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“Empathy” is one of those words plenty of people have heard of before, but might not know exactly what it is. While there are several variations out there, the most popular definition is putting yourself in another person’s shoes. I’ve learned a lot about empathy — so much so I’ve built a career around it.
In 2017, I created Curiosity Lab, a product, entertainment, and consulting company that’s designed to build a community around the shared values of curiosity, inclusivity, and empathy. I had been working in corporate advertising until then, and I wanted to create a safe haven for world-class storytellers to emerge from communities of color and underrepresented backgrounds. That journey into purpose led me to creating a conversation game called Actually Curious, which is designed to help foster empathy and understanding organically.
At Curiosity Lab, we view empathy as a skillset or tool to bring awareness of emotions more squarely into decision-making, including what you think, what you say, and how you act. Empathy is important: It gives us the ability to have more intentional and authentic interactions in all of our relationships, and ultimately makes us more productive, positive, and resilient.
It’s my belief that every human can use more empathy in their life.
On some days, I think we as a society aren’t doing so well with empathy—but we find ways to survive. Many of us remain optimistic and we try to bring that energy to each other. But people who are high in empathy are putting a lot out there and we’re burning out. Even those who are empathetic can use more skills to understand their emotions and their need for rest and support. Empathetic leaders can hone and share their skills to create more allies to help them stay resilient. That’s why I wrote my new book, The Power of Empathy: A Thirty-Day Path to Personal Growth and Social Change. It’s a guide to help teach people about the importance of being empathetic to themselves, as well as how to foster more empathy in their lives.
I decided to create a 30-day approach with my book to becoming more empathetic, because this requires consistency. Think of it as a daily exercise to build muscle—your progress is gradual but you notice the results of your work.
To start on a path toward becoming more empathetic, it’s important to learn how to sit with your most difficult emotions. Maybe it’s fear, shame, anger, sadness, or a combination. Recognizing what that emotion is and why it’s hard for you is crucial in your empathetic journey.
It’s also important to understand that we can all benefit from a bit of empathy. Think of ways that you or someone you love could use a bit of empathy directed toward them, and that will open your awareness toward the compassion you can offer yourself or that person. That may mean giving your partner a little grace when they’re grumpy after a long day, or mentally acknowledging that your mother likely didn’t mean to offend you with a side comment.
After that, there are a few daily steps you can take to improve empathy in your life.
Create a daily check-in ritual. Scan your body and check in with what’s happening with you, physically and emotionally. It will make you more aware of your emotional well-being and help you game plan how to make adjustments based on your mood and intentions.
Develop a gratitude practice. That can include writing down things you’re grateful for in the morning, or even thinking through them before bed. It will make you more emotionally resilient and give you a positive framing for auditing your circumstances and surrounding communities and ecosystems.
Learn to quickly let go of negative narratives. That includes frustrations, as well as judgments of people and situations. The sooner we move on from the narrative, we can begin to notice challenging emotions beneath it that often show up as judgment or limiting beliefs. The sooner we can turn to compassion for ourselves and others, the sooner we can arrive at constructive or supportive words and actions.
Fine-tuning your ability to be empathetic takes time and dedication. But my hope is that it will eventually become a widely adopted practice, like yoga or meditation. Ultimately, the more empathy you can practice, the more fulfilling your relationship with yourself and those around you will be—and in that sense there is no way to lose in the long run.
Buy: The Power of Empathy: A Thirty-Day Path to Personal Growth and Social Change $24.95
The following is excerpted from The Power of Empathy: A Thirty-Day Path to Personal Growth and Social Change. Published by Chronicle Books.
Day 15: Your Army of Support
Who are you comfortable turning to if you find yourself in need?
For many of us, myself included, asking for help is hard. It takes vulnerability to face the potential of rejection or judgment. It takes belief that with support we can overcome our challenges. There was a time when I judged my former romantic partner for her ability to ask for help. It was a cultural difference, but also a personal one.
I was afraid to ask, but she wasn’t. I didn’t believe that I should be told yes. What she embodied, that I eventually learned, is that we are all deserving of support. We must trust and love ourselves enough to believe we are worthy of it.
For Day 15, Your Army of Support, we’ll use our values and purpose to anchor in self-love. We’ll use empathy for ourselves to guide us in identifying our growth and support network. Let’s face it—our capitalist society and economic structures prioritize individualism over collectivism. We compare, we rank, we aim to outdo one another. There are great benefits to separating from the pack and ending up on top in almost every aspect of our lives. From birth we measure a child’s size, response rates, and family conditions as indicators of natural gifts or deficiencies. We measure against one another to predict health and intelligence. As children, standing out in class or in an activity or sport leads to more time and resources spent on that person’s pursuit of excellence. As adults, being number one means more money, prestige, access, and power. Most of all, it provides a shield from the difficult emotions of not measuring up—the sadness, anger, fear, and shame of ranking below the pack.
Given the choice of individual success and collective prosperity, most people in America would find themselves hard-pressed to deny their leaning toward individual success. Many of us have been conditioned to believe that we’ve gotten to where we are alone and that we have to continue to go it alone. But if we slow down to reflect, we begin to see that this is never true.