The gap was mine

Today I sat in a room where I couldn't make myself understood. Which was humbling, because I train people in communication.

Ishaara, Bengaluru. The service staff are deaf and speech-impaired. You order in sign.

I fumbled. I over-explained to someone who couldn't hear a word of it. Then I did what the menu had already told me to do: I pointed.

He waited. He showed me the sign again, slower, without a trace of impatience – the way you do when you've done it for every table before this one.

The order was right. The timing was right. The warmth was right.

The gap wasn't theirs. It was mine.

Every day, in every meeting, I am understood easily. I had assumed that was a skill.

How much of what I call clarity is just the other person doing the work of understanding me?