Embracing Humility to Bridge Political Divides

Duty, Contentment, and the Founders’ Moral Compass

George Washington’s insight—“The consideration that human happiness and moral duty are inseparably connected”—carries unusual resonance. In private letters, Washington confessed self-doubt: “Don’t think I’m up for this…I just don’t have the experience, the skill set for this.” Still, he accepted his duty, subordinating personal insecurity to the nation’s greater need. In this, humility was no abstract virtue. It required action.

Benjamin Franklin’s admonition, “Only a virtuous people are capable of freedom,” amplifies the point. Social liberty is sustainable only when individuals accept the discipline of moral law—a discipline that begins in humility, not pride. For Washington and Witherspoon, freedom was not license, but stewardship. Moral law precedes political law.

Andrew Bibb’s personal narrative gives this wisdom present-tense edge. After years of addiction, true change began not with endless rehearsals of failure, but a renewed focus on calling: “to be the best husband and father I could be, to be the best soldier and officer I can be. Not to be known as it, but to know deep down… that I was fulfilling the purpose that I was created for.” Therapy and support, in his experience, worked best when oriented toward telos and responsibility—not pathology or blame.

Moral Law: Roadmap, Not Cage

The episode draws on Witherspoon’s vision—moral law as a “map, not a can and a can’t.” Bibb’s illustrations give flesh to this idea. A broom’s virtue is in sweeping, a fish’s in thriving in water. Human virtue is in growing “in alignment with the objective moral law the creator has woven through the universe.” Conscience is the compass. Purpose—our telos—anchors both parenting and recovery: “There’s a deep sense of fulfillment,” Bibb notes, when his young son, unprompted, shows gratitude.

Moral alignment isn’t sameness. Each individual’s fulfillment arises from a unique mix of talent and duty. Washington’s devotion to contentment and duty, as described in surviving letters to Martha, is striking: humbly accepting hardship, resting in Providence, and modeling for others what stewardship looks like in practice.

Resisting Distraction, Restoring Community

The podcast issues a contrarian challenge to dominant digital culture. Newsome and Bibb contend that technology, especially over the last twenty years, has “exploited our human weaknesses and vices for profit…to a scale we’ve never seen before.” Loneliness, emptiness, and unstable mental health are not isolated problems. Instead, they reflect a loss of mission and humility.

Bibb speaks candidly of his own battle with digital distraction—reconfiguring his phone to prioritize virtue, not vice. He curates “reading apps front and center…following accounts that are feeding me quotes by Cicero or John Adams…setting yourself up for success in the cultivation of virtue.”

In religious community, Bibb critiques the narrow celebration of artistic gifts: “Are you good with numbers? Mechanically inclined? The church needs to care about the untapped talent within the body, beyond who can play guitar.” Genuine community, he argues, should foster individuals’ unique strengths for the greater good.

Humility as the First Step to Renewal

The eHumility app aspires to become a “digital gym” for virtue, designed from the ground up to reinforce habits of humility and well-being. Not yet realized, but aiming to be the place where technology reorients rather than ransacks attention.

For Washington, Witherspoon, and contributors to the Empowering Humility Podcast, humility “gets me out of the way and gets me ready to understand what that objective moral law looks like” (Bibb). Duty, contentment, and moral law—modeled in daily disciplines and community—are not barriers, but keys to mental, relational, and spiritual health. The recovery of these foundational virtues remains society’s most pressing work.

Rethinking Agency and Imported Solutions

The common narrative that Africa depends on imported solutions often overlooks lived realities on the ground. As Megasley observed, “the way people in the West see Africa and Africans is very different from what is actually happening… they are not really based in Africa to see what the problems are, or to have a better insight into how solutions should be brought.” From foreign aid to big tech platforms, outsiders’ unaccountable good intentions frequently backfire—diluting culture, distorting incentives, and masking deeper problems beneath surface-level fixes.

