Chapter 4
Jeff Tollefson, Losing It All and Becoming Richer
Are You Ready to Be Humble and Humbled?
Humility is the true key to success. Successful people lose their way at times.
They often embrace and overindulge from the fruits of success.
Humility halts this arrogance and self-indulging trap.
Humble people share the credit and wealth, remaining focused
and hungry to continue the journey of success.
—Rick Pitino, basketball coach, University of Louisville
Jeff Tollefson was an investment banker and a successful one at that. He told me, “I allowed my feelings of self-worth to be so closely tied to how I was doing in my professional career and, of course, the measuring stick for so much of that was monetary reward and you get caught up in that. Then, all of a sudden after the market crashes, people are saying you aren't all that good, how could we miss the downturn? It was humbling and really forced me to step back and think about what it was that provides value in my life. I knew there had to be something deeper.” He admits that he fell into that self-worth trap.
Jeff has a heart bigger than Minnesota. When I sit and talk with him, he has this constant air of forward-thinking optimism about him. He's an exceedingly likeable guy. You walk away from a conversation with Jeff rejuvenated and refreshed. Boy, I'd like to have more of what he has. Most people experiencing success and failure like Jeff's would fixate on the failure and get stuck in it, at least for a while. But Jeff used it as a springboard. Failure is going to happen; it's what we do next after we've fallen down, right?
Money isn't a good or bad thing. It doesn't have a soul. It doesn't have worth to us beyond economic. This isn't an anticapitalism diatribe; I spent my first 15 professional years in the private sector, and the wealth it generates is a key part of what makes philanthropy possible. Money is what we decide to make of it in our lives, consciously and sometimes unwittingly. When money starts to define our sense of who we are, then it becomes a big negative, a self-created one (that's a whole different book).
Jeff made a lot of money, then lost almost as much. It happens. But how many people will tell that story? How many of us can make what we lost and how we failed part of our personal story to share with the world? Jeff did. Think about it. Put yourself in his shoes. Would you be open and honest about how you far you had fallen? Not a lot of us would, but Jeff has.
“I was trying to figure out not what could I do, but what should I do next.” Sounds like figuring out his can't not do. That's where Jeff was in 2007. He had made that familiar mistake of assuming his professional job and personal passion had to be separate and unconnected parts of his life. Sometimes that might be the case, but quite often one's profession and passion do not have to be mutually exclusive. Jeff told me, “I needed to find something that I was passionate about and, at the end of my time in managing our venture portfolios, I took the time to do it.”
He left the firm and gave himself about six months to figure things out. He did a lot of reading of books by authors like Michael Josephson and Po Bronson. He also did a bit of nonconventional reading. “I had a lot of time to read the newspaper, and I got into reading obituaries and seeing what people had accomplished in their lives. I realized I had precious little to show for my first 45 years on this earth, so I set out to see what I could do in the second half on this planet that could be a little more significant,” he explained.
Jeff also joined SVP Minnesota and started to learn what was going on in his community; in particular, he spent a lot of time with homeless youth. “I'd never met a teenager coming out of homelessness and when I did, it opened my eyes.…People talk about teaching people how to fish. These kids didn't even know fishing was a possibility.”
He didn't expect a cause to find him, but one did, in part because his mind and heart were open. That kind of openness and humility go hand in hand. Without a mind open to possibility, humility strains to find room in our psyche. And without humility, it's unlikely our minds and hearts are truly open to what might be possible and unexpected.
One day in late 2007 in Minneapolis Jeff met a guy over lunch, who ran a Houston-based nonprofit called Genesys Works (www.genesysworks.org), aimed at helping at-risk teens. The organization places underprivileged high school students in meaningful internships with major corporations during their senior year in high school. They go through eight weeks of intensive technology training before they step into their internships. The guy's name was Rafael Alvarez, and he had been a corporate strategist for Hewlett-Packard before he became a regular hero.
“It was a week after my first conversation with him that I bought a ticket to fly down to Houston to learn more about the students,” Jeff said. “Rafael told me about what his own life journey had been like and I began to visualize myself in his role and really doing something to help somebody else.” Jeff flew home and started to develop the business plan for Genesys Works Twin Cities at his kitchen table.
