396: How Can We Bring Humanity Back Together

Hal Elrod: Welcome to the Achieve Your Goals Podcast. This is your host, Hal Elrod. And thank you for listening today. As always, I really appreciate your time and your attention. And today we're going to talk about each other and how we treat each other and the question, how can we bring humanity back together? Because I believe and I've seen and I'm sure you have too that humanity is quite divided right now. And if we don't be the change we want to see in the world, meaning if we don't stand for unity and for love and for compassion and forgiveness, we as a species are in trouble. Humanity is in trouble. And so, today we're going to really unpack, can we love other people? How can we love other people, even if they have differing opinions, even if they wrong us or we think they're evil? Like, how can we view humanity, other human beings in a way that not only brings us together but is good for us individually, for you, for me, for our soul, for our mental and emotional well-being? So, how can we approach this topic of unity over division in a way that is beneficial not just for the collective, not just for the masses, but for us? Like, hey, I'm selfish. I want to be happy. I want to feel good. I want to get along with people. 

 

And so, today we're going to explore how we can bring humanity back together, and it starts with you and it starts with me. Before we dive into the podcast today, I got a question for you. I got two questions for you, actually. Number one, do you want to optimize your health? Do you want to be healthy? Number two, have you ever thought of writing a book? If either of those is something that you are interested in, I invite you to check out our sponsors that make this podcast possible. The first is Organifi. Organifi makes the highest quality nutritional supplements made of whole foods, not synthetic vitamins, which most vitamins you buy on Amazon or at the store are synthetic. They're laced with chemicals and preservatives and stuff you should not put into your body, but not Organifi. Organifi is healthy, organic, whole-food-based powders that you put into a smoothie or into a cup of water or almond milk, or you can sprinkle it in your oatmeal. A lot of ways you can take it. And my wife just started taking the gold, which is their nighttime - it's like a tea but it's a powder. She uses the pumpkin spice version, and it's because our friend Jen said, "Hey, this helps me relax in the evenings and I'm sleeping so much better.” So, if you want to improve your health, you want to sleep better, head over to Organifi.com/Hal and then use the code “HAL” at checkout to get 15% off your entire order. 

 

And then last but not least, I want to give a shoutout to our sponsor, Self-Publishing School, and Self-Publishing School can help you turn your dream of writing a book into a reality in as little as 90 days, even if you don't know what you want to write a book about. So, have you ever thought about writing a book to leave a legacy for your family to just become an author, to share your knowledge in a way that helps other people, whatever the reason, or create a stream of passive income, whatever it is for you, head over to Self-PublishingSchool.com/Hal again to turn that dream, that idea that's been on your bucket list for so long of writing that book and make it easy with a simple to follow process over at Self-PublishingSchool.com/Hal. 

 

All right. Without further ado, let's talk about it. How can we bring humanity back together? 

 

[EPISODE]

 

Hal Elrod: Hey, goal achievers and members of the Miracle Morning community, friends, and family alike, thank you for being here today. I really appreciate it. And today's episode, if you are a human being and you know other human beings, this I believe will resonate with you. We're going to talk about how we treat other people and how are we treating each other, how are we viewing each other, how are we experiencing each other, and really the bigger picture of what's going on with humanity right now. How would you measure the health of humanity? Not quantifiably but just, generally, how are we treating each other? And the last handful of episodes that we've done have really been about you, about you as an individual, and how you experience your life. So, here's a quick summary of the last handful of episodes that we've done. Episode 390 was about how to take control of your emotional state. And by the way, the feedback from that was so many people said it was just what they needed, really, really helpful. So, if you want to listen to that, of course, all the episodes, whenever you get an episode number like 390, you should go to HalElrod.com/390 and that'll take that episode. Episode 391 was about how to live in the present moment. Episode 392 was a conversation with Eric Hanson about how he went from being homeless to now inspiring thousands of people. 

