101. Why I embrace online hate and you should too

People hating on you is one of the perils of creating online content - but it shouldn't stop you from sharing your message! In fact it can be a good thing. In the wake of a viral TikTok attracting lots of haters, I wanted to kick off the new season of That Voice Podcast by sharing three advantages to embracing online negativity.

Transcript

Hi, I'm Sally Proser. Welcome to That Voice Podcast. Great to have you here. Take a breath and settle in. Practical tips and inspirational stories are coming your way to help you speak with more confidence to grow your business, advance your career, and be done with public speaking freak-outs. As a former TV journalist and company spokesperson, qualified speech and drama teacher, spiritual life coach and TikToker, I know firsthand the power of using your voice with confidence. Let's go!

Hello. Hello! Happy new year! I am back for Episode 101 of That Voice Podcast. It was so tempting to do like, Public Speaking 101 or Confidence 101, but in light of how 2022 started, I decided to go with “Why I embrace online hate and you should too”. I'm sure you can relate especially if you're in Australia. 2022 probably didn't start quite the way you imagined. And I really hope you and your family are safe and healthy. For me, at the time of recording this I've managed to dodge one of the big C's, but not the other big C— cancellations. So among them was my first big keynote of the year, which is disappointing. And then I had a little TikTok go viral. And while there were lots of positive, supportive comments, which I'm always really grateful for, there was a lot more hate than usual.

So, I thought it was a good opportunity to speak about the perils of showing up online, in particular, the advantages of getting hate online. Now, before you choke on your tea. Yes. I said advantages. And I'll be sharing the three advantages of getting hate online in this episode. Because this is a big fear when it comes to posting anything online, especially videos. Lots of inner critics pop up, and I'm sure you can relate to these. There's the perfectionist— it's not good enough to post. There's the imposter syndrome— Who wants to hear from me?. There's the comparer— Oh, I can't post something as good as they did, or I saw what happened to Sally and no, thanks! Not signing up for that. There's the people-pleaser, which we'll talk more about a bit later. That's the What if no one likes it?, or What if they comment something bad?

So as you can see, there are a lot of mental barriers when it comes to sharing online. And that's what results in either being completely paralyzed to post, especially when the old procrastinator comes out to play. Or just feeling safer, not to post anything at all, to stay in the shadows or to hide behind posts that don't show your face or have your voice in them. But, as you know, you have a valuable message to share. You have something that can change people's lives. You have a voice that deserves to be heard around the table, and you know, you have a unique light that bloody well deserves to shine. So we do not want that to be snuffed out for the fear of online, hate the fear of the what if's. So you might be wondering, "Well, Sal, you are like a positive speaking coach who is hating on you?".

And over the time, I have had negative comments on a fair few of my videos. And many of them about pronunciation, like the latest one. Now, if you're a long-time listener to the podcast, or you follow my socials, or you've done one of my courses or worked with me one-on-one, you will understand that the pronunciation of words forms a very minuscule part of the work we do. And it's really only when I'm working with my reporters who do want to pronounce words correctly without stumbling that we work on this because of course clear, accurate speech goes to credibility. So with that in mind, of course, the word coming up a lot was "Omicron" and the N has been creeping in. So it was "Omnicron". And then, I think it's quirky that we're all saying RAT test-- myself included, when the acronym RAT includes the word "test".

Yeah. Anyway, here it is. "It's not Omnicron, it's Omicron. Also it's a RAT, not a RAT test— that would be like saying ATM machine." Okay. So pronunciation is a triggering topic. And I received a barrage of negative comments that many that made me feel really awful, but there are three reasons I have embraced it. And the first reason to embrace online hate is that it encourages you to do the inner work. I already work with a bunch of coaches and I meditate and I journal and I read and I do silent retreats. And I'm pretty much a self development junkie, but just like an onion, you're always peeling off more layers when it comes to inner work. So here I was with a bunch of negative comments from strangers on the internet, and it was weighing on my heart a lot more than I would've liked.

So here's the invitation that hate comments give you. They give you this invitation to go deeper, to look closer. So I asked, you know, what were the type of comments that were getting under my skin? Where was I feeling it in my body? Why was I feeling it? You know, this viral video, isn't my first rodeo. I mean, I once had a guy Photoshopped, the poo emoji onto my head and make a video calling me Australia's most condescending woman, and I actually found it funny. So I'm thinking, so why is it getting to me now? So in my mind, I broke down the categories of comments because hate comments are not all cut from the same cloth. And it's worth mentioning here that some hate comments are downright abusive. And I don't think I had anything that would warrant me going to the police. And I say that with absolute seriousness, I work with lots of young reporters and almost all of them have received vile abuse online, including things like rape threats.

