As soon as the flight landed (two hours behind schedule), people began jostling on the spot, eager to get off. The priority of course was people with connecting flights who might have a chance of making them. For others it was too late and they’d be spending the night at the airport hotel.

A woman began to push forward from two rows behind.
“I need to get off,” she said.
Apparently her daughter and baby granddaughter were waiting.

“Don’t we all,” a fellow passenger barked back.

Every single passenger on board had their own version of an emergency, which made it difficult for them to stand in someone else’s shoes.

As business owners and marketers (let alone people), that’s exactly what we must learn to get better at doing. Understanding that everyone has their own version of the truth and that if we want to reach out to people and make our ideas matter to them, we’d better know what their version of the truth is.

The alternative is that we end up whistling into the wind.

Image by James Cridland.