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Instead of just dealing with the feedback, I I wouldn't kick the can down the road.
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And and what it does, it creates a lot of negative emotions, it creates a lot of
animosity, and it makes you, I think, less prepared to communicate smoothly and kindly.
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I think the longer you let the feedback loop go, I think probably you're you're not gonna
communicate as well.
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Welcome to the Up Your Average Podcast.
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Where Keith and Doug give no nonsense advice to level up your life.
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So buckle up and listen closely to Up Your Average.
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Good morning, Doug.
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It's another great day in central Indiana.
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How's how's the lake life?
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Uh, lake life is good.
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Lake life is always good if you like the lake, or if you like water in general.
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I think there's something peaceful about it.
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It's just nice to look at, or it's kind of like a mountain.
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Uh, one of our sons is getting ready to take off with young life trip to go five days
tamping on a trail.
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Have you ever done something like that, Keith?
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I think two days might be my my most.
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I did a wilderness survival merit badge and you had uh you had to pretty much live in the
woods and you they think they gave me an egg, some raisins, and a couple matches is what I
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had.
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That's really cool.
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Yeah.
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I I love to hear about stuff like that.
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I I don't know if Scouts is still
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a big deal or not.
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Um, I know one of my neighbors, they're really into it.
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That um, boy, you sure could learn a lot.
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Could learn how to survive in the woods.
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Well, I'm gonna give a free advertisement here.
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This is uh my I've I've got to go to my history here on my YouTube.
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How to stay motivated developing uh it's called how to stay d motivated developing
something I can't
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See it by Zig Ziglar.
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It is a it's like an eight hour YouTube um video.
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It is well worth your time.
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And he kind of made me think about Scouts this week when I was listening to him.
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And he was just telling all the great things that Boy Scouts or probably Girl Scouts teach
you.
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And and I just started thinking about it.
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Like the the Boy Scout motto is be prepared.
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And so now
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Wait a second.
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This a eight hour YouTube?
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It is.
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Yeah.
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It it it would have cost you I did the math on this because I couldn't believe how good a
deal it is.
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It would have cost you $135 when he published it in nineteen ninety-five, which is
equivalent of about almost four hundred dollars today.
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You can you can watch it.
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I'm just listening to it in the car.
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You can listen to it free and it's just got a lot of wisdom in there.
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But he spent a good amount of time talking about Boy Scouts and the benefit why he would
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encourage that organization to people because of some of the ideas they teach you.
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That's pretty cool.
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And and today, you know, you you wanted to talk about feedback today.
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And you know, z Zig Ziggler, Dale Carnegie, those kind of guys, they really poured into my
dad's training.
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And he has a great uh a great response that he says when uh w when there's feedback being
given.
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And he says, you know, you could be right.
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I like it.
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I had I I as I was prepping, I had I I I had this acquaintance that I had I didn't know if
we were gonna become like more than acquaintances, like more like kinda I envision like
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friendships as a archery target as we get beyond the outer loops of the acquaintance
thing, we work our way towards the bullseye of intimacy.
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And so this guy was an acquaintance and
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We were at a restaurant and I told him, I was like, Man, dude, what I'm really looking for
in friendships are people who would just be honest with me and we can be candid and we
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won't get our feelings hurt.
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You know, for example, if uh I have a big piece of pepper right here, you know, a friend
would tell me, and some people get offended by that, they get self-conscious if you tell
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you have a piece of pepper there and on and on and on.
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And so we finished our conversation.
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And I get in the car to come back to the office and I just take a quick glance in the
rearview mirror and there's just a big old piece of pepper there.
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And I gave him the freedom to give me feedback and he wouldn't do it.
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So he gave me feedback uh just in that action, right?
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So Yeah.
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And where I wanted to go with this, Doug, is that I had a literature class when I was in
tenth grade and Mrs.
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Lindauer
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was the teacher, and we had to read a lot of things.
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We had to read uh we had the choice between The Hobbit and a can a Connecticut Knight in
King Arthur's uh court and um a variety of other things that we could read.
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And and I couldn't tell you I I didn't like to read back then and I couldn't tell you
anything about
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the the book that I read and and and even like Shakespeare.
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I'm like, why are we reading Shakespeare?
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You know, and and and I I couldn't even understand what it was about back then.
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And so but here I am a bunch of years later.
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And the one thing I took away from that class is that every novel has a protagonist and an
antagonist.
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And um I wanted to kind of cover this idea before we talk about feedback and the the
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Protagonist is the good guy.
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That's in every probably any movie you're watching, it's gonna have a protagonist and the
antagonist.
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So the the protagonist is the good guy, the antagonist is the bad guy.
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And that's that's the stress that goes on in novels and and in um movies and such.
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And as you're going about life, you have that choice as well.
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You can be the protagonist or the antagonist.
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And and it's your choice.
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Uh somebody uh said to me a while ago, uh I don't have any complaints.
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There's no complaints.
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And and I I said, Well, what's a complaint?
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And and my definition was the complaint's a a variance between what you wanted and what
you got.
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That's what a that's what a complaint is.
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And that feedback is
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uh a lot of times a complaint nobody cares about it, right?
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Like they don't care to hear your complaint.
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So you have the choice all the time, and regardless the role that you're in, you can be
the good guy or the bad guy.
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You are the protagonist or antagonist in any role.
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And so then if you take that idea and expand it to a work relationship, you have the
potential someday to be the employer or the employee.
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And
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What I would say as the employee is your primary job when you go to work somewhere is to
determine whether the person you're working for is a protagonist or an antagonist.
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The work you're doing is kind of irrelevant because if you're a protagonist as an employee
and you're working for a protagonist, you're gonna excel.
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But if you're working for an antagonist, you probably need to figure that out early on and
determine whether you can endure that or not.
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But if you become if you come into a workforce and you decide to be an antagonist, you're
going to find yourself unemployed eventually and probably bitter.
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And so those are the role so any role you're in, you can be the protagonist or the
antagonist.
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And so then if you choose as an employer, I'm going to be a protagonist.
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And as an employee, I'm gonna be a protagonist.
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Um then the idea of feedback becomes more opportunistic for everybody.
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And the person that made me think most about this was an engineer, and he was telling me
about open systems and closed systems.
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And a closed system is a system that is self-correcting.
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And the self-correction portion of this system is dependent on feedback.
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And the quicker the feedback happens, the more smoothly the system works, right?
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And so then the idea is what is feedback and how do I personally respond to it?
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And so that that's that's the long introduction into feedback.
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So what has been your own personal experience?
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You could call feedback input, you could call it criticism, you could call it
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Training, you could call it a variety of things, but what what's been your thoughts on the
idea of feedback over time?
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I think it's evolved with maturity.
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I think I think maturing and going through things and life experiences over the years
gives you the opportunity to really screw up some feedback.
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And um it gives you some opportunity to pause and to like my dad said, say, uh, you know,
you could be right.
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And so, um, early on, uh receiving feedback to me sounded a lot like a complaint um and a
lot like a uh a wound on a on a um on a personal character level.
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And so it's how you listen.
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I think that's a the best place to start in your maturing process is is am I a good
listener?
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Am I really hearing what this person's saying?
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Um
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Can I pause long enough to let any kind of um emotions that's coming with the feedback
quiet down?
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And if I can do that long enough where I can actually listen to someone, then uh I might
be able to begin to think about things from someone else's point of view, not just mine,
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even though I might be solid on an opinion.
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Um, I might listen just long enough to think, yeah, they they they could have something
here.
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And feedback and resistance could be the same.
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You know, when I get up on a slalom ski, there's a lot of force pushing against me to get
up.
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And that force is telling me that I need to endure a little longer before I can plane out.
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And so I think endurance c is a part of feedback as well.
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Because it's normally not just a one-time conversation with feedback.
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You you you have to give and take.
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You might, you know, you might have to say, well, uh part of this that I've experienced
could be true, and part of what they've experienced could be true.
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How could I work this out to a a better outcome?
