How To Stop Fearing Feedback

Welcome to Shrink for the Shy Guy. This is the show for you. If you are sick and tired of being held back by fear, self doubt, social anxiety, shyness, anything that's stopping you from you being you. I'm going to share the most powerful tools and resources that I've been discovering over the last 15 years on my journey to eradicate social anxiety and instill confidence first in myself and then in every single person that I meet on my journey. You're going to learn these tools and how to apply them in your life now so that you can become the most free, powerful, bold, authentic version of you. Welcome to today's episode of the show. Today you're going to learn an extremely valuable capacity which is to stop and fearing feedback. Stop being afraid of someone telling you what they think about you or about your work, or about how you're being and being able to be a lot more relaxed and confident in the face of feedback and others opinions. And I know that's a tall order perhaps especially as you've lived a lot of your life, maybe as a nice person or social anxiety, where we tend to be very sensitive to the perspectives of others, let alone the negative perspectives or feedback of others. So this is an extremely important thing to be able to build in ourselves to be more okay with other people having perspectives and opinions about us. And this matters not just for those rare moments where someone pulls you aside and says, let me give you some feedback. This affects you every moment of the day because we can be unconsciously constructing our lives, your entire way of being in the world to avoid that feedback so that no one ever does pull you aside, no one ever does dislike something you did. You stop taking risks, stop putting yourself out there, stop making jokes, stop speaking up in groups, stop doing whatever because someone might not like it. And so at the end of the day, feedback is another word for perhaps criticism, rejection, not liking something. Because look, I mean, feedback can mean anything, right? That means something's coming back to you. It could be positive feedback. But I mean, come on, first of all, no one calls positive feedback feedback. They just give it a. Give a compliment or praise. When someone says, just imagine this scenario, you're at work and your supervisor comes and knocks on your door, says, hey, I got to give you some feedback. What's happening right now? In that scenario, you get a sinking feeling in your stomach, right? Like oh God, it's back to, you know, grade school. You, you got to go see the principal. Oh no, I'm in trouble, right? Same thing with your partner, honey, I got to give you some feedback. Oh, God, I'm in trouble. Right? So, I mean, we're afraid of feedback because when people use the word feedback, they're going to get. They're going to tell you something negative or something critical, something they don't like. Now this is where it gets real murky, though, because if you read a, I don't know, kind of a hateful troll comment online, someone, you know, shares a video and troll, says, like, you're stupid, that could be painful for sure. But it also can sometimes be a little easier to block that and say, you know what, man? Haters gonna hate. Just gonna go do my thing. Right? We might be able to muster that boundary there. The problem is when it's framed as feedback, especially from someone that knows you, it's more like, oh, hey, you really should pay attention to this and fix all this. Because this isn't just some random hateful stuff on the Internet. This is someone who really knows you, knows your work, knows you personally, knows you romantically, and they got some useful stuff that they're telling you. And you better really change this because it's valuable feedback. And they might even go so far as to say, hey, look, I'm just sharing this with you because I want you to be better. I want you to be able to solve this. I care about you, right? And that makes the whole situation super murky because then you're like, well, jeez, I guess I better really do what they say and take this in because, geez, I mean, if I don't heed this advice, maybe I'm just walking around like a blind to the ways that I'm all messed up and causing problems in the world, right? So, hey, can you relate to this? And what I find is that a lot of nice people are very, very receptive to feedback, especially negative feedback. And basically all feedback is true. Whatever someone says about me is accurate. And geez, look, see, it's another further evidence of my long list of flaws and shortcomings. And I totally relate to this. That was my default for many years. It still is. Like, my natural impulse in response to feedback is like, oh, God, I suck. And then I have to pause and say, whoa. Who whoa, whoa. And then start to ask different questions that I'm gonna guide you through today. That can start to free you to be more you. And the goal here is not to never get negative feedback. And the goal here is not to, you know, you get negative feedback and you're like, ha, I feel nothing. I feel great. Yeah, like maybe the goal here ultimately is in the title of this episode, is to stop fearing feedback. I'm not saying it's always going to be comfortable. I'm not saying that you never