Haters

"What the fuck do you think a hater's job is? To fucking hate. So let them motherfuckers do their goddamn job!" - Katt Williams

Haters. Totally love them. I mean, sure they piss me off now and then, but this is a great talking point and it's a great lesson not only for me but for anyone who wants to achieve any level of success. The reality is that along your journey you're going to encounter people that are going to try and hold you down. People that don't like the fact that you're doing well. People that don't like that you're talented. People that don't like change. People that don't like the fact that you're pushing the envelope. People that don't like the way you eat your cereal. These people don't want anyone to do better than they're doing because usually they aren't doing so hot. It hurts their feelings to see others do well.

So they hate.

The better you do, the more resistance you'll encounter. That's a fundamental law of success. Because great success isn't achieved by doing things the way "it's always been done" or "the way everyone else does it". If that were the case, I would have been super successful years ago. Because I was phenomenal at following instructions. Am I where I want to be? Not by a long shot, there's a ways to go yet. But if you're not ruffling a few feathers along the way, you're not doing it right.

People hated on Steve Jobs. People scoffed at the idea of the iPod/iTunes, "What? He thinks he can get people to pay for downloads?". To the haters it was just a glorified MP3 player and an online service that nobody would use.

Until the iPod and iTunes changed the game and brought Apple back to life.

If it were obvious. Someone would have done it already. The opportunity lies in doing it first or doing it better. The free market is very democratic. Clients vote with their money. If they like it, they'll pay you. If they don't like it, they won't pay you. Simple as that. If we listened to our haters we'd be doing our clients (and ourselves) a great disservice because at the end of the day they're the ones with a real vested interest in your products and services. They are taking money out of their wallets and making a statement: They are buying in to you and what you are selling. A statement that is much more important and valuable than any detraction any hater could air on any social media website.

I used to think Vogue was dumb. I'd flip through one of their editorials and say, "I can't believe they picked this picture for this spread! The pose is funny, the composition is off, blah blah blah".

Because back then I TOTALLY knew what I was talking about... just like every other hater out there.

And while I'm "armchair quarterbacking" for Anna Wintour and Vogue, companies are paying $150,000 to place an ad next to that supposedly bad picture. Do companies make one hundred and fifty thousand dollar mistakes? Sometimes, but not often. Because when there's money on the line, companies think long and hard about these types of decisions. Mistakes are simply too costly.

So who should Anna listen to when she's making her editorial selections? Her haters or her gut instincts? If Anna Wintour listened to her haters do you think she'd still be running Vogue? You don't think Anna Wintour has made her fair share of enemies along the way? That she doesn't have like a million haters? Haters that say she's propagating eating disorders blah blah blah. And to her credit, she's held that post for twenty-four years (since 1988). What has any one of her haters done for even 10 years? Much less 24 years?

Does the "Ice Queen" get mad? I'm sure she does. She'd never show it but I'm sure deep down it occasionally bothers her that her detractors say nasty things about how she's running the company. But at the end of the day she's the one running Vogue. Not you. Not I. Anna Wintour runs Vogue.

So hurt my feelings. Say what you wanna say. There's comment section just for you haters to show me how much time you spend reading my blog and how angry you are at what I do. Don't worry, I won't delete your post. After all, even trolls should have a voice. So I'm going to listen to Katt and let you haters do your thing! :)