Just How HUMBLE Are You? (And Why Does It Matter!)

You have heard me say it a hundred times. Humility builds bridges, ego burns them. But how humble are you? Have you ever sat down and tried to figure that out? Today. Let's do that. And then I will explain how this ties into Indigenous Canadian reconciliation. So let's talk about it. Pokemon Queen Edition Across Mundo Damage. Hi everybody. My name is Sandy Boucher. I'm Red Thunderbolt, woman of the Loom clan, A proud member of Seine River First Nation in Treaty 3 Territory in Northern Ontario. And today we're talking about humility. And it's a word we use all the time. But what is humility? How does it manifest? And how humble are you? I have a quiz for you. So what I'm going to do, I have a list. I have the biggest index card ever. I have a hair in my mouth too. Lip gloss can be such a pain. I have eight points. Eight questions I'm going to ask you and give yourself a score scale of one to ten. One. That doesn't sound like me at all. Ten. That is absolutely me. Or somewhere in between. So, for example, point number one. You do not believe that you're superior to others. And by others, careful here. I mean two legged, four legged winged crawls on the world, on the ground, right? So you're not better than the animals. You're not better than the butterfly. You're not better than then that raccoon that's driving you nuts, digging in your garbage. You don't believe you're superior to others, other beings, not just human beings. Scale of 1 to 10. That might have caught a few people off guard. That is literally my job. Point number two, you. When you're wrong, when you make a mistake, when you say something wrong, when you do something wrong. Excuse me, you. One, accept that you're wrong. Two, you acknowledge that you're wrong. Excuse me. And three, you apologize. Not with an excuse attached, not with an explanation attached. You just say I'm sorry. And then you take the steps to make sure you don't do it again. Okay? So you accept and apologize, make amends when you're wrong. One to ten. One. No, I never do that. I'm never wrong. Ten. Yes, definitely. Number three. You strive to learn and improve. In the words of Tony Robbins, you are. It's can I c a n I constant, never ending improvement. Totally my journey. I am constantly learning. Constantly. My goal is to be better than I was yesterday. I am not competing with anyone else. I am just leveling up. I am on level 59, about to enter my 60th level of being. I better be leveling up as far as I'm concerned. So you are striving to learn and improve. Yes or no? If you're one of those people just taking up air, you think you've learned enough? I honestly, according to my teachings, if you're still here, there's still things you need to learn and there's things you need to contribute. That's why you're still here. It's not done yet. Just FYI on that one. There have been many times in my 60 years on this planet that I have been talking to myself. It is not usually when I'm trying to shoot a video for you. So sorry about that. My microphone cut out as I was saying. Point number four, you have empathy for others. So it's not. Why don't they just get it together? They're always complaining, they're always whining. You actually understand you own your privileges. You understand when other people might be struggling even if it wouldn't be a struggle for you, and you don't judge them because of that. You have empathy for. So again, scale of 1 to 10, you have empathy for others. Point number five. This is actually a really perfect tie into yesterday's Valentine's Day video. Point number five is you don't seek to prove yourself to others. You are busy doing what you need to be doing. Doing whatever you were doing are doing. That's what you're here to do. You're not doing it to prove yourself to others. You're not trying to prove how smart you are or how valuable you are because you know you're smart and valuable, right? You're not arrogant. You don't think you're smarter or more valuable. But you're not wasting any time proving yourself. You got that validation thing down pat yourself. You get that from self now, not from someone else. So scale of 1 to 10, you don't seek to prove yourself to others. Point number six. This one. Watch Facebook on any given day. Other people's success doesn't upset you. Other people's success doesn't upset you. You are genuinely happy when someone else is successful. You are not one of those that they're successful because silver spoon in their mouth, they had an easy ride. Of course I'd be successful too if I had that many people helping me. They must, they, they're comfortable because they rip people off. They're two faced that, that horrible, horrible group of people that is screaming to the world how little you think of yourself, right? That, that you're not successful. So no one can be. I mean, this is ridiculous. Other people's success doesn't upset you and you can genuinely be happy that, wow, I know how hard they work for that. You go, girl. This is your moment. You shine and you shine big and you take up space. That's you give yourself a 10. So scale of one to 10, other people's success doesn't upset you. Two more. Number seven. Your growth. I can speak English. Honestly, I can. Seven. You're grateful and don't take things for granted. So, yeah, I've mentioned in this week's videos just how absolutely grateful I am for the amazing life I live now. I don't take any of it for granted. I know firsthand just how fast things can change and that just because everything's amazing now, that does not come with a guarantee it's going to last forever. And it won't last forever. It's going to end at some point. So you appreciate it and you're grateful for it while you have it. And. But you accept that it's going to end. You don't just take it for granted and think you have another day because you might not. So scale of 1 to 10, you're grateful and don't take things for granted. Things other people, the whole nine yards. Last but not least, you treat everyone equally and with respect. Everyone