EP206: Does Pride REALLY Come Before Destruction with PJ Accetturo

Dive into this episode for an exploration of personal and professional growth, discovering how embracing humility can instigate meaningful and transformative change. Don't miss the chance to be part of the conversation and embark on a journey of empowerment and humility with PJ Accetturo!

Key Takeaways To Listen For

• Powerful role of professional will and humility in success
• Why you need to prioritize humility and strategic planning in business
• The value of seeking help and asking questions early
• Reasons to cultivate team strength and confident leadership
• How to let go of imposed standards and embrace understanding

About PJ Accetturo 

PJ is the visionary architect of the entertainment company Battle Island. His upcoming anime, "Ghosts of Ruin," highlights his skill in uniting Oscar and Emmy-nominated talent for an exploration of a dystopian future tied to video game evolution.

PJ works as a director and marketing leader at Diamond View Studios and Threshold 360. He is also celebrated for earning the prestigious Your Shot Award from National Geographic and achieving a remarkable milestone of 1 million subscribers on his YouTube channel in six months.

Connect with PJ 

• Website: Battle Island
• LinkedIn: PJ Accetturo
• Instagram: @pjacefilms

Connect With Us
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Transcript

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[00:00:00] Dr. Nate Salah
Hello, my friend and welcome to this episode of A Call to Leadership. I'm Dr. Nate Salah, your host. I'm so glad you are here. Well on this series we're talking about this attitude of leadership that revolves around the care we take of our individual followers and care we take for ourselves. Really, the attitude of love. And we're looking at different attributes, different characteristics of leaders who love patience, kindness, things we should not engage in, envy, boasting, pride, self-seeking, easily angered ness, if it's a word, and so on, and we're really just approaching this from the perspective of a leader who's secure in themselves and who's able to find ways to engage the very best out of ourselves, out of those We're called to serve alongside of our followers.

[00:00:53]
 And as we continue on this journey, we're on the fifth characteristic, the fifth principle, the fifth virtue of this idea of loving leadership. And that is the idea. of pride. Love is not proud. And so unpacking this, I'm going to invite here just in a few moments, PJ, to come on the show. I've pre-recorded a conversation around this topic with my dear friend and sometimes co-host on this show to really break down this idea of pride in business, family, and life in ways that it can be so destructive. In the journey of leadership, it's been said that haughtiness and pride are related. And one comes before destruction, pride and haughtiness before the fall. And so, why is pride destructive? Why does it hurt relationships? How does it hurt families? How does it hurt me and my life? And I think to understand that, we need to first identify, what is a negative sense of pride.

[00:01:57]
 It's this, it's when you see someone and you know this either in your own life, that you've experienced, you've seen them on the television or in the media, or perhaps you've experienced this yourself, it's foolishness, it's irrationality, it's this corrupt sense of one's personal value. One's status, your accomplishments, you know, when we say pride, we're often associating with this term hubris, you know, and at first, pride may appear to be an admirable trait, you know, when we see it at first glance, however, it can be detrimental, the effects in family and life, there's negative impacts that we need to shed light on, because this is really a corrupt kind of pride, it can hinder our growth, It could damage our relationships and it can keep us from finding really a sense of true fulfillment.

[00:02:48]
 Think about business. Think about when we have excessive pride in the business world. We could have this distortion of our own capabilities. Have you ever been working with or for someone who has this distorted sense of their own capabilities and their own distorted sense of worth? What happens? Blindness. I mean, I've seen this where people become blind to flaws, and then there's arrogance. It's a disregard for the input of other people. And then what happens? Well, then vulnerability comes in because people can be then vulnerable to mistakes. They become vulnerable to oversight. And they jeopardize everything, their career, their business. Even more so, it drives a self-centered focus on personal gain. We undercut the value of collaboration, of teamwork, and we know that's essential to sustain success. And in a family environment, It's just as bad because relationships can be fractured, discord happens, when pride takes hold, individuals will prioritize their own achievements and their own status above fostering healthy connections with the people who we love.

