This post is completely inspired by a post from earlier today by a friend of mine, Micah Baldwin. I have only known Micah for a few months (compliments of DC Startup Weekend), but it feels as if we have been friends for years. For those of you that do not know him, I highly encourage you to get to know him if you get a chance, he is a great person to be around, both personally and professionally. One of Micah’s personality traits that stands out from the moment you meet him, is that he says what is on his mind, whether you like it or not.

This trait of his is one of his many qualities that I admire. He is not afraid to say what he means, and he means what he says. You may not like what he has to say, but he is not going to hold back on the account of the possibility that you may not like what he is saying. If you are going to ask his opinion, you have to be prepared that it may not jive with yours, but you have to be willing to accept that, or just do not ask him. Micah is a very intelligent guy, and has a lot of business acumen that he has acquired through the years of running his own company, to working for several startups, and when he speaks, he is telling you how it is and how he feels, regardless of the audience.

So often, it seems that people will tailor what they are saying because they are afraid of what the other person might think, or they are afraid that it may incite an argument that they are not ready to deal with, whatever the situation, it happens. It is almost as if there is a filter between our brain and our mouth and what comes out on the other end has been sanitized down to almost nothing. If you feel strongly about something, and have valid reasons for feeling that way (as long as they are valid in your mind) then do not hesitate to say what you mean and really mean it. Do not say something if you genuinely do not feel that way, you are wasting your time and giving the recipient a false understanding of what you truly meant. If you are telling them something that they in turn are going to make a decision based off of it, you damn sure better tell them the truth so they are not making a decision based on falsehood.

I know it is a very simple concept to grasp, but I think by and large human nature has programed us to apply that filter to most of what we say. Unless of course you are Micah, and then the fire hose is opened up full throttle (as it should be).

In order to grow and become better people and leaders, we have to learn from each other. Micah puts it best:

“Learning doesn’t occur unless there is friction in the process. A leader shows his greatest ability when he is at the greatest loss for what do next.”

Thanks Micah for an inspiring post and for your unwillingness to bend when it comes to throttling back the fire hose.