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As any magician will tell you, things are not always as they seem. Upon reaching a certain level of success, you’re going to inspire a certain level of envy and criticism. This energy will be incoming from people who either fundamentally do not believe in your values or who are jealous of your accomplishments. A hater is someone who discredits, devalues, or downplays your accomplishments. And here’s the thing: you probably don’t have enough of them! New levels bring new devils, so when a detractor appears to rally against your perspective, business, or lifestyle, it announces to you (and to the world) that YOU have arrived!
Could you be the object of jealousy or envy from your business partners, colleagues, or even your boss? If you’re focused on working toward your own goals, you might not even notice if other people’s eyes are turning green when they look at your status and achievements. You may even brush it off as someone who simply doesn’t know how to be happy for others. Even though it’s all in their head, jealous critics imagine that every bit of progress you make sets them back. This is completely illogical. Realise a hater is only projecting their insecurities onto you. The strong-minded rise to the challenge of their goals and dreams. The weak-minded become haters.
Haters hate on you because you are doing what they cannot, will not or are too afraid to even attempt. Haters are weak. They will never achieve their full potential because, when you are consumed by hate, it’s impossible to do good things. You cannot achieve your dreams or help others when you’re wallowing around in hate all day. Criticism is merely self-hatred turned outward. You improved – haters can’t stand it when people get better. You’re doing well – haters get jealous. You surpassed them – haters despise winners. You didn’t fail – haters wanted you to. You evolved – haters stayed stuck.
There is one way to avoid having haters: Sit on the sidelines, do nothing, don’t set goals, be average, be beige, be vanilla and no one will judge you or throw shade. Of course, no one will celebrate you either. Haters are a natural part of the growth to your success. When you’re new there will be critics, when you’re good there will be haters, and when you’re excellent, they will turn into admirers. When emerging from humble beginnings, those around you tend to underestimate your authenticity because they knew you before you were ‘somebody’. The question is: Are you willing to be attacked and criticised as a person on your way to success?
“People who will envy you the most are the ones who are in need the most of what you possess”
— M.Farouk Radwan
Sometimes people get jealous of those who are (or at least appear to be) more beautiful or successful than themselves. Most haters are stuck in a poisonous mental prison of jealousy and self-doubt that blinds them to their own potentiality. Often people try to hide or mask their deep insecurity and jealousy. For this reason, it can sometimes be hard to tell if someone is jealous of you or not. The only thing more frustrating than slanderers is those who are foolish enough to listen to them.
1. Fake Compliments
When someone is jealous of you, they may offer a compliment that sounds sincere when you are face-to-face but they gossip or tell lies about you behind your back. Because they are weak, they would rather pretend they’re not jealous than address the issue. Short of becoming indiscriminately wary of others’ praise or flattery, it’s only prudent to consider whether they might have a hidden agenda in praising you. In this way, way you can minimise the possibility that their seemingly trustworthy compliments aren’t really some sort of two-faced con. Be wary of who you choose to confide in.
2. Downplay Your Success
People who are jealous of you will undervalue your success. They feel insecure because, on some level, they believe they are unable to achieve the same. No matter how hard you work or what you accomplish, jealous people will try to make it seem as if it was a fluke, or that you didn’t work as hard as you did to achieve your success. The reasons they come up with may even be rude or condescending. Haters probably don’t even hate you. The reality is, they fear that they will never be able to get where you are right now.
3. Boast About Their Success
They may respond to your good news by talking about their own accomplishments. This can be subtle because most people like to talk about themselves. However, if someone changes the subject to something they are doing as soon as you shared your good news, that’s a likely indication of envy. While it may be frustrating, getting upset is only going to make them feel more justified in their behaviour. You may as well have a laugh that they need to flaunt their own achievements while you are celebrating your own. These are the type of people who get engaged at a wedding. Eww.
