The Fastest Way to Get to Where You Want in Life

Be radically humble. Identify those people who have the right situational knowledge or experience or who sit in a position that you want to be in. To do that, you have to be one thing: radically humble.

Realize that most people love to give. Most people freely give their advice to those that value it. Most people love to share their experience, their situational knowledge. Even their relationship capital— most people love to give to those they emotionally connect with.

The reason they love to give is ego based. It’s really not a humble thing at all. They feel separate or superior when they’re giving, and in a scarce world, they feel better about themselves when they give. You can always identify humble people because not only can they give unconditionally (without expectation or trading) but they can also ask for help.

When it comes to humility, I like to talk about how the practice of humility opens your world to new skills and knowledge, key components for people who strive for great-ness in their decision making.

Take Kobe Bryant, for example. Most know him as one of the best scorers in NBA history, a champion by any definition of the word. But Bryant did not let his previous successes cloud his judgment when starting the media portion of his career.

He was humble enough to call upon others who had different skill sets and a different knowledge base, and that’s why his early forays into media, such as his Oscar Award–winning short film Dear Basketball, have been such a hit with audiences.

In an interview with Jimmy Fallon on The Tonight Show, Bryant shared the simple, humble way that he was able to attach such respected names as composer John Williams and animator Glen Keane to his project: he asked.

As Bryant told the audience, when it comes to learning any skill or gaining knowledge when you are unsure, “the best way to learn is to reach out and ask.”1 Even one of sports’ all-time greats understands that the practice of humility will help leaders avoid the traps that their egos are apt to send them into.

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