Why One Negative Comment Ruins Your Day

I got a hate email today, and I can share what it says in just a minute. It was a doozy. But what shocked me was not in the email content, but in my reaction to it. And specifically in contrast to how I felt about it today when I got that email and opened it versus 10 years ago. 10 years ago, that would've wrecked me. I would've reread the email 5 times, drafted a bunch of different responses that I probably never would've sent, and really had it honestly not just ruin my day, but I mean, maybe even send me down a spiral Of, I don't want to do this. Why? If this is what I get when I do this, maybe I shouldn't pursue this line of work. I mean, it could get really out of control. And that wasn't because what I was offering wasn't useful to the world, but because of the impact that it had on me emotionally. And what I want to share with you today is how I made my way through that, how my reaction today was radically different. And I'll share exactly why and how I got there, and also how you can as well. And this is especially relevant. I was just noticing this with a client this week. He is very successful in his profession and he wants to create his own consulting, directly offering his services to different companies instead of just working for one company. And he's not sending the emails to let other people know at the rate that he wants. He's not reaching out. He's not building his network. He's not just putting himself out there at the level that he knows he wants to, he would need to, to grow this business. Why? It's because he's not skilled or not capable? No. Because if he puts himself out there, someone might reject him. He could get the dreaded disapproval, and that's what we're all afraid of. And that's what stops— stopped me from putting myself out there at the level that I could. Stops him, stops millions of us from creating whatever you want. Not just professionally, but in your personal life, in your social life, and really being who you are and who you're meant to be. So what did this particular hate I must say this was a real odd one. And that was actually the first response I had in my head. What an odd thing to say. Which, by the way, is a profoundly different way to deal with criticism, hate messages, negative comments, negative feedback. Instead of, oh my God, why would you say that? Ouch, ouch, ouch, ouch. We could just start to say, huh, what an interesting thing to say. Because that creates space between you and the other person. It helps you remember, look, people are complex. They got a lot going on. I don't even know this person. I wonder what's going on with them. What an odd thing to say. And so I sent this email out. It was a you know something about building your capacity to be authentic and not be afraid of disapproval. Something in my lane. And the reply was one sentence, and it said, "I hate Muslim people." And I thought, "What? What an odd thing to say." I could only assume that that was meant to criticize or attack me. I did they know anything about me? Like my my email wasn't at all about religion or spiritual practices. I don't think they even know. You know, where my upbringing was, what I believe now, what I practice now, my spiritual life. Like, they have no— that was nothing in the email about any of that. And so they're just saying this critical, hurtful thing. And my reaction was curiosity, like, what an odd thing to say. And then a little bit of amusement at imagining someone being like, oh, this guy, I know what I'm going to say to him, spewing out some of their hate. And I just think, okay, onward and upward. Let that one go. And I've had my fair share of negative comments, criticisms, negative emails over the years. I remember when I first started putting myself out there and I wrote the book The Solution to Social Anxiety, and I had started building an email list. And then I realized I'm scared to email my email list. I have social anxiety with my own email list that's about helping you overcome social anxiety. Ah, the irony. But I was— it was true. It was just the way that I was afraid to approach a woman to date. I was afraid to speak up in groups. I was afraid to do public speaking. It was the same thing. Okay, now I got this group of people, and now there's more of them. Now there's all these vectors of disapproval that could come my way. And at that stage, even though I'd grown in an interpersonal way to have that many people that could critique me out of nowhere, I didn't have a resilience inside. I was very attached to how people would see me. And so occasionally, it was rare, but I'd be putting— first of all, my solution, by the way, was to only put giving great content out there and never offering anything. Because if I offer something, you want to buy my course or you want to join my program or work with me in coaching, well, then people could disapprove of me. So what if I just email them and never ask for anything, never offer anything? Of course, that doesn't really work very well in terms of growing a business. And so I learned at some point I need to do that. So I started to occasionally do that, but mostly still just offer a lot of free value, which is what I do to this very day. And I remember I got this email back and someone said, if you really cared about people, you wouldn't be selling your course, you'd be giving it away. You are just in it for the money and you're greedy, something to that effect. And ooh, I remember I could even feel it right now how I felt then. It was just so hurt and Angry, and I need to make them see. And then drafted a long email response and then deleted it and did another one and deleted it. This is back before you could have AI write the email for you. I had to write it myself. And I believe I actually sent something back to that person, like this long 6-paragraph email explaining myself. And I wasn't even done with it. It still bothered me afterwards. And on rare occasions, I'll get other emails like that. And those are the ones that I remember. This is 10 years ago. There were other ones people didn't like particular point or teaching or whatever. But the ones that were saying like, you don't really care about people, those really got to me. I needed to show something and it hurt and I got— and so when I say we're afraid of disapproval, that's true. And that fear of disapproval can hold you back significantly in your life like it was with a client that I was mentioning, like it did in my life. But it's more specific than that because not all disapproval is equal, right? Someone could judge you for, you know, your hair doesn't look good and you're like, whatever, that's fine. That's where I'm at with my hair. I'm like, hey, I'm lucky that I still got some. Whatever, whatever I got, it's great. Then someone could critique you about something else though, and boom, it cuts straight to the core. You ever wonder about what the difference is between those 2? Well, the ones that get in are because on some level they piggyback on a criticism you already have for yourself, or you have some idea that it's okay to be this way and not that way. And if I'm seen that way, that's really awful and bad. So you have a conditional sense of worth. So if I'm Seen as greedy. Greedy is