Empathy - Tell Me More About That with Rob Volpe

Foreign.

Once again, we're talking about empathy today, how to do more of it, why it's important, like all that, everything around empathy, that's our subject and hopefully you feel for us. Hi again, everybody. My name is Bill Gallagher, Scaling coach and host of the Scaling Out Business Partners podcast. Our show comes to you every week with something to do in the world of growing your company, getting the team right, dialing in your strategy, executing better, optimizing your cash and value of the company, as well as the leadership required from you to get it there. And that is really the subject of our show today, right? Empathy is a leadership skill. It's a great cultural practice or thing to foster within your company. And that's what we're talking about today. Matters more than ever. So I'm joined now by Rob Volpe. You can call him Volpe Volpe. Don't say Volp.

I really somebody. I forget who did the joke, but it's really like, just call me. I don't care what you call me, just call me.

So happen to be on the show. He's in San Francisco where I normally live, but I'm up in Seattle right now, where I am all this summer. And so we're talking today about his book. He's got a book out. Tell me more about that. Solving the empathy crisis one conversation at a time. And it's a useful thing. He's also the CEO of Ignite360, a company that does strategy and research for big brands, that kind of thing. And so he's got this. So welcome to the show, Rob.

Thank you, Bill. It's great to be here.

Yeah. So happy to have you on. Reminder to our listeners, viewers that we bring our show to you every week with something to do with World of Scaling Up. And we've got, I don't know, 500 shows or so roughly now out there over the years. And you can find all those more wherever you're getting this right now. So it could be on Facebook, YouTube, LinkedIn, Spotify, Apple, podcast, Stitcher, I don't know, somewhere you're getting it, like it. And subscribe right there. Give us a review that's always helpful for us if you want to do something nice. And you can find us@scalingcoach.com so scalingcoach.com is where we live and where our shows are in the back catalog and all our other programs, workshops, coaching stuff, masterminds, things like that. Scalingcoach.com so, Rob, thanks for coming on the show. Enough. Prelude welcome. Infomercial time, right?

Good to be here. Good to be here.

Is it nice there in San Francisco today? Because it's cold and gray here today.

Yes, that's what it is here this morning. So far it's been really dreary and kind of humid too. I mean, it's when you have fog, there's humidity, but it's been kind of like that clammy ness, I think. Yeah, it's definitely not the usual mid June weather pattern that we see here. This is. This is like July, August, between that summer. Anyway. Yeah.

The weather, our common human experience. So we talked a little bit about, you know, your CEO, you run this company, you wrote this book. Why? Why'd you write this book? How'd you come become interested in this? Like, what's your connection and journey to this? Yeah.

Why? Why this?

You could have written about other things.

There were a lot of other things. And I thought about writing about some other things and I might save those for later books. But you don't have to look very far to see that there's an empathy crisis, that there's just this, like, diminished ability that we have to connect, to understand, to communicate with other people. And so, you know, we see that it might ignite.360. My company does a lot of qualitative research as well as quantitative. Qualitative is about talking to people and connecting and understanding. And insights in general is about having empathy, understanding the point of view of somebody else. And so 10, 12 years ago, we found clients would hire us to have, you know, put these big engagements together and they'd still sit there at the end. We'd gone on this 3, 4 month journey with them and they'd sit there and they'd still have judgment about, why does somebody want to pay more than a dollar for a cup of yogurt? This is back when Chobani and Faye were taking over the yogurt world. And it was like, seriously. We just, you know, in the words of the consumer, told you why this is happening, but they weren't able to get there. And so I'm really focused on the practical, like the how to. Like, okay, here, great. You've got knowledge, you see the problem. What are you going to do about it? And how do you actually make it better or different? And so that's where we set out to understand what was getting in people's way. And how do you overcome that? Started coaching and training that, and then that led to writing the book. And that happened because I was guest lecturing at a marketing class here in San Francisco and Talking about the industry and doing that, that usual thing. But also I take the time to talk about empathy because I know when you're a student and you're that, that young adulthood age, like that's when you really need to be building up your empathy muscle and practicing those skills. I was talking about the issues and challenges that we have, and the students were just totally engrossed in hearing my every single word. So a light went off in my head, a voice inside my head said, this is what you need to write about and tell these stories. And so that's what I did.