4. Imitate You
They say that imitation is the highest form of flattery. But at some point, it might all become a bit too much. Someone who is jealous of you wants to be better than you, and also just like you. You may notice they begin to imitate the way you talk or the way you dress in order to feel better about themselves. Not only is this type of copying incredibly creepy, it’s also usually insulting and can rob you of your own individuality. What happens when copying no longer seems like a compliment, and more like thievery? Know that it’s a losing game when you are copying the original. An original is always worth more than a copy. Copying doesn’t have to be a bad thing. It can be sweet and thoughtful, it can be interesting and flattering, and it can be friendly and bond-building. But it can also be disruptive, harmful, patronising, and uncomfortable. Don’t be afraid to stand up for yourself. You have the right to your individuality, and if you are a true creative, you’ll just change it up and do something different.
5. Give Body Language Clues
Body language experts say a jealous person will tend to cross their arms on their chest or cross their legs while sitting. This is a common reaction when someone feels insecure, uneasy, or jealous of something or somebody. If someone instinctively crosses their legs each time you share an achievement, this means they are not happy about your success.
6. Anxious to Compete
People will be in a secret competition with you, without your knowledge, and still be losing. Jealous people have a strong urge to prove their superiority. As a result, they tend to be overly competitive. Of course, competitiveness can lead to success if it is triggered by genuine ambition. However, this is rarely the case with jealous people. These individuals take almost sadistic pleasure in humiliating people. Their second most favourite thing to do is brag about their success. Few things are more pathetic than a sore winner.
7. Gossip Monger
When you start pursuing your vision, some people will try to discourage you. When they can’t discourage you, they’ll try to discredit you. When they can’t discredit you, they’ll start saying they were there right from the start. Research shows that people who gossip the most have higher levels of anxiety, aggression and are extremely unhappy. Gossiping may help them to feel superior since they lack confidence. People who are envious of your success (or anything else which they think puts you above them) may even try to ruin your good reputation by making negative comments or spreading lies about you. Rumors are passed by haters, spread by fools, and believed by idiots. Don’t worry about those who talk behind your back – they’re behind you for a reason. People who criticise your life do not know the price you paid to get where you are today.
8. Celebrate Your Failures
A jealous person will privately rejoice in your mistakes. While they may never outwardly show it, they’re often secretly praying for your demise. Handle your mistakes with grace! All life is learning. Plus, if you don’t get upset, they don’t get as much enjoyment out of it as they thought they would. Reflect who you truly are even when people try to tempt you to reflect the wrong image of you. If you notice someone in your circle rejoicing at your misfortune, it’s time to clean house. Your circle becomes a person smaller and tighter – it’s all good, they were the weakest link anyway.
9. Spoil Your Plans
When others tell you, ‘you can’t’, they actually fear that you can and are even more afraid that you will. Whoever is trying to bring you down is already below you. Negativity from other people is like a wall, and if you focus on it, you’ll run right into it. You’ll get blocked by negative emotions, anger, and self-doubt. Never let anyone (or any situation) scramble your mind, your heart, or your money. You are no good to anyone (especially yourself) if you are insane, miserable, and broke. Criticism and negativity don’t prevent you from reaching the finish line, in fact they are an essential part of the Hero’s Journey to success. Beware, they do not distract you from your path. People only rain on your parade because they are jealous of your sun and tired of their shade. If a hater can directly influence your plans, then your plans aren’t ambitious enough.
“The way you think about yourself determines your reality. You are not being hurt by the way people think about you. Many of those people are a reflection of how you think about yourself.”
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Your bright flame can singe those around you just because they are used to being in the limelight and don’t want to share it with you! Never dim your light to accommodate someone else’s smallness. Don’t let anything stand in the way of the light that shines through this form. Risk being seen in all of your glory. The universe is expanding and you are part of the universe, so expanding is your nature. If someone makes you want to retract, shrink, or back away; they are not for you and you are not for them. Be fearless, because the world needs what you have to give. Shine with all you have. When someone tries to blow you out, just take their oxygen and burn brighter.
All relationships are essentially an energetic agreement. The moment one person decides to rise up and allow their light to shine, it changes the energetic agreement and can create some waves. The relationships that are meant to last will adapt to the change in frequency. Others won’t because they were likely born under the proviso of ‘I love you, as long as you don’t shine brighter than me.’ That’s OK, not all people are meant to be in your life forever. Allow the lessons they teach you to live on. Let your light shine as an inspiration to humanity and BE THE REASON someone believes in the goodness of people.
