How to stop taking everyone's criticism.

On not letting armchair quarterbacks live rent free in your head.

Tabea, happy Saturday,

I had a conversation with a colleague last week at Concordia, and I keep having versions of this same conversation, so figured I’d write it out.

Someone she barely knows had posted something about her online, accusing her of one thing or another. She showed me the message. It got to her. It always does.

That’s the thing about messages like that. You read them once and they’re in your head for the rest of the day. Should I respond? Is there some truth to this? Do other people believe it? If I say nothing, will that look like guilt? Before you know it, a stranger has taken over your morning.

I told her what took me way too long to figure out:

If you let criticism from anyone, about anything, get to you, eventually you won’t want to get out of bed.

People love saying “don’t take it as criticism, take it as feedback.” I think that’s a bunch of BS. Not everything is feedback. Calling it that just means every random opinion deserves a spot in your head, gets processed, gets stored somewhere.

It doesn’t.

Processing criticism costs something from you. Attention, time, energy. Even when you land on “this is nonsense,” you already paid.

You replayed it. Questioned yourself. Talked about it with someone. Maybe drafted a reply you never sent. Maybe lost some sleep over it.

Meanwhile the person who wrote it paid almost nothing. Three sentences in a Signal group, hit send, move on. You’re the one who spent hours defending yourself against something that cost them 30 seconds. Bad trade.

Believe me, over the years I’ve been called a CIA agent. FBI. KGB. Once, an “agent of genocide.” At some point you have to be impressed by the international range.

But those accusations taught me something: It’s incredibly cheap to say almost anything about someone when there’s no cost to saying it. Post it in a group chat, fire it off to a listserv, type it from the sidelines with zero skin in the game. And I wonder, honestly, how many of those people would say the same thing to my face. No screen, no audience, no reply-all. Probably not many.

I tried everything over the years. Responding. Explaining. Trying to prove people wrong. Being diplomatic. Digging for the hidden lesson in every attack. That last one? It sounds mature but can quietly hollow you out, because a lot of criticism isn’t really about your work.

Sometimes it’s envy.
Sometimes people hate that you’re doing the thing they’re not.
Sometimes your pace makes them feel small.
Sometimes people just like bitching about someone.

So I made a rule.

I only take criticism seriously from people operating at my level or above. That’s it. No investigation, no searching for buried wisdom. Same level or higher? I listen. Not? See ya.

And I know what my level is.

First 6,5 months of this year, I tracked 29 UN meetings and processes. 14 meetings tied to the UN80 initiative. 15 formal negotiation sessions. Just under 100 working days on this, and that’s undercounting it, since some days meant two or three overlapping meetings running at once, in rooms most people will never see or hear about.

That’s my level. Not my title, not my follower count. The work, the pace, the responsibility.

When someone operating at that level criticises me, I pay attention. They know what the job costs. Everyone else is free to have an opinion. I’m equally free to skip it.

On that note, I met a funder during EMRIP who’d never spoken to me before, just seen my work from a distance, at side events, on LinkedIn, in videos and wanted to meet me while she was at EMRIP. First thing she said: “I like your integrity.” After 10 minutes, something like, “whatever you’re building, I know you’ll make it happen, how can we help?” That landed. Not because it was flattering, but because it meant someone watched from a distance and saw the pattern: I say something, then I try do it.

She also warned me. As your influence grows, people try to influence you back. Some offer opportunities, some apply pressure, some ask for small compromises that feel harmless in the moment. Fall below your own standard once, and climbing back is harder than it looks.

That was a nice conversation. And no, I didn’t ask for money. I asked them for something else in phase 1 of what we’re building.

Before you go

One warning about this rule though: It's easy to mix up someone who isn't at your level with someone who just hasn't earned their badge yet. Those are two different problems.

Someone with fewer followers can still operate at a serious level. Someone younger can carry real weight. The filter isn't about status. It's about whether someone's actually done the work they're critiquing.

Don't turn the filter into arrogance, and don't turn humility into permanent availability either.

Not every accusation owes your attention.

Listen to people who've made the miles. Let the rest keep typing.

That’s it for today.

See you next week!