Bruce Springsteen - Go Humble Yourself
- Mar 19
- 2 min read
Before Bruce Springsteen was selling out stadiums, before he was a household name, before he was making millions, he was a young man getting a lesson the world needs more of.
Bruce and his group, the E Street Band, had become local stars in their small town of New Jersey. But now they stood in San Francisco, auditioning to open up for some main acts with four other bands. The first two who played paled in comparison to Bruce and his boys, so with some subtle confidence, the E Street band put on a twenty-minute performance, feeling good about themselves.
But then the fourth band took to the stage.
"After our set, the fourth band played. They were good. They were musically sophisticated, with several good vocalists and some very good songs," Bruce recalled. "They played very, very well. They got the gig. We lost out. That night, I went back to my parents' house and lay awake on my couch thinking. They were better than us, and I hadn't seen anybody, certainly anybody who was still unknown, that was better than us---better than me---in a long time."
Bruce was getting a lesson in being humbled.
"Reality check. I was good, very good, but maybe not quite as good or as exceptional as I'd gotten used to people telling me, or as I thought," he said. "Right there, in this city, there were guys who in their own right were as good or better."
There may be nothing more demoralizing than the awareness that you aren't as good as you think you are. The skills you have, the things you've built, the work you've done, it's not all that. And like Bruce, that feeling can cut to the core.
But what may be more dangerous, more harmful in the long run, is too much confidence. You may be good, but you think you're great. You may be improving, but you think you're close to mastery. That dose of overconfidence is cancerous, and there may be no greater gift to give yourself than to go out in the world and humble yourself.
If you're a writer, read the best literature.
If you're an athlete, watch the best athletes.
If you're a musician, listen to the best music.
Great work, or eventual great work, needs reminders of where they stand. Not to demoralize or diminish, but to open up and offer what is still missing; what more you can do to elevate yourself and your craft.
Make it a habit to humble yourself consistently, because when you humble yourself, what hangs over the work, over yourself, is not despair or disgust, but an invitation and opportunity to refine and evolve.
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