How to Handle Criticism Well (and When to Ignore It)

In this upside-down year of 2020, it’s easy to second guess yourself. Even though you may not feel like it, you’re probably doing better than you think you are. However, considering you have never been in many of the situations you are currently facing because of the pandemic, you also probably have a lot of room for improvement. We all do, and there is no shortage of people telling us how we can do better: enter the critics. They come in many forms. Some are at work, some on the internet, some right in our own houses. 

In this episode on how to handle criticism, we look at 1) How to Do a Better Job of Handling People Telling You How You Can Do a Better Job! And 2) When to just ignore the “critics”.

A critic’s job is to criticize, and it’s our job to realize…we are all a work in progress! If your defenses go UP when you receive a little criticism, then you might want to listen UP and learn how to wade through the criticisms without losing your cool.  Constructive criticism can be a catalyst for growth, and destructive criticism can be tossed out and forgotten, like last week’s old trash!  In this episode, we'll talk about how to tell the difference. Join us...and Imagine Yourself!

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Imagine Yourself is hosted by Lanée Blaise and Sandy Kovach. Lanée is a TV writer and producer, motivational speaker and podcaster. Sandy is a radio personality, voiceover artist and podcaster. They come to you from the Detroit Metro area and invite guests from all over the world to help encourage you in your health, career, faith journey and more!

Transcript

Sandy Kovach  [00:00:00]:
Criticism is part of life. Some of it is good. Some

Sandy Kovach  [00:00:04]:
of it should be ignored. And with the abundance of it going around

Sandy Kovach  [00:00:08]:
these days, we thought it was a good time to dig back to one of

Sandy Kovach  [00:00:11]:
our very first episodes from season 1, where we talk about telling the

Sandy Kovach  [00:00:15]:
difference between constructive and destructive criticism and how to

Sandy Kovach  [00:00:19]:
accept the good criticism well.

Lanée Blaise [00:00:22]:
Hello there, everyone out there. I'm Lanee.

Sandy Kovach  [00:00:26]:
And I'm Sandy. And, Lanee, are you feeling

Sandy Kovach  [00:00:30]:
alright today? Yeah. I'm good. You just don't seem your perky self.

Lanée Blaise [00:00:33]:
I'm trying to be perky.

Sandy Kovach  [00:00:34]:
I think you're trying to act weird. Why are you doing that?

Lanée Blaise [00:00:37]:
Are you criticizing me? Are you criticizing the way that I'm opening?

Lanée Blaise [00:00:41]:
I mean, I'm just doing the best I can.

Sandy Kovach  [00:00:44]:
Okay. Yeah. I guess I am criticizing a little bit only because I

Sandy Kovach  [00:00:47]:
know that usually when we open our podcasts, you are

Sandy Kovach  [00:00:51]:
very cheerful. Hi. I'm Lanee, and I say, And I'm

Sandy Kovach  [00:00:55]:
Sandy, and then I say, and, Lanee, what are we imagining today?

Sandy Kovach  [00:00:58]:
So I'm imagining that you've got something up your sleeve.

Lanée Blaise [00:01:03]:
Oh, yeah. Today, we're imagining

Lanée Blaise [00:01:06]:
ourselves accepting criticism like a boss.

Sandy Kovach  [00:01:11]:
How'd I do?

Lanée Blaise [00:01:12]:
Great. That is exactly what I wanted. A little constructive

Lanée Blaise [00:01:16]:
criticism. You didn't beat me over the head with criticism. You just

Lanée Blaise [00:01:20]:
Reminded me of the cheerfulness that is usually present to

Lanée Blaise [00:01:24]:
begin our podcast.

Sandy Kovach  [00:01:26]:
Right. Yeah. I kind of figured something was up. But I

Sandy Kovach  [00:01:30]:
wanted to be careful because it's a tricky thing criticizing

Sandy Kovach  [00:01:33]:
people, and it's a tricky thing accepting criticism as well,

Sandy Kovach  [00:01:37]:
which you did very nicely.

Lanée Blaise [00:01:39]:
Thank you. I don't mind a little criticism every once in

Lanée Blaise [00:01:43]:
a while because I now

Lanée Blaise [00:01:47]:
know after a little bit of life lessons, the biggest

Lanée Blaise [00:01:51]:
room in the world is room for

Lanée Blaise [00:01:54]:
improvement

Sandy Kovach  [00:01:55]:
. Oh, I like that. did you say that?

Lanée Blaise [00:01:58]:
I Wish. that's one of those bam, drop the mic quotes. It's from Helmut

Lanée Blaise [00:02:01]:
Schmidt. And I love it.

Sandy Kovach  [00:02:03]:
The biggest room in the world is the room for improvement.

Sandy Kovach  [00:02:08]:
Yes. And if we could all embrace that,

Lanée Blaise [00:02:11]:
then we could really Use constructive criticism as a

Lanée Blaise [00:02:14]:
way to enhance our lives and enhance our

Lanée Blaise [00:02:18]:
talents as opposed to Being frustrated and

Lanée Blaise [00:02:21]:
sad and Defensive.

Sandy Kovach  [00:02:23]:
Defensive. That is the key, I think. And I struggle with this as

Sandy Kovach  [00:02:27]:
well, especially when it comes to

Sandy Kovach  [00:02:31]:
personal relationships, husband and wife sort of things or

Sandy Kovach  [00:02:34]:
just relationships sometimes in general is I react

Sandy Kovach  [00:02:38]:
negatively to you're not doing that correctly, and we did

Sandy Kovach  [00:02:42]:
a podcast before on judgment. Yes. So here's where we have to draw

Sandy Kovach  [00:02:46]:
the difference between somebody being judgmental and somebody being

Sandy Kovach  [00:02:49]:
constructively critical.

