When taking action and doing important work, you’ll inspire admirers and adversaries. Learn what to do about the trolls and how to handle the haters.
If you are active online… If you share your opinions and thoughts on your blog… If your social media accounts are public… If you go to networking events… If you pursue a dream and take risks… If you put yourself out there publicly in any way… Other people are going to have feelings about you simply because they can see what you’re doing.
- People are going to love you
- People are going to hate you
- People aren’t going to care about you
When you’re vulnerable and visible, people are also going to make assumptions about you.
- People will assume the best of you
- People will assume the worst of you
Unfortunately, this is the reality of doing business online, blogging, putting yourself out there, and using social media. People pay attention, they watch, they lurk, they see, and they judge, criticize, and talk behind your back. It’s not easy. The actions of others can hurt, and it can make you question everything.
Cheering For Failure
When you’re viewed as successful by others, some people will put you on this weird, magical pedestal, while others will root for you to fail.
A couple of years ago, a weird thing began to happen:
When I was speaking at events, almost always, someone would approach me to ask a question. Of course, I’m always happy to answer questions and offer any help I can. Those that know me, also know I’m pretty much an open book. But there was one question that threw me through a loop…
- “Can you tell me about something you’re terrible at?”
They didn’t want business advice, they didn’t have questions about client services, branding, web design, WordPress, blogging, content strategy, or anything else I have knowledge about. They wanted to know about my failures.
Even weirder, I could visibly see that they felt happier knowing I had failed at something or was terrible at something. And started to happen again and again. It even happened during a live Q&A on stage and someone even posted a similar question to my Facebook wall.
Whether they realized it or not, people were actively cheering for my failure.
After sharing a failure, one person even said, “Oh good! This makes you seem more human.” After I flubbed up during a presentation at another event, I heard someone I knew comment to a friend in the hallway that they were happy to see me make a mistake.
Their comments made me really uncomfortable. It also made me feel sad because some of these people I considered to be friends. I mean, how can other people actually want me to fail, struggle, or be bad at something? I’m not going to lie and pretend I’m strong all of the time because that crap hurts a lot.
When sharing my frustration with a few friends about other people rooting for me to fail, I had a major Ah-Ha moment…
You are in control of how you show up, what you share, and the story being told.
I choose to keep my presence positive, which means that in general, my social media profiles, my blog, and the things I share are mostly positive. I’m also old enough that sharing every moment of my life online isn’t a thing. I share things that make me happy. Sharing bad things and failures isn’t something I think about.
The truth was, however, that by not sharing some of the bad along with the good, I was offering up a killer highlight reel that at times, made me seem unrelatable.
I realized that moving forward, I needed to talk more about my journey, my struggles and challenges, and my failures, and I needed to pull back the curtain and give people a glimpse behind the scenes because that’s where we learn and grow. Once I began being more vulnerable and open about my failures, the weird questions stopped and I was actually was able to better connect with people at a deeper level.
Ultimately, I realized the desire for people to hear about my failures, missteps, and mistakes wasn’t always because they wanted me to fail. Sometimes, it was simply because they wanted to be able to relate to me and see themselves in my story and on my path.
Being A Target For Trolls
I originally wrote this post before a member of our local WordPress meetup began attacking me based on an assumption; for something completely made up and untrue. This person has shown up to past meetups and repeatedly criticized presenters and members. We’ve politely listened, nodded, tried to quell the negativity, apologized on his behalf behind the scenes, and largely avoided any confrontations.
But then it all came to a head.
I was attacked on the meetup site and then multiple times through email after the person was removed from the meetup group. This person then threatened to damage my reputation by calling/reporting me to the local newspapers, turning the meetup members against me, turning my clients against me, contacting the great Matt Mullenweg himself, notifying the venue we host the meetup at, and more.
Thankfully, I have an amazing support system, which includes WordPress Community Support, meetup members that have my back, and proof that nothing I’m being accused of is true. I have reported the behavior to Meetup.com, provided his messages to the “higher-ups,” and shared some of the messages publicly to start an open dialogue about dealing with trolls. Too many people keep this stuff quiet or try to bury it out of fear, but when you’ve done nothing wrong, there is nothing to fear.
This isn’t the first time I’ve had to deal with crazy folks.
Once I worked with a client who loved my work and was thrilled with her new brand design. So thrilled she had already started using across her entire business. Then, one day out of the blue, her boyfriend called claimed she hated everything I did, and demanded I give her all of her money back immediately.