He didn't see himself as the person to lead the agency. “My vision was to just hand off the baton to someone who could run the next leg of the relay, someone who really knew how to run a nonprofit.” He kept rejecting the opportunity to lead Genesys Works Twin Cities, saying and thinking he wasn't the right person. This was coming from a successful businessperson whose specialty was creating, financing, and growing new businesses. He questioned his leadership skills on and off, but finally came to the realization “every time I thought things could be run by someone else I found myself pulling that baton back because I have never felt so fulfilled doing something.” With an ample supply of his own humility, Jeff ultimately created the space to walk into at Genesys Works Twin Cities.
What kind of challenges did he encounter along the way to get Genesys Works going? Let's start with fear of failure. “I had convinced 16 high school juniors to dedicate their summer to an intensive professional skills training program with the reward being a paid year-long corporate internship when they were finished. The problem was that I didn't have enough jobs lined up at the beginning of the summer and didn't get the final commitments from companies until the last week of training. These young men and women had put their faith in me and I wasn't about to let them down. Words can't properly express how relieved and ecstatic I was when all the internship slots were finally secured. And as these students proved their worth in the workplace in the months that followed, they also validated our program model and we were off to the races. My fear of failure was ultimately replaced by complete confidence not only in what we were doing, but in the untapped potential of our urban youth.” Just like Lisa Chin.
Once more from Jeff, “Most of my prior professional life was focused on trying to generate monetary gains for our investors and ultimately financial wealth for myself. But through my work at Genesys Works and my experiences with Social Venture Partners, I was able to redefine what wealth meant to me, and I soon realized that I was blessed with an abundance of riches far beyond what I ever thought possible. Not monetary wealth, but rich experiences and impactful relationships. I finally felt that I was living a life that matters; one not measured by financial success, but personal significance derived from the impact I knew I could have on the students I felt privileged to serve and the community in which I lived.” Amen.
If it sounds like Jeff's story has threads of determined optimism and connected to one's core woven in, you'd be correct. What's fascinating is that Jeff's optimism and how connected this work is to his core might never have come to fruition without humility. If he can't admit his failures and be truly humbled, he never starts down this path. In his initial reluctance to take on the Genesys Works role, he left his ego out of it; he didn't try to fill the space until it was obvious he was the right guy. If arrogance or hubris is driving him, it clouds his thinking and closes his mind. And he likely never finds himself on this new path in life because he never opens up his mind and heart to “something he never felt so fulfilled doing.” All of those threads of his experiences, grounded by his humility, came together into a life of deeper purpose.
What's the Point?
This is mostly about deeds not words. Words don't mean jack when it comes to the kind of authentic, powerful humility that makes change happen. I was listening to an interview the other day with someone on the radio, it doesn't matter who. He started off saying, “With all due respect…,” which meant that he was going to immediately disrespect someone or something, which he did. It's the same with humility. If someone goes out of their way to tell you they're humble, often they're not—at least not in the way that can be a powerful ingredient in helping people become more impactful in their change-the-world work.
Authentically humble people, regular heroes, have a sort of ego-less quality, a willingness to be vulnerable, to ask for help, to say, “I don't know.” I'll call it humility on steroids and when you're around it, it stands out…or not. Another friend, like Larry Fox, who was an indispensable, inspiring partner for me in creating this book is Keith Kegley; he's a tech entrepreneur and engaged community member and a wonderful, creative thinker. When he was proofreading this chapter, he related to me that he worked once with a leader who began team meetings by sharing “what I don't want you to know about me is.…”
Keith told me that leader gets more from himself and his team when he's hiding nothing. And he's developed the muscle for being deeply authentic and vulnerable and it builds trust, respect, and a safe environment with the people he works with. It builds deep bonds of trust and loyalty. Humility in the form of authenticity and vulnerability is social glue, the glue that helps make real social change possible.
Elizabeth Svoboda, a science writer, published What Makes a Hero? The Surprising Science of Selflessness.1 The words hero and selflessness together in the title speak volumes. It's a book about “how our genes compel us to do good for others and how acting generous can greatly improve your mental health. The book also reveals how we can encourage our most heroic selves to step forward.”
Selflessness and humility are siblings. The core of Svoboda's research is from scientists and experts who believe we can each learn to build on our “natural biological endowments” and turn ourselves into models of selflessness and service for others. I'll drink to that and I'd like to drink more of that at times in my life. I can surely use more of it when I get drained or distracted. What I've experienced empirically are human traits that some scientists apparently believe can be turned on or off, if one just wants to learn how and invest the time. I like that.
