Are People Talking About You Online? Here’s What You Need to Know

people-talking-online1 Last night, I was watching an episode of the Tonight Show with Conan O’ Brien with my wife. We often catch the beginning to laugh at his jokes and how he makes fun of himself and his goofy hair, but we rarely sit to watch the interviews. Seth Green, however, was the first guest, so we decided to keep the TV on. We love Seth Green.

In the middle of the interview, Seth talked a little bit about a video he put up on YouTube and Conan had asked him if he ever goes online to read comments or see what people on the Internet are saying about him. Seth’s response was:

“Never. That stuff is poison.”

Lovers & Haters

For celebs like Seth, there are always groups of loyal fans and people who would die to meet them. There is also the group of people who just talk shmack (yes, shmack) about them all day long. The more in the spotlight you are, the more of both lovers and haters you will have.

This has always been the case, but now that the Internet is a part of our everyday lives, the voices of the haters just seem to resonate so much more. Whether its because people online are faceless behind this thing called a computer, or because cheaper technology has allowed a-holes with no life to finally get heard, very mean and very untrue things are said about people all of the time.

Internet Celebrity Status

Another thing the Internet has given birth to is who I like to call “Joe Celeb”. In other words, regular people like You and I can use the Internet and all of it’s social media platforms to actually become sort of a celebrity. In a few cases, people have become big-time celebrities because of the Internet, like Perez Hilton or Gary Vaynerchuk, who I’ll talk more about in a sec.

In a way, many of us are already online celebrities. If you have a blog and you have subscribers, you have celeb status. If you have a Facebook Fan page and you’ve got fans, you’ve got celeb status too.

Remember what I said earlier – the more in the spotlight you are, the more of both lovers and haters you will have? This holds true online as well, and when you reach a certain point as “Joe Celeb”, you’re going to notice them – especially because you and your brand are online.

If you have a blog or a website, you already know this. In fact, you probably have it setup in a way that you automatically get notified when people are talking about you online. When you get a comment on your own blog, you get notified. When people talk about you on other sites and forums, you get notified through a trackback. If you’re like me, you’re excited and quick to read every comment, and click on over to any other site that points back to yours.

I’ve been doing that ever since I starting blogging over a year ago, and I’ve never seen anyone say anything mean, or talk shmack about me ever. Actually, I’ve received nothing but love from everyone who I’ve met online, through all of my businesses and blogs. Recently, however, as I begin to get more and more traffic to this blog and become more known in this world for what I do, I’ve started to see a few haters.

How to Take the Hate

Seth Green said it himself, “That stuff is poison.” He knows it’s better to avoid reading the blogs, the forums and the comments about him because it does no good. For people like us, we don’t really have a choice. We read comments and find trackbacks, and we don’t know if they are good or bad until after we’ve finished reading them.

We have to learn how to deal. But before that, we must first realize how we react.

If you found out someone on another website or forum called you “scummy”, how would you react?

Really, how would you react? Would you brush it off, or would you get pissed and think about that comment the rest of the day or week? It’s because of the latter reaction that this stuff can indeed be called “poison”.

We all love to be loved. Who doesn’t? But the moment someone talks about us, especially behind our backs, we go berserk. Or, at least our mind does. Does yours?

As people doing business online, especially those of us with blogs and our names and faces on them (which I believe is mandatory if you want to build successful relationships with your readers), we have to know that as we become more successful, seeing more and more negative comments is part of the territory. We have to train our minds to be strong when situations like this arise.

If negativity drives you crazy to a point where you get depressed, unhealthy or unsafe (or other people around you become unsafe), then trying to become the top whatever in your niche may not be for you.

So How Should We Take It?

First of all, don’t get cocky. So many people react to negativity by saying things like:

“Pshh, he’s just jealous…” or

“She’s just mad because she doesn’t have what I have.”

Sounds pretty “high school”, doesn’t it. I don’t know why they call it “high school”, because people act like that in all ages of life. Anyways, I digress…

By being cocky, you’re becoming that same person who was hating on you. That does you no good.

You can do one of two things when people begin to hate on you for whatever reason:

Just brush it off, and let it go; or
Use the situation to your advantage

Yes, I know that in reality, there are many more options to choose from, but these are the two you should focus on. Let’s talk more about taking advantage of a negative situation.

Advantage: You

Gary Vaynerchuk did something that really impressed me, which led me to purchasing his recently published book, Crush It: Why Now is the Time to Cash In on Your Passion.

