Yesterday, after what felt like a very successful Lewes Leadership Lunch (L3), I received a text message from one of our members.
“Can I give you some constructive criticism?”
Before I go any further, let me offer a piece of feedback about feedback:
Please don’t start there.
If you want to help someone improve, don’t lead with criticism.
- Lead with curiosity.
- Lead with care.
- Lead with a desire to help them succeed.
When I received the text, I immediately picked up the phone and called him.
“Give me what you’ve got,” I said.
What followed was a version of the classic feedback sandwich: something positive, something negative, and then something positive again.
The negative was this:
“After you interviewed a guest speaker on stage, I thought about not returning because it was too much Misti.”
Now, if you know anything about my history, you’ll understand why that statement could have landed hard.
Growing up, one of the messages I internalized was that I was too much.
- Too curious.
- Too intense.
- Too talkative.
- Too emotional.
- Too interested.
- Too nosy.
Twenty years ago, that feedback might have crushed me.
Yesterday, it didn’t.
Not because it felt good.
It didn’t.
But because I’ve done enough work on myself to separate feedback from identity. Instead of arguing, defending, or withdrawing, I asked questions.
“What do you mean by too much Misti?”
“What specifically could I have done differently?”The interesting thing was that he couldn’t really tell me.
He kept coming back to the same phrase.
“Less Misti.”
And that’s when I remembered something important… Most people don’t know how to give feedback.
They’re trying to help.
They genuinely care.
But they often don’t have the language to describe their experience in a way that is useful to the other person.
There’s a big difference between:
“You’re too much.”
And:
“I preferred the format when the guest speaker spoke more because I learned more from his stories.”
One is a judgment.
The other is information.
One could have easily left me wondering what’s wrong with me, while the other gives me something I can actually consider.
But there was another lesson hiding underneath all of this.
The truth is, I wasn’t in a great place to receive feedback.
I was tired.
I wasn’t feeling well.
My co-founder had recently stepped away from L3, creating uncertainty about the future.
I was carrying frustration and disappointment.
And if I’m being completely honest, I was craving appreciation.
Running L3 requires a tremendous amount of work behind the scenes.
Most of that work goes unseen.
Most of it goes unacknowledged.
I had even asked my wife, Yvette, to help me with my need for appreciation. 
She did her best. Then she asked me a question that irritated me.
“Are you doing this for the applause?”
The answer, of course, is no. But that doesn’t mean appreciation doesn’t matter.
When Yvette cooks a meal, she appreciates being thanked. Not because she cooks for the applause, but because acknowledgment matters.
To all of us.
What I’ve learned from this experience is that giving feedback and receiving feedback are two completely different skills.
If you’re giving feedback:
- Ask permission.
- Choose the right time.
- In my experience, very little good comes from hard feedback late in the day when people are tired, depleted, and trying to shift into the rest of their lives.
- Describe your experience rather than diagnosing the other person.
- Be specific enough that the person can actually do something with what you’re sharing.
- Make sure your intention is to help, not simply to criticize.
The goal of feedback isn’t to tell someone what’s wrong.
The goal is to help them succeed.
If you’re receiving feedback:
- Get curious.
- Ask questions.
- Separate the feedback from your identity.
- Look for what might be useful, even when the feedback is poorly delivered.
- Resist the urge to defend yourself before you fully understand the other person’s experience.
- Remember that not all feedback is instruction. Sometimes it’s simply information about someone else’s experience.
If the feedback isn’t clear, ask:
- “Can you give me an example?”
- “What specifically could I do differently?”
- “What impact did that have on you?”
The goal isn’t to decide whether the feedback is right or wrong.
The goal is to understand it well enough to determine whether there’s something valuable inside it.
Sometimes there is.
Sometimes there isn’t.
And sometimes the greatest lesson isn’t in the feedback itself, but in how you choose to receive it.
In the end, I’m grateful for the conversation. Not because I agree with all of it, or because it was delivered perfectly, but because every piece of feedback offers an opportunity to learn something.
Sometimes you learn about your work.
Sometimes you learn about the person giving the feedback.
And sometimes you learn something important about yourself.
Here’s your greatness,
Misti Burmeister
Misti Burmeister is a leadership communication expert who helps founder-CEOs and senior leaders build trust, strengthen accountability, and create ownership through courageous conversations and human-centered leadership. Her work focuses on helping leaders notice what others miss in human dynamics so they can communicate in ways that help people succeed — not just comply.