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And so there's there's some endurance involved in it.
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And normally when someone gives me feedback and I respond, then
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there there's just greater opportunity for more conversation and and then what I've seen
sometimes is the person giving me feedback.
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They might be wrong.
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And you have to have a point where you just say, you know what, it it's okay if if they
want to keep keep giving me more feedback on this, even though uh I I think in this
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situation they're wrong.
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You know, one of the beauties about something you said, Doug, was the about your opinions
that you might have a strong kind of h hunch on that opinion.
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And when I reflect back over the last um many years.
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I think I had many, many, many more strong opinions about ideas when I was in my twenties
than I do today.
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So so I have a lot of strong opinions today, but what I learned from my 20s until today by
the feedback of individuals, the feedback, like if you're not gonna take feedback from
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somebody else, you're gonna get it.
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Like life is gonna give you the feedback you need.
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And
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And so what I've learned over a number of years is there's certain things, yeah, I'm
pretty confident on this opinion, but I've realized how many opinions I had when I was
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twenty, twenty-five, thirty, thirty-five that were just dead wrong.
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And that I'm much more I think open in those areas.
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I I can remember as a twenty-something year old sitting in a restaurant and trying to
enjoy my dinner and some family had little kids over there crying and screaming and
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thinking.
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Can't you control that kid?
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Which that opinion wouldn't even come to my mind today, right?
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Yeah.
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And and so that that's probably important to understand.
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But it if if I am an employee, say I'm a recent college graduate and I'm an employee, I
would learn to separate the feedback from my person who I am.
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The the person that's giving you the feedback might present it to you and it might feel
like it's attacking your being.
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But if you can turn your emotions down just a bit and hear what they're saying, it may be
the greatest gift they ever give you.
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Yeah.
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And if you're coming out of school, what you're used to is you're you're used to a A B C D
E uh A B C D F situation where that's the feedback.
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And there's so much more nuances and personal relationships than just your uh your
performance.
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And and if you are that person, I will tell you, you are always being given feedback and
you're giving it back to the to those around you, whether you know it or not.
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And and so feedback is going on a hundred percent of the time.
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And it is uh
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Probably our friend his sentence that I just really like is are you open to feedback?
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Like that question is probably a good way to just every once in a while look in the mirror
and ask yourself, am I open to feedback?
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Because if your answer is no, I'm not, well that that helps everybody, right?
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Yeah.
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Yeah.
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Yeah.
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And and I think the launching pad to living life to the fullest.
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means you have to answer that question, yes.
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I am open to feedback.
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I may not it may not feel good.
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I may not like what I hear or what's told to me.
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However, if somebody cares enough to tell me there's a piece of pepper in my teeth, then
at least I'm not going to be carrying around all day long, right?
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I'm gonna be able to address that issue and stop it right now.
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But if I don't want to hear it And the pepper in your teeth, like you you definitely want
to hear that.
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Yeah.
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And so so and so to get to that point.
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That's the trick.
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Is how do you get to the point where you really do want to hear it?
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Because I I I've been told, yeah, I'm open to feedback, but then I've seen, nah, no,
they're they're really not open to feedback.
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And you see it by the actions.
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And so I I think w one of the one of the actions, if somebody said you have pepper in your
teeth, it would be a real clear, hey, thank you.
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Thank you so much for saving me the embarrassment of walking around with pepper in my
teeth.
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And so just operating from a grateful heart is a great way to begin to be open to
feedback.
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If your worldview is one where you're just thankful, uh that that's a great start.
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And so maybe that's a practice.
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You start by listening and then you start by being grateful.
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Well, it's it's it's a big deal to realize you are gonna get it.
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Like
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The the idea of these closed self-correcting systems, they're in nature, they're in
they're in business, they're in uh personal relationships, they're everywhere.
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And if you ignore them and reject the feedback, you do it to your to your own peril.
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Yeah.
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If I if if for example my house um is giving me feedback that say that the the roof is
leaking.
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And I ignore that feedback.
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It it's not getting better.
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So um as a young businessman, I was probably 30 when I had to hire the first person ever.
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And and I had no idea what I was doing.
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Like I I didn't know how to move forward.
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I didn't know how to communicate.
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I didn't know how to receive feedback, give feedback.
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And most businesses in the day, I don't know if they still do it, did annual reviews.
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And so an annual review in the day was um basically I'm gonna tell you two or three things
that you're doing good, and then I'm gonna blast you with what I think you should improve
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upon.
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And and uh I know corporate American Fortune five hundreds would do that.
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And it it would take the managers, like depending on how many employees they had, it might
take a third
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fourth or a third of the year just to prepare all these annual reviews.
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And my experience was the way that they were done, most people just went away angry
because cause it was required you give three negative things and nobody wanted to hear the
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negative things.
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And I did that at Gimbal for a while and then I realized I was annoying all my coworkers
when I would give them an annual review like that.
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And my
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My experience led me to believe is I just need to give the feedback regularly, not
annually.
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Like if I see something that needs some feedback, I probably need to help somebody with it
today.
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And there's a lot of different methods out there.
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Like what's what's the one, the compliment sandwich?
218
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yeah.
219
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Where where where you give the compliment, you give the feedback and then you give the
compliment.
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But whatever the method, I I think the heart is the most important thing is does a does a
person know your heart?
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And if they know your heart and if they know that you're for them, they are gonna receive
the feedback and they're gonna be grateful to receive the feedback.
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But if receiving receiving some feedback where you don't know the heart of the person,
that's a that's a little bit more of an art.
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Yeah.
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And and that's why that's why I believe your first task.
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is to figure out whether you're working for a protagonist or an antagonist.
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Or are you uh going through this club with a protagonist or an antagonist?
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Because that's a different decision grid.
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But what I learned as a young young employer was um the feedback a as it became
adversarial or kind of stressful, the feedback was really their issue.
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Like I I was responsible to give them the the feedback.
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It was their issue.
231
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Uh it was my responsibility.
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Like my responsibility is to give feedback.
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And if I didn't give them the feedback in a timely manner, it became my problem.
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Because it doesn't get better by not giving the person the input they needed.
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And that
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probably c I bet that cost me 20 sleepless nights as a young man because I I instead of
just dealing with the feedback, I I wouldn't kick the can down the road.
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And and what it does, it creates a lot of negative emotions, it creates a lot of
animosity, and it makes you, I think, less prepared to communicate smoothly and kindly.
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I think the longer you let the feedback loop go, I think
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probably you're you're not gonna communicate as well.
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I don't know.
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What's your experience with that?
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I guess my own personal experience is I'm just not very good with feedback.
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And it's something that I'd like to be better at.
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I think I'm better than I was five years ago, ten years ago, but but it's a it's a real
struggle.
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It's it's an art and it's a it's a um opportunity to know thyself and decide uh if you're
okay with with who you are.
246
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So I I think I think receiving feedback is incredibly difficult if people are honest with
themselves.
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And I don't really know anybody who's good at receiving feedback, but I know people who
have been better and better and are getting better.
248
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And so I think I think that's a trick.
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And then I think another trick is how do you deliver feedback?
250
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And Ed question is very good.
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Are you open to feedback?
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And most people, when they say are you open to feedback, what are they gonna tell you?
253
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They're gonna tell you yes.
254
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Well, they're gonna know they're gonna give you feedback before they say yes.
255
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The the their their body language is gonna sell out.
256
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For sure.
257
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Uh for sure.
258
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so so they're gonna they're gonna tell you no and yes at the same time.
259
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Uh but but I just I think
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The continuous relationship, the consistency in the relationship, that's where winning
really starts to happen.
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If there's some obvious stuff where a stranger can give you feedback, and they do all the
time, uh, they give you feedback.
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It my guess is uh in your quiet moments, you'll take it and you'll listen and maybe apply
it down the road.
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But the relationship feedback, normally, you know, those closest to you, those are the
most important.
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areas of feedback like with your spouse, with your kids.
