A young lady stood up and offered me her seat when I was taking the MRT in Singapore last week. When she stood up I looked around me to look for an elderly person but everyone else was younger than me so the seat was really for me. I am the elderly person!
I was flattered and stunned (and amused) but I politely declined. I must have looked knackered from a full day of meetings but I was fine. I wish I could tell her that I can happily climb up a 15ft rope and can comfortably deadlift twice her weight. (Thanks to CrossFit)
She made a judgement about me based on my outer appearance at that time. We all do this actually, automatically creating our own story about a person based on first impressions. Every person is so much more colourful in their life stories if you get the chance to get to know them.
And that was what my team did when we had the Empathy training a couple of weeks ago. We got to know each other better. We learned how to show empathy but more importantly during the process we shared our colourful life stories, our achievements and our worries, and in doing so we connected better and deeper with each other.
Thank you young lady for reminding me me not to judge a book by its cover.
And next time I will take the seat.
