How to Handle BULLIES - #BelieveLife

Hello, Believe Nation! Today we're gonna talk about how you can handle bullying. Rule number 1 is my personal favorite, and I'd love to know which one you guys like the best. As always, guys, as you're watching the clips, if you hear somebody say something that really resonates with you, please leave it in the comments below and put quotes around it so other people can be inspired as well. Also, when you write it down, it's much more likely to stick with yourself too.

Enjoy.

I've become an expert on this because I was one of those being bullied. And most people wouldn't think of that about me because I'm 6'7", but I was actually always the smallest kid in my class. Part of what kept me going was a vision in my mind that said, "They may do this to me today, but someday, you know, my life will be anymore. I won't be the person that people verbally or physically abuse. And I remember being in high school and envisioning someday I was going to become the successful person and I was going to make a difference, and, and I'd become, you know, financially successful. The, the fact that we had no money was one of the things that I was bullied about most. And, um, I remember I signed in a couple of these bullies' uh, annuals at the end of the year. I got a hold of their annuals and I wrote these horrible things. I became the bully, right? They didn't know it. I wrote these horrible things saying, someday you'll be a truck driver and I'll be rich and famous, and you'll be there wishing you were me they treated me better. And so I remember I went to my 10-year high school reunion. I talked to my mom, and my mom has not been much of a coach in my life, quite frankly. But that day she was really interesting. She said, what's going on? I said, I'm going on my 10-year high school reunion, and I just want to say hello. I'm driving my way up. And she goes, honey, I can hear something in your voice. What is it? I said, nothing. And what it was is when I was going up there, I remembered what it was like 10 years before when I felt so alone, when I felt totally an outsider, when I felt I feared for what was going to happen to me physically, or at least being harassed. And I felt, you know, just so different outside and alone. And she said, "Honey," she said, I didn't tell her any of that, and she said, "Honey, you were always the outsider, you were always the loner." And she goes, "Look what being different got you." She goes, "Now, how many people are in your high school?" And I said, "I don't know, 2,000." She goes, "5,000 people show up to hear you speak." She said, "You know, for one weekend." She said, "Look what that's done." And that's what I try to tell young people that are going through it is, again, it's not where you start out, it's where you end up. Some of the toughest experiences life will give you drive, if you don't let it destroy you. If you realize that this person who's a bully is often a bully because they're massively insecure, and just go, this is temporary, and get yourself with a peer group of people who respect you, who love you, appreciate you, who you appreciate and love, and spend more of your time there. You'll find yourself, if you're filled up by the rest of your life, you can handle the challenges there. If it gets physical, then you gotta go to some authority that can help stop that situation if you can't protect yourself.

Growing up Asian American and trying to play basketball was really tough at times. Sometimes people would make fun of me and they would just say, you know, "Oh, you're Yao Ming," and, you know, that's not that bad. Sometimes it would get a little worse. They would say, "Oh, you're a Chinese import," or, "Go back to China," or, "Can you see the scoreboard with your eyes?" And then sometimes it got really ridiculous. You know, people would call me just "chink" or "gook" or, you know, just racist terms like that. And I remember one time I got really upset I kind of lost control and responded really negatively, and my coach kind of told me after the game, he said, "Jeremy, you know, when people say that to you, they're just trying to get in your head, and honestly, the best thing to do is to take that negative energy and turn it into positive energy. Fuel yourself, motivate yourself with that. Don't react in anger." And so my, you know, My lesson that I learned, and if there's anything I could pass on to you guys, is a lot of times bullies like to bully other people because of certain insecurities they have themselves. And so don't let somebody else tell you who you are or what you can or can't do. Definitely look inside yourself, have confidence in yourself, believe in yourself, and understand what makes you such a unique and special person. Everybody has different and really cool characteristics, skills, talents, and so never lose sight of that. Just always stay positive, and hopefully one day you'll take a look back at these experiences and realize, hey, you know, me getting bullied or me having to go through these experiences only made me stronger.

One of the greatest pieces of advice I've ever gotten in my life was from my mom. You know, when I was a little kid, there was a kid who was bugging me, you know, in school. And she said, okay, I'm gonna tell you what to do. She said, the kid's bugging you, he puts his hands on you, You pick up the nearest rock or whatever you can get your hands on and you lay him out.

And I did.

