The One Thing Brain Surgeons and Trash Collectors Have in Common

Have you ever met someone and you immediately had respect for them and you thought, wow, they're really an outstanding person? And then you also meet somebody and you think, man, that person is a low life. That person just isn't what's wrong with them. Well, guess what? On this podcast, we're going to talk about the fact that both of those kinds of people, the ones you look up to, respect and admire, and the ones that you look down upon and think, they're just a terrible person. They both have one thing in common, and we're going to find out what it is.

Welcome to becoming wiser with Dr. Robert A. Rohl, author and world renowned public speaker, as he shares stories involving his experiences and lessons learned in a good, spirited, positive and fun way. Here's Dr. Robert A. Rome.

Hi, I'm Dr. Robert Rohm. On this podcast, I want to share with you a concept that I have to work on every day of my life. I mean, I wish I could tell you that at 75 years of age, I have arrived and everything in my life is smooth sailing. And everybody I meet I love and I get along with, and we just all are great friends and associates and.

We have great interaction and everything is wonderful except for one thing. That's not true. And it took me a long time to understand what was going on. And I'm going to share with you how I hope and pray you can learn this concept because this is difficult. If it were easy, everybody would do it. But it's challenging and I want to challenge you because understanding this concept will help you to become a better person. So let me start with a story and an illustration, and you'll soon find out what I'm talking about. Suppose you and I were standing somewhere and I introduced you to a new friend, and I introduced that friend to you, and I said, hi, this is my new friend. I want you to meet him or her. But in this case, for the sake of illustration, we'll say him. I want you to meet him. He is a brain surgeon. He graduated at the top of his class from Harvard Medical School. He's a brain surgeon. He's been doing brain surgery for many, many years. He saved thousands of people's lives. He knows how to take someone's skull off their head and do brain surgery and then put their skull back on top of their head and make sure that they get well and healthy and they live a long life. I want you to meet my friend. Well, you would be standing there in awe. You would be standing there like, what am I Doing in the presence of someone like this. I mean, they're like royalty. This is a brain surgeon. They know how to take someone's skull off. They know how to operate on a brain and fix it and repair it and put it back together, and then the person's well and healthy. And this person can do that. Oh, it's so wonderful to meet you. I just am honored and have so much respect for what you do.

And then a few minutes later.

Another person walked up, and I looked at you, and I said, oh, here's somebody else who's my friend. I want you to meet them. And I introduced him to you, and I said, you are going to be amazed. This person drives the sanitation truck that picks up the garbage and all the trash on our street. And the amazing thing is, they used to be in the back. That means they used to ride on the back where they had to hop out and actually pick up the trash cans and dump the trash cans into the sanitation truck. But they did such a good job, they got a promotion, and they no longer ride on the back of the sanitation truck picking up trash. They have moved up and are now the driver of the sanitation truck that comes up and down the streets every week to pick up trash. I want you to meet him. Now, you've got to admit, and I'm walking you through this just like I Learned this probably 30 years ago from my mentor. You would probably think, wait a minute. You want me to meet the trash man? You mean to meet the guy that picks up the trash? That I'm not interested in. That. That's not something I kind of really want. Now, listen carefully. I know some of you would like, why are you putting down the trash man? I am not putting down the trash can. I am grateful. Matter of fact, we. We give our trash gal the guy who picks up all of our trash. We give him tips. We give him water. We. We got to be friends with him. But it's because of the story I'm telling you that I learned this. So before you judge me for looking up at the brain surgeon looking down on the trash man, just keep listening, because I'm going somewhere with all of this.

So you would have a hard time convincing me that you looked at both of those people the same way you would look at the brain surgeon with a lot of admiration and with a lot of respect. But you look at the trash man like, well, that's. That's no big deal. Anybody can do that. And you would tend to look down on him. Now, remember, at the Beginning of this podcast guy asked a question. I said, whether it's the brain surgeon or whether it's the trashman, both of them have one thing in common. Are you ready? I hope you listen. This is great, but it's painful. Both of them are human beings. Both of them are human beings that we can learn to love, help and encourage. As a matter of fact, God gave both of them their life. God gave both of them the ability to have a heart that beats, a brain that works, oxygen that comes into their lungs. They both are human beings and both were created in the image of God. Bible says that all of us were created in the image of God. There is a stamp, there is an imprint inside of every one of us that has the fingerprints of God upon our life. Now, here's where it really got sticky for me. Here's where it really got confusing. Of course I respect people who have a lot of education and who have worked hard and made something out of their life. And of course, I don't have as much respect or admiration for someone who picks up the trash and. You ready? Here's what I learned. That's on me. That's my fault. That's my problem. Because both of them are human beings. Both of them deserve love, respect, and to be honored for what they do. It is true, one may require more education, one may require more ability, one may understand or have to have more experience, but you don't look down on people because they are not as great as you. And you don't look up to people because you're not as wonderful as them. And here's why. It is a no win situation. You see, if I look down on people and I think I'm better than them or greater than them, then that fills me up with pride and arrogance. And there's nothing that God hates more than arrogance or pride. Yet if I look up to a person who is a brain surgeon and I think, oh, they really are important, they're worthy of respect, then I end up possibly feeling inferior. I end up possibly even depressed. You see, it's a no win. God doesn't want me depressed and inferior, and he doesn't want me arrogant and prideful. So how do you overcome this challenge? And the answer is very, very simple. Every person that you meet is worthy of your respect. Every person that you meet is worthy of your love and your admiration and your encouragement and in your help and in your ability to look to them and communicate to them with love, honor, respect. And I'm telling you, this is so very Very important. It's hard to do because if you meet someone who is very famous, and I've met a lot of famous people, it can be very debilitating because you start thinking, well, why am I not great and wonderful and mighty and powerful and well known and as wonderful as they are, that leads nowhere. It's a dead end street. But then you also can meet someone and you think, well, I'm better than they are. At least I don't have their life. You end up becoming prideful and arrogant and that's a dead end street too. My wife told me this story one time. She was on a ski slope and someone had a very, very, very bad injury and the medics were there and they were trying to save their life, they were trying to help them and my wife was watching. And these people, they were medics, they knew how to handle emergency situations. They knew how to stop bleeding, they knew how to keep bones that had been broken or fractures wrapped up until they could get them to the hospital. And my wife was talking to one of the medics after they had basically saved someone's life and wrapped them up and got them on a health light helicopter where they were taken out and everything. My wife said, I guess you've seen everything. He said, yeah. He said, we do the best we can.

