Confidence without Humility tends to Arrogance. Humility without Confidence tends to Humiliation. In your case ? turn up the humility a notch or two. Good Luck
Ask HN: How do I become less arrogant?
11–20 of 29 posts
Re: Ask HN: How do I become less arrogant?
#12Good for you for realizing it! Seriously, that is more than many people ever do.
I've struggled with similar issues, and my impression is that arrogance primarily comes from two misjudgments: thinking too highly of myself, or too little of others. The first was reduced as I realized that I too can and do make mistakes. The second gave way the more I learnt to appreciate and value the people I interact with.
I believe that this second aspect is key. Arrogance is offensive because it belittles others. Humility respects and appreciates the other person. Arrogance thinks my knowledge/skills/wealth makes me better than others. Humility sees the good in the other person, their skills and character traits (that may be very different from mine), and values them for it.
Being humble doesn't mean denying what you're good at, that's false humility. It means appreciating people for who they are and what they're good at, and then treating them accordingly.
Re: Ask HN: How do I become less arrogant?
#13Arrogance has a place and time. I enjoy running, so on race day when you need to summon all your strength being arrogant is useful. But it's usually harmful during training where you need to take it easy and listen to your body. I go to run meets where there are much faster people than me and I struggle to keep up, that is very humbling and keeps my ego in check. Also, going to races and seeing how much better traine…
I think you're missing the point of what arrogance is. Arrogance is not the same as being right and saying so. Arrogance is thinking you're right (whether you are or not is irrelevant), and saying so in a way that demeans others.
Most people don't take offense just because you're smarter than them. But almost everybody takes offense if you behave as if you're better than them, just because you're smarter.
Again, being humble doesn't mean having a bad opinion of yourself, it means having a high opinion of others. It has nothing to do with not saying what you believe to be right just to avoid a confrontation. It has everything to do with respecting the other person and showing them that you do; it means listening to and engaging with them instead of steamrollering them with your "right" solution.
(Who knows, your "right" solution may still profit from their input... Regardless, at the end of the day, you are not only more likely to have a better solution, you will have also have invested into good relationships - and that is worth a lot more.)
Re: Ask HN: How do I become less arrogant?
#14What are some actions you qualify as arrogant?
Providing a bit of detail could be helpful in devising a strategy fit for your particular flavor.
Re: Ask HN: How do I become less arrogant?
#15Good for you for realizing it! Seriously, that is more than many people ever do. I've struggled with similar issues, and my impression is that arrogance primarily comes from two misjudgments: thinking too highly of myself, or too little of others. The first was reduced as I realized that I too can and do make mistakes. The second gave way the more I learnt to appreciate and value the people I interact with. I believe…
This is good advice, but paradoxically, outward arrogance can also be caused by thinking TOO LITTLE OF ONESELF, so another remedy can be developing confidence in oneself without needing to belittle others.
Re: Ask HN: How do I become less arrogant?
#16When I was a child, I read about Gauss, Abel, and a bunch of people who were good. It killed my braggadocio in the egg.
When I did Judo, I've always sought to fight the best ones (bigger, aggressive, technical). In football too, I always went for the best technical players who can humiliate anyone. The price to pay was to have people laugh when you're thrown in the air.
In my experience, arrogance can come from truly being great at something, but I mostly witnessed it in people who were lacking and trying to protect their ego. The usual advice is to let go of the ego, but maybe instead of "killing your ego", you can "redirect it". Instead of trying to protect your image of competence, you can wire your ego and feed it on the idea that you're diligent. If you tie your ego to the idea you're diligent, you will try to stick to that image of a diligent person.
A diligent person seeks people with different angles to a topic to know everything there is to know about it. You trick yourself into the pursuit of a truth, instead of making it a conflict between two persons.
Arrogance also manifests itself in sarcasm. In a technical dialogue, an arrogant person will often use sarcasm. This is lame. One way to limit this is to think about what you're about to say really hard and weight the amount of information it contains. Is it a snarky remark about how Windows sucks? Is it something you're repeating after reading a blog post? Do you really master what you're talking about? Are you pissing on a language quirk or bottleneck you haven't even reached? Is that really a technically sound argument? How much do I know about this?
One way that helps is to imagine you're not having the argument with the person you're having it with, but the world's most renowned expert on the subject who forgot more about pretty much any topic than you'll probably know. Chances are you won't present the same arguments because you know they are weak and you know that because you know you don't know as much as you think (hopefully). This also helps avoid being a douche and a bully (would I act the same way with a guy who can break me in half? If not, I'm probably being gratuitously disrespectful). Would I act this way with someone who knows more than me? This question will shift the attitude and make it the same: one of curiosity, one of a seeker. It will allow learning and teaching at the same time, with the same ease.
Re: Ask HN: How do I become less arrogant?
#17I was one of the top students of my graduating high school class. I turned down a spiffy scholarship and the opportunity to attend one of the top two unis in my home state.
I did so in part because teachers always held me up as proof that they were excellent teachers and other students could do as well as me if they just tried when there was zero basis for this idea. They were claiming credit for something they didn't do while making me a target of hatred by all the other students.
I'm a social creature and I had no real friends and classmates treated me terribly. My arrogance was the only defence I had in an abusive social setting.
For me, the antidote is an environment of mutual respect where the strengths of individuals are valued and no one is treated badly. Unfortunately, I can only fully achieve this at home. However, even reducing the level of toxic BS elsewhere helps.
Best.
Re: Ask HN: How do I become less arrogant?
#18Good for you for realizing it! Seriously, that is more than many people ever do. I've struggled with similar issues, and my impression is that arrogance primarily comes from two misjudgments: thinking too highly of myself, or too little of others. The first was reduced as I realized that I too can and do make mistakes. The second gave way the more I learnt to appreciate and value the people I interact with. I believe…
This is good advice, but paradoxically, outward arrogance can also be caused by thinking TOO LITTLE OF ONESELF, so another remedy can be developing confidence in oneself without needing to belittle others.
+1. Some people act arrogant and feel like they know it all because they may have insecurity (in my local community: being out of job, failed startup, problems at home, etc). I recently met a couple of folks who were very content with themselves and very humble yet extremely smart. I almost forgot how much people like this can inspire me, discussions with them are very constructive and you feel really good after a conversation.
Be content with yourself. If you're the person with the most knowledge and technical expertise then great, but be humble about other skills that you may not have and that you can still learn from others: teaching, inspiring, helping, making people feel that they're being listened to without being condescending.
Re: Ask HN: How do I become less arrogant?
#19Pardon my being a contrarian, but consider if it were Steve Jobs or Larry Ellison or Thomas Edison asking this question.
Societal progress sometimes benefits from arrogance. Perhaps it even depends on it on rare occasions.
Maybe you should consider owning and leveraging the arrogance you have by focusing on an entrepreneurial career track, where you can get people to put up with the arrogance.
Re: Ask HN: How do I become less arrogant?
#20Pardon my being a contrarian, but consider if it were Steve Jobs or Larry Ellison or Thomas Edison asking this question. Societal progress sometimes benefits from arrogance. Perhaps it even depends on it on rare occasions. Maybe you should consider owning and leveraging the arrogance you have by focusing on an entrepreneurial career track, where you can get people to put up with the arrogance.
I don't believe the arrogance, per se, of any of these individuals benefited societal progress. In the case of Thomas Edison, his arrogance arguably held societal progress back.