 

Episode 393 was about how to experience both inner freedom and outer freedom. And then Episode 394 posed the question, who are you choosing to be? And I gave this scenario kind of the option between Person A or Person B. And then last week's episode, most recently, number 395 was about how to love your life even when it sucks. So, that's the last five or six episodes that we've done. And today's episode, we're going to go outside of ourselves, even though honestly, you'll find out this actually is all within anyway but on the surface, we're going to talk about other people. How are you perceiving other people? How are you experiencing other people? Maybe most importantly, how are you treating your fellow human beings? And this is stemming from me just what I'm seeing. And I'm sure many of you will nod your head at this but seeing a lot of division and a lot of hate and a lot of condemnation across the board, it's pretty wild. It's been really concerning for me to see and I've felt called to share what I can on this topic to try to create unity and not division. There's far too much division I believe and we could use a little more unity. We could use a little more humanity. We could use a little more remembering that we're all deserving of love and respect and freedom. 

 

So, today I will say this. Warning, today's episode might trigger you and it's interesting I say that because like why would it trigger you? Honestly, I don't know. It just seems like nowadays, any time people hear anything that they disagree with, they get triggered. And I really believe that whenever I'm triggered by what I think is someone else like, "Oh, he or she did something and I got triggered,” that's not about them. I got issues. I've got issues internally that I need to deal with. So, I don't want to go too far down that tangent but I do just want to address that real quick. Like, I realized that if you get triggered by something that's not about you like don't project your inner turmoil on the person that you believe triggered you. You need to look inside and go, "Hmm, interesting. That person shared something or said something and that triggered me.” Get curious. Why did that trigger me? What in my past or what have I watched on the news that told me that if someone says that, that it's bad and I should get angry and I should spew vitriol at that person. Really, when I get triggered, that to me, it stimulates me to question and get curious and go within, not project outward and go, "How dare you say this thing that differs from what I believe.” 

 

You know, I see it so much on the Internet with people going, “I have to unfollow you now.” In fact, I had someone the other day and I totally respect this person. I’m trying to think what I even posted. I remember I was trying to help somebody who was worried about their job or something. I forgot what it even was but she said, “Hal, I can no longer in good faith follow you, which is so sad because you've added so much value to my life. And I've learned so much from you but you said this one thing that triggered me and I now have to unfollow you.” And again, I respectfully like, of course, everybody, you do you. You choose. But just to me, like if someone has added value to my life for years and they say one thing that triggers me, I'm not going to throw the baby out with the bathwater, I'm going to go, “Interesting. What is that one thing?” And then I might have a discussion with them about it or really understand their point of view. 

 

So, here's where we're going to start. Last week, I posted the following on social media. So, this is something I posted on social media and this is really the message that I'm trying to convey I think today at least a starting place for us. So, here's what I posted. I wrote, “When you look at other human beings, can you see beyond their beliefs, opinions, and ideologies and recognize that they are fundamentally the same as you? Can you see that they are merely living in alignment with what they've been convinced is true?” I'm going to say that again. Can you see that others when others have differing opinions from you that maybe trigger you, that upset you, that concern you, can you see beyond, or can you see that they are merely living in alignment with what they've been convinced is true? And the next thing I asked is, can you love them as they are? I'm astounded at how divisive we have become as a society, and I'm equally encouraged knowing how simple it can be for us to unite. I think the division we're experiencing is largely because far too many of us are focusing on our differences rather than our commonalities. And we are deciding whether consciously or unconsciously, that our differences justify condemning each other. Therefore, to unite, we must simply remember and remain present to the fact that as human/spiritual beings, we are all fundamentally the same. 

 

Stop and think about this for a second. We are not defined by the political party that we support. We are not defined by what we decide to put into our bodies. We are not defined by our opinions. We are defined by our shared humanity. We are all human/spiritual beings on a journey together that we call life. We are all members of the human family. And every single one of us is deserving of love and respect and compassion and forgiveness. You are me and I am you. We are the same. Can we please remember this? Can we please see others, especially those we disagree with as fellow human beings, and love them exactly as we want to be loved? It's that golden rule, right, treat others as you want to be treated, and I would imagine you want to have the freedom to make your own decisions, right? I would guess that's true, that you want the freedom to make your own decisions. And why would you then not allow others the freedom to make their own decisions? And I understand that I know one argument they could come up is, well, other’s decisions are affecting me. I get it. I get it. Other’s decisions have always affected us. 