I could see the connection in the relationship there. It is interesting, right? It's really hard to get in the minds of other people for all of us, all of the time. And some seem way more interested than others. You know, I'm one of those people that if I don't stop myself, I'm going to fill all the silence and do all the talking. And I'm, I'm, you know, by nature self absorbed and fascinated with my own thoughts.

Exactly. And that and, and it's common. We all want to do that. We're uncomfortable with silence. We want to fill that space up. But you actually, to really understand and connect with other people, it is about sit and listening and asking more questions is behind me in the artwork and making that space to listen to what the other person is saying and paying attention to maybe what's not being said and picking up on that and asking questions based on that and hopefully not letting your curiosity be diminished. Like, you've got to keep an open mind. And ultimately one of the things I like to talk about is taking a curious breath. So as you're having an interaction with somebody, you know, they say in the neuroscience world, the space between stimulus and response, there's actually a little gap. And it's in that gap that we just need to take that curious breath. And you literally, you can do it as a nice big inhale and exhale, but it gives you that opportunity to change your perspective, change how you're going to approach things, come at something from a perspective of curiosity and listening. And that's what's going to help you get to empathy.

So in one of the things that we use and do is Gallup strengths tools. Cliftonstrengths from the Gallup organization and they have empathy in there. And I rate like super low on empathy. Right. In that, in that ranking. Right. Some of my not strength is around that. But then, so I'm asking my buddy Dean, my old mentor at Gallup and he's like. Well, he's like, bill, that's like the ability to read it. And I noticed that some people, they just sense the whole room. It comes to them. I actually have to think about it. I have to pause, I have to ask questions. I have to be very intentional. And then I have deep, powerful empathy. But it's not a natural, automatic kind of thing for me.

Yeah, and there. There's about the. That's. Thank you for sharing that. I don't know. You know, people always are going to go, yeah, I did not score well on that empathy test, but I'm glad you recognize it. But I like also how he talked about the levels of empathy. There are people that are naturally more keyed in there. If you think about it as a muscle, they're like the empathy Olympians, where they can sense the room, they can figure out what's going on, and they almost don't need to think. Think about it. There's just a lot happening subconsciously and how they're naturally responding. And other people. And other people have to work harder at it or build up the muscle. It doesn't mean they can't do it, but they might have to more actively, consciously make that effort. The thing that's interesting, though, is it also is situational. It depends on the room that you're in and who's in that room. There's probably groups where you can walk in and come closer to reading the room than you do in other situations. And it. It kind of can depend. So, you know.

Well, I think it. Like if it's really foreign, right? Like if you walk into a really different situation, different demographics, different part of the world, different, like, whatever. And you're like, oh, I don't belong here. I don't know what's up with these people. Then I think it's really hard.

Right, Absolutely. And. And that's the thing. We're all coming at all of this with our own insecur.

Can you hear your cat sounding off? Yep.

Yeah, there's two of them. They're thinking, oh, this is a good time to play. So here we go. This will be interesting. Please have empathy with me. So, yes, Barnabas. That's. That's Barnabas making noise. I can put them outside. Not outside, outside. But I can put them out of the room. But then they're going to set at the door. They're gonna just.

Yeah, just try it. Let's see how it goes. Like, all right, now they're gonna be bad. I mean, we're alive. Already, so.

Exactly. It's all started. Okay.

Yeah.

So back to the empathy thing. Yeah. In those sort of the. The more out of your comfort zone you are, the harder it is. And that's part of what's happening now in society. It's like we're in these bubbles that are not geographic. You know, it used to be in that kind of 1950s archetype of the white picket fence communities that. That was our bubble, and those are the people that we were around. And we probably had family down the street and all had very shared values and lived experiences. And then through technology, through globalization, through all the things that's all dissipated. And now our bubbles are being drawn by algorithms along ideological lines quite often, and they have nothing to do with geography and they can get very narrow. And so you can think that you're having empathy and you are with those people that are very like minded to you, but you're not being challenged by running into the people from the other side or that might have different perspectives. And then when you do run into them, you have a much more visceral, sort of potent reaction to it.