Lanée Blaise [00:02:51]:
Exact and also, I love the way that it goes hand in hand with,

Lanée Blaise [00:02:55]:
like you said, the podcast that we did on being less judgmental, and then

Lanée Blaise [00:02:59]:
this is the absolute salute flip side, accepting

Lanée Blaise [00:03:02]:
criticism.

Sandy Kovach  [00:03:03]:
Exactly. Like, do you have a chip on your shoulder? Are you

Sandy Kovach  [00:03:07]:
just waiting for someone to offend you? Are you

Sandy Kovach  [00:03:10]:
somebody that can hear something and try

Sandy Kovach  [00:03:14]:
to run with that and improve yourself? I think the initial

Sandy Kovach  [00:03:18]:
reaction of most people is probably at least some

Sandy Kovach  [00:03:22]:
defensiveness. I think that's our human reaction normally.

Lanée Blaise [00:03:25]:
I agree. And I also like the way you've mentioned that

Lanée Blaise [00:03:28]:
sometimes it's the more personal relationships where

Lanée Blaise [00:03:32]:
we get defensive, and sometimes it's maybe the

Lanée Blaise [00:03:35]:
career ones. Different things kinda hit different people

Lanée Blaise [00:03:39]:
in different ways, And I think the end

Lanée Blaise [00:03:43]:
result of everything that we talk about today is to try

Lanée Blaise [00:03:47]:
to categorize Where we fall short

Lanée Blaise [00:03:50]:
on accepting criticism with class and also

Lanée Blaise [00:03:55]:
determining Some of the situations where

Lanée Blaise [00:03:58]:
maybe the person who's giving the criticism, we don't have

Lanée Blaise [00:04:02]:
to absorb everything that everyone

Lanée Blaise [00:04:06]:
puts out to us.

Sandy Kovach  [00:04:07]:
That's true because there's constructive criticism, and sometimes there's people that are

Sandy Kovach  [00:04:10]:
just critical to be critical.

Lanée Blaise [00:04:12]:
Yes. And sometimes it's not even personal against you, or sometimes they have

Lanée Blaise [00:04:16]:
gotten themselves in a bad habit of just criticizing

Lanée Blaise [00:04:19]:
everything. So we are gonna kinda navigate today through

Lanée Blaise [00:04:23]:
all of that so that we learn to accept

Lanée Blaise [00:04:27]:
criticism when necessary.

Sandy Kovach  [00:04:29]:
So you mentioned career. And I think on the job,

Sandy Kovach  [00:04:33]:
people expect to be criticized. I mean, they have their reviews with

Sandy Kovach  [00:04:37]:
their boss, whether it's yearly or whatever. Yes. If they're not doing a

Sandy Kovach  [00:04:40]:
task correctly, you would hope that their manager would say something.

Sandy Kovach  [00:04:44]:
But I am assuming, and I am

Sandy Kovach  [00:04:48]:
not in the kind of profession where I have managed people, so

Sandy Kovach  [00:04:51]:
I've never had to deal with this. But I've certainly been on the other side

Sandy Kovach  [00:04:54]:
of it. Yes. You really gotta be careful how you go

Sandy Kovach  [00:04:58]:
about criticizing, and it probably depends on the person, the

Sandy Kovach  [00:05:02]:
employee. Right?

Lanée Blaise [00:05:03]:
Yeah. Now how about the biggest lesson I learned from this? I was watching

Lanée Blaise [00:05:07]:
another documentary. I love these documentaries now, and it was called In Search of Greatness.

Lanée Blaise [00:05:11]:
And this is just 1 tiny piece of the documentary, but it was a

Lanée Blaise [00:05:15]:
coach who coached, I believe, football.

Lanée Blaise [00:05:19]:
And he realized that you cannot treat every

Lanée Blaise [00:05:22]:
player the same way, and you can't necessarily

Lanée Blaise [00:05:26]:
go hardcore on every player because

Lanée Blaise [00:05:30]:
he said some of them just don't have it in their makeup to take

Lanée Blaise [00:05:34]:
that, and it's not gonna Bring about the results that you

Lanée Blaise [00:05:37]:
want. Mhmm. And so you if you really want to

Lanée Blaise [00:05:41]:
get the best out of your Workers out of your players,

Lanée Blaise [00:05:45]:
out of your family members, out of your children, you need

Lanée Blaise [00:05:48]:
to be mindful of how they work.

Lanée Blaise [00:05:52]:
And some of them, you can be very straightforward. Come right at

Lanée Blaise [00:05:56]:
them with the things that they need to change. And others, you might need

Lanée Blaise [00:06:00]:
to have a gentler touch.

Sandy Kovach  [00:02:03]:
Put

Sandy Kovach  [00:06:01]:
a pillow down as I've heard the expression go. You lay a pillow

Sandy Kovach  [00:06:05]:
down, and then you say what you need to say.

Sandy Kovach  [00:06:08]:
But, yeah, like, think of

Sandy Kovach  [00:06:12]:
something nice that they're doing. I'm sure that in most situations, you

Sandy Kovach  [00:06:16]:
don't just only have critical things to say about people. Right?

Sandy Kovach  [00:06:20]:
And say, you're doing this great. Love this. Blah blah

Sandy Kovach  [00:06:24]:
blah as long as you need to do it until maybe you see them lighten

Sandy Kovach  [00:06:27]:
up a little bit.

Lanée Blaise [00:06:28]:
And then And then you go ahead and say, these

Lanée Blaise [00:06:33]:
things that we now I remember my little sister. I have lots of

Lanée Blaise [00:06:37]:
little sisters, but this is the little sister next in line by me. And

Lanée Blaise [00:06:41]:
when she was in nursery school, They would be

Lanée Blaise [00:06:44]:
evaluated with satisfactory or

Lanée Blaise [00:06:48]:
we're still working on it.

Sandy Kovach  [00:06:52]:
Oh, isn't that a nice way to put it? Yes. I love that.

