In this reflective monologue, the speaker explores why criticism feels especially painful for individuals who attended boarding schools and how that sensitivity carries into adulthood, leadership, and personal relationships. Drawing on personal anecdotes, psychological concepts, and leadership literature, the talk outlines how boarding‑school conditioning—characterized by fear of detentions, lasting stigma, and social ostracism (e.g., being "sent to Coventry")—creates a deep‑seated negativity bias. The speaker differentiates criticism from constructive feedback, citing Jim Collins on the necessity of feedback for great leaders, and uses the Velcro‑for‑negativity/Teflon‑for‑positivity metaphor (Rick Hanson) alongside Martin Seligman’s 3 Ps (personal, permanence, pervasiveness) to explain internal processing. Practical regulation strategies are offered: grounding, body‑awareness, breathwork, and safety anchoring (noticing colors, shapes, bodily sensations). A fire metaphor (match → kindling → log → forest fire) illustrates how unchecked criticism can escalate. Leadership examples, such as the 3M glue that became Post‑it notes, demonstrate how embracing failure and feedback fuels innovation, whereas cultures that suppress mistakes perpetuate fear. The speaker also provides relational advice for partners of boarding‑school survivors, emphasizing gentle communication to prevent dissociation. The talk concludes with a call for comments and encourages listeners to apply grounding, safety, and breathwork to transform criticism into growth opportunities.
Chapters
Okay, welcome. So today I wanted to offer a few reflections about criticism and how that impacts us, and especially if we grew up at boarding school, especially as adults. What happens to us when we're criticized? And yeah, what are some of the things that we can do to start balance on the balance Our nervous system is out. Okay. Hmm, so yesterday I received a few pieces of feedback, criticism, and I just noticed, noticed what happened in my body. And I see that at boarding school I was a complier. Therefore, I tried to do everything right. I've shared this before. I went through 7 years and I didn't get a detention. I think I had 1 or 2 drills, which was running around the racetrack, which was the equivalent of a minor infraction, but no detentions because I was frightened of doing anything wrong. So it's interesting, and I see this quite a lot with ex-boarders, the ones I work with, leaders, that criticism, we struggle with criticism. And yet, to be a great leader, Jim Collins in Beyond Entrepreneurship 2.0 points out how important having feedback is. But often as ex-boarders, we see feedback as criticism, and we push both away. And really, and I'll share a little bit about that today, why this is, what we can do about it, and how we differentiate between the two. In Nick Duffield's book, 2014 book Wounded Leaders, he gives the example in the, I think it's in the introduction, about David Cameron, and I think you can see it on On YouTube. Essentially, he's being asked a question and he's being not criticized, but he's— something's being pointed out about him on Question Time. I can't remember when it was, maybe 2012, 2013, and he gets quite irate and he says to the lad— the lady who's questioned him, he You know, he kind of shouts at her, calm down, calm down, or something like that. And Nick points out that that's kind of very much an ex-boarding school thing. When we're criticized, it kind of goes in quite deeply into us. And this idea that, you know, I think psychologically anyhow, Rick Hanson talks about this idea of Velcro for negativity and Teflon for positivity. And I've heard this saying that you need to say something for 1 second negative for it to go in, and 15 seconds for it, which is positive, for that to go in. So this is a common human condition that we often take on board the negative, but we ignore the positive. And part of the healing journey of opening up the window of tolerance And this is some of the work I've seen in some psychology books, is this idea of feeling the positive. So it's calming the nervous system. And also feeling the negative, just anchoring, noticing we're safe. Where am I? What are the colors? What are the shapes? And I've used this a lot over the last few months in these, these videos. So it's a common psychological pattern, but I feel, and I've seen this a lot in boarding schools and speaking to my clients, reading people's stories, it's exacerbated. Now, why is that? So one of the things is criticism in a boarding school, it wasn't like criticism and then people dropped it. No, often This is what I've seen, and I've heard many stories of the like. Is you did one thing wrong, and I give the ex— I've used this example before. Guy who used to look after me, he stole something from me, and I didn't know who it was. But I told the teacher that some of my food had been stolen, my tuck, and I told the housemaster. We had this huge— these meetings after meetings trying to find out who this person was. And eventually this guy came forward, and once everyone found out who it was, he was called Klep, short for kleptomaniac, for the next 6 years. So it was the criticism. We did one thing wrong, but then it stays with us for the next 6 years. You know, we become tarred with that. So And so I think that's why criticism was dangerous. I think the other reason is this idea of the New Coventry. There's a few people in documentaries I've seen talked about this idea of being sent to Coventry. I think Karen Wilson talks about in her book where she's put in the center of The hall of, you know, the house in her boarding school, and she's basically sent to Coventry. No one's allowed to talk to her. And it's that idea that, you know, if you're criticized, then it's potential that you're just ostracized from the group. You can't go home. It's not at home, it's unconditional love. It's conditional. And obviously this is not for everyone. This is just what I've heard from the stories and the biographies I've read. Some people, that didn't happen, no problem. But the idea with these videos is to share the stories which no one's talking about. What I find in the screenings that we do in the Glastonbury screening, or, you know, some of the others, is giving people a chance to share their stories without judgment, without someone saying, Oh, you're lucky or you're rubbish. I get that sometimes when I share. People are quite rude to me because it triggers something within them and they're not willing to look at it. And that's okay, you know. So yeah, so that's basically why, you know, we've got this idea of criticism. And I think as well this idea That certainly in leadership or when we receive criticism, what happens is it takes us back to our earliest conditioning. It's like I've talked before, pressure, or, you know, when you're