5 Ways To Deal With Criticism | Marisa Peer EP 210

0:00Hi, my name is Lewis Howes and welcome to the Daily Motivation show.

0:10I firmly believe that taking charge of your mindset allows you to be in the driver's seat of your life and unlock your potential. And that's why I'm thrilled to share that my new book is out right now. It's called The Greatness Mindset. In it, you'll learn how to build a plan for greatness through powerful exercises and toolkits designed to propel your life forward. This is the book that I wish I had 20 years ago. It's everything I've learned in the last decade with the research and the science to help you unlock your mind. Make sure to go to lewishouse.com slash 2023mindset to pick up your copy of my book, The Greatness Mindset, today.

0:53How do you praise yourself? Well, you get out in the morning and go, I'm a good person. I have a skill. I have a talent. I have something to offer the world. I'm here for a reason. And we all want to hear the same stuff. I love you. I'm proud of you. You're interesting. And, you know, the most important thing is you like you. So whatever you wanted to hear, say it to yourself because your mind doesn't even know. And also it doesn't care. Your mind doesn't care if what you tell it is right or wrong or true or false. Words are very nourishing. And there is actually nothing on the planet that will raise your self-esteem like praise.

1:30But self-praise is better. I said to you, I just adore you. You're amazing. By the way, you know, can you do this and this and this? I've manipulated you. But if I say it to myself, my mind knows there's no manipulation and the mind likes repetition. And when you say it every day, your mind kind of goes, oh, yeah, here you go again with that phrase. You say it every day. It must be true. And now it sinks in. The problem is if you criticize yourself every day, it says the same thing. as well and that hurts you it's interesting because you know the the big talents that commit suicide or die all these individuals who have the world praising them yeah they weren't able to praise themselves yeah they and they don't let it in yeah it doesn't matter if everyone else acknowledges you yeah it does matter but you have to be willing to acknowledge yourself as well right and the familiar unfamiliar if praise is unfamiliar but criticism is familiar when you say to someone like robin Williams, oh my God, that last show was funny.

2:26He goes, didn't you notice? I left out the business. I fluffed a word. It wasn't as good as the one before. So if you're not used to praise, you'll reject it. And if you're used to criticism, you'll add it in. So if we haven't got praise, we actually reject it. And you just have to say to yourself, I'm going to make this familiar. I'm going to praise myself every day. It might feel weird, but I'll keep doing it. You can make anything familiar or unfamiliar. and my advice to everyone is look at your bad habits and make them unfamiliar and look at what you want especially praise and make it familiar more so because if you've got a startup or you're working for yourself the days of a boss going well done good job pat on the back are over and you have a praise muscle and no one's going to build it up except for you but if you build it up it makes you bulletproof yeah at an early age I was afraid of a lot of things yeah I was afraid to talk to girls as a 12 year old i was afraid of speaking in public i was afraid of dancing i was afraid of all these things right and i got so sick and tired of being afraid that i just said i'm going to give myself a challenge every day you know when i had a when i was afraid of girls i was like every time i see a girl that gives me butterflies i'm going to go up to them and start a conversation and it's terrifying and i'm sweating and i'm stumbling upwards and people rejected me the first few times, but I just kept doing it until the girl said, Hi, nice to see you.

3:54And you give a little confidence until, you know, by the end of the summer, when I was a teenager, it was like, every girl was talking to me. Of course. And I tell people, you've got to embrace the fear until the fear disappears. It's similar with the feelings. Feel the feelings. Feel the feelings. It no longer requires to be felt. That's great. Because what you're really describing so eloquently is you had a massive fear of rejection talking to girls, speaking in public, asking... Doing enough. Yes, someone asking to implore you or pay you. And so we know innately that our survival on the planet is linked to not being rejected.

4:28And not that long ago you would have died from rejection. You know, in a thousand years ago when they banished you outside the walls of the city or you marooned a difficult sailor. So we have a wiring that says rejection will kill me. And that's why you had the fear. But when you can dialogue with the other, you can go, no, it feels like it will kill me. It can't kill me because no girl can reject me unless I give her my permission. But when you say you can't reject me, I can't be rejected because the only person you can reject me is me. You can talk to girls realizing even if they say, no, you're not my type, I'm with someone, no thanks.

5:08Or even, ew, not no, they can only reject you if you let that in. We don't die of rejection anymore, but we still feel like we will. But we don't let it in. We have to laugh about it. So if everyone's giving you negative feedback or critical feedback, how does someone not let it affect them? So the first thing to say is, thanks for sharing that. And it's very good for the little barbs we get from people. If someone is really mean and says, you know, I listened to your talk on YouTube. Oh my God, you stank up the place. I was embarrassed for you. then you go back and you say, I missed that, could you repeat that for me?

5:47Slowly. They will usually not bother because they know that in you asking them to repeat it slowly, you're going to call them out on it. So saying, could you repeat that slowly, is giving the person a chance to retract. They almost always do, but occasionally they'll come back and go, no, I just said you're so wooden as a speaker, as an insult to wood. And then you have your third reaction, which is, oh, are you trying to make me feel bad about myself? Amazing, they usually go, no, no, me. No, I thought I should tell you how bad you are because you need to get help or never speak in public again.

6:22When you're being bullied at school, if you said, they go, yeah, I really am, I want to hurt you. That's the point. Bullying is just dominating. It's a bit like a seesaw. The bully feels there at the bottom and you're above them and they can only diminish you or embellish themselves to be above you on this little seesaw. And so when someone says, yes, I am trying to hurt your feelings, you simply reply, well, it's not going to work because I'm not letting that in. And the fifth stage is to say, particularly with adults, like if you have a bullying coworker, do you know, since we're sharing here, you do know, don't you, that people who are critical have so much criticism reserved for themselves, they actively dislike themselves.

7:05and you're actually showing me and the entire office that you really don't like yourself. Critical people always have criticism reserved for themselves. They are full of self-criticism, but they reflect it out. And superior people and happy people always praise, and people who feel inadequate always criticize, because criticize withers you, and praise builds you up. And if you can use those five techniques, thanks for sharing. Could you repeat that? Are you trying to hurt my feelings? won't work, I'm not letting it in. Since we're sharing, did you know what is running your critical behavior? You don't let it in.

7:42And being able to not let in criticism, that too will change your life.

8:07Thank you so much for listening to today's episode of The Daily Motivation, and I hope you have an amazing rest of your day. If you enjoyed this episode, make sure to click the link in the description. That will take you to the full episode of our main podcast on The School of Greatness. And if you are loving The Daily Motivation, please follow us over on Apple Podcasts and Spotify and leave us a review over on Apple Podcasts right now. And if you want more exclusive content and ad-free listening experience, make sure to subscribe to our Greatness Plus channel on Apple Podcast right now. And if you want to get even more inspiration from our world-class guests and learn how to improve your life and take it to the next level, then make sure to sign up for the Greatness newsletter and get it delivered right to your inbox over at greatness.com slash newsletter.

8:57Again, have an amazing day, and I'll see you tomorrow with another episode of the Daily Motivation Show.