SPI 372: Why People Really Hate Us Online

Pat Flynn: Stop talking, because nobody cares. You are a complete idiot-

Speaker 2: You are a complete idiot from head to toe.

Speaker 3: Go do something that actually matters.

Speaker 4: Why were you even born?

Pat Flynn: … I hate you.

Speaker 2: I hate you.

Pat Flynn: These are some powerful words that I’ve read online about myself. Now, nobody has every said any of these things to me in person, but it doesn’t really matter because when I read these things online, it hurts. I don’t know if you’ve ever been targeted for hate online. Whether it’s a comment on a YouTube video, or your blog, or a reply on social media, or something that you read in a forum somewhere. It doesn’t matter, it never feels good no matter how much people tell you that those are things you should just ignore.

Pat Flynn: I’ve been a target of a lot of hate online ever since I started back in 2008, and there were moments when I almost gave up. I’ll tell you about some of those moments, but I also want to share with you some of the things I learned, that helped me persevere. If you’ve heard this show before, and have followed my journey, and have heard me teach others, you know that perseverance, resilience, grit, consistency, focus. These are all things that you need in order to succeed. But, it just takes one comment to derail us. We, as entrepreneurs, have this funny math where one negative comment outweighs 100 positive comments.

Pat Flynn: But, I don’t even think it’s just math specifically for entrepreneurs, I think it’s just for us human beings. It was only when I learned what I’m about to teach you today, that things finally started to make sense, things finally started to get easier, and I was able to finally find my flow, and my groove, which led to success. That could only happen once you stop letting these hateful comments hurt you, and it’s only when you learn where they come from that you can do that.

Pat Flynn: In today’s episode you’re going to learn about the three different reasons why people hate on you online, so make sure you stick around.

Speaker 5: Welcome to the Smart Passive Income Podcast, where it’s all about working hard now, so you can sit back and reap the benefits later. And, now your host. He’s excited to learn from the next mistakes he’ll be making, Pat Flynn.

Pat Flynn: What’s up everybody? Welcome to session 372 of the Smart Passive Income Podcast. My name is Pat Flynn, here to help you make more money, save more time, and help more people too. Today, we’re talking about haters, and the hateful comments that they hate on you with. I have, like I said, received my fair share of hateful comments, and I know you are going to receive them too. It’s just something that you cannot avoid. Through this episode you’re going to hear why it happens, and essentially why you can’t avoid it. But, how to deal with it, how to bust through the negative emotions that you’re going to feel as soon as you start hearing some of these things.

Pat Flynn: Whether you are already hearing negative comments out there, and hateful comments coming toward your way. Or, you’re just getting started, and you want to better prepare yourself. Well, you’re in the right place, and I’m going to tell you a number of stories and things that will help you understand where this hate is coming from. Like I said, it’s only when I started to understand where it was coming from that I was able to actually empathize, and reflect, and better understand that well, it’s actually not about me, but it was about the other person.

Pat Flynn: Before I get to that I want to just jump right in to probably the most, gosh, just traumatic story related to hateful comments that were happening on mine. I may have told this before in person, or if you’ve heard me on stage before. But, I want to tell it to you now, and it’s just, it’s going to make you upset, I promise you.

Pat Flynn: Here’s the story. 2012 I received a comment on my blog, and I check my comments every day, I reply to most comments every day at this point in time, and I still try to. But, it’s been more difficult since the business has grown. But, back then I was paying attention to every comment and every word people were saying, and doing what I could to serve my audience on my blog. I received this comment and it was about 500 to 800 words in length. It was a lot of words, more than normal. I read this, and I was in shock. It was a person who was reading my blog, and essentially calling me out, telling me that everything I was sharing was false, this was on an income report. That, my numbers were incorrect, that I was a con artist, that I was just feeding off of people’s dreams and hopes, and that I wasn’t qualified to talk about online business.

Pat Flynn: They were also giving a lot of examples of people who were qualified to talk, and why they were different than me. And, even going so far as to mentioning that in my videos, the fact that I was wearing worn out T-shirts meant that I was a fake, because a person who was allegedly making as much money as I was and sharing, and for those of you who don’t know, I was sharing how much money I was making every single month to show people how my businesses were running, how they were growing, and how they were not growing, and sharing all the things I was doing to sort of diversify my portfolio.

