How Charlie Kirk Disagreed Is More Important Than What He Believed

I had intended for this Money Monday to be something powerful, a new message that would get you fired up for this week and this season. But last week, while delivering training to an amazing group of young salespeople with wide-open minds, I learned that Charlie Kirk had been assassinated. It disturbed me deeply and I feel compelled to deliver this message. The Assassination That Shook America On Sept. 10, 2025, Charlie Kirk was fatally shot while addressing an audience at Utah Valley University in Orem, Utah. A young man, thirty-one years old with his whole life ahead of him, was killed for no other reason than someone disagreed with him. After learning about the assassination, I found myself incredibly disturbed that a person in the public square could just be shot and killed like that—murdered right in front of everyone. So I did what I always do when I want to understand something: I started learning. I watched hours and hours, dozens and dozens of Charlie Kirk's videos to learn more about the man, his message, and why someone would think it would be okay to assassinate him. I still haven't found the answer to that last question. This Isn't About Politics Before I go any further, let me be crystal clear: This is not a political message. This is not a religious message. It is about how we treat each other as human beings. If you know me, if you've been to my events or training, you know I never talk about politics or religion. If you look at my social media feeds on any channel, you won't find much that would help you understand what my politics or religion are. Do I have convictions? Yes. Do I believe certain things? Yes. But they're my beliefs, and I keep them to myself because my job is to train salespeople. I'm a sales author, trainer, expert, and consultant. That's my lane. I train salespeople no matter what they believe. I train salespeople no matter what their religion. I train salespeople and help salespeople no matter where they're from or what their walk of life is. I don't care where you come from because my entire purpose, my reason for being on earth, is to help you sell more, help you gain confidence, and to help you with your biggest sales questions and challenges. What Charlie Kirk's Example Taught Me What I discovered in watching those videos was something that transcends political beliefs. Charlie Kirk's example was his willingness to go sit down face-to-face with people who disagreed with him, sometimes vehemently, and just have a conversation. And do it respectfully. I noticed something remarkable in his videos: More than once, he said, "You know what, I stand corrected." Someone would come to him with a different set of facts, and he would say, "Okay, that sounds right. I agree with you." In many cases, he would shake the person's hand after a debate. He was respectful. It was never about the person. It wasn't personal. He didn't hate the person. He had conversations about their ideas. How Charlie Kirk disagreed mattered. That is what we need to get back to. Not someplace in the future—today, right now. The Human Cost I watched his wife's, Erica's, message to the world, and I found myself on an airplane as a grown man with tears streaming down my face, trying not to let everyone see that I was crying. It was heartbreaking watching her pain. She has two kids; they are one- and three-years-old. That assassin changed their lives forever. I can't imagine when one of them gets older and either finds the video of their daddy getting assassinated or someone puts it in front of them. If you step into that frame for just a moment with your human empathy, it will make you hurt. Charlie's children will be raised with stories instead of memories, photographs instead of laughter, and silence where their father's voice should have guided and loved them. The Conflict We All Face Everywhere in our lives with other people, we have disagreement. Everywhere in our lives,

Episode Transcript

(00:05):
This is Jeb Blunt, and it's Money Monday
on the Sales Gravy Podcast.
Make money, money, money,
money.
Make money, money,
Hey, everyone. It's Judd Blunt, and welcome back
to Money Monday. And this is the first
one in about three months. And I know

(00:25):
a lot of you had been sending us
notes and telling us how much you missed
the podcast, and you want more Money Mondays,
and I truly appreciate it. I can't tell
you how grateful I am to you for
being such good fans and letting us know
how much you appreciate the podcast.
So let me explain where I've been. I
took about three months off mostly because I
hit a wall and I was incredibly burnout

(00:47):
between writing books and being on the road,
almost constantly delivering keynotes and trainings. I just
needed to do some me time. And during
that me time, I had some cool experiences.
I got to guest caddy at a PGA
tournament, which was fantastic.
Along the way, I met Ricky Balor and,
Max Homa and Jason Day, three of my
heroes. Love them. And I went off some

(01:10):
vacation time all up in the Northeast, played
a lot of golf, ended up writing two
books, and I built a number of training
programs including new workshops for Salisbury University. And
I just took some time to be creative,
some time for me, some time for thinking,
reflection,
and I'm back.
And I had intended for this money Monday
to be something powerful coming out of the

(01:31):
gate to bring you a new message that
we get you fired up for this week
and for this season.
But last week, while I was delivering training
to this amazing group of salespeople, these young
salespeople with these wide open minds,
I learned that Charlie Kirk had been assassinated.
Now at the time, I knew who Charlie

(01:51):
Kirk was, but I didn't really know what
he was about. I never really spent any
time with him because frankly, Charlie Kirk is
not in my age group.
After training, I found myself incredibly disturbed by
the entire thing that a person who was
in the public square
could just be so brutally assassinated,
murdered right in front of everyone.

