Thrive Time with Eric Edmeades Live Stream

Welcome to another edition of thrivetime.

I'm Eric Edmeads, and I'm your host. And today, today I want to talk about something that I think is, well, important. I think maybe I do that every week, think of whatever's important to me in that given week. But this is something that I believe has become increasingly important every single day that the Internet continues to grow. And what we're talking about today is cyber bullying, Internet trolling, and general negativity. And I want to discuss a little bit about what it is. I want to talk about who does it, and I want to talk a little bit about what maybe you can do about it and ultimately how you can win the Internet.

That's kind of what we're talking about here.

Cyberbullying and cyber trolling has become a really big thing because of what psychologists cause, something called a disinhibition effect. And the disinhibition effect is this thing where it's like, well, I'm not really there with you, so I can say socially objectionable things that I never would. In fact, I might even be totally anonymous in some cases. So therefore, I'm really, really safe to say whatever I want and be as objectionable as I want. And there's another place where many of you will have seen the disinhibition effect, and it's in road rage. For some reason, people find it really easy to yell abuse at cars. To yell abuse at cars. Abuse that they would probably never yell at a human being. I'm curious, in our audience today, how.

Many of you have.

Have ever yelled abuse at a car?

Has anybody yelled abuse at a car? And you know that if you were, like, in a shopping store and you bumped into each other with your shopping carts, you probably wouldn't speak that way to the human. But there's something about speaking to an inanimate object that makes the cyberbullying or the road rage somehow more acceptable. And then there's the victim side of it, and that is that when you are subjected to some kind of cyberbullying or cyber trolling, there's something to do. There's something about the way you take it on board, and we as humans, the way we take it on board. And I think one of the reasons is that we've had millions of years of. The only abuse that we ever took was to our face from people close to us. You know, it took time for us. Guys, think about this. We live in a world, okay, right now we can't get on a plane, but Normally, we live on a world where we can get on a plane, fly to any country, show them a little book with our picture in it, and they just let us in. A couple hundred thousand years ago, if you walked 20 miles away from your village, you were in danger of being killed by the other tribe. Right? Like, we live in a very different time. And so, as a consequence, I think.

One of the things that's happened is.

That we're conditioned to take feedback from people very personally, because for most of our evolution, our feedback was very personal. But now. Now our feedback isn't the least bit personal, even though we think it is. One of the things that I've noticed about cyberbullying is that I often will give the person a great deal more credibility than they deserve. In other words, they write these words, and in my head, I picture somebody with a doctoral degree, and I picture my head somebody with some incredible credibility, when really.

And really, it's probably something else. It's probably somebody who's got drool ripping down their chin. They've got an open bottle of soda over here.

They're.

They got cigarette fags hanging out of their mouth. Like, these guys are probably not the kind of people that I would ever care about their opinion, but for some reason, in the moment. In the moment, it can really matter to me, and I'm sure that it's occasionally mattered to you. So I want to talk about how dangerous this is and just share some statistics with you about cyberbullying. So here's a couple things that are fascinating about it. 34% of the kids in the United States have experienced cyberbullying at least once. 80% of children own a mobile phone and therefore have a really nice, anonymous way for people to be disinhibited and bully them. 42% of LGBT youth have experienced cyberbullying. 66% of female victims feel powerless when they're subjected to cyberbullying. Online Bullying among US teenagers usually involves offensive name calling 42% of the time, spreading false rumors, in other words, spreading lies about you 32% of the time, and receiving unwanted, explicit images 25% of the time. We're also dealing with. You know, there are particular sections of the population that are subjected to more cyberbullying. One of the most common ones is multiracial females. They have the highest rate of cyberbullying on the Internet. And bullies often ridicule disabilities, mental problems, autism, physical defects. And some of these bullies even run large countries. And about 35% of only 35% of victims of cyber. Sorry, let me say that differently. 35% of UK students have not had any cyberbullying. In other words, the rest of them have. And about only 38% of cyberbullying. Difficulty. They've had a very small percentage of them willing to actually talk with their parents about it. So this is a kind of a big deal. Then maybe to understand it even more detailed, I want to talk a little bit about the impact that it has. A survey done in the United States of 5,400 teens showed that 64% of them said that it affected their ability to learn. Think about that. 64% of them said that when they were bullied it made it difficult to learn. Now we know the science behind this, that once somebody is adrenalized and has cortisol in their system, they, their intelligence goes down. We know that. But so that means that when somebody is bullying or cyberbullying the other person, they're inhibiting their ability to get a good education, which has an impact on their entire life. Think about that. Also from those bullied in this last year, 37% developed social anxiety and 36% of them experienced longer term depression. And then also online abuse and suicidal thoughts are very deeply connected. 24% of those experiencing suicidal thoughts in their youth are feeling that way. It is a really big deal. Plus, another great survey that I saw about this talked about the common personality traits that those who partake in cyberbullying have. And you know what? You probably are not surprised to find out they're narcissistic, sociopathic, often sadistic, and generally not the kind of people that you would want to have a conversation with. And that leads us into the discussion about what can you do about it? Like what can you do about it? Because the trouble is is that one of the other traits that these people display is attention seeking. It's attention seeking. So the question is, what can you do about it? And that's what we really need to start to pay attention to and think about.

So I want to share with you.

A couple of examples that I've seen personally or experienced personally about this. And I think get into the conversation of what you can do when this stuff happens. First thing is what you really have to understand is that most people that are into cyberbullying are absolutely, most of them are absolutely into attention seeking. So the trouble becomes if you answer them, you're giving them what they want. That's the difficulty. If you answer them, you're giving them what they want. So you have to be a little bit careful about that. Now, the difficulty I have faced with that is sometimes when I face some of this online hatred and trolling, they've sometimes made an accusation or made a statement, and I feel like if I don't address it, I allow the accusation to stand. And so I don't know exactly what to do in those situations. I have felt in the past, because if I reply, I'm giving what they want. If I don't reply, I'm leaving their accusation. And you might think I should just delete it. But every survey, every study has shown that deleting cyberbullies is one of the worst things you can do, because it just makes them more angry. It just makes them more angry. And then they come at you with another username or they log in in another way. I read a fascinating case of a guy on ebay who listed a bunch of photographs and photograph equipment for sale. He's got an outstanding ebay rating out of 600 clients. He's only ever had six complaints, and they've all been resolved. And then a cyberbully jumped on and started saying that he was being unreasonable and saying he had all these bad references. And he said, I totally don't have that stuff. He answered the claims, but the guy just kept coming, so he decided to delete him. Then the guy came back at him again under another username, bid for one of his items, ended the auction, and then refused to pay. And as our seller found, by doing a deeper dive in, he found it was the same two people. It was the same person. So by deleting them in the first place, it was almost like a hydrate. Cut off one head and they grow eight more. And so ignoring them isn't always useful. So I want to share some ideas that I've used over time to cope with them. One is humor.

One is humor.

And I've been watching people like Ricky Gervais and other comedians deal with this kind of stuff. And instead of like, instead of defending and being all angry or what have you, they just simply use humor. I've done that quite often. I've had people write on my YouTube channel where they go, well, what a bunch of mindless drivel. And then I go, well, you wrote it. And I just kind of bounce back at them and just have a little bit of fun with it. And you know what? Almost never do they reply after that. Whereas if I defended it, if I tried to explain it, I often found that I was getting a reply Back the other way is to. And this one's really difficult, this one's particularly challenging, and that is to dive in and see what part of the trolling might be true. I've noticed something that when they troll me and they say complete rubbish, I don't get angry about it. I'm concerned. And I'm kind of like, I wish this wasn't here. But when they say something that might have an element to truth, I've noticed that that might get to me. I have a video on YouTube that now has something like 10 million plus views. And in the video, I say, stop, stop. Don't exercise. And then I talk about the challenges with exercising when you're malnourished and how important it is for you to get your nutrition right one day. I made a horrible mistake. A horrible mistake is to go on YouTube and read the comments. People write about your videos.

It's not worth doing.

99% of them will be great. But if you're a human being, which I believe I am, the 1% of the trolls can actually get to you sometimes. And they do. They got to me. And this one guy wrote in the comments, he goes, I don't know why.

You'Re talking about fitness. You're not so fit after all.

And again, I pictured in my head this incredibly smart, you know, intelligent, well spoken, you know, and then I realized, oh, wait a minute, probably wasn't one of those. It probably. It probably was somebody else entirely. And so then I started thinking about.

Why it got to me and how it hurt me. And then I hit a painful truth.

And that was, I am pretty damn fit for my age. I'm doing pretty well. I've climbed Kilimanjaro seven times. I've run marathon. I'm a tough guy, but my body, I wasn't feeling fit the way I wanted to. And I realized that the reason his trolling got to me is because there was just this little ounce of truth in it. And so I decided to fix it. I did. I made the decision. I went and got myself a personal trainer. I took a look at what supplementation I might need to look at. I looked at. Basically I looked at my whole life and said, what do I need to do to fix this? And I'm going to show you these. And I've never. I've shown these privately, occasionally in wildfit classes, but I'm going to show you these pictures. I'm showing them because I've decided I can't let the shame prevent the message of this but here I was, coming up on my 50th birthday, and these are the before and after pictures. The before and after pictures because of the troll. Do you understand that? It's because of the troll. It's because of the troll. Because of the troll. I made the change. In other words, I owe that troll a tremendous gift of gratitude. And you know what I did? I went back and told him.