Pat Flynn: Anyway, they said stuff about how I looked. And that, “Well, you don’t look like a person whose making that much money. You don’t live in a home that is sort of like these other people who are making this much money, so I don’t believe you.” I soon deleted the comment, because it was just very hateful, and they were saying some other things that I can’t even share here because it’s just, it would bring me to tears. I’m not going to even get into that.

Pat Flynn: But, I deleted the comment. I found it quickly, and I deleted it. Hey, my blog is my home, and I don’t need that in my home, okay? I invite you in, and you come here, and you tread all this crap all over my carpet. Well, now I gotta clean it up, so that was that. I thought I was done, and that’s usually what I was … You know, I had gotten hateful comments before, and in some cases it was easy to understand that a person was just misunderstood, so then in that case I took the Gary V. approach and sort of just tried to engage in conversation with people who were obviously misunderstood. Many times those people were able to convert into people who then followed my stuff, and some have become big fans, and many have actually become great friends. It was just because people were misunderstood.

Pat Flynn: This person was misunderstood too, but they crossed the line. When you cross the line in my home, you’re out, okay? They were out. Well, I thought I was done with that. Well, a couple hours later I started to receive a number of emails, probably a couple dozen from friends online, who were saying things like, “Hey Pat, this guy left this really hateful comment on my blog, the blog that I mentioned you in, or the podcast episode that you were mentioned in. Where is this coming from? Do you know anything about this?” I said, “Oh my word.” This guy had copied and pasted that same message onto 30 or 40 different websites out there, on the comment streams of places where I was featured or mentioned. It was out there, and people were starting to comment, and people were starting to ask questions. I was starting to feel the anxiety, and I was starting to tremble, and I was starting to get sweaty palms and just, I wanted to go and hide. I wanted to escape, and I literally started to cry.

Pat Flynn: I know some people say, “Oh, you shouldn’t cry.” But, when people are saying these bad things about you and then there’s nothing you can do to control how much it’s spreading out there, you start to cry, right? Whether you actually cry or not, it’s not a good feeling, okay? This was happening. Luckily, all of my friends immediately took that down. Then, this person followed up on my blog again with some other additional comments. Then, I started to engage with this person, and just ask simple questions like, “Why are you doing this? How come you’re spending so much time doing it this way?” Then, eventually more comments, and I just closed up in a shell. I turned off the comments section on my blog, and I hid.

Pat Flynn: By hid, I mean I didn’t produce any new content for two and a half weeks, I didn’t go on my website, I didn’t go onto social media. It was one of the darkest times in the history of my online business career, because I just wanted to escape, and I had imagined … I remember the first couple days just kind of laying off of the online world, just imagining that this is all what people were talking about. Of course, that wasn’t actually true, but our brain tends to do those things to us when we sort of just are in situations like that. We think the worst thing possible.

Pat Flynn: It took a couple weeks, but I eventually got back online, and I started to get very scared about posting anything because I didn’t want hateful comments. Part of my brain was like, “What if this guys right? What if there’s truth to what this person is saying?” But, when I really rationally thought about it, there’s the emotional thinking and then there’s the rational thinking, right? When I thought about it rationally I knew that wasn’t true. I knew I wasn’t lying about my numbers, I knew I was actually being helpful for people, I knew I wasn’t scamming people. I knew his allegations were false, yet it still hurt. I was very confused. I didn’t know what to do, and I reached out to my good friend Derek Halpern who runs a blog at SocialTriggers.com.

Pat Flynn: He said the words that changed everything for me. He said this. He said, “Hey Pat every second you waste thinking about this guy-“

Derek Halpern: Every second you waste thinking about this guy, is a second you’re taking away from the hundreds, the thousands, the tens of thousands of people who actually care about you, who need you, who want you to continue to create content.”

Pat Flynn: … “Who need you, who want you to continue to create content. Why are you letting this one scumbag control your entire life right now?”

