On Being Humbled

Vance Crowe [00:00:00] The Ag Tribes report is brought to you by Legacy Interviews, a video service that captures people as they really are, so the future knows who they really were. Here's Legacy Interviews guests, Darryl and Jill Stamp on the Joy of filming their legacy interview. What do you think you'll tell your kids about the experience? Oh, I'm gonna thank 'em a lot. I realize this is more for them and their kids and their kids than it is us, the grandkids, right? Don't know these stories. I can't wait to, for us all to get together and see it. This went better than I thought it was gonna Time does go fast, so it's, what time is it? It's almost three o'clock. No way. Yes. God, you talked so much. I know. Welcome to the Ag Tribes report, a breakdown of the top stories affecting the culture of agriculture with your host Vance. The report begins in 3, 2, 1. Let's begin. Welcome back to the podcast. I'm glad you're here. Well, I'm going to just share some thoughts today instead of doing the ag tribes report, because over the holidays I had several deeply profound experiences that all led back to the same answer. And I think that that answer is one that is worth sharing with you to get you to either think on your own experiences or for you to be able to understand the experiences of people around you.

Vance Crowe [00:01:36] People that you maybe hold in really high esteem or you're jealous of, or you've felt like, man, they don't deserve that. Or What I would do if I had that, I would be so much better off my life would be easier. And as we are in the new year, people are trying to reinvent themselves, overcome so many of the challenges that they've faced, whether they're putting on weight or they've not been delivering in the way that they know that they can. I want to offer just some added thoughts as you are figuring out who you wanna be going forward. And all of this comes down to the idea of Being Humbled. Being Humbled is one of those terrible experiences that every man must go through. Maybe women do too, but I can just speak from my own experience. In order to be a real fully transcended man, you must have been humbled at some point in your life. I know for me, there were times in my life where I had really grandiose ideas. They might have been naive or they might have just really been overconfident, maybe even arrogant. And then you collide in life with something that takes everything that you thought was certain and it crushes it. And whatever station you are at, you've been made to go lower.

Vance Crowe [00:03:08] And I, I think the best imagery here is from standing tall all the way down on your knees to maybe being knocked all the way down on your face. If you've experienced that right, you for a long time looked at other people and you thought, oh, anxiety and depression, that's for weak people, or that's for those people. Or you thought like, oh, my life is perfect or I'm, I'm on the upward trajectory. My family is so great, or my work, I'm so good at it. Look how much people respect me. Eventually you will be cut down and when you're cut down, this allows you to change in ways that are really important in order to feel the full scope of the human experience. And it opens up a channel, a door between you and all of the other people that have experienced something equally difficult no matter what the domain. I know that frequently with Legacy Interviews, I'll be preparing to do an interview with somebody that I think, oh, this person has an easy life, right? They came from money. They are a, a senior executive at a corporation. They're estate is just really large and they're so secure. And of course anyone would look at another person that is being successful and they would start to think, if I had what you had, my life would be so much easier.

Vance Crowe [00:04:45] I'd be able to do all those things that I wanted do because you have money or you have support or you had access. But in my experience, both doing Legacy Interviews and some really recent conversation I've had, I've come to understand that that's not how the world works. Not at all. You know, when you think about the different levels of friendship that a man can have, there's the core base friendship. You're a young kid or a young man and you're going through life. You're just getting started and you have somebody that is, you're contemporary, you're equal, and you end up going through things together. Maybe one of you supports the other, one fills your sails up with air, you know, gets you really going and you do the same for them. Or maybe you went through a bunch of bad things together and you came out on the other end. Those friendships are special and irreplaceable because you can't go back to your childhood when you were building these relationships. But they're not the deepest relationship that you can have. Of course, there are the friendships of the people you know at work or the people in your community you play sports with. You go to church with. Those can all be deep and profound and special and valuable, but there's even another level of friendship. And that is the level of friendship that can only be created once you and the other person have both been humbled.

Vance Crowe [00:06:23] And what do I mean by that? Well, anybody that has started to feel the very sweet taste of success, they've started to stand up tall and they've started to feel really good about whatever's going on in their life. I know for me, you start getting these grandiose ideas about these big plans that you can make and, and about all the things that you can do. And then something comes along and it knocks you down on your knees. And it's no mistake that when people are praying, when people are of certain faith, they get on their knees or maybe even lay prostrate all the way down on their face. And this is because this is the experience of getting knocked down and really humbling yourself. And I know for me, there have been these different times in my life when I saw someone else going through something and I thought, oh, come on. Like it's not that hard. What? What do you mean you have depression? What do you mean anxiety is getting you? What? Just, just, you guys gotta do it. You just gotta get over it. But the truth is, once you have been sufficiently leveled, once you have been really knocked down, all of a sudden a new door of understanding opens up and you begin to see that life is so much more complicated and so much more difficult than what you're seeing when you're feeling that level of confidence.

