Why Some People Keep Pushing Your Boundaries And How to Stop It | The Sean Trace Show

Why Some People Keep Pushing Your Boundaries (And How to Stop It)

What happens when being “peaceful” turns into staying silent for too long?

In this episode of The Sean Trace Show, Sean opens up about a personal experience that forced him to rethink boundaries, conflict, strength, and what it really means to protect the people you care about.

From public disrespect and passive-aggressive behavior to martial arts, fatherhood, emotional control, and the psychology of predators, this conversation dives deep into why some people keep testing limits, and what happens when you finally decide enough is enough.

This is not about becoming aggressive.
It’s about becoming capable.

If you've ever struggled with speaking up, confronting disrespect, or protecting your peace without losing yourself in anger, this episode is for you.

Subscribe for more conversations on resilience, leadership, psychology, purpose, fatherhood, and becoming stronger in modern life.

Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:00

What's up everyone and welcome back to the Sean Trey Show. I am excited to talk to you today about a topic that's been near and dear to me a little bit this last week, and that is boundaries. Actually, I want to talk to you about why some people push boundaries and how to stop it. It's not always easy, but it is doable, and it's something that I've been thinking about a lot more. I got to see something happen this week that was quite upsetting. My wife is a famous celebrity here in Vietnam, where I spend half my time, and the rest of the time I'm in California. But when I'm here, I see a lot of interesting things. One of the things that you see is that she gets a lot of comments. And some of them are nice. Most of them are awesome and nice and really cool. And most of the people that send her comments are just genuinely amazing people that I want to share in their joy of what she's creating. But there are some that are a bit over the line, and then there's some that are just downright disrespectful. Generally, we have the idea of don't feed the trolls. And the people that are just not cool, you just let it go, or we block them. But there was someone this week that was publicly ridiculing my wife and someone that I actually knew kind of upset me. And it's not the first time that I've felt a boundary pushed by said person. And it seemed to me that it wasn't really accidental. More of a pattern had emerged. And eventually I got to the point where I just was kind of over it, you know, done with it. Didn't really want to be there in that moment anymore. And I felt like something inside me said, it's time to push back. And I pushed back pretty damn hard. Got really upset, called them out, called it out directly. And honestly, I'm not sorry that I did. Now, they had a reason for what they said happened. Whether I believe that or not, that's up for debate at this point in time. But for a long time this week, I've been sitting there, and what I've been wrestling with isn't whether I should have spoken up, it's whether I should have done it sooner, or how I do it. You know, all of those are things that keep popping up. But the reality is that boundaries are really important. And there's a lie that a lot of us tell ourselves, and that's the lie about being peaceful, okay? A lot of people are not peaceful. They're conflict avoidant. And I want to tell you something. I'm reading this great book, and it's looking at the art of war. It says that one of the things that all of us need to realize is that we're at war all the time. We like to think that we exist in this happy, go, lovey, peaceful world, but we live in a world of conflict, constant conflict around us. Every single interaction that we have is a competition for resources, for energy, for survival. There's a great page I follow on Instagram called Nature is Brutal. And it shows animals getting attacked by larger predators, and it's crazy wild and crazy brutal. And I follow it because it reminds me of the reality of life, that we are in constant conflict. Now, if you try to ignore that, it's not gonna help you out. You're trying to say, you know what, everything's okay. Things can be okay, but you have to be ready to act. You have to be ready and you have to be prepared. We tell ourselves we're taking the high road. We'd like to tell ourselves we're being mature, we tell ourselves we're above the drama. I'm gonna tell you a secret. Sometimes we're just scared to confront things directly. We're scared to see that situation unfold and step up and step in where we need to. I remember once a couple years ago, saw a gentleman. Actually, I'm gonna phrase that. He's not a gentleman, he's an asshole. Some guy was hitting his wife, or looked like his wife, hitting a woman in an alleyway. I saw it. A couple of other of our neighbors saw it, and I immediately went to step and jump in. And the friends were like, Don't get involved, don't get involved. I said, I'm sorry, but I don't care what happens, I'm getting involved. I don't let I don't like to see anyone hitting in someone else in a way that is taking advantage of someone, uh hurting someone that is in a lesser position or a less powerful position. And I stepped in and the guy was like, What are you doing, man? It's not your problem. I said, Oh, it is my problem because I'm making it my problem. So back off and calm the F down, you know? One of the challenges, one of the things I've run into is in my situation, I kept watching boundary pushing happen publicly with my wife. I see people pushing these buttons, these small comments, a little bit of weird energy, passive aggressive behavior, and you let it slide. Ah, it's normal. Oh, it's this. And it might be at your work, that coworker that just presses the buttons. They're eating your food, they're doing stuff that's just not right. Or it might be the teacher who is being unfair at your school. And because you feel like you're not in a position of power, you shouldn't speak up. And over time it starts eating at you because you know what's happening. And sometimes silence is wisdom, sometimes silence is permission, letting someone continue doing the thing that they shouldn't be doing. Now, I want to talk to you about being prepared. Part of confidence comes from knowing you can handle pressure if things go sideways. When I saw that guy that was roughing up the woman in that alleyway, I felt confident to step in. Now, I'm no UFC fighter, but I do have a black belt in Denzenru Jiu Jitsu, Japanese-style jujitsu. I have trained capoeta for many years. Not capoeta, muytai. I did capoeta for one. I suck at capoeta. All my capueta friends, I love you guys, I respect you guys. I can't do capoeta for shit. Uh, I did taekwondo, and I am back training again in some different martial arts. Now, if you train with some things, you can have the reassurance that, like, you know what, I'm not gonna come out