Pat Flynn: It was at that moment that I realized that he was right. I was actually taking so much time away from people who cared about me, that I let this person essentially win. That’s probably what he was trying to get me to do. I let him win, because I was just in that reactive mode, and very, very high emotional state of just escape, right? That sort of … you know how there’s like a, you have different responses when things like that happen to you? Whether it’s in person, or if you’re in the wild and you are met with a predator, or online and you’re met with a predator. There’s the freeze approach, which is kind of essentially what I did. I did for a while. There’s the fight approach, which isn’t in my nature. Then, there’s the flight approach, which is where I was going. I was ready to give up online business. I was ready to put up the towel, and put up the whatever you put up in that situation, and just go back to architecture. That’s literally what I was thinking.

Pat Flynn: But, thankfully Derek brought some light back into it, and I started having conversations with people in my mastermind group. They all essentially said the same thing, and most importantly they were like, “You know what, Pat? We’re here for you. You take as much time as you need, but hey, if you need a sounding board, if you need to get something off your chest, we’re here for you.” That was a big key as well, because in this online space you can’t do this alone, especially when there are people out there. Predators, and haters, and trolls out there who are going to try and push you down.

Pat Flynn: As I once heard from a good friend of mine, Adam Baker, who once blogged at ManVersusDebt.com. But, now works with Steve Cam over at NerdFitness.com. He taught me that the world is sort of like a bucket of crabs. This takes us to our first sort of lesson here, when it comes to why we receive hate. We receive hate because we live in a bucket of crabs. What does that mean? Well, that means essentially, if you imagine that we’re all a bucket of crabs, if you actually have a bucket of crabs, like live crabs, and one crab starts to climb out of the bucket. No matter what you do, one of the crabs that is already there is going to pull that crab back down. Then, another one’s going to come up, or that same one’s going to try and get over the edge of that bucket. Then, another crab’s going to come and pull that crab down. Thus, we are never going to get anywhere because of the crabs that are there who are like, “No. Why are you leaving this space? This is where we’re supposed to be.”

Pat Flynn: We live in this world that is a bucket of crabs, that when we try to do big, great, world changing things, different things. When we try to take a stand, we are going to, at the same time, challenge people. We receive hate because those people are challenged. That’s a defense mechanism in a way, because when their beliefs, when their life, when their business is challenged, they’re going to go into defense mode. Defense mode for some is, getting very aggressive, and lashing out, and saying mean and hateful things so that, that crab or you, doesn’t get out of the bucket. That’s the first reason why people are so hateful, because they are challenged.

Pat Flynn: I mean, think about just how livid people get when people start talking about politics, or other big important things that are happening. Especially on places like Facebook where it’s so easy to just say things, and when one persons views are challenged, another person may step in and try to be more aggressive, and then that, it gets more aggressive. Or, eventually a person starts to sort of retreat, or freeze, and just nothing great can happen at that point.

Pat Flynn: One of my big pet peeves is when people, on social media especially, try to … I think it’s healthy to share your opinion and your point on something, but when you try to purposefully because you’re being challenged, change somebody else’s view, like to literally change who that person is and what they believe in, and do it so forcefully. It’s like, that’s not how it works, right? I get very upset when I see conversations that are happening in certain places where it’s obvious that a person is getting aggressive, and being challenged. This is exactly why this person was doing what they were doing, because I was challenging how they had once experienced building an online business. It was hard for them. They weren’t successful, they were doing things that weren’t working, when I did more research. I’ll tell you more about the story in a little bit, to put some closure to it. But, that was a major reason why I was receiving, on the receiving end of this.

Pat Flynn: Partly, it was because I was just being open about a lot of things, and I was challenging people’s perceptions of how things should be done. This person didn’t believe that one should share their numbers in such a way. They were being challenged to believe that business can be done in a legit manner, that serves people first versus focusing on products, and other services, and things like that.