 

It's a hard one. This is where people get triggered, right? Like, "How dare you, Hal, tell me that I don't have the…” I don't even know where to go with that. But let me stay focused on the topic. This topic is how are we treating each other, treating each other the way that we want to be treated, treating each other not the way the news is telling us to treat each other. And I'll tell you, that's my biggest concern right now. My biggest concern genuinely from the bottom of my heart, I mean, one of the most detrimental and devastating outcomes that I see on the horizon, which has already begun and will only continue to intensify in the future, is that people with the V, we’ll call it the V, are being conditioned to fear, hate, and even wish harm upon people without the V. You know, I've seen videos of people saying, “I hope you die,” to the un-V’d. You may have seen recently Joe Rogan had countless people expressed that he wished he was sicker. They wished harm upon him. In fact, fellow podcaster, Howard Stern, literally said, I don't have the quote in front of me, but it was something along the lines of, “I hope you get sick and stay and die at home.” Like, whoa, where's the humanity in that? It's crazy that people are being conditioned that that's okay. 

 

I saw also where was it? On Jimmy Kimmel on his show, he said that if you don't have the V and you come in and you're dying or whatever, and again, I'm paraphrasing so I don't remember the exact quote but he basically said, "You know, no, there's no room for you in the hospital.” And the crowd cheered and like, "My mind is just blown,” and again, nothing I'm saying here, this isn't political. This isn't like I love you if you're vaccinated, I love you if you're not vaccinated. It's not about that. It's about we've lost sight. Not all of us, but people have lost sight, and if you have found yourself on the side of cheering the harm of other people, cheering the sickness of other people, wishing harm upon other people. I'm sorry, but if you found yourself doing that, probably unconsciously, I'm inviting all of us back to a place of consciousness, of elevated consciousness that's rooted in love and compassion and empathy and understanding and unity, like those are the values that unite us as humanity. And I'm inviting all of us to take a breath and remember that that person on the Internet is making different choices than you are. They’re a mom or a dad or a brother or a sister. Like, they're a human being and they deserve respect. They deserve freedom to choose what's right for them without being hated, without being condemned, without being wished harm upon. 

 

So, my biggest concern moving forward is that the un-V’d are being demonized as evil. And again, I'm not here to take a position one way or the other around what you do or don't put into your body. That's not for me to say but the message that I'm sharing is… I think you get the idea of the message that I'm sharing, but I'm seeing countless headlines and propaganda from the media that are demonizing a certain group of people. And I'm sorry, but like my values, we all have values, some of my highest values are one is love for sure, love for myself, love for humanity, love for all people. One of them is freedom, for sure, freedom to live your life in alignment with your values. I feel like our values have gotten distorted. Our values have gotten distorted. And when I say “our,” really, I mean as a society and I don't know that there's a comprehensive solution to this, meaning, it seems that they being I guess the collective, right now we've been divided for the last year-and-a-half. It's been black against white and now it's the V’d against the un-V’d and there's been a lot more in between. Right versus left. And if you watch the news, I don't watch the news much but I just watch it just enough to catch what people are seeing just to be in the loop, just to be aware. 

 

And do you notice how they on mainstream media have perpetuated the division? Perpetuated like the hate in ways that I don't remember ever seeing. Maybe I wasn't paying attention but I don't remember seeing this, and I'd love your thoughts on this, by the way. This is an episode where I would really love for you to weigh in. This will be Episode 396 so you go to HalElrod.com/396. But I love for you to weigh in your thoughts on this. Like, do you believe that we should divide as a country? Do you believe that we should be in different groups, this toxic tribalism, if you will, and that do you condone hating other people? And I don't know, I mean, we can go back to kindergarten, right? Like, this is just fundamental as human beings in a civilized society treating each other with love and dignity and respect, and not forcing other people to do things against their will. That's kind of been an unsaid norm. It's like, yeah, those are fundamentals. Sorry. You can tell I'm at a loss for words on this one, a little bit at a loss for words. Let me take a slight turn on along these lines. I want to ask you a question. I want to ask you a question. Is it possible to love all people? Because this is a fundamental place for us to kind of a fundamental context for this entire conversation. 

