Johanna: Thank you for coming to the Alopecia Angel podcast. Today's topic is bullying, and this is something that you are very familiar with. You have your own podcast in regards to Bully This, the podcast?

Tyler: Yeah, Cliff and I do it sporadically these days. We did it really consistently. He unfortunately had a bunch of stuff going on with life and couple kids now and that sort of stuff. But when we have the opportunity to present it, we'll still do a Bully This episode. And then I'm very active on Underdogs, Bootstrappers, Gamechangers, which is my other podcast.

Johanna: I love it. So in terms of Bully This, which is really the topic I wanna focus on. What are some of the themes that you've seen having interviewed or listened to these stories or discovered along the path of maybe your own or those around you once they've been bullied? What are some of the signs that maybe as parents, we should be attuned to or as friends or family that we should be attuned to?

Because I feel like maybe sometimes we don't see the signs and we just maybe glance over and think: Oh, maybe, Jimmy is having a bad day, or Sally is having, just like emotional swings or whatever it is. And there's more to it.

Tyler: Yeah. I really like to immerse into systems that I don't understand. A lot of times it's a system that I dislike immensely. And so I have to get involved with it, so I understand it. A good representation of that is I started volunteering at an animal kill shelter. I'm a huge animal lover. I'm like, how can we have these animal kill shelters? It's like shame on them, they shouldn't be around anymore. And when I started volunteering there, I realized quickly that wasn't the problem. It was actually another issue.

So I had wasted my time kind of hating kill shelters. When kill shelters don't wanna kill animals. They love animals, just the same. It's actually a problem in adoption in buying pets through, puppy mills, that sort of stuff. That was the issue. So I wasted my time hating the wrong thing. And with bullying too, it's once I immersed into the system, I started to understand it a little bit more. Once I talked to people that had been through it.

Number #1 We have to get these kids through bullying because they become some of the most successful people and most impactful people on the planet. It's become a a part of my life to help people make it from bad situations because they grow up and they

change things, and bullying is a great example of that. The ability to overcome adversity is the key indicator to success above anything else. And bullying is adversity.

But to answer your question, that like other than immersion, and I bring that up so people understand that why I might know a little bit about it. Siloing is a key indicator if a kid is just like completely siloing by themselves, this is a very impactful message and there's also a lot of relevancy to the kid having even one friend. The stats go crazy in their favor if they have even one person that they feel is a confidant in life. And so it's hard, but something I've learned is like that kid needs to get involved into things that they are interested in with like-minded people so they can find friends. Like a lot of people talk about church groups, a lot of people talk about music groups. Even a video game group, like leads to belonging. Something that gets a kid belonging to siloing is a huge indicator that you got a problem.

Johanna: So in my line of work, we're dealing with people, children, parents of children, men and women of all ages that are going through alopecia, which is hair loss. It tends to be the autoimmune alopecia, the autoimmune disease for children primarily, and some of the young adults that I work with. Have had this bullying happen because let's say culturally they tend to be on the hairy side, and they love that because it's a sign of masculinity.

Tyler: Yeah, 100%. And I do wanna frame this in. Bullying is not cool. I've been in mixed martial arts for 20 years or so, around some of the toughest people on the planet, and none of them are bullies. They're kindhearted good people. And so I would say that person out there that thinks they're being cool by bullying somebody else, that is not cool, right? I have a key phrase and I say I want more kindhearted badasses in the world. This is something where I hate the experience for you, but I think that it was the CEO of Intel recently gave a speech and he said, I wish you extreme problems in your life or something like that, because that is the only way to solve problems and to fulfillment.

And so I don't wish these things on anybody. But since they're happening to you, then use them, right? Use them as motivation and kindhearted person. Get out there and get yourself the rest. You can build all this, right? You can get into a martial arts gym, you can get in the weight pile, like use that stuff to be better. I'm not saying go out there and then get in fights, but then once you become a powerful enough person, you can stand up for other people, and that's a good feeling. I'm not out there getting in fights every day, but I sure as heck don't let people bully people on my watch either.

So that's why I'm saying, kindhearted people bring yourself the rest. Get some confidence in the weight pile, get some confidence by attending a mixed martial arts class, get some confidence with the guitar if that's your thing. Find your other thing that's confidence. I can't speak specifically to how do you deal with that. Like standing out there in the world in a way that you don't want to, but I can deal with, I can talk to you about using these things that frustrate us, hurt us as motivation to do other things,

to build ourselves, because that is the only way you can make hard things become a gift.

