Ask HN: How do I become less arrogant?

I'll also throw in that a lot of people when confronted by an idea try to find a fault with it. And feel they've accomplished something by tearing it down. When the correct approach is to try and find what's right about it and fix it's defects as much as possible before judging it.

- Expose yourself to people whom you consider smarter, more talented, or more accomplished than yourself. Ideally in person; you might also read biographies of people who accomplished amazing things.

- Take up a new hobby as a beginner. At various times as an adult I've tried out karate, piano, improv comedy; all of these have been a good antidote to my own natural arrogance.

I go to run meets where there are much faster people than me and I struggle to keep up, that is very humbling and keeps my ego in check. Also, going to races and seeing how much better trained other are does that too.

Trying to tie this analogy back into your situation. There's no point in being right all the time at the expense of coming off rude. Save all that arrogance for when it counts and you need to win an argument, say in a meeting or something.

Also, I would say that you are probably missing some growth opportunities by being arrogant. Take a step back and don't worry about being right, but about growing.

I've struggled with similar issues, and my impression is that arrogance primarily comes from two misjudgments: thinking too highly of myself, or too little of others. The first was reduced as I realized that I too can and do make mistakes. The second gave way the more I learnt to appreciate and value the people I interact with.

I believe that this second aspect is key. Arrogance is offensive because it belittles others. Humility respects and appreciates the other person. Arrogance thinks my knowledge/skills/wealth makes me better than others. Humility sees the good in the other person, their skills and character traits (that may be very different from mine), and values them for it.

Being humble doesn't mean denying what you're good at, that's false humility. It means appreciating people for who they are and what they're good at, and then treating them accordingly.

Providing a bit of detail could be helpful in devising a strategy fit for your particular flavor.

When I did Judo, I've always sought to fight the best ones (bigger, aggressive, technical). In football too, I always went for the best technical players who can humiliate anyone. The price to pay was to have people laugh when you're thrown in the air.

In my experience, arrogance can come from truly being great at something, but I mostly witnessed it in people who were lacking and trying to protect their ego. The usual advice is to let go of the ego, but maybe instead of "killing your ego", you can "redirect it". Instead of trying to protect your image of competence, you can wire your ego and feed it on the idea that you're diligent. If you tie your ego to the idea you're diligent, you will try to stick to that image of a diligent person.

A diligent person seeks people with different angles to a topic to know everything there is to know about it. You trick yourself into the pursuit of a truth, instead of making it a conflict between two persons.

Arrogance also manifests itself in sarcasm. In a technical dialogue, an arrogant person will often use sarcasm. This is lame. One way to limit this is to think about what you're about to say really hard and weight the amount of information it contains. Is it a snarky remark about how Windows sucks? Is it something you're repeating after reading a blog post? Do you really master what you're talking about? Are you pissing on a language quirk or bottleneck you haven't even reached? Is that really a technically sound argument? How much do I know about this?

One way that helps is to imagine you're not having the argument with the person you're having it with, but the world's most renowned expert on the subject who forgot more about pretty much any topic than you'll probably know. Chances are you won't present the same arguments because you know they are weak and you know that because you know you don't know as much as you think (hopefully). This also helps avoid being a douche and a bully (would I act the same way with a guy who can break me in half? If not, I'm probably being gratuitously disrespectful). Would I act this way with someone who knows more than me? This question will shift the attitude and make it the same: one of curiosity, one of a seeker. It will allow learning and teaching at the same time, with the same ease.

I did so in part because teachers always held me up as proof that they were excellent teachers and other students could do as well as me if they just tried when there was zero basis for this idea. They were claiming credit for something they didn't do while making me a target of hatred by all the other students.

I'm a social creature and I had no real friends and classmates treated me terribly. My arrogance was the only defence I had in an abusive social setting.

For me, the antidote is an environment of mutual respect where the strengths of individuals are valued and no one is treated badly. Unfortunately, I can only fully achieve this at home. However, even reducing the level of toxic BS elsewhere helps.

Best.

Societal progress sometimes benefits from arrogance. Perhaps it even depends on it on rare occasions.

Maybe you should consider owning and leveraging the arrogance you have by focusing on an entrepreneurial career track, where you can get people to put up with the arrogance.

I was cocky when I started out at my first job because I knew latest and greatest. But after working for years and running into people who are way more knowledgeable and smart, I came to know my place. You will too.

I recommend spending about 30 minutes every evening reflecting on previous discussions/conversations that you have had with people. Also, if you have any cringe-worthy memories in which you behaved in an arrogant manner then these are worth revisiting in order to consider alternatives for better behavior in future scenarios.