Well, I. Yeah. And that's. It's easy to understand, appreciate people. Right. I'm from the San Francisco Bay area. I'm living up here in Seattle for some. For part of the year. And, you know, there's a cultural, political, social, aesthetic set of values of things, and there are different camps within that. You know, I'm kind of in one camp and one part, and then other people are kind of in another side. We recognize each other and then we make assumptions about it all playing into the stereotypes. That's different than what's it like for that person as a human being and what are they grappling with? That's just like putting people into buckets. But if I look at those, I'm like, oh, we're kind of professional people from the Bay Area and business and we could bond on that kind of thing. But, you know, I. I don't have cats. Right.

Exactly.

Like, we have differences too. Right. So I think there's a big. Why don't you talk about, tell some of the stories from the book you've got. You're filled with lots of stories in your book on empathy that bring it to life. And one that popped out right in the beginning of the book is about going to this guy David's apartment and you were doing. I don't tell that story.

Yeah. I had already started writing the book. At that point, it hadn't fully taken shape, but we'd gone into this One guy's late 20s, something, lives in Chicago, in the city itself, so kind of an urban apartment. And we'd gone in. We were trying to understand snacking behavior. So, you know, we work with everybody from Microsoft to General Mills. And so the range of topics is really broad. It might be the same person, because you think about that 360, like, you know, the person that buys Cheerios is also using Windows. And so we're trying to understand different aspects of that person's life, who they are. So, yeah, we're in this guy's house, and he just immediately was like, oh, you've got a really interesting job. Like, oh, you get. You know, you get paid to ask questions. And. Yeah, and it reminded me of how the title of that chapter is called it's like Christmas Morning. And that's kind of the gift of what I get to do when we're going out and meeting new people. And it's the way I choose to approach as many conversations as I can. You don't know what you're going to get. You know, it's like that gift, you know, whether you observe Christmas or any other birthday, you don't know what the gifts are going to be, but you know you're going to get something. And hopefully it's that thing that you really want. And sometimes you get. In my case, and I write about in the book the green sweater I got when I was 12, which is like the last thing that I wanted, but I guess my mom.

Nobody ever wants that sweater. No, get him the sweater.

Not as a preteen. Like, that's. That wasn't the thing. But, you know, and gift giving is actually a great example of having empathy with other people. But, yeah, so we were at David's house, and it was just this, you know, story. We talked to him about all of his snacking behavior. But there's that opportunity to really talk.

About their snacking behavior openly. Oh.

Oh, you'd be surprised, Bill. The things we can get people to talk about when you treat. You can talk to anybody about anything if you treat the topic with. And the person with respect and the woman that trained me.

I think quite a few of us have shame around our snacking behavior. I've had clients go, wow, you just went through a whole bag of potato chips. I'm like, yeah, sometimes.

So the way I might ask that question, if that were actually happening, I might say something to the effect of, oh, tell me about those chips that you just finished. And how often do you have those, where do you get them? How did you find them?

How many bags a day that might come up?

How frequently do you find, like when, when do you get a craving for those chips? And I'll be listening for the language that you use and then turn that into, and use that language in the question because it's going to make you feel more comfortable and safe to, to open up and share. And yeah, I, I've, I mean, there's, there is a chapter in the book called let's Talk about Sex. And I tell stories about times that sex or sexual related things have come up or times that I have actually been engaged to talk to people about sex and how they use.

As a researcher.

As a personal lubricant. Yeah, as a researcher. But you end up like, you know that. I'd start that chapter talking about when living in New York in the late 90s, early 2000s, sex in the city was the thing. And I had those boozy brunches with my friends on Saturdays and Sundays and we would talk about sex, all the different things that were kind of going on in our life. And again, it's about how you talk about those things.

So David and his snacking, what did you notice? What?

