439: How to Get Along With People You Disagree With

[INTRODUCTION]

Hal Elrod: Welcome to the Achieve Your Goals Podcast. This is your host, Hal Elrod. And you ready for this? Let's talk about how to get along with people that we disagree with. Is there anybody that you disagree with in your life? I’d imagine there is. My wife will tell you. She is always outside like she can hear through the door of my office typically. And after I finished recording this episode just a few minutes ago, she goes, “Ooh, that's going to trigger some people,” and I go, “Really?” “Hal, the entire episode is about how we can all get along with those we disagree with.” She goes, “I think it's going to trigger some people and you're going to get some negative comments.” I go, "That's like the whole point of the episode is trying to talk about viewing each other from this place of empathy and understanding.” Anyway, but I do want to hear from you. So, if you have any comments, they could be critical. They could be supportive. It doesn't matter. I will receive it and appreciate it all after this episode or you can bring it up now or maybe you're listening there. HalElrod.com/439 is where you find this episode on my website, How To Get Along With People You Disagree With.

So, I'm going to share with you today three considerations to help you get along with people that you disagree with and with the intention, like the big picture intention of healing humanity. I feel like humanity could use a little bit of healing, a little bit of love, a little bit of empathy, and understanding toward each other. And so, toward the end of the episode, I'm going to give you those three considerations, and then I'm going to read a post that I put up that got a lot of negative comments and feedback. And that's actually what prompted me to record today's episode. And so, I intended on reading that social media post upfront like early in the episode but I think we ended up getting to like 30 minutes before you hear that. So, just to be aware of when that is coming, it's about 30 minutes in before I share the social media post, to share my response, and then kind of recap how it all ties into how we can better get along with everybody no matter what they think or believe, no matter how different from us they may be. How can we all get on the same page?

All right. Before we dive in, I want to take just a minute or two to thank and acknowledge our sponsors and tell you about some of the products that I've been using that are enhancing my life. The first sponsor is our newest sponsor, CURED Nutrition, and I want to talk about their raw CBN nighttime oil. I've been taking this, I've been playing with as early as 2 hours before bed or 30 minutes before bed and everywhere in between. I've landed at about 90 minutes. I think that's my sweet spot that I like. You have to try it for you. I think on the bottle it says to take it like 30 minutes before bed. So, see what works for you. But it's a nighttime hemp oil and I've been sleeping like a baby. I wake up without feeling groggy. It is fantastic. So, if you struggle with sleep, if you stress out at night, if you toss and turn, try this out. It's raw CBN nighttime oil. Head over to CUREDNutrition.com/Hal and then use the code “HAL” at checkout to get 20% off your entire order.

And they've got a lot of great products there, as does our second sponsor, our long-time sponsor, Organifi. Organifi makes some of, if not the highest quality whole food nutritional supplements in powder form, so you can easily throw them in a glass of water or juice or nut milk or your smoothie and get a boost of energy, help your cognitive function. They also have stuff for sleep at Organifi and I've been using their products for going on six, seven years now. I'm a big fan and that's why they were our first sponsor. So, Organifi.com/Hal and same thing with the code. Our listeners, if you use the code “HAL” you get an additional 20% off your entire order. So, whether it's CURED Nutrition or Organifi, I use a combination of products from both. I've found my combo that works really well for me. Highly, highly recommend both of our sponsors and I only recommend it because I personally use them and I'm a fan, and I hope you find something there at one of those sites or both of the sites that you absolutely love and it enhances your life.

And now, without further ado, let's get into it. Hopefully, I don't know if my wife's right. You're going to be triggered by this. I don't know if you are but either way, I love you. I appreciate you. And let's talk about how to get along with people that you disagree with.

[EPISODE]

Hal Elrod: Hey, goal achievers and members of the Miracle Morning community, friends, and family. Thank you for being here today. As always, I appreciate you very much. And today, we're going to talk about how to get along with people that you disagree with. Are there people that you disagree with? I'm guessing that there are. You might live with those people, right? They might be friends and family or colleagues. Or maybe it's just the folks that you see on social media. But how do you experience the differences? How do you interpret? How do you treat other people that disagree with you, that see things differently? And I think that we can all see right now how polarized we are as a society and maybe more so than ever before. You know, I'm only 43 years old so I know there's been conflicts throughout history but I feel like it used to be where you could disagree with somebody else, right? There's always been Democrats and Republicans and people on both sides of issues.

