What's one of the most powerful forces of the universe?
Long time ago I took this certification class to learn how to teach English.
It was in Thailand, and the course was set up with students learning English, students learning how to teach English, and instructors teaching teachers how to teach to students.
Now if you've ever given a speech, it's pretty nerve wracking. But this was a lot worse.
You had to plan a really tight lesson. Every five minutes had to be accounted for. The instructor had to check it before you taught your lesson.
Then while you taught your lesson, the students would participate as best they could. The other teachers (who were learning to teach) sat behind them, taking notes on your teaching method. The instructor also was taking notes.
Then after your lesson was over (usually 30 or 40 minutes) they all sat around and critiqued your lesson. Good points. Bad points.
Needless to say, this was pretty brutal at the beginning. It was a month long course, eight hours a day. About 40 people started, and only about 20 finished.
But about halfway through the course, something interesting happened.
The positive feedback that I got (usually from the other students) was generally pretty vague. "Nice job! Great rapport! They really liked it!"
But the negative feedback was pretty specific, and usually came from the instructor.
I remember one session, after the students had given me their feedback (all positive) and the professor started giving me her feedback (which so far was pure positive) I started to get worried.
I was worried that I wasn't going to get any negative feedback.
Because by then, I had learned from hands on, day to day experience that the ONLY WAY I really improved was through negative feedback.
Which made me MUCH more bold when I was teaching. I figured if I tried different stuff, (and messed up) I'd get a lot more feedback that I could actually USE to improve myself.
And THAT is the powerful force I alluded to earlier.
Feedback. Not just positive feedback (All right! Good job!) but the absolutely CRUCIAL negative feedback.
When you get to the point in life where you openly embrace negative feedback (which some people call "failure") then you KNOW you're on the path to inevitable success.
Most people are too terrified to even consider this.
What about you? Are you ready to embrace the TRUTH about your abilities?
Are you ready to recognize what you can really do?
Are you ready to embrace ALL feedback, and let it be your propulsion to success?
Check it out if you are:
In college, I had professors who gave me dreaded multiple guess quizzes on trivia related to the course. I usually did miserably in those quizzes because I didn't memorize stuff that wasn't important. However, I never forgot a wrong answer and that paid off at the end of the course when these lazy professors would give a final exam using the same questions from the multiple guess quizzes and I would invariably get every question right because I learned from my earlier mistakes.
Here on AD we have a lot of schmoozers who always say "nice, meaningless things" about other author's work. I try to give my best opinion when commenting and try to correct simple mistakes that many authors make in their writing. For the most part, they like my criticism. But there are those exceptions who may think that I'm nitpicking, tooting my own horn too much, or being downright mean.
Ron