Johanna: Very true. Very true. In many ways that's exactly why I do what I do, because it was my own adversity with my own hair loss to, overcome it. And yeah, it was a struggle and yeah, it was very difficult. But I think in many ways in my 30s, this was very, very different than having to be a teenager and go through it. Not to say that one is easier than the other, it's just different. There's different circumstances surrounding children and having to go through this. Because you have schools, you have classmates who don't understand, you have teachers, you have even family members, maybe you know, cousins or what have you that are making you feel less worthy or less than, because of your looks.

And my heart goes out to the parents with the young children because they're still trying to even figure out their own identity. They're still trying to figure out who they are in this world, what they wanna be, who they wanna grow up to be. And so it's just from a foundational aspect. What more can we do as adults to support children beyond, let's say, getting them into extracurricular activities, giving them confidence, boosters? They need to go through that frustration to learn themselves and build the self-esteem. But in this case, it's not necessarily something innate that they need to figure out. It's something that, where they're actually looking for help.

Tyler: I don't think that giving adversity for adversity's sake is something that somebody should do, but I think that a parent's part could be to support them. And to let them feel loved and cared for because they're already getting enough of the adversity stuff through the rest of their life. So to feel supported and cared for. Like one of the scariest, saddest things for me in dealing with all this is what about that kid that doesn't have any sort of parental caring at home? Kids that get bullied a lot of times are very poor, right? They come from like horrible parental backgrounds anyways. It's like there's no support even at home, and I don't have a good answer for them, right?

If you have a good parental system at home, that support alone is enough to get you through. And then you need to keep a kid active. You can't let them silo, but not what you wanna be active with, what they wanna be active with. Find them that one friend, that can mean something to them in this world. Find them that thing that they can do to build a little bit of confidence, and that can be anything in the world. Computers, knitting, I don't care what it's, but, and then helping them realize that this isn't, and that's why we started Bully This, it was to show: Like look, life is not this way forever. This is a very small window, but most people give up in that small window, right?

And helping them realize like there is a future. And not only that, but the people that are going through this stuff quite often become the most successful, most powerful, most impactful people in the world, right? And so it's like helping them to understand that this is a small window of life and it isn't all of life, which is so hard when you're 15, 16. There is, there's so much more. This is just the start, it's and it's not gonna be like that forever. And since awful stuff is handed to you anyways, I believe in using it as a gift, right? It's

use the things that are causing you pain and explore them in a way that can, you know, motivate you towards new goals? I'm actually working a lot on this these days, because teams are especially who I like to impact. It's like, how can we think of life a little bit differently?

And one thing that's worked really well for me is, like I think of my life as a role playing game, right? It's like we've all played 'em, it's like you choose a character. You make them something and then you go out and you make 'em chop wood and then they get stronger and they learn how to use the ax and you make 'em read a book and they get smarter and these little bars are going up. I think of my life that way. And so if you can get kids to think a little bit of everything you're doing right now is improving a meter on a specialty or strength or knowledge, it's like you are preparing yourself for the next step in life, because this is only part of it. I hope that can get through to a kid as young as 13, 14, 15 years old that's dealing with bullied, getting bullied over not having hair.

Like I hope that's impactful, but sometimes it's just pushing messages and seeing which one lands too. I know the power of a story, and so that's what Bully This attempts to do is show you stories of people that have been exactly where you're at and gotten through it, seeing it possible as part of it. So yes, there is no solution for this.

There is no perfect, like response to it. There is no perfect advocacy group out there that you can contact with. It felt really helpless when I started looking into it. And it's but I know the power of a story, right? I know the power of talking about things. I know the power of showing where somebody's come from and what they've done. So we can think we do it, we can do it too. It's and that's the best answer I have for you right now, is look for people that motivate you, that have been through similar things and get inspired by it. And not only that, but find ways to change your life. We're handed this awful stuff anyways, and I think about it completely opposite. It's like you can implode from this awful stuff, or you can use it as motivation, you can prove them wrong.

Like you can use that stuff like that fire and then change your life because of it. And so many people are able to find that key and do it. I would implore more people to do it. On our part one thing I've looked at is trying to get enough people volunteering with gyms with music groups, with, being willing to say: Hey, we'll open the door for you and walk you through the first time and get you situated. I think that's powerful.

So getting that first step in the door to anything you're interested in is tough, or how to get yourself involved with that. So depending on the age of somebody, a lot of times they just don't know how to navigate getting involved with things that would be helpful. So the power of a story and having a handheld into a, into something that creates the value in their own mind, and there's not a good group that I know of currently that does that.

Johanna: Do you or your co-host have experience with being bullied, and if so, could you share your story?

