Erick Slabaugh is a super-sharp entrepreneur and leader who has worked his way up the corporate ladder the hard way. He’s a talented speaker, one with the ability to speak to a room of a hundred people and have each of them strongly believe that the messages he conveyed were intended solely for them. I know that’s how I felt the first time I met him four or five years ago and I certainly felt that way again during our conversation.
In his Paper Napkin Wisdom, Erick says: We all come with baggage, the challenge is to find people to help us unpack.

We become like those around us.

Erick believes that the people around you are a vital part of your success. We tend to become the average of the five people we spend the most time with, he says, so it’s important to surround yourself with people who challenge you to become more than you are. Erick strives to live a transparent life; he tries to be open to feedback and allow other people to tell him what his blind spots are. Every day we’re becoming something, he says, whether or not it’s intentional. The trick is to find people who are willing to make us greater than we are intentionally and do to that we have to be intentionally vulnerable and open.

“Every day we’re becoming something, whether or not it’s intentional.” 

The strongest people, says Erick, are the ones who know what their core values are but are open to dissenting opinion and open to having their viewpoint changed. Strength has a lot to do with being secure enough in ourselves to know that we might be wrong. In allowing ourselves to be transparent and sharing our alignment with our teams we give the people around us the opportunity to help us make minor course adjustments to make sure we’re heading in our true direction.
Leadership, says Erick, is all about character- you have to make sure that what you say and what you do align. If we allow people to tell us when we’re not doing that, we can adjust accordingly and be the best leaders we can but allowing people to do that means that we have to make sure our teams are comfortable with us. Ask yourself: How do I react when I get bad news or when someone tells me something that’s hard to hear? Do I shoot the messenger? Do I make them feel that I appreciate their honesty?
Is your team comfortable helping you adjust your course? If not, what direction are you really heading in?
Listen to my conversation with Erick here: