CFC INSIGHTS: Humility
HUMILITY
“If you want to go fast, go alone. If you want to go far, go together.”
Working definition of Humility:
Embracing interdependence. Embracing the inability to be self-sufficient.
HUMILITY MAY BE ON ONE END OF A SPECTRUM WITH SELF- SUFFICIENCY ON THE OTHER END
HUMILITY MAY BE A QUALITY THAT LEADS PEOPLE WITH FULL FREEDOM TO ACTIVELY EMBRACE PARTICIPATING, CONTRIBUTING TO, AND NURTURING COMMUNITY
FROM “THE JERK”
Navin R. Johnson’s take on self-sufficiency:
“I don’t need you... all I need is the ashtray, the remote control, the paddle game and this magazine and the chair...”... the closing scene from The Jerk https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w2X3vVMdh-s
Navin R. Johnson: Well I'm gonna to go then! And I don't need any of this. I don't need this stuff, and I don't need *you*. I don't need anything. Except this.
[picks up an ashtray]
Navin R. Johnson: And that's the only thing I need is *this*. I don't need this or this. Just this ashtray... And this paddle game. - The ashtray and the paddle game and that's all I need... And this remote control. - The ashtray, the paddle game, and the remote control, and that's all I need... And these matches. - The ashtray, and these matches, and the remote control, and the paddle ball... And this lamp. - The ashtray, this paddle game, and the remote control, and the lamp, and that's all *I* need. And that's *all* I need too. I don't need one other thing, not one... I need this. - The paddle game and the chair, and the remote control, and the matches for sure. Well, what are you looking at? What do you think I'm some kind of a jerk or something! - And this. That's all I need.
[walking outside]
Navin R. Johnson: The ashtray, the remote control, the paddle game, and this magazine,
and the chair.
+++
What usually starts me thinking about certain words is when I hear people use a specific word more and more while I have a consideration that maybe we all have less and less idea of what we are meaning to say.
So... here I think about “humility”.
I have heard people say that to be a great investor it requires incredible “humility”.
But I don’t THINK that means walking around with head down, nearly ashamed at one’s own incompetence and how they might mess up at any minute and aren’t worthy of the responsibility of managing other people’s money.
I have heard that “great” people have tremendous “humility”.
For starters, I DO tend to like the idea that “humility” might just be the opposite of arrogant and filled with oneself and annoyingly “bad role models” for how I want the world to be.
Whatever all that is in my head I am not sure, but if I think of “humble” as merely a way of carrying oneself (e.g. tennis star Roger Federer) I get excited about human’s ability to both be OFF-THE-CHART successful and not having to rub it in to the rest of us. But I THINK I am mis- using the word when I use it THAT way.
So for now I am going to look elsewhere in considering “humility”.
Sometimes I think it is now popular to just say the word humility or humble without at all meaning it because we have been trained that it is good to at least SAY we think it is important even if we aren’t sure what it means. “Humility” seems to “play” pretty well most of the time in the world. It warms others’ hearts quite often to just say you are humbled:
+ When someone wins the Masters golf tournament and they say they are truly “humbled” what do they mean? Often times what I think they mean is “I am truly humbled to be in the company of so many golf legends who have won this same tournament and thus it means that I am also now clearly AWESOME!”
+ “I am truly truly humbled to win my third Oscar for Best Actor which no one else has ever done and you all selected me... I am so so so so humbled to think about how AWESOME that means you think I am and since you all are so smart and powerful that means I must be waaaay AWESOME!”
I don’t really think that is a proper use of this word even if it “plays” well and warms hearts. I look back and consider that Tiger Woods was “humble” in this way. Until we learned that maybe he didn’t really mean it.
For today I am going to consider that if “humility” is a key ingredient to being a successful investor or a “great” person, it has something to do with willingly embracing my own insufficiency as opposed to a reflection on one’s incredible greatness!
Or with a minor twist, “humility” may mean a lack of self-sufficiency.
Why would we require such a reminder of our lack of self-sufficiency? Maybe because it is sort of true...
...and we have been unwittingly lured to self-sufficiency and celebrating those who seem to have accomplished this self-sufficiency thing.
