Humility is the key to understanding, but hubris often prevents people from growing because they believe their understanding is right from the beginning.
For a while I have understood that people see the world in fundamentally different ways, but about two years ago I had an epiphany that really crystallized it for me. Now I see people existing in either one of two camps:
1. Those who believe the world is the way they see it.
2. Those who realize how limited their perspective is.
Alan Kay (
http://www.ted.com/talks/lang/eng/alan_kay_shares_a_powerful...) has a developed a similar view. He often quotes the Talmud saying, "We see things not as they are, but as we are.” And he often says, "We can't learn to see until we admit we are blind".
When Jim Collins was doing his research for "How the Mighty Fall", he identified hubris as being the first stage of decline for great enterprises (http://www.charlierose.com/view/interview/10565). This is the concept of "pride goes before the fall," and I believe one of the reasons for this is because we stop asking questions and begin to "lean on our own understanding."
We become complacent with our picture of the world and continue on whatever trajectory we were on when we stopped recalibrating. Unless we were right from the start (which almost never happens in a dynamically changing world), we'll veer farther off course.
A better way to go is to constantly be asking questions -- continually adding to your perspective, refining it, and recalibrating your path based on what you learn. As the saying goes, "you don't know what you don't know".
This seems so simple, but admitting you don't know everything and continually asking questions requires humility.