Was That Really Bullying? With Kenlie Fite
In a person's life, a lot of negative things can happen and not every social interaction is a pleasant one. However, this doesn't mean a person has been bullied. This week, we are joined by population scientist and career coach Kenlie Fite to talk about what isn't bullying.
Contact the show at breakbullyinghere@gmail.com
If you want to learn more or are subjected to either Bullying or Harassment, you can go to:
If you are dealing with dark or suicidal thoughts call The National Suicide Hotline:
Phone: 988
Opening Theme: "The Beginning and the End" by Grahf
Closing Theme: "Cute Melodies 11" by Soundtrack 4 Life
This week on breaking bullying.
Speaker:We've talked a lot about the effects of bullying.
Speaker:But this week, we're going to flip the script.
Speaker:We're going to delve into what isn't bullying.
Speaker:So sit back.
Speaker:We're going to hit that music and we're going to get start.
Speaker:Bad things can happen to all of us.
Speaker:But just because something bad happened doesn't mean you were bullied.
Speaker:Joining us this week with her tale of a very negative experience
Speaker:and how it affected her and how in many ways
Speaker:it might have looked like bullying but wasn't is Kenny FITE,
Speaker:who is a population scientist and a success coach and somebody who has,
Speaker:it can be argued, changed the entire industry
Speaker:of airline flight.
Speaker:Kenley, how are you today?
Speaker:I'm doing well.
Speaker:Thank you so much for having me today.
Speaker:And not as an afterthought.
Speaker:Also joining us is my co-host, Tim.
Speaker:I feel like I get forgotten about sometimes.
Speaker:Where are you?
Speaker:Kennedy Thanks for having me.
Speaker:Thanks for coming on our podcast this week.
Speaker:Yeah, Thank you. It's my pleasure.
Speaker:Thank you.
Speaker:KELLY I've known I work with kids in my school
Speaker:and I would get mad telling me that, hey, my kid was bullied.
Speaker:This kid called my kid, I mean, name.
Speaker:And it wasn't bullying, you know, it was just a kid being rude or being just young.
Speaker:But you have a very interesting story
Speaker:that not just happened to you one time.
Speaker:It happened to you twice.
Speaker:Can you go ahead and show us that story?
Speaker:Yes. Yes.
Speaker:So it's it's so interesting.
Speaker:So over a decade ago and I it's it's so relevant today as well,
Speaker:I was told that I was too fat to fly by Southwest Airlines.
Speaker:And so I had a story go viral
Speaker:because I talked about it on the Internet and people were outraged.
Speaker:And it really it was such a difficult thing
Speaker:that led to a lot of positive change.
Speaker:And it's so interesting.
Speaker:I appreciate the opportunity to really come on and be able to look at it
Speaker:and kind of reflect on it through the lens of what I know now,
Speaker:my experiences, my education and my work,
Speaker:and really kind of define what that
Speaker:what that was and and really how I moved
Speaker:forward from it and a helpful will hopefully be a helpful way.
Speaker:So what happened exactly?
Speaker:Well, I was I was on the fourth
Speaker:part of a connecting flight and my flight was running late.
Speaker:Yeah. Yeah. It was a long day of travel.
Speaker:And I got to the gate and I was asked to purchase
Speaker:a ticket on on the market day, the value of the ticket that day
Speaker:to fly home to just continue the rest of the flight.
Speaker:And when I expressed that I had already been on the flight
Speaker:and I was fine on the last one, I had just jogged to get to the gate
Speaker:to get there on time for the next one.
Speaker:I was told I wasn't allowed to get on the plane because of my size,
Speaker:and so I had a very public conversation about private things.
Speaker:I was asked what clothings size I wore, how much I weighed,
Speaker:and I was happy to tell people because I'm I'm still actually over a decade later,
Speaker:I'm still over £100 lighter than I was prior to that experience.
Speaker:So it was just one of those days when I realized, okay, well, I'm still
Speaker:in a plus size body and I was just treated differently as a result of that.
Speaker:So this all happened at the gate.
Speaker:This is not inside the plane yet.
Speaker:Right? Yeah, it happened.
Speaker:It happened as I was trying to to get on the plane.
Speaker:Yeah. Yeah. Was it a male or female?
Speaker:It was
Speaker:first a male and then also a female actually came out
Speaker:and sort of attempted to aid him and asked me the same kinds of questions.
Speaker:And so it was a really it was a kind of a
Speaker:a very personal thing that happened in front of everyone at the gate.
Speaker:It was not a good day.
Speaker:It was not a good moment, even though it led to good.
Speaker:They just stopped the whole boarding process to take care of you first.
Speaker:Yeah. Yeah.
Speaker:So I pulled out my I pulled out my phone and sat a popular blog at the time,
Speaker:and I pulled up my phone and I just started recording them,
Speaker:sharing their language and the different things that that they said.
Speaker:And, and I posted about it and it became a viral story shortly after.
Speaker:Speaking of their language.
Speaker:Were they treating you with a degree of respect
Speaker:or was it very, very much like you were
Speaker:kind of in the realm of a human being, but not quite so much?
Speaker:It was not respectful.
Speaker:I definitely I will say that
Speaker:I found it offensive at the time, and I didn't know how to process that yet.
