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A Simple Guide on How to Handle Destructive Criticism

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People criticized me. So I changed. But people still criticized me. So I changed more. And still people criticized me. Then finally I realized it’s what they will do, no matter what. And I changed once more, by no longer listening to those people.

Does that mean I have stopped listening to people’s advice? Of course not, I welcome it, I’m grateful for it. But there is a not-so-fine-line between those who destructively criticize, and those offering “constructive criticism” — that is, the advice that can be the most important, even and perhaps especially the tough love variety.

The difference resides in the intention of the person delivering the criticism:

  • Are they someone who genuinely cares about you, and/or about the results of your actions, first of all?
  • Are they saying whatever they are saying because they genuinely care about your improvement, or the improvement of whatever it is your actions are impacting, even if their words may not be the best they could have chosen?
  • Are they truly speaking from an emotional place of insecurity, jealousy, guilt, anger, or hate?

Responding Versus Reacting

If you and I were purely rational beings, it would be pretty easy to routinely recognize others’ intentions, and therefore the difference between constructive versus destructive criticism. Be we too have these little things called “emotions” that can sometimes get in our way… in a big way.

So one of the most beneficial things you can learn is to “scan yourself” to recognize your own emotions at any given time. (This is a habit that serves you well in many respects of life, of course; people can get better and better at it, but no one ever perfects it.)

When it comes to determining the difference between someone giving constructive versus destructive criticism, assess if you have any emotional disturbances or walls up inside you. For example, are you feeling insecure in the face of the particular constructive criticism you are receiving, taking things personally when they are not so, and misinterpreting it as destructive?

Do you have your own internal anger or sadness about something in relation to the person who is delivering what they mean as good advice, which therefore may be tainting how you hear it? Are you simply crabby?

It is not always easy to scan and analyze your own emotions in this manner, but then little that is worth doing is ever easy. The more you can recognize your own emotions so you can respond versus react, the more strife you will avoid and growth you will achieve.

“Life is 10% what happens to you and 90% how you respond”

Recognizing the Destructive

If you do have your own emotions in check, then, it is typically not hard to recognize those who are destructively criticizing you. If their criticism is full of downright insults — calling you stupid and the like, implying or stating outright you’ll never amount to much, etc. — that is clearly destructive.

But also watch their facial and bodily expressions, and listen to the tone of their voices. Instead of the look and sound of care, concern, or worry, destructive criticism usually looks and feels like an attack.

Sometimes you will even sense a sort of sick delight in the person destructively criticizing you, because these “broken” people draw a temporary and false sense of strength and joy from tearing you and likely others down.

The Only Thing to Do

When you are certain a person is in the business of destructively criticizing you, the best thing or the ONLY thing you can do is let them go. Shut them off. Detach. Stop listening. Easier said than done, I know, but amongst the most important things you’ll ever do in your life. If this person is someone you can physically part from in your life, do so.

What If It’s Someone Close to You?

However, often the biggest challenge comes when someone you care about, and who “should” care about you, such as a parent, sibling, spouse, or even someone who once did care about you like an ex or old friend — turns to destructive criticism.

This can feel especially disheartening and like it just doesn’t add up. Because this is a person we ought to be able trust, and so it is extremely easy to take their criticism to heart, even if we rationally know their criticism is not well-intentioned and frankly, full of crap.

But in these cases too, difficult as it may be, you must detach. You may not be able to physically leave in some cases, but you can increasingly teach yourself to mentally and emotionally depart and NOT take any of their destructive words to heart. Yes, it takes work to do this, but believe me, the work is worth it.

“Your circle of influence dictates your path” – Oprah

By the way, if you cannot, or choose not to, physically depart from this person, do remember you cannot fix anyone else, no matter how much you love them and wish you could. You can attempt your own constructive advice to try to help them, but be prepared for extensive resistance, to say the least. The good news is that most “lost souls” do find their way back, starting with one trigger or another; the bad news is that not all do.

Only you, with your own set of values, know who it is you won’t physically leave despite their destructive criticism and negativity, or how far your lines are drawn before you must physically leave them. This is something you should assess and understand for yourself now, hard as it may be, if you don’t yet know.

