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Professional Bullying · Head Shrink Inc.

• 0:00
  SPEAKER_00: Hey all, Doc David here.
• 0:02
  SPEAKER_00: Let's talk about bullying today.
• 0:12
  SPEAKER_01: You are listening to Head Shrink Inc.
• 0:17
  SPEAKER_01: Relationships and Daily Living.
• 0:21
  SPEAKER_00: Hey all Doc David, happy March.
• 0:23
  SPEAKER_00: I keep thinking it's spring, but it's not spring.
• 0:26
  SPEAKER_00: We're s right?
• 0:27
  SPEAKER_00: It's not spring yet.
• 0:28
  SPEAKER_00: We're still kind of in winter, winter mode.
• 0:30
  SPEAKER_00: Anyways, days are getting warmer, lighter, leading up to the inevitable springtime here.
• 0:37
  SPEAKER_00: So today I want to talk about bullying.
• 0:39
  SPEAKER_00: Oftentimes we think of bullying happening just in like a school setting, and um I think that's the stories we often hear in the media is oh, this bullying thing happened in this school and someone shot somebody or they killed themselves.
• 0:54
  SPEAKER_00: And usually it's it's r it refers to um teenagers and or tweens.
• 1:00
  SPEAKER_00: And um, you know, it's like oh that bullying, they need kids need to get over that, or they need to stop bullying in school, or there needs to be campaigns to help with bullying.
• 1:11
  SPEAKER_00: And I think bullying happens in the marketplace, you know, in the professional marketplace.
• 1:17
  SPEAKER_00: And I and I'm wanting to talk about it today because I just had an experience on LinkedIn of all places where um I got bullied, and it was an inter it's still kind of an interesting experience because I it's funny seeing these online people who are supposedly professionals, um uh giving each other electronic high fives about how they they showed me, and so here let's I want to delve into it a little bit.
• 1:50
  SPEAKER_00: So there was this person who was basically bragging about their success and uh showing a car that they had and showing this um this decal they were getting put on their car.
• 2:05
  SPEAKER_00: Now, forget the fact that this car was parked in a handicapped spot and this person got a a load of crap about why they are parked in a handicapped spot.
• 2:14
  SPEAKER_00: Forget that piece of it.
• 2:16
  SPEAKER_00: Um usually when a person brags, I don't I don't like to brag myself, and I think when people brag, it makes other people uh feel poorly about themselves, and so I'm not in the business of wanting people to feel poorly about themselves because of things that I say.
• 2:30
  SPEAKER_00: So I try to try to have some humility at times.
• 2:33
  SPEAKER_00: I'm not always great at it, but I try to have humility.
• 2:36
  SPEAKER_00: This person has no humility um whatsoever.
• 2:40
  SPEAKER_00: They think they're great, they think what they do is great, they think everything about them is great, so much so that they have on their headline on LinkedIn that they're the person that producers need to talk to to have a hit TV show, when actually their life seems kind of boring.
• 2:59
  SPEAKER_00: But we can leave that for another day.
• 3:02
  SPEAKER_00: So they have this post of them with this amazing decal that they're getting because they're so amazing.
• 3:09
  SPEAKER_00: And so because I'm a conservative, uh, because I'm a fiscal conservative, I think, you know, if you're so amazing, you should be able to afford things um without going into debt, right?
• 3:23
  SPEAKER_00: And so I just questioned this person's um method of paying for this amazing car and amazing decal.
• 3:32
  SPEAKER_00: I said, hey, is that car debt are you paid off on that car, right?
• 3:37
  SPEAKER_00: In my mind, an innocent question.
• 3:40
  SPEAKER_00: Um this person then proceeds to tag two other people in my post uh in a reply, and then they proceed to tell me how I need to step back, I'm a hater, I need to get rid of my negative attitude, uh, what kind of person am I am I?
• 4:00
  SPEAKER_00: I'm crazy, I need therapy.
• 4:03
  SPEAKER_00: I it was a little bit sh it was a little bit shocking.
