What if it's NOT about being better than all the people around us? What if being better for all the people around us is much more important and more effective?
What if taking a more humble path could be a more rewarding---and palatable---way of reaching your goals?
The (Humble) Path Less Taken
It's too easy to feel pushed by peers and competition to be ever better and faster than the people around us and carry only dogged determination to get the job done. All of this comes with a healthy dose of egotism and arrogance---even though it is often contrived and even more often corrosive.
In his INBOUND: Bold Talk, Rick Turoczy offers 3 ways humility can actually make your work more powerful: Listen like you're listening, and not only waiting for your turn to speak. Consider the most humble elements of your product. Be ready and willing to admit you might be wrong.
Rick Turoczy (@turoczy) has been working in marketing communications roles for startups in Portland, Oregon, for nearly 20 years. As founder and editor of Silicon Florist, he has blogged about the Portland startup scene for more than six years---even though numerous people have begged him to stop. He currently runs PIE, an early stage startup accelerator he cofounded in collaboration with Wieden+Kennedy, the largest privately held advertising and communications agency in the world; and curates programming for TechFestNW, a tech festival he cofounded in collaboration with MusicFestNW, one of the largest independent music festivals in the US.
Rick's Slides:
Sketch Notes:
Graphic recording by Kingman Ink.
Rick Turoczy is Cofounder, PIE and Founder, Silicon Florist. You can follow him on Twitter at @Turoczy.
INBOUND 2013, attended by over 5,500 inbound marketers, entrepreneurs, and executives, included an INBOUND: Bold Talks experimental storytelling stage. We will publish each talk right here in the Opinion section until all 36 are online.
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Originally published Feb 4, 2014 8:00:00 AM, updated January 18 2023