I heard about his book on Twitter, so naturally I went to Amazon.com to read his reviews. One particular review, which was a 2 star review, caught my attention. Here are some excerpts:

“Definitely disappointing. I really don’t understand all the raves…”, “I wish I could rank this book even lower. I was being kind with 2 stars…”

You get the idea. Now, check out who was first to respond:

Crush It! Response Here is exactly what Gary says:

“Darn! I hate you feel that way, pls email me gary@vaynermedia.com and I would love to yap a little more on this as for the daddys money, i was using these thoughts and dna when I was 12 making $1000 a weekend selling ball cards… also I used $300 and a lot of heart and hustle and thoughts to build WLTV! Would love to yap!”

This particular discussion goes on for 34 more posts, and Gary responds 3 other times to this consumer, as well as other people who chimed in as well.

Just the fact that Gary (and it does sound like him based from what I’ve read. Could be a VA, but still!), takes the time to do this for all of the negative reviews that the book received on Amazon is amazing.

On another comment string, he actually thanks the commenter for chatting with him on the phone for 15 minutes after offering his email (then phone number), to discuss things further.

Now that’s impressive. Imagine if every author did that.

Gary definitely took advantage of the situation and I’m sure impressed more people than just me. For just that reason alone, I purchased his book.

Now My Turn

This post was not a random occurance.

The other day, while looking at where my traffic was coming from, I was pointed to a forum where I, Pat Flynn, author of this very blog, was being called scummy.

If you haven’t already heard, I was recently featured on Yaro Starak’s blog at Entrepreneur’s Journey.

Yaro and his blog has been an inspiration for me for such a long time. I finally mustered the courage to email him and request to do an interview for my Podcast (which is coming soon!), which he so kindly accepted to do. During our pre-interview chat, I got to talking a little bit about where I came from, and he asked to do an interview of me as well. You can listen to that interview on the link above.

The response to my interview was absolutely fantastic. 82 comments on his blog, 32 emails personally to me and so many other forms of thank yous and congrats here on this blog. I can’t begin to thank Yaro for his generosity by featuring my story on his blog, as well as the kindness from all of his readers and followers. Thank you, everyone.

So, to get back to scummy, someone who had heard me on Yaro’s interview posted a link to my annual income report onto that forum. Someone else later responded basically saying that my online businesses weren’t honest and what I was doing online was scummy.

I wasn’t mad, and I couldn’t really blame this person, because if you see someone making $200k a year on 15 minutes a day, that just seems unreal and totally scummy. I understand that, but what this person didn’t know is how much hard work I put into my businesses, and how I set them up so they are working for me, and not the other way around. Those of you who have heard my story know this already.

Instead of getting pissed, I took the time to respond on the forum myself, and in a polite manner describe how my businesses were run and that I take great pride in knowing that everything I do is honest and done with my customers and readers as my first priority.

On top of that, I sent a direct email to the commenter, going into more detail and asking that person to call me if they wanted to discuss more.

I didn’t get a phone call, but I did get a nice apology email, as well as an apologetic comment back in the same thread that the comment was made.

I pulled a Gary V!

Avoiding confrontation and brushing things off is always a safe choice, but if you have a chance to be honest and politely show someone that they are just misunderstood, then why not do that?

So What Do You Think?

Should I have just let that comment go, or do you think I did the right thing? How are some other ways that you handle yourself in these types of situations?

Thanks everyone for your time. Have a wonderful weekend! Cheers!

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p.s. If you’re not a hater and would like to subscribe to the blog, click here to add me to your RSS Feed!

46 Comments (Click Here to Leave a Comment Below)

Reply Roberto on November 20th, 2009 at 6:46 am

Very interesting post. I have applied some of these principles on dalealbo.cl (spanish site) where we receive a lot of daily email, both from supporters and haters, and let me tell you that some of the latests messages are really hard on my team and what we represent.

In fact, in the niche we work (soccer) there’s too much hate that some hate messages just can’t be reversed as you have shown. Even more, because of this, it’s better we present as a company on our site instead of individuals so we can protect our identities from being massive known, many times by the wrong people. And even with this security measure, we have had some safety problems with hooligans in the past.