I thanked him. I went back and said, thank you.

Thank you for being the best life coach I've had this year. Thank you. Now, I don't want to diminish the fact that there is absolutely pointless and disgusting trolling out there. There is. In fact, about a year ago, I found myself in a conversation with two trolls. Two trolls. And they came at me. And very often, trolls will hunt in packs, so you have to be aware of that. And they'll try to dominate threads. And so one of these trolls attacked me because they said that I was using the word. Well, I was using the word tribe. I was talking about, like, the mindvalley tribe and the wildfit tribe. You know, it's very common for people to refer to their fan bas bases is their tribe. And so they told me that what I was doing was cultural appropriation, which immediately said, by Red, I'm not a big fan of political correctness, but I want to be aware of what's going on in society. And so I wanted to take a look and say, well, how might this be right? So I did a little bit of digging, and so I responded back to them, and I said, well, tell me something. If this is cultural appropriation, could you please tell me which culture I'm appropriating? First of all, I'm not a big fan of the general concept of cultural appropriation, because if my child wants to dress up as a whatever at Halloween, I don't know what's wrong with that. To me, it strikes me that that's an opportunity for the child to learn about that culture and experience it. And so I don't really know where the line is on this. I don't know. You know, maybe when a clothing line adopts another culture's, you know, stylized sense of fashion and then profits on it, maybe that's a problem. But generally, I don't. I don't really see it.

But I'm open.

I want to hear, I want to learn. And so I asked them, could you please tell me which culture are we appropriating this from? Is it the original African nations that have all had tribes for centuries? Upon millennia. Or was it the North American natives who also had tribes? Or was it the South American natives who had tribes? Or was it the Australian aboriginal people who had tribes?

Or Was it the three tribes of Rome?

Or was it the 12 tribes of Israel?

Which culture is it that I'm appropriating? I'd like to know at this point they left the conversation and kind of went away and that was the end of it. They didn't engage, they didn't answer. And I wrote it quite nicely like I just to know why you think this is cultural appropriation. And about a week ago I jumped on and I spoke about something that I'm very passionate about relative to women and I wrote about this and guess what? The trolls were back and they jumped onto my thread and accused me of cultural insensitivity and racial insensitivity, but they didn't repeat the original claim. Now guys, what do I do? They've made this accusation, they haven't explained it, but they've left it on my wall. In fact, the way I found that out was in a private Facebook group in a debate with somebody else. He goes, well I've heard that you're racially insensitive. Anyway, so their trolling was damaging me. What do I do at this point? And so one of the things that I have found useful is to know who it is that's the troll. If you can find out now on Facebook you generally can because in theory you're not supposed to have a non accounts on Facebook. And guys, I'm going to tell you something that cracks me up like that. When this happened, it hurt my insides. I went to her Facebook page. I went to her Facebook page because I wanted to learn a little bit about her. I wanted to learn a bit about who I was dealing with here. I wanted to have some empathy, some compassion. Instead what I found is that she was widely promoting a multi level marketing, network marketing type program called Tribe. I'm not kidding. This woman who's been trolling me for over a year on the use of the word tribe as being cultural appropriation is making money promoting somebody's thing called Tribe. So again, why do I tell you this? Because it's just not worth it. It's just not worth it. Mostly you're talking about attention seeking, narrow.

Minded, not willing to actually have a conversation. I am absolutely prepared to jump into debate on Facebook sometimes to the point that I think my team is even uncomfortable with how far I'm willing to take an argument. But the fact is that I'm willing.

To speak my mind.

But you know what's really incredible about that?

I'm willing to admit when I'm wrong.

And I'm gracious when somebody else does the same. Just a few days ago I posted something. I posted this. I posted that there are people around the world that are turning off their 5 GHz Internet connections because of their fear of 5G.

And this should tell you something about conspiracy theories.

Now why I've said this is that I'm annoyed that people are misunderstanding technology. 5 GHz WI FI is not the same as 5th generation cellular. Turning off your 5 GHz WI FI might be a good idea for other concerns around EMFs. However, the logical connection of turning off your 5 GHz Internet because of your fear of 5G cellular is like turning off your toaster because it's got 5G in the serial number. It's a complete intellectual and logical disconnect. But immediately somebody jumped onto my thread and said, did you design this to be a trap?

Because so many people don't know this that it's like you designed it to be a trap. You designed it.

And I suddenly thought to myself, wow, that was not my intention.

I could see it was that way. So I wrote back to him immediately. I said, thank you for the feedback and I edited the post publicly. This is what I believe is ultimately going to win. The Internet is being open, being honest, being willing to accept feedback, and then ignoring, wherever possible, trolls. Remember that if you engage with them, they're getting what they want. If you delete them, if you block them, they will simply come at you another way. Sometimes the very best thing you can do is just to respond with love. To simply respond with love. Respond with information in the nicest possible way. You find yourself getting angry and I have a clue for you. I have a way of you knowing whether you're angry. Would you like a clue? Here's, here's my suggested clue for you on this. Here's how it works. You know that you're angry if you are doing this and you're typing like that.

If you, if you are typing with and you can hear your finger slamming down, you should probably, probably disengage. You're probably involved in an adrenalized conversation.

With somebody who is not worth your time. Because I'll leave you with this thought before we move to the next section. If you met somebody that you knew was an attention seeking, narcissistic, nasty person, would you engage with them? I Don't think so. And so maybe, maybe the key is that we're not supposed to be engaging with them now either.

All right, so welcome back to another episode of Thrivetime and my little rant on cyberbullying and trolling and stuff. We're here with our live audience and we're going to open the microphone up to have some conversations with some of the people. And I know that my team has also collected some questions from people ahead of time. And so, Kelsey, if you want to feed those through to me, you can absolutely do that. And those of you who are in the live audience, just make sure that you guys go ahead and click the link and join in. We've got a couple people waiting in.

The waiting room right now.

And so I'm going to jump over to bring on our first guest of the day.

Welcome to the show, Harry. Good to have you back as always. If you keep coming back, I'm going to have to give you a credit on the show. It's going to have special guest Harry is on the show again.

Hi. That's very honorable, but I don't think it's necessary. Actually. It's a very fitting topic to my struggles lately. I have now signed up for the WildFit coaching certification and I've been thinking of writing down a nice Facebook post about my. My story in WildFit and all that. And I actually, I'm not so much afraid of the trolls, but actually my own, like, friends in Facebook because there are a lot of friends from high school time, university time, and now a lot of colleagues who probably don't know much what I'm doing. And even though I have let my boss know that I will be doing it, so I hope it won't, like, interfere in the beginning with my work hours. But still, I'm like, afraid of the backlash from there. So that's my, at the moment, my worry with social media and posting it in general, because I. I haven't posted at all. I sometimes comment and share some things, but I haven't posted much. So I still have that kind of fear in me that I don't know what the closest people of me will think of it.

Harry, I hear you and I'm with you. I really, really get that feeling. In fact, that's one of the things that I really had to overcome myself.

