Confidence, Humility, and Curiosity

I've been fascinated recently with the writer Malcolm Gladwell. I heard him on a podcast recently talking about his father and how he saw his dad live with confidence and curiosity. His father's display of these two things looked like him being humble and never assuming he knew more than someone else on any subject. His father would be more interested in asking questions and learning than he was in protecting his image.

Malcolm said, "So that allowed him, I think, to, to kind of expose himself in this way, as, as being-- you know, he didn't have any kind of hang up. Most people, the real reason people aren't curious, I think, is not so much that they lack humility, but that they lack confidence. And they're not willing to kind of show themselves to the world as not knowing things."

This has all been rumbling around my head the last week or two. What would it look like if I lived my life in this way? How can I expose myself and be comfortable doing it?

My hope is that, at my best, I can be a person who doesn't have to self-protect and doesn't have to feel stressed by the amount of defending of myself I'm doing. There is a lot of confidence that can come from being honest about our shortcomings. As humans, we are finite and imperfect. We make mistakes, we fail, and we will do this for the length of our lives. Can we all just be more honest about that? We can't escape our humanity, but we often try to mask it and pretend like we don't miss the mark.

If I'm spending less energy hiding like I mentioned above, that frees up a lot of energy to move towards other people. I would likely feel more confident like Malcolm's father seemed to be, but confident that I'm not perfect, and that's ok. People I meet won't reveal anything about myself that I don't already know.

One of my favorite things to say in counseling when I'm sitting with clients is "Can you help me understand?" In that statement, I hope there is a genuine feeling of curiosity, of humility, and of confidence. I want it to feel like I'm interested, I'm aware that I don't know something, and I would love for you to teach me.