Dealing with negative people and haters.
“My mom always said that there would be haters. Not everyone can love ya.” – Joel Madden
I had something different planned for this week, but because of a nasty email I received earlier this week, I thought it would be the perfect opportunity to talk about people hating on the things that you do.
I won’t go too much into detail, but basically I received an email from somebody saying how unfair a promotion that I was running was, and that if I was doing it to get new clients, it wasn’t working. They also mentioned how they were going to discourage everyone from using my photography services. While getting a small chuckle when reading the email, it turned out that the emailer didn’t read something on the promotion website which caused them to write such a negative email towards me. Understandable. It’s a common trait with our society to go, go, go, and get as much done as you can at once while multi-tasking which causes us to miss important factors.
I had two options. Fire back with a nasty email, or write them back a positive email, politely pointing out their error while wishing them a great day. Without any hesitation, I wrote them back a very kind email. I started with “Hello ______, I hope you are having a great day”, and continued to explain how they had missed a key sentence on the website. I mentioned how happy I was with the number of clients I currently have and the promotion was my way of giving back and helping out clients. I never said one negative thing. It didn’t surprise me that I never heard back from said emailer. There’s a couple of reasons why I responded with such positivity. It’s a reflection of yourself and your brand and when you work for yourself, referrals are huge and you never know, maybe said emailer was having a bad day and vented at the wrong time. Thankfully they vented towards me because I didn’t vent back and fuel their fire. Have you ever heard the phrase: “hurt people, hurt people”? I hope that when they read my response, a light went off in their head saying: “hmmm, I really didn’t need to be that negative and why was I so negative”? It’s a good way for people to reflect on their actions and sometimes change is needed. Maybe they are hanging around negative people, maybe they just don’t like you or maybe they are a ‘hater’.
A ‘hater’??? What’s that?
I would say that the previous emailer isn’t a hater and wouldn’t fit into this category but a lot of people do. Every time someone hates what I’m doing, I smile. This goes back to the quote of: “You know you’re doing something right when people hate you”. Think of every successful person and I’m sure there are people who have some sort of built up hatred towards them. It means you are doing something right and should continue it. A couple months ago, there was a couple nasty comments made on Twitter towards Monsters vs Me, myself and the monthly parties that we run. I immediately turned to fellow MvM contributor Adam Burchill and said, “We did it! We took the next step towards success. People are now starting to care enough to hate”. The point I’m trying to make, is that this person took time of their own day, to write negatively about Monsters vs Me. Amazing! They cared enough to think about us.
“I don’t know the key to success, but the key to failure is trying to please everybody” – Bill Cosby
It makes you wonder why people talk so negatively sometimes. My advice is to say “who cares” and smile when people hate on what you’re doing. It will annoy them even more. You can’t please everyone nor should you waste your time trying.
If you find that you are one of these people, who always hate on people’s successes, I challenge you to try the opposite. Start being happy for everyone’s success stories and watch what will come back to you. You will be attracting that same positive energy back into your life. Being negative towards others who do good doesn’t do good for anyone. If you have friends who are doing positive things, make sure to tell them how happy you are for them. Appreciation goes a long way.
I hate to burst your bubble, but there are probably people who don’t like you, and that’s completely fine. There’s no need to know why or be upset about it either. Don’t let these people get in the way of your path to success. Strength doesn’t always equal the size of someone’s muscles. Be the stronger person and look at your critics as a positive sign of growth.
“A positive attitude may not solve all your problems, but it will annoy enough people to make it worth the effort” – Herm Albright