Lesson VIII: Meeting people where they are at
You’ve gone towards the proverbially edge of the cliff, laid on your stomach, outstretched your hand for hours waving it to the person below the cliff to take it. The person below sees your hand, looks at you, and then gives you a high-five! Um, no, we weren’t doing this to give you a high-five, we were trying to help you.
Lesson learned: the help that you think you are giving may not always appear that way or be able to be received by the person you are helping. You’ve got to be able to meet them where they are at – emotionally, physically, psychologically.
It’s a bit of a two-step process. First, check your own default settings. No two people are the same, so throw out a-one-size-fits-all approach in helping. By their own definition, accidents do not discriminate and happen to anyone no matter who they are. While I have handled 100s of car accidents for instance, each one is different because the person involved is different. Get to know the person and take an inventory to try and get on the same page with them. If I can see that I am not able to land the plane, I try a different approach. Trust me, it’s not about volume or repeating the same thing again. If you are the person trying to make sense to another, than it is up to say it in such a way that the person understands you, and it’s not their fault if you aren’t clear.
Second step, and I’ll start by saying that this is NOT the assessment: some people can’t be helped or they need to help themselves. Wrong! That is not the lesson. Everyone can use some help. But, the lesson is, what are they capable of and are you the right person to provide it?
For instance, and this is a real example that a colleague passed on. In a wrongful death matter, the attorney got to work, put it together, and had mediation. The other side made offers, but the reality was that the family was still grieving and were not in a position to do anything.
Experience helps recognize how to get on the same page, but there’s no specific recipe in figuring out how to meet people where they are. The lesson learned though is recognizing that if you truly want to help people, you just have to know it’s not all about where you are, but where those in need are too.