Vance Crowe [00:08:03] I think it's important to talk about this because maybe you are personally going through something right now. You are looking at the future and it looks like it is going to be less good than the past. Or maybe you are just suffering right now. The decisions that you made led you to a place that you thought, oh, when I'm there I'll be happy, I'll be satisfied, I'll be comfortable, I'll be confident. I'll have the relationships that I want. And then you get there and maybe you have those things, but what it cost you to get there now is something that burns and it hurts that you had to lose that. I've been talking with people for the last few years and even really recently, I've been in touch with people that were at the top of society on many different levels. Maybe they're at the top of their community, maybe they are nationally known people, maybe they are people that you look at from afar and think everything must be wonderful up there. And every single time those people end up talking about the thing that knocked them down. And actually I say this all the time with Legacy Interviews, that the best stories are not the stories where you just succeeded, where you woke up and everything was great and everything worked out. The best stories are those when you got completely leveled, when something that you thought was easy to overcome now took you down and you are suffering and horrified and ashamed of your inability to get back up.

Vance Crowe [00:09:53] But I was talking with a person just yesterday and one of the distilled pieces of wisdom that they have come up with through their life is that there is always a light at the end of the tunnel. And depression, anxiety, these words that we're using to describe incredibly complicated feelings and emotions and, and reasons for even being there, the thing that can get lost is that there is a light at the end of the tunnel. I get really annoyed with corporate America, particularly in the ag space, trying to promote like, Hey, check on your friends. And by the way, if you need any help, we're gonna, we're gonna do something for you. Call this suicide hotline. And I think the reason I get annoyed with it is, is not because that's not a good thing to do, I just think it's, I don't know, somehow pessimistic, right? You're, you're telling your clients, Hey, don't, don't kill yourself. Right? Things aren't that bad. But recently when I saw the pain in the eyes of two of my friends, totally unconnected friends, I began to think about, well, I might not want corporate America to do this.

Vance Crowe [00:11:26] Somebody should be making sure that other people know that there's a light at the end of the tunnel. And that all, every single great person I have ever known made huge mistakes, catastrophic mistakes. They had vices. Maybe they were really obvious vices, gambling or drinking or drugs, or maybe they were much, much less obvious. Maybe it was the way that they ate or the way that they interacted with people when they became scared or when they became nervous. And those vices end up pulling them down. And every single person of substance that is out there today experienced really terrible things. And once you really internalize that, once you really get it through your mind that even the great people, even the most highly esteemed people have been knocked all the way down to their knees and maybe completely flat on their face, then you can start to say, well, if they can overcome it, so can I. My friend that was telling me about their crippling anxiety and their drinking problem and some of the challenges that are going on with them, they said, I was asking, well what has been the lesson out of this?

Vance Crowe [00:13:00] And they said, there's always a light at the end of the tunnel. There is always a light no matter how dim that you need to walk towards this reminded me of actually a homily I heard a couple of weeks ago. The priest was standing up in front of the congregation and he said, many times in our lives we go to talk to God. We say our prayers and we say, God, what is the big plan? What is it that I should be doing? Where do I fit in this larger picture? What is it that I should be striving for? Who am I? These great big questions. And the priest said, when you ask God a question, he will answer you. But the challenge is that if you ask for answers to these great big questions, who am I? What is this all for? Why am I experiencing this? Oftentimes, whatever answer God gives you back, you're not able to hear. But he said, that's not actually the best way to talk to God. And in fact, maybe if you are struggling to hear God, it is that your question is too big for you to understand his answer. And instead, what you should do is humble yourself. And instead of asking about grandiose things and big pictures and vision and who am I? And all these questions that are incredibly complicated, you should just ask God, what do I need to fix next?

Vance Crowe [00:14:38] What do I need to sacrifice? What is the next tiny step that I can take? And he said, the real amazing thing is if you ask a question so simple, you will always get an answer. And when he said this, I had this like, chill go through me because he's totally right. In my experience, I spent years wandering around who am I? What, what should I be doing? What? What is, what is the great big thing? And I spent a lot of time just wandering around, you know, maybe it looked like progress, but it didn't feel like it. But anytime I have ever asked God, what do I need to be working on? What tiny thing do I need to be doing? There's always an answer. In fact, there's always an answer to such a degree that I often find myself afraid to ask that question. And that really getting down on your knees and saying, tell me truly, what should I do next? What tiny thing do I need to improve about myself is the only safe way to do it? So as the year is beginning, I hope for great things for you and for me, for all of our loved ones, for our nation, for our entire civilization.

Vance Crowe [00:16:14] But I also want to impress upon you that if you don't see a light, if you don't know or even think that great things are possible for you, then I would suggest humbling yourself. Get down on your knees, either literally or proverbially, and ask yourself, ask God, what is one thing that I should be looking at in my myself and trying to fix or improve? And there's an answer. And don't be afraid of that answer. Whatever it is. All you're trying to do is to figure out how do I get on the path? How do I take the next step so many people get caught up in, it's gonna be so hard, so long, so big of a journey, I don't want to get started. And in fact, isn't that like the hardest part about weight loss? You know, you, you, you try to get on an eating plan and, and at first you see all these great returns and things are going well and you're doing it. And then you stop losing two pounds a week to losing a quarter pound or an eighth of a pound. Or maybe you start going back up in your weight and you start thinking, what the hell, what, what's all this for? Why am I doing this? But if instead of seeking to achieve this giant goal that you have, you say, alright, that's where I think I'm headed.