And we, we've helped a lot of people, but occasionally we run into an stby.

My wife thought for a minute, stby? She thought that was some kind of medical terminology for, for, you know, some, some code or something that only medics knew. And my wife said, stby. What does that stand for? He looked at her and he said, sucks to be you. In other words, sometimes you get hurt so bad you are glad it wasn't me that broke my arm. It wasn't me that knocked all my teeth out. It wasn't me that was in that ski accident injury. And that's understandable. I mean, I'm not trying to be sadistic. I'm not telling you that you should always live your life in such a way that, you know, you never have an accident, you never do anything wrong. That's not realistic. Sometimes other people do and you listen and it's okay to be grateful. It wasn't you that went through that. I was driving my car the other day and I saw a car in, in the right lane and in the left lane was the turn lane only and the guy was coming down in the left lane. All someone in the right lane decided they wanted to, they wanted to turn left and they pulled Out. And I mean, bam. It was a loud crash and tore up both cars. And I thought to myself, s t b y sucks to be you. Now, I'm not saying I was better than them. I'm not saying I was worse than them. I'm saying a situation happened that I looked at and I thought, well, I'm glad that wasn't me. All of us should live our lives. That's what these podcasts are about. These podcasts are called Becoming Wiser. Why are we trying to become wiser? So we don't do foolish things. So we don't have accidents unnecessarily. So we don't pull out in front of someone and get hit by a car. Or that we don't do something to ourselves to cause us unnecessary pain. I'm not really talking about that that much. Those things are going to happen. And you live your life in such a way as you don't have an stby situation that you're not in a situation that you found out, man alive, I shouldn't have done that. That was dangerous, and those are real. But what I'm primarily talking about is this love. People don't look down. I know all of us have pulled up in our cars on the street corners, and there's somebody there. They're homeless. They may have a wife or a child. They're sitting there. I know it would be real easy to think, man, I'm. I'm so much better than they are. I'm gonna tell you something about me that may surprise you. I almost always give them some money. You might say, yeah, but wait a minute. They're just trying to cheat you. That's not my business. Jesus said, you will always have the poor with you and to help them. So I try to help them. I don't necessarily give them everything I own, but I do give them some money. Or sometimes I'll say, hey, let me go. I'm going to buy. What do you all need? Some food? I hesitate to give money sometimes because I don't know if it'd be used for alcohol or drugs. But even that's not my decision. But how many times we'll go, how many of y' all are there? It's three of us. Me, my wife, and a child. Let me run get you some food. I'll be back and go up to Chick Fil a and get them some lunch and give it to them. I've just learned not to look down on people. I've also learned not to look up to people. I Have learned to respect everyone. Just respect everyone. Be good to everyone. At 75 years of age, I can tell you the secret of life. The secret of life. Regardless of who you're dealing with and regardless of what the situation is, here's the secret to life. Be good to people. And get things done. That's it. Be good to people. That's the right side of the model of human behavior. And get things done. That's the left side. See, I could look at someone and say, y' all are hungry. Well, I hope everything goes well for you. That's not doing anything, that's just talking. Or I could just ignore them altogether. But the balance. Be good to people. Whenever you have the opportunity, as much as lies in you, as much as the ability is in you, be good to people. But then also get things done. Look for ways you can help. Look for ways you can give. Look for ways you can go out of your way. I mentioned earlier and I'm gonna wrap all this up. Well, my wife and I, we love the our garbage man or our trash man or the guy who picks up, he's the sanitation guy and we pay him to do that. And we sometimes leave him a bonus and sometimes we leave him in a wrapped up some food or something cold to drink. Why would we do that? Because we want to be good to him. We don't think we're better than him. Now, we may be better off than he is, but we're not better than him. And then the person who is the most, the wealthiest person in our town, we don't look up to him. We just know he's another person and that we see him, we speak to him, we respect him. The only person we really honor that we bow before is our Savior, Jesus. And he's helped us to understand that. Be good to people, get things done. Don't be proud and arrogant. Don't be depressed and sad. Just respect people, love them, encourage them, and you'll always get along better, have a better life and help someone else on their journey as well. Hope this thought has been helpful. I'm telling you, you got to practice this. It's simple. It's just not easy. I'm Dr. Robert Rome. I hope you liked the podcast. Look forward to hearing and talking to you sometime soon on another podcast from Becoming Wiser. Have a great day. God bless you. Bye. Bye.

For more information about this podcast, please visit www.becoming wiserpodcast.com.