August 6, 2026

Judging Others Is Usually a Mirror, Not a Window

I’ve spent a lot of years observing people. In business, in sport, in coaching, and in life, I’ve watched people succeed, fail, make great decisions, and make spectacular mistakes. For a long time, I thought I was simply making observations. The older I get, the more I realize that observation and judgment aren’t always the same thing.

Most of us think we’re objective. We see someone make a poor decision and immediately decide they’re careless. We watch someone become successful and assume they were lucky, connected, or somehow had an easier path. We hear someone’s opinion and quickly file them into a category that makes sense to us.

The reality is that we’re often filtering everything through our own beliefs, experiences, and insecurities.

That isn’t necessarily a bad thing. We all need discernment. We have to decide who to trust, who to work with, and whether someone’s values align with our own. That’s healthy. The problem begins when our observations become judgments about another person’s character before we know the whole story.

I’ve become increasingly interested in asking a different question.

Instead of asking, “What’s wrong with them?” I try to ask, “What does my reaction tell me about me?”

That shift changes everything.

Some of the greatest lessons I’ve learned haven’t come from people doing everything right. They’ve come from watching people struggle, fail, recover, and keep moving. I’ve also learned a tremendous amount from people whose success initially made me uncomfortable. If I find myself feeling envious or dismissive, that’s usually worth paying attention to. Envy often points toward something we secretly want but haven’t been willing to pursue ourselves.

Five Key Takeaways

1. Your judgments reveal your operating system.
   The stories you tell yourself about other people often expose your own beliefs and assumptions far more than they describe the other person.
2. Observation creates learning. Judgment creates limitation.
   When you move from criticizing someone to becoming curious about them, you create space for growth instead of reinforcing old patterns.
3. Success leaves clues if you’re willing to study it.
   People who continue growing look for lessons in those ahead of them instead of looking for reasons to tear them down.
4. Self-judgment is usually hiding underneath judgment of others.
   The harsher we are with other people, the more likely it is that we’re holding ourselves to impossible standards as well.
5. Awareness is where self mastery begins.
   You can’t change an operating system you don’t recognize. Awareness creates the opportunity to choose a different response.

One of the conversations Steffany and I had during this episode reminded me how easy it is to become trapped by our own perspective. We shared stories from sport and business where people judged success without understanding the work, the context, or the sacrifices behind it. Sometimes those judgments came from others. Sometimes they came from ourselves.

Neither is particularly useful.

I’ve also noticed something over the years. The people who continue to grow are rarely the loudest critics in the room. They’re usually asking questions. They’re studying. They’re listening. They’re looking for principles they can apply instead of searching for reasons someone else’s success doesn’t count.

That’s a much more productive way to live.

If someone has qualities you admire, spend less time comparing yourself and more time understanding what habits, disciplines, or beliefs helped them become that person. Likewise, if someone’s behaviour frustrates you, ask yourself why it affects you so strongly. Sometimes that irritation points toward a blind spot you haven’t yet recognized in yourself.

The MindShui Way has always been about clearing mental clutter. Judgment is one of the heaviest forms of clutter we carry because it quietly consumes energy without creating any value. When we let go of the need to be right about everyone else, we create room to become more honest with ourselves.

That’s where real change begins.

Not in judging the world around us.

But in understanding the one operating system we actually have the power to change.