[00:03:53]
 Have you ever been in a situation to where perhaps you've shared an accomplishment, something that you worked hard for? And You just simply shared it, not from an attitude of, I've got this pride that's driving me, but is that you wanted to simply celebrate and it gets dismissed. What happens when someone just dismisses your accomplishments? Well, what happens? Sometimes we can then feel resentment. Instead of nurturing support for one another and understanding in a family unit, misguided pride becomes cancerous. And as I spoke about a couple episodes ago, envy. Constant need for validation. It goes on and on. It pervades. When we have pride, it pervades the whole life. And it's not that we want to be lowly and miserable and have false humility. But we want to foster genuine connection. We want to cast off that constant pursuit of recognition and constant pursuit of validation. Because it inhibits our focus on our ability to work together. to be empathetic, to be compassionate, to engage, to have appreciation of the richness of our relationships, of the richness of our lives.

[00:05:02]
 So we want to break down this barrier between ourselves and the development of ourselves and others really to find true. meaningful joy. So let's pick up with PJ and have a conversation around ways that this manifests itself in our journeys and ways that we can overcome it together. Let me just define pride. So there's different kinds of pride. There's the kind of pride that sense of pleasure or satisfaction. When you have, you know, your achievements, you know, the team was bursting with pride after their victory. That's a definition. That's the kind of pride where you're like, okay, yeah, that's cool, you know, celebrate and all that. But the negative kind of pride, I think this is where the scripture is coming in, this is just an online definition I like, that refers to a foolishly and irrational, corrupt sense of one's personal value, status, or accomplishments, used synonymously with hubris in a lot of ways, right? So that's where we can get into trouble. With this foolish, irrational, and I like the word corrupt sense of one's personal value status or accomplishments. Right. But that finds its way into everyday life.

[00:06:03] PJ Acceturro
Yeah. Here's what's hard for entrepreneurs. I think is there is some level of pride. Maybe that's the right word. Maybe not. That is necessary for entrepreneurship in the sense of a self-belief in your ability to succeed when others fail. So the question is how do you balance that aspect of self-belief even in the midst of hardship that tons of other companies, what is it like 97 percent of all startups fail. There is some manner of like self-confidence that can be looked at as pride, but How do you not let it drift too far into hubris, which allows a titanic situation where you don't mitigate for your weaknesses or you don't view that that's going to be a liability, right?

[00:06:48] Dr. Nate Salah
Yeah, there's this sort of cusp of okay. We did. We had a great. Quarter, whatever, or we knocked it out of the park with this great team, you know, and I think there's a place certainly, especially in the entrepreneurial context of, hey, just take a step back and enjoy the victory because it is a difficult road. However, when that turns into an attitude of arrogance, when that turns into an attitude of self-serving destructive force in my journey as a business leader, as an entrepreneur, I think that. That's where we can run into a lot of trouble, especially even on our culture, our company culture. I don't know that there's a distinction between when you walk into that space of arrogance, you know, you're walking into a space of conceit, you're walking into a space of superiority. And here's the thing about 1985. 

[00:07:41] PJ Acceturro
Yeah, four years before I was born.

[00:07:42] Dr. Nate Salah
Okay, you wouldn't remember that. 1985, the Chicago Bears were playing the Super Bowl, and they were a force that year. They were so assured that they were going to win the Super Bowl, they made a music video. You know the Super Bowl Shuffle. How many sports teams will make a music video before a championship game? It's true. It's true. Massive amounts of hubris, right? I mean, that's like the epitome of hubris. Now, they did win. Everybody was kind of like, Oh, that's pretty amazing now. And so, what if they would have lost? What if they would not have won that game?

[00:08:20] 
Um, massive amounts of shame, right? Would have probably followed them. And, you know, that's just one example of. Okay, you're taking a big risk number one by putting it out there and honestly, I think in the grand scheme, though I don't think it's very attractive. It was cool. It was fun, but I think if we look at it from the perspective of entrepreneurship leadership in our families leadership in our communities I think it's an extremely unattractive quality In fact, I think that humility the antidote really to this kind of pride is one of the most attractive qualities that we can exhibit while remaining steadfast in our journey to work with the highest level of professional will, and that's why I like Jim Collins is definition that he proposes for what he calls a level five leader, and he says the level five leader in this combination of professional will, which is, you know, massive amounts of resolve.

[00:09:14]
 With massive amounts of not surrendering. That's right. As well as, on the other side, with massive amounts of personal humility. So professional will plus personal humility, he believes, makes the level 5 leader. And this is, some of his research has determined. And I like that. I like that in relationship to looking at pride. So you can have massive amounts of professional will. Look guys, while we can breathe, we're not out of this game. We're going to fight to win. At the same time, we don't have all the answers. We're going to search. We're going to seek. We're not going to make assumptions. We're not going to pretend that the future has already been written. I love the way Jeff Bezos puts this. Now, I don't know if you've ever watched any of his videos on Amazon and whatnot, but he makes some interesting comments. He said, one day, Amazon will die. Now, someone might be listening to this episode. A hundred years in the future and I'm like, dude, did you know he was going to say that?