 

In fact, I probably should have started with this question. Maybe when I record the intro, maybe I will. But is it possible to love all people? And I'll share with you my perspective on this. I believe that it is. I 100% believe that it is because loving others isn't about them. It has nothing to do with them. It's about us. It's about you. Whether or not you love another person isn't about the other person. It's about you and how you decide you want to perceive others and treat others. And see, it's either through a lens of love which there are many words that can define the nuances of love, such as compassion and empathy and understanding and respect, right? You can choose to view others through a lens of love or a lens of you could say fear that could show up in the form of hate or judgment or resentment or condemnation, etcetera. Personally, please, this is not me being on a high horse. I'm sharing my personal view right now and you can take it or leave it. You can adopt it. It's your call. Yeah. It's up to you. But personally, I love all people, like I love all people, literally all people, even those who wronged me. And I think this is the important distinction is I love even who I believe are the evilest people in the world. I love them. Because hating them feeds hate. Hate feeds hate. Love feeds whatever, right? 

 

Meaning that to hate someone that does wrong, that's just who you're choosing to be in terms of the way you perceive and treat others. If I were to hate someone, that's who I would be choosing to be. So, what I find or what I have found is that when you choose to view all people from a space of unconditional love, it doesn't mean I condone their behavior, doesn't mean I'm okay with what they did or didn't do. It means I personally choose to live my life and operate from a place of love. I love all people. And here's the thing, consider that if someone does you wrong, I would imagine that hating them isn't going to turn the tables. A, it's going to cause all sorts of holding a grudge hurts you, not them. Hating someone hurts you more than them. Hate is something within you. You're projecting it onto them, but it's affecting you. So, hating someone that has wronged us just in a practical sense is only going to feed like the negative energy that may have caused them to wrong us. But loving someone unconditionally not liking, not condoning, but choosing to love and I'll give more explanation of like how do you come to that, how could you love someone who wrongs you? I’ll get there in a second. But if you think about it, if you love someone that wrongs you, that's the only way that you're going to make any potential change. 

 

Meaning if someone wrongs you and then you just hate them and hate them and hate them, you're just going to fuel their fire. But if you love them and love them and love them, you've heard the phrase “kill them with kindness” so to speak, right? Who knows what breakthrough might occur? Who knows how you might impact that person so that they don't wrong the next person? They go, "Wow. I wronged you but you forgave me.” Forgiveness is in that's wrapped up in love. I wronged you. You had every right to hate me but you didn't. You loved me. You forgave me. Wow. I'm never going to hurt someone again like I'm never going to wrong someone again. The first example of this for me was, actually, I mentioned this I think a couple of weeks ago on the podcast, so I'll just briefly recap it, which is when I was 20 and I was in my car accident, the drunk driver that hit me, I forgave him. I thought, there's no point like I’m not going to hold a grudge against him. That doesn't benefit anybody. Doesn't benefit anybody. Think about that for a second. It doesn't benefit anybody. Why are we holding grudges? It doesn't benefit anybody. We somehow have mistakenly come to this conclusion that if I forgive them, I'm condoning their behavior. It's not true at all. 

