From hurt to growth: Learning to listen to critics

To welcome criticism is undoubtedly the single most useful skill which I learnt at the age of nine from a Kabir doha.

निंदक नियरे राखिए, आँगन कुटी छवाय।
बिन पानी, साबुन बिना, निर्मल करे सुभाय॥

Keep your critic close. Give him shelter in your own courtyard. For without soap and without water, he still cleanses your character.

As a child, I was constantly compared to my elder brother. On almost every task, I was told his work was far superior to mine.

It stung. I believed I would never match him, no matter how hard I tried.

Then I met this doha in my Hindi class. And something shifted.

I stopped hearing criticism as an attack. I started hearing it as free instruction.

Every time someone pointed out a flaw, I would quietly note it, smile, and go work on it.

At IIT, my English was weak. I was laughed at in the mess, in the lounge, almost everywhere.

A senior even started calling me Devanand, because I would just keep smiling through it. But behind that smile, I was fixing every gap they mocked.
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The pattern held for decades.

At Clear Capital, Saurabh gave me brutally objective, constructive feedback. It turned me into a finance professional.

While building Dexter, hard feedback from early clients, teammates and candidates made the company sharper.

As a founder today, criticism arrives left, right and centre, every single day.

Only one thing has changed.

Earlier, I tried to act on every piece of feedback. Now I first ask whether it holds merit. Not every critique deserves to change you. But every critique deserves to be heard.

Here is what worries me.

I meet many bright young people who simply cannot take criticism. The moment feedback arrives, they read it as a personal, unjust attack. And it quietly caps them.

One of the sharpest people I worked with had exactly this block. I often think that if only he could absorb hard feedback calmly, his career would be in a completely different orbit.

The talent was never the problem. The thin skin was.

So here is my one appeal. Build this muscle. It is hard, but it changes everything.

Go listen to this doha on YouTube. Sit with it. And let a critic become the cheapest teacher you will ever have.