I feel like in the past we could disagree. We could kind of agree to disagree, right? Where it's like, "No, no. This is how it is.” They’re like, “No. This is how it is,” and you're like, “All right. Yeah. We see things differently. Let's go grab a beer,” or, "Let's go grab a meal like I still love you. I respect your opinion and your right to your opinion. I might not agree with it but I'm not going to vilify you and condemn you because you see things differently than me.” And I feel like that's where we are, is that we are condemning and I say we as a society. I'm not saying that you're doing it. I'm definitely trying not to do it but we as a society are in a place of polarization where we are condemning people who are on the other side of an issue from where we are, that see things differently than we do, that believe differently.

What sparked today was a social media post that I put up the other day, and actually, I didn't put it up. I just shared it. I shared a social media post from somebody else that I found interesting. And I got a lot of comments and like 90% of them were negative, were very critical, and, “Hal, I can't believe you shared this and you have a responsibility to be more careful with what you share.” And I will say that absolutely I take all feedback in and I received it and I learn from it. And I was like, "Yeah, you're right. There should have been more context,” because all I wrote was something to consider. Like, I shared this post, it's relatively controversial. I'll read it for you today. But I shared it and all I put was something to consider. And the biggest lesson I walked away with was that that was irresponsible on my part and it was due to laziness, right? It was like, "Oh, this is interesting.” And I just shared it. I should have really given my thoughts and created context around why I was sharing it, which I did afterwards. I posted up not long but a thoughtful response to all of the hateful comments that I got. And so, I actually was reading this, the post that I'm about to read to you.

Yesterday, I was with friends and Jon Vroman, my good buddy, who you've heard on the podcast many times, the founder of Front Row Dads, we were together and he said, “Man, I saw that post that you put out that you shared and I saw the hate that you got.” And he said, “I really liked your response.” And then somebody was in the room, another friend, Justin Donald, he said, “Hey, can you read it to me?” And I pulled out the phone and I read him the post and I read him my response. And Jon Vroman said, “Hal, you should do that as a podcast.” I said, “Really?” He said, “Yeah. You really should do that as a podcast to really foster this conversation of all of us being able to get along with people that we disagree with and not vilifying, not condemning but keeping an open mind exploring both sides of any issue for the sake of empathy and understanding and learning what maybe somebody else thinks and feels and their perspective so that we can all learn and grow and evolve together.”

Because even as right as we might think we are on an issue, right, as justified and as righteous as we might be on an issue because we believe this is the right way, I mean, think about that. If somebody is on the opposite side of an issue and that person is a good person, they've got a good heart, they're a beautiful human being, they're very intelligent but they think the exact opposite that you do. What does that mean? I mean, let's think about that for a second. I try to never get in a - and I'm guilty of doing it but I try to remain in a level of consciousness where I don't ever decide that my way is the right way, that I have it all figured out. Even on an issue like a moral issue, right? Like, abortion is a very hot topic right now. And someone that is on either side of it, typically, they're very convicted in their perspective and then they view someone on the other side of it as evil or wrong or trying to rob people of their rights. But if half of the country, give or take, is on one side of an issue and the other half is on another side of an issue, well, does that mean that one half is right and the other half is wrong? Or is there a nuance?

Is it like, "Yeah. I see where these folks are coming from and I see where these folks are coming from. It's not necessarily right or wrong. It's two different approaches to an issue.” And I know that's a kind of a vague assessment but it's the idea for us to not get so caught up in our way of thinking that it's right. And even if we believe it's right, I think that where I'm really trying to get is that we don't condemn the other side, that we don't think you're evil because you believe different than I do. I believe I'm right and therefore I believe you're wrong. I'm trying for us to transcend that and to remember that we're all part of the human family. You know, I've done a couple of episodes. I did Episode 396, How Can We Bring Humanity Back Together? I talked about why focusing on our differences instead of our commonalities is driving us apart. I talked about how the media is conditioning us to fear, hate, and wish harm on others. I talked about why choosing to view people from a space of unconditional love doesn't condone their behavior and why hating someone hurts you more than them.

