93: The Feedback Loop That Cost Me 20 Sleepless Nights

Keith hired his first employee at thirty and got one thing badly wrong. He waited too long to say the hard thing, and it cost him twenty nights of sleep.

Keith Tyner and Doug Shrieve talk through feedback: how to give it, how to take it, and why the gap between those two skills shape your life. Keith elaborates on how, just like a good story, your life is filled with protagonists and antagonists. You choose which one you play at work, at home, and in every room you walk into. Doug admits he still flinches when someone criticizes him, and he doubts anyone truly enjoys it. What they land on is plain enough. A system corrects itself only when feedback moves fast, and most of us let the loop run open for years.

Key Topics:
• Why Keith scrapped the annual review at Gimbal
• What "you could be right" does to an argument
• How to tell a protagonist boss from an antagonist boss
• When a decent tip beats an honest one
• What Doug still finds hard about hearing criticism

If there is a conversation you have been putting off, this one may be the nudge to go have it this week.

👉 Work with us: https://www.gimbalfinancial.com

What is Up Your Average?

Up Your Average is the “no nonsense” podcast made for interesting people who think differently. Learn to navigate your life with unconventional wisdom by tuning in to Keith Tyner and Doug Shrieve every week.

Instead of just dealing with the feedback, I I wouldn't kick the can down the road.

And and what it does, it creates a lot of negative emotions, it creates a lot of
animosity, and it makes you, I think, less prepared to communicate smoothly and kindly.

I think the longer you let the feedback loop go, I think probably you're you're not gonna
communicate as well.

Welcome to the Up Your Average Podcast.

Where Keith and Doug give no nonsense advice to level up your life.

So buckle up and listen closely to Up Your Average.

Good morning, Doug.

It's another great day in central Indiana.

How's how's the lake life?

Uh, lake life is good.

Lake life is always good if you like the lake, or if you like water in general.

I think there's something peaceful about it.

It's just nice to look at, or it's kind of like a mountain.

Uh, one of our sons is getting ready to take off with young life trip to go five days
tamping on a trail.

Have you ever done something like that, Keith?

I think two days might be my my most.

I did a wilderness survival merit badge and you had uh you had to pretty much live in the
woods and you they think they gave me an egg, some raisins, and a couple matches is what I

had.

That's really cool.

Yeah.

I I love to hear about stuff like that.

I I don't know if Scouts is still

a big deal or not.

Um, I know one of my neighbors, they're really into it.

That um, boy, you sure could learn a lot.

Could learn how to survive in the woods.

Well, I'm gonna give a free advertisement here.

This is uh my I've I've got to go to my history here on my YouTube.

How to stay motivated developing uh it's called how to stay d motivated developing
something I can't

See it by Zig Ziglar.

It is a it's like an eight hour YouTube um video.

It is well worth your time.

And he kind of made me think about Scouts this week when I was listening to him.

And he was just telling all the great things that Boy Scouts or probably Girl Scouts teach
you.

And and I just started thinking about it.

Like the the Boy Scout motto is be prepared.

And so now

Wait a second.

This a eight hour YouTube?

It is.

Yeah.

It it it would have cost you I did the math on this because I couldn't believe how good a
deal it is.

It would have cost you $135 when he published it in nineteen ninety-five, which is
equivalent of about almost four hundred dollars today.

You can you can watch it.

I'm just listening to it in the car.

You can listen to it free and it's just got a lot of wisdom in there.

But he spent a good amount of time talking about Boy Scouts and the benefit why he would

encourage that organization to people because of some of the ideas they teach you.

That's pretty cool.

And and today, you know, you you wanted to talk about feedback today.

And you know, z Zig Ziggler, Dale Carnegie, those kind of guys, they really poured into my
dad's training.

And he has a great uh a great response that he says when uh w when there's feedback being
given.

And he says, you know, you could be right.

I like it.

I had I I as I was prepping, I had I I I had this acquaintance that I had I didn't know if
we were gonna become like more than acquaintances, like more like kinda I envision like

friendships as a archery target as we get beyond the outer loops of the acquaintance
thing, we work our way towards the bullseye of intimacy.

