Defeat the Inner Bully with Malcolm Grissom | DFS 315

Music. Welcome to Destin for success. I'm your

host, Jennifer Takagi, and today I am talking with my good friend

Malcolm Grissom. Malcolm and I met, oh, a couple years ago,

well, maybe not a couple years ago, but it seems like we've

been friends for a really long time. We met at an event, and

now we just keep circling each other at various events, and

have had a great time together. And Malcolm is a comedian. He

helps children. He's super funny, and we've had really good

times together in the past. Malcolm, I'm so glad that we

have this opportunity to have you on my show. Welcome. Thank

you. Thank you very much. Jennifer, yes, yeah,

it has been. It's been about a year and a half, I think year

and a half, but, yeah, I've seen you so often, so many different

events. It's almost like I've known you my entire life. Yes,

remember my birth

No, I like that story, though. Like, you could

totally tell that story. That's a pretty funny story, but so can

you What do you think about success? What does that mean to

you? And like, how what was your path and your birth story is a

really great one. But you know, what is your path to being the

successful, awesome human being that you are?

Okay? So my path, well, you've actually

brought it up a couple times, so now listeners are saying, What's

the story? So my path actually does begin with my birth,

because I was born on stage, literally on stage. I was born

in the backseat a of a tiny, tiny sports car that happened to

be the initials were mg, which is my name, too, another Hey,

but yeah, very tiny sports car in front of my entire

neighborhood. Okay, so I lived in a very small alleyway, right?

And so the car, my mom was screaming. She was coming out of

the out of our house, headed towards this little sports car.

She was screaming. And so the entire neighborhood, they look

on say, What the f is going on, you know? And then I come out,

my dad scoops me up, right? He lifts me up like the light king,

and he says, Here is my son. He was born and conceived in the

same place.

Now I haven't heard that part. That's great.

I so I literally was, I was a public

figure since day one. I was actually, I was in my first

street gang when I was five months old. Yes, I was, I was

the neighborhood kids because I was born, because everyone knew

who I was, the neighborhood kids and their game, they kept coming

up to my house and asking my mom, can Malcolm come out to

play? Can Malcolm come out to play? And finally, when I was

five months old, my mom allowed them to take me. My she would

with them, of course. And I have a picture of this gang holding

me this literal infant. So it's so fun. But anyway, um, when I

was nine, I took a tragic turn. I had a virus, deadly, a virus

called the array of syndrome, and it attacked my brain and

liver, and as a result, I had to relearn how to walk and talk. My

mom pushed me back into school long before I was emotionally

ready, and so I was bullied, um, by the kids that went on for a

couple of years. And of course, my inner. Bullying was that's

when it grew, and that was really the start of this

internal struggle with my inner bully. So even when the external

bullying stopped, the internal bullying went on for years and

years when I became, when I decided to become a stand up

comedian, it was the internal bully that really caused me?

Well, it was some external bullying and the internal bully

that caused me to come to the brink of suicide for the only

time in my life, and it was through all of this experience

and all of this struggle that I have because I've I've survived,

and I have learned to thrive despite my inner bully. I've

learned to turn the bullying around and thrive that way. This

has been the catalyst for me to now do what I do, which is to

help others, starting with kids and educators, educators,

corporations and parents and families, help them to deal with

bullying, the external bullies and The internal bullies and

just right themselves.

Yeah. Okay, so I've heard you speak the term

internal bully, but for those in the audience who may not have

heard it phrased that way, could you tell us a little bit about

that internal bully and what that looks like?

Sure, sure, if, if you, for those of you that

remember the book, The Artist's Way by Julia Cameron, she talks

about the three voices in the creative realm. So the artist,

the editor, the judge, so the artist is the one that creates

ideas, the editors, the one that comes back and says, Okay, we'll

fix it grammatically, you know? And then the judge is the one

that says, This idea has merit. You should continue with this

idea. Now there's a fourth voice. It's an internal voice.

It's that thought distortion. It's that inner bully voice,

that voice that I'm sure we've all heard that says you're not

good enough. This is a terrible idea. You'll never you'll never

be able to do what you can do. You know you should just quit

right now, and you know rest and be lazy for the rest of your

life. That voice, that thought distortion, that is the inner

bull.

And do we sometimes hear that called

imposter syndrome? Does that align with that? A little bit?

