We had to really get to that under like that undercurrent of, does this person mean? Well? Do they care? Can they try? Or are they just so stuck in their fear and their self protection that they can't even move

William Harris 13:56

forward? That's huge. It reminds me of one of the Apollo missions. I don't remember which one I'm gonna guess. Apollo 13. I wish I was better at my history with this. But there was somebody who basically said, right, like, Hey, this is gonna be really bad. We can't do this. This part isn't working. And sure enough, you know, the shuttle blows up, and they're like, they turns out that they knew all along, and they were trying and they were trying and they were trying and nobody was listening to them. And to your point, sometimes the naysayer is exactly who you need on the team. They're actually bringing this up because they genuinely care. And so if you could reframe that and say, Is this coming out of a care, you know, are they willing to step in to figure out how to do this? I think that makes a big difference.

DeDe Halfhill 14:35

Yeah. And I think the sad part is is, once we start to build that narrative that William doesn't like. William's just the naysayer. It's it kind of becomes the boy who cried wolf, right? We tune that person out, versus really digging into understanding, where is that nay saying? I know why I'm saying nay saying 1000 times. Where is the naysaying coming from, right? Yeah,

William Harris 14:59

there was a. I remember, I used to work in the hospital when I was going through college as a food delivery person, a tray passer, and we would pass out the food trays to the patients, and there were these carts that had all the trays in them. And you know, sometimes the wheels would squeek, and it's obviously very annoying. You're going down the hallway, people are trying to rest. It's should be it's annoying. And so I remember somebody saying, Oh, the squeaky wheel gets decreased. And I was like, until it gets repeated. Like, until it gets replaced, right? Like, that was, like, this big epiphany I had is, like, this teenager, right? It's like, a squeaky wheel gets, you know, the grease, until it gets replaced. You squeak enough and you're gonna get replaced. But to your point, it's like, there are times when it's like the squeaky wheel is letting you know that there's a problem. And so, you know, if you can find that way to reframe that, um, that's good. So

DeDe Halfhill 15:41

I could also add, because I think I got my coaching you know, I spent 25 years in the military, and I only retired in 2021 but I got my coaching certification in 2014 which means for six years of my active duty career, I had this background in coaching. And when I talk about curiosity, when you have that squeaky wheel, if you don't have the ability to really dig into the questions, then that's where you get stuck. I firmly believe that every leader, if you are leading period dot, you should go through a fundamental coaching class, because it teaches you how to become a noticer. It teaches you how to sit without judgment. It teaches you how to ask questions that are open ended in a way that they don't feel like an interrogation, and they're not. You know, you're not leading the witness. So often we ask questions leading the witness. And I think that going through that program transformed who I was as a leader more than anything else ever in the 25 years I was in the military, that eight month program changed me more.

William Harris 16:56

That's huge. Let's, let's walk with this idea then, so if every every human wants to be seen, valued and heard, this something that you have told me, what's one practical way that a leader can create that feeling, even in a 15 minute meeting, right? Like, how do we make sure that people feel that they're valued, seen and heard?

DeDe Halfhill 17:18

Yeah, when I was I'm not proud of this moment, but, you know, I'm a task person. I love a good task list. I love checking things off. There's a lot to do, and all of your listeners can probably relate, right? We're prisoners to the calendar. It's like one meeting after the next. And when I took command of the largest organization I led in the military, which is about 2000 people, when I took command of that, there was a lot to do. It was six different squadrons, each squadron doing their own completely unique mission set. And my I had a I had an amazing deputy, and my deputy would come in to give me updates on things, and he was a bit of a talker. I love him, but he was a bit of a talker. And he would come in, he would start giving me updates. And this isn't video, right? Can you can your it is video. That's probably something I should have asked in the beginning. Sorry, surprise.No, no, it's good, because now I can use my hands a little more as he was talking to me, I would go, and then he would keep going, and I would go, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. And then if he really wasn't getting my body language, I would go, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. And I d idn't even realize I was doing it. And suddenly, one day I don't even know how I don't know how it came into my awareness, if I'm being really honest, I don't know if someone called me out on it, whatever. And it hit me like this, man is my heavy hitter in allowing this group to run like this. Leader is the one who is doing the lion's share of keeping this organization on track. And he comes in to tell me something, and I go, Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. So the biggest lesson I learned in that moment was one of two things. One, if I have the ability to stop and listen, to stop and listen like, really focus and really make myself be present if I didn't have the ability to stop and listen right then and there. Because, like, let's say, you know, we had, we had a four star on our base. We had, you know, two star, one star. We had several senior leaders, general officers on the installation. Let's say I was crashing on something to get it to the four star, which happened quite regularly at that moment, instead of going uh huh, uh huh, and I'm typing away, I would actually say, Mark, what you have to say is so important that I want to be fully present. And right now, I'm doing X, Y and Z to get it out to the boss. Minutes. Can we circle back in 10 minutes? Can we circle back in 15 minutes? And I think we forget to do those two things. We think we can multitask. But when you ask the question about someone feeling seen and heard, it really is about giving them you giving them your attention. And when you do that, people know it. They feel seen, they feel valued, they feel heard. It's as simple as stopping.

