Bring It: A Message to the Haters, Bullies & Thieves

In the last two weeks my much awaited for new book arrived. I have also launched a new ebook (Slow Cooked) and I have set up a new online fitness programme with a good friend of mine called Dr Julie’s Mum Squad. My nationwide Baby & Toddler Tour kicked off in Auckland on Saturday and Dr Julie’s Kitchen is not far away either. Sometimes in business everything happens at once – this is one of those times. I have worked incredibly hard over quite some months to bring this all together.

Sadly, this time is also going to bring the haters, the bullies and the thieves.

It is nothing new.

My business is nearly five years old and you – the haters, the bullies and the thieves – have been coming for around three of those years now.

So, this is a message for you.

Firstly, I want to thank you.

I want to thank you for making me stronger – making us stronger.

All of your name calling, bullying, emails, messages, abusive phone calls and underhanded tactics  – which was done to try and stop me, you have done the total opposite and strengthened me and my incredible team.

Let’s talk about the name calling.

I have been called me every name under the sun, and even some I did not even know existed in our currently English vocabulary. You can see my previous blog here. I do not wish to repeat these words more than necessary. To add a few more to the list I have also been called a ‘Monster’ and ‘She-Wolf’, a ‘terrible Mother’, 'b**ch', and ‘girl’. My husband has not been immune either. He has been called ‘some random guy’ several times over (he is a co-director and my husband for reference) not to mention the tirade of racists comments – yes it’s 2018 but racism is rife here. My husband has literally defended this country in the NZ Army and Police for over 10 years and yet has been told to ‘go back to his own country’ and has had lady say to his face when asking for a place to heat milk for our mums at an event “I don’t know how you do business where you come from…” We did not realise that heating milk was offensive but clearly it was.

I would encourage you to try harder with your name calling as none of what you have tried has worked. In fact I have decided that ‘She-Wolf’ and ‘Random Guy’ are rather fitting – hence the custom shirts we have got made. Do you remember the childhood saying ‘sticks and stones may break my bones but words won’t do me harm' …..I will just leave it at that.

Let’s talk about the bullying.

To quote, bullying is the use of force, threat, or coercion to abuse, intimidate or aggressively dominate others. The behaviour is often repeated and habitual. You have bullied myself and my team continually both in the online space, the business AND academic sphere. Yes, bullying in the world of academia is very real. You have tried to hurl abuse at us on the phone. You tried to shove money and media connections at us as if they mean something to make us scared. You used the classic “do you know who I am” and “do you know what we are capable of” lines. You have also tried to ring associated businesses to prevent them from working with us. I have no problem if you do not agree with my work or business or do not like what I am saying but you do not need to resort to bullying tactics as a way to express this disagreement.

My husband and I have built our business from NOTHING – literally. We started with $50 in our account and ZERO savings. We know we do not have money, we know we do not have media connections, we know we do not own our home but, just a little hint for you - when you come from nothing and somehow manage to keep going you are not afraid of losing anything because you had nothing to begin with. Yet again, I need to thank you for your bullying tactics because if you had not tried to do this we would not have realised that we could still hold our own against bullies who do throw their money and connections around. It also indicates that you are worried on some level about what we are doing and therefore it should be something that we keep doing. So again, thank you.

I have a special thank you to the thieves.

You nearly had me. To discover that my work, my blood, sweat and tears, my time away from my boys, my time slaving away in the dead of the night, my research over four years had been stolen from my first book and re-purposed for your own starting solids guide – was extremely upsetting – yes, you nearly had me.

There is a very subtle difference in writing your own starting solids guide and STEALING my work, right down to the references. The thing is, when you write your own book you know, without a shadow of doubt, what is your unique words and research. Do not get me started on those authors that pretend it is their book when someone else has written it for them. Here is a suggestion for you – write your own guide, use my work and just chuck it in as a reference. Anyone who does research for a living knows this is basic standard practice. I have no problem if you want to help me spread the new research, but I have a huge problem with theft.

We made the hard choice not to put our limited resources in filing a copyright law suit to fight this. People that tend to steal others work also tend to have expensive, crooked lawyers as well. That’s the game right? One day maybe I will fight you but right now I have a community to serve and that is where I want to put our most precious asset – time. See what I realised in you doing this was that you still lose. You have to go about your business knowing you did not do the work. My doctoral thesis supervisor regularly said to me when I was in the thick of it “keep going, no one can take your PhD away from you”. He was so right. You can take my words, my research, my ideas but you can NEVER take away the work I did and the journey I went through to get there. This is perhaps one of the biggest fears an author must face and if you had not done this I would have never faced this. Yet again, thank you for making me stronger.

Speaking of time, this is the second thing I want to say to you; just stop wasting your time.

You are spending a lot of time trying to bring me down. It is time you could be spending on your own business. Time serving your own customers. It is one of the reasons I simply cannot understand why you do this in the first place. I spend as much waking breathing moments on my business as I can and prioritising my family. I do not even have time to think or worry about what others are doing and so I cannot understand why you do. Competition is great for a market. It drives innovation, it drives down prices. Is this not want we want?

The last thing I want to say to you in the words of my son’s favourite wrestler, The Rock “just bring it”.  

I am not going anywhere. If you had not worked that out by now you really should. It has taken me a long time, many years even before I entered the business realm seriously, to realise that I am a survivor and I am here to stay. If you want to indeed waste your time, waste your focus and if you want to get some little kick out of bringing down a family business built from the ground up with no money, inheritance, power or connections - just bring it. This also extends to our team which is rapidly growing. As co-directors my husband and I will protect them as we protect our family because each and every single person that works for us and the businesses that we have a relationship with, has had our back through thick and thin.

So just bring it,

We are here,

We are waiting,

We are not going anywhere,

And we will continue to fight.

Xoxoxox

Your She-Wolf, her Random Guy and 2ICs.