“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.
Kat Steih
1. Wanting to be a creative person
2. Not having the skills at the beginning
3. Feeling so different from the people who did have the skills
4. Continuing to learn the skills
5. Thanks to my brain being different, being non-neurotypical, I often felt shame around not being chosen Read more>>
Lara Coursey
Starting Naturally Yew was not only a professional transition but also a personal journey. Helping others break free from systems that didn’t serve their well-being reminded me of my own struggles and inspired me to craft solutions rooted in empathy, understanding, and sustainable change. Read more>>
Sherilynn Rauschkolb
I think my empathy grew from a mix of experiences, some of them really tough. Growing up, I often felt isolated in my own family. It wasn’t that they didn’t care—they did in their own way—but I rarely felt truly understood. That feeling of being on the outside looking in stuck with me. It wasn’t just at home, either. Among my peers, I didn’t feel particularly encouraged. I think I learned early on how lonely it can feel when you’re not cheered on or when people don’t seem to notice what’s special about you. That’s a hard lesson, but it also made me aware that so many other people are going through the same thing. It opened my eyes to the fact that everyone comes with their own set of life experiences, their own struggles, and their own silent battles. Read more>>
Lindsay Nikolaeff
For me, empathy has been a skill I’ve developed through both personal and professional experiences. Early on, I found myself in roles where I had to connect with others on a meaningful level—whether in research teams, where collaboration and understanding others’ perspectives were crucial, or in sales, where building authentic relationships required active listening and compassion. Read more>>
Samantha Banerjee
I always say that my daughter’s death broke my heart open and allowed my empathy to flourish in a way that it never would have without her influence. Going through such a traumatic experience – one that I had never even conceived before as being possible to happen to *me* – stripped away (in the mostly brutal fashion possible) any defenses I may have put up between my heart and the suffering in the world. It made it clear that, just like everyone else, I was not infallible or immune to the world’s horrors. And it squashed any notions of things being fair or just, or people getting what they “deserve.” Read more>>
Jah Bruja
I would like to believe that my empathy comes from learning to understand my mother. I grew up floating from my grandparents to my mom, I’m not sure at what age I was finally fully with my mom but I do remember a time where my mom wasn’t living with me and my grandparents were taking care of me. I don’t know all the specifics and I’m almost 1,000% sure it was something along the lines of my grand mother and my mother had their own beef that they never got past from her adolescent years which ultimately resulted in my mother being removed from the house with my grandparents and myself. My mother wasn’t a bad mom, at least I don’t remember that way… She had me at twenty – three and was a bit of a wild child from what I remember growing up. Read more>>
Donni Satu
The conditions that allowed me to develop empathy stem from a combination of my early life experiences, personal struggles, and a deep exploration of my own humanity. Growing up, I faced immense challenges—being separated from my biological mother at birth, experiencing physical abuse, and enduring a sense of isolation. These hardships, though painful, provided me with the first seeds of empathy. I had to understand what it felt like to be unloved, misunderstood, and isolated, which later gave me the ability to deeply empathise with others who feel the same. Read more>>
Shay Moulder
I have always been a person who is sensitive and feels things in a very deep way. It’s a good and bad quality to have; when I am hurt emotionally it’s visceral, when I am happy, I’m overjoyed. But feeling like you can’t trust the world will make you hide your heart, and therefore it’s hard to exercise empathy no matter how deep you think you are. Read more>>
Janessa Neighbors
Thank you for having me and for taking the time to get to know me!
The conditions that allowed me to develop my empathy are both personal and professional.
Personal-wise, I’ve been the “mediator” of very personal, painful conflicts (parents’ divorce, various family dysfunction conflicts), when I didn’t want to be. I am also a survivor of various types of abuse so the continued healing aftermaths of that, gave me the ability to put myself in someone else’s shoes no matter the situational circumstances. The healing aftermaths also improved my emotional intelligence so that I could feel what the person is going through without unknowingly absorbing it. Plus it has helped me in my own healing journey with all the thoughts I have and various feelings I often go back and forth with at times. In the dating world, some of my past partners that I’ve had were challenging but they also allowed me to grow as a human being and as a lover. Read more>>
Faith Streng
I love this question, and carrying empathy is a critical part of my work as a Spiritual Healer and Coach. There are four major aspects of my life that have instructed my gifts as an empath. The first was watching my mother work. Growing up I saw her as teacher, and also as a program director for mentally disabled adults. She has always sought out how to be of service to those who are most vulnerable, and absorbing that as a young person affected me strongly. Read more>>
Nelly Hutchinson (formally Sandeep)
The adversities my parents faced throughout their lives profoundly shaped their values, and they instilled a deep sense of empathy in my brothers and me. From a young age, I witnessed this in small yet impactful ways. For instance, if someone mistreated us, my mom would remind us that they were likely having a bad day rather than being a bad person. These moments of perspective and understanding built a foundation for my own empathy. They taught me that people’s lives extend far beyond our one-on-one interactions, and maintaining this mindset requires a commitment to empathizing with the unknown. I learned to pause, assume there might be unseen struggles in someone’s life, and approach them with compassion instead of judgment. Read more>>
Samantha Fretwell
I hope I continue to develop my empathy! It’s something I value highly. I look at the people in my life who have and give the most joy, and their main common quality is empathy for both themselves and those around them. So I try to pass that along to others. In terms of the conditions which allowed me to develop my empathy… there are probably many factors but the biggest one was being educated in fundamentalist Christian schools. The bigotry and judgement were so extreme that I think there were only a few ways to survive it: join in, go numb, or reverse course. I tried to reverse course and live a life of love and acceptance of others. I’m still working on accepting myself, but every day it gets a little more comfortable. Read more>>