Well, that's confidential to the client, but David was a great example of just that curiosity and got me reflecting on how I ask questions and the role of empathy in those particular lives. And then I move into some stories. There's another one in the next chapter about. Because this first section is all about when empathy eludes us and what happens when you're not having empathy. And I was doing a project on bubble gum and talking to teenagers about gum chewing habits. And this was, gosh, 15 years ago now. We were up in New York, did the research, had to get down to Atlanta. I took some time to spend the night or see some family in the Dulles, D.C. virginia metro area and got stuck with thunderstorms and ended up having to spend the night on the floor in the airport at Dulles for the first and only time ever. And, and there was a realization, like I used to have a lot of judgment. I'd see those people camped. You still see them today, like camped out, like chairs. It does happen. And I'm like, why aren't they with a friend or family member? Why didn't they get a hotel room? Why, you know, all the different things? And here I was. My parents only live a few miles from Dulles Airport. In theory, I could have gone home, but I didn't because I ended up getting a really early flight, but suddenly. And then had to take a sponge bath in the airport bathroom. And MacGyver, my suitcase. Like, things in my suitcase, because who travels with a washcloth? Or typically I don't. Was like, how am I going to get myself clean? Because I was hitting the ground in Atlanta and going to meet the clients and going out for work. This was. I was going to work. And it was a packed full day, and I had gotten maybe three hours of sleep. I was just beyond exhausted. But I figured out how to do that and get presentable. Then I got there and one of the three. We did three interviews that day. The last interview is the one that was memorable to me because the house that we were in for this teenager. First the parents, the mom wouldn't let us into the house, so we had to do the interview. This is Atlanta. It's late June. So hot.

Yeah.

Warm. Yeah. Four o' clock in Atlanta on a late June afternoon. Uncomfortable. And we're sitting outside of this townhouse complex on these. I remember they were those kind of poured concrete patio setups that they have. It was myself, the respondent, and then a couple of clients and agency folks. Finally, the parents slip off to go to dinner, and they drive off, and we're like, oh, now's our chance to get inside for some air conditioning. And so we convinced the teenager, and he was 17 or 18. He was a bit older, but we convinced him, oh, hey, can you bring us into the house? We want to see the. He did these dance videos that he would post up on YouTube, and we wanted to see those. And this is before smartphones, so we had to go into the house and. Oh, my gosh. This was before the Hoarders TV series and before hoarding became a thing. But it was. There was a narrow pathway to get through the living room as you came in off the front door. And then there was just this smell as we rounded the bathroom and into the dining area of cat urine and fresh baked goods and other sorts of things.

That's a contrast.

Oh, yeah. Oh, yeah. And. And literally, we're standing there and, like, you know, arms up on our shoulders, contained. And I literally voiced. I sort of saw a voce to the client. Like, touch nothing.

Yeah, yeah.

The mom had baked a cake, a Betty Crocker Moist Deluxe, whatever sheet cake that was sitting on top of the oven, cooling. And then I saw a cockroach crawl across it. And I. It was like, oh, this is that real estate trick of, like, bake fresh cookies before your open House so that it has a warm, appealing aroma and people want to be there. And there was that. And then there was like the smell of urine and things elsewhere. And it was, it was a very uncomfortable thing. And, and, and this is an example, like the judgment around this. We were so uncomfortable that we weren't listening to anything that he was saying. And as once the interview ended and we're there, those interviews are like two hours roughly. So by the time that was done, we leave you just like, I. What, what did we just see? Like, you're having to process the sort of quote unquote trauma, the pseudo trauma that you'd just been through, the shock of it and the judgment to try to get to. Like, what did he tell us about bubblegum? I'm not really sure anymore, but I do still remember very vividly that house and all the Coca Cola. Vintage Coca Cola memorabilia, because we were in Atlanta. Tons of vintage Coke memorabilia on the walls.

And there's always a bit of gold in hell.

For sure. Yeah. So, you know, the point of it all though, is that when you're not using empathy in your life, whether it's at work trying to grow your business or with your neighbors or your family members, you're not communicating well with other people. You're not connecting, you're not hearing them, you're not understanding them. Therefore, you cannot reach decisions with them. You know, problem solve, communicate, do the basic skills that we need to be successful.