Speaker:So I want to be very clear that I don't feel like a victim
Speaker:regarding this situation, but I would not say that it was respectful.
Speaker:No, it certainly was not.
Speaker:It was kind of a tough day for me, but it was clearly a bad day for them as well.
Speaker:It's their job to be there.
Speaker:I'm I, I think it's a bad day or whatnot.
Speaker:That doesn't change the fact that they should have been respectful.
Speaker:I mean, they're there.
Speaker:So they were talking to you in a way
Speaker:that would have been, shall we say,
Speaker:emotionally disappointing.
Speaker:It was emotionally disappointing.
Speaker:It's something that I would not tolerate.
Speaker:Now. I didn't really tolerate it then.
Speaker:I have a lot more skills in my pocket than I did at the time.
Speaker:But yeah, it was definitely disappointing and it was increasingly so
Speaker:after a very public apology from Southwest when it happened again months later.
Speaker:So it happened twice.
Speaker:Before we get to the second one, the move to the second one.
Speaker:During the first one,
Speaker:you had this interaction with these two lovely individuals
Speaker:who were having a bad day.
Speaker:How did that resolve on the day?
Speaker:Were you kept off the flight?
Speaker:Did you finally get in?
Speaker:Did you have to buy the second ticket?
Speaker:I did finally get on the flight
Speaker:and I did not have to buy the second ticket.
Speaker:People at the gate
Speaker:kind of formed their own court of opinion and I was allowed to board the plane.
Speaker:I think they really didn't know what to do with me at that point, but
Speaker:they allowed me to get on the plane and I headed back, finished the trip,
Speaker:and then took a different airline for my following trip.
Speaker:But once
Speaker:that happened, you said you recorded it, you blogged it the first time.
Speaker:What did Southwest do post the first flight, if anything?
Speaker:Well, I blogged about it and then I woke up.
Speaker:I don't I don't remember now. So hazy.
Speaker:It was so long ago.
Speaker:If it was a day later or a couple of days later in which and Twitter had really
Speaker:exploded, there were a lot of people who were sort of angry about it
Speaker:and sharing their opinions, as we know that they do on Twitter.
Speaker:And Southwest actually reached out to me.
Speaker:So an executive from their headquarter has reached out
Speaker:and just asked me to consider flying with them again.
Speaker:And I did fly with them again.
Speaker:So I had a very good experience at the hands of that executive
Speaker:and it went pretty well.
Speaker:But then after that, when I was back on my own, it was back to,
Speaker:you know,
Speaker:sort of a similar, similar treatment to what I had experienced the first time.
Speaker:And that's when I knew I had to make a change.
Speaker:So it happened again.
Speaker:How did Southwest react the second time?
Speaker:The second time
Speaker:I really in the beginning and again, this was the person
Speaker:on the front line of what was happening just didn't react well.
Speaker:And at this point I knew about their sort of being a very gray person
Speaker:of size policy, but I knew it better than the gate attendant did.
Speaker:And at that time I was allowed to get on the plane.
Speaker:I actually encouraged that person to to step aside
Speaker:and have the conversation with me privately.
Speaker:And I felt a lot more empowered to do that.
Speaker:And it took a little coercing on my part just to get them to agree to have
Speaker:that conversation behind closed doors, which was really just in a hallway.
Speaker:But I was able to express, Hey, I've been in this situation before
Speaker:and and it's not going to go well if we need a different outcome.
Speaker:I didn't I was able to get on the plane again.
Speaker:But at that point I decided that I needed to do something else.
Speaker:So I actually sued Southwest
Speaker:in federal court and I sued them for no money.
Speaker:And so looking back, I realize where you know,
Speaker:I realize how it could have been more effective on my end
Speaker:if I maybe I would have gotten their attention
Speaker:more quickly or more effectively if I had sued for money.
Speaker:But I didn't want their money.
Speaker:I wanted them to change their policy, and they ultimately did.
Speaker:And for all of that,
Speaker:you don't regard that as having been bullied.
Speaker:I don't I wouldn't say that that was bullying.
Speaker:No, I think it was rude and offensive and it shouldn't have
Speaker:existed, shouldn't have happened the way that it did.
Speaker:But I wouldn't necessarily view it as bullying.
Speaker:I don't think anyone woke up that morning,
Speaker:that initial day, with the intention of just hurting a fat person's feelings.
Speaker:I don't think that's what happened.
Speaker:I think people just sometimes don't know how to handle their emotions.
Speaker:I think they weren't trained well, so they took the brunt of the frustration
Speaker:from poor leadership that they were working under.
Speaker:And so I wouldn't call it bullying, even though it's unacceptable.
Speaker:I don't always think sometimes we refer to things as bullying
Speaker:when in fact it could just be that that someone's being a jerk.
Speaker:It doesn't necessarily mean you guys are the experts on bullying.
Speaker:But I didn't feel bullied. I felt
Speaker:insulted, was rude and inappropriate.
Speaker:But yeah, yeah.
Speaker:It seems like nowadays is if you get your feelings hurt,
Speaker:you're being bullied like this person is bullying me.
Speaker:I feel that's such a strong word
Speaker:to use and to call somebody a bully, because if I just
Speaker:if I called you fat, that's pretty inappropriate as being rude.
Speaker:I'm not trying to overpower you.
Speaker:I'm just a rude person.
Speaker:Yeah.
Speaker:Yeah.
Speaker:Why do you think
Speaker:people feel like they're being bullied?
Speaker:Whether you like, in a situation like that or when they get a name called
Speaker:or some pushes them or shoves them
Speaker:maybe on purpose as you're walking by the hallway,
Speaker:why do you think we as people think, Oh, you're bullying me because you pushed me
Speaker:to the side?
Speaker:Well, I think, you know, this
Speaker:is something I study in great depth as in my daily life.
Speaker:And I think that one thing that happens that is that we follow societal trends.
Speaker:I think a lot of times people are looking for answers to ambiguous questions.
Speaker:And when they don't understand how someone could be so unkind,
Speaker:like it's very hard to rationalize something that simply isn't rational.
Speaker:And I think we often confuse trying to to look at a situation rationally.
Speaker:It's very easy for our emotions to come in and get involved.
Speaker:And when that happens, it's easier just to say, okay, yeah,
Speaker:let's put a bow on this and call it bullying than it is to
Speaker:to really look more in depth that at the other possibilities.
Speaker:The scenarios are really endless, but we kind of hyper focus as a society
Speaker:on whatever we hear someone else saying, unless we're challenging our own thoughts
Speaker:and really thinking about them in a self reflective way.
Speaker:I've talked to people
Speaker:before and they would bring up like their workplace
Speaker:and they're saying, My boss is bullying me because my boss believes
Speaker:things should be done this way and I disagree with it.
Speaker:So my boss cuts away my work.
Speaker:I tell you, no, that's not bullying.
Speaker:That's your boss being a boss, telling you what to do.
Speaker:I'm not sure why you would call that bullying.
Speaker:Yeah, we have we often have expectations.
Speaker:Everything that we do in life, every choice,
Speaker:every decision we make, is based on a perceived outcome.
Speaker:And so if if if I'm the boss and I have a certain set of expectations,
Speaker:it's my responsibility to communicate them clearly and respectfully.
Speaker:But it's not my job to coddle.
Speaker:I mean, it's not there are going to be times when when
Speaker:you have to do things in a way that you may not think is best
Speaker:because you are you're required to do them as part of your role.
Speaker:But that I definitely would agree with you.
Speaker:That's not bullying.
Speaker:That's just that's part of adult life.
Speaker:I'm on a few of these anti-bullying or these bullying Facebook groups,
Speaker:and I read their stories and one caught me caught my attention.
Speaker:This person was saying that their bosses bullying them
Speaker:and their boss should have higher standards when they talk to people.
Speaker:And I didn't comment because I wanted to, but I'm like,
Speaker:don't we all have equal standards
Speaker:just because your boss is a boss?
Speaker:But you should also have the same standards as your boss
Speaker:and as treating people.
Speaker:Do you believe that's true?
Speaker:So I think I see where you're going term.
Speaker:And what I would say is that we do all have standard.
Speaker:They are not all equal.
Speaker:So I think it's really important to recognize that
Speaker:when you're in a situation and someone who is in a leadership position
Speaker:and you are working for that person or being directed
Speaker:or supervised by that person, they may not be living up.
Speaker:I mean, I've certainly had bosses who have not lived up
Speaker:to the standard of respect and kindness that I expect from other people.
Speaker:And at that point, I looked for another job.
Speaker:So I think it's really important
Speaker:to recognize that having standards, we all have them.
Speaker:Again, those are expectations.
Speaker:Our perceived outcome.
Speaker:But when someone isn't meeting them, it may be that
Speaker:they just have a different value system or a different set of ideals.
Speaker:It may just be an opportunity for you to look
Speaker:and kind of figure out what would be a better fit.
Speaker:Does that make sense?
Speaker:Yeah.
Speaker:But would you call that bullying though?
Speaker:Oh, no, no,
Speaker:no. There's a difference between
Speaker:having an expectation of how you're supposed to be treated
Speaker:and the corporate culture or the culture of whatever it is,
Speaker:not matching the way you would like to be dealt with.
Speaker:Then it becomes decisions on your part, whether you want to
Speaker:a stay and try to cope within the circumstance that it is
Speaker:or be walk away or there's always option C,
Speaker:which is stand up for yourself and see what happens
Speaker:because sometimes it can work in your favor and sometimes you can create
Speaker:a war zone that doesn't benefit anybody, least of all you.
Speaker:Yeah, but we don't all have the same value systems.
Speaker:We all don't pull from the same thing because, you know, just there are so many
Speaker:different pieces of our makeup and they're just not the same.
Speaker:Well, we have such different
Speaker:lived experiences that really just create the fabric. So.
Speaker:So it's great that we're not all the same.
Speaker:I mean, when we're looking at it from a lens of a healthy
Speaker:standpoint, it's fantastic that we're not the same ten.
Speaker:I'm sure that on any given day you and I have experiences that are different,
Speaker:different interactions, people, you know, we might interact with Bruce
Speaker:in a completely different way.
Speaker:That's that's beneficial and that's life giving.
Speaker:But yeah, I think it really my what I learned
Speaker:from the experience that I was in and what I continue to learn now
Speaker:is that I have to determine what my actions will look like
Speaker:because I'm responsible for those and I'm responsible
Speaker:to make sure that I'm taking care of myself, that I'm being
Speaker:that I am
Speaker:living up to the standard I set for myself.
Speaker:And that's something I can control.
Speaker:The rest of it
Speaker:is I can't control the rest of it.
Speaker:I like that you said that because I feel like in today's society
Speaker:we get our feelings hurt.
Speaker:People tend to feel like, Well, no, I can be as good as I want back to you.
Speaker:I'm gonna make a show and they'll just blow up in your face.
Speaker:Even if this other person even made a serious mistake.
Speaker:For instance, my my daughter and I, she's a 21 year old.
Speaker:She's autistic.
Speaker:We were in McDonald's one day, and this person
Speaker:forgot to put something on their burger.
Speaker:I don't know what it was,
Speaker:but this lady came in just because they messed up her burger.
Speaker:She just chewed out this young high school kid about a burger.
Speaker:And he was like, Oh, do you want to be my manager?
Speaker:And they're like, No, I don't want to speak to your manager.
Speaker:I, I think people
Speaker:lose your self-control like they feel like they have the right to treat you rude.
Speaker:And it's like a never ending circle because that kid handled it well.
Speaker:But you can go on Tik Tok or watch Karen videos
Speaker:or watch other videos where they'll start a fight.
Speaker:Then they'll start a fight.
Speaker:It just keeps going back and forth and never resolved.
Speaker:Do you think there has been a coarsening of society?
Speaker:I you know, I'm so glad that you all are bringing attention to this,
Speaker:because I will say that I have a website now and it doesn't have
Speaker:I don't have as many followers on social media as I did
Speaker:when I was just so angry about what happened to me.
Speaker:And one of the things I've noticed is
Speaker:how people really, again, we follow societal trends.
Speaker:I deactivated my Twitter account because it has really become this
Speaker:complaining vacuum.
Speaker:Nothing good comes out of it.
Speaker:At least that was my perspective. And
Speaker:so I think we live in this
Speaker:society where we we most of us feel pretty entitled
Speaker:and that becomes very dangerous because we can't be entitled
Speaker:and in humble, or at least I haven't figured out how to do that yet.
Speaker:So I think it becomes really easy to
Speaker:to sort of complain and get everyone behind you,
Speaker:because now everyone has an opportunity to have a voice.
Speaker:But I want my voice to promote life.
Speaker:And and
Speaker:it didn't always, to be honest with you.
Speaker:And I was I'm proud of the way that I handled myself
Speaker:when when I was hurt at the hands of Southwest.
Speaker:But knowing what I know now, I could have offered grace
Speaker:and still gotten a good result.
Speaker:But I think we have to know how to receive it before we can offer it.
Speaker:And I think that's that's where we get stuck because we get so hyper
Speaker:focused on living in this victim mentality
Speaker:like, Hey, this person hurt me so I can lash out.
Speaker:It doesn't make us feel better. We think it will.
Speaker:It promises to, but it doesn't.
Speaker:It just creates a cycle of pain.
Speaker:But it is our individual responsibility to put an end to.
Speaker:Do you feel it's because things like fear and anger are more along the lines
Speaker:of a prurient interest where it's kind of almost like a pornography,
Speaker:almost like that kind of base emotion that even if it's a negative
Speaker:thing, has a almost primal, kind of satisfying feel.
Speaker:You know, I think that fear is familiar,
Speaker:and we tend to migrate
Speaker:toward toward what's familiar because it's comfortable
Speaker:and so will sit in an unhappy space because it's familiar.
Speaker:And perhaps that's perhaps you're
Speaker:you experience something in childhood that's familiar and you have some
Speaker:some level of trauma that you haven't dealt with.
Speaker:Our nervous systems have no understanding of time.
Speaker:So we will go to what is familiar, will sit with fear
Speaker:or some sort of some sort of negative emotion or
Speaker:but fear being the case in this one.
Speaker:And we'll stay there because it's what we know and it's comfortable.
Speaker:And I will say that it is extremely uncomfortable to sort of break
Speaker:out of that mindset and try something new because it's unfamiliar.
Speaker:But it's it's been worth it in my my life.
Speaker:A few years ago, we had this issue of school bus bullying
Speaker:and I there was a Facebook
Speaker:created in our local town and I offered to say, Hey,
Speaker:I will love if you feel like your kids being bullied in school.
Speaker:I would love to help them.
Speaker:I give them a free week.
Speaker:I'll teach them how to be bulletproof. Wow.
Speaker:These parents got upset at me.
Speaker:You're just trying to promote your business.
Speaker:Look at this guy. He just tried to promote his business.
Speaker:He does not care about these kids.
Speaker:I was like the parents turn.
Speaker:They got negative to me. Wow.
Speaker:I was just trying to offer a helping hand.
Speaker:Do you feel that some people
Speaker:are just happy being bullied?
Speaker:Is that even possible or they're happy with how life is going?
Speaker:I think that again, it comes back to less about being happy.
Speaker:We we become we are the sum of our habits.
Speaker:And so I work with clients all the time who come to me and they're like,
Speaker:Hey, I just don't really know how to like myself.
Speaker:And it usually goes back to something they believe, something
Speaker:that was spoken over them a lifetime ago.
Speaker:Like usually, usually you can pinpoint it somewhere
Speaker:in their adolescent years someone hurt them.
Speaker:And so again, it's very familiar.
Speaker:And when you hold on to something, some sort of unresolved anger
Speaker:as a young person, I mean that we start playing that over and over in our minds.
Speaker:It can take a lot.
Speaker:It takes so much courage and a lot of fortitude
Speaker:to to unravel that trash, which is what it is.
Speaker:It's trash.
Speaker:But we get very comfortable sitting in our anger.
Speaker:I mean, gosh,
Speaker:back in to my original story, I was living in a constant state of offense.
Speaker:I mean, I'm a £300 female who was living in New York at the time.
Speaker:And when I was, you know, £100 heavier, plus
Speaker:I people on the street would tell me
Speaker:how ugly I was or how to point out how heavy I was.
Speaker:And so it really became a practice to just believe
Speaker:that people were assuming the worst.
Speaker:So we really have to learn to unpack this, that I don't think
Speaker:I think kind of go into your statement about the people getting mad at you.
Speaker:I think a lot of times when we can't trust, it's because we can't be trusted.
Speaker:So maybe, maybe there was some fear that that they might have a motive
Speaker:if they were you, you know, so so we tend to project our unhealthy ideas
Speaker:onto the people around us rather than just assuming good intentions.
Speaker:It has been my
Speaker:experience that especially when it comes to childhood traumas
Speaker:that create anger responses or self-loathing responses,
Speaker:those are the hardest thing to dig out of you like much like you.
Speaker:And actually, I even had a podcast called The First Fat Kid, you know,
Speaker:because I've also been heavy for most of my life.
Speaker:I've gone up and down, up and down, up and down.
Speaker:And because at around the age of 11, I weighed £280,
Speaker:it doesn't actually matter what my weight is in the back of my head.
Speaker:I'm always an 11 year old £280 kid.
Speaker:And that's the levers that drive the machine.
Speaker:That is me.
Speaker:It doesn't help that I'm a bit more up there right now, but even when I'm
Speaker:this circumstance of being teased and bullied at that point
Speaker:defines me even now to some degree.
Speaker:And there are bits and pieces that I can work on, but I can never fully
Speaker:excavated out of my head.
Speaker:I can never get rid of it.
Speaker:It's always still present.
Speaker:I don't think we need to get rid of it.
Speaker:I think we need to learn how to leverage it, which is what I have done.
Speaker:And so it's not it's not as if
Speaker:no one is ever going to say a negative thing about me again.
Speaker:That's going to happen because we live in a world
Speaker:that is filled with broken, hurting people.
Speaker:So that's that's going to be a thing when I recognize
Speaker:that that will occasionally happen.
Speaker:It takes the pressure off of me to sort of wait for when it does
Speaker:and what what it does instead is
Speaker:I have refocused myself to understand, okay, I remember a time
Speaker:I wish I could go back and tell myself, Hey, you're valuable, you're enough.
Speaker:Your unique gifts are going to serve you really well.
Speaker:You just have to get through this hard time.
Speaker:And that's what I do now with clients all the time.
Speaker:But so I don't.
Speaker:I don't want to forget it or forget what that pain felt like.
Speaker:Instead, what I want to do is continue to leverage it, to continue
Speaker:to be able to say, okay, I'm recognizing that something
Speaker:something's going on with this person here and they're not being kind to me. Wow.
Speaker:They probably have an issue.
Speaker:I wonder who hurt them.
Speaker:I wonder how I can help them.
Speaker:And they don't always receive that help, but sometimes they do.
Speaker:I was at a I don't know if I told you this story,
Speaker:but I was at a gym several years ago, shortly,
Speaker:shortly after moving to New Orleans and a skinny person
Speaker:and I say skinny, reminding you that fat is different,
Speaker:but a skinny person was mocking me while I was swimming
Speaker:laps at the gym and I was swimming a mile that night.
Speaker:And so I still feel pretty proud that I can easily get a mile in a pool.
Speaker:But I was swimming in the pool
Speaker:and this person who was smaller than me
Speaker:started taking video of me on her phone.
Speaker:And well, that's. That, you know, that is.
Speaker:Yeah. Oh, of course it's rude. Well, so here's the thing.
Speaker:Now I know how to approach in one and say, Hey, that's rude.
Speaker:And I have a high level of self-efficacy and belief in myself that I can do that.
Speaker:But as I, as I watch this person, like,
Speaker:try to make me feel bad, I recognize she's trying to make herself feel better.
Speaker:And so I looked right in the eyes and I was like,
Speaker:Whoever said you weren't enough was wrong.
Speaker:And she started crying.
Speaker:It was the most redeeming moment for me because I didn't have to take
Speaker:on someone else's crap and carry it as my burden.
Speaker:So I got to empathize with that person.
Speaker:But I didn't have to take on her words or her actions toward me as the truth
Speaker:and once I learned how to stop doing that, I didn't need to get rid of it.