• 4:07
  SPEAKER_00: And and because of my personality, I I'm just I can remain pretty calm about it and don't I don't get up in arms.
• 4:14
  SPEAKER_00: And so I would ask, you know, clarifying questions.
• 4:17
  SPEAKER_00: All I did was ask a question, and these people continued to come on back and tell me how I was crazy and I was a hater, etc.
• 4:23
  SPEAKER_00: etc.
• 4:24
  SPEAKER_00: And I needed to get my life figured out before I go and ask, you know, judge somebody and I need to stop bullying.
• 4:30
  SPEAKER_00: And so then when I heard that, or when I read that phrase of bullying, um, and then even you know, after this thread was done, they went on to another separate thread and were electronically high-fiving each other um over w what they had supposedly done with me, done to me.
• 4:52
  SPEAKER_00: And so uh this idea of bullying kind of came up and and I was curious, like, was I I'm I'm wanting to kind of be insightful about it.
• 5:00
  SPEAKER_00: I think was I really bullying this person by simply asking a a question.
• 5:06
  SPEAKER_00: And so I went to, you know, Wikipedia or Google, the Google machine, and uh asked, what is bullying?
• 5:13
  SPEAKER_00: And you know, in the definition of bullying is essentially using power to um force somebody to do something that they don't want to do, or using power um to influence someone else's behavior, right?
• 5:31
  SPEAKER_00: And uh when it even went on further to define that when bullying is when you recruit people to bully, that's called mobbing.
• 5:40
  SPEAKER_00: And so essentially what happened on this LinkedIn exchange was I asked a question, and then the preceding comments were uh this person telling me that I needed to and her and it was a her, right?
• 5:58
  SPEAKER_00: Her lieutenants telling me that I needed to back off and I needed to stop with my bullying, and I and I was trying to like r legitimately think, what is my bullying behavior here?
• 6:10
  SPEAKER_00: And the the other crazy thing was like it's a woman that is purporting to be this no-nonsense, I get things done, blah blah blah, I don't take crap from anybody.
• 6:22
  SPEAKER_00: But when I asked the question, she recruited two men and then later on said, I they needed to have a man-to-man session with me, which I thought was funny too, because it's so super sexist.
• 6:33
  SPEAKER_00: And on one hand, she's saying how she's a woman and she can take care of business, but then on the other hand, she's recruiting quote unquote men to come to her aid when I ask a question.
• 6:46
  SPEAKER_00: And so the insanity of it just, oh my goodness, it made me crazy.
• 6:50
  SPEAKER_00: And so I thought I have to talk about this, and I'm I'm gonna write an article about it as well.
• 6:55
  SPEAKER_00: Because later in the same reply, someone else made a comment, a female, and then this woman starts like threatening this lady that why don't you come meet me and we'll show you who's really what, right?
• 7:08
  SPEAKER_00: And I'm thinking, oh my goodness, I'm trans, I'm literally transported back into high school.
• 7:15
  SPEAKER_00: And on this forum where there's supposed to be professionals.
• 7:18
  SPEAKER_00: The other thing I should note is that um this woman is a fitness instructor, and it seems like all the guys or all the people that were commenting are guys.
• 7:29
  SPEAKER_00: And I can't help but think that these are lonely men hoping to somehow meet up with this woman and maybe find a dream life together with her.
• 7:41
  SPEAKER_00: Because inevitably it's like it there were the ratio of men to women comments was pretty extremely different.
• 7:49
  SPEAKER_00: And so I I just found it amusing that uh all these men are coming to the aid of this so-called self-made woman who takes care of business on her own, but yet she felt the need to uh bring these men in to defend her.
• 8:05
  SPEAKER_00: It was just so confusing and so unprofessional and so weird to experience on LinkedIn.
• 8:11
  SPEAKER_00: But what it did get me thinking about is it got me thinking about like what is bullying?
• 8:16
  SPEAKER_00: So the definition of bullying is people that use um force or intimidation to coerce you to do something, which is totally what these people were doing to me.
