Season 7 Episode 2

As creators, we need honest and useful feedback. This is critical to our success and growth.

In this episode, I will cover a topic that I've probably touched on before, but it's always something worth repeating. That is to find good critics for your work, whatever that work may be.

This is not as easy as you may think, because I'm sure many of us, if not all of us, show our work to friends and family. Because we're proud of it and we always ask them for feedback.

But the problem is that you’re not always going to get the feedback you need. By that, your friends and family want to be kind to you, right?

They don't want to turn around and say, Oh, this is terrible. Why did you bother? I don't get it. This is just a complete waste of time. They will tell you that they believe it's fantastic or good. They will be kind to you because they don't want to tell you that your work sucks.

We all need that. And thank you, friends and family, for your support.

However, the problem is, as creators, what we also need and perhaps what we benefit from the most, is critical, feedback reviews, and suggestions.

If someone says, that's just terrible. Why did you bother? Okay. Maybe they're right. But I'm thinking more along with the terms of when folks say. This is great, but I'm not sure about this bit. I'm not sure if that works. What's going on there. Maybe you could do this better. Perhaps you could phrase it better. Maybe you could write it better. Perhaps the color choices aren't quite correct.

That is what I mean by critical and constructive feedback. That's what we need. That is where we grow the most, not only as creative content makers but also in our way of seeing things. We take on board those criticisms or those critical reviews. And we learn from them.

Next time we do something similar, maybe that voice in the back of our head is repeating some critical advice we've had in the past that has helped us grow. And we do a better job.

Yes, it can be tough to take and demoralizing. It sometimes makes you think, why do I bother? That initial negative feeling you get from this kind of feedback.

But I'm betting if you just let that feedback come in, sit back for a while, chew on it. Then come back a couple of days later, you're going to look at it and go, you know what, maybe that feedback is correct? Perhaps it makes a lot of sense. Yeah, perhaps I should try that.

If everybody is saying it's fantastic or saying it's terrible, it's probably not the correct feedback. Probably not accurate because you can't have something that's either perfectly wonderful or dreadfully terrible. So it's going to be that gray area in between that you are looking for.

When I'm looking to purchase on a website, I'm not looking at the one or five stars. I know that gray area in the middle; those three stars are where the honesty is.

Those are the reviews that I'm going to read, because it's saying to me, look, there are good and bad things about this product. That's what I need to know.

As a content maker and an app maker, especially, look to those reviews in the middle; those three stars are probably the truthful ones where folks have said, look, it's not the greatest thing in the world, but here's some stuff I like about it.

So I want to put that out there in this episode. Give you something to chew on, something to think about, and Hey, you know what? I need your feedback too.

So please, I would love your feedback and reviews on this podcast and your thoughts to know where I'm at with this and can take on board the very advice that I'm presenting to you here.

You can leave a review for the podcast at https://lovethepodcast.com/tlc.

Thank you.

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