get affected. But let's not live in fear of it, because if we're living in fear of it, that's where the biggest detriment to your life is. Because now you've restricted who you are every single day to avoid this thing that might come about once in a while. Does that make sense? Okay, so you might say, that sounds great, Aziz. How do I not fear feedback? I mean, it feels terrible. Well, let's start there. Why does feedback feel terrible? What's happening with us that it hurts so much? And this is not a simple answer. It really depends because there's a couple of nuances to feedback that I think are worth unpacking. There's feedback that is constructive and feedback that is primarily destructive. Right. Criticism. Sometimes people use the word constructive criticism, which is kind of confusing, but let's just put it into two camps, right? The feedback can be intending to actually help or intending to not help. And to make matters a little more confusing, the person giving the feedback may or may not know which one they're doing. In fact, they might think they're doing the helpful one and they're actually doing the destructive one. You might say, well, that's weird. Who would do that? Well, here's the thing about humans. You know, you've heard the phrase hurt people, hurt people, right? So let's say someone is feeling bad about something. They might go to you and say, listen, I got to give you some feedback, and then tell you some things that they truly believe need to be better about you. And they might even be pointing towards something that you're not the greatest at or that you do have some shortcomings in, but the energy behind it. What they're communicating is basically, you suck. And they're doing that because inside they are feeling insignificant, shame, inadequate, themselves. And to relieve that suffering, they go find someone to pick at, and they might not even know that. That they're doing it. So they might say, no, no, these are my best intentions. I have nothing that has nothing to do with how I feel. No, it's about you. So that's where it gets very important, to know what's coming your way and where it's coming from. And I'm not saying you know exactly 100%, but you start to be able to even be aware that this is a possibility. Otherwise, your filters are just wide Open. And so this is an important thing when we start to understand about letting things in and feedback in specifically. Think of it like this. Back in the day, cities had walls around them, especially large cities. They called them city states back in the day. I mean, like, you know, a couple thousand years ago or something. And if a city didn't have any sort of wall around, was extremely vulnerable to intruders, invaders, because they just roll right up, move in. So cities would have walls around them. And a wall is a healthy defense. Now in the modern era, you know, countries don't have walls around them. The nation states are much too large. But there is a modern equivalent of that, which is nuclear weapons. So if a nation state has nuclear weapons, it tends to not be invaded because people know that they have the nuclear option, which can just kind of screw us all. So that's the modern equivalent. But it's basically, hey, I can control what gets in and what doesn't get in. And so in a nation state back in the day, with a, with a wall around it, you would have these gates and they would let things in and you would be able to have a choice of, hey, do we want to let in this, I don't know, food caravan, this trader caravan for our marketplace? Great, open the gates. Do we want to let in the invading army? No, let's keep them closed. It seems like a bad idea, right? So. And we need to have something similar for us. Selective membrane. A selective gate. What do I let in? What do I not let in? Now you might say, well, geez, I just feels like everything gets in. Yeah. Because right now you might not have any walls. You might think it's bad to have walls. You might think you're a bad person for having walls. Oh, walls are. Walls are bad. I don't even know why you would think that, but just we might. Right? And I should be open to everyone's feedback because if I don't, then I'm blocking myself off. I had that for many years. Right. I should be super open to everyone's feedback or else I'm being a narcissist, or else I'm being egotistical, or else I'm being bad in some way. And I have to not be one of those people. I have to be very open and receptive. I gotta be an open receptive. I just really care about what you think and what you think. I gotta validate what you think. And that might seem like being. You're being good, but like always with the nice person stuff, where the nice person is trying to be good. You're actually just trying to maintain approval and not have anyone ever judge you as a narcissist or as egotistical or as not open to feedback. And the funny thing is, like, let's say someone gives you critical feedback that's coming from their own insecurities, and then you're not open to it and they judge you and say, you need to be more open to my feedback. Like, is that something you'd want to be open to? Is that the right answer there? Okay, so you know what kind of feedback? Constructive or destructive? What is constructive feedback? Look