Feedback

I remember walking into my first martial arts dojo at the age of 13. It was a traditional Goju-Ryu Karate school, complete with concrete floors, a burlap bag stuffed full of blue jeans and sandbags hanging from the ceiling, serving as a rudimentary heavy bag, a homemade Makiwara right outside the back door, and mirrors covering one of the long walls.

Everything in the dojo was designed to provide feedback, allowing you to know in a moment whether or not you were doing a technique or a movement properly.

The Makiwara, a 2 x 4 partially buried in the ground, with the top six inches wrapped with a piece of carpet, is an old-school training instrument designed to improve punching accuracy, speed, and power. It gave instant feedback as your knuckles struck the target, letting you know if your fist was not tightly closed, if your wrist was bent or straight, and whether or not you were striking with the proper knuckles.

In the same manner, the makeshift heavy bag provided immediate feedback on your kicking technique. For example, if you kicked too low on the burlap kicking bag, your foot struck the sandbags. The bag would tell you if you struck with the ball of your foot, heel of your foot, blade of your foot, or top of your foot – depending on the kick technique.

Once again, the feedback was instantaneous.

As you worked on your stances, punches, kicks, blocks, and movements, the long ceiling-to-floor mirrors also gave immediate feedback. You could watch yourself in real time, observing each movement and micro-movement in minute detail, looking for areas on which to improve. Even your Gi would provide you with feedback, making a popping sound if you crisply performed a striking, blocking, or kicking technique.

Everything in the dojo was designed to provide feedback, allowing you to know in a moment whether or not you were doing a technique or a movement properly.

By definition, feedback is information used as a basis for improvement.

But that can only happen if you’re open and willing to receive the feedback, analyze it, and then take appropriate action steps to apply it.

Ask R.A. Dickey.

In high school and college, R.A. Dickey was a standout player with high hopes of playing in the Majors. He was highly scouted and ultimately recruited by the Texas Rangers, who offered him a huge signing bonus. As he met with the Team, one of the trainers noticed an irregularity in his pitching arm, leading to a medical examination.

It was there they found Dickey was missing a ligament in his elbow that could limit his ability to throw. In that moment, Dickey’s world was turned upside down as he was not sent to the top team to prep for the Majors. He was sent to the bottom of the Minor League.

Determined to make it to the Big Leagues, Dickey worked tirelessly, finally earning an opportunity to play for the Rangers. He failed miserably and was sent back down to the Minors. A second attempt at a Major League opportunity, and another failure. It looked like his career was all but over.

But, Dickey was determined to come back a third time and reach his full potential as a pitcher. Each prior attempt presented him with valuable feedback on what wasn’t working as well as what he needed to be working on to succeed. Dickey had a chance encounter with a coach who encouraged him to develop a pitch he called “the Thing.”

The knuckleball is one of the hardest pitches to master in all of baseball. Unlike a fastball, slider, or curveball, the throwing motion is quite different. Rather than gripping the ball in your fingers, it requires you to pinch the ball between your second and third fingers. Dickey was determined to master this pitch, making it his signature throw from the mound.

He threw more than 30,000 knuckleballs at brick walls, concrete blocks, and pitching nets. Each throw provided him with valuable feedback, allowing him to hone and refine his craft over time. When he was finally given the opportunity by the New York Mets, Dickey’s signature throw, “The Thing,” earned him a place as one of the Top Ten pitchers in the league.

Interestingly, he was 37, an age when most pitchers are past their prime and have either retired or were on the verge of retiring. R.A. Dickey used the feedback he continuously received to join the ranks of a small fraternity of knuckleballers and became the first to earn the coveted National League Cy Young Award.

He signed a multi-year, multimillion-dollar contract with the Mets, and later went on to play for the Toronto Blue Jays and Atlanta Braves. His signature, unpredictable, zig-zag pitch earned him a coveted place in Major League Baseball history.

Feedback is important for improvement.

But that can only happen if you’re open and willing to receive the feedback, analyze it, and then take appropriate action steps to apply it.

Ask Evelyn Glennie.

Evelyn Glennie grew up on a farm in Scotland and was drawn to music at an early age. By the time she was a teenager, she had suffered significant hearing loss. But her disability didn’t stop her from pursuing her love for music, with a distinct passion for percussion. She applied to the Royal Academy of Music, only to be initially told she lacked in ability. They were unable to see past her physical limitations to recognize the success potential within.

Evelyn Glennie went on to win three Grammy Awards and was the first percussionist to win the coveted Polar Music Award, the music’s equivalent to the Nobel Prize. That puts her in the elite company of other famous musicians, including Elton John, Yo-Yo Ma, Paul McCartney, Bruce Springsteen, Paul Simon, and Stevie Wonder.

Glennie performed at the opening ceremony of the Olympics in 2012, leading a thousand drummers in the opening act. Today, she continues to tour all over the world, performing as a soloist, teaching master classes in percussion, and speaking as a motivational speaker. This includes a TED Talk entitled “How to Truly Listen” in 2003.

She has appeared with Oscar the Grouch on Sesame Street and was knighted by the Queen.

So, to what does she attribute her success as a percussionist?

Feedback.