 

What you did was absolutely wrong, and I love you because we all make mistakes, because whatever evil is in your heart is probably a result of some sort of trauma you've experienced in your life. And I can feel compassion toward you that whatever you've gone through in your life has caused you to become to act out in such a way that would hurt others intentionally. Man, my compassion for you is deep. It is expansive. So, the drunk driver that hit me, I thought, well, so in this case, he didn't try to hurt me. He just drank alcohol, had a few beers, and got in his car and drove. But so, there's really like, to me, it would be unintelligent. It wouldn't even make sense to have negative feelings toward him. He didn't do anything intentionally to hurt me, right? So, that's easy to forgive. Even if he did something intentionally to hurt me, it would go along the lines of what I just said, which is, "Wow. Whatever's happened in your life, whatever trauma you've endured, maybe your dad beat the hell out of you and scarred you emotionally for life. And now you're so messed up internally that you want to take it out on other people. You poor thing. I can't even imagine the torment that you live with every day. I don't hate you. I love you. I hope you heal.” 

 

You guys follow? This is like the difference. It's a choice to love all people, to forgive all people, to have compassion for all people. And it goes back to what I read earlier that I wrote on social media, which is can you see that people are merely living in alignment with what they've been convinced is true? In today's climate, when I say climate, I mean social and political and I guess medical climate. Can you have compassion? I'm just trying right now like the purpose of this episode I mentioned to you that my biggest concern is seeing the way that the media and even the government is pitting people against each other. It's creating this division. That is my biggest concern. And so, going into this week's podcast episode, I just was asking myself like, "I don't know. I can't solve this problem globally. It's way bigger than me and there are billions of people that are part of it that I can't reach. They're never going to listen to this podcast.” I think we reach about 200,000 people a month, which is great but that's a fraction of society. So, I'm just trying to do my part, just do a little bit that I can to bring us back to the values that have made humanity great, like our finest values. And by the way, they're really just family values like you think about it. The reason that I loved every person or one reason is I view that we're all family. You've heard me say that when I open up the podcast, I greet you as family. 

 

In case you thought that when I said, "Hey, friends, family,” that I was just talking about like my relatives, no. I literally mean you. We're family. That's how I view it. I believe we're all part of the human family. You can trace back the roots of human beings. We started with a few and it grew and whatever. We're all connected. We're all related in some way. But I believe we're all part of the human family. And so, any good family to get along and to have a cohesive, healthy family unit, it's the values that I've listed off a few times. We love each other. We forgive each other when we make mistakes. We have compassion for what each other have experienced. We don't judge each other for making different decisions. We accept each other as we are. So, the same values that make a family bring unity to a family that heal a divided family are the same values that I believe we need to bring unity to our country, to our world. And here's the thing. You and I may not be able to change the world or solve all the problems. No. We can only change ourselves. We can only be the change. We can only live our lives in alignment with our values. So, again, I'm inviting you to consider, have you been living in alignment with your values? What are those values? 

 

And I'm going to do another episode here, I don't know, probably in the next few weeks or so about that specific topic, about how do you identify your highest values? Because when you do that and you make a conscious commitment to live in alignment with your highest values, life becomes kind of easy, like your decisions are made for you. I value love. I value relationships. I value family. I value freedom. Whatever you value, right? And then you simply ask yourself, how do I need to live in alignment with my values or what do I need to think, say, do to live in alignment with my values? Once the values are decided, your decisions are made for you. They're kind of made in advance. Is this decision, is this action, is this thing I'm about to post on social media in alignment with my values? And sometimes you might be triggered as you're posting that thing on social media, as you’re about to say that thing to your spouse. But if you do a value check, you go, "Whoa, whoa, whoa, this is not an alignment with my values at all.” The inclusivity is a value of mine. Unity, these are values. And you ask yourself, is this an alignment with my values? And sometimes you go, "No, I'm acting out of emotion. I'm acting out of fear. I'm afraid that this person's decision might harm me. I'm afraid that this person's course of action might affect me in a way that I can't handle or that I don't want to handle. Okay. I'm going to not post that. I'm going to not say that I'm going to not do that. I'm going to live in alignment with my values.” 