the worst thing in the world. Oh my God, I have to make sure no one ever sees me that way. And what happens is now it's less about sharing what you want, me putting my message out there, this client putting his business out there, and it becomes about controlling other people's perception. I gotta make sure that you don't see me this way. And as long as I'm focused on making sure that you see me only in one way and not this other way, am I focused on what I'm saying? Am I focused on sharing what feels true? Am I being my most expressed authentic self, or am I running a pattern of control to try to avoid disapproval? And honestly, that's what I did when I was putting stuff out there. There's a lot of concern about how is this, how's this gonna land? And then I would look at my reviews on books and a lot of them were positive and there'd be this negative one. This guy writes long stories about himself, he's so self-absorbed. And I'd be like, ow, but yeah, and it would bother me, bother me. And it took me many years of doing this and practice until I realized something. But the first one I already shared was that curiosity, which is what an interesting or what an odd thing to say when someone says critical things about you. Hate email messages, even something more subtle in a work situation where someone does a subtle dig, first thing in your mind is, what an interesting thing to say, because it reminds you that it's about the other person and where they're coming from. And we don't have to be this raw open wire, like sensitive to every little fluctuation, what people think and perceive, when we realize people are going to think and perceive a lot of things. And what an interesting thing to say, what an odd thing to say, I wonder where they're coming from. I call this getting into their model of the world. The second part though that really helped me in this situation today where I could just read that email, smile, say okay, Delete it and move on was I'm not for everybody. I'm not for everybody. I just— I'm not for that person apparently. I may or may not be for you. I mean, if you're with me so far, maybe I'm for you, but maybe not. And that's okay. And that was a profound liberation in my life. Not when I just said that. At first I was saying that like, I'm not for everybody, but please, are you— are we— are you cool? And eventually I finally got it. I'm not for everybody. And I say it with a smile. It's not an angry chip on my shoulder. Not for everybody. Get away from me. I'm not for everybody. And isn't that just true? How could I be for everybody? How could one person be everything for everybody? And then another layer that created more spaciousness for me beyond I'm not for everybody is I don't control how people perceive me. And so in any given moment, you with me here listening, someone who reads a book of mine, in that moment, I'm, I'm a little character in their story, right? We're having some connection and they could perceive me as awesome. Or as awful. They could perceive me as a hero or as a villain. And I don't have control over what happens there. I can show up as best as I can. I can live in integrity. I can live my values, be my full self. And at the end of the day, I have no control if I'm going to be a hero or a villain, awesome or awful. And when you really get that, ah, there's like a big sigh, not just in your breath, but in your whole body. Your whole nervous system takes a big sigh of relief because you release something that you might've been holding since you were 5 years old. And that's the biggest challenge that I see with this. And what I help people with is they know what happened when they were 5 years old. Almost everyone I work with has done years of therapy and they know everything about, well, my dad said this and he had this problem and he was a narcissist and my mom did that. And they have all these labels and all these terms and they know exactly all the right things. They might have great advice for their friends too, but they're still not sending that email. They're still not expressing themselves. They're still not going for that thing in their life because they're afraid of disapproval. And that's why I got so frustrated and I got trained in clinical psychology as a therapist. And I said, we're spending so much time based upon one fundamental assumption, which isn't even verified or true, which is that enough reflective insight about the past is going to help us change the now and into the future. It's going to help us upgrade our identity. And everything that I've seen in my own experience and working with a lot of clients is that's not the case, and that endless rummaging through the past doesn't set us free. It gives us more information, but it doesn't give us liberation. In order to do that, we actually have to fundamentally train ourselves, our nervous system, our perspectives, our new actions to be able to see that, okay, now is different, and actually upgrade how you approach life, upgrade what you're able and allowed to do, and upgrade your sense of safety now. And that's what I do with people. That's what I'm passionate about. And if you're drawn to that, you want to find out more about that, you absolutely can. If you just go to my website at draziz.com and you can learn about that. You can find out your approval type there and see what pattern you're running to avoid disapproval. And if you want to go further, you can check out the Work With Me tab on that page. And notice how I just shared about that, and that used to something that terrified me. What if I say that and someone's like, I don't like this guy, he shouldn't do that? And I got emails that people told me that I shouldn't do that. And that's okay. I'm not for everybody. And the biggest secret about this that I'll end with today is not just that I'm not for everybody, not that I can't control how you perceive me, but I know where I'm coming from. This is an inner authority that opens up. It's the antidote to that approval trap, that approval seeking that everyone's caught in, to making sure that I'm looked at in a certain way and you approve of me and am I okay? And we get lost in that. But when you know you're coming from. You have that inner authority of I know who I am, I know what I value, and I'm going to live it. And look, I'm going to be honest with myself, and the people close to me in my life will be honest with me. If I'm not living one of my values and I'm going astray from that, then I'll feel it. I will get guidance from myself, from my own body, and feedback from friends, family members. Higher guidance will come to me through those channels. You can find access in all different ways to realize, am I living My values now, and if not, you can correct that. But if you know where you're coming from, if you know what you're bringing, then when someone says, "Oh, you're this. Oh, you're a villain. Oh, you're greedy. Oh, you're bad. Oh, you're self-absorbed," say, "Oh, what an interesting thing to say." And so I hope me sharing about my own story serves you in becoming more free and expressive and alive, and not held back by what they will think or what someone might say. And if it does, and you want more, stick with me. You could subscribe. And if it's not for you, that's okay too.