[Miracle Morning LIVE #2] Why We Should Stop Judging Each Other

Miracle Morning Community. What's going on? Welcome to episode number two of Miracle Morning Mondays. It's Friday, and the first Miracle Morning Monday was Tuesday. I don't think we're gonna call it Miracle Morning Mondays because my schedule is too unpredictable as far as when I can actually record these videos. I was at the last. The reason it's Friday, and I'm just trying to get this video in before the week's over because I promised you I'd start recording a video or going live, I should say, every week. And the last four days were magical. I was at the front row family summit, and the front row family summit, I went with my daughter. So it was me and my daughter. It was actually our first daddy daughter trip on an airplane and without my wife and. Or my son. And I'll tell you, my wife is the details person. She's like the dot, the I's, cross, the T's person. Make sure that we don't forget anything. I'm a little more of a space cadet. I tend to forget luggage on planes and leave different stuff. So to be very honest, my wife was a little bit nervous about me taking. Taking my daughter on a trip without my wife to make sure that everything was there. She's afraid I might forget the daughter. So I'm very excited and grateful to say that the trip was amazing. It was beyond anything I ever imagined. Honestly, I was a little nervous myself, knowing myself that I tend to forget things and, you know, making sure my daughter was fed and all of that. But we had a phenomenal time. I realized that when my wife isn't there and I'm the sole provider, I step up in a big way, and it was amazing. And the front row family summit. I'm wearing my front row forever T shirt and the Front Row Foundation. If you're not familiar, it's a big. In fact, if you're not familiar, let me. This is a great opportunity to mention this. Let me pause for a second. Today we're going to talk about why we should stop judging other people. All right? So I want to mention that before I get off on a few tangents here, because that's really where we're going to go today, is why we should stop judging other people. This is one of the topics that I am the most passionate about. In fact, when I gave. I was inducted into the Cutco hall of fame 13, 14 years ago, when I was preparing my hall of Fame speech, I asked myself, what's the greatest value that I feel like I can add to the Audience to my peers, my colleagues, my friends, friends and family that were in the audience. And it was about not judging other people. So the topic today was what I felt was the most valuable topic that I could share with the people that mattered in my life at that time. And that was pre Miracle Morning and all of that stuff. By the way, people are jumping on. Helen Arthur. Hello, Nicolette. Hello. Tammy Henderson. Hi everybody. Coming on. Thank you so much for joining. But that's where we're going to go today is why we should stop judging other people. What it's doing to us by, by judging other people, how that hurts us, how it hurts them, it hurts us, it hurts our relationships, it hurts our emotional well being. That's what we're going to dive into. But before we do, just a quick update on where I just came from, which is that Front Row foundation, the Front Row Family Summit and the Front Row Foundation. For those of you that don't know this community, we are the number one supporter of the Front Row Foundation. Our community has sent more people to the front row of the event of their dreams. And when I say people, I'm talking about the recipients which are individuals who are braving life threatening illnesses. And a percentage of every dollar earned by the Miracle Morning book sales goes to the Front Row Foundation. And our community has been a part of many fundraisers. At our best year ever Blueprint Live event, we do a fundraiser for the front row. At the Front Row Family Summit, we just did a fundraiser.

