C: Welcome to Slingshot25’s Shotcast, a series of bite-sized podcasts that’ll feel like an espresso shot to your brain. I’m Courtney. And I’m Jackie. And something we’ve been thinking about is empathy. We think about, talk about, write about, teach about empathy a lot. One of the things we’ve been talking about is what’s kind of going on in the media and in different articles and conversations.
Empathy is involved like every sweet thing that gets a hold of the world. On one side of the pendulum, There are conversations about empathy being a 21st-century leadership skill. Lean in; we need more of it. Then, you know, flip through two articles, and you’ll find one that says, “We’ve gone too far; empathy is breaking us.”
We’re doing all the things wrong with it. I’m sure there are valid points in all of those articles. So, what we thought might be helpful is starting with a useful definition of empathy. So, Jack, do you want to teach our audience about what we believe empathy is?
J: Yeah. We didn’t just completely make up a new definition of empathy.
What we’ve done is we’ve helped to find, the truth at the bottom of what this thing called empathy really is. So, let’s get right down to the core definition of empathy, which is empathy turns out to be just an act of curiosity.
It’s wondering what another person, probably one that you’re in conversation with, but it can be applied anywhere. We apply it most practically in an interaction, but it’s wondering what the other person is thinking and feeling. Full stop. That’s it. That’s empathy. It’s an act of curiosity about what is this moment like for someone else?
It’s an act of curiosity that forces you to get out of your head, get out of your own sort of self-focused narrative, and say, oh my gosh, what might this moment, this situation be like for someone else? That’s it. That’s all empathy is. What you do with that information is up to you.
C: I want to just throw something in there.
Empathy is a skill. And so the practice of thinking of other people is a skill and if you look around, it’s kind of lacking because if I’m in my cell phone in my world with my newsfeeds and my real videos and all that, like I’m not really spending any time using my skill of thinking about others.
If we don’t use our skills, they fade. Because of our technology addiction, the world probably has fewer empathy skills than it ever had.
J: Well, I think so. I don’t, I suppose it, it certainly has been made worse by our very self-focused lives.
It’s really easy to get almost all that you want, you know, just by being on your phone. It feels like you’re having an enriching life with all kinds of input and you are getting a lot of input. You can actually practice empathy. I might suggest. If you use a definition we just gave you, you could use empathy even while you’re taking in all your feeds, your video reels, and whatever it may be.
You can actually practice the art of like, I wonder what the person who wrote this would say. might be thinking and feeling at the moment that they wrote this. You can try that and see if a thought comes to mind. The trouble with that, though, is the thing that we teach leaders because we teach leaders who work with in real-life people, in real moments, real leadership moments, is you won’t be able to test that out if you’re doing this, you know, just by watching someone’s video, you won’t be able to say, Hey, I bet you were feeling, or that must’ve been really intimidating for you, or that must’ve been really awkward for you, or that must’ve been really disappointing for you.
You can’t ask that question back because that person isn’t actually there. In real life, that’s what you would do. You would allow yourself to get curious, wonder what’s going on for that other person; a thought will pop up for you, and then you will test it out by saying something like, I imagine that was really disappointing for you.
If you’re wrong, They will tell you.
C: Yeah. And when we read the articles that say we’re swinging too far to the empathy path, a lot of that is commentary about we don’t want to be coddling and we don’t want to like, maybe act on sympathy and over-protect people. And while that’s true, I think, I don’t know how that seems less epidemic or less problematic to people.
When you compare it to a lack of empathy, if we don’t practice that skill of looking at others, being with others Connecting with others. We actually create different problems. Okay, so we live in a world where Humans have a hard-wired need for connection And if we’re surrounded by people who don’t see us, who don’t care about us, who can’t imagine what we’re going through, didn’t even bother to ask, thank you very much. It results in loneliness.
Yeah. It results in anger, right? It results in disappointment because man, we’re, we’re friends. How did, how did you not know? Why didn’t you ask? How do we just spend all this time together? And I don’t have a place to feel valued and cared about. If we’re friends and family, like, Isn’t there someone in this world that sees me?
Yeah. And so, we give something to other human beings when we practice empathy. We give them connection. We give them support. We give them love. And that’s what I think our employees need at work. It’s what our kids need. The whole world needs a whole lot. Guess what side of the bandwagon where I’m like, the lot more empathy.
Spend a little time being a little humble, thinking of other people. Yeah. And if you, Jackie, what am I thinking right now?
J: I have, well, you’re probably thinking about Something to eat. I could use a sandwich. I knew it. I knew that’s what you’re thinking about. Cooper, when he was little, I could eat. Yeah, I could eat.
I think you’re right. You know, I always want to put a plug in here, though for we aren’t suggesting that you, once you do the practice, if I wonder what this other person is thinking and feeling, and then if you come up with, oh, they’re feeling, they’re feeling insecure or incapable of doing something or maybe a little nervous or a little scared, Empathy, empathy stops with just.
Opening the conversation to what the other person might be experiencing. You don’t have to go down the path of, oh, let me do that for you then. That’s like what we call the chapter two of this whole thing. You know, what you decide to do next is up to you. And we might suggest to stay away from coddling.
Don’t, don’t coddle because of something that came to you as a result of being empathetic. You don’t need to coddle. Coddling, by the way, is a failure to believe that people can do hard things. That’s what coddling is not letting people do hard things. That does not have to be what you do because you have empathy for someone.
Does that make sense?
C: Absolutely. A good example, and just real quick, because I know we’re probably getting short on time, but helicopter parenting. Is crossing the line, right? Like I’m a parent, I see my child. I think they’re in pain. I think they’re lonely. I think they’re hurting. And so I’m going to jump in and fix it for them.
Yeah. There’s a hard line there. You can know they’re there and say, Oh, you’re a butterfly in the chrysalis and you’re going to wiggle. Yeah. And you’re going to struggle, and if I touch you, you’re not going to fly. So I’m going to see you there. I’m going to totally see you, man. I see you.
And I know you got this. Go get it. Or I can jump in and try to save you and limit your ability to fly. That’s the story of the butterfly. Oh my goodness. I think that’s all we have. We have more. We better stop. That’s all we have for this episode of our Shotcast, even though we want to talk for 27 more minutes, but we always have much more to say.
If you want more, drop us a line at Slingshot25.com/contact. Until next time.