This is truth

Chapter 142

It’s humbling to learn that we are not as smart as we thought we were. - Holiday

Recently I was talking with one of my clients, one of the top five I admire most. He is incredible. He confessed that the greatest challenge facing him these days in his rapidly growing business is hubris, ego, arrogance. I just admired him even more for owning this, for realizing that this could easily be his downfall. When I am with highly competent people like this client, and see them confess such things, I understand that humility is a foundation to greatness.

However I personally know and understand that humility and appropriately understanding our own intelligence and weaknesses, is often gauged by the company we are with at a given moment. Not to take a single thing away from how awesome my client is, but that confession was easier for him, because he was making it to me, Dr. Aderholdt. Were he asked the same question by one of the people cleaning his office, or an uneducated unemployed vagrant, that the answer likely would not have been the same.

You see, I can more easily be humble about my limitations and temptations and challenges with my peers or higher, but with those who haven’t worked as hard as I have, or those who are much younger than me, or those who seem to have low IQ’s, or those with far less education or experience, it can be nearly impossible to admit that we are less than perfect. 

I am not nearly as smart as most people think I am. This is truth.

And I need to say that clearly and often. It was Socrates’ superpower.