372 Feedback is a B!T&H (But Helps You Grow Like Nothing Else!)
Turning Painful Feedback Into Entrepreneurial Growth
In this episode,Kelsey dives into one of the hardest lessons in entrepreneurship: learning how to receive feedback, especially the kind that STINGS.
She shares a personal story about getting tough feedback early in her career and how it nearly broke her but ultimately became a pivotal moment in her growth.
In this episode, we also chat about:
Why feedback often feels personal, and how to detach your worth from it
The difference between constructive feedback and unfiltered opinions
How to discern what feedback to keep and what to let go
Kelsey’s journey of being told she “sounded like a Valley girl”—and how it shaped her
How your energy suffers when you carry feedback that isn’t yours to hold
A reminder that when you put yourself out there, criticism is part of the deal
This episode is your pep talk on how to navigate feedback without losing your spark.
Timestamps:
[00:00] Why feedback is so hard for entrepreneurs (and why we need it anyway)
[00:59] Kelsey admits to avoiding feedback early on (no follow-up, no testimonials, no asking 😅)
[05:18] The first nerve-wracking training session + handing out feedback forms
[08:42] The shift: learning to separate opinions from constructive feedback
[10:53] How to discern feedback vs. opinion + protect your energy
[12:40] The mindset reframe: feedback as a tool, not your identity
To connect with Kelsey:
Access the transcript for this episode:
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Kelsey [00:00:00]:
Hey, visionaries, welcome back to a little mini episode. And I want to talk about something that is so freaking hard about being an entrepreneur and that is receiving feedback. Especially when it is feedback that you know you need to hear, that you have to be open to, but sometimes it rocks you to your core. Because not always are we in the mood to have people tell us how we can be better, what to do different. But if we are being so honest with ourselves, feedback is what makes us grow. Feedback is the recipe for continuing to get better and better and better. And I learn this lesson over and over every day because it is my nature to not want to ask for feedback. I spent years teaching a class and then just shutting down the webinar and not asking for feedback.
Kelsey [00:00:59]:
I would finish off with a client, hope that they got everything, and then never follow up to get a testimonial. I would put up the Instagram, post, press, publish, and just pray to God that it resonated. But what I was avoiding was getting the hard feedback that would eventually send me to the next level. So that's what I want to chat about today. My first question to you is, are you open to receiving feedback? And do you ask for it? One of the reasons why this topic came up is because I was recently chatting with one of my amazing clients and they told me that they got a piece of feedback in a speaking course that they were taking, that their voice was very monotone, that it kind of was just very stoic, flatlined, not, not a lot of intonation. And as this client was telling me the story about the course and what it was teaching them and how they got this piece of feedback, which is really hard to hear, I was reminded of one of the first situations where I got feedback that almost destroyed me, but that actually prepared me for a bigger, better future. So let's rewind a little bit about, let's say 10 years ago, I worked for a really large health food company here in Canada and it was called Vega. I started as a demo rep.
Kelsey [00:02:22]:
So I started from the bottom and I did it as part time hours. I would travel around to different grocery stores, put on my Vega shirt, and I would be one of the girls under the tent and I would say, hey, do you want to try a sample of Vega? I would show up, hand out samples, and try to convert people onto plant based protein, which was very new at the time of taking this job. At one point, about two years into being a demo rep, my boss, Michael, he decided to accept the same role in California and move and so his position was becoming available. And I remember him saying to me, kels, you should apply for this job. And I knew in my soul that this was the perfect job. So, anyways, I've told this story many times, but fast forward, I end up landing the role and. And about one to one and a half years into that job, which I loved more than anything, it was, like, the perfect job for me at the time. I remember getting a call from the education manager from British Columbia, and he called me and he said, kelsey, we had to let go your teammate who was the educator and public speaker and corporate trainer, and we'd like you to take on her role in addition to what you're already doing.
