The humility of knowing yourself.

We all kid ourselves somewhat. We pretend that we’re anything more than a lost and scared kid in high school. Someone who is desperately trying to understand themselves as they go in a million different directions, never knowing which exact direction to head in nor which correct person they can trust.

That is the quintessential human condition. We never really leave high school (or college for some), and from that point forward, we continually evaluate our existence to what that confused 16-year old does.

Don’t believe me - ok, a few proof points than before we move forward.

1. We work in organizations that operate year-round, yet July & August, as well as the middle of December and early January, slow down. Why? School.
2. No matter how “flat” an organizational structure may be, there are always clicks. Always people who seem to have the disproportionate favour of other peers or decision-makers. Why? School.
3. The vast majority of what we do in “white collar” jobs can be remote. Yet, the progress of actual virtual collaborative environments remains limited, and the majority of work remains location-based. Why? School.  

In our most formative years, we are in an institution that will inform and shape how we view the rest of society. And that place is school. But believe it or not, this is not another article about the pros or cons of school (although - if you’ve like to discuss that, I’m game). No, this is about knowing yourself. And I felt that to know yourself is first to see that you are still heavily influenced by forces that we pretend don’t influence us anymore - like societal pressures, groupthink and stuff like confirmation bias. We learned how to be ourselves in school and thus, to have the humility to know yourself is to have the humility to accept that you are still that scared kid, roaming the halls of your high school, hoping desperately to fit in or at least, not get noticed. 

Now, onto the point of this thing.

Having the humility to know yourself.

To understand who you are, your tendencies, your biases, what you are going to natural favour or dislike. To know how you are going to act/react in situations, as well as how you are going to think of others in the same way. This is hard. It’s so hard that the self-help industry is worth billions of dollars. It's because we fall for a common trap - the trap of assumption. We think “we know” who we are and what we don’t need to invest any time in learning about ourselves as we’ve been ourselves our entire life. Where we go wrong is in thinking that we completely understand the influences that have shaped our lives and, thus, the way we feel in every situation.

Speaking from first-hand experience, it can be overwhelmingly difficult to admit the underlying causes of the actions we take or don’t take. We feel as though our rationale is solid. That it is uncompromised, and we are thinking through our action (or inaction) from a purely logical place. We couldn’t be more wrong.

Just look at coffee consumption from places like Starbucks or Second Cup. While they make a great cup of joe, if anyone were looking at this decision from a purely logical place, they would only make it once. Then they would discover that the cost, as well as time commitment, would make it impossible to go back for a second round. But people visit these locations daily, sometimes multiple times throughout the day. And this is only a basic example. Where it gets far more powerful/fascinating is when we start to understand the impact of what lies deep within our minds and critical decisions. 

What could that be? Ok - why did you get married? 

(if you aren’t married - the next example may hit). 

I’m not kidding. Why did you get married? Many will say, “because I feel in love with the person.” But love is a subjective feeling - little objective or “rationale” comes from the notion of love. And while that is a harsh view, I would ask that you try and quantify the feeling of love. Some of the best scientific minds in the world have been trying to do this, and they haven’t gotten there yet, so I doubt that you have. No, you “loved” someone from a purely subjective place, and thus, you married them. Nothing wrong with that. But what is essential to know is that love, along with emotions in general, are highly influenced. If we explore love, what I consider love, and what you believe love is may be worlds apart. I may think “kindness” is the top attribute of love, whereas you could find “openness” at the top. Both you and I could make a good case for why we feel this way, but the point is that we are going to select who we fall in love with and marry on two radically different scales. Still nothing the matter with that, until the person whom you’ve married discovers that your idea of “love” is pure kindness and theirs is brutal openness. 

In the business sense - why are you working with your current supplier? I bet you could find a competitive price (maybe even cheaper - but we’ll get to that). I know that you could find a competitor. What is it that you value? Many will say, “they get my business,” or “they feel like a real partner.” Sure they do - but those are qualitative qualities. You can’t measure “they feel like a real partner.” Some will say, “well, it’s because of that partnership we receive the best price - hence they’re cheaper than the rest.” But are they? Maybe you spend twice as much time on the phone, and perhaps their product life is half as long. Similar to the scientist who is trying to crunch the numbers on love, there are many great organizations (many of whom believe in the six-sigma model) who are looking for the most cost-efficient way to operate. But that’s a constant  moving target, and they likely rarely say of their suppliers, “they feel like a real partner.” 

What is the point of this? 

We have an extraordinary amount of decisions that we need to make every day. Most of them are banal or trivial. But every so often - we’re asked: “will you marry me?” It is in those moments, both personally and professionally, that our ability to understand who we indeed are will be put to the test. And when we know ourselves and can make the right choice - MAGIC. When we don’t...there is always Mr. Robbins.