Empathy enables a person to establish a connection with others and is necessary for mutual interaction and full comprehension of the experience. It is probably one of the most important aspects of being a leader in every situation. Without it, a person is virtually guaranteed to become out of touch with the environment, he or she is in. Without empathy, a leader cannot lead. Without empathy, a person cannot be in any type of mutually beneficial relationship. Without empathy, a person is basically asking to be completely alone in life.

Have you ever wished to be more empathetic in order to become a better leader? In order to have a better relationship with a friend, loved one or colleague?

There are many great and free resources about empathy available. Here are some great articles, posts and videos that talk about empathy and it’s importance in leadership, parenting and relationships: 

1. 5 Tips for Empathetic Listening — Really a quick read from Stepcase Lifehack on the five simple steps one can use to be more empathetic. 
2. Are You Empathetic or Sympathetic? — A brief post by Robbie Miller Kaplan (author of the book “How to Say It When You Don’t Know What to Say”) on how he words sympathy and empathy are often thought to be the same, and yet they are distinct expressions. 
3. Avoiding the Five Pitfalls to Becoming an Empathetic Listener — A very concise article about why more people are not better empathetic listeners. 
4. Being a Good Manager/Mom: Be Empathetic — Quick post from Sarah Rottenberg who describes it well by saying that a recent post got her “thinking about what I think it takes to be a good manager. And I think it’s simple: be empathetic.” 
5. Empathetic Voice Improves Doctor-Patient Communication — Doctors who use an empathetic voice with patients can elicit more information about their health problems and encourage them to stick to their treatment regime, a Monash researcher has found. 
6. Empathetic Understanding and School Leadership Preparation — a paper written by Diane Ketelle and R. Pete Mesa, Mills College. Successful leaders seem to share one thing in common – empathy. The authors posit that empathic understanding is foundational to leadership. 
7. Empathy and Showing Empathy — Interesting article descibing the importance of empathy in leadership positions. 
8. Empathy is in Our Genes — a quick read from the Thaindian News website citing a few research studies on the topic. 
9. Empathetic Customer Service — a short article on how empathy played such an important role in the lasting of one of America’s successful companies of it’s day. 
10. Exercise in Creative Classroom Management — How to Become a More Empathetic Teacher – The title speaks for itself. 
11. Gandhi’s Neurons: The Practice of Empathy – Article by Bruna Martinuzzi on 
12. How to be an Empathetic Listener – article on steps for being a better listener with empathy. 
13. How Empathetic are You? — Interesting article with a link to a test where one can determine their Empathy Quotient. 
14. How to Practice More Empathy in Your Business Management — Sometimes it’s hard to be a business manager, especially when you are in difficult situations with your employees. One of the important things that you need to exercise in these difficult situations is empathy.
15. How to Teach Your Kids to be Empathetic – A story post from the website “Effective Parenting” that gives a good example of the results of teaching empathy to a child.
16. Make Empathetic Listening your Super Power — a very good article on being empathetic.
17. Mirror Neurons – Video of discussing a recently discovered system in the brain that may help explain why we humans can get so worked up watching other people.
18. Principles of Empathic Communication — From Leadership University, an itemized summary of “Habit 5 — Seek First to Understand, Then to be Understood” from Stephen Covey’s “THE SEVEN HABITS OF HIGHLY EFFECTIVE PEOPLE”.
19. Resilience: Compassion and Empathy — The quality of your relationships, and not the quantity of them, is what matters for you in terms of your emotional resilience. One of the attributes that differentiates people with higher quality relationships from people with lower quality relationships is their ability to be compassionate and empathetic.
20. The Art of Empathetic Listening — an article by Gian Fiero, an educator, speaker and consultant who specializes in business development, career planning, and personal growth issues.
21. The Benefits of Empathic Listening – an article with some good guidelines for understanding and being a empathic listener.
22. The Caring Child: How to Teach Empathy – Good article of giving a child a head start in having the ability to be empathetic.
23. Three Steps to Empathetic Listening — Oftentimes, people are too busy, they don’t make the effort, or they simply don’t know how to listen empathetically to others. And it is because of this that people have difficulty getting in touch with their feelings and they harbor negative emotions about others.
24. What’s Empathy Got to Do With It? — a very good article by describing empathy in detail along with ten leadership tips on being more empathetic.
25. What is Empathy? How to be Empathetic – Very short and concise article by Gwendolyn Cuizon on empathy.

If you know of other good articles on the subject of empathy that you believe someone else needs to read or know about, share it with us in the comments below!