“Cowards and haters love to talk shit about you… but have you ever noticed their behaviour when you’re in the same room? It’s the entertaining dance of the spineless.”
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Haters, critics, and naysayers are the signposts on the path to success. Your mission is to stay motivated, despite the criticism and discouragement. It’s all about how you frame it. Negative feedback can either be the anchor you drag through the desert or the wind behind your sail. Here’s the thing: There has never been a statue erected to honour a critic. Statues are raised for the dreamers, the doers, the ones who take chances, the “crazy ones.” Revolutionaries who made an impact, rewrote the rules, changed lives, and fought for freedom. They all had to listen to naysayers and they let the hate be their fuel, not their kryptonite. Haters are important to your success. Haters remind you that your success really is up to you. Haters don’t set out to do it, but often their negativity has a profoundly positive effect on your trajectory moving forward.
1. They announce when you’ve levelled up
If nobody ever told you “No”, you’d have no reference for rejection, motivation, or wanting something you cannot have. When a detractor appears to rally against your perspective, business, or lifestyle, it announces to you that you have arrived. Sometimes the best thing that can happen is hearing someone else’s conflicting opinion of how it should be, and how you’re doing it wrong. If you can’t handle haters on this level, then you’re not ready for the next level. Think of it as acquiring a confused fan!
2. They give you good (bad) press
There’s no such thing as bad press. First of all, when people are talking about you, they are giving you energy. Thank you! It also puts you on more people’s radar. Be grateful your name is being spoken in rooms your feet have never been in. You’ll inevitably watch your group of haters grow in number, and you’ll also watch your supporters do the same. Take Kanye West as an example: he’s a megalomaniac, he is super famous, and our negative press still attracts massive amounts of attention. So when your haters are giving you attention, be grateful. It’s least you can do for taking up so much of their energy and mental bandwidth.
3. They keep you accountable
What happens when you don’t do what you said you were going to? Most of the time not much, right? What happens when you have haters? They call you out on it – sometimes obsessively if the latest IG posts are anything to go by. No one else is going to give you the brutal honesty you may need when you don’t stick to your plans. Imagine there’s a group of people ready to post your shortcomings and broken promises on social media or leave comments on your website. Your haters could just be the motivation you need!
4. They keep you grounded
Haters act as a pressure release valve in the event your ego inflates too much too fast. They act as a safety measure to help deflate that ego and keep it in check. While it may sound counterproductive, haters are important because they keep you connected to your humble beginnings, your vision, and your customers. If you reach a level disconnected from your customers, family, or friends, without any negative feedback, you risk losing them altogether. Nobody likes a guy with a big head. Don’t be that guy.
5. They push you further
Haters light a fire under you by telling you what you’re not capable of doing. If you’re motivated by what you’re doing, you’ll use that fire to spring into action and accomplish more. If you couldn’t care less about what you do, why exactly are you even doing it? Too many people take attacks personally and choose to let them burn rather than springing into action. Haters want you to stay small in their definition of what’s possible, what’s right, or what’s comfortable. If you start moving away from those definitions, they’ll push you to give up and come back like a crab in a bucket. You are a champion! See the fire as fuel – turn those crabs into a nice chilli.
6. They remind you of your why
Haters are important to your success because they remind you of your why, even when they don’t mean to. If you’re trying to launch a new company or design a new product, haters will tell you why your design is stupid or your company idea isn’t worth it (or wrong). Most successes begin because there’s a need in the world that isn’t being met. Haters help keep reminding you how the current state of things isn’t working – which is the very thing you are trying to fix. Use their criticism to reinforce why your WHY matters.
7. They sweeten your rewards
When was the last time you celebrated an easy success? When people defiantly stand in your way and tell you what you’re doing, being, or planning isn’t going to work, it feels sooo much sweeter to prove them wrong when it does work. Even if your plan doesn’t go exactly as intended, you’ll still be a long way ahead of them. Reaching that milestone with everyone supporting would be amazing. In our experience, that doesn’t happen very often. Reaching that milestone despite the detractors and naysayers will feel significantly better. The best revenge is a great life. Work your ass off and make your life as awesome as you can. Knowing your haters are squirming only sweetens the deal, but it should never be the reason for the deal itself.
