Humility

Hello all you beautiful Grandchildren,

It is time I talked about how important it is for my grandchildren to have humility it should be an important part of each of your lives. Again, you will hear various views of the definition of being humble (or to have humility) so here is Grandpa's view

Meaning: Humility is freedom from pride or arrogance. Freedom, pride, and arrogance are three more characteristics that I need to share with you some day, but today is not that day. Your parents may need to spend a little time explaining those to you, but you might learn a little about them by continuing to read this. Let me explain some basics of humility that I started to gather through AI, but ended up changing to my way of thinking.

Special Note: It is best if you can learn humility on your own without being forced to become humble. More about that in the first example below.

Lack of Arrogance: Humility means not boasting about yourself, or feeling that you are better than other people. A person with humility does not go around saying to everyone, "Hey, I am the best soccer player on the team!" People who do that have "arrogance" (someone who thinks highly of themselves). They seem to like to tell others of their greatness compared to others. By the way, you may be the best soccer player on the team (which needs to be proven), but you don't need to boast about it.

In fact, even if you think you are the best soccer player, you can always get better. You should focus on getting better, not focus on how good you are. A person with humility never tells others how good they, themselves, are. They might even say, "I try really hard to be the best soccer player I can be". If you say that, make sure it is also true. If you are not out practicing every day then you are not really trying very hard to be the best soccer player you can be. That would then be a lie.

Appreciation of Others: Humility involves recognizing the value and worth of other people. A humble person can see that there are other people around them and that they are each important and have value. Every person on this earth has value, don't forget that. There may be people that you don't get along with, but that doesn't mean they don't have value.

A humble person says to their teammate, "Hey, you are a really good soccer player", or "Hey, that was a really good play you made".

Often, a humble person will intentionally reach out to someone and let them know how much they value them and the good skills they have.

Openness to Learning: Humility means being willing to learn from others AND being able to acknowledge when you're wrong. I think this is a very important part of humility. When you are "willing to learn" that tells me that you are teachable. Being teachable means you are willing to change. Someone who is not teachable often thinks they are teachable, and may even sound convincing, but you can easily tell if someone is teachable by their actions and words. There is so much you can learn to increase your own knowledge and your own skills. This definitely includes learning how to best acquire good character traits and how not to acquire bad ones.

Back to the soccer analogy. A person that is not willing to listen to the soccer coach because they think their individual idea is better than the coach's instruction, is not open to learning. This takes them back to being an arrogant person. It is never a good idea to be arrogant.

Less "ME" focused: Humility helps you move beyond excessive self-focus (in other words, "It's all about ME") and to think more about others around you. Humility involves a desire to serve others and contribute to something bigger than you. This is especially true about your family. I am 100% sure that each of my grandchildren can be more helpful to your parents and to your siblings. One way to help would be to stop yelling at each other. Another would be to help your parents when asked, without complaining. Even better, help your parents without having them ask you to help :). They would be very grateful for that.

When you stop thinking about yourself and look to see how others might be in need, you become more humble in your attitude about life, especially if you help them in their need. You also become a happier person.

Examples of Humility

I have been struggling with this one since it is hard to share personal examples of humility without seeming arrogant or prideful. I will give it my best though :).

Grandpa - not a very financially successful businessman (yet)

I have not been a very successful businessman financially, yet, although I have always thought I could be a good one. Here are the two businesses I have been a majority owner in.

RevQ - my first business. In my first business, I didn't have enough money to keep going after we created a wonderful software product. We decided it would be best if we sold our company and the software product we created back to the company I left. There, the software could be developed and used. My friend Steve Ard and my brother-in-law David Franck were my business partners with me. We didn't really want to sell the business but felt like we needed to because we were running out of money. The good news is that the software we created is still being developed and is used in many governments today. Grandpa and Grammy used up every bit of our money and resources to invest in it. No, I wasn't as financially successful as I would have liked, but I did learn a lot about starting and owning a business.

Pacific Ally LLC (DocuDriven) my second business. It has yet to see a super productive year. We have been in business for over 10 years now. Most of the time, when a person goes into owning their own business, they want to make good money, be creative, be their own boss, and many other great thoughts. I have been very humbled many times by my financial circumstances of the business. I still have great hope though :).

Nevertheless, there are many things I have learned from these two experiences that have been extremely valuable to me. In fact, they are more valuable than financial success. You will have to ask Grandpa (if I am still around to ask) what some of those valuable learning lessons might be, but for now I will let you in on two of them:

1.My family has been able to be part of this venture - which they might not always have liked, or like to be involved in, but they still have stuck by us.

2.Grammy and I have been able to serve two missions for our Church which means so much to us.

Me and my good friend and business partner - Steve Ard.

Grammy and me in the Spokane Wastewater treatment plant. (Nick helped in this project)

Grammy and me receiving a Green Initiative Award

First time in Anchorage, Alaska for work - we took Grammy too!

Grammy - Learning - Despite the Heat & Humidity

Grammy has served a mission with me in the Philippines for about 18 months now. She knew prior to coming that this mission was going to be hard for her since she doesn't like to be hot and/or humid and that the weather in the Philippines is both of those things, all the time. Yet, here she is almost finished with her mission. One main reason Grammy did this is because she has humility. She knew that this would help her family (even though she is not there with you) and that it would help other people over here. The heat and humidity have been even worse than she thought, but at least we had good air conditioning in the apartment and in the temple. What a blessing!

Grammy has learned so much from being here that she probably would not have learned otherwise. She has grown to love so many more people. She has learned that she can do office work pretty darn well. She has been pretty teachable and has seen so much value in these Philippine people.