I first met Erik Ricard in 2012 when he was running Account Management teams at Amazon.  Erik spent eight years at the e-commerce giant, and recently departed to run Account Management & Strategy at Wunderman Thompson Commerce.  

Erik provides several great thoughts on leadership, adversity, and learning from failure through his career.   Some quotes include:

On leadership......

"every person is going to need a different version of you"

"people like to be led, they like to be able to lean on their manager when they need it"

"open the channel to get direct feedback on your teams so you can coach"

On the importance of learning from failure.....

"the greatest power you can have is self-awareness, the person who is self-aware knows what their flaws are and what their strengths are"

"we learn through adversity, it teaches us to work harder"

The real story of how I first met Erik was that I interviewed with Amazon in 2012.  Erik was on my loop for a job that I did not get in the Advertising Sales department.  In 2014, Amazon called me back again to interview for a role on his team.  After speeding me through all of the loops and interviews, they told me I did not get the job again.  I was crushed, but it was Erik's feedback and attention that he carefully gave me post interview that left such an impression on my future.  In fact, Erik and those two Amazon interviews have played a huge part in the way I run my personal brand today including this podcast launch, my brand influence on LinkedIn, and my writings.  I am forever grateful to the difference that Erik made in my life by providing me honest feedback and taking the time to continue to connect with me in the years to come.  

I learned more from the failure of those two interviews at Amazon than I would have learned from actually earning the role.  

I hope you enjoy this episode as much as I enjoyed recording it.