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Last week I was fortunate enough to be a participant in a two day leadership retreat. I was one of among thirty or so regional leaders chosen for a year long training program where participants will be involved in the development of a community based project. The two day leadership retreat was the first time everyone involved in the year long training program would be getting together. When I found out that I was going to be one of the people chosen to go through the course, I was really happy and looking forward to being part of the group. That was back in November of last year.

As the time for the retreat come closer, I began to think about how the retreat would be handled by the staff organizing it. After all it was suppose to be the first in a series of learning workshops for the coming year and the tone of the first program in the process would most likely be the tone to expect in future trainings. For me, not knowing what to really expect caused a little bit of anxiety for me but at the same time I still was greatly looking forward to it.

The location of the two day retreat was just over an hour from where I live. People in the group had the option of going to the retreat center on a private coach rented by the organization holding the retreat, or to go by car. Since the organizers hinted that the retreat would actually be starting on the bus on the way over I chose to take the bus ride. I will say it was a fun bus ride, I got to learn about some of the people who were going on the retreat with me. Coincidentally, one person I got to know was actually someone I was communicating with via the social media world. Thomas Clifford is more known to many in the northeast as “Director Tom”. For those of you who don’t know him, check out his blog!

Once we all got to where we would be spending the next two days, we got to work on various team building, leadership development and personal self-awareness exercises. There was also plenty of instruction given on the various areas of leadership to complement the exercises. For me, some of the facilitation seemed to almost cross the line of sounding as though they were facilitating to grammar school children. Author’s personal note: I’m not the type of personality that takes very well to a learning environment where instructors sound as though they are speaking to grammar school children. But given the number of people that were there (two to three facilitators for thirty to forty participants) each with a distinct personality, it would be difficult for anyone’s teaching style to please or be taken well by everyone.

I Needed to Make a Choice

Being that I was chosen to participate in the group, and the year long leadership training that went along with it, I chose to keep one very important aspect…an open mind. That said, the next two days turned out to be very eye-opening to me. Why? Because I was able to get a much better understanding about others as well as myself. Not saying that it was some sort of religious experience necessarily, but I did learn a great deal more than I expected. Looking back now in retrospect, I would not have been able to get as much out of those two days or learn as much as I did if I didn’t choose to keep an open mind and listen to what others had to say. That alone taught me the most because how many things would I have missed or have go over my head if a decided to keep a closed mind (remember I mentioned earlier that I was interpreting the teaching style of some of the facilitators as “grammar school teaching style” like).

Do you remember a time when you decided to keep your mind closed when someone was telling you something you didn’t agree with or believe? Was it possible that you missed an important lesson in the process? Do you remember a time when you chose to keep an open mind when someone was telling you something you didn’t believe or agree with?  I guess it can be more comforting to think YOUR way is the only right way…they say ignorance is bliss. But at what cost?

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The other day I was talking with a close family friend who I hadn’t seen in a number of years. I asked him how he was doing and what he had been up to since the last time I spoke with him. His name is John and he mentioned to me that he had been doing given the circumstances of being out of work for a period of time. He’s now working once again, but not in the area he was originally working in. I asked him where he was working now and he told me he was working for a small marketing company doing some marketing in addition to some IT (Information Technology) work for them.

I was surprised that John was doing marketing because for most of my life, he was the engineering type who enjoyed tinkering with gadgets of all types. His main career for the past 25 or so years had been in the computer industry so when he mentioned that he was now doing marketing I found it really interesting. I had to ask how a person in their early 50’s, who has been working for so many years in one field, goes from working in the computer industry to working in the marketing industry. John mentioned that he always found the computer field very rewarding, but that recently he had been looking at other areas to apply his mind to. When he was laid off earlier last year, he decided he needed a change for himself.

“That was an interesting change” I told him. I then asked him how he was able to “break into” the marketing field at this stage in life. “I wasn’t aware that you knew enough about marketing to go into it” was my exclamation. He told me he didn’t. He thought he knew a little about marketing, but when he looked for positions in marketing, he quickly found out (unfortunately during interviews) that he really didn’t know much at all. John told me that this made him self-conscious at the thought of applying for any more marketing positions. But instead of giving up, John said he decided to learn as much as he could about the aspects of marketing. He enrolled in a couple of summer courses at a local community college in his hometown. At the same time, he went to the library and read up on marketing careers, professional marketing companies, marketing consultation and almost every area of marketing he was able to get his hands on. He also did research on the internet.

After doing this level of self education on marketing, and after the two summer courses were done, he proceeded to start applying for marketing positions once again. The result, he had a couple of job offers within a month or so of applying. Today he is really happy at what he is now doing. What stuck out to me during this whole conversation is that many people I know, many of which are younger than my family friend John, look at themselves as too old to learn a new field or trade. I was never a follower of such a philosophy and here was living proof that it is possible to learn new things at any age. As my late grandfather (R.I.P.) found out in the last few years of his life, after learning about emailing and computers in his mid-eighties (and writing electronic articles for his town paper in this manner), we never really loose the ability to learn. Some people just allow themselves to believe they aren’t able to learn anything new.

