Where do you begin? Obviously the person didn’t understand that spooking on the trail wasn’t the place she had to start with the training. John explained the answer and I wrote it, telling her in a straightforward way that the horse might be spooking because he needed better training in the basics, and here was the sequence of training to work on. When I read it back to John, he said our information was right, but we really have to be careful that the reader doesn’t think that we’re scolding her.

There’s no way that you or I would have read the answer and felt scolded. It was matter-of-fact and informative, even encouraging. But if you were the person with the horse problem, you might be worried that you had done something wrong in the horse’s training. You’d be extra sensitive, and maybe even be afraid that you weren’t going to be able to get the horse safely trained. Our good information could sound like, “You messed up. Now you have to go back to school.” Of course, the letter we finally sent was very supportive, telling the lady that she had done the right thing in asking for help, and so forth.

I was reminded of an important lesson that day. People asking for help have put themselves in a vulnerable position. If I’m going to help them, I  have to go the extra mile to show them respect. I have to add some carrots to any advice I give. Mary Poppins was right when she said, “a spoonful of sugar helps the medicine go down.”