👣 Step 54: Feedback is a Puzzle

Feedback is crucial to improvement, and I’ve been seeking it in a lot of areas recently.

• Feedback on VibeTribe’s story, product, marketing, and monetization strategy (yep, that’s my app! Launching in November).
• Feedback on GoodPrints marketing approach, operations, and customer experience.
• Feedback on running and how I can reduce my ankle pain.
• Feedback on my 705 Presidency and how I can improve as a leader.

As I’ve thought about feedback, I’m reminded of a phrase I heard in Goodwill’s Senior Leader Program: All ideas are necessary.

That doesn’t mean all ideas are good. It means that they’re necessary in order to determine what is good.

I believe this applies to feedback as well.

You can give 1 situation to 10 people and get 20 perspectives with 30 pieces of feedback. And that's awesome! But what do you do with 30 pieces of feedback?

If you were building a puzzle, and you were just given 30 new puzzle pieces, would you automatically assume that they all fit the puzzle you're building?

Alex Hormozi has a quote that goes like this: “Give me a marker, a whiteboard, and 30 minutes, and I can destroy a company.”

All ideas and feedback are necessary. But they’re not all good.

It’s upon you - the leader, the creator, the person in the driver’s seat - to determine what is good and worth pursuing, what’s worth remembering for later, and what you can put to the side.

This is where discernment and taste come into play. When receiving feedback, you can logically think through these 5 steps:

1. Is this feedback well-intentioned and just?
2. When I put aside my ego, do I see their perspective? If not, do I need further information to do so?
3. Do I agree with their feedback?
4. Does this help me and/or those involved get closer to our desired outcome?
5. At the end of the day, do I want to incorporate this feedback into the situation at hand?

Once you’ve walked through these steps, the situation should be very clear. If the answer is “No” to any of Steps 1-4, move on. But if Steps 1-4 are all “Yes,” it’s up to you to decide: do you incorporate this feedback or not?

And that’s something only you can decide. Because you’re the person with the most context on yourself and the situation at hand. You're the one building the puzzle.

Discernment. Taste. Integrity. Vision.

What are you trying to do?

You should always seek out feedback. It’s necessary. And it’s a blessing when people give it to you.

But once you receive that feedback, it’s up to you to discern the correct action.

Because you’re the one with the whole puzzle. And everyone else is providing their puzzle pieces.

Which pieces fit?

See you next Thursday, Steppers.

We will succeed,

Grayson

​graysonstepanek.com​

​​​

Song of the Week:

rosier/punk2 brakence PREVIEW   ​

​Brakence is back after 4 years!! So of course I've relapsed on his music this week and have to highlight a song of his. While it'd be easy to choose any song off hypochondriac, I want to highlight rosier/punk2 - the song that hooked me on him. This song is just stellar, and his interpolation of Frank's White Ferrari melody is phenomenal. Coming out of quarantine, this album was the defining sound of returning to normal life while longing for what you've lost and can't get back. I can't wait for the music he drops next.