Brindon framed the challenge even more directly: “Africa is actually working at a disadvantage because whatever has worked in the Western world is trying to be pushed on the African continent.” In contrast, alternatives like Bitcoin can “offer an alternative to the extractive tendencies found in some technology and finance systems.” Here, financial agency becomes practical rather than theoretical. “Forces like free will, education, and financial empowerment,” Brindon explained, “actually produce results—not just talk.” Across the continent, locals are reshaping technology for themselves, not for distant advisors.

Humility in Practice: Learning, Failing, and Adapting

For both Brindon and Megasley, humility is less an abstract virtue than a lived discipline—one learned through failure. Megasley’s Bitcoin journey began with risk and discomfort. “I actually got scammed,” he recalled, after losing student funds in an early attempt to invest. Later, while working professionally, he was tasked with teaching Bitcoin to others. “I was given a task… to curate a Bitcoin course for my team members,” he said. “I spent a whole full month studying Bitcoin.” That struggle—marked by honest effort and accountability—forged a lasting commitment not just to understand Bitcoin, but to teach it, especially within Nigerian communities facing enormous currency inflation.

Brindon’s early experiences were similarly humbling. He began by clicking online ads to earn dollars, only to be locked out of his earnings. A winding path led him to Bitcoin, where he promptly lost a seed phrase, sent funds to a dead address, and never recovered what amounted to “about $1,000.” Reflecting on that journey, he wisely concluded, “Most people come for the money and stay for the principles and the potential.” His eventual focus on education and circular economies emerged directly from these early failures.

Both men encountered further trials—Brindon was a victim of the FTX collapse, Megasley had to navigate past the opportunism that developed around completely free educational giveaways - the poster child for counterproductive good intentions. As the podcast host Giancarlo Newsome summarized bluntly - "In life, be humble, or get humbled". Brindon, Megasley, and Giancarlo reflected on how much setbacks are often the price of admission to real, durable change.

Circular Economies and Financial Stewardship

What distinguishes African Bitcoin communities is their emphasis on tangible outcomes. Brindon described a university community in Kampala where “students could actually use Bitcoin for juice, a snack, some airtime, and perfume.”

At a nearby rural orphanage, the impact runs deeper: “More than 95 percent of our expenses are being paid in Bitcoin” Brindon mentioned. School tuition and daily necessities—real income and services are sustained by real participation, not slogans. Local suppliers and service providers adopted Bitcoin gradually, becoming partners rather than symbolic adopters or speculators.

Megasley’s work in Nigeria reflects the same hands-on philosophy. “The easiest way to learn about Bitcoin is using it,” he explained. His educational efforts focus on practical engagement—connecting learning to real-world use and work to ownership. As he put it plainly, “Bitcoin, by design, kind of teaches you discipline… you have to do some work to earn new Bitcoin.”

Lessons in Humility and Empowerment

Across these stories, humility emerges not as rhetoric but as daily practice—individual and communal. Brindon maintains perspective through running, describing it as an “everyday, challenging lifestyle” of physical fitness that mirrors the mental fitness or discipline Bitcoin demands. He defines humility as accepting that you are not the center of the world, and learning to accept a world and "systems where you realize how out of control you really are.”

For leaders and policymakers, both guests offer a quiet but pointed invitation: step back, listen, and prioritize service over control. African Bitcoin circular economies demonstrate that the alternative to extractive or imposed financial models is not chaos or exploitive, but stewardship—grounded in responsibility, local action, and mutual accountability. It is a lesson in humility and true prosperity not just for Africa, but for the world.

The Mental Model That Limits Us

Most leaders operate from a dangerous story: "I must have all the answers." This mental model, reinforced by war movies and corporate mythology, drives leaders to shut down conversations, dismiss unfamiliar ideas, and burn through team members at full afterburner. The cost? Talented people stay silent, innovation dies, and leaders exhaust themselves proving competence rather than building capability.

Here's what neuroscience teaches us: mental models are simply belief systems our brains use to remove ambiguity quickly. When a CEO earning nearly a million dollars operates from "I'm not good enough," he doesn't become humble, he becomes defensive. He condemns what he doesn't understand rather than getting curious about it. The brain scans the environment every one-fifth of a second looking for danger, with five times more neural networks devoted to threat detection than reward. This means our default setting amplifies self-protective stories, not truth.