Not only do you need to possess genuine and authentic humility, you also have to be willing to be humbled, to put your ego at risk and to be vulnerable. You have to know and embrace the fact that you are going to be put in uncomfortable positions, hard places, where you will not be in control. You may be called to task and you will have to own up to times when you are part of the problem, not the solution. This is not easy stuff. This work is neither for the fainthearted nor for the big egos that can't accept more than one dose of humility. If you don't get humbled more than once, you're probably still on the sidelines, not yet in the real game of hard, positive social change.
Power (and Humility?) in Philanthropy
It's pretty hard to overstate how important this humility thing is. It requires that you be exceptionally honest with yourself, looking in the mirror and truly examining your willingness to be humble in this work. This is particularly true if you are a “philanthropist,” which is a word I dislike intensely, with its connotations of blue blood, class superiority.
Philanthropy connotes that you are a giver of your financial, as well as human, social and intellectual, capital to a social cause. If you define it that way, a philanthropist can be just about any engaged, concerned citizen who is willing to give of himself to help a fellow human being. When it comes to the money part, the relationship between a giver and receiver can be a beautiful thing when done well. Or it can be an ugly exercise in power and class. It is sometimes unintentional but it never gets called out or resolved because the nonprofit wants the resources so badly. Money can quickly become the 800-pound gorilla in the room.
Humility, or the lack of it, probably shows up more intensely and has more influence on outcomes in philanthropy than it does just about anywhere else in our lives. The success or failure of your giving, be it hundreds or millions of dollars, has so much to do with the humility with which you show up. That said, these lessons about power and humility go far beyond the realm of philanthropy. They can be applied to everything you do in your social change work. So as you read forward, don't assume this is only about philanthropy.
Social sector work is so often about bringing together people with resources, their own or an institution they represent, with people who need those resources to create positive change. As in any transaction in life, there are power and relationship dynamics that come into play when one party needs something from the other.
I've watched it play out time and time again. Often the one with the power doesn't even understand that her actions are creating problems. She isn't being humble, but she doesn't know it. It is subtle things, like the person who shows up at a nonprofit in his new BMW or talks about the fabulous new house he is building or how well his high-paying job is going. Sometimes the lack of humility is more explicit and intentional, as when a person gives a big gift with so many strings attached that it's hard to make the money even achieve its original goal. In either instance, these actions all convey a message of superiority. Trust and honesty have a hard time flourishing under these conditions; humility isn't even on the radar yet.
Money is an amplifier. If you were a grounded and humble person before you made some amount of money, chances are you'll be even more so with more money to invest in your community. Conversely, if you are full of ego and hubris or come at life with an “I have-it-you-need-it” mentality, your philanthropy will probably just amplify those bad characteristics. The chances of you finding out the truth, assuming you want to hear it, are small to none in philanthropic endeavors. By “truth,” I simply mean the messages your behavior conveys to the person receiving your gift. Arrogance or humility? Power or collegiality? Trust or control? I've watched both kinds of people time and time again and there are telltale signs of a lack of humility. These include:
- How much control do you need to maintain over your gift? I have a personal passion for this issue.2 How many restrictions do you impose? There may be some minimal appropriate levels for large investments, but often what is expected is either wrong-headed or way out of proportion. This is perhaps the biggest barrier to more effective philanthropy. Let me explain it this way: If you're a successful businessperson, for example, you've had people or institutions invest funds in you at various stages. The restrictions are fairly straightforward—one party is giving the other party funds in expectation of a financial return at a later date. The investor may keep an eye on things or watch the financial results, but it's up to the company and its people to succeed or not. The investor would never tell the company what products to make, how to make them or to spend the money on product A but not product B, or only on research and development.
There is usually no single bottom line, no one clear indicator of success, in the world of social change. Some philanthropists fill the void by creating their own indicators of success. The philanthropist will often tell the nonprofit that it can spend the money on X but not Y and that it can only spend Z percent on what the philanthropist considers to be overhead. Let's be clear. When I say restrictions, I don't mean mutual goals for social outcomes; I mean tying a nonprofit's hands by tightly restricting the specifics of how and where funds are spent. At SVP, we've learned this lesson over years of knowing that we have to trust the leadership to optimally spend the funds to build their organization and make hard decisions that are appropriate for them.3
Think about how impossible it would be to build a company if all of your funds came with such restrictions and if each separate investor had his or her own unique restrictions. Do the givers of resources believe the nonprofit can make the right decisions? Are the investors conveying the message that the nonprofit is the expert and knows the space better than they? Are they saying, “I trust you?” The answer is no to all of those if they overly restrict and control the funds. Yet, it's what happens all the time in the world of philanthropy. It's sometimes unintentional, perhaps unknown…but certainly not humble.