Misguided Daggers

No matter what, you absolutely CAN choose who you will listen to, whose words you will let inside your head, and whose you will keep out. Even if they’re in the next office over, or in the bed right next to you.

My strong constructive advice is to choose carefully, choose wisely, and for any and all who would destructively criticize you, remember their daggers are misguided. Those who destructively criticize others have one form or another of self-loathing, and the daggers they throw at others are really meant for themselves. Do the work to ban their misguided daggers from piercing your heart.

How are you dealing with criticism? Comment below!

Image courtesy of Twenty20.com

Brian Vaszily is the founder of AdvantageHacks.com, which publishes life-changing questions like this and other unique content that can improve your life and make you say “Huh!” and things like it. He’s the author of multiple books, including the #1 bestseller, The 9 Intense Experiences: An Action Plan to Change Your Life Forever, is a popular speaker, and has been featured on ABC, NBC, CBS and other major media.

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Entrepreneurs

The Brutal Truth About Entrepreneurship with ADHD (And Why Most Advice Is Making It Worse)

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Image Credit: Joel Brown - Addicted2success

You’re not lazy. You’re not undisciplined… and you’re definitely not broken.

You’re an entrepreneur with ADHD, and right now you’re probably sitting on 19 unfinished projects, 47 open tabs, and a brain that feels like it’s running on 12 different radio stations at once.

You’ve read the books. You’ve tried the planners, the Pomodoro timers, the accountability groups. You’ve even hired coaches who promised to “fix” your focus. Yet here you are — brilliant ideas, massive potential, and a business that still feels like it’s one step away from collapsing under the weight of your own mind.

Here’s what almost nobody in the entrepreneurial space will admit:

The real struggle isn’t your ADHD. It’s that you’ve been trying to run a neurodivergent brain inside a neurotypical business model — and then beating yourself up when it doesn’t work.

Most advice for entrepreneurs was written by people whose brains work differently. They preach consistency, routines, long-term planning, and steady execution like those things are universal truths. For the ADHD entrepreneur, those “truths” feel like trying to swim upstream in cement. You can force it for a while (and you have), but eventually your brain rebels, the burnout hits, and you’re left feeling like a failure who just needs to “try harder.”

That cycle is quietly destroying more talented founders than cash flow problems or bad hires ever could.

The deeper layer most people never reach is this: your ADHD isn’t a bug in the system. It’s a different operating system entirely. And when you stop trying to install Windows on a Mac and start building everything around macOS, the game changes completely.

The Hidden Addiction That Keeps ADHD Entrepreneurs Stuck

You already know the surface symptoms — time blindness, rejection sensitivity, starting strong and fading fast, shiny object syndrome.

But the real trap is more insidious.

It’s the addiction to chaos and novelty.

Your brain is wired for dopamine. New ideas, big visions, last-minute sprints, high-stakes pressure — these things light you up like nothing else. The boring, repetitive, systems-building work that actually scales a business? It feels like torture.

So unconsciously, you keep your business in a state of controlled chaos. You say yes to too many things. You chase the next exciting opportunity. You avoid building the boring infrastructure because “I work better under pressure anyway.”

And every time the pressure gets too high, you crash, swear you’ll get organized next quarter, and repeat the cycle.

Meanwhile, the neurotypical advice keeps telling you to “just build better habits.” As if your brain is a poorly trained dog that needs more discipline instead of a high-performance race car that needs the right fuel and track.

This isn’t a character flaw. It’s neurology.

And until you stop treating your wiring as something to overcome and start treating it as your greatest strategic advantage, you’ll stay stuck in the same exhausting loop.

The Identity Shift That Changes Everything

The entrepreneurs with ADHD who finally break through don’t “fix” their brains.

They redesign their entire business to work with their brains.

They stop trying to become the consistent, routine-loving founder the gurus talk about. Instead, they become the architect of a system that leverages their natural strengths — hyperfocus, pattern recognition, creative problem-solving, relentless drive under pressure — while outsourcing or automating everything that drains them.

This is the layer most ADHD entrepreneurs never reach because it requires something terrifying: accepting that you are never going to be “normal” at entrepreneurship… and that’s exactly why you can win bigger than most.

