The Day a Cabin Steward Rewrote My Playbook

During my early cruising years, sailing through the Inside Passage in Alaska, I once delivered a session I thought had gone perfectly.

Slides crisp. Timing flawless. Every activity in place.

By the next day, no one remembered much.

That evening, at the crew bar, watching glaciers drift past the porthole, a cabin steward turned to me and said,

“Kketan, your sessions are good. But they don’t sound like us.”

I hadn’t expected that. But I needed it.

I had delivered the training — yet missed the connection.

After that voyage, I stopped trying to impress and started trying to understand.

I learned more from a bartender reading a guest’s silence than any communication module could teach.

More about teamwork from a galley cleaner who helped without being asked.

More about leadership from a cabin attendant who comforted a seasick new hire before cleaning another deck.

That’s when it struck me, adults don’t learn because we teach.

They learn because something clicks.

Learning isn’t about filling minds.

It’s about touching something people already know, and helping them remember it.

Relearning learning has been my truest education.

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