equally and with respect. We live in a time and age now that we respect people who just think like us. The whole transphobia nightmare comes to mind. It's like as an indigenous person who has survived other people trying to define us for long before I was born, and it still continues. When I see that whole transphobia nightmare going on and children being denied their true identities, who they know they are, just blows my mind go off on a rant there. But scale of 1 to 10, you treat everyone equally and with respect. So now, before I explain how this ties into reconciliation with the paint the pictures segment, I wanted to show you a little reminder. You can put it on an index card you don't even need to use. You could use like the normal size or, you know, whichever works for you. But the word humble, so you can remember all these. Write the word humble. The eight. The. It's an acronym. Excuse me. So you can remember this stuff. The H. Humble about the assumptions you make about others. You understand your lens that you're looking through, your lens of your background in your culture. I will always see things through indigenous eyes. It doesn't make your lens because it's different, doesn't make it wrong. It's just back to back teaching. You see things I can't see. I see things you can't see. If we actually talk and believe each other, we can bring this together and build a bridge. M, motivate yourself to learn and grow. B, believe in the value of all things. Mother Earth comes to mind. L, lifelong learning. It's a great ride that way. And E, emphasize respect for all things. So humble about the assumptions you make. Understand your lens. Motivate yourself to learn and grow. Believe in the value of all things. Lifelong learning. And emphasize respect for all things. Yay. So how humble are you? If there's one, we're gonna. I have to paint a picture for you. What I was gonna say is, long before we were talking about reconciliation or long before people like me began working with non Indigenous people about how to work with Indigenous people, like for the first time, balancing the feather. For so many years, there was training for Indigenous people how to be successful in mainstream and no corresponding training for non Indigenous people. Do you see the problem? Like, we have to do all the learning. You have nothing to learn. What, ego trip much? Ego burns bridges. Humility builds them. Right? So. But for years, long before that training started, there were people, non Indigenous people, that were just absolutely amazing at cross cultural relationships and building cross cultural partnerships. And in every case I have seen, and I've seen many, it's because the person was so beautifully humble. Now, why is humility so important when it comes to Indigenous Canadian reconciliation? It's because there are so many corporations and business entities out there, and I know this firsthand, that they come into our First Nation communities, and I call them bulldozers. They come in there like that hard sell that we used to see at certain big box stores. And like, they meet you at the gates and we know what you need, we have what you need, blah, blah, blah. And it's all arrogance and no humility. They. And they want to tell us they have our solutions. And I've seen it happen so many times. Our leadership and our elders especially, they just rolled their eyes. And I know what they're thinking. They're thinking, how in the world could you know what we need? You've never been here before. You've never spoken to us. You have no idea what caused this problem. You have no idea of the solutions we've tried. You're just assuming, you know, with ego, not humility, you could learn. If you sat down and talked to us and asked respectful, humble questions, we'd be happy to share. And maybe you do have something that can help us. We don't know because we've never met you. And we're not going to assume we know you. I have seen humility get lost. I have seen people that were amazing in the first or second first nation that they worked in and suddenly believe they can work in any first Nation. And that's largely to do with the word indigenous. It implies that we're all the same. Which could not be further from the truth. First, thinking of the nations like Haudenosaunee and Anishinaabe are so incredibly different. And Dene and Coast Salish or Mi' Kmaq like Cree, like they're all so incredibly different. And then the first Nation communities inside those nations are so incredibly different. Autonomy is real. There is no one size fits all. There is no pan Canadian solution. And the only reason you would think you as in a non indigenous business entity or corporation, the only reason you would think that one solution is going to work for everyone. One, you're going for convenience, and two, you still believe we're all the same. That's a crash and a burn. And the entities that reach out to me and want to avoid that, I am happy to work with them. And some don't want to hear it. And you know, you just got to step back and watch them fall. And then hopefully they learn from it. Some don't. They'll get up and do it again and think they just got to be more of a bulldozer and they'll fall again. So humility. Humility builds bridges. Ego burns them. The choice is yours. Do you want to burn bridges or do you want to build them? And I'll tell you right now, if you burn the bridge, it is really, really hard to build it the next time. So I hope that made sense. I hope you enjoyed the quiz today. I hope you scored amazing. If you would like, if there's an area you didn't score well in and you're wondering what you can do to help better your score, send me an email. I am always here to help. That is literally why I am here. And that's it for today. We are coming to the end of the day. My first week back from vacay. I'm so thrilled you're here. I'm so thrilled you're willing to learn. You are my hope, you are my fuel that we can do this. We can build this bridge with humility and ego left out in the hallway. Until tomorrow. I love you. Take care. Bye bye.