“Haters are my favourite. I’ve built an empire with the bricks they’ve thrown at me.
Keep on hating…”
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The internet is the 21st century’s Wild West. If you’re stepping onto an online platform, be prepared for haters to pull you down. Instead of letting the haters soak up your energy, use them as a form of validation of your success and motivation to keep going. Here are some tactics to keep your sanity and reputation intact.
1. Don’t Feed the Haters
Money and success follow attention, and you won’t get either without attracting haters so it’s best not to get emotional. Stay rational when you are getting “pinged” by the critics. Thank them for their input. Maybe even take it into consideration. Then, throw it away. Getting emotional screws up your productivity. Haters are quitters. The people who say you can’t do something have already quit trying. When haters say, “Become a multimillionaire, yeah right,” they’re actually saying, “I’m a quitter, and I’m hoping you quit too because then I won’t feel so bad for quitting.” Haters are spectators. Players don’t take feedback or criticism from spectators; those people rarely have success in their own lives because they’re too busy watching the lives of the successful. Value correction from other players but never value criticism from spectators.
2. Show them how to win.
If you’re busy enough, you simply don’t have the time for the haters. Slowly but surely, the fruits of your commitment and hard work will begin to create a positive buzz. Most visionaries – who see things before others – often suffer harsh and frequent unfair criticism, but they also reap the biggest rewards. The key is to block the negativity out while continuing to create a positive impact around you. The haters are never going to catch up because while they’re talking about how “lucky” you are, you’re working. While they’re speculating about what you’re going to do next, you’re already doing it. While they’re making resolutions, you are setting disciplined behaviours. Nothing discourages haters more than watching you succeed!
3. Sorting the Wheat from the Chaff
Consider your mind as the home for the greatest instrument you will ever own. What would you like to fill that home with? More importantly, determine who you want sitting at your dinner table. Imagine you are throwing a dinner party with the most important people in your life. Who are the special people sitting around that table of the mind? This exercise helps you determine which situations to put your energy into and who will get your precious attention as well. If they are not sitting at your table, then their opinions do not really matter to you in the long run. Those people do not get access to your energy. Only invite people to your table who would like to see you succeed. Those who would rather see you fail do not make the guest list – ever.
“You can’t stop greatness; you can only try to delay it. And when you try to delay it, it just gets greater because it gains new strength.”
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Don’t believe the noise. Those mean-spirited, petty, whiny little voices will never be the majority. They only seem loud and pervasive because they have the idle time to broadcast their negativity. The rest of us are too busy with real efforts to make the world a better place. If your accomplishments are making people jealous, you must be doing something right. Be so good they can’t drag you down! There is a direct correlation between the amount of success you enjoy and the number of haters you have. When you do what makes you happy, some people will be unhappy simply because you are not! Hugely successful people will tell you that if you want to achieve greatness, you have to be willing to be hated. We would say: love the hate because it means you’re on the right track. One of the most powerful lessons in life is to recognise that no one can give you power, and many people don’t want you to have it. You have to find the courage to seize it, own it and stay the course. Haters turn your followers into worshippers.
Criticism and hate are the price you pay for taking your career or business to the big time. So don’t let the sound of your haters overwhelm you, you only give them power if you listen to what they say. Ignore the noise and use your haters as fuel for the fire. Haters have fallen into the tragic mindset of comparison; a form of psychological suicide. They’re hating you because you’re on to something and are doing big things. In a way, they are one of the greatest forms of feedback you can get. Some people don’t like you just because your strength reminds them of their weakness. Don’t let the hate slow you down. Small minds can’t comprehend BIG spirits. To be great, you have to be willing to be mocked, hated, and misunderstood. The point is that haters gonna hate because of who they are, not because of who you are. There will be haters, there will be doubters, there will be non-believers, and then there will be you proving them wrong.
“Of course people have insulted me… that’s just the reality of living a life in which you stand out.
Does it bother me? No. Those people overestimate the weight I give their opinion.
I’m just going to be me, unapologetically.
You don’t have to applaud, you don’t have to cheer… but I know you’re watching.”
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