It's Not a Verdict. How to take criticism without letting it take you.

Why that one sentence stays

You may have a sentence like his, from a boss or from a stranger at a wedding. You let each compliment go as soon as you heard it, since you had nothing to answer. The criticism came with a question, whether it was true, and you have been going back to that question at one in the morning ever since.

It is a mechanism, and it works the same way in the people around you. You can interrupt it once you see it happening, and each chapter shows you where.

What you will be able to do

• Name the mechanismSee how you turn a four-second remark into a five-year recording, and how you hear "a bit safe," said by one client about one campaign, as a ruling on who you are.
• See how criticism reaches youThe ambush in front of nine people, and the vague remark about your "attitude" that names nothing you did and cost one man seven months of guessing.
• Control the expensive partWhat you do in the ten seconds and the eleven days afterward tends to cost more than the criticism that set it off.
• Use the counteroffensiveOne sorting question that takes about a minute to apply, then nine chapters on what to do next, from a ten-minute delay before you answer to a written record of your own work.