Lanée Blaise [00:06:55]:
And that even though I know that's a very elementary way of putting

Lanée Blaise [00:06:59]:
it, Sometimes that can be effective. Now

Lanée Blaise [00:07:03]:
there are people that you do just have to really come straight in the face

Lanée Blaise [00:07:07]:
with it, but a lot of people, we're still working on it, time. Or even

Lanée Blaise [00:07:10]:
sometimes for yourself. Do we sometimes need to tell ourselves

Lanée Blaise [00:07:14]:
we're still working on it and not be so hard

Lanée Blaise [00:07:17]:
on ourselves or so critical on ourselves.

Sandy Kovach  [00:06:50]:
Yeah. That's

Sandy Kovach  [00:07:20]:
another huge topic. And one I think we should probably weave

Sandy Kovach  [00:07:24]:
into this is the self talk, the negative self talk, and the

Sandy Kovach  [00:07:27]:
self criticism. And the amount that we do that may

Sandy Kovach  [00:07:31]:
have to do with our upbringing. Some people had overly critical

Sandy Kovach  [00:07:35]:
parents or other people in their lives, big sisters. I'm

Sandy Kovach  [00:07:39]:
not saying you. But

Lanée Blaise [00:07:41]:
maybe. And, yeah,

Sandy Kovach  [00:07:43]:
maybe they would have more of a hard time with it. I don't know.

Lanée Blaise [00:07:42]:
There is

Lanée Blaise [00:07:47]:
another aspect too. Even in the Bible, there's a section that

Lanée Blaise [00:07:50]:
says, search me, Lord, and know my heart. Test me and know

Lanée Blaise [00:07:54]:
my anxious thoughts and see if there's any offensive way in

Lanée Blaise [00:07:58]:
me Because it's asking to better yourself.

Sandy Kovach  [00:08:02]:
Mhmm.

Lanée Blaise [00:08:03]:
And I like that example because it's not

Lanée Blaise [00:08:07]:
Anything where you're trying to be brutal, but we

Lanée Blaise [00:08:10]:
do want self awareness. We want self reflection

Lanée Blaise [00:08:14]:
so that we can take positive steps

Lanée Blaise [00:08:18]:
to be a better self.

Sandy Kovach  [00:08:01]:
Yeah. Norman

Sandy Kovach  [00:08:20]:
Vincent Peale. Love this quote. The trouble with most

Sandy Kovach  [00:08:24]:
of us is that we would rather be ruined by praise than

Sandy Kovach  [00:08:28]:
saved by criticism. .

Sandy Kovach  [00:08:31]:
I know. Right? I saw that. That's me. That's me.

Sandy Kovach  [00:08:35]:
Really?

Lanée Blaise [00:08:36]:
Yeah. I mean, if I'm being perfectly honest with myself,

Lanée Blaise [00:08:40]:
I have to be really careful that I don't

Lanée Blaise [00:08:43]:
only listen for the good.

Sandy Kovach  [00:08:45]:
You wanna listen for the good. Time. You wanna listen for them when they put

Sandy Kovach  [00:08:48]:
the pillow down before they criticize you. But, yeah, you

Sandy Kovach  [00:08:52]:
don't grow. You don't absorb. Yes. And I

Sandy Kovach  [00:08:55]:
think the way that you take the criticism

Sandy Kovach  [00:08:59]:
is key. Right? So we wanted to make the difference, and you alluded to

Sandy Kovach  [00:09:03]:
this a little between someone who's actually giving you constructive

Sandy Kovach  [00:09:06]:
criticism, whether it's a spouse or a parent or a

Sandy Kovach  [00:09:10]:
supervisor, a friend, whatever. And sometimes the most real

Sandy Kovach  [00:09:14]:
thing comes from your friends. Right? Because they know you, and they only only they

Sandy Kovach  [00:09:17]:
can say certain things. Right?

Lanée Blaise [00:09:19]:
That's right. Especially those ones from way back in the day situation. Yes.

Sandy Kovach  [00:09:22]:
Yes. So it's a difference between that and then somebody like

Sandy Kovach  [00:09:26]:
I think you were saying, it's just criticizing to criticize. That's their nature.

Lanée Blaise [00:09:30]:
And that's the part that I want people to try to put

Lanée Blaise [00:09:33]:
into boxes, into categories. There are those objective

Lanée Blaise [00:09:37]:
people who are You really do respect what they

Lanée Blaise [00:09:41]:
say. They are wise, and this person actually,

Lanée Blaise [00:09:45]:
probably very likely knows what they're talking about. They have our best

Lanée Blaise [00:09:49]:
interests at heart, and they might be able to help us

Lanée Blaise [00:09:53]:
avoid certain pitfalls. We could benefit by

Lanée Blaise [00:09:57]:
implementing some of pair advice and suggested changes.

Sandy Kovach  [00:10:00]:
Mhmm.

Lanée Blaise [00:10:01]:
And then, of course, like you said, there's the person who they

Lanée Blaise [00:10:05]:
just like to sound off. They might not even really mean some of the

Lanée Blaise [00:10:08]:
things that are coming out of their mouth. They just idly

Lanée Blaise [00:10:12]:
criticize because it's a bad habit that they have. And

Lanée Blaise [00:10:15]:
if this is you that I'm talking to, I really

Lanée Blaise [00:10:19]:
urge you to please try to get rid of that

Lanée Blaise [00:10:23]:
habit Because it actually lessens the effect

Lanée Blaise [00:10:27]:
when you might have something that is helpful. Mhmm.

Lanée Blaise [00:10:31]:
Because people begin to tune you out or they should begin to tune you

Lanée Blaise [00:10:34]:
out because you are always giving something negative. And that's

Lanée Blaise [00:10:38]:
just not working.

Sandy Kovach  [00:08:29]:
No. And

Sandy Kovach  [00:10:40]:
and you see people like that on social media a lot.

Lanée Blaise [00:10:44]:
Oh, yes.

