I meet Alejandra through the hosting program when she spent 10 days with us in Florida. She spoke English fluently, and I was astonished at how well she could connect to me on topics that I could only imagine speaking in Spanish. 

This experience with a language barrier led me to the topic of my Ted Talk: Listen to the 5-Minute Explanation. It emphasized the need to hear people even when it takes them a few tries to translate their thoughts into a language we can understand. I was able to understand that this was a real problem through my experience or 'personal story' about how I attempted to explain to a Burger King worker in Madrid that I wanted Ketchup.