Rising Above Criticism

Former U.S. President John F. Kennedy received endless advice and criticism from the media concerning how he should run the country. Much of it he took good-naturedly. In fact, he often used a favorite story in response to the media’s comments about how they thought he could do a better job.

He told about a legendary baseball player who always played flawlessly. He consistently hit when at bat and was never thrown out at first. When on base he never failed to score. As a fielder, he never dropped a ball and he threw with unerring accuracy. He ran swiftly and played gracefully. 

In fact, he would have been one of the all-time greats except for one thing – no one could ever persuade him to put down his beer and hot dog and come out of the press box to play.

Most of us can empathize, for we all have people in our lives who criticize and second-guess. They are quick to point out flaws and quicker yet to offer advice.

When it comes to receiving criticism, I believe it helps to remember first that not all criticism is invalid. Wisdom listens for the kernel of truth and saves it for future growth. Norman Vincent Peale put it well. He accurately said, “The trouble with most of us is that we'd rather be ruined by praise than saved by criticism.” Thoughtful criticism truly can be helpful.

But when criticism seems unfair or unwarranted, it helps to take a lesson from hawks. When hawks are attacked by crows, they will not counterattack. Instead, they will soar higher and higher in ever-widening circles until the pesky birds leave them alone.

The next time crows caw and attack, be a hawk. Quietly rise above the noise and learn to soar. 

--Steve Goodier

Image: flickr.com/Stan Lupo

The Most Important Trip You May Ever Take

You know that it is easy to be an angel when nobody ruffles your feathers. But it seems that feather rufflers will always be around.

We’re told that 19th Century German statesman Prince Otto von Bismarck’s feathers were so ruffled by the criticism of a professor acquaintance of his, that he challenged the man to a duel. Protocol had it that the one challenged was to choose which kind of weapon was to be used in the duel.

The professor made a thoughtful choice… he proposed they duel with sausages. He sent word to Bismarck, along with a pair of sausages, that one sausage was safe to eat. The other had been poisoned with trichinae, which would cause a slow and lingering death, or at least long invalidism. He informed the prince that he should pick which sausage to eat and said he’d eat the other one.

Bismarck reasoned that a man might die with some sort of honor on a dueling field, but never by food poisoning. He sent the message back, “His Highness has destroyed the sausages and asks that you be his guest at dinner this evening. After due consideration he feels he may have been slightly in error. He believes an agreement can be reached.”

It’s said that one of the most important trips a person ever takes is “to meet someone halfway.” Bismarck met his adversary halfway and neither man was poisoned that day.

When others ruffle our feathers, we always have a choice. We can meet them on the equivalent of a dueling field and slug it out with words, or worse. But escalating conflict almost always means there will be a winner and a loser.

Or we can take that trip to meet them halfway and iron out a compromise. It is rarely an easy trip to make, but it's worth it once we get there. And who knows, we might even find a solution to the conflict where both sides feel they are coming out ahead.

It’s your choice. And the choice you make will make all the difference.  

-- Steve Goodier

image: flickr.com/Rich Brooks

Do You Believe in You?

Image by Bethany Carlson

Did you know that Albert Einstein could not speak until he was four years old and did not read until he was seven? His parents and teachers worried about his mental ability.
   
Or that Beethoven’s music teacher said about him, “As a composer he is hopeless”? What if young Ludwig believed it?
   
When Thomas Edison was a young boy, his teachers said he was so stupid he could never learn anything. He once said, “I remember I used to never be able to get along at school. I was always at the foot of my class...my father thought I was stupid, and I almost decided that I was a dunce.” What if young Thomas believed what they said about him?
   
When F. W. Woolworth was 21, he got a job in a store, but was not allowed to wait on customers because, according to his boss, he “didn’t have enough sense.” I wonder if the boss was around when Woolworth became one of the most successful retailers of his day.
   