So I suppose this strategy works 90-99% percent of the cases, but there’s some extreme cases like mine where you better seek for your security first There are some well known cases of this kind of problems in the blogosphere. The one I always remember is Kathy Sierra’s Creating Passionate Users being closed because she started to receive Death Threats. The following link provides more info:

http://headrush.typepad.com/creating_passionate_users/2007/04/death_threats_a.html
http://headrush.typepad.com/whathappened.html

But as said, in the most part of the cases is pretty sure to reverse the situation and do a great job like Gary and Pat did

Reply Pat on November 21st, 2009 at 2:09 am

Roberto, you’re right. In many cases, and depending on the niche you’re in, it’s just not a good idea to get involved because there is so many negative comments, and you might just end up making things worse. Because I am my blog, I can address these comments as myself, and as some people pointed out already, if I get even bigger, it’s going to be harder to do this. But for a company, speaking as a company is a good idea for identity protect, especially in your case. Thanks for your comment and the link!

Reply Howie on November 20th, 2009 at 6:49 am

I love waking up to a new post from you, Pat! (Now, time to scroll back up and read it…lol…)

Reply Howie on November 20th, 2009 at 6:55 am

…all done, Pat….great post, yet again!….I swear man, your ability to motivate and inspire is like a synthesis between Billy Blanks (the Tae-bo guy), Tony Horton (the P90X guy), and the Governator (back in his early days)……lol….oh, and thanks for all the help with the eBook…means alot man, and really has me thinking about alot of different things, from marketing, to setting price/etc….

–Howie

Reply Pat on November 21st, 2009 at 2:12 am

Haha, thanks Howie. That’s a true fan – leaving a comment first and THEN reading the post. Thanks for your support, as always, dude. And to be compared to Billy Banks and Tony Horton, and even Arnold – that’s awesome. Unfortunately, it’s definitely not a physical comparison. All those guys are totally fit, and in the fitness / weight lifting industry. But for inspiration and motivation, that means a lot – thanks man!

Reply ibagayan on November 20th, 2009 at 7:56 am

Hey Pat,

Great way to turn a potentially volatile situation into a positive one.

You better get used to it though, the bigger you get, the more haters will come.

-ibagayan

Reply Pat on November 21st, 2009 at 2:13 am

Well, yeah – and I am not going to let them stop me from getting big, if that’s indeed where I end up going. We’ll see! Thanks for your support Ibagayan!

Reply Omar on November 20th, 2009 at 7:58 am

Awesome Post Pat,

Aside from trying to make it online…. I am also a high school varsity baseball coach and you should hear what a lot parents and fans say during a game.

If I would let even 1/4 of what they say get to me, I think I would be facing major health issues. The way I see it is…. I should only care what loved ones think because thay are what matters most. You will never be able to satisfy everyone and hate just comes with the territory.

Sometimes you just have to learn how to ignore certain things, but at the same time you have to learn from the situation and keep steaming foward. I like using negativity as a steam to keep powering me foward.

Keep up the awesome work Pat,
Mario

Reply Pat on November 21st, 2009 at 2:15 am

I’ve been to a few high school games and have overheard the types of things that parents say to the coaches. It’s vicious! I was at football games, so I don’t think the coach heard most of the nasty comments, but for baseball, it’s not quite as loud and I’m sure they’re trying to be heard. Way to not let that get to you Mario. Using negativity to help you steam forward is an excellent point. Thanks Mario, and all the best to you and your team!

Reply jen on November 20th, 2009 at 8:02 am

Another good way to keep on top of what is being said about you online is to sign up for a Google Alert. (http://www.google.com/alerts). You enter in a keyword, which could be your own name or brand name and then set it up to send alerts to your email either once per day or once per week. The alerts tell you what the post said, as well as where it came from and contains a link.

Pretty handy!

A lot of people do this with their children’s names, too…just to keep an eye out for them.

Reply Bolaji - Rat-Race-Escape-Artists.com on November 20th, 2009 at 12:23 pm

Jen,

Interesting application of Google Alerts (to monitor your kids’ names).

Although with as much slang and intentional(?) misspelling kids do these days, it would be rare, I think, for one teenager to type your kids’ name in correctly! LOL!

I’ll pass this along to my friends that have tweeners and teenagers.

Reply jen on November 20th, 2009 at 4:59 pm

LOL..yeah..you would have get pretty exact with the name. Although, with more and more unusual names being given, it’s not too hard to isolate one person.

