The views expressed here are personal and do not represent my employer.

Most feedback in life is like the free pen you get at conferences — nobody uses it, nobody remembers it. Report cards, appraisals, performance forms — all rituals.

But every once in a while, someone says or does something that barges into your head, refuses to leave, and becomes a story. That’s the feedback worth remembering.

Feedback in School

For most of my school life, feedback was just arithmetic. Teachers gave marks; parents converted them into verdicts. At 97.91, I was still a failure. Because my cousin had 98.

I didn’t care much. My best friend was the ranker; I thought she deserved it. I was happy floating somewhere in the middle, not competing, not envious.

Then came Miss Ramini — an English teacher so feared that even toppers whispered about failing her. On her first exam, she walked in, papers in hand, and announced: “All of you have failed… except one.”

I knew it wasn’t me. Until she called my name.

69 out of 100.

“This,” she said, waving my paper, “is the only answer sheet worth reading.”

The sheet travelled from desk to desk like contraband before it reached me.

For the first time, I realized feedback didn’t have to reward neatness, or obedience, or conformity. It could reward authenticity. It could reward thinking differently.

That day changed something in me because one terrifying woman decided to reward me for being different.

Extracurriculars – Feedback Without Coaching

On stage, feedback wasn’t a grade or a comment. It was visceral.

A debate, a quiz, a song — the room told you instantly whether you belonged. Applause that lifted you for days. Silence that crushed you in seconds. Losing was brutal, winning was electric.

It was the first time I realized feedback doesn’t always come as words. Sometimes it’s the way the world reacts to you.

NATA Coaching – Six out of Ten

Ten days into NATA — the National Aptitude Test in Architecture coaching, I realized architecture was not the dreamy art of drawing buildings.

It was real science wearing the mask of art. The questions were closer to puzzles in a FAANG interview than to sketches in a portfolio.

One actual question I’ll never forget: “Imagine you are a frog in a bucket of water looking at the tap — draw the perspective.”

My coach, the late Dr. Solomon D. Vedamuthu, gave every drawing of mine the same verdict: six out of ten. Not five. Not seven. Always six. Within days, the monotony was maddening.

It felt like the coaching center was pointless, but perversely, it made me more determined. I wanted to beat the six.

His classes were part lecture, part cross-examination: Why this line? Why not there? What happens if the sun shifts? Architecture, I discovered, was less about producing art and more about defending logic under relentless questioning.

And then, one afternoon, Solomon looked at my sketch, smiled, and said: “You can stop coming to classes now. You’re ready to take the exam.”

That was his way of saying I had crossed over — and it was the most powerful feedback I could have received.

I have no arc to offer like Steve Jobs, who took a calligraphy class and connected it years later to Apple typography. But maybe one day, when I buy a house and run my hand along its corners, I’ll tilt my head like Solomon and mutter: six out of ten.

 First Workplace in India – Trusted Against the Odds

My first workplace in India taught me that feedback was not about performance theater. It was about trust. And I learned that lesson in a project that carried more risk than I fully understood at the time.

We were working on an integration with Meta — then still called Facebook — at the peak of GDPR season, in the long shadow of Cambridge Analytica. The project touched CRM and data handling, and for the CEO and COO it was fraught with risk. One wrong step could invite regulatory scrutiny, partner mistrust, or both.

It was also my first window into corporate America. Late at night, emails would arrive with subject lines that felt like ultimatums: “Understanding your company’s commitment to this integration.” from type A Stanford MBA Graduates across the ocean.

For a relatively young PM in Software, those words felt overwhelming. I expected the project to stall or be quietly shelved.

Instead, my manager backed me. After one such update, he closed his notebook, looked at me, and said: “I’ll back you. Keep going.”

In many Indian startups, feedback wasn’t theater. It was deep trust that the work itself would prove its value.

Corporate America – How Executives Read

Corporate America has a peculiar way of giving feedback. Officially, it arrives in forms where you describe yourself like a convict pleading for early release. Unofficially, it arrives in ambushes that actually change you.

Once, an OG of e-commerce — a man who had no obligation to even know my name — dragged me into his private world. He showed me his collectibles, insisted I waste weekends at auction houses in San Jose, and introduced me to experts who should never have had time for me. I asked idiotic questions; he didn’t laugh.

That was his feedback. Not words, not ratings, but the act of giving time. His way of saying: you belong here, stop hovering at the edge. It turned me from a tourist into a participant.

Then there was this surgical and unforgettable feedback. A senior leader, who wasn’t even my manager, pulled me into a glass-walled room and gave me a sermon on how executives actually read. They don’t. They scan. The subject line must already tell them the answer. By the second line, they’ve either approved the plan in their head or mentally left the room.

He told me my writing needed to take the shape of a diamond: wide at the top with the conclusion, narrowing to the logic, then widening again with detail. Not suspense, not storytelling. Brutal geometry.

And his final line stayed with me: don’t be the football, be the referee. Don’t get kicked around. Blow the whistle, call the direction, and own the decision.

He had no reason to care. But he cared enough to rewire me. That’s why it stuck.