Elon Musk is nuts. Nuts in the way that he does seemingly impossible things, and he expects nothing less from others. But damn, does he get things done. Huge, massive, interplanetary type things.
And one of the things that makes Elon Musk so successful is that he actively seeks out negative feedback. He pays close attention to it, and especially from those closest to him (Here at 18:45).
He says that barely anyone does that. And if Elon Musk is telling you to do something barely anyone does, that he does, about something so fundamentally important to success (feedback), it’s a good idea to listen.
I got 2 pieces of negative feedback today. One about my writing and one about my belief in routines and habits and whether they work.
I could’ve:
a) taken the feedback badly and thought, ‘You know what… Fuck you. I know what I’m doing. I’m right, you’re wrong.’
or
b) I could take it on board, not react and value it for what it is: feedback. And all feedback is valuable in some way.
My automatic reaction, programmed from the past was ‘a’… but after about a second it turned to ‘b’. Thinking ‘what would Elon Musk do in this situation?’ works.
Maybe all feedback is good feedback, because it gives you live reference points as to what people like, what they don’t and how you can keep getting better. And getting reactions might mean you’re doing something significant.
Aim to be polarising, aim to divide opinion. That’s much better than silence.