(02:13):
Now, the one thing that I've done to
learn a little bit more about Charlie Kirk
is I've been watching his videos.
I've watched hours and hours, dozens and dozens
of his videos to learn a little bit
more about the man, about his message, about
why someone would think it would be okay
to assassinate him. Now before I move on,
I think it's super important to say two
things. First, this is not a political message.

(02:36):
This is not a religious message.
And if you know me, if you've been
to my events, if you've been to training
with me, you know that I never talk
about politics or religion at my events.
You know that if you go to my
social media feeds on any channel, you're not
gonna find much of anything that would help
you even begin to understand
what my politics or religion is. Do I

(02:58):
have convictions? Yes. I do. Do I believe
certain things? Yes. I do. But they're my
beliefs, and I keep those beliefs to myself
because my job is to train salespeople.
I'm a sales author, a sales trainer, a
sales expert, a sales consultant. That is my
lane.
And I train salespeople no matter what they
believe. I train sales salespeople no matter what

(03:20):
their religion. I train salespeople and help salespeople
no matter where they're from or what their
walk of life.
I just don't care where you come from
because
my entire purpose
by being on Earth, the reason that I'm
here is to help you sell more, is
to help you gain confidence, is to be
someone that you can call up on a
AskJeb and ask questions to. If you're in

(03:40):
one of my class or events that you
can walk up to and we can talk
about the issues that you're facing in your
life. That's what I do.
So this is not about politics.
But I feel compelled to give you this
message because what I saw, what I've experienced
with this assassination
disturbs me so deeply because
we have got to change.

(04:00):
The fact that
someone thought it was okay, and I don't
care if the person's a madman, I don't
care if the person's crazy, I don't care
if they're having middle I don't care. The
fact that someone thought it was okay to
shoot Charlie Kirk because they don't like his
words,
well, at this point, we've got to start
speaking up about, and we have to start

(04:21):
doing something about it other than saying that
this has no place in America. Killing someone
like that has no place,
and people who kill people like that are
bad people. And it doesn't really make a
difference what side of the spectrum they're on.
That's not okay.
As governor Cox of Utah said,
words are not violence.
Violence is violence.

(04:43):
And this is the thing that I wanna
say to you.
Everywhere in our life with other people, we
have disagreement.
Everywhere in our life with people, we have
conflict. It's not just politics or religion. It's
not just philosophy.
We have this conflict in our families. We
have this conflict at work. And if you're

(05:03):
in sales, you know that because you're always
in conflict with other people at work because
you know that the internal sale is harder
than the external sale. You know that there
are people inside your organization
that just don't believe the same thing that
you believe.
And the choice that you make is you
either push them aside,
you treat them like an object,
you choose to hate them, or you can

(05:25):
make the choice to go sit down and
have a conversation with them. You can sometimes
agree to disagree, as they say, but the
thing about talking with people is that while
you're talking with people, it's hard to hate
them. While you're standing in front of them,
you can't see them as not a human
being. You have to see them as another
person.
And what I've seen of Charlie Kirk's videos

(05:47):
is that's exactly what he did.
Forget what he believed or didn't believe. His
example was his willingness to go sit down
face to face with people who
disagreed with him, in some cases vehemently disagree
with him, and just have a conversation and
do it respectfully.
And the thing that I noticed in his
videos is that more than once he said,

(06:08):
you know what? I stand corrected.
Someone would come to him and bring him
a different set of facts and he would
say, okay. That sounds good.
I agree with you.
And in many cases,
would shake the person's hand after debate.
And he was respectful.
It was never about the person. It wasn't
personal. He he didn't hate the person. He
had a conversation about their ideas.