Sandy Kovach  [00:10:43]:
And some people get paid to be critics. And okay.

Sandy Kovach  [00:10:46]:
In some people, that's part of their shtick and all

Sandy Kovach  [00:10:50]:
that stuff. But I think day to day, when not

Sandy Kovach  [00:10:53]:
only do we see it maybe in people that

Sandy Kovach  [00:10:57]:
are friends, family, coworkers, whatever, but we see it constantly on social

Sandy Kovach  [00:11:01]:
media or on the news or and it everything is, like, critical, critical, critical.

Sandy Kovach  [00:11:05]:
It almost becomes like, okay. Well, this is normal, time. So I'm a jump

Sandy Kovach  [00:11:08]:
right in.

Lanée Blaise [00:11:09]:
Yeah. That is not the way we were designed to

Lanée Blaise [00:11:13]:
be. We should not allow that to be

Lanée Blaise [00:11:16]:
normal, And we should kind of

Lanée Blaise [00:11:20]:
even fight for our sense of normalcy to

Lanée Blaise [00:11:23]:
turn to the part where, like you said, we Concentrate

Lanée Blaise [00:11:27]:
also on positive things. Even on the news, my mom says now she's kinda to

Lanée Blaise [00:11:31]:
the point where she really likes to just listen to the end of the news

Lanée Blaise [00:11:35]:
with, David Muir, Where they give the positive story of something going

Lanée Blaise [00:11:38]:
on in our country and people who are giving back and volunteering and doing

Lanée Blaise [00:11:42]:
beautiful things because she wants to filter out some of

Lanée Blaise [00:11:46]:
that negativity and not absorb it.

Sandy Kovach  [00:11:49]:
Yeah.

Lanée Blaise [00:11:49]:
And she wants the positive part, which thank God, there are still

Lanée Blaise [00:11:53]:
there's some you have to look for it sometimes. But To put the

Lanée Blaise [00:11:57]:
positive. And, like I said, I want people to

Lanée Blaise [00:12:00]:
really concentrate on that as opposed to getting sucked into the

Lanée Blaise [00:12:04]:
negativity and going along with it themselves.

Sandy Kovach  [00:12:07]:
Yeah. You can understand and realize that

Sandy Kovach  [00:12:11]:
this negativity is going on whether it be on Twitter

Sandy Kovach  [00:12:15]:
or on the news or gossiping.

Lanée Blaise [00:12:19]:
Yes.

Sandy Kovach  [00:12:19]:
Oh my gosh.

Lanée Blaise [00:12:20]:
Yes.

Sandy Kovach  [00:12:21]:
That's a whole different issue maybe, but it's kinda tied in.

Lanée Blaise [00:12:24]:
It's kinda tied in. There's gossiping. There's badgering people.

Lanée Blaise [00:12:28]:
I mean, even in court, they say stop badgering a witness. You know? That that's

Lanée Blaise [00:12:31]:
a thing. And you wanna make sure that you're not just doing

Lanée Blaise [00:12:35]:
destructive work, that you're doing helpful work. There's

Lanée Blaise [00:12:38]:
the other side of this too where there are some people. Do you

Lanée Blaise [00:12:42]:
know anybody who is just Highly sensitive, and

Lanée Blaise [00:12:46]:
you can never ever criticize anything they say.

Sandy Kovach  [00:12:50]:
I have run across people like that. Nobody is coming to my mind at the

Sandy Kovach  [00:12:53]:
moment, but I have in the course of my life, certainly, of course. How

Sandy Kovach  [00:12:56]:
about you?

Lanée Blaise [00:12:57]:
Well, that already tells I don't really have any right now. I wonder if those

Lanée Blaise [00:13:00]:
people

Sandy Kovach  [00:13:01]:
They don't wanna be around you.

Lanée Blaise [00:13:03]:
And we don't wanna be around them. We have cut them out of our lives.

Lanée Blaise [00:13:07]:
Now this is way before my time and way before your

Lanée Blaise [00:13:10]:
time, but there's this song. It was my mom's time.

Sandy Kovach  [00:13:14]:
Alright. It's

Lanée Blaise [00:13:14]:
called Charlie Brown. And at the little end of each chorus, it say,

Lanée Blaise [00:13:18]:
why is everybody always picking on me?

Sandy Kovach  [00:13:21]:
I know that. Yeah. It was, like, from the fifties. Yes. Yeah.

Lanée Blaise [00:13:24]:
And there are people that just sound like that as a broken

Lanée Blaise [00:13:28]:
record all the time. And now that we're reflecting back,

Lanée Blaise [00:13:32]:
We don't have those people in our lives anymore. I mean, if it's a family

Lanée Blaise [00:13:35]:
member, it's a little tricky because you can't always cut out a family member, but

Lanée Blaise [00:13:39]:
Certain friends and social relations, they get knocked out. And

Lanée Blaise [00:13:43]:
from the job place, if they're not trainable and they're not coachable and

Lanée Blaise [00:13:46]:
they're not receptive to any type of criticism.

Sandy Kovach  [00:13:49]:
You can't work with that. Exactly. So that's one extreme.

Sandy Kovach  [00:13:53]:
And, certainly, there are people that our

Sandy Kovach  [00:13:57]:
kind of on the spectrum maybe not that far out where they

Sandy Kovach  [00:14:01]:
can't take any criticism at all. But there are certainly people who are

Sandy Kovach  [00:14:05]:
just sensitive. And there have been times in my life and with certain

Sandy Kovach  [00:14:08]:
relationships where I have to raise my hand and say, I've been pretty

Sandy Kovach  [00:14:12]:
sensitive too when it wasn't called for.