You know, as you're telling that, I'm reminded I once got booked to give a workshop to a professional group. And, and I, I didn't set it up. Somebody else set it up for me. And they said, oh, Bill, you'd be perfect. You're a entrepreneurial guy, CEO, business guy. You could go do this workshop for these group of, professional group. And then I found out it was plumbers. And I'm like, ah, how am I. Like, plumbers really got by. People like that hate me. Like, I'm not good with people like that. And I think we all have, like, there's certain kinds of people I'm okay with and certain kinds of people I'm not okay with. And like, that's how I am. And, and so I had, I was anxious about it a couple days before and I, I talked to my coach. I'm like, I have this thing coming up and I just, I don't know how it's going to go. I'm really worried. Maybe we should find somebody else to go do this thing thing instead of me. Somebody who can relate to the plumbers more. And. And. And she's like, what makes you think you can't relate to the plumbers? And, you know, what kinds of people do you think you can relate to and can't relate to? So she had me.

She just.

She brought curiosity, right? She's like, how is this for you? And I kind of laid out there the kinds of people that I thought I was okay with and the kinds of people I thought I wasn't okay with. And there were definitely some camps, and I don't remember all what they were, but plumbers were definitely in the can't relate to group. And I'm like, blue collar guys. They don't like me, and they're not going to connect me. And I don't really. I don't live their world. Like, and. And she's like, really? Like, what are the things that you've dealt with? Do you have a wife? Do you have children? Do you have parents? Do you have money concerns? Do you have family problems? Do you have. I'm like, yeah, all that? She's like, yeah, what do you think they have? And so. So you don't clear pipes and get water running or stopped running or, like, for a living, but. And you somehow think that you're not like them. That's ridiculous. Like, they're people just like you who have the same kinds of issues. They just do different work than you do. And. And I was like, huh. So first of all, she was curious about what I was going through, which gave me an ability to look at myself. And then she invited me to be curious about them and what kind of lives they were. So then I set aside some of that judgment and preconditioned, and I walked into a room full of plumbers. I still tell the story. I have a slide for it. I've done many graphics for the room full of plumbers because I think it, like, it's. It's definitely a lesson moment for me because I had gave a great workshop. People loved me. They was fantastic. They did great work. I love them. You know, and they were all plumbers, and imagine that. And, you know, they. They were plumbers who had issues with their business partners and spouses and kids and families and lives and everything else like everybody else does. And so I just focused on that and that. That thing like, how is it for you? What are you dealing with and what's important to you right now? You know, and that's.

I love that. That's such an awesome story because thank you to your coach. For getting you beyond the trappings of success and your life and looking at the humanity of the plumbers in that case, that. Yeah, I mean, they're businessmen. They have, you know, cash flow issues. They may have scalable growth. Like they've got all the business challenges that somebody does running a different type of business. It just happens to be a blue, you know, typically blue collar sort of job. And they have personal relationships, they've got a spouse, maybe they have kids, et cetera. And it's finding that commonality and that sort of lowest common denominator gets a bad word. But what is that thing that we have in common that you can start to relate to and to connect to? In the chapter about David in that early story, some of where that experience with him took me was reflecting on my own life and where empathy was showing up. And I grew up, my family moved into a very small town in Indiana and that was a really uncomfortable place for me. The person that grew up to be a gay man living in San Francisco.

And so not as welcoming in parts of Indiana as maybe San Francisco is on.

