Chapter 18
Humility
Construction Stage 2.2 Drilling down to Bedrock
SAL Model Stage 2.2 Humility
"Humility is to make a right estimate of oneself."
—Charles H. Spurgeon
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Pile Driver |
To build a solid foundation, builders must respect the laws of geology, meteorology, and physics. This is accomplished by anchoring the foundation to bedrock deep below the surface of the Earth using concrete and steel-reinforced "Piles," which are driven deep underground by a machine called a "Pile Driver."
As a self-action leader, YOU must likewise respect True Principles rooted in Universal Laws by aligning your thoughts, speech, actions, attitudes, and beliefs with those laws and principles.
There is no other way to lasting success.
True Principles rooted in Universal Laws apply to everyone all of the time; that is what makes them both TRUE and UNIVERSAL.
Humility is a natural outgrowth of honesty, integrity, and transparency. When you are honest with yourself and others you see things more accurately—as they really are. When you are humble, your sense of integrity will motivate you to align your behavior with your deepest held values and goals. Respect for True Principles and Universal Laws—aka HUMILITY—will then naturally ensue because of your growing knowledge that Universal Laws and True Principles govern all reality.
In other words, as more humble you become, the more motivated you will be to do what is right, not only for the sake of doing right—and enjoying the peace of a clear conscience that accompanies RIGHT thinking, speaking, and acting—but because you increasingly understand the deleterious long-term consequences of doing, saying, and thinking wrong.
Understanding reality, including the reality of your own shortcomings and weakness, will lead you to be very open and transparent with yourself and others. It will influence you to acknowledge the following, as necessary:
- I was wrong, or, I am wrong.
- I made a mistake.
- I messed up.
- It's my fault.
- I have a problem.
- I caused my own problem, and it's my responsibility to solve it.
- I'm the only person who can decide to fix my problem.
- I don't have all the answers.
- I acted immaturely.
- You're right.
- I'm sorry; will you please forgive me?
- Will you please show me a better way and help me to be and do better in the future?
- Can you tell me where I can go for help and direction?
It's relatively rare to find a person willing to sincerely admit these things about themselves. It's rarer still to find a person who is willing to actually do something about it. The rarest person of all is the one who continues working on their problems patiently and persistently until they are solved.
That is what makes self-action leaders so rare and special.
To grow existentially, YOU must be willing to take complete responsibility for your errors, problems, shortcomings, and weaknesses. Solving your personal problems will sometimes require the assistance of others, but the primary responsibility for personal problem solving always lies with the individual—with YOU for your problems and with ME for my problems.
The unwillingness to see and admit to an error, shortcoming, sin, weakness, or other wrongdoing is the essence of SELF-DECEPTION, which spawns blame, excuses, scapegoating, and additional self-deception in a downward spiral of existential atrophy and decline into the lower levels of the SAL lowerarchy.
Heeding Wise Counsel
Stephen R. Covey often taught that: The way [you] see the problem [often] is the problem. (1)
"The way you see the problem often is the problem."
—Stephen R. Covey
In other words, your biggest problems in life are not the problems themselves; your biggest problems in life are your flawed, myopic, or otherwise skewed perceptions of those problems. Fix (clarify) your perception of a problem so that it aligns with reality and you are well on your way to solving it.
A key element of humility involves the willingness to listen to and heed wise counsel. If you are unwilling to do so, you are likely to remain mired in your problem until you are willing.
"He that won't be counseled can't be helped."
—Benjamin Franklin
The most successful, happy, productive, and fulfilled human beings are those who appreciate, welcome, and then apply knowledge and wisdom they receive from leaders, managers, coworkers, parents, other family members, friends, counselors, spiritual advisors, good literature, their consciences, or any other worthy and viable source of TRUTH.
This willingness is especially important when you receive counsel contrary to your natural desires and inclinations. Such situations require that you humbly (honestly) recognize and acknowledge your errors, inadequacies, shortsightedness, and/or weaknesses. It will likely further necessitate that you wage an internal fight against negative inclinations and desires—which are often deeply ingrained within the very sinews of your mind, heart, and soul.
Doing so can be very difficult...
It is emotionally akin to swallowing a bitter pill and then forcibly regurgitating it.