And I felt better. And it worked. So for me, you know, that was a great lesson because Someone had invaded my space, invaded my being, you know, and was doing something against me that I didn't want to be done. So I took control of the situation and I ran with it. And many years later, after being, you know, turned into a product, you know, by a very huge corporation that had their hands all over me and I couldn't escape it, you know. I promised myself that I would continue to move forward and do my best not to compromise in any way whatsoever, you know, not allow anyone to put their hands on me. And affect me in that way. So that's the best advice I think I could give, is just to keep moving forward and don't give a shit what anybody thinks, you know. Just keep moving forward and do what you have to do for you.

You know, I work in a business where some people are a little bit arrogant, and, you know, maybe they're having a bad day. And, you know, I've seen this thing kind of happen where, you know, you're on a film set and someone seems to be in a really bad mood and they're treating people pretty badly. And generally you can you can see that they're treating, like, an extra badly, or a stand-in badly, or a cameraman badly. No one ever confronts them. And I'm a big confronter. I will generally call a meeting into my trailer with a producer, with either the person who's causing what I think is unnecessary tension and disruption, or being particularly mean. And I will say, "Look, I come here every day to try to be a part of creating an environment where we all can do our best work." and this behavior isn't going to fly. And what I often find is that it's when you confront someone who is behaving in that kind of bullying fashion that they're really stunned because normally they can get away with it because everyone's just like, "Oh, they're in a really bad mood.

What are we going to do?

Oh my God, I don't know. Yeah, I don't know, you talk to someone." And everyone's sort of whispering and sneaking around instead of walking up to that person and saying, "What is your problem?" What is your problem? Because your problem is becoming our problem, and in fact, we were having a really good time until you entered the scene and created an environment that was unpleasant, disruptive, and unnecessary. And you know what? It's not going to make anyone work any faster or any better. The ways in which you get people to work faster and better is to treat them as equals and to treat them as people who care about their work and you care about your work, and, you know, it's only It's only when people come together that you can accomplish something.

If you've got somebody that's bullying you, like both of you got jumped on. You took steps. You reported, you said the right things, you did the right things, and you still got attacked, right? Is that fair?

No.

No way it's fair. When you go to somebody in authority and you tell them what's going on, that's not tattling. You did the right things, Lily. You did the right things and you still got attacked. The question is, what do you do when that unfair thing happens to you? Do you let that define you? Or you can say, "Well, wait a minute. I gotta be my own best friend here. I have the power to choose how I feel about this. I'm not going to be embarrassed. I'm not going to be traumatized for the rest of my life." Behaviors have a beginning and an end. You two got attacked, lasted a few minutes, right? How long has it been?

Over a year.

A few months.

And you're still affected by it today, right? Yeah. You have not given yourself permission to get past it. You've not given yourself permission to say, "I encountered some sick people, some small people, some petty people, some jealous people." I want you to change choices. You're already choosing how you feel about it. If this is brought up to you, what you gonna say about it? "Aren't you that girl that got beat up on the tape?" "Yeah, it was one of the worst times of my life. Did you have a question about it?" "Oh." You know what's gonna happen? They're gonna go, "Oh, no, I guess I don't." This isn't something where time heals all wounds. Time heals nothing. It's what you do with that time, okay? What I want you to do is 5 years from now, I want you to look back and say, That event became the springboard for me being tough, focused, and able to help other people move along.

Bullies prey on the weak to feed their own insecurities. They can't do anything amazing themselves. They don't want to get into the arena and follow their dreams. And so what they need to do is pull everybody down to their level. If somebody's here and somebody's up here and you want to get closer, it's either bring the people up with you or try to tear the other people down. Down. And that's what bullies do. And what they crave is your response. They crave you reacting to it. That's what they want. They want to get under your skin. They want you to feel that you're now at their level. They want to drag you back down to where they are. They want to fight in the mud. And so the solution is don't give it to them. Again, they want to pull you down to feed their own insecurities. And if they don't get it from you, they're going to get it from somebody else. And if you don't give it to them, if you don't react, if you don't yell and scream or cry or get upset, they're going to go somewhere else. They're going to leave you alone. So stop reacting. This at the start may be harder to actually do than to say, right? It's a simple, easy solution. Doesn't mean it's actually easy to do. But reminding yourself before even you go into a situation will make it easier for you. So if you know that there's this person who's always bullying you and you have a meeting with them coming up, remind yourself of it. Remind yourself that I'm not going to react. Like, this person's opinion doesn't matter. I'm not going to let them trigger me. Reminding yourself of that before the meeting and going in will make it easier for you to get the desired outcome that you want. And if you do that consistently, they're going to realize, oh, this person doesn't care anymore, this person isn't triggered by me anymore, huh, I'm not getting what I need anymore from that person, I'm not feeding my own insecurities anymore from that person, I'm gonna go somewhere else, I'm gonna go pick on somebody else. That's what bullies do. I would strongly encourage you to stop living your life in the rearview mirror. People rip off my content as an example all the time. People will post things that I'm putting up on YouTube on their channel with credit, with no credit. They're trying to do exactly what I'm doing.

