“So, what did you do with that feedback?”

This week I asked an Engineer "So, what did you do with that feedback?"

"Nothing" he said.

Early in my corporate career I heard this perspective "Feedback is a gift" but honestly I didn't know what to do w it. I grew up poor where gifts were not a norm. I don't need presents at Christmas to feel how much people love me.

Yet I was curious about what importance it carried for those who gave gifts.

What was I not knowing?

I discovered gifts were a representation of how others saw me, my desires, my needs & my life.

Feedback fits this representation, too.

We look in the mirror every day to check for spinach in our teeth.

Wouldn't we want to look at how others see us today? Not to judge them but to take out the "spinach"?

I am in a challenge called 100 Powerful Conversations with 100 Interesting Engineers. And sometimes they take out their own mirrors and take a good look at the person looking back at them.