- Do you ask anyone for feedback? Do you ask independent-minded parties who have little to lose by giving you an honest perspective on your actions and behaviors? When you have some amount of money or power, who gives you honest feedback? The more you have of those two things, the less honest feedback you will hear from others around you, especially those you to whom you are giving that money. Let me repeat that. The more money and power you have, the less honest feedback you will hear from others around you. Humility requires you to be brutally honest with yourself, and when people are constantly telling you “thank-you, thank-you” and “you are really wonderful,” it can get a little difficult to be humble.
You better have a spouse, a sibling, a colleague, or a friend who will tell you the truth. Someone who will help you see your blind spots, where you have not been humble. Frankly, some people may not want that feedback, they just want to believe their own story. But if you want to be the kind of person who creates real lasting change, who can inspire others and lead a movement, humility will be one of the most powerful assets you can bring to the table.
- Are you imposing your vision on the recipient or are you investing in their vision? It's certainly good to have your own vision, but is that vision backed with a deep knowledge of the cause, the players, and the current work in the field? Some of you will remember Tom Peters' famous expression “stick to your knitting.”4 What he meant, very simply, is to stick to what you know and, just as importantly, keep your nose out of places where you don't know what you're talking about or don't do so until you've taken the time to listen and learn a lot.
If you write down a list of things you know a lot about, I would bet that helping at-risk kids or changing environmental policy or other social causes, is probably not on that list for most of us. If you give resources to an organization doing that work, don't tell them how to run their programs. Let them be the experts or don't invest in them in the first place. You need to find an organization that shares your vision, not one that you can bend to your will. Figure out which experts you believe in and invest in them. Let them do what they do and stay out of their way. You should want accountability, but focus it on the social end goals of their work, like academic success or forest health, not things like how much they spend on the copier.
- How close are you willing to get to the real, on-the-street, difficult work (hard places) to better understand the challenges and effects of your contribution firsthand? Simply put, have you ever felt uncomfortable, out of place, scared, or worried in the course of your philanthropy? If it has felt all good with no rough spots, then you haven't truly gotten involved. You haven't dug in enough to know where the problems really are and how hard they are to solve. You almost certainly haven't been truly humble or humbled yet. Yes, you should celebrate progress, but you have to find the challenge, the hard work if you want to create real change in the world…and in yourself. If you want to change both, the pathway will ultimately take you to places of humility and being humbled.
Humility Has Power
Kevin Shaw was fortunate, maybe savvy, enough to make about as much as Jeff lost. He's an entrepreneur who built and sold a company in Cleveland, Ohio. He fits in his social change work today part-time alongside a new business in which he is working. He joined SVP Cleveland in 2003 and was heavily involved with one of the nonprofits in which that group invested. He is one of those people you can just feel has a good soul, if you know what I mean. The guy couldn't fake it if he had to, and he cares deeply about other people in a palpable, visceral way. In every conversation I have with Kevin he always listens before he talks, considers all sides of an issue, and is constantly open to a new way of thinking about things. People just like being around him.
Jeff and Kevin are both equally committed to and effective in their community work. When you talk to Kevin about causes he cares about, some of the first things he'll tell you are “I want to see how much I can contribute and learn,” and “I know I haven't done enough, I've only taken baby steps,” and “it's not clear to me yet where my strongest passions lie, I'm still figuring it out.”
The word humility doesn't show up anywhere in his explanation and he doesn't have to say it. Be truly honest with yourself. Do Kevin's statements resonate with you or do you think you have things figured out? Are you in learning mode or an I-have-the-answer mindset? One of the most powerful things about talking with Kevin is how strongly he sees this work as a learning journey. His mind is open and receptive and humble. He is not driven by ego. In a 23-minute interview with him, I went back and counted how many times he used the word “learn,” or some derivative of it: 14 times.
To Kevin, the work is never done; we all need to do more and the first place to look is at ourselves. Asking yourself for more money, effort, and sweat equity before you ask anyone else to give more is powerful. When someone we work with is hardest on himself, we want to work harder and help that other person more. When you are the kind of person who is always asking questions, not pushing your answers on everyone first, you inspire others to be more inquisitive, less assumptive. And when you live your life like you are on an authentic journey, people want to come alongside to help you, work with you, and share the load with you.
