Rise above the noise.

Today I focused on a lesson that has been a hard one for me to learn, something that I personally have struggled with for a long time. No matter what you're doing in life, if you are advancing forward towards a goal, you will alway attract detractors, "haters gonna hate" would be the modern social vernacular for this phenomenon. The startling thing is while we expect "haters" to appear, we don't expect the direction they approach us from. We all put up walls to protect ourselves from these haters, but it's often the ones that we've let inside our walls that can be our greatest critics.

We've all experienced it, when taking a new job, getting a promotion, starting a new business, or embarking on any new journey in life, there's those that we run to first, those that we are excited to brag to, because we expect them to be as excited as we are. Then our big reveal happens and they don't react like you expected, instead of jumping up and down, they simply smile and say congrats, or even worse the wellspring of support you expected is replaced by a flood of criticism.

This doesn't have to be a one-time thing, more often then not these "frienemies" as you may come to think of them, are relentless in their assault on you idea, your vision, and your life. This hurts more than the random hater, the person that you can ignore, as these people are the people that you know, trust, and have leaned on in the past.

Sometimes we have to simply focus on rising above the noise, and realize that those that should be our largest support are our biggest critics, not necessarily on purpose, but through a misguided attempt to help.