What is the best way to respond to people who are bullying you?

When I first pondered this question, I always thought the answer had to be a comeback. But that doesn’t work—because they’ll always find a different way to insult you, a different way to smear your reputation. There’s an infinite number of ways they can try to ruin your day.

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I watched countless YouTube videos trying to figure out the best response to a backhanded compliment—one that’s really just an insult. And yet, I realized none of it worked.

The best—classiest—way to respond to bullying is to live a good life. Live your best life.

Because ultimately, that’s what they don’t want you to have. They don’t want you to live a good life, so you do the exact opposite: you take action and live it.

So how do you actually live a good life?

Start thinking about the things you do want in your life. Think about the things you don’t like in your life right now, and then think about the opposite of those things. Picture the future you want for yourself, and start making plans to achieve it—one step at a time.

Slowly, you’re going to look around and think, “Oh my gosh… is this what I created for myself? With my own two hands? Is this really something I made?”

And you’re going to live that life with pride.

Here’s something I used to do:

I would go on Wikipedia, and there’s actually a long list of hobbies and recreations anyone could possibly have. I’d scroll through this massive list—hundreds of things—and start check-marking the ones that interested me.

“Oh, that’s interesting.”

“That’s interesting.”

“I want to try that.”

“I want to try that.”

There are still so many things I’ve never tried. For example, I want to try horseback riding. I’ve never done it, but I want to. I want to garden, too. I don’t have the space right now, but one day I’m going to own land, and I’m going to garden.

So many things.

You’re going to live life with full passion. Think of the things you’ve always wanted to try but never gave yourself permission to do—and then go do them.

And don’t just think about hobbies and recreation.

Do you want to find the love of your life?

Do you want to settle down and get married? Do it.

Or do you want to stay single? You can do that too.

Do you want to start a family?

Do it.

Do you want to explore which religion or spirituality resonates with you most?

Go do that.

There are so many things you want to do that you never gave yourself permission to do. Give yourself permission now.

That is the best way to respond to bullying.

And the reason I know it’s the best way to respond to bullying is because when my ex-boss fired me, he called me five days later to apologize and try to repair the relationship.

He told me about what the other women in the office were saying about me. Their number one complaint—the thing they complained to him about all the time—was this:

“Does Annie even do any work here? Does she even do any work at this company?”

That was the complaint.

Notice what it wasn’t.

It wasn’t “Annie’s work is poor.”

It wasn’t “Annie misses deadlines.”

It wasn’t “Annie makes mistakes.”

They never complained about any of that.

Their main complaint was: “Does she even do any work around here?”

And my ex-boss told me, “I didn’t believe a single word those ladies ever said about you. I know for a fact you did a lot of work at this company. I appreciated everything you did for me. You never missed a deadline. You never made a mistake. That’s why I never believed them.”

And you know why those women were saying, “Does she even do any work around here?”

Because in addition to doing my full-time job, I was living a full life outside of work.

I was making YouTube videos.

I wrote my book, The 5-Day Job Search.

I went on 125 podcasts.

I traveled to New York City and Tampa, Florida for photo shoots related to my book.

I drove all the way to South Carolina with a job seeker to get footage of me helping her in her job search—and on the way back, she crashed my car.

Yes, I was getting that footage because I wanted to eventually use it to pitch a show to Netflix.

I had a full life.

I played piano.

I took makeup lessons with a celebrity makeup artist.

I went to New York to get my hair done.

I did so many fun things.

I went to modeling school.

Can you believe how much I filled my life with—outside of my full-time job? I managed to fit all of it into my life.

I also took trips.

I went to New Zealand for two weeks for my brother’s wedding.

I went to Austria with my husband, Handrio, to see him receive an award—because he won an opera competition. I didn’t want them to just mail it to us. I wanted a photo of him receiving it at the venue.

We went to Italy so I could experience what it’s like to be around a group of people who play classical music.

Go do the most fun things you can possibly think of, and fill your life with that—outside of your job. Go have fun.

And those people at work who are bullying you?

They don’t matter. Their opinions don’t matter.

Because when you live a full life—like I did—they’re going to sit back and wonder: “How on earth did you do that?”

And here’s why.

What you get in life is what you focus on.

Their focus was on picking on you, pushing you down, smearing your reputation, and trying to get other people to dislike you too.

That was their focus.

And because that was their focus, they lost focus on living their own lives.

But if you focus on living your life, they’re going to be stuck on the sidelines watching you live it—wondering why you get to live an amazing life and they don’t.

Because they are destroyers.

There are two kinds of people in this world:

People who destroy—who do destructive things, who produce nothing.

And people who build—who create, make, and grow.

Be a builder in your life.

That is the ultimate, classiest solution.

It’s not about coming up with the best comebacks, or the perfect line that proves, “Oh, you didn’t get to me today.”

No.

The ultimate way to get back, I believe, is to live a great life.

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