It’s hard to be humble
I know that sounds like the beginning of a humblebrag, but I’m serious.
Humility, with all its attendant virtues is HARD. At least for me.
Here’s what I’m talking about. Last week a repairman came to my house. I spoke to him over the phone. He explained that one of the house’s other systems was interfering with the one he was there to repair.
I knew he was wrong.
Furthermore, if he went about fixing it by disabling the other system as he suggested, that would leave a new problem, for me. One that would require either me or another repairman to fix.
So after a spate of pseudo-polite arguing about our credentials and ability to know what was really going on, I told him smugly that he had misdiagnosed the problem but that I was confident he would find the real cause if he kept at it (and pulled his head out). He passed the phone back to my wife, who I then told that this guy was screwing up our house and could not be trusted. Keep a wary eye. I’m on my way home.
On the 15-minute drive home, I had a moment to pause and consider my actions. I was all bent out of shape at this guy. How come?
Certainly the repairman wasn’t malicious. Why was I on the warpath? I’d only had a brief phone conversation.
In retrospect, I had to admit I was operating on layers of questionable assumptions, the biggest of which was that I knew what the heck I was talking about. I really had no idea what he had uncovered, it just hadn’t made sense to me in a two-minute phone call — but here I was ready to have him drawn and quartered.
More than that, even if it turned out that I was right and he was wrong, what victory was I to claim? Was I going to thump my chest and feel like a “big man” for berating someone who wouldn’t even have been at my house if I had the expertise to fix the problem myself?
By the time I arrived home, I was grateful for those minutes in the car. Embarrassed that I’d let my pride get the better of me, I felt like apologizing. Instead, I just started talking, completely backed down from my position and let him be the expert. As a result, I learned a few things.
I learned that he was an aspiring pilot, who was working repair jobs to pay his way through flight school. I learned that he had started a business with a partner who was turning out to be a bad partner. I understood that.
So, what? Is there more to this story than just an episode where I faced the decision between two roads, one leading to a more decent me and the other to a**hole (and thankfully had a near miss)?
I think so. The experience taught me about empathy, perceptions of power, and restraint. I learned a bit about the strength of swallowing one’s pride, taking a breath, caring more about another person that winning a game not worth playing, about humility.
In life, we are the hero in our own story (and maybe, if we are lucky, in the story of our spouse’s life). So, what makes a good hero?
Well, author and literary agent, Evan Marshall knows something about creating good lead characters. In his book, The Marshall Plan for Novel Writing, he talks about the traits that make a hero work. They need to be competent. But more than that, they need to be likable. This is a powerful idea. It’s huge. I mean competence is pretty important—because we hate incompetence. But we hate arrogance even more!
One of my favorite authors and speakers, Tim Sanders, @sanderssays wrote The Likability Factor. In it, he outlines how powerful likability is in everything from managing your team, to becoming President of the United States.
I recently read Tell Better Stories by Andy Raskin, which brought up an interesting topic. How do we get an audience to like someone who is unlikable? How do writers manipulate us to root for the bad guy? How did Dexter ever make it into production, or The Last King of Scotland for crying out loud?
Since Ancient Greece, we’ve seen heroes with their hubris, their fatal flaw, their blemish which added drama to the story. But what about antiheroes? What about characters that are villains?
Well, it turns out that humans are wired to root for underdogs. We root for David vs. Goliath. We root for Aurora against Maleficent… until Disney releases a new movie casting the evil witch as the protagonist. Now we are rooting for the one who we always rooted against. How did they do that?
Stronger than simple likability, is empathy. If the audience relates to the character, they will root for and sympathize with them. To create empathy, you must display vulnerability, in other words you must place the character in an inferior position of power, a power disadvantage.
To be the hero in my own story with my repairman, I needed to stop fighting for the power. Ironically, by relinquishing my demand to be respected as the one in control of the situation and instead exercising restraint and control over myself, it allowed me to have much greater influence on the outcome.
In order to be likable and engender empathy and emotional connection, we have to place ourselves in a position of vulnerability, of less power. Ask questions rather than assume you already know the answer. Defer to the wisdom of others. Be like water as Bruce Lee would say. Ironically, placing ourselves in less powerful positions in our communication increases our power by increasing our influence with others.
Humility reminds us that success in business is not about what we can accomplish on our own — it’s about how we get others to join us. By telling your story in a humble, authentic way, your influence in attracting others will grow, and you’ll be better able to grow your team and your company.
So next time you are telling your own story, see if it isn’t more powerful, more authentic, and more compelling to tell how you overcame your weakness more than telling how your mastery made all challenges easy. Be vulnerable, in order to be empathetic, and to bring them with you.
Chad Jardine is the Head of Marketing for edtech startup GoReact and teaches courses in marketing and finance at @uvu and @uutah respectively.
