so thinking about uh trauma and stuff that you go through in your past um throughout most of school for me I was pretty isolated only child uh pretty unpopular in school and the main issue that I had was it wasn't bullying it was isolation I think it was being lonely right um and that was primarily what was causing me to be sad throughout school so I did this interview for the BBC about six months ago and uh in it I talk about I haven't opened up that much about bullying I need to do it more
and it is you know even from watching you go through opening up about your traumas is inspiring uh so I do this interview for the BBC and I mentioned a little bit about bullying in school and so why don't you mention it I haven't got around to it yet I I maybe still feel like it detracts from the man that I want to be the masculine man the respected podcaster that it's somehow undermines me as a person that it makes me weaker which is obviously what was you know part of the bullying's purpose in school
to be able to do precisely that right so I do this interview for the BBC and I mentioned in two paragraphs or something but millions of people see this article uh and I get back one day and in my Instagram message requests is this message from a guy and I kind of recognize his name but not not fully and I don't know whether you know but there's like a character limit in Instagram so and this is five character limit messages long with multiple paragraphs within each of them right so I open it up uh and
this guy says uh hi Chris you might not remember me but we went to school together uh I bullied you my daughter is four and she's about to go to school and given that she's about to go to school me and my wife have been discussing about the kind of child that we want her to be and that caused me to reflect on my time that I spent in school I saw I've been thinking about messaging you for a while I've been considering talking to you because I really felt like I needed to because I
felt ashamed of the way that I treated you in school and I knew that it had hurt you uh and then I saw this article from the BBC and I just had to reach out and I've been sleepless nights speaking to the wife tears and all the rest of it uh and that's why I just said I'm sorry I'm very sorry for what I did um I wanted to let you know that my daughter is going to be raised in a way that will never treat anybody like that again um I don't expect you to
forgive me I don't even know if you'll see this message I'm happy to see that you seem to be happy um but I needed to get it off my chest right I'm like I've totally taken about it like wasn't prepared for this I know I've come back in from the gym or something and I'm sat reading this message like hell that's heavy so I go back through and I think well how do I feel about this how do I feel about this person how do I feel about my experience right um because it was so
formative right shaped so much of the way that I see myself the way that I see the world I had to deprogram so much of the patterns that I'd learned right through that time um my desire for validation from other people right my need to be liked my constant vigilance my ambient anxiety that was always looking for what was going on my concern of being laughed out yep my adamant nature that everybody was um able to judge something about me that I didn't know about myself yeah but this guy you'd like fully fully opened up
to me and I thought well you know it was beautiful it was a beautiful message um so I replied to him and I said hey man um I'd very much appreciate you reaching out I think it's an incredibly Brave thing to do and if me going through what I went through and then the pain and discomfort and such and your subsequent suffering of reflecting on what you did if that has led to a world in which your daughter will be the sort of person who will behave in a manner that's going to make the world
a better place going forward I think that's a price that's worth paying that's awesome man that's that's a great story that's a great story and you're the you're the expert on it that's why you should talk about bullying I know yeah you're the expert and that's why I do it you know um that's why I become I've I've become so vulnerable because all that knowledge you gain because now you are successful and there's so many people who are getting bullied in so many ways that you know you just show them that there's a path but
the path is really like I talk about studying the bully that's the path studying the bully we have attempted to become a bully never never I'm always like I said like I told you before this started I wanted to be a priest I want to be a priest you know and uh could you imagine one of those sermons oh it'd be sick because I would cuss because I would I would definitely cuss praise the Lord mother that's it I would definitely cuss I would definitely cuss man because that's that's the world and there's a lot
of people if I hear this like oh my God that's this is oh my God let me close my hair you know this the world's tough the world's tough and when you come up the way I came up the only way I can describe something sometimes is safe for mother because that's how dark this was and I can't make it flowery I can't make it PG like oh I want my kids to like I have a clean edition of this book oh you have a non-explicit version yes because people like I want my I want
my kid to read your book but you but you cuss so much I can't I mentioned it's about half the size yes it's very small yes so so the funny thing about it is like how long are you going to shelter your child from a world that's evilish that's going to come at you it's going to come at you whether you've been bullied or not there's gonna come a time where it's going to come at you and it's gonna be a lot worse than your mother it's gonna be a lot worse and so we are
training kids and people to be soft in a world that continuously gets harder and it doesn't it doesn't correlate like that guy talking about the tear gas with the seals is that necessary I don't know but what is necessary is you have to build a person that can withstand the pressures of whatever they're going to be dealing with in life and we don't do that I'm not trying to send a message of run 200 miles be the best in the world but be tough you better have a part about you that's tough a part about
you that can break down situations and get better and break down situations very quickly Within some trauma in your life some Devastation in your life because it's going to come the devastation the trauma is going to come and you can't allow that to become a jersey barrier it can't be a jersey bear it has to be something that you can maneuver through very quickly and move forward that takes a lot of toughness well unchosen suffering is going to happen right so the only thing that you can do is have some chosen suffering to prepare for
it it's the only thing you can do that's the only thing you can practice for the unchosen suffering is have chosen suffering do something that sucks every day this episode is brought to you by element element is a tasty electrolyte drink mix with everything that you need and nothing that you don't I've replaced my morning coffee with element every day for over three years now and I've never looked back it means I've optimized my hydration my brain feels better I'm not getting mental fog and it's helping me to curb Cravings if I'm fasting throughout the
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