A depressed office worker.
It’s your yearly review time with your boss, and although you know you’ve done a good job over the past year, the boss gives you a good old’ fashioned compliment sandwich. She starts with a compliment, then hits you with some pointed criticism, and then ends with another positive message. But all you can think about is the negative feedback you received in the middle.
After receiving the negative feedback, you feel a bit queasy and the hairs on the back of your neck stand up. You’re dealing with a rush of emotions, but you have to respond. What do you say? Justin Bariso, author of EQ Applied :The Real-World Guide to Emotional Intelligence and a thought leader on the subjects of leadership, management, and emotional intelligence, says that before you say something you’re going to regret, ask for some time to give a response.
How to respond to negative feedback and criticism
“Whenever you receive negative feedback, and you’re tempted to say something you’re likely to regret, say this instead: Thanks for expressing your thoughts...Please give me a day or so to process this, and I’ll respond,” Bariso writes on Twitter.
Why is it so important to wait before responding to negative feedback that may have been emotionally painful? “Your first emotion is your emotional reaction. It comes from the amygdala, the little almond-shaped part of your brain that jumps into action when you feel attacked. But once time has passed, the amygdala calms down…and you start thinking more rationally,” Bariso writes.
“Just giving yourself a day to process the feedback helps you to see it much differently. Instead of seeing it as hurtful, you can now see it as helpful,” he continues. “So…The next time you get critical feedback, take a step back, and be a diamond cutter. You'll transform that feedback into something valuable—and that'll make you better at...Just about everything.”
An employee getting yelled at with a bullhorn. via Canva/Photos
Bariso says his wait-a-day approach works for “just about everything” because we have to deal with negative feedback in almost every facet of our lives, whether it’s work, relationships, or hobbies. It’s reassuring to know that in nearly all cases, we have the option to delay responding to unexpected negative feedback.
Bariso believes that in these emotionally heightened moments, it’s better to respond than to react.
The reason why, in an emotionally charged situation, our initial reaction may not be appropriate is that, according to Lisa Marie Bobby, PhD, LMFT, BCC, we all have a hard-wired impulse to react quickly to anything that feels like a threat. “Thinking takes time, and when a bear is charging at you, you don’t have time to ponder how the bear might be feeling or why exactly you feel so afraid,” Bobby writes at Growing Self. “You just leap to your feet and run to safety, thanks to the finely-tuned threat sensors that are baked into the machinery of your brain.”
Next time you feel your heart racing and your blood pressure rising because you’ve been criticized, whether fairly or unfairly, just realize that it’s best to respond when your body doesn’t think it is being chased by a wild animal. Then you can reply to your critics in an honest, strategic, and thoughtful way. Because a thoughtful, strategic reaction to criticism shows emotional intelligence, which is one of the most highly sought-after traits in any type of relationship.
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Resurfaced video of French skier's groin incident has people giving the announcer a gold medal
"The boys took a beating on that one."
Downhill skiing is a sport rife with injuries, but not usually this kind.
A good commentator can make all the difference when watching sports, even when an event goes smoothly. But it's when something goes wrong that great announcers rise to the top, and there's no better example of a great announcer in a surprise moment than when French skier Yannick Bertrand took a gate to the groin in a 2007 super-G race.
Competitive skiers fly down runs at incredible speeds, often exceeding 60 mph. Hitting something hard at that speed would definitely hurt, but hitting something hard with a particularly sensitive part of your body would be excruciating. So when Bertrand slammed right into a gate family-jewels-first, his high-pitched scream was unsurprising. What was surprising was the perfect commentary that immediately followed.
This is a clip you really just have to see and hear to fully appreciate:
- YouTube youtu.be
It's unclear who the announcer is, even after multiple Google inquiries, which is unfortunate because that gentleman deserves a medal. The commentary gets better with each repeated viewing, with highlights like:
"The gate the groin for Yannick Bertrand, and you could hear it. And if you're a man, you could feel it."
"Oh, the Frenchman. Oh-ho, monsieurrrrrr."
"The boys took a beating on that one."
"That guy needs a hug."
"Those are the moments that change your life if you're a man, I tell you what."
"When you crash through a gate, when you do it at high rate of speed, it's gonna hurt and it's going to leave a mark in most cases. And in this particular case, not the area where you want to leave a mark."
Imagine watching a man take a hit to the privates at 60 mph and having to make impromptu commentary, straddling the line between professionalism and acknowledging the universally understood reality of what just happened. There are certain things you can't say on network television that you might feel compelled to say. There's a visceral element to this scenario that could easily be taken too far in the commentary, and the inherent humor element could be seen as insenstive and offensive if not handled just right.
The announcer nailed it. 10/10. No notes.
The clip frequently resurfaces during the Winter Olympic Games, though the incident didn't happen during an Olympic event. Yannick Bertrand was competing at the FIS World Cup super-G race in Kvitfjell, Norway in 2007, when the unfortunate accident occurred. Bertrand had competed at the Turin Olympics the year before, however, coming in 24th in the downhill and super-G events.
As painful as the gate to the groin clearly as, Bertrand did not appear to suffer any damage that kept him from the sport. In fact, he continued competing in international downhill and super-G races until 2014.
Alpine skiing is a notoriously dangerous sport, with a reported injury rate of 36.7 per 100 World Cup athletes per season, according to a 2018 study. Of course, it's the knees and not the coin purse that are the most common casualty of ski racing, which we saw clearly in U.S. skiier Lindsey Vonn's harrowing experiences at the 2026 Olympics. Vonn was competing with a torn ACL and ended up being helicoptered off of the mountain after an ugly crash that did additional damage to her legs, requiring multiple surgeries (though what caused the crash was reportedly unrelated to her ACL tear). Still, she says she has no regrets.
As Bertrand's return to the slopes shows, the risk of injury doesn't stop those who live for the thrill of victory, even when the agony of defeat hits them right in the rocks.