G'day leaders. In this episode we discuss a better way to look at criticism and talk about why Lindt chocolate is the best chocolate in the world. Enjoy.
Why did it count backwards? Oh no, we're now recording.
What? Hello Captain.
What do I...
Come fly with me, let's fly, let's fly.
What are we going to talk about? I don't know. So, leadership, life and everything else.
Yeah.
And we're live. No we're not, we're recording. And what are you doing, doing, stealing my part?
Oh, I can't believe you stole my line. Sorry, got in there first. Was that criticism Michelle?
Not at all. Yeah, okay. Today we're going to talk about criticism.
Yes. Yes. Not a fan?
Yep. Oh, well most people aren't. No, no. I didn't like it growing up.
Hold on, I'm going to criticize you. Can you move a little bit closer to the microphone please?
Yes. How's that? There we go. That's better. Now I can hear the sultry tones of your voice.
Yeah, the term critique or criticism, somehow if it's critique it carries less emotional weight than criticism.
Yep. So critique I look at, I understand as feedback, whereas criticism is something I personally have done wrong
and is probably attached to me rather than removed from me. Okay, I've got a different theory.
Okay. Yep. I don't think there's anything that we, I don't think criticism exists in utopia.
So my theory is this, if you're a confident person, you can't be criticized.
The reason why you can't be criticized is because if you are a confident person, and again I'm talking about utopia,
utopia being the perfect world where everything is perfect, when somebody criticizes you, when does it become criticism?
So I'll get you to think about that. When does it become criticism?
When it's said? Personal. Or when you know it's your interpretation.
That's it. Yeah. So let's say somebody says, Guy, I disagree with you. You were wrong. I don't like that.
Whatever it is, that's information. That's information that's troubling from them to me.
And it only becomes criticism when I get out my little sticker book and I take one of my stickers that says criticism
and I put that sticker on that piece of information and go, I was criticized. Does that make sense? Yes.
Yeah. So this is something that I'm talking about in the confidence course now is that you want to move to the mindset
whereby you cannot be criticized because everything that somebody says to you is just information that you then get to choose what you do with it.
Yeah. And so I'm trying to teach myself this because being a shy, sensitive, insecure little sook that I was as a child,
I took the smallest slight on me and my actions or my thoughts or whatever as a huge criticism. I was a very, very sensitive person.
And so I've spent the last year, especially working on this. And I had a moment the other day where I tried something on stage in one of my keynotes.
It didn't work. Right. And then I said, it didn't work to you. And you said, no. So and in that moment, I reflected on it.
The young version of me many years ago, when even though I'm the one that said it didn't work. So I've criticized the thing that I tried on stage.
That's OK, because it's me criticizing me. But when you went, not. So you agreed with my criticism of myself.
The young version of me many, many years ago would have felt criticized by you, even though I was the one criticizing myself. Right. Yes.
But when you did that, I had this moment of realization that this work that I'm doing on myself is starting to have a really positive impact.
I had none of the I'm sure that I've been this way for a while.
I think by now I'm getting to a level of maturity that that would justify me being an adult.
But I've been working on just seeing it as information and not as something that needs to be taken as criticism.
I didn't know that guy. I apologize. You don't need to please because you agreed with my.
Well, I was looking at it objectively as what worked and what didn't work. It wasn't criticism, Michelle.
And that's it. That's the beautiful thing about what the realization I had, the realization.
And so please don't apologize because you didn't criticize me. You agreed with my analysis of the of the thing I did on stage that I attempted to do.
It didn't work. I said it didn't work. You went, no, it didn't work. You didn't criticize. There was no anger of maliciousness in your voice.
And even if there was, that's just information. Oh, there's malice and maliciousness in the in the in the comments.
Oh, you bovine. But no, it's and it was just it was a it was a beautiful moment for me because I came to realize that something that I've been working on my whole life,
I think I've got to a point now where I'm a lot less susceptible to the criticism of others because it's just information.
If somebody disagrees with you, they disagree with you. If they don't like something you've done, they don't like something you've done.
Why do we need to put that little sticker on it that says it was criticism?
I like how so I work with Ben and we've interviewed Ben previously. So Ben has Ben Bulk. CEO of Kindicare. That's right.
So he has a unique ability to break everything down, all interactions down into just data basically.
Yeah. And they sometimes, you know, there's information that comes in that's quite emotionally charged from from customers, from media.
And rather than so I see the emotion and I want to help and I want to fix.
So Ben taught me that one piece of negative feedback is information, it's feedback.
It's exactly what it is. And but when there are there's more than one, again,
feedback that potentially there's something that needs to change.
So one piece is an opinion, two or more. We look at and go, hang on to pattern.
There's a pattern. So there could be something UX or user experience.
