QMR #9 How To Deal with Haters

In this episode Lunden shares about how a woman who was talking crap about her dad completely changed the trajectory of her life. Want to learn how to deal with haters and use to elevate yourself and others? TUNE IN!

Timestamps to help you navigate this episode:
0:00 Intro
2:45 FREE Self Love & Sweat MONTHLY Calendar
6:29 Responding to Criticism and Emotional Reaction
12:23 Newspaper Opportunities and Life Like Lunden Origin
16:40 Sponsor: Snap Supplements 25% OFF using code LUNDEN25
18:36 The Start of the Collaboration with NABA
21:53 Using Hate to Elevate

Transcript

Lunden Souza: 2:26

Welcome to Self Love and Sweat The Podcast, the place where you'll get inspired to live your life unapologetically, embrace your perfect imperfections, break down barriers and do what sets your soul on fire. I'm your host, Lunden Souza. Hey, have you grabbed your free Self Love and Sweat monthly calendar yet? This calendar is so amazing. It comes right in your inbox every single month to help you have a little nugget of wisdom, a sweaty workout, a mindset activity, just a little something, something to help keep you focused and motivated and keep that momentum towards your goals. So every day, when you get this calendar, you'll see a link that you can click that will lead to a podcast episode or a workout or something that will be very powerful and quick to read. And then you'll also see, on the top left corner of every single day, there's a little checkbox in the calendar and what that is is that's for your one thing. You can choose one thing every month, or it can be the same, something that you want to implement and make this something that you can easily implement, like daily meditation or getting a certain amount of steps or water, for example, and staying hydrated and even taking your supplements. This can be something if you want to get more regular doing a particular habit and routine. You can choose what that checkbox means. So if you want your Self Love and Sweat free monthly calendar delivered right to your inbox every month on the first of the month, go to lifelikelunden. com/ calendar, fill out the form really quickly and you will have your calendar in your inbox within a few short minutes. That's lifelikelunden L-I-F-E-L-I-K-E-L-U-N-D-E-N dot com forward slash calendar. Go, get yours for free and enjoy this episode. Happy today and welcome back to the podcast.

Lunden Souza: 4:37

Today we have another quick mindset reset, which is all about how to deal with the haters, how to use hate to elevate. I recently made a reel on Instagram that got a ton of views, like way more than my reels normally get. This topic just came to me. I was in St. George, Utah, watching a friend of mine preach on New Year's Eve. The next morning, new Year's Day, I woke up to go for a hike and I was sitting in my car and I was like I want to talk about this. So I just popped out my phone and created a 90 second reel on this topic and it really generated a lot of buzz and I got a lot of comments on that, which is also why I wanted to make this episode as well, because there were some comments that I thought, okay, while I get what they mean and I know it was for elevation I still wanted to kind of dissect that a little bit more and provide even more value in this quick mindset reset episode. So, for those of you that didn't hear the reel or didn't see the reel, I'm going to give you the I'm going to tell that story. I'm going to add on to that story even more. For those of you that did listen to the reel or know which reel I'm talking about, I'm going to add on even more to the story.

Lunden Souza: 5:59

So the way that this started was so I was in college. I was in my last year in college and I was in summer school. So I had one more class that I needed to take in order to graduate. So I actually had already walked in spring of that year, but I had one more class that I needed to take in order to fully graduate, get my diploma, all the things. So my dad was a baseball coach and teacher.

Lunden Souza: 6:30

My whole life and a big part of our childhood was baseball games, going to baseball games, traveling for baseball tournaments, all the things. When I think about it. I just love it. We even had a batting cage in our backyard growing up when, like our baseball players my dad's baseball players would come in and take batting practice. me and my brother, as kids, would go hit balls in the batting cages. So baseball was just a huge part of my life. It's still a sport I absolutely love and, yeah, so when I was in my last year in college, I wasn't living in my hometown, I was. I went to school at Long Beach State University and so I wasn't able to attend all of the games like I normally would.