What would you like to learn about?

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A while ago I read a story about an elderly man who approached the famous nineteenth-century poet and artist, Dante Gabriel Rossetti. The old fellow had some sketches and drawings that he wanted Rossetti to look at and tell him if they were any good, or if they at least showed potential talent.

After looking over the first few carefully, he knew that they were worthless and showed no sign of artistic talent. But Rossetti was a kind man, and he told the elderly man as gently as possible that the pictures were without much value and showed little talent. He was sorry, but he could not lie to the man.

The visitor was disappointed, but seemed to expect Rossetti’s judgment. He then apologized for taking up Rossetti’s time, but would he just look at a few more drawings — these done by a young art student?

Rossetti looked over the second batch of sketches and immediately became enthusiastic over the talent they revealed. “These,” he said, ” these are good. This young student has great talent. He should be given every help and encouragement in his career as an artist. He has a great future if he will work hard and stick to it.”

Rossetti could see that the old fellow was deeply moved and asked, “Who is this fine young artist?” he asked, “Your son?”

“No,” said the old man sadly. “It is me — forty years ago. If only I had heard your praise then! For you see, I got discouraged and gave up — too soon.”

The author of the above story is unknown, and this story has been mentioned in many books, blogs and seminars. For me it’s a perfect example of how much some encouragement can mean to a person who may need it in their life. We may not always know when a person needs the encouragement or we may not see the result of it, but giving encouragement may be one of the most powerful tools each of us has in positively changing our world.

A Person with a Gift that Was Never Opened

The above story always reminds me of something that happened to one of my uncles. He always wanted to learn how to play the piano. Now in his early sixties, he noticed me playing piano and then guitar one day. He looked at me with a strange and at the same time proud look. After I was finished playing he came over to the piano and started playing a little bit. His level of playing was more by ear and at a beginner level of playing. I asked him what was on his mind when he was watching me play. His response was, “I wished I learned how to play an instrument at your age.”

When I saw how quickly my uncle picked up a melody and how easy it seemed to him, as a musician myself I realized he had a natural gift for playing music. I asked him why he never started learning an instrument earlier in his life. He told me that while he was in his pre-teens and then his teens, his mother would always be telling him that he didn’t have a musical ear and couldn’t possibly learn how to play an instrument. This discouraged my uncle so much that he accepted what he called his personal “lot in life”. No one ever told him he had a natural talent for music. People would see him in musical instrument stores and in school (playing on the piano) and never say anything to him about it. At the time he was a little too shy to ask another person’s opinion about his musical ability.

Who Would Benefit from Encouragement?

What would have happened to him had someone given him a little encouragement?

Would he have created some of the world’s favorite music? Would the elderly man in the first story have gone on to paint some of the most beautiful images people would ever see? We’ll never really know will we.

Have you ever noticed something in someone else that you believed deserved some praise?

Have you ever seen a person discouraged at something good they are attempting to accomplished? What remarks could we share to uplift that person’s spirits?

“Those who are lifting the world upward

and onward are those who encourage

more than criticize.” – Elizabeth Harrison

We never know how much the encouragement may mean to someone else until we give it. That someone else may be you in the future. Hey…you never know .

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Can the choice of attitude in your life have an affect on the things that happen to you? I’m a firm believer that it can. Time and time again I’ve been witness to these effects. Both with me and with others. Whenever I choose to have a good attitude, I realize that the level of negative stress in my life is greatly reduced. At the same time, I notice that I recognize more opportunities presenting themselves when I have a better or positive attitude.  On the flip side, it’s interesting how people who choose to have a bad or negative attitude seem to have more “bad luck” occurring in their lives. Why is that?

A fellow in one of the offices I work in has an issue.  He has a distinct problem seeing anything positive in his life.  Both in himself and in any of the situations he’s involved in, he is the first to point out the problem and proceed by complaining about it. Using phrases such as, “Can you believe they left it like that?” or “What were they thinking when they did that?” or even a phrase such as “I don’t know why we should continue to put up with that?” (for the nth time).  I’m sure no one reading this post knows of anyone like that .

With that in mind, I decided to do some researching online for sites and articles about how to have a better attitude. Below are some of the ones that had some valuable information on the subject. Enjoy them and pass it on!

