I used to get bullied when I was a kid in school, but I was taught to fight back, viciously. So one bully would come at me, I'd beat them up, they'd threaten to bring their friend, I'd ambush that friend, beat him up, and so on and so on.

One day, I ambushed one of those bully's friends with a hit to the back of the head and was going to follow up with another hit when the guy just turned his head and looked at me with eyes that were way calmer than I expected them to be. He just looked. He didn't make any motion to fight back. He just looked. And for the first time ever, I froze. I had never seen a reaction like that before. Eventually, he just looked away and walked off with his back totally vulnerable.

Before this, I had perceived the world as a tit-for-tat place where the strong naturally try to stomp out the weak. But his response showed me a totally different type of type strength and changed the way I viewed the world forever.