When the sculptor Auguste Rodin was young he had difficulty learning to read and write. Today, we may say he had a learning disability, but his father said of him, “I have an idiot for a son.” His uncle agreed. “He’s uneducable,” he said. What if the boy had doubted his ability to excel?
   
A newspaper editor once fired Walt Disney because he was thought to have no “good ideas.” The great Italian tenor Enrico Caruso was told by one music teacher, “You can’t sing. You have no voice at all.” And an editor told Louisa May Alcott, just a few years before she wrote the classic novel Little Women, that she was incapable of writing anything that would have popular appeal.

History will long praise each of these famous people, but what became of their critics? Nobody even remembers some of their names, which is all that need be said.
   
But what if these young people had listened to those critical voices and became discouraged? Where would our world be without the music of Beethoven and Caruso, the art of Rodin, the ideas of Albert Einstein and Thomas Edison, the imagination of Walt Disney or the literary contributions of Louisa May Alcott? As it was so accurately put, “It’s not what you are, it’s what you don’t become that hurts.” (That from Oscar Levant.) What if these people had not become what they were capable becoming, had not done what they actually could have accomplished, just because they were discouraged by people who couldn't see them for what they were?
   
We all have potential and, whether you realize it or not, your desire to do or be more than you are is your best indicator of future success. Others may discourage you, but the most important voice to listen to is your own. Do you believe in you?

Still the voices of your critics. Listen intently to your own voice, to the person who knows you best. Then answer these questions: Do you think you should move ahead? How will you feel if you quit pursuing this thing you want to do? And what does your best self advise?

What you hear may change your life.

-- Steve Goodier
 
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Examining Your Life

Image courtesy of Adriana Herbut

Two brothers fulfilled their mother's last wish by hiring a small plane to carry them out to sea where they might scatter her ashes. One of the two pilots opened the cockpit door and the brothers immediately emptied the contents of the urn into the wind. But a stiff breeze blew the ashes back into the cabin, dusting the four startled occupants. A moment’s stunned silence, and then one of the young men sighed, “Just like Mom – she was always all over everyone.”

Maybe she was a critical person. But children, especially, often feel as if parents are “always all over them” when all those parents usually want is for their children to be the best they can be.

Humorist Franklin Jones said, “Honest criticism is hard to take, particularly from a relative, a friend, an acquaintance or a stranger.” And Norman Vincent Peale adds this: “Most of us would rather be ruined by praise than saved by criticism.” Few of us enjoy the experience when others point out areas for improvement. After all, who wants to hear what they don't want to hear?

Criticism IS hard to take and I'll opt for praise over criticism every time. I hold that encouragement is often more effective than criticism. I will work harder and with more enthusiasm when I am encouraged, and I know I can get the best out of others if I spend more time pointing out what they did right than what they did wrong.

But that said – honest and objective feedback is a necessity. To shy away from fair criticism, spoken by someone trusted, may be a great mistake. Those who are wise will occasionally seek out somebody they trust to hold a mirror before them in order to see themselves more accurately. To know the truth and to see ourselves clearly, as reflected in the eyes of a friend, is an immeasurable gift.

And here's the surprising truth: As you gaze at yourself in the mirror held by another, you will see far more than your flaws. You also will see the beauty that is uniquely you; beauty that others see clearly and you may hardly know exists. That is also part of the truth about you.

If you're courageous enough, allow a trusted friend to hold that mirror before you. Plato says, “The unexamined life is not worth living.” But a life properly examined makes living worthwhile.

-- Steve Goodier

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The Humps We See in Others

I don’t know about you, but I don’t spend a great deal of time worrying about how I appear to other people. I know I’m not perfect. Far from it. But I figure that there is an upside to my own flaws, faults and imperfections: for one thing, they seem to bring joy to others. Maybe that’s reason enough not to over-polish.

Or maybe it’s just that I underestimate the seriousness of my own shortcomings. I might be like the man who was driving a car with a bumper sticker that read, “Hang up and drive.” A police officer was pleased to spot the sticker, as she had witnessed too many accidents caused by motorists talking on cell phones. Wanting to signal her approval to the driver, she pulled up alongside the car. But when she glanced over, she was dismayed to see him peering into his rear-view mirror and shaving. 

