The Long and The Short Of It

Episode 145 - Feedback - A Memoir

Transcript:

Jen: Hello, Pete.

Pete: Hello, Jen.

Jen: I was listening to the most recent (at the time of this recording being released) episode of Taken for Granted, one of Adam Grant's podcasts. And, the guest said something that completely reframed how I intend to receive feedback from now on.

Pete: Alright. I mean, we love a reframe over here at The Long and The Short Of It, so let's dig in and hear some more. This is The Long and The Short Of It.

Jen: Okay, so here is the dealio. The guest is John Green. John Green has written lots of books, but most recently he released his very first nonfiction book called The Anthropocene Reviewed: Essays on a Human-Centered Planet. And basically, it's a book that's written in the form of starred reviews about humans living.

Pete: Wow.

Jen: So like, he reviews things like...I'm making this up right now. But like, he would review this podcast and be like, "This podcast is four stars." But then he'd be like, "Driving. Driving is three and a half stars. This is why." You know? So, he's...it's sort of funny, but it's a profound and silly take on humans.

Pete: Humanity. Yeah. I love profound and silly takes on humanity.

Jen: Yeah. Okay. So the thing that he said was totally in passing, but I cannot stop thinking about it. So, here's what he said. "Every review is, on some level, a bit of a memoir."

Pete: Mmm. Okay. Okay. I'm writing this down.

Jen: In other words, when someone reviews something (or you could think about this as offers feedback, or critiques something), it is born from their experience up until the moment that they offer their feedback, critique, or review. So, I started thinking back to reviews of my own work that I've actually seen in print from when I was an actor.

Pete: Wow, that's tough.

Jen: That was hard. I also started thinking about pieces of feedback, both positive and negative, that I've received about my work. And then, I imagined that piece of feedback as the title of someone's memoir.

Pete: Ooh. Would it be the title of the feedback giver, or the critiquer?

Jen: Yes.

Pete: Ahh.

Jen: Yes. So like as an example, you have said to me, "You're a bit of a hoarder." So the cover would say, "You're a Bit of a Hoarder, A Memoir by Pete Shepherd." Which, it kind of makes me laugh, but then it also makes me go, "Okay. If that bit of feedback is part of his memoir, then his life story led to him being able to share with me that he sees my desktop in my computer as hoarding. And I can empathize a bit more when I put that lens on it." And it's kind of blowing my mind.

Pete: Yeah. So in that example, the interesting thing I hear too, though, is that it's a reflection on me and what I value. Like I've observed that, because of our interactions in terms of your desktop or whatever, and given you a hard time about it as a joke. But there are plenty of other things that I've observed and haven't necessarily, I guess, decided to say anything about or felt the need to. So, it's an interesting reflection on what I value. Which like, I can tell you in this moment is, you've done the opposite to me, which is tease me about being a minimalist, or having inbox zero, or having a clean desktop. It's so interesting that I, in this hilarious and ridiculous example...but I'm just like extrapolating this out of all sorts of feedback. The person giving the feedback, it's often a reflection of them as opposed to something that, you know, like has to be addressed by the other person. I don't know. I have so many more examples, but I'm just going to pause there for a second.

Jen: Yes. I mean, I'm just...I'm laughing because it's so silly. Like the whole thing is so silly, but it's actually so helpful. Like, today I had a coaching with a really brilliant actor, and she was sharing with me some really not helpful feedback that she had received from a casting director. And I was like, "I'm going to test this out." You know, I shared with her this memoir reframe, and I repeated the title of the memoir. And then she said, "Oh, I actually don't want to buy that book." And I was like, "Right. That's exactly right. You do not need to buy that book." And then there are some times where you receive challenging feedback, but when you know who the feedback is by, you would actually buy that book and want to read it and understand it. So like, if you were to come to me and say, "I think you're off your game, Jen." I would go, "Ooh. I Think You're Off Your Game, A Memoir by Peter Shepherd. I want to read that and understand what is on your game, what is off your game." But if a total random stranger came up to me on the street and was like, "Excuse me, you're off your game." I'd be like, "You're Off Your Game, A Memoir by Total Stranger. No, leave it on the shelf."

Pete: Hmm. Oh, I love this. I love this, I love this. I think what you're describing ultimately is that the way we respond to feedback is a choice. And we can choose to read the book, i.e. take onboard the feedback, try and understand what they're trying to help us see, or we can choose to ignore it. Which I think is such a rich and healthy piece of (ironically) feedback, or insight. I have so many random, I guess, examples that also articulate this. I just want to share a couple of them. One is when I did my new year's resolution process (which we've talked about on this podcast) at the start of this year, at the end of last year, however you want to look at it. And I sent it around to a few people in my Square Squad: you, Kirsty Stark, who we've talked about on this podcast before. And Kirsty sent me hers. And one of the things she had in there was a goal around running a lot. And I can't remember specifically, but it was like, "I want to try and run this amount every week." And it was so funny because I asked her about that. I said something like, "Oh, have you got a strategy for how you're going to manage your joints?" Or like, "Have you got an awareness of what's going to be the right amount of running that won't injure you?" Thinking that like this was very helpful feedback that I was giving Kirsty. And Kirsty sort of reflected back to me, "It's interesting because in your goals, you've got like, 'Get on top of your injuries.'" One of my resolutions was to sort out...I've got a few niggling injuries and I'm really mindful of trying to sort those out. And I clearly just put that lens through the feedback I was giving Kirsty, which I think is, again, a funny example of how this pops up, the memoir idea pops up.