On a mass level. No, it was not. Not, you know, and I was in fifth grade, but the kids figured out something was, you know, different about me and that that was something they could use against me. And so, yeah, they went for it. And that, you know, was very difficult. And I plenty of that in the book initially. But it's also about understanding. And at the end of the book, I wrap up with a return to that town in Indiana for a 35th high school reunion, I think it was, or 30th, 30th high school reunion. And what I learned about them and the context that as I was hearing about them and what they were going through in their life at that time and, you know, I mean, things that I did not have to experience. You know, between alcoholic parents, emotionally abusive parents, the financial insecurity, personal insecurity, eating disorder, like they so much that I had no idea they were having to deal with. And it was like, oh, I finally understood this had nothing to do with me. This was about what they were going through and that they were hurting and they were lashing out and I was the, you know, the easiest target for them. It had nothing to do with how they felt about me. And I've still got a good relationship with quite a few of them. And that sort of realization helped me forgive them for what happened. It doesn't excuse it, but it helped me at least reach forgiveness. And yeah, you can find that connection with other people by just getting down to that, those sorts of basics. There's another, you know, I think that.

That, that whole thing, like we walk into a room, we sit across the table, we get on in a video with someone and, and we make some judgments about them. Like we're at the, like, oh, yeah, oh, they, they're much more attractive than me or much more fitter or, or wow, they're kind of poor or they're like, whatever. And, and yet if you think about it, everywhere you look around your life and you like, I, I know this one really like handsome, fit guy that asked to run a race with me and he just had terrible self discipline and he did not prepare at all for the race. And then I think about a woman who was in a work another workshop with me some years later and I thought she looked miserable and her arms are crossed and she looked tired and annoyed. And I checked in with her at a break and she's like, oh, this is amazing. God, I love your stories and the things that you're talking about. It's just so, like, so opening up. And I'm like, what's going on? You look so unhappy. And she's, I forget what it was now, but she was just tired or something like that. Right. But there are times that we look at people and we think they're great and they're suffering. I had another time that somebody was in another workshop and, and had a friend with them and the friend seemed great and attractive and alert and happy and. And she went home and committed suicide.

Oh my gosh, I'm so sorry. Right.

Like, and I, I, you just can't tell right. At the surface what people are going through and what they're dealing with. And people look great, might be suffering and the people who look like they're suffering might actually be good. Yeah. Yeah. And the camps that you put them in, they're successful. They're not. They're rich, they're smart. Like, there's no curiosity then if we make those judgments, even if we're a lot. Right, right. And I think that's the danger. If you're smart and observant, you're often right about a lot of it.

Right. Yeah. Thank you for sharing that with. About her.

And we, Sorry, a little bit heavy. Right. But there's people go like, you know.

No, there's no apologies about that. I'm, I'm such an advocate for us talking more openly about mental health issues and challenges that all of us are facing because, hi, we're all human and you know, you don't know if you could have helped that woman in that moment, but.

Oh, that. I beat myself up about that. Like, what, why didn't I see anything? What couldn't I do? And you know, I talked to her for a little while. I couldn't tell anything was going on. I, my, my workshop wasn't about mental health, but God, if I'd seen anything, any inkling, I'd have taken some steps, I'd have done something, I'd have done whatever. I could intervene. I did nothing. I saw nothing.

And, and she probably didn't want you to see any of that.

Probably. That wasn't, that was a silent suffering, right?

Yeah. Yeah. We lost a really close friend. Since we're on the topic of death, we lost a really close friend coming up three years ago and really successful VP of marketing, dynamic bubbly personality. Her close friends. When we were her, kind of, my husband and I were her like gay husbands. We'd go on vacations together, she lived here in town, she'd come over for dinner and all of that. We did not realize though, until the autopsy report came in. She died suddenly. They found her body like two days later on a welfare check. Six months later we got the medical examiner's report. It turns out that she was a high functioning alcoholic. No idea. And she drank herself to death. And it was, we're still processing that and we didn't see the signs and you know, she wanted to hide it from us. And then you get into like, why did she feel safe? Like we're such a safe. But all the shame, all the things. And yeah, yeah, we, we as a society will be better served by being more open and sharing how we're feeling. And you know, if you're a manager or anybody and you've got somebody that comes to you also starting to have some things in your tool belt on how to respond to that and just thanking them for sharing and how can I support you? And you know, what, what, what do you need in that moment? And you know, hope most, in most cases it's not at the point of they're, they're going to harm themselves, but it is looking to support each other.