William Harris 20:29

There's a good book I've been reading by Dr. Caroline Leaf. I believe it's called Switch on Your Brain. And you know, in it, she cites a lot of research. There is no such thing as multitasking like I think we've proven now that the human brain doesn't actually do multiple things at once. It's just switching back and forth really quickly and actually causes brain damage, which is another interesting thing that she shows through this trouble, right? Yeah, but I think the thing that's interesting that you called out here is that it's like, okay, being present is, is it's vital, and people want to see that, and we're also just little kids. So like, what you said is something that I've actually used for my kids when it's like, you know, we work from home. Now, I would love to hear what you have to say. This is the fourth time you've interrupted me in the last 15 minutes. I am at work, right? I don't say that, but it's like, you know, I'm thinking that, but I am at work here. I have to do this after this meeting. I would like to sit here and talk to you and tell me all about the slime that you just made, or whatever this might be, right? Even as adults, we're still just little kids at heart, still wanting to be seen, heard, valued, 100%

DeDe Halfhill 21:38

you know. And there was another thought that came to mind when you were sharing that, when my commanders would come into my office, and they were all responsible for organizations two to 400 people, right? So they're running everything from the logistics of the installation, the security of the installation, the communication network. When they would come in, I would ask them when they would come say, hey, ma'am, I need to talk to you. And they're like, we got a bit of a problem. Before I even allowed them to tell me the problem, I would say, are you looking for a thought partner? Are you looking for, you know, are you looking for some mentoring, some advice, or are you looking just to vent and they would decide what they needed, and sometimes it would be like, I just want to vent. And I'd be like, Go,

William Harris 22:28

sure that right 100% Yeah.

DeDe Halfhill 22:31

But even by giving them the choice of how I was showing up for them, told them that they were valued, because when they could say, I want a thought partner, which they did nine times out of 10. They very rarely wanted me to tell them how to do it when I when they would say, I want a thought partner, and I would go into nothing but coaching mode, pulling questions, you know, asking questions to pull their own expertise. When I would go into that mode, what they actually heard was, one, I trust you, and two, I value the unique gift you bring to this organization so much so that I don't want to cloud your unique gift with my experience. That's brilliant. I like that a lot, and to be honest, it made it so much easier for me as a leader like it took so much weight off me. I didn't have to have all the answers.

William Harris 23:30

That’s something that I actually want to get to in a little bit with you too, having all the answers I want to talk into, like this, this mindset of like the entrepreneur, then a little bit or the boss, the CEO. Most e commerce founders are idea machines. They're brilliant, but chaotic at times. Where do you see that strength start turning into a liability?

DeDe Halfhill 23:56

Oh, goodness, you know, I don't know if I shared this, but my partner is actually in that space right now. He's a founder. He's building a company. And I watch him, and I want to dig even a little bit deeper, because I think each person has their own unique strengths, right? We have values that we hold dear before I even see what I think you're getting to is like, there's so much to do. Can I delegate? Can I give up certain pieces of this, which is very tactical, right? Do I have the ability to build a good team, to bring the right people in? I often don't see that getting in the way as much as I see people's own values and their their strengths when they are used in excess, getting in their way. So I'll give you a perfect example, please. I was gonna ask for one. Yeah, my partner very strongly values humility, right? He is a really good person. He he. He is very humble, and that is partly why people really connect to him. He's a lawyer. People really trust him. He's very kind and in excess that humility can look like. He doesn't promote what he's doing as much as he should. He holds back from reaching out to someone, he holds back from telling people how amazing the product is that he's creating. I mean, it's fundamentally going to change. It's going to provide service to an entirely forgotten community in business. And that value in excess gets in his way. And all of us have that. We all have values that really drive our behavior, and oftentimes we don't even have a language to identify them. We might say, like, God, country corps, you know, like that. That's the Marines, not the Air Force, sure. But we think we have these ideal values, these aspirational values that we're shooting for, but really, underneath all of that is something that drives us. I'll give you an example again. My top two values are growth and Authenticity. Authenticity shows up for me constantly when when I'm out speaking, I'm very authentic. When I share stories, I'm very authentic. I have no problem using myself as an example when, even when it's not pretty, because I just really value truth and honesty and showing up as who we really are. No facade that authenticity can sometimes be in excess. When I go overboard, I share too much, right? Sure, it doesn't happen very often, but where it also can be, where it also gets in my way is when I meet someone who I feel like they have a big facade with me. It really triggers me. It gets me going. I immediately like, I don't trust that person. And how many times can someone say like, I can spot a bullshitter a mile away? Yeah, I can, because it's a sixth sense. So it can also get in my way, because I might not work with someone as closely as I should.

William Harris 27:19

I can relate to both of those examples you gave, both on the humility side, in the authenticity side, on the humility side, Midwest, it's, I feel like that's almost like a prerequisite for being here in the Midwest, a little bit like, at least, like from a stereotype, not really one to self promote overly, right, braggadocious. And I remember somebody telling me they're like, if you have the ability to help me, and you don't make sure that I'm aware of that, you don't promote that in some way, like, that's not very kind, is it? And it's like, Oh, so now you're playing against my desire to be kind, against my desire to be humble, right? And so it's figuring that out. And on the authenticity piece, there are routinely times where it's like, I'll just meet somebody, you know, random stranger. We're on vacation or something. My family is like, you know, who is that guy? You know, it's like, like, I met him, like, five minutes ago. I just asked if he wanted a piece of pizza. We had some extra kind of thing. And they're like, we thought it was like, one of your work friends, you like telling him is your whole life story and everything. And so I can appreciate that. And the way that you worded this, of like, we have these values, and they could be in excess, it reminds me, like, well, we have blood, and blood is a very vital thing, but too much blood is actually a bad thing, too. When you need white blood cells, too many white blood cells is a bad thing. Anything good in excess can become a detriment as well. And so to your point, like, these values are good, but they can sometimes be be, you know, over indexing as well.

