How to use others' feedback to learn and grow | Sheila Heen | TEDxAmoskeagMillyardWomen

• Truth triggers. Is the feedback correct? However, we all have blind spots. It's tricky to figure out what the givers are trying to tell you.
• Relationship triggers. All feedback lives in the relationship between giver and receiver. We often have a bigger reaction to who's giving us advice than to what they're saying. We can conquer this trigger by separating the who from the what.
• Identity triggers have to do with your emotional reaction and what it says about who you are.

Psychologists estimate that 50 percent of our reactions are based on genetic wiring, 40 percent on the story you tell yourself, and 10 percent on the actual circumstances.

• The story you tell yourself about the feedback you get has a huge impact on how you feel about it.
• High achievers. When we let ourselves down, the judgments and feedback we have for ourselves can be the hardest to deal with. 

Some people are very sensitive to feedback, while others are the opposite. Both have their own challenges with feedback.

The sensitive person

One piece of feedback can suddenly become everything. It becomes super-sized. You may look at all your past mistakes, and it seems like you have never done anything right.

The undersensitive person

• You often don't realise people are trying to give you feedback. They may say, "Bill is doing this," and you think "good for Bill."
• You may acknowledge feedback, but then it doesn't stick.
• People may say you're aloof or overbearing, and you dismiss it outright.

• Identity. Ask your friends or colleagues, "what is the one thing I'm doing or failing to do that you think is getting in the way?
• What is the one thing I could change about how I run our weekly meeting that would be an improvement?
• What is the one thing that would make a difference to you in our friendship?

We have two core human needs.

• We want to learn and grow
• We also have a need to be accepted and respected and loved the way we are now. Feedback suggests that how we are now is not ok.

However, sometimes, the most painful things in our lives are some of the most important things we've learned in life. To get the most out of feedback, we have to learn to manage the pain to enrich our relationships and to get learning faster.