When I first got into the whole wildfit thing and I first started speaking about it. And I'll never forget I was having this conversation with this sort of intuitive coach and she said it looks like WildFit's taking off and going crazy. And I said, yeah, it's freaking me out a little bit. And she goes, well, you better get over that. And I go, why? And she goes, because you're freaking out means you're uncomfortable, which means that you will hold it back. And I was like, oh, my God, you're totally right. I've got to overcome this. And she goes, what are you freaked out about? And I said, well, I'm not a doctor. I'm not a nutritionist. I don't have a piece of paper. I gave her all the list. And she's like, okay, all right. She goes, well, first of all, I've heard you speak about this. How much nutritional training do doctors actually get? How much nutritional training doctors actually get? And I said, well, none. I mean, except apparently in Romania, I just found out a few days ago that in Romania, they do a year of nutrition as a requisite program, whereas in the rest of the world, everywhere I've asked, it's. It's actually elective. They don't have to do it. And she goes, okay, so you don't need to be a doctor, because clearly doctors are not necessarily qualified to speak on nutritionists. Okay, that's a good point. And then she goes, but I've also heard you talk about nutritionists and certified nutritionists, and it seems to me that most of their education was bought and paid for by the food industry. In other words, they're just teaching the broken food pyramid type stuff. And so would you want to be a nutritionist? I go, well, no, not necessarily. And there are plenty of good nutritionists out there. But I'm not. You're right. That piece of paper wouldn't be so valuable. And she goes, now, let me ask you something else. She says, are you getting results for people? Yeah. She knows many of my friends that have completely transformed their relationship with food and their bodies and all this kind of stuff. And she says, well, okay, if you're getting results for people, aren't results the thing that really matter? Isn't that the issue? You know, Isn't that what really makes a difference? And of course she said. I said, yes. And then she says, well, I have some news for you. She goes, I am telling you that over the next couple of years, you will not need to be a doctor because doctors will become coaches. I said, what? And she goes, yeah, you're going to have doctors that are going to sign up to be trained by you to bring your nutritional concepts and your food psychology concepts. Out to the world. And I looked at her and I thought, she's a nut bar. I mean, why, what? And you know, it happened. And we have several of them, doctors, surgeons, nurses, osteopaths, chiropractors, I mean health professionals from the full spectrum have joined us and become coaches because guess what, that's not what they learn in their branch of studying health. So I had to get over that stuff. Now let me harry offer you one other thing and that is this, don't fight with anybody. There's no point in fighting with them, especially your friends. Like if your friends, you know, if you post something, say for example, here's something you might post, you might post something like, you know, milk often contributes to say sinus allergies, throat infections and ear infections. You might post that. And then, you know, because you come from Estonia, you come from a country that is ahead in many areas of technology, but frankly behind in many areas like milk. So whereas in 1991 when I divorced with milk, everybody in America and Canada thought that I was insane and I faced that kind of backlash. Whereas today the vast majority of people, at least the vast majority of health focused people in North America would accept that at the minimum, milk is not necessary for people. So you're safer to say it now, but in Estonia not so much. And so what I would say is don't fight, don't argue. If you want to post a few facts, but always do it from an open minded perspective. Never talking down, but talking with. And I think that you'll find as long as you don't engage in a spat, then what you'll find is that you'll learn a lot. And here's the thing, if you want to get really good as a wildfit coach, if you want to, or a health coach of any kind, or frankly an expert in any area, if you want to get really good at something, be willing to debate, be willing to go online and offer your theories or offer your concepts and then be willing to debate, be willing to enter into.

The conversation, be willing to do that.

Because when you do that, you will learn because you will sometimes get it wrong. And when you get it wrong, this is what you do. You might want to write this down. You respond like this, thank you, I was wrong. Thank you. That's what you do when you're wrong.

Now I know you haven't seen a.

Lot of that on the Internet and.

That'S because most of us have learned.

Our communication dynamics from politicians and they never admit to being wrong. But the truth Is you just say thank you. I was wrong.

Guys.

Listen, everybody. Okay, I know some of you already know this out there in the audience. I know that some of you already know this, but here's the deal.

I was a vegetarian for five years or more like a vegan for most of that time. And you know how hard it was for me to one day find in my research that that might not be the only answer? It might not be the answer at all. It was the hardest thing when I sat down with all the people that I'd been arguing with for years, to have to go back and say I was wrong. But you know, what I realized was I no longer see that as something.

That'S crushing or difficult for my ego. I see it as a way of displaying that my ego is secure, that I am secure, that I am always willing to learn. And if you go out with that, then what's the fear of getting it wrong? The worst case scenario is you post something, your friend argues with you about it, you win them over because you were right, or you learn something because you were wrong. Great. And in the meantime, you've learned ever better debating skills.

Yeah. Thank you. It's been a struggle for me because, like, I've noticed that I do a lot of things for others and I have to put myself on a higher priority list. And then for me, it's always constant worry that what will other think of me when I do this? And that even if I'm right, but if it doesn't combine with their worldview, then I'm afraid to get backlash because I think I want to get be liked by everybody. And I think that's somewhat struggle that I'm having at the moment.

You know, I'm with you, you're not. That's just not going to happen. And by the way, you're very likable. I mean, look, here, let me help you out with something right now. I just want to help you out with something here. Many of you have seen Harry on the show before. How many of you like Harry? Come on. How many of you like Harry? Oh, good. You didn't even know they all liked you and it didn't matter to you. So, you know, and there were two people who didn't raise their hands. I don't know what happened with them. I don't know. I don't know what you did there, Harry. I don't know. My point is this, as I often joke at the beginning of my more intense workshops and seminars and that kind of stuff that I'm not very nice. And I say this right at the beginning. In fact, I was on stage in Copenhagen once in front of about 800 people. And about half of them were clients of mine. Half of them had been through workshops of mine. And I stood there with the microphone. I go, by the way, you guys, am I nice? And half of the people in the audience went, no. And what they meant was, and what they get was, is that I am willing to be nice in the long term. And sometimes that means not necessarily always being 100% nice in the short term. Now, I'm not suggesting you should ever not be nice in an Internet debate, but what I'm saying is you shouldn't be so nice that you're not willing to have the debate. You're not willing to have the. If you go in with this, I am here to learn. You can never lose because you either were right or you learned. So you didn't lose like you just didn't lose Harry. I hope that helps. It's always a pleasure to have you on the show. Thanks so much for coming back and.

We'Ll see you again next time. Thanks very much. All right, I did see one question come along in the chat that I wanted to address, and then we're going to go over to Michelle. So, Michelle, get yourself set and ready. But there's a question that I wanted to talk about in the chat, and it was to do with. Very often when you Google somebody, you'll see that trolls have written spam site stuff like this person's a scam or all that kind of stuff. And I want to share with you a strategy for any of you are planning to build yourself a platform. One of the strategies that you can employ to defeat that type of trolling is to. And by the way, I'm only giving you this strategy because my assumption is that you're good people, right? Like, the fact is, is if the Internet is beating up on you because you've been scamming a lot of people, don't use this strategy. Stop scamming people.

You know how the troll irritated me about my physical condition and I took care of it.

So if you're scamming people and the Internet's beating you up about it, well, then I would suggest that you, you know, stop scamming people. That's my. That's my theory for you. Now, in the meantime, the strategy that I might consider you use is that you are talking about. You can have blogs written that sort this out. In other words, you can have a blog written about you that says, oh, look, you've got Jennifer over in the live audience is Jennifer Wootton a scam? And then a whole article can be written about how she's not. But what will happen from a Google perspective is that anybody searching for your name plus scam is going to be seeing that article as relevant because it's got your name and scam in it. And that way when somebody tries to damage you internally or like damage you. Sorry, not internally, Internetly. If they try to damage you on the Internet with spreading false rumors, if you've already had a number of articles already covering that stuff and handling it in advance, then it's harder for those people to get that Google ranking for you. So I hope that that's helpful. Michelle, Michelle.

Michelle, welcome back to the show. Good to have you here. How are you?

Very good, thank you. Nice to see you. Hey, it was interesting what you said about culture and people using words for advertising. There was a case in New Zealand where Coke decided to use two words, kia ora and mate. And so they used English and Maori and kia ora means like thank you and hello and sometimes welcome. And mate is also. It's just a Kiwi sl, but in Maori it can be translated to mate, which means death. So in fact, when they were saying kia ora mate, they were actually saying welcome death without them even realizing on the Coke bottles. So it was excellent advertising.

They made a similar mistake in China. They mixed up the Chinese symbols and they were trying to say coke adds life, but they wrote them wrong and all these cans ended up saying, coke brings your dead relatives back to life.

Yeah, they're not winning. They're not winning. Look, my question for you is with children at the moment, our kids have had a lot of screen time and things like that with all their schoolwork and stuff being on screens and so my children don't have phones. I've got an 11 and an 8 year old. So they haven't really been introduced to the whole interplay of chats and things like that, but they are now they're discovering that while the teacher's doing a talk, he can chat in the side box. So they have been working through that. And we've had my daughter on kids messenger just so she can do it and then I can kind of guide her through it. There's an excellent guy in New Zealand, John Parsons, and he talks about how we shouldn't perhaps keep kids away from technology, we actually need to have them exposed to it. So they then learn, just like kids learn Everything from adults and they're watching and modelling their behaviour. So I've let her sort of enjoy doing a wee bit of that and just sort of talking about things. What would you suggest as good ways to help a tween not develop issues around deriving their self esteem from other people? And we've done a wee bit of work around that ourselves, but I think that's one of the key issues is to not derive your self esteem from someone else. And so that way what people say doesn't really matter. And then I guess it's just as a parent trying to role model the etiquette that you do. Like you're saying, you know, laugh things off, all those strategies that they do with face to face bullying. But have you got any other strategies that you've sort of with your contact that you come across?

There are a few. And it's always. It's really. This is a bit silly, but I tend to watch what's going on in the culture. So, you know, for example, I had a really funny situation where my wife and a friend of hers were in the living room one day and they were talking in code about Christian Grey. And for those of you who don't know, we're talking about the unbelievably oddly written but yet phenomenal bestseller Tell Me that.

Fifty Shades.

