To The Haters #bloglikecrazy

Pic from Soulful Mamahood

Today #bloglikecrazy prompt from Javacia Bowser is "Learn to love your haters by taking a negative comment and flipping it into an empowering post."

A few years ago I taught at a summer writing camp for teens. When I read the evaluation forms written by the kids, I found lots of wonderful feedback -- and one comment that poked and rubbed and irritated: "Speaker tries to hard."

Tries to hard. Really?

The comment stung because yes, I try VERY hard. I want to please my audience. I put a lot of effort into my presentations. I'm over-the-top well-prepared. And hello, I am passionate about what I do. Enthusiasm, in my opinion, could be THE MOST IMPORTANT quality of a good presentation and dare I say, a happy life. Enthusiasm will take you FAR.

So yes, I try hard. And if that annoys you, young lady, I do NOT apologize. I encourage you to go out and find something YOU are passionate about. Something that inspires you to go above and beyond. I want to see YOU bubbling over. I want some other less-enthusiastic teen to roll his or her eyes at you, and for you, years later, to think about it, and realize the people who are annoyed by enthusiasm are only annoyed because THEY WISH THEY HAD IT.