Valid and Invalid Criticism

In the way of getting to your target, you’ll also get to interact with people who’ll provide you valid and invalid criticism. This will test you, will provoke even those matters that you believe you’ve settled. And of course, you’ll have to figure out ways of differentiating good and irrelevant criticism. If you’re lucky, you’ll receive criticism that will change you for the better.

The Trouble with Unprovoked Hostility

What will be truly troublesome will be those who’ll demotivate you for no reason at all. They’ll simply tell you that you’re not worth your target. That everything you know about yourself and everything others have told you isn’t right, and they know that you’re not meant for it. Sometimes they might present this under the guise of goodwill, sometimes under feedback-sounding statements, and at times, they might just present it as-is, with no reasoning at all.

I am reminded of this person who once interviewed me. Right at the start of the interview, he asked my current and expected CTC. Then he continued to grill me throughout, taking my sentences and twisting them around unnecessarily. I battled through the interview, making myself clear as many times as needed, with as much politeness as I could. Towards the end of an hour-long tussle, he asked, “You think you deserve this much money? Who’ll give you this much money?”

To this, I proceeded with telling him my thought-through reasons for why I deserve that much money, and also that several companies were ready to offer it, based on my market research. He listened with an insulting indifference, and at the end of it, with a nasty smirk, said, “All the best with that,” and disconnected.

The next thing I did was ask myself, “Had I done anything to piss this person off?” I couldn’t find one.

I looked through that man’s LinkedIn profile. His experience (close to two decades), his org, and his network—one could say that he must be getting paid heavily. His contacts included several other senior executives, some with moderate celebrity-hood on LinkedIn. He himself was followed by close to 10k people, a considerably good number.

But I couldn’t find a reason why this person would come after me. Why would he tell a young aspirational guy something so harsh, that too for a reasonable demand?

Coping with Hostility and Moving Forward

I remained affected by this experience for a few days. This was my first experience of such unprovoked hostility from a senior interviewer. I’d heard this from recruiters, pre and post-interviews. I’d experienced some level of hostility in interviews as well. At times, I could figure out the reason for it. But in this case, I remained clueless. I spent the next few days questioning myself, “What if he’s right?” “How wrong can such an experienced executive be?” “What did I do wrong?”

This pushed me into tweaking some of my responses, editing my CV, and even reaching out to a couple of my well-wishing seniors, who validated my skillset and advised me not to take this negativity to heart. Of course, it didn’t work, because I was adamant about trying to “understand” the reason behind this.

Over the course of my next interviews, I came across a few more such people. During my next switch, a few more. And slowly, I got used to the fact that some people, for no reason at all, will demotivate you. They will tell you that you don’t deserve what should be rightfully yours. Your responses, your attempts at convincing them won’t work. In fact, they might end up pissing them off further. And any attempt to “understand” their behavior will only be a waste of time.

Defenses Against Meaningless Negativity

But it is important to acknowledge this behavior and understand the impact such people can have on you. They can trigger unnecessary doubts and insecurities. Like me, you too can be left troubled, for no reason, impacting your performance in the next steps of reaching your target.

Your only defense against such people is to prepare well enough to trust your abilities, having systems that validate your skills (like doing POCs, taking up projects, or writing your view on a topic in depth and detail), and most importantly, developing a thick skin that blocks their negativity from reaching you.

How will you develop a thick skin? I don’t know. Preparation and validation might help. Or they might not. They didn’t help me much. When my seniors advised me not to take negativity to heart, I didn’t know what that meant. But over time, with more exposure and more experiences, I did get there. And I’m sure you too will get there.

Keep Moving Forward

For now, all I can say is: be prepared to receive meaningless negativity and unprovoked hostility. They will come to you, for sure—sometimes in proportion to your ambition. The bigger the ambition, the more hostility you may face. And as you receive them, remember, they do not define you. They will try their best to affect you, but no matter how hard it gets, don’t let them touch you.

You be you, working on the better you.