About 5 or 6 years into my career, I got a DM on Twitter from a guy, in which he told me he didn’t like me (of course it was on Twitter).

Curious, I ask what I did to offend him (quick side note: it’s fine to just block and delete these dudes, you don’t have to indulge them in any way).

He said he was insulted by some things I wrote.

My response: Well, I’m not gonna be everybody’s cup of tea.

In short, I’m not changing the way I go about things to please this dude.

The sooner you get comfortable with the fact that you aren’t gonna be everybody’s cup of tea, the freer, more creative, and more authentic you’ll be.

New ideas thrill some people (this is your audience!) and terrify others. So if you aren’t terrifying some people, you aren’t generating any new ideas.

When I first started talking about data visualization, many from the Old Guard got ruffled feathers. Because they had been writing 200-page picture-less reports for decades and here comes some new kid on the block suggesting that they change.

What am I gonna do – stop sharing my new ideas to keep them comfortable?

Of course not.

But women in particular are raised to be such people-pleasers that we often do silence ourselves for the comfort of those around us.

We desperately want to be liked.

Which means when someone gets mad at us, we’re devastated.

So we stay small. We say things that are so neutral and vanilla that no one could ever possibly be offended.

We never have anything fresh to say. We just keep repeating the socially sanctioned tried-and-true bullshit you hear everywhere. Never stand out. Don’t attract clients because we’re indistinguishable from competitors. And never make our mark on the world.

If those same tried-and-true ideas actually worked, we wouldn’t be socially crumbling under late state capitalism.

We need your ideas.

The world is waiting for your innovation.

These days I get a pearl-clutching email or DM every few months. Todd doesn’t like that I talk about the patriarchy or something.

My response: Then stop following me. You should unsubscribe, Todd.

I’m not Todd’s cup of tea and Todd is not my primary audience. Whew, thank goodness I figured that out! It helps me refine who I AM talking to, every single time.

You absolutely have to take the risk of not being liked by everyone in order to have your ideas improve the world for those who resonate with you.