DeDe Halfhill 28:46

Yeah, we usually over index in moments of certain uncertainty. Here, right when we feel vulnerable, we over that's when we tend to over index in the very moments we shouldn't

William Harris 28:58

so how do we how do we balance out that. Let's talk about the the human side of that. How do we what are ways that we can recognize that in ourselves and fix it?

DeDe Halfhill 29:11

I you know, because I have a background in coaching, I think Have you ever heard of the leadership circle profile? Yeah, right. I think assessments like that are one of the best ways to start, because a lot of times we might go out, we might ask people like, Hey, tell me how I'm doing. Give me some feedback on how I'm doing. But if you hold any positions of power, if you have authority over anything, people are not going to be at no matter how hard you try as a leader. You can be the kindest leader ever, but if you have some sense of power, that becomes very hard for people to share. I'll share another story. I was getting my certification in the leadership circle profile, and so because of that, I had to take the assessment, and I gave it to my whole team. And I get the results back, I'm super excited. I was already certified as a coach. I was already working with Brené Brown and the dare to lead work, you know, I was sharing her work. So I thought, Oh, I've got this leadership thing down pat, like I am. I've made some good headway. And so I was really proud of myself, thinking, like, I shouldn't say down pat, because I don't think I ever felt like I had leadership down pat, but I think I had made some good strides, like I had really shifted who I was as a leader. And I get the results back, I open them up, and the highest score on my assessment was arrogance, that I'm arrogant, that my team saw me as arrogant, and I was heartbroken. I mean, it really, it knocked me back a bit for a long time. And what I I was, I was working with a coach, which is the second thing, right? Do the assessment? Get a coach and actually talk to someone who can help you navigate these things. And she said, I want you to hear something. She said, arrogance is less about what we say and more about how little we listen. Yeah, arrogance is less about what we say and more about how little we listen. And I took this assessment when I was an advisor to the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs, and it was the start of covid and we were watching riots in the streets of DC. One of my strengths is confidence, but in this moment, I'm sometimes overly delusionally confident, but in this moment when real like real shit was happening, I had a lot of uncertainty around that, and I let my confidence get into excess, because that team quite like my deputy. Again, that team was rotating. I was the only one who was in the building every single day. I was the only one who had the continuity of the daily operations. And so when they were coming to me, I was like, yeah, we've already done that. Here's what we're going to do. And so it really does two things, right? I was, once again, the results of that once again was they did not feel seen, they did not feel heard. And I was once again, acting in excess because I thought I had so much to do, and I was overconfident in my own answers. I was overconfident in the direction I was establishing and so when you ask about how leaders get that feedback, because no one in that room would have ever said to me, man, we're thinking you're a little bit of an you know, got some arrogance going on, sure. So taking assessments, getting a coach, I think, are the two easiest ways, because you're not putting anybody else on the line, because those things are usually always anonymous for the most part, right? You're not putting anybody else on the line when you have a position of authority.

William Harris 33:07

I’m gonna play devil Seth. Get on that for a second here. Okay, sometimes that arrogance, or at least perceived arrogance, of listening less, can feel necessary. And I'm gonna give an example, because it's sometimes easier to think abstractly versus thinking specifically in e-commerce here, open heart surgeon, patients bleeding out, you got to make a decision. I don't want that open heart surgeon, if I'm the person, I don't want them saying, How do you feel about this decision? Does anybody else have an idea of how we should, you know, fix this situation. There's an emergency. I want them to just simply say, I need you to do this. Give me this. Let's get this done. We're going to do it right. And very much arrogant, to the point where I can remember I worked with open heart surgeons, and I can remember one of the nurses had taken a phone call, and they asked how to spell the doctor's last name, because this was back when they had to, like, hand write this. And they were like, how do I spell your name? And he said, God, and hung up the phone. There's a bit of arrogance that can be there when you're working with somebody's life. It can be taken too far as well. But how do you find that line where, again, you're talking about, there are riots, and you need to just make the decision, this isn't a committee, which is get it done and do it. Same thing happens in E commerce, businesses. This happened? This is what we need to do, make the decision. And I'd say that, like, sometimes we have, maybe a lack of strong leadership at times as well. How do you find that balance between which one is necessary?

DeDe Halfhill 34:33

Yeah, I mean, you, you said something though that's very interesting. And actually, the same kind of argument I got a lot in the military, when, when people would read dare to lead. And you know, my story in dare to lead is about loneliness and feelings and emotion. And they would say to me, like, Yeah, that's great, but like, sometimes we gotta take the hill. What you're actually talking about, though, is leadership in moments of crisis. And I've been in a lot of crisis. You know, my job was really crisis communication. I was the emergency response cell coordinator when I was the mission support group commander. Like I've had plenty of moments in crisis. In crisis is not when I am looking for consensus, and it's not when something like arrogance is assigned. There are. Think about how often you find yourself in an emergency. Sure, all of these, yeah, all of these behaviors are happening outside of that moment, and all of those behaviors were happening in our morning staff meeting. They weren't when, hey, we're in the streets of DC with the chairman, and we've gotta make a call now, and my team's around me going, I don't think we should no in that moment you're making the call. It's Tuesday morning at 8am when we're having our you know, our stand up, and people are trying to share their ideas. People aren't looking for consensus in crisis and emergency moments, they're looking for leadership, and I give you full permission to lead, right? Like, sure, I'm not saying, but no one needs my permission, but you need to lead in those moments, and you need to lead decisively. It's outside of those moments where all the trust is built. It's outside of those moments where all the connection is established. It's outside of those moments when the team learns, can I follow them? In those moments, people don't decide in a moment of crisis that I can follow you. They decide if they can follow you in moments of calm and peace.

