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We’ve all been there. You get feedback and your first thought is, Wow, that was rude.
But was it really? Or did it just sting a little?
In this episode of Five with Fry, I’m digging into something I saw in an Instagram video from Conflictish: the idea that directness is not the same as rudeness. It’s a message that hit home for me, and it got even more real when I thought back to a workshop I led where a deaf participant shared his experience with communication differences between deaf and hearing cultures.
In deaf culture, people are direct. No fluff. No sugarcoating. In hearing culture, the truth often gets wrapped in so much niceness it loses its edge—sometimes to the point where the real message is barely there. That’s where the “feedback sandwich” comes in: nice thing, actual feedback, nice thing. The problem? If you add too much “nice,” the part that helps someone grow can disappear.
“Truth Should Hurt, But the Truth Teller Should Not”
This workshop participant said something that stopped me in my tracks: “Truth should hurt, but the truth teller should not.”
Honest feedback might make you uncomfortable. It might even bruise your ego. That doesn’t mean the person giving it was being disrespectful. Discomfort does not equal disrespect.
The real question is: Where is the hurt coming from?
- Is it because what they said is true, and you hadn’t seen it that way before?
- Or is it because of the way they delivered it (their tone, timing, or choice of setting)?
Those are two very different situations. And if your tolerance for direct, honest feedback is so low that any truth feels like disrespect, you’re going to have a hard time growing as a leader, a teammate, or a human who wants to improve.
Raising Your Tolerance for Directness
If you want to improve at anything—your job, your sport, your relationships—you need to be able to handle a level of directness. That means figuring out if your reaction is about the message or the delivery.
When it’s the message, that’s your moment to sit with it and reflect, even if it’s uncomfortable.
When it’s the delivery, that’s a chance to say, “I appreciate your honesty, but here’s how I’d prefer to receive feedback.”
It’s not about silencing the truth teller. It’s about making room for the truth to land in a way that helps you use it.
The Bottom Line
Discomfort is part of growth. You can’t build skills, improve performance, or develop better relationships without facing it. When you can separate truth that hurts from truth told hurtfully, you gain the ability to learn without shutting down.
This episode is all about helping you do just that.
🎧 Listen to the full episode of Five with Fry to hear the whole story, and start thinking about your own tolerance for directness.
