Some of the best advice you’ll get comes in terrible packaging. Keep the gift, toss the wrapping.

Useful information often arrives from people with no talent for delivering it. Because the delivery stings, the natural move is to reject the whole package, and the one true thing in it gets thrown out with the rudeness. That protects your pride and costs you the correction.

Give yourself a day before deciding what to do with hard feedback. Then separate it into two parts, what was said and how. Keep whatever holds up on its own, and feel free to leave the rest, including any need to thank them for the way they said it.