Lanée Blaise [00:14:14]:
When it wasn't called for or when it becomes too much. Now that leads me

Lanée Blaise [00:14:18]:
to what should one do when especially

Lanée Blaise [00:14:21]:
now at work, it's a little tricky. Okay? Because you do have to get your

Lanée Blaise [00:14:24]:
performance evaluations and you kinda have to suck it up and deal with it. But

Lanée Blaise [00:14:28]:
in more personal relationships, what do you do When you

Lanée Blaise [00:14:31]:
feel that your friend or someone is just too critical of you, how

Lanée Blaise [00:14:35]:
do you handle it?

Sandy Kovach  [00:14:36]:
You know, it probably depends on who it is and

Sandy Kovach  [00:14:40]:
what kind of a person they are and even whether they're male or

Sandy Kovach  [00:14:44]:
female. Men and women kinda come at this a little bit differently,

Sandy Kovach  [00:14:48]:
and it's not a broad brush. Certainly, there are

Sandy Kovach  [00:14:51]:
exceptions. But I have found, and you can tell me what you

Sandy Kovach  [00:14:55]:
think about this, that men tend to be a little more straightforward

Sandy Kovach  [00:14:59]:
and matter of fact, and let you know what's going on.

Sandy Kovach  [00:15:03]:
And women can be more sensitive or more nuanced,

Sandy Kovach  [00:15:06]:
or they may have more of a need to have that pillow put

Sandy Kovach  [00:15:10]:
down as opposed to maybe like, if I tell my husband,

Sandy Kovach  [00:15:14]:
hey, You're not making the coffee right. He is the last

Sandy Kovach  [00:15:17]:
person that's gonna be offended by that.

Lanée Blaise [00:15:20]:
Okay. So you're saying that you kinda have to know your audience. Right?

Sandy Kovach  [00:15:23]:
No urines. Yeah. And I don't know. Is it true do you think that's true

Sandy Kovach  [00:15:26]:
with men and women that they tend to be a little less offended or

Sandy Kovach  [00:15:30]:
more matter of fact than straightforward?

Lanée Blaise [00:15:32]:
I almost wanna agree, but there's some portion of me that is screaming

Lanée Blaise [00:15:36]:
out. Sometimes it is more about the relationship

Lanée Blaise [00:15:39]:
that you have Then even your gender.

Lanée Blaise [00:15:43]:
Because, for example, I find myself with my children

Lanée Blaise [00:15:47]:
telling them things very matter of fact and not

Lanée Blaise [00:15:50]:
cushioning it at all. And then they're like, oh my gosh, mom. You're so harsh.

Lanée Blaise [00:15:53]:
And I said, well, that's That's your mother's job. A mother's job is to tell

Lanée Blaise [00:15:56]:
it like it is because we don't want you out in the world like they

Lanée Blaise [00:15:59]:
do on American Idol, and they think they can sing and they can't. I don't

Lanée Blaise [00:16:01]:
want that to happen to you, my dear.

Sandy Kovach  [00:16:02]:
Time. Yes. Yeah. You're preparing them for the real world.

Lanée Blaise [00:16:05]:
Yes. And I figure if I don't tell them, the real world to tell them,

Lanée Blaise [00:16:09]:
and it'll be a lot harsher. And then with my husband or back when I

Lanée Blaise [00:16:12]:
had my roommate too, whoever I live with, I'm way more

Lanée Blaise [00:16:16]:
snap quick to say what I feel without cushioning it at

Lanée Blaise [00:16:20]:
all, but I need to be mindful of that. Because

Lanée Blaise [00:16:24]:
I thought My husband's so tough, and he can just handle anything, and I can

Lanée Blaise [00:16:28]:
say things whatever. And I'm starting to realize as we get

Lanée Blaise [00:16:32]:
older, Some of those things land hard.

Sandy Kovach  [00:16:35]:
And he just doesn't show it.

Lanée Blaise [00:16:37]:
Exactly. But later, he mentioned something, and I said, oh,

Lanée Blaise [00:16:40]:
man. He really still remembers that? That must have pinched him a

Lanée Blaise [00:16:44]:
bit Yeah. More than I anticipated.

Sandy Kovach  [00:16:47]:
You're saying that you tend to come more from the camp of

Sandy Kovach  [00:16:51]:
being straight out at people. Doubt, that's with your family. But what about

Lanée Blaise [00:16:55]:
Oh.

Sandy Kovach  [00:16:55]:
Coworkers or friends

Lanée Blaise [00:16:56]:
or Everybody else. I'm just a saint. I would

Lanée Blaise [00:17:00]:
never ever say anything that would be

Lanée Blaise [00:17:04]:
too harsh.

Sandy Kovach  [00:17:05]:
I see. Yes. Well, that's probably not

Sandy Kovach  [00:17:09]:
unusual for people. But do you think looking at

Sandy Kovach  [00:17:12]:
your the way you parent or the way that you are at home,

Sandy Kovach  [00:17:16]:
Do you think you should be putting more pillows down, or do you think that's

Sandy Kovach  [00:17:19]:
okay the way you're doing it?

Lanée Blaise [00:17:21]:
I think that this whole conversation

Lanée Blaise [00:17:24]:
has actually made me become more conscious

Lanée Blaise [00:17:29]:
about the times that I need to put the pillow down and the times that

Lanée Blaise [00:17:33]:
I need to keep doing it the way that I'm doing it.

Sandy Kovach  [00:17:35]:
Like a case by case basis.

Lanée Blaise [00:17:37]:
Yes.

Sandy Kovach  [00:17:37]:
So let's flip the script a little bit and go to what we initially

Sandy Kovach  [00:17:41]:
talked about. We're the recipient now Yes. Of the criticism

Sandy Kovach  [00:17:45]:
as opposed to how we're giving it whether we're putting pillows down or not.

Sandy Kovach  [00:17:49]:
We are gonna get criticism at work, at home, time on

Sandy Kovach  [00:17:52]:
the Internet. Oh, yeah.

Lanée Blaise [00:17:54]:
Well Unfortunately.