1. 100 Positive-Thinking Exercises That Will Make Any Patient Healthier & Happier – Sometimes even the best medicine and healthcare is not enough for a full recovery. For patients struggling with illness or dealing with a major life change, these positive thinking exercises can mean all the difference.
2. 9 Tips for Keeping a Positive Outlook – Good article with some simple and straightforward ideas for people to try.
3. Be Committed to Having a Positive Attitude – Good article on choosing to have a positive attitude and how it differs from what people believe is a “skill” when in fact it is all about attitude.
4. Buzzle.com – a site comprised of a dynamic network of authors and content contributors. Authors and content contributors create an informative, yet comfortable place for finding information about everything from animals to tourism. They have a large selection of articles on having a positive attitude.
5. CrushPessimism.com – Blog on how to bring back the openness, the determination, the ease, the levity, the mental health, the persistence, and the sincerity that was once native to your mind, and how to help others do the same.
6. EgoDevelopment.com – personal development for a perfect life.
7. Empowering-Solutions — A blog dedicated to empowering others to make positive changes in their lives. Positive people are happier, attract more positive people and are healthier. Learn how to make changes for the better, focus on you and see the difference.
8. Ezinearticles.com – a great site where there are over 5800 articles on positive attitude, over 2100 articles on creativity and over 7600 articles on stress management.
9. Happiness is Contagious according to Harvard Study – Interesting article on a study by Harvard Medical School and the University of California, San Diego demonstrates the indirect spread of happiness.
10. Have A Positive Attitude In 7 Simple Steps — Positive attitude is very important to being successful and happy. Have you ever looked at people who always seem happy and enjoy life with envy and wish you could be more like them?
11. HelpOthers.org – kindness is contagious. Keep it going. A portal dedicated to small acts of kindness.
12. How to Keep a Sharp Mind and Good Attitude — We all want to keep our minds sharp and fresh. By working to keep your mind sharp, you can improve your attitude.
13. Just One Thing – Good article by Adam Khan, author of the book “Self-Help-Stuff-That-Works”.
14. LifeOptimizer.org – How to live life to the fullest through personal growth. Life Optimizer is about how to live life to the fullest through personal growth.
15. Mayo Clinic – Believe it or not, this website has some very concise good articles on the subject of how to relieve stress. In the main page just type in “stress relief.”
16. MoodRaiser.com — Blog on simple methods for lifting your general feeling of well-being, happiness, optimism, and increasing your positive attitude.
17. Motivational-Well-Being.com – This website contains tons of free motivational tools and resources such as quotes, videos, songs, poems, speeches, articles and much more to assist you in actively pursuing your goals.
18. Positive Attitude Tips – You can transform your life with a positive attitude. See how easily you can develop one.
19. Positive Attitude Tips for When You’re Around Negative People – Good article for advice of when you’re around a person who is negative. Unfortunately, there is an old country saying that goes, “Pigs don’t know pigs stink”.
20. Positive Psychology: Being Grateful & Optimistic Increases Happiness — Article describing positive psychology research findings on increasing happiness with gratitude, optimism, and kindness activities.
21. Positive Thinking Techniques — Be A Happier Person – When it comes to stopping those negative thoughts, there are a number of positive thinking techniques that can help.
22. PositiveQuotes.org – Here you will find positive quotes to encourage you, to inspire you, and for you to share with others.
23. Self Growth.com — A website dedicated to Self Improvement and Personal Growth. Their mission is to provide information ranging from Goal Setting and Stress Management to Natural Health and Alternative Medicine.
24. SelfEsteem2Go.com – a self-esteem building website created to give people a better understanding of who they are, what the reasons are behind their conscious and unconscious activity and how self talk and internal attitudes affect both esteem and confidence on a daily basis.
25. Successconsciousness.com – Information, tips and advice on positive thinking, and how it can transform and improve one’s habits, life and attitude.
26. TerryStarbucker.com – Rambling from a glass half full. Blog on the concept of what’s called “Half-Fullism”. His tag line is “dealing with the literal world in a positive way”.
27. The Happiness Project – site of best-selling writer Gretchen Rubin. On this blog, she shares her insights to help you create your own happiness project. Great tips on being happy!
28. The Positivity Blog – A blog dedicated to helping people “increase happiness and awesomeness”.
29. The Power of Positive Thinking and Attitude – article by author Jack Black on the subject of having a positive attitude and its effect on life span expectancy.
30. The Practical Self-Help Blog – The motto of this blog is “If you don’t start doing something differently in your life, than nothing about it is going to change.” Some good and helpful ideas.
31. The Road to Happiness — Article on 10 steps to building contentment.
32. The WooHoo! Report – Serving up good news daily.
33. The-Benefits-of-Positive-Thinking.com — Grab the reