What if I told you Michael Jordan was the greatest basketball player of all time because he was the most humble?

You might be thinking, “What are you talking about Jeff, Jordan was cocky as hell.”

And you’re right. Jordan was cocky. There’s a ton of videos online of him trash talking other players and being arrogant.

But there are two different types of humility and arrogance. Once you understand this, it’s going to amaze you.

Most people are outwardly humble. Meaning they admit to not knowing everything and they express that to others.

But most people are also inwardly cocky. So despite not knowing, they still refuse to learn and listen.

So here’s a secret to success…

Being inwardly humble is a HUGE predictor of success.

To be inwardly humble, you must be a good listener and implementer.

Let’s look at Michael Jordan. His college coach Dean Smith said “Michael was the most coachable player he’s ever coached.”

Michael even took advice from bench players who didn’t play as much. And he executed and improved.

This is the greatest basketball player of all time we’re talking about. Is it coincidence that he is also the most coachable player?

See, Michael Jordan was inwardly humble. He knew how to listen and follow advice.

And humility isn’t about expression, it’s about your actions. I’ll get into that later.

But let’s talk about one of the greatest businessmen in history, Sam Walton – the founder of Wal-Mart.

If you haven’t yet, I suggest you read his book Made in America. It’s a book that Jeff Bezos makes mandatory to everyone on Amazon’s executive board.

But in the book you’ll see how despite being a billionaire – Sam Walton was extremely inwardly humble.

I want you to read it yourself, but I’ll quickly talk about a story mentioned in the book.

So Sam Walton got thrown in a Brazilian jail for a day.

And if you know about the crime in Brazil, it’s not a safe place for a billionaire.

But why he got arrested in the first place is the most amazing part…

…because he was on his hands and knees measuring the aisles of local Brazilian stores.

The Brazilian police thought he was an insane American and threw him into jail.

Even though Walton built the largest discount retailer in the world…he still assumed the Brazilians knew something he didn’t.

Let me remind you, this is a man with a net worth of over $160 billion dollars. Crawling on the dirty floors of stores with a measuring tape out.

Most business owners with six figure businesses wouldn’t go that far to study their competitors.

And they wonder why they can’t get past six figures.

But what I want you to understand is that…

Humility is built through action.

Are you willing to go through great extents to learn what you don’t know?

Are you willing to learn from everyone?

I want you to develop a “Robin Hood mentality”.

Meaning, I want you to assume you can learn from most people. I want you to imagine everyone else has a gold nugget of knowledge.

And I want you to take that piece of knowledge for yourself. It could be the information you need that changes everything.

This can be done by applying the law of 33%. I’ll tell you more about that another time.

But from this day forward, I want you to develop the humility of Michael Jordan and Sam Walton.

You can do this by obsessing over self-education. Things like…

  • Tracking down mentors to meet
  • Reading books
  • Listening to audiobooks
  • Going to seminars

In fact, I want you to calculate your humility score. On a scale of 1-10, give yourself a score on the following:

  • Reading
  • Finding mentors
  • Studying competitors
  • Spending money on self-education

Then I want you add those scores up and divide it by 4. That number will be your humility score.

This will give you a sense of where you need to improve.

And the more you improve this score, the better your life will be.

Trust me, my score use to be a 4. And during that period, I was having a rough time in life.

But when I raised that score to a 7…my life dramatically changed.

Being inwardly humble, that’s what you must aim for.

Talk is cheap, it’s all about action and results.

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