And so this guy was an acquaintance and

We were at a restaurant and I told him, I was like, Man, dude, what I'm really looking for
in friendships are people who would just be honest with me and we can be candid and we

won't get our feelings hurt.

You know, for example, if uh I have a big piece of pepper right here, you know, a friend
would tell me, and some people get offended by that, they get self-conscious if you tell

you have a piece of pepper there and on and on and on.

And so we finished our conversation.

And I get in the car to come back to the office and I just take a quick glance in the
rearview mirror and there's just a big old piece of pepper there.

And I gave him the freedom to give me feedback and he wouldn't do it.

So he gave me feedback uh just in that action, right?

So Yeah.

And where I wanted to go with this, Doug, is that I had a literature class when I was in
tenth grade and Mrs.

Lindauer

was the teacher, and we had to read a lot of things.

We had to read uh we had the choice between The Hobbit and a can a Connecticut Knight in
King Arthur's uh court and um a variety of other things that we could read.

And and I couldn't tell you I I didn't like to read back then and I couldn't tell you
anything about

the the book that I read and and and even like Shakespeare.

I'm like, why are we reading Shakespeare?

You know, and and and I I couldn't even understand what it was about back then.

And so but here I am a bunch of years later.

And the one thing I took away from that class is that every novel has a protagonist and an
antagonist.

And um I wanted to kind of cover this idea before we talk about feedback and the the

Protagonist is the good guy.

That's in every probably any movie you're watching, it's gonna have a protagonist and the
antagonist.

So the the protagonist is the good guy, the antagonist is the bad guy.

And that's that's the stress that goes on in novels and and in um movies and such.

And as you're going about life, you have that choice as well.

You can be the protagonist or the antagonist.

And and it's your choice.

Uh somebody uh said to me a while ago, uh I don't have any complaints.

There's no complaints.

And and I I said, Well, what's a complaint?

And and my definition was the complaint's a a variance between what you wanted and what
you got.

That's what a that's what a complaint is.

And that feedback is

uh a lot of times a complaint nobody cares about it, right?

Like they don't care to hear your complaint.

So you have the choice all the time, and regardless the role that you're in, you can be
the good guy or the bad guy.

You are the protagonist or antagonist in any role.

And so then if you take that idea and expand it to a work relationship, you have the
potential someday to be the employer or the employee.

And

What I would say as the employee is your primary job when you go to work somewhere is to
determine whether the person you're working for is a protagonist or an antagonist.

The work you're doing is kind of irrelevant because if you're a protagonist as an employee
and you're working for a protagonist, you're gonna excel.

But if you're working for an antagonist, you probably need to figure that out early on and
determine whether you can endure that or not.

But if you become if you come into a workforce and you decide to be an antagonist, you're
going to find yourself unemployed eventually and probably bitter.

And so those are the role so any role you're in, you can be the protagonist or the
antagonist.

And so then if you choose as an employer, I'm going to be a protagonist.

And as an employee, I'm gonna be a protagonist.

Um then the idea of feedback becomes more opportunistic for everybody.

And the person that made me think most about this was an engineer, and he was telling me
about open systems and closed systems.

And a closed system is a system that is self-correcting.

And the self-correction portion of this system is dependent on feedback.

And the quicker the feedback happens, the more smoothly the system works, right?

And so then the idea is what is feedback and how do I personally respond to it?

And so that that's that's the long introduction into feedback.

So what has been your own personal experience?

You could call feedback input, you could call it criticism, you could call it

Training, you could call it a variety of things, but what what's been your thoughts on the
idea of feedback over time?

I think it's evolved with maturity.

I think I think maturing and going through things and life experiences over the years
gives you the opportunity to really screw up some feedback.

And um it gives you some opportunity to pause and to like my dad said, say, uh, you know,
you could be right.

And so, um, early on, uh receiving feedback to me sounded a lot like a complaint um and a
lot like a uh a wound on a on a um on a personal character level.

And so it's how you listen.

I think that's a the best place to start in your maturing process is is am I a good
listener?

Am I really hearing what this person's saying?

Um

Can I pause long enough to let any kind of um emotions that's coming with the feedback
quiet down?

