The dangers of pride ⚠️

Benjamin Franklin lesson

At the early age of eighteen, and already experiencing some level of success, Benjamin Franklin had returned to Boston shortly after running away from it a couple of months before.

Having returned after getting a job and filled with pride, he immediately set out to gloat and boast about his early accomplishments to his close relatives, specially his older brother whom he particularly wanted to impress.

He took inmense pride in his pocket full of coins, his new watch and his elegant new suit which he delightfully showed to his family, all posturing by a boy who was no more than a print shop employee in downtown Philadelphia.

Upon a later meeting with Cotton Mather, one of towns most respected figures and a former adversary, Franklin illustrated how inflated his young ego had become.

While walking down the aisle, Mather admonished a ceiling beam lower than the rest, to which he shouted:

“Stooooop, Stooooop!”

Though Franklin, too caught up in his performance, pay little to no attention and walked right into it.

Mather’s response:

“Let this be a caution not always to hold your head so high. Stop young man, stop - as you go through this world - and you will miss many hard thumps.”

The dangers of pride

For thousands of years, christinas have known how dangerous pride really is.

It convinces people that they are better than they are, that they are better than God made them.

The true problem with pride it’s that it leads to arrogance and away from humility which is essential for our own growth.

Pride ultimately blunts us from our most important instrument which is paramount for our own success: our minds.

There lies our ability to learn, to adapt, to transform, to be flexible, to build relationships, and much more. All because pride distorts our perception of reality, fueled by our ego craving to feed our insatiable sense of worth.

And nobody is safe from it.

This tends to happen early on in life, or in the process, while we’re flooded with beginners conceit.

Only to realize the bump in the head was the least of our concerns.

Pride and ego say:

• I am an entrepreneur because I struck out on my own.

• I am going to win because I am currently in the lead.

• I am a writer because I published something.

And, at one time or another, we all fall prey to indulge ourselves with this gratifying label marking, even if every culture has a caution against it.

• Don’t count your chickens before they hatch

• The way to cook a rabbit is first to catch a rabbit

So, how do we avoid it?

Grounding habits

Early in his career, John D. Rockefeller had already experienced a level of success considering he:

• had a good job

• had some investments

• had savings for the future

Considering his father was a drunken swindler, this was by no means a small feat.

But even if his pride was filled and his ego hungry, throughout the years he learned he needed to control his pride or it will ultimately control him.

That’s why he adopted a habit that would allow him to ground himself and avoid boasting about his successes, even though he had indeed achieved something.

This habit consisted in a nightly conversation with himself:

“Because you have got a start, you think you are quite a merchant; look out or you will lose your head - go steady.”

The phrases varied, but the concept remained the same.

Tell himself he’s not allowed to boast. And he musn’t allow pride to control him. He’s just a man.

So here’s a framework to use whenever you feel pride:

Ask yourself…

• What am I missing tight now that a more humble person might see?

• What am I avoiding, or running from, with my bluster, franticness, and embellishments?

• It’s far better to answer these questions when the stakes are still low.