Lunden Souza: 7:14

And there was a parent that a parent of one of my dad's players that Just didn't agree with my dad. And I think anybody who's been a coach or knows a coach or maybe you're like me and your parent was a coach like parents don't always agree with the coach right, and that's totally okay. But I remember there was a particular parent in the stands that didn't agree with my dad's coaching tactics or whatever reason. I don't remember the specific reason as to why she didn't, but she would talk a lot of shit about my dad in the stands. She would just say things out loud in front of my mom and my mom would be sitting in the stands and Everybody knows that that's my mom, right? It's not like she was saying something out loud and didn't realize my mom was there, right? This was very intentional. So she was saying a lot of stuff about my dad in front of my mom and my mom didn't say anything to her. She didn't want to stir the pot and also, like, knowing my mom and my dad I don't know for certain, but I could probably bet that that was just an agreement that they both had that like my mom Doesn't get involved with the parents and vice versa. You know, like I mean, yeah, I just I know that about my parents. So, anyways, my mom would tell me like okay, yeah, there's this parent in the stands, she just won't quit. She's just, like you know, talking crap about dad.

Lunden Souza: 8:35

And so I remember being in my last year in college and I reached out. I was kind of I was heated, right. I was like pissed off that someone was talking crap about my dad. I love my parents, they're amazing and I'm sure a part of me then probably wanted to go like tell her off or something. But I remember being like okay, what can I do? That makes it bigger than me. What can I do to show my dad how much I love him, how much I care about him and make it even bigger than this lady who just wants to talk shit? Right, I'm like, forget her, I'm going to do something even cooler.

Lunden Souza: 9:09

So I reached out to the editor of the Merced Sunstar. This was the local newspaper of the town that I grew up in. Now I'll pre frame this by saying this is not the New York times, this is not the Washington post, this is a small little newspaper that, quite frankly, I just figured like okay, the people in my hometown will see it, they'll read it, right? So I reached out to the editor and I was like, hey, father's day is coming up. I would love to write an article for my dad. Is there availability in the newspaper? And the editor was like absolutely, you know, go ahead and write an article for us. But the funny thing is is that I got the email from the editor while I was in like one of my last weeks in summer school, and the email was something like hey, Lunden, yes, we would love to have you. Can you get that article over to us by like noon today? It was something like that, like very quick turnaround.

Lunden Souza: 10:02

And I was sitting in my summer school class thinking, okay, if I'm going to meet that deadline, I literally need to get up out of this class and leave. And I remember in college maybe I'm wrong, but I had a really good rapport with most of my professors but for some reason this particular teacher in this class it was a criminal justice class she just didn't really like me. I don't remember what it was or why. Maybe it was also you know, I'll take ownership too Like, maybe it was also partially my attitude. It was my last semester in summer school. I was probably just over it a little bit.

Lunden Souza: 10:40

Anyways, I remember seeing the email that I had this deadline in order to get the article to the newspaper and I started like packing up my things in the middle of class, because then I think I had a laptop to work at from home. But like now I have my laptop with me 24 seven and I would use it to take notes in class. I could have just popped it open and written the article, but I remember leaving that class to go to the computer lab at Cal State, Long Beach, to write this article. So I was just like packing up all my stuff in the middle of her lecture and she was like, where are you going? And I was like I have to leave, I need to go to the computer lab and finish something. And she's like, well, if you leave I think it might have even been my last day or last week, I don't remember, but it was very close to the end of that class she's like if you get up and leave, like I'm failing you, and I was like, okay, and I just got all my stuff and left right.

Lunden Souza: 11:33

I wrote the article submitted. It got the front page of what I think was the lifestyle section. I have to go back In my parents' closet, actually the closet that used to be my room at my parents' house. All of the articles I ever wrote for the newspaper, which I'll share more about too, are in this like big plastic tub at the top of my closet. So, if I remember correctly, it wasn't like the front page of the newspaper, but it was like the front page of the lifestyle section. So I left that class, wrote the article, all the things. To this day I don't know what grade I got in that class. All I remember is I received my diploma in the mail so she could have passed me with A, D, A, C, I don't really know, but she didn't flunk me, so that's good. I actually got my degree, my Bachelor's in Psychology from Long Beach State, despite getting up and leaving and despite her saying I'm going to flunk you if you leave.

Lunden Souza: 12:24

But I was thinking I have to do this, like I have to write this article. So I write the article. I include a lot of really awesome pictures of me and my dad. I write this whole article about just yeah, a thank you note to my dad, all the amazing things he's done in my life for me, for all of his players, for all of his students. Even to this day, I'm 35 years old and I'll go to my hometown or I'll be different places and his old players, if they see me, will come up to me and be like oh, are you coach Souza's daughter? Oh, your dad changed my life. He said this to me when I was 16. I had no clue what it meant, and now, as a grown up and as a dad or a parent or whatever, I totally get it now. So, anyways, he impacted a lot of people's lives and he continues to do that today and so so, yeah, I got that article and then from there the editor was like, hey, do you want to write more for the newspaper? And I was like, yeah, you know I'm really into health and wellness. I would love to write a health and wellness column. Is that available? And the editor was like, absolutely, you know, you can have.

