Ep 485 | Haters, Feedback & Tough Love: How to Handle It All

Thank you for joining me today. It's Brian Gubernick, and welcome to the No Days Off podcast, where we believe that every single day brings a new opportunity to get better. Interesting title to today's episode: Haters, Feedback, and Tough Love: How to Handle It All. What am I talking about? Why is that today's subject? What I'm here to talk about is handling criticism. How do you handle criticism like a pro? How do you master criticism? Today, we're going to talk about the 6 strategies that maybe you can deploy in your world to, to stay strong, to take criticism. There's an art to it. And there's an art, of course, to doing it without losing your mind. So, let's talk about these 6 powerful mindset shifts that I think you might be able to leverage in your world and in doing, doing so, get even better at managing criticism and become that much stronger. Managing criticism or handling criticism effectively requires you to make a mindset shift. It also requires practical strategies. Here's what I'm thinking about when I think around, uh, managing or handling criticism. Number 1, I think you've got to normalize criticism as just part of growth, right? Like, criticism is, is unavoidable for all of us. The more you do, the more feedback you're going to receive, good and bad. So I think that if we believe that criticism is unavoidable and we know that the more we do, the more feedback we're actually going to get, then we have to reframe our mindset around criticism. Again, it's just part of growth. Criticism is a sign that what you're doing actually matters because if it didn't matter, you wouldn't get any criticism for it. So, what if you viewed criticism, as crazy as this may sound, what if you reframed your mindset to view criticism as just free coaching? Now, granted, a lot of times it's coaching you didn't necessarily ask for. But what if you just always took it as part of growth? Again, it's free coaching. It's, again, it's a sign that you're actually doing something that matters. So number 1, I think we've got to normalize criticism as just part of growth because it's unavoidable. Number 2, I think with respect to handling criticism, we've got to separate emotion from the message. People, all of us, we tend to react emotionally from time to time. To criticism, especially if that criticism feels personal. I want to encourage everybody that's listening to the No Days Off podcast, our No Days Off Nation. I want to encourage you to pause before reacting to criticism. And I want you to ask, is this person trying to help me, hurt me, or just projecting their own issues? I think it's a really powerful question to ask. Is this person who's criticizing me trying to help me, hurt me, or just projecting their own issues? I'd also ask again, in the spirit of pausing before reacting, what part of this feedback, what part of this criticism is actually useful? There are components of it for sure that are useful. In most criticism, there is something to extract. There's some value there. And again, if I go back to what I first started saying, criticism is unavoidable. So we might as well take, take action steps to leverage it for growth and improvement. So what part of the feedback is actually useful? Number 3, you know, in the spirit of that last question, I want you to categorize criticism, criticism as useful versus useless. See, useful criticism is specific, constructive, and it comes from credible sources. Useless criticism is vague. It's personal. It's from people who don't matter to your goals or your objectives. So, I would be asking, would I take advice from this person? If someone's criticizing you, ask yourself, would I take advice from this person? If not, then why take their criticism to heart anyhow? Like, what an interesting way to look at it. Would you actually take advice from the person criticizing you? If so, maybe there's value to that criticism. But if not, why even take it to heart? Not to say it's not valuable, but why get emotional about it? So categorize criticism as useful or useless. And useful is specific, constructive, whereas useless is maybe vague or personal, and they're from— it's from people that, that may not matter to your, you know, to you reaching your goals. Number 4, in handling criticism, I think you've got to develop a response framework. So if criticism is valid, maybe you can say, "Hey, I appreciate your feedback. What would you suggest I do differently?" Right? This would be your response framework. Let's get this framework established so we can leverage it when necessary versus just shooting from the hip. If the criticism is valid, maybe you could say something like, hey, I appreciate the feedback, but you know, what would you suggest I do differently? Now, if it's unfair or unhelpful, you can respond in a neutral way by just simply saying, oh, that, you know, that's an interesting perspective, and just leave it at that. If it's harsh, But it's true. You can, you can take it as a challenge to improve. That's just the truth of it all. It could be harsh, but if it's true, take it as a challenge, challenge to improve. So again, number 4 was develop your response framework. Number 5 in managing and handling criticism, strengthen your identity and your confidence. Criticism stings more when someone's self, self-worth is tied to external validation. So I would ask, am I defining my worth based on others' opinions or my own standards? Again, it stings a bit more when your self-worth is tied to external validation. So if you get criticized, it stings again if your self-worth is tied to those opinions. So am I defining my worth based on others' opinions or my own standards? What do I know to be true about my skills or my health or my decisions? What do I know to be true? I think that in, in, in really reflecting or thinking around this, you're going to strengthen your identity and you're going to increase your confidence. And then lastly, number 6, common theme here, Long-term perspective. We got to encourage you take a long-term perspective if you want to manage and handle criticism. Simply put, ask yourself, in 5 years, will this criticism still matter? See, most criticism feels really big in the moment, but it's actually insignificant in the long term. So we've all had different experiences with criticism. I can tell you for me personally, I've certainly been criticized My, you know, my entire life I've experienced criticism just like you. I would say that as I progressed through business and through life, I probably, not probably, I've definitely developed more confidence in my abilities. And so that makes criticism far less challenging for me to handle. There's no question about that. I've also looked at criticism truly, you know, as just kind of part of the growth. Like, you know, people are going to get on your case. People are going to, you know, analyze what it is you're gonna do. They're gonna give feedback. They're gonna hate. They're gonna give tough love. I just think that as you progress and the more success you have in this progression, the more you're gonna have to learn how to handle this sort of thing. I think lastly, for me, I've gotten really good at separating the emotion from the message. You know, I really, I really reflect on, you know, who's given me the criticism. Do I value what it, you know, their opinion? Would I take advice from them? And if not, why, why take their criticism to heart? So for you, I want to encourage you to go through these 6 steps, these 6 strategies to managing criticism. If you've struggled with this a little bit more, Odds are you probably haven't put in work to, to develop the muscle to handle and manage criticism. In other words, you've just been receiving, but you've never actually put frameworks or thought into how you're going to respond and what you're going to do with that criticism. Today's challenge is for you to think it through and set yourself up for success as you proceed forward. Because hey, if you're part of the No Days Off Nation, you are aiming to get better every single day, right? The more you improve, the more progress you make, the higher your star rises, the more feedback you're going to get, the more criticism you're going to hear. So you might as well have a system for handling it. That's all I have for you today, the No Days Off Podcast. Thank you so much for listening. And remember, every single day brings a new opportunity to get better. So let's get after it. [MUSIC] [MUSIC]