Are you ready to go to the next level? Do you want to achieve even bigger things? I'll give you the key: start accepting that you have a lot to learn and dismantle your defenses against the attacks of others.
These were the conclusions we reached in a group of people with whom I reflected on the subject of humility and meekness. I was struck by a woman who confessed: "After this reflection I realize that, despite the years that I have been working, I still have a lot to know".
And these words changed me forever, but they changed me inside. I am not talking about an intellectual change but a change in my heart, in my soul that made me discover a new dimension of the word "humility": to sincerely acknowledge that there will always be much more to learn and know.
I don't know why, but human beings have been endowed with a kind of mental "cap" that tells us when we know enough and it is as if this cap tells us: "now, stop learning. Perhaps it exists so that we can get into action as soon as possible and not stay in the study phase marveling at knowledge, but the truth is that if we learn to let go from time to time be sure and consider ourselves ignorant again, we will go to another level.
John C. Maxwell talks about these caps in his book The 21 Irrefutable Laws of Leadership and the importance of people helping us lift these caps throughout our lives. Other authors call them paradigms, they highlight their importance when pursuing them as goals, but they also recommend their replacement by other new paradigms that pose new challenges.
On the other hand, meekness invites us to lay down our defense weapons, to recognize that if we have an enemy, it is right inside us, in the center of our chest. That which we feel when we admit that "our blood boils", that they "raised and lowered us". Learning to control these feelings and put them aside while interacting with other people is essential.
Now, starting from the fact that these feelings have some use, the point is that we can redirect them and turn them into fuel for our courage and courage to face new challenges, to overcome our fears that are really the cause of our aggressiveness.
Imagine this: you are in front of a client who is asking you for things and you are thinking of his complete ignorance about what he is asking for and its possibilities in the real world. You already have an argument to begin to contradict him and explain why what he asks is not possible and you are ready to mercilessly bombard his helpless lack of knowledge.
My cousin Erickson Matos gave me a lesson on this topic. He told me: “there is no need to put restrictions on customer requirements, this is not our job. Instead of saying that it cannot be said, it is more effective to say how we understand that it can be done ”and I add, in the same absurd idea of the argument of how it can be found the answer why it cannot be found.
In this way, it is the client who makes the decision and not we who try to impose it. After all, these defensive arguments are nothing more than a reflection of our own fears. Our panic to look bad, the terror caused by the idea of failing and no longer being considered "experts."
Being meek and humble of heart opens the doors to new levels of experience that is ultimately the mother of knowledge.