• 8:26
  SPEAKER_00: Basically saying, you know what, like the more people she could get to come against me, it it made it then I was wrong because she had, you know, it was three to one.
• 8:36
  SPEAKER_00: And so therefore, because she has more people, uh, she wins.
• 8:40
  SPEAKER_00: So that's that's um the definition of bowling.
• 8:43
  SPEAKER_00: Practically what it looks like, it looks like what I just described.
• 8:46
  SPEAKER_00: Where if someone doesn't like what you're doing or a question that you ask, they gather a mob around them to drown you out.
• 8:54
  SPEAKER_00: And and I'm I mean, I'm fine.
• 8:57
  SPEAKER_00: I kept asking questions like, well, did you pay for the car or not?
• 9:01
  SPEAKER_00: And and her non-answer let me know that she's in debt on her car.
• 9:05
  SPEAKER_00: So what she wants people to believe is that she's this amazing, productive, uh potentially wealthy person because of her skills, her skill set, but she's not wealthy enough to pay for a car outright.
• 9:19
  SPEAKER_00: And and again, that's a mindset.
• 9:21
  SPEAKER_00: It's a mindset that I don't want to be in debt to people.
• 9:23
  SPEAKER_00: But again, that's another topic for another day.
• 9:26
  SPEAKER_00: So, practically speaking, what it looks like is like if someone, if you ask a question and someone disagrees with you and they call you a hater, they call you, oh, you're a negative person, get off my timeline, get off my feed, I have more followers than you.
• 9:39
  SPEAKER_00: You're they make you too they gaslight you basically to make you look or make you think that what you did or asked was wrong.
• 9:47
  SPEAKER_00: And then they get a pile of people, in this case three, to um support them in their bullying that they're doing essentially.
• 9:57
  SPEAKER_00: Um and so that's what it looks like practically, and again, it's easier to see in a school setting because it's like you're around that these you're in the physical presence of these kids.
• 10:07
  SPEAKER_00: It's a little bit more challenging to see it uh via social media because all you're doing really is seeing these comments.
• 10:14
  SPEAKER_00: And I haven't just seen it on LinkedIn, I've seen it on you know Facebook or Twitter or wherever wherever, where someone says a comment that is very harm harmless, and then one person takes offense and then they just bring on all these other people to troll them, basically, is what happens.
• 10:30
  SPEAKER_00: And I'm sure you've seen it as well, or maybe you've even experienced it in your life.
• 10:34
  SPEAKER_00: And so it led me to think, okay, what are the qualities of a bullier?
• 10:39
  SPEAKER_00: Right?
• 10:40
  SPEAKER_00: And I think here's what I think are some of the like major qualities of a bullier.
• 10:45
  SPEAKER_00: They're um arrogant/slash, they're an arrogant person, they're a bragger.
• 10:50
  SPEAKER_00: Like they think what they can do is the best and they're better than other people.
• 10:55
  SPEAKER_00: Now, some people would say, well, they're just being confident.
• 10:57
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, I agree.
• 10:58
  SPEAKER_00: Confidence is a good thing, but I I think there's there's another thing involved.
• 11:03
  SPEAKER_00: When a confident person is potentially questioned about something that they're confident about, they have a choice.
• 11:11
  SPEAKER_00: They can either go down the path of, oh, I I want to double check and kind of learn from what this person is saying, or they can double down on their confidence by insulting the person that's you know putting them into question or calling them out.
• 11:26
  SPEAKER_00: And the the route that this person took was to become arrogant and a braggart and to call my question into question.
• 11:37
  SPEAKER_00: Um when in reality, if they had gone the other route, like, you know, I've been successful and that's something I'm still trying to work on, getting out of debt, but it it doesn't fit the narrative that they're trying to portray themselves as.
• 11:50
  SPEAKER_00: And so if someone calls into question the narrative that they're trying to portray themselves as, then they immediately get defensive and and and it just shows them as arrogant.
• 11:59
  SPEAKER_00: And who wants to like at the end of the day, I have no interest in interacting with a person like that because of their arrogance.
• 12:07
  SPEAKER_00: If they were like willing to be humble, I would totally be down for you know getting involved in whatever that person has to share up you know on their website or whatever.
• 12:17
  SPEAKER_00: So a quality one quality of a bullier is that they're arrogant, they're a they're a braggart, and you and you see it all the time online.
• 12:23
  SPEAKER_00: There's no humility with a bullier in general.
• 12:26
  SPEAKER_00: Um another trait of a bullier is they're unwilling to answer just basic questions about things.
• 12:33
  SPEAKER_00: Like if they go on and they say, Oh, I do this amazing thing and I'm this amazing person, and so then you have legitimate questions about it that doesn't fit their narrative, um, they're either they don't either they either don't answer you or they call you a hater or they call you somebody that has a negative mindset and isn't uh a person that they need in their life.
• 12:55
  SPEAKER_00: It's it's arrogant.
• 12:58
  SPEAKER_00: And again, it's another example of arrogance.
• 13:00
  SPEAKER_00: They're this unwillingness to answer questions about this amazing thing that they're doing.
• 13:04
  SPEAKER_00: It seems like you'd want to answer questions to prove to people that what you're actually saying is true.
• 13:10
  SPEAKER_00: So another quality of a bullier is that they gaslight.
• 13:12
  SPEAKER_00: I mean, that's a that's gaslighting technique, just not answering or stonewalling technique, is just not answering those types of questions.
• 13:19
  SPEAKER_00: Another technique of a bullier is mobbing.
• 13:23
  SPEAKER_00: I didn't know this was an actual word until I did a little research on it.
• 13:26
  SPEAKER_00: But it mobbing is an actual thing where you bring others in to support what you're doing, and and they're either lieutenants or they're just dupes or they're boobs or whatever.
• 13:36
  SPEAKER_00: They just don't get it, they don't know what they're doing.
• 13:39
  SPEAKER_00: They think, oh, I like this person, therefore, if someone disagrees with them, that person that disagrees with them must be wrong.
• 13:48
  SPEAKER_00: Um and so that's what my experience was in this incident.
• 13:52
  SPEAKER_00: Um, is that immediately these rather than comment back to my question, this this person immediately tagged these other two people, and then they just started firing away about how I was a hater and I needed to rethink my negativity, blah di-di blah, blah.
• 14:12
  SPEAKER_00: And so they bring in bullies, bring in others to kind of mob and overwhelm the person with the legitimate question.
• 14:20
  SPEAKER_00: Um The other quality of a bullier in this instance was they belittle valid points.
• 14:28
  SPEAKER_00: Um I think it's a very valid point.
• 14:30
  SPEAKER_00: Like if I'm out there promoting myself as this amazing person, and look what I've been able to accomplish.
• 14:38
  SPEAKER_00: If someone asks me, um, how did you actually accomplish that, or is that thing legit, or what school did you go to to get your PhD, I can either call them a hate, oh, you're a hater, or I could say, oh, this is the place that I went to get my education, or this is the training I've had for this kind of thing.
• 14:58
  SPEAKER_00: I think to belittle and to um demean and to dehumanize is definitely a quality of a bullier, and definitely was the attempt of these people in this exchange that I had uh on LinkedIn.
• 15:14
  SPEAKER_00: And the thing is, uh I I think some people would come away from that interaction and kind of feel poorly about themselves, and that's why, again, I try not to grandiose grandize grandize myself.
• 15:30
  SPEAKER_00: I'm getting that word wrong.
• 15:31
  SPEAKER_00: You know what I mean.
• 15:32
  SPEAKER_00: I I try not to make myself look better than I am because I think it does put other people in a bad place, and I don't want to do that in with my life and with the energy that I have in my life.
• 15:41
  SPEAKER_00: I want to help people.
• 15:43
  SPEAKER_00: And so this belittling, this demeaning, this dehumanizing ultimately makes that person feel better about themselves, and they just kind of keep shoveling off forward and they don't care who gets in their way.
• 15:55
  SPEAKER_00: But but it also like hurts relationships.
• 15:58
  SPEAKER_00: Like people see you doing that, and they have opinions about that.