And so this community has raised, it's getting upwards of a million dollars for, for the Front Row, it might be 700,000, I don't know the exact number, but we're on our way to a million dollars which means that we have sent. Gosh, how many is that? 200? No, I don't know. A lot of people. A lot of recipients, people that are braving life threatening illnesses. We've sent them to the Front row event of their dreams and given them hope and something to look forward to. And the Front Row foundation does a brilliant job of capturing that experience on film, on both video and photography to give the families something to remember for a lifetime. It's really a magical thing. The Front Row Family Summit is a really neat event where every year they run two events side by side. So literally in the same building, but in one room, all the kids are in one room and in the other room all the adults. So some people that don't have kids come to the adult event, but a lot of people that come are like myself. That have a family and adults go into one event, the kids go into the other event, and then they co mingle throughout. So we have our meals together, we listen to musical concerts by brother James together. It's really an amazing experience. And my daughter and I just came back from that and you know, she had said, I asked her, so how was it? You know, and she said, we've got to bring mommy and, and my brother Houston next year. It was amazing. So check out, go to front row. I don't even know. I should check this out ahead of time. Front row. Just Google front row Family summit. If you go front row, Family summit. Check out the video, you'll see it and put it on your calendar for next year. It really is an amazing, amazing experience. All right, so let's dive in. Why? To stop judging other people. So it is human nature to judge other people. And I don't think that we'll ever stop doing it. But there's kind of a right way and a wrong way to do it, if you will. We automatically judge the people. Right. If you're walking down the street and you see a shady looking character, right. Someone that looks a little suspicious, it's healthy to judge, right? To make a conscious judgment of, okay, I better watch out for that person. They might be up to something that isn't, you know, that my safety might be at risk. Right. So there's value in judging other people. You know, we need to. If we're, if we're, if we run a business and we're hiring people, yeah, we've got to judge and assess whether or not they're the right fit for our mission, for our company, our organization, et cetera. So there's value in judgment. Right. We should judge other people. However, the type of judgment that I'm talking about, that hurts us. It hurts us emotionally. It causes us feelings of resentment toward other people, condemnation toward other people, anger toward other people. It separates us not only from others, but it separates us from love. It separates us from our highest self, which comes from a place, I believe, of unconditional love. And the type of judgment I'm talking about is when we judge another person based on what they say or what they do, and we judge them as wrong. We tend to think things like, that's wrong that they did that, or that's wrong that they said that, or I would never do that, I would never say that, or they are a bad person, they are a dishonest person. They are right. So in general, we could just say they are a Bad person. And of course you could. The word bad is a blanket word that you could put lots of specifics underneath. So we tend to judge people as good or bad, right. Based on our general assessment of those people. And when we judge people as bad, here's what I'd love for you to consider. I invite you to consider this. If you had lived that other person's life, if you had lived their exact life, if you were born with their brain and the chemical imbalances or balances that they've got going on within them, if you were raised by their parents or lack thereof, if you were influenced by their friends and the other influences that they had in their life, you'd probably be or consider there's a good chance that you might be exactly the same, that the things you're judging them as wrong or bad that they're saying and doing, there's a very good chance that you would say and you would do exactly the same things if you were them. If you had lived their life, if you had their brain in your head, there's a good chance you do and say the exact same things. So when I had that realization, it was actually when, as I'm sure most people watching the video know, you know, When I was 20, I was in a car accident, hit head on by a drunk driver. I died for six minutes. I broke a lot of bones, told I would never walk again. A lot of people had a lot of, lot of negative feelings towards the drunk driver. They thought, you know, there was hate towards the drunk driver. People that loved me, you can kind of relate. I'm sure people that loved me felt hate toward him. How dare you do this to, like, my parents, for example. How dare you do this to our son? How you nearly take his life. You're probably going to take his ability to walk. His life will never be the same because you did this to him. However, I didn't see it that way. I have no negative feelings towards the drunk driver. The way that I looked at it, I thought he didn't intentionally seek to hurt me. He didn't go out that night and think, I want to ruin Hal's life. He went out that night and he drank a couple of beers and he got into a car and drove. Now, not a smart decision, but again, going back to what I said, if you had lived his life. Now, I haven't lived his life. I don't know any of the details, but theoretically, imagine if his dad was an alcoholic and he saw his dad drink beers and get into the Car and drive. Right. And that was deeply programmed into his subconscious as acceptable behavior, even though he consciously knew. Probably not a smart idea. Right? But we don't know that. We all do things that aren't ideal. You probably eat food sometimes that don't serve your highest good. But maybe you're influencing. You go out for a meal and everybody around you is eating pizza. Well, pizza is not healthy, but it tastes good, right? And so maybe you eat pizza. I know this isn't exactly an apples and apples comparison, but the point is we're all influenced by the influences in our lives and we make decisions that don't reflect our highest good. So anyway, when it came to the drunk driver, I had no ill will toward him. I thought he made a bad decision to drink alcohol and drive a vehicle that had nothing to do with me. Why would I hold any personal resentment toward him? In fact, I held more empathy and love toward him and his family. He was 31 years old. He had a wife and he had two kids. And I felt. The only negative emotion I felt was I felt sad that his family was now going to be without their father and their husband for a period of time and he was going to go to jail. In fact, when I went to court, I went to court and I went with my parents for his trial and I saw a lot of brain damage. I wasn't like, I was slurring my words a lot. I wasn't speaking very coherently. So my parents spoke on my behalf, but I told them what I wanted. And so what I asked my parents to request from the judge is they wanted him the maximum sentence for drinking and driving and injuring someone, which in California at the time was three years in prison. And I thought him rotting in prison for three years, and rotting is probably not the best word, but spending three years in prison away from his family, who's without a dad, I thought that doesn't seem to serve a lot. I don't know that that's adding value to the world. So I thought, I think that prison time is probably good. I think that wake up call for him having time to reflect, it's probably healthy. But I don't know about the extended time period. So again, I'm. I was 20. I mean, I'm not the smartest guy in there at that time. I wasn't wise beyond my years or whatever. But my request was that he spend six years in. Or, sorry, six years, six months in prison. I thought that would give him time to reflect. And then the remainder of the three year sentence. I asked that he was sentenced to go speak in high schools and share his story about what drinking and driving led to. It led to him injuring a young man. It led to him spending six months in prison. And I wanted him to share the lessons that he learned from that as a cautionary tale for, for other young people to maybe prevent this from happening again. So for me, I was thinking, well, that would be productive, you know, so than him just being by himself for three years, not influencing anybody, his kids being without him, et cetera. So now the judge didn't feel like that creative sentence was something he wanted to partake in. And so the judge just gave him the three year maximum sentence. So that's not what ended up happening. But the point is, if I would have judged him, and I'm going to share with you a contrary example of someone that I know who has harbored, who was hit head on by a drunk driver or hit by a drunk driver. I don't know if it was head on, but a friend, a person I know was hit by a drunk driver and harbored hate toward that drunk driver. I've seen actually Facebook posts where this person wished that their drunk driver was. Would burn in hell for eternity. Now think about the emotions, the hurt that's going on within that person, within my friend.