Pat Flynn: But, here’s the truth. The truth is, you have to be different. You have to take a stand, you have to take bold actions, make bold decisions. And, like I said, take a stand for something. When you take a stand for something, when you are a certain way, and when you are actually taking action, those crabs, those crabs, they’re going to try and defend … they’re going to try and pull you back, they’re going to defend themselves because you are different. But, you can’t be successful if you’re the same. Therefore, you will be on the receiving end of hate if you are different enough to succeed. You see what I mean? You have to be different to succeed or else you’re just going to blend in, in the crowd.

Pat Flynn: But, if you want to be different you also have to know that you can expect people on the other side who are being challenged to step up, and try to defend themselves too. Again, this isn’t about you, it’s about them. That’s number one, because people are being challenged. That’s where a lot of hate comes from.

Pat Flynn: Number two, so to set this up I want to tell you about a study that I recently saw on TV with two groups of people who were each going to listen to a song, and critique the artist. The first group was told that their comments would be shared with the singer, and their name would be connected to it. Both groups listened to the song.

Pat Flynn: (Singing).

Pat Flynn: And, they each got to rate the song and the singer’s skill from one to 10, one being the lowest, and 10 being the best. The first group, the group that is not anonymous had given her five, like the song wasn’t that good, and it was kind of off pitch. It actually wasn’t that good, but obviously this was done on purpose for the purpose of this study. The first group who were told that their comments were going to be shared with this artist and were not anonymous gave the scores around five to six, and they were saying kind of nice things like, “It’s a good start. I think with a little bit of training her voice could be really great for her songs. She’s almost there. It’s not bad, things are pretty good.” So, kind of middle ground.

Pat Flynn: The group that was anonymous, that were able to safely hide behind that anonymousness, had given her ones, and twos, and saying things like, “Her voice sucks. She’s a terrible singer, she’s never going to make it,” and those kinds of things. Now, the second part of the study was that second group, actually the person who was managing this focus group had come in and said, “You know by the way, we actually … Surprise, we actually have the artist in the house today, so we’re going to bring her in. We want you to share the same feedback that you shared with us with her.” They brought her in, and none of them could say the same things to her face. Even though they had said her song sucked, she’s terrible, she would never make it. They couldn’t say that to her face.

Pat Flynn: This takes us to why people are so hateful online, and it’s because of anonymity. Anonymity. There we go. So, the idea that nobody’s going to know who you are anyway. This is why on places like YouTube, especially on YouTube where your screen name isn’t even your name necessarily, it could just be some made up avatar. You see the most hateful comments ever, but even on places where you can connect with people and find out a little bit more about who that person actually is, like on Instagram, and on Facebook. You still see a lot of that hate, that driving force of just trolling toward people because it’s online, and it doesn’t feel as real.

Pat Flynn: When this study was over the host of the show went to group two and asked, “Well, why were your comments so harsh? Why were you saying such mean things?” Every person had said, “Well, because we didn’t think that we would have to say it to their face, because we could just easily say things without worrying about repercussions of that.” You have to realize that when people are hateful, and being trolls online, that they’re doing it knowing that there is safety there for them. They’re doing it because … I mean, and I’ll tell you the third reason in just a minute, which is the biggest reason. But, they’re doing it because they know there’s not going to be very many consequences.

Pat Flynn: If they were to take that same comment and tell it to you, to your face, most of them probably would never even think about doing that. They might think it, and want to say things, but never do it because there’s common sense, and there are rules of being a good human. But, online those rules don’t really exist in most cases, which is why it’s important to find your people, and to have your vibe attract your tribe, and build that raving fan base who can A, support you and say great things about you, and love you.

Pat Flynn: But secondly, defend you from trolls like this. What I love about building super fans is the fact that sometimes I see hateful comments, and even before I reply to them or delete them I already have 20, 30 comments from you guys, from the super fans, from team Flynn defending me because we’re all in this together. We’re a team, right? I love that. Just, thank you for the support over the years. I started seeing that around 2010, 2011 when my podcast actually started to come out. Whenever I started to receive hateful comments because I was taking bigger actions, because I was sharing more information than others, because I was a little bit different. Team Flynn always sort of stood up for me, and I can’t thank you enough for that.

