The Judgement Game - How to Stop Playing and Start Connecting

This is episode 252 of the Empowered Team Podcast. Welcome to the Empowered Team Podcast where we explore how to optimize your performance in career, sport and life. And now your host, executive coach and life strategist, Kari Schneider. Hello. Hello and welcome to the Empower Team Podcast. I'm your host, Kari Schneider, and this month we are diving into the topic all about judging, judging, judging, judging. But first, before we get into this topic. So good. And wait, wait, wait. This is so good because so many of us think that we're not judgy and we are, we're judging when we don't think we're judging. But today I'm going to give you these three steps. There are actually two really key ones, but there's a third as well that will allow you to connect with somebody else in the midst of judging so you realize you're being judgy and you enable a connection via these steps. So I will share those with you. But first, I want to take this moment to let you know where I'm at. I am still way up north at the time of this recording and it's the end of summer and it's got that feeling of a little bit of summer warmth left, but also that feeling of, okay, there's a transition coming, there's fall coming, there's school starting up, there's a season change. And right now I feel the pressure on myself to get more stuff done because once the season wraps up, we're working on this big restoration project of a, a small fishing camp. But it's a big project because it's a multi year project. And so there's only so much time to do things. So I feel this pressure and to bring this around to the judging, this pressure I end up putting on myself with judgment. Did I do enough today? How is this looking? I'm constantly criticizing the quality of the product that we're creating. And so this level of judgment I've been noticing a lot because it's our topic for the month in our growth group coaching mastermind, the Empowered Team. So it's really been on my brain for you. I can imagine that it happens every day. Judgment of yourself, judgment of the people you work with, judgment of your family. How about parental judgment? You feel really judged by your parents, or maybe you're a parent and you end up criticizing your kids. What are they wearing to school? Who are they hanging out with? What are they? How are they doing their hair? What do they look like? All of these little things that may end up being Judgments, even if we don't intend it to. Maybe we're looking out for their best benefit, maybe we are trying to create a, a positive future for them. And yet it's laced with judgment. So I did all kinds of research, as I ordinarily do for these topics, and in order to really have you get all the info and ultimately judgment, it is not something that we are naturally going to stop doing. You know, you think of researchers on this topic and there are reasons why we judge. So I dove into some of the reasons why we judge so that I can bring it to you. Ultimately, I can think of a lot of times that I've been judged, but I wanted to think of a time where I was judged and, or, sorry, where I was judging, where I was judging others. And what was interesting is I came up with a time where I was judging people who were judging me. And it seems like this little judgy circle. I had gotten coached at a Tony Robbins event and it was basically like an intervention. I had a hardcore coaching by Tony Robbins and I was in front of a room of about 500 people. And in the process they had learned about me that I had been a high performance coach in strength and conditioning at a national level. But when you first meet people, and especially when people see me, then they think in their minds, oh, some sort of fitness trainer. And fitness trainer doesn't even come close to the level that I worked with in international sport. But that's what people were remembering me by, even though that's not what I currently did. So, so when I got coached in this manner in front of all these people, I was actually coaching other people in leadership. So I was coaching CEOs, I was doing life coaching. I was starting consulting in leadership development and culture creation. But because a group of 500 people heard that I was a high performance, strength and conditioning person and exercise physiologist, and that was boiled down in their minds to some level of fitness coach, then that's who I became to them. So I ended up being judged not only for what I was being coached on, but I ended up being judged in, in a way that in a profession that they could see me as versus what I really was doing in the real world. And that wasn't their fault. It was just a matter of the circumstance. However, I started judging them and going, well, they don't even really know what I do. They don't even understand me. They are assuming that I am a fitness coach when that's not even close to the role that I was in. They don't know what I currently do, which is not, is not in the line of fitness coaching or high performance coaching. It's. It's consulting. And so I realized that I felt judged. But the moment I felt judged, what did I start to do? I started judging back. Most of these people I didn't know, or I would get to know them later, and that's how I'd find out that they thought I was some sort of fitness person, professional. And that's okay because they just didn't, you know, understand the level of what I had done or that I was doing something different at the time. However, because I felt so judged, that's when it turned up the dial for me, judging someone else. And how many of us do this on the regular basis because we feel a little bit this or that, then we start to judge somebody else. So I want to give you some roots of judgment so