“You can be a delicious, ripe peach and there will still be people in the world that hate peaches.”
That’s a tweet from 2010 from a modern burlesque dancer, Dita Von Teese. And it has a lot to do with how you Work Out Loud.
One of the five elements of working out loud is generosity. You frame your own experience—what you’re doing, learning, etc.—as contributions that might deepen your relationships with other people.
But what if some people don’t want your contributions? What if they ignore you or don’t like what you have to offer?
Here are three things you should do.
1. Reflect & learn
You can’t control whether or how people respond, but you can control your own reaction. The most useful thing to do when someone doesn't respond the way you'd like is to reflect on your contribution and how you offered it to see if you can learn something.
Did you practice empathy? Put yourself in the other person’s position and think how they might react to your gift.
Did you truly frame it as a contribution? It’s easy for a genuine gift to be misinterpreted as a thinly-veiled manipulation.
Did you offer too much too soon? Taking the effort to be familiar with the other person’s work ahead of time can help ensure your contribution is something they’ll value.
To refine the way you offer gifts, there’s plenty of advice on how to approach people and how to ask for help.
2. Maintain perspective
Of course, you can make up all sorts of reasons why someone didn’t respond to you. But the most likely reason is that they’re simply busy.
Rather than invent a negative story, it’s better to just assume the best of people and try again. Don’t badger them - Did you get my last email? Instead, use what you learned from your reflection and offer another gift in the future.
If they still don’t respond, that’s okay. As Seth Godin says, “It’s arrogant to assume that you’ve made something so extraordinary that everyone everywhere should embrace it.”
After all, not everybody likes peaches.
3. Keep shipping
Here’s the most important part: keep shipping. Keep refining your craft, making contributions, and deepening relationships with people who share your interests and concerns.
For example, on a given month, almost 10,000 people visit my blog. But when I offered people the chance to read drafts of the book, about 150 people said yes and about 50 responded with detailed comments.
Here’s what went through my head:
Maybe the people don’t care about what I’m doing.
Maybe most of the people who read the book hated it.
Maybe those who said they liked it were just being nice.
Maybe. Or maybe not! What’s most likely is that people are busy. I should be grateful that anyone volunteered their time to read unfinished work. For 50 people to go through the trouble of documenting their feedback, sometimes providing hundreds of comments, is incredible. Why make up a negative story when a positive one also fits the facts?
When you’re framing your own experience as a contribution, all you can do is offer it with genuine empathy, know that it’s not for everyone, and keep trying to get better. Peach lovers around the world will be glad you did.
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