Humility is an undervalued quality in our world, but what about confident humility? It may sound like an oxymoron, but it has the potential to make the world a better place.

Welcome to the 89^th edition of The Sunday Spark, a series with weekly thoughts and highlights, nuggets of learning, and a decluttering challenge for the week. In addition to confident humility, this week’s edition looks at how Toronto is using cold water from Lake Ontario to cool and heat buildings, the economic impact of menopause in the workplace, finding out how green your bank is, and decluttering craft supplies.

On my mind this week: In praise of confident humility

Humility. It’s an undervalued quality in a world that prizes confidence over facts and truth. The problem with confidence is that it can easily turn into arrogance, especially when people have little substance to back up their confidence.

This week, I started reading Adam Grant’s book Think Again. It’s a fascinating read. I was especially interested in Chapter 2, “The Armchair Quarterback and the Imposter: Finding the Sweet Spot of Confidence”. In this chapter, Grant provides an interesting perspective on humility.

People often equate humility with weakness or low self-confidence, but Grant proposes an alternative view. He explains the Latin roots of the word humility mean “from the earth”. It’s about being grounded and recognizing we are flawed and fallible. Simply put, humility helps us to see our own weaknesses. That leads us to work harder, to question assumptions, and to be better learners.

Acknowledging our limitations

Grant concludes that the sweet spot is confident humility—having faith in our capability while acknowledging that we may not have all the answers.

Like most people, there are a lot of things I know nothing about. Like how does turning the key in the ignition start my car? What makes the sky blue? And how does the signal get from the cell phone tower to my phone? I could go on, but I think you get the point.

On the other hand, there are a bunch of things I know a little about—likely just enough to be dangerous if I fool myself into believing I know more than I actually do.

And there are a few things I know a lot about. But even in areas where I’m considered an expert, there’s always something new to learn.

The wisdom of age has taught me I don’t need to be the smartest person in the group. I just need to be smart enough to know when to stop talking and start listening. Similarly, I don’t need to pretend to have all the answers. Confident humility means asking the right questions and tapping into the knowledge, ideas, and experience of others.

Imagine what we could achieve in our world if we all acknowledged our limitations and practised confident humility!

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Three highlights of the week

It’s important to celebrate big milestones and simple pleasures in life. Keeping the trend going, here are three highlights and simple pleasures of the week gone by:

• My daughter Laura was home from BC from Friday until Wednesday, so we enjoyed some family time. The girls and I played board games. I have yet to win a single game of Catan.
• On Monday, we went out for dinner with my husband’s side of the family. Our niece was there with her 3-year-old daughter and 1-year-old twins. Christmas will be fun this year!
• On Tuesday, I went bowling and indoor mini golfing with my husband and daughters. We played one game of 5-pin bowling, one game of 10-pin bowling, and a 9-hole round of mini-golf. Bowling was a disaster. We were all equally bad at bowling but redeemed ourselves somewhat with mini-golf.

Things I learned this week

Life is all about learning. Here are three things I learned this week:

Toronto uses cold lake water to cool buildings

If you’ve ever swam in one of the Great Lakes, you know just how cold that water is! Through a deep lake water cooling system, the city of Toronto takes advantage of that water through a 40-kilometre network of underground pipes that deliver efficient cooling and heating to 40 million square feet of space in 180 buildings in the city.

The system is already the largest of its kind in the world, and it’s set to expand by 40%. Way to go Toronto!

(Source: Happy Eco News)

Menopause in the workplace

This week, I watched a webinar about the impact of menopause in the workplace. Some of the statistics are startling. One in ten Canadian women will exit the workforce each year due to disruptive symptoms of menopause. That adds up to 300,000 full-time jobs and an economic impact of $3.5 billion of lost productivity. It’s great to see this issue getting more attention these days.

How green is your bank?

As COP29 wraps up, I picked up an interesting tidbit in Katharine Hayhoe’s weekly Talking Climate newsletter. Just $1,000 invested in a bank account at a financial institution with a poor environmental track record generates the equivalent carbon emissions as a transcontinental flight every year.

How does your bank measure up? Check out Bank Green to find out. I use two different banks and learned that CIBC has a terrible track record, ranking third in the world for tar sand financing. On the other hand, Manulife Bank—and my former employer Manulife Financial Corporation—is a leader in climate responsibility.

This week’s decluttering challenge – Craft supplies

In 2024, I’ve been revisiting the 52-Week Decluttering Challenge I completed in 2021. This week’s challenge was craft supplies. It was a productive week, and I decluttered 62 items. Find the details, along with my tips and learnings, in this week’s decluttering post.

Join the challenge! Visit this post to download your free checklists and jump right in with this week’s task.

I’d love to hear what you think about any of this week’s topics. Drop me a comment below and let me know your thoughts and ideas.