that we can really look at this objectively. We, we don't want to start to speculate or have our opinions on who's judgy and who's not. Let's take a look at where does this judgment come from? How does it serve us? When are we most likely to judge? And ultimately, I want to answer this question for you in this podcast, which is how do we connect with someone in the midst of being judged or judging someone else? Like, how do we actually bridge that gap? I'm going to give you two fantastic ways to do it. Live time. And then a third step overall. So first of all, there's a person named Robin Dunbar who did a bunch of research, and this research was around gossip, a lot of social gossip. So what they learned was that the amount of social gossip in a group corresponds to the relative size of the group. So the more gossip happens in larger groups, the larger the group, the greater the gossip or the more gossip that happens. Maybe that's because there's more people there. Who knows? Maybe that's because we have a great propensity to gossip, especially when there are more opportunities, AKA more humans around us. Who knows? Another thing that they found was that gossip allows people to learn about reputations and then maintain group unity through shared opinions. So listen to this. We're gossiping about others to learn about another person. What are they like? Where are they from? What are they known for? What's their reputation? And then that connects the group with shared opinions. Interesting stuff. And then judging others behaviors through gossip helps police social norms and manage complex social relationships. So there's, there's. You Know books like Judgment Detox. And yes, I think that we are, especially in this social age, social media age, we judge and judge more and more and more. However, if we can step back and see how we became judgers as social beings, then we can understand a little more of why judgment, why gossiping and then judging on what we've learned about other people, why it's so served us. So here's some more research. This one's by a person named Roy Baumeister. But this research is less on gossip and more on self esteem. So when we judge others more critically than ourselves, it's one way to boost our own self esteem. So we're basically pointing the finger at them in order to feel better about ourselves. That's what the research points to. And then when our own self esteem is threatened, then we judge others actions more harshly. I can think about this happened to me yesterday, where I'm feeling low on my own and then I'm snappy about something my daughter is doing, but it's simply because I was feeling low. It wasn't that what they were doing was right or wrong or anything like that, but I end up being critical about it. So Baumeister findings suggest that self esteem is more influenced by the judgments of others than direct praise or positive outcomes. What the what? So here we are. We literally need to double up on our praise, double up on our positive outcomes, because one judgment ends up being way more powerful than a positive outcome or praise from someone else. Go figure. Holy cow. And then his studies also show that when self esteem is low, people will choose opportunities to judge over other, judge others over opportunities for self improvement. Go figure. Instead of actually improving ourselves when we're feeling low, we're going to default to judging someone else. So other favorite authors of mine and researchers of mine, Brene Brown, she points to judging makes us feel superior, which then masks our own insecurities. So that one line I think sums up Roy Baumeister's research on self esteem. Another favorite of mine is Esther Perel and she finds that it distances us emotionally when we feel hurt. If we just judge them and judge their behavior well, then we create this padding, this buffering, this distance when we're kind of licking our wounds from whatever we're hurt by. And then another researcher, this one's named Daniel Gilbert, Daniel Gilbert finds that when we judge, our judgments are often wrong because we're not only lacking the insights into the full context of the other person, but then what we do is even worse. We go and our brain does this naturally? Our brain is filling the gaps with assumptions and stereotypes. Ouch. So we don't even really know the whole story because we don't have the context fully of that person. And yet there we are just filling the gaps with all our assumptions and stereotypes. Now that's what happened to me in the story that I described. What happened was ultimately that people were stereotyping me as some level of fitness trainer because as a small female, they couldn't quite see me as a Olympic level strength and conditioning coach. And then secondarily they, that's what they figured I was still doing. Instead of that being a past thing, they're filling in those gaps. But then what am I doing? Doing the exact same thing. I'm filling in these gaps and assumptions that oh, they don't respect me perhaps, or they are judging me and they don't want to really know who I am. I'm filling in those gaps and making assumptions because based on being in a low spot. Okay, so how does this actually serve us? It helped us as early humans organize social structures. This is from a researcher named Steven Pinker. And then it al also allowed us to form policing. Allows us policing through group norms via that gossip. That was the, the Robin Dunbar research. And what happens though with habitual judging? It forms some real problems. It isolates us and can destroy relationships. It can become this self righteous hypocrisy where I'm judging on you but ignore what I'm doing. And then also it's often misguided and inaccurate because our brain is trying to fill all these gaps