Vance Crowe [00:17:47] But how do I stay on the path? What is a way to take another step forward? This has been very helpful for me to think in this way. And it is maybe the best advice, input, anything outreach that one man can do to another. I'm fortunately right now in a, in a time in my life when things are good and they are easy and I try not to be afraid of when I'm going to be humbled again, but I know it's going to happen, it's gonna happen to me and it's gonna happen to every other person of substance that's out there. And so if you have experienced these things, if you yourself have been humbled, then make sure to keep that door of understanding. Open the door that lets you know, Hey man, people go through shit and they didn't want it and they didn't expect it. And maybe, maybe they did deserve it, but maybe they didn't. And then find a way to connect with other people. Because what you will find out is people that you think are so different from you, so much better than you, their life is so much easier than you. When you finally get to that place where you've opened up your door to show your experiences, your Being Humbled and they open up their door, now you can have a level of connection that is beyond what anything a young boy can have.

Vance Crowe [00:19:19] It's so far beyond what anybody could explain. In fact, I would say it's just like parenting. You can't possibly know how hard it is to parent until it's 3:00 AM and that baby will not stop crying and you have things you have to do tomorrow when all of a sudden it dawns on you, oh man, I was so impatient with my coworkers when they couldn't get a babysitter or when they had to miss work or when they're not getting things done on time and it horrifies you. It's, at least it did for me, where you're like, oh man, I, I can't believe that I was so incapable of being empathetic. So once you have this door to your life, go and see if other people will open up the door to their Being Humbled. Go look for a chance to tell people there is a light and let's just get on the path. And just take one more step in all of this saying all of this, if you've stayed here, one of the big things that I am trying to do is to humbly ask myself, what should I be doing? And I have had the tremendous opportunity to spend a great deal of time with my children. And as I started to prepare the Ag Tribes report this week, I started to realize if I do this, if I continue to do this live show and I, and I am trying to do the news, it's gonna take me away from my work and it's gonna take me away from my kids.

Vance Crowe [00:20:55] So I don't think I'm gonna keep doing the Ag Tribes report, at least not in the way that it was before. I'm not gonna start, I'm not gonna keep doing this like news rundown that I've been doing. I'm not spending my time watching the news and whatever I have to say on ethanol policy or New World screw worm, you can find that somewhere else. Instead, I am going to find a way to have the kinds of conversations that I'm talking about where somebody will explain somebody that you respect, somebody that you think is great or has it all figured out or is a total asshole and you hate, I'm gonna try and have the kinds of conversations that show you their door to that room where they were humbled and they had to learn deep things about themselves. And hopefully in this you will hear things that matter to you, things that allow you to understand this person at a deeper way that allow you to not be so hard on yourself and allow us to make the world a better place. So I haven't exactly figured out how I'm gonna do this, but I did feel like after taking a long break from Ag Tribes report, I definitely owed it to you. I have, I cannot believe how many people listen to this show week in and week out. And I'm grateful for it.

Vance Crowe [00:22:26] And so I want you to be able to come back and get really great content. But I want it to be content that I am uniquely good at offering. So we're gonna make some changes. I'll be back to describe that more. If you are interested in improving yourself, your skills, your ability to connect with others, I am putting on a class I call interest-based communicating, where I teach about negotiations, storytelling, inter how to introduce yourself. We talk about how to have better conversations where you're listening in a level that allows you to connect much more deeply. We talk about conflict and we even have an entire session on how to get better at presenting your ideas so that other people want to hear them. If you're interested in a class like that, whether it's online or in person here in St. Louis, then go to VanceCrowe.com and click on the the interest based communications course. IBC. Alright, that's gonna do it. I will be back with with More in the new year. Thanks so much for for listening and yeah, reach out. Let me know what you think. So the conference organizer has a terrible challenge. The audience can pull out their phone and pull up anyone talking about anything. How do you find somebody that is both going to reach every single person in that audience and yet still have that spike of energy where people are electrified 'cause they're hearing about things that they aren't used to or that make them think about things in a different way?

Vance Crowe [00:24:02] The most important question that I ask a conference organizer is, what is it that you want people to feel? What emotion do you want them to have? When we leave this talk? What's their disposition? How are they gonna interact with one another? What does this prompt in the people that are there? It's not just the information. What you're giving them is energy, a reason to be there in that moment. Now they take that energy and they share it amongst each other. For me, the best speech is when people walk away being like, I now have a tangible skill. But they didn't necessarily readily accept it and they had to grapple with it. They set their phone down, they leaned forward, they said, how do I feel about this? And through that, an energy is created that is not about the speaker, it's about the person listening to the speech. It's far beyond motivation. It's actually giving people skills.