Fifty Shades. And they're in there talking in code about Christian, you know, because I can hear them. And what they don't realize is that a few months before I'd been walking down the beach and I saw eight women in a row reading 50 Shades of Gray. And when I see anybody contrast consuming anything that heavily, I go read it. I'm just, I want to know what's going on. So I'd read it. So I walked out of the kitchen and I heard them talking in code and I just walked up and I go, no, you guys. Christian would never have said that. And they were like blown away. And the reason I mention this to you is that I like to be aware of what's going on. And So I watched 13 Reasons why. And if you haven't watched 13 Reasons why, I think every parent should watch it. I think it was incredibly well made, maybe a little bit sensationalized. I don't happen to think so. And I think one of the most amazing lessons in that movie is how little we know about our children. You know, there was that the secret lives of dogs where they tag dogs and then found out, like dogs and cats have these lives you don't even know about. You know, you, you know, I heard this the other day that there are dogs all over the world that think, oh my God, you love me so much, you quit your job to spend more time with me. And there are cats everywhere going, you bonehead, you got laid off. When are you going back to work? You know, cats and dogs have very different lives. And well, with secret with 13 Reasons why, I learned that teenagers have very different lives. And what I found in that, what was fascinating to me and for those who don't know the show, I highly recommend it, I really do, as an educational, almost documentary style approach to teen suicide and bullying. And I'll tell you one thing, in that show you can see that at any one time, had any one person, had any one person said the right thing, that suicide would have been prevented. It only needed to be one person at one time saying the right thing and it could have been prevented. And I think that that movie really taught me or that series really taught me a great deal about how little we know about what's happening in the lives of teenagers. And so one of the things that I think is really important is that we maintain the very best relationship we can with our children so that they feel absolute comfort to speak to us about anything, about anything. And I'll tell you, you know, I was having this conversation with my son years ago and he was in the, you know how it goes, right? When you're five and six years old, like, you know, when you're really young, girls are cool. In fact, my, if I remember this correctly, my son was engaged to Mitzi at the age of three and you know, big crush and whatever. And then later he was getting ready for a birthday party, I can't remember, it was his sixth, I think, birthday party. And his mom noticed that Mitzi wasn't on the invite list, but that Rebecca was on the invite list. And oddly that there was only one girl on the invite list because he was starting to move out of the girl phase. Like as you do when you get to that age, like you still have friends, but then you're. But his mom was thinking, not really appropriate to have one girl show up at a birthday party. So she thought, well, what if I could get Mitzi invited? So she goes to him and says, what if we, you know, I think what if we invite Mitzi? And he goes, oh no, I don't want to invite Mitzi because I've got a little bit of a crush on Rebecca and I'm going to get over it soon. So I don't want Mitzi to know about it.

Holy crap. Like, where do you get thinking like.

That at 6 years old? And I'll tell you, that skips the generation, I can tell you right now. But. But here's the thing. When I saw that stuff happening, I saw in my son an incredibly open. He's always been a very open kid, and he's very. He doesn't have guile. He's very, you know. And I wanted to make sure that we kept that through the teenage years. And so I sat with him one day and I had this conversation. I said to him, I want you to know that you can talk to me about anything. I mean it. I know that it's difficult, but I'm talking sex, drugs, rock and roll and the rest of it. You can bring it to me. I said, I know that that might be difficult, but I just want you to know you can. He goes, I couldn't do that. You're my dad. That's just embarrassing. I couldn't. No, no. And I'm like, look, I understand that. And I can tell you that my dad did that quite badly. I'm telling you, my dad shared stuff, stuff with us at the ages of 9 and 10 years old that made me want to call the helpline. Like, he was way too open as far as I was concerned. And so I said to my son, I get that. And so here's the deal. We're going to have. You can ask me anything. And I think I know roughly where your comfort level is, where the boundary is. And I will do my level best to stop short of the boundary in every case. And this created a context. And so one day he and I were having a conversation about, you know, working out and stuff. And I go, yeah, working out could be really good, you know? And he's now. He's now at the age where it starts to be okay. I think it starts to be okay to talk about girls, but I don't really know yet. And how I find out that it is, is that I'm sitting working one day and I'm. And I've told him, give me an hour to get this work done and then I'll come and help you. I'll come play with you. And he kept pestering me, kept pestering me.

But he's smart.

He doesn't pester me about what he's interested in. He pesters me about what I'm interested in. So he catches my attention and he goes, dad, did you guys work on the Transformers movies? And I'm like, yeah, yeah, totally, totally worked on the Transformers movies. Pirates of the Caribbean, Iron Man. And he goes, what did you do for the Transformers movie? I'm trying to work, but he's asking me a work related question. So I kind of assign 4% of my consciousness to him and I jump into the conversation and I go, well, we did this scene where we blew up this building, a miniature of it, because they didn't want to blow up the real building and all that kind of stuff. And he's like, and he's like, what was your favorite part of the movie? And I, without thinking that I'm Talking to my 12 year old son, I just forget because I'm not engaged. I go, probably the scene where Megan Fox is running in slow motion through.

I can't believe I just said that. I realized I may have just crossed the boundary and broken his and my rule and I'm all terrified. And I turn to look at him.

Like this and he goes, yeah, that was pretty cool, wasn't it, dad? And so this created the dialogue where we could have this. And so he actually asked me a question one day about why I thought physical fitness was helpful when it came to meeting girls and stuff. And I said, well, I said, girls like a guy who's fit, has strong chest and shoulders and legs and bum, and it's just instinctual. They, they don't even know they like it. Sometimes they just do. And he goes, oh, well, if it's instinctual, it's an evolutionary thing, why is it? And I go, well, I can tell you part of it and I can't tell you part of it. And the way we played that game was I just said, I'll tell you up to the boundary. And then I'd come to the boundary and he'd go, okay, tell me a little bit more. And it created this context where anything could be discussed. And I'll tell you one of the reasons that I did this. And by the way, I know you've probably heard some of those stories, Michelle, from me, because you've seen me speak a number of times. But some people, here's a story you've never heard from me, is that when I was from the ages of about 10 until about 13, I got these prank phone calls, which was the cyberbullying of the time. And this is back when phones actually rang and you had to dial them and they were attached to cords and stuff like that. And I used to get these phone calls and this voice, and I remember it still distinctively to this day, you know, I'm not even sure if my parents know this story. I don't even know because at the time I certainly didn't tell them. But this voice would always come and go, Eric, and it would just start saying disgusting things to me all the time. And I would hang up and then they would call back and I was. I lived in fear of this for a long time. And, you know, I. I don't know who it was, but, man, were they good. Because wherever I moved across the country to go live with my father, they found me. This is without Internet, without. I don't know how it happened, but it terrified me. It really, like, freaked me out. And I know that I didn't feel safe to talk to my parents about it, and I don't know why, but that's why I've really worked hard to create that sense of safety so that my son could talk to me about anything. Now he's never come and talk to me about cyberbullying because frankly, I. I pity the fool that tries to cyber bully my son. I do. I pity the fool. Like, don't try. He's smarter than you. I'm telling you right now, he's smarter than me. Like, you don't want to mess with him. But I will tell you that there have been times where this has worked, where he called me from Germany when I sent. He taught himself German and I sent him to summer camp as a bit of a reward. And he called me the last night of summer camp, and he goes, my friends are all going out.

He's 16.

And he says, my friends are all going out to drink beer tonight, and I want to go with them, and I don't want to be left out. How many beers do you think is okay for me to drink my first time? Oh, my God. Like, I don't care. I don't care what award I win anywhere. I could win an Oscar and it wouldn't mean nearly as much as that one question from my son. And so what I would suggest to you is that you want to try and cultivate that around the cyberbullying. And one way is this. Show them the videos of celebrities reading trolls troll comments, because there's lots of them. It's so good. You've got, like, celebrities are reading them out and laughing their asses off, which shows your kids that they're funny and they're stupid and they're not worth it. Show them. And by the way, let them know in advance. You see, you know, you and I, we're we're Internet immigrants, but our children are Internet citizens. You see, we, they were born into the Internet, and, and now some of us have held them back from some of those things, like not let them have mobile phones. So then they're going to hit that at a level of maturity. And maybe that's good, maybe that's bad. I don't have any judgment about it. But what you have the opportunity to do is tell them what a cyber bully is or a troll is before they ever bump into one. Right. And that's. A lot of us didn't have that chance with our kids. So I said, get the celebrities out and show them. And then also here's another thing. Warren, my, my very good friend Warren is in the live audience there somewhere. I don't know where you are, Warren, but I, I, I, Warren shared a really neat story and that was that, you know, this troll attacked him. Let me see if I can find it here in the comments. Oh, it's the way there's so many now. But, you know, he, he, he said that, you know, he was being attacked by this troll and he engaged, but he engaged as Warren with love and light. And, and he ended up winning so many followers from it. He ended up winning, like, attention and followers from it. And by the way, I had a similar thing where about two years ago, a guy attacked me and I just responded with love and light. And I kid you not, he wrote these very things to me and he's now one of my most avid followers and often likes my stuff and comments. He started off trolling me. He said that I was a used car salesman, that I was a shill, that I, that I was just in it for the money. All this garbage that people think when they don't know what they're talking about. And I just stuck with it. Love and light. Love and light. Love and light. And then he wrote this to me. No kidding, publicly, on Facebook. I misjudged you. I'm really sorry. So that's. Show them those stories.