While such willingness may require you to subvert your ego in temporarily agonizing ways, those who exercise such courage and honesty (humility) will discover, in time, that doing so is incredibly empowering and liberating.
We all have blind spots!
Therefore, we all need feedback.
Even the most conscientious and self-aware among us can still use the occasional piece of advice or feedback from an external source.
The subject of feedback will be addressed in greater detail in a later chapter.
Dr. JJ's Story
I attribute much of my success in managing mental illness and other life obstacles and weaknesses to taking advice from others who were older, wiser, stronger, or more experienced and mature than I was at a given juncture of my life. In this regard, my mind's obsessive-compulsive tendencies have, in some ways, been a great help.
Avoiding mistakes where possible—and learning, growing, and improving from mistakes I do make—is deeply ingrained in my nature and habits. As important as it is to avoid neurotic guilt and shame, I'm grateful for the natural and healthy doses of embarrassment, guilt, and shame I have felt in the past for speaking foolishly or acting immaturely or inappropriately.
Why?
Because healthy doses of shame, guilt, and embarrassment are very painful—and therefore enormously motivating. They drive me forward to fix my mistakes and avoid making them in the future. Such feelings have helped me over-and-over again to grow existentially and become a better and more mature and refined human being.
Because I am human, I often fall short of perfection in my life. When I do stumble, I am careful to not be too hard on myself and fall prey to neurotic guilt, embarrassment, and shame. But, I'm concurrently careful to not make excuses for dishonorable behavior, or give myself permission to throw in the towel, stop trying, and give up.
No matter how many times I may fall short, I will never give up in my attempts to improve and progress in an ever-upward trajectory toward the theoretical IDEALS set forth in the SAL Theory and Model.
And neither should YOU!
Hearing, learning about, or rehashing your errors, inadequacies, shortcomings, sins, and/or weaknesses isn't easy or fun. And implementing constructive feedback is often even more difficult!
But it is worth it!
Indeed, I have always benefitted enormously in the long-run from sincerely listening to and then humbly heeding wise counsel—to matter how hard or painful it might have been to square myself to it in the moment.
Thankfully, the more you implement constructive feedback, the faster you rise in your Existential Growth, and the sooner you will find yourself giving feedback to others rather than always having to always take it yourself. And let me tell you: it's sooooo much easier—and more enjoyable—to give feedback to others than it is to get it yourself.
However, in order to earn the right to give it, you must first be humble enough to TAKE IT and then apply it. You cannot become an effective mentor or teacher until after you have demonstrated your capacity to master a lesson as a student. Humble and faithful apprenticeship and followership naturally precede authentic and effective mentorship and leadership.
That is simply the natural evolution of true and authentic education.
If you wish to speak and lead, you must first listen and follow.
SAL Mantra
If you wish to speak and lead, you must first listen and follow.
Viktor Frankl's original brand of psychotherapy—Logotherapy—which "focuses on the meaning of human existence as well as on a man's search for such a meaning," (2) can, in part, be self-administered by listening to others, seeking out good advice, and then applying applicable feedback into your daily life.
In describing the difference between logotherapy and psychoanalysis, Frankl said:
"During psychoanalysis, the patient must lie down on the couch and tell you things which sometimes are very disagreeable to tell. ... [Whereas] in logotherapy the patient may remain sitting erect but he must hear things which sometimes are very disagreeable to hear." (3)
In this regard, SAL very much ascribes to the principles and purposes of Logotherapy for all human beings interested in Existential Growth. True growth of any kind requires hearing uncomfortable truths and then applying those truths in good-faith efforts to reform your thoughts, speech, actions, attitudes, and beliefs.
The process of doing so is typically "very disagreeable" indeed.
But it is oh, so necessary for long-term growth, happiness, success, and inner peace!
Much of my own Existential Growth—and certainly many of my life's greatest successes—started out with my having to hear and heed exceedingly disagreeable, disappointing, disconcerting, discouraging, and even deeply painful things.
My willingness to exercise the COURAGE to listen to and then heed wise counsel from others—especially when it was disagreeable and painful to do so—has made all the difference in the long-term results I have gotten in my life and career.
