In this episode, we discuss how we need to understand a situation first before we give our opinion.
Full Transcript
Hi Everyone, welcome to the You’re Daily Cup of Joe Podcast, with your host Joe Bautista. In this podcast, my goal is to give you quick lessons that you can reflect on in your journal so you can grow yourself physically, mentally, emotionally, and spiritually and have a better career, better relationships, and better personal finances while you enjoy your morning cup of coffee.
I’m also the author of the book “More You Know, More You Grow: How to Get Better Every Day”. In this book, I wrote down over 30 tips to help you grow in those four cornerstones. I’m also the founder of Grow With Joe, where I combine self-development coaching and financial planning for Latino Professionals.
At the end of today’s podcast episode, I’m going to give you a prompt question to reflect on in your journal. The idea is to take one to five minutes to reflect on today’s lesson and write a minimum of one paragraph on how you can apply the lesson in your life. You can use an actual journal, a word document like on Google Drive, or your note-taking app like Evernote. The idea is that you’re actually thinking about how to process the information to help you improve your life.
In today’s episode, we are going to talk about how we shouldn’t judge a situation we never been in before. One of the easiest things to do is to form an opinion because the brain hates uncertainty and will make up information so that the information loop is closed. Things are rarely are simple as black and white, where there is a wrong and a right. You have to go deep into a situation.
Right now, as I’m writing this episode out, covid-19 is causing a lot of people to panic about the economy. There are tons of people worried about their livelihood and want to get back to work. There are some people who want to stay put in the house and wait until the covid-19 virus is completely gone. You have to look at people’s incentives and reasons for why they want a certain outcome.
There are so many variables that we don’t know about and I saw that covid-19 is causing strokes in young people. I don’t know if this is true or not and it can contribute to something else. There is just a lot of uncertainty and people don’t do well when there is uncertainty. I try not to judge a person but try to think about all the reasons why a person would be acting in this fashion. Some of it is genetics and some of it is up to the environment. And you also have to realize that people don’t rise to their expectations, they fall to the level of their training.
People weren’t training for a global pandemic because they thought there was a less than 1% chance that a virus could mess up the world. A global pandemic was the last thing on my mind but here we are and some people are acting irrationally. I know I can’t control these people and there are always going to be folks that mess things up for everyone because they don’t know better even if they think they know better. I don’t know how that person was raised, what type of education they got, what social environment they were in.
I remember at my last firm, there would be disagreements between the support office and the financial advisor. Start a business is one of the hardest things you can do. The rejection, the constant problem solving, and worrying about competition is something that most people won’t go through and it is annoying when people dismiss business owners. It sucks when you first get started but when you make it, then it’s a good life. And I can see how business owners can lose perspective too. The key thing is that no one is perfect. I believe people are trying to the best of their ability to handle the situation. Some people just suck at handling it.
To be mad though is to get angry at a dog that went to the bathroom in the house. They don’t know better and that’s why we need to train people to be better. This is why I train myself so hard on growing myself physically, mentally, emotionally, and spiritually. So when things like a global pandemic happen, I’m ready for it. There have been times where I didn’t handle things well. I remember one time I got snarky with a client who backed out on the plan and it was because I was worried about my business surviving. I was able to realize the mistake I made and I’m not going to react like that again. Stress can cause people to make a lot of foolish decisions.
When you have to worry about your safety, food, money, or anything else, you’re not going to flawless. You’re going to make a mistake. It would be nice if everyone did what they were supposed to do, but that’s never going to happen. So if you haven’t been in a situation, don’t judge because you might not know all the details on what caused someone to make that decision. This is why it’s important to ask questions or do some research on your own so that you know all the ins and outs of the operation.
I’m glad I have a diverse background where I was in the Marines, the Federal Government, Business owner, and worked in the white house because it gives me a different perspective on life and how to go into situations. So I would recommend that you get out and experience different things. Or do some research before you jump to a conclusion. This is going to require you to take a time out and go actually research somethings. This will take away time from other things you enjoy. I don’t think many people will do this part, because it’s very complex and we like things to be simple.
To prevent loser thinking, just start asking more questions and don’t jump the gun. Try to go out and seek to understand first before being understood. Do this and the world will be a better place.
That’s it for today’s episode, to summarize it, don’t judge situations you never been in before as Mitchell Perry said. Again I don’t know who this person is but I know a good quote when I see one. Try to figure out the incentives on why this person would be acting in this matter. Does the person have the knowledge on how to do better? If we knew better, we would do better, but you can’t be a jerk about it either. You have to be diplomatic about it and you have to do your research. You might be right about your judgment or you might be wrong. But if you never been there before, then you’re going to have to do more work. I heard this great story about empathy versus sympathy. Sympathy is walking by someone who is in a hole and saying that you’re sorry for that person being in the hole. Empathy is going down into the hole and saying that you’re sorry that the person is in the hole. The person in the hole is going to judge the person in the hole with them a lot better than the person saying something from the outside. So keep this in mind the next time you want to judge a situation.
So in your journal, ask yourself, what is a situation that you judged recently that you never been in before? What caused you to judge the situation? How did your judgment of the situation affect the situation? Sometimes we judge a situation that we really shouldn’t judge and it’s just a waste of our time. Sometimes though, you do need to intervene. But I feel most of the time, we don’t. Just focus on your stuff and that should make your situation better.
Thanks for listening today! To get a free copy of my audiobook “More You Know, More You Grow: How to get better every day” just go to my website growwithjoe.me/book and you can download it right there.
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Thanks for joining me today and remember if you go with Joe, you can grow with Joe, cause Joe knows Dough.
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