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I mean, we're talking co-workers here.
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That's important.
267
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But but I I it all starts at home to me.
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Is am I open to Caroline's feedback?
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Ah, I'm getting better.
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It'd be interesting what what she would say.
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Well that I think that's part of feedback.
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I think there's some intentionality in those relationships.
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Like I'm assuming
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as a dad, there was some intentional direction you went leading your household and so so
because of some decisions you made how you wanted your family to move forward, there was
275
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necessary feedback.
276
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Whether they the boys were open to it or not, it was necessary feedback and and they maybe
didn't even appreciate it at the time.
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They may be 20 years or they appreciate the feedback, right?
278
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I I think I would encourage you if you're trying to
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ponder the idea of feedback, I I think you can, I think it's a learned skill and and you
can become better at feedback.
280
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And the the the shorter your feedback loop is, I think the more you're going to enjoy
life.
281
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Like the longer the communication cycle has to happen, the more your emotions are going to
be out of whack.
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The the probably the fewer people are going to want to be around you because nobody wants
283
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Nobody really gets to up in the morning and say, I'm gonna tell you you have pepper in
your teeth.
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And then if you bark at me because I told you you had pepper in your teeth, I'm not
telling you that again, right?
285
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I can so so how do you improve that?
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I say, first of all, that you need to learn what you do is not who you are.
287
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Because if you think what you do is who you are, when you get input about how you're doing
what you do, you think somebody's attacking who you are.
288
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And that's not true if somebody really cares about you.
289
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And then I think secondly, if I was going to give somebody an exercise about feedback, I
would find something to invest myself in that gives me feedback that I don't like.
290
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Um, like you and I trade in the stock market and we get feedback all the time we don't
like, right?
291
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And if we if we don't accept the feedback properly, uh it teaches us things.
292
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Yeah.
293
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We feedback from the stock or the market itself and and then feedback from the individuals
we're working for.
294
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Right.
295
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Right.
296
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And so the the idea of accepting the feedback comes in in any kind of thing, but finding
something that gives you negative feedback like that and allowing it to speak to you
297
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without a human telling you is probably a good exercise.
298
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It's just um
299
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Whatever like exercise gives you negative feedback, right?
300
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So that was that was gonna give that was gonna be my example.
301
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Anybody can go out and just do some exercise today and get some feedback instantly.
302
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Yeah.
303
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Yeah.
304
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And so it's both negative and positive, is that after I get it done, I'm like, man, I'm
glad I did that.
305
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And after I absorbed what you told me today, Doug, I can go home, walk in the woods and
go, Okay, that was really a good word that Doug gave me today.
306
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And
307
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the moment my shoulders might get tense and I might not appreciate it.
308
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But I think what you'll find in life is the more I can shorten that feedback loop, the
more I'm just gonna be able to live in the moment.
309
00:26:40,632 --> 00:26:48,236
But the more I have these open loops of feedback out there, they they tend to create
unnecessary stress.
310
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Yeah, I I I think another follow up question to ask yourself in your head is just what
what's the win win here?
311
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Like what do I really need to hear?
312
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Where do I need to be honest with myself?
313
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And uh and then how do I continue that loop back to the person who just gave me the
feedback?
314
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do I owe them an apology?
315
00:27:09,047 --> 00:27:13,781
Uh do I need to say, Hey, I am sorry, I was wrong there?
316
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Or is it, yeah, you know, thank you for that.
317
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I I I can see where you're coming from.
318
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And and so just not not closing the loop.
319
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When you close the loop, you you might lose the most important thing of the loop, and
that's the relationship.
320
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And and I I think that relationships are probably more valuable in 2026 than any time I
can remember because the more we integrate with entities that we could give feedback to,
321
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maybe it's a restaurant, maybe it's a home improvement organization, the it seems the more
and more that time evolves in the current
322
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culture that those entities are bigger and the bigger an entity is, the less um you
perceive that they even care about your feedback.
323
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And then if you don't have relationships that care about your feedback, then you can
almost internalize that to think that I don't even matter.
324
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And in some of those big organizations, you really don't, but
325
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somebody that will give you feedback and you can give it to I think that relationship
tells you that both of you matter.
326
00:28:23,469 --> 00:28:29,562
I care enough to let you know and you cared enough to have the conversation with me
without yelling and screaming at me.
327
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The driver's license or the Bureau of Motor Ve Vehicles, they have a a button that you
hit.
328
00:28:35,446 --> 00:28:36,527
Have you ever seen it?
329
00:28:36,527 --> 00:28:42,610
I have a uh a green smiley face or a red uh frowny face.
330
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And I always just kind of think in my head, what good does that really do?
331
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And so just just the way you treat people, I think, can have a huge effect.
332
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And and maybe if they get a thousand uh smiley faces and and two frowning faces, it's it's
like I don't know, I don't know what that means, like no pizza party or something.
333
00:29:01,365 --> 00:29:06,329
But but just given the time to say, hey, how's your day going?
334
00:29:06,329 --> 00:29:08,771
Uh, what's it like working here?
335
00:29:08,771 --> 00:29:14,456
I mean, th those are happy, happy faces that you can punch every time with very little
effort.
336
00:29:15,282 --> 00:29:22,957
I and you know a thing that's really helped me is realizing most people don't want
feedback.
337
00:29:23,578 --> 00:29:32,705
And and so I'm gonna be very specific when I give negative feedback because if somebody
doesn't want it, is it necessary for me to give it?
338
00:29:32,705 --> 00:29:36,327
And a lot of times the answer is no, it's absolutely not.
339
00:29:36,327 --> 00:29:43,052
And a place where it's really helped to my soul is when I've eaten at a sit-down
restaurant.
340
00:29:43,238 --> 00:29:45,140
And got below average service.
341
00:29:45,140 --> 00:29:52,536
Um my temptation is to give them a mediocre tip.
342
00:29:52,536 --> 00:30:04,267
But what I've evolved to is giving them a decent tip because what giving them a decent tip
does is it tells me I'm looking at them beyond what they did for me today.
343
00:30:04,267 --> 00:30:05,978
And I'm not going to hold a grudge.
344
00:30:05,978 --> 00:30:11,032
I'm going to just, it may cost me five or 10 bucks more to give them a decent tip.
345
00:30:11,048 --> 00:30:14,481
But I'm gonna walk away from the table, not affected by their poor service.
346
00:30:14,481 --> 00:30:17,954
And so there's that's part of a feedback loop.
347
00:30:17,954 --> 00:30:23,809
If I had a bad attitude, I just paid for a nice dinner and I'm gonna probably take it out
into the car and on my way home.
348
00:30:23,809 --> 00:30:25,781
And it was like, why would I do that to myself?
349
00:30:25,781 --> 00:30:29,403
Why not give myself some positive feedback by upping the tip?
350
00:30:30,305 --> 00:30:39,452
I can think of an another couple things, Keith, where, you know, being in this business
that you and I are in, uh, we serve several different types of personalities.
351
00:30:39,516 --> 00:30:50,396
And over the years, where I've had people who are 20, 30 years older than me when I was
first starting, tell me directly, hey Doug, we need you to do this.
352
00:30:50,396 --> 00:30:53,819
Uh, I always really appreciated that.
353
00:30:53,819 --> 00:31:01,616
I can think of a couple people specifically uh on the phone calls who said, Doug, we are
counting on you to do this.
354
00:31:01,616 --> 00:31:06,236
And what that did is that helped me clarify my aim of what I'm
355
00:31:06,236 --> 00:31:09,819
supposed to be and what I could be doing for somebody.
356
00:31:09,819 --> 00:31:25,532
And so so i if you are, you know, 80, 70, 60, 50, 40, and you're working with somebody
who's a little younger, uh, I would encourage you to just be really clear in your feedback
357
00:31:25,532 --> 00:31:32,518
because it's that clarity that can help give someone the permission to take what they're
doing to the next level.
