Quick note before we jump in. The Optimistic Outlook book is now available on Amazon. It brings together the best posts from the last year of this newsletter. If you or someone close to you enjoys short inspirational stories, it makes a perfect gift.

You don’t like to be criticized. Chances are, you don’t love being coached hard either.

The reason is simple. When someone else holds up a mirror, it often feels like judgment. Even when what they say has truth in it, an emotional reaction is far more likely than a calm one.

But here’s the hard truth. People who cannot accept criticism make poor spouses, teammates, and employees.

Just because something doesn’t feel good does not mean it isn’t good. In fact, most criticism isn’t meant to break you. It’s meant to build you.

Warren Buffett said it well: “You will continue to suffer if you have an emotional reaction to everything that is said to you. True power is sitting back and observing it with logic.”

Buffett gets this exactly right.

When you can step back and view feedback as an objective bystander rather than a personal attack, you dramatically increase your chances of finding the truth in it.

It’s important to be clear about something. It can be dangerous to accept criticism from people you would never go to for advice. This is not an invitation to listen to everyone. Discernment matters.

But for the right people, criticism is not destruction, it is construction.

Take what helps, discard what doesn’t. Because the person giving you the feedback needs some too. No one is perfect, so take their words as an invitation to construct a better version of you.

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