Kelsey [00:03:39]:
And when I thought about the girl, her name was Jessica. When I thought about taking over her role, I had this feeling of like, well, I'm not skilled to do that. Is it really appropriate to put me in a public speaking role? But I decided to jump into it anyways. So I'm telling you this to kind of share that my confidence was already a little bit not low, because I've always believed in myself, But I just wasn't sure that I could travel around Ontario and give talks and do trainings and teach workshops and add that into the mix, because really, my brain was focused on marketing and sampling and handing out product in order to sell more tubs of the protein powder. But alas, I said yes, I stepped into the role, and I remember going to one of my very first trainings. It was about two hours outside of Toronto. It was a group of health food and grocery store employees, and they were all sitting there, and I walk in, I'm prepared. You know, I'm gonna try my best.
Kelsey [00:04:38]:
Like, I'm new to this job, and I wasn't sure I knew all the ins and outs and the science around all the different ingredients, but I was just gonna make it up, right? I knew enough, and I would just roll with it. So I'm already a little nervous. I'm standing in front of a room full of people that I don't know if they want to be there or if they're being paid to be there. I get up, I do my talk, and I'm like, okay. At the end of the hour, it goes well. I did everything I could to make it enjoyable. And so I remember my manager had asked, hey, could you hand out feedback forms at the end of your session? And I would love to hear what everybody says about you just so we can help you along this journey of transitioning into this role. So I hand out the forms.
Kelsey [00:05:18]:
Everybody writes a form. They submit them back to me. And it was paper and pen at the time. Keep in mind, this is 10 years ago. And. And I wrap up the training, say goodbye to everyone, and I walk out to my Vega car. I had a branded bright green vehicle. I shut the door, and there's just, like, this little part of me that wants to read the feedback.
Kelsey [00:05:39]:
And I'm like, no, no, no. Like, don't do it. And I had that immediate resistance because I thought, what if someone said something negative to me? But I sat there a few more seconds, and I'm like, okay, no, I am gonna read it. So I dig my hand in, pull out one paper, unfold it. Great session. Exclamation mark. You know, a couple other comments. Okay, pull out the next one.
Kelsey [00:06:05]:
Enjoyed the session. Learned a lot. Felt like there could have been a bit more science shared about the ingredient profile. It's like, okay, yeah, sounds good. But, like, I knew I wasn't good at science, so that one didn't really offend me. Then I pull out the next one, and I. I open it. I'm like, all right, this isn't so bad.
Kelsey [00:06:26]:
Collecting feedback. I open it, and it says, horrible training. This girl sounds so much like a valley girl. Could barely listen. Her voice is annoying. I don't need to go on. Like, you can only imagine reading that about yourself when you've just delivered your first training in a new job. And, of course, that feedback, it shook me to my core.
Kelsey [00:06:53]:
I kind of knew it. Like, I know that my voice can be a bit up, down, and that's actually something that I kind of worked on at one point because I was delivering spin classes and becoming a spin teacher that year as well. And my instructor said, you can't talk. So in a monotone voice when you're teaching spin, like, you can't be like, okay, now we're gonna push really hard. Now we're gonna slow down. Like, you have to be like, okay, in three, two, one. Push. Sounds like someone giving birth.
Kelsey [00:07:26]:
But anyways, so I had gotten that feedback from my spin instructor that she's like, if you're monotone, nobody's gonna know when to go hard and when to let up. She said, I can't give you classes until you figure this out. So, you know, started to lean into my voice, and the voice is just such a weird thing, right? And I know that I have certain, like, speech things that I do and whatever. It's like, I'm not a public speaker by trade, although that is slowly becoming more of what I do. And now that I have had a podcast for eight years. But anyways, I just felt so gutted to read that because it almost validated something that I didn't really know. But at the same time, it. It almost felt like a stab at my soul.