[00:10:07]
 Right? Actually, Amazon is dead, right? Who knows? But the point is, is that he said we'll be disrupted. Think about that. At the time, he said that he was the richest man on the planet, the richest person on the planet to say that your company one day. Won't exist because someone will come up with something that is revolutionary. I don't even say better because when we say disruptive, what I like to use the terminology is going back to the old way is unthinkable. That's really a true disruption. None of us are going back to dial up. Right? Internet. Because this conversation would be choppy with dial up. So, how attractive is that to you when you hear an entrepreneurial leader at that level state that, yet still, at the same time, remain steadfast in, but here's the thing we're doing with Amazon. We know our customers will never want any of our products that are slower or more expensive. They always want faster and cheaper and we will drive the needle to bring that to our client, customer's door. without hesitation, without any compromise. Yeah, it's true.

[00:11:06] PJ Acceturro
And I think that's what gives them the edge to stay relevant in an age where they really can be disrupted. Yesterday I ordered something on Amazon. They're like, Hey, it's obviously free. They'll get there. And I think a day now it's not even two days anymore at the prime, but if you want to hear at 3 PM, you just have to pay two extra bucks. It's like, dang. I don't know if I'll ever go to a store again. It takes me less time.

[00:11:28] Dr. Nate Salah
It wrecks you, man. It wrecks you. The first time I got wrecked was when I was trying to get You'll get a kick out of this. I was trying to get the tops for your electric toothbrush, whatever they're called. And I kept driving by Walgreens, I'm like Man, I gotta get my Walgreens. Walgreens. Walgreens. And then, I was literally brushing my teeth in the bathroom, and I had my phone out, and I pressed the Amazon button, and like, it was there the next day, and I'm like, ugh, I'm done. And it was cheaper, right? It was more convenient. 

[00:11:53] PJ Acceturro
I think it's really important, that humility, I mean, I'll tell you this. I think I was a bit arrogant over the course of this year with my business in this sense that there's always a fine line with entrepreneurs with saving money versus making more money, right? You can't save your way to 1, 000, 000. You can only earn your way to 1,000,000. But accounting is two sides of a coin with sales. You cannot neglect one for the other. And I think we took Maybe a little too many risks than we needed to on the sort of visionary leadership side of green light it, you know, in our case, we have a TV show. So it's a comic books and video games. And I stand by those investments. But I think I was arrogant enough to say, Hey, instead of. Raising contingency funds because we were basically planning on, okay, our investor told us they would invest in, let's just say October. We know it'll be there, but instead I didn't plan for backups. And now it's January and it's put us in a pretty big pickle because I was honestly just arrogant to where I believed that it would come through. There would be no hiccups. And now I'm scrambling twice as hard to have contingencies and backup investors come into play. And if I hadn't been as arrogant, and if I had just said, it's great, I'm sure it's coming in October investors, but I'm going to internally line up other options. I think it's our responsibility as leaders. Maybe paranoid is not the right term, but discerning of all eventualities, not because we're pessimists. Maybe that's kind of another term. It's like optimist versus pessimist, but still planning for the pessimist reality, right? 

[00:13:26] Dr. Nate Salah
I know, right? Yeah. I mean that old saying, right? Hope for the best plan for the worst, is apt in terms of optimism is essential in vision casting and leadership. However, planning for whatever can go wrong to go wrong is also important in leadership. I think, I haven't always lived that way. I think that's a piece of not moving out of pride. This is going to be smooth. We got this. We're the best. What could possibly go wrong? Look, as you begin to say that, my stress levels start to rise. I'm like, oh my goodness, everything's gonna go wrong, right? But the opposite of that, the walking in humility is saying, look guys, we're gonna give our best. However, there's a number of things that could happen here. So let's go ahead and plan. Let's go ahead and consider what the blind spots are, what the roadblocks might be. And I think that's important, not only in our own journey as individuals, but even in our businesses and involving people in that journey, especially in the accounting and advisory world. You know, we deal with massive amounts of very sensitive data.

