This week's reframe covers the Seeking Feedback Awareness card.

Episode Transcript

The Seeking Feedback awareness card states, "We can't improve what we're not aware of. Seeking feedback can illuminate the gaps between our intent and our impact." And the card invites you to practice what's called the impact check, which you can do by finding someone you admire, someone who has actually observed you in a skill you want to improve, and asking them, "Where can I grow the most?"

Now, let's go a bit deeper into what this card is really pointing at. So cultivating awareness has roots and actual practices that go back thousands of years. Contemplative traditions across cultures have long held that sitting in silence, actually being still and doing what appears on the surface to be nothing, is one of the most powerful things a human being can do.

On the surface, what appears to be nothing, as you may discover, is actually everything. The point here is not to escape thought, but to observe it, to notice that you can be aware of your thoughts and even aware of yourself being aware of them. William James, considered the father of American psychology, also captured why this matters.

Thousands of years after the Buddha's similar insights, James wrote that: "The faculty of voluntarily bringing back a wandering attention over and over again is the very root of judgment, character, and will." That's not a small claim. He's saying the practice of focused attention, focused awareness, builds the very capacity for good decision-making and character.

And in our age, when it's easier than ever to distract ourselves, developing a practice like this can also help us rebuild our ability to focus for long stretches of time. But here's what's easy to miss. Developing this kind of internal self-awareness, while it's something we can practice for a lifetime, is not in itself enough.

Other people can see us in ways we simply cannot see ourselves. We may intend to come across as direct and land as dismissive. We may intend to be thorough, but be experienced as overwhelming or micromanaging. The gap between our intent and our actual impact is often invisible to us, and sometimes the only way to close that gap is to ask.

That's why the question on this card matters so much: Where can I grow the most? It's not vague flattery fishing. It's, it's a targeted ask directed at someone who has watched you perform, who you genuinely respect, and who ideally excels in the very area you're working on. That's card 01 of the Seeking Feedback suit.

After practicing the impact check, especially with someone who embodies a skill you truly admire, you may notice something unexpected. Their feedback may not sting the way you feared. It might land as information, as data. And that shift from fearing feedback to being able to see it as information is exactly what the Seeking Feedback suit is designed to build.

P.S. The Feedback Deck is coming. 50 evidence-based cards to help you grow yourself and others with feedback. Join the waitlist.