I talked about the value of truly living in alignment with your values and I talked about why we're all deserving of unconditional love or revisit some of these topics today. But if you want to relisten to that episode, of course, it's 396. You can go to HalElrod.com/396. Again, it's how can we bring humanity back together? And then there's Episode 399 that I did just a few episodes later. This topic was really on my heart. It was the topic of unity. That's what had come up. I'd done a really deep extended meditation one day and, you know, I'm always asking the universe, God, for guidance, typically, as I'm every day going through life. And I kept getting the message, unity, "Hal, our world is divided and you need to take a stand for unity, for love, for understanding, empathy, for connectedness.” And that's where this was really on my mind and it still is, which is why I'm kind of continuing this conversation today. Episode 399 that I did three later was We Are All the Same. That was the title of the episode.

And in that episode, I talked about the five criteria we use when judging other people and why. The fifth is where we should be operating if we want humanity to thrive. Off the top of my head, I don't remember those five or I would review them right now. I'd have to go back and look at my notes. So, if you want to hear those five, go back and listen to that episode, HalElrod.com/399. I talked about how superficial differences come to change our perception and definition of others and why they shouldn't, meaning superficial differences like your belief or opinion or perspective is X, Y, or Z and therefore I am judging you. I am condemning you. I think you are a bad person because you believe the way you do or you vote the way that you do. “You voted for this president or that president. How could you do that? That is a reflection of who you are. I no longer like you, trust you, respect you.” In fact, some of the comments that I got on this post that I shared were, "That's it. I'm done. I can no longer follow Hal.”

And I get those comments whenever I share anything, again, that's polarizing, that has people on both sides of an issue. I get those, “I'm unfollowing you,” and you'll hear in my response why I don't agree with that. Like, I don't agree with unfollowing. I also respect someone's decision. Of course, unfollow, you do whatever you want but I personally want to live amongst a community where we can share our perspectives and agree to disagree and learn from each other and disregard like not throw the baby out with the bathwater. Like, “Oh, you shared this thing that I disagree with so now I'm done with you completely,” right? Like, okay, how about the last 30 posts I shared that were inspirational, like that added value, right? But then the one negative post and that's what we do is we have like one issue that triggers us. It's a hot button issue and we unfollow, “I no longer respect you. I no longer trust you.”

Also, by the way, Episode 399 I talked about why actions speak louder than words but intentions reveal our soul. I'll say it again. Actions speak louder than words but intentions reveal our soul. What does that mean? Well, you ever done something or said something that you later regretted? Because it wasn't a reflection of your intention of who you really are at your core. It was just that you said or did something that you out of haste or out of emotion and you may have made a mistake. And if someone judged or condemned you because of what you said or did, they might be mistaken because who you truly are, are your intention. And I know some of you were going, “Hal, the road to hell is paved with good intentions.” Great. That’s a great cliche phrase. But that doesn't mean that someone who makes a mistake in their thought, word, or action but that if you knew who they were, you would know, “Wow. That's not who they are.” I’ll give you an example. In an episode the other day, the episode I did called Evolving Toward Emotional Enlightenment. I don't know which episode it was. It was like maybe five episodes ago, not very long.

But in that episode, I was talking about how I had recently discovered that I struggle like I became aware that I've never really felt my emotions at a really deep level and that stemmed from when my sister passed away. When I was eight years old, I woke up on a Saturday morning. My mom was screaming across the hall. I ran across the hall. It was just me, my mom, and my baby sister, Amery. Amery was 18 months old at the time. We were home and my dad was at work and my sister was at my grandma's house. And that morning when I ran in the room, my mom was giving mouth-to-mouth resuscitation to my 18-month-old sister, Amery, and Amery died that morning. I didn't know she was dead at that time, even though she wasn't breathing. An ambulance came to take her away and I assumed, "Oh, well, the ambulance is going to save her. That's what they do, right? That she'll be okay.” And I went to a friend's house while my parents went to the hospital, and then I got a phone call from my dad in tears an hour or so later. And he said, “Amery is in heaven, Hal.”

