How to Deal with Haters

Hey guys, Matt Paulson here. In this video, I want to talk about an issue that every successful and publicly visible person will have to deal with at some point or another. And that's haters. If you are the best at any one thing, whether it's sports, whether it's business, fitness, public speaking, maybe you're the best content creator around a specific niche. You're almost certainly going to attract a small group of haters that speak poorly of you, minimize your success, and talk about you behind your back. They'll make online postings about you on Facebook and Twitter about how you are not as good as you think you are. They might say that you got lucky. They might say that you're overrated. They'll try to dig up dirt on you, true or false, and then they will publicize it if they find anything. If you sell anything online or there's reviews of your business, they will write bad reviews about you. They will do anything that they can from behind the screen of their smartphone or their laptop to encourage other people to think less of you. Unfortunately, this is the reality of the modern world that we live in. You can't stop it. You can only control your response to it. Thankfully, I only had a handful of haters that I'm aware of. There is one individual in the business community that I would call hater of mine. This person has called me names that you might expect to hear on an elementary school playground. I made comments that I got lucky. He said that I'm not qualified to give business advice and every now and then he pops up and makes stupid comments. There's another guy a while back that didn't have a great experience in MarketBeat. Turns out he wanted a refund and he was replying to a no reply address and asking for a refund to an email address that doesn't get monitored. So he wanted a refund. We never got the message. Instead of trying to communicate with this another way, he made a bunch of nasty postings about us online, left some bad reviews, and then wrote nasty comments on reviews of my books on Amazon. I guess it doesn't really surprise me that I've gotten handful of haters over the years. You know, I've done pretty well in business and I'm actively teaching people about what I've learned from my businesses along the way through videos like this and my books and my other online content. So it's just inevitable that somebody's going to think that I need to get knocked down a peg. But that's true for pretty much Everybody as well. So when this happens to you, somebody's leaves a nasty comment about you online, they send you a nasty message. Your natural reaction, your first inclination, would just be to get defensive. What I didn't get lucky. I worked hard on this business. What I am that successful? What your natural reaction is to say you're wrong. What you're saying about me isn't true. You're going to act defensively even before you really think it through and think about what's really going on. I do think it's important, kind of before you think about your response or lack of a response is to really understand the motivations and thought processes about somebody who is a hater. What are they thinking in their mind? What does it really say about them? What is their comment really about? Usually the comments that a hater has, their statements about you have much more to do about themselves and their own insecurities, their own negativity and their own personal fears than it does anything that is actually true about you. If somebody says that you're not successful in business, what they're really thinking is, I'm kind of worried that I'm not successful enough and I probably need to drag some other people down to my level. If somebody says you're not a great athlete, you're not really that in shape, what they're really saying is, I wish I was in better shape, I wish I was a better athlete. I wish I had made it further in high school sports than I did. Usually, hating on somebody else who is successful is often a way to cope with one's own lack of progress. So by trying to take other people down, you can temporarily feel better about yourself. So when somebody's making a nasty comment about you, try to understand the comment really doesn't say anything about you. It really just says something about the person who left the comment. So when somebody leaves a nasty comment about you online or sends you a nasty message or tries to take you down in some other way, first, please don't respond with an angry or attacking or defensive response because you are just them letting, excuse me, you're letting them pull you down to their level and that's not helpful to you. And it's likely only going to fan the flames and encourage them just to keep making more nasty comments about you. Second, if you do reply, just understand they will never let you get the last word. No matter what you reply, they're always going to come back and reply, you are, you're wrong, or just to try to tear you down one more time. So if you do choose to reply, just write one professional and kind reply and leave it at that. After that, you've got to let it go. It's easy to let somebody leave a nasty comment or sending a nasty message to you. It's easy to let that ruin your day. But don't let that happen because that's exactly what the hater wants to have happen. They want to ruin your day. Don't let them do it. Just do your best to forget about it and move back to whatever you were doing before you came across a hateful comment or got a hateful message. You were the same person you were before you got that message. So don't let them change who you are because they made a nasty comment about you. So hopefully this quick video will give you some perspective if you happen to attract a hater. It's not something that you can control and it is pretty much inevitable if you are a well known or a successful person. You can't control the hater, but you can control your response to them. So don't get in the mud with them and don't argue back. Feel free to not respond at all or just leave one kind and thoughtful response and then go back to your day. Hopefully this video is helpful for you guys. I do one every week and hopefully you'll keep watching.