Lunden Souza: 13:26

I think at first it was every other Saturday, and then eventually it got to be every every single Saturday where I would write a column, and that's actually where Life Like Lunden got started. So if you follow me on social media, my social media is lifelikelunden. My website is lifelikelunden. com and that's where it started. So every Saturday, I would write for the newspaper and I got paid $25 a week, which I was super excited about, and I would write this column called Life Like Lunden in the newspaper. Now, this was in the printed newspaper, but they also had a online version of this newspaper as well.

Lunden Souza: 14:02

And so one week I wrote an article about my favorite fitness apps. You know my favorite fitness tracking apps, food tracking apps. Smartphones were really becoming a thing at that time, and so I was using different apps you know to as tools for health and nutrition and fitness and things like that. And so I wrote an article about my favorite fitness apps. Now, for those of you that know Runtastic, that's the company that I worked for that created Runtastic fitness apps all the different things in Austria. So I wrote this article mentioning all these different fitness apps that I liked, but I did not mention Runtastic, because at the time, I think Runtastic was about three years old. Yeah, and it yeah, I just didn't, I wasn't using it. It's an Austrian based company. It hadn't fully made its way into America yet.

Lunden Souza: 14:51

But the thing about having an article published online is that there are things called Google Alerts. So Google Alerts are basically you can set, like a keyword in your Google Alerts so that you'll get an email when there are things that come up that are in congruence with that keyword. And it just so happened that Runtastic's VP of business development, who was based in San Francisco, had a Google Alert in his email set up for fitness apps. So, lo and behold, that article gets sent to his Gmail. Now it gets even better.

Lunden Souza: 15:27

So this guy, josh his name is Josh, he's a close friend of mine, he is actually from my hometown as well, merced, california and he gets this Google Alert in San Francisco about fitness apps. So, first of all, he gets the Google Alert right. Second of all, he's like what the heck the Merced Sun Star is showing up in my Google Alerts? Like who is this girl? And he's probably like 12 or 15 years older than me.

Lunden Souza: 15:51

So we didn't go to school together. We didn't go to high school together. We didn't really have any mutual friends, so we didn't know each other that well, despite coming from the small town. And so he reached out to me and was like hey, Lunden, I'm from Merced too. I work for this Austrian startup called Runtastic. We're looking for people to guest blog for us. Would you be interested? And I was like yeah, absolutely. Oh, you're based in San Francisco. I'm going to be visiting my friend in San Francisco this weekend. Do you want to meet in person? He was like oh, yeah, super cool, let's do that. So we meet at this coffee shop in San Francisco to discuss guest blogging and we have a conversation. He gets a feel of my personality and he's like oh, I've been wanting to do a YouTube channel for Runtastic, for this company, for a while, and I think you'd be actually a great fit to host the YouTube channel. What do you think? Hey, really quick, I want to interrupt the podcast for just a minute to tell you about one of my favorite supplements for hair, skin, nails, digestive and gut health, and that is Snap Supplements Super Greens with Collagen.

Lunden Souza: 16:55

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Lunden Souza: 18:37

Now let's get back to the show and I was like okay, let's do it. So from that little coffee shop meetup, he's like okay, you know, go get some tank tops at Lulu Lemon, which I was really excited about because I was young, I was like 21. I'm like what this company wants to buy me tank tops from Lulule mon, you know. Okay, he's like go buy some tank tops that you like we'll get the Runtastic logo branded on them. We'll get you a GoPro to. We'll get you a GoPro to film these videos. And like, let's go. So that's what we did. I got some tank tops branded with the Runtastic logo. I got a first edition GoPro which, for those of you that use GoPro now, this was like before GoPro had a screen. This was before GoPro would connect to your phone so you could see what you were filming. I basically just started setting up this camera and would go right, and it was so cool. And so from there, we started the Runtastic Fitness Channel on YouTube. I became the Runtastic Fitness Coach.

Lunden Souza: 19:34

I got to move to Austria. I got to travel the world, host workout events, the live workout parties in, like I think, over 12 or 13 different countries. I got to, yeah, live in Austria for almost. I think it was like seven years that I lived in Austria, which is so crazy and so cool. But another part of the story that I didn't share on the Real that I wanna share now is during my first year of working with Runtastic.

