Making Criticism Friendly Millionaire, Steven K. Scott, makes a radical suggestion, “Make your worst enemy your best friend – criticism.” He offers considerations on how to convert criticism to understanding. For instance, consider the source. How qualified is this person to give such criticism? What is the basis of the criticism? Example, is it based on emotion, lack of understanding, lack of experience, logic, the realities of the situation, or conventional thinking rather than creative thinking? Also recognize the motive of the critic and the accuracy of the criticism. It is most important to take responsibility for your response to criticism. If you defend, attack, withdraw, or surrender, you might think of these as wrong responses. Whereas right response would be to re-focus, write down the criticism, and then search out the “gold” in it. If you look for something valuable, something you can learn from in the censure, you will find it, even though it may have nothing at all to do with the original intent of the critic. Scott offers some steps to process disapproval. These include examination of what hurt you the most? And What good came from it? As well as what would you do differently the next time? It would seem that all people would benefit from careful examination of not only faultfinding received, but what we find fault with in others. We might turn this latter thought inward with additional questions. Why do we have a need to criticize in the first place? What is our intent in doing so and why does another person’s behavior weigh so heavily on us that we would need to chime in with criticism? And, on the reverse side, what exactly is triggering our need to take criticism personally? Certainly people in sales and leadership positions would profit from this kind of self-examination. Insight could provide opportunity to radically change their interactions with staff and customers. Expanding farther, certainly all people dealing with issues of insecurity could be helped by self understanding. When you get right down to it, all people need this type of realization and awareness. It could be that Steven K. Scott is a successful millionaire because he has mastered criticism.