by Yours TrulyPractice Being Unselfish…
Great leaders often have great egos, and therein lies great danger. In ‘The Empowered Communicator’, Calvin Miller uses the form of a letter to describe this problem and the negative impact it has:
‘Dear speaker, your ego has become a wall between yourself and me. You’re not really concerned about me, are you? You’re mostly concerned about whether or not this speech is really working…about whether or not you’re doing a good job. You’re really afraid that I will not applaud, aren’t you? You’re afraid that I won’t laugh at your jokes or cry over your emotional anecdotes. You’re so caught up in the issue of how I’m going to receive your speech, you haven’t thought much about me at all. I might have loved you, but you’re so caught up in self-love that mine is really unnecessary. If I don’t give you my attention it’s because I feel so unnecessary here. When I see you at the microphone, I see Narcissus at his mirror… Is your tie straight? Is your hair straight? Is your deportment impeccable? Is your phraseology perfect? You seem in control of everything, but your audience. You see everything so well, but us. But this blindness to us, I’m afraid, has made us deaf to you. We must go now. Sorry. Call us sometime later. We’ll come back to you when you’re real enough to see us… after your dreams have been shattered… after your heart has been broken… after your arrogance has been wrecked with despair. Then there will be room for all of us in your world. Then you won’t care if we applaud your brilliance. You’ll be one of us.’
Ref: The Word for Today; 19th April 2015.