Do like Tesla boss Elon Musk: Ask for feedback

Feedback is necessary for increased self-understanding and growth.
Take a leaf out of Elon Musk’s book and ask for some honest input from people you trust…
if you’re not too scared that is.

Elon Musk is one of the people who inspire me. A while back when I was doing some research on the South African I learnt the he, like me, is a strong believer in getting feedback.

A few weeks ago I decided to do something about that so I reached out to my wife, family, friends and relations for honest feedback. In total, asked around 25 people for their opinion on the following three questions:

1. Based on your interactions with Bjarte, what are his key strengths in your opinion?
2. Based on your interactions with Bjarte, what would you say could be his three main areas of improvement?
3. Based on your interactions with Bjarte, what’s the one thing you would start improving if you were, god forbid, Bjarte?

I also asked them to be dead honest and rather be too harsh than too soft.

In future posts I’ll share some of the feedback I received. For now, I just want to say that is was both painful and interesting to read their answers. Most of all, however, it gave me some real insight into how people I care about perceive me.

If you’re going to do this yourself, keep these points in mind:

• Other people’s opinion is just that; other people’s opinion. They have their perspectives on what’s important in life, you have yours.
• Don’t immediately accept or reject the feedback that you get. Summarise the feedback and reflect on it for a while. Then choose what changes you will make.

And that’s all I had to share this time.

Oh, one more thing:

I just got married!

The below picture was taken two weeks ago in Tønsberg, Norway. I’m really lucky to have married lovely Kristina :-)

Currently we are in Brazil to visit friends and to follow the World Cup (even though getting tickets is hard).

Regards from Brazil :-)

I borrowed the Musk picture from here. Thanks.