And again, at eight years old, I didn’t know how to process that. And so, I really, you know, I think I struggled. Like, I try to remember. It's not really clear. I don't remember exactly how I felt. I just remember what I said. I went out in the living room after I phoned my dad and I said, “Hey, everybody, guess where my Amery is.” And everybody looked at me curious, like, "What? Hospital? What are you going to say?” I said, “She's in heaven. Isn't that great? You know, heaven's like the best place ever.” And through therapy, I've realized that it was that moment that was a defining moment for me, where I didn't like the painful emotions coming up of this baby sister that I loved, that I played with every day, that I snuggled with was now gone forever. I didn't know how to deal with that at eight years old. And so, I found this little trick that, "Hey, if I focus on the positive, then I don't have to feel whatever these weird emotions are.” And so, I said, "She's in heaven. Everything's great, right?” And tracing back, that became how I processed everything throughout my entire life.

So, anyway, without going too far down that, I shared that story on this podcast, Evolving Toward Emotional Enlightenment, and I shared an assessment that a friend gave me where I was sharing this with a friend. And this realization we're having kind of a deep, revealing, vulnerable conversation. They said, "It's almost like you're emotionally retarded,” and they didn't mean that, at least I didn't take that in an offensive way. It was the definition of the word that I understood that meant stunted or whatever. The context wasn't insulting. It was like just an assessment. And they said, “It seems like you never like learned how to feel your emotions.” So, I just shared that story in the episode and I had someone comment. They were extremely offended. I think I believe that she's a listener of the podcast. If you're listening now, my heart, I love you. My response to your comment, I meant it sincerely, of course, but it didn’t even cross my mind that that would offend someone.

And so, that's an example. I'm just sharing that as an example of if you judge or condemn someone based on their words or actions without taking the time to learn their intentions, then you could take someone or a relationship or just how you feel about another person, and it can be detrimental based on this superficial judgment of something that was said or done may be out of emotion, out of error, out of in my case, in that situation, it was lack of awareness, right? It didn't even cross my mind that using that word in that context could be offensive. And then once it was brought to my attention and I even did a little Googling and did a little research, I was like, “Oh, wow, for many people that is very offensive. I didn’t mean it to be but I can totally see that and I will now be more thoughtful and careful and not use that word haphazardly.” So, that's just an example of following up when I said why actions speak louder than words but it's really intentions that reveal our soul and who we are.

And then the last thing I shared in that episode is how to look past superficial differences and disagreements to find common ground and better understand your shared values with someone else. Ultimately, the biggest breakthrough that I've had or the biggest distinction or paradigm shift that I've adopted since all this polarization began occurring, which I kind of felt like started in 2020. It's like different sides of these major polarized issues. Everybody became very political. Even the people that were never political got really caught up in it. And what I've realized is that we're all the same. We're all fundamentally the same, like the differences that we get hung up on and that we literally hate other people over, “I hate you. I don't respect you because you think this way because your life experience has led you to believe these things,” and so we judge and condemn accordingly. And the paradigm shift is that if you had lived that person's life and been exposed to the ideas and information that they had and endured the experiences that they had that led them to see the world the way that they did, the way that they do. Then if you had lived their life, you would likely be exactly the same.

I invite you to really stop and think about it because that for me was the key. That perspective was the key that unlocked the door to unconditional empathy and love for all people. And I'll say it again. Had we lived, had you lived the life of another person even someone that you completely disagree with right now but if you would live their life, consider that you'd be exactly the same. And from that place, from that perspective, how could you judge another person or condemn another person for their views or even their words or actions? We love to be on our high horse and judge and go, “Tsk, that person's horrible. I would never do that.” It's like, well, yeah, you would never do that because of who you are based on your life experience. For example, if somebody grew up in a really safe environment with two loving parents and their friends and their peers modeled really nice behavior, cordial, kind behavior, right, then if that's how you grew up, then you're likely to be a kind, cordial, loving, supportive person.

