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Verbal Bullying – Commentary

Hello this is AJ and welcome to the commentary for this months’ VIP lesson. Kind of a different lesson this month, but it’s an important lesson. It’s an important lesson that I had to learn in my own life, because like you I’m generally just a really nice guy and quite honestly, I hate arguments. I don’t like getting into conflicts and fights with people, but the problem is we live in an age of extreme rhetoric, extreme emotional language. And we live in an age where bullying is becoming more common.

I think social media has made this worse, but the truth is bullying has always existed at some level. When I was a kid I suffered from being bullied many times. As an adult usually it’s not as bad, but actually, I’ve noticed that even adult bullying is becoming more and more common, usually in the name of politics or something else, but it’s still bullying, it’s still bullying. And you’ve got to learn how to deal with this because if you don’t learn how to deal with this effectively, a lot of bad things can happen.

Number one, you could lose your job. Because this is happening more and more now where bullies in companies, bullies at jobs are accusing people, attacking people. They usually attack people for being racist or sexist or homophobic or something like this, or they just lie and say you did something that you didn’t actually do. They say you said something that you never actually said. And this just gives the bully a feeling of power. They’ll do it for no reason and usually they will attack the nicest people, because they seem the weakest. So if you’re really a nice person you should be warned this can happen. It just happened to a friend of mine, a good friend of mine just got accused of being racist at his job.

Even though my friend is married to an Indonesian woman who’s Muslim, okay. So it’s ridiculous, the guy’s not even close to being a racist, but just somebody at his job, some bully thought hey, I’m going to attack him. Maybe she didn’t like him for some reason or whatever, just some woman attacked him for no reason and said this. He didn’t know what to do he was so shocked, so upset and I had to help him a little bit and kind of recommend some books and recommend how he should defend himself. Because if you don’t defend yourself well, if you don’t know what to do, you can lose your job because of things like this. Some terrible things can happen.

Also, for your children, especially if you have boys, if you have boys. If you have a son or sons, lots and lots and lots of boys now get accused of harassment or being sexist and it can ruin their young lives if you don’t know how to fight back for them. But it happens to girls too. It happens to women too. It can happen to anybody. Anyone can be a target, so this is a necessary skill in life. We’re nice people we don’t want to deal with this. We don’t want this to happen, but that’s why we get attacked.

When I was a kid I was bullied, not because I was big, strong, tough and mean. No, I was bullied because I was a little guy and I was super sweet, super nice and sensitive. So the nicer you are the more you need to learn these skills and be ready. Hopefully you never need it, but you need to know what to do, so let’s start.

Principle number one, start nothing, finish everything.

This is a basic self-defense principle. It also works if you’re physically attacked. That means you don’t attack people for no reason, you’re not looking to bother people. You’re not trying to harm anyone, you just want to be left alone peacefully. So you start nothing, you don’t start fights. But, if someone attacks you then you finish it. You don’t retreat. You don’t apologize. You get into that fight and you fight and you fight and you fight until you win. You finish the fight and you defeat them. This is the mentality you must have against bullies. It’s the only thing that works. They do not respond to niceness. They do not respond to reason.

So, what happens if you’re attacked? Someone accuses you of being a racist. Someone accuses your child of something, whatever. Someone just tries to bully you, just starts saying mean things to you a lot at your job or somewhere else. What do you do?

Step number one, you have to realize it. You have to realize what’s happening.

Don’t pretend oh, it’s nothing. Don’t try to minimize it. We call that minimizing, you try to make it small. No, realize you’re being attacked. You’ll know, right, you’re gonna feel terrible. You’re gonna feel like they’re shaming you. You’re gonna feel weak like they’re trying to make you weak. You’ll know that they’re trying to dismiss you. They’re trying to intimidate you, trying to scare you into apologizing, into letting them do what they want. So that’s the first thing, you gotta wake up and realize it’s happening and quickly.

Step number two, never apologize to a bully, never, never, never.

So my friend, who got accused of being a racist, ridiculous. So, a lot of nice people they want to say oh I’m sorry you misunderstood, I’m not racist. But if you do that, if you apologize they see that as weakness. The bullies see that as weakness and then they will attack you even stronger. They feel like they’re winning and they will attack you even more.

