Here’s how to do just that.

It’s been almost eight years since I left my last corporate job. Almost a decade of hearing unsolicited advice and comments on my professional, and life choices. Trust me entrepreneurship and stepping off the “classic” path gave people a lot of new material. Imagine when I decided to leave Paris without a clear timeline on the next move… some would say I am asking for it at this point.

The first very hard moment for me was the reaction of one of my closest friends at the time, who told me point-blank that I “hadn’t understood anything” and that if I was choosing to pay myself next to nothing when I could be making 80k a year at a consulting firm, I was wrong. I left her birthday party that evening without saying goodbye, and we never saw each other again. That was the day after I signed my severance agreement. 

People who don’t understand, who worry on your behalf, who offer advice without ever having done what you’re trying to do, who have an opinion on virtually every decision you make… they will always exist.

Growing a thick skin takes time. But I think the most important thing isn’t toughness, it’s learning how to protect yourself from the noise in the first place. Here are the lessons I’ve taken from my long and sometimes painful training in not giving a damn. I have decided to update this article because moving across the world kind of fed this specific topic quite generously.

1. Say goodbye if they can’t stay cool

Yes, like the song (well it’s a very French reference but I have decided to keep it).

“Stay cool baby, otherwise I’ll kiss you bye bye”
that’s an approximative translation

It sounds obvious, but cutting out the disruptive elements is the best way to stay the course. Nothing forces you to keep people in your circle who feel entitled to dump their opinions on you without caring about the consequences. I talk a lot about the importance of your support system and that means choosing who stays, but also who goes. You don’t owe anyone an explanation for cutting ties. If you have the courage and the desire to give one, great. If not, that’s fine too.

2. State your rules clearly

For yourself and for others.

It’s easy to forget your own ground rules, especially when life is shaking you around. Having a personal playbook matters. My close people know : I don’t listen to voice notes over three minutes (special exceptions apply). I put my phone down around 9:30pm. I have zero notifications on. Unannounced calls give me real anxiety (I am learning to appreciate though since I am getting older and meeting new people). I need the truth, even when it’s hard. My clients know : everything work-related goes through a dedicated channel, I’m offline on weekends by default, and I won’t extend a contract if I’m not the right person for them anymore.

Knowing your rules, and making them known, creates a filter. It pre-empts a lot of potential problems and problematic people.

If you don’t know yours one of my favorite exercises ever is to imagine you own an island and anyone who wants to come in has to respect a set of rules, what are those.
Write them down “Clemence’s island rules” and put them up on a wall above your desk, or somewhere you’ll see them often. 

3. Work on your assertiveness

To enforce your rules, you need to be able to be heard, and sometimes the people who feel entitled to weigh in on your life and business aren’t easy to stand up to.

Saying stop, redirecting people, whether it’s your grandmother or the know-it-all acquaintance (sometimes they merge into one, as with my grandmother, Huguette-who-knows-everything), is a skill, and it can be genuinely hard to develop, especially if you’re a recovering people-pleaser like me.

Coaching, EFT, and forcing myself to advocate for myself in small everyday situations helped enormously. Telling my nail technician the colour is wrong. Asking my hairdresser to redo the blowdry. Sending back a dish at a restaurant. These are simple, low-stakes training grounds. By the time you need to tell someone that yes, this is a real job or that no, you’re not implementing the random Instagram tactic they saw and screenshotted, you’ve built the muscle.

4. Exit the conversation

There are also times when it’s not worth the fight. Choosing your battles is choosing your peace.

There are situations where I’ll defend my position and there are things I no longer argue about at all. I don’t engage with people who want to explain my industry to me when they’ve never run a business. I don’t take the bait with people looking for confrontation for its own sake. I don’t give energy to pointless conflict. It saves me from talking to a wall and absorbing waves of unnecessary friction.

Knowing when to step back is a superpower, and it requires knowing your own limits.

5. Know your subject

The idea is to know your counter-arguments well enough to hold your ground calmly. Most of the criticism, unsolicited advice, and pointed remarks you’ll receive tend to fall into the same few categories. That’s where I apply Charlie Munger’s approach : enter a debate knowing the opposing position as well as your own.

I know the standard objections I face by heart. I know exactly how to respond to each of them. Which means I stay calm, I feel in control of the conversation and I know when I’ve hit a dead end and it’s time to simply leave.

I would add to that that I have made it part of my routine to look at what people I disagree with do, how they approach things, I will try and not remain in my own bubble of people who do things like me, think like me and will in the end make me forget the world is full of very different people. 

6. Keep a decision journal

This is the best way to remember why you made a particular choice instead of another. It’s a powerful anchor when you’re doubting yourself, and it keeps you from losing the thread when the noise around you gets heavy.

For better decision-making in general, I highly recommend Clear Thinking by Shane Parrish.

7. Know your people

You might think you already know who your go-to people are. Maybe. Trust me when something hits hard and you’re not at your best, you lose access to that mental clarity.

My advice : keep a note somewhere with who to call and for what. I call my grandfather when I need to laugh at everything and nothing. Certain friends for career questions. Others when I need to be fully heard without advice. Another when I need brutal honesty and a kick in the right direction. Having that list written down means you’re not doing mental gymnastics in the middle of a difficult moment trying to figure out who can help.

I would like to add to this that with time I realized that you chose the level of intimacy you want to have with people, and the older I grow, the bigger my secret garden, the quieter my direct surroundings. I will get back to that in a future piece. 

8. Accept that you’re the villain in someone’s story

I think this is the real key to not giving a single fuck. It is impossible to please everyone. It is impossible to always be beyond reproach, even doing your best, you will fall short in someone’s eyes.

The solution isn’t to stop caring about everything and everyone. It’s to accept that if someone wants to see you as a problem, they will. That’s just how it works. There are people I could hand free tickets to the best concert of the year and they’d still resent me because even though I try to stay open-minded, I’m human, just like you.

So : stick to your rules. If that bothers someone, there’s plenty of space elsewhere. People don’t have to keep their eyes on what you’re doing.

9. Life is full of cycles, things and people will come and go

The sooner you accept that, the better. Some people will only smile at you on a difficult day and give you back hope, others will spend years close to you and you’ll drift apart. Not everything and everyone is meant to be forever. This is a lesson I am learning getting older, it’s still a hard one because I am shit at goodbyes and letting go. There is no point in trying to hold on to something that is over, this will only create anxiety, problems and resentment. 

If you want to be able to not give too much of a fuck, learn when to stop caring. Try to recognize when something is over before it becomes a burden. 

I’m far from managing not to care all the time. Sometimes things land harder than I want to admit. But I keep learning, and I’m grateful for every situation that lets me grow a few more feathers and let things slide off without flinching.

I hope you get there too. 🤍