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Ep. 19 - Why Feedback Feels Like An Attack
15 Plays12 days ago
In this episode, Ken Freire explore why feedback often feels less like help and more like a personal attack, especially for young professionals who deeply care about doing meaningful work. Ken unpacks how our reaction to feedback reveals where our identity is rooted, and why a fragile, performance-based identity makes correction feel threatening. He introduces the idea of a biblically resilient mindset—one grounded in identity in Christ rather than achievement—and challenges listeners to receive feedback as formation, not condemnation.
Timestamps
- 00:00–01:35 – Why feedback immediately triggers anxiety and defensiveness
- 01:36–02:37 – The false belief: feedback is the problem, not me
- 02:38–03:55 – How feedback reveals identity, not just performance
- 03:56–05:28 – Performance-based identity and why failure feels personal
- 05:29–06:41 – Why resilient mindset matters for God-honoring work
- 06:42–08:07 – Identity, security, and what true biblical resilience is
- 08:08–09:18 – Taking feedback as information, not condemnation
- 09:19–11:13 – Reflection question and setup for the next episode on resilience
Recommended
Transcript
Intro
Introduction to 'Buried Talent' Podcast
00:00:09
Ken Freire
Welcome to Buried Talent, the show for young professionals that tears down false beliefs about faith and work so you can unbury your God-given talent right where you are.
Understanding Feedback and Anxiety
00:00:19
Ken Freire
I'm Ken Freire, and today we're talking about why feedback feels like an attack.
00:00:24
Ken Freire
Now, have you ever been in this situation where either a professor, a boss, or mentor comes to you and says, hey, I need to talk to you? Instantly, you get a little nervous, like, what do you need to talk about?
00:00:36
Ken Freire
And then they start giving you feedback on whatever the situation is. And in your mind, you've been thinking, man, I thought I was crushing it or I was trying my hardest. But even then, you still get feedback or correction about how you did it.
00:00:51
Ken Freire
And all of a sudden, that pressure that you feel stops just feeling situational. It feels personal. There's some anxiety that comes to it. There's all of a sudden this feeling that you have to prove yourself and you have to keep pushing forward over and over and over again.
00:01:10
Ken Freire
And you wonder to yourself, what am I supposed to do about this?
Identity and Feedback Issues
00:01:14
Ken Freire
Well, the reality is that pressure isn't the problem. It's a fragile identity. And that's what we're going talk about here today on the podcast. Normally, I'm here with my co-host, Patrick Lowndes. But today, I'm doing a solo episode right here for you. I am the VP of programs at Frontier Operators. And this has happened to me quite a bit. in my younger years where I felt personally attacked whenever I got feedback and I got really defensive and I wasn't sure what to do.
00:01:43
Ken Freire
And if you're like me, you probably have had this happen too where you felt like you tried really hard and it just didn't work out. The reason for this is that we have this false belief in our minds that when it comes to feedback, that we tend to run away from it. Meaning, you start to analyze all the times you get feedback, and the false belief comes is that if feedback is a problem, not you, I should just get rid of feedback.
00:02:13
Ken Freire
Because you don't want to hear the correction, so you avoid it. You try to not get it. You only want the positive affirmation, but not the corrective affirmation. And part of this feels true, right? Because you're like, well, maybe those people have too much of a high standard on me.
00:02:29
Ken Freire
Or you have a desire to grow, but recognize that you have to grow in your own pace. And those people don't fully understand you. They don't understand what you're going through. So the feedback they give you is not the right feedback. So you ignore it.
00:02:43
Ken Freire
Right. These are the things that we tend to do when we listen to this false belief that feedback is the problem.
Feedback and Personal Identity
00:02:51
Ken Freire
But the reality is that feedback is doing more than informing.
00:02:56
Ken Freire
It's actually defining who you are. When you hear that feedback, you're like, oh, my gosh, it's addressing something more core to who you are than you realize it.
00:03:07
Ken Freire
So I want you to start thinking about feedback in a certain way that maybe the feedback isn't the problem. And granted, there are times when people give you feedback and they gave it to you the wrong way. But just because they give it to you the wrong way doesn't mean that the actual feedback was incorrect. So you have to determine whether it's correct or not correct.
00:03:28
Ken Freire
Assuming it's correct and you still feel attacked by it. The reason you do is because that feeling of pressure that you get or the anxiety you get from getting that feedback, that is showing you that the feedback itself is not the problem. It's just revealing what's already inside of you.
00:03:49
Ken Freire
Meaning the pressure or the anxiety of the feedback all of sudden shows that you get defensive, you either shut down, you either overwork, or you just numb it out.
00:04:01
Ken Freire
And all these things actually just show ultimately that your pressure is covering or resting on an identity that is not Christ.
00:04:13
Ken Freire
Let me put it a different way.
Feeling Like a Failure Through Feedback
00:04:15
Ken Freire
What you worship, right, is what you take on as your identity. And many times when we get feedback, we don't realize that we're taking on a certain identity in our lives.
00:04:30
Ken Freire
So what we need to do is we actually need to take a step back and recognize that our identity right now, when it comes to feedback, if you are feeling attacked when you get feedback, your identity is not in Christ. It's actually in your performance.