Kevin shows why humility can be so powerful in a group, in a meeting, in a movement:
- There is a positive power and energy that is created with people like Kevin in the room. There is “more oxygen in the room.”
- The energy and work is all about the real problems and working on solutions, not about balancing egos and personal agendas. No wasted time or energy.
- True humility that you find in people like Kevin eventually attracts more and more people with that attitude. Pretty soon, you have a room, maybe even a movement, full of truly committed people who make real change happen. Or the converse, the arrogant person drives people out of the room over time.
Like the saying goes, it's amazing how much can get done when no one cares who gets the credit.
A friend, Tony, who is a regional VP of a national contractor, provides a quick example of the power of humility. I was in a seminar with him one day, the general topic was leadership and how leaders show up authentically with their people. The consultant working with the group that day veered the discussion toward this willingness to be vulnerable (thanks, Brene Brown5), and Tony asked what the heck vulnerability had to do with leadership. We'd talked about honesty, but where does vulnerability fit in to the leader equation? The consultant spelled it out exactly like this: honesty + vulnerability = humility. People want to follow, are almost desperate for, a leader like that.
Just in case you start to think this humble(d) stuff just applies to social change work, where we all have to get along, listen to Laszlo Bock, the guy in charge of hiring these days at Google. To him, there are five key hiring attributes, one of which is humility. Bock says: “feeling the sense of responsibility…to try to solve the problem, and the humility to step back and embrace the better ideas of others…what we can do together is problem solve. I've contributed my piece, and then I step back.” He goes on, “it's not just humility in creating space for others to contribute, it's intellectual humility. Without humility, you are unable to learn.”6
Your Mindset
I don't remember the guy's name, but I can still see the CBS News story like it was yesterday, even though it was about 15 years ago. It was about someone who had made a bunch of money working at Microsoft in the 80s and 90s and now he was driving race cars. The interviewer asked him why he thought he'd made enough money to be able to retire and race cars when he was 40. His answer was short, emphatic, and crystal clear in his mind. “Because I worked for it. I worked so hard all those years, I've earned this.” I still shake my head even as I write it down. How can anyone believe they worked hard enough to make a hundred times more money than the next person? It speaks for itself.
Do you think the money you have made is 100 percent because you earned it with your hard work, that you worked harder and smarter than anyone else, and that you deserve it all? There is usually some degree of truth in there, but this is more about your mindset. Do you come from a place of gratitude and a feeling of good fortune? Do you recognize the ways in which you didn't just work harder, but you were lucky because of where you grew up or who you happened to meet one day or because you could afford the education that gave you access to particular networks of people?
It's hard to overstate how meaningful this “I deserve it” versus “I was lucky” mindset about money and power is. The reality of the answer doesn't matter nearly as much as the perception, the true lens through which a person sees the world. If you feel you are mostly lucky (and yes, you worked hard, too), you are more likely to have an open mind, a giving heart, a happier soul and life. If you feel you deserve what you have, you will be more closed off to potential, more likely to hoard your money and power, and often lead a less happy, even tragic, life. That isn't hyperbole. I've watched money and power in the right hands do such good for the world. And, I've watched it, in the wrong hands or being mishandled, destroy relationships, families, and lives.
Level 5 Leaders and Humility
Many of you are familiar with Jim Collins, maybe the most insightful and followed leadership guru of the past 20 years. He is the author of the iconic book on building the highest-performing companies, Good to Great. He also wrote a shorter piece titled, Good to Great and the Social Sector.7 The question Collins started out asking was, “Can a good company become a great company and, if so, how?” These are the biggest companies in the world that have broken the curve and sustained exceptional, far-above-the-norm financial performance for 20-plus years—in other words, it wasn't just random success. Collins argues that one of the key ingredients that allows a company to become great is having a Level 5 Leader, which he defines as an executive in whom genuine personal humility blends with intense professional will. Does intense will sound akin to determined optimism?!
That's pretty amazing when you think about it. He didn't isolate brains, particular experiences, or upbringing but instead empirically discovered the two most powerful traits of exceptional leaders, one of which is genuine personal humility. One of the most likely and significant Level 5 Leaders in history was, in Collins' opinion, Abraham Lincoln.
I just happened to pick up that book again a few weekends ago and do some reading for another project I was working on and the Level 5 Leader just jumped off the page at me. Some of the defining characteristics include never boastful (humble), calm determination (determined optimism), and firm resolve no matter how difficult (hard places). I can probably quit here trying to make the case for humility as a key lever in your tool kit for being more effective at your can't not do; Collins already did it many years ago.
