Be Humble, but Only in Private
Or, do the big spiel
👋 Hey there! My name is Abhishek. After writing on Medium and Ghost for a while, I’m experimenting with a Substack. I’m calling this The Sunday Wisdom.
It’s a collection of weekly explorations and inquiries into many curiosities, such as business, human nature, society, and life’s big questions.
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Q: How do you balance being humble and being confident?
I begin to speak only when I’m certain what I’ll say isn’t better left unsaid.
— Cato, Roman Senator
It’s better to stay quiet than blabber endlessly without any logic or coherence. That’s why I’m a big proponent of saying, “I don’t know,” whenever I’m forced to play outside my circle of competence.
While this way of thinking definitely helps you grow, it does have some downside — especially in how others perceive you. Society after all rewards the knowledge worker, not the one who doesn’t have knowledge or isn’t sure of their knowledge.
When someone wants to know something and you aren’t sure about your answer, you might have the tendency to point them towards someone who does, or you might tell them that you’ll think about it and get back later. These are good traits indeed, but do them often and you’ll start being seen as somebody without answers or opinions.
Humility is often touted as an important quality to have, but humility devoid of knowledge or power is only a form of weakness. If you are successful yet humble, you are inspiring. If you are just humble (without knowledge or power), your humility is not a quality, it’s a sad story.
We follow leaders because we believe they have answers. If they start saying “I don’t know” or “I’m not so sure” every now and then, our confidence in them gets shaken.
Apart from having answers, we also want them to instil confidence in us. We don’t want to be second guessing their volition — be it the leader of a nation or a company.
That’s why having conviction in your answers is important. But it doesn’t mean that you should be faking it.
In order to rally people towards your ideas, you need to be seen as someone who has all the answers, but at the same time, you also need to be humble enough to realise that don’t have all the answers.
Here’s where it starts to get interesting. Being smart and appearing to be smart are completely different things — this much we know of. While the first is about humility, learning, and constant growth, the later is about showmanship. But what most people don’t understand is that both are equally important. You shouldn’t shortchange one for the other.
Here’s what you should do instead. Keep your humility secret. Be humble among people who are close to you. People who know you very well — your friends, your close confidants, and your advisors.
But when you are among the masses, be openly persuasive. Speak and phrase things in ways that make you seem above doubt.
Truth be told, the quality of an idea persuades less. Rather, it is the quality of the pitch and your conviction in it that persuades.
Take any revolution or social change for example. The message is usually obvious (nothing revolutionary about that), but it’s the conviction of the messenger that makes all the difference — be it Mahatma Gandhi, Netaji Subhash Chandra Bose, Martin Luther King Jr., Che Guevara, Vladimir Lenin, George Washington, or Napoleon.
Here’s Arnold Schwarzenegger talking about how he balanced being extremely grounded while also being overtly confident.
I’ve never really felt that I’ve arrived. I pretend, and I do the big spiel, but in reality, when I work, for instance, in a movie, I don’t think it’s any different than being a plumber. I don’t see myself as a star. I see myself as a worker. Even during my bodybuilding days, when I looked at the mirror, I saw so many flaws. “How am I gonna fake myself through this?” That’s the way I talked to myself. But when I went out, I was like, “Oh I’m gonna show them I’ve got the best body the world has ever seen.”
Good communication is persuasive communication. People judge your credibility by the quality of your communication. Being unsure of your ideas or saying “I don’t know” too much hurts your credibility.
It’s important to be humble and self-critical, but only when you are indoors. It’s equally important to put on a show, especially when you’re in public. Don’t mix them.
What I’m Reading
You have power over your mind, not outside events. Realize this, and you will find strength.
— Marcus Aurelius, Meditations
Before You Go…
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I’ll see you next Sunday,
Abhishek 👋