Feedback Is a Gift—But Only If You’re Ready to Hear It

Why learning to accept feedback—from the market, the gym, or your peers—might be the most underrated edge in investing and personal growth.

When my portfolio moves sharply in one direction or another, I sometimes wonder: is the market trying to tell me something? Are these price signals feedback? As investors, it's easy to get caught up in performance and miss the subtler lessons. But interpreting feedback—especially over the long term—requires patience, humility, and a clear view of the difference between luck and skill.

Interestingly, this topic came up recently—not during a market review, but during a dodgeball game.

Real-Life Example #1: Dodgeball and Team Dynamics

One of the dodgeball teams I play on is full of first-timers. We're doing okay, but there's a lot of room to improve. I’m (very) competitive by nature, so naturally, I want to win. Sometimes my intensity overshoots the vibe of the game—but that's a topic for another post.

At halftime during one game (we were trailing by a lot), the team started discussing how we could do better. The feedback was mostly self-focused: “I need to catch more” or “I should throw harder.” No one was thinking in terms of team strategy.

Then they asked me what I thought. I said, “Do you want to win, or do you want to just have fun?” Everyone said they wanted to win. So I followed up: “If that’s the case, are you open to hearing a few things we could do better as a team?” Again, the answer was yes.

I started by offering some self-reflection, then gave specific, constructive feedback to each player. I was polite, even gentle. Still, about a third of the group didn’t take it well. Despite their effort, they couldn’t admit that what they were doing wasn’t working.

This happens in investing too. We try hard. We research deeply. But sometimes, we’re still wrong—and it’s hard to admit that.

Real-Life Example #2: Powerlifting and Some Much Needed Feedback

In powerlifting competitions, you must complete at least one valid squat, bench press, and deadlift to post a total. If you don’t, you “bomb out.” I’ve seen lifters train for months, travel across the country to compete—and bomb out due to poor planning or technique.

The most common mistake? Failing to squat to depth. Often the lifter thinks they're hitting depth during prep, but video replays (and competition judges) say otherwise. The painful part? These same lifters are posting prep videos online, showing the exact issue they’re ignoring.

In this scenario, both the lifter and the coach are responsible. But I get it—if you don’t know someone personally, you’re probably not going to tell them their squat doesn’t count. Feedback is only useful when it’s welcome.

Why Is Feedback So Hard to Accept?

We say we want feedback—but we often struggle to receive it. I’m not talking about unsolicited advice from random people at the gym (we all know that guy). I mean situations where we explicitly ask for input, but then resist what we hear.

I have a few possible reasons

• We are caught off guard. Sometimes, our superiors have to offer us improvements or a friend may want to tell you something you did. But it’s too in-the-moment for you to properly hear them. This happened to me many times while walking down a hall at work.

• Our ego is in the way. If we don’t check our ego, then we have a hard time being less than stellar at something that we think we are good at. This can create a bit of an identity crisis.

• The source matters. The person can be too direct or blunt. We are all capable of not being able to hear someone who is too direct. Sometimes we need someone to be firm and other times a bit softer. For me, I take parenting very seriously, so I can’t hear someone who is direct with me. I need a bit more of a delicate approach. For cooking, which is something I don’t have as part of my identity, you can talk to me like a trucker.

• The source matters. Just like your kids can’t always hear the same advice from you that they’ll accept from a coach or teacher, we filter feedback by the person delivering it.

• It can trigger a downward spiral. Poor feedback timing—especially when we’re already in a slump—can bleed into other parts of life. I’ve had rough lifting sessions during market drawdowns. I’ve had great ones too, but bad timing compounds the hit.

How I Try to Take Feedback Better

I remember when I was cutting my teeth as a first time manager how hard it was for many people to get the “meets expectations” on their performance review. I vividly remember two instances when the meeting got so heated that one person cried and the other yelled at me. I have no idea what was happening for those workers at that time. I was so young and naive. And I know I would approach things so differently. I would treat it as more of a conversation and less of a box to tick off. Live and learn.

I can tell this story and sound like I’m someone who can take feedback. Well, I’m not better than anyone else at taking feedback and digesting it. I have an ego. I have times when I ask for feedback on something, but what I really want is someone to tell me that I literally have done every last thing possible to stack the deck in my favor and the poor outcome is just bad luck or bad genetics or whatever.

Having said all this, here is what I do when I am looking for feedback.

• Get honest with myself. Do I want critical feedback or do I want some praise? If it’s the latter, then I won’t ask “what do you think of my squat?” instead I would say “look how far my squat has come”.

• Be specific with the person I’m asking. If I want feedback, I want to keep it specific. It helps me process and digest what has been said. If I ask someone “Do you think I am a good listener?” I have to be prepared for all sorts of answers based on that person's experience with me and their mood in the movement. Instead I would ask something like “do you think I was present during that teacher meeting?”

• It’s ok to disagree. I put out my investment ideas in public. Not everyone is going to agree with them. My batting average isn’t stellar anyways.

• Be mindful of who I am asking. I love my kids to pieces, but I won’t ask my 14 year old son for feedback on my investment ideas. Or ask my 9 year old how my driving is. This is why I advocate for people to have mentors for their interests. Yeah social media helps, but there is nothing like a dedicated subject matter expert to give you honest feedback. It also helps me compartmentalize my various interests and reduce mental clutter.

• Be kind to myself. Like everyone, I can be my own worst critic. This is so true for so many of us. We are so hard on ourselves. We want perfection or pretty darn close to it. Anything else is failure. This mindset can drive you to do some pretty fantastic things, but it can also be toxic leading to a pass/fail mentality. You likely don’t appreciate the process and only the outcome if you are always seeking perfection.

• Understand the context. Accepting that feedback looks different for different things. I love lifting. Specifically barbell movements. In powerlifting you made the lift or didn’t. There is no “kind of” at a meet. In investing (particularly my style) the feedback loop is long and murky. In investing, you can be wrong for 18 months then be right in a week. It helps to premortem things and make quit criteria. But I won’t lie, this game is more art than science.

• Reduce other mental clutter. I am a person that can’t take feedback properly if I am having a bad day. So if my mental health isn’t where it needs to be, I focus on improving that before trying to improve something. I have made the mistake of getting some critical feedback on something when I have a low mood. All it did was have me doom spiral downward. Not overly productive.

As Ian Cassel once said (paraphrasing): Don’t take advice from someone who hasn’t done what you want to do.

Closing Thoughts

I’m not naturally good at taking feedback—but I’m trying to get better. It’s a lifelong skill that pays off in everything from lifting, to investing, to life.

How about you? How do you handle feedback—especially when it's uncomfortable?

Let me know in the comments.

Thanks again for reading my work.

Dean