Yeah. So I like that. So using humor and making sure I'm quite lucky with my daughter. We do have a strong connection. She does tell me most things. And I've always had that relationship with my mother, so I think that's essential. And then I love the idea about the celebrity video. And I think the other thing I would add is as a parent, from my perspective, I guess for me, when we're having those conversations and everything's being revealed is the old abc. Always be calming. I think that's going to be my motto. Just so that my eyes are ready to pop, then I'm just going, okay, all right. That's what happened at the party. Okay. So I have to practice my game face but before then. But thank you very much, Eric. The cool strategies, I will rock on with those and get some celebrity videos going.

That sounds really good. You know, I love that idea. I love that idea and I want to just add to it. Love, light, kindness, respect, humor. Those are all great strategies for dealing with this. They just are. If you. And the beautiful thing is is if you just don't let it get to you, then it doesn't matter anyway. And it's fabulous. Michelle, thank you so much for stepping in. Sorry, go ahead.

One of the last things I was going to say was one of the best advice I've been given was never take criticism from someone you wouldn't take advice from. And I think if you're hitting them with the love light and kindness and everything that's the antithesis of what they are, then you're winning, aren't you?

Yeah, absolutely. Well done. That's a great way to finish that segment. Fantastic. Michelle, thanks so very, very, very much. We are going to head over to Khadi Kadri, I should say we're going to head over to Kadri and Kadri, you are live. Say hello to everybody.

Hello.

How are you?

Do you hear me?

Of course we do. Yes, we're all good.

Okay. My English is like it is so I excuse it but I had three questions about different kind. One is how to build self esteem a little bit. I don't know. The two question is what to do your fears because they how to say you can't live your life like you want because you fear so many things so different ways. I don't know. And I had third questions too. If I can ask it right away. It is. Is it possible that if people are lazy and don't willing to do anything there are some several things because they are lazy. First, because they have some kind of illness but they don't know. Maybe even the second they live somebody else's life. I don't know.

Your mother, Kadri. Let's, let's. I need to let me deal with these things a little bit one at a time. So let's talk a little bit about building self esteem. Self esteem is. It's. It's an inside job. It's not anything to do with anybody else. And, and that's one of the toughest things For a lot of us to get, it really is self. I mean, the clue is in the name self esteem, right? How do you feel about yourself? It's self esteem. It's, it's, it's a self motivated job. It's, it's only you. And so one of the things that we really have to, really have to get to is that we stop giving power to other people. We stop giving power to other people to affect our sense of self worth or our sense of self esteem. And never is that more true than with some, you know, dysfunctional little pinheaded troll sitting off on the Internet, just simply attention seeking and trying to damage you. Allowing that person to hurt us is insane. It's just, it doesn't make any sense at all. But we have to bring a degree of consciousness to that, to block it, to stop it, to say, that's not a real person. It doesn't really matter. Now, one way that I do that is that I just create a picture in my head. I create a picture in my head about what I, you know, when, when somebody starts trolling, you know, or sort of attacking me, I just start thinking to myself, well, hang on a minute, who is this person? Like, who is this person that's trolling me? Like, if this person is standing there in the room with me, would their opinion even matter to me to begin with? And often I can tell you that the pictures I create in my head about the people that are writing to me are not very flattering. You know, they're not, they're not. And you know, the truth is they're probably pretty right sometimes too, because you got to think about the type of energy that somebody has when their entire life is about tearing other people down. They're not going to look healthy for sure, you know, and so I do that. I create that picture. But let's talk about your actual question. Did you guys work on the Transformers movies? And I'm like, yeah, yeah, totally, totally worked on the Transformers movies, Pirates of the Caribbean, Iron Man. And he goes, what did you do for the Transformers? I mean, I'm trying to work, but he's asking me a work related question. So I kind of assign 4% of my consciousness to him. And I jump into the conversation and I go, well, we did this scene where we blew up this building, a miniature of it, because they didn't want to blow up the real building and all that kind of stuff. And he's like, and he's like, what was your favorite part of the movie? And I, without thinking that I'm talking to my 12 year old son. I just forget because I'm not engaged. I go, probably the scene where Megan Fox was running in slow motion through.

I can't believe I just said that. I realized I may have just crossed the boundary and broken his and my rule and I'm all terrified. And I turn to look at him.

Like this and he goes, yeah, that was pretty cool, wasn't it dad? And so this created the dialogue where we could have this. And so he actually asked me a question one day about why I thought physical fitness was helpful when it came to meeting girls and stuff. And I said, well, I said, girls like a guy who's fit, has strong chest and shoulders and legs and bum, and it's just instinctual. They don't even know they like it. Sometimes they just do. And he goes, oh, well, if it's instinctual, it's an evolutionary thing, why is it? And I go, well, I can tell you part of it and I can't tell you part of it. And the way we played that game was I just said, I'll tell you up to the boundary and then I'd come to the boundary and he'd go, okay, tell me a little bit more. And it created this context where anything could be discussed. And I'll tell you one of the reasons that I did this. And I. By the way, I know you've probably heard some of those stories, Michelle, from me, because you've seen me speak a number of times. But some people. Here's a story you've never heard from me is that when I was from the ages of about 10 until about 13, I got these prank phone calls, which was the cyberbullying of the time. And this is back when phones actually rang and you had to dial them and they were attached to cords and stuff like that. And I used to get these phone calls and this voice, and I remember it still distinctively to this day. You know, I'm not even sure if my parents know this story. I don't even know because at the time I certainly didn't tell them. But this voice would always come in and go, eric. And it would just start saying disgusting things to me all the time. And I would hang up and then they would call back and I was, I lived in fear of this for a long time. And you know, I don't know who it was, but man, were they good. Because wherever I moved across the country to go live with my father, they found me. This is without Internet, without, I don't know how it happened, but it terrified me. It really, like, freaked me out. And I know that I didn't feel safe to talk to my parents about it. And I don't know why, but that's why I've really worked hard to create that sense of safety so that my son could talk to me about anything. Now he's never come and talk to me about cyberbullying because frankly, I. I pity the fool that tries to cyber bully my son. I do. I pity the fool. Don't try. He's smarter than you. I'm telling you right now, he's smarter than me. Like, you don't want to mess with him. But I will tell you that there have been times where this has worked, where he called me from Germany when I sent. He taught himself German and I sent him to summer camp as a bit of a reward. And he called me the last night of summer camp and he goes, my friends are all going out.

He's 16.

And he says, my friends are all going out to drink beer tonight, and I want to go with them. And I don't want to be left out. How many beers do you think is okay for me to drink my first time? Oh my God, Like, I don't care. I don't care what award I win anywhere. I could win an Oscar and it wouldn't mean nearly as much as that one question from my son. And so what I would suggest to you is that you want to try and cultivate that around the cyberbullying. And one way is this. Show them the videos of celebrities reading troll troll comments because there's lots of them. It's so good. You've got like, celebrities are reading them out and laughing their asses off, which shows your kids that they're funny and they're stupid and they're not worth it. Show them. And by the way, let them know in advance. You see, you know, you and I, we're Internet immigrants, but our children are Internet citizens. You see, we. They were born into the Internet and, and now some of us have held them back from some of those things, like not let them have mobile phones. So then they're going to hit that at a level of maturity. And maybe that's good, maybe that's bad. I don't have any judgment about it. But what you have the opportunity to do is tell them what a cyber bully is or a troll is before they ever bump into one. Right? And that's a lot of us didn't have that chance with our kids. So I Said get the celebrities out and show them. And then also here's another thing. Warren, my, My very good friend Warren is in the live audience there somewhere. I don't know where you are, Warren, but I, I, I, I. Warren shared a really neat story and that was that, you know, this troll attacked him. Let me see if I can find it here in the comments. Oh, it's way. There's so many now. But, you know, he, he, he said that, you know, he was being attacked by this troll and he engaged. But he engaged as Warren with love and light. And, and he ended up winning so many followers from it. He ended up winning, like, attention and followers from it. And by the way, I had a similar thing where about two years ago, a guy attacked me and I just responded with love and light. And I kid you not, he wrote these very things to me. And he's now one of my most avid followers and often likes my stuff and comments. He started off trolling me. He said that I was a used car salesman, that I was a shill, that I, that I was just in it for the money. All this garbage that people think when they don't know what they're talking about. And I just stuck with it. Love and light. Love and light. Love and light. And then he wrote this to me. No kidding, publicly, on Facebook. I misjudged you. I'm really sorry. So that's. Show them those stories.

Yeah. So I like that. Using humor and making sure I'm quite lucky with my daughter. We do have a strong connection. She does tell me most things, and I've always had that relationship with my mother, so I think that's essential. And then I love the idea about the celebrity video. And I think the other thing I would add is as a parent, from my perspective, I guess for me, when we're having those conversations and everything's being revealed is the old abc. Always be calming. I think that seemed to be my motto. Just so that if my eyes are ready to pop, then I'm just going, okay, all right. That's what happened at the party. Okay. So I have to practice my game face before then, but thank you very much, Eric. The cool strategies. I will rock on with those and get some celebrity videos going.