Yeah. So customer experience, user experience that isn't quite right, that may need some tweaking to make it a seamless experience.
And so having that objectivity and being able to step out of taking it personally and who do they think they are to actually thank you for that information.
Because we get very defensive when we feel as though we're being criticized.
That's right, especially when you own a project and if something is, you know, someone comes up with a no, then you're like, hang on, who do you think you are?
I've worked so hard on this. But yeah, so now the first thing I say is in correspondence is thank you to the person that's delivered that information.
Because it is information. I like that.
So you share gratitude for the information that you can now do something with rather than labeling it as criticism.
I've just had this thought and I'm going to throw this out to all of our listeners.
That doesn't give you permission to walk around, start criticizing people and then saying the captain and the clown.
So there's no such thing as criticism. This is not an invite for the sociopaths out there to just unleash on people.
This is a task for us all to work on that there is no such thing as criticism.
It's only criticism when you label it as criticism.
Shakespeare said there is, I think the quote goes, there is nothing good or bad, but thinking makes it so.
There is nothing either good or bad, but thinking makes it so.
And again, this is utopia. I'm not suggesting that anyone will get to a point where they can't be criticized.
But if you can see anything that's coming towards you, any piece of information is just that.
It's information. Oh, that person disagrees. That person doesn't like what I did.
That person doesn't like what I said. That's information.
And look, it takes work to disconnect from that emotionally and almost kind of look at observation.
So look at their criticism and that feedback. And get curious like your other suggestion the other day.
That's right. But to look at it almost third person and try and have that removed from you.
So keep your distance from this feedback. So your boundary, personal boundary.
And then, yeah, easier said than done potentially, depending on who it's from.
And I think the underlying message is that you, it's not that you don't care about what people say.
You need to care deeply about people. You just don't fear what they're saying, which goes back to the confidence piece we've done earlier in another podcast.
But you have a curiosity as to where their opinions come from, maybe.
Yeah. Well, you don't know their background.
No, you don't know what's causing them to say what they've said. So get curious rather than getting offended.
So instead of getting offended, get curious. Tell me more. Why do you think that? Why do you disagree?
Help me understand it from your perspective. Get curious.
That's right. And then you may actually find that it's not actually a criticism. It's just a different way that they would have done it.
Yeah. A different perspective, which could help you because you may not have thought of that way.
Yep. Which ties into that whole judgment piece that we've spoken about in the past that people don't judge you, they judge themselves through you.
Yeah. Yeah. So when we're judging other people, oh, I wouldn't do it like that. Oh, I wouldn't wear those clothes.
We're not actually judging the other person. We're judging ourselves through them because without the other person, you know, as the reference point, we like if you said, oh, I'd never wear that, you're making it about you.
Yeah. It's not that you're judging them. You're judging yourself. I wouldn't wear that.
That's right. And you're kind of being arrogant as well. I am better than that person because I wouldn't wear that.
Actually, that gives me an idea. Can we do a whole podcast on arrogance? Sure.
Yeah. That's an interesting topic because a lot of people see arrogance as overconfidence and I want to, I actually want to change that term overconfident.
But that would be another podcast, I think. Yeah. I've got lots of thoughts around that, but I need to get them all sorted.
Sounds good. Okay. So you can't be criticized if you see it as?
Feedback. Or information. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Now we're going to give Bose and Bollinger some feedback. Where are you?
Hey marketing team. Yeah. We gave a shout out to Lint, our favorite chocolate. Oh, do you know why Lint is rated the best chocolate in the world?
Because it's hard on the outside, creepy gooey in the middle. That's the Lindell balls. It's because they conch it more than any other chocolate on the planet.
Do you know what conching is? No. Conching is the mixing. Yeah. I learned this when I was in university. I did a piece, I was doing journalism at university and I did this piece for a radio station.
And we all got to record a piece and it was for, I think, anyway, it was a radio station.
I did this thing on Lint chocolate and I found out why Lint chocolate is the best chocolate in the world. Because it's conched more than any other chocolate. Lint. Happy for you to sponsor us.
Yeah. Yeah. There we go. After that endorsement.
Michelle, that was fun. It was. All right. So any critiques? No, none at all.
Well, it would be a better place with more dogs. It would be. Yeah. So if you want any merch, reach out on CaptainandtheClown.com. We've got t-shirts and every time you wear one of our t-shirts, caps, caps as well with more dogs on it.
We trademarked it. It's now ours. So yeah, we're going to probably produce some more merch and we find that every time you wear one. Strikes up conversation. Yeah. It attracts people. They have an opinion. That's it. Have a great day, Michelle. Bye. Bye.
Well, that was fun. That was fun. You're such a clown. The clown. Lady captain. And who's going to listen to this? Maybe our mums. Thanks mum.