Kelsey [00:08:06]:
And it wasn't constructive feedback, right? Like when you have someone's opinion given to you versus collecting feedback, it has a very different energy. An opinion is more like, that was stupid. I didn't like it. Constructive feedback could have been like, you know, great material. But I did find your voice very hard to listen to, the way you inflect or something like that. I don't know if there's a nice way to write what this person wrote to me, but I just started bawling. I bawled. I called my manager and I basically said, hey.
Kelsey [00:08:42]:
It went well. However, this is what I got on the other side of it. So to fast forward, of course, in my next 10, 20, 30 trainings, I kept that feedback in mind, that opinion rather. And what ultimately ended up happening was that I really do feel like I worked to improve my voice, to deliver in a more confident manner that maybe didn't have as much valley girl to kind of bring my voice back to me and to root into my power when I was speaking so that maybe I didn't sound so aloof. But at the same time, I recognize too, that opinions are just that. They are opinions. And when we put ourselves out there, this is the big, big thing that I feel so called to share with you guys today. When we put ourselves out there, expect there to be critics, expect there to be bad press, expect for people not to like you, expect for people to judge you.
Kelsey [00:09:42]:
Because if you're listening and you're someone who has a dream, you have a vision, you have goals, and you're going out of the ordinary life in order to launch a product, in order to build a brand, in order to make money in a way that's not showing up to a typical corporate job that that's going out of their way to create something from nothing. Maybe you are, you know, following a different path than your parents, your friends. You're going to get feedback and you are going to get opinions. And you can kind of expect that not everybody is going to resonate with what you do. Not everybody's going to have nice things to say, and that's okay. So what we can do is actually get really good at taking the feedback, receiving it for a moment, seeing if there's truth in it. But the big thing that I think we can all learn, especially as entrepreneurs, when we get feedback, when we get opinions, when something just hits us at the core, maybe someone decides to leave your membership, maybe somebody is not happy with their agreement that they originally signed with you. Maybe somebody is giving you bad energy.
Kelsey [00:10:53]:
This is not your burden to carry. It's not right. Take the feedback, take the opinion, take whatever that person thinks and say, thank you. I'm going to release this and not let it bog me down, you guys. Our energy is our most important asset. And when we hold on to people's opinions, when we hold on to things that we don't need to be holding on to, it makes us feel heavy. It actually makes us feel drained. And then we can't show up and do the work that we need to be doing.
Kelsey [00:11:24]:
So, you know, all that to say, getting feedback is so valuable. But work on that muscle of discernment between the constructive feedback and the non constructive feedback and really work on your relationship with it instead of having this long term relationship with holding on to feedback, good or bad, letting it define you, letting it dictate your worth, look at each piece of feedback, look at every single comment or testimonial or review that you've gotten and, and use it to make yourself better. But don't let it become your entire identity, because it's not. And truly only you know what the core of who you want to be is. And so when somebody is looking at your brand, when somebody, for example, the person in my training, when they are looking at me, they're looking at me from their lens, right? So they're casting their judgment onto somebody else. And anyone can have an opinion based on their lens, but at the end of the day, you have to sleep with you at night. So can you say, I did a good job, I am always trying to be better. I want to use that opinion or feedback to become better.
Kelsey [00:12:40]:
And if we can just stop outsourcing all that power to others, letting people drain our battery, so to speak, then I really do think that feedback can be a gift. There's a quote that says, feedback is the compass for greatness. I truly do believe that. And maybe this is a reminder to ask your community for feedback, but to not be afraid to read the bad stuff just as much as you're excited to read the good stuff. All right, you guys, I hope this helped. This is something that just been thinking about a lot lately and it really brought me back to those Vega days and little Kelsey who weeped in her car when she got told she was a Valley girl or sounded like a Valley girl. But, you know, feedback is something that I have used day after day on this eight year entrepreneurial journey to just get better, to improve, to evolve, and to hopefully continue to become my best self. For you, for me, for my family, and for the entire community.
Kelsey [00:13:39]:
All right, you guys, I hope you have an amazing day and we will chat soon.
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