Like, I’ll give you an example. As a kid when I was small, let’s say I was in school and I’m walking and I bump into one of the bullies accidentally, like my shoulder hits him a little bit or he hits me, usually is what happened right? Then I would say oh, I’m sorry. I would try to apologize. So what did they do, did they say oh it’s okay? No! When I apologize then the bully would say yeah, you stupid idiot and start pushing me and start attacking me even more, because I was showing weakness by apologizing.

Well it works with verbal bullies too, even if the bully’s a woman at work. If they say you’re a racist, you’re a sexist or something like that, never apologize. So important you never apologize.

Step number three, just like Vox Day taught us in the essay, you immediately attack back with emotion, with rhetoric only.

Don’t try to defend yourself logically. Don’t say no, no really, I’m not a racist, you see, because I’m married to a Japanese woman clearly I’m not racist. Don’t do that. Don’t defend yourself. No defense, you only attack back. Attack back with insults. Attack back with emotion. So you accuse them of something. If they accuse you of something, they said you do something, you immediately do exactly the same back to them. Call them a name. Insult them. Demand that they apologize. You say, you need to apologize to me, you are a liar, you are a creepy stalker, you are a whatever, you’re a racist you’re a sexist.

Just keep attacking back, attacking back, no logic. Do not use logic and do not defend yourself. Never, never, never try to defend yourself. I’ve tried this. I’ve tried to explain, no, no really I’m not. You try to be logical and try to explain your position. They just attack you even more. But, if you attack them now they suddenly have to defend and very quickly if you keep attacking them they’re going to stop, I promise you. You keep attacking until they stop. That’s all you do that’ sit. You just keep insulting them and attacking them, insulting them and attacking them, attacking them, attacking them, accusing them of doing bad things, attacking, attacking, attacking non-stop until they stop, until they quit, until they surrender and run away.

By the way, in physical self-defense this is exactly wat you would do also. If someone attacks you physically, they start punching you, you don’t try to defend yourself and block and do stuff no, you just attack them back until you put them on the ground and they stop moving. Well, it’s basically the same idea with verbal self-defense against bullies. You attack them verbally. You attack, attack, attack you don’t defend. You attack and attack and attack emotionally and very strongly until they quit and run away, and they realize ooh you’re strong, they don’t want to mess with you. And they’re gonna run away and try to find someone who’s weaker. This is what bullies do.

This is what works. No it’s not nice, it’s not pretty but this is what you need to do to defend yourself, your family members, your children, possibly your job, possibly your career.

So again, using my friend as an example I said look, don’t apologize, don’t try to say I’m not a racist look I’m married to a… I said don’t do any of that, attack this woman back who’s accusing you. Attack her back and say she’s a sexist, say she’s a racist it doesn’t matter. Just start attacking her back and try to find example, even ridiculous examples of why she’s a racist, a sexist or something and keep attacking, attacking, attacking and complain about her to your boss since she’s complaining about him. I said, you need to complain about her and attack her and say she’s doing all these bad things and keep attacking non-step until the bully quits, runs away, stops the bullying.

I don’t know if he’s gonna do it because I haven’t talked to him again, but that’s what works and this is what I’ve done in my own life. Unfortunately, I’ve had many experiences like this in my own life, like I said starting as a kid and even as an adult now, face-to-face and social media and I’m telling you this is what works. This is what you have to do.

None of us like this. Nice people don’t like to do this that’s why the bullies attack us. Okay, that’s why they pick on us and don’t pick on other mean people. So you have to learn to be mean and fight mean. And then, here’s the last thing, once it’s over, when they finally quit, when they finally surrender, then you stop and you can be polite to them after that. You’re certainly not gonna be friends. Don’t think you’re gonna be friends with them. Don’t go afterwards and try to oh, now can we talk everything’s okay right? Don’t do that you can’t trust those people, they’re just gonna stab you in the back.

But you don’t have to attack them forever, once they stop, once they surrender, once they quit then you can just ignore them after that. Be polite but basically ignore them. Don’t trust them ever again, but you don’t have to attack them either. You can just ignore em’.

Okay, here’s a few points if you find yourself fighting a bully, a verbal bully online or at work doesn’t matter. How do you do it? I just told you the step-by-step things, but let me tell you a few things about your internal, your kind of emotional mastery while you do this it’s important. And I’ve learned this through a lot of difficult experiences.

Number one, you try your best to have internal equanimity.