like Constructive feedback is what you see from like a sports coach, a good manager, a partner who's really intending to help. It is highlighted on a specific approach, like specifically what the shortcoming or the challenge of the grievance is, and actionable ideas on what can change. It's often framed in that this is what I want. And so here's why I want you to change this, because this is how we can get what I want. They take ownership that it's their own expectation, desire, or something that they want versus usually negative feedback. They won't say what they want, they'll just kind of criticize you. So for example, partner says to partner, you never listen to me. You're so self absorbed. And look, I got to give you this feedback because you got to see that about yourself. Okay, that's a doozy, right? You never listen to me. You're self absorbed. Is that constructive or is that destructive? I would say that's destructive because there's nothing. There's no request in there. There's no unveiling of what that other person's expectation is. There's no expression of a desire for what they want. And let's contrast that with maybe constructive feedback in that situation. What does the other person want? Maybe they say, hey, when I notice in the evenings when we get home from work, you have a lot of momentum in you about the workday, and it feels like you're really focused on that. And I find that challenging for me. I would like time where we're able to connect and we could share about our days, about work and stuff. But I noticed that there doesn't seem like there's much space for me to share about my experience of the day or anything else. And that there's a lot going on with you that needs attention and that it's hard for you to focus on me. And I would love if in the evenings we could really give attention to each other. Both ways. Do you, do you hear how very different that is? The person saying, I want more attention. Maybe there's even an exploration from that first statement of what can we do in the evenings? It's. Instead of saying you're self absorbed, it's pointing to the specifics, right? Like, oh, you are at. It's about work. And this person's really focused on work in the example after, in the evening. It gives them something to really work on and work with. Now, you know, this is a great thing to think about when you're giving feedback. Not just about how to be fearless of other people's feedback, but you can become more and more skillful when you do it that way. And look, this isn't about 100%. I'm in a relationship, I hit this sometimes. And sometimes, you know, it comes out in a more critical way. Right, because that's just life. But this is really important to know when it comes to receiving feedback. So right off the bat, if you get feedback that just seems generally about your character, generally critical, I would put up the gate, close the gate. Don't let them in. Don't let it in. And you might say, well, I don't. I don't know how to do that. Well, first things first, just say, that's not helpful to yourself. Inside, you may or may not say that out loud. You could say that out loud depending on, you know, it's a work situation. You might well say, that's not helpful. But you might say, hmm, let's say at work they say, you know, you are too passive. You're too passive in whatever your role is. You're a passive person. And you might not say, that's not helpful. Besides, a passive person wouldn't say that. No, but in your mind, the gates that I'm talking about are not what you say to the other person. Outside the gates are inside of yourself. And you breathe in, you sit up tall and you say, that's not helpful. And this boundary is born out of being on your own side. It's an act of self care, of sanity. Because look, there's enough crap that you got going on inside. Of all the ways that you pick at yourself and attack yourself, we don't need to add more to it. That's not helpful. Then outside you could say, huh, passive. Can you give me some specific or a specific example of what a passive thing might be? And maybe they give you an example. Say, okay, and what would an active. What's the opposite of passive? It's active. Or maybe they Say it's aggressive or it's assertive. Okay, what. What would an aggressive or what an assertive person do? What are some examples of that? Is there anyone here at this company that you think exemplifies that? You know, what are some of the things that they do? Do you see how I'm guiding it to get specifics now as opposed to just general? You're a sucky person, which is what we. You know, anytime someone uses a you are blank, we just translate that in our minds into you are bad. And then we feel shame, we feel awful, right? So this is being able to separate and tease it apart. Where it gets even more murky is when it's not a workplace environment, although that can be quite murky too. But family, partner, spouse, sister, parents, children, right? And it's like, oh, my gosh, these people, they've grown up with me or they've known me for years, so this feedback has got to be really true. Oh, no. But going back to what I said earlier, people might get upset. Maybe they have an expectation that is not being met. Right. I want my partner to pay more attention to me. I want my daughter