William Harris 36:41

Ooh, that's good. Yeah, you brought up the story there that of you and dare to lead in Brené Brown's book, for those who maybe haven't read her book yet, can you give a give me a little bit about what was going on here?

DeDe Halfhill 36:57

Yeah, so you know, the book Dare to Lead is really about the four skill sets of courage. And so if folks want to look at how do they have that personal courage to do the things that matter, it's a great book, but the story that I shared with Brené, that she included in the book, was a story about my airman, and I was out one day presenting an award. And at the end of that award presentation, one of my Airmen, you know, I always ask, what questions do you have? What's on your mind? One of my airmen raised his hands and he said, Ma'am, when is the ops temple going to slow down because we're tired? And I said, Yeah, I hear you like we got a lot going on. Been at war for 20 years. We're not at war. We're at home preparing for an inspection. When we're not preparing for inspection, we're training for an extra training for an exercise. Like, it was just bam, bam, bam, bam, one thing after another, and we were tired. So I asked the group. I said, How many of you, like, can understand what airman Smith is saying? Like, how many of you are tired, right? Whole room raised their hand, like, who wouldn't? Um, were multiple deploy. Most folks had had multiple, multiple, multiple, multiple deployments, you know. So it was a lot going on. And I said, I want to share something with you. I said I read an article a couple days ago in the Harvard Business Review, and it was talking about this organization that was going into five different companies that were all reporting the same high levels of exhaustion, like people were just tired, right? And they wanted to understand what was going on with these organizations, that they were reporting such high levels of exhaustion, and so it spent months talking to their employee base. It spent months looking at their policies, spent months talking to their leadership, and what they found in all five was not that people were tired, but people were lonely.

William Harris 38:44

Oh, interesting.

DeDe Halfhill 38:45

It was that feeling of loneliness that was manifesting itself as a feeling of exhaustion. So I asked my airman that day, if I were to ask you, instead of who's tired, who's lonely, how many of you would raise your hands? And honestly, I didn't expect any of them to raise their hands, because, you know, group of military, mostly men, and I thought, that's not something we talk about in the military, like, you know, we're not out there all the time talking about feeling lonely. We don't talk about our feelings hardly at all, actually, sure. And and when I asked the question, three quarters of the room raised their hand, and I didn't really know what to do with that in the moment, because, again, like I just said, it's not something we talked about. But here is the very next thought that popped into my mind. In the military, we have a huge problem with suicide, and as a senior leader, we were racking our brains. I can't tell you how many meetings we had about, how do we reach them? What services can we provide? How do we get them to services? How do we identify because nobody wants to have that conversation with that young man or woman's parents, their loved ones, their spouse, their kids. And I knew we were racking our brain and. Year after year after year, we were just not having any success. It was getting worse and worse and worse, and here I am in this moment, Tuesday at 2pm and the shift of one word from tired to lonely completely opened them up, and we had a completely different conversation, like it just shifted the entire conversation about what it means to feel so disconnected. And I think that was the moment where I started to understand that as leaders, there is an emotional undercurrent going on, and if we can't navigate it, then what we're actually doing is we're closing our options to address the challenges that we're facing. We're limiting the options we have to address the problems we're trying to address. And I started telling everyone I could, and most people were like, Oh, here she comes again. Wants to talk about loneliness. You know, can't tell you how many times I brought it up in staff meeting, I'd like to talk again about being lonely. They're like, and I just realized, like, wow, we're really, really un practiced at it, yeah, but the more I was doing it, the more comfortable I got with it.

William Harris 41:22

I think about the five whys something that my dad has always been a big proponent of saying, you know, the five whys. And for those who are listening to don't know it, right? It's like somebody brings a problem. They say, hey, this isn't, you know, good, well, why? And then that leads to something else. Well, why? Okay, well, why is that? Well, why is that? And to your point, you know, somebody just simply says they're they're tired, and, you know, maybe the ops tempo is too much, and you just stop there, then you're likely going to spend a lot of time and a lot of money making the wrong fixes to the business. And so, you know, we take this back to e-commerce, and it could be, you know, you know, the ads aren't working, or it could be, you know, the our team is, it hasn't been produced anything creative that's actually working lately, or whatever this might be like, there are things that are not working. And if we, if we just go on the surface level there, of it's too much work, or whatever, solve the wrong problem, and then you actually, don't actually get any solution to that, right? Because I could imagine if they implemented things even in that situation, probably, if they would have slowed the ops tempo, made things a little bit easier, it wouldn't have changed the loneliness. And so you'd be six months down the line, people still feel tired, they still feel overwhelmed, they still feel whatever it is that they're feeling, and you haven't solved anything? Yeah, yeah. And I like that. You got to this idea of there's a deeper word behind whatever somebody is saying. Sometimes I won't, I'm not great at this, but I've been trying to do a little bit better job of this myself, of trying to figure out, like, what are those other emotions? And there's, like, an emotion wheel or something, and I don't remember what it's called, I should find the name of it, and you probably and you probably know what it is, but it's this idea where it's like, maybe, maybe you're feeling angry, but the anger that you feel is not anger. You're overwhelmed. And it's like, you chase it down, like two or three layers, and it's like this colorful wheel. Or maybe you're feeling tired, you're not tired, you're actually lonely. And so it's, it's interesting when we can actually start to have a vocabulary around these more guttural feelings that we have, then I think it allows us to get to the root of what actually needs to be fixed.