Sandy Kovach  [00:17:55]:
Yes. Things are gonna come at us from different ways, and it's up to

Sandy Kovach  [00:17:59]:
us how we react to it. What do you think are some

Sandy Kovach  [00:18:02]:
good skills? Other than the fact that you've already said we need to

Sandy Kovach  [00:18:06]:
look at who's saying it. Is it a close friend? Do they care about you?

Sandy Kovach  [00:18:10]:
Or is it just somebody sounding off? Is there anything else we can do to

Sandy Kovach  [00:18:14]:
absorb it?

Lanée Blaise [00:18:15]:
There's the part of sometimes not absorbing it. Time. Right? Ignoring

Lanée Blaise [00:18:19]:
it completely, which can be maybe easier said than done.

Lanée Blaise [00:18:22]:
But there's fully ignoring it. There's

Lanée Blaise [00:18:26]:
Accepting it. There's accepting portions of it. I

Lanée Blaise [00:18:30]:
almost feel like and I don't know if this is getting too

Lanée Blaise [00:18:34]:
way out there. But I feel like if we had the ability

Lanée Blaise [00:18:37]:
to take in criticism, put it in a box,

Lanée Blaise [00:18:41]:
Observe it as if we were a scientist, and decide

Lanée Blaise [00:18:45]:
which parts of it we want to use For our betterment

Lanée Blaise [00:18:49]:
and which parts we want to leave in the box or which

Lanée Blaise [00:18:53]:
parts we're just not ready to handle yet, that we know that we probably

Lanée Blaise [00:18:57]:
do need to work on this, But I'm just not emotionally ready

Lanée Blaise [00:19:00]:
to accept that criticism yet, so I'll leave it in the box

Lanée Blaise [00:19:04]:
and come back to it. Yeah. Maybe this is just me, but I

Lanée Blaise [00:19:08]:
really do believe in boxes and compartmentalizing all

Lanée Blaise [00:19:11]:
types of things, whether it be For me, it goes for painful

Lanée Blaise [00:19:15]:
things that were said to me or done to me at different times. I like

Lanée Blaise [00:19:19]:
to put in a box, and I know that I'll come back to it, and

Lanée Blaise [00:19:22]:
I'll evaluate it When I'm emotionally able to do

Lanée Blaise [00:19:25]:
so.

Sandy Kovach  [00:19:26]:
Right. Now that's a good strategy. So, let's put

Sandy Kovach  [00:19:30]:
a little practical application here. Let's say

Sandy Kovach  [00:19:33]:
you are we'll put it a work situation because it's probably gonna be the most

Sandy Kovach  [00:19:37]:
common for a lot of people that that's gonna happen more on a daily basis

Sandy Kovach  [00:19:41]:
than anything else. Right? Yes. As long as you have a boss. If you're your

Sandy Kovach  [00:19:44]:
own boss, you're in your own company, fine. But time. If you've got a boss,

Sandy Kovach  [00:19:47]:
there's a good chance that something you do is gonna hit you.

Sandy Kovach  [00:19:51]:
And let's say that your boss criticizes something that you

Sandy Kovach  [00:19:54]:
thought you did a particularly good job on. You worked really hard on this

Sandy Kovach  [00:19:58]:
project. And in comes your boss. And let's say he doesn't put any

Sandy Kovach  [00:20:02]:
pillows town. Mhmm. And it's like, well, I'm sorry, but this is not

Sandy Kovach  [00:20:05]:
what management is looking for or just blah blah

Sandy Kovach  [00:20:09]:
blah. And maybe he even throws in a little cutting thing.

Lanée Blaise [00:20:12]:
Yes.

Sandy Kovach  [00:20:13]:
What do we do with that?

Lanée Blaise [00:20:15]:
Again, from my perspective,

Lanée Blaise [00:20:18]:
. And I immediately is not a doctor. I'm

Lanée Blaise [00:20:22]:
just kidding.

Sandy Kovach  [00:20:22]:
Go ahead Dr. Lanee

Lanée Blaise [00:20:24]:
No. I put it in my box, and I immediately removed that

Lanée Blaise [00:20:27]:
cutting comment because there's no place for it. I don't need it.

Lanée Blaise [00:20:31]:
It's not serving me well. Then, of course, I evaluate the things

Lanée Blaise [00:20:35]:
that that they said. And here's the problem.

Lanée Blaise [00:20:38]:
Because even though I truly believe that I did a job well done

Lanée Blaise [00:20:42]:
and that that was spot on. They didn't.

Lanée Blaise [00:20:46]:
They're the boss, And I need to be able

Lanée Blaise [00:20:49]:
to adapt. Right. And I need to be able

Lanée Blaise [00:20:53]:
to look at what they said And learn to adapt.

Lanée Blaise [00:20:57]:
And even I can keep a little piece of it still in there too that

Lanée Blaise [00:21:00]:
I'll always know in the future when I'm off with my own business.

Lanée Blaise [00:21:04]:
Mhmm. Maybe I will go consider going back and doing things the way that I've

Lanée Blaise [00:21:08]:
done it before. But for the purposes of me working at that

Lanée Blaise [00:21:11]:
business and what they're twiring. I need to be able to

Lanée Blaise [00:21:15]:
adapt. That's my take on it.

Sandy Kovach  [00:21:17]:
So you need to separate yourself, and you need to remove

Sandy Kovach  [00:21:21]:
the personal part of it out. Because they always say, it's

Sandy Kovach  [00:21:24]:
nothing personal.

Lanée Blaise [00:21:25]:
Nothing personal. And sometimes that is true. Like I said, that's

Lanée Blaise [00:21:29]:
why that cutting remark is the 1st to go because I took that

Lanée Blaise [00:21:33]:
personally. It's not serving me. It's not gonna help me be a better

Lanée Blaise [00:21:36]:
employee. So there you go.