Your ability to see connections others miss. Your tolerance for uncertainty. Your capacity to go all-in when something lights you up. These aren’t liabilities. They’re unfair advantages in a world that rewards speed, creativity, and bold moves.

The shift is simple but brutal:

Stop trying to manage your ADHD. Start designing your business around it.

How to Actually Build a Business That Works With Your Brain

  1. Stop fighting your energy cycles — weaponize them. Most ADHD entrepreneurs try to force 8-hour focused days. That’s insane. Instead, track when your brain actually works best (for many it’s 10pm-2am or random 4-hour hyperfocus bursts). Build your schedule around those windows. Protect them like gold. Do the deep, high-leverage work then. Use the low-energy periods for admin, calls, or recovery.
  2. Build “chaos containers,” not rigid systems. Traditional project management tools feel like cages. Create loose but effective structures that give your brain freedom. Use tools like Notion with massive flexibility, or body-doubling (working alongside someone virtually), or even hiring a “chaos wrangler” — an assistant who thrives on turning your scattered ideas into executable plans.
  3. Turn your rejection sensitivity into rocket fuel. That intense fear of letting people down or looking stupid? Channel it into creating ridiculously high standards for your customer experience or product quality. Use it as fuel instead of letting it paralyze you.
  4. Outsource the parts that make you want to die. The execution, follow-through, and maintenance phases are where most ADHD entrepreneurs lose. Hire or partner with people who love the details. Your job is vision, strategy, and big swings. Let someone else own the spreadsheets.
  5. Create external pressure on your own terms. Deadlines and public commitments work wonders for the ADHD brain. Use them strategically — announce launches, create beta groups, or work with coaches who understand neurodivergence instead of fighting it.

The entrepreneurs with ADHD who are quietly crushing it right now aren’t the ones who finally became “disciplined.” They’re the ones who stopped apologizing for how their brain works and started building empires that are specifically engineered for it.

They have teams that handle the boring stuff. They have systems that flex with their energy instead of fighting it. They’ve turned their “flaws” into the exact reasons their businesses stand out.

Your ADHD brain is not the enemy. The enemy was trying to play the game by rules that were never designed for you.

The moment you accept that and start designing everything… your calendar, your team, your offers, your processes — around how you actually operate, the struggle doesn’t disappear… but it becomes manageable, even exhilarating.

You were never meant to fit the mold. You were meant to break it and build something better.

The world doesn’t need another cookie-cutter entrepreneur. It needs the chaotic, brilliant, all-in, slightly unhinged visionaries who can only operate at full power when the game is built for them.

That’s you.

Stop trying to fix yourself. Start building the business that was always meant to be run by a mind like yours.

Your next breakthrough isn’t going to come from working harder or being more consistent. It’s going to come from finally giving yourself permission to work differently.

And when you do that? Watch what happens.

The same brain that once felt like a curse becomes the exact reason your business becomes unstoppable.

You’ve got this. Not despite the ADHD. Because of it.

If you want to learn more from me or send me a personal message I’ll respond to you on Instagram at https://instagram.com/iamjoelbrown speak soon!

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Health & Fitness

The Health Planning Habits That Support Long-Term Success

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Image Credit: Joel Brown - Addicted2success

Most people think about health planning only when something forces them to.

A medical bill arrives unexpectedly. An insurance issue appears during treatment. A diagnosis changes how future care needs are viewed. Suddenly health planning becomes urgent instead of preventative.

The problem is that long-term health stability is usually shaped by smaller habits built quietly over time, not just by major decisions during emergencies.

That includes physical health habits, of course, but it also includes how people approach insurance coverage, preventative care, financial preparation, and long-term healthcare planning before problems become immediate.

The families who navigate healthcare stress most effectively are often not the ones avoiding every issue entirely. More often, they’re the ones who built systems early enough to make difficult situations feel more manageable later.

Consistency Matters More Than Perfection

A lot of health advice still revolves around extreme change.

Perfect diets. Aggressive routines. Complete lifestyle overhauls.

In reality, most long-term health success comes from consistency people can realistically maintain for years instead of months. Small preventative habits tend to matter more than dramatic short-term efforts that collapse under pressure.

That principle applies financially too.

