“This is the secret in the entire art of helping.
“Anyone who cannot do this is himself under a delusion if he thinks he is able to help someone else. In order to truly help someone else, I must understand more than he—but certainly first and foremost understand what he understands.
“If I do not do that, then my greater understanding does not help him at all. If I nevertheless want to assert my greater understanding, then it is because I am vain or proud, then basically instead of benefiting him I really want to be admired by him.
“But all true helping begins with a humbling.
“The helper must first humble himself under the person he wants to help and thereby understand that to help is not to dominate but to serve, that to help is not to be the most dominating but the most patient, that to help is a willingness for the time being to put up with being in the wrong and not understanding what the other understands.”
Open ears can help to train a restless tongue. A humbleness of heart and a true desire to understand the person we seek to help is the posture required to open our ears to their full capacity. Our relational capacity will never exceed our listening capacity. This is the inviolable law of human connectivity … and this is how to fight the gravitational forces that make us want to pull everyone’s attention back to ourselves.
Mitch Anthony is the creator of Life-Centered Planning, the author of 12 books for advisors, and the co-founder of ROLadvisor.com and LifeCenteredPlanners.com.