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Greetings From The Trenches.
Where’s all my haters? Will you please stand up. One of the misunderstood words in business is “haters”. Most of the time when we hear the term "haters" its something that we despise and want to get rid of. Why though? If you take a look at the definition you may want to think twice. Here it is from the urban dictionary:
A person that simply cannot be happy for another person's success. So rather than be happy they make it a point of exposing a flaw in that person.
Hating, the result of being a hater, is not exactly jealousy. The hater doesn't really want to be the person he or she hates, rather the hater wants to knock someone else down a notch.
My suggestion on the other hand is to accumulate as many haters as possible. Here’s my theory in a 3 piece concept on haters and why you not only need them but should want them and be looking to grow your hater count all the time.
- You're irrelevant. If you’re trying to get noticed or break out in your field there's no better way to amplify your presence than haters. Think about it haters have a job to do to spread the word about the people they hate. They actually draw attention to you. Even though their plan is to expose flaws and weaknesses in you or your performance nonetheless its attention. As an unknown in your space this is exactly what you need. One other thing, once you have tons of haters if your count starts to drop off thats a sign that you could be losing relevance. Think Miley Cyrus and how she killed her irrelevant former childhood star, Hannah Montana, with the shorthaired platinum blonde, sticking her tongue out, twerking Miley, that we witnessed capture the attention of the world during the VMAs, as she gyrated all over stage and eventually all over the cover of every magazine and a sold out world tour.
- You establish a position. If you try to please everyone and always agree it will prevent people from hating you but also prevent you from establishing a position in your space. Think about it every superhero has something that they stand for and are up against. Their position is known and their enemies are clear. Make a decision on what position you're wanting to establish and put a stake in the ground firmly. Trying to win the admiration and acceptance of everyone is a recipe for failure.
- Your flaw becomes your strength. When I look into the entertainment area there are a couple of specific characters that come to mind that embody turning a potential flaw into a strength. Comedian Katt Williams is a great example of this. The backstory to the majority of his standup routine is predicated on the fact that he is vertically challenged. I mean he's really short. He knows that people make fun of his size so he beats them to the punch. He comes out in oversized coats, oversized belt buckles, oversized anything to exaggerate the fact that he's small. In one routine he came out with his pimp cup and made a joke about it being bigger than he is. He uses props in his acts too like an oversize stool that he can barely climb up on. He simply took the flaw and turned it into his strength. Another character in entertainment is rapper Eminem. The fact that he is a white boy rapper with blonde hair seems to find its way into the majority of his songs. This is the main thing that people like to accentuate. Their intention is to point it out as a flaw, but that's what he takes and turns into his strength. He's built an empire on doing just that thing.
So think about what you're trying to do in your space. What do you want to become? Are you relevant in your space? What's your position? And what's the flaw that someone could point out? What's your current hater count? I think in these questions lies answers to you becoming a dominating factor in your space. Monitor your hater count on a regular basis and run through this 3 piece concept often. Lastly remember without rain we wouldn’t appreciate the sunshine, without defeat victory wouldn’t be so sweet, and without haters are greatness would go unnoticed.
Now let's get back to building our empires! Talk to you soon!