The Most Important Thing To Remember About Haters

I’ve waited a year to write this.

In August of 2017, I said something to a hater that was bold, stupid, and competely crazy.

Today, I fulfill that promise — 2 months early. 😉

After a year of having Bali, Indonesia directly in the center of my sights, and goals, I’m here.

I’m here.

The only thing I won’t be doing is tagging my hater in this..

They probably will never read it..

And that’s okay — let me explain why in a little bit.

Here’s What My Hater Said To Me 1 Year Ago

10 months ago I wrote an article called “I’m Sick And Tired Of Working For Chump Change”

It talked about my hatred for freelancing, and how I was quitting it to blog full-time.

I hated it because of the pay, the work, and the lack of creative expression. And lack of purpose — that, too.

Then I got a really positive, uplifting response from somebody.

Here’s what he said:

There’s a lot to unpack, there, and I wonder if I even should — but I think I’ll highlight a few things and respond directly.

Haters See The World Through A Really Sh*tty Light

We forget this as creators. We think that the people commenting are normal and that they really are just disagreeing with us.

We give people entirely too much credit sometimes.

This guy underestimated me.

Okay, that’s an understatement.

Like, as far as underestimating goes, this guy’s analysis was almost on par with the whole iceberg-Titanic thing.

Okay, maybe not that far.

But he grossly misinterpreted what I said. He didn’t take into account who was actually writing these words. He didn’t understand what I was already doing and what I wanted.

A haters mind is in a really bad spot. They’re probably quitters themselves who see themselves as “realists” and want to thereby cleanse the world of the dreamers who live in what they call a “fantasy.”

That’s probably who this guy was.

He told me I lacked sales and marketing skills. He suggested I start “cold-calling” people to get more clients.

He told me I refused to invest in things like social media and “long-term relationship-building” that would bring me clients down the road.

He told me choosing myself meant knuckling down and doing the things I don’t like very much to move my business forward.

The craziest part?

I was already doing all three things — he just didn’t know it. Hell, I didn’t even know it. 😉

Here’s What You Didn’t Know, Sir

What you didn’t know was that the article you read and commented on was one of many. I published hundreds of articles before it and I’ve published hundreds of articles since.

You didn’t take into consideration who I was.

I’m Tom freakin’ Kuegler.

That name means nothing — it’s just the one I was given — so look closely. Look at my eyes. Look at my words. Look at my mind and what’s happening inside.

Look at ME, not my name. Not the 21,000 followers or the Youtube channel or the Instagram account or any of that sh*t.

Look at me working. Look at me writing this on the beach right now like I told you I would one year ago.

(I’m filming too. 😉)

Damn, it hasn’t even been one year, even — it’s been 10 months!

You told me I lacked sales and marketing skills.

I’ve sold 100+ spots of my online course since I launched it in November.

You told me I refused to invest in social media and relationship building.

I have 21,000 followers here, 713 YouTube Subscribers (after 2 months), and I just made two videos on Facebook that received a combined 900+ shares in the past week alone.

Oh, and I built my platform on caring about other human beings (ACTUALLY caring, too). I don’t think you get 21,000 followers without being real.

You told me choosing myself meant knuckling down and doing things I don’t like to move my business forward.

Well, motherfucker, I WAS! I was doing it months before you commented and I continued to do it months afterwards. Late nights. Hundreds of blog posts. Hundreds of hours spent caring about people and honing my craft and researching how to make money online.

You just didn’t understand.

But our story ended after I told you I was coming here to Bali (it’s nice here, by the way).

What I didn’t tell you was that you were almost single-handedly my biggest source of inspiration the last year.

So in a weird way, I should be thanking you.

Thank YOU, My Biggest Hater

You really made me angry, but that anger made me work about 10 times harder.

I don’t handle critics well. I don’t handle negative comments well. I’m 25, who do you want me to be with the haters? Obama?

I got a long way to go until I get there.

But, you see, I turned a negative into a positive by USING it. I used my anger to work hard as hell instead of respond back to you with venom.

With most weaknesses there’s a positive side also.

My weakness?

I’m a sarcastic, sensitive, mildly prideful 25 year old kid. When you respond to me with negativity it gets under my skin. I’m still learning how to deal with it.

But my strength is that it makes me want to work. It makes me want to respond with action. It makes me want to prove you wrong.

