Handling the Hate Mail

Photo by Elisa Ventur on Unsplash

You’ve put yourself out there by creating something innovative, passionate, and new. You’ve shut down the naysayers to launch it and are hopeful of its success. It’s a part of you. It’s your baby. Then the hate mail comes in.

It could be a negative comment on your Youtube channel or on your latest blog post. Perhaps it’s a poor review of your book or a google review on your business page. Or maybe it’s a blunt and hostile email landing in your inbox. Wherever it lands, it stings. Like a slap to the face, you aren’t expecting it. It plants a seed of doubt in your mind, causing you to question what you’ve created—or worse—to question your own self-worth.

Unfortunately I speak from experience. As a serial entrepreneur, I know that the more things I put out into the world, the more it increases the risk of folks critiquing me as a person as well as the projects I launch. The first negative review hurts. The first hate mail that attacks one’s character hurts even more. So what can we do about it? How can we cope with the anonymous words that have been weaponized against us? How do we protect ourselves from the folks who want to criticize us from afar? After all, Brene Brown points out that they aren’t in the arena with us, so why do their voices sound so loud? I don’t claim to have all the answers, but I feel compelled to talk about this phenomenon of being cut down by folks cloaked in anonymity, knowing that other creatives and leaders who put themselves out there are experiencing the same thing.

How can we handle the hate mail?

Here are some things that might help:

 1)    Get Some Distance

As the virtual slap to the face hits, it can serve you to physically or emotionally move away from the negativity to get your bearings. Is it worth taking a walk? Distracting yourself with another task? Working off the emotional response with conscious movement? Stepping away from what you are doing to ground yourself?

2)    Seek Support

You don’t have to go through this experience alone. Who can you reach out to that understands what it’s like? Who can offer reassurance, compassion, and kind words in the face of unexpected ugliness? Who can speak to the quality or value of the thing(s) you’ve created? Who believes in your vision?

3)    Reignite Your Passion

The anonymous negativity can cast a shadow on all things that bring you joy if you let it. How can you revisit your vision and return to the passion of your project? Is it healing to talk about it with others who can appreciate your efforts? Can you share it with an audience who would be excited about it? Can you return to the experience of crafting your offering and what made you excited to launch it in the first place?

4)    Reject That Shit

No one wants to hold onto hate mail. What can you do to consciously reject it and send it on it’s way? Is it about cleansing yourself or your space of that negativity? Is it about deleting the email, reporting the post, or setting boundaries on reading comments? Can you visualize repelling the negativity it represents, sending it farther away from you?

5)    Find the Funny

Sometimes the critique isn’t even personal. Maybe they say your creation is boring or that no one cares. Of course the irony is that they read it or watched it or landed on your offering in some way themselves. So how can you find the funny in the painful experience? Is it reading it in a funny voice? Having a witty rebuttal like a celebrity reading hateful reviews on video? If you can’t find the funny in the criticism itself, can you engage in something lighthearted and funny to help you return to your emotional baseline?

6)    Set Social Media Boundaries

There’s a reason folks in the spotlight say they don’t read their reviews. It hurts. What boundaries can you have in place to limit your perusal of comments if it’s more hurtful than helpful?

There is a difference between constructive criticism and hate mail. I choose to believe it says more about them than it does about us. I know that personally, I need to develop a thicker skin against negative remarks in order to continue creating things that I enjoy. To keep the vision and goal of helping others at the forefront of my mind. To continue to operate within my values of integrity, growth, and leadership. Although I wouldn’t wish the experience of hate mail on anyone, I hope that these ideas can prepare you for if and when it happens in your experience as a creative entrepreneur.

The haters are going to hate. Keep going.

What if Working is Your Self-Care?

I was bonding with other powerhouse business women in a working retreat recently and was asked to facilitate a goal-setting exercise. What do we want to accomplish in the next six months and how can we help one another achieve these goals? I’d had them narrow it down. Brainstorm. Prioritize. Share. Ask for help.

Then it was my turn. I jumped in with enthusiasm, rattling off my goals of book sales, the Amazon best-seller list, and a TED Talk. I was excited to share! To manifest, to make it more real. And then came the question. “Khara,” one of my colleagues said, “that sounds great. But, what’s the end goal?” I felt my excitement wheeze and deflate like an untied balloon. I felt confused, unsure, and started to sweat. Why couldn’t I come up with an answer for her? An answer for myself? I knew in my heart that I didn’t want to retire early and not have work. Working gives me a sense of direction. Work gives me purpose. More specifically, creating gives me purpose. And yet I didn’t know the end-result. Through a constricted throat, I claimed I’d have to get back to her, finding my mind going blank.

Soon after the retreat, she texted me. “Khara, I owe you an apology. My question to you was flawed from the beginning. It was a projection of societal expectations that there has to be a particular outcome more than just enjoying the process. Enjoying the process might be the point and that is actually really beautiful.” She proceeded to send me this quote:

“The fruits of a fulfilling life—happiness, confidence, enthusiasm, purpose, and money—are mainly the by-products of doing something we enjoy, with excellence, rather than the things we can seek directly.”    --Dan Miller

The tightness in my chest loosened, the panic of not having an answer and worrying about not having an answer, lifted. I felt seen. It lead me to a question of, “what if working is my self-care?” What if working is yours?

