Daniel Pink argues that feedback has two scores: the grade you get, which you can't control, and how you react to it, which you can. People forget the original evaluation but remember whether you got defensive or stayed curious and calm about it.
In 30 years of writing about human performance, here's the most important thing I've learned about feedback. You get 2 scores. The first score is obvious, the grade, the review, the evaluation. That part feels big, but it's not the one that matters most. What matters more is the second score, and that's how you respond to the first score. Do you get defensive, resentful, busy explaining why the first score was unfair, or do you get curious? Calm. Focus on what to do next. Here's the uncomfortable truth. Most people don't remember your first score for very long, but they remember the second one. How you handle criticism, how you handle disappointment, how you handle not getting what you wanted. You don't control the first score, but you completely control the second one.
