How to Receive Feedback Without Taking It Personally

How many times can I say the word bigger? Today in our pep talk, I wanted to chat with you about something I've seen come up a lot in the Gateway programs with speakers that I have hired over the years or writers that I've hired over the years in myself, in my kid.

What I've seen come up over and over again is defensiveness.

So raise your hand if you have ever gotten feedback on your big ideas and been defensive.

Me, I have.

I have worked very, very hard to be able to listen to feedback and want the feedback and to revel in the feedback and to see what can I learn from this feedback.

As someone who was more of a perfectionist and felt shame if I was judged or criticized in any way, I pushed feedback away from me.

I didn't seek it.

I didn't go out after it.

And when I got it, I felt really, really defensive.

If you are someone who is defensive around feedback, I want you to really think about how can I listen to the feedback and not take it personally.

Every professional creative that I know they know how to separate feedback.

They're not getting feedback that's like, this is about you as a person, this feedback, and it makes you a bad person or it makes you a bad writer or you a bad speaker.

It's not about that.

It's not thinking that feedback is about you.

The feedback is about your idea.

When I was back, a writer back in agencies, when I was getting feedback all the time from everyone, from everywhere, for all of my ideas, Oh my gosh, I was so defensive.

And I had to learn very, very quickly how to turn off the defensiveness and just listen to the client.

And so professional writers, professional creatives learn very quickly how to separate their ideas from who they are as a person when they receive feedback.

You just know

that the feedback is about the idea and you have a thousand ideas every day.

So, oh, well, we'll just make it better.

Let's take this feedback and use it to make the idea the best we possibly can.

But if you are not trained as a professional creative and you are going out into the world with your ideas for the first time, then feedback can feel very threatening.

feedback can feel like it is about you and not about the idea.

That's something I want you to think about a lot and to practice, thinking that this feedback from this person, you know, when I started practicing this, I started just thinking, thank you, thank you, thank you in my head when I would get the feedback.

How many times can I say the word bigger? Today in our pep talk, I wanted to chat with you about something I've seen come up a lot in the Gateway programs with speakers that I have hired over the years or writers that I've hired over the years in myself, in my kid.

What I've seen come up over and over again is defensiveness.

So raise your hand if you have ever gotten feedback on your big ideas and been defensive.

Me, I have.

I have worked very, very hard to be able to listen to feedback and want the feedback and to revel in the feedback and to see what can I learn from this feedback.

As someone who was more of a perfectionist and felt shame if I was judged or criticized in any way, I pushed feedback away from me.

I didn't seek it.

I didn't go out after it.

And when I got it, I felt really, really defensive.

If you are someone who is defensive around feedback, I want you to really think about how can I listen to the feedback and not take it personally.

Every professional creative that I know they know how to separate feedback.

They're not getting feedback that's like, this is about you as a person, this feedback, and it makes you a bad person or it makes you a bad writer or you a bad speaker.

It's not about that.

It's not thinking that feedback is about you.

The feedback is about your idea.

When I was back, a writer back in agencies, when I was getting feedback all the time from everyone, from everywhere, for all of my ideas, Oh my gosh, I was so defensive.

And I had to learn very, very quickly how to turn off the defensiveness and just listen to the client.

And so professional writers, professional creatives learn very quickly how to separate their ideas from who they are as a person when they receive feedback.

You just know

that the feedback is about the idea and you have a thousand ideas every day.

So, oh, well, we'll just make it better.

Let's take this feedback and use it to make the idea the best we possibly can.

But if you are not trained as a professional creative and you are going out into the world with your ideas for the first time, then feedback can feel very threatening.

feedback can feel like it is about you and not about the idea.

That's something I want you to think about a lot and to practice, thinking that this feedback from this person, you know, when I started practicing this, I started just thinking, thank you, thank you, thank you in my head when I would get the feedback.