If you want to know how to deal with haters, that’s a good thing.
It means you’re likely producing, creating, and putting things of value out into the world.
It also means you have a lot of people who love what you do.
No one who ever did anything of value ever went through life without haters.
Here’s a useful and time-tested metric to determine how many people love your work by how many people hate on you:
For every one person that vehemently hates your guts, you’ll have at least 10x that amount who love what you do.
People are 3x more likely to voice a complaint than express gratitude.
I’m lucky that I get kind and intelligent people reaching out to me every single day.
This time last year, I set a miniature personal goal that I wanted to get a note of thanks every single day. I chose that goal because I thought it would be indicative of how much value I put out into the world. I was aiming to achieve that goal in five years, but six months down the line I’d already hit it.
I get long emails from people who try to add value to me because they’ve derived so much value from what I’ve put out. I’ve even had people asking me to put a product out so they can give me some money (practically everything I’ve got out at the moment is either free or extremely close to free, and a lot of endeavours don’t break even).
I’m also lucky that, having run the numbers personally, I literally have only gotten one or two shitty comments from low-consciousness low-IQ individuals, compared with hundreds of positive words.
That’s an insane conversion rate.
People talk about the 80/20-rule, but I’m proof of the 99/1-rule.
It also lets me know that I’m giving people value, whilst not being too divisive. The more divisive and controversial you are as a public figure (and we’re all public figures to some degree these days), the more the ratio will swing and you’ll get more haters.
But how do you deal with haters?
When we talk about “dealing” with haters, what we’re really talking about is learning not to let the negative comments and criticisms get you down. It’s a fact of human nature that we hyper focus on the bad even when good dwarfs the bad. It’s like having a pebble in one shoe, but otherwise being able to walk in full health just fine.
So here’s a few mindset tips that might help you.
Based on psychological studies, here are the reasons why most people criticise.
Most people have a scarcity mentality that feeds into their own self-image.
That basically means they feel like someone else’s success detracts from them.
It means when they see someone doing good in the world and creating value, they become aware, perhaps predominantly on an unconscious level, of how little value they are creating.
Simply put, they become jealous.
You want to have an abundance mentality.
This has been a popular idea in the self-help community for a while and for good reason.
Wanting and encouraging others to have success, and celebrating the successes of others, actually makes you more likely to have success yourself.
There are many reasons for that, but the main ones are due to you shepherding in good will and becoming hyper-conscious of opportunity.
People always remember those that supported them and made them feel good, so when you reach out and express goodwill for someone, you have added someone to your network. And, again like the self-help guys say, your network is your net worth. It’s true.
People also remember those who either had nothing good to say to them, or actively said negative, spiteful, and jealous things. Put hate out into the world, and you’ll only get hate back. It’s a magic mirror.
Most people also have absolutely no business giving “advice” or “criticism”.
This is predominantly a man problem, but women do it too. Men like to explain and show off their knowledge in every area – even if they have no measured success in that area.
It astounds me, the audacity with which men who aren’t writers criticise the work of writers. Or men who have never made a success in business criticising a successful businessperson’s strategy and giving them advice. Men who have no success with women giving relationship advice and hating on those who do have success.
Take-away?
A hater in your life is a sign that you’re probably on the right path.
It means:
- You are being proactive and following a worthy mission.
- You are putting things of value and worth into the world, making people better.
- You are appreciated and loved and valued – 1 hater = 20+ people who love your work.
Here’s what to do with haters in your personal life:
Cut them out.
Toxic people only pollute everyone and everything around them.
If people aren’t actively helping you towards your goals and expressing support, they are actively trying to ruin you.
And those who attack and hate are sad unambitious people and need to be cut out of your life.