to be more like this. I want my sister to be more like that. They have an expectation, then they. They're upset because you're not meeting that expectation. Right? That's what happens in life. We want an expectation, and it doesn't happen. And we get sad or angry. And usually if it's another person, we have both, right? Feel like, oh, they don't care about me, and now I'm angry at them. Or we just feel like they should. They're not being the way they should be. And so we go take that upset, and we can go to the other person or someone can come to you. And instead of saying this, hey, I had a number of expectations that I realize are not being met. And I realize that some of those expectations are unrealistic, and I'm going to take ownership to address that. And some of them, I think, are realistic. And I'd like to have a conversation with you about how we can turn those into powerful agreements that. That feel good to us both. So let's talk about that. No, no, no, no. No one does that. Unless you've read some of my materials, some of my books. Maybe you do that. Nope, nope, nope. Here's what they do. They come to you and they say, you know, you should be more like this, and you're not. Enough of that and this. And so they're hurting inside. Then they give you the feedback. And then it's like this shame hot potato that gets passed back and forth. They're feeling bad and then you're feeling bad. I'm not bad. You're bad. No, I'm not bad. You're bad. That's the essence of everybody. Conflict and fight, by the way, in interpersonal relationships. So here's where it gets helpful. It doesn't matter what they do. They could be messy, Barfy, Blamey. You put up, you close the gates inside. Inside of yourself, you say. And I really do think it's like a mental emotion, but also like an energetic thing. It's just like. And I keep trying to describe this, and as I'm saying it to you, I, like, sit taller. I kind of put my chest out a little bit, bring my shoulder blades together, stand up tall, and it's kind of like a. You know what? I have a right to be here. No, no, no, no, no. I'm not just gonna get trampled by everybody. I'm not just gonna let this garbage in. No. It's like a healthy defense. Coming to your own aid, your own defense. No, I'm not gonna let that in. That's not helpful. And then with that energy, you can ask yourself a couple things. Okay? What expectations do I think they have? You know, what is it that they want me to be? What do they want this situation to be? Like, what are they, what are they hoping for? What were they hoping for? Okay, and maybe, you know, and maybe you don't know, maybe it's kind of embedded in what they were saying, right? They're like, you're. You're too this, you're too selfish, you're too that. Okay? What? They're wanting something. They're wanting more of me, more of time with me, more attention with me, me to listen to them more. Or maybe it's about your character, right? Like, they're wanting me to be more. Whatever. They want me to go to church more. They want me to play with their kids. Or they think that my kids are too loud and they want me to make my kids quiet. They want me to be. You know, I have one client where her mom would criticize her because she didn't spend enough time with her siblings. So my mom has an expectation I spend time with my siblings, but she didn't want to spend time with her siblings. She didn't get along great with her siblings. She found them hard to be around because they were kind of a lot of comparing and subtle put downs and stuff. And she didn't Want to be around that. So as an act of self care, she didn't spend that much time with her siblings. But then her mom would come and kind of, oh, let me give you some feedback. You should really be with your brother and sister. And then she'd leave feeling terrible about that. So first things first is to ask, what is the expectation that they have? Or expectations, what do they want me to be? But what is it that they want? And I've gotten a lot of feedback all over in the professional world from my books or people, you know, those are in the form of reviews and, or the coaching that I do and people have feedback and sometimes it's like, oh, your books are great, your coaching is great. Changed my life. This is awesome. Sometimes it's like, I don't like your books, I don't like you. Sometimes with coaching clients, I don't like you. Okay, all right. So then we slow down and we say, well, what is it the expectation they had? What do they want me to be? And then make the list as best as you can. You might not do this in the moment. In the moment, you just get through the feedback and then when you get home, that's where you're going to start to really hurt and suffer and ruminate, perseverate on it and feel terrible at yourself. Okay, this is where you bust it out. Get a journal, get a note file and say, what is it that they want? That is my best guess. Now, if you're in a situation where you're having a conversation with a person, you might even ask them. It sounds like you have some expectations that might not have been met. What are those? What is it that you are wanting of me? What is it you want me to be? And man, this one is a whole nother episode perhaps of you know, how. Because if you ask that question, like