How To Take Feedback Like A Champ

I love feedback. It’s such a gift. Without it I would just keep doing the same things over and over again.

I have amazing friends. They stab me in the front all the time, pushing me to new levels of growth. But they always do it with an open heart, so it lands softly.

And I give a lot of it out too. Because I care about my friends and I would never hold back information that might help them show up in the world better.

Sometimes though I get feedback that lands like shit. And most of that comes from comments on blogs or anonymous emails. Take this one for example on this recent blog post:

Honestly man, u need to hear this.

Stop fucking up!!! & stop whining! Your “yet” is a bunch of bullshit! Life does not have time to wait for your “yet”! Aren’t you like 37? What the fuck are you really doing with your life besides whining about a bad bitch that u fucked things up with for no reason and about not being the man that you want to be. By this age, at the pace you are going, you wont be him unless you get your head out of your ass and start making moves. Stop blogging about other people and get a real job where you will be able to afford your own adress. Hard work, dedication, and commitment to the ones you love are how you are going to be this man.

Its how you are going to be a decent human being. I am almost 10 years younger than you and I am more successful than you. If I am going to get a life coach I want someone who inspires me and will help me feel empowered, not a bum with virtually no job and talks about other people on the internet or whines about how he missed amazing opportunities because of a “yet”. You need to recognize opportunities and grab them, not pass them by and blame it on a “yet.”

Good luck bro.

Ouch right? Here’s how I handled receiving this feedback step by step.

 

1. I Felt Into It Fully

I felt this one. It hurt.

Like getting stabbed in the chest.

I felt really raw. But feeling raw is just another reminder that I’m alive. So I enjoyed the reminder of my existence and the fact that I’m living it fully with an open heart.

In the past I would collapse and let something like this ruin my day. But I kept my shoulders back, sat up straight, kept my heart open, and took several full deep breaths directly into the pain.

 

2. I Got A Second Opinion

Luckily I was with a group of amazing friends from the five day David Deida intensive I just attended, so I let a couple of them read it as well. We all have very authentic relationships amongst ourselves so they were able to further distill the feedback into something that was useful for me.

 

3. I Went Through It Line By Line To See What’s True

Some of the feedback was true.

• True, I could easily be making more money right now.
• True, I’m being selfish right now.

So I thought about these truths intently.

Yes, I could be making more money. Easily three to five times as much in fact if I launch an idea that I’m sitting on. Probably ten times as much if I stopped traveling and worked every day for a year. But I like having meals with amazing friends every day, taking walks in the middle of the day, and seeing the world while I’m young.

And yes, I’m being selfish. But I enjoy traveling to foreign countries. I enjoy learning languages. I enjoy experiencing new people and hosting meetups all over the world. And I enjoy having complete and utter freedom.

Other than these truths, most of it was crap. So…

 

4. I Shit Out The Rest

Imagine receiving feedback like eating a sandwich. Your body breaks the sandwich down into nutrients that nourish your body. What does it do after that?

It shits out the rest.

Yes, some of this feedback had some truths to it. But most of it was this person’s projection of how I should be living my life based off of the beliefs they got from their parents, professors, and society. Here’s how I would have responded had this been a conversation and not an anonymous comment.

• Stop fucking up!!! & stop whining! (No, I won’t stop fucking up. Every time I fuck up I learn something. And I purposely live at my edge every day so I’m going to keep fucking up. Failure is just feedback. And if “stop whining” you mean stop allowing myself to feel emotion, then no thanks either. I like feeling alive.) 
• Your “yet” is a bunch of bullshit! Life does not have time to wait for your “yet”! Aren’t you like 37? (I wish! I’m only 32 homie.)
• What the fuck are you really doing with your life besides whining about a bad bitch that u fucked things up with for no reason and about not being the man that you want to be. (Coaching, writing, speaking, helping men grow some balls, make more money, and have more sex… the usual. And yes, I ended my last partnership because being location independent still serves me in this chapter of my life.)
• By this age, at the pace you are going, you wont be him unless you get your head out of your ass and start making moves. Stop blogging about other people and get a real job where you will be able to afford your own adress. (Hmm, if by real job you mean something in an office, no thanks. Tried that once, didn’t work out so well. Most large companies don’t appreciate people who speak the truth all of the time.)
• Hard work, dedication, and commitment to the ones you love are how you are going to be this man. (To an extent. I actually find I’m much more effective when I’m not striving for an outcome but just operating from a state of relaxation, flow, and abundance. Especially in any kind of creative work. It seems almost counter intuitive, but it’s been working for me and several of my clients. For me playing more has led to being simply more pleasurable to be around which has led to attracting more clients and opportunities.)
• Its how you are going to be a decent human being. I am almost 10 years younger than you and I am more successful than you. (How so… you make more money than me? That’s like comparing the size of our dicks. Completely irrelevant. I made nothing last year doing nothing but pro-bono coaching and volunteer work and it was the richest year of my life.)
• If I am going to get a life coach I want someone who inspires me and will help me feel empowered, not a bum with virtually no job and talks about other people on the internet or whines about how he missed amazing opportunities because of a “yet”. (If by whining you mean being authentic and open about my feelings and not pretending that I have it all figured out, then yes, you probably shouldn’t read my blog anymore. And I’m certainly not the life coach for you if you’re anti-fucking up. I push my clients into challenging situations where they fuck up all the time.)
• You need to recognize opportunities and grab them, not pass them by and blame it on a “yet.” (Actually I’ve been saying no a lot more recently. Women, coaching clients, mastermind groups, opportunities to travel. At this point, if it’s not a hell yes, it’s a no.)
• Good luck bro. (You too brother. Thanks for being brutally honest. Seriously. You gave me something to chew on for a while.)

 

5. I Went On With Living My Life

I processed the feedback fully and then felt thankful that I get to write my thoughts openly online and have people challenge me with differing opinions.

Then I felt thankful for the fact that for same strange reason thousands of people every month read words that I publish on the Internet.

Then got back to my hamburger.

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PS – I’m obviously not going to dissect and respond to every piece of negative feedback I get. This was just to illustrate the process I went through. Hope something in there will help you the next time you get stabbed in the front.