Humble Yourself

The act of being humble is one that most do not really know about or even understand how to go about without feeling like they just demeaned themselves. There is a huge difference between showing humility and being self deprecating. I am sitting here and working on my personal development, to be honest about it, something that I have not worked on in some time. Regardless of the reason or reasons, I had abandoned the entire idea of developing myself into anything other than a bitter, angry and lazy procrastinator.

Why change now at 45? Why not? Some people have those epiphanies when very young and some very old and others somewhere in between. I guess you could call this one a midlife crisis type of epiphany, but regardless of the time of my life when it occurred, it was truly something I needed. My why, however, is simple. I want to be a better person, better for me, for my kids and everyone that I have ever known or will know. You could say it like this... You know you and your friends all have that one guy who is the asshole of the bunch. If you don't know or don't think you do, then it's probably you. I know I have been that guy for a long time. Bitter and unhappy about my life, blaming others or "my situation" for what has become my life. As I get older, my own mortality starts to weigh on me, not that I am worried I might drop dead at any time. We all could have that happen at any given time for whatever reason. What I am more concerned about is the word legacy. One definition, and the one I am concerned with is as follows: anything handed down from the past, as from an ancestor or predecessor. Am I handing down anything worthy of actually being passed on or am I just flapping my arms like a lunatic that everyone wants to turn away from and ignore. Don't make eye contact and maybe he will leave. I want to pass on to my children and their children and so on, the memory of a person who did for others. Someone who made sure that others were taken care of and if he had the ability to affect positive change in their lives, he made sure to do it. 

I have for the last, at least 20 years, focused on what I needed or wanted. Justifying my means to the end benefiting me. This is not who I was when I was younger, and as I get older, I don't want this to be who I am now. So how do I go about making change in myself to the point of it actually making a difference? One way I know, which is not a secret thing, is to surround yourself with the type of people you want to be like or emulate. If you want to be (_____) plug in your quality, you have to be around people who are (_____) same quality. If you do this you will be immersed in that quality with others that have it and simply by osmosis you will gain some of their traits and characteristics. People you look up to act a certain way and you see that and you impersonate that. There are examples of this everywhere, and the easiest way to explain it is simply by using a parrot as an example. Parrots just copy sounds without real regard to why the sound happens unless they are being trained for some sort of act or entertainment. They mimic what they hear in the same way you will mimic qualities and traits of people you are around, good and bad. 

Another way to make changes is by learning and implementing what you learn. The best way to do this is through classes, seminars and books (self learning). Which is one of the major things I am doing right now. I say I hate to read unless it's a computer screen. Yes I do and tough shit for me. Learn to open a book. Reading is a lost art and the printed word, although undervalued in this day and age, is still the best and easiest way learn things. Classes and seminars are great and I would definitely look to attending some in the future, but they can be costly and guess what, you have to read there too. So for me, right now, I am just going to read some books and listen to some audio segments online for my personal development. 

There are a lot of areas you can work on. Personal development can range from fear, to learning how to communicate with others and even how to be a servant leader. The number of things that we can and need to work on for ourselves to be better humans is endless. Right now the 6 books I am reading or going to read are: Eat That Frog! - Brian Tracy, Don't Sweat the Small Stuff... and It's All Small Stuff - Richard Carlson, The Undervalued Self - Elaine Aron, The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People, The 8th Habbit From Effectiveness to Greatness and First Things First. The last 3 are all by Stephen R. Covey. I am not saying these are the best books to read, they are just the ones I am starting with. I want to get 3 Dale Carnegie books one of which I have already read, How to Win Friends and Influence People and a few others as soon as I can. I rented these from our public library for free, so don't feed me excuses about cost. A lot of books can be found at a library and the bigger the library, the more extensive the collection. 

Now for that humble stuff. Why be humble and what does that really mean versus being self deprecating. Let's talk about being self deprecating because that is really easy to go over and I have so much experience at it. I have been overweight for some time. I started nursing school in 1995 and before I graduated got up to around the 300 lb mark. It really started a couple of years before that with a bad job in which my back was injured and I didn't even know it. I worked for a beer distributor in the Dallas area called Golden Distributing. At that time they did not offer weight belts to employees, but for almost $40.00 I could buy one that would work properly. Well the starving family man in me didn't buy one so, my back suffered for it. The long and short of it is this, starting in 1993 I started to abuse my back and I started having issues that got in the way of me exercising and by 1995, I had my car wreck that totally screwed my back and then I became a nursing student while working nights in bars. I gained a lot of weight. We had 3 kids in the process and I gained weight with her, but never really exercised and so I became the fat guy joke. I learned how to accept the joke and make it my own and self deprecation was the easiest and funniest way to go. You insult yourself and make it funny. Sometimes it can seem quite depressing and it was, but the humor masks the real pain of it. 

The definition of humility: the quality or condition of being humble; modest opinion or estimate of one's own importance, rank. Acknowledging what others accomplish shows humility. Delegating authority and having people set their own goals and performance objectives and even promoting people when it is deserved. Recognizing what we do well and what we do not do well is paramount to humility. Take pride in what you do, but use it as a platform to bring people together to do greater things. Showing humility means that you do not look for the accolades, but rather you try to push others into the spotlight and help them be better, and help them succeed. Even though Beachbody uses a network marketing model, the goal isn't to make yourself into a rich fat cat, rather it's to get others off their couch and show them how they can overcome what has become an epidemic in our country and that is obesity. The problem is that people want the quick fix and can't humble themselves enough to see the real problem won't be solved by some magic pill or the government. It will only be solved when you get off your butt and get to work. To accept that fact and to decide that you want to change and what you thought and what you have done for years is just the wrong way to go. Well, it is a humbling experience and when someone who has been doing this for years is willing to give of themselves to you, to help you change your patterns and bad habits in for better options and healthier choices. When they tell you how they struggled just like you do with food or working out or with paying the rent, you realize how they have just humbled themselves before you. Why wouldn't you want to do what they did and be how they are. Lead by example, lead with humility and succeed with greatness.