My thought is that perhaps most every adult on our planet has been raised with parents unspoken aim toward “self-sufficiency”... a premium paid to pretending that we don’t “NEED” anything... we can get by on our own just fine! We don’t have to depend on ANYTHING or ANYONE to be OK.
Parents worry about their kids... ...seemingly all over our planet...
...it is a common human experience for parents to worry about their childrens’ ability to make it in the world on their own...
With fear in mind, I think we largely aim to help our children become self-sufficient... and at the extreme to become “masters of their universe”... and capable of succeeding on their own with no one else’s help. A college roommate once said that he wanted his kids one day to be able to take care of themselves so they didn’t have to ‘take sh*t’ from anyone. I think he wanted his kids not to have to beg or grovel or get pushed around by other humans in order to be OK. At one level, it seems totally understandable not to want to worry about our kids and to train them toward zero dependence. If in the process we inadvertently promote a delusion of striving toward the impossible of self-sufficiency there might be ramifications we don’t really want.
If ‘humility’ is a recognition of being insufficient to be always right, limited often in our skills versus what is called for, insufficient in our attempt at self-sufficiency... and perhaps dependent on that which we cannot control and interdependent on both a somewhat visible and invisible web of connections and support, then I think we might be getting somewhere. We might be closer to understanding why successful money managers and humans as a somewhat wider category are blessed to have such an insight.
Working definition of humility:
Embracing interdependence. Embracing the inability to be self-sufficient.
Striving for the impossible of “self-sufficiency” may be both alluring as well as a formula for misery. Maybe there is a higher wish available: to be really really great at understanding the nature and depth of “interdependence” and then to learn to navigate that world superbly.
This is where, in a nod to the inadequacy of self-sufficiency, parents say, “you know, I just hope that when my kids run into problems they will reach out to talk to someone even if it isn’t me. I don’t want them to have to think they can figure everything on their own.”
At some level we all know some inconvenient truths that our “self-sufficiency” is conditioned on the sun. Without the sun none of this living stuff is going on on our planet. Some monks are so clear on the interdependence in the system of living that when they see a piece of paper they “see” the role of the sun in the growing of the tree from which the paper was manufactured. Some can imagine all the hands (and machines!) that came in contact with what they buy or consume.
Some folks are good at blocking out the interdependence because they have “successfully” been trained to pursue self-sufficiency...
HUMILITY MAY BE ON ONE END OF A SPECTRUM WITH SELF- SUFFICIENCY ON THE OTHER END
INTERDEPENDENCE MAY BE ON ONE END OF A SPECTRUM WITH SELF- SUFFICIENCY ON THE OTHER END
INTERDEPENDENCE MAY BE AT ONE END OF A SPECTRUM AND ALONE MIGHT BE ON THE OTHER END
ALONE COULD BE CONSISTENT WITH “US/THEM” SEPARARTION OR THE MORE EXTREME OF “ME/ALL OTHERS” OR THE EVER SO UNSUCCESSFUL AND TRAGIC MODE OF “ME AGAINST THE WORLD”
INTERDEPENDENCE IS CONSIST WITH SPIRITUAL CONNECTION INTERDEPENDENCE IS A CLOSE NEIGHBOR TO COMMUNITY
HUMILITY MAY BE A QUALITY THAT LEADS PEOPLE WITH FULL FREEDOM TO ACTIVELY EMBRACE PARTICIPATING AND NURTURING COMMUNITY
Would you really trust someone to manage your money who REALLY DEEPLY believed that they were self-sufficient ??
So when money managers offer that they think that humility is a key ingredient for success, they may mean that it is good to consider that:
“the task at hand is difficult, failure is often, the comprehension of what will and won’t work is quite limited, that what they do specifically is at times horrendously out of favor, that the inputs that they receive come from thousands of sources, that their teachers and mentors have allowed them even to get this far, that their association with their firms may allow them to gain access to managements or experts from which they build their opinions, and that the ideas they use come from a wide and somewhat virtual team, and where they get ideas sometimes is somewhat random, and that they haven’t fully fleshed out their process, and that so many have aided the degree of success that they have had...”
I think THAT might be an orientation of successful money managers and humans. Non-self-sufficiency.