• 16:02
  SPEAKER_00: And I guess if you don't care about other people's opinions, I mean keep going forward, but inevitably that's not a good way to interact with the world, like devaluing people and dehumanizing people.
• 16:14
  SPEAKER_00: It views people as objects rather than people as people.
• 16:17
  SPEAKER_00: And so when you uh a bully definitely views people as um objects and doesn't view them as, oh, this is a person that you know I could have a relationship with or I could be hurting when I'm interacting with them like this.
• 16:31
  SPEAKER_00: A bully will looks at people like, oh, what can this person do for me?
• 16:35
  SPEAKER_00: If they get in my way, then I need to call them out and call them a hater or um you know put them underfoot as I walk over them, versus this idea like I want to help people and give a hand up to people and not um hurt them.
• 16:51
  SPEAKER_00: And so again, I think my opinion is that that's what bulliers do, and that's what this person and her mob ended up doing as well.
• 17:01
  SPEAKER_00: So what I found out after interacting with with them and after interacting with another person that was threatened um during this exchange is that the person that was threatened um you know took it seriously enough to make take screenshots and report it to LinkedIn, and then LinkedIn is investigating it.
• 17:22
  SPEAKER_00: What what will actually happen, who knows?
• 17:25
  SPEAKER_00: But I think the the warning to you as professionals, um therapists and otherwise who are listening to this, is that when you start looking at yourself like I don't stink and I'm the best and I'm amazing, and everyone else should think I'm amazing, and you get a mob of people around you that think that as well, you do some real damage, not only to your reputation, but you do real damage to other people.
• 17:50
  SPEAKER_00: And my suggestion is maybe insert some humility in your life.
• 17:55
  SPEAKER_00: Because humility is like everyone can love humility.
• 17:59
  SPEAKER_00: Not everyone can love arrogance.
• 18:01
  SPEAKER_00: And so the more humble you're able to be, the more um people will speak well of you.
• 18:07
  SPEAKER_00: I know uh with this interaction that um this woman had with me and with others, um, people don't see that and they think, yeah, that's great, that's an amazing interaction.
• 18:20
  SPEAKER_00: The sycophants will think that.
• 18:22
  SPEAKER_00: But people in general that come across that, they'll think, wow, what a jerk she was.
• 18:27
  SPEAKER_00: Whereas if she had just decided to be humble a little bit and have some humility and be reasonable, everyone would have seen that and they would have been attracted to that.
• 18:37
  SPEAKER_00: But instead, this woman decided, I'm uh being questioned and I will not have that.
• 18:45
  SPEAKER_00: Therefore, this person is a bully, etc.
• 18:48
  SPEAKER_00: etc.
• 18:48
  SPEAKER_00: And hopefully I've explained enough to know that you know, just asking someone a question, even if it's not a positive question, is not bullying.
• 18:55
  SPEAKER_00: Bullying has to do with getting people to change their views or telling people what to do through intimidation.
• 19:03
  SPEAKER_00: There was nothing that I did that was intimidating.
• 19:06
  SPEAKER_00: Everything she did was intimidating in an attempt to get me to change.
• 19:10
  SPEAKER_00: So if you're a bully and you're listening to this, maybe reconsider your arrogance and try to replace it for some humility.
• 19:18
  SPEAKER_00: If you have been bullied, let me know.
• 19:21
  SPEAKER_00: I'd love to hear your story.
• 19:23
  SPEAKER_00: You can email me at headshrinkinc at gmail.com.
• 19:26
  SPEAKER_00: That's headshrink with a K INC at gmail.com.
• 19:30
  SPEAKER_00: Or you can go to my Facebook page and comment on my Facebook page when I post this podcast up there.
• 19:36
  SPEAKER_00: Hopefully, I get some comments from you.
• 19:38
  SPEAKER_00: I'd be curious to hear how you have been bullied, or what has been your solution to being bullied.
• 19:44
  SPEAKER_00: Hey, have a great day.
• 19:46
  SPEAKER_00: Take care.