Although Evelyn Glennie is deaf, she “hears” the vibrations of the music with her body. By remaining open and willing to receive continual feedback from her practice, she learned to distinguish different pitches by how they resonate within various parts of her body. Higher pitches resonate in her face and cheeks while lower pitches resonate in her legs and feed.

She performs barefoot to further enhance vibrational feedback. Her body continually receives, analyzes, processes, and responds to the resonance she feels – and is today considered the quintessential solo percussionist in the world.

Feedback is important for improvement.

But that can only happen if you’re open and willing to receive the feedback, analyze it, and then take appropriate action steps to apply it.

When I was a martial arts school owner, one of the drills I would take students through was a drill we called “Sticky Hands.” Two competitors would face off, front feet touching. Each competitor would extend their hands, touching the back of the other’s hand, and then close their eyes.

The objective was to stay “stuck” to the hand of your opponent as each of the competitors tried to move their hand into a position where they could attempt to strike the shoulder of their opponent or cause them to get off-balanced and move their feet.

It was a game of learning to respond to feedback.

Each competitor had to use the feedback they received to know when to strike, when to parry, and when to pivot or shift their weight to either strike and off-balance their opponent or get them to over-reach, losing their balance in the process.

What the students didn’t realize, at least at first, is they were learning to fight in the dark.

Feedback is important for improvement.

Feedback can often be applied in more than one situation.

But that can only happen if you’re open and willing to receive the feedback, analyze it, and then take appropriate action steps to apply it.

Ask R.A. Dickey, who used the feedback of tens of thousands of throws to hone his knuckleball to be almost unhittable. His openness to receiving, analyzing, and acting on the feedback he received is directly attributable to his success. Dickey retired as one of only eight pitchers in Major League Baseball history to pitch back-to-back one-hitters.

Ask Evelyn Glennie, who went on to master a number of musical instruments, including the Great Highland Bagpipes. She’s been awarded 29 honorary doctorates from universities in the UK and has amassed one of the greatest global collections of percussion instruments, currently in excess of 3,500 individual pieces.

So, what can we learn from these examples of individuals who used feedback to overcome setbacks and rise to their full potential? How can we apply the lessons they have learned from feedback to our own lives?

First, we need to reframe feedback as data, not judgment.

R.A. Dickey had to embrace the unpredictable nature of the knuckleball and see each pitch's outcome as information to glean and learn from rather than seeing it as success or failure. Like Edison’s 10,000 attempts to create the incandescent light bulb, each of Dickey’s pitches provided an additional data point to identify what worked and what didn’t.

We also see this in the “Sticky Hands” example I shared. Each round of this drill provided valuable physical feedback. Data, in the form of feedback, trains the body to improve balance, movement, strength, and speed, even when the visual element has been removed from the equation.

Remember, feedback is information. It’s there to teach us something we can apply to learn, grow, or improve in some way. It’s not about success or failure. It’s about learning.

Feedback is about helping us scale success.

Secondly, it’s important to develop multi-sensory awareness.

Evelyn Glennie famously "hears" through her body, feeling vibrations through her bare feet and skin. The “Sticky Hands” drill trains a martial artist to see their opponent even when their vision is impaired. Both of these examples reveal how important it is to be intentional about where and how we receive feedback.

It’s much more than a verbal comment. Body sensations, visual cues, emotional responses, Aha moments, and seeing the hidden patterns in results are also forms of feedback.

Thirdly, don’t forget that feedback can also come from Mentors in your life.

R.A. Dickey’s career transformed when he sought guidance from older knuckleballers who passed on life experience he was lacking. He also worked with a handful of coaches who worked on his mindset and helped him interpret the feedback he was receiving.

Mentors can also help us see what we can’t yet see on our own. It is important to create a feedback loop with a handful of mentors with relevant expertise. They can provide regular, honest insights, and establish check-in points for feedback to keep you moving forward, learning, growing, and improving.

Lastly, feedback is about altering, not changing.

My wife and I recently returned from a conference in Las Vegas. The plane made several slight heading and altitude adjustments as it charted its course to Little Rock. These minor alterations kept us on course, allowing us to safely arrive at our destination.

This is altering.

Had the plane been diverted to another city, or forced to return to Las Vegas, that would have demanded more than a slight heading adjustment. It would have required a major course correction to divert us somewhere else or return us to our departing airport.

This is change.

Both Dickey and Glennie mastered their respective crafts through thousands of tiny refinements over time. In the same fashion, Martial artists make numerous small adjustments as they work tirelessly to hone their stance, weight distribution, movement, speed, strength, and timing.

Feedback is altering, not changing.

Successful people, like Dickey and Glennie, resist the urge to overhaul everything after receiving feedback. Instead, they identify the “one thing” they can implement, refining and honing their skill until it becomes natural.

Feedback is important for improvement.

It can help you get unstuck, discover your “What’s Next,” or reveal what’s missing that is holding you back or limiting your progress.

Feedback can often be applied in more than one situation or circumstance.

But that can only happen if you’re open and willing to receive the feedback, analyze it, and then take appropriate action steps to apply it.

Feedback is a framework for scaling success.

Successful people embrace feedback, as this is how they learn, grow, and improve.

Unsuccessful people ignore feedback, remaining where they are, as they are, unchanged.

How much success do you want?

How much feedback are you willing to receive, analyze, filter, and act upon to get there?