358
00:31:33,839 --> 00:31:35,180
And I I think
359
00:31:35,762 --> 00:31:37,583
We were talking about it here earlier.
360
00:31:37,583 --> 00:31:44,698
I'm kind of a spaz about uh words and their meaning and choosing my words wisely.
361
00:31:44,698 --> 00:31:55,646
But I think the words and the tone that you use and give them feedback, it's probably
important because th there are there are positive words to give negative feedback to
362
00:31:55,646 --> 00:31:59,689
people and there's negative words to give the same one.
363
00:31:59,689 --> 00:32:03,902
But if you ponder a little bit before you give necessary feedback, I think
364
00:32:03,902 --> 00:32:06,144
the the word you choose can go a long way.
365
00:32:06,144 --> 00:32:13,399
And then uh another idea I think is that consideration of when do I give feedback.
366
00:32:13,399 --> 00:32:16,341
And I think seeking advice.
367
00:32:16,341 --> 00:32:21,085
Yeah, right when you're le right when you're leaving the office, 459.
368
00:32:21,085 --> 00:32:23,219
That's a great time to give some feedback on a Friday.
369
00:32:23,219 --> 00:32:25,208
That's great time to give some feedback.
370
00:32:25,208 --> 00:32:26,449
Negative feedback.
371
00:32:26,449 --> 00:32:26,719
Yeah.
372
00:32:26,719 --> 00:32:30,572
No, uh
373
00:32:31,044 --> 00:32:40,170
Like getting advice to give it, because we had an example here just uh two or three weeks
ago where a vendor of ours gave us horrible service.
374
00:32:40,511 --> 00:32:42,443
And you ask, should I call them?
375
00:32:42,443 --> 00:32:50,158
And my opinion was, yeah, I think if if we call them, that's the only way they're gonna
know that we got horrible service.
376
00:32:50,158 --> 00:32:58,374
And your your takeaway is they didn't really care, which is not necessarily unusual today,
but at least
377
00:32:58,584 --> 00:33:03,746
Um you cared enough to let them know that in that instance we didn't get very good
service.
378
00:33:03,806 --> 00:33:04,166
Yeah.
379
00:33:04,166 --> 00:33:07,848
And and one way to know if they care is if you hear back from somebody.
380
00:33:09,509 --> 00:33:10,489
Yeah.
381
00:33:10,709 --> 00:33:13,550
Well, I I can assure you this.
382
00:33:13,550 --> 00:33:15,911
As gimbal clients, we care.
383
00:33:15,911 --> 00:33:19,453
Um I I think we want some feedback.
384
00:33:19,453 --> 00:33:25,555
No, I know we want feedback because you just no.
385
00:33:26,864 --> 00:33:27,794
Yeah.
386
00:33:27,794 --> 00:33:29,845
Because it's what's made us better over the years.
387
00:33:29,845 --> 00:33:32,567
The more feedback we get, we know we improve.
388
00:33:32,567 --> 00:33:37,449
As much as it hurts, we we take it seriously and say, How can we improve this?
389
00:33:37,649 --> 00:33:50,516
Hey, Keith, I wanna I know we're in overtime here, but um and and a reason why feedback
can be very important to someone like me is we all have blind spots and we might think
390
00:33:50,516 --> 00:33:55,389
we're cruising just fine, or we might have these excuses in our head of why this or that.
391
00:33:55,389 --> 00:33:57,372
And so and so just like a car.
392
00:33:57,372 --> 00:33:59,033
you may not see it.
393
00:33:59,373 --> 00:34:05,186
And when someone points that out to you, uh, they could really save you from having a bad
accident.
394
00:34:05,186 --> 00:34:13,060
And so at Gimbal, we that's why we want feedback is is we know that, you know, we might be
missing some stuff.
395
00:34:13,060 --> 00:34:15,941
And we wanna we wanna be able to pay attention to it.
396
00:34:15,941 --> 00:34:21,464
And sometimes uh it's just a complete blind spot that has to be pointed out.
397
00:34:22,076 --> 00:34:30,336
And and what it ultimately does is if it's a common issue for us is we've learned to put
systems in place to help you.
398
00:34:30,336 --> 00:34:41,512
And I I can just off the top of my head remember a number of times where I got some very
negative feedback and it hurt my feelings, but we were able to put systems in place
399
00:34:41,793 --> 00:34:45,776
probably from 30 years ago that help our business run more smoothly today.
400
00:34:45,776 --> 00:34:50,320
So if I had just buried my head in the sand, I'd be getting that feedback probably still
today.
401
00:34:50,320 --> 00:34:50,780
And
402
00:34:50,780 --> 00:34:51,961
It's not necessary.
403
00:34:51,961 --> 00:34:55,102
It can really it can launch you into your future.
404
00:34:55,423 --> 00:34:57,474
Well, Doug, thanks for your thoughts on this area.
405
00:34:57,474 --> 00:35:03,248
I hope it's helpful to a number of people there and I hope everybody can just make the
most out of this weekend.
00:00:00,088 --> 00:00:05,662
Instead of just dealing with the feedback, I I wouldn't kick the can down the road.
2
00:00:05,662 --> 00:00:17,860
And and what it does, it creates a lot of negative emotions, it creates a lot of
animosity, and it makes you, I think, less prepared to communicate smoothly and kindly.
3
00:00:17,860 --> 00:00:25,475
I think the longer you let the feedback loop go, I think probably you're you're not gonna
communicate as well.
4
00:00:26,436 --> 00:00:29,219
Welcome to the Up Your Average Podcast.
5
00:00:29,219 --> 00:00:34,810
Where Keith and Doug give no nonsense advice to level up your life.
6
00:00:35,112 --> 00:00:40,341
So buckle up and listen closely to Up Your Average.
7
00:00:46,370 --> 00:00:47,130
Good morning, Doug.
8
00:00:47,130 --> 00:00:49,792
It's another great day in central Indiana.
9
00:00:49,792 --> 00:00:51,593
How's how's the lake life?
10
00:00:51,593 --> 00:00:53,724
Uh, lake life is good.
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Lake life is always good if you like the lake, or if you like water in general.
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I think there's something peaceful about it.
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It's just nice to look at, or it's kind of like a mountain.
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Uh, one of our sons is getting ready to take off with young life trip to go five days
tamping on a trail.
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Have you ever done something like that, Keith?
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I think two days might be my my most.
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I did a wilderness survival merit badge and you had uh you had to pretty much live in the
woods and you they think they gave me an egg, some raisins, and a couple matches is what I
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had.
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That's really cool.
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Yeah.
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I I love to hear about stuff like that.
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I I don't know if Scouts is still
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a big deal or not.
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Um, I know one of my neighbors, they're really into it.
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That um, boy, you sure could learn a lot.
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Could learn how to survive in the woods.
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Well, I'm gonna give a free advertisement here.
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This is uh my I've I've got to go to my history here on my YouTube.
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00:02:04,666 --> 00:02:13,784
How to stay motivated developing uh it's called how to stay d motivated developing
something I can't
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See it by Zig Ziglar.
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It is a it's like an eight hour YouTube um video.
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00:02:21,290 --> 00:02:22,991
It is well worth your time.
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00:02:22,991 --> 00:02:27,655
And he kind of made me think about Scouts this week when I was listening to him.
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And he was just telling all the great things that Boy Scouts or probably Girl Scouts teach
you.
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And and I just started thinking about it.
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Like the the Boy Scout motto is be prepared.
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And so now
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Wait a second.
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This a eight hour YouTube?
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It is.
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Yeah.
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It it it would have cost you I did the math on this because I couldn't believe how good a
deal it is.
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It would have cost you $135 when he published it in nineteen ninety-five, which is
equivalent of about almost four hundred dollars today.
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You can you can watch it.
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I'm just listening to it in the car.
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You can listen to it free and it's just got a lot of wisdom in there.
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But he spent a good amount of time talking about Boy Scouts and the benefit why he would
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encourage that organization to people because of some of the ideas they teach you.
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That's pretty cool.
