“Empathy is about finding echoes of another person in yourself.” – Mohsin Hamid
We believe empathy is one of the most important ingredients enabling effectiveness and so we connected with some amazing folks to ask them about the conditions that allowed them to develop into such empathic leaders.
Ash Ross
Growing up as an artist and creative, I have encountered a myriad of challenges, including bullying, isolation, and exclusion. These experiences have shaped me in profound ways and have instilled within me a strong desire to ensure that no one else feels the same pain and alienation that I did during my childhood. I attribute this empathetic nature to the unwavering support and guidance from my parents. They constantly reminded me of the profound impact that a lack of compassion had on me, and urged me to always treat others with kindness, as one can never truly comprehend the battles they may be fighting. Read more>>
Cherry Mo
We all have had our own experiences in life. Sometimes when going through it, it feels like we are alone. But have you ever noticed later on, that there are so, so many more people going through a similar experience? I grew up with anxiety and was a very shy kid. With the two combined, I was very closed off from others. I was afraid to tell my parents what I really go through mentally when I was alone. It wasn’t until college when the anxiety escalated did I finally open up to my mother. She showed me what empathy means. Read more>>
Jasmine Perez
Wow, that’s a loaded question. *chuckle* Life gets very challenging and it require you to focus. A beautiful life changing quote I keep near and dear to my heart is “It is during our most darkest moments we must focus to see the light.” I have a POWERFUL reframing tool that I’ve cultivated throughout the most difficult human experiences like, parents dying to childhood abuse & neglect. I desperately searched within to heal and only found radical acceptance & empathy within myself and that is my power. Read more>>
Kaamilah Mixon
I’d like to begin answering this question with what empathy means to me. Empathy is the ability to understand what someone feels in any given situation, especially difficult ones. I consider myself an empathetic person as I take time to reflect and ponder what others go through and how it affects them. There are a few experiences that allowed me to develop my empathy and to continue to do so. As a child I was raised in a predominantly single parent household (with my mother and four siblings), experienced different familial conflicts, relocated residences frequently, and experienced a traumatic situation after turning 13 wherein my mother’s former boyfriend attempted to pimp me out. Read more>>
Samantha Randall
Chronic illness is just that, chronic, constant and at times severe. Suffering everyday and understanding how it truly impacts your life is how I further developed my empathy. I was born an empath with the ability to know, feel and understand others pain and struggles. Read more>>
Amy Jay
There was a moment, probably in my early 20s, where I started to see people as actually human, that the black and white turned a spectrum of gray, and years of being in a relationship showed me that every part of us has multiple angles. The things that we love in one another are a lot of the times the reasons why we get frustrated with one another too. So I started having compassion for those around me, seeing them holistically and recognizing myself in that too. Read more>>
