Julie Lam.

When someone asks me how I came to this work, the answer is that it grew slowly through living, raising a family, building schools and spending many years accompanying children and adults, learning how human beings grow, relate and find their own way.

One of the defining moments came when my eldest daughter was two years old.

On her first day at nursery, I was told to leave quickly despite her distress. Something in me knew it was wrong, but at that time I couldn't yet bring together what I was sensing in my body, feeling in my heart and thinking in my mind strongly enough to trust that knowing and act.

That experience stayed with me.

Eventually, it led me to create the kind of place I had been searching for: somewhere children and families would be received with a warm and gentle welcome, where relationships mattered and where there was time for each person to arrive.

Highgate House School grew from that beginning.

Over the years, the school became much more than a place for children. It became a living community of parents, teachers, families and colleagues learning how to work together across different experiences, cultures and points of view.

We didn't always get it right.

There were misunderstandings, difficult conversations and moments when we struggled to hear one another. But we also discovered how differently things could unfold when people were given enough space to speak, when listening replaced the rush to answer and when every person could contribute something to the whole.

That became one of the deepest threads of my life.

I began to understand that many of the conditions which help a child flourish — welcome, safety, attention, freedom to express, curiosity and trust — remain profoundly important throughout our lives.

They affect our families, our relationships, our workplaces and the way we make decisions together.

And I came to see that presence is not only about helping people feel heard. It can help us become more fully alive — more able to create together, deepen our relationships, strengthen life at home and bring greater trust, imagination and collaboration into the way we work.

Over time, these experiences became the ground of Connected Presence Practice™.

Today I write, facilitate groups and work one-to-one with people who want to hear themselves more clearly, meet others more fully and trust the wisdom that can emerge when we give one another our real attention.

I am always learning.

And I am still most interested in the same question that has followed me throughout my life:

What becomes possible when we truly meet one another?

Julie Lam is an author, mother, grandmother and founder of Highgate House School in Hong Kong. For more than four decades, her work has explored human development, relationship, listening and the conditions that allow people to flourish.