The other night, I had a drink with a few strangers, three middle-aged men who’ve already had quite a number of bottles. This was the type of situation my mom would have warned me to avoid at all costs. But there I was, after hours, stuck.
It began when one of the men who strangely looked like our nation’s president (let’s call him “Rody”), went up to me as I was talking to the bar owner. He pointed to one of the posters I had hung up a week ago and said, “hindi gagana iyang promo mo yan.” I looked at him and thought to myself, “ano problema nito?” But of course, I kept that to myself and I simply asked why he thought the promo was bad. “Sales din ako eh, kaya alam ko mga yan,” he condescended. Again, I asked myself, “ano problema nito?”
As our discussion reached an impass, he sat with his two other friends, who were at the table right next to us. So I grabbed a chair, levelled with them, and presented my case, promoted my beer to all three of them.
10 minutes in, we were done talking about beer and the kwentuhan commenced. At that point, I was exhausted, ready to go and call it a night. But they weren’t.
They were only getting started. But it was interesting, and at some level, amusing. While Rody babbled about his experience selling Italian cookware many years back, the man to my right went on and on about his nephew named Kevin and his uncle who worked in the government. “What have I gotten myself into,” I thought to myself. How did these guys have so much to say in such a short span of time? Meanwhile the man across me was busy contradicting everything I said for reasons unknown to me up to now. “Ba’t naman po ako magsisinungaling sa inyo sir?” I asked him in return.
And then comes Rody with the punchline:”Ganyan talaga pag nasa sales, negative o positive, makinig ka lang at tanggapin mo lang kasi dyan ka matututo.” There was no way I was letting myself go through all that trouble without at least gaining something from it, and if there were anything good that came out of that conversation, it was that. He had a point, and I agree – we shouldn’t dismiss negative feedback just because we feel they are unkind, rude, or hurtful. Listen, evaluate if there’s any truth to it, and if there is, accept it and do better tomorrow.
I didnt think he intented to teach me that lesson though. He was probably just showing off or wanting to feel superior. But I’ll take it. There is real value in patience and mindful listening if we only look for that value and appreciate it as it is. That night, it took an hour and a half to get to that value, but we got there eventually.