The breakthrough comes when leaders identify their limiting narratives and choose different responses. One executive discovered his "not good enough" story came from childhood conditioning. Once aware, he stopped avoiding team members who inadvertently reinforced that narrative. He started asking, "Break this down so I can understand it." Immediately, trust increased. His team felt heard. He discovered brilliance he'd been missing because he'd been too busy defending against imagined inadequacy.

The Synthetic Crisis Stealing Our Tribes

We're experiencing an identity crisis disguised as a mental health epidemic. Twenty percent of your caloric burn powers your brain, yet we've outsourced our social connection to algorithms that manipulate our neurochemistry. The dopamine hit from scrolling feeds mimics tribal belonging, but it's synthetic. Every baseball game had an ending determined by the game itself, not us. Social media never ends. We keep consuming, feeling increasingly blunted, wondering why we're depressed.

The brain is designed to be part of a tribe for protection, participation, and prediction. We find worth through real-time interaction with people who know our names, understand our value, share authentic moments. Leaders who grasp this distinction between synthetic and authentic moments create competitive advantage. When everyone else offers sugar pills, you provide genuine nourishment. Ask questions that allow safe answers. Create space for people to discover insights themselves, because people are best convinced by things they themselves discover.

This matters because comparison is the thief of self-satisfaction. Algorithms constantly describe us as "out of the tribe," feeding us visions of what we're not rather than celebrating what we bring. Great leaders reverse this. They ask hard questions, listen long enough to truly hear answers, and help people see their actual contributions clearly.

The Humility Practice That Changes Everything

Start each morning asking yourself: What hard thing am I avoiding right now? This single question transforms leadership. Acknowledgment creates permission to act. When you identify what you're avoiding, whether it's invoicing, difficult conversations, or uncomfortable decisions, you stop merely responding to symptoms. You address root causes.

This practice extends beyond personal productivity. Walking hallways to sit with people who've you built trust with will help you make less risky major decisions.

Your decisions will have the added security of these additional perspectives.

Seeking advice doesn't signal weakness, it builds trust. Studies confirm: when you ask someone's counsel, they trust you more. If you're the smartest person in the room, you're in the wrong room.

The leaders thriving today understand that humility isn't thinking less of themselves, it's thinking of themselves less. They write down what they want their careers to accomplish, then respond to circumstances through that lens rather than reacting. They recognize the difference between reaction and response lives just inches apart in the brain, but the results spread miles apart in impact. They remember they never learned anything while talking, so they speak last and ask brilliant questions.

Building Your Humble Legacy

Your brain has remarkable plasticity, the ability to adjust to different environments. Each environment includes both external circumstances and internal narratives. Let's assess, identify, and not get stuck in limiting beliefs. You can identify the stories holding you back, understand where they originated, and choose different responses. This isn't positive thinking, it's changing what you think about.

Twenty-first century leadership advantages belong to those who master authentic presence in a synthetic world, who build real tribes while others settle for algorithmic approval, who ask themselves hard questions daily rather than avoiding uncomfortable truths. The science is clear: humility measured by listening carefully, asking genuinely curious questions, and creating psychological safety correlates with better team performance, higher trust, lower turnover, and sustainable results.

Your mission as a leader isn't knowing everything. It's finding the smartest people, putting them around you, asking what matters, and hearing what's actually said beneath the words. When you lead from your heart as well as your head, vulnerability becomes your foundation, truth becomes your guide, and legacy becomes inevitable.

Humility as the Starting Point for Flourishing

eHumility insists that humility sits at the root of human well-being. The latest podcast episode anchors its discussion here, contending that modest self-awareness—an openness to “the dumb luck of being born where we are”—is central. Such humility is not weakness, but an honest appraisal of circumstance and a readiness to value others. Curiosity arises as “a form of humility,” a respectful admission of not knowing that propels learning and evolves systems. This view directly challenges the mainstream rush toward efficiency for its own sake. The conversation underscores that real progress depends on this humility—on looking beyond self-interest, opening the door to genuine listening and communal trust.