(06:31):
That is what we need to get back
to. And I'm not talking about some place
in the future. I'm talking about today.
Right now, We have got to move into
a place where we can disagree better.
Governor Cox, when he talked about Charlie Kirk's
assassination,
said that he wasn't sure whether or not
this assassination would be a pivot point that

(06:52):
would change us. He said only history will
let us know that, but he did say
that each of us has a choice.
We can make the choice to change how
we disagree with each other, to change how
we debate.
You can make the choice.
I want you to stop for a second
and just consider what happened.
Charlie Croker is a young man, 31 years

(07:13):
old, 31 years old, has whole life ahead
of him, and he gets killed right there
in front of everybody,
Killed for no other reason than someone
disagreed with him. I watched his wife, Erica.
I watched her message to the world
on the airplane here, and weirdly enough, I'm
in Washington County where his assassin, Tyler Robinson,

(07:36):
lives.
And this wasn't by design. I was coming
here on business because I'm giving a keynote
tomorrow to a large group of people in
a big corporation.
I'm in on the airplane as a grown
man with tears streaming down my face, trying
not to let everybody see that I'm bawling.
And it was just so sad watching her
pain.

(07:56):
And and she's got two kids. One's one
and one's three.
That assassin
changed their lives forever.
I I can't even imagine when one of
them gets older
and they either watch
their dad get assassinated
or some person puts it in front of
them, how bad that's gonna hurt them and
how that's gonna change them. I can't imagine

(08:18):
it.
If you just imagine that those were your
two kids and you were their parent and
you had to explain what had happened to
their other parent, that they'd have been assassinated,
if you step into that frame for just
a moment with your human empathy,
it will make you hurt.
Governor Cox also said that social media is
a cancer.
I partly agree with him because what social

(08:40):
media has done for me, as a business
person has been huge. I I use it
all the time for business. I love LinkedIn.
I got a brand new book coming out
on LinkedIn.
But social media becomes a cancer
when instead of stepping into our empathy and
feeling what other people feel and looking at
the world through their lens, we're able to

(09:01):
write the most horrific things about them. We're
able to write a meme about a young
man who was killed, who was assassinated in
the public square like so many people did
that is just full of vitriol. When you're
celebrating
someone else's assassination
on social media, it is because you do
not see them or you no longer

(09:21):
see them as a human being.
That's when it becomes a cancer. I love
what governor Cox said, and I'm just paraphrasing,
but he said, put social media down, put
the phone down, go out and touch some
grass, go hug someone, tell them that you
love them, go sit down and talk with
someone that you don't agree with. The thing
is is that you may walk away and
still disagree, but you can have a meal

(09:43):
together.
I mean, back in college when we were
having these debates, and when I was in
college, you actually got to have debates. There
was two sides of things. We would debate
with each other in a classroom, and then
we would go hang out with each other.
We can do this as human beings. You
get to make that choice.
So put the phone down. Go hug someone.
I love that. Go touch grass.
Go go do something that connects you with

(10:05):
other people because as long as we're talking
with people, as long as we're connected with
people,
it's easier to love and harder to hate.
You have a choice to use your God
given empathy and try to at least see
their point of view. Doesn't mean you have
to agree with it, but you can see
their point of view. And if you can
see someone else's point of view, there may
be an opportunity

(10:26):
to find compromise.
The thing I love about
America
is that we were founded on debate.
America was founded on disagreement.
Our entire system is is built
for us to have multiple sides coming together.
It works because we have all these different
voices,

(10:47):
and it's messy because we don't agree with
each other. The cool thing about that mess,
the cool thing about all of those people
disagreeing is that one side almost never gets
all the power
because our founding fathers understood that absolute power
corrupts absolutely.
But because we have all of those dissenting
voices, because we have to compromise, which in

(11:09):
recent years, no one's willing to even compromise.
We just say we disagree with you, you're
bad, and you deserve to die.
But when all those voices
begin to debate and sit down and see
each other as human beings,
somewhere along the line, we make small agreements
that move us forward. And as a country,
we have consistently
moved forward and gotten better over time because

(11:33):
we disagree with each other.
So go disagree with each other. Just do
it better
and start now.
This is the time for action.
Go out there in the world, find people
you disagree with, and be willing to sit
down with them. I'm gonna come back next
week, and we're gonna talk about the season
that we're in and what we need to

(11:53):
do to get focused and what you need
to do to crank up your sales week
and go out there and kick it.
But between now and then, I want you
to practice new behaviors. Go out there and
debate each other and disagree,
but do it better because it is in
our best interest
to be able to disagree

(12:14):
without hating each other. I'll see you next
time on the Sales Groovy podcast.