[Story Time] My Reply To a Critic’s Email About Why I…

So, yesterday I was in HydePark riding bicycles with my friend Nouri and living my best life when an email popped up on my phone –  A critic’s email, I get a lot of negative or critic comments on my content across my social media platforms but never an email! It was an email from someone who contacted me by filling out the contact form on my blog. This is exactly the content of the email:

what you’ve started to be a noble cause of helping people out has turned out to be hypocrisy, you’re worth as much as the Chinese girl selling templates is,  did you guys get the visa to end up selling templates?? you just proved your self to be an unexceptional talent  you lost some respect I had for you

The template he is referring to in this email is my paid ‘done for you templates’ and HD explainer video course I provide to Tech nation applicants as a paid service that helps potential applicants save time with their application, provide a structure and template to follow in creating their most important documents for the application, allow them follow a structure from my successful application, learn, see and avoid mistakes I made in my first application that wasn’t successful and most importantly get my personal advice on some documents they can make use of for their application. (You can learn more about the templates and what it entails here Tech Nation Visa Template. So, the whole message behind his email is him criticizing me for providing a paid service that benefits people, according to him – I should work for free and continue to do so if I am truly someone who “wants to help people”. According to him, even though my blog has the most helpful information on the internet about the Tech Nation Visa process – its hypocritical for me to provide a paid consultation or template for people who might find it valuable. This past week has been a very crazy and hectic one for me since my video from the Notting Hill Carnival went viral, have been having to deal with a lot of messages and comments from thousands of people and have also been having fun on the low to be fair. You should consider following my Instagram page to see some of the cool and well, not so cool things I get up to when am not creating and curating content.

This is the video that went viral by the way: https://www.instagram.com/p/BnBbssGhdkB/?taken-by=danieldamilolanejo

Okay, let me address this email.

Being a content creator, one of the things have learnt since my content and work began getting a lot of exposure is that – even though I have good intentions with the content I create, spend time, money and resources to create most of them, I still get a lot of hate and negative comments from people. This used to bother me at first because I had a hard time understanding how people could choose to bash and hate someone or something that is genuine and valuable, so I used to reply to the negative comments trying to explain to them how their view is wrong but I have noticed that it doesn’t only give me headaches but am also wasting my time trying to reply to negative or hate comments, they don’t deserve energy from me and then I came to a realization that not everyone would like you anyways, even if you are Jollof rice. Heck, Jesus Christ that had ZERO bad blood and genuinely wanted to help people was hated and nailed to the cross. So who am I to want to appear perfect and be loved by everyone? So, if I don’t reply to negative comments from people trying to bash my work, why am I replying to this one? Well, I wouldn’t call this a hate comment, its more of a criticism comment (these days we can’t even tell which is which anymore to be fair). The reason is because my reply to this will help a lot of people re-structure how they think about business, life and money.

Let’s break down the email.

The Mindset of “Everything Must Be Free”

This is a mindset common with humans. When someone who has done so much to help you decides to do something little to help his/herself, we are very quick to point out how selfish they are, how “we’ve lost respect for them” or how everything they’ve done for us is not relevant anymore. We want people to spoon feed us, slave for us, work for us and never think about themselves but we will never do this for someone else. The first part of the email says “what you’ve started to be a noble cause of helping people out has turned out to be hypocrisy, you’re worth as much as the Chinese girl selling templates is,” I am actually happy that the person who sent this email acknowledged that what I do is a noble cause and it helps people.  However, when something popped up that doesn’t go with his mindset of people always having to spoon feed him, killing themselves for him, going out of their way to help him, spending money, time and resources without getting anything back from him, I suddenly become an “Hypocrite”.  (by the way, the Chinese girl he’s referring to is another Tech Nation alumni who also provides paid templates for applicants who find it valuable) It’s important to point out that the sender of the email has never shared my article, sent me a mail thanking me for what I do or showed gratitude for the value he’s been getting from my blog or even spent 1 or 2 seconds to drop a comment on any of my posts to say thank you! He has never done anything other than be a taker and receiver!

I used to have this mindset.