Because they were hit by this drunk driver a long time ago, but they weren't willing to forgive him. They judged him, they condemned him, they hated him, and therefore they caused themselves a lot of pain, a lot of anger, a lot of anguish, a lot of resentment by condemning that person. That again, I don't think that person had any intention to hurt my friend. They just drank alcohol and got behind the wheel, which is a terrible decision because you can take someone's life or your own, but I don't see any reason to hate a person for that. So there's a contradictory or contrary example of someone who was in the exact same situation that I was, right, but they chose to judge and condemn and hate that drunk driver for what they did to them. Same scenario or very similar scenario, but two different responses. So let's bring this back to you and your world and, you know, not needing to be hit by a drunk driver to apply the lesson. So we judge people every day. We often judge our loved ones. We judge people, we judge our spouses, we judge our family, our friends, our co workers, our bosses based on things they say and based on things they do. But let me ask you a question. Have you ever said anything that didn't reflect Your values. Maybe you said it out of emotion. You were angry, you were upset. Maybe you said it because you were trying to be funny and then you offended someone. I do that all the time. Right? I know I do that. I do that more than anything. I just. I offend people because I say things. I think I'm being funny and it's offensive, not funny. So. But maybe you've said. Have you ever said anything that wasn't in alignment with your values? It wasn't a reflection of your character? Now, do you want someone to judge you based on something that you said, or do you want them to actually get to know you? See, that's the thing. People say things and do things all the time that aren't a reflection of their values, their character, their highest good. And so for us to judge people based on what they say and what they do is to short. We're selling them short. We're selling ourselves short. We're selling the relationship short. Instead, the only way to truly know someone is to take the time to go beyond what they say or what they do. Now, if they say or do things consistently over a long period of time and you really realize that's who they are, then you can make a judgment of, okay, maybe that's somebody I don't want to spend time with because I've seen a long enough pattern that has shown me that this is the type of character that they exemplify, their values aren't consistent with my own. And that's where judgment can be valuable. Now, you don't need to judge them as wrong, though. You don't have any negative feelings towards them. That's a very different distinction. Right. You can distance yourself from them because they don't reflect the values that you hold true. They don't reflect your character. And maybe the type of person that you want to associate and spend time with because you feel like it'll bring out the best in you, it's okay to make that kind of judgment and to separate yourself accordingly. But there's no reason to judge them as.

Wrong, like yourself. There's no reason to dislike them. Maybe I'm. What's the word? My wife will say this. I can't think what the word is. But, you know, I truly believe that we can love all people. I know this is getting a little hippie, but we can love all people unconditionally, of course, beginning with ourselves. We often judge ourselves. We beat ourselves up, but I believe we can judge all. Or love, not judge, love all people unconditionally. And when you do that, it opens up a world where you're able to live free from anger and free from hatred and free from resentment. And when you do that, your life just becomes better. Your life becomes enriched. And imagine. Imagine if everyone in the world traded in their judgment. They replaced their judgment with empathy. Instead of judging people on what they said and did, instead, they invested their time and their energy and their heart in getting to know each person, however long that took, to know who that person truly is, beyond what they say or what they do in the moment. And get to know their intentions, get to know their soul. There's my daughter. Hey, sweetie. You want to come say hi? We're on Facebook Live. What did you say? To who? To the Miracle Morning community and everybody in it.

This is my daughter, Sophie. This is actually a deja vu moment, because when I was recording a video blog when she was six months old, my wife brought her downstairs and she was sitting next to me like this. This is fun. I was just telling about the Front Row foundation that we just got back from the Front Row family summit. How was it for you? What'd you learn? Anything. Can you teach them anything? You're gonna be doing Facebook Live someday. We were, by the way, on the flight to the Front Row family Summit. She goes, dad, when you're ready to retire, can I take over the Miracle Morning brand in business? I said, you and your brother probably can. She goes, no, not my brother.

Did you learn anything? What was the biggest, like, thing that you learned or what was your favorite part of the Front Row family Summit?

My favorite part.

Night.

Worst part.

Was your favorite last worst part?

Yeah.

Okay.

Probably hiking. My favorite part because it was in nature and we learned a lot of things and it was fun and.

Not because my feet and shins were so sore.

So it was the worst part because your feet and shins were so sore. Your favorite part because you were in nature and you learned a lot. Yeah. Isn't that interesting? That's right. I teach that lesson with my cancer journey, that even the worst part, the worst time can be the best time if you find the lesson. So, anyway, I think we're. Well, let me open it up for q and A. Here, sweetie pie. I'm gonna let you go. I got five more minutes. You want to say bye to everybody? I'm not saying bye yet.

Bye, dad.

Bye, sweetie. We're going to the water park day, too. Family day. I am going to open it up for Q and A. So this is my first Q and A on Facebook. Live. So I think I can figure this out. Do I go to the bottom or the top of the com? I have no idea. Bottom or top?