When I refused to process a full refund (remember, she was happily using everything I created for her), he flipped out and threatened to “hunt me down and destroy my business and my life.” He also threatened my children and we had to get the police involved. What’s crazy is that my client still made excuses for it and still wanted to work with me.
Another time, I worked with partners who were launching a new business. One partner was my contact and he liked my work and was happy with how things were moving forward. Then the partner showed up to a meeting, said he hated everything, and demanded a full refund of their deposit. When I stood my ground, the one partner threatened to “ruin me.”
He threatened to take me down and said I’d never work again — and he did his best to make it happen too. For two years, he followed me around the internet. When I was announced as a speaker for an event or a guest on a podcast, invited to deliver a webinar for a partner, published a guest post on another site, he’d contact my partners and tell them I was a fraud who cheated people out of their money and that they were harming their brand by associating with me.
Luckily, my partners had my back, defended me, and just laughed. It was insane behavior. But again, I got through it because when you’ve done nothing wrong, there is nothing to fear.
The Reality Of Being Visible
I blog, I use social media and have public profiles, I speak at events, lead workshops, offer courses, and market myself to raise visibility for my services, products, programs, and courses. I own a micro creative agency, lead retreats for women business owners, and volunteer my time to co-organize the WordPress meetup and WordCamp Sacramento.
All of these activities mean being visible and putting myself out there, and when you do that, people will have opinions about everything you do and say and there isn’t anything you can do to control it.
When you take bold action and do important work, you will inspire admirers and adversaries.
About the admirers, fans, and supporters:
- The people that believe in you, support you, and cheer you on are the people you should surround yourself with.
- Admirers, fans, and supporters are your people and your community. Focus your energy on them.
- Show your appreciation by providing valuable tools, helpful content, empathetic support, and remarkable experiences.
About the haters and trolls:
- Be flattered that they care enough to pay attention to what you’re doing because it means what you’re doing matters.
- Have empathy because if they’re spending valuable time and energy on trolling you or passively attacking you, they have much bigger problems. Trust me when I say that their actions have more to do with their own unhappiness, envy, and insecurities than they do about youh.
- Let it go and move on. These are not your people and they don’t matter. Keep your mind and energy focused on your goals.
Once I reported my meetup harasser’s actions, I never gave it another thought because it made zero difference in my life and business. But weeks later, the emails were still coming in hot. It made me really sad — not for me, but for this other person who couldn’t let it go and didn’t have anything more meaningful and important to focus their attention on.
What You Can Do
Dealing with trolls and haters is difficult because there is no one right way to do it. Often, there also isn’t a way to shut it down and make it stop.
In these situations, you’re dealing with wildcards like personality, past experiences, levels of craziness, and radical emotion. This means no two trolls are alike. With that said, there are a few things you can do:
- Provide a straightforward “here are the facts” response. If a troll is making accusations about you, don’t get emotional. Try to shut it down by giving them an out saying “maybe you misunderstood…” then include a non-emotional response that states only the facts.
- Ignore it. Sometimes trolls are simply trying to elicit a response, make you mad, and get you to say something rude or mean or behave in a way that makes you look bad. Don’t give in. Ignore it with the hope that eventually, they’ll get bored and go away.
- Show empathy and acknowledge their feelings. Sometimes all a troll wants is to be heard and acknowledged. In these cases, listening and showing that you care can diffuse the situation.
- Report the behavior to those with more power. For example, WordPress Community Support oversees the WordPress Meetups, so I was able to report the behavior and let them take over the situation.
- Own your mistakes. If you did do something wrong or made a mistake, own it as quickly as possible, apologize, and find a way to move forward positively.
- Document the harassment. Screenshot everything, save recordings when appropriate (hello, abusive voicemails!), and document the harassment. You may need it later if you have to report ongoing abuse, libel, or slander to the police or FBI.
Two Things To Remember
You are in control of your own emotions, actions, and reactions.
You control how you react to feedback, comments, judgments, and criticisms. You also control how it makes you feel and how it affects you. You can choose to let it ruin your day, cause frustration, or get you down, or you can choose to vent to a friend it loved one, let it roll off your back, ignore it, and move on.
You are special and unique. You are not for everyone. And that is a very good thing!
Know that there are far more people supporting you and cheering for you than there are people rooting for your failure, even if it doesn’t always seem like it. Keep doing your best, keep operating with integrity, keep helping others, keep moving forward, keep paying it forward, and keep your head held high… because that’s exactly what I am going to do too.