And here I am doing it, motherfucker.

You Don’t Believe In Fairy Tales, But Here I Am

I made it, now what?

I make money completely from my blog/online courses. I make enough to live and travel pretty comfortably, too.

I have fulfilled my own dream, buddy.

In all respects, too, I have “found myself.” I’ve not only peeked over the fence at a better life but full-on tumbled over it and am now strolling amongst the greener grass and garden gnomes and the neighbors dogs (they’re great).

You made a lot of assumptions about me, so allow me to make some about you..

You don’t believe in finding yourself. You don’t believe in the idea that you can get exactly what you want out of life.

You believe in cold-calling, and eating cardboard, and that “real life” doesn’t have any time for fairy tales where the main character wakes up excited as hell about their life — not upset that they have to cold call 100 people today.

They crazy part is, hard work IS an essential part of living a “fairy tale.” Without the hard work, I wouldn’t be here. There’s only one problem..

That fairy tale doesn’t exist to you.

And you laugh at everybody that tries because you’re older and you have experience and you’ve found a little bit of success yourself — just not in something you’re 100% invested in when it comes to work.

So you make fun of all of the people that want to “find themselves,” and most of them don’t —which makes you believe you’re right even more.

But motherfucker, here I am.

Here’s evidence to the contrary.

Here’s a story that should make you shake in your freaking boots. Sure, if you saw this you’d probably respond with something sarcastic to discredit what I’ve done and make you feel better.

But deep down you’d know.

Here I am.

The very guy you felt so confident undercutting a year ago. This isn’t some B.S. success story on the internet featuring a guy you can’t even email back and forth with anymore because they’re famous.

This is real.

You commented on MY story.

You sought me out.

I was nothing then, but I’m something now.

You’ve never been this associated with internet “success” before.

I am everything you so deeply hate, and I love it.

How’s that for poetic justice?

Guys And Girls, Don’t Underestimate Time

I’ve cursed a lot in this article. You guys need to understand something, though.

I felt this guy’s words down to my core. They deeply upset me. They made me extremely angry because I knew he was wrong, but I also knew I couldn’t do anything about it because I wasn’t “there” yet.

There’s moments in life when we accomplish something amazing and we prove all the haters wrong and there’s absolutely nothing people can do except shut the heck up and watch.

This is that time.

These moments don’t happen often.

You don’t understand how much work I put in. You weren’t there with me. You don’t get how I took a screenshot of that guys comment and put it in a folder on my desktop labeled “August 26, 2017” so I could look at it every single day when I opened my laptop.

You don’t understand how I told my parents about this guy and wanted them to believe me about Bali but all I could see in their eyes was that they thought I was crazy.

Nobody fucking thought I’d be here.

But I’m here.

All the stress, all the worrying, all the writing and all the uncertainty led me right here. My well-being was on the line. I worried myself sick sometimes wondering if I was going to make it.

Then people want to chalk my success up to privilege?

Instead, chalk my success up to this guy.

Chalk it up to time.

Older people love to romantically talk about following your dreams as if every young person in the world needs to do it at some point — but then when we do they look at us like we’re crazy.

Very few REALLY believe stuff like this is possible.

A lot of you have been reading me for a long time. You know me. You remember my stuff from two years ago.

A lot of times we look at “successful” people like Jeff Goins and Ben Hardy almost as if they aren’t even real. We can’t talk to them, can’t reach their email, etc. etc.

They aren’t accessible.

Because of that, their success isn’t accessible either. We see the success and the numbers and their overly-polished story and the whole thing feels too good to be true.

But what about the people who are accessible? The people you have talked to before? The people you watched who were in the dirt two years ago but are now read by a good amount of people?

Doesn’t that make success a little more accessible?

That’s all I want to communicate in this letter.

I didn’t tag the guy who commented that nasty stuff because this article isn’t for him. This article is for you and me. Me to write because I had these words in my head for a long time..

But they’re for you as well because I want to inspire.

Guys, I’m here. I know this piece is self-congratulatory and boastful, but just spot me this one, okay?

I’ve been waiting to write this for a long time. I had a lot of anger built up for a long time. It turns out anger can be a pretty fast locomotive to get you where you want to go.

I hope I never change.

Thank you, sir, for hating. Thank you for not believing. It helped me get here.

Hate on.

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