Pat Flynn: Going back to the point here, point number two. Because it’s anonymous in most cases, people are going to say things that they would never say to your face. I mean, I got a iTunes review the other day that was like … let me, I’m pulling it up here. Ratings and reviews, and it was a one star review. It said, “This used to be a good show. Now, it’s just a shill fest for Pat’s buddies. Sad.” I saw that and I was like, “Oh.” Then I actually went back to my details page and looked at my archive and went like, “No, this … Some of these people aren’t quote, my ‘friends,’ who I hangout with all the time. They’re very successful entrepreneurs who have shared things. Some of these episodes are some of the most popular that I’ve ever published.” I’m like, “Okay. I’m sorry dude, but yeah, the show must go on.”

Pat Flynn: Around this one star comment, which was posted on April third, there are hundreds, and thousands of positive comments. I mean, I look at the number of positive comments, there’s 2,488. There’s barely 50 one star comments, and there’s so, so, so many more five star comments. Yet, I look at that and it makes me think, it makes me check myself. Like I said, we entrepreneurs and creators, we have a weird math. We have an absolutely weird math.

Pat Flynn: Anonymity. Did I say it right? Anonymity. Sea anemone-ity, sea anemone-ity. Anyway. Just trying to lighten the mood guys, just trying to lighten the mood because this isn’t all about being sad, and receiving hate. Actually, we shouldn’t have to receive it. It’s something that shouldn’t exist, but it does. This is why I prepare you for such things, and I want to also share with you this information because I want you to know that you’re not alone. Part of my job here at SPI is to sort of … I used this analogy once and somebody really liked it, so I’m going to share it with you again.

Pat Flynn: It’s like, we’re traversing this unknown path together, right? We’re in the forest, and there are no trails. We’re trailblazers, right? I’m in the front, and I have the hardest job because I’m receiving all the stuff that’s there, that you haven’t seen yet before. I have my machete, and I’m sort of whacking away at the weeds, and the nasties, and all the things that are out there. The baddies, and trying to make it a little bit easier for you behind me. I’m the leader here, and I want to lead the way, and I want to lead by example. I’m willing to take a lot of hits for you, and that’s why we’re here, that’s why we’re talking about this. If any of you lead others too, if you are building a following of any kind, it’s your job to help your followers realize what’s ahead, right? And, this is why we’re here.

Pat Flynn: Let’s move onto the third and final point here, and this is the fact that these comments aren’t about you. The trolls, the haters. It usually comes as a result of something that happened in that person’s life. That, it just happened across your path, and your openness, your vulnerability, your willingness to have comments. I’m not saying having comments is bad. Comments are good. Having and receiving sort of conversation in and around the stuff you’re talking about is good. Even if it’s constructive criticism, or even if it’s not all in agreement all the time. That’s okay, that’s healthy, that’s actually required. That’s how you know how to steer the ship in the right direction, is by openly receiving constructive criticism, and knowing when you’ve done things wrong so you can reassess, and understand how to pivot, and go back in the right direction.

Pat Flynn: It’s when you get the extremely hateful comments, the over the top, very disrespectful, troll like comments. That’s when it just starts to eat at you, and it could absolutely hurt you and derail you. That’s what I not … I don’t want that to happen to you. But, it’s not because of you that you’re receiving this. It’s because of the things that are happening in that persons life. They are sad. Something in their life had happened once to give them the notion that putting this on you is okay. It always come from a place of hurt.

Pat Flynn: It was Shannon Irvine who said, “Hurt people, hurt people.” Dr. Shannon Irvine, a Neuropsychologist whose been on the show here before. Her podcast, Epic Success, is amazing. She taught me this. She said, “Hurt people, hurt people.” These people who are trying to hurt you, guess what? They are hurt themselves. It may or may not be their fault, and you will never know. That’s the thing.

Pat Flynn: I had an interesting moment happen with my son a few months back, and much of my following had seen and heard about this on my Instagram, @PatFlynn on Instagram. Because, I shared this as soon as it happened because it was a big lesson, and something that was pretty traumatic. My son got a computer for Christmas, and he’s been doing some YouTube. I let him borrow my Sony RX10 Marc 5 Camera, which is a pretty good camera, especially for vlogging. But, it’s simple, you don’t need to worry about lighting so much. Anyway, I don’t have to get into gear, we’ll save that for the gear heads later in another episode.

