If you’re doing something that matters, that’s big and attention-grabbing, you will not escape criticism.
Haters don’t show up when you’re standing still.
They show up when you’re moving, growing, and doing something bold enough to make them uncomfortable.
It’s easy to blend in: stay quiet, play it safe, never ruffle any feathers, and as a result, never receive criticism. But that’s not leadership. That’s not entrepreneurship.
The ones getting criticized are always the ones bold enough to step outside the norm, take risks, and put something real on the line.
The thing about haters is that most of the time, they’re not actually angry or hateful of you. They’re angry at what your success says about them.
You worked hard, took risks, and never gave up — and it paid off. That payoff makes them confront the way they didn’t step up and work hard when it mattered. That’s uncomfortable, and when they’re unable to take the blame, they turn to anger and hatred.
It’s easier for a hater to chalk your success up to luck, timing, connections, or other circumstances that they simply didn’t have. It’s easier for them to excuse their lack of success than it is to face the harsh truth: success takes effort, risk, and sacrifice they didn’t give.
So they criticize. They call your work fake, or shallow, or undeserved. They pick apart your choices, your team, your events, and your brand — not because they hate it, but because deep down, they admire it. They just don’t know how to express that admiration without tearing it down first.
I’ve seen this play out more times than I can count. Recently, I got a message from a few people asking me if I’d seen an ad for a summit event — similar to the one we host every year — calling us out and saying theirs wouldn’t have any of the “nonsense” we do, like car giveaways, celebrity speakers, and general fun energy.
At first, I laughed it off and prepared to post a rebuttal that was aimed at painting their event as a less fun, less ambitious ripoff of ours — especially considering that their ridicule meant they were watching and studying us. We had gotten their attention.
But then, thanks to my wife Jessica, I paused.
I asked myself: “What’s the point? Do I really need to validate that noise? Do I need to get down in the mud when I could be focused on moving forward?”
So I just ignored the whole situation, following a simple rule for dealing with haters:
Don’t feed the hate. Just get better.
The people who win long-term are the ones focused on improving themselves, not engaging with negativity. Every minute you spend reacting to criticism is a minute you’re not investing in growth. When you know who you are and what you’re building, you don’t need to clap back. Your results will speak for you.
At the end of the day, haters are just confused admirers. They see something in you they wish they had. Instead of letting it frustrate you, let it motivate you.
If you’ve got people criticizing you, it means you’re standing out, breaking the mold, and doing something worth paying attention to.
And that’s the point: to be so good they can’t ignore you even if they tried.