The Contradictions of Corporatism

Modern corporatism, is less about evil intent than the slow replacement of authentic connection by impersonal, transactional dynamics. Local shops and generational artisans—hardware stores, florists, coffeehouses—embody more than just commerce. They offer space for “meaningful interaction,” a qualitative depth lost as decision-making and ownership shift to distant corporate centers. Wade Preston’s parallel to the “coffeehouses” of the Enlightenment, with their decentralized infrastructure for conversation and creativity, is more than an analogy. Lloyd’s of London, for instance, began as a coffeehouse where dialogue, risk-sharing, and face-to-face accountability led to world-changing financial innovation. Today, the triumph of supermarket chains and template retail robs Main Street of exactly this “qualitative richness.” As Preston warns, these models squeeze out creativity, resilience, and true investment in each other—outcomes that transactional churn cannot deliver.

Blockchain and the Potential for Community Capital

Rather than romanticizing the past or glorifying technology, a grounded hope for blockchain is provided. Its “open, transparent ledgers” and permissionless structure enable flexible coordination, where individuals can participate directly in forms of exchange and investment previously reserved for corporations or financial elites. Through projects like clic.capital, there is a model where “tokenized perks” and loyalty points become rails for community capital formation. Supporters don’t only act as customers—they become stewards, co-investors, and engaged members. They gain tangible benefits and may even, if platforms permit, exchange tokens for other assets or rewards.

These rails lower barriers for smaller ventures. Instead of passive loyalty cards, tokens can become dynamic tools for ongoing, mutual investment, letting supporters share in upside and participate in authentic, real-world experiences—rather than losing ground to abstract, outsourced “value creation.” The conversation notes that these approaches can allow for both experimentation and real revival of entrepreneurial beauty in local economies.

Blockchain technologies enable new systems for decentralized capitalism which can restore human flourishing, creativity, reward trust, and honor the qualitative heart of local community life that is often lost to corporatist convenience. True progress emerges from the intersection of curiosity and humility—qualities that anchor both vibrant communities and lasting technologies.

Conclusion

The eHumility vision is quietly contrarian: capitalism’s promise is not dead, but it needs renewal through humility, curiosity, and a clear-eyed skepticism toward size and centralization. Blockchain’s mature application is less about hype and more about making “meaningful human interaction” a practical force for flourishing. Flourishing systems enable coordinated creativity, reward trust, and honor the qualitative heart of community life often lost to corporatist convenience. True progress emerges from the intersection of curiosity and humility—qualities that anchor both vibrant communities and lasting technologies.

Summary: As humility and awe wane, church and society face mounting decline. Recovery requires gratitude, listening, and setting aside self-interest for authentic service, meaning, and hope.

What Happens When Awe Gets Sidelined

Church affiliation, membership, and weekly attendance have dropped dramatically in recent decades. The conversation in our recent episode of The Empowering Humility Podcast ties this decline directly to the loss of humility and awe. Church culture increasingly mirrors society’s obsession with self-adoration, busy schedules, and visible roles—calling for more greeters and parking volunteers—while quietly pushing prayer, reflection, and wonder into the background. Participants express frustration that projects rooted in humility and awe are often sidelined within their own faith communities.

Tom Ish’s experience with Creation Illustrated underscores this theme. The magazine emphasizes character-building lessons in nature, with sections on scripture, living, and creativity. Despite its depth and value, it rarely finds visible support in church environments. Tom observes that hospitals, prisons, and donor-funded programs more often welcome the publication than congregations themselves. This situation leads the hosts to challenge listeners: reconsider how much time and money goes to organizations reinforcing vice—like social media and pornography—instead of those nurturing virtue.