Pat Flynn: Anyway, he’s been doing a lot of YouTube, and actually after just a couple runs of showing him how it’s done, how to take a video with the camera, and put it into his computer, and edit it using iMovie, and then export it, and then put it into YouTube. How to title it, how to add a description, how to link to things, how to tag it. After doing that a couple of times with him looking over my shoulder, he was able to do it himself, and he had been on a good run during Christmas break, creating a video every single day for about seven days.

Pat Flynn: His channel was growing, and it’s gone very well so far, and he’s since slowed down since school started. But, he’ll probably pick it back up again in the summer, and we’re also creating a little thing in our garage that’s going to be a nice little video studio for him and his projects so it’s just done in the garage, without in the house. Not outside where people can sort of see house numbers and stuff, it’s just in the garage. That’s all getting set up, it’s really fun and exciting. It’s cool to see him as a nine year old, create. It’s really amazing, actually.

Pat Flynn: But, part of creation is like we talked about, and especially posting on places like YouTube. It’s being open, and understanding that there are hateful people, and hurt people out there that may try to hurt you. My wife and I, knowing that he was going to go into YouTube, sat him down and we actually taught him that there are people out there who, because of the anonymity online, and because … I didn’t use that word, because I obviously don’t know how to say it. But, because of the way YouTube is, people are going to try and tear you down. They’re going to leave hateful comments, and it’s not because of you, Keoni. It’s because they are hurt. Hurt people, hurt people.

Pat Flynn: If people say bad things to you, it’s likely because something bad is happening in their life. We have to empathize with those people, and realize that it’s not us. It’s not because we’re creating bad things. It’s because bad things happen to those people, and we just happen to be on the receiving end of that. We taught him that. We mentioned that a bunch of times, and because we knew it was coming. It did. After doing YouTube for a good month or so, Keoni comes downstairs while he was editing another video. He goes, “Hey daddy, how do you delete a comment from my YouTube channel?” We were like, “Oh, okay. Well, why do you want to delete the comment?”

Pat Flynn: He said, “Well, somebody left a really bad comment and I want to delete it.” Which, is what we taught him to do. You know like, “If people leave bad comments and you don’t want them on your channel, delete them,” right? But, he didn’t know how to delete them, I hadn’t yet taught him that. He had yet to receive anything until now.

Pat Flynn: I went upstairs to check his computer, and check the video. It was actually his most popular video, it was a video where he and I built a little carnival game out of a cardboard box, cutting holes in it, and you could throw whiffle balls in it to get points and stuff. Anyway, it was really cool. I think at this point it had like eight to 9,000 views. I scroll down and I say, “Can you show me the comment that you’re talking about?” I scrolled down, and the comment that I found said to my son, “Kill yourself. Kill yourself,” to a little kid.

Pat Flynn: My wife and I are there and I’m just like, I want to figure out who this person is, and I want to just give them a Flynn whooping, right? But, that violence is not the answer, right? Anyway, plus they’re anonymous, which is part of the problem. I turn to Keoni and I go, “How does this comment make you feel?” Just, Keoni blew me away. He goes, “You know, I just feel bad for this person because something bad probably happened in their life to say that.”

Pat Flynn: It was a very proud moment for me and April, to be there, and witness him say that. That’s a very adult thing to say. Some adults don’t even handle things like that as well as he did. The reason why he handled it so well is because we taught him that. We prepared him for that. I’m preparing you for this. If you have kids, you need to prepare them for this as well. It was so great to see that put into practice real life, right there like that. There was nothing that was like, “I hate this person. How could they?” There was nothing of even an ounce of thinking about what this person was saying to do, or that his content was bad. None of that came up, none of that was apparent, because he knew that wasn’t true.