Reply Pat on November 21st, 2009 at 2:25 am

Hey that’s a great idea Jen! My actual name would be tough because there are a million and 1 Pat Flynn’s out there, but for branding, that’s such a good idea. Thanks so much for that!

Reply Craig on November 20th, 2009 at 8:20 am

Even if the person disagrees with you they have to respect the attempt to make a personal connection and to hear them out. Managing customer service for a start-up I deal with the same. Majority of emails are all positive but there are a few that have been negative, and I take those more serious. We even ended up working with one angry user to help improve things, and later they became a raving fan.

Reply Bolaji - Rat-Race-Escape-Artists.com on November 20th, 2009 at 12:25 pm

Craig,

This is a good example. People with negative feedback are your best source of product improvement.

Either they misunderstood – in which case your language could have been clearer… and this can be fixed for future customers…

or they point out a valid issue – in which case you can work with them to get the issue fixed. And they likely become a fan.

Thanks…

Reply Pat on November 21st, 2009 at 2:26 am

I absolutely agree. In the Gary V. comment string I posted, the author of the original comment still disagreed, but showed respect towards Gary for replying himself and offering to speak via email and on the phone. Good stuff Craig, thanks!

Reply moon on November 20th, 2009 at 8:30 am

Hi Pat,

I think the way you responded is admirable. Obviously, you read how someone else handled a similar situation and learn from it. I think as human beings, it is our job to learn and evolve; at least that’s what I strive for.

I love to see situations handled in a great manner, such as this. Shows your true character. Btw, I listened to that Podcast (on Yaro’s site) about a week ago. Good stuff

Reply Pat on November 21st, 2009 at 2:27 am

Hey thanks Moon! I know that interview was fairly long, so I can’t thank you enough for actually spending time to listen to us chat. All the best to you!

Reply Steve on November 20th, 2009 at 10:45 am

Go Gary, go Yaro and… go Pat.

“Any fool can criticize, condemn and complain and most fools do.” – Ben Franklin

Reply Pat on November 21st, 2009 at 2:19 am

Man, I love Ben Franklin quotes. I actually tried to come up with my own quotes, similar to Franklin’s before. Didn’t go so well. Anywho, thanks for your support! Cheers Steve!

Reply Erica Douglass on November 20th, 2009 at 10:50 am

Hi Pat,

Great post! You definitely did the right thing.

The only thing I would add is that, as your community gets bigger, it’s often helpful to let them respond for you. Ramit (from I Will Teach You To Be Rich) taught me this a while ago. It ended up working out perfectly here:

http://www.erica.biz/2009/review-ramit-sethi-i-will-teach-you-to-be-rich-bootcamp/#comments

(where, ironically, I was promoting Ramit’s product…)

Check out comment #2 and the corresponding responses.

My rule of thumb now is that if no one else has replied in a few hours, I’ll reply, but otherwise, I leave it to see if someone else will say something first.

Props to Gary V, too. I bought his book and loved reading it!

-Erica

Reply Bolaji - Rat-Race-Escape-Artists.com on November 20th, 2009 at 12:30 pm

Erica,

Interesting perspective (let your community respond for you). Thanks for sharing that. This may not apply to most of us (yet), but I can see how that would be quite effective.

As long as the community response is a rational one, that addresses the problem factually without belittling the complainer.
Otherwise it could devolve into name-calling.

“What’d you say about my Momma???” LOL!

But I digress.

I wouldn’t have thought of this, but it’s a novel and sound approach.

Reply Pat on November 21st, 2009 at 2:20 am

Hey Erica! I totally saw that comment when you posted that article, and was wondering how you were going to respond. But, as you said, your community did a nice job of doing that for you

I hope my community here would do the same for me. All the best to you Erica! Feel better soon!

Reply Shane on November 20th, 2009 at 11:53 am

Great post, once again, Pat!

Gary is just crazy with his community interaction. He’s kind of known for replying to every email and stuff like that and I just wonder how the hell he does it. I run a relatively small offline business and I often spend several hours a day just answering customer emails. That’s with perhaps a few thousand customers, total.
I can’t imagine what floods of messages Gary must get from his gazillion fans…

Anyway, I think you definitely reacted the right way, my only worry is that this kind of thing is ultra un-scalable.

Cheers,
Shane

Reply Pat on November 21st, 2009 at 2:22 am

Hey Shane – yeah actually, I tweeted that I was reading his book, and he responded back to me with “Enjoy!” I thought that was pretty cool. For a split second I felt like I was really meeting a celebrity in person.

