Rising Above the Noise of Fear: How to Handle the Haters, Dislikers, and People Who Disagree with Your Message
I lost a friend to COVID. Don’t worry she’s still alive, she didn’t have COVID...she was plagued like many, with fear. Fear of the unknown. Fear of a different opinion about fear. Fear of being wrong about fear. Fear of fear.
I lost her because she no longer wanted to be my friend.
It still hurts sometimes. Fear always does.
Deep down, I’m sure there’s still that little five-year-old girl in me who’s begging to be liked, praying that someone will just love her, notice her, accept her for who she is.
I didn’t want to share this. I felt embarrassed. Marred - like you would think that I’m a bad person for admitting that someone out there in the ether didn’t like me or what I put out there on the interwebs. Ashamed, questioning? Should I feel bad?
Should I not have shared what was on my heart and soul about how I saw people treating other people - using a pandemic to shame, blame, vilify, and divide people who have a different opinion, different data sources, different discoveries, different solutions?
The thing is...
I was showing who I really was - revealing my true beliefs, sharing from my soul my desire to stop shaming people for thinking differently than you.
After speaking to several clients this past week who have struggled to own their voice, and fearlessly show up in the way they desire to, I felt called to share this with you - embarrassing or not for the sake of growth.
Which is why I knew I needed to share this with you…
To break the DIVISION or at the very least to break in the CRACKS of any fear that is a glass ceiling on your potential and having you share your message with the world.
Look, about 90% of people cheer on my posts, with “YAS QUEEN!” And every hands-raised, fist-pumping, smiley, hearty emoji out there.
But there are about 10% of people who disagree.
Maybe more and they just didn’t say anything.
Maybe they decide to share or desire to engage in a debate.
Maybe if there was an avid Youtube “Dislike” button on IG and FB, there would be a few on there.
It’s not about the number of likes or comments a post or any post for that matter gets.
It’s about unleashing your art, your truth, your creations into the world. It’s not being polarizing for the sake of starting an argument or trying to “convert” someone to “your side.”
Because what if there is no side?
What if the side you’re on is the side that says, everyone, even Judas gets to sit at my table - let’s hear you out, Jude. Have the courage to speak up and share with the whole table what you’re thinking. And I love you regardless. Period.
You are a messenger - business owner or not - and your life is either an example or a warning of what is possible for others.
And people-pleasing, coddling, lowering your boundaries of what you tolerate is a giant warning to have Fear usurp you from the throne of your life.
I have very dear friends, lifelong friends who hold very different opinions than me on different topics - we still can come together in unity and break gluten-free bread with love, respect, and allowance for a discussion - not an argument.
It is a bold move to show up with courage.
It’s a scary move to call out the B.S. stories (aka excuses, aka reasons aka self-limiting beliefs) when people have made up their minds that THAT is true and 100% their reality.
It takes cajones of courage to show up with happiness, and joy, and to CHOOSE to find the good in all things when the world is mired in fear, frustration, and rage.
It’s a fear-filled and fearless moment when you call out mendacity, hypocrisy, and fear for what it is...FEAR.
People who are consumed with fear, division, and an “I’m right-so-that-means-you’re-wrong” fixed mindset, will not like you challenging the beliefs they are fixed on.
Fear will always put up a fight.
But sometimes, as a coach, as a messenger, as a leader, you MUST share what people NEED to hear, not necessarily what they WANT to hear.
Stroking someone’s ego so that they will like you is a weak form of motivation and will not earn you respect, because you’re already denying your own.
You will NEVER APPEASE everyone.
And as you evolve with your personal development work and self-mastery, people who are NOT doing that level of work will fall out of your life.
It doesn’t feel comfortable. And sometimes it hurts like crazy.
But it’s simply “growing pains.”
Here are three steps to give you some perspective, and, perhaps, a dose of courage, to keep on being fearless, to keep your momentum going, when you experience the “growing pains” that comes when you face people who disagree, hate on you, or shame you.
No.1 - Be Good at Math.
I’ve noticed the A++ students, the 100% or NOTHING mentality of many high achievers, causes them to focus ONLY on the 10% of the people who don’t like them or their message, who disagree, the “haters” in essence, rather than the 90% of people whose souls are being served and continuously fed by the work that you do.
I did this for YEARS after I was bought out of my first e-commerce company. I pinned my focus on, literally, ONE person, my former business partner, and guarded everything I said, how I showed up, what I did in my business, based on the possibility of what could happen if I made a mistake.
In hindsight, this is absolutely ridiculous. But, when I was in the thick of that belief, of that focus, with all my attention focused on not saying the wrong thing, not messing up, not becoming too successful so I wouldn’t lose it all FELT so real. And my Reticular Activating System was so biased to those fears, that it stymied my progress for a year and a half!
