Diana Thema's Key Ideas from Thanks for the Feedback
by Douglas Stone

We believe that the ability to receive feedback well is not an inborn trait but a skill that can be cultivated. It may be fraught but it can be thought whether you currently think of yourself as someone who receives feedback well or poorly you can get better.

It is sad that all advice is autobiographical, and this, in part, is what is meant. We interpret what we see based on our own life experiences, assumptions, preferences, priorities, and implicit rules about how things work and how one should be. I understand your life through the lens of my life; my advice for you is based on me.

One principle for how we recognize our experiences is this: we are usually the sympathetic hero of the story. In his speech to a graduating class at Kenyon, writer David Foster Wallace observed that there is “no experience you’ve had that you were not at the absolute center of it”. We are each lords of our own tiny skull-sized kingdoms.In our story we are Dorothy, the princess or Rudolph not the Wicked Witch the Pea or any of the other reindeer.

But get this: When we ourselves speak, the STS (superior temporar suculud) turns off. We don't hear our own voice, at least not the same way we hear everyone else.

This explains why we are so often surprised when we get feedback based on how we said something. ("Tone? I'm not using some kind of lone!") It also helps explain why our voice sounds so unfamiliar when

we hear ourselves on an audio recording.

The supportive mirror shows us our best self well rested and under flattering light. We go to supportive mirror for reassurance. Yes how we acted in that moment was not a pretty picture but it’s not how we really look. It’s not a big deal it’s a bad picture of you throw it away you’re a good person.

An honest mirror shows us what we look like right now when we are not at our best and our BedHead is bad. It’s a true reflection of what others saw today when we were stressed and distracted and leaking our frustration. “Yes you really did come across that way it’s not a good thing.”

The supportive mirror shows us our best self well rested and under flattering light. We go to supportive mirror for reassurance. Yes how we acted in that moment was not a pretty picture but it’s not how we really look. It’s not a big deal it’s a bad picture of you throw it away you’re a good person.

An honest mirror shows us what we look like right now when we are not at our best and our BedHead is bad. It’s a true reflection of what others saw today when we were stressed and distracted and leaking our frustration. “Yes you really did come across that way it’s not a good thing.”

So the switchtrack dynamic has four steps: we get feedback; we experience our relationship trigger; we change the topic to how we feel and step four we talk past each other. To get better and managing our impulse to switchtrack we have to get better at understanding the relationship triggers that create these impulses.

Intersections-_-differences in preferences, tendencies, and traits that

cause us to bump into each other--account for a significant proportion of the friction and feedback in both personal and professional relation.

ships. Marriage researcher John Gottman reports that 69 percent of the fights married couples currently have are about the same subjects they were arguing about five years ago.' And chances are, they'll be selecting from that same menu of arguments five years from now.