Decide What to Defend and What to Let Go

Sometimes you don’t need to defend yourself, no matter how withering the assault.  If you’re going to attack someone or something, you’ve got to be prepared for your target to respond.  And that’s when you need to be prepared not to respond.

You have to decide what you’re going to defend and what you’re going to let go and stop reacting in a vacuum to every bad word, piece of news, result, and day, taking them too seriously and getting defensive.

I learned a lot from my CEOs at Kodak and Cenveo about this.  When you lead a public company or a business that’s in the public eye, people will come after you publicly, and these CEOs showed great restraint and strength in the face of often withering criticism.

Stay aware of what is going on and who, where, and how people are saying what and why…. But then ignore most of it.