The Healing Power of Empathy

SUMMARY

• Can you see things from other people's perspective or do you tend to act without considering how others might feel? Hi, this is Grant Herbert, International Influencer and Sustainable Performance Coach, and today, I want to continue our conversation around Emotional Intelligence during this time of COVID-19 by having a conversation around a crucial competency called empathy.

• There are three types of empathy. There's Cognitive Empathy, which is having an understanding of what people are thinking. There's Emotional Empathy, which is having a sense of what they're feeling and the emotions that they're going through. And then there's compassionate empathy, which is at a deeper level, which spurs you on and inspires you to take action to help.

• Let me give you three tips on what we can do when we develop empathy, when we've developed this skill and this crucial competency of Emotional Intelligence, that allows us to be more socially competent.

TIP#1: Suspend all judgment.

TIP#2: Listen to what's not being said - go deeper than just the surface level.

TIP#3: When we want to get involved in a conversation, whether it be on social media, face to face, on the phone, however we're doing it with our body language, we need to first acknowledge what we think we've seen, what we think we've heard.

• So, if this episode has touched you and ignited something in you to want to know more, make sure that you get in touch and ask your questions, whether that be in the podcast, on my YouTube channel, or in the various social media outlets that you might be watching this or listening to it and ask questions. I'd love to help you because we could all do with a little bit more empathy around the world right now.

• Well, that's it for me for another week. Join me again next week, where we will continue to talk about competencies of Social and Emotional Intelligence that will help us go beyond COVID-19 and enjoy every aspect of our life a little better. I'll see you then.

HOT NEWS & OFFERS!

FREE eBook and video series to help you reduce your stress fast. This has helped thousands of people around the world so GRAB YOURS NOW

FULL TRANSCRIPT

Can you see things from other people's perspective or do you tend to act without considering how others might feel? Hi, this is Grant Herbert, International Influencer and Sustainable Performance Coach, and today, I want to continue our conversation around Emotional Intelligence during this time of COVID-19 by having a conversation around a crucial competency called empathy.

Right now, I'm seeing many examples of a lack of empathy, whether it be on social media, whether I'm listening to the news, or if I'm downtown at the local shopping center. Whether it's stereotyping people, whether it's not being tolerant of differing views, or whether it's coming across just being uncaring with a total lack of concern for others and being trapped in our own agenda.

To restore a greater sense of unity and peace for everyone right now, let's consider how we might do some things differently. Things like being more attentive and attuned to the feelings that are coming across in what people are saying or listening without an agenda and showing sensitivity and understanding of other people's perspectives and feelings. To do these things differently, we need to understand and to develop the skills around empathy. 

There are three types of empathy. There's Cognitive Empathy, which is having an understanding of what people are thinking. There's Emotional Empathy, which is having a sense of what they're feeling and the emotions that they're going through. And then there's compassionate empathy, which is at a deeper level, which spurs you on and inspires you to take action to help. 

I know in my own life, this is something that I work on all the time and I'm not perfect at it. And as we've talked about before, that's never going to be the goal. I do have a sense of what other people are feeling, and I'm very attuned because of the development of Emotional Intelligence. 

And for us to be able to do that, we need to go back to where we talked about self-awareness and we need to have an understanding of what emotions we are going through ourselves so that we can recognise what others could be going through as well.

So, let me give you three tips on what we can do when we develop empathy, when we've developed this skill and this crucial competency of Emotional Intelligence, that allows us to be more socially competent.

Number one is to suspend all judgment. A lot of times, when I witnessed what I've been witnessing and when I've done it in my own life and had to check myself on it, the core of the challenge is judgment, whether it's judgment on ourself or judgment on the other people or judgment on the whole situation.

So, when we suspend all judgment, it takes it out of the equation. So, we can go into the situation, whether it's something that we're seeing, whether it's something that we're reading, whether it's something that we're listening to with an open mind, just like we do when we are getting feedback from others when we ask for it.

The second thing we can do is to listen to what's not being said, to go deeper than just the surface level. So, when we suspend all judgment, we're in an environment where we're able to do that. So now, using active listening, we're able to sense and feel the underlying issues that someone might be going through or in that situation.

And number three is that when we want to get involved in a conversation, whether it be on social media, face to face, on the phone, however we're doing it with our body language, we need to first acknowledge what we think we've seen, what we think we've heard. A lot of times when I've fallen foul to this, it's because I've made a decision that this is what this person's trying to say.

This is what their real agenda is. This is who they're aligned with. This is whatever. So, by reflecting back and asking questions, rather than reacting with a comment, we're able to find out what the real story is.

So, empathy. It's a key competency of Social and Emotional Intelligence and one that we can all brush up on a little bit. Right now, there's an environment going on and around the world that can bring out some behaviours in us that are a little bit surprising. It's not how we might normally respond or react.

So, if this episode has touched you and ignited something in you to want to know more, make sure that you get in touch and ask your questions, whether that be in the podcast, on my YouTube channel, or in the various social media outlets that you might be watching this or listening to it and ask questions. I'd love to help you because we could all do with a little bit more empathy around the world right now.

Well, that's it for me for another week. Join me again next week, where we will continue to talk about competencies of Social and Emotional Intelligence that will help us go beyond COVID-19 and enjoy every aspect of our life a little better. I'll see you then.