Humbled

Too often, I get called out for being totally full of myself. It’s absolutely true. I will walk into a room and immediately announce that I am in fact better than you. But the thing is that when I do that, I am usually dedicated to proving it at any chance that I can get. It’s the competitive drive that does actually force me to improve my skills. The interesting thing is that I was never this competitive of a person. I think what started it really was the fact that I discovered the things that I’m good at, and the sense of trusting in my own skills was fostered by my peers. Granted, the peers that fostered that notion probably pushed it too far, and that’s where you get that my current mindset.

I’ve come to realize though that I really need to start toning it down. I might be a bit bold to think of myself as someone who belongs in a leadership position, kind of an odd catch 22 you might say, but a leader must really be incredibly humble and foster that sense of pride in other people. Confidence is a major factor in one’s ability. You need skills and you need to develop those skills, but without confidence, I’ve seen that people can just sit back and say, “I can’t do it, so why bother?” That’s a horrible way to look at anything. Another factor in this is obviously passion. If you have no passion, then you can never answer the question, “Why bother?” Let’s assume that a person is passionate about something though. Then the next step is to never underestimate your own abilities and keep trying until it finally clicks.

All of our brains are made totally differently, so it might take a little bit of extra effort in some areas but other areas will come easier once your brain gets accustomed to that way of thinking. My brain has really easy paths for thinking of big systems in simple terms and solving architectural problems in simple yet elegant ways. When it comes to physics though, I could never and will never be able to understand torque. If I ever had a passion for physics, I would attack that problem until it died, but I don’t, so I’ll leave that area to the people who do it well, but that doesn’t mean I should give up on games or even give on physics. I just know it’ll be more difficult to do if I ever had to do it, but I’m never afraid of needing to force myself to learn something new.

This has been a weird post but there are lessons to take away from this. There’s nothing wrong with being a little confident and competitive. However, there comes a point when you have to now transpose your confidence onto someone else and take a step back. You actually have to start doing this before you think you need to, so that the people around you are willing to follow your leadership. You can’t ever ignore the need for passion but on top of passion you have to be dedicated, or you may actually even lose the passion you had. It’s odd but they are different things. Finally, even if you are faced with adversity, you must prevail and eat whatever comes at you. Doing this will force you to be better and help you with everything