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And and today, you know, you you wanted to talk about feedback today.
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And you know, z Zig Ziggler, Dale Carnegie, those kind of guys, they really poured into my
dad's training.
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And he has a great uh a great response that he says when uh w when there's feedback being
given.
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And he says, you know, you could be right.
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I like it.
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I had I I as I was prepping, I had I I I had this acquaintance that I had I didn't know if
we were gonna become like more than acquaintances, like more like kinda I envision like
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friendships as a archery target as we get beyond the outer loops of the acquaintance
thing, we work our way towards the bullseye of intimacy.
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And so this guy was an acquaintance and
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We were at a restaurant and I told him, I was like, Man, dude, what I'm really looking for
in friendships are people who would just be honest with me and we can be candid and we
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won't get our feelings hurt.
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You know, for example, if uh I have a big piece of pepper right here, you know, a friend
would tell me, and some people get offended by that, they get self-conscious if you tell
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you have a piece of pepper there and on and on and on.
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And so we finished our conversation.
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And I get in the car to come back to the office and I just take a quick glance in the
rearview mirror and there's just a big old piece of pepper there.
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And I gave him the freedom to give me feedback and he wouldn't do it.
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So he gave me feedback uh just in that action, right?
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So Yeah.
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And where I wanted to go with this, Doug, is that I had a literature class when I was in
tenth grade and Mrs.
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Lindauer
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was the teacher, and we had to read a lot of things.
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We had to read uh we had the choice between The Hobbit and a can a Connecticut Knight in
King Arthur's uh court and um a variety of other things that we could read.
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And and I couldn't tell you I I didn't like to read back then and I couldn't tell you
anything about
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the the book that I read and and and even like Shakespeare.
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I'm like, why are we reading Shakespeare?
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You know, and and and I I couldn't even understand what it was about back then.
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And so but here I am a bunch of years later.
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And the one thing I took away from that class is that every novel has a protagonist and an
antagonist.
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And um I wanted to kind of cover this idea before we talk about feedback and the the
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Protagonist is the good guy.
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That's in every probably any movie you're watching, it's gonna have a protagonist and the
antagonist.
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So the the protagonist is the good guy, the antagonist is the bad guy.
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And that's that's the stress that goes on in novels and and in um movies and such.
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And as you're going about life, you have that choice as well.
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You can be the protagonist or the antagonist.
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And and it's your choice.
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Uh somebody uh said to me a while ago, uh I don't have any complaints.
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There's no complaints.
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And and I I said, Well, what's a complaint?
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And and my definition was the complaint's a a variance between what you wanted and what
you got.
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That's what a that's what a complaint is.
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And that feedback is
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uh a lot of times a complaint nobody cares about it, right?
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Like they don't care to hear your complaint.
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So you have the choice all the time, and regardless the role that you're in, you can be
the good guy or the bad guy.
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You are the protagonist or antagonist in any role.
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And so then if you take that idea and expand it to a work relationship, you have the
potential someday to be the employer or the employee.
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And
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What I would say as the employee is your primary job when you go to work somewhere is to
determine whether the person you're working for is a protagonist or an antagonist.
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The work you're doing is kind of irrelevant because if you're a protagonist as an employee
and you're working for a protagonist, you're gonna excel.
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But if you're working for an antagonist, you probably need to figure that out early on and
determine whether you can endure that or not.
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But if you become if you come into a workforce and you decide to be an antagonist, you're
going to find yourself unemployed eventually and probably bitter.
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And so those are the role so any role you're in, you can be the protagonist or the
antagonist.
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And so then if you choose as an employer, I'm going to be a protagonist.
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And as an employee, I'm gonna be a protagonist.
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Um then the idea of feedback becomes more opportunistic for everybody.
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And the person that made me think most about this was an engineer, and he was telling me
about open systems and closed systems.
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And a closed system is a system that is self-correcting.
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And the self-correction portion of this system is dependent on feedback.
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And the quicker the feedback happens, the more smoothly the system works, right?
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And so then the idea is what is feedback and how do I personally respond to it?
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And so that that's that's the long introduction into feedback.
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So what has been your own personal experience?
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You could call feedback input, you could call it criticism, you could call it
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Training, you could call it a variety of things, but what what's been your thoughts on the
idea of feedback over time?
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I think it's evolved with maturity.
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I think I think maturing and going through things and life experiences over the years
gives you the opportunity to really screw up some feedback.
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And um it gives you some opportunity to pause and to like my dad said, say, uh, you know,
you could be right.
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And so, um, early on, uh receiving feedback to me sounded a lot like a complaint um and a
lot like a uh a wound on a on a um on a personal character level.
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And so it's how you listen.
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I think that's a the best place to start in your maturing process is is am I a good
listener?
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Am I really hearing what this person's saying?
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Um
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Can I pause long enough to let any kind of um emotions that's coming with the feedback
quiet down?
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And if I can do that long enough where I can actually listen to someone, then uh I might
be able to begin to think about things from someone else's point of view, not just mine,
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even though I might be solid on an opinion.
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Um, I might listen just long enough to think, yeah, they they they could have something
here.
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And feedback and resistance could be the same.
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You know, when I get up on a slalom ski, there's a lot of force pushing against me to get
up.
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And that force is telling me that I need to endure a little longer before I can plane out.
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And so I think endurance c is a part of feedback as well.
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Because it's normally not just a one-time conversation with feedback.
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You you you have to give and take.
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You might, you know, you might have to say, well, uh part of this that I've experienced
could be true, and part of what they've experienced could be true.
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How could I work this out to a a better outcome?
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And so there's there's some endurance involved in it.
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And normally when someone gives me feedback and I respond, then
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there there's just greater opportunity for more conversation and and then what I've seen
sometimes is the person giving me feedback.
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They might be wrong.
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And you have to have a point where you just say, you know what, it it's okay if if they
want to keep keep giving me more feedback on this, even though uh I I think in this
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situation they're wrong.
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You know, one of the beauties about something you said, Doug, was the about your opinions
that you might have a strong kind of h hunch on that opinion.
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And when I reflect back over the last um many years.
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I think I had many, many, many more strong opinions about ideas when I was in my twenties
than I do today.
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So so I have a lot of strong opinions today, but what I learned from my 20s until today by
the feedback of individuals, the feedback, like if you're not gonna take feedback from
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somebody else, you're gonna get it.
145
00:13:07,997 --> 00:13:11,480
Like life is gonna give you the feedback you need.
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And
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And so what I've learned over a number of years is there's certain things, yeah, I'm
pretty confident on this opinion, but I've realized how many opinions I had when I was
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twenty, twenty-five, thirty, thirty-five that were just dead wrong.
149
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And that I'm much more I think open in those areas.
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I I can remember as a twenty-something year old sitting in a restaurant and trying to
enjoy my dinner and some family had little kids over there crying and screaming and
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thinking.
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Can't you control that kid?
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Which that opinion wouldn't even come to my mind today, right?
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Yeah.
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And and so that that's probably important to understand.
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But it if if I am an employee, say I'm a recent college graduate and I'm an employee, I
would learn to separate the feedback from my person who I am.
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The the person that's giving you the feedback might present it to you and it might feel
like it's attacking your being.
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But if you can turn your emotions down just a bit and hear what they're saying, it may be
the greatest gift they ever give you.
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Yeah.
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And if you're coming out of school, what you're used to is you're you're used to a A B C D
E uh A B C D F situation where that's the feedback.
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And there's so much more nuances and personal relationships than just your uh your
performance.
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00:14:44,039 --> 00:14:56,924
And and if you are that person, I will tell you, you are always being given feedback and
you're giving it back to the to those around you, whether you know it or not.
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And and so feedback is going on a hundred percent of the time.
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And it is uh
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Probably our friend his sentence that I just really like is are you open to feedback?
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Like that question is probably a good way to just every once in a while look in the mirror
and ask yourself, am I open to feedback?
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Because if your answer is no, I'm not, well that that helps everybody, right?