However, if another person grew up with two abusive parents in a poverty-stricken part of the world or part of America, whatever, and their peers were violent and mean, maybe they grew up in a gang environment, don't you think that they're probably going to be different than you? They're probably going to be mean and possibly violent. And from your perspective or my perspective, as I grew up in a relatively, you know, I had a loving family. I was very blessed with that. I mean, I was bullied. I went through normal stuff but in terms of the polarity of growing up in a safe environment, loving environment, and a violent environment, I would say I was on the safe side, loving side, loving family. But from our perspective, we would judge that person that was a product of that environment. You'd go, “Oh my God, that person there, what a mean person. I don't like them. I condemn them, I judge them. They're bad, they're violent, they're mean, etcetera.” But guess what? They weren't as fortunate as you were. It's really easy to say, “I would never do that,” based on our life experience.

But if you had grown up with two abusive parents, and if you had grown up in a violent peer group where everybody was in gangs and beating people up and maybe murdering people, do you think you'd be a little different than you are right now? I'm sure that we would. And granted, there are countless examples of people that grew up… In case you're going there and you're like, “Yeah, Hal, that's no excuse. People can grow up in a harsh environment and still rise above that or find God or whatever.” Yeah. That's possible but it doesn't mean that it's a given and it doesn't mean that you would have figured it out or I would have figured it out having grown up in those harsh conditions. We like to hope that we would have. I like to hope that even if I was in those harsh conditions, I wouldn't have followed the path of my parents and the path of my peers. Good luck with that. It's easier said than done. But from this perspective, this is how I arrive at the conclusion that all people are doing essentially the best they can based on who they are.

And I know that nothing is universal. Nothing applies in every situation. But from that perspective, I have the empathy, not just the empathy but I choose to love all people unconditionally, even those that commit heinous acts. It doesn't change that I love them. And I want you to consider that, by the way. If you judge and condemn another person, that doesn't say anything about them. That says everything about you, right? If I judge someone or you judge someone, if we judge another person, condemn another person, that's not about them. That's about us. So, I guess my question for you is, who do you want to be in the midst of a polarized society? Who do you want to be in the midst of this polarized society where people are at each other's throat and they're vilifying others and condemning others? Who are you going to be? Are you going to be someone that judges and condemns and vilifies along with the crowd?

Or are you going to be someone who chooses to love other people, who chooses to agree to disagree, who chooses to consider the perspective that, "You know what, yeah, they think this is okay and I think it's wrong but if I had lived their life, I might think it's okay too. So, from that perspective, I'm not going to hate on them. I'm not going to condemn them. I'm not going to vilify or judge them. I'm going to love them. I'm going to embrace them?” All right. I just realized I haven't even read the Facebook post yet, so here we go. Well, the Facebook post is less important, actually. My response is what I think is where the lesson is. I mean, I can read some of this. So, this is a post that was shared by - it was a quote from a doctor, Leonard Coldwell. And to be fair, I did not do any research on Leonard Coldwell. This perspective, it just caught my attention. And some people in the comments were like, “Leonard Coldwell is an alternative doctor so therefore he's not a real doctor and Leonard Coldwell is questionable, so on and so forth.” To be fair, that was the big lesson that I walked away with is that for me, personally, I shouldn't have just shared this and written the word, "Something to consider.” I should have shared why I'm sharing this and my perspective.

The responsible thing to do would be for me to take the time to establish some context as to why I was sharing this and I didn't do that. So, I think it was irresponsible. Again, it was laziness. It was like, “I don't have time to write a big, long post. I'm just going to share this and let people draw the conclusions that they want.” So, I'm going to read the post and then I'm going to read my response for you that I replied to all of the comments, the mostly negative comments. And by the way, there weren't all negative. Some people were like, “Hal, great thoughts.” So, Art Sauer said, “Hal, great thoughts. I personally think our world is so polarized. It is so important to consume news and opinions in a holistic way. Personal experiences may make it harder and certainly sensitive to it. Enough of my soapbox.” And then what did someone else say? I want to read a negative. Wow. There's a lot more positive. After I updated the post to include the comments I'm going to read to you or my comments then people, there was a lot more positive response.

