Teri Holland (00:01.922)
Welcome back to another episode of Success in Mind. Today we're going to talk about resilience. Resilience in the online space. Because I know that one of the things that holds people back, that might even be holding you back, from standing out and being seen, sharing your voice and your message with this big, planet,
The of what will they say? If I speak my truth, if share this message, if I show up in a big and bold way, what will they say? Will they come at me? What if I say the wrong thing and I get cancelled?
So we're going to talk about that today because this is the thing that I see stopping people from launching podcasts, YouTube channels, sharing their book, being big and bold and standing out. So let's dive in.
Teri Holland (01:12.322)
Now I'm sharing this today because I had this memory come up today. I don't know. For some reason, I started thinking about how several, many years ago, my gosh, thinking back, that's coming up to 10 years ago, so like nine and a half years ago, I had this experience where I really put myself out there in a big way online and I got attacked.
by people that I know.
Teri Holland (01:45.838)
So let's go back to 2015 and I had started the podcast and I had just completed my NLP training and become a certified NLP practitioner, hypnotherapist, timeline therapy practitioner, and NLP coach. And I was ready to put myself on that big online stage and announce to the world that this is what I'm doing now and you can come work with me.
And so I started a Facebook ad campaign, my very first one.
And I remember pressing publish on that ad and just waiting, waiting for all the business to come in. Spoiler alert, it did not happen like that. But what did happen...
Teri Holland (02:36.27)
But what did happen was that the next day I noticed an old friend of mine had shared it. And this was an old friend from back when I was probably about 18 years old. We worked together, that's how we met. We worked a retail job together and we were like weekend friends. I wouldn't say that we had like a deep, close connection, but
She was the friend I would go to the bar with on the weekends when we were 18. And her and a couple other girls. And once Facebook came along, and I'm totally dating myself, but Facebook came along several years later and we reconnected on Facebook. We didn't spend a lot of time interacting there, but occasionally I'd like a photo of her and her family. Once in while she would like something of mine.
Sometimes we would see eye eye on something and we might engage in a conversation in the comment thread. That was about it. And so here I am with that ad. Looking back was not a good ad, but anyway, with my first ad campaign on Facebook and she shared it. My first thought was, wow, that is so kind of her.
That's so great of her to share my ad. And then I saw under that, saw that there were comments about it. know, comments of people on that shared ad. And so I went to her profile to see what did she say? What are people saying? And if you have ever been punched in the nose before, that's what it felt like.
because this was not an act of kindness. This was an act of cruelty. She shared that ad with something to the effect, and I'm paraphrasing because this was several years ago and I have long since blocked and deleted her, but she shared the ad with something along the lines of who does she think she is to be a coach?
Teri Holland (04:52.864)
something like that. And then in the comments was this girl who I knew back in those bar star 18 year old days and she was a friend of the first friend. I'm not saying names intentionally, but it's getting confusing I guess, because there's now two of them. So the first friend, she was a friend of the first friend and I knew her back then and had some issues with her back at that part of my life.
That's a whole story for another day, but long story short, I'll say that this second friend became a little bit obsessed with me and stalked me. It didn't go too far, so it's not that big of a story, so don't be like, my gosh, what happened? It's not that big of a story. She stalked me, I had to block numbers, change numbers, I moved not long after that, so that put an end to it. But she was a little bit obsessive for a period of time. And so,
This second person commented on the first person's share of my ad and said, I've been waiting a long time to take this Teri bitch down. And then the two of them going back and forth about taking me down.
And to this day, have no idea. I have no idea why after so many years had gone by, why they had some kind of a grudge. I had never had an issue with the first person, the first former friend. We had never had any kind of falling out, any kind of issue. And I don't know why this happened other than it was for my greater good. So.
What transpired over the next 48 hours was these two women ganging up on me, leaving me awful comments and reviews on my content, writing reviews on my professional Facebook page to promote my business, making up all kinds of things, saying things like, Teri Holland hypnotized me once and stole all of my money. And which was kind of, which was.
Teri Holland (07:11.608)
Thinking back is laughable because I had literally just completed my training. Like I had worked with classmates at that point and that was it. So very laughable, but damaging nonetheless. And I would block them, I would delete the comments, I would get Facebook to delete the reviews, and then they would set up fake profiles and they would do it again and again and again for 48 hours. And it wasn't just the two of them now. Now they had recruited others into their journey of destruction.
including other former friends from that same period of life. And I could not block and delete profiles fast enough before they would be back on my page. So this went on for 48 hours and that's not a long time, but it felt like a long time in that moment. And I remember messaging my coach at the time and I said, if this is what it means to be visible, if this is what it means to put myself out there in a big way,
I don't want anything to do with it. I don't want this. And he got back to me and he said, Teri, you want to be really big one day, right? You want to be like Tony Robbins or Oprah. How many haters do you think that they have?
And that was something I hadn't thought about before. How many haters do they have? And then he said, Teri, Tony Robbins wakes up every day to millions of people hating him and wanting to see him fall. But he doesn't focus on them. He focuses on the people he's here to serve and help. And if you want to get to that level one day, you have to learn how to deal with the haters at this level. Because right now you have three or four women sending you nasty messages.
How will you ever deal with millions if you can't handle this now? And then he said something that has stuck with me for all of these years. He said, Teri, this is training. This is a lesson in resilience.
Teri Holland (09:23.106)
And that hit home. From that moment on, I recognized that this was simply a lesson that in order for me to become who I wanted to become, in order for me to get what I wanted to get in this life, I had to be okay with people not agreeing with me, people not liking me, people hating me for absolutely zero reason. Now here's the truth of this. And bear with me, because I read this stat so many years ago, I no longer remember the source that it came from.