It aligns with it? Yes, um, the imposter

syndrome comes from the inner bully. The inner bully is um,

because the imposter syndrome is specifically focused, and people

specifically think of that as something that's connected with

corporations or work. Basically, you know, I'm not good enough to

do this type of work. Who am I to be a therapist or to do

therapeutic type of work? Because I don't have degrees and

all that, that's all imposter syndrome, which comes from the

inner bully, the inner bully, though the thought distortions

from the inner bully, I think, are even greater than the

imposter syndrome, because they go to any thought that you have

right, right creative ideas. So going back to the three voices

from Julia Cameron. We go back to the artist, the inner bully

can then that thought distortion is that's a really terrible

idea. Why did you even come up with that idea? You should not

even think about that idea at all. Right.

So if I have it right, like we have an inner

bully, and it takes thoughts and distorts them to really beat

yourself up even more. And when you want to step into a new

role, a new position, type thing I'm doing, air quotes people,

then that leads to the imposter syndrome. So they kind of, they,

they, you know, follow each other somewhat, right? Yeah, for

can they can? Okay, yeah, thank you. Thanks. Thanks for that.

Yeah, clarification. I appreciate it. Okay.

Thanks for asking

so you. You've really latched on to this idea

of that inner bully and how you need to clear him or her out so

that you can succeed. So do you have ideas on how we can do that

or even recognize it? I

do. I do actually. I also have a

giveaway, a free giveaway, that is going to be in the notes.

It's called five five steps. So what is it called five steps to

be five steps to defeat your inner bully. And I let's see I

can even with without going into the entire five steps that are

defined in the giveaway, I will just give you three basic steps.

So at it's the three Ds, D as in dog three Ds. So defeat or

detect defeat and detox, detect the inner bully. So detect that

those thought distortions, right? Those, yeah, detect those

thought distortions and a thought distortion, it would be

anything that says, especially anything with absolutes. I can

never do this, you know, I will, I'm always reacting this way.

You know, those are thought distortions. So detect those

thought distortions, and then the next, the next step is to

detach. Detach yourself from those thought distortions. So my

inner bully really began when I was five years old. So even

before my illness with my mom, because my parents got divorced

and my mom, I won't even go into to the details, but they they

started with her. So I called my inner bully mini mama. Right?

I've given my inner bully a name. I've even visualized my

inner bully, maybe not as a person, maybe just as a color,

but I visualized and I've given my inner bully a name, and that

allows me to better detach my inner bully from Malcolm. So

that way, when I hear any kind of thought distortion like this

is never gonna happen, you'll always do this. Then I can just

say, Oh, thanks many mama, but you're wrong. Fu,

that came along

exactly, and then detox is simply repeating that is simply

repeating that till you get to that point where you can where

there's a clear detachment between the two, because detach

is it's sort of hard you can intellectually detach. But.

Detox is bringing that intellectual detachment into

your body, because your body has muscle memory, right? So you

have to repeat something. The more you repeat it, the more it

becomes part of your muscle memory in your body, and that's

when you can, very clearly, not just intellectually, but

completely detach from the inner fully.

So when you say, detox, detox, you said,

repeat the so is it like, repeat the command of, go away, or

Thank you. You're gone. Like, repeat, right? Which I'm I'm

sorry, yes, repeat the repeat what you the

steps that you did in detach. Okay, so repeat, recognizing the

inner bully and recognizing that you are not those thoughts. You

are a creative You're a beautiful, creative human being,

right? So recognizing that and saying, No, I will not listen to

you inner bully. So the detox is repeating that process enough to

where it becomes part of your body's muscle memory.

So along those lines, I just want to throw out

a story that just kind of puts this in in alignment for me. I

was in a Bible study group, and they were talking about, and we

were studying a book, actually, but in the book, they were

talking about how most couples fight about the same thing all

the time, like it just, it's on repeat. And no matter what

starts the fight, if you boil it down, it's the same problem,

right? It just has different branches and shows up different

ways. And one of the things they said was we need to, and this

sounds really harsh, but bear with me. We need to convict the

other person of their sin without sinning ourselves. And

so it's finding a way to use the words and say, hey, you know

that's inappropriate. It's not nice. Don't talk to me that way,

right? But getting very specific on it. And one of the things

they recommended was write out your script of what you're going

to say when it comes up, because it will come up like the same

things happen. Same thing with our thoughts. So one possible

scenario could be, you know what the thoughts are, write down

your script for rejecting the thought, and then practice in

the mirror. They say, if you practice in the mirror, you can

really start to ingrain that so that you can do it easily,

because in the moment, you get caught up in the moment, and

then you can't do it, but if you've got some practice under

your belt, then wow, oh, I actually did it. I caught myself

and I said, No, that practice,

right? It becomes once you so I'm not, I'm

not very good on the I don't remember the exact terms that

conscious, unconscious and but essentially what your church was

saying, and what I'm saying is, in that detox are in that

detachment phase, you are conscious about what you're

conscious about what's happening. You're conscious

about. This is the inner bully. This is me. I don't need to

listen to the inner bully. There should be a separation. You're

conscious about that, just like you're conscious about you know,

you should treat me that way. We shouldn't talk that way. And

what the goal is in the detox phase is to bring that to the

unconscious, to where you it's part of you as part of how you

respond. You don't have to intellectually think about it.