what? What is it you want me to be? Huh? That's not going to go very. It's already gotten in. You didn't close the gates, right? And so now you're already feeling terrible and you just gotta like counter swing. No, no. This is truly curious because look, I know, I know that what they're saying is coming from unmet expectations. That is not about me, that's about them. So what are those? And then as you hear them, then you get to ask yourself, is that what I want too? Is that an agreement that I want to make? Because that's the difference between expectations and agreement. Expectations are in our head. Agreements are things we say out loud and both agree on so when I look at a negative review of my books and some of the themes for the negative feedback on my books is one of the biggest ones is that people don't like that I tell a lot of stories and personal experiences from my own life. And they'll judge that. They'll use critical words like it's egotistical, it's too self focused, too self absorbed, egomaniac. And so then I look at what's the expectation they had? Well, I don't know. I'm not interviewing these people. Right. These are just random reviews on Audible or something of bunches of people. So the. I can surmise from reading the review that they're we were wanting a book that maybe didn't have personal information from the author in it, or maybe they were wanting a book that was more written like an academic kind of paper where it has sightings. And I mean, academic writing can be so removed that they don't even say I or we as the authors. They'll say like the authors concluded and this is the author writing it. Right. So it's like a strange third person narrative, but that's objective in science. So, you know, maybe they're wanting that and maybe not that extreme. It's not an academic paper, but they're wanting the author to be very minimally part of the book. Okay. Okay, so that's maybe an expectation. Now the question to ask yourself after that is, do I want to do that? Is that how I want to write? The answer for me is no. Okay, well then I'm not for everybody. And those are four powerful, liberating words. I'm not for everybody. It's okay. They don't, they wanted that. And that's like they don't meet that expectation. For them, they're probably not going to buy another book of mine. Okay. I remember I had a coaching client in my group mastermind program and he was upset and gave some feedback. And the feedback was lengthy. You know, it was about some specifics in there. But also, you know, generally I'm a domineering presence and I don't let people speak enough in the group program. And also that the group is too large. And so I started to read through the feedback and I started to ask myself these questions like, what is the expectations here? Well, one expectation it sounded like was that I want more personal attention to me. I don't want a bunch of other people in the group. I want it to be focused more on me. And also I don't want to hear you teach because what the group is a lot of, there's a lot of teaching in the group program and activities and it's more like I want to be listened to. And so as I read the feedback, I said, but this guy wants, is like individual, maybe individual coaching or maybe even individual therapy. And I do offer some one on one coaching, but he chose to be in the group program and, or maybe he wants therapy and maybe a certain kind of therapy where the therapist is like real minimal in what their presence is and they just ask a few guiding questions and they're silent, maybe, you know, 80%, 90% of the session. And let's say he wants that, that's his expectation. Then the question is, do I want to do that? Is that the kind of practice that I want to lead? And to me the answer to that is a resounding no. Because I did that early in my training. I was trained in this Rogerian style of therapy where we basically didn't say anything and it felt like pulling teeth for me. Some people, it's their natural way, it's perfect. For me, it's a much more interactive style, fast paced, asking questions, doing exercises and activities together, either in the virtual space or out in the world and coming back and talking about it. Maybe if there's a lot of spaciousness, it's more to like go directly into an experience or a feeling with like mindfulness based exercises, guiding with questions, teaching, giving specific guidance and advice. And in certain therapy circles, the word advice is a dirty word. Therapists should never give advice. And there's a lot of righteousness about it too. How dare you? How dare you be so presumptuous as to think that you would know what's best for someone else. And I just stepped away from that world. I was like, you know, there's some good things from the therapy world here that I've learned in my training. I was back and that was my background as a clinical psychologist, as a therapist. So I use a lot of those tools and the whole frame, I don't swallow it 100%. I say there's a time for that and then there's a time for very specific psycho education and training. Well, how do I know that? Because that's what works for me and that's worked for a lot of clients that I work with. So if you ask, how do you want to do it? Well, that's how I want to run this group. I