00:04:46
Ken Freire
So you listen to this lie. You listen to the lie that if I could just become more or work harder or optimize better, I will be good enough for people and even God. Now, most of the time, you would never say that out loud to yourself. You wouldn't be like, oh yeah, I gotta work harder to trust in God.
00:05:07
Ken Freire
But when you fail, do you beat yourself up? Do you be like, I should have known better or I should have done something different. Same thing comes with feedback.
00:05:19
Ken Freire
When someone tells you something, it feels like you're a failure. Not that you failed, but now you feel like a failure. You see how your identity is now all of a sudden tied into it? This happens to us all the time.
Developing a Resilient Mindset
00:05:31
Ken Freire
We latch our identity into so many things. Now you may be wondering, Ken, why 2026, Are you talking about feeling attacked and pressure and anxiety and working harder?
00:05:45
Ken Freire
Because the reality is this. In order for you to become a God-given, excellent worker, you need to grow what we call resilient mindset.
00:05:57
Ken Freire
And a resilient mindset is absolutely necessary. It means that you are going to be able to tough whenever circumstances, whether external or internal circumstances, come your way.
00:06:09
Ken Freire
The problem is that too many times find ourselves working too hard in our own efforts to try to grow a resilient mindset, but not actually a biblical resilient mindset that is empowered by the Holy Spirit.
00:06:24
Ken Freire
So what I want you guys to start working through is like, how actually get a really good resilient mind so that when I get feedback, it doesn't feel like an attack. It doesn't feel hurtful. It doesn't feel personal, but it feels like someone's trying to truly help me to grow.
00:06:43
Ken Freire
Well, the way you do that is to grow resilient mindset.
Identity in Christ and Resilience
00:06:47
Ken Freire
How do you grow resilient mindset, a biblical resilient mindset? Well, there's a few ways. The first one,
00:06:54
Ken Freire
is growing in your identity. The first one is growing in your identity. What do mean by identity? Identity is who you believe you are whenever everything else goes away.
00:07:10
Ken Freire
Whenever all your performance goes away, whenever all the accolades, whenever all the success, whenever everything goes away, if you just see yourself for who you are, who would you be?
00:07:22
Ken Freire
That's your identity. Now, the reason why you need to know your identity for resilient mindset is that what ends up happening with resiliency or resilient mindset, many times people wonder, well, I just have to be tough.
00:07:37
Ken Freire
Well, resilience is not just toughness. And sometimes they think, well, I just have to be confident. Well, it's not about confidence either. It's about security. Identity is all about how secure you are in whose you are. And if you are in Christ, then you can be completely secure. No matter what happens, no matter how much failure, no matter how much feedback you get, you just rest knowing that you're in Christ.
00:08:06
Ken Freire
This is the most important truth that you have to start to think through when it comes to having a resilient mindset. Sure, you can do what the world tells you about grit, grit, and prove yourself and work a little bit harder. And they might even use language like grow 1% or like progress makes perfect or progress beats perfection.
00:08:30
Ken Freire
I use some of those language too, but I understand it within the framework of where my identity lies. Because if my growth flows from being grounded in Christ and not proving, then whenever I fail, can just get right back up again. Like it says in Proverbs where a righteous man may fall seven times, but gets back up again.
00:08:49
Ken Freire
I don't have to feel like the attack is going to leave me in the ground. So your identity is extremely vital for just knowing that you're secure and that you can then take feedback as information, not condemnation.
Receiving Feedback Constructively
00:09:05
Ken Freire
You can take failure as formative, not fatal. And that's kind of like a paradox, right? Where the more secure you are, the more resilient you can become. That's what scripture walks us through.
00:09:17
Ken Freire
is that the more you rest in who you are, the stronger you can have mindset that can fight through anything. So whenever there's internal pressures, whenever there's external pressures, whether that's feedback, anxiety, or circumstances that come your way, you can be like, hey, none of that's going to get me down because I am with Christ and I love Christ and he loves me.
00:09:40
Ken Freire
So as you think about this, this episode right now is just the first episode.
Preview of Next Episode on Resilience and Divine Power
00:09:45
Ken Freire
The next episode, we're going to continue on talking about how do you actually grow resilient mindset where you're not just doing it on your own effort, but you're actually doing it in the power of God.
00:09:55
Ken Freire
But before you do that and listen to the next week's episode, I want you to just pause and ask this question. There are different ways God communicates. your identity in Christ.
00:10:07
Ken Freire
It might be you're co-heir, you're a child of God, you are a saint, a royal priesthood, you're holy, you're blameless, you're pure. There's so many ways that he communicates your identity in Christ.
00:10:21
Ken Freire
But which one do you need to hear the most right now, today? What's the thing that's causing you in your heart saying, man, I am really struggling right now because I've put my performance or my identity wrapped up on something you did or something you achieved.
00:10:39
Ken Freire
But God may be saying, hey, you've already achieved that in Christ. Because your identity ultimately is something you receive, not something you achieve. And you need to go back to that and say, Lord, how do I just receive what you have given me?
00:10:52
Ken Freire
So think about that, process that, and then come back next week and listen to the episode on how to get growth mindset when it comes to resiliency. And what does that look like? And how do you do that within not your effort, but God's power working in you?
00:11:09
Ken Freire
See you soon.