And if I can do that long enough where I can actually listen to someone, then uh I might
be able to begin to think about things from someone else's point of view, not just mine,

even though I might be solid on an opinion.

Um, I might listen just long enough to think, yeah, they they they could have something
here.

And feedback and resistance could be the same.

You know, when I get up on a slalom ski, there's a lot of force pushing against me to get
up.

And that force is telling me that I need to endure a little longer before I can plane out.

And so I think endurance c is a part of feedback as well.

Because it's normally not just a one-time conversation with feedback.

You you you have to give and take.

You might, you know, you might have to say, well, uh part of this that I've experienced
could be true, and part of what they've experienced could be true.

How could I work this out to a a better outcome?

And so there's there's some endurance involved in it.

And normally when someone gives me feedback and I respond, then

there there's just greater opportunity for more conversation and and then what I've seen
sometimes is the person giving me feedback.

They might be wrong.

And you have to have a point where you just say, you know what, it it's okay if if they
want to keep keep giving me more feedback on this, even though uh I I think in this

situation they're wrong.

You know, one of the beauties about something you said, Doug, was the about your opinions
that you might have a strong kind of h hunch on that opinion.

And when I reflect back over the last um many years.

I think I had many, many, many more strong opinions about ideas when I was in my twenties
than I do today.

So so I have a lot of strong opinions today, but what I learned from my 20s until today by
the feedback of individuals, the feedback, like if you're not gonna take feedback from

somebody else, you're gonna get it.

Like life is gonna give you the feedback you need.

And

And so what I've learned over a number of years is there's certain things, yeah, I'm
pretty confident on this opinion, but I've realized how many opinions I had when I was

twenty, twenty-five, thirty, thirty-five that were just dead wrong.

And that I'm much more I think open in those areas.

I I can remember as a twenty-something year old sitting in a restaurant and trying to
enjoy my dinner and some family had little kids over there crying and screaming and

thinking.

Can't you control that kid?

Which that opinion wouldn't even come to my mind today, right?

Yeah.

And and so that that's probably important to understand.

But it if if I am an employee, say I'm a recent college graduate and I'm an employee, I
would learn to separate the feedback from my person who I am.

The the person that's giving you the feedback might present it to you and it might feel
like it's attacking your being.

But if you can turn your emotions down just a bit and hear what they're saying, it may be
the greatest gift they ever give you.

Yeah.

And if you're coming out of school, what you're used to is you're you're used to a A B C D
E uh A B C D F situation where that's the feedback.

And there's so much more nuances and personal relationships than just your uh your
performance.

And and if you are that person, I will tell you, you are always being given feedback and
you're giving it back to the to those around you, whether you know it or not.

And and so feedback is going on a hundred percent of the time.

And it is uh

Probably our friend his sentence that I just really like is are you open to feedback?

Like that question is probably a good way to just every once in a while look in the mirror
and ask yourself, am I open to feedback?

Because if your answer is no, I'm not, well that that helps everybody, right?

Yeah.

Yeah.

Yeah.

And and I think the launching pad to living life to the fullest.

means you have to answer that question, yes.

I am open to feedback.

I may not it may not feel good.

I may not like what I hear or what's told to me.

However, if somebody cares enough to tell me there's a piece of pepper in my teeth, then
at least I'm not going to be carrying around all day long, right?

I'm gonna be able to address that issue and stop it right now.

But if I don't want to hear it And the pepper in your teeth, like you you definitely want
to hear that.

Yeah.

And so so and so to get to that point.

That's the trick.

Is how do you get to the point where you really do want to hear it?

Because I I I've been told, yeah, I'm open to feedback, but then I've seen, nah, no,
they're they're really not open to feedback.

And you see it by the actions.

And so I I think w one of the one of the actions, if somebody said you have pepper in your
teeth, it would be a real clear, hey, thank you.

Thank you so much for saving me the embarrassment of walking around with pepper in my
teeth.

And so just operating from a grateful heart is a great way to begin to be open to
feedback.

If your worldview is one where you're just thankful, uh that that's a great start.

And so maybe that's a practice.

You start by listening and then you start by being grateful.

Well, it's it's it's a big deal to realize you are gonna get it.

Like

The the idea of these closed self-correcting systems, they're in nature, they're in
they're in business, they're in uh personal relationships, they're everywhere.

