Cultivating Humility – ElPropósito3 min de lectura

The value that opens doors

Photo by Matthew T Rader on Unsplash

Humility is the value that keeps the spirit of leadership alive throughout our lives. Life is also largely made of the quality of our relationships and our willingness to serve others. So we need to lift the veil that hides who we really are and limits how we relate to the world around us. Here’s what I think about this great value, and the potential you can unlock by cultivating it every day.

Deep inside us live our strengths and our weaknesses. Humility means recognizing both and responding honestly, whatever the circumstances. And if the joy of life lies in the quality of our relationships, owning our weaknesses opens the door to showing who we truly are, trusting that we build more when we walk that way.

Putting our strengths at the service of others may be the clearest sign of humility. Listening is one tool for recognizing it, and it has many shades, empathy above all. Every person has visions and aspirations, along with plenty of challenges and struggles, and most of the time we need to be heard more than we need advice.

Humility begins when we recognize the beliefs that drive how we act at every moment. Cultivating it lets us anticipate whatever comes, keeps our doors open to others and sets an inspiring course. The earlier in life we see this, the more we gain from all the support around us.

We live in a world that keeps pushing us to surprising limits. Embracing those challenges usually starts with a small step inward, toward the confidence to admit what we know and what we don’t. Walking the road while cultivating a value that keeps our feet on the ground is the key to facing any change in our lives, whether it’s already here or on its way.

Warm regards and my best wishes,

Rodrigo Baccaro

P.S. This week’s VELA:

• What I’ve been Viewing: Stoicism, a philosophy of life. A great interview with a philosopher I admire, whose work has helped me enormously to learn this philosophy and put it into practice.
• What I’ve been Listening to: How to make good things happen to you. A great interview with Marian Rojas, a wonderful psychiatrist I already follow. Her book is high on my list. I especially like her research and the links she draws with neuroscience.
• What I’ve been Reading: Estados Unidos: La historia. Still on the same book as the past few weeks. I can’t read it as fast as I’d like or as I’m used to. The details and the many historical ties to our region simply absorb me. For now I’ve reached the American Civil War.
• What I’ve been Learning: The Secret of Self-Control. This video has helped me a lot, especially in understanding determination. I constantly struggle to control my appetite, and here I learned a new way to start approaching that struggle.

Author: Rodrigo Baccaro

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