That sounds really good. You know, I love that idea. I love that idea and I want to just add to it. Love, light, kindness, respect, humor. Those are all great strategies for dealing with this. They just are if you. And the beautiful thing is, is if you just don't let it get to you, then it doesn't matter anyway and it's fabulous. Michelle, thank you so much for stepping in. Sorry, go ahead.

This is one of the last things I was going to say was one of the best advice I've been given was never take criticism from someone you wouldn't take advice from. And I think if you're hitting them with the love light and kindness and everything that's the antithesis of what they are, then you're winning, aren't you?

Yeah, absolutely. Well done. That's a great way to finish that segment. Fantastic. Michelle, thanks so very, very, very much. We are going to head over to Kadi Kadri, I should say we're going to head over to Kadri and Kadri, you are live. Say hello to everybody.

Hello.

How are you?

Do you hear me?

Of course we do. Yes, we're all good.

Okay. My English is like it is so I excuse it but I had three questions about different kind. One is how to build self esteem a little bit. I don't know. The two question is what do you do with your fears? Because they how to say you can't live your life like you want because you fear so many things so different ways. I don't know. And I had third questions too, if I can ask it right away. It is, is it possible that if people are lazy and too willing to do anything, there are some, several things because they are lazy. First, because they have some kind of illness but they don't know. Maybe even the second they live somebody else's life. I don't know.

Your mother, Kadri, let's, let's, I need to, let me deal with these things a little bit one at a time. So let's talk a little bit about building self esteem. Self esteem is, it's an inside job. It's not anything to do with anybody else. And that's one of the toughest things for a lot of us to get. It really is. The clue is in the name self esteem. Right. How do you feel about yourself? It's self esteem. It's a self motivated job. It's only you. And so one of the things that we really have to, really have to get to is that we stop giving power to other people. We stop giving power to other people to affect our sense of self worth or our sense of self esteem. And never is that more true than with some, you know, dysfunctional little pinheaded troll sitting off on the Internet just simply attention seeking and trying to damage you. Allowing that person to hurt us is insane. It's Just, it doesn't make any sense at all. But we have to bring a degree of consciousness to that, to block it, to stop it, to say, that's not a real person, it doesn't really matter. Now one way that I do that is that I just create a picture in my head. I create a picture in my head about what I, you know, when somebody starts trolling, you know, or sort of attacking me, I just start thinking to myself, well, hang on a minute, who is this person? Like, who is this person that's trolling me? Like, if this person is standing there in the room with me, would their opinion even matter to me to begin with? And often I can tell you that the pictures I create in my head about the people that are writing to me are not very flattering. You know, they're not. And you know, the truth is they're probably pretty right sometimes too because you got to think about the type of energy that somebody has when their entire life is about tearing other people down. They're not going to look healthy for sure, you know, and so I do that, I create that picture. But let's talk about your actual question. And that is how to build self esteem. Kadri. This is my number one, my number one way to build self esteem. Make small promises to yourself and keep them. Make small promises to yourself and keep them. Just small things to start with. Just today I will not do this or today I will do this. Today I will do what my higher consciousness really wants me to do. You know, like for example, you probably know, through the work I do with Wildfit, I'm always helping people figure out their relationship with food. Well, you know what's really tough for people is they, they what? They go on a diet and the diet gives them a bunch of rules they break. Through the work I do with Wildfit, I'm always helping people figure out their relationship with food. Well, you know what's really tough for people is they, they, they what? They go on a diet and the diet gives them a bunch of rules. They break the rules and they break their self esteem, making it harder to stick to the rules.

Right.

Whereas if somebody says, you know what? Today, just today, just today rules and they break their self esteem, making it harder to stick to the rules. Right. Whereas if somebody says, you know what, Today, just today, just today I'm not going to have any chocolate just today I'm not, I'm not against any, I'm not going to have any chocolate just today I'm not, I'm not against anybody. I don't think anybody should give up chocolate for life unless they want to. But maybe today it would be a good idea because maybe they shouldn't have it every day. But you know what's really great? When they go to sleep that night and they wake up the next morning and they kept their promise, don't they feel better about themselves in that moment? I don't think anybody should give up chocolate for life unless they want to. But maybe today it would be a good idea because maybe, oh yeah, I did what I said I was going to do. And that is the single best way to build self esteem is to develop a relationship of trust with yourself. Do what you say you're going to do. And one of the ways to do that is to make a difference. Maybe they shouldn't have it every day, but you know what's really great when they go to sleep that night? To make a big difference between a generalized commitment of what you intend to to do on a given day and they wake up the next morning and they kept their promise. Don't they feel better about themselves in that moment? They go, yeah, I did what I said I was going to do. And that is the single best way to be a firm promise to yourself of what you're going to do that day. On my wall over here I have a big board and it has post it notes on it and one of them is the stuff that I promise I'm getting done today. Then there's another one of stuff I can do if I want to, I should get it done this week. And the other one is random project self esteem is to develop a relationship of trust with yourself. Do I can work on whenever I want but I have to get the promised ones done. And you know what's great? I never don't. I always get them done. If they're in that box, I always get them done. I don't always put things in that box because I don't always like the pressure of it. But the good news is is that I do what you say you're going to do. And one of the ways to do that is to make a difference, to always keep the promise. So I feel good about myself. That is the my. There's other ways. We could have a whole work. We could have a weekend workshop on building self esteem. But I'll sell to. I'm going to ask you to start with that one thing to make a big difference between a generalized commitment of what you intend to do on a given day and a Firm promise to yourself of what you're going to do that day. On my wall over here I have a big board and it has post it notes on it and one of them is the stuff that I promise I'm getting done today. Live in in your own integrity. Do what you say you're going to do. Start with small promises and get them bigger and bigger. Bigger just like you would have weights. Start with small weights and then build bigger ones and you will slowly feel better and better and better every step of the way. Remind me your second question.

It was what do you do with your fears?

Oh well you know I think that here, here's Then there's another one of stuff I can do if I want to to I should get it done this week. And the other one is random project. An important distinction, a very important distinction. There is a difference between your fear and danger. There's optics I can work on whenever I want but I have to get the promised ones done. And you know what's great? I never don't. I always get them done. If they're in that box I always get them done. Big difference between fear and danger. Fear is, is fake. I love the acronym False evidence Appearing real Fear is not necessary. I don't always put things in that box because I don't always like the pressure of it. But the good news is is that necessarily true? Right where danger is necessarily true. So for example, I've been you know off walking in the bush in Africa and I've stumbled upon a lion over there. Now what's true is that there's a lion. I don't have to be afraid. But it could be that fear could be helpful in that moment. But you know what isn't helpful is if I see a lion track and I start to feel fear immediately. Always keep the promise. So I feel good about myself. That is the my there's other ways we could have because that's going to change my logical thinking. You don't have to be have a whole work. We could have a weekend workshop on building self esteem but I'll sell to I'm going to ask you to start with that one thing. Live in your own integrity. Do what you say you're going to do. Afraid to avoid danger. Fear is only there for when you consciously haven't done a good enough job to avoid the danger. And now fear has kicked in to put you into autopilot to make sure that you're start with small promises and get them bigger and bigger. Bigger just like you would have Weights start with small weights. Body avoids the danger. But if you consciously can avoid the danger yourself, then you never have to go into the full fear mode. Now let's take a step back from this for a minute. Kadri, do you drive, do you drive cars?

Yes.

You do?

Okay.

And I'm, you know, like, how do you, how do you do that? Because that's, I mean, that's like scary like, Kadri, there are cars on the other side of the road and they're coming. And then build bigger ones and you will slowly feel better and better and better every step of the way at you. What stops them from crossing the road and, and hitting you head on? What stops them? Remind me your second question.

It was, what do you do with your fear? I don't fear that.

Why not? They could do it.

It happens all the time. You should be afraid of that.

But that's incredibly dangerous when that happens. Oh, well, you know, I think that here's an important distinction, a very important distinction. There is a difference. You don't, you don't have fear. How do you, how did you let go of your fear of that? How do you trust?

I don't know. It never weather.

You understand what I'm saying is that it's a choice. It would be very easy. By the way, the next time you're driving in your car, I want you to notice, wow, look at this. I'm trusting all those people because you know what's keeping them on the other side of the road? The paint. The paint.

It's paint.

Between your fear and danger, there's a.

It's paint. It's not even. It's paint.

And their own big difference between fear and danger. Fear is fake self interest, incidentally. And, and so what I'm going to suggest to you is that very often fear is actually a choice based on an illusion. And, and, and by the way, I love the acronym False evidence Appearing real. Fear is not necessarily true.

Right.

