Walk Two Moons
If you remember these two pieces of wisdom, you'll understand people forever.
Don’t judge a man until you’ve walked two moons in his moccasins.
Everyone has his own agenda.
—From Walk Two Moons by Sharon Creech
I first read the above book in middle school; I’ve since reread it many times—just as recently as couple of years ago. There’s a lot to like in the story—humor, pathos, mystery, drama, communion, misunderstandings—all the things that define our individual human journeys on this planet. And yet how differently they happen to each of us!
These particular quotes come from a particular plotline: Our protagonist Sal and her friend Phoebe find them left anonymously at her front door. Because of all the other mysteries going on—from a disappeared mother to a potential lunatic—Sal and Phoebe believe the quotes are clues to a bigger puzzle. In the end, nothing is what they assume even as they discover the unexpected answers were right in front of them.
Throughout my life, I often come back to these sayings. This week, I thought about them a lot as I dealt with:
A business situation in which it seemed as if a client and my team were completely misaligned on project goals.
An educational situation in which multiple students treated me as the gatekeeper to their lives.
A potential gig situation in which we discussed how to unlock people’s confidence in low-stakes situations like talking to an executive who came to be asked questions anyway.
My own intern telling me in a 1:1 how she thought she knew me but “I’m learning so much.”
Why do I think about these sayings? Because they’ve often grounded me from making invalid assumptions when I’m having issues with people. They are often the simple answers behind so many confounding professional and life situations. Let’s look at each one.
Don’t Judge a [Person] Until You’ve Walked in [His/Her/Their] Shoes
In Japan, I taught teachers who were taking a year sabbatical to work on their own educational projects. I was a weekly break for them, but I didn’t know that till a year into my sojourn. So I came to them with very energetic and ambitious activities. No one told me otherwise.
I was also foreign and a minority and young (in my 20s). So I sometimes unintentionally got stuck in a “me vs them” mindset. Standing in front of the classroom, it was easy to see my students as a group entity of Japanese people rather than as a group made up of individuals who just happened to be Japanese. Japan’s culture abetted this deception sometimes. There’s a reason the proverb: “The nail that sticks out gets hammered down” is often quoted to describe it.
But then, I would do a lesson or have a conversation in which I suddenly opened a door into more. During a show-and-tell, petite Miss M confessed that she studied Swahili and liked to collect motorcycles. Because I liked to talk about literature, bespectacled Mr. Y— brought his own poetry to recite. Then there was the time I used American comic strips for a translation project. The class returned with their own version of the lesson to share the humor they liked. The first try failed, but they came back a week later with a version that had me laughing.
Maybe it’s not about how the nail gets hammered down, I’d think in these moments. Maybe it’s more about how you don’t stop to see how unique the nail within the row actually is.
So often we judge without even realizing that we are judging. So often we judge because we don’t realize that we are scared, anxious, stressed or uncertain. And too often we judge because we are actually thinking about ourselves. We are thinking about who we might be in a situation rather than allow that we are not the baseline for how a human does things. That’s when we actually see and understand a person solely in relation to ourselves or by what they represent to us. We miss out on knowing them for who they actually are.
Everyone Has [His/Her/Their] Own Agenda
In the first official year of my solo practice, I looked for gigs outside of my network. For a few months, a startup and I were in discussions. They’d ring me up; we’d discuss scope. But the project never officially kicked off. Finally, they asked me to put together an SOW and budget. It was a big deal for me; I’d never done anything like it. But I was eager to win the contract because I’d be doing a real discovery and design process. They wanted me at the strategy table.
I worked hard over the proposal. I ran the numbers multiple times to make sure I didn’t overcharge the client but also that I gave myself a fair shake. Based on everything we discussed, my budget was over $20k, which was a very expensive price tag for me at the time. I remember emailing the proposal before boarding a plane. I remember how the startup had promised to get back to me in a day or two. That turned into the weekend. Then the week passed. The entire time, I was in agony—what did they think of me? Did they hate the proposal that much? Why did I even think I could be worth that price? They must be so angry!
Finally, I wrote a email. I thanked them for their consideration. I apologized for getting the proposal wrong and not being the right fit. It was a cathartic moment in that I got to release all the anxiety that had built up inside of me. I was sure I’d never hear from them again.
Until the next day. Here it was: We’re so sorry for the radio silence, the two founders said. We were out with food poisoning.
I laughed. I cried. My brain hadn’t even considered that there was a legitimate reason for the noncommunication outside of me. I had worried so much, and they hadn’t thought about me once since our last conversation. They hadn’t even read my proposal yet!
I eventually worked with the startup, and this became a reality check I used in my business henceforth. If I started spiraling or doubting what was happening with a client or potential contract, I’d think: Maybe they have food poisoning. It stopped me from even thinking that I might be the reason behind whatever was going on. It allowed me to accept that they had their own lives and concerns and problems outside of our interactions. All those things affected them in ways I could not assume. They just had their own agendas—like I had mine. And that’s OK.
Recap
So let’s revisit the above situations:
A business situation in which it seemed as if a client and my team were completely misaligned on project goals.
Don’t judge your client. They have concerns and anxieties outside of you, but they might be reflecting them at you. What you need to remember is that you are a team. You both have an aligned vision where your efforts intersect. Guide your client back to what matters by addressing where their anxieties affect that roadmap. Then you can defuse their concerns and move forward together.
An educational situation in which multiple students treated me as the gatekeeper to their lives.
When you’re in school, you have a teacher or superior judging whether your work is valuable or dictating how you are supposed to show up for success. But as you transition out of academia, your life is no longer on your colleague’s or boss’s agenda. In fact, they only care insofar as your actions affect their own goals. So if something is going on, they will probably not tell you how to handle it. That’s OK; they aren’t judging you for whatever is going on. Unless your agendas intersect. Then they will only judge you based on how well you help them navigate to keep things on track.
A potential gig situation in which we discussed how to unlock people’s confidence in low-stakes situations like talking to an executive who came to be asked questions anyway.
Being put on the spot or talking to an expert or superior can be nerve-racking. Maybe you’re afraid your questions aren’t very good. Or maybe you’re afraid that you don’t even have the right to ask them. Don’t get stuck in this agenda! It’s one where the whole event becomes about you and how you think others’ will perceive you. You’re reflecting your own anxieties on other people. But guess what? Once upon a time, that expert or executive was you. They have totally walked in your shoes, and now their entire agenda is to be helpful to you. Don’t miss out on getting to know them. Don’t miss out on sharing yourself, too!
My own intern telling me in a 1:1 how she thought she knew me but “I’m learning so much.”
Sweet, young, inexperienced intern. To believe that one semester in a classroom would divulge all there is to know about me as human being. To think that all our interactions as mentor and mentee will fill in all the other blanks that define my human experience on this planet. As Walt Whitman so famously said: “I contain multitudes.”
In the end, a person is often nothing of what we assume, and yet the answers are right in front of us. Just be open. Be kind. Be curious. Give yourselves the space to be you.