How to Become Known as a Person Who is Humble and Hungry

Being humble and hungry are two qualities found in great leaders and exceptional team players. People who stay humble and hungry get opportunities. When you get opportunities you grow and with growth comes further opportunities. Ultimately you get more experience, more pay, more responsibility, more knowledge, etc. Yet it all starts by living your life in the balance of being humble and hungry. So, let's talk about how to develop these qualities.

Being Humble

Be open to coaching

Humble people recognize great leaders are built with help and coaching from other great leaders. The greatest players in just about any sport you can name became great at their craft through coaching. Great leaders crave coaching. They are honest about their weaknesses and work diligently to shore up their weaknesses through continual feedback. It is nearly impossible to reach greatness in life and leadership without submitting in humility to coaching and feedback from other people.

Be Willing to Ask for Help

Being humble starts with understanding that we all have blind spots. It's admitting that we don't know it all and we are prone to make mistakes. All of us are a work in progress. It means being humble enough to know we don't have it all figured out. Humble people are not afraid to ask questions or ask for help.

Be Vulnerable With Other People

Vulnerability is said by many to be a superpower. Many of us have doubts, fears, and insecurities about our abilities. Humble people are open and vulnerable about those insecurities and it builds tremendous relationship and trust among individuals and teams. 

Being Hungry

Take Initiative

People who are hungry to prove themselves take initiative. They are the first to volunteer for the task, project, team, or job. Those with initiative don't wait to be asked to handle the obvious tasks. They are proactive in working through tasks and issues and trying to solve problems for themselves without getting others involved. Hungry people take pride and ownership in whatever job they have been given and have no issues taking the blame if things are not done well or mistakes are made. 

Don't Settle for Mediocrity

Settling for mediocrity is not the trait of hungry people. They strive to do all things well. People who are hungry and take initiative are not afraid of mistakes and failure. They learn from the mistakes and failures of the past and make sure not to make the same mistake twice. Hungry people stay in pursuit of knowledge and are continually trying to hone their craft. A job is done right or it's not done at all. 

Conclusion

You must be equal amounts humble and hungry to keep life in balance. If you sway too far either side of the center you are going to have problems. If you are hungry and not humble, you will bulldoze people and eventually your circle of friends will begin to shrink. If you are too humble (if there is such a thing) and not hungry, people will take advantage of you and your self-worth is potentially skewed. You will follow more than you lead. Anything in life not kept in balance can be come a deficiency or an extreme. Humble and hungry are no different.

All of this can be applied spiritually too. We need to be humble enough to allow God to use us and recognize that we need God and that we are gifted a certain way to bring glory to Him. We also need to be hungry enough to continue to pursue God daily and grow in our relationship with him. We need to seek opportunities to serve him and please him and grow his kingdom whenever possible. Humble and hungry....this is the balance.