Monetizing virtue stands in stark contrast to how vice is monetized. The conversation points out that while many quickly invest in enterprises like Pornhub, those aiming to cultivate awe, wonder, and humility often struggle for backing. This double standard plays out in entrepreneurs’ lived experiences, resulting in well-intentioned efforts being deemed “side projects” unworthy of robust support.

Reawakening Awe Through Nature, Listening, and Gratitude

We want to argue for a return to awe and true humility through specific, deliberate practices. Tom shares a moving story: a successful doctor, devastated by her child’s cerebral palsy diagnosis, found healing not through denial, but by intentionally saying “thank you.” This simple act, as Tom explains, did not eliminate pain but restored her capacity for love and acceptance. Active gratitude, lived in real time, becomes an act of surrender—opening the heart and mind to new possibilities even in struggle.

Nature is presented as an antidote to self-obsession. Observing a bird or the cycles of a garden immediately puts human accomplishment into perspective. Bryan Hedrick emphasizes that humility entails not self-erasure, but self-care and rest, allowing us to serve more genuinely. Deep listening is highlighted: asking “tell me more” and suspending judgment pave the way for connection and transformation.

Humility Against Narcissism and the Threat of Nihilism

The episode explores the dangers of pride, power, and greed—calling these “the three dirty five-letter words.” The existence of 45,000+ denominations is raised as a sobering consequence of pride and the reluctance to yield. By questioning motives—are we serving God or the image of the institution?—we press for honest self-examination.

Confession and repentance, described as essential antidotes to narcissism, are affirmed as ongoing practices, not one-time acts. When accountability and humility fail, the door opens to nihilism—a sense that nothing matters, fed by information overload and digital fatigue. The solution: nurture awe, seek meaning, and ground life in selfless service.

Conclusion

This episode does not offer formulas, but insists that hope endures wherever humility is practiced. Gratitude, awe, service, and courage to listen provide the ballast for communities and individuals alike. Where institutions and lives are anchored in humility, meaning flourishes and renewal begins to look possible.

Humility: The Foundation Most Political Leaders Dismiss

Humility rarely features in modern narratives about leadership, yet it shapes every meaningful kind of strength. In our latest episode of The Empowering Humilty Podcast, with the Honorable Bobby Charles, who is running to be the next Governor of Maine, we discuss how humility is not about erasure of self or passivity. As highlighted from the outset, it is a precondition for courage, for intellectual honesty, and for the willingness to admit both limits and failures. Bobby, reflecting on a life rooted in rural Maine, does not deal in abstractions. His childhood centered around heating the family home with three wood stoves, splitting wood without the aid of machines, and growing food from the earth. Electric heat was absent. These were not episodes of hardship for their own sake, but formative experiences: forcing manual and mental work, reframing daily struggle as a teacher rather than a punishment.

He pinpoints the result: reverence, practicality, and openness, shaped by necessity and by faith. There was no sense of privilege or inevitability regarding success. Bobby’s education came not through pedigree but through initiative, driving to Dartmouth, listing the reasons he was worth investing in, promising, “I will not let you down. I will work hard every day with the education you give me. I will do good.” That conviction led to scholarships at Oxford, Columbia Law, and a career that traversed law, military intelligence, and federal service. Yet, Bobby is adamant: “If you work hard and have faith and keep things in perspective, the world will work out for you. No matter whether it’s what you planned… it will work.”

None of this is presented as boasting. The entire retelling is almost matter-of-fact, underlining an underlying ethic: progress is earned. Gratitude is necessary. Showing up with humility shapes who you become, far more than comfort or recognition ever could.

The Incremental Collapse and Unraveling of Maine

Bobby describes how Maine, once at the top in education for fourth and eighth graders, now sits at the very bottom: “number 50 out of 50.” Seventy percent of fourth graders are either not able to read or cannot read at their appropriate age level. Sadly, nearly as many eighth graders “can't do basic math, algebra, division, multiplication.” Bobby states that between “40 and 70 kids a month” are dying because of drug traffickers. Drug overdoses have jumped from five a few years ago to 10,000 last year. Maine’s most rapidly aging demographic, seniors, are being forced to leave their homes due to property taxes that, he states, have tripled over the past decade. The median income for young Mainers is now $200 less than the median rent. The very notion of the American dream for those living in Maine feels out of reach.