Tyler: Cliff is pretty vocal about his story. He is a black guy that went to an all white school and he was fat as a kid, and so he had a lot of things that he was bullied over. And then now he's one of the toughest, most competent people on the planet, right? So he used that in a way that was very impactful for his life. He's one of the best fighters in the world now. You'd never think to bully the guy. And not only that, but he is the nicest guy on the planet too. He is like a warmhearted, you would never think he, he looks the part, he doesn't act the part. So that's his story, and why we got involved with the podcast.

And mine, I didn't think I had ever been bullied before. The traditional sense of being bullied is like kid picks on you. I didn't ever really deal with that. I dealt with some stuff, like we were really poor growing up. Somebody would see me wearing their shirt that they donated or something like that, and they'd be like: Hey, that's my shirt. But they weren't really bullying me over it. I went through some uncomfortable things, because of being poor, but I wouldn't call it being bullied. What I didn't realize, and I realized, and this is what's crazy, when you set out to help other people, you end up helping yourself, learning about yourself, like exploring things.

And I realized through the podcast I was bullied, but I was bullied by adults. I never thought about that before because we don't think about that traditionally. I was very bullied by teachers, the principal, they didn't treat me fair at all. They called me stupid, they told me I would never amount to anything. So it did, it had a really big impact on me, and I believed that for a long time. And so I do know what the bullying concept feels like. It's people telling you're something you're not, right? Unfortunately, at a young age, you will believe that. I believed that was stupid, I believed that would never amount to nothing. My father was in prison, I thought I was going there too. I believed all these things and I'd love to give the magic bottle answer to somebody because I would give it away in a second.

I don't know what finally switched the thing in my mind that says: Tyler, you can do anything. I think it was little wins, little wins in the gym, right? Little wins in work, little wins in life. It's like finally daring, even though I thought it was stupid to go to college. Excelling in college, braving a biochemistry degree, getting a master's degree. These little steps help you build confidence. And my energy turned from: I can't do it to: I can do anything I want in this world, and not only that, but I'm gonna use every bit of pain you gave me as the motivation to get there.

And so if I get bottle that up for kids, it's I know this is painful, and this is probably counter to what you're being told. Use that pain, you can be anything you want in this world, and the fact that you're going through something makes you more capable to be a defender of it someday yourself.

Johanna: Amen to that. I feel like sometimes this can even bleed when you said, teachers and maybe principals and maybe other people in authority. I also think that certain institutions, governments people wearing lab coats can also bully us into doing certain things that we don't want to do, or believing things that aren't true. I've said it

once, and I'll say it again. I do believe there is a cure in healing, possibilities for people who want to heal their alopecia. Whereas if you were to Google this, you would say, or hear or read that there is no cure. And yet I don't think it's the one size fits all. Like we would get out of a headache medicine for everyone to heal their headache. It's gonna look different, it's gonna be tailored, it's gonna be a personalized plan for each person.

But that's not to say that we all can't learn French or we all can't, become MMA fighters or we all can't do something. We can, we just need the desire, the will and the heart to implement and to take action to do it. So I do believe, and I do feel, especially now as an adult, that many entities tend to bully people on a regular basis, maybe even subliminally, and we don't realize what's happening, we don't realize what's going on, and we're just being sheep many times, following the herd. This is where, in my personal journey with alopecia and with a health diagnosis that I, quote unquote, came outta nowhere. I knew there was something more out there. I knew there was just something more than than what I was told, than what I was led to believe. So, digging deeper I think it has been a big motivation for me in my sense, but also proving people wrong. Which is a beautiful thing. 'cause it, I think that taste of victory is just so worth it.

Tyler: We talk a lot on our podcast about that sheep mentality. It's like you have the bully person, you have the bullied person. If one competent individual can come in and say: Hey, why are you doing that? And make the bully person think out of the emotion. Once the bullied kid doesn't think that's cool anymore, they don't do it. Most people react in a way that's okay, the crowd doesn't think this is cool, back to the sheep mentality. Maybe I won't continue doing this. People, very rarely human psychology when the group's telling them something's not cool, they're not gonna continue doing it. You know how you crazy you have to be to continue doing something that they, a group doesn't think is cool?

But on the counter side, I've been involved in group mentality on the opposite level. You know how hard it is to be the person to stand up the group when something's not right? But that takes a lot of mental practice and awareness, right? I'm very aware of situations and I gut check myself. Is this a herd mentality thing? Because it doesn't feel right. And I'll make sure where I feel, and if I don't feel right about it, I'll say something regardless of how big the group is.

Johanna: Let's go back to your story for a minute. You said that, you weren't necessarily picked on or bullied by children, but yet it must have been from adults.