And if you ignore them and reject the feedback, you do it to your to your own peril.

Yeah.

If I if if for example my house um is giving me feedback that say that the the roof is
leaking.

And I ignore that feedback.

It it's not getting better.

So um as a young businessman, I was probably 30 when I had to hire the first person ever.

And and I had no idea what I was doing.

Like I I didn't know how to move forward.

I didn't know how to communicate.

I didn't know how to receive feedback, give feedback.

And most businesses in the day, I don't know if they still do it, did annual reviews.

And so an annual review in the day was um basically I'm gonna tell you two or three things
that you're doing good, and then I'm gonna blast you with what I think you should improve

upon.

And and uh I know corporate American Fortune five hundreds would do that.

And it it would take the managers, like depending on how many employees they had, it might
take a third

fourth or a third of the year just to prepare all these annual reviews.

And my experience was the way that they were done, most people just went away angry
because cause it was required you give three negative things and nobody wanted to hear the

negative things.

And I did that at Gimbal for a while and then I realized I was annoying all my coworkers
when I would give them an annual review like that.

And my

My experience led me to believe is I just need to give the feedback regularly, not
annually.

Like if I see something that needs some feedback, I probably need to help somebody with it
today.

And there's a lot of different methods out there.

Like what's what's the one, the compliment sandwich?

yeah.

Where where where you give the compliment, you give the feedback and then you give the
compliment.

But whatever the method, I I think the heart is the most important thing is does a does a
person know your heart?

And if they know your heart and if they know that you're for them, they are gonna receive
the feedback and they're gonna be grateful to receive the feedback.

But if receiving receiving some feedback where you don't know the heart of the person,
that's a that's a little bit more of an art.

Yeah.

And and that's why that's why I believe your first task.

is to figure out whether you're working for a protagonist or an antagonist.

Or are you uh going through this club with a protagonist or an antagonist?

Because that's a different decision grid.

But what I learned as a young young employer was um the feedback a as it became
adversarial or kind of stressful, the feedback was really their issue.

Like I I was responsible to give them the the feedback.

It was their issue.

Uh it was my responsibility.

Like my responsibility is to give feedback.

And if I didn't give them the feedback in a timely manner, it became my problem.

Because it doesn't get better by not giving the person the input they needed.

And that

probably c I bet that cost me 20 sleepless nights as a young man because I I instead of
just dealing with the feedback, I I wouldn't kick the can down the road.

And and what it does, it creates a lot of negative emotions, it creates a lot of
animosity, and it makes you, I think, less prepared to communicate smoothly and kindly.

I think the longer you let the feedback loop go, I think

probably you're you're not gonna communicate as well.

I don't know.

What's your experience with that?

I guess my own personal experience is I'm just not very good with feedback.

And it's something that I'd like to be better at.

I think I'm better than I was five years ago, ten years ago, but but it's a it's a real
struggle.

It's it's an art and it's a it's a um opportunity to know thyself and decide uh if you're
okay with with who you are.

So I I think I think receiving feedback is incredibly difficult if people are honest with
themselves.

And I don't really know anybody who's good at receiving feedback, but I know people who
have been better and better and are getting better.

And so I think I think that's a trick.

And then I think another trick is how do you deliver feedback?

And Ed question is very good.

Are you open to feedback?

And most people, when they say are you open to feedback, what are they gonna tell you?

They're gonna tell you yes.

Well, they're gonna know they're gonna give you feedback before they say yes.

The the their their body language is gonna sell out.

For sure.

Uh for sure.

so so they're gonna they're gonna tell you no and yes at the same time.

Uh but but I just I think

The continuous relationship, the consistency in the relationship, that's where winning
really starts to happen.

If there's some obvious stuff where a stranger can give you feedback, and they do all the
time, uh, they give you feedback.

It my guess is uh in your quiet moments, you'll take it and you'll listen and maybe apply
it down the road.

But the relationship feedback, normally, you know, those closest to you, those are the
most important.

areas of feedback like with your spouse, with your kids.

I mean, we're talking co-workers here.

That's important.

But but I I it all starts at home to me.

Is am I open to Caroline's feedback?