But some folks said, “Hal, are you serious? I can't believe you're sharing this. I would highly recommend spending some SAVERS reading on peer-reviewed science and review the basics of what cancer actually is, genetic mutation.” Anyway, so on and so forth. So, I just want to give you an idea of the different kinds of comments. Here's the post that I shared it from somebody else named Julie Rose. I don't even know who she is. I don't know how this ended up in my feed. I just saw it. I read it. It sparked. I was like, "Interesting.” I wanted to share it so here we go. “People need to understand that a tumor is there to save your life.” Again, by the way, this was from Dr. Leonard Coldwell.

A tumor is there to save your life. When your body is full with poison, toxemia, and acidosis, and you are basically going to die of that poison, your body builds a bag and collects all the poison from your body into this bag, which they call a tumor. So, the body did all the work, and now they come and they say, “We need to do a needle biopsy,” and they pinch into this highly toxic tumor, which, of course, now explodes and pours all the poison into your body. And then they say, "You have a very fast-growing, very aggressive form of cancer,” but they gave it to you. They created it.

And then there's a second part. He said:

Cancer is not an illness. Cancer is a symptom. These cancerous growths, the cell growth, whatever it might be that we don't want in our body is a symptom. It is not a cancer. So, cutting the symptom out does not resolve your problem at all. And that's why it reappears or why they kill the entire body with chemotherapy for two years. Now, anything shrinks, your organs shrink, the brain shrinks, and the tumor shrinks because they dehydrate the body. So, now, at the same rate as your organs are shrinking, your tumor is shrinking. Now, they say it's working. The tumor is shrinking. It's one of the biggest frauds ever. Dr. Leonard Coldwell.

So, I got a lot of responses saying, "Hal, I can't believe that you're sharing this. You know, what if you got someone to doubt traditional medicine instead of trusting their doctors?” So, that was the general kind of consensus from a lot of these comments. Here is my response to all of the comments. I said:

Hey, everyone. I'm just now seeing your comments, so I apologize for the delayed response. I appreciate all of your thoughts and opinions. However, I merely shared a post that offered a perspective I found interesting. I find it concerning when we can't simply share and consider information or opinions from others and make our own decisions without condemning the person who shared it. I was a cancer patient for five years. I experienced firsthand the flaws and corruption in our medical system to blindly trust our health to the profit-driven cancer and pharmaceutical industries without questioning, researching, and considering alternatives seems irresponsible to me. When I questioned my doctors about what I could do to optimize my health, they literally had no answers. They simply prescribed the drugs that they were trained to prescribe by the institutions that were funded by the pharmaceutical companies who profit from those drugs. That's not a conspiracy theory. That's simply how our medical system is set up.

Personally, my cancer was so aggressive that I chose to use traditional medicine, which was hyper‐CVAD chemotherapy. However, traditional medicine has a 20% to 30% survival rate for my type of cancer. Thankfully, I didn't leave my health solely up to traditional medicine but researched and utilized every possible alternative treatment to optimize my chances of survival. Otherwise, I might have been in the 70% to 80% of those who died because they relied solely on traditional medicine. Ultimately, I want to engage with people from a place of mutual respect, love, and grace. If you share something you find interesting, even if I disagree, I'm not going to unfollow you. I'm going to respect your right to share, give you grace as you're learning and evolving, and continue to love you unconditionally the way I believe we all deserve to be loved. If you're up for that kind of relationship, I'm looking forward to continuing our journey together.

So, that’s the response that prompted this episode today. I was going to read that at the beginning, but whatever, we talked through it and then we got to this point. And I’m curious as to your thoughts on everything we’re talking about today. I’d love for you to engage in the comments. If you go to episode– it’s 439, today’s episode is 439. So, if you go to HalElrod.com/439, please take a couple of minutes and leave me a comment. It can be critical. I receive critical or constructive criticism openly. And I appreciate it.