I remember when I wanted to enroll on courses from the likes of Tai Lopez, Ryan Deiss, Brendon Burchard just to name a few, I used to say to myself “Why are these guys charging for their courses? I thought they said they want to help people, I thought they claimed they were rich and are making money! So why are they charging $997 or even $1997 for their courses? They are Hypocrites!!!” Looking back now, I was foolish to have had that mindset, that is a mindset of a kid who doesn’t understand how the real world works and the basic principle of Money! In its simplest form, the basic principle of money is that “You will make and continue to make money if you can find a way to provide a service or create a product that adds value to someone, so valuable that if they compare the price of the service or product to the enjoyment, joy, fulfillment and accomplishment they can and will get from the product or service, they see that it’s worth exchanging their money for it” 

“You will make and continue to make money if you can find a way to provide a service or create a product that adds value to someone, so valuable that if they compare the price of the service or product to the enjoyment, joy, fulfillment and accomplishment they can and will get from the product or service, they see that it’s worth exchanging their money for it” 

So, for example when Tai Lopez says his Social media mastery course is $997 and in the course I’ll learn how to manage and run social media accounts and Ads for businesses and then be able to charge each businesses between $500-$5,000 per month. Suddenly, it makes sense as an investment. I don’t only learn from someone who has done what I want to do but is also an expert, but I also get the exact blueprint to charge and make money with the knowledge! I win in two ways! My first client would pay for the price of the course and this knowledge I will gain from the course has the potential to make me financially independent for the rest of my life.  Oh! All of a sudden, paying for the course makes sense? Not to forget that for someone to create a course, guide, article or tutorial, it takes them time, resources, money and expertise! You cannot put a price tag on that and the person has the right to decide how much he wants to charge. They’ve spent time and money gaining the knowledge they are about to share with you so you can avoid the road blocks, mistakes and sweat they had to go through.

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Just a side note, why don’t you call Universities Hypocrites for charging school fees even though their sole aim and goal is to empower people with knowledge that can create a career path for them and make them better citizens? You can’t call them that because it’s common sense of how life works. Somebody gives you something of value, its their choice to make it free or not! No one will force you to buy a product or service. Also, why don’t you send an email to Skype telling them that they are hypocrites for creating a version of skype that is paid? They have spent millions of dollars and years creating a platform that allows anyone to call anyone through video or voice call for FREE and because they say if you want to call a direct phone through skype, you have to upgrade or pay a token, they are now hypocrites? No they are not! How do you expect them to pay their employees, maintain the free service they are offering you and pay for resources involved in doing so? Common sense. This is just like the people who are complaining about Facebook showing ads on their newsfeed! Facebook is a free platform in which billions of people enjoy for FREE everyday. It’s like a part of people’s life now, can you imagine a world without Facebook? Yet, the platform is 100% FREE but in order to make money to maintain their servers, pay their staffs and actually run a business so people can keep enjoying the service, they decided to show ads and sell ad spaces as a way to make money and now people are complaining about it and Calling Mark Zuckerberg an hypocrite for saying the main purpose of Facebook is to “bring the world closer together” and why is he making billions from it. How do you expect them to make money to keep serving you for FREE? Common sense! Oh! Less I forget, the UK’s aim for creating the exceptional talent visa route is so that “Exceptionally talented people from around the world can come live, work and create in the UK with little or no restrictions”, this is a very noble cause from the UK Government, but why are they charging fees for the endorsement stage and the visa stage if they really want to help talented people come to the UK? Well, because even though its a noble cause, there are staffs who needs to be paid to review applications and there are resources which needs to be put in place to ensure the whole process works! Are they hypocrites for charging a fee for the endorsement? No they are not! Its just basic common sense of how life works!

On a side note,

I have an online University www.NejoUniversity.com where thousands of youth from around the world (especially Africa) come to in order to learn Web Design, Graphics Design, Profitable Freelancing, Social Media Marketing, Content Creation and more! The university has 100s of HD videos and walk-throughs. These videos costed me time, money and resources to shoot, edit and upload to my premium video hosting service and even money to run the website! Yet, the University is FREE! Some of the information on the courses in the University costed me a lot of money to learn,  a lot of years to acquire and yet I lay them all down as simple and as straightforward as I can with no strings attached! I could easily charge 100s of dollars for the courses and it would still be a steal for anyone who knows the value of what is inside.  A guy asked me once “Why is this Free? How do you make money if you spend almost all your time creating content like these and giving it out for Free?” He’s right, I should make money from it but I chose not to because this is special to me, it is dedicated to my late father. I got the direction to do this on my father’s funeral, I think he spoke to me and wanted me to create something with the family’s name that helps youths in Nigerian and beyond to create source of income! Oh, talking about “noble causes”.