want it to be teaching, I want it to be interactive, I want it to be me sharing a lot and them having Opportunities to share with other members in smaller breakout rooms. And so you can see here that the problem is not the feedback. The problem is that you take the feedback and plug it into this network of already there negative judgments and criticisms of yourself. You plug it into the network of shame. And so we need to do is we need to take that full breath in, expand your chest and your body, close the gates and ask yourself, what is the expectation that this person has that's not being met? Then you get to discern. It's almost like you're at the top of the gates, you know, one of the gatekeepers and you say, hmm, what do they expect, huh? Okay, you know what? I think that their expectation. I agree. For example, let's say my wife. This came up in a conversation with my wife not that long ago and she was feeling hurt and upset and we started to explore it and she was wanting more time together. I started to explore that and I said, okay, you know, but we had to get a little deeper though, because I was like, that's, we do spend a lot of time together. And it turned out what she was wanting was more time. That was like purely just us and leisure. What a foreign concept. I had to look it up. Leisure. What is this so called leisure you are talking about? You know, freaking a decade of kids, little kids growing a business and also just being driven and interested in all kinds of things and physical fitness and all these breakthroughs in my health over the years and then getting into long distance running and all this stuff. And. And then we moved to this property about a year, year and a half ago. We're out in the woods and I likened it the other week with her. It's like a ranch. It's like a 20 acre property, which is exciting and fun, but it's also like there's always something to fix. There's that problem over there. Okay, that needs to be fixed or else it's going to get worse. And that's inside the house and outside the house. So there's a lot of tending, tending to stuff, right. And so what we didn't have was a lot of time. I mean, we did stuff as a family that was kind of like, let's all go for a hike, right? I would consider that leisure, go for a family hike, but it's not just us. So the just us time was shorter and it, and it was maybe time to connect, maybe doing something side by side, but not just like, let's watch a movie together. I mean, I cannot remember the last time we Just like watched a movie together or a show or something like that. And so at first the feedback, you know, came out. She was upset, and it was a little bit like, you don't prioritize me, right? And so then my initial reaction was like, hurt, like, ow. And I do defend myself. And then it was like, okay, take a breath in. Let's have the gates. And you might say, you can't have your gate with a partner. That's really bad. You know, you got to be open, you got to be loving. You got to really care about them. Look, caring about someone doesn't mean you don't have any walls. That's unhealthy. That's enmeshment. That's not having boundaries. In fact, you need those. It's called differentiation. You need to know that, look, sometimes we're gonna feel totally merged and like, I don't even know where I end and you begin. And that's a beautiful moment. Maybe that happens, you know, during lovemaking. Maybe that happens when you just spend a day together and it's so sweet and you're just in flow and rhythm together, and it's awesome. And that's. Those are beautiful experiences. And there's also other experience. You can't just live in that. I mean, aren't you gonna go do something else on your own? Aren't you gonna go to work and they're gonna go do something? Or, you know, it's like, you're not just gonna be a mushy wee forever, right? So you kind of come and go in between that state. So we have to be able to take those walls down and just go into the we. And then at other times, you need to say, wait a minute, okay, you have an expectation that might be different than what I think or want or feel. And we gotta separate that, differentiate that, and see what's there. So we started to explore it more and more. And I asked myself, what is the expectation? What is it she's wanting? Now, in this case, we could actually talk about it, right? Because I could ask her. Sometimes you get feedback that's like someone just vomiting something and then running off, or they don't have any self awareness and they can't even have this conversation with you. But in this case, I was able to ask her and we started to explore and it was. It was about leisure time. And then I sat with that for a little bit. I said, you know, I want that too. And I started to investigate, like, what is it in me that that feels like I can't rest. I can't have leisure until I get enough stuff done. Because that was what driving me. And she thought it was like, oh, I don't want to do that stuff with her. It was more like, no, I feel this, like, compelled or this stress to get all these things done. And then I can have leisure. And then, look, leisure doesn't come because I didn't get enough done. So the long and the short of it is I looked at that and I realized, you know what, I agree with