There is a word we have all heard at least once. Someone looks at what you are building, at what you are becoming, and they say it. “I don’t think you should do this.” Or a softer version, “Don’t you think your skills would be better used elsewhere?” The words differ but the sting is the same.
We call those people naysayers. And we put them on a list in our heads, the list of people who did not believe in us.
But I want to challenge that a little, at least from my experience as someone who has built something that has lasted for three years and counting. Because I have been thinking about it, and I do not think all your naysayers mean nay.
The Friend Who Saw My Skill and Doubted My Direction
After I launched Design Balcony in 2023, a friend came to me with a thought. His position was simple: design is everywhere now, everyone is doing it, and people are barely willing to pay for it anymore. This was even prior to the outburst of AI and what we see it do now. His conclusion was that someone with my level of skill should be channeling that energy into other things.
He was not saying I was bad at it. If anything, he was saying the opposite. He believed I was too capable to be competing in a space he thought was already saturated and undervalued. He was studying media and communications at the time, so the design world, as he understood it, was one where the supply of designers had far outpaced what clients were willing to spend. That was the world he could see from where he was standing.
He even went ahead and shared my design agency launch flyer after that conversation. That one act told me everything I needed to know about where his heart was. He was not rooting for me to fail. He was just reading a map that was missing a few roads.
Now here is where things get interesting. Not long after, the first full brand identity gig I ever got paid to do was for a law firm. I designed everything, the logo, the visual identity, the works. The client? His brother. Yes his elder brother’s law firm.
And that is not where the story ends. A couple of years later, after he had finished school and joined a company, he reached out to me. Because of his media and communications background, he had been made the person responsible for the company’s design work. He came to me to handle it. He contracted me to be doing the designs for the company on frequent occasions.
I am not sharing this to settle a score or say I told you so. That is not the point at all. I am sharing it because it shows exactly what kind of naysayer he was. He was not the type that wanted to see me lose. He was the type who could only give you advice as far as his exposure could reach, and in his case, it had not reached far enough yet.
A Similar Situation in a Typical African Home
This kind of thing plays out in homes across the continent all the time, just with different details.
Someone announces that they want to go into a creative field, or start a business, or pursue something that does not follow the usual path. And a parent, sometimes both, begins to raise concerns. The tone is careful. The words are measured. But the message lands like a wall.
What the child hears is doubt. What the parent is actually doing is trying to keep them from pain.
The thing is, most of our parents are speaking from real experience, just not your experience. They have watched people struggle. They have seen dreams go quiet. And because they love you, they do not want that for you. The problem is not their love. The problem is that their view of your path is shaped by what they have seen, and what they have seen is often the hardest version of the story.
They are not trying to stop you. They are trying to save you. They just do not know what you know about where you are going.
The Difference That Matters
Here is what I think we need to learn to do: figure out where the nay is actually coming from before we decide what it means.
There is a kind of pushback that comes from someone who genuinely does not want to see you win. That is real, and you should be honest with yourself when you sense it. But there is another kind that comes from someone who cares about you, who speaks to the limit of what they have seen, and who would celebrate your success if they could only imagine it.
Not every person who says no is against you. Some of them are your people, speaking from a place you have already moved past. Some of them are your parents, trying to protect you from a difficulty they cannot see you surviving. Some of them are your friends, giving advice that says more about where they are than where you are going.
The nay they are speaking is not a verdict on your future. It is a reflection of the edge of their current view.
The Question Worth Asking
So before you write someone off as someone who did not believe in you, pause and ask honestly: does this person actually want me to fail? Or are they just speaking from the edge of what they know?
Because the answer changes everything.
The ones who want you to fail, create distance. Their voice will cost you if you let it stay close.
But the ones who are simply speaking beyond their exposure? Hear the care underneath the words. Keep that. Then keep building.
Not all your naysayers mean nay. Some of them just love you more than they understand you.
And sometimes, the clearest proof of that is who shows up two years later, asking you to do the exact work they once told you to walk away from.