This isn’t simply the tale of a state in decline; it is an indictment of what happens when hubris is unchecked. Bobby is explicit that power divorced from humility breeds entitlement. He points out government officials’ attitudes—“they feel entitled to be reckless with your life and my life and our kids’ lives because they just decide that they’re smarter or they have power.” He draws a direct line from this complacency to irresponsible education and drug policies, financial mismanagement, and diminishing prospects for the elderly and youth alike.

Just as damaging, Bobby notes, is the refusal of those in authority to admit error. There is no sense that accountability will be demanded, even when audits reveal “$2.1 billion of contracting was sole source, non-compete contracts, essentially given to friends and family.” Leadership maintains its grasp on power, doubling the state budget without meaningful improvement in the lives of Mainers.

Prayer, Perspective, and the Limits of Power

At the heart of Bobby’s story is the insistence that humility is not a one-time act, but a discipline. Repeatedly, he credits his mother for teaching him and his siblings the centrality of prayer, not as superstition, but as an act of reflection, surrender, and readiness to adapt. During military service, intelligence work, and moments of great risk, even on September 11, when fate removed him from harm’s way by mere timing—he describes his life as guided by gratitude and awareness.

He expands on the habit of “praying without ceasing.” This does not mean publicly praying or grandstanding, but living with the quiet awareness that control is ultimately an illusion, and that the real work is found in stewardship, in listening, and in remaining teachable. A life lived with humility remains constantly open to the truth that “our blessings… do not come from us.”

He's frank: societies that forget their source of good fortune, and that separate freedom from responsibility, will come undone. He references a republic’s need for a moral compass, echoing the warning that these institutions were “designed for a moral people. If we should ever lose that compass as a people, you will lose your republic.”

Nothing Changes Until Humility Returns

The problem with unchecked hubris is that it keeps people blaming, excusing, and sidestepping, instead of stepping forward to take ownership. Bobby presses for personal and collective responsibility, and the willingness to challenge easy narratives, “are we caught up in our own biases? How truly humble am I?” He pushes listeners to recognize that public crises: falling education, corruption, addiction, are not someone else’s mess to clean up. “This is our problem.”

He speaks as someone who did not want to run for governor but felt “no one else is stepping up with the qualifications to do it. I will step up, I will do it, and I will fix the state, and when I’m done, I’ll come back to my little house. I’m not rich. I’ll hand over the mantle and come back to my little house.”

The prescription is simple but hard for our human nature. There is no shortcut: personal humility, active listening, gratitude for undeserved blessings, and courage to act must return to be the norm in public and private life. Political leaders especially must model these behaviors openly, not for applause, but because integrity and the renewal of human flourishing depend on them. Quoting Washington’s prayer at Valley Forge and the quiet service of WWII veterans, Bobby frames humility not as a moral platitude, but as the only path by which communities recover when pride and denial have led their ruin.

Conclusion

Falling behind is easy. Blaming others is easier still. But the tragic state of Maine, as recounted through the lens of lived experience, warns that only humility, in practice, not in theory, can reverse such decline. Humility demands uncomfortable self-scrutiny and the day-to-day labor of small repairs. The message lands: progress, human flourishing, and even survival belong to those who accept that they do not have all the answers, and who are ready to carry the weight for others. At this turning point, Maine’s tragic story speaks beyond its borders, urging a return to the discipline and hope found in humility—humility that restores responsibility to America's founding freedoms and renews the path to human flourishing it once promised.

Is Bobby the kind of humble leader politics needs? Help Bobby at BobbyforMaine.com.

Disclaimer: The views shared by the host of The Empowering Humility Podcast are his own—passionate, yes, but never pushy. That would go against everything we stand for! At Empowering Humility, we welcome different perspectives and even good ol’ disagreement. So feel free to share your thoughts—just keep it respectful (and humble), of course!