Collins also recently penned a piece for Inc. Magazine about time he spent teaching at West Point, and much of what he wrote about was the relationship of the cadets to failure, that is, to being humbled.8 Collins said he found something very unique, “They've put themselves in an environment where you can't go through without failing.” Indeed repeated failure is built into the culture, yet it didn't faze the cadets in the least; they came across as “irrepressibly positive and devoid of the alienation that afflicted other college campuses” where Collins has taught. Why? One cadet told him simply, “success is not the primary point. I go back, to places where I've failed, because it's making me better. It is making me stronger. If I am not failing, I am not growing.” The same is true and possible for anyone willing to wade into social change work and be humbled. You will grow and be stronger.
Collins concluded, “It is very difficult to have a great life unless it is a meaningful life. And it is very difficult to have a meaningful life without meaningful work.…The cadets in my seminars have been some of the happiest, most engaged, and most purposeful young men and women I've ever met.”
My Own Lesson in Humility
For me, humility is a core value in my life. I'd like to think I exhibit some of it in how I work and live. But a colleague bluntly told me a while ago, “Shoemaker, sometimes your humility is just bullshit.” I deeply value Nancy's insights so I was shocked when she told me that in the middle of a coaching session. She was basically telling me that I was using my humility as a cover, a mask to hide behind at times. Why did I do this? Because sometimes it's easier, it's less trouble, and it keeps me from rocking the boat. Of course, I could convince myself that I held back because of my humility. Just like there are good and bad forms of optimism, there are good and bad forms of humility.
When Nancy told me that, it sort of threw me back on my heels. I thought, “Oh really, Nancy, and who made you the expert? I can tell you a lot of people who would disagree with you.” But the more I thought about it, the more I realized she was right. I was telling myself an internal story about my humility, and then I sometimes use it to shy away from owning my role in the community.
I share this to emphasize how hard genuine, authentic humility is. And how hard it is to live it. If you asked a lot of people if I'm a humble person, my guess is a lot of them would say, “Yes, of course,” and that would feel good. What doesn't feel good is Nancy making me see a truth. Humility in the name of only doing so much or worrying about offending someone when the truth will have greater impact is not much better than arrogance. Which is worse? Saying something that's wrong and uninformed or not saying something that you know is right and grounded because you don't want to offend someone?
Genuine humility is about constantly learning. It's not about holding back and saying you don't know anything. It's about listening and asking questions more often than talking and giving answers. It's not about being silent when the truth needs to be said. All of us have a positive power we can bring to our community work. The balancing act between using that power humbly versus being arrogant is a tricky one.
Let me describe that balancing act from one more angle, again tapping into my friend, Keith's wisdom. He reminded me that “yesterday's humble pie can easily become tomorrow's ego trip. When we learn that humility is social currency it can be almost natural to then use that currency again and again to get people to like and go along with us. You have to be constantly aware of this pitfall and hold yourself to extreme humility or humility on steroids. You'll have to rediscover your humility over and over again, aware that your ego wants to use, and maybe abuse, the currency that works.”
Even the Great Are Humbled
One of my favorite figures in history is Winston Churchill. The thing that fascinates me most about him, beyond his speeches and his intellectual range, is how many times he failed, was truly humbled, and then came back again.
His military disaster at Gallipoli in 1915 and the lives it cost are infamous, but he came back to be one of the great wartime leaders of history. He was a political failure in the 1930s only to be beckoned back to save Britain and Europe in the 1940s. Soon after winning World War II, he lost again politically only to resurrect himself once more through his writings as a prolific author. Churchill was not a humble man, but he was humbled time and time again, and he didn't let it stop him.
What's the value of being humbled? We're not fighting world wars in this social change work, but we are fighting wars against crime, poverty, weak leadership, homelessness, and all the entrenched environmental and social challenges. We need to be ready to be humbled if we are going to win. I hope that this chapter will empower the bashful to use their humility to grow as powerful leaders and help the brash become more self-aware of their arrogance. And I hope it will help both groups to understand the fulfillment and real power that can come from their humility. When we get humbled, really knocked back on our heels, it means we've gotten close enough to the real problem to truly learn what matters, to feel the problem enough that it hurts, and to show our authentic commitment to the cause. We have been humble and humbled.