One mean comment can drown out forty nice ones if you let it. Count them all, not just the loud one.

Attention is not evenly distributed. A critical line hooks harder than a kind one and replays longer, which makes it feel like the truest thing said about you when it is only the loudest. That weighting happens to everyone, and it is not a sign of being thin skinned. The trouble is that one voice ends up standing in for a whole room.

When something stings, take an actual count before deciding what the room thought. Reread the messages you skimmed past. You do not have to disbelieve the criticism to notice that it was one opinion sitting next to forty others.