At least he wasn’t talking on his mobile phone.

Maybe it is just easier to spot the flaws in others. It’s like the camel. An African proverb states, “The camel never sees its own hump, but that of its brother is always before its eyes.” I probably don’t see my own humps very clearly. Or, as writer Margaret Halsey once said, “Whenever I dwell for any length of time on my own shortcomings, they gradually begin to seem mild, harmless, rather engaging little things, not at all like the staring defects in other people's characters.”

So I can appreciate the story of an elderly couple who, while on an automobile trip, stopped at a roadside restaurant for lunch. The woman left her eye glasses on the table, but didn't miss them until they were back on the highway. And, of course, it was difficult to turn around by then. Her husband fussed and complained all the way back to the restaurant about her “always leaving her glasses” behind. They finally arrived, and as the woman got out of the car to retrieve her glasses, the old man said, “While you're in there, you may as well get my hat, too.”

Psychologist Carl Jung puts a powerful spin on this phenomenon of seeing other’s faults more clearly than our own. He teaches that “everything that irritates us about others can lead us to an understanding of ourselves.” Or, put another way, the humps we can’t help but seeing in others are a lot like the humps others see in us. Or, perhaps they are like the humps we see in ourselves.

So, what would happen if we’d look at other people’s faults and humps as a gift? After all, they’re teaching us about ourselves.

And that’s what makes us different from camels.

-- Steve Goodier


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Giving Validation

In a northwestern US city, a woman from out of town parked her car in an attended lot and walked across the street to shop. Hoping to get a discount on the cost of parking, and not familiar with local idioms, she asked, “Do you give validation?”

“Certainly,” replied the store’s manager. “You are an excellent person and I love your hair.”

That might have been worth the cost of parking. I mean, who wouldn’t pay a couple of dollars for the kind of validation that she got?

Mark Twain said, “I can live two months off a good compliment.” But then he also said, “If you can't get a compliment any other way, pay yourself one.” I suppose sometimes that is the only way we can get one.

I’m a strong believer in the power of affirming other people. One time I facetiously told an audience that I have never in my life received a standing ovation. They gave me one -- and I’m here to tell you it isn’t nearly so satisfying when you have to ask for it. Nevertheless, I never underestimate the importance of positive encouragement in a life.

Author Alan Loy McGinnis cites an interesting study about the power of positive encouragement (http://tinyurl.com/6xg9mba). He tells of a second-grade teacher who complained that her children were spending too much time standing up and roaming around the room rather than working.

Two psychologists spent several days at the back of the room with stopwatches observing the behavior of the children and the teacher. Every ten seconds they noted how many children were out of their seats. They counted 360 unseated children throughout each 20-minute period. They also noted that the teacher said "Sit down!" seven times during the same period.

The psychologists tried an experiment. The asked the teacher to tell the children to sit down more often. Then they sat back to see what would happen. This time they noted that she commanded her students to sit down 27.5 times in an average 20-minute period, and now 540 were noted to be out of their seats during the same average period. Her increased scolding actually made the problem worse. (Interestingly, when she later backed off to her normal number of reprimands, the roaming also declined to the exact same number recorded previously in just two days.)

Then the experimenters tried a different tack. They asked the teacher to refrain from commanding the children to sit down altogether, and to instead quietly compliment those children who were seated and working. The result? Children's roaming decreased by 33%. They exhibited their best behavior when they were complimented more and reprimanded less.

There is immense power in affirming others. Leaders who get results know this. People who draw others to themselves and who motivate others to great action are almost always those who encourage more than criticize; who compliment more and reprimand less.

Perhaps the woman’s question is the correct one after all. “Do you give validation?” I hope I can always answer YES.

-- Steve Goodier

Image: freeimages.com/Crystal Ayala