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Yeah.
169
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Yeah.
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Yeah.
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And and I think the launching pad to living life to the fullest.
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means you have to answer that question, yes.
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I am open to feedback.
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I may not it may not feel good.
175
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I may not like what I hear or what's told to me.
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However, if somebody cares enough to tell me there's a piece of pepper in my teeth, then
at least I'm not going to be carrying around all day long, right?
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I'm gonna be able to address that issue and stop it right now.
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But if I don't want to hear it And the pepper in your teeth, like you you definitely want
to hear that.
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Yeah.
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And so so and so to get to that point.
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That's the trick.
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Is how do you get to the point where you really do want to hear it?
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Because I I I've been told, yeah, I'm open to feedback, but then I've seen, nah, no,
they're they're really not open to feedback.
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And you see it by the actions.
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And so I I think w one of the one of the actions, if somebody said you have pepper in your
teeth, it would be a real clear, hey, thank you.
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Thank you so much for saving me the embarrassment of walking around with pepper in my
teeth.
187
00:16:36,696 --> 00:16:44,583
And so just operating from a grateful heart is a great way to begin to be open to
feedback.
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If your worldview is one where you're just thankful, uh that that's a great start.
189
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And so maybe that's a practice.
190
00:16:51,119 --> 00:16:54,511
You start by listening and then you start by being grateful.
191
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Well, it's it's it's a big deal to realize you are gonna get it.
192
00:16:59,336 --> 00:17:00,040
Like
193
00:17:00,040 --> 00:17:10,703
The the idea of these closed self-correcting systems, they're in nature, they're in
they're in business, they're in uh personal relationships, they're everywhere.
194
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And if you ignore them and reject the feedback, you do it to your to your own peril.
195
00:17:18,565 --> 00:17:18,965
Yeah.
196
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If I if if for example my house um is giving me feedback that say that the the roof is
leaking.
197
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And I ignore that feedback.
198
00:17:30,816 --> 00:17:34,308
It it's not getting better.
199
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So um as a young businessman, I was probably 30 when I had to hire the first person ever.
200
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And and I had no idea what I was doing.
201
00:17:48,831 --> 00:17:51,694
Like I I didn't know how to move forward.
202
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I didn't know how to communicate.
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I didn't know how to receive feedback, give feedback.
204
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And most businesses in the day, I don't know if they still do it, did annual reviews.
205
00:18:03,230 --> 00:18:12,577
And so an annual review in the day was um basically I'm gonna tell you two or three things
that you're doing good, and then I'm gonna blast you with what I think you should improve
206
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upon.
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00:18:13,679 --> 00:18:18,513
And and uh I know corporate American Fortune five hundreds would do that.
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And it it would take the managers, like depending on how many employees they had, it might
take a third
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00:18:24,652 --> 00:18:28,835
fourth or a third of the year just to prepare all these annual reviews.
210
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And my experience was the way that they were done, most people just went away angry
because cause it was required you give three negative things and nobody wanted to hear the
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negative things.
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00:18:40,866 --> 00:18:51,535
And I did that at Gimbal for a while and then I realized I was annoying all my coworkers
when I would give them an annual review like that.
213
00:18:51,535 --> 00:18:52,946
And my
214
00:18:53,070 --> 00:18:58,522
My experience led me to believe is I just need to give the feedback regularly, not
annually.
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00:18:58,522 --> 00:19:04,484
Like if I see something that needs some feedback, I probably need to help somebody with it
today.
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00:19:04,644 --> 00:19:07,565
And there's a lot of different methods out there.
217
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Like what's what's the one, the compliment sandwich?
218
00:19:10,476 --> 00:19:10,866
yeah.
219
00:19:10,866 --> 00:19:17,992
Where where where you give the compliment, you give the feedback and then you give the
compliment.
220
00:19:17,992 --> 00:19:23,998
But whatever the method, I I think the heart is the most important thing is does a does a
person know your heart?
221
00:19:23,998 --> 00:19:31,614
And if they know your heart and if they know that you're for them, they are gonna receive
the feedback and they're gonna be grateful to receive the feedback.
222
00:19:31,614 --> 00:19:40,052
But if receiving receiving some feedback where you don't know the heart of the person,
that's a that's a little bit more of an art.
223
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Yeah.
224
00:19:40,823 --> 00:19:44,476
And and that's why that's why I believe your first task.
225
00:19:44,550 --> 00:19:48,053
is to figure out whether you're working for a protagonist or an antagonist.
226
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Or are you uh going through this club with a protagonist or an antagonist?
227
00:19:52,737 --> 00:19:55,029
Because that's a different decision grid.
228
00:19:55,029 --> 00:20:14,214
But what I learned as a young young employer was um the feedback a as it became
adversarial or kind of stressful, the feedback was really their issue.
229
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Like I I was responsible to give them the the feedback.
230
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It was their issue.
231
00:20:20,816 --> 00:20:23,138
Uh it was my responsibility.
232
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Like my responsibility is to give feedback.
233
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And if I didn't give them the feedback in a timely manner, it became my problem.
234
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Because it doesn't get better by not giving the person the input they needed.
235
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And that
236
00:20:42,654 --> 00:20:53,053
probably c I bet that cost me 20 sleepless nights as a young man because I I instead of
just dealing with the feedback, I I wouldn't kick the can down the road.
237
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And and what it does, it creates a lot of negative emotions, it creates a lot of
animosity, and it makes you, I think, less prepared to communicate smoothly and kindly.
238
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I think the longer you let the feedback loop go, I think
239
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probably you're you're not gonna communicate as well.
240
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I don't know.
241
00:21:12,626 --> 00:21:14,446
What's your experience with that?
242
00:21:16,008 --> 00:21:20,009
I guess my own personal experience is I'm just not very good with feedback.
243
00:21:20,110 --> 00:21:22,441
And it's something that I'd like to be better at.
244
00:21:22,441 --> 00:21:29,375
I think I'm better than I was five years ago, ten years ago, but but it's a it's a real
struggle.
245
00:21:29,375 --> 00:21:38,790
It's it's an art and it's a it's a um opportunity to know thyself and decide uh if you're
okay with with who you are.
246
00:21:39,196 --> 00:21:47,441
So I I think I think receiving feedback is incredibly difficult if people are honest with
themselves.
247
00:21:47,842 --> 00:21:57,789
And I don't really know anybody who's good at receiving feedback, but I know people who
have been better and better and are getting better.
248
00:21:57,789 --> 00:22:00,291
And so I think I think that's a trick.
249
00:22:00,291 --> 00:22:04,133
And then I think another trick is how do you deliver feedback?
250
00:22:05,395 --> 00:22:07,716
And Ed question is very good.
251
00:22:07,772 --> 00:22:09,753
Are you open to feedback?
252
00:22:09,773 --> 00:22:13,654
And most people, when they say are you open to feedback, what are they gonna tell you?
253
00:22:14,695 --> 00:22:16,355
They're gonna tell you yes.
254
00:22:16,832 --> 00:22:21,968
Well, they're gonna know they're gonna give you feedback before they say yes.
255
00:22:21,968 --> 00:22:25,110
The the their their body language is gonna sell out.
256
00:22:25,110 --> 00:22:25,990
For sure.
257
00:22:25,990 --> 00:22:27,981
Uh for sure.
258
00:22:28,601 --> 00:22:31,922
so so they're gonna they're gonna tell you no and yes at the same time.
259
00:22:31,922 --> 00:22:35,484
Uh but but I just I think
260
00:22:35,484 --> 00:22:42,906
The continuous relationship, the consistency in the relationship, that's where winning
really starts to happen.
261
00:22:42,906 --> 00:22:50,948
If there's some obvious stuff where a stranger can give you feedback, and they do all the
time, uh, they give you feedback.
262
00:22:50,948 --> 00:22:57,050
It my guess is uh in your quiet moments, you'll take it and you'll listen and maybe apply
it down the road.