I don't care.

People write to me all the time like, hey, this person took your video and posted them on their channel. You're not gonna do better at being me than I will be at being me. It's just not gonna happen. And I could either choose to spend all of my time focusing on these people and just defending what I have, as opposed to going out and getting more. I'm not concerned with somebody trying to be the next Evan Carmichael because you can't, but you could be a better you than I could be. That's where you need to focus your energy. And so I don't spend my time focusing on rearview mirror. I don't care about taking down those videos or taking down those channels. What I care about is the mission that I'm on and helping you guys and making more new, amazing, awesome videos. And so if you're spending your time worrying about bullies and dealing with bullies bullies and reacting to bullies, then you're not spending your time focusing on big things that you can do to grow. You're spending your life in the rearview mirror instead of driving forward. So stop spending your time in the rearview mirror. Thank you guys so much for watching. I made this video because ni ni na asked me to. So if there's a topic you'd like me to cover in the next edition of Believe Life, leave it down in the comments below and I'll see what I can do. I'd also love to know what did you think about this this video? What did you learn from this video that you can apply immediately to your life or to your business? How do you handle bullies that maybe we missed a point that you can share? You can contribute back to Believe Nation and share some knowledge as well. Leave it down in the comments below. I'm going to join in the discussion. Finally, I want to give a quick shout out to Matt McGill. Matt, thank you so much for picking up a copy of my book, Your One Word, and for reading it and tweeting it out. I really appreciate the love and the support, man. So thank you guys so much for watching. I I hope you continue to believe in yourself and whatever your one word is. Much love, have an amazing day, and I'll see you soon.

There's no question that individuals who are, quote, bystanders have more power than they realize because most bullying is going on for the joy of that person getting attention. It's a sense of power. If nobody notices them getting power, they don't feel feel a lot, you know? And there's some people that are bullying an individual just by themself, but it's really rare. It's usually a pack mentality. And you don't have to be bigger than that person, you don't have to pick a fight for that person. All you have to do is you and 2 or 3 other people just go, this is not cool, or listen, we're gonna call somebody, this is, pick this up some other time. Anything that you do that just breaks the pattern even for a moment, that's all it takes, 'cause people get in state. A bully isn't always a bully every moment of their life. You can meet somebody who's a bully, in another environment they can be a really cool kid. But when they're in that state of being a bully, It feeds on itself. So all it takes is a little pattern interrupt, and you know, a lot of people are afraid, although they're gonna come attack me. They might threaten you, but you're not really their focus. That's not really what it is. So, and by the way, it happens with adults. It happens in a different way. It happens by rumors and things of that nature. It certainly happens with celebrities. I have a lot of celebrity friends and clients, and I'll be at a party and somebody will say something, you know, in the entertainment business especially, about this person, and I'll just say, you know what? I watch other people around, I see two other people are friends, not say a word, and I'll step up and say, you know what? "BS, you know that's BS. I know this person, they're my friend. What you're saying is just completely made up. There's no truth to it whatsoever. Why would you do that?" And when you put the burn back in that direction, it's really rapid how things change, 'cause other people look around, you know? What I tell people is don't tolerate behavior. You get what you tolerate. Don't tolerate behavior from other human beings that you personally would not want for yourself. And so even if you're not the one being bullied, Don't tolerate it. Step up. And we cannot tolerate it by the power of the third side. There's a person attacking, there's a person who's being attacked, and there's the third side. The third side can surround it and change it in 2 seconds. And I say lead the third side.

For a long time, people were talking about bullying, and that was a big hot topic. And I think sometimes you can forget that you could be your own bully in some ways. Like, you are the person that is standing in the way of your success. Whether it's professionally or personally. And honestly, that was the case for me. I was having a great professional streak, but personally I was really immature, and so I had to balance them out. Finally, I had enough and I said, hey, you need to speak up for yourself. If you're not happy with something, you change it, you know, change it, make yourself better every single day. So I went to a lot of therapy, and I I guess I put it in the way of like, you're gonna hear me roar. Finally, I'm gonna be able to speak up for myself.