But it is said that out of all the people that you will meet in your life, one third of them won't like you. They just won't like you. They won't hate you necessarily, but they're not gonna like you. And you won't win them over. You can spend all of your energy trying and it's not gonna make a difference. They just don't like you. You're not for them.
the next third, the middle third of people, they're on the fence. They could take you or leave you. They're not gonna be your raving fans. Or maybe they're just not sure about you yet, but they don't dislike you, but they don't love you either. They're just kinda neutral. You might be able to win them over.
And then there's the top third, and these are your people. These are your fans, your biggest supporters, your cheerleaders. These are the people who will watch your videos, listen to your podcasts, show up to your talks. They're the people who will hire you to work with them and do whatever it is that you do so brilliantly and beautifully. These are your friends. These are the people who always have your corner. No matter what, they've got your back.
Teri Holland (11:01.218)
These are the people we want to focus on.
Now of that bottom third, 3 % hate you. And these are the ones that will leave the nasty comments and the mean messages. They'll send you the hate mail. These are the ones who are like these women I was talking about before who came out to try to destroy me.
Teri Holland (11:28.312)
they're only 3%. And if we allow that 3 % to dictate how we show up, where we show up, what we say, if we show up at all, if we let them dictate that, then we are letting this small fraction of the population control our lives and our destiny. You are letting this 3 % of the population decide how much fulfillment, how much love, how much joy you get to have in this lifetime.
You are letting this 3 % decide how you express yourself. And they don't get to decide that anymore. They are not important. The ones who are important are in that top third of people, the ones who you are here to help, who you can have an impact with. And then maybe some of that second third of the people, the ones on the fence.
Listen, there are over eight billion people on this planet now. There are more than enough people for you to be supported in sharing your message. There are more people who will stand behind you than will not.
assuming that you're doing good work on this planet and that you are here with good intentions.
So if you are holding yourself back because you're afraid of what they will say, or if you're afraid of the haters and the comments, if you're afraid to get canceled, then it is time to put on your big girl pants, stand in your brilliance and do it anyway. Because the haters are going to hate you no matter what you do. You could be absolutely silent and do nothing and they will
Teri Holland (13:19.512)
there will still be people out there who just don't like you. And there will still be a few people who hate you just for your very existence. But they don't get to drive the bus any longer.
And so looking back at that time in my life, you know, it is really easy to say that that was there for me, for my growth. That was put in my path to make me stand up and be strong in the face of adversity and to learn that powerful lesson in resilience. But I will tell you at the time, it felt horrible. It really felt like I had just been punched in the face. And the reason I know that is because in the seventh grade, I was punched in the nose by a bully.
And do you know what I did? I laughed.
And I'll quickly tell you that story. was in the girl's bathroom. This girl was there who didn't like me. She's in my bottom 3 % of people who really hated me for, I don't know why. And she walked up to me in the bathroom and punched me in the nose. And it was so shocking that all I could do was laugh. And she really did not expect that response. I think she thought we were gonna get into a fight. And here I was, this like tiny,
mousy drama geek. I was not fighting anyone. And so all I did was laugh and it just, I didn't think about it. It just happened. I started laughing at the absurdity of this moment. And she stood there frozen, not knowing what to do with my reaction. And then she walked away. And that is the only time that ever happened because I didn't do what she expected. And just like with these women,
Teri Holland (15:10.114)
when I launched my coaching business.
I just kept going and they disappeared. I mean, I blocked them and I deleted them, yes. But they stopped making the fake profiles. They stopped getting their friends to come after me. My guess is that they moved on to someone else they hated just as much and started bullying someone else the next day. But I didn't react the way they wanted me to. I didn't fight them back. I didn't defend myself. I used the tools I had available, which was block, delete, and I could move on.
with the help of my coach who kept me mentally strong through it.
Teri Holland (15:49.102)
So if this is what's holding you back from sharing your message and being seen and being visible, you need to know that you are giving those people all the power. And the ones who deserve the power are the ones that support you, the ones you are here to serve, the ones who when they hear your message, it lands with them and it changes their life. That's the value in having a podcast or a YouTube channel, writing a book.
showing up on social media, doing a TEDx talk, whatever it is for you. That is the purpose of sharing your message and your voice is so that someone else hears it and their life is forever transformed.
So let's stop playing small.
And if you need a reminder, you come back and you listen to this episode again. We're not letting the bullies win. We're not letting cancel culture win.
And I'll leave you with this final note. was, several years ago, I was working with a client who at the time was a CEO of a major marketing firm. And we were talking, we got into a conversation about cancel culture and he said to me, Teri, do you know who can't be canceled? And I said, who? And he said, the people who just don't care.
Teri Holland (17:19.63)
If you don't care about their opinions of you when you were sharing your story, when you were sharing your message, if you can turn that part off and stop caring about them, they can't cancel you. They can't get rid of you. And if you have a message that's important to share, you owe it to yourself to speak it. And I know, I know that you do.
So thanks for joining me today on this episode of Success in Mind. I hope you found it valuable. If you did, you know what to do. Hit the subscribe button so you always know when a new episode is released. Share it with your friends. Leave that five star review. And I would love to hear from you. Reach out to me. Instagram is the place that I hang out the most these days. Reach out to me on Instagram and let me know what you're going to do differently after listening to this. Thank you for being here. I'll be back again.
Maybe later in the week, probably next week. Lately I'm only doing one episode a week just because of time, but I'm hoping to get back to the two episodes soon. All right, my friends, bye for now.