And, this could be various types of adults, whether in power of some sort, like a teacher or a principal or something else. But it could even come from within our own families. At one point we all believe, you know what people tell us, and at the same time it's hard to overcome that until we're starting to give ourselves affirmations or starting to see those little wins in life. And so, how do you even start to help the person who maybe is not bullied on the outside, but maybe is like self-deprecating on the inside?

Tyler: That's a difficult one, and I don't know that I'm the best person on the planet for it. I think it's a fine line between holding yourself accountable and bullying yourself. It's like I work daily on self-talk. My self-talk is not awesome, and it's been a thing that's helped me for so long that I have a difficulty changing it, right? Because my self-talk for a long time has been: What are you doing sitting here? You gotta get that extra thing of work done, you gotta get up and get to the gym. It's like I will bully myself about to the gym about getting work done, about taking a break, it's and so learning to have enough discipline to keep yourself motivated towards the things and actions you should do, without going overboard into bullying yourself and like shame on you anytime you like sit for a second.

That lends to my business background too, the grind mentality, right? It's something I've discussed with people that really understand it. Is like, it is imperative for somebody starting with no money to have the grind mentality in a business. And part of the having that grind mentality is telling yourself anytime you're taking a break, to keep going. It is not easy to work 7 days a week, it is not easy to work 15 hour days, there's gotta be something in you telling you: Hey, get up, stop being lazy. Get, it's 4:00 AM you gotta get up and you got to get this done. Almost like a bad coach in a way. It's but that can only work for so long. And then you get into this point where it's like lots of negative self- talk and I don't have the answer for this. It's something I'm still working on, you have to give yourself some leniency, but hold yourself accountable too.

Johanna: Oh yeah, I hear you. It is a balancing act and and I almost think it's also a generational, have you seen between, let's say, the, your podcast people that you've host that you've hosted or interviewed. Or even people that you've come across where let's say their mental toughness or their reaction towards bullying is different just because of a generational aspect of it.

I only say this, because. I'm no longer in my thirties and now in my forties, but, and I see changes and differences, with working with people of all different ages and even nationalities where that mentality of: Okay, just suck it up. Just keep going, move forward, versus, take a timeout, take a break, everyone gets a gold star. You know what I mean? It's just so different.

Tyler: Totally. And the way that it's dealt with, throw some dirt in it, it's like a lot of people you talk to in the older generation, number one, they'll say that bullying didn't really exist from what they remembered, which is interesting. I've watched some, like 70 year olds talk about it, and they don't recall it much. It's like where younger generation recall it a lot, right? A lot of it's going on. The older generation would say: Just punch him in the nose. And the younger generation would not know what to do.

There's no secret group I have for you, but what one thing we can all action on every single day is treat people kind. If it was as cool to be kind as it is to have a sports car, what would the world be like? That's why one of my goals, and like I've known for saying this, I wanna make more kindhearted badasses in the world. So if you have a good heart, you can bring yourself everything else. You can bring yourself success, you can

bring yourself muscles, you can bring yourself like whatever you want to in life. This isn't just work, right? So if you've got this, you can get out there and get the rest, and that's where I like try to help people. 'cause that's where I don't feel powerless.

There is a lot of times where I'll reach out and say: Hey, if you want to try getting in the gym, I'll go with you. If I'm in your area, I'll go with you to the gym. Getting you started on that gets you started in your journey of confidence and gets me somebody building another kindhearted badass in the world. If everybody was like the guys at my mixed martial art gym, the world would be a better place. The toughest people on the planet with the kindest hearts, that's what we need more of.

Johanna: Do you happen to have any parting words or anything else that you'd like to share?

Tyler: The power of a story is one of the most powerful things we can give people in the world. So I think that more people need to share their journeys with this sort of hardship, so other people can understand that this is how they beat it, this is how they became successful because of it. Most of the people that go through the bad stuff and they make it, it's because of the bad stuff that they made it.

We'll continue to do Underdogs, Bootstrappers, Gamechangers. We'll continue to do Bully This, when the perfect guests arise. And other than that, I spend a lot of time, helping small business people and, doing a lot with media these days because I believe in the power of the camera for good messaging.

Johanna: That's awesome. Thank you so much, Tyler. Where can people connect with you besides the podcast?

Tyler: Yeah, at @tyleruriah is my handle on every social media channel, I'm very accessible by Instagram. And so feel free to shoot me a message anytime. If it is something I can be helpful with or make a connection, I always make it a point to do that. At the end of the day, life's gives us hard stuff and it's what we do that with that hard stuff and so I know that's hard to prove them wrong, do it anyway and get to where you want to be so you can help other people.

Johanna: Awesome. Thank you so much Tyler. I appreciate your time. Tyler: My pleasure.