Amplifying the lizard brain
http://sethgodin.typepad.com/seths_blog/2010/06/amplifying-the-lizard-brain.html
Not sure why you would want to reinforce the noise in your head that tells you not to speak up, stand out and do work that matters, but if you do, a surefire way to do it is to focus your attention on every piece of negative feedback in your environment. Or to imagine every possible disaster that could befall you, and to do it repeatedly. Or to carefully study anonymous comments, tweets and online reviews from people who don’t like the work you’re doing. Or focus on the one paragraph in your annual review called ‘weaknesses’. Or spend the day thinking about the one slip of the tongue you made this morning…
(via Instapaper)
Exactly - in fact I’m seriously considering acing comments.
Ed
Sent from my Awesome iPad
I really can’t believe I am hearing this from the mouth of Ed Dale! I’m surprised and shocked that you would even consider acing comments. I’m hoping that this is a test to see if we’re paying attention.
Myself and many others, look up to you for what you have taught us. One of the most important things you have stressed throughout several years of the 30DC is the importance of interaction with those who follow our blogs and interact with us throughout the internet. Sure there are negative people, there always has been and there always will be. There are people who just aren’t happy unless they have something to complain about. SO WHAT! Ignore them! I do not buy-in to their negative thoughts.
On the other hand, there are many of us who think positive and try to surround ourselves with like minded people. I have to say that I see many, many more positive things expressed in comments from my own readers and I think that this is especially true of what I read from your followers Ed! You are held in high esteem from the majority of internet marketers throughout the world and the positive comments that you receive far outweigh the negative ones.
I hope you will reconsider your opinion on this matter. I and many others count on you to lead us and this change would certainly have an effect on many new marketers in our industry. I’m counting on you to continue to be the positive light that inspires so many lives.
Leigha
Do you mean axing comments? If not, can you explain what acing comments means? (is this one of those comments you would be happy to never receive?)
I have to admit that I’m surprised by this suggestion. I know that it can be demoralizing to receive comments that are rude and negative, but in my experience the best blogs (and the best people) have endless helpful, interesting, funny and uplifting comments that push the crappy ones into a corner. In fact, I enjoy the comments of some people’s blogs almost as much as the blog posts themselves.
Losing comments will not end criticism and negativity - those people will still be around - but those who love what you do want to tell you they love what you do and offer their own perspective on what you are saying. Sure, there may be other ways you’ll offer them that chance (Twitter, Facebook) but isn’t that the same as allowing blog comments? Just a different platform? You can choose to listen to them or ignore them wherever they are written.
The one place I find the negative or downright weird comments outweigh the good is on YouTube - it’s like people just spend their lives writing nasty things on there. But, you can definitely ignore them there and never have them touch your life (until someone says “did you see what someone wrote on your YouTube video? They said you have the worst voice in the world!”)
Most people read your (anyone’s) blog on a regular basis because they want to know what you think, what you’re interested in, what matters to you. I guess you could be like Seth and remove the conversation from the blog and take it elsewhere, but the conversation would still happen - for good or bad. I’d prefer to let my readers have this extra platform - one that encourages immediate, direct and (generally) honest responses.
Lisa x