People often spend more time researching investment strategies than understanding their healthcare coverage or preparing for future medical costs. But healthcare instability can disrupt long-term financial plans surprisingly quickly when households are unprepared for how expensive even routine care can become over time.

The practical side of health planning is becoming harder to separate from overall financial planning now than it used to be.

Preventative Planning Reduces More Stress Than People Realize

One overlooked benefit of health planning is emotional stability.

People who understand their coverage, maintain preventative care routines, and think ahead about healthcare decisions often describe feeling less overwhelmed when unexpected situations happen. The goal is not eliminating uncertainty entirely. That’s unrealistic.

The goal is reducing how chaotic healthcare decisions feel under pressure.

That’s one reason broader conversations tied to healthcare and health insurance have expanded significantly over the last several years. Rising costs, changing coverage structures, and increasing healthcare complexity have made long-term planning more important for average households than many people expected.

Healthcare is no longer something most families can comfortably approach reactively forever.

People Underestimate How Quickly Healthcare Costs Compound

One reason health planning habits matter so much is that healthcare costs rarely arrive in one dramatic moment alone.

More often, they build gradually:

  • recurring prescriptions
  • specialist visits
  • ongoing treatment plans
  • insurance deductible increases
  • long-term care considerations
  • unexpected procedures layered on top of existing expenses

Families often absorb these costs incrementally until they realize how much financial pressure accumulated over time.

That gradual buildup is part of what makes proactive planning valuable. People who think ahead about coverage structures, emergency savings, provider networks, and preventative care tend to adapt more smoothly when healthcare needs eventually increase later in life.

The difficult part is that many households delay these conversations because they feel healthy right now.

Healthcare Decisions Have Become More Complicated

Another challenge is that healthcare systems themselves continue evolving quickly.

Insurance structures change. Telehealth expands. Employer-sponsored benefits shift. Prescription pricing fluctuates. Patients now carry more responsibility for understanding deductibles, provider networks, and out-of-pocket exposure than previous generations often did.

That complexity creates decision fatigue.

Even relatively organized households sometimes feel uncertain about whether they’re making good healthcare choices because the systems themselves are difficult to navigate confidently. A lot of current health insurance trends discussions reflect this larger issue, healthcare planning is becoming less about isolated medical events and more about long-term sustainability across entire households.

People want predictability, but healthcare systems increasingly feel harder to predict.

The Most Effective Health Habits Usually Feel Boring

One thing people rarely admit is that good long-term planning habits are often not particularly exciting.

Scheduling preventative appointments. Reviewing insurance annually. Building emergency savings slowly. Staying physically active consistently. Maintaining realistic routines instead of dramatic cycles of burnout and reset.

None of those habits feel dramatic at the moment.

But over long periods, they create stability that becomes incredibly valuable once life gets complicated. The people who navigate healthcare stress most effectively are often the ones who built ordinary systems early instead of waiting for perfect motivation later.

That applies financially and physically at the same time.

Why Long-Term Success Depends on Adaptability

Health planning is ultimately difficult because people’s lives keep changing.

Careers shift. Families grow. Aging parents require support. Medical needs evolve. Financial priorities change over decades in ways nobody predicts perfectly in advance.

That’s why the strongest long-term health planning habits are usually flexible rather than rigid.

The goal is not building a flawless plan that never changes. It’s creating enough structure, awareness, and preparation that future adjustments become manageable instead of overwhelming.

Most people cannot control every future health outcome. They can, however, build habits that make uncertainty easier to navigate when it eventually arrives.

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Life

Why Moving to a New City Can Change Your Mindset

Discover how moving to a new city boosts neuroplasticity, builds resilience, and reshapes your mindset

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How relocation changes your mindset

Relocation is always a challenge. Rebuilding and restarting your life requires you to step outside of your comfort zone. (more…)

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Change Your Mindset

The Hidden Reason You Can’t Stay Consistent

If motivation keeps failing you, the real issue isn’t discipline. It’s the identity shaping your habits and long-term success.

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Identity-based habits

Success often looks like a time-management problem. You buy a planner, set reminders, and hope that next week will be different. For a few days, it works. Then stress hits, motivation drops, and old patterns return. (more…)

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