Ah, I'm getting better.

It'd be interesting what what she would say.

Well that I think that's part of feedback.

I think there's some intentionality in those relationships.

Like I'm assuming

as a dad, there was some intentional direction you went leading your household and so so
because of some decisions you made how you wanted your family to move forward, there was

necessary feedback.

Whether they the boys were open to it or not, it was necessary feedback and and they maybe
didn't even appreciate it at the time.

They may be 20 years or they appreciate the feedback, right?

I I think I would encourage you if you're trying to

ponder the idea of feedback, I I think you can, I think it's a learned skill and and you
can become better at feedback.

And the the the shorter your feedback loop is, I think the more you're going to enjoy
life.

Like the longer the communication cycle has to happen, the more your emotions are going to
be out of whack.

The the probably the fewer people are going to want to be around you because nobody wants

Nobody really gets to up in the morning and say, I'm gonna tell you you have pepper in
your teeth.

And then if you bark at me because I told you you had pepper in your teeth, I'm not
telling you that again, right?

I can so so how do you improve that?

I say, first of all, that you need to learn what you do is not who you are.

Because if you think what you do is who you are, when you get input about how you're doing
what you do, you think somebody's attacking who you are.

And that's not true if somebody really cares about you.

And then I think secondly, if I was going to give somebody an exercise about feedback, I
would find something to invest myself in that gives me feedback that I don't like.

Um, like you and I trade in the stock market and we get feedback all the time we don't
like, right?

And if we if we don't accept the feedback properly, uh it teaches us things.

Yeah.

We feedback from the stock or the market itself and and then feedback from the individuals
we're working for.

Right.

Right.

And so the the idea of accepting the feedback comes in in any kind of thing, but finding
something that gives you negative feedback like that and allowing it to speak to you

without a human telling you is probably a good exercise.

It's just um

Whatever like exercise gives you negative feedback, right?

So that was that was gonna give that was gonna be my example.

Anybody can go out and just do some exercise today and get some feedback instantly.

Yeah.

Yeah.

And so it's both negative and positive, is that after I get it done, I'm like, man, I'm
glad I did that.

And after I absorbed what you told me today, Doug, I can go home, walk in the woods and
go, Okay, that was really a good word that Doug gave me today.

And

the moment my shoulders might get tense and I might not appreciate it.

But I think what you'll find in life is the more I can shorten that feedback loop, the
more I'm just gonna be able to live in the moment.

But the more I have these open loops of feedback out there, they they tend to create
unnecessary stress.

Yeah, I I I think another follow up question to ask yourself in your head is just what
what's the win win here?

Like what do I really need to hear?

Where do I need to be honest with myself?

And uh and then how do I continue that loop back to the person who just gave me the
feedback?

do I owe them an apology?

Uh do I need to say, Hey, I am sorry, I was wrong there?

Or is it, yeah, you know, thank you for that.

I I I can see where you're coming from.

And and so just not not closing the loop.

When you close the loop, you you might lose the most important thing of the loop, and
that's the relationship.

And and I I think that relationships are probably more valuable in 2026 than any time I
can remember because the more we integrate with entities that we could give feedback to,

maybe it's a restaurant, maybe it's a home improvement organization, the it seems the more
and more that time evolves in the current

culture that those entities are bigger and the bigger an entity is, the less um you
perceive that they even care about your feedback.

And then if you don't have relationships that care about your feedback, then you can
almost internalize that to think that I don't even matter.

And in some of those big organizations, you really don't, but

somebody that will give you feedback and you can give it to I think that relationship
tells you that both of you matter.

I care enough to let you know and you cared enough to have the conversation with me
without yelling and screaming at me.

The driver's license or the Bureau of Motor Ve Vehicles, they have a a button that you
hit.

Have you ever seen it?

I have a uh a green smiley face or a red uh frowny face.

And I always just kind of think in my head, what good does that really do?

And so just just the way you treat people, I think, can have a huge effect.

And and maybe if they get a thousand uh smiley faces and and two frowning faces, it's it's
like I don't know, I don't know what that means, like no pizza party or something.

But but just given the time to say, hey, how's your day going?

Uh, what's it like working here?