Sandy Kovach  [00:21:38]:
Fortunately, I've never had to deal with a boss that has been that. But I

Sandy Kovach  [00:21:42]:
have certainly heard stories and know that that's

Sandy Kovach  [00:21:46]:
not a tactic that's never used. Let's put it that

Sandy Kovach  [00:21:49]:
way. Right. Sometimes bosses feel like that's a good way to drive you. But

Sandy Kovach  [00:21:53]:
it goes back to to the personality type.

Lanée Blaise [00:21:56]:
To all you bosses out there, please don't use that as your

Lanée Blaise [00:21:59]:
technique. Just an FYI.

Sandy Kovach  [00:22:02]:
Let's do another one. Let's do a personal one. And this is sometimes harder.

Sandy Kovach  [00:22:05]:
Right? They're all hard. They're all hard.

Lanée Blaise [00:22:08]:
I know. They're all hard.

Sandy Kovach  [00:22:09]:
Let's say you just got married. And this is hard because people

Sandy Kovach  [00:22:13]:
who have never lived together before are not going to have the same kind of

Sandy Kovach  [00:22:17]:
ways Exactly. Things.

Lanée Blaise [00:22:19]:
Yes.

Sandy Kovach  [00:22:20]:
You do laundry a certain way, and

Sandy Kovach  [00:22:24]:
I don't know. How many ways can you do laundry? Maybe this is a bad

Sandy Kovach  [00:22:27]:
example.

Lanée Blaise [00:22:27]:
Maybe cooking. How about cooking? Cooking.

Sandy Kovach  [00:22:29]:
Oh, cooking.

Lanée Blaise [00:22:31]:
You don't cook like my mama cooked?

Sandy Kovach  [00:22:32]:
You don't cook like mama cook. Yeah. Yes. You don't brown the chicken the way

Sandy Kovach  [00:22:36]:
I like it browned. Why are you cooking it like that?

Lanée Blaise [00:22:39]:
See what's wrong with you. That's another one where If

Lanée Blaise [00:22:43]:
you can manage to separate

Lanée Blaise [00:22:46]:
out, and you can even do it, like, when I'm cooking for myself

Lanée Blaise [00:22:50]:
And my spouse is out of town. I'm going to cook it that way that

Lanée Blaise [00:22:53]:
I always did. But as a loving gesture,

Lanée Blaise [00:22:57]:
I will go ahead and try their way. Yeah.

Lanée Blaise [00:23:01]:
So that's another thing. Criticism has been a

Lanée Blaise [00:23:05]:
wonderful impetus in this world. Restaurants sometimes get

Lanée Blaise [00:23:08]:
better because of critics or criticism. Broadway shows,

Lanée Blaise [00:23:12]:
if if no one ever had A critic in the audience, it may

Lanée Blaise [00:23:16]:
become stagnant.

Sandy Kovach  [00:23:17]:
Mhmm.

Lanée Blaise [00:23:17]:
All kinds of things like that. Recipes. Family recipes even. We've

Lanée Blaise [00:23:21]:
been doing it this way forever. Well, maybe if you

Lanée Blaise [00:23:25]:
add a little pinch of cinnamon to your chili, it might make it get that

Lanée Blaise [00:23:28]:
little extra kick.

Sandy Kovach  [00:23:29]:
Really? Cinnamon?

Lanée Blaise [00:23:30]:
Yes, ma'am.

Sandy Kovach  [00:23:31]:
Okay.

Lanée Blaise [00:23:32]:
Yes. I

Sandy Kovach  [00:23:32]:
didn't realize we're getting recipe tips on podcast, but there you have it.

Lanée Blaise [00:23:35]:
Yes. I'm also a nutritionist and a chef. Master no.

Lanée Blaise [00:23:39]:
Doctor. Master chef. I'm everything. That's right. I'm every

Lanée Blaise [00:23:43]:
woman.

Sandy Kovach  [00:21:55]:
You are

Sandy Kovach  [00:21:56]:
Chaka

Sandy Kovach  [00:23:45]:
Khan apparently here.

Lanée Blaise [00:23:47]:
Yes. Singer. No. No. But time. That's what I'm getting at. If we can, like

Lanée Blaise [00:23:50]:
you said, take the emotion out of it for a bit, we might get

Lanée Blaise [00:23:54]:
so then we have 2 different types of chili. I have chili that I make

Lanée Blaise [00:23:57]:
for myself, and I have chili that I make for my spouse and his crew,

Lanée Blaise [00:24:00]:
you know, his family who comes by. It's okay to have

Lanée Blaise [00:24:03]:
extra, to have enhancements, to have different sides of yourself.

Sandy Kovach  [00:24:07]:
And it just comes down to how we take

Sandy Kovach  [00:24:11]:
criticism. So do we have takeaways on taking

Sandy Kovach  [00:24:15]:
criticism?

Lanée Blaise [00:24:16]:
Oh, absolutely. We yes. Okay.

Lanée Blaise [00:24:19]:
Takeaways, otherwise known as How you can

Lanée Blaise [00:24:23]:
do a better job of handling folks telling you

Lanée Blaise [00:24:27]:
how you can do a better job.

Sandy Kovach  [00:24:28]:
I like that.

Lanée Blaise [00:24:29]:
Okay. Number 1, accept the

Lanée Blaise [00:24:33]:
fact that you are still a work in progress.

Lanée Blaise [00:24:38]:
Remember, We're still working on it.

Sandy Kovach  [00:24:41]:
We're still working on it.

Lanée Blaise [00:24:42]:
Ain't that that's a way better way to think of it than I suck right

Lanée Blaise [00:24:46]:
now. Time. We're still working on it.

Lanée Blaise [00:24:49]:
Also, remember that part about you must determine whether the

Lanée Blaise [00:24:53]:
person giving this advice or criticism is a

Lanée Blaise [00:24:57]:
valid source or not. If their motives are

Lanée Blaise [00:25:00]:
based out of jealousy, which is a thing Mhmm.