Lunden Souza: 19:57

Actually, before I moved to Austria, we did an event in Las Vegas that's called CES the Consumer Electronic Show and there I met these two guys that were starting a company that was called Prime my Body. They were making really high end protein powder, and I met them in Vegas, had a conversation with them. They were like, oh, it would be awesome to create content with you as well. So I toyed with the idea of creating content with that company as well. But then Runtastic was like no, we're gonna pay you X amount per month to create content for us. We don't want you to create content for other companies. I signed a contract that was more exclusively working with Runtastic and I had to tell this company, prime my Body, no, sorry, I can't work with you guys.

Lunden Souza: 20:44

Lo and behold, 10 years later, I circled back with one of their founders, co-founders, austin. We became great friends. He started a new company called Naba, which is the company that I now have created my course with the level up your language, level up your life, how to go from talker to communicator. I'll link that in the show notes Created my course with their company. We're getting ready this year at the time of recording this 2024. We're getting ready to launch a membership big community program as part of Naba, which stands for the natural art of being alive. We're getting ready to yeah launch this really big community with a lot of amazing resources to yeah up level and be the best version of yourself and just really live a life that is alive. Right, we can be in autopilot robot mode, letting society and culture control all the things, but this company and brand and community, naba, is really about overcoming yourself and being in a community with people that are ready to live a life of expansion. And so it's crazy because even during that time of working with Runtastic, I met these two guys. It didn't work out.

Lunden Souza: 21:54

Then, lo and behold, 10 years later, I'm working with that company, created a course with that company, have developed a deep friendship with everybody that we're doing this project with. And I just look at that and I laugh and it just makes me so excited because it can be so easy for us to, you know, see haters and people that talk shit as an excuse to be mad or angry or frustrated or resentful. And instead I was like, okay, how can I use this hate to elevate? How can I make it bigger than me? How can I make it bigger than this woman? How can I make it bigger for other people to be impacted, right? And there was a comment on this reel that was like, yeah, you know, elevating is the best revenge Haters get so triggered by it.

Lunden Souza: 22:42

It was something like that and I just wanted to highlight and zoom in on that a little bit before we kind of land the plane is. It wasn't about the woman. I was never trying to get revenge. It was about how I could make it bigger and better for others. How could I make this transcend into something that could help other people and create an even bigger ripple.

Lunden Souza: 23:04

And so when somebody hates on us, it's easy to be like, okay, there's those quotes on those memes on social media where it's like the best revenge is to not be that way, and I disagree. I don't think it's about revenge. Revenge makes it about the person that's hating it's about. You know, the biggest ripple is to not be that way. The way to make the biggest impact is to redirect it, right? It doesn't need to be about revenge. It doesn't need to be about triggering the person that might have hated on you. It's really about using that hate to elevate, using it to make it even bigger and better, right?

Lunden Souza: 23:39

I feel like people that hate on other people have some internal work that they need to work on and instead of hating them for it, I just want to love them through it and even from afar, right? So I said this in the reel it's like it's easy to make it about them, but don't make it about that person. Don't make it a way of to blame them or to make it, you know, an excuse to talk crap about them. You know, use it as an excuse, as a reason, as a ripple to elevate you even more. And so when we can take the time to be present and slow down and look at that history, that timeline, right, of that woman talking crap, then the article, then the weekly article, then Runtastic, then meeting those guys and now working with them even further, right, it's just really cool to pause and to look at the timeline of some of those hard situations.

Lunden Souza: 24:29

It was hard to you know, know that somebody was talking crap about my dad, but I feel like it would have been even harder to just let her win. In that sense, I'm like how can I make this better and bigger? And when we can look at that timeline and look at that and see, oh wow, there has been so much leading up from that, I can't imagine that not happening. You know I needed that woman, right, I needed that woman to be talking crap about my dad and the stands in front of my mom. She's such a beautiful part of my story, you know, and we can kind of file that away in the history of ourselves and then next time something hard happens or somebody else kind of talks crap or somebody else you know wants to weasel their opinion in my life in a way that I feel like doesn't serve me.

Lunden Souza: 25:13

I can go back to that history of Lunden and be like, nope, I can make it mean something even better. So I know this was a lot longer than my normal quick mindset reset videos, podcast episodes. I'm sorry, but I just feel like, yeah, it was important to expand on that even more and how we can use the haters, how we can use the hate to elevate. And thank you for listening, we'll see you at the next episode. Bye, this podcast is a hit spot. Austria production.