The Bully Food Challenge

Stop Trying So Hard, You’re already there. Trying to be something isn’t being it. This goes along with one of our principles, less is more, and takes it a step further into making a low effort. The more you value yourself, the less of an effort you’ll feel you have to make. The lower you value yourself the stronger an effort you’ll feel you must make in order to pass as worthy or enough for others...

Our third principle is to be undefensive. Stand your ground! This means staying true to yourself come what may, and only changing on your terms based on your experience and insight. But how do you remain undefensive when your brain is screaming at you to protect and defend yourself? Well, you have to teach your brain through experience that doing nothing is often the best self-defense. I used to v...

I have a story to illustrate the essence of what it means to own your “mistakes”.Years ago a student of mine said something I’ll never forget. The kids were all washing up in the bathroom, and some of them started making fun of the pants he had on. This kid was no fashionista. He wore little kid sweats long after the others had switched to more grown up clothes. Anyway this kid stood there and too...

Lowering your own bar means getting yourself used to resisting the pressure to always be right and good when it comes to following rules and your own performance. Studies show those who are bullied are more likely to be anxious. Anxious people tend to focus on following rules because they care about getting things right. This tendency can also show up as perfectionism. Bullies, on the other hand,...

Develop your ability to recognize the difference between bullying and other kinds of unpleasant behavior others throw your way. Kids are amateur adults, who are new to the task of more adult social interactions, so they make hurtful mistakes. It's crucial to tell the difference between mistakes and intentional harm. Nobody who makes and innocent mistake wants to be accused of bullying, and any bul...

Taking responsibility for the solution is NOT taking blame for the problem, and it is crucial to your success. The bully is to blame for their negative behavior, but dealing with the problems they cause in your life is YOUR responsibility. Dealing with the messes they cause can be a time to reflect on what's happened. You can separate yourself from the situation to recognize its ridiculousness and...

Principles give you purpose in every situation, and today's principle is: Less is more. Bullies always want more. More attention, more power, more conflict, more drama from you will build the social capital and status they want. When you put energy, time and focus into them, they get more bully food. Giving them less not only diminishes what they get, it also lessens their importance in your mind....

Has anyone told you to "just ignore" the bully? Of course they have! It's good advice, but people rarely explain how to do it correctly. Bullies take negative action against others, and when they come after you, you need to play it off. When people tell you to "ignore", they mean to play it off. Your goal is to make light of or to make less of the bully. We will go through five non-verbal signals...

The first Bully Food principle is to make it boring. Principles help you in moments when the tips and tricks don't easily fit. Any of our principles will guide you to deal with the bully in general because it's how you roll versus what you do in any one case. What's so special about boredom? Bullies want to have a big effect on people. They would never want to be unmemorable or boring. Boring peop...

Nonverbal communication is the preferred method for communicating with bullies because it's low-risk, low-effort and more effective than words could ever be. In this episode we'll go over four categories of nonverbal communication: gestures, expressions, sounds and scripts. I'll give you one strategy from each category to begin with. Our theme emotion this time will be boredom, and we'll learn oth...

Anticipate the Bully as a bigger threat than they actually are, and your imagination will start to work against you. In this episode we sort out the difference between bullying and the sort of physical violence that exceeds it. To get your imagination to slow down its reel of worst case scenarios, I advise listeners to use a specific strategy to determine the bully's threat level: Use the old sayi...

The more frightened or worried you are, the more courage you have. Courage comes to us in our weakest moments as the flip side of fear. Your courage can have just as powerful effect on a bully as your weakest feelings have on you. The key is to make it come out. How can you flip fear over? Three steps: Visualize having courage, break difficult tasks into small simple steps, and practice those step...

Bully free zones have become a popular solution to the problem of bullying. Such zones may be ideal, but they are also artificial. In a bully free zone the bullied must depend on others to behave well. This restricts potential to learn how to handle unpleasant human behaviors, such as meanness and carelessness. Even worse, if someone does happen to be bullied in a so called bully free zone, they'l...

Hi, I'm Kelly, and I'm a twenty year middle school teacher who holds the topic of bullying near and dear to my heart. This episode covers why everyone deals with bullies but only some people get bullied. The difference tends to be how calm one is when the bully does their worst. The more you can teach yourself and your subconscious mind to see the bully as less of a threat, the more calm you'll be...

Bully food is the diet all bullies need to thrive! And I’m guessing it’s you they’re after! Anything you say or do or even think that feeds their negative behavior is fair game, and right now you’re the prey! A bully will chew you up and spit you out if you let them, and only you can cut them off! Let me teach you how. Disclaimer: Keep in mind I am a teacher, not a therapist nor healthcare provide...