263
00:22:57,050 --> 00:23:03,892
But the relationship feedback, normally, you know, those closest to you, those are the
most important.
264
00:23:04,354 --> 00:23:08,464
areas of feedback like with your spouse, with your kids.
265
00:23:08,464 --> 00:23:10,950
I mean, we're talking co-workers here.
266
00:23:10,950 --> 00:23:11,971
That's important.
267
00:23:11,971 --> 00:23:15,013
But but I I it all starts at home to me.
268
00:23:15,013 --> 00:23:17,435
Is am I open to Caroline's feedback?
269
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Ah, I'm getting better.
270
00:23:19,504 --> 00:23:22,699
It'd be interesting what what she would say.
271
00:23:23,420 --> 00:23:26,463
Well that I think that's part of feedback.
272
00:23:26,463 --> 00:23:31,026
I think there's some intentionality in those relationships.
273
00:23:31,567 --> 00:23:33,298
Like I'm assuming
274
00:23:33,316 --> 00:23:46,655
as a dad, there was some intentional direction you went leading your household and so so
because of some decisions you made how you wanted your family to move forward, there was
275
00:23:46,655 --> 00:23:47,946
necessary feedback.
276
00:23:47,946 --> 00:23:54,671
Whether they the boys were open to it or not, it was necessary feedback and and they maybe
didn't even appreciate it at the time.
277
00:23:54,671 --> 00:23:58,893
They may be 20 years or they appreciate the feedback, right?
278
00:23:58,896 --> 00:24:02,888
I I think I would encourage you if you're trying to
279
00:24:02,888 --> 00:24:12,784
ponder the idea of feedback, I I think you can, I think it's a learned skill and and you
can become better at feedback.
280
00:24:12,784 --> 00:24:19,288
And the the the shorter your feedback loop is, I think the more you're going to enjoy
life.
281
00:24:19,288 --> 00:24:25,201
Like the longer the communication cycle has to happen, the more your emotions are going to
be out of whack.
282
00:24:25,201 --> 00:24:30,246
The the probably the fewer people are going to want to be around you because nobody wants
283
00:24:30,246 --> 00:24:33,427
Nobody really gets to up in the morning and say, I'm gonna tell you you have pepper in
your teeth.
284
00:24:33,427 --> 00:24:37,688
And then if you bark at me because I told you you had pepper in your teeth, I'm not
telling you that again, right?
285
00:24:37,688 --> 00:24:40,119
I can so so how do you improve that?
286
00:24:40,119 --> 00:24:46,261
I say, first of all, that you need to learn what you do is not who you are.
287
00:24:46,261 --> 00:24:55,813
Because if you think what you do is who you are, when you get input about how you're doing
what you do, you think somebody's attacking who you are.
288
00:24:55,813 --> 00:24:59,174
And that's not true if somebody really cares about you.
289
00:24:59,558 --> 00:25:12,399
And then I think secondly, if I was going to give somebody an exercise about feedback, I
would find something to invest myself in that gives me feedback that I don't like.
290
00:25:13,260 --> 00:25:20,366
Um, like you and I trade in the stock market and we get feedback all the time we don't
like, right?
291
00:25:20,707 --> 00:25:26,672
And if we if we don't accept the feedback properly, uh it teaches us things.
292
00:25:28,328 --> 00:25:28,948
Yeah.
293
00:25:28,948 --> 00:25:37,750
We feedback from the stock or the market itself and and then feedback from the individuals
we're working for.
294
00:25:38,170 --> 00:25:39,111
Right.
295
00:25:39,111 --> 00:25:39,481
Right.
296
00:25:39,481 --> 00:25:52,974
And so the the idea of accepting the feedback comes in in any kind of thing, but finding
something that gives you negative feedback like that and allowing it to speak to you
297
00:25:53,114 --> 00:25:55,914
without a human telling you is probably a good exercise.
298
00:25:55,914 --> 00:25:58,278
It's just um
299
00:25:58,278 --> 00:26:01,519
Whatever like exercise gives you negative feedback, right?
300
00:26:01,519 --> 00:26:04,761
So that was that was gonna give that was gonna be my example.
301
00:26:04,761 --> 00:26:09,513
Anybody can go out and just do some exercise today and get some feedback instantly.
302
00:26:09,513 --> 00:26:10,293
Yeah.
303
00:26:10,293 --> 00:26:10,693
Yeah.
304
00:26:10,693 --> 00:26:16,976
And so it's both negative and positive, is that after I get it done, I'm like, man, I'm
glad I did that.
305
00:26:16,976 --> 00:26:25,840
And after I absorbed what you told me today, Doug, I can go home, walk in the woods and
go, Okay, that was really a good word that Doug gave me today.
306
00:26:25,840 --> 00:26:26,354
And
307
00:26:26,354 --> 00:26:30,016
the moment my shoulders might get tense and I might not appreciate it.
308
00:26:30,016 --> 00:26:40,632
But I think what you'll find in life is the more I can shorten that feedback loop, the
more I'm just gonna be able to live in the moment.
309
00:26:40,632 --> 00:26:48,236
But the more I have these open loops of feedback out there, they they tend to create
unnecessary stress.
310
00:26:49,116 --> 00:26:56,240
Yeah, I I I think another follow up question to ask yourself in your head is just what
what's the win win here?
311
00:26:56,478 --> 00:26:58,159
Like what do I really need to hear?
312
00:26:58,159 --> 00:27:00,731
Where do I need to be honest with myself?
313
00:27:01,092 --> 00:27:07,276
And uh and then how do I continue that loop back to the person who just gave me the
feedback?
314
00:27:07,756 --> 00:27:09,047
do I owe them an apology?
315
00:27:09,047 --> 00:27:13,781
Uh do I need to say, Hey, I am sorry, I was wrong there?
316
00:27:13,781 --> 00:27:16,903
Or is it, yeah, you know, thank you for that.
317
00:27:16,903 --> 00:27:19,328
I I I can see where you're coming from.
318
00:27:19,328 --> 00:27:23,464
And and so just not not closing the loop.
319
00:27:23,464 --> 00:27:28,586
When you close the loop, you you might lose the most important thing of the loop, and
that's the relationship.
320
00:27:29,366 --> 00:27:43,822
And and I I think that relationships are probably more valuable in 2026 than any time I
can remember because the more we integrate with entities that we could give feedback to,
321
00:27:43,822 --> 00:27:53,022
maybe it's a restaurant, maybe it's a home improvement organization, the it seems the more
and more that time evolves in the current
322
00:27:53,022 --> 00:28:03,417
culture that those entities are bigger and the bigger an entity is, the less um you
perceive that they even care about your feedback.
323
00:28:05,738 --> 00:28:13,482
And then if you don't have relationships that care about your feedback, then you can
almost internalize that to think that I don't even matter.
324
00:28:13,482 --> 00:28:17,444
And in some of those big organizations, you really don't, but
325
00:28:17,606 --> 00:28:23,469
somebody that will give you feedback and you can give it to I think that relationship
tells you that both of you matter.
326
00:28:23,469 --> 00:28:29,562
I care enough to let you know and you cared enough to have the conversation with me
without yelling and screaming at me.
327
00:28:30,163 --> 00:28:35,446
The driver's license or the Bureau of Motor Ve Vehicles, they have a a button that you
hit.
328
00:28:35,446 --> 00:28:36,527
Have you ever seen it?
329
00:28:36,527 --> 00:28:42,610
I have a uh a green smiley face or a red uh frowny face.
330
00:28:42,610 --> 00:28:46,792
And I always just kind of think in my head, what good does that really do?
331
00:28:46,832 --> 00:28:51,246
And so just just the way you treat people, I think, can have a huge effect.
332
00:28:51,246 --> 00:29:01,365
And and maybe if they get a thousand uh smiley faces and and two frowning faces, it's it's
like I don't know, I don't know what that means, like no pizza party or something.
333
00:29:01,365 --> 00:29:06,329
But but just given the time to say, hey, how's your day going?
