Arjun Badola

Criticism: why people get defensive

I have noticed this many times that many people get defensive when they are faced with criticism for stupid things which not even represent them.

For example: I was recently sharing my thoughts on a business idea to one of my friends and he started asking me questions as if he was the General of the Army and I was his subordinate. But soon the criticism turned very aggressive and he started saying sentences like, “opening a start-up is not your cup of a tea”.

This incident reminded me of a paragraph from the book ‘Be Obsessed Or Be Average’ by Grant Cardone, where he mentions that, when people tell you something cannot be done its not the reason why it cannot be done instead it is their excuse why they didn’t do it.

So, I realized it is actually true. The incident with my friend which I mentioned above shows his mindset that he has already formed an image that building a start-up is so hard that if he can’t do it nobody else can.