They say “if you do what you love, you’ll never work a day in your life.” That may be true for some, but it’s also one of the villains we blame for our current workaholic culture. Doing what we love is a privilege. Does the work invigorate you? Inspire you? Feed your soul?

I can tell you that creating for me brings feelings of happiness and joy. It’s as close as I get to contentment in knowing I’m producing things of value. I can also tell you that to the outside world, I’m churning things out at a breakneck speed. A speed which others might find unhealthy, believing I subscribe to workaholic culture, I am workaholic culture, and that I need to take it down a notch. That I’m steamrolling instead of stopping to smell the roses. They assume I don’t get enough sleep.

There’s a sweet spot for functioning in a productivity loop. For those creatives out there, you get it. We get ideas in the shower, while driving, and at 4am out of blue. We feel a rush to put our ideas into motion, creating something that can have a positive impact for ourselves and others. We do in fact maintain enough sleep to get to good ideas, the ahas that inspire action. So to tell us to slow down, stop our work, or accuse us of poor self-care is missing the mark. It’s once again operating from the flawed lens of society. The all or nothing thinking. Society which demands answers to the question, what’s the end goal? Why do it? What’s the point? Why?

Simon Sinek said it best when he said start with your why. If you embrace it, the rest will fall into place. If our why as women entrepreneurs is to make an impact and a meaningful difference in the world through our products and leadership, we can do that. We can work and have it be meaningful, fulfilling, and consider aspects of it as part of our self-care.

Self-care has been commercialized, having us thinking of vacations, massages, and manicures. In previous talks, I’ve invited others to redefine self-care as rest versus restoration. Rest is easy to measure. Taking brain breaks, vegging out, getting enough sleep. But what feels so enticing for creative entrepreneurs is restoration. What energizes you, invigorates you, inspires you? From this lens, it’s not surprising that parts of our business can restore us. Creativity. Leadership. Integrity and Purpose.

Adam Grant highlights the importance of creativity in the workplace by showing that employees who had 20% of their work hours carved out for creativity were more productive, were responsible for some of the latest innovations to change the world, and were more emotionally invested in their workplace. Does this not sound like a great recipe for burnout prevention and challenging our workaholic culture?

I’m asking you to change your beliefs about the churn. Creativity and enjoying the process in your work can be self-care. Creativity at work serves the dual purpose of encouraging feelings of productivity and contentment. Working may not be rest but it can be restorative. Therefore it can be part of your self-care practice. Do something you enjoy with excellence, and the fruits of a fulfilling life will follow.

Pivoting in Practice: How to Embrace Business Change within a Pandemic

We’ve been riding the rollercoaster of this pandemic for months. It’s almost hard to believe. We can’t even begin to fathom the full results of this event and the impact on our businesses. As therapists, we know we must fortify ourselves for the mental health crisis that comes with COVID-19. As a colleague, I’m hearing that we are burning out, stretched too thin by grief, anxiety, and tragic loss. In the grand scheme of things, this means we will need more mental health professionals to carry the load. It also means therapists are maintaining smaller caseloads to allow for self-care in the face of overwhelm. As business owners, we are clenching our muscles and leaning in. As entrepreneurs, we are rallying. Now is the time for pivoting and planning. Months into COVID-19, we are looking for ways to pivot to allow our practices and businesses to not only survive, but thrive.

Planning to Pivot?

Pivoting is a term in business for shifting gears, changing direction, and/or finding new focus. As private practice owners, we get the opportunity to pivot in order to address life’s changes and challenges in ways we feel are a good fit for our business. For some of you, pivoting means:

·      Offering telehealth

·      Providing webinars

·      Speaking online

·      Developing online coursework

·      Writing blogs or a book

·      Identifying a secondary income stream

It can be exciting to start new endeavors, and it can also be challenging. Let’s recognize that creativity can feel limited when other responsibilities require your attention and stress levels are so high that they may hurt your ability to focus. You don’t have to do this all in one shot. You don’t even have to do this alone. Here are some ideas to help you move deeper into a creative mindset to better your business.

Schedule Time for Creativity

That’s right. Put it in your calendar. Where can you find time to work ON your business rather than in it? Can you map out time for brainstorming? Writing? Course creation? Conversations with other inspiring entrepreneurs? I too have learned that if I don’t schedule it, it doesn’t happen!

Move your Body

Have you ever noticed that some of the most brilliant minds are depicted as pacing in movies when trying to figure something out? There is a reason for that! Movement allows deeper processing, especially when it’s a repetitive, low-energy motion like walking or pacing. So get outside and take a walk, allowing your mind to mull over the possibilities at an easy pace.

Remember your ‘Why’

No matter where you decide to take your business, be sure to slow down enough to check in on your ‘why.’ Does this new endeavor support your values and brand? Does it support your mission as a person and as a professional? Carry a notebook and write down ideas as they come to you. Run new ideas by a trusted colleague or friend to see what they think. 

Invigorating Investments

For many entrepreneurs, if the pivot aligns with their business, it can feel both exciting and invigorating to have a direction to go and plan of action to take.  You see, entrepreneurs enjoy building and creating and they feel much more emotionally invested when creating something new or worthwhile. I hope that you too can experience the excitement (dare I say giddiness?) of pivoting in your practice to support your mission, vision and brand. Check out my book Perfectioneur: From Workaholic to Well-Balanced launching June 1st for other ideas on how to thrive as a driven entrepreneur. I can’t wait to see what you create!