The Courage to Be Cancelled: How to Deal With Hate

I’ve been called every name in the book. Here are five lessons on saying what you believe anyway.

America just turned 250. Clear Thinker is turning 2. 5 days, 5 articles. Become an annual member at 30% off forever - for the first 500 subs. Join here. Offer ends July 13.

I’m not sharing that for sympathy. Strange as it sounds, I’m sharing it to inspire you.

We’re in an odd moment. The country is about as divided as it’s ever been, and at the same time more connected online than it’s ever been.

It used to be that if someone didn’t like what you said, you could tune it out. The disagreement stayed at a distance.

Now we’re piped straight into each other’s heads, into some of the nastiest thoughts people have.

And when the attacks come, we watch people do one of two things. They double down, or they retreat.

This is a guide to doing neither.

Why does it matter? Because you matter.

Everyone is an influencer. You’re shaping the people around you whether you mean to or not — every conversation you have, and every one you avoid, moves someone. Your friends. Your family. Your coworkers. The charged Facebook post you scroll past from someone you know and disagree with. The dinner table where you bite your tongue instead of saying what you think.

The way through is being neither offensive nor defensive. It’s courage — the courage to say what needs to be said, when it needs to be said.

Consider this a follow-up to my previous letter on how to have hard conversations with the people you love without getting cancelled.

Those people are only one audience. Sooner or later you may be called to speak to a wider one — a comment section, a feed, a room full of strangers. These are the lessons I’ve learned for that.

Lesson 1: It’s not about you

You’re an influence whether you asked to be or not.

Think about what influence even is. To influence someone is to change them. The whole act points outward, at them — never back at you. Two encounters taught me this in the same year:

These are two stories — one from someone with a positive perception, one with a more negative one. Neither was accurate.

The one who loved what I do and the one who almost hated me were reacting to the same thing — a render of me running in their own heads. You feed it a little material: a clip, a post, a story someone forwarded. You never touch the model itself.

So here’s the paradox. You’re the one expressing yourself, but the people reacting didn’t show up for you. They showed up for what they get from you.

The more you make it about you, the harder it gets to serve them — and the harder every insult lands, because now it’s personal.

I get a version of this question all the time. Someone’s post blows up, the negativity rolls in, and they ask me: What do I say back? How do I defend myself in the comments?

But here’s a question: Why do you need to defend anything?

If the thing you said is true, and you stand by it, and it came from a sincere place — there is nothing to defend.

No comment to answer.

No apology to draft.

No proving to strangers that you’re a good person.

You already know why you said it. That’s enough.

Lesson 2: Being hated by some means being loved by others

Knowing it’s not about you helps. But sometimes it doesn’t make the hate stop hurting.

We’re social animals. We all want to be liked. Nobody wants to be cast out and alone, and that fear runs deep for a reason.

For most of human history, losing your tribe meant death. The Greeks understood this — exile was a punishment close to execution, because a person alone did not survive. That wiring is still in you. It’s why a wall of hate feels like the end of the world.

But you’re not in a hunter-gatherer band. There are 8 billion people out there. Get cast out by one tribe and another is already forming somewhere, made of the people who needed to hear exactly what got you thrown out.

So when people ask me what to do about the haters, I say the same thing every time: Keep going.

What you’re attracting is simple: the natural polarization that comes from being yourself. Not all atoms are meant to form molecules. Some attract each other, some repel. It’s the same with tribes.

The tribe you gain will fit you better than the one you lost, because it’s a tribe you don’t have to perform for. You get to be yourself and form even stronger bonds with people who like the real you.

Lesson 3: Self-respect is the highest currency

Approval is fickle. It arrives fast and leaves faster, and you can’t take in only the good. Because if you’re attached to the positive, you’ll also be attached to the negative.

And the human brain has a negativity bias, so the insults often cut deeper than the praise heals.

The key is to detach from both the validation and the vitriol.

Most approval isn’t deep anyway.

People like what you said because they agreed with it, because it validated them.

The day you say something that takes that validation away, the same people turn. Easy come, easy go.

There’s a better currency — and it comes from the people who respect you. They won’t always agree, but they see the deeper value in what you’re doing. That’s worth more.

The highest currency is the one nobody can give you or take from you: self-respect. Integrity with yourself. The quiet you feel when you know you were honest.

Think about why lying hurts the liar. Set aside the harm to the other person.

When you lie, you have to hold two stories at once — who you’re pretending to be and who you know you are. That gap is cognitive dissonance, and it’s exhausting.

Honesty creates harmony in the mind.

That’s the most valuable currency — your reputation with yourself.

And it makes you stronger everywhere, not just online, because a person who trusts themselves moves more powerfully.

I learned this lesson firsthand. Earlier this year I put out a fast take on a story everyone was fighting about, and it went viral. Then I realized I’d gotten ahead of myself, so I posted a correction and an apology.

The result?

The side that had approved of me before said I caved.

The side that hated me still hated me. I lost both rooms in a day.

But I got to keep my peace of mind by owning it. And as a bonus — I earned the respect of people who appreciated someone willing to correct himself.

Here’s where I’ll pause.

The full talk is on YouTube, free:

But if you want more than the talk — the extra breakdown and two of the most important lessons — I’ve made that available for paying supporters.