Where danger is necessarily true. Stop. Being afraid is a choice based on another illusion. The illusion that it's safe to drive down the road. That's an illusion, too. And so the question is, what if you became like, if somebody was afraid that the car was going to cross the line, they'd have to stop driving. And by the way, there are people like this. There are people that are so afraid to drive, they can't even drive across the road. I was driving across Chapman's Peak in South Africa one day and it's this incredible, phenomenal mountain pass. And on Nuwenzo for example, I've been, you know, off walking in the bush in Africa and I've stumbled upon a lion. Over there side there's cliff and on the other side there's cliff hundreds of feet into the ocean. Now what's true is that there's a lion. I don't have to be a fishin in this tiny little wall.

It's so scary to drive on that road.

It's so scary. And my parents are telling me years ago they were driving along this road and there was somebody coming up on the wrong side of the road. They were coming up the wrong side of the road like they were hugging. But it could be that fear could be helpful in that moment. But you know what isn't helpful is if I see a lion track and I start to feel fear immediately. The cliff not. They should have been on the fall off side of the road. But they were and they got head to head and they're like, you move.

Over, we have to get through. And they're like we can't, we can't cross to the other side. You're gonna have to go around us. They were so terrified of falling off.

The cliff which they weren't gonna do because you see they could be driving because that's going to change my logical thinking. You don't have to be down that road and there could have been trees there. They weren't sitting going, what if we.

Hit one of those trees?

Which by the way afraid to avoid danger. Fear is only there for when you consciously haven't done it would be just as bad. But you see, that's how fear works. It's not rational. So here's some things you can do, Kadri. Breathe. When you start to.

What?

What are some of the things that you're afraid of?

Change.

And a good enough job to avoid the danger. And now fear is kicked in to put you into autopilot to make sure that your body avoids the danger. But if you consciously can avoid the danger yourself, then you never have to go in change. Yeah, change can be terrifying. Except change can also be really good. To the full fear mode. Now let's take a step back from this for a minute. Kadri. Do you want everything in your life to be exactly the same as it is right now? In one year?

I understand that I have feared to leave my work so long I didn't just go. So at the moment I drive.

Do you drive cars?

Yes.

You do?

Okay. And, and, and I am on unemployment and I'm feeling like oh.

So. So hang on a minute. You're admitting online, you know, like, how do you. How do you do that? Because that's. I mean, that's like, scary. Like, I've broadcast that you kind of wish you'd quit your job. Is that what you're saying? Because it tells me you're halfway there, Kadri. There are cars on the other side of the road and they're. They're coming here. You're halfway there.

So, yes, I see him. Because I understand now that it was some kind of fear that keep me back.

Yeah, I think so. And now that you've been the lockdown so forced you to be home, you're starting to enjoy the freedom of it and so on. But you know, Kadri, one of the things I want to suggest to you is that at you, what stops them from crossing the road and hitting you head on? What stops them? Sometimes it's about where you put the fear. Because you know what would terrify me? Let me tell you what would terrify me.

I don't fear that.

Why not? They could do me a job. A job.

God, that would frighten me. Oh, my God. Somebody else telling me when to show up, what to work on, when I could leave, how much they're gonna pay me, how many of you? And it happens all the time. You should be afraid of that.

What? That's incredibly dangerous when that happens. You don't. You don't have fear. How do you. How did you let go of your fear of that? How do you trust. Who are terrified of that idea? I'm curious, who's terrified of that?

Look at that. You've got a bunch of job phobics right there in the audience.

And so, Kadri, one of the things you could do is don't get rid of your fear, just shift it. Because let me ask you a new question. Are you afraid of going back to work when the lockdown is over?

I don't have the same work. I don't know. It never where there because I was boring there.

Ah, so you have left. Understand what I'm saying is that it's a choice. It would be very easy, by the way, then.

No, no, no. They quit. The whole company quit.

Oh, the whole company quit. Okay. But let's say another company, same company, same people, they restart and they offer you a job. Would you go back?

No.

No. Next time you're driving in your car, I want you to notice. Wow, look at this. I'm trusting all those people. Because you know what's Keeping them on the other side of the road. The paint. The paint.

It's paint.

Why? Because you're more afraid of going back.

Yep, it's paint. It's not even.

It's paint and their own.

Are you afraid again?

Yeah, but you see the whole point is sometimes it's just a matter of shifting what you're afraid of. You know, like I would say, like for me I'd be afraid of getting a job with somebody. And by the way, this happened to me, it's happened to me twice in my life. Once after I quit one job and started my company. And I was self interest incidentally. And so what I'm going to suggest to you is that very often fear is actually a choice based on an illusion. And by the way, not being afraid is a choice based on another illusion. The illusion that it's safe to drive down the road, that's an illusion too. Terrified. I had no money, recently married, baby on the way and I started my business and I was so scared. And then the, and this is 1997 and this company approached me and offered me £90,000 a year and a really top class Mercedes to come and manage their business, which was the same basic job that I. And so the question is, what if you became like if somebody was afraid that the car I had before and oh my God, I wanted to take the job. The security of it, ah, the peace of mind. Here I was wondering how I was going to pay the rent. And I mean like 90,000 pound back then, I mean that was when pounds were heavy. I don't know how they are these days, but those were some serious pounds back then. And I tell you something, in the end I was going to cross the line, they'd have to stop driving. And by the way, there are people like this, there are people that are so afraid to drive they can't even drive across the road. I was driving across Chapman's Peak in South Africa one day and it's this incredible, incredible, phenomenal mountain pass. And once realized it was my fear of the job that was stronger than my fear of the insecurity of not having a job. It then happened to me again a little while ago where I had bought this movie studio in Northern California and I was running into all kinds of difficulties with it and in the end I didn't know how it was going to turn out. And a friend of mine came to me and he offered me a job and I'm not kidding you, it was 900,000 side, there's Cliff and on the other side there's cliff hundreds of feet into the ocean. Dollars a year, I'm not kidding. $900,000 a year plus bonuses and other stuff and so on. And I seriously considered it. I'm like, that's ridiculous. I just worked for him for a couple of years. What a difference. I mean, what. And suddenly I thought to myself, oh my God, no. I future paced it. One thing I knew about him, and he's a very good friend of mine, I loved him and respected him. And sadly, he's been in this tiny little wall. It's so scary to drive on that road. It's so scary. And my parents are telling me years ago they were driving along this road and there was somebody coming up on the wrong side of the road. They were coming up the wrong side of the road, like they were hugging, passed away since. But one thing I knew about him is that he had a shouting relationship with many of his friends, like with many of his employees. And so when, when I turned the job down, he's how could you possibly turn down a job that pays this well? And it's, you know, and I go, well, because I'm going to lose the job anyway. And he said, why? And I go, well, because you yell at people. And so you'd yell at me once, I'd let it go and you'd yell at me the second time. And then I'd quit and then our friendship would be damaged. The cliff, not. They should have been on the fall off side of the road, but they were because you'd given me this job and I didn't stay. And I'm more afraid of that. So. So he and I had a laugh and with respect, we went our different ways. But what I'm trying to say, Kadri, is it's not so much a matter of like getting rid of fear, it's a matter of assigning fear in the right place.

And they got head to head and they're like, you move over, we have to get through. And they're like, we can't.

And moving it around and calming yourself down and not thinking from a position.

We can't cross to the other side, you're gonna have to go around us. They were so terrified of falling off.

The cliff, which they weren't gonna do because you see, they could be driving fear. So as I said a few minutes ago, one of the things I suggest you is the next time you're feeling some fear, I want you to go out into the forest and I want you to breathe fresh Air. And go for a nice walk. And I've been in the forest in Estonia and they're amazing. And they're like. It's. The wilderness is incredible. So go out and enjoy the fresh down that road. And there could have been trees there. They weren't sitting going, what if we.

Hit one of those trees?

Which by the way, air. And breathe deeply and notice if you don't start to feel better immediately. I think you had a third question too.

Yes, but it was about laziness and not willing to do anything.

It would be just as bad.

But you see, that's how fear works. It's not rational.

Is it possible that when somebody lives somebody else's life, like your parents were bookkeepers and you are. You didn't want to do that. But. But that happens and you aren't. How to say it. You don't like.

So here's some things you can do. Kadri.

Breathe.

When you start to.

What.

What are some of the things that you're afraid of?

Change Situation where you are. Does it possible that it make you lazy?

Because change. Yeah, change can be terrifying. Except change can also be really good.

Yes.

Here's a great thing. People sometimes call me a motivational speaker. And I don't like that. I've never liked it. I'm not a motivational speaker. I'm a realist, maybe an inspirational speaker at best, an empowerment speaker, an educator, a transformer. But I am not like, do you want everything in your life to be exactly the same as it is right now in one year? A motivator. Why? Because people only ever need to be motivated to do things they don't want to do.

I understand that. I have.

And so there's only two reasons I've ever found for people to be lazy. The one is they don't want to do the thing. Or the other one is.

Is that.

Well, there's three. They don't want to do the thing. The other one is they've created a habit of laziness and they're just having a hard time breaking the cycle.

Or the other one is feared to leave my work so long is that.