You’re right though, it’s definitely not scalable, unless you hire that type of stuff out, in which case it could be argued that it’s not genuine, but for now, since a lot of us are relatively small, doing Gary V type stuff isn’t really that hard, and the ROI can be high.

Reply Shae on November 20th, 2009 at 12:20 pm

Pat, this was an awesome post! Just listened to your interview last week and I had to leave a comment here to give you kudos for your success. I’m just looking through your posts here on the blog and I appreciate your candor and willingness to share in such detail.

Congrats on the baby news too God bless you and wishing you double the success in 2010.

Reply Pat on November 21st, 2009 at 2:23 am
Thank you for your comment, Shae! I appreciate every part that you said. How about let’s ALL go for triple success in 2010

Reply No Debt Plan on November 20th, 2009 at 2:09 pm

I think everyone needs a healthy bit of skepticism. I’ll be the first to admit that I look at some of the online success stories with a bit of “That really can’t be true…”

But, alas, life is like that.

It’s like small business owners that are independently wealthy in their towns — people (including their employees) may look at them and say, “Pfff, look at his mansion, look at his Mercedes. He hardly works and gets all the stuff!”

But they miss the fact that when the owner was 24 and his friends were out partying all night — he was working 16 hour days on his product. He was hustling. He missed countless family dinners, kids soccer practices, etc…

It is hard to see the hard work when you’re looking up at the mansion, rather than down.

Reply Pat on November 21st, 2009 at 2:31 am

Great example! You’re absolutely spot on.

By the way, just read your latest blog post. Sorry to hear about a crummy week! Sometimes that just happens, and thanks for sharing that because it’s a great reminder that some days (or weeks) are just full of “life” stuff, and it’s hard to get things done sometimes, but we move on. Good luck with your eBooks, and please let me know if you need any help or if there’s anything I can do. Thanks!

Reply Ms. Freeman on November 20th, 2009 at 2:56 pm

When ones reputation, hard work and product integrity are be called into question I think it is best to cordially confront it in the open and honestly. It is pretty stand up that you offered them the opportunity to call. I don’t think I would have done that.

Reply Pat on November 21st, 2009 at 2:33 am

I wouldn’t normally do that, but after I saw what Gary did, and how people reacted to it, I figured it was a good move. Plus, I wouldn’t have any trouble talking about what I love to do and how I love to do it, so there’s nothing to worry about.

Reply Patrenia on November 20th, 2009 at 4:49 pm

This story reminds me of a scripture. To paraphrase it, if a brother offends you, go and confront him. If he listens to you, you have won back your brother.

I think your and Gary V.’s reactions were admirable. You both have taught me a valuable lesson.

Reply Pat on November 21st, 2009 at 2:33 am
Thanks for the summarized scripture, that’s an awesome line.

Reply Jackie from Beginner's Internet Marketing Strategy on November 20th, 2009 at 5:52 pm

Something very similar happened to me just this week! I had someone comment on my blog that was really pretty hateful. He apparently hadn’t actually read the post, but read a bit, and then jumped to conclusions. I have to admit I was NOT happy when I read it. I had the urge to “type angry” but really stopped to think about what my reply would say about me and my business.

I calmed down and left a comment explaining myself and why I had done what I had done. I also sent him an email behind the scenes explaining things a little further.

I didn’t hear back from him either ~ but I did have some of my other readers make comments to him that he misunderstood.

A long time ago (a couple years lol) I saw a thread in a forum where a pretty well known internet marketer was just reeming out some people who were talking shmack about him. It completely changed my then good opinion of him, and reminded me that whatever you say online STAYS online forever. It happened to be a thread that was ranked on the first page for the guys name too ~ so no matter how mad I get about something someone says ~ I always take a step back, calm down and either decide to ignore it, or reply with tact and politeness, because it will be there forever as a testament to who I am.

Jackie

Reply Pat on November 21st, 2009 at 2:35 am

Hi Jackie, I think you handled that very well, and it’s good to see some of your other readers back you up too. As far as that other internet marketer you were talking about, your dead on – stuff like that can easily change people’s perspective in a flash, and that stuff DOES stay online for everyone to see, tweet about and link to forever! Thanks for your comment Jackie!