with assumptions. And so it's really not accurate and it doesn't have this great outcome. So here's something that I think was really, really valuable as I looked and, and dug around and researched a bit more on this topic is when do we tend to judge? Because I was looking at myself and realizing the research on self esteem and realizing that yeah, when I'm low, I tend to be more critical, especially my close family members. And what am I doing when I'm being critical? Is I'm judging their behavior or judging something that they're doing or not doing. So I wanted to know when do we tend to judge the most? Us human beings, those of us navigating this thing on this globe called earth navigate navigating this thing called life. So when do we tend to judge? When we feel insecure, vulnerable, our self esteem is low. When we experience resentment, envy or especially feelings of unfairness, then we're emotionally distancing ourselves. We also Judge when a group's norms or values are being challenged. So especially in other groups, we also judge when resources are scarce. So zero sum we're viewing our achievements in competitive terms instead of viewing it as abundant. So when we are viewing those in competitive terms, it's this scarce mindset. Then we become more judgy. We also judge more when we lack connection to people or an understanding of an out group. So we're not humanizing or empathizing with others. We just don't understand another group. So we tend to judge another group. We also tend to judge when someone has offended our moral sensibilities. So if someone's offended our values, offended what we believe in, then we tend to judge them. And it goes back to that comparison, that competitive nature, the right and wrong. I'm right, they're wrong. If they're questioning my moral values, then they must not be right because mine I think are so good and so amazing and so right. And we tend to do that. We also judge when we are among in group members. So those that we are part of our tribe, if you will, and we are reinforcing shared judgments. So we're judging in a way that we all judge together, kind of a group think scenario. Consensus breeds self righteousness. If they're all agreeing with us and all agree together, then we must be right. And I want to point this out because it's. I often say to the people that I coach and my audience that proximity is power and we want to surround ourselves with people who, yes, they might think differently than us, but we're also looking for people with similar value structures as well. However, when we do that we are in danger of looking at other groups as though they are wrong or we're judging them because we're around a lot of people who think similarly to us. So notice the danger of, of that and be able to have that open mindedness to look at other people with an open mind and acceptance. We if we are, here's one that's so good, so good in this age of social media. And it is that if we are in an anonymous or physically distant situation, hence social media that I'm pointing to, what it does is it reduces these empathy and enables inhibitions so we enables, sorry, disinhibition so we're not as inhibited as we would normally be when we're distance or we're anonymous and then we judge more. We also judge when we are multitasking or we're time pressured cognitive overload. So our brain is simply overloaded. And then we rely on stereotypes, we rely on assumptions, we rely on filling in the blanks that may not be true contextually. And we also judge when we are emotionally or mentally depleted. So the cognitive overload or the emotional overload as well, then we have low willpower. It undermines our ability to override these prejudiced reactions. So there's lots of research that points to all these things. Every one of these is founded in research that people have done on self esteem, done on judgment, done on gossip, all social interaction, anth anthropological research so that we study ourselves as human to understand why we do what we do. So here's the question. How do we connect in the moment instead of judge in the moment? Because we're so socially prone to judgment, we have it within our social structure of, of evolution. So if it's there, and we're going to be more likely to judge than we are to work on our own feel good state, then how do we connect instead of judge? So I've got two main things, and then one third thing that I think will make a big difference. Number one, in the moment, no matter who it is, no matter what, if we simply think in terms of us instead of them, when we think of them, and it could be some of the closest people to us, our family members, our spouses. If I think of my husband as them instead of we, then I automatically become more judgmental towards him. But if I start thinking of him as part of an us, it's we. When I think of we and I verbalize it as we, then I'm less likely to judge him because I'm not distancing myself from him. Same goes for any group. Same goes for someone we see on social media. We, if we are doing these things and what, what our brain's going to naturally do is go, I'm not that I'm not like them, but what if, what if I was? And that leads to step two. What if I was like them? What if I am like them? What if this is us? What if I was like them some point in my life? What if we are all just one version of humanness? So that points to step two. And what it is, is in the moment, find something in common. Even if you're socially distant, distanced, you don't know that person, you see them online. What do I have in common with that person? Oh, they're nothing like me. Oh, wait a second. What if I had to find one thing that's in common? Same age bracket, they're female. Just one thing. Anything and if I can find that one thing in common that