The Person Who Tells You the Truth

Last month we spent a lot of time on feedback. How to receive it. How not to shop for agreement when it stings. How the best leaders don't wait for it. They go looking for it.

But I left one question on the table. And it's the one I keep coming back to:

Where does quality feedback actually come from?

Here's what I mean. You can develop all the right posture. The openness. The curiosity. The discipline to ask "is this true?" before you react. But if the people around you aren't positioned to tell you the truth, none of that posture matters.

The quality of your feedback is only as good as the quality of the relationships that deliver it.

For a lot of high-achieving people, that's where things quietly fall apart. And that’s what I want to talk about in March.

Note: The stories I'm sharing this month are drawn from my own experience building professional community after leaving corporate. Most of those relationships are with women. If you're a man reading this, the principles are the same. The slingshot partnership concept doesn't have a gender. But the stories do have names, and this month, those names belong to women who changed my trajectory.

About two years ago, not long after I left corporate and started building this business, I was working through a decision I couldn't quite get clear on: go back into corporate or keep pursuing the dream I'd been sitting on. Writing a book. Speaking on stages. Building something of my own.

I was in a conversation with a friend named Lauren. I was talking through my options, weighing them out loud, going in circles.

Lauren stopped me.

"Jenn, when you talk about going back into corporate, you wilt. Everything about you dims. But when you talk about the book and the speaking, you light up. Why aren't you chasing the thing that lights you up?"

I hadn't asked for that. I wasn't ready for it. And I couldn't argue with it, because it was true. Lauren had cared enough about where I was heading to say the thing I needed to hear, not the thing that would have been easier to say.

That conversation changed the path I chose. I haven't looked back.

Lauren is what I call a slingshot partner.

A slingshot partner isn't a mentor. It isn't a sponsor. It isn't a cheerleader, though there's a time and place for all of those.

A slingshot partnership is a specific kind of professional relationship. High-velocity. Genuinely collaborative. Built on trust in both character and competence. And committed to truth even when the truth is uncomfortable. It's the kind of relationship where someone cares more about where you're going than about keeping you comfortable in the moment.

Most people don't have even one.

Over the next four weeks, I want to dig into what slingshot partnerships actually are, where they come from, and how to build them intentionally.

Because if the feedback series taught us anything, it's that growth requires truth. And truth requires the right people in your corner. Not just people who care about you. People who are positioned and willing to deliver.

I’m glad you’re here for this one.

🤏TINY TWEEK Challenge

Think about the people in your professional life who tell you the truth. 

Not to be harsh, but because they genuinely care about where you’re going. Write down one name. 

If you’re struggling to come up with even one, that’s not a problem. It’s a starting point. That gap is exactly what this month’s conversation is about.