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Book your placeThe Two Types of Feedback. One Builds, One Drains

If we don’t bring other people along, we’re not going to be able to create meaningful change.
After each Creator Day, I request feedback. I do this not to correct what didn’t work but to discover what I may have overlooked, tune into, and adapt.
I’m not chasing a flawless event. I’m looking for momentum.
This isn’t about ego, either. Feedback, when framed right, doesn’t become a personal attack. It’s not a report card each year, it’s more of a compass. When someone offers their own thoughts that helps us see clearer, we know what to do more of.
In 2024, I wrote that feedback isn’t criticism, it gives you clarity. I still believe that. Recently, I’ve now realised something else, feedback clarifies or it can simply drain.
Let’s explore the difference and why learning to tune your ear is one of the most powerful community and creator skills you can have.
Feedback Is Clarity, Not Criticism
When you hear the word “feedback,” how does your body react? Often, it can feel like a performance review. That’s how I used to feel.
I’d ask for input after delivering what I’d put my heart into, and then get ready for a morale sap or become frustrated when someone said they wanted better signage to a room.
Looking back now, I realise I was asking the wrong questions. I focused too much on the finer details instead of what could be taken onboard to progress.
Over time, I began to understand feedback differently. The right kind doesn’t shrink you, it shapes you and how you think. It’s not there to make you doubt everything. It’s there to highlight what resonates. When the clues are in front of you, it can help guide the next steps.
That’s clarity and with the community we’re building at YATM, I need that.
Fixing vs. Forwarding

Not all feedback is created equal.
In fact, not all feedback is even feedback, some of it, you just don’t need.
Let me break it into two camps:
1. Fixing “What went wrong?” Makes you defensive, narrows your view
2. Forwarding “Where’s the next steps?” Makes you curious, gives you direction
Fixing feedback. This is where you focus on the flaws. This is where you spend more time and headspace on comments around, “This part didn’t land for me,” or “It wasn’t quite what I expected.”
It’s not that this feedback is invalid. It can be helpful. What it often does is encourage you to be more defensive, where you have to prove, explain or to please.
Forwarding feedback. This is what gives you the opportunity to lean into what someone has shared. It could be along the lines of, “What if we found a way to do this together next time?” or “I didn’t expect to meet people like me there.”
This kind of feedback doesn’t just say what happened. It suggests what could happen next.
What To Listen For (And What to Tune Out)
The true skill lies not only in hearing feedback but also in recognising the patterns that indicate what is useful and what isn’t.
Here’s a guide I now follow. To show you what I mean this is from feedback from this years Creator Day. The day after the event, people are invited, anonymously, to share.
💚 Feedback that moves you forward:
This feedback echoed and extended the values that Creator Day was built on, community, connection, momentum, and possibility.
– “I left the event wanting to take more risks, can there be more encouragement for this?”
→ This is action-oriented and reflects the intention the day was meant to generate.
– “I didn’t expect to connect with so many people so quickly.”
→ Celebrates the depth of connection possible in a short time
– “It made me want to share more of myself in what I create. This needs to be heightened.”
→ That’s a sign of the event building both confidence and visibility for people.
These responses are not about approval; they indicate momentum. They highlight what people want more of, not just what they appreciated.
❌ Feedback that slows you down:
These responses are by no means negative, but requested changes that pull away from the YATM ethos.
– “I was expecting it to feel more of a conference with breakout sessions and more commercial advice.”
→ Assumes a traditional format instead of engaging with the alternative, community-first structure of Creator Day.
– “Why not have the event in London? More people would come.”
→ A logistical comment that overlooks the deliberate decision to keep the event grounded in Poole and outside the ‘corporate’ centre.
“More detail about speakers ahead of time would have helped me prepare.”
→ This is valid but points to predictability, rather than leaning into discovery and serendipity.
These often come from outside your intent. It becomes difficult to retrofit your work for someone else’s taste, at the same time you cannot ignoring critique. nstead, you should weigh it by value, not volume.
Helpful feedback often comes with direction. Draining feedback often comes with demands. The cues are always there to move forwards.
Feedback As Co-authorship
The best kind of feedback doesn’t just rate what you did. It wants you to build on it.
This is the kind of feedback we reach for, when it’s collaborative. It’s offered in the spirit of, “What if this idea became even more you?”
Here’s how to recognise feedback with momentum:
– It reflects back the intent you started with.
– It invites thinking, adjustments, expansion, but not contraction.
– It energises, rather than exhausts.
After every Creator Day, I’m not looking for a popularity contest. I’m listening for what people want to carry forward. Which part of the day made something click? Which conversation stuck with them? Where can tweaks be made? What gave them the courage to start?
Ask Like a Collaborator, Not a Service Provider
Here’s something that has shifted my relationship to feedback over the past few years.
I stopped asking, “Did you like it?” and started asking, “What matters to you?”
One question invites evaluation. The other invites momentum.
If you’re building something that matters, a project, a business, a community, you have to learn how to invite feedback that feels more like co-creation than mere customer satisfaction.
And you have to model it too. When someone gives you feedback that moves you forward, acknowledge it. Name it. Let others see the kind of participation you want more of.
Let’s Round Up
Feedback doesn’t live in a Google form. It lives in conversation.
It becomes a community tool. The goal isn’t to iron out every wrinkle. It’s to see what has meaning clearly enough to push forward with.
Sometimes, you’ll hear from people who didn’t get it. They may expect something more polished or similar to what they’re already familiar with. That’s not failure; that’s a signal. It reminds you that you’re not here to please everyone; you’re here to find the people who see it.
You don’t need universal approval; you need people you can build with. Ones who challenge and refine your ideas to help sharpen them.
Next time you finish something, a project, an event, a piece of writing, ask yourself:
Did I hear anything that made me want to do it again, but push it that little bit further?
If the answer is yes, you’re on the right track.
If the answer is no, you’re probably listening to the wrong kind of feedback.
Asking for input is a team sport, it was never made to be all on you.
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