Other people’s opinions are often the worst – especially when you’re nice, polite, etc.
You use them to frame your self-worth
“I really hope they don’t think my work sucks!”
You mistakenly lose your individuality over them
“Oh, they like this weird thing? I guess… I have to at least kind of like it, or they won’t like me/be my friend/I won’t get to work with them.”
And they can cause excess panic and duress
“Oh no! They disagreed with me and called me out publicly! I don’t want to look like an idiot or a jerk – what do I do now?! I can’t just cave, but what else do I do?!”
You’ll end up working your ass off to make sure you don’t have to face the possibility of someone holding a different opinion than you or judging you in any way.
Your critique is often so harsh of yourself that if someone else gives even a mild critique, your house of cards falls apart.
Even if you’re not that self-degrading, you can likely identify with these feelings mildly. Nobody likes to be told that they suck or their work sucks, even in a really nice way.
But the honest truth is – you’re eventually going to have to deal with push back. There’s absolutely no way around it.
Want to hold a high-level job? The higher you go, the more your decisions and opinions will be questioned.
Want to have a committed relationship of any length? You’ll get serious push back and critique on everything you do at some point (especially the little things).
So how does one become “accepting” of feedback – bad or otherwise, as we can’t control how good someone else is at giving feedback that doesn’t hurt us – or at least improve at dealing with it?
Receiving Feedback
One of my favorite phrases of all time is “Opinions are like assholes – everyone has one.”
To me, this is a much more polite way of saying “who gives a shit?”
Except honestly – I did. I do.
And yet, at the same time, I wanted to create more public content, teach, express my own opinions, and help others.
I’ve had a problem for as long as I can remember. Often, my opinions rub people the wrong way – especially those individuals that I appreciate and value. I’m really spectacular at poor communication, surprising as that may seem.
I’m also like most of you – afraid of negative feedback of any work I create. Naturally, I need that external validation.
Yet, I can’t create without getting some push back. I can’t run my mouth as I feel without making some friends raw at me occasionally. I can’t create things without sometimes people telling me it’s crap.
And you know what? They’re right.
Not only that – their opinions are valuable and completely valid.
But that doesn’t mean that I’m wrong or doing something wrong either. It’s a matter of opinion, often (obviously – not always – there are objective opinions for things like a director’s desire for a project), and everyone has a different perspective.
So this is the conundrum I’ve been in forever.
How do I do what I want, what I enjoy, what I desire – without getting crushed personally and while letting others have their opinions as valid thought, even if we disagree?
Because often, the people I disagree with most are my friends (it sucks) – and honestly, there’s just no need to get heated about it.
One Sentence
I run my mouth on Twitter, a lot, and I’m not often literal in what I say.
I run my mouth here a lot, and I usually hold strong to my opinions.
I also create a bunch of content, and ask people to pay for it (either as an employee or business owner).
I expose myself to a considerable amount of potential criticism – especially within the industry where I work. I don’t hold back often, or nearly as much as I used to in other work.
Because of this choice, in the last 2 years since really pushing to “do my own thing”, I’ve started to get people “attacking” me for various reasons.
(The word “attack” is in quotes here for a reason. From my perspective – the critiques didn’t feel very good. From the vantage point of someone without much backbone, they could easily be perceived as verbal attacks. From the perspective of the person providing critique/commentary – it probably wasn’t that big of a deal. I often share the latter opinion, now.)
There’s been disagreements on all online channels – Slack, Twitter, email, etc.
I’ve had people critique my work and opinions directly to my face – often politely, but sometimes passive aggressively as well.
Every single time this happened, it was an opportunity to shrink back into my shell, cower, and not put myself out as much.
But that also meant not growing a business, or myself.
Then, my mind changed when I was exposed to this quote (with credit to Akash Thakkar – who else at this point…)
“Strong opinions are very useful to others.
Those who were undecided or ambivalent can just adopt your stance.
But those who disagree can solidify their stance by arguing against yours.
Even if you invent an opinion for the sole sake of argument, boldly sharing a strong opinion is very useful to others.”
Derek Sivers
That quote comes from Derek’s post – How to be useful to others.
The thing that hit me like a ton of bricks was the third sentence.
Those who disagree can solidify their stance by arguing against yours.
I advocate super often that people think through what they do, what they want to do, and their opinions on things. I’m not, by any means, the best at this – but how do you know what you want without thinking about it?
Do you just get married to whoever you happen to happenstance find and “fall in love” with? Or do you have a few, yet serious, standards and requirements?
Do you go work for just anyone? Or do you have a specific employer(s)/clients that you want to work with?
Do you learn everything? Or do you spend your time wisely making a plan, a big plan, and executing it piece by small piece?
Do you come to your own conclusions, or you do what seems like a good idea at face value and what most other people are doing? I mean… it seems safe, right? If most people are doing it?
Yet when you form your own opinions and stances, people are going to disagree – because they have their own as well.
And based on that quote – that’s inherently okay.
Why?
Because it’s good for people to know what they like, what they don’t like, and what they stand for. It’s arguable how serious and steadfast each of those opinions needs to be (I’d argue most firmly held opinions should leave room for it to be okay for others to amicably hold the opposite as well – as in you just don’t see things the same way, but you can still maintain friendship or at least not wish ill on the other person), but having them is often good.
And when people disagree with you – you’re helping them.
Think about that.
You’re helping them clarify their opinions.
That opinion might be that they don’t like your opinion, and therefore they don’t like you.
That’s fine – because you’re different, and you’ve actually helped someone solidify who they are, and who they are in relation to you.
We hope the response is more like “I disagree with you, but I still like you”, but if it isn’t then it isn’t.
If you’re not working for them or in close relationship with them – the disagreement is entirely okay, you’re different people with different views and opinions and you can likely exist that way just fine.
If you’re hoping to work for them, then you can now reconsider your stance – because you probably don’t agree on more, and may not get along as well as you thought you would have.
And everyone else? They will either agree with you and therefore find more kinship, or they’ll remain completely ambivalent about the whole thing. You’re normally fine with those two stances.
Don’t be a Dick
This all comes with a caveat, of course. I wish I didn’t feel the need to spell this out, but you’re reading this on the internet and therefore likely I do need to spell this out.
While opinions are like assholes, don’t be an asshole in regards to having your opinion.
Life has very few legitimate rules, and a plethora of social constructs.
Let people disagree with you, and don’t return any vitriol. If people come at you with vitriol – you didn’t and don’t need them. The internet has plenty of mute and block buttons – use them. If you’re smart and seek to expose yourself regularly to different viewpoints, you won’t find yourself in an echo chamber.
So have your opinion, encourage others to have their opinions, and be cordial about it.
You can disagree without talking behind someone’s back.
You can disagree without being lewd or rude about it.
You can disagree without making someone feel subhuman.
So respect the people you disagree with, because they’re humans and have inherent worth just like you.
But hold your opinions, and encourage others to hold their opinions too. It will likely help you both out, and you’ll both end up finding the people you really belong with anyway.
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