I’m always trying to learn and grow because I don’t think I have everything figured out. And guess what? I don’t think you have everything figured out either. I don’t think anybody has everything figured out. And from that place, let’s stay open to learning and growing.

And I want to share with you three ideas here around how to get along with people you disagree with. Some of this we’ve kind of already covered, but I want to bullet point it for you. Number one, consider that we’re all fundamentally the same. You’re a human being, I’m a human being.

Or if you want to go deeper than that, I don’t know if you listen to my episode a couple of weeks ago called Discovering Who You Truly Are, I think that was Episode 437, if I remember correctly, 437, if you want to go back and listen to it HalElrod.com/437, Discovering Who You Truly Are. And I talked about that at a fundamental level, we’re more than our body or our race, our skin color, our gender. We are consciousness. At the most fundamental level, you are the consciousness that’s aware that you have a body, that’s aware that you have thoughts, that’s aware that you have emotions. Therefore, you are not your body, you are not your thoughts, you are not your emotions, you are not your age, you are not your gender.

But think about how hung up many of us are identifying as those things or identifying as our career. I’m an author, I’m a mom, I’m a dad, I’m an accountant, and whatever. We identify as all of these relatively superficial characteristics. I’m not saying they’re not important, I’m not saying that you can’t be proud of your gender or your nationality or your race. I’m not saying that those aren’t important. I’m just saying that at a fundamental level, we are more than that. There is more depth to us, then the color of our skin, then our profession, then the other roles that we identify as.

So, on many levels, this first point on how to get along with people you disagree with to consider that we’re all fundamentally the same, it’s actually true not only as we are all human beings, but we’re all consciousness. And if you’re looking at this spiritually, you could say that we are God consciousness, we are droplets in the ocean of God. Like if you think about we’re all consciousness, there’s a lot of sameness in that. There’s a lot of sameness.

And so, if you’re choosing to experience your fellow human beings based on anything other than who they truly are, based on their opinions or their ideology, their religion, their political affiliation, their skin color, their gender, their opinions or beliefs on, if that’s the level that we’re experiencing humanity each other, then we will forever be at conflict. Think about that. We will forever be at conflict if we’re judging people based on our superficial differences.

But if you can consider that we’re all fundamentally the same and you go, you just want to be happy, huh? Yeah. Wow. So, do I. And that’s actually the second point is consider that we all want the same things. We all just want to be happy and healthy and loved and safe. That’s all we want. You choose the world that you live in.

And maybe a better way of putting it is you choose the reality that you live in. If you’re viewing people based on what their political beliefs are, that’s the reality you’re choosing and that creates your experience of reality. I don’t like those Republicans or I don’t like those Democrats. I don’t like the other side. I don’t like people that are pro this or anti that. I don’t believe that’s right. If that’s where the reality you’re choosing to live in, you’re always going to experience conflict and perpetuate conflict among human beings.

So, I’m inviting us all to transcend this judgment, condemnation, and vilification that a large majority of our population is living from that reality. That’s the reality they’re living in. You may have heard it. It’s called toxic tribalism, where I found my tribe and I’m not like the other tribe. I’m like these are my people. I don’t want to live next to someone that believes the opposite, has the opposite political belief, as I do.

Me, personally, my friends and family are all over the place on political beliefs on whether you should wear a mask or not wear a mask. Like, I mean, that’s still a thing. And we’re all over the place. I don’t dislike them because they think or believe differently. I don’t condemn them. I love them. And I go, wow, if I had lived their life, I’d probably be the same exact way and think the same way and act the same way. So, I love them as much as I love myself or love anybody.

So, number one, consider that we’re all fundamentally the same. Number two, consider that we all want the same things. And number three, consider that harmony trumps ideology. Consider that harmony trumps ideology, what does that mean? Well, in the words of Rodney King, I think it was Rodney King. Can’t we all just get along? Can’t we all just get along?