DeDe Halfhill 43:29

Yeah. I mean, that's such a great example in Brené research, again, she said that if you ask, like, on average, people can identify three emotions, happy, mad and sad, right? Like, that's, that's the depth to which we really get to our emotions. And when I was going through the coaching certification, several, several of us would get that wheel. I can't remember it's called either. I mean, I have it, we can put it as one of the links in the podcast, yeah. But several people would get that wheel, and they would hand it to their clients, and they would say, point on here, how you're actually feeling. And when we can see the word, oh, that's actually what I'm feeling. I'm feeling really, I'm feeling disappointed. Okay, what happens is, if I can identify that I'm feeling disappointed versus I'm feeling dismissed. I'm feeling disappointed that I didn't study hard enough. I'm feeling disappointed that I didn't prepare the way I would have wanted to. I'm really disappointed that I didn't get the position. Okay, what do you want to do with that now, I have the ability to take action, like you said, to solve a different problem, but if what I'm actually really feeling is dismissed, okay, what's making me feel dismissed? What do I need to do to not be dismissed? What do I need to engage so that my voice is heard? What do I need to do so that. Voice is trusted, right? And so like, those are completely different actions, but if all we ever stay at is I'm angry, we have cut off we've cut off any growth, we've cut off any opportunity for development. Yeah,

William Harris 45:18

you've written about the accountability ladder, not to shift gears a little bit, but what is it, and how can a founder use it with a team that's struggling to step up?

DeDe Halfhill 45:27

Well, to clarify, I didn't, I didn't come up with the accountability ladder I referenced.

William Harris 45:32

Told me about it. Yes, I

DeDe Halfhill 45:35

don't want to take the credit because I referenced it in a blog post I wrote recently. And what the accountability ladder does is it kind of gives you a place where you can walk through like, what are the behaviors you're seeing? Right? Like, are you? It divides the accountability ladder up into two, like, above the line and below the line. And when you're above the line, you are acknowledging it, you're owning it. You're all about finding solutions. You're all about taking action. Right? Because, like, I'm taking accountability. I'm above the midway point, but below the midway point is when I start to say things like, this isn't my problem. They didn't tell me what to do, right? I go into blame. I come up with excuses. Maybe I just go into complete avoidance and I wait and hope that it all works out. That's my technique. Like, whoa. Let's see how this goes. And so I think it's a really fascinating way again, of kind of like you talked to the very beginning, like giving yourself a map, right? Like it allows you to go on a map, where am I? Am I above that line? Am I below the line? But what I wrote about was that so often, and I will tell you, I'm, you know, I almost every leader I work with wants to know how they get their team to be more accountable. And what they want is they want people to see themselves on their team, and they want them to like, Oh, I'm below the line. Let me get my act together and suddenly go to above the line. Like, that's what they want. How do I get my team to go above the line? And this is what I think we miss when we talk about the accountability ladder, because it's definitely a map. But if you think about what's going on underneath when I'm below that line? Do I have a fear of being judged? Do I have a fear of, like, inability, self worth? Am I afraid of the consequences? Am I afraid of, you know, asking for clarity on the expectations. Do I feel powerless? Like all of those emotions underneath are really what cause us to stay in that accountability below the line, right? If you want to think about like for me weight and hope. I probably lack self trust. I probably lack trust in the system. I probably feel a little powerless. It probably feels like it's not a safe environment. And so as leaders, if we really want our people to look at the accountability ladder, define where they are on the map, and then it's our job to do the work of, why does that feel vulnerable for you? What about that? What about doing that? Do you not trust you have the ability like, let's talk about that. What's going on for you? Because I look at you and I see this all the time. I would look at my commanders, and I would see such amazingness, like I would watch them, and I just thought, I don't know how it happened, but I got the six best commanders in the United States Air Force, and then they would come in, and how I did feedback was I would ask them, I never, I very rarely gave, just gave them feedback, like, Hey, this is what I see you doing. I would take all of our I remember what we called them, but all of the criteria on the feedback form. And rather than giving them feedback on that, I would say on a scale of one to 10. How do you think you're doing on this sure, take their job description on a scale of one to 10, how are you doing? And if they would come in and say a two, and I would say an eight, then we would talk about, like, what's going on that there's such a gap. Why do you think you're doing a two? And yet, from my perspective, I see you doing an eight, or if I think you're doing a two and you think you're doing an eight, do we have a disconnect on what actually that job entails? So is it a disconnect on what's required, or is it a disconnect because you don't have the same faith in you that I have in you,

William Harris 49:35

right? That's huge.

DeDe Halfhill 49:36

Yeah. And so it's our job as leaders, I think, to really help, especially as you know, we often see that, like, one of our number one jobs as leaders is to grow future leaders, and we took that very seriously in the military. I don't know how we think we grow leaders without getting at the humanity that's underneath that growth, like I just don't even understand. How this is even a conversation, to be totally honest. And I think what a lot of people would say was just not meant for work, like, we just shouldn't have those conversations at work. I'm not a therapist. People should go get help. Like, I get that one a lot too, right? Sure, isn't about therapy. This is about common humanity. You know, I get scared all the time.

