When I was about ten years old, I found myself sitting on a chair in a classroom at an orphanage in rural India.
In front of me was a room full of children, most a little younger than me, sitting on the floor.
Beside me was an interpreter.
And I was reading them a children’s Bible story.
My parents were pastors and missionaries, so growing up, I spent quite a bit of time in places like rural India and the Philippines. I was used to meeting people whose lives looked very different from mine.
But this particular moment has stayed with me.
Because I was becoming increasingly uncomfortable.
There I was, this rather large little white girl, sitting on a chair while a room full of children looked up at me with wide eyes.
They didn’t speak my language. I didn’t speak theirs.
And I felt like some sort of visiting alien who’d been placed at the front of the room to say something terribly important.
Except I wasn’t terribly important.
I was just another kid.
And I didn’t like feeling as though I belonged above everyone else.
So I got off the chair#
I turned to the interpreter and asked for a moment.
Then I climbed down, sat on the floor in front of one of the girls, and smiled at her.
I gently took her hand and brought her finger up to my nose.
She pushed it.
Then I reached over and pushed hers.
For a second, she looked completely stunned.
Then she smiled.
Then she laughed.
And suddenly the whole room was laughing.
No interpreter required.
Just two kids being a bit silly.
I remember asking everyone what sport they thought Jesus played.
The answer was apparently obvious.
Cricket.
Of course it was cricket. 😂
So we went outside and played cricket.
A sport I didn’t even particularly like.
But that wasn’t really the point.
For a little while, we weren’t a visiting child and a room full of children being visited.
We were just kids playing together.
And that was what I’d wanted.
Finding somewhere to begin#
I wasn’t pretending our lives were the same.
They weren’t.
We came from different cultures, spoke different languages, and had very different experiences.
Those differences mattered.
But I didn’t want them to be the only things that mattered.
At ten, I didn’t have particularly sophisticated language for any of this.
I just knew I wanted to find something we could both recognise.
Apparently, my solution was to get someone to push my nose.
Which, to be fair, worked remarkably well.
I still do this#
I’ve carried that instinct into every industry I’ve worked in.
Whether I’m talking to a specialist about something technical, working with a small business owner, or meeting someone whose experiences are completely different from mine, I tend to begin the same way.
I look for something familiar.
Not to prove that we’re the same, but to give us somewhere to start talking.
When I worked with small businesses in rural Cambodia, helping people understand bookkeeping, I sometimes found that people were surprised to hear about the cleaning and manual work I’d done myself.
It gave us something else to talk about beyond the fact that I was there to explain bookkeeping.
These days, I might notice that a tradesperson uses MYOB and start asking how they use it.
And before long, we’re having a conversation.
Not because I know everything about their work.
Quite the opposite.
Finding something familiar gives me a starting point to become curious about what’s different.
What do they do differently?
Why does their approach work for them?
What do they know that I don’t?
What have I assumed that might be completely wrong?
I genuinely enjoy those conversations.
The differences are the interesting bit#
I think sometimes we approach unfamiliar people or situations by noticing all the ways they’re different from us.
And of course we notice differences. They’re interesting!
But I’ve always found it easier to begin with something I recognise.
It gives me a place to stand while I explore everything I don’t yet understand.
That doesn’t mean assuming someone else’s experiences are the same as mine.
It simply means I don’t have to begin with the distance between us.
I can begin with a connection.
Looking back, I think that’s what ten-year-old me was trying to do in that classroom.
I couldn’t change the differences between our lives.
I couldn’t speak their language.
And I definitely couldn’t convince anyone that I was good at cricket.
But I could sit on the floor.
I could be silly.
And we could laugh together.
Start with what’s the same. Get curious about what’s different.
Originally published on LinkedIn.