So our, our audience will be pretty familiar, many of them with like Pat Lencioni's work and the importance of fostering trust and openness and vulnerability in the workplace. And I. That's somewhat familiar, I think. But empathy is distinct from that. Empathy is about appreciating their world. Yes, right. Their perspective, their experience, their feelings. It's not just hearing it or having room for it to be spoken, but it's actually getting it, like getting around on the other side. What's it like for them? Yeah.

Yes, it's fuels, it helps lay the groundwork for trust to be built and all the other things. And that successful relationship that you want, that's going to make your business successful as well. And so again, empathy is that ability that enriches, empowers, fuels all the skills. Think about the skills you use in work when it comes to other people. Communication, collaboration, compromise, decision making, ideation, forgiveness, trust, compassion, Empathy is at the root of all of that. If you're using empathy in those skills, you are going to be better as whether you're a leader or an individual contributor or a volunteer, empathy is going to make it better for you. And so some of it is really as fundamental as hearing what somebody is saying and using the language that they've shared back to them. So kind of mirroring things back and then asking, did I get that right? Am I, am I hearing you correctly? And giving them that opportunity then to correct you if you don't have it quite right. Because we very often listen with judgments and our own biases and so we're filtering things and we're not going to necessarily play it back. Right. And give somebody that opportunity if you've got, you know, I see so many times with organizations now where, you know, especially with the return to office is kind of the classic situation where the leaders aren't being truly empathetic in their communication. Like people have uprooted their lives, they've changed things around. They, they, their, their values are different now than they were three years ago at this time for sure.

Shifted.

Yeah. And as a leader, if you're not recognizing that and expressing that recognition and understanding in your communication, they're not going to feel safe, secure, connected trust. They're not going to be as likely to hear that message, respond positively to it. So yeah, empathy is, is, it's a fundamental skill that underlies everything. And yet there's so many people that are afraid of it because they don't understand it and don't understand what to do. And you've taken the time to like, think about how you're showing up.

Yeah, but I, you know, I'm smart enough and successful enough that I often think that I know what's going on and what's up and I'm, and I'm a lot. Right. Except even when I am 100% right, there's no relationship. And sometimes the 5% that I'm wrong about or missing is all the difference. I did. I took a. A workshop some years ago in or like an exercise within a workshop on deeper listening skills. And, you know, and they probed us to get what was being said, which is hard enough as it is because we're not really listening 100% to the other person. We're listening as much of the thoughts in our own head at the same time. And. And then kind of to try to read their emotional experience. Experience and be able to repeat it back and then to speculate what's behind that, what's going on in particular with regard to complaints and upsets. You know, when people are really upset about something and we teach this since then, but under lying, those things is always something they care about, something virtuous or a value, like a personal value. So I hear this and I think that's really great. And I get the exercise really well and I'm a good student and. And then a day or two later, I. I'm having lunch with my wife and we had this tradition. We would go to this place, Yoshi's in the East Bay, and we'd have lunch and we'd talk about our schedules and our work and just us and how we're going to manage the kids that week. And. And then one of those arguments came up. And I've talked about. I've written about this before, but one of those arguments came up that all couples have around something. You know, you have that recurring argument that there's just no meeting ground on. No, like, whatever. And we had one around the TV in the bedroom. And so it comes up. I don't know why, like at lunch at Yoshi's. But the TV comes up and. And suddenly, like, we're in our positions and it starts to get ugly fast, right? Like tension. You could feel it, like we're going to get divorced, right? Or the TV in the bedroom. It's funny now in hindsight, you know, more than a decade later, but this is like 18 years ago or something. But, you know, she liked the TV in the bedroom, wanted to fall asleep to the tv. And I'm like, I can't fall asleep. And it's horrible and bad for everything for the TV to be in the bedroom. So that was the argument, right? And I'm right. She's right. So it starts up again. But I just done this exercise and did the workshop and I. So I asked myself, what's it like to be her. Oh, as she's talking Great. And I just suddenly was like. And every time I think about it, I'm overcome with emotion again. I'm like, to be her. To be married to me was to have to fight for what you want for the rest of your life. And it's so heartbreaking even now, years later, because I love her, and I don't want that to be her life. To have to fight to get what she wants in life. Like, oh, every time I remember it, I'm. I. It's right there. I feel it again. And I. And I. And when I saw it, I was just like this. Like, I. I got emotional in the moment. I get emotional easily. And so I said. And she's like, what just happened? Because I wasn't speaking, saying anything. I was just overcome. And I said, oh, I just realized that to be married to me is to have to fight for what you want. And I'm sorry.

