None of us sit high enough to look down on anyone. Be humble.

Have you learned that humility is your greatest ally?

We live in a world in which bravado is championed with consistency and reinforced throughout the media like the giant badge of honor that it most certainly is not.

With everyone competing for position, power, prowess, opportunity and more, it is natural that everyone’s healthy ego need mature in order to survive.

As counterintuitive as it seems, the healthiest of egos is also the most humble…. By a significant margin.

When you are clear on whom you truly are, people notice, without comment from you in any fashion. They sense it.

Surprisingly, when you are so comfortable with this, you will learn that the more genuinely humble you remain as they notice your prowess, the more impressed with you they become. But it must come from a genuinely humble position and not feigned or that is easily sensed as well.

If you are part of a team, even if you are leading that team, allow for the fact that your team has made the most significant contributions to that success and allow everyone around you (and most especially the team themselves) to learn that you are both incredibly appreciative of what they have done, as well as supportive of their need to feel the pride that comes with the success.

Nothing is more obnoxious than a blowhard who needs to espouse on all of their accomplishments and leave their audience yawning in the process.

If people want to know about you, you share small amounts and stop. If they really want to know more, they will inquire.

An unexpected consequence of a braggadocio is the feeling that the listener feels when hearing all of your accolades… the listener may feel internal shame or disappointment in what they may not have accomplished thus far in their lives. Further, they may feel inferior for any one of many reasons and the unintended consequence of your extolling your own virtues could actually be shaming the other party, without your knowledge. They may actually misinterpret your statements and feel as if you are looking down on them and judging them. Even if that was not your intention, whatsoever.

I live by a very simple rule. Every person is my equal until or unless they do something that proves to me otherwise.

Try walking that walk and the world will open up to you in ways that you have yet to imagine.

Happy Thursday!