Speaker:I was able to really like, use it to help benefit people around me.
Speaker:Just saying that to that person.
Speaker:It takes a ton of self-control because
Speaker:who knows what I would have said.
Speaker:But you know, but.
Speaker:We know what I would do.
Speaker:I'm from Philadel phia and I and I carry that, so.
Speaker:Oh, God.
Speaker:I just
Speaker:I also want to say I don't know how to I don't know if this really is
Speaker:is the appropriate moment to say this, but I do want to add that
Speaker:a lot of times the things that hurt us the most kind of speaking
Speaker:what you were saying a few minutes ago,
Speaker:Bruce, the things that hurt us the most are the things that we believe
Speaker:about ourselves.
Speaker:So if someone says to me, Hey, Kinley,
Speaker:you're not very smart, I all, like, laugh at them.
Speaker:Like, I know I'm smart, I'm
Speaker:not the smartest person, but I am really smart, highly educated.
Speaker:That doesn't hurt my feelings at all.
Speaker:I'm like, You don't know anything.
Speaker:But when it's something that is more personal to me,
Speaker:it takes time for me to say, okay,
Speaker:let me challenge that, but let me replace it with the truth
Speaker:as I know it, who I am and so it takes a lot of practice.
Speaker:It's something that
Speaker:I've gotten a lot better at, but it's something
Speaker:I have to continually practice to, if that makes sense.
Speaker:It does for me,
Speaker:and Tim will give his after mine.
Speaker:But for me, I, generally speaking, don't put much credence
Speaker:in what other people think of me unless I know them,
Speaker:and they have earned a degree of the right
Speaker:for their opinion to matter to me.
Speaker:And so what.
Speaker:That's good.
Speaker:Hampers me is my perception of myself,
Speaker:which is very highly shaped by
Speaker:my my childhood.
Speaker:So I know things like I'm creative, I'm smart, I'm I'm capable.
Speaker:I am probably the most jack
Speaker:of all trades person anybody ever meets.
Speaker:And I can make a lot of things happen.
Speaker:I'm never going to be an expert at anything,
Speaker:which I'm very comfortable with because I can do a ton of things
Speaker:well enough to be very efficient for myself.
Speaker:But my perception of my
Speaker:weight is the make or break for me,
Speaker:and it's all internal
Speaker:and I don't care what anyone says about it, but I care how.
Speaker:It's how I feel about it.
Speaker:And that's the thing that sits with me, my own internal perceptions of myself.
Speaker:Those are the most painful because those are the ones we can't get away from.
Speaker:And so those are the ones that I mean,
Speaker:we have to dig the deepest to address.
Speaker:And I think there's so much there's so much freedom in that.
Speaker:But I do think it takes a lot of courage to even recognize that.
Speaker:And and that's so powerful, so powerful
Speaker:if I could have a client who could walk in to my office
Speaker:with that as their starting point,
Speaker:I mean, they're going to make progress because that that is an issue that
Speaker:we have to be able to admit that.
Speaker:And I think it's so hard.
Speaker:We carry a lot of shame when we don't
Speaker:when we're not willing to bring light to something.
Speaker:And so I think it's really good that you can recognize that.
Speaker:That's so helpful.
Speaker:You know, my biggest issue is as I was bullied
Speaker:all throughout school and I turn into this people pleaser.
Speaker:So I always want to do things to make that person happy.
Speaker:And of course, I worked in health care for many years,
Speaker:about 20 some years working in health care.
Speaker:So I was just kind of embedded, you know, you please the people or
Speaker:I got into running a business, I realized being a people
Speaker:pleaser, people started to
Speaker:I won't say abuse it, but they would use that
Speaker:towards their advantage and take advantage of me and just stuff.
Speaker:Like a year or so ago, I started realizing I'm a start.
Speaker:People pleasing and do what's best for myself.
Speaker:But, you know, starting my business, trying to be a people pleaser,
Speaker:I was afraid of change anything because I'll make somebody mad.
Speaker:And and looking back at it, it's like,
Speaker:why do I give a crap what they thought in the first place?
Speaker:No benefit me, improve me at all.
Speaker:I worried about this one person's opinion and social media was big for me.
Speaker:Doing your own business when I know it's Kato karate the first time I to get people
Speaker:messaging me my business.
Speaker:You're not real karate, bubba, but all this stupid stuff.
Speaker:And I'll let that, I'll let that.
Speaker:And I think it a lot of that I got more positive than negative
Speaker:and I will let that little comment.
Speaker:Just eat up at my day.
Speaker:And I had one person tell me, well, you should call yourself Kato karate
Speaker:because you're not karate.
Speaker:I almost changed my business name to Kato Martial Arts
Speaker:because I was worried about one person start.
Speaker:I was like, Kayo, martial arts does not sound as a marketing term as a sound.
Speaker:Good. Doesn't sound catchy.
Speaker:Kato Karate sounds catchy.
Speaker:I was thinking, okay, I don't care what you think, but
Speaker:for many years that people pleasing, you know, if you're a people pleaser,
Speaker:that you know, when people spot that they're going to take advantage of you.
Speaker:Is it bullying?
Speaker:No, no, not really.
Speaker:You're just, you know, taking advantage of a good situation.