Pat Flynn: He also pointed out the fact that there were 30 other comments of people saying, “Great video.” It’s obvious that something is going on in this person’s life to say something like that, especially to a little kid. Now, I was still upset, but that very proud moment, and what my son said was, just kind of wiped all that away. Then, of course I showed him how to delete that comment, and that was that. Then, he was able to move on and completely finish editing his other video, and uploading it. I mean, that comment would have derailed me immediately. I would have packed up, and closed up shop, and went back to architecture. Just, a very proud moment.

Pat Flynn: So, hurt people, hurt people. If my son can take comments that are very hurtful and understand that it’s because people are hurt, that they’re saying those things. Then, guess what? You can too. A very proud moment. If you end up going to Flynn Con and you see my son there, give him a pat on the back, and tell him you’re proud of him because I’m proud of him too. We want to continue to reinforce that. Hopefully if you have kids too, you can sort of make them feel good about the decisions they make about how other people might behave around them. Because, that’s stuff that we can’t control. We can only control how we react to the things that happen to us. That’s the truth, right?

Pat Flynn: There are obviously things we can control, but then the things that we can’t control, the only thing we can control about those things are our reactions, and how we decide to think about them. Let’s rewrite the story in our head, and in this case it’s true. Hurt people, hurt people.

Pat Flynn: I hope this episode helps you. If you needed this, if this is something that was beneficial to you, if this has prepared you for the future, I want to hear from you. I want to know what your thoughts are, and let me know what you think on Twitter, or on Instagram. Hit me up @PatFlynn. Let me know that you heard episode 372. Tell me your thoughts about it, share the episode with people who you see in the future, or right now who may need to hear this because the hate’s out there, guys.

Pat Flynn: But, let’s not make this stop us, because we’ve got so many more people that we need to help and serve. That, as we get bigger, as we grow, as we take bigger, bolder actions, as we take a stance on something and try to be different, and try to become successful. Those people are going to come out, and they’re going to try to stop us. Those crab pinchers are going to try and bring us back down, and we’re not going to let that happen because you know what? There’s a whole bunch of people outside of that bucket that are going to help pull you back up, as long as you don’t pinch me on the way.

Pat Flynn: Anyway, thank you guys. I love you so much, and I’m here for you. We’re in this together, team Flynn. You’re amazing. If you haven’t done so already, make sure you hit subscribe, and subscribe to the show. You could also go to SmartPassiveIncome.com/Subscribe, and you’ll get a number of options for how you can subscribe if, depending on what your favorite platform is, or what device you’re on, it’ll just be easier to do it that way. SmartPassiveIncome/Subscribe.

Pat Flynn: Say hello to me on Instagram or Twitter @PatFlynn. Make sure you subscribe to the show if you haven’t already, and team Flynn, just one more time. I’m here for you, and your people need you too. Let’s keep going. Team Flynn for the win.

Pat Flynn: Oh, by the way. No … I mean, I didn’t really mention any links, but if you want to check out the show notes in the resource page and come back to the blog obviously, SmartPassiveIncome.com/Session372. Oh hey, and I forgot to give you closure on that story.

Pat Flynn: This person that reached out to all my friends and left that nasty comment, I actually had the courage later on to reach back out to this person, and just to ask why, to get clarification because I still didn’t quite understand why they would do such a thing.

Pat Flynn: After a little back and forth, and I really wanted to get on Skype with this person because I wanted to hear from his mouth, what he was saying. He refused to get on Skype with me, which is really interesting. Anyway, eventually I got a response from him, and this is what it was. “Hey Pat. Sorry I targeted you like this. You were an easy target because you were everywhere online, and as a result of that I thought it would be an easy way for me to get traffic back to my site, and build awareness for my brand.” What? Yeah.

Pat Flynn: The fourth reason that a person might hate on you, is because they want to get traffic, which is … I can’t. I can’t even. I just, what? I can’t.

Pat Flynn: Team Flynn, you’re amazing. Thank you for being one of the good ones out there, and I’ll see you in the next episode. Team Flynn for the win.

Pat Flynn: (Singing).

Speaker 5: Thanks for listening to the Smart Passive Income Podcast, at WWW.SmartPassiveIncome.com.