So when I say I embrace online hate, I'm course not including this type of online hate, the abuse, the crime, which really needs to stop. And I believe those behind the keyboard need to be held to account. I'm talking about more vanilla hate. And the first category is people who disagree. There are comments. Like if you Greek you'd know, you're saying it wrong anyway, or RAT test may makes more sense to say, because it gives it context and you know, like and I have no problems at all with people disagreeing. That's great. It's a conversation starter. It's engagement. That's what you want. Then we have the category of dislike comments like, "Wow, you're so annoying. It's not Sally. It's pronounced Karen." "Your personality is insufferable, bad vibes. You are boring AF." And again, those comments didn't really bother me because I know not everyone is going to like me or what I'm about.

Not everyone is going to like you and you have to be okay with that. And I've really worked through my people-pleasing issues enough to be good with this one. The next type of comments were the silencers. "OMFG please leave someone shut that lady up, shut up. Who cares, go away." And you know, there's gonna be people who try to silence you. And just because some stranger on the internet says shut up, that really doesn't mean you should. Everyone has the ability to scroll on. You know, you're not forcing content on people. So, don't worry about that. And remember all these comments say more about the commenter than you as the poster. And it's true. My coach always says, "When you point a finger, there are three pointing back at you." I love that when you point a finger, there are three pointing back at you.

And content about speech or pronunciation triggers a very common belief and wound around not being smart enough or not being privileged enough. And there were comments along the lines of "Who she thinks she is? She thinks she's better than everyone. She's so smug. She's so superior." And these comments did start to ruffle my feathers a little bit, but well, who do you think I am? I know who I am. If I saw those commenters in person, I would've asked "Who do you think you are?" Because when you get into this kind of language, so if you're posting and you're getting comments and it might not even be online, it might be in real life of that who do you think you are to do this? Then that really exposes deep insecurities. It says, "Who do you think you are?" But really it's "I want to put you in this particular box because I've been put in a box and I'm not in charge of myself. So I wanna be in charge of you, what you can and can't do."

And this is also something you see with people who've known you for a long time, and perhaps seen you be successful perhaps with your business or career. Have you ever noticed that often it's strangers, it's strangers on the internet that give you hate, but often it's strangers who are your biggest cheerleaders,? Because if somebody knows where you've come from, they know your background, they can't make up a fantasy story about why you got there. They can't say, "Oh, well, that's because she's richer or she's had more opportunities or whatever it is." They have no way to explain it away. They come from the same place. So again, it exposes that insecurity.

Remember people who are doing more than you will not criticize you. People living their best lives are not gonna hang shit on your life. So don't let that hold back you from sharing online. Those comments of the who do you think you are. I did need to do a bit more work around those who do you think you are comments, because they did start to ruffle my feathers a bit. I felt the need to be like, "Hang on. I'm just a Bogan from Wollongong with working class parents. I do not think I'm better than anyone else!". So that's a sign that I was a bit affected by it. And then this crept in to the next type of comments, which were the ones that did affect me. And they were the misinterpretations of my intention. Comments like "You're so classist, you're an ableist. Stop giving people for the way they speak."

And those comments really hit in my heart space. My reaction was, "No! Oh my gosh. That's literally the opposite of what I do!" But here was the juicy inner work to do. Here was the gift of the online hate to do this work. Okay, so my intentions were misinterpreted. When you put something out, people are going to misinterpret your intentions. And in isolation, that particular TikTok, I can understand how that might be, but it doesn't matter. You know, you're responsible for the energy you bring, not the energy of how individuals perceive it.

You're responsible for the energy you bring, not the energy of how individuals perceive it. We can't possibly be in control of that energy. So I work through this with my coach. And what matters is that I was in integrity when I posted the video, I knew in my heart what my intentions were to buy into what those interpretations by other people was, would be to believe that I pulled out my phone to criticize people for the way they speak. That's not any part of who I am. I couldn't have fabricated that intention if I tried. So this has been useful for me. It is a part of people pleasing that I've been able to look into. You know, I was horrified that people are watching my video and feeling worse about their voice. Oh my gosh. But I also know that anyone who explores any more of my content or my programs would not get that feeling and actually in a nice touch by the universe, right?