[00:14:25] 
I'm always like, what's the very worst thing that can happen? The very worst thing that can happen is that, you know, there's a compromise. Well, what are like all the things that need to happen so that there is no compromise, right? There's no data that is out in the public view. There's multiple layers of security. And even the multiple layers of security, like what else needs to be secured? And so There's no amount of pride that can ever go into that equation, right? They're like, oh, we've got the best security system on the planet. Just nobody can get into this. That's a recipe for disaster. And I think that also attracts, in some ways, it attracts a level for those who want to test you. I mean, basically, it's sending a message like, go ahead and give us a shot. And look at these databases. Look at government databases. Look at, they get hacked. 

[00:15:13] PJ Acceturro
The Equifax thing that, you know, half of America had their stuff stolen. 

[00:15:17] Dr. Nate Salah
Oh yeah, absolutely. I mean, that was massive issue, tons of fraud. And so I think that speaks to having a prioritization to not live in a space that is in a space of superiority. Cause I think once we begin to live in that space, we will not seek support. We will believe we can handle everything on our own. And then that can result in what all kinds of stuff, isolation can result in burnout. Missed opportunities for growth. 

[00:15:42] PJ Acceturro
I got one for you. How many of your clients, people you coach, friends, would have been saved so much hardship if they had just reached out earlier to you?

[00:15:53] Dr. Nate Salah
Bro. I have this conversation weekly. I'm so glad you brought that up. Right? Because I think, oh, I got this. It's the ones who send the email. Pick up the phone. Send a text message. And I'm constantly telling clients, like, there's no dumb questions. The one question you ask might be the question that saved you 100, 000. Or saved your business. Who knows what else, right? But what do we do? We say, I got this. To walk in true, real humility to me is to say, I don't have all the answers. I need others who are healthy to help me evaluate situations. To evaluate the mistakes that I don't want to make. To acknowledge the possibility for my own errors to help me to progress and I think that's a true place of love I think that's first important that we have self love and sometimes I think pride can result out of insecurity, too So saying that you know what I'm worthy.

[00:16:49] 
I don't have to have this false image. Um, because if I am secure in myself, I find it easier to say, Hey, you know what? I need a team of people who know better than me in different areas so they can help me and we can help one another. Think about your journey as a leader. You know, you start out, especially with you, you start out as a decent storyteller, right? And then you get into the echelons and you've shared this on the show and with us of those who have massive talent in different areas. And you're like, Whoa, I got some people around me. Who have massive amounts of talent in areas that I was pretty proficient at happens to me. You know, when I hire, bring someone on in an area of, say, accounting that I was really proficient at, and they're like telling me things that I didn't know. I could hide behind that and be like, yeah, sure, yeah, yeah, of course I knew that. And I'm like, thank you. Keep 'em coming because what you wanna do, the opposite of the prideful self is the one who walks in enough humility to say, I want to bring people around me who can help me solve problems. I didn't know I had.

[00:17:51] PJ Acceturro
Yes, it's how you play the orchestra, right? You wouldn't want the conductor to be spending so much time trying to practice all the individual instruments that he's not understanding the power of holding the baton. And I think that pride caps so many businesses because we try and micromanage as leaders, everything. I know that for our. TV show. I had the choice early on. Okay. Do you want to be a writer on this project? Do you want to be, Oh God forbid, but do you want to try and direct the animation? Cause I prior to this, I was a writer and a director and even some sense of producer. And I think the show would have been infinitely worse. I think because you have to understand the leverage that you have. To coordinate to keep people driving towards the central vision and mission, and I think as long as you keep that guiding light, that's your core responsibility as a leader. It's not your job to be the best. And if you can kill that pride empower a players to be at the top of their game, then you're just. Harmonizing them, putting them in tune with that core vision, right?

[00:18:56] Dr. Nate Salah
Yeah, man. Right on. And I think that's the right approach. The right approach is to look at yourself, especially if you're a CEO or a company leader, or even just an entrepreneur who's just getting started and they've got some contractors. You know, your role as the maestro, as the conductor, you're not going to be the best pianist. You're not going to be the best cello player. You're not going to be any of that. You don't want to be. Unless you've got the philosophy of stay small and keep it all where you're a one-person business, which is totally cool, right? However, if you're building your company to scale, your inflated sense of pride is going to be resistant to feedback. You know, you're not going to want to hear what others have to say, which the feedback loop is nonnegotiable for progress. By the way, all feedback is constructive, even if it's not.