Their biochemistry is off, they've been eating the wrong things and they're low on energy. And so when you look at those three things about laziness. Well, one, if. If it's reason number one, if you're lazy because you don't.

I didn't just go, so I want.

To do it, then you got to find a way to not have to do it anymore. Life is too damn short. Life is too short to do stuff you don't want to do, in my opinion. And then the second one is, is that if it's a matter of happy.

I'm on unemployment and I'm feeling like, oh.

So it's kind of like. Well, actually, like, here's a good example. A lot of times people do want to write, but they're.

So.

So hang on a minute. You're admitting online feeling lazy about it because in the moment, they haven't created the habit. So how do you create the habit? Minimum viable achievement. You write a small number of words every single day for of 10 days. And now you're a writer. Then you write a slightly bigger number of words for the next 10 days. Now you're really a writer, but you built the skill a little bit over time. Broadcast that you kind of wish you'd quit your job. Is that what you're saying? Because it tells me you're halfway there. And if it's the biochemistry, which in today's world it often is, one of the best ways to end laziness is to end a relationship with carbohydrates. Not end it, but certainly take major breaks from it. Carbohydrates create laziness by design. And so when people. You're halfway there.

So, yes, I think so.

Because people overeat carbohydrates, they have a hard time with energy management and it is tough to stay on track.

So I understand now that it was some kind of fear that Keep me back.

Oh, when they need to have a lot of energy, we suggest to them that they go to what we call wildfit spring. Yeah, I think so. And now that you've been. The lockdowns forced you to be home, you're starting to. Or a ketogenic state where they're burning fat and then they don't have the same level of laziness. Kadri, you have stimulated some phenomenal conversation today on the show. I'm really glad you're here. And by the way, please never apologize for your English again. Your English is great and I'm starting to enjoy the freedom of it and so on. But, you know, Kadri, one of the things I want to suggest to you is that it's getting better all the time and it's a lot better than my Estonian, I can tell you that for sure.

Thank you.

Thanks for being on the show. All right, that was cadre, everybody. And we are gonna go over to Ingrid. Ingrid is going to be joining us. Sometimes it's about where you put the fear. Because you know what would terrify me? Let me tell you what would terrify us in a moment here. Ingrid, you are your life, and you're on the show. I mean, a job. A job.

God, that would.

And you'll need to mute the video you're watching.

All right, that was Cadre.

Frightened me. Oh, my God. Somebody else telling me when to show up.

Everybody.

Okay, Ingrid, I'm gonna have to. Okay, Ingrid, listen, you need to turn your sound.

Hi.

Okay, somebody on my team, you're gonna have to educate Ingrid about how to do that. I can't talk to her.

What to work on, when I could leave, how much they're gonna pay me.

How many of you with this double soundtrack going on. So please welcome Leslie, and we'll try and get back to Ingrid once we've corrected that issue. Leslie, you're live. Welcome. You are terrified of that idea. I'm curious who's terrified of that?

Look at that. You've got a bunch of job phobics right there in the audience.

And so, Kadri, one of the things you could do is don't get rid.

Hello?

You can hear me okay.

Yep.

Okay, great.

Funny, my daughter peeked in and said you look like Tony Stark when she heard you say that.

Well, you know, you can tell her something. You can tell her something. Just shift it, because let me ask you a new question. Are you afraid of going that there. There are actually a couple of photographs of Tony Stark that I can show them to relatives of mine, and they think it's me. Like, there's a few. Not many. There's just a few camera angles. But here's the real funny part. I used to own a military contracting research and development company, and I also owned, at the same time, a Hollywood special effects company that worked on the Iron man movies. So back to work when the lockdown is over.

I don't have the same work.

There's a connection there somewhere.

She heard you say that because I was boring there.

Ah, so you have left.

No, no, no. They quit.

Oh.

The whole.

She looked in and she said, he looks like Tony Stark.

That's so funny.

Anyway, Michelle and I have similar topics. It's funny. We seem to follow each other's thinking, but what advice would you give about trolling and the Internet use with teens, especially with lgbt.

Company quit. Okay, but let's say another company. Same company, same people. They.

Q.

Now is my question.

Go ahead, Leslie, Go ahead.

Oh, I was gonna say, for me.

I've learned restart and they offer you a job, would you go back? No, no.

The don't engage, don't respond. I've learned to deal with X's and all that. Just, you know, when you're fired up, anything, don't engage. But for teens it is.

Why? Because you're more afraid of going back?

Yes.

I'm afraid again.

Yeah, but you see different especially dealing with that topic.

Yeah, it really is. I believe that some of the things that I spoke with Michelle about are really what's important. The lesson I got from 13 reasons why we don't know enough about our kids. We don't know what's going on. They're. They're afraid to come and talk to us about bullying or they're afraid to come and talk to us. The whole point is sometimes it's just a matter of shifting what you're afraid of, you know, like about that kind of stuff. So the very first job of any parent in my opinion, I would say like for me I'd be afraid of getting a job if somebody. And by the way this happened to me, it's happened to me is to get to a place where you're, where your kids are comfortable to talk to you about anything. That's the first job that you want your kids to be able to talk to you about anything. And I really, I really believe that is one of the. If you can achieve it, and I'm not saying it's easy, but if you can achieve it. Twice in my life, once after I quit one job and started my company and I was terrified. I had no money, recently married, baby on the way and I started my business and I was. You really have to. And I'll give you a crazy metaphor, it's a little off color metaphor but I'll give you a crazy metaphor about this because it deals with sensitive topics. And that was years and years ago. I read these books by this woman, Nancy Friday and she. What she was fascinated by was sexual fantasies. She was curious about how. Sexual fantasies. So scared. And then the. And this is 1997 and this company approached him about and what they were and, and what she found was that men seemed to be quite free to discuss with me and offered me £90,000 a year and a. Really fantasies. But women didn't seem to have any. And so she just, but she knew she did. So she was like why, why do I. So then she took out these ads all over the world in classified newspaper ads and stuff back when there was newspapers and she asked people to submit their, their Top class Mercedes to come and manage their business, which was the same basic job that I had before. And oh my God, I wanted to take the job. The security of it, their fantasies. And you know what she found is that men do. Men have them and men are willing to discuss them. And men have about four. They have the same four. They, Men are very. Men have an entire lack of imagination when it comes to this stuff. I'm sorry, women, on behalf of men, I apologize for our lack of imagination. But women have no lack of imagination. She found out the peace of mind. Here I was wondering how I was going to pay the rent. And I mean like nine have the most phenomenal, unbelievable many fantasies that they don't even want the thousand pound back then. I mean that was when pounds were heavy. I don't know how they are these days to experience. They just like them in their head. And, and, and you know what? Then Nancy said that changed my life. She said the reason men don't know about them is they judge them. The reason men don't know about these fantasies is that they judge them. A woman comes up to you one day and she goes, but those were some serious pounds back then. And I tell you something, in the end I realized it was my fear of the job that was stronger than my fear of the insecurity of not having a job. It then I really like to clean feet. I just like I have a foot fetish. And then men go, what feet?

That's just weird.

Well, that's the last time she's sharing with you.

That's over.

And all the other stuff you were hoping was going to happen, never going to happen now because you've shut her down. Right? And so I think we can learn something about that with our kids as well. Happened to me again a little while ago where I had bought this movie studio in Northern California and I was running. And so one of the things we have to figure out is that when our kids come to us and they're wanting to talk to us about what's going on, we have to watch our reactions immediately. So for example, your child comes along and go, this person here said these horrible things about me.

And you go, I'm gonna go to the principal right now.

And I'm getting into all kinds of difficulties with it. And in the end I didn't know how it was going to turn out. And a friend of mine came to me and he offered me a job. And I'm not kidding you, it was 900,000. Okay, that's not what your kid wanted.

Right?

Because now you've made it worse. And so your reaction, Dollars a year, I'm not kidding. $900,000 a year plus bonuses and other. Whether it's 100% on their side or judging it or going, oh, don't. That's just silly. Anything you say say is silly. Sorry. Anything you say that isn't just straightforward logical is actually a motive and judgmental. So for example, to men everywhere stuff and so on. And I, I seriously considered it. I'm like, how that's ridiculous. I just worked for him for. Your wife comes and says to you recently, I've been curious about fill in the blank. I don't care what the blank is. I don't care what it is your wife says to you recently, I've been curious about fill in the blank. You should go, that's interesting.

That's it.

I don't care what judgment you have about it. I don't care how weird you think it is. You go, that's interesting because now you're going to be able to have a conversation with a couple of years. What a difference. I mean, and suddenly I thought to myself, oh my God, no. I future paced it. One thing I knew about him, and he's a very good friend of mine. I loved him and respected him. And sadly, he's passed away since. But one thing I knew about him is that he had a shouting relationship with me. Well, let's do the same thing with our teens. The next time your teens come to you and they're like, my kids are using drugs over here, you don't go.

Oh my God, drugs are the worst thing.

You know, I learned something so valuable from Paul McCartney about this. I saw this interview where Paul was talked, where they were at any of his friends, like with many of his employees.