"Fools need advice most, but only wise men are the better for it."
—Benjamin Franklin
By searching inwardly, rather than outwardly, for solutions to my own problems, I have discovered a great truth—and the miracle of SAL—that outer transformation always follows inner troubleshooting. Or, in the words of Plutarch and Otto Rank: What you achieve inwardly changes your outer reality.
"What you achieve inwardly changes your outer reality."
—Plutarch and Otto Rank
This miracle of inner achievements and changes transforming my outer reality has occurred over-and-over again throughout my career and life. Simply stated: I am who I am because of this MIRACLE.
It is the MIRACLE of SAL.
It is magnificent to reflect upon the reality that I can alter my external circumstances over time by focusing on self-improvement and change now. I can, in fact, influence my outer surroundings far more by working on myself than I could ever hope to do by trying to work on other people.
Over time, the external realities of my life have changed dramatically. This did not occur because someone just handed me a better life, because I bought a winning lottery ticket, or because I obtained some unearned golden opportunity. Nor was it brought about by a change in public policy or a reversal of the political party presently in power. And Lord knows I'm not the smartest or most talented person on the planet either.
But...
Because I was willing to change and improve inwardly, my outer circumstances have been vastly altered in extraordinarily positive and desirable ways over time. The same thing could happen for you if you are willing to pay the price that authentic change and improvement demands.
The following quote by M. Scott Peck, M.D., while explicitly referring to those struggling with mental illness, also applies to all human beings and our errors, shortcomings, shortsightedness, and weakness:
"It is only the rare patient who enters therapy [or SAL training] with a willingness to assume total responsibility from the beginning ... [but] those who have faced their mental illness [weakness], accepted total responsibility for it, and made the necessary changes in themselves to overcome it, find themselves not only cured and free from the curses of their childhood and ancestry [problems] but also find themselves living in a new and different world." (4)
To be clear: my mental and emotional weakness and illness are not completely cured. I still struggle with vestiges of OCD, anxiety, depression, and a variety of other, related life challenges. Nevertheless, through the power of SAL and Serendipity, I have been able to ultimately declare that: I am Sovereign and Successful as opposed to: I am OCD and depression, or: I'm unlucky and destined to fail.
Instead of looking back regretfully and saying: I wish I had, I can stand boldly up and humbly say: I'm glad I did.
Living without regrets is a grand way to live.
I highly recommend it to YOU.
And never forget that regardless what regrets you may currently have from past choices (I have some myself), today is a brand-new day and YOU possess both the freedom and power to make a new tomorrow for yourself, your family, team, organization, community, state, nation, etc.
As such, it does no good to dwell unduly on the past beyond analyzing what needs to be changed or improved in the future. Do what you can to fix past errors and then move on positively, productively, and BOLDLY into the future to seize the precious opportunities you still have to make the most of the rest of your life.
Carpe Diem, my fellow self-action leader and friend...
For there has never been a better time to Seize the Day than right NOW!
SAL Master Challenge
EXERCISE #17
- Who has given you good advice in the past?
- Did you follow it, or are you currently heeding their advice?
- If not, why?
- How can you begin implementing that advice moving forward, beginning today?
- Who can you go to for advice in your life right now?
- Go to at least two (2) such persons and ask them for their advice, counsel, or viewpoint on an issue you are currently confronting in your life or career, or a personal weakness you are attempting to manage or overcome.
- What did you learn from each person?
- How are you going to alter your thoughts, speech, behavior, attitudes, or beliefs based on what you learned from these two persons?
I have completed the SAL Master Challenge EXERCISE #17
Your initials:__________ AP initials:__________
—Dr. JJ
Wednesday, April 30, 2025
Palm Beach Gardens, Florida, USA
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Chapter 18 Notes
1. Covey, S. R. (1989). The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People: Powerful Lessons in Personal Change. New York, NY: Fireside. Page 40.
2. Frankl, V. E. (2006). Man's Search for Meaning. Boston, MA: Beacon Press. Pages 98-99.
3. Ibid.
4. Peck, M. S. (1978). The Road Less Traveled. A New Psychology of Love, Traditional Values and Spiritual Growth. New York, NY: Touchstone. Page 296.
