Dave Kashen explains why negative feedback stings: you believe it and tie your self-worth to the outcome. He uses a failed fundraising pitch and a water polo analogy to show how to treat feedback as useful input instead of a judgment on who you are.
Have you ever gotten a piece of feedback that sent you on a downward spiral? There's two reasons for this. One is you yourself must believe it for it to affect you. And two, you must be tying your worthiness to that particular achievement. I have a lot of clients, they'll share with me, I did this fundraising pitch, it went horribly, and I got this feedback from investors that it wasn't clear. And they just feel so despondent and bad about themselves. And they spend sometimes days just feeling sad and upset. If someone just told you you stink at water polo, would that affect you? No, of course it wouldn't. Why? Because you don't care about being good at water polo. And moreover, you don't tie your sense of self-worth to being great at water polo. And so really, the way out is to let go of tying your self-worth, your sense of self to your achievement, and just take feedback as input of how to do it better next time.
