Oh hi, sorry I’m breezing into work an hour late, but I had to take a lil time to throw out at least $75 of perishable food from my fridge since the power was out for more than 8 hours last night. Yeah no worries, my pay doesn’t get docked, I don’t get fired, I’ll just buy new food tomorrow… and I had worked for poverty-focused nonprofits for like a decade before I realized after a power outage that this no-big-deal inconvenience to me spells disaster for families living on the financial edge who might have to decide whether it’s worth the risk to keep the cheese because maybe it’s still OK, does cheese spoil that quickly and if I toss it will we go hungry or have to choose between food and rent?

That’s not me. That’s NEVER been me. So, it took a long long time for me to notice that what barely registers for me might derail someone else. Which is why the leadership of people with the actual life experience of the issue at hand is an absolute necessity in this nonprofit/philanthropy sector, in which I have supposedly been a leader for so long. This lesson is everywhere once we start looking for it — and start truly hearing those who are trying to tell us. Sometimes the best medicine for blindness is listening.