The Futility of Humility

Entrepreneur’s Perspective

Humility is often admired as a virtue. However most often what we see is “false humility” and not humility. I will argue here that humility is an attribute best not pursued or even admired. Instead the quest is to identify some other attributes that lead to treating others as a humble person would. With the additional benefit that these other attributes are more sustainable, achievable, and have a number of other benefits. I will propose two such attributes that when pursued produce humility-like effects as a by product. Very similar to how an entrepreneur creates wealth as a by product of creating value — not by pursuing wealth itself.

Why is humility not a sustainable virtue? As soon as a humble person becomes aware of their humility, it is VERY hard for them to continue to be truly humble. Their awareness messes with their behavior and very soon the best they can do is to pretend to be humble. Humility if consciously pursued leads to artificial, pretentious and borderline schizophrenic behavior. Being humble is just too hard if done consciously — its like not getting angry or not feeling smug or not feeling proud. The harder one tries, the worse it gets. There are a few rare examples of self-unaware individuals — just as there are a few yogis. For the vast majority of us, its bad news.

Further, in an attempt to be humble, we often hurt others around us. For example, if a person does not share their knowledge in order to appear humble, they do everyone a disservice. Or in an attempt to appear humble one actually insults the intelligence of ones company. While a truly humble person may not inflict this damage, most “attempts at humility” do incur this collateral cost.

Consider two alternative attributes that I believe are more “basic.” Also they can consciously be practiced and become stronger by being aware of them — they are not self-destructive. And they produce humility-like-behavior as a by product. What more can one ask :)

1. intellectual honesty
2. empathy

By intellectually honesty I mean the ability to acknowledge facts. Our ability to acknowledge facts gets colored by past experience, hope, emotion, the source etc. Yet it is something that we can work upon and keep getting better. While it requires constant awareness and practice, that awareness helps increase our level of intellectual honesty.

By empathy I mean the ability to appreciate other points of view. This requires us to listen better and to understand what others are saying. Empathy and intellectual honesty reinforce each other.

Both these attributes have a lot of positive effects (for e.g. intellectual honesty can lead to better money management). However, for now I am addressing how they produce humility-like effects without some of the challenges of humility.

Empathy requires one to understand and respect others. That is a big part of humility — not taking oneself too seriously and running others down. In addition if one is intellectually honest, its hard to ignore other legitimate points of view. It is still possible to annoy another person by contradicting them — and be perceived as not-humble. However if one is empathetic, the contrary opinion will be conveyed in an acceptable manner.

May you enjoy the virtues of humility without being humble.