Think about this. I feel like to really understand how we can engage optimally as a society, it’s helpful to bring it back to the family, meaning your household. So, now, if you live alone, then you might need to go outside your household and think about when you lived with your family or when you had a family, whatever. Maybe when you live at home with your parents or the– but the point is that imagine a family at home. So, I can think I live with my wife and our two children.

Imagine if we experienced each other the way we experience those that disagree with us, something might be going that is how it is in my household. Like we’re fighting all the time. We’re arguing. Okay, well, then this applies directly to that example. But it’s looking at it through a lens of look, in our household, harmony trumps ideology. If you have different beliefs than I do or a different perspective than I do, or even as parents, like my wife and I, we have different ideologies around food and entertainment and we see things differently. I think something’s okay that she thinks isn’t okay. And then there’s something else that she thinks is fine, and I think that that’s not okay. So, this exists in the household.

But for me, harmony trumps ideology. It trumps being right. It trumps just our differences. I want to live in harmony in my household. I would imagine that you do, too. I would imagine that. And I want to live in harmony in this world and I want others to live in harmony. And I realize I can’t change anybody else. I can only do this podcast, write these books, invite people to consider different ways of looking at things.

And just like that Facebook post that I put out, right? Again, I don’t know the doctor. I should be researching more. But what he said, it’s a contrarian perspective in terms of traditional medicine. But again, traditional medicine had a 20% to 30% chance of saving my life statistically. And if I had relied solely on that perspective, as many people do, think about that. How many people do zero research in terms of outside of what their doctors tell them? Or in this case of cancer, the doctor would be your oncologist.

And if I would have just listened to that one perspective of traditional Western medicine, I would have given myself a 20% to 30% chance of being alive for my family, but I decided to go outside of that one limited paradigm and do as much research as I possibly could to explore all of the alternatives. That my doctor, with his limited education, it’s not an insult, he went to college, he received a certain type of education that didn’t teach him about nutrition or these other alternatives.

So, for example, I did oxygen therapy, I did coffee enemas, which if– again, traditional medicine will tell you, oh, those are dangerous or they don’t work. I can tell you I’ve been doing them now for five, going on six years. And my toxicity levels after doing coffee enemas dropped significantly. So, anyway, that’s just one example. And then taking natural supplements, focusing on diet, really strengthening the immune system. I’m getting a little off-topic. I don’t mean to go too far down the rabbit hole. I’ve done episodes on how I beat cancer and all of that.

But the point being that, wrapping this back to harmony trumps ideology, it’s about, do you want to live in a world where we are at war with each other, where we fight each other? And consider your own household. If you don’t want to live that way in your own household, I’d imagine that you realize that if you amplify that out into the world and what kind of world do you want to live in? And this all falls back to being the difference that you want to see in the world.

Who are you going to be? Are you going to be someone that perpetuates the polarization, that condemns, hates, vilifies, judges other people that are different than you? Or are you going to create a reality, live in a reality where you look beyond the superficial differences down into the depths of the soul of the person staring across from you or posting something online? And you go, oh, you know what? We’re all fundamentally the same. We all want the same things. We’re just human beings doing the best we can trying to experience love, joy, safety, happiness. And you know what? Harmony does trump ideology.

I’m going to be a beacon of light and love and hope and peace and empathy and understanding. That’s who I am. I’m committed to being that. And nothing anyone does or says, even if it triggers me in the moment, is going to change that. That’s the kind of world that I want to live in. I hope you do, too. If you don’t, that’s totally okay. No judgment, right? No judgment. I love you exactly the same as if you agreed with me. It doesn’t change how I feel about you, how I feel about humanity.

All right, goal achievers and members of the Miracle Morning Community, that is it for today. I hope today just sparked some thought, maybe it really made you rethink how you’re showing up or experiencing people that disagree with you because how we get along with other people is really going to determine the course of humanity, the direction that we take and where we end up in the future.

And I want a world of peace and love. And I know that sounds hippie, whatever. But I’d imagine that at your core, at the soul of who you are, I’m guessing you might desire something similar. So, I love you so much and I will talk to you all next week. Take care.

[END]