brings us together and puts us in a situation and me in a situation where I'm less judgy and more embracing. And that does a whole lot more for connecting than it does the distancing that judging does. Because judging will distance you. Now for those of you who come from backgrounds like I do, where it's high performance in business, the companies that I work with are running multi, multi million dollar operations. And if there isn't a level of criticism and a level of, of standard, then how can things be run and still have a high quality product? How can things work? If you come from high performance sport like I do did, then it's constantly a better standard. There's constant growth that has to happen. And so there's a high level of, of analyzing and critical thinking and criticizing in order to create the next standard. And this can be positive rivalry, it can be competition, it can be feedback and then making adjustments to the feedback given. So positive feedback, negative feedback, all of the types of feedback. But what's happening is the level of judgment. And so those of us in those environments at high levels become very trained in judging. At the same time, however, if we, we can bring those two things in with the mix of those high standards, of those critical feedbacks, of those assessments, then we're bringing in, in terms of us, okay, I'm in this picture too, and finding something in common. Oh, we're on the same team, we're on the same page. We're going for the same goal. If we can do that with people that we think we are so distanced from or we are so opposite from, that expands us. Not only does it expand us, it does that goal that we have, which is create more connection with someone who we think we can't be connected with because our judgments have told us that they are way too different than us. Find something in common. And that's going to bring me to the last thing which is really wrapping up. For us. How are we doing anything different when we're judging on other people? How does it feel when you are judged? I wonder how it feels when that person is being judged by us. And we often think, oh, they don't know what I'm thinking, they don't know how I'm thinking about them. But they do. They can feel the judgment. It can be these micro expressions. It can be, it can be the body language, it can be just the comment or the tone that they know they're being judged or they're being Criticized in your mind about them or their behavior. So if we ask with curiosity of ourselves, why are we thinking what we're thinking? If we're reflecting on a time that we judged, why are we thinking what we're thinking? Why are they doing what they're doing? If we're thinking, why are they doing what they're doing versus we're thinking, why are we thinking that what they're doing is wrong? Why am I thinking the opinion that I'm thinking? Chances are it wasn't even me, Chances are it was society, it was my upbringing, it was my social circle that had me thinking in a that wasn't as open minded, that wasn't as inclusive, that wasn't as connected. So that's the third part is really reflecting and asking yourself why is it that I'm thinking that about them? Stepping back, not just auto thinking, auto judging, auto autopiloting, how we are looking at others in the world, but rather why am I thinking that way? So there it is, number one, thinking in terms of us, we not thinking in terms of them. Or two, find something in common as fast as possible with everyone you're interacting at. And for three, if you've gotten yourself into judgment, actually ask yourself, where did that come from? Why do I even have that opinion about that person? It may not even be your own that you've consciously created or want to take through into the world. It may simply have been one from your social group, society or your upbringing. So consider those things. When it comes into judgment, then we really get to do a check on our inner critic and our self righteousness. And remember, if we're going to be judging them, chances are we're pretty hard on ourselves as well. And then it simply creates more distance, more and more distance when we're criticizing and judging ourselves, criticizing and judging others. And it creates, it really deteriorates the thing we want the most in the world from others, which is to feel connected, to feel like we are doing good in the world, we are worthy and we are connected to other people. So we want to seek understanding over evaluating. We want find common ground through empathy. And ultimately judging less allows us to connect more authentically. And it starts with us. This is leadership of ourselves. It starts and it improves our life and it improves our relationships. So get to those three steps. Think in terms of us, not them. Find something in common. Reflect on where this thinking came from. If this is valuable to you, share. There are lots of people who can really have a couple takeaways from this so that they can step into their best leadership. And remember, all we're up to here is leading ourselves the best, being our best so that we can serve others and give our best. Keep being you. Keep being empowered and go forth and be your best. If you enjoy listening to the Empowered Team Podcast, you'll love being on the Empowered Team. The Empowered Team is our group coaching and accountability program where we provide the tools, skills and community for you to grow your self mastery as a leader and optimize your results alongside other leaders. The Empowered Team runs year round to learn more about our leadership consulting for business and our Empowered Team Group Coaching, head to www. Theempowered.ca empowered learn more. That's www.theempowered.ca empowered learn more. We can't wait for you to join us. Let's go.