I killed 7 people because you didn't ....

I killed 7 people because you …

I just watched a news program where Todd Kohlhepp admitted killing 7 people. And he admitted to his mother, why he did it.

Here is what she said ...  'I gave him everything, everything!"

Why did he kill seven people? They embarrassed him. He was trying to buy a motorcycle and the people selling him the bike made fun of him. That's what he felt. One quote that Todd made I have to share is "They made me feel ..."

And isn't this the mantra for all people... they made me feel. You made me feel...

As a 'Mental Prosperity' executive coach I train people in many areas. Bullying is only one. But it is an important one. And I teach that no one makes you ‘feel’ unless you choose to let them control your life and emotions. You have the ability to choose. I teach people this every day and it works.

It is important because Bullying is an important part of our lives. Don't ask me why, I am not a psychiatrist but I am a 'Mental Prosperity' executive coach. I teach people how to communicate. How to achieve greater success with people whether it's employees, managers, family. And bullying exists in almost every area of our lives. 

And what this Mother did not understand was a simple parenting concept; if you give your child everything they most likely won't understand most things. That sounds rather broad but they won't understand much of what life is about.

I worked summers on my uncles farm in Iowa and one of the many lessons I learned was simple - it was a chicken lesson and it went like this.

The first time I watched a chick breaking out of its shell I reached in to help. As I reached my uncle stopped me and said not to help. I was confused. Don't we all want help? He said, if you help a chick break out of its shell it will not become strong enough to live. Since then, I have heard that from experts all across America. Creatures and humans need that early struggle to gain strength in order to become strong enough to walk and get to the real food source or they will die.

Here is a real life example of what Mrs. Kohlhepp didn't understand. Maybe of what America has forgotten when we give medals and certificates to ALL of the children who play a sport. You were good enough to play.

But playing isn't enough. There are lessons to learn in all sporting events. I remember how disappointed I was when my son would rather just stand and daydream rather than chase the soccer ball to show he was an athlete. What I learned was, that was not an interest for my son. He could care less about soccer. Whoop dee doo. He got a certificate for participating that year. But he learned very little from soccer. Well, for a four year old, what was I hoping he would learn? Except that he learned that he and I got to play a lot more by kicking that ball back and forth in the back yard. He learned his dad loved him. But it wasn’t from me pushing him to run or yelling at him for not participating.

Lessons I taught him because I knew he had to learn as he grew were up how to handle bullies of all kinds. Bullies who physically abused him so he learned how to stand up to the bullies. He learned over the years about the emotional and verbal abuse bullies could heap upon you. (we have all felt bullied, right?). And he learned when he came crying home to me that people bullied for lots of reasons.

Maybe they were bullied, by parents, other kids, friends, relatives, teachers... and he learned how to COPE. He learned how loved he was and nothing anybody said would change that he was loved. 

He learned that he should sometimes listen to the bullies and see if what they say has any truth? Then GROW from that.

He learned that there are many insecure people out there who must yell and scream, punch and push because they can't feel like they are wrong. He was taught that being WRONG IS OK.

And he learned that bullying others does not win you anything except maybe that others will now fear you instead of caring about you.

This man killed seven people because he wasn’t taught how to COPE with people who want to hurt or belittle him. He wasn’t taught how he had real value to himself, his family, to the world no matter what else happens. He wasn’t trained to hear it, see it, and deal with it. Mrs. Kohlhepp didn't help her child by GIVING HIM EVERYTHING.

Bullying will always be around. You need toteach and be taught how to deal with bullies. Don't fear them. Don't give them value in your life. Simply be able to look at them and feel sorry for them if that is the only way they can feel good about themselves.

Steve Sapato - the most famous unfamous speaker in America.

www.mentalprosperityblog.com

Why Bullies?

It seems many of us are born to be bullies because we bully people from a very early age. But the truth is, bullying is learned just like everything else we do. Sometimes there are psychological or mental problems that cause us to develop with certain traits but most of the people learn to become bullies because of how they are treated.

Why do bullies exist? Because the strong do dominate our little physical world until the intelligent can figure out a way to stop from being bullied. I am sure clubs were discovered to beat the bigger caveman who was always the stronger man and always got his way. Then along came all of the other inventions that make the smaller man into the bully by way of those same inventions. And the reason again is that, if we are treated a certain way we will become a certain way.

So why do bullies still exist? because we continue not to train all of our people from infancy how they should treat others. We don't teach them how to relate, interact, communicate. We don't teach them how to succeed in negotiations and how important it is to be able to give and take to achieve maximum results. We should be teaching children what a loving relationship looks like in kindergarten and elementary school and on into high school and even college. We should be training the children on how to succeed and how to love and how to manifest goodness and greatness through cooperation.

And still, because of our innate nature some bullies would still exist but what they would find is that they would not be in power like they are in today's world. They would not stand a chance against the bond of the group and they would find themselves outside the circle instead of in control of the little circle the command by their bullying.

And I recently read some things about bad language and it reminded me once again how we lack the skills to develop much of this. It was about a school book that contained bad language and yet it was allowed to be used in grade school and the majority of thought on the subject was, "they will hear, already hear language and words like that. What's the big deal?"

And the big deal is, we don't expect more out of one another as much as we settle for less. We don't expect the cream of the crop as much as we will settle for the dregs and say, this is acceptable because it exists this way and we should accept it as it is.

The problem with accepting things as they are is that we will always settle for a little less each time. We will always allow the circumstance to digress a little each time. We will always continue to fall a little further from the pinnacle and keep telling ourselves, well, the last person stopped here to it's ok if I don't make it to where they stopped.

And that is where and why we find that bullies still exist and will continue to exist. We don't expect them not to.

Steve Sapato is a speaker and author on Bullying from schools to offices and also teaches how to become a Great Manager to corporations looking to excel.