042 Blameworthy Modesty and Harmful Humility

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This is Dr. Torrey. Welcome to the Influence Every Day show where we make every day better and we influence for good.

Humility is a virtue. Humility is noble and good until it isn't. The same goes for modesty. Modesty is also a virtue and it's noble and good until it isn't. First, what's the distinction between modesty and humility? Modesty is more of an outward expression. It's how you appear to others. It's minimizing the perception of your own self importance. So modesty can show up in our words, it can show up in our clothing, it can show up in our acceptance speeches and things like that. For example, when somebody is modest, they might thank the team and the team effort when they receive an award for themselves. They're receiving an award, but they're acknowledging all of the people that contributed. That's an expression of gratitude. And it's done in a way that is modest. It's not highlighting their own achievement, it's acknowledging the contribution of others around them. So that is a behavior that is modest. Humility, on the other hand, is not so much an outward expression, is more like an inner attitude. It's a recognition, it's a self awareness of one's own limitation, one's own flaws, one's own contributions. And the fact that there are contributions by others and yours isn't overshadowing them, you're not better than other people. True, honest humility is an honest assessment and grounded view of oneself. That's what humility is. Now, when we look at humility and modesty, it's important to recognize although modesty is more like an outward expression and humility is more like an inner attitude, they are bi directional. In other words, if you are in fact humble, then it should reflect in your modesty and vice versa. If you behave in a modest way, it can impact your sense of humility. And both of these are good normally. But first, before I get into when they become blameworthy or harmful, let's first look at their opposites. The opposite of modesty would be showing off. And personally I find showing off as a behavior to be abhorrent. I can't stand it. I feel dirty. I need to get away from people who are showing off. It feels gross to me. That's just me, that's. Personally I am, you know, that's how I respond to showing off. I just, I, I don't like it. In fact, oftentimes I have to work on myself very hard. When somebody else is showing off. I start to say things to myself like, oh, maybe they're making up for something else, or maybe they're struggling in another area of their life or something like that. And I. I should feel a need to serve them, not run away because I feel gross, because. Because they're showing off, Right? So I'm actually actively doing work on my own self so that I don't feel the way I do when people are showing off, but nonetheless showing off. The opposite of modesty. When it comes to humility, the opposite of that is something that I fear. Like, I am deathly afraid of ever approaching arrogance. I don't want to be arrogant. I don't want to die in that state. I don't want to ever come off as arrogant. And so for me, it's something I fear. So we have humility and modesty, modesty being an outward expression, humility being an inward attitude, arrogance being an inward attitude, and showing off being an outward expression. Again, all of these are bidirectional. But when do you start to cross a line with the virtues of humility and modesty? When do they cross the line? When do they become blameworthy? When do they become harmful? Let's go over a few examples where they either become counterproductive or they become misappropriated or they become their own extreme. The first of those is that of false modesty or false humility. I'm going to use those terms interchangeably, by the way. When we pretend to be modest to gain approval, when we pretend to be humble, this has a lot to do with our intent. What is your intent in the moment? Downplaying your achievements. That might be an example of false modesty, where you're like, oh, it wasn't that big of a deal, or it wasn't that difficult. You know, yeah, I did xyz, but, you know, it wasn't that bad. An example of false modesty is pretending to be modest to gain approval. So imagine if I'm on stage, I do a ton of public speaking. I'm in my flow state when I'm speaking, get a ton of compliments afterwards, a ton of referrals afterwards, booked for multiple talks after. It happens every single time. And yet when I step off the stage, I'm at high risk for downplaying that performance because I have some negative thoughts going in my head when I get off of the stage. Even if I know that I rocked it, I still am not entirely sure if I did. And so I go to people I trust and I ask them, hey, was that okay? And they'll be like, okay, that was phenomenal. That was amazing. Like, even the AV guys were like. And so they start giving me all these compliments and that's because I need that validation. But is that modesty false? Am I crossing a line? I'm at high risk for doing that. When you downplay your achievements, you're at high risk for crossing the line on the modesty and humility equation. So be careful about pretending to be humble for the sake of gaining some approval or some validation or something like that. And even worse, by the way, this is when it wouldn't be false modesty, it would be simply deception is when somebody is pretending to be modest or humble, but in order to manipulate others where they're harming others with it. In this case, we're typically trying to gain something, approval or something like that. That is when we pretend to be humble or modest when we are not quite that humble or modest. Now, the excess of those is where we downplay our abilities or contributions to the point where we self sabotage. So it's like another level is when we have excess modesty or excess humility, we reach a point of self sabotage where we don't advocate for ourselves. Like in a professional setting, for example. I am extremely guilty of that, by the way. I. I love the act of service and I love being quiet about it. I