We were barely a week into my very unconventional MBA program when they gave us a surprising assignment: go out, sit with people experiencing homelessness, seek conversations, and spend the night in the streets.
It felt naive to think we could really understand something as complex as homelessness just by walking the streets for a day and talking with people willing to share a moment of their lives. It also felt uncomfortable, like we were just outsiders trying to learn from someone else’s life and struggles. This was back in 2019, right after Austin lifted its ban on public camping in an effort to decriminalize homelessness.
We spent hours hearing stories of addiction, abandonment, survival, and resilience... And as the night stretched on, something shifted. Through proximity, through stories, through conversation, I started to grasp something that I couldn’t have learned any other way.
It wasn’t the assignment that was simplistic. It was my own understanding.
That experience was eye-opening, and “standing in the shoes” really helped me see beyond the surface of homelessness to its deeper, systemic causes.
I used to believe something as big as empathy couldn’t really be taught. But thinking back to that night, maybe it can, just not the way we’re used to.
Teaching empathy in unconventional ways is the format we’re exploring today…
📰 What’s the format?
A Mile in My Shoes is a traveling exhibit inside a giant shoebox filled with real pairs of shoes from people of all backgrounds. The shoes might belong to a Syrian refugee, a sex worker, a war veteran, a neurosurgeon, an old Etonian banker…
You pick a pair, slip them on, and walk a mile while listening to that person's story through headphones: their voice, their memories, even the sounds of their everyday life.
A Mile in My shoes has been running since 2015. It’s a project by philosopher Roman Krznaric and artist Clare Patey, part of the Empathy Museum.
You can listen to some of the Empathy Museum's previous storytellers on Soundcloud, but as some participants of the experience have shared, it really doesn't compare to the sensation of literally being in the shoes.
🎛️ What are the features?
#1: The container is a threshold
The shoebox marks a passage. When you step inside the container, you cross from your everyday world into someone else's reality. It’s a small crossing, barely noticeable, but it matters. In experience design, thresholds matter because they prepare you to leave behind your assumptions, if only for a few steps.
“The rise of social media means that increasingly we only communicate with people who look and sound and think in the same way we do. A Mile in My Shoes is a chance to spend some time with someone we might not otherwise meet in our day-to-day life and spend a few minutes seeing the world from that person’s perspective. It really does change you.” ⸺Clare Patey
#2: Movement unlocks memory
The simple act of walking opens up a different kind of attention. It’s not passive. It’s physical. As you walk, the story seeps in.
The physical element is an important part of the experience because every time you look down you don’t recognise your feet. It changes the way you walk. ⸺Clare Patey
#3: Empathy grows through proximity
Empathy is hard to teach through theory. It happens through closeness. Through small, personal moments that let you feel a sliver of someone else's world. A Mile in My Shoes doesn’t try to explain or persuade. It simply invites you to walk alongside a life you might never have touched otherwise.
Just like that night I spent on the streets years ago, the power of the experience isn’t in learning about someone. It’s in learning with them.
💡 Why is this format effective for learning?
One interesting thing that scientists have found with MRI scans is that when a storyteller and a listener are truly engaged, the neural patterns in their brains start to mirror each other.
This is also why reading great literature can make us more empathetic: We step into thee character’s fears, hopes, and decisions as if they were our own. We feel with them.
A Mile in My Shoes takes that same emotional connection and adds a physical layer. It turns empathy into something you experience with your whole body, not just your mind.
💌 An invitation
We often speak in metaphors when we talk about empathy: "Walking a mile in someone's shoes," "Seeing through another's eyes," "Carrying someone's story..." What I liked about this format is that it took a metaphor and made it real.
It made me think about other things that can feel abstract or hard to teach. What if we made them literal? How might we turn an idea into something someone can hold, feel, or move through?
Here are some other formats that do this:
How can you learn with others, and not just about them?
🪁 Life Lately
I finished writing this post from Buenos Aires, and the trip has been very fulfilling in many different ways. A few highlights:
I had coffee with Macarena, the writer behind one of my favorite Substacks in Spanish, Parsimonia. I still can’t believe we got to meet in person! It felt like we had known each other for years, and it was the kind of conversation that leaves you feeling a little more at home in the world…
Books. I’ve been reading everything I could get my hands on from two Latin American writers I’ve loved lately: Tamara Silva Bernaschina from Uruguay and Magalí Etchebarne from Argentina. I especially recommend Temporada de Ballenas and La Vida por Delante. This trip was great to revisit some of my favorite short stories from Cortázar and Borges:
Places. A few favorites from this trip were the Botanical Garden, Exile Records, Centro Cultural Richards, Suerte Maldita, Libros REF, and the Biblioteca Nacional. In Uruguay: breakfast at Ritual, book browsing at Macoco, Fundación Pablo Atchugarry.
Experiences: The Buenos Aires International Independent Film Festival and our evening at the Microteatro (a very unique format).
Music: Pedro Sá, Juana Aguirre, and Year of the Snake (the newest song by Arcade Fire) have been on repeat. 🎶 It’s a season of change / and if you feel strange / it’s probably good...
Small joys: Dulce de leche. Mad Pasta. Meeting Liniers! Jumping into the freezing sea…
I appreciate your time. Thank you for reading! 💙 I also value your feedback (suggestions, critiques, constructive ideas…) as well as your tips or suggestions for future editions. I’d love to hear about you in the comments.
→ Or just click the heart symbol. That always makes me smile :-)
*This post’s gif is from @ewanjonesmorris.
Let me walk a mile in my enemy's shoes, and
I will end up a mile away from her, and
I'll have her shoes.
I've been thinking a lot about empathy lately and I truly appreciated your article! Thank you!