 

So, I think that's it. I don't know that there's much else to say. I love you. I love you. I really love you. And again, can we love all people? I believe the answer is yes, because all people need love. You know, one thing that helps me love all people, really there's two paradigms. There's two perspectives. One is I view them as an innocent child. So, I think about that all of us were a baby. Like, imagine like that person that you dislike or whatever, that jerk at work, whatever, imagine they were a baby. They were two and they were learning to walk. And then they were three and they were talking, right? Think about this like the person that you dislike the most, imagine them as a child. They were just a baby. They were just a toddler. They were just a kid. And then they had life experiences along the way that caused them, that affected them and caused them to be the way that they are. So, that's the first thing is starting to view people as that innocent child and have empathy for the trauma that they've endured over their lifetime that has determined kind of how they are, how they act, how they behave, how they think. 

 

And the second, and to me, this is almost a bulletproof perspective to have empathy and be able to love other people is to acknowledge that if you had lived their life, been raised by the same parents or lack thereof, grown up in the same friend group, endured the same traumas, not to mention had the same brain that they have, maybe even a chemical imbalance, consider that if you had lived their life, you would be and do and say exactly the same things that they do. That's very real. It's easy for us to say, “I would never do that. How dare they?” And then we judge them. We condemn them. Maybe we even feel hate toward them. How dare they do that? But stop and go, "Wait a minute, if I had lived their life, I would have been led to do exactly the same thing.” Obviously, because they lived their life and it led them to do that. They don't have your brain. They didn't have your upbringing. They weren't exposed to the same influences and information resources that you were. Again, what I read earlier. Can you see that they are merely living in alignment with what they've been convinced is true? That gives me a sense of peace, “Oh, they're not stupid. They're not morons. They're not idiots. Like, they don't deserve my vitriol. They don't deserve my hate. They're just living in alignment with what they've been convinced is true.” 

 

They watch Fox News. I watch CNN. They were raised by these types of parents. I was raised by these types of parents. You know what I mean? Like, that's it. And it kind of goes back to everybody generally as just doing the best they can with what they know, with the hand they've been dealt, with the physical, mental, and emotional limitations that they live with. Let's remember that. Let's have compassion for each other, let's have love for each other, and especially those that have differing opinions. Differing beliefs make different choices because they're just doing what they think is right, and if you were them, you would do the same thing. So, let's unite. Let's unite over our shared humanity. Let's love each other, all of each other, because we all deserve to be loved, even those of us that make mistakes, that do terrible things because in the moment we lose control of our mental faculties or our emotional faculties or whatever. I'm not condoning bad behavior. I'm saying that you can love somebody even with bad behavior. If you're a parent, you get it, right? You don't stop loving your kid because they mess up. You don't stop loving your kid because they trigger you. You don't stop loving your kid because they come home from school and share a different opinion or a different belief, different viewpoint than you have. No, you love them unconditionally. 

 

Why are our children deserving of unconditional love just because they came from us physically? Why are they deserving of unconditional love but our neighbor is not, our coworker is not, our relative who has a different belief than we do is not? I don't believe that's the case. And again, it's just my opinion. You can take it or leave it. But I'd invite you to consider it. If our kids are deserving of love, even when they mess up, even if they're different than us, even if they make bad choices, we still love them. And if you're spiritual or you're religious, think about the way God, the unconditional love that we've been taught of God. Either way, I love you. I know I said it a few times. I’ll keep saying it. And let's lighten up too. Can we lighten up? I got a little intense on this episode because I care. I really care. I really care. I care about humanity. I want to see us win. And when I say win, I just want to see us at peace. I want to see us do well. I want to see us not on the same team. We're on the same team, the team of humanity, like the other stuff is superficial. The political stuff, why are we getting caught up in that? 

 

[CLOSING]

 

Hal Elrod: All right. I'm going to wrap up because otherwise, I’ll just keep repeating myself, rambling, saying the same stuff. Goal achievers, members of the Miracle Morning community, friends, and most importantly, my family, we are all family, and thanks for listening today. And please go out and be the change, stand for love, stand for unity, show compassion to your fellow man, see beyond people's beliefs and ideologies to realize that they are a human being just like you. And they deserve to be loved and respected and forgiven, just like you. Alright, you all, I love you. I’ll talk to you next week.

[END]