love people not knowing that it occurred. That's just something for me. But what happens when that happens in the workplace? In the workplace, you're at high risk for being looked at as well. I don't know what this guy's done. You know, if you didn't advocate for yourself, it wasn't clear that you did X, Y and Z contribution. If you celebrated everyone else, you helped them achieve their goals, but you were not recognized for your role in that thing and you didn't advocate for it, you're going to miss opportunities, you're going to be undervalued. And then when the time comes to look at your line item on that budget, it's not because they're malicious that your position goes away or they go in another direction or you don't get the promotion. It's not because they're malicious. It's because you had excess modesty, excess humility. You didn't advocate for yourself. And this is something you need to be really careful of if you're a leader. Because if you're trying to exhibit the values and virtues of humility and modesty and you are the leader, if you're humble about your team, if you're downplaying the abilities of your team. If you're downplaying the contributions of your team to the point where you're sabotaging your team, you're harming your team, that is not a virtue. You've crossed into the realm of vice, I'll tell you. You know, one time, a strong mentor, colleague, friend, and once my boss came up to me after I was talking on stage, and he came up to me, man, that was phenomenal. You did a great job. The whole crowd was enthralled. He started talking about all this stuff, and I was like, well, you know, I think I could have done better here. I should have said this. I left this part out. He said, will you do me a favor? Shut up. Just shut up. He said, I just gave you a compliment. It's important to me to give you that honest compliment. But if it's not received, it doesn't feel good. Just say thank you. Just say thank you. So then I was like, okay, let's start again. And then he went through the whole thing. He said, you did a phenomenal job up there. You had the whole crowd engrossed. People were taking notes. I know that you changed lives up there. And I said, mark, thank you. And then he said, good. Now, from that point on, every time I receive a compliment, I have this internal battle. I want to be humble and modest, but at the same time, I don't want to cross over and not accept a compliment, not accept something that somebody's giving to me. It's as if somebody's giving you a gift and you're refusing it. So beware of excess modesty. Beware of excess humility. Now, another thing that comes up is misplacing those things, misplacing modesty by being modest. When assertiveness is required, you're the most qualified, but you fail to step up. This is especially easy when people don't know that you're the most qualified. They don't know that you have that skill. They don't know that you could make that contribution. So you just refuse to offer that information. That is misplacing your modesty. That is misplacing humility. Because you have the skill, you should put it forward. Unless there's other constraints, time, whatever. But another example might be you refuse help even though you need it. You refuse to ask for help even though you need it. That's when we misplace our modesty, when we place it somewhere where it's actually not a helpful place for it to be. Another. And it's like its cousin is avoidant modesty. This is when we use our modesty to avoid responsibility or accountability. We use our humility to avoid accountability. This shows up when you decline a leadership role when you are the most qualified for it. You decline a leadership role because you're afraid of the responsibility that comes with it. Or you decline a leadership role because you're afraid of the effort that it will take, even though you are the most qualified for that thing and you justify it with your sense of modesty and your sense of humility. You're at risk in all of these cases. These four cases of modesty. False model modesty, pretending to be modest to gain approval. Excess modesty, when you downplay your abilities to the point of self sabotage. Misplaced is when you're modest, when assertiveness is required. And avoidant modesty is when you use modesty to avoid responsibility. In all of these examples, this is when you take a virtue and you cross it over into something else. It's getting closer to vice. Humility and modesty are normally virtues, but you undermine the virtue when you exhibit any one of these. As you look at the year ahead, I want to give you some practical advice. Think about your own growth. Think about the growth of your team or the growth of your organization. Beware of times where your modesty will obstruct that growth. Saying no is good. Usually, boundaries are good. I'm not saying don't say no. What I am saying is, whenever you say no, evaluate it. Are you saying no because of a distorted, blameworthy, harmful virtue? Are you saying no out of false modesty, excess modesty, misplaced modesty, or avoidant modesty? If you are, it's time to reevaluate that. Because you're obstructing growth, your virtue is becoming a vice. Your virtue is becoming something that that is harmful and blameworthy. Moving forward in the year ahead, are you going to misrepresent your capabilities? Are you going to undermine the truth that is there in terms of your skill set, your ability to contribute? If you are, your virtue is crossing over into a vice. Beware of times when humility or modesty is being used and as an excuse for complacency or inaction, you might be defaulting to comfort and using humility and modesty as an excuse. Again, that's when it crosses over from virtue to vice. So here's the thing. You can be humble and advocate for yourself. You can be modest and advocate for your team. You can be humble and modest and request needed resources. You can be humble and modest and ask for help. You can be humble and modest and be the best person for the job. Be careful. Is your humility a vice or a virtue? I'll see you in the next episode.

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