It's Time To Be

BE STRONG BUT NOT RUDE

Now here’s a real key: Learn to be strong but not rude. There’s always a thin line that you have to watch and make sure you don’t cross. Learn to be strong but not rude. Some people mistake rudeness for strength. Rudeness—we don’t need. Strength— we do need.

BE KIND BUT NOT WEAK

The challenge is to be kind but not weak. Some people mistake kindness for weakness. And it’s a great mistake. Kindness isn’t weak. Kindness is a certain unusual strength. But don’t say, “I must be weak in order to be kind.” Sometimes you have to be unusually strong to be kind. Somebody coined the expression “tough love.” And that’s love that really tells the truth. Whatever has to be said has to be said. Kind but not weak.

BE BOLD BUT NOT A BULLY

Learn to be bold but not a bully. We need to boldly seize the day, boldly seize the opportunity, boldly seize the chance. But we don’t need bullies. We don’t need anybody to push anybody around.

BE HUMBLE BUT NOT TIMID

The challenge is to be humble but not timid. Some people mistake timidity for humility. Humility is a virtue. Timidity is an illness. It can be cured. It can be managed. If you’re timid, you’ve got to work on it. I’m telling you, it’s a weakness. It’s not a virtue.

You must turn your timidity into strength. Keep working on it until finally you have driven it into such a small corner that it does not devastate your life anymore. Now you use it as a source of teaching. I used to be so shy and so timid, but I worked on it, and I worked on it, and I’ve driven it into such a small corner that it doesn’t dominate my life anymore. It’s still there, but it doesn’t dominate. That’s what’s important.

But humility is a virtue. Expand your ability to understand the vastness of it all and how small we are in relation to everything. It’s humility that causes you to get on your knees and talk to a child without any fear of how you look. Humility is to understand that we humans are unique, but in the vast space of it all, we’re all pretty small. Yes, we know, but what we don’t know is so much greater than what we do know.

BE THOUGHTFUL BUT NOT LAZY

We need to give thought, but we also need to take action. You need to dream without just being a dreamer. Head in the clouds, yes, dreaming lofty dreams, but feet on the ground.

BE PROUD BUT NOT ARROGANT

Learn to be proud but not arrogant. That’s a challenge. There’s something to be said for team pride and community pride, company pride, personal pride. But don’t cross the line to where being proud becomes arrogance. Pride we need. Arrogance we don’t.

Arrogance is usually the childish attempt to make up for lack of self-worth. The childish attempt to make up for lack of self-worth has a tendency to create arrogance. You know the worst kind of arrogance? Arrogance from ignorance. That’s the worst kind. If a guy’s smart and arrogant, we can tolerate that. But if a guy’s dumb and arrogant, that’s hard to take.

HAVE HUMOR WITHOUT FOLLY

Learn to have humor without folly. It’s okay to tell funny stories, but the key in leadership is don’t be silly. There’s a difference between being silly and having humor. That’s the challenge of leadership.