I mean, th those are happy, happy faces that you can punch every time with very little
effort.

I and you know a thing that's really helped me is realizing most people don't want
feedback.

And and so I'm gonna be very specific when I give negative feedback because if somebody
doesn't want it, is it necessary for me to give it?

And a lot of times the answer is no, it's absolutely not.

And a place where it's really helped to my soul is when I've eaten at a sit-down
restaurant.

And got below average service.

Um my temptation is to give them a mediocre tip.

But what I've evolved to is giving them a decent tip because what giving them a decent tip
does is it tells me I'm looking at them beyond what they did for me today.

And I'm not going to hold a grudge.

I'm going to just, it may cost me five or 10 bucks more to give them a decent tip.

But I'm gonna walk away from the table, not affected by their poor service.

And so there's that's part of a feedback loop.

If I had a bad attitude, I just paid for a nice dinner and I'm gonna probably take it out
into the car and on my way home.

And it was like, why would I do that to myself?

Why not give myself some positive feedback by upping the tip?

I can think of an another couple things, Keith, where, you know, being in this business
that you and I are in, uh, we serve several different types of personalities.

And over the years, where I've had people who are 20, 30 years older than me when I was
first starting, tell me directly, hey Doug, we need you to do this.

Uh, I always really appreciated that.

I can think of a couple people specifically uh on the phone calls who said, Doug, we are
counting on you to do this.

And what that did is that helped me clarify my aim of what I'm

supposed to be and what I could be doing for somebody.

And so so i if you are, you know, 80, 70, 60, 50, 40, and you're working with somebody
who's a little younger, uh, I would encourage you to just be really clear in your feedback

because it's that clarity that can help give someone the permission to take what they're
doing to the next level.

And I I think

We were talking about it here earlier.

I'm kind of a spaz about uh words and their meaning and choosing my words wisely.

But I think the words and the tone that you use and give them feedback, it's probably
important because th there are there are positive words to give negative feedback to

people and there's negative words to give the same one.

But if you ponder a little bit before you give necessary feedback, I think

the the word you choose can go a long way.

And then uh another idea I think is that consideration of when do I give feedback.

And I think seeking advice.

Yeah, right when you're le right when you're leaving the office, 459.

That's a great time to give some feedback on a Friday.

That's great time to give some feedback.

Negative feedback.

Yeah.

No, uh

Like getting advice to give it, because we had an example here just uh two or three weeks
ago where a vendor of ours gave us horrible service.

And you ask, should I call them?

And my opinion was, yeah, I think if if we call them, that's the only way they're gonna
know that we got horrible service.

And your your takeaway is they didn't really care, which is not necessarily unusual today,
but at least

Um you cared enough to let them know that in that instance we didn't get very good
service.

Yeah.

And and one way to know if they care is if you hear back from somebody.

Yeah.

Well, I I can assure you this.

As gimbal clients, we care.

Um I I think we want some feedback.

No, I know we want feedback because you just no.

Yeah.

Because it's what's made us better over the years.

The more feedback we get, we know we improve.

As much as it hurts, we we take it seriously and say, How can we improve this?

Hey, Keith, I wanna I know we're in overtime here, but um and and a reason why feedback
can be very important to someone like me is we all have blind spots and we might think

we're cruising just fine, or we might have these excuses in our head of why this or that.

And so and so just like a car.

you may not see it.

And when someone points that out to you, uh, they could really save you from having a bad
accident.

And so at Gimbal, we that's why we want feedback is is we know that, you know, we might be
missing some stuff.

And we wanna we wanna be able to pay attention to it.

And sometimes uh it's just a complete blind spot that has to be pointed out.

And and what it ultimately does is if it's a common issue for us is we've learned to put
systems in place to help you.

And I I can just off the top of my head remember a number of times where I got some very
negative feedback and it hurt my feelings, but we were able to put systems in place

probably from 30 years ago that help our business run more smoothly today.

So if I had just buried my head in the sand, I'd be getting that feedback probably still
today.

And

It's not necessary.

It can really it can launch you into your future.

Well, Doug, thanks for your thoughts on this area.

I hope it's helpful to a number of people there and I hope everybody can just make the
most out of this weekend.