When I was getting those comments, I got a nice e-mail from a private client saying how incredibly uplifted she felt after our session. But again, I don't have to justify it. And neither do you. When you get into the realm of trying to justify your intentions. And I did do a follow up TikTok where maybe I was doing that a little bit, but, that is really buying into more people-pleasing. By the way, I didn't respond to any of these comments. It's just an energy draining fight if you do this. But the lesson here is, you know, why are we so hungry for the approval of others? It's people-pleasing. It's that feeling we'll be abandoned, we'll be rejected from the tribe, we'll be canceled. Our career will be ruined our business dead in the water, our reputation soiled on a global level. And you see that by going down that worst case scenario, it can help you get perspective and realise how incredibly unlikely that would be.

So I'd really encourage you to do this inner work and dig into why you're feeling those emotions that can be for hate comments, or even for posts that you read. Work through it, and the reward is growth. Here I was thinking people pleasing was gone for me. You know, I coach my clients to not give a toss about opinions from strangers on the internet. Yet there's some layers I needed to work through, to talk through, to feel through. And now I've released it, I feel so much better. This is why coaching is really useful. Now, the second reason you should embrace online hate is it can give you direction on both small and large scales. So, you know, it can be so easy to get sucked into the content hamster wheel of posting. And I post so much, I do it with so much speed and often little planning or thought like that pronunciation video.

It was honestly one take before we were heading out to dinner, because I just had a conversation with a journo about the word Omicron. And we we're saying how interesting it was. Someone once told me that your worst attribute is often your best and vice versa. Your best attribute is often your worst. And so, in this scenario, the good side is that I don't overthink when I post, I get it out. I say, don't ghost your content, post your content! But the shadow side of that is maybe I was a bit hasty, you know, do I really need to do pronunciation videos? How are they moving the needle in my business? You know, maybe not. And on a broader scale, my intention for this year is play big. And for me, that means escaping from that 24-48 hour social media cycle, and try to do things and create things that have bigger and longer lasting impact.

So maybe it's a sign from the universe, remind me to elevate. So when you get online, hate ask yourself, is this pointing me in a particular direction, nudging me towards where I need to be the type of content I should be posting. I want to be posting. Disclaimer: if you feel nudged in the direction of deleting the comments or deleting the whole video, that's fine, but I reckon you wanna do it from a place of power, not from a place of shame. As soon as you feel that low-vibing emotion of shame, where you feel guilty, that is not going to serve you. And it can send you down into a spiral where you really regret posting, and then you just don't post anything and go back to hiding. Just remember, every single person in this world, who's doing something big with their lives is going to cop online flack. It's a fact. So do the inner work, listen for the directions. And the third reason you should embrace online hate is it fortifies your purpose. It strengthens your "why". You know, if a little bit of online hate is enough to knock you off your perch, how solid is your perch in the first place?

If you are listening to this, I know you are a soul-driven, passionate person who has so much value to shine into this beautiful world. Imagine you have a beautiful golden orb of energy around you that represents your purpose, your dharma. Why you do what you do. Why do you want others to hear your message? Who are you helping? Who are you helping? Are you gonna let a few haters who will never be your customers? Never be your friends? You'll likely never even meet them in real life? Are you going to let them dictate who you are and what you should do? Are you going to let strangers on the internet, be the handbreak on your mission?

Of course not! Of course not. So there are my three reasons you should embrace online hate. Number one, it's an invitation to do more in a work, which results in growth, right? Number two, it helps you navigate your next move— gives you direction. And number three, it fortifies your purpose. The reason you do what you do. And, I think that's quite enough focus on haters, because remember when you're focusing on your haters, you're neglecting your supporters. Thank you for supporting the podcast, by the way. When you focus on your haters, you are neglecting your supporters. When you're focusing on the naughty kids in the classroom, the ones who are there and really wanna learn are being neglected. So always give your attention to your supporters over your haters. I hope you now feel more confident to post content online and you feel more equipped to handle any negativity should it come your way.

If it is, then DM me. I know what it feels like. And I'd encourage you to check out my new free video training. It's just an 8-minute video called the Three Ways you’re Sabotaging your Speaking - Without Even Realising!. So if you are stuck procrastinating about posting, maybe you listen to the podcast, but are struggling to put these tips into practice when you speak, or maybe you just have FOMO and are wondering what these three things are that could be sabotaging your speaking. Then make sure you check out the video. I will pop the link for you in the show notes. Lots of love to you, even if you are a hater, although I'd be surprised if you got this far, if that was the case. It's great to be back on the podcast airwaves. Our first guest of the season will be with you next week. We'll be revealing how to turn your flaw into a superpower, have fab day. Bye!

Thanks for listening to That Voice Podcast. If this episode resonated with you, please share it with your people on social media and tag me @sallyprosservoice. And for episode details straight to your inbox, leave your email at www.thatvoicepodcast.com.