I wasn’t showing up fully. I wasn’t making offers. I was stopping myself from being successful before I even got started BECAUSE I was so scared of losing something that I had built.
Fortunately, I got pregnant. And that gave me something to LIVE FOR instead of something to HIDE FROM.
Since then, my business has transformed THOUSANDS of lives, because I decided to show up for THEM instead of hiding for ONE.
I was just bad at math. I was allowing my fear of ONE person to stop me from serving THOUSANDS.
I tell my Revolutionary Empire Builders, “Never deny someone a breakthrough because you decided NOT to show up that day.”
Do the math. Is one person disagreeing with you, one hater, one spiteful comment, one shamer, stopping you from serving the 90-99% of other people you were put here on this planet to serve?
Jesus had haters.
MLK too.
Gandi wasn’t the most popular cat either in certain circles.
...And even the holy mother herself, Oprah, has had people dislike her, disagree with her, even hate on her.
There will ALWAYS be people who disagree with you, with your messaging, with who you are.
Will you let the ONE to TEN percent of people who pose an opposition, stop you from serving millions?
No.2 - Cognitive Dissonance This, Motherf*ker.
I feel like if Samuel Jackson were narrating the subconscious mind, that when cognitive dissonance shows up, he would bust out a Royal With Cheese and pistol-whip the Mother-effer of down.
What is Cognitive Dissonance? It’s a fancy psychological term for the discomfort that happens when two cognitions (thoughts, beliefs, attitudes, behavior, personal values) are incompatible with each other.
So when someone has a core belief that is VERY strong, when they are presented with evidence that works against that belief, the new evidence cannot be accepted.
Because it’s so important to protect the core belief, they will rationalize, ignore, and even deny anything that doesn’t fit in with that core belief.
I see cognitive dissonance all the time with the belief of being BUSY.
I understood this early one when I was teaching Pilates over a decade ago. I had two clients, one who was a lawyer and partner at one of the top firms in the world, mom of two with on the way, she would saunter into her 9 PM Pilates lessons with me with a smile and share with a laugh how she was excited for the break before going back to a brief while she baked a cake for her son’s birthday party the next day. Just when I thought I was busy, I would have that belief smacked down by her awesome example of kickassery.
At the same time, I was also training a divorced mom of two grown kids. She was fully supported by her ex-husband, didn’t have to work, or drive her kids anywhere (they each had their own cars), and she was on the PTA. To this day, I’ve never seen a more stressed out human in my life, who constantly complained about how busy she was.
One day I questioned her belief of being too busy to literally breathe. That’s when the cognitive dissonance pistol-whipping Samuel Jackson-side of her came out to smack down anything else that went against the belief that she was busy - my, my the reasons, the excuses, the “you’re-too-young-to-understand” came out like WHAM! To destroy the opposing thought (aka ME) down.
At that moment, I realized that everyone wants to believe they are BUSY.
Most just confuse being busy with being purposeful.
No.3 - People are in Your Life for Reasons, Seasons, and Lifetimes
As you evolve into your Future Self, not everyone will support you. Not everyone will stay with you on your journey for all the parts of your journey.
You may get lucky and find a Sam to your Frodo. That’s a person who’s in it with you for life.
Sometimes even the people you choose to be with for life - like in a marriage - don’t stay in your life for life.
Sometimes they do and there’s a reason for them being in your life, as they are for your life.
When someone leaves your life, thank them for the season of their friendship, because you did learn from it.
If you gain learning, therein lies the reason for them being in your life.
I learned this with one of my bridesmaids, with my business partner, and even with my dad.
When I staged my dad’s intervention in the summer of 2016, Spike and I completely disconnected from my family. I mean, completely. I didn’t talk to my dad for 6 months as he found his way away from alcohol.
I honestly didn’t know if he would ever come back into my life.
When he was sober, 6 months later, he came back in for another season. Then, last year, there was a season when he was in rehab that he wasn’t in my life.
But with every season, came a new beginning, a fresh bloom, creation.
Trust in the seasons. Trust in the reasons a person is in your life for a season. And trust that if they are meant to be in your life for a lifetime, that they will come back.
We don’t hold onto summer and not expect that fall and winter will also come as well.
The same is true in all of our relationships.
The key is to gather the reasons, honor the seasons, and for those who are meant to be in your life for a lifetime, to trust that as you weather the summers and the winters, that you grow closer together as you evolve through the seasons with each other.
As for my friend, I sent her an email, thanking her for the season of her friendship, wishing her and her family health, happiness, abundance, and most importantly, peace.
Remember, your reign is now.
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