The Power Of Feedback

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“Feedback is the breakfast of champions.” – Rick Tate

The world is constantly giving us feedback to let us know what is going right, and what is going wrong.

Your financial status is a feedback, your health condition is a feedback, your body weight is a feedback, the condition of your relationship with your spouse is a feedback, and so on.

If you don’t close enough sales for the month, that is feedback. If you fall sick, that is feedback. If you sleep late and wake up feeling lethargic the next day, that is feedback. If you don’t enjoy what you’re doing, that is feedback.

Feedback can be very important source of information. It is the real world trying to tell us which aspects of our life are not in order so that we can work on them, and also which aspects are in good shape so we can keep doing the same thing or fine tune slightly to make them better.

However, the problem is we do not pay enough attention to all these feedback. What’s worse is, when the feedback turns out to be negative, we choose to ignore or deny the feedback.

Successful people are never afraid to face negative feedback. They don’t turn away from negative feedback. They don’t let negative feedback defeat them. They are always brave enough to embrace whatever feedback they receive to help them rise to the next level.

Failure is one form of feedback. And it is the most powerful form of feedback to help you grow to become a better, wiser and richer person.

Successful people have a habit of perceiving their failure as feedback to improve or change their strategy so that they can do things better or differently the next time round.

Story of a Multi-Millionaire

Sim Wong Hoo, the founder of Creative Technologies, is one such person who never failed to listen to feedback and eventually built a world-class company from scratch.

Sim founded Creative Technologies during the 80s with $6,000. His first product was the Cubic CT, which was the world’s first multimedia PC.

Unfortunately, the Cubic CT was a complete failure! The company lost a lot of money because of that failure.

But Sim, like all successful people, took the failure as feedback that his product was too complex and costly for the market at that time.

In fact, he went through many rounds of ‘failure’, each time listening to the feedback and changed his strategy over and over again until he came up with the idea of a low cost music card which he called the ‘Sound Blaster’.

When the ‘Sound Blaster’ was launched, it became an instant hit. It became a best-selling PC card and the worldwide industry’s standard for multimedia PCs.

Subsequently, in 1992, Creative Technologies became the first Singapore company to be listed on NASDAQ, turning Sim into a multi-millionaire.

In Summary

In order to become a better, smarter, richer, and happier person, you need to consciously pay close attention to your own feedback for they could make or break you.

Never turn your back on your feedback. And never let the negative feedback defeat you. Face them with courage. Face them fearlessly. Better still; be proactive to seek more feedback instead of waiting for them to come to you.

Ultimately, regardless of whether you like it or not, if you have the courage to listen to and learn from your feedback, you will succeed.

Cheers~

P.S. How have you used feedback to your advantage in your personal and professional life? I’d love to hear your stories in the comments section.

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