William Harris 50:20

Yeah, we're all human beings, and so we have to understand how this machine works, right? Yeah, it'd be like trying to fix a robot. And, you know, you don't understand the first thing about how it works. It's like, well, it's not gonna be very effective. We are biological machines to a point. I don't want to reduce this to machines, because that can get also reductive in the wrong way. But it's like there are things that work and don't work in us, and there are processes and loops that we can get into feedback loops, and so understanding how those things work is just imperative to being able to effectively run those machine

DeDe Halfhill 50:52

can i Yeah, can I share a story that I shared? So when I was going through this my coaching program, I was doing some research for the Air Force. And I was looking at the Air Force's core current core values, which is service integrity, excellence. And it was talking about how those core values were an evolution of these seven leadership traits in our very first manual on leadership, which was written in 1948 right after we had become an independent service from the army. And so it was talking about these seven leadership traits in the 1948 document, one of which was humanness. Humanness. What might they have meant by this idea of humanness? So I went and found the 1948 document, and as I was reading it, like just all these emotions came up, feel and or feel and feelings, fear, self confidence, kindness, Mercy. Wow. 147 times. 129 like, just hundreds of times these words were in this document. They even talked about love in the 1948 document. How many times do you think the men in 1948 talked about love in a leadership document?

William Harris 51:59

My dad tells me that his dad didn't even say, I love you. So not very much. Probably back then,

DeDe Halfhill 52:05

13 times, wow, they talked about what it means to love your men. They talked about what it means to show them love, right? So then I went in our most current manual, which, at the time, was 2011 and I did a search for the same words, and none of the words came up, right? And so it was just like, actually, not. That's not true. Two of the words came up, but only because they were a pulled quote from the very first one. And so I often, I share that story, often in my keynote for two reasons. One, when we think about masculinity and we think about leaders. Those are the leaders we revere. Those are the leaders we hold up as the example. And here were these men in 1948 who had just finished World War Two, you know, who were just coming out of World War Two, and they had the ability to navigate feelings in such a way that they put it in our leadership manual. They talked about love, they talked about kindness, they talked about fear, they talked about the feelings, all of the feelings. And I thought, What? What happened? Because the night the 2011 document, none. It was very sterile. It was tactical leadership, operational leadership, strategic leadership, but nothing about our humanity. And I thought what might have happened, like, how did we get there? And it's so funny that you mentioned machine, because what I think this is just my hypothesis. I have no data to back this up, but the Air Force left the army because it wanted to find and deliver a better way of conducting warfare through technology, right? We wanted to put all of our we wanted focus both resource and attention, you know, monetarily and attention on changing warfare through air power. And the army was still very focused on ground warfare and was not willing to put the resources toward air power, and so we left just quite like the Space Force. Just recently, left the Air Force right for very much same reasons. They wanted an independent focus. But if you think about the army, the army's machine, the Army's weapon system at that time was the human right. The Air Force's weapon system at that time was the aircraft. You can put three or four people in an aircraft. You're not putting three or four soldiers on the ground. And so I don't like saying it like that, but it's actually what I think is true. Like if you have to know how to maneuver a weapon system, you better know that weapon system inside and out. And the Army understood in 1948 it understood people. Now I would tell you, most of the soldiers I talked to today, most of the army folks I talked to today, they're not much you. They, too, have lost it. And it's, I think it's also a shift in society, like I have lots of theories as to why, but you nailed it, if you're leading people, that is your weapon system.

William Harris 55:12

That was very interesting insight. And the way that you explained, it seems to make a lot of sense to me. You talked about leaders having answers. Why do so many leaders confuse having answers with proving their worth? And how do you help them break free from that conditioning? When I figure it out, can I tell you,

DeDe Halfhill 55:37

it's a tough one. I mean, think about, How many times have you heard don't come to me with problems? Come to me with solutions.

William Harris 55:45

I've said it. So, yeah, I get it.

DeDe Halfhill 55:48

You know, it's a deep, deep conditioning. The problem is, and when you're younger, you better have the answers, right? That's, that's when you're meant to be growing that tactical knowledge. That's when you're meant to be growing the skill set and becoming an expert. So I'm not saying all leaders shouldn't have the answers. You should have the answers. That's that is. That's actually price of admission to the next level. But the next level is less about answers and more about curiosity. I worked with the leader once, and his job title was actually Director of Innovation in something else I can't remember now, and he was working with me as his coach. Because he's like, I want to make my I want my team to be more innovative. He was really struggling. Why isn't my team more innovative? And think about like, How many times have you heard that? Have you ever worked with a leader? He's like, No, I'm perfectly happy with how innovative my team is. Sure,

William Harris 56:45

yeah, we always want more, right, right?