[00:19:36] 
Favorable to what you want to hear like tell me everything. I was in a meeting once and there was a developer who was working on some software for one of our clients and the developer said, I want you to tell me everything you hate about this software. I was like, brilliant. I absolutely love that. I mean, it's pretty brash, but what is he saying? He's saying, look, there's no hubris here. There's no pride here. Look, I want to know everything that can be improved. That's a massive open invitation for feedback and likely will have the most massive result in terms of progress, the possibility for progress. Because that advice will lead to better decision-making, that advice will lead to better opportunities for growth, that advice will lead to admitting mistakes and errors, taking responsibilities for failures, and really an accountability that then is modeled so that we can actually increase morale.

[00:20:29] 
We can increase organizational productivity because once we do that and say, wow, because here's the thing, things aren't going to go right. Okay, you figure out what went wrong. That's almost the smallest part of the entire equation. Then the rest is what? Focusing effort on solutions. That's right. So let's turn it just a notch before we wrap up because I want to talk a little bit about the spiritual journey with this. I'll be transparent. I have judged people in the past by not upholding what I thought were standards. I'll give you a couple examples, and my wife's called me out on this a few times. I came from, I would say, pharmaceutical in some ways, a worldview where very focused on actions that were appropriate. So moving into my spiritual journey of walking with Christ, some things would happen at church that I'd go and kind of make a scene, not purposefully, but I'll give you an example.

[00:21:21] 
So. I saw someone, you know, I would say the Bible is holy book, right? It should be elevated. It should be protected. So I saw around, you know, where I'm going is right. We were leaving service and I saw a young man and his Bible was on the floor. I went up to him and I picked it up and I'm saying, Oh, here you go, man. Your Bible was on the floor. And he kind of looked at me like, that's weird. I went back and my wife was like, what the heck are you doing? Well, I'm helping him out because, you know, he should know to elevate. 

[00:21:53] PJ Acceturro
That's what's wrong with society, Nate. I'm so glad you pointed it out. Our core problem as a country has got to be that.

[00:22:01] Dr. Nate Salah
Oh, man. I know it sounds like a trivial example, but I think it illustrates expectations. We have on people that we impose, and I think it comes from sometimes an attitude of arrogance, and sometimes it comes from an attitude of pride. And I had to learn that I can't do that. I can't impose that and expect others and expect others to walk in that same space that I'm walking in and actually be condescending toward them where they are in that journey. I might have it backwards. I might not understand the full context of that. 

[00:22:32] PJ Acceturro
Yeah, I think it's so important in understanding why am I saying this? In any sort of corrective, Hey, I'm just letting them know as like a brother, as a friend. You know, there's certainly a lot of things. I've got a friend, my wife and I have been talking to her and she's in a relationship that has so many red flags. A lot of red flags. I think it's the China Olympics. And how do you know the difference between saying, Hey, you know, this guy that you're dating embodies none of the qualities that I have. And you know, you should find someone like XYZ. There's a lot of ways to go about that in an arrogant way or prideful way that puts somebody else down and elevates yourself. I think that's maybe a good litmus test in a lot of things. Is this elevating my virtues and my values? In a way that puts down somebody else. And do I look like the good guy here? Or I think maybe that's on that side of probably not helpful, probably just making you feel good. Or is there, how do I communicate to this other person that I have their best interest in mind, or it's an attempt at saying, Hey, I want what's best for you.

[00:23:34] 
That's the thing we've said over, like, you know, years knowing each other is I could totally be wrong here. There may be a way. This specific behavior has impacted my life, and here's a story, here's a story of like how that hurt me. This may help you in your journey, or something like that, to where it's not like, Hey, I'm telling you this is wrong, it's just saying, Hey, notice the pattern here, or something like that. It's hurt me, I could be wrong, but maybe, you know, it might be helpful for you to hear that. 

[00:23:59] Dr. Nate Salah
Yeah, man. It's good. It's the journey. 

[00:24:00] PJ Acceturro
Yeah. Appreciate you. Yeah. Thanks for sharing with me, man. These are always encouraging to hear, man. Thank you. 

[00:24:06] Dr. Nate Salah
Yeah. Well, my friend, I am so thrilled that you joined me on this episode of A Call to Leadership. And before you go to the next episode, especially if you're binge-listening, take a moment. I would love to get your honest review right here on your screen. Your feedback is so important. It helps the podcast. It encourages me, and it helps me. It helps me to give you more and more and more value. So I can't wait to read your review. I can't wait to be with you on the next episode. I'm Dr. Nate Salah. This is A Call to Leadership.