Speaker:Kind of setting yourself up or being taken advantage of.
Speaker:Yeah, that's true.
Speaker:Wow. I'm so glad to hear your business story.
Speaker:So I just started a business earlier this year and I had a different name
Speaker:and I came up with Fight Forward Solutions.
Speaker:So I fight for because it's my name.
Speaker:I like it.
Speaker:Oh, thank you, Thank you. I thought it was so clever.
Speaker:And there were people who thought
Speaker:it was amazing and people who thought it was cheesy, but I liked it.
Speaker:So I'm going with it and I'm learning how to just take the insecurity
Speaker:and channel it into something honest so that so that people want to engage
Speaker:and want to interact with me.
Speaker:So hopefully it will continue to work.
Speaker:I fight for it.
Speaker:It's simple, it's catchy, and.
Speaker:The primary name of the name of your business is to sit in someone's head.
Speaker:So when they need your service, they remember you.
Speaker:So if you've got a convoluted name that doesn't sit in the brain,
Speaker:it doesn't matter what it is.
Speaker:It's just not going to help you not be homeless.
Speaker:Yeah. Yeah.
Speaker:As a success, Coach, how if I was a negative person all the time.
Speaker:Bruce Yeah.
Speaker:Didn't answer my text today.
Speaker:I'm pissed off at Bruce or whatever.
Speaker:How do you train somebody?
Speaker:Write a better text?
Speaker:Yeah, Bruce called me a name.
Speaker:Whatever.
Speaker:I'm going to get a person.
Speaker:I get offended easily.
Speaker:How do you how do you change that person's mindset?
Speaker:Yeah, it doesn't I Why?
Speaker:I ask a lot of questions.
Speaker:I do. Because I.
Speaker:Not just one simple question.
Speaker:No, I know. Don't you just wish it was?
Speaker:I feel like I would either be really rich or not.
Speaker:Yeah, it would be amazing, but it's an emotional thing.
Speaker:It's a process.
Speaker:So I would start with some reflective questions and one might be, okay,
Speaker:so you're feeling angry all the time and people usually come to me.
Speaker:I'm different than a therapist because a therapist is usually seeking a
Speaker:they're usually identifying a diagnosis, whereas I'm looking at
Speaker:the areas of someone's life where they kind of feel stuck
Speaker:and they're, you know, I point out blind spots.
Speaker:So so I just want to say it's different.
Speaker:And I think therapy is amazing.
Speaker:And I also think coaching is amazing.
Speaker:So if someone comes to me and they're struggling with
Speaker:finding it hard not to be angry all the time, then I might ask them
Speaker:and I know again this this may be silly sounding, but I might ask them
Speaker:to spend,
Speaker:I don't know, 10 to 20 minutes reflecting in a journal,
Speaker:reflecting on what they want their life to look like when they're 80 years old.
Speaker:If if they're really tough, I might ask them to write their obituary.
Speaker:Because when we get to the end of our lives and we reflecting back,
Speaker:I've never met a person who says, Yeah, I really wish I was more bitter.
Speaker:Oh man, I really waste the time being happy.
Speaker:I really wish I was so angry.
Speaker:And so even though that's not an immediate fix,
Speaker:it helps us kind of identify what we want out of life.
Speaker:And so someone might say, Well, I want I want to be loved.
Speaker:I want to be surrounded by family.
Speaker:Okay, well, so what are you doing to to to delve into those relationships,
Speaker:to strengthen them or to even find them, you know, to start them.
Speaker:So it becomes a very I use a very backward design model a lot of times.
Speaker:And look at what
Speaker:people want and then help them untangle those things that they're doing
Speaker:that are keeping them from
Speaker:from making progress in that way.
Speaker:And I celebrate wins along the way.
Speaker:When someone has a reaction that's different than they would have had before.
Speaker:We celebrate that,
Speaker:like kind of putting a bow on it, I would say that
Speaker:it's really important to recognize that every time, you know,
Speaker:people are going to say hurtful things and it doesn't make them a bully.
Speaker:We want to be very careful in the same way that I don't want to be labeled.
Speaker:I want to be very careful not to label someone else
Speaker:because they're having a tough day or maybe even a tough season of life.
Speaker:So I don't want to throw around hurtful words.
Speaker:We I think that
Speaker:when when we're thinking of bullying and when we're thinking about
Speaker:just the the the different iterations of of of bullying
Speaker:and what it means to people, we can kind of recognize that
Speaker:it's very important, whether I'm feeling bullied or hurt
Speaker:someone's hurt my feelings or I've been offended to respond
Speaker:in a way that that doesn't pile on the hurt even further.
Speaker:Like words are really powerful.
Speaker:And so it's really important.
Speaker:I can't I can't control what someone else is going to say about me,
Speaker:but I need to not add fuel to a fire.
Speaker:What I need to do is focus my efforts.
Speaker:Instead, I'm making sure I'm recognizing the truth
Speaker:and acknowledging something as truth or trash.
Speaker:I also want to put this out there into this discussion, which is
Speaker:there are people who are mean and nasty.
Speaker:But and as you said, there are people who have a bad day.
