Ah… Another day, another hater.

If you spend any amount of time on the internet, you’re bound to come across one of them. As a matter of fact, you’re bound to come across a ton of them!

The internet seems to do something to people where they all of a sudden become emboldened to say the worst things that come to their mind.

That being said, there are some amazing people out there on the “world wide web”. I’ve made some awesome friends and work partners via the internet. (Heck, I even met my wife there!)

But what happens when someone starts throwing shade in the comments or even drops into your DMs to take that criticism to the next level?

Well, because of the number of times I’ve had to deal with this (and the frequency at which it has happened), I needed to come up with a way to deal with it. And based on a few polls I’ve put out on IG, it looks like I’m not the only one.

First of all, what exactly qualifies as “hate”?

Over the last few years, I’ve come to really value my peace of mind. What I feed into my head has a noticeable effect on what results I get in every part of my life. So, my personal definition of hate would be any comment or message that you view as negative and that might take away your peace of mind.

To be clear here, I’m not saying that you should just reject any and all criticism, but like the title of this post implies, you have to reframe it into something that becomes useful to you. And that’s how I came up with this one simple shift that I use, not to reject hate, but to turn it into fuel.

Lean into it.

That concept actually comes from the world of motorcycles. As you make your way through a curve, you might feel apprehensive to tilt the motorcycle in any way. That’s what most people are afraid of, right? Tipping the bike over?

Well, it turns out that you actually have to lean the bike while you’re going through a curve in order to prevent tipping from happening! It seems counter-intuitive, but leaning into the curve (and giving it gas) are what really protect you from falling and give you power as you come out of the curve.

Wow! Now that’s powerful. Imagine applying that same strategy to the “hate” you receive?

The way to do this is to ask yourself a couple questions:

• How can I agree with this?
• How can I use this to my advantage?
• How can I lean into it?

You may not always be able to find an answer to these questions, but I believe that you will be able to do so more times than not.

Here’s an example:

My wife and I joined the network marketing industry in 2019. I’ve always had that entrepreneurial streak in me, and it had rubbed off on my wife. So when someone she had connected with on IG (wink) suggested it to her, she came to me super excited about it. For me, I thought it was awesome that she was taking the initiative to do something of her own, so I was all for it.

Now, we absolutely love what we do, and it’s currently the main source of income for our family. But, if you know anything about network marketing (or MLM, or direct sales, or whatever you want to call it), you know that there are a lot of people who absolutely hate it. They believe it’s all a big scam, that it’s predatory, and on and on.

Without getting into detail, obviously I disagree with all of that. I consider myself to be an honest and genuine person who would never be a part of something that would hurt other people in any way. But we get hate about it all the time.

There’s this statistic out there that only 1% of people in network marketing actually make money, and every so often you get some IG user commenting about it or sending a DM to tell us off. Again, there are a ton of reasons why I believe those numbers are skewed and misrepresent the type of business we are a part of, but that’s not the point here.

Remember, we want to lean into it.

So, instead of fighting it and trying to explain our side of the story and getting all upset, we found a way to agree with it.

Now, when someone throws in our face the statistic that only 1% of network marketers actually make money, we say to ourselves, “Well, then we’re going to be part of that 1%!”

Now that statistic is fuel for us! It’s become part of our identity. We are part of “that 1%” who are successful in this business. The “hate” is no longer hate for us, it’s fuel that propels us forward and solidifies our identity.

We didn’t fight the hate, we embraced it. We found a way to agree with it. We found a way to use it to our advantage. We found a way to lean into it.

That’s how this works.

You cannot control what other people say to you, and trust me, they will say some pretty bad things. What you can control is what you do with those words when they throw them your way. Take responsibility for that. It is your choice whether or not you will let those words tear you down or push you forward.

So the next time you get a comment or DM that would normally take away your peace of mind, remember the motorcycle. Remember that curves in the road are inevitable. Remember that you are in control of what you do on the curve and that what you do will have an effect on whether or not you’ll make it through. Remember to lean into it!