“Life is a long lesson in humility,” are the wise words of James M. Barrie. I don’t know about you, but that is certainly my experience. Having said that, I would also strongly agree with Rick Pitino, who said, “Humility is the true key to success.”

I have been running and hosting the Dads4Kids Men’s Leadership Summit for the last 13 years, and yet I have never been a keynote speaker. This year was different. Nathaniel Marsh was taking over as the new CEO of Dads4Kids, and it was now time for my famous last words.

Obviously, I gave it a great deal of thought, gained from my seven decades on the planet and my propensity for making mistakes. So, in the light of my many failures as a father, I came up with what I believe is the greatest secret for success. HUMILITY.

If you want to be truly great in your life as a man, as a leader, as a husband, as a father, in employment, in business or in any endeavour, the secret for SUCCESS is HUMILITY.

Let’s start with an old song I helped write. Well, I am lying, but that is the whole point. Mac Davis wrote, “Lord, it is hard to be humble,” many years ago. Only watch the 57-second short if you are prepared to laugh at yourself.

Now that you are in a good mood, I can tell you what you don’t want to hear.

The only true path to success is found on the road to humility. In some ways, it is a journey you never quite finish this side of the Pearly Gates.

Let me give you an empirical business example of what I am saying, based on the proposition that money talks. The book ‘Good to Great’ by Jim Collins is regarded as a one of the greatest business books of modern times and was a New York times best seller for many years.

In the “Good to Great” study, 11 companies were selected, based on a specific pattern of financial performance: a transition from at least 15 years of stock returns at or below the market average, with a transition to at least 15 years of returns, that were at least three times the market average. The average return of these 11 companies was 6.9 times per annum.

In the business world, this is equivalent to raising the dead.

In Good to Great, Jim Collins found that the most successful CEOs exhibited a unique blend of personal humility and ferocious commitment to the task of leading their company and making their company successful.

Their personal humility allowed them to put the company’s needs above ego, accept responsibility, and empower others. This selfless leadership created a strong culture, with a high level of integrity, enabling lasting success and transformation from good companies into truly great ones.

Watch Jim Collins explain in this one-minute video the importance of your humility and ferocious commitment to the success of the endeavour you lead.

 

To get the full picture, you can watch my full talk on video here at the Men’s Leadership Summit about the importance of humility for success as a father and as a man.

In the lead-up to the Men’s Leadership Summit, I had a very insightful conversation with Danny Abdullah, whose session at the Summit has over 18,000 views. Even more amazingly, the Channel Seven News Spotlight feature about him, titled “Father Meets His Children’s Killer“, now has over 13 million views on YouTube.

“Warwick,” Danny said, “As a father, you must be prepared to decrease and allow your children to increase so that you will stand in their shadow.”

Danny continued without missing a breath, “It is the same for your wife. A good husband will make a way for his wife and the mother of his children to increase in influence and authority, and he himself will have to decrease. It might be humbling for him, but his family will blossom if he does. Effectively, a father is a cheerleader for his family.”

I illustrated this point at the Summit by playing a music video of Fusion Praise, which is from a recent performance of the Marsh Family Band. I like to think I am a pretty good guitarist, but I have a major problem. My son, Israel, is way better than me.

Check out my brilliant lead break from the 2:48 minute mark. Then watch on as Israel plays guitar behind his back like Jimi Hendrix used to do.  Better than I can play with my guitar at the front, much to my disgust. My ego is still very bruised.

What am I saying? You either live for the moment when your wife and children do better than you in every way, or you live for yourself and your own pride and ego and destroy your family in the process.

“Lord, It Is Hard to Be Humble” is a song we all sing at times in our lives as men, but we have to avoid it like the plague.

Lovework

Learn to laugh at yourself and embrace the lifelong lesson of humility, and as a result, help your family blossom. After all, as a great man once said, “It is more blessed to give than to receive.”

Yours for Enjoying Life-Long Lessons,
Warwick Marsh

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Image courtesy of Adobe.