ENDA Episode 22→ The time when the Endless Apprentice learned the importance of listening to critics (Part 3)

We all feel a slight discomfort when we hear critics about our work and it is normal, but most of the professionals know that is part of the job and some of those critics can helps us realize the areas where we can improve.

However, as it was explained in the last part, there are times when not knowing how to “listen” to the critics and only “hearing” them can turn into problematic behaviors. In all the time I’ve been an apprentice, there were two cases where those behaviors went to an extreme:

➡️ During an exposition for a Communications course, there was a group of two people (a man and a woman). It was noticeable by everyone in the classroom that the exposition had many holes and that it was being almost monopolized by the man.

However, the problem came during the Q&A part when a classmate questioned some of those information holes. The man did not react very well and gave a very cutting response that shocked everyone. The teacher handled the matter calmly after that.

I do not recall if he passed or not, but the damage he did to his future connections was serious: almost everyone present that day, would think twice working with him in or outside of college.

➡️ An artist that I knew during my time in the VFX and Animation school was very talented in technical aspects like Rigging, FX, Modelling, etc. Nonetheless, the moment when he had to deal with the feedback he went almost automatically with everything that teachers told them.

In theory, this should not be negative, he ended up having good projects yes. But the moment he had to work on the short film thesis, he encountered a wall: besides just doing what the lead told him to do, he needed to propose his own solutions or research other approaches. He could not succeed in that, proposing something new or thinking through the feedback was not something he was used to.

Being used to only “hear” critics made him unable to actually “listen” and grow as an artist.

As a result, his quality could not arrive at what the project was looking for and he had to be changed to other positions, which was sad because we knew he had the talent, but could not use it properly.

These two cases illustrate how only “hearing” can lead you to dead ends in your career for different reasons. However, you must be asking how about cases that illustrate the benefits of listening?

Well, that would be for the next episode.