Speaker:I would encourage everybody who's listening to this podcast
Speaker:to think about that one time that they were asshole,
Speaker:because there isn't one person listening to this podcast
Speaker:that if you take it out in isolation, hasn't had a moment
Speaker:when they were the asshole or the Karen or just
Speaker:it was the wrong day, everything happened and a moment occurred.
Speaker:It was at a store or it was in a parking and you just lost it
Speaker:because your mental capacity to deal was just at its limit.
Speaker:But for somebody else,
Speaker:you were just this nasty whirlwind that hit them
Speaker:uncontrollably, unfairly.
Speaker:Everybody has done that at one point, maybe
Speaker:not in an extreme way, maybe not in a way that would end up on Tik-Tok.
Speaker:But if you look back into your life,
Speaker:there's probably at least one moment where you were that person.
Speaker:I would say, Bruce, that I was also that person
Speaker:not to the same degree, but I have been hesitant.
Speaker:I'm going to tell you all this and trust that that you hear my whole story
Speaker:and that is the day that I responded
Speaker:to this, this person who was hurtful to me.
Speaker:I was favored by the court of opinion and everything.
Speaker:But looking back now that I was mentioning, alluding to that before,
Speaker:I wish that I could look at that
Speaker:Southwest gate agent who probably went through
Speaker:at least a short season of of a sort of a hellacious
Speaker:kind of experience at the hands of my blog readers
Speaker:and my Twitter followers and and the media.
Speaker:I mean, I was on every major network talking about this story.
Speaker:And his face was was on video like apologizing
Speaker:to me, you know, countless times around the world.
Speaker:And looking back at that now, I hate
Speaker:I hate that that is how it happened.
Speaker:I wish that I had had the tools that I have now
Speaker:because I would have offered grace to that guy.
Speaker:It still would have been unacceptable.
Speaker:I still would have had conversations and I still would have done everything I could
Speaker:to champion change, and I still would have had
Speaker:a lot of followers like I did at the time, so I could have done that differently.
Speaker:So even though he didn't treat me well that day,
Speaker:I want to say on the record, for the first time ever
Speaker:after talking about this so many times that I can't count
Speaker:that, that I'm sorry for the way that I treated him.
Speaker:And if I could look at him today, I would say you were not nice to me,
Speaker:but I still should have been nicer to you.
Speaker:And I think that's where that's what I meant when I said
Speaker:that It's a lot harder with to to withhold grace
Speaker:or to withhold forgiveness from someone once you've received it.
Speaker:There are people in the who have chosen whom I've hurt over the years,
Speaker:who have chosen very much not to forgive me, and I have to respect that.
Speaker:But for me, again, I can't control that.
Speaker:But but living with unforgiveness leads to incredible bitterness,
Speaker:and that's not what I want for my life.
Speaker:So I definitely what you say resonates a lot because I have been that person.
Speaker:I should have been kinder too.
Speaker:And that that's the thing.
Speaker:Like we are only responsible for our actions.
Speaker:And and so that's how I live my life now.
Speaker:And is it always going to be perfect?
Speaker:Am I always going to get it right for sure?
Speaker:No, no.
Speaker:But that's the goal.
Speaker:And my goal, every single client I have, we celebrate
Speaker:progress over perfection every day because that's the goal.
Speaker:The goal is to be a little bit kinder, a little bit wiser,
Speaker:and to offer more grace than we receive.
Speaker:And honestly, I think that is a perfect note to close this out on.
Speaker:Yeah.
Speaker:Because there's just because I just think that says everything.
Speaker:Kenley
Speaker:I know
Speaker:we mentioned it before, but now in the official capacity,
Speaker:where can our listeners connect to you?
Speaker:Yeah, they can go to fight for dot
Speaker:com or look me up on socials that fight for 50 forward
Speaker:or fight for it on social media.
Speaker:Thank you, Kelly, for coming on our podcast this week
Speaker:and showing us your story and your insights.
Speaker:Thank you so much, Tim.
Speaker:It was such a pleasure to be here with you and Bruce. I appreciate it.
Speaker:Thank you so much.
Speaker:And as for us, there are two ways to get a hold of us.
Speaker:The first is our very own website which is w WW
Speaker:dot breaking bullying dot com.
Speaker:The second is by emailing us if you have a story of bullying,
Speaker:if there's any questions or comments you happen to have, email us at
Speaker:brick bullying here at gmail.com.
Speaker:Now if you are the victim of bullying, there are online resources to help.
Speaker:The first is the government's very own anti-bullying website.
Speaker:And the address for that is w WW dot stop bullying dot gov.
Speaker:Another good resource is w ww dot pacer
Speaker:dot org slash bullying.
Speaker:Now if you happen to suffer from dark thoughts,
Speaker:if you have feelings of self-harm,
Speaker:I implore you to stop and reach out for help.
Speaker:You can find help at the National Suicide hotline.
Speaker:Very simple number to reach them.
Speaker:It's 988.
Speaker:Thank you for listening on behalf of Tim Flynn.
Speaker:I'm Bruce Jackson.
Speaker:I would say tune in next week.
Speaker:But it's the end of summer and we are going on vacation
Speaker:for a month, so we'll be gone for September.
Speaker:But join us back in October and we will continue this conversation.