DeDe Halfhill 56:49

And so we were meeting occasionally, and he said, You know, I we can't meet my office, because if we meet in my office, someone always comes to the door to ask a question. And I was like, well, just shut the door. No, no, I have to be there. I have to answer their questions. And this went on time and time again. He was always there when they had a question to give him the answer. And one day, I said to him, I thought you were going to stop answering that question, or their questions when I was here. And he said, Well, if I don't answer their question, then what the hell am I here for? He saw his value as a leader, as being the Answer Guy. But here's what I think about innovation. If someone is giving you all the answers, are you ever in a place of discomfort that is strong enough that you start to step outside your the box you're in, right? Is that discomfort strong enough that you have to find a way? Is that discomfort and that uncertainty, sitting in that uncertainty of not having the answer is a skill, and I said, what if, as a leader, you looked at your job as less of having the answer and more about being the bumper rails in bowling, right? You're no longer there to be the one who is going to shoot the ball down the lane and knock it out of the park. Your job is to provide the safety of where they can go, and we actually have data to back this up. Now, there was a study recently that talked about kids and playgrounds, and what they found out was that when kids have no fence, they stay really close to the jungle gym, but when they have a fence, they go all the way to the fences. And so what if your job as a leader is not to have the answers, but to be the bumper rails so they feel safe enough to play, they feel safe enough to explore, to ideate, to try, because people don't try when they don't feel safe. And that's our job. It's not our job to tell them what to do. It's our job to create the container I love that.

William Harris 59:01

I got goosebumps thinking about it. I actually experienced this firsthand on our property when our daughter was, I think, two years old or so, right? It's like living on a busy street. And so we did, we put up a fence around our property. And a part of you thinks, man, this is really going to close in the yard. You know? Is that really what we want to do? And we saw the yard used significantly more with the fence, because it felt like you could go all the way up to the fence, but there was a safety, something like to your point where it was like, otherwise we did, we stayed a lot closer to the house, and now it's like we could venture out use the rest of the yard. And I like those metaphor that you have of creating that environment that allows for those things that is our job be those bumper rails. You know?

DeDe Halfhill 59:44

I like that, yeah, so think about it. A bumper rail doesn't take the ball out of play. It the ball in play. And it helps, like, it helps the game to keep going, right? But versus, like, you throw a ball and it goes over in four lanes because you don't have bumper rails, well, game over. I never said that before. I don't know why that came up.

William Harris 1:00:04

Four lanes is pretty aggressive. You're chucking that ball pretty hard. That's the military training right there. I want to get to know who is DeDe Halfhill a little bit more than as well, because I think it's fun to get to know the human side of everybody that's on the show. You've been candid about a lot of moments in your life, pushing down emotions almost cost you everything. Tell me about your childhood and how, how that helped shape you to be the person you are today.

DeDe Halfhill 1:00:33

Oh, goodness, um, you know, I grew up with very young parents who were both working, so I was on my own a lot, and I think, and I'm the oldest girl, I mean, think we hear all kinds of anecdotes about, you know, anecdotal evidence about what oldest girls do. And I definitely fit that. I think, I think I very much am a problem solver, because I had to be when I was young, you know, my I couldn't turn to anyone. I couldn't turn to my parents. So I got very good at figuring things out. And I think that's where I get excited today, is I see this, the work I'm doing, the conversation we've just had. I see it as a big challenge, like I want to help leaders navigate it, because it just feels to me like, Oh, we're just fixing up. We're just, we're just advancing the ball. We're fixing the problem of how we've shown up as leaders. So I think that's had the biggest impact. I had to, you know, I had to learn to trust myself, I had to learn to figure things out, and I learned a lot of independence, which is why I think that was successful in the military. That's beautiful.

William Harris 1:01:42

You told me that you carry, you've carried Teddy Roosevelt's Man in the Arena quote in your wallet your entire career. Yeah. Why have you done that? And what does it mean to you? Now, you

DeDe Halfhill 1:01:53

know it's funny, because it's actually right behind me too. Yeah,

William Harris 1:01:56

I thought that was it, but sometimes it's a little blurry, and I couldn't quite tell

DeDe Halfhill 1:01:59

a friend of mine made that as my retirement gift because it means so much to me. I had that I had that wallet in my card since I was probably my first year on active duty, and I still carry it in my wallet. So that's 30 years ago. That card's been in my wallet for 30 years, because it kind of goes back to the same thing. I just said, like, I want to do hard things. I want to I want to make a difference. I want to do something with my life. I want to be in the arena. And I don't want fear to hold me back. I don't want criticism to hold me back. I don't want the judgment of others to hold me back. And I'm not saying it doesn't sting, but I'm saying like, This is who I want to be. I want to step in. I want to, you know, I want to figure it out. And when I met Brené, I actually, I pulled that card out of my wallet because she has this quote in I think it's Daring Greatly. I know it's also in dearly, but I pulled the card out and I said, this is always, this is who I've always wanted to be. I didn't have a language for what was getting in my way until your work. Because if you think about it like if, if all of us have these arena moments in our lives, and right as we're getting ready to step into that arena, is when we hear the voice, you're not good enough. Who do you think you are? You're never going to make it. They're going to think you're an idiot. You know? You're going to show all the world that you have no clue what you're doing, and those voices are so loud and ever present her work gave her work, gave me the language to identify those voices, identify the behavior that shows up when I hear those voices, and the way to reframe, rewrite the story, so that I go in anyway. And so I love that quote, because, like, I'm not kidding. I have it in my wallet. I have it here. I actually have one in my bathroom, because I have one that says, like, you know, the woman in the arena. This quote is everywhere in my house.