Lanée Blaise [00:25:04]:
Or ignorance Mhmm. Or

Lanée Blaise [00:25:08]:
meanness, or they just love criticizing, and that's just a bad

Lanée Blaise [00:25:12]:
habit that they have, Then we need to learn to fully

Lanée Blaise [00:25:15]:
ignore their criticisms, and we wanna make sure that we are not that

Lanée Blaise [00:25:19]:
person who does that also. Right. If you're criticizing

Lanée Blaise [00:25:23]:
yourself, please make sure that you look into your

Lanée Blaise [00:25:26]:
own motives because you want to

Lanée Blaise [00:25:30]:
Climb out of any mindset that is negative, and

Lanée Blaise [00:25:34]:
you want it to only be things that bring forth

Lanée Blaise [00:25:38]:
positive change.

Sandy Kovach  [00:25:39]:
Yeah.

Lanée Blaise [00:25:40]:
Good self awareness, good self reflection, not just beating yourself upside the

Lanée Blaise [00:25:44]:
head. And the last thing, we talked about this in another

Lanée Blaise [00:25:47]:
podcast about tweaking yourself, not twerking

Lanée Blaise [00:25:51]:
yourself,

Sandy Kovach  [00:25:53]:
which is a really funny visual. But, tweak yourself.

Sandy Kovach  [00:25:57]:
Don't twerk yourself.

Lanée Blaise [00:25:58]:
Yeah.

Sandy Kovach  [00:25:58]:
So but just don't let it go all out of hand. Just a little bit.

Lanée Blaise [00:26:01]:
Just a little bit. Yeah. And so tweak, I love that word,

Lanée Blaise [00:26:04]:
actually. It's a good word because it doesn't mean that you have

Lanée Blaise [00:26:08]:
to overhaul and be a brand new person and that this person that you are

Lanée Blaise [00:26:12]:
right now is just disposable. It just means you

Lanée Blaise [00:26:15]:
need a little few tweaks here and there and a little criticism,

Lanée Blaise [00:26:20]:
a little tweak here and there Can be good. Inventions

Lanée Blaise [00:26:24]:
in this country, in this world, were because of little tweaks and little

Lanée Blaise [00:26:28]:
improvements to previous things. We were hot, and then

Lanée Blaise [00:26:32]:
we had fans, and then we had air conditioners.

Lanée Blaise [00:26:35]:
Mhmm. And who knows what we'll have next? But, you know, it just improvements.

Sandy Kovach  [00:26:39]:
What if somebody had said, this fan invention, wasn't it good enough for you? Come

Sandy Kovach  [00:26:43]:
on.

Lanée Blaise [00:26:43]:
Yeah. See? So sometimes we can actually

Lanée Blaise [00:26:47]:
benefit from air conditioning.

Sandy Kovach  [00:26:49]:
Yep. Criticism can definitely lead to improvement. And I

Sandy Kovach  [00:26:53]:
love this quote I just found from William Gilmore Sims who said the dread of

Sandy Kovach  [00:26:57]:
criticism is the death of genius. Oh,

Sandy Kovach  [00:27:00]:
yeah. So that ties right in. I mean, literally, so many things. If people had

Sandy Kovach  [00:27:04]:
been too sensitive to take critic Yes. Criticism,

Lanée Blaise [00:27:06]:
there would be without so many advancements

Lanée Blaise [00:27:11]:
and innovations, and I love that quote.

Sandy Kovach  [00:27:13]:
People probably are all over tech blogs criticizing phones and stuff

Sandy Kovach  [00:27:17]:
and or whatever the latest tech is that comes out, and I

Sandy Kovach  [00:27:21]:
would assume Apple and other companies looks at that stuff.

Lanée Blaise [00:27:24]:
They continue to try to to get to the next level.

Lanée Blaise [00:27:27]:
Yeah. You don't wanna stay stagnant at the same level. Okay. So

Lanée Blaise [00:27:31]:
how about this? If you stay at the same level and you already know

Lanée Blaise [00:27:35]:
everything thing there is to know. Boom. I may as well just

Sandy Kovach  [00:27:37]:
Have a flip phone.

Sandy Kovach  [00:27:41]:
IPhone 3. Time.

Lanée Blaise [00:27:43]:
I was gonna say may as well just be done with life because I already

Lanée Blaise [00:27:46]:
know everything, but, yeah, that flip phone thing

Sandy Kovach  [00:27:48]:
Phone is life. Right? Days. Yeah.

Lanée Blaise [00:27:51]:
Time. Yes. Yes. So yeah. That's

Lanée Blaise [00:27:55]:
where we are. If we can just lower the

Lanée Blaise [00:27:59]:
sensitivity just a bit and actually accept some of the

Lanée Blaise [00:28:02]:
criticism.

Sandy Kovach  [00:28:03]:
And we can imagine ourselves being how would

Sandy Kovach  [00:28:07]:
you put it less susceptible to criticism? Or, oh, come on. You're so

Sandy Kovach  [00:28:10]:
eloquent. How are we gonna imagine ourselves, doctor Lanee?

Lanée Blaise [00:28:13]:
Imagine yourself secure enough to

Lanée Blaise [00:28:17]:
accept constructive criticism and use it

Lanée Blaise [00:28:21]:
to develop your very best self.

Sandy Kovach  [00:28:24]:
Thanks for listening today. Your comments always appreciated.

Sandy Kovach  [00:28:28]:
Go to imagine yourself podcast.com, and you'll find our links

Sandy Kovach  [00:28:32]:
to email us and to hit us up on social

Sandy Kovach  [00:28:36]:
media if you like. Also, love for you to subscribe and give us a rating

Sandy Kovach  [00:28:39]:
on Apple Podcasts or Google or wherever you're listening, and we'll talk to

Sandy Kovach  [00:28:43]:
you again next time, when we have something new to imagine.