The television host appeared on the The Diary of a CEO podcast and opened up about how he wasn’t ready for people to dislike him when his profile started to rise thanks to Saturday Night Live.

“Getting rejection, getting your sketches cut. Being told you’re not funny. Haters,” he said when asked what he wasn’t prepared for. “This is before Twitter and all that stuff, which is different ballgame that I wasn’t ready for either.”

“You think that it’s just going to be, ‘Oh, this is cool. Everyone will be great.’ But then not everyone’s rooting for you. Some people want you to fail. People’s jobs are to take me down and to put bad press out and stuff,” he continued. “That’s their job, and you’re just like, ‘Ooh.’ I don’t live in that world. I don’t believe that it’s real, but it kind of is real and you go, ‘Oh, people are just kind of being mean.'”

As for how he deals with that kind of criticism, he said it’s key to “just toughen up and get through it and keep your head down, keep being funny, and keep being creative.” He added, “[Hate is] real, but it’s noise and it doesn’t affect you. You can only believe in yourself and know that you have to keep going. If you keep scoring, that will show.”

He was also asked how it feels to be the subject of nastiness, as someone who is trying to be a people pleaser.

“It is the absolute worst. I hate it. I want everyone to like me. I can’t stand it,” he revealed. “I go, ‘Oh, my gosh. What can I do to make you like me?’ I think the answer is you can’t,” he shared. “You can’t make everyone like you. You just have to do what you do. And do the best that you can at what you do. And be happy with yourself.”

Of course, Fallon has done pretty well for himself since his SNL days. He went on to host Late Night with Jimmy Fallon for five years, before taking over The Tonight Show from Jay Leno in 2014, a job he has to this day.