that and I want to change that. And that was an easier change. Maybe you get some feedback about a style that you're having at work or in your personal life. Maybe it's about avoiding feelings or not having more intimate conversations with your partner. And you sit with that and you find out what their expectation is and they want the more capacity in you to be able to connect. And you know what you might say, I agree with that. And that might not be a simple, oh, I'll just do that tomorrow. Then. Maybe it involves reading some books, getting some training, developing and deepening your emotional capacities. Right. So there may be some growth needed, which is beautiful, but it's because you agree with it, because you want that too. And you create a powerful agreement. If you don't want it, then you need to be able to inhabit your own reality. This is how I want to do it in my reality. I know that may or may not work for somebody. And if it's a minor thing, you work around it. If it's a major thing, it might mean the end of the job or the relationship or the time together with the family member. That's on the extreme end, but it might be. And that's okay too, if you're really aligned with, like, look, I don't. They want, you know, here's a classic example. One partner wants kids, one doesn't. I mean, that can. And that can and does end relationships. And that's not bad or wrong. No one's right or wrong in that situation. It's just knowing your yourself. Look, they have an expectation. They want a family. I don't want that, or I don't want that at this time. And so I can't make that agreement. And maybe that ends the relationship, and that's painful, but it's the right thing to do because I got to live my life. Right. So are you seeing. I mean, this is. We're just scratching the surface here, but hopefully you're getting a lot of insight into how to start to discern what's coming Your way, what the expectations are underneath, and ultimately how to find more peace with being you. So let's end this with an action step. Time for action. Action, action. Your action step is going to be to apply what you're learning running through this little process with some feedback. Now maybe your timing is right, the stars have just aligned and you got some feedback recently. Perfect, if not. Think back to the last time you got some feedback that was hard for you, painful feedback. And I know that's not going to be hard because the painful stuff we can store for months or years. So just think back to that, and then I want you to run it through this process. Might be helpful to even do it on paper, in a journal, on a note, file on your phone or something. Just say, okay, what did they say? What about, what is my memory of what they said? Okay, what is the expectation that they had underneath? Okay, what is it? In other words, like, what are they wanting me to be? Like, what are they wanting to be different? That's another way of saying, what's the expectation? And then ask yourself, is that what I want? Not just, I want whatever they want so they're not mad at me? No. What do they want and what do I want? This is differentiation. You want different things. Does the way they want me to be, the way they want me to do things, do my life, do my time, do my business, do my work, you know, what to wear, what to say, how to be, what to believe, whatever they want, is that right for me? I remember I had a client who was suffering so much about disappointing her parents, particularly her dad. And her dad wanted her to be a certain type of career, a certain type of sexual orientation, certain types of belief systems and religious values and beliefs, none of which were right for her. And so she lived in perpetual pain of, I'm disappointing my dad. I have to hide myself so he never finds out all these things about me. And so part of claiming your life, part of liberating yourself, is to be able to see, okay, he wants this, they want this, she wants this. Whoever it is, they want this of me. And I gotta live my life. I really, really do. Because guess what? A month's gonna go by and maybe you'll never see that person again, right? If it's a partner dating situation, even a friendship, you might move on, you might never see that person again. The friendship might end, the relationship might end. It's a year later, it's two years later, and you were not living your life for that person. And maybe you continue going on that way not living your life and you don't even see that person anymore. Or in the case of clients of mine, their parent is dead and they're still not living their life under the specter of what their parents thoughts would be. Or the parent is alive and they're like, well, I can't do this because I don't want to upset them or disappoint them and they're just going to wait it out. You're going to start living your Life when you're 50. New New New new new new new all right, well, I hope this serves you. I know this was a long one, but I think there's a lot here. I hope this helps you feel more bold and resilient and free and fearless in the face of feedback and until we speak again, may have the courage to be who you are and to know on a deep level that you're awesome. I'll talk to you soon.

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