Reply Char (PSI Tutor:Mentor) on November 21st, 2009 at 1:19 am

My celeb status has not gathered haters as yet~ ho hum…

Great advice in your post, will keep it in mind to “sharpen my axe” ~:-)

Reply Pat on November 21st, 2009 at 2:36 am
Thanks Char! I appreciate it. You are one of the lucky ones

Reply Niche Momma on November 22nd, 2009 at 10:08 am

Ha! Funny! My last comment, the copy/paste glitched and pasted a link to a puzzle I want to order for my daughter.

This comment has the right link.

Reply cindi on November 22nd, 2009 at 11:52 am

Pat… I’m a new reader to your blog and find it so inspiring! While I’ve been blogging for a while now .. it’s been mostly in (behind my) images. I’m learning from you and a few others to find my voice in this vast cyber-land. I love this reference to high school:
” I don’t know why they call it “high school”, because people act like that in all ages of life.”
Isn’t that the truth? But you were inspired by Gary to take an admirable approach and in turn laid that out for others. Thanks for sharing a valuable lesson.

Reply Menandro on November 23rd, 2009 at 3:05 am

If somebody hated me online, I would try communicating well with him. I would apologize if I did not meet his needs and try to figure a way to serve him better next time.

That alone can create attention to my followers who are satisfied. If the angry person is right, my followers would advice me to do better. If the angry person is wrong, I think my followers would support and save me. That is the reward of being good, nothing really bad will really happen. I hope this helps.

Same with you Pat. If I wrongly judge you, the commenters here will kill me. Lol!

Reply watzmann on November 23rd, 2009 at 3:47 am

Once again, a very interesting post, but I agree with the 1st comment and your Seth Green. It`s poison and it`s better not to handle with it.

Reply Jim Crawford on November 23rd, 2009 at 4:54 am

A wonderful blog. You took the absolute correct approach.

Seth Green may say he chooses to stand above the “poison” of negative public, chatter and gossip, e.g., the slams common to tabloid media. But in fact, he’s working actively to ensure he maintains a positive public image. Why else do you think he was on Conan’s show? Smart businesses do the same, staying constantly in front of the public to convey their “message.” They do so to maintain Reputation, and to ensure ongoing good relationships with their audience.

On the topic of your recent experience. . .

The response to an actual “attack” varies, depending on the circumstance. In general, it’s best to do what you did: respond immediately in an open, friendly and honest way to resolve the issue. That approach clears the air and usually wins people to your side.

On the other hand, one occasionally sees a blog comment from a “nut case” who’s simply looking for attention. Here one must weigh matters carefully. Even a thoughtful response may generate an endless loop of more negative comments from a determined trouble-maker. We ran across such a case recently when a screwball blasted a client’s blog. He was “poison,” for sure, and because that was obvious to all, we recommended letting this one go. The matter is now long forgotten. Ignored by us, he’s probably off trashing somebody else now.

Kudos for your wise handling of this matter, and BTW, love your blog!

Best regards,

Jim Crawford

Reply Vicki Kunkel on November 23rd, 2009 at 5:58 pm

You hit the nail right on the head! If you DON’T have haters, then you aren’t successful. In my book, I call this the “jackass factor”: whenever someone has a strong point of view, and they stick to it and don’t waver, they are considered a jackass by many readers, viewers, or audiences. I advocate that people be proud of their ‘jackass factor’ — assuming they aren’t arrogant jerks. (By being a “jackass”, I don’t mean being mean or dismissive or arrogant; I mean having a spine and sticking up for what you believe in–despite the dissenters.

You just landed a new fan of your blog! Can’t wait for your next post!

Reply Jimi Jones on November 24th, 2009 at 2:36 pm

You without a doubt, handled that in the best of ways. Comments like that are what I call the left-handed compliment.
It is always better to face negativity in a non-confrontational way. When you are so polite and cool about the situation, the other person has but 2 choices, be a complete a$$, or soften their stance.

It’s always tough to understand this mentality though. i’ve always been of the mindset that you should be happy for someone’s success. It’s the law of attraction, think negative – draw negative things in your direction and vice-versa.

Keep on keeping on, Pat!

Reply Steve-Success Factors on December 7th, 2009 at 8:48 am

Success will always attract skeptics and ‘left handed compliments’ I am truly impressed by how you and Gary V handled the ‘negative’ comments. We can learn a lot from criticism, provided the person dishing it out can soften their stance once we have responded in a neutral and non-defensive manner.