Jen: Oh my gosh. Hello, projecting. Yeah, at one point, John Green says to Adam Grant...like, explains this. He says one of the things he "reviewed" in the book was Canadian geese. Like just the actual bird, a Canadian goose. And he sends the essay on Canadian geese to his wife, who was like, "No. You're acting like you are actually an expert, like an objective expert on Canadian geese. And you're not. You are not an objective expert on Canadian geese. You are a person who has an opinion about Canadian geese that is informed by the place you grew up, your experience with these birds, where you live now, all of the other things that are surrounding your opinion." And it's like, it's so silly. It's Canadian geese. But you could see how applying that is like, oh, wait a minute. Nobody is an objective expert on anything. Everybody is subjective to some extent, which is why every review is a memoir.

Pete: I feel like this is quite a big revelation or idea to take forward. I mean, it ties into sonder (which we've talked about a number of times on this podcast), the idea that everyone has a rich and complex life, everyone has a noise in their head, everyone has their own worldview, everyone has this host of experiences that they've had up until this point in their life of which none of us can be aware of the full extent, I often think of it as like an iceberg. (You know, original metaphor.) But like, where 66% of the things that are going on in people's lives are beneath the surface; we don't see them. And that's the stuff that will often, as evidenced by these ridiculous but very real examples, that will shape the feedback we give. And so if we're not thinking about this idea of a memoir, we might go, "Woah, where did that come from? Wow, I've really got a blind spot here. That kind of hurt. That kind of stung a little bit. Like, why are you saying that about me?" But to actually think about it through that lens of, "Okay, so that's a memoir. That might be a reflection on how they've experienced the world up until this point." I think this is like...I know we're joking about it, but I actually think it's like quite profound and helpful.

Jen: I agree. It's like very deep, and also very Rule #6: "Don't take yourself so goddamn seriously." At the same time, like I'm thinking back to some of the things my clients share with me. And it's typically, we have these conversations right before holidays. They know they're going to go home and be grilled by parents and grandparents about, "How's your acting career going," and all that. And they say things like, you know, "My mom will say to me, 'Well, why don't you just do a Broadway show?'" As if it's that easy. As if you could just be like, "You know what? I'm just going to do a Broadway show." And so I'm now I'm thinking, "Okay. Why Don't You Just Do a Broadway Show, A Memoir by So-and-So's Mom." And then like you open it up, and it says, "Introduction: My Life in the Theater," and then all the pages are blank. Because that person is not bringing any real world experience to the table. It's just...they're bringing care. They're bringing love. But that feedback isn't actually that helpful. So, you don't need to buy that book.

Pete: Mm-hmm. Yeah. I love this. Even the visual of like, it's a book and now you get to decide if you want to read it or buy it. Super helpful. The other thing this reminded me of...two ideas, or I think they're probably quotes that come from this incredible tiny book that I read this year. (I'm going to put it in the Box O' Goodies.) It's called The Manual by Epictetus, who was this famous stoic philosopher, written like (obviously) thousands of years ago. I think it's been translated, and I'm sure there's a few things that have been tweaked in the translation. So I'm not sure if it's an exact quote, but there's these two ideas he talks about in this book. It's this short book, that's...I would say it would take you forty-five minutes to read it. It's literally a manual on how to think about living a stoic life. And the first thing he said (that I've actually pulled it up, because this conversation reminds me of it) is that if someone criticizes you, you can respond, "Well, if only they knew about all my other faults, too." As a way to like make light of the fact that, "Yeah, you've pointed something out to me that might be a fault. But I have so many other faults that you have no idea about," as a way of processing feedback. The second one, I think, is even better or more relevant. Which is that, people only see you through the lens of their own impressions. Therefore, when criticized, we can respond to ourselves, "That seems right to them, although they are mistaken." Because what they see is only what they see, based on their lived experience. If we are living a life that we know is in alignment with the values that we want to uphold, working on the projects that we know we want to work on, we might have a situation that comes up (this has happened to me, I'm sure it's happened to you) where someone gives you feedback, and you go, "I think the reason you're giving me that feedback is because you don't actually understand what I'm trying to do. You don't understand enough about who I am to even provide relevant feedback." So again, if it was a book and I saw that "By So-and-So" who I haven't spoken to for ten years, I'm probably not going to read that book.

Jen: Nope.

Pete: Why would I read that book?

Jen: No, thank you. Yeah. I'm just...I'm loving it. Because, you know, feedback is so challenging. Like, we can look at so many different mindset tools, and frameworks, and get better at sorting it, and filtering it, and processing it, and understanding it, but it's still really, really hard. And I have never found a feedback tool that has made me laugh before. And this one makes me laugh.

Pete: Mmm. I like that. Yeah, I mean, I've often thought about the notion that feedback is a gift. Which I think has been very helpful, but it hasn't necessarily made me laugh just like this one has.

Jen: Alright. So where have we arrived, Sir Shepherd?

Pete: My brain wants to combine the feedback is a gift idea with this memoir idea. And think about, "Okay, if feedback is a gift in the form of a book, or a memoir. And I choose to unwrap that gift, see the memoir, see who it's written by, see what the topic is, what the title is, like, 'You're a Hoarder,' and then I get to decide whether I want to open that book, whether I want to read that book, whether I want to take onboard the feedback that this particular individual is giving me, or do I want to decide to put it aside and maybe instead seek feedback from someone with whom I trust, with whom I value their opinion more of, or with whom I'm actually curious about their opinion on this particular matter."

Jen: Yes. And like an ugly Christmas sweater, you can also regift it.

Pete: And That is The Long and The Short Of It.