334
00:29:06,329 --> 00:29:08,771
Uh, what's it like working here?
335
00:29:08,771 --> 00:29:14,456
I mean, th those are happy, happy faces that you can punch every time with very little
effort.
336
00:29:15,282 --> 00:29:22,957
I and you know a thing that's really helped me is realizing most people don't want
feedback.
337
00:29:23,578 --> 00:29:32,705
And and so I'm gonna be very specific when I give negative feedback because if somebody
doesn't want it, is it necessary for me to give it?
338
00:29:32,705 --> 00:29:36,327
And a lot of times the answer is no, it's absolutely not.
339
00:29:36,327 --> 00:29:43,052
And a place where it's really helped to my soul is when I've eaten at a sit-down
restaurant.
340
00:29:43,238 --> 00:29:45,140
And got below average service.
341
00:29:45,140 --> 00:29:52,536
Um my temptation is to give them a mediocre tip.
342
00:29:52,536 --> 00:30:04,267
But what I've evolved to is giving them a decent tip because what giving them a decent tip
does is it tells me I'm looking at them beyond what they did for me today.
343
00:30:04,267 --> 00:30:05,978
And I'm not going to hold a grudge.
344
00:30:05,978 --> 00:30:11,032
I'm going to just, it may cost me five or 10 bucks more to give them a decent tip.
345
00:30:11,048 --> 00:30:14,481
But I'm gonna walk away from the table, not affected by their poor service.
346
00:30:14,481 --> 00:30:17,954
And so there's that's part of a feedback loop.
347
00:30:17,954 --> 00:30:23,809
If I had a bad attitude, I just paid for a nice dinner and I'm gonna probably take it out
into the car and on my way home.
348
00:30:23,809 --> 00:30:25,781
And it was like, why would I do that to myself?
349
00:30:25,781 --> 00:30:29,403
Why not give myself some positive feedback by upping the tip?
350
00:30:30,305 --> 00:30:39,452
I can think of an another couple things, Keith, where, you know, being in this business
that you and I are in, uh, we serve several different types of personalities.
351
00:30:39,516 --> 00:30:50,396
And over the years, where I've had people who are 20, 30 years older than me when I was
first starting, tell me directly, hey Doug, we need you to do this.
352
00:30:50,396 --> 00:30:53,819
Uh, I always really appreciated that.
353
00:30:53,819 --> 00:31:01,616
I can think of a couple people specifically uh on the phone calls who said, Doug, we are
counting on you to do this.
354
00:31:01,616 --> 00:31:06,236
And what that did is that helped me clarify my aim of what I'm
355
00:31:06,236 --> 00:31:09,819
supposed to be and what I could be doing for somebody.
356
00:31:09,819 --> 00:31:25,532
And so so i if you are, you know, 80, 70, 60, 50, 40, and you're working with somebody
who's a little younger, uh, I would encourage you to just be really clear in your feedback
357
00:31:25,532 --> 00:31:32,518
because it's that clarity that can help give someone the permission to take what they're
doing to the next level.
358
00:31:33,839 --> 00:31:35,180
And I I think
359
00:31:35,762 --> 00:31:37,583
We were talking about it here earlier.
360
00:31:37,583 --> 00:31:44,698
I'm kind of a spaz about uh words and their meaning and choosing my words wisely.
361
00:31:44,698 --> 00:31:55,646
But I think the words and the tone that you use and give them feedback, it's probably
important because th there are there are positive words to give negative feedback to
362
00:31:55,646 --> 00:31:59,689
people and there's negative words to give the same one.
363
00:31:59,689 --> 00:32:03,902
But if you ponder a little bit before you give necessary feedback, I think
364
00:32:03,902 --> 00:32:06,144
the the word you choose can go a long way.
365
00:32:06,144 --> 00:32:13,399
And then uh another idea I think is that consideration of when do I give feedback.
366
00:32:13,399 --> 00:32:16,341
And I think seeking advice.
367
00:32:16,341 --> 00:32:21,085
Yeah, right when you're le right when you're leaving the office, 459.
368
00:32:21,085 --> 00:32:23,219
That's a great time to give some feedback on a Friday.
369
00:32:23,219 --> 00:32:25,208
That's great time to give some feedback.
370
00:32:25,208 --> 00:32:26,449
Negative feedback.
371
00:32:26,449 --> 00:32:26,719
Yeah.
372
00:32:26,719 --> 00:32:30,572
No, uh
373
00:32:31,044 --> 00:32:40,170
Like getting advice to give it, because we had an example here just uh two or three weeks
ago where a vendor of ours gave us horrible service.
374
00:32:40,511 --> 00:32:42,443
And you ask, should I call them?
375
00:32:42,443 --> 00:32:50,158
And my opinion was, yeah, I think if if we call them, that's the only way they're gonna
know that we got horrible service.
376
00:32:50,158 --> 00:32:58,374
And your your takeaway is they didn't really care, which is not necessarily unusual today,
but at least
377
00:32:58,584 --> 00:33:03,746
Um you cared enough to let them know that in that instance we didn't get very good
service.
378
00:33:03,806 --> 00:33:04,166
Yeah.
379
00:33:04,166 --> 00:33:07,848
And and one way to know if they care is if you hear back from somebody.
380
00:33:09,509 --> 00:33:10,489
Yeah.
381
00:33:10,709 --> 00:33:13,550
Well, I I can assure you this.
382
00:33:13,550 --> 00:33:15,911
As gimbal clients, we care.
383
00:33:15,911 --> 00:33:19,453
Um I I think we want some feedback.
384
00:33:19,453 --> 00:33:25,555
No, I know we want feedback because you just no.
385
00:33:26,864 --> 00:33:27,794
Yeah.
386
00:33:27,794 --> 00:33:29,845
Because it's what's made us better over the years.
387
00:33:29,845 --> 00:33:32,567
The more feedback we get, we know we improve.
388
00:33:32,567 --> 00:33:37,449
As much as it hurts, we we take it seriously and say, How can we improve this?
389
00:33:37,649 --> 00:33:50,516
Hey, Keith, I wanna I know we're in overtime here, but um and and a reason why feedback
can be very important to someone like me is we all have blind spots and we might think
390
00:33:50,516 --> 00:33:55,389
we're cruising just fine, or we might have these excuses in our head of why this or that.
391
00:33:55,389 --> 00:33:57,372
And so and so just like a car.
392
00:33:57,372 --> 00:33:59,033
you may not see it.
393
00:33:59,373 --> 00:34:05,186
And when someone points that out to you, uh, they could really save you from having a bad
accident.
394
00:34:05,186 --> 00:34:13,060
And so at Gimbal, we that's why we want feedback is is we know that, you know, we might be
missing some stuff.
395
00:34:13,060 --> 00:34:15,941
And we wanna we wanna be able to pay attention to it.
396
00:34:15,941 --> 00:34:21,464
And sometimes uh it's just a complete blind spot that has to be pointed out.
397
00:34:22,076 --> 00:34:30,336
And and what it ultimately does is if it's a common issue for us is we've learned to put
systems in place to help you.
398
00:34:30,336 --> 00:34:41,512
And I I can just off the top of my head remember a number of times where I got some very
negative feedback and it hurt my feelings, but we were able to put systems in place
399
00:34:41,793 --> 00:34:45,776
probably from 30 years ago that help our business run more smoothly today.
400
00:34:45,776 --> 00:34:50,320
So if I had just buried my head in the sand, I'd be getting that feedback probably still
today.
401
00:34:50,320 --> 00:34:50,780
And
402
00:34:50,780 --> 00:34:51,961
It's not necessary.
403
00:34:51,961 --> 00:34:55,102
It can really it can launch you into your future.
404
00:34:55,423 --> 00:34:57,474
Well, Doug, thanks for your thoughts on this area.
405
00:34:57,474 --> 00:35:03,248
I hope it's helpful to a number of people there and I hope everybody can just make the
most out of this weekend.