“Guilt Tripping” and Lower Jab.

So, the second part of the email, he says “did you guys get the visa to end up selling templates?? you just proved your self to be an unexceptional talent“. This again says a lot about his understanding of how life and business works! When Jeff Bezos started Amazon, his whole idea was to create a website where people can buy any book that has been written on earth! Guess what? Amazon now does more than that! I don’t have to list everything they do but you know, Amazon is literally in every niche now and they have a weird way of dominating every field they go into. That’s how life works, you keep building and growing as you get experience or grow bigger – you never settle down, you keep creating multiple streams of income. Back to Facebook’s Mark Zuckerberg. When he first launched Facebook, he wanted to create a platform where Harvard students could connect with one another but it became bigger than that, he ended up creating a platform where the world could connect with one another. He never thought this was going to make him a billionaire or he would even make any money from it, he was just a creative doing what creatives do! CREATE! When what you’ve created becomes so valuable, you monetize it so that your time, money, energy and resources you’ve put and keep putting into it is rewarded. Simple common sense! Back to university example, even “FREE Education” that is available in some countries might be FREE for the students but in order for staffs to be paid and the school to keep running, money has to come from somewhere, or else – nothing can actually run! The teachers will not work for free even though they love teaching and impacting knowledge! Money must always exchange hands for things to run smoothly, that’s life! When I got the Visa, I never even thought about being a consultant or providing a paid service for potential Tech Nation Visa applicants but when I started creating blogposts around the Tech Nation Visa, shooting and recording videos and podcasts, I started getting loads of emails from people around the world to advice them on the application process, some even ask me to share my personal documents with them , which I did, some asked me to get on Skype with them to answer some questions they had about the application and more. This started becoming a job, these people do not ask Yes or No questions, they ask questions that needs proper explanation and experience for me to reply. So, being a business man who values his time, I had to create a resource that encompasses the most frequent questions I get asked, the most crucial things the application documents should have (based on my experience failing and succeeding), a structure and layout the key documents should follow and entail and I had to put a price tag to it because of my time, energy, money and resources that went into the creation of this “valuable service”. Do you want to kill me for doing this? Be my guest. Law firms and solicitors in UK charge stupid money to offer consultation and advice on the Tier 1 Exceptional Talent Visa but in my opinion, their service isn’t even that good! You know why? This Exceptional Talent Visa isn’t one where a lawyer or lawfirm can just advice on or provide consultation on, it requires more than the law (matter of fact, it really doesn’t require the law or immigration service until stage 2 which is so straightforward anyways), It requires showing expertise in the  field you want to get endorsed in and this can be done by yourself or an expert in your field.  (I have sat down with Law firms in London who invited me to partner with them after reading my blogposts on the visa and saw that I was a thought leader in the space, my conversation with them shows they don’t know much about this Visa yet – they just get clients and charge stupid laywer fees. They wanted me to be their external consultant who they pass their client’s application to in order for me to advice accordingly.) Why don’t you send a mail to all these law firms and call them Hypocrites? These law firms do not even create any valuable content around the Visa, they add ZERO upfront value, they have ZERO insider experience but someone who spends days and weeks creating in depth content for FREE who then decides to create a paid service that goes couple steps higher, is the bad person? KMT! I don’t even have to address the part where he said “you just proved your self to be an unexceptional talent“, I guess he has more authority and expertise in the Tech Field than Tech Nation or the UK Government who endorsed me as one. That’s just a low jab and a guilt trip comment. He ended the email with “you lost some respect I had for you”, thank you for the respect you have and had for me and my work but what have you done to show this? Did you ever send me an email thanking me for what I do on my blog, did you ever drop a comment to thank me for the immerse value you’re getting from my blog? I don’t actually need any of those from you because if I did, I wouldn’t be creating content in the first place! A large percentage of people are just takers and never givers, as creatives, we’ve learnt to come to terms with this. I create content and blog because I have a need to add value to people with my knowledge, expertise and experience. So, to whoever sent that email, I hope this blogpost has answered your question, opened your mind or in worst case scenario made you loose all respect for me because of how honest I went in. Regardless, I love you and wish you the best. I will keep writing and creating content around the Tech Nation Visa and my done for you templates will always be available for people who know and appreciate the value. Nothing is forced down your throat, you have a choice to either go for something or not and because you choose not to doesn’t make the other person a Villain! What do you think about this whole scenario? I would love to hear your comment and views below!