It's just this is how I respond. I hear that voice, and I

automatically know that's not who I am, or we get in that

argument. My partner says that to push my buttons, and I

automatically react. Friendly, because I know, oh, you're just,

we're just going down that same rabbit hole. No, not going to do

it. Yeah,

I'm not going to play today, exactly. Yeah, I

love that, because the detox does get it down to that

subconscious level. So the hope, the goal, would be that those

thoughts either didn't happen at all or happen very rarely,

because you've pushed them away so much that they're no longer

part of your self, right?

And they will always happen so with me, even

though I have a strong hold on my inner bully, my inner bully

is going to be with me till the day I die. You know that voice,

it's it's just part of me. I There's no way. I think it's a

mistake to try and get rid of that voice to try and beat that

voice to try and say, No, I know you're the inner bully. I'm not

going to have anything to do with you. Get out of here. You

know that's just causing more stress and more friction well,

and sometimes it could actually be warning you

of something you need to consider, like it could it could

not be 100% negative. It might be 99% of the time you need to

kick it to the curb. And every now and then it might have you

take pause for a good reason, not, not to derail you, as it

usually does, yeah,

yeah. Only now going back to those. Now we're

talking about the editor, and I think the editor, the editor, or

sometimes I call it the critic, the critic can be, yeah, know

that, you know that idea doesn't sound right the way that you're

putting it, but like you said, the critic can also say, don't

touch that stove because it's really hot. You know, you'll

burn yourself,

right, right?

That's so the critic is. The critic might

sound like the in the inner bully, but if you listen

carefully, the critic will net never gives absolutes. The

critic never says, this is you always react that way, or you're

a terrible person for believing that, or you can't do that just

because you can't do the critic might say you can't do that

right now, but the inner bully will say you can't do that

period. Ever, ever, right? That's the very distinct, very,

very significant and small difference between the two that,

yeah, it's huge. Gosh, this is awesome. So

how do you work with people? Um, I believe you work a lot with

children.

I do. I do well, um, so one of, one of the,

one of the things that I teach on creating an atmosphere to

defeat bullying and overcome bullying really goes back To

laughter, and that is like in in my own world, laughter is what

saved my life. Laughter is how I've learned to recognize the

inner bully. Laughter is how I've learned to defeat the inner

bully. So laughter is a big thing. So with kids, I teach

comedy and improv confidence camps when they are not in

school, and then over the year, we have a virtual, just a

virtual, ongoing class where we go over the same, same ideas. I

also do that with adults at m in. Groups, specifically, though

with I can also specifically work one on one with someone,

and really focus on what it is for them that is causing this

inner bully, or what their inner bully really sounds like, to

help them differentiate between the inner bully and the critic,

right?

Yeah, because they're different, right?

Exactly they are. Oh my gosh.

This has been super educational for me. So

when we have our inner bully, we need to name it and identify it,

whether it's with an actual name, or recognize it as a

color, and then follow the three part formula of detect when it's

happening, then detach from it that's not me, that's my inner

bully, and then detox from it through the repetitive practice

of recognizing it and pushing it away quickly and easily.

Correct yes,

gosh, this is awesome, and I can't wait to get

your free gift, we'll have the link in the chat, so just

whatever device you're working on, grab it from the show notes.

We'll have it in there for you. This has been an awesome

conversation. Malcolm, thank you,

perhaps Thank you. Jennifer, yeah, I really

appreciate this.

Well, do you have any last words you want to

share with the audience, I

most certainly do. Every step is a victory.

Remember that just every step is a victory, whether it's a step

backwards, a step to the side, it's still a victory. It's

movement. Because one, you can't get anywhere, you can't move

anywhere. You can't accomplish success, right? You can't do

that without movement. The other thing to remember is, even if

it's a step back, think about physics, what goes backward must

go forward. What goes up must come down. There's always an

opposite. So every step is a victory.

I love this. Thank you so much. Malcolm. I'm

Jennifer Takagi with destin for success. I look forward to

connecting with you soon. Bye.