How did she hear that?

She cried. Because it was what it was like. Even if she hadn't put it into words, she wasn't actively thinking that. She was feeling it, experiencing it, living it. But she hadn't said it. I said what she was feeling now. We both were, like, moved and rocked. And in the next, like, five minutes, we worked out our TV stuff. And we've had a TV in the bedroom. Like, every room has a TV in our world. We're boomers and. But we just don't watch it all the time. We worked out some accommodation and the vibe and how we were going to handle it. And. And it never was a problem again after that. And she doesn't even really remember that. She's like, I tell that story. She's like, I could tell it must have really happened, but I don't even. Like, it just disappeared for us.

And. And I would. I'm not a therapist, although I've had a similar situation in couples therapy with my husband. It was about changing the cat litter versus the tv. But. But it is that. There's this dance that couples eft. Emotionally focused therapy talks about. Like, there's this dance that couples go into, and you just. It's this repeated path. They'll say something, you say something back. And it's the same kind of. It's a dance, it's a waltz. It's the same steps over and over again, and you just are spinning around until one of the partners, and hopefully both can change the dance and step. Step out of it and look at it differently, which is exactly what you did. Because it wasn't about the tv in the bedroom. She was hoping for you to hear her and what she. And which is exactly what you did. And it's so. The love you have for your wife was so evident in that moment. And thank you for sharing that with me and live and everything. I think this is beautiful, but yet it's about those other things. And once you recognize what it's really about, then you can start to address the real issue. And then it's like, okay, fine, we're gonna have TVs in every single room. And yeah, it doesn't.

Look, we still argue all the time and there's still moments where we think we're not gonna make it. And we'll be married 29 years this year, and it looks like we'll make it to 30. But I don't take any of it for granted, nor should you. Life is hard, right?

Like, it takes. It takes work.

It takes a little work, but it's also really worth it because I can look at her, she can look at me in an instant now with 29, 30 years together and like about half our lives with each other now. And I know not necessarily what's going on, but I know something's good or something's bad. She doesn't have to say I love you. Sometimes she just says it with her eyes and I'm like, oh, yeah, she me right now. And sometimes I can look at her and she's like, oh, you're loving me, aren't you? And you know that. And then other times I'm like, wow, you're really mad today, aren't you? And what's going on? Like, how can I help? So I think there's something powerful there. But it does happen from. From getting, getting into it. The book is Tell me more about that and the website. So tell me more about. That's the book. Fivestepstoempathy.com is the website. And you know, there's some steps you could take and things that would make a real difference there. I think it's been a great conversation. Also our show and back catalog everything@scalingcoach.com all of our programs, workshops, all that kind of stuff around growing your business and the leadership required to get it there. And then of course, empathy five steps, empathy dot com. Tell me more about that. I. It's been really great conversation. I'm really grateful to have you on and to talk about all of this today.

Super helpful. Thank you, Bill. It's really awesome.

Yeah. So. And some shout outs and thank yous to the people in our world to my mentor and friend, Vern Harnish, who created the Scaling up book and the Rockefeller Habits that came before it, and who I have the privilege to lead a lot of workshops with. And then to Wanda Mitchell, who gets our show ready, produced each week before and after. She's not here behind the scenes today because she's got some Internet outages where she is right now. But normally, our folks at Pop Fly Production, who produce our show, finish things, clean things up, get our show notes and everything distributed each week. So thanks to everyone. Thanks to all of you for watching, for listening. If we can help you, reach out to us, drop us an email or whatever, and we'll talk to you again next time. In the meantime, keep Scaling Up. Thanks. Bye. Bye. Talk to you next week.