Equanimity means emotional balance. Now this is hard. This is very tough. When someone attacks you for no reason unprovoked you’re going to be angry, I promise you. You’re gonna be angry. I still get very angry when it happens. It’s just so unfair, you’re just being a nice person, a normal person and then they attack you for no reason and they call you names. You’re gonna be angry. I get really angry. You may not be able to control your anger completely but do your best. Do your best to try to calm down, because you want to attack them in a way where you are calm and they are out of control. You want them to be the angry crazy one while you just are kind of calm, because then you look stronger and you beat them faster.

So do your best, meditate, go for a walk, do whatever you can to calm some of your anger. You probably can’t get rid of it all but try some of it.

Number two, ferocity.

You need to appear ferocious to a bully. So, while you want to control your internal anger, on the outside you want to look tough and strong when dealing with a bully. So if it’s face-to-face when you’re saying insults, when you’re attacking them use a loud strong voice. Don’t be weak. Put your shoulders back, your chest up, all those things I teach you. Use a strong voice. Look them directly in the eye and you can look at little angry, don’t look crazy like you’re losing control, but just look tough, look like you’re tough. Like hey, don’t mess with me. Show strength. Show power. Show ferocity.

If this is happening online then you do that with your words. Use strong language. Just like Vox Day says, the strongest craziest insults are the best. I had this happen, some guy attacked me on Facebook, eh I don’t know it was a couple months ago, I just made some little small comment or I posted something. I didn’t even know who the guy was. I didn’t know him, he must be like a friend of a friend. I posted something, it was no big deal, something mild and then he just insulted me for no reason. He left some comment insulting me saying I was stupid and this and that. I realized right away this is a verbal bully, so I didn’t defend myself I just attacked him back with crazy extreme, ridiculous insults.

Now luckily, since I didn’t know him I was angry a little but mostly I was actually laughing when I was typing it and this is the fun part. If you get practice doing this, eventually this can become a game. You can realize how the bullies think and then you realize that you can easily defeat them and when that happens then you start to feel strong. You feel less angry and you can actually just kind of be laughing while you do it. It becomes kind of a funny game, and this is what happened with this guy.

So I just started doing ridiculous crazy insults and it only took two or three times and then the guy went silent and he never commented or said anything to me again, so it worked that’s all I wanted. I just wanted to get rid of him, he was being a troll, as we say. I just wanted to silence him and make him go away and it worked.

Okay finally, you need to, as I just said, see this as a game as much as you can. This will help so much. It’ll help with your anger. It’ll help you be more effective, if you view it as a game that you’re playing that okay, the bullies are attacking me, instead of just being upset, instead of being frightened, oh my God, I’m not a racist I don’t want to lose my job. Try not to do that, instead say okay this is a game, they want to fight so I’m going to fight and I’m going to beat them. I know how to beat them now, I know what to do and then you’re just gonna attack them, attack them, attack them and just have fun watching them.

Because, when you do this they’re not used to it they’re used to people being scared. They’re used to people saying oh I’m sorry. They’re used to people being weak. They chose you because they thought you would be weak. They thought you’d be a good little victim. When you attack back they’re going to be shocked and then when you keep attacking, attacking, attacking, it can actually be quite funny to see their reaction, because they get shocked and really upset. Suddenly, they become weak, you can see their weakness. You can see that inside these bullies are often very weak people and they’re bullies because they want to feel stronger. They attack people to try to make themselves feel stronger.

So when you stand up and fight back really hard, you will often see them fall apart. It takes a little time, you’re gonna have to attack them back a few times, but eventually, many of them will run away and go silent and it’s a good feeling actually, then you can realize ha, I can stand up for myself. I can protect myself. I can protect my family.

Okay guys, so for one month we’re gonna be tough. We’re gonna be mean. Don’t worry, I’ll be back with VIP lessons that are about nice topics and being good, nice people and being wonderful people because that’s who we generally want to be. But the world does have some bad people. There are a lot of bullies in the world. We don’t want to be weak. We don’t want to be victims. We have to know how to fight against them. That’s why I’ve been playing with this online and fighting some of the trolls. Usually I ignore them, but I wanted to fight them and learn how to do it effectively.

I did and I did it so I can teach you. So, this is what you do and this is how you do it. Good luck to you. Stand up for yourself. Fight for yourself. Fight for your family. Do not let anyone bully you ever.

All right, have a great month and if someone tries to bully you, you fight back and tell me about it. See you next time.

Bye for now.