Good Morning, World!  It’s Friday!

Based on last weeks subject, I thought I would further explore another subtle (sounding) difference between the root words humble and humiliate.

Dictionary.com calls out humbling as:

to lower in condition, importance, or dignity; abase.

The same source describes humiliating as:

to cause (a person) a painful loss of pride, self-respect, or dignity; mortify.

The difference here comes down to who is taking control of the humbling process.

To humble could be considered to lower yourself.

To humiliate is to lower someone else.

There will be pain, by your hand or another person (or situation).

In the book Launching a Leadership Revolution by Chris Brady and Orrin Woodward, the author believes that Leadership requires following three basic principles: Hunger, Honeable and Honorable.  Hunger is straightforward enough and my blog short enough to not bore you with my definition.  I would make the connection that Hone-ability is the quality of making oneself vulnerable to the lessons life is ready to teach you.  Honorable represents personal integrity and describes a person who has the ability to separate right from wrong and then act accordingly. 

I believe each of these principles require the quality of humility.  You can’t be hungry if you aren’t first self-aware enough to know there is so much more to know and always more room to grow.  You can’t consider vulnerability without some form of humbling experience.  Having and treating others with honor, always taking the high road regardless of what road others take, requires a sense of humility to understand one road from another.

Proceed with confident humility.

Have a blessed (and humble) weekend!