“Always Stay Gracious; Best Revenge is Your Paper.” How can one argue with THAT statement? If you are fed-up hearing about Beyonce, proceed to click that “X” button at the top of your screen; this post isn’t for you. For the rest of us, we can go on and on about the genius that IS Beyonce and her team of advisors. In an interesting turn of events, her world tour kicked off in Miami last night, but before that, people were talking about the “Boycott Beyonce” shirts she will sell during her tour. At first glance, why would Beyonce sell a shirt where she encourages people to boycott, especially before the start of her world tour?

There’s an epidemic going around our country. There are regular, everyday people like you and me, that SWEAR they have haters. Perhaps they do, or perhaps – maybe these “haters” are a figment of their imaginations. Either way, people start to become consumed with other people who may not like them, or someone that may have said something about them, or whether or not another person isn’t happy for them. Many times, these people take to their social media accounts to “address” their haters (most of the time INDIRECTLY addressing that person(s)).

What does this have to do with Beyonce’s t-shirts? What we all know for sure is that Beyonce has real-life haters. Police in Miami were gearing up at one point to boycott offering any protection during the kickoff of her tour. Some officers were claiming the “Formation” video was anti-police. Beyonce’s only response explained the video was “anti-police brutality.” Along with the Miami Police Department, we see the commentary, the news interviews and blogs that constantly try to demean everything that she does. When the world didn’t see Beyonce talking about police brutality, they blasted her for this. Then reports revealed the amount of money and funding Beyonce and Jay donated to families and causes around the world – and they were accused of doing that for media attention!

However, what we also see is that Beyonce rarely addresses her haters in interviews or on social media. She addresses them in a boss way. She puts it in her music and her merchandise and MAKES A PROFIT! Get it? Bey just tweeted for the first time last week since 2013. She doesn’t take to Twitter to express any issues, she doesn’t make long Facebook posts about the amount of people hating on her. And, why should she? Instead of feeding into the hatred that people have for her, she feeds her pockets by creating “Boycott Beyonce” t-shirts, selling them for $25, and establishing a merchandising EMPIRE. For many artists, merchandising is a huge part of generating revenue, often leading to millions of dollars in sales. Rapper Tech N9ne consistently makes the Forbes list each year, as an independent artist by establishing an impressive merchandising business while touring.

So how can we learn from this? The first lesson is that no one really cares if YOU have haters or not. However, if you believe that someone is against you, instead of putting that energy in INDIRECT Facebook posts, Tweets and Snapchats, use that negativity to drive your creativity. The time it takes to address a so-called “hater” on your face book page, you could have written the first 5 pages of that book you’ve been talking about writing. The time that it took you to create that 20-minute Facebook Live video about how someone was talking about you, you could have outlined the details for that new website you need for your business. Instead of being basic, take that Lemon of negativity that anyone may (or may not) throw at you, add vodka and sugar, and make Lemon Drops. Cheers!