The Colonel said, “Blowing out someone else’s candle won’t make yours shine any brighter, kiddo.”
Leaders regularly lift others up, not put others down. We have all met people who put others down to make themselves look or feel bigger and better. They gather for themselves a false sense of importance, sort of like picking up the chaff from a threshing floor, after they have knocked someone down or stomped on their hearts or dreams. Unfortunately, their satisfaction is fleeting because it’s not rooted in any foundation within themselves. Eventually, they have to find another target to belittle, and they root around the metaphorical threshing floor again and again.
Many people I’ve met who have a habit of belittling or bullying others do so because they were themselves belittled and never developed any coping skills. If you are continually fed the message that you aren’t good enough, aren’t strong enough, aren’t smart enough, aren’t rich enough, or have to be better than others to have any value, it’s normal and natural to manifest that message by being a bully. All empathy for them aside, let me be very clear. Belittling someone else does not make you any bigger or any better. It makes you appear smaller and less significant.
If you have people like that in your life, at work, or in your community, you will not be able to change them. It is, I believe, a futile waste of energy. Your energy is better spent leading by example and bolstering those who have been stepped on or put down.
Using Dad’s analogy, if I blow out someone else’s candle, mine does not get any brighter. The only result is the entire space gets dimmer and darker. My candle has to do all the work. On the other hand, if I use my candle to support or ignite someone else’s candle, mine does not diminish at all. The entire space becomes brighter, and the light is stronger for it. My candle has to do less work as it is part of a community of strong lights.
What would the world look like if we all focused on supporting and igniting just one other candle?
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