unscathed. I'll probably take a hit or two, but I will kick that guy's butt if I need to. And that's one of the reasons I started training again. I went back to judo last week. I'd been training in Muay Thai for a long time. I am focusing on being as strong as I can in my 40s and getting ready for my 50s. Not because I'm trying to be some fake alpha tough guy, but because life tests people. Life will challenge you. And what I'm talking about is the physical confidence, the emotional confidence, the posture, the energy, the awareness, and this way that you're gonna carry yourself and how you'll carry yourself differently when you know that you can handle that adversity. When I'm going around places, when I'm dealing with things, I know that in 90% of the situations I encounter, I can take care of myself. And I'm not just talking about physicality, I'm talking using this up here. In nature, that weak posture is something that's really bad too. It will attract predators. Now, if you carry yourself, you see a big bear. I heard this one guy that was like had this moose challenge like charging him, and he's like with this big stick, and the moose was like, no, I'm good. I've seen some dude do the same thing to a bear. Hey bear! Just started yelling, hey bear, and the bear backed off. Now, confidence changes interactions before words are even spoken. The goal isn't always about becoming aggressive, the goal is becoming capable and setting that boundary and making the other person aware that they shouldn't be crossing that line. Now, why do some people keep pushing boundaries? This was a famous thing with Hitler in the 1940s, as maybe 30s actually. As Hitler started to have this aggression and started to spread the German Reich, no one told him to stop. People were appeasing him. You know, it was the whole British idea of appeasement, Neville Chamberlain. And I know that there's been stories about why they were doing this, the hope to avoid war, but they didn't. And Hitler just kept expanding out. And I mean, most of us don't have to face Hitler's in our life, but we do have to face people that take, people that push boundaries, people that drive you into regions that you don't want to be going. And most people never stop them, most people never push back on them. Now, some people constantly test limits. They look for weakness, they look for hesitation, they look for what they can get away with. And if you let them get away with things, they will keep going. And when nobody says anything, they go further and further. Now, for me, I realized that I'm sitting here trying to become, well, this person is being publicly disrespectful to my wife. And enough was enough. I said, no, no more. There's a difference between being emotionally controlled and being spineless. You know, you can hold yourself back and go, all right, I'm gonna handle this in a more respectful way. And this is a different thing that's like you're scared to act. And hey, I've been scared before. We all get scared, but that's what I'm talking about. Doing the things that can help you be not scared. And it doesn't have to be martial arts, it could be just mental toughness training. It could be that you like to go out for your morning jog. That could be the thing that helps you get that confidence. Now, there is a balance between anger and control. I love in the Buddhist tradition because they have the bodhisattva of anger. It's like some of these different Buddhas have this angry manifestation. Now, anger itself is not evil. Uncontrolled anger can be dangerous. And you see this with MMA fights. The guys that get angry, they can get themselves into bad positions. One of my favorite fighters back in the day was Anderson Silva, and he was just calm and cool, and he knew exactly what he was doing, and he would set himself up just for these perfect things. And if someone got too emotional on the other end, man, he'd use that against them. Anger can be a couple things. You know, anger can be a signal that a boundary has been crossed. Anger can wake you up, anger can force action. And the problem is when anger controls you. It's right to be angry at times. I watched this movie the other day about this, these people that were kidnapping these dogs and then using the dogs to get donations. I was angry about it. One of the things, anger can be a powerful thing to get you going. Real martial arts don't teach emotional chaos, they teach you to be calm under pressure. It's that controlled aggression. You know, you are still being aggressive. You are attacking, you are going for what you want to do. But there's an awareness, there's a timing, there's restraint. I want to talk to you about learning to address things differently. You know, we're not suppressing resentment forever. We're not exploding after years of silence, but we're talking about standing your ground without becoming reckless. The strongest people are usually the ones who can stay calm while still making it very clear where the line is. This is something I'm still working on. I have a challenge with my temper, and I have a tendency to go over the line. It is something I'm working on. Now, something I want to tie it all together because life eventually tests everyone. Whether it be through disrespect, through pressure, through conflict, through fear, and that those moments are where you have to decide whether you're gonna stay quiet or step forward. All of us will hopefully have moments in our lives where we have to decide who we are and what we stand for. The measure of this for me is my daughter. I don't want her growing up weak. She comes to Muay Thai with me, and we went to judo this last weekend, but I also want her to be kind, but I also want her to be confident. I want her to be aware, I want her to be prepared. But I also, most of all, wanted her to be able to stand up for herself when necessary. That's one of the reasons I'm training again. I'm training Muay Thai, I'm training judo, because if things go down, I want to know that I can take care of myself and help my family. But that's why I'm working on myself. Because when I work on myself, I can help the people around me. That's also why boundaries matter. Because peaceful people still need to be capable people. I think one of the most dangerous things in the world is when someone mistakes passivity for peace. Sometimes the best thing that we can do for peace is to be that strong force in the room, to be that strong force in our circle of influence. That person who says, enough is enough. And when people ask why, you have a way to tell them why. Through your words, but also through your posture, through your actions, and through what you're capable of doing. And if you're smaller than everyone else, find ways to equalize. Everyone's kung fu fighting. You can figure out what it is for you. Use your mind, use your brain, use all the tools you have. But sometimes enough is enough. I hope you guys have a beautiful day. I'll see you next week. Talk to you soon.