stressed, or, you know, criticism's another thing. It takes us back into that young child or that young part. Now, if we're securely attached, if we had a really happy upbringing and a good enough parenting, and we've got that secure sense that I'm good enough, It comes back to the 3 Ps of Martin Seligman's work of positive psychology: personal, permanence, and pervasiveness. We know and we don't take it personally because we believe in ourselves. Permanence, we know that it's going to pass. And pervasiveness, you know, it's just one small aspect of our life. So we see that criticism, it's like, oh, I don't take it personally. It's like, it's not permanent and it's not pervasive. But if we have the, what he calls, you know, you're more pessimistic, then you're likely to take it personally. And this is more common for ex-boarders. We are, you know, insecurely attached. Most of us. So we take it personally, we think that it's permanent because it taps into that core belief that I'm not good enough or I'm unlovable, that, you know. And then the final one is pervasiveness. It's like, well, that proves that there's something wrong with me. Now we can change that around, but when we are criticized, when we're under pressure, we often go back to that early conditioning. So we've got to catch ourselves. And I was talking about this with the client yesterday, and I use this with most of my clients, this idea that it's much easier to catch that trigger, that criticism, that point, that spark when it's just a match. And I said to my client yesterday, how easy is it to blow a match out? And they said, very easy. What about kindling? How easy is it to put— once the kindling's A light. And they said, oh, okay, you could use some water. What about then, you know, a big log fire? More difficult. Then if it's a forest fire, then what about the whole of California? Very difficult to put out. But most of us allow that criticism, then we get really negative, then we do— it just builds and becomes this big raging forest fire. So our work is Is to catch it when it's just a match. And it takes practice. It might be beginning, it might be it's already a log fire burning brightly, and it's like, okay, I need to go for a run, I need to regulate, I need to go and spend time with friends and see my psychotherapist. I, I've got to regulate so I can come back to the beginning. But the first stage is really awareness. And I think that's how, you know, the third part of this is, well, how do we regulate? And that thing I said, the difference between feedback and criticism. So the criticism, it's like, okay, feel that. Where do I notice it in my body? So yesterday I felt it in my heart. It's like, okay. Yep. My work is not to reply. My work is not to say anything. My work is just to sit and be with what I'm feeling. And then from there, it's to take that data and to go, what's true and what doesn't resonate with me? And just make some notes. It's like, okay. Because when we go into leadership, again, if I go back to Jim Collins, it's like the greatest leaders want that feedback. We want that, right? Tell me what I could do better. 'Cause that's how we grow. You know, and the greatest companies, they're the ones that learn through failures. Yeah. And there's no such thing in these companies as failure. It's win or learn. You've got this example of 3M. 3M, one of the engineers made this glue. It was useless. It was meant to be super glue. It didn't work. So he just asked around, okay, which of you could use this glue? This is the properties. And someone said, oh, that's great. I'm making this product. sticking paper together, and I don't want it to be that gluey, and that's where Post-it notes came from. So it was through failure, it's through mistakes. What a lot of companies do nowadays is they're learning, but a lot still have that culture is you can't make mistakes, and therefore people hide the mistakes, and they, you know, they don't want to hear the criticism. But actually, if we can reframe it, no, this is feedback. This is helping our company grow. This is you know, this is the way that we do grow. So the first step is always to feel it, to integrate right. Where am I feeling this? And then second stage is just safety. Where am I looking at the shape? What's on your right? The colors looking on the The you know the right, the left, anchoring it into the body, checking there's no lions or tigers. There's nothing to be frightened of. You know we're not still at school or we're not at you know childhood danger. And when we do that, then ah we can let it go and we can receive in. What we have perceived as criticism, but actually it's an opportunity for us to grow. And we see when we do that what is our stuff and what's theirs. And some of the criticism yesterday I received, it was not to do with me, it was the other person's stuff. And so the third stage is always, if we regulate ourselves, then we can come up, kind of reply with kindness. Whereas if we don't do the first 2 stages, how we'll often reply or come back to the criticism is with anger because it's triggered that little part of us who, you know, it's dangerous to be criticized. And you could see that with Boris whenever he was criticized. Oh no, no, no, no, no. It wouldn't take— same as David Cameron, couldn't take any criticism because Often the deep core is, you know, and I hear this often with my clients who work in London, is that the perspective is that a lot of people present with this entitlement, but their deep core is, I'm not good enough, and this comes across in how they are. So, so this is just some ideas here about criticism. I'd love to hear You know, comments. What do you feel about criticism? Does this resonate with you? Do you feel you can take criticism, or especially in relationships? And I think if you're in partnership with a boarding school survivor, be aware it's very easy for us to criticize, and there's a right time for criticism, but if we Just criticize. What happens is the ex-border will just dissociate. They go because that's what we how we learn to survive. It's actually to be what my wife learned with me is to be gentle, to yeah point things out but not all the time. Hold on to something. Maybe speak to friends or therapists. It's like have some other outlet. If it's just at the ex-border. They just— we just dissociate. And rather than us softening and opening, feeling safe, we disappear. So just be aware in relationships of that. So yeah, please do comment below if you find this helpful. And yeah, if you find you can deal with criticism, great. Or this is, you know, or maybe you found some other way. of dealing with it. I've got lots of condition, you know, things here, but, you know, I think that's it. Grounding, safety, breathwork, and, and then coming from that space. So thank you for listening, and yeah, have a wonderful week. Okay, take care.
