You can’t make everyone happy – stop trying

Social Triggers Insider with Derek Halpern

This past weekend, the day before I was set to give the closing keynote at the financial bloggers conference, a woman walks up to me, interrupts my conversation, and says, “I won’t be at your talk tomorrow, but don’t be a douche.”

“Oh?” I said.

And she went on. “I don’t subscribe to your site, and I don’t watch your videos. You’re always yelling and I don’t like it…They had Ramit Sethi last year, and he was a douche”

The guy sitting across from me, the guy I was originally talking to starts laughing. “She keeps putting her foot further and further down her throat.”

I’m mischievous, so I humored her.

You Can’t Make Everyone Happy – And You Shouldn’t

“Ramit’s a good friend… You ever stop to think that maybe I don’t want you as a subscriber? Or maybe that you not being a subscriber hurts you more than it hurts me?”

“Maybe, but I’m not the only one who thinks this,” she said, desperately trying make her point mean something to me.

The whole scenario was hilarious. And I’m sharing it today for two reasons.

#1

People always have an opinion on what you do.

It’s up to you to assess the source of the opinion, and choose whether or not you should ignore it.

This lady was over the top, and sure, maybe I do yell a lot and should consider it…

…or I could look at the 50 other people I met at the conference who told me, “Derek – I love your stuff.”

Interesting.

And the next point…

#2

People don’t have an opinion on everything…

They don’t have opinions on things like brain surgery, rocket science, physics, or anything complicated.

They only have opinions on things like what clothes you should wear. Or what color your website should be. Or anything that’s “on the surface.”

Why do people have these surface level opinions?

On this new podcast with Adam Alter, the New York Times best-selling author of “Drunk Tank Pink” (Aff) we talk about just that.

And we also go over some other interesting things like:

* The scientific case for why Apple products are the smart choice for creatives

* Why people have an opinion on almost everything

* Why you should never use the color red as your website background

* Why single women should wear the color red (I know that has nothing to do with business, but the data was so interesting that I had to share it).

* And more.

Download audio file (19-Social-Triggers-Why-People-Have-Opinions-On-Almost-Everything-And-More.mp3)

(If you can’t see the audio player, here’s the MP3 link).

Then, what I’d love for you to do is share an interesting story where someone gave you criticism. Criticism that was worth as much as that time you stepped in…

Leave a comment.

And if you know someone who battles with taking some criticism too seriously, pass this along to them. They may find this enlightening.

Do you dig this podcast? Leave a review on iTunes. More reviews helps us with our rankings. Help a brother out!

P.S. Another person at this same conference asked me how I deal with haters, and whether or not they offend me. For that, take these words from Chris Rock to heart:

“You can only offend me if you mean something to me”