We’re excited to introduce you to the always interesting and insightful Eric Johnson. We hope you’ll enjoy our conversation with Eric below.

Eric, looking forward to hearing all of your stories today. We’d love to hear about the best boss, mentor, or leader you’ve ever worked with.

I was so fortunate to have an amazing leader and mentor by the name of David Gillies, or as our group of guys affectionately calls him, the Old Man. What the Old Man taught me was that you didn’t need to be the most knowledgeable leader, the most technically savvy, know the most procedures… but what you needed to do was: take care of your team, stand up for them, and always help them in finding the right answers. Old Man had a “servant leadership” mindset. He was honored to be our leader and did everything he could to help us. From getting us coffee, to driving us to work if we needed a life, to approving our reports as quick as possible. There is one Old Man Story thought that sticks out above the rest for me thought.

When I first started working for the Old Man as a Surveillance Operator, he approached me and asked what holidays meant the most to me so he could see if he could get them off for me. I told him Christmas eve and Christmas. December rolled around he informed me that he got me Christmas eve off, but as the new guy, I would be stuck working 7a to 3p on Christmas day. Christmas day came and I made my way into work. It was a super quiet day for security, and we were enjoying some food we all brought in. Right around 10a the Old Man came walking into our command center. Everyone who was working was shocked! The Old man walked right up to me and said “Go Home. I got to have Christmas with my family, now it’s your turn. I’m going to be Eric Johnson the rest of the shift.” Old man stayed and worked the rest of my shift, under my log in so I would get holiday pay for the whole day.

I’ll never forget that moment and it really showed me what true leadership is.

Eric, love having you share your insights with us. Before we ask you more questions, maybe you can take a moment to introduce yourself to our readers who might have missed our earlier conversations?

To start, I’m a security professional and author from Michigan. I graduated with high honors from Madonna University and hold over 20 professional certifications. I was fortunate enough to have completed all my career goals by the age of 28 (currently I’m 32). I’ve worked in asset protection, several security command centers, as an emergency manager and business continuity advisor. Currently I’m employed as an Intelligence Analyst for a private company in their Global Security Operations Center.

I published my first book, My Father’s Story in October of 2023. The book tells the story of the murder of my Father, who was also my best friend. In short, his ex-girlfriend murdered him, his dog, and her own dog in his house. The book gives the back story, to finding out about his murder, and then going through the court experience as I would an investigative report for work. Yes, there is a lot of legal jargon and repetition, but I wanted people to get an honest feel for what court was like.

I’m currently working on my second book! It’s on all the life lessons that came out of dealing with the aftermath of my father’s murder. I hope to have it done this year (2024) some time.

Is there a particular goal or mission driving your creative journey?

For me the mission is twofold, to continue to live out my father’s legacy with pride. He was the best man I’ve ever known, and I want to try to be as great of a man as he was. The second part of the mission is to use my experience of my father’s death and my work experience to try to make the world a little bit of a better place and more knowledgeable.

For you, what’s the most rewarding aspect of being a creative?

For me it’s been so rewarding to connect with people all over the world. It’s been such a humbling and rewarding experience to get messages from people on social media saying that they have some sort of trauma in their family tree, and my book gave them inspiration. That they are looking at writing their stories out as a way to work through their grief. That is so rewarding and fulfilling in a way I can describe!

Contact Info:

• Website: https://linktr.ee/Ericjauthor
• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/ericjauthor1
• Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/Ericjauthor?mibextid=LQQJ4d
• Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/ericjauthor/