William Harris 1:03:57

That's so good. It's a powerful quote, you know, for those who haven't read it, if you haven't read it like we'll link to that as well, because it's really an important one to read. You've spent decades in the service, but you recently described to me this feeling a bit lost after leaving the Air Force. How are you navigating that transition, and what can founders learn about identity after work,

DeDe Halfhill 1:04:22

I'm navigating it very I want to say shittily. That's not a word, though it is now it it's the hardest work I think I've ever done. I shifting your identity is not for the faint of heart, like shifting all of the trappings of especially at my age, shifting all of the trappings that have I have gotten you success, and then when all that goes away, you know, I joke this is the only wall where I have any military stuff. And. Sometimes I come in here and I'm like, oh, that's those are mine. Those are my military. Like, there's my command flags, you know? And it's so hard because figuring out, like, Who are you without the rank, the uniform, the significance, the contribution, the responsibility. And so I think if I were to give founders any advice, and I'm, I'm on the journey right now, is you have to be very, very deliberate in listening to the stories you tell yourself about what that identity means, and you have to do really difficult work of reframing it from who I was to Who do I want to be.

William Harris 1:05:50

Yeah, the stories we tell ourselves are so much more powerful than I think we care to admit. That's another one of those soft things that is actually probably more important than we realize. There was a football player, and I don't remember who it was, but I they, they miked him up, and you could see him. It was, it went viral on on social media for a while, but it's like they might come. You could hear what he was saying to himself throughout the game, and the pep talks that he was giving himself were incredible, right? He's like, Hey, you got this. Don't worry about it. Blah, blah, blah, right? It's just like, so good. And I'm like, That's not how I talk to myself. A lot of times I I'm definitely more like, it's like, come on, figure it out. What do you know? What I mean it's like, and sometimes maybe that's the way that you know, that's the internal voice that we've had. But I think, to your point, it's like, as you're figuring these things out, being able to have that and say, Would I ever talk to somebody else that way, if I would be embarrassed saying that to another person, why would I ever feel like that's an okay thing to say to myself? And so I think to your point, as you're going through this journey yourself, it's making sure that whatever you stories you're telling yourself and how you're framing it, making sure that you would never frame it as offensively towards somebody else. So don't frame it that way towards you as you're going through these transitions

DeDe Halfhill 1:06:59

too. Yeah, because what you're really doing is you are cultivating shame resilience. The stories we tell ourselves are one often a product of shame, but the stories we tell ourselves are also how we shame ourselves. And it goes back to where is the opportunity for growth? If we do nothing but shame ourselves. You're an idiot, you're you know, you're a nobody. Everyone thinks you're stupid. That's my shame. Narrative is around intelligence. You know, I share that, yeah, and if that's how I'm talking to myself, Where is the growth? If I am an idiot, then where is the growth? But if I talk to myself in a way that is not shaming then, and I say to myself, like, Okay, you got this. You know you can do it. You've done hard things. Like now I'm giving myself opportunities for growth, and I don't want to get ahead of it, but I Renee had shared once very briefly, and I think she's doing additional research on this. Is that the most successful people, and we're talking like successful, maybe not just in one metric of money or power, but like the most successful, who have very well rounded experiences and lives, do not talk to themselves in a shaming way. Their negative self talk is little to none, and they do more of that. You got this, it's going to be hard. Take a deep breath, you're going to be able to do it right. They really encourage themselves. And I think it's so great that that happened, because we think it's the other way. We think, if we shame ourselves into doing better, we will, but that's actually the exact opposite. It's when we encourage ourselves that real, like, wow, our talents can really come forward. That's amazing.

William Harris 1:08:47

It has been very nice to get to know you today. It's been very good to learn from you. I appreciate you sharing your wisdom and your time with us. If there's anything that you could do practically, like, if I was going to practically apply this in some way to my business today, without knowing even more about the business, right? But it's a, you're just like, do this. What's that one thing? Uh,

DeDe Halfhill 1:09:18

it's, it's two things. It's it's three things like, and I said at the very beginning, stop listen and get curious. I really do think like it sounds hokey, but the most magical question I ever asked my team, which someone called me out on it recently, isn't actually a question, but the more I started saying, Tell me more.

William Harris 1:09:43

Tell me more.

DeDe Halfhill 1:09:45

People eventually get like it might take a little while, and sometimes it requires patience, but it is a magical question, because so much comes out that would not have come out initially, and people get. That to their deeper wisdom, that's huge. Yeah,

William Harris 1:10:05

if people wanted to work with you, if they wanted to follow you, what's the best way for them to get in touch? Stay in touch.

DeDe Halfhill 1:10:12

I post regularly on LinkedIn and Instagram. So I post a lot of I really try to be of value. And then also my website. Folks can reach out to me through my website. I have a newsletter. I have all the stuff right that most folks put out there. The newsletter, I think, is probably the area where I try to give more of those tactical try this, because it allows me a little more room to give

William Harris 1:10:37

that. And we'll link to those. But just for those listening, what is the website and what is the newsletter?

DeDe Halfhill 1:10:43

Uh, the website is dedehalfhill.com, and the newsletter is The Unseen Edge.

William Harris 1:10:52

Great. Well, again, I can't thank you enough for just sharing your time, your wisdom with us today, and also for your service. Very much.

DeDe Halfhill 1:10:59

Thank you. It was I really enjoyed the conversation. You're very good at this.

William Harris 1:11:04

Thank you for those of you listening, thank you for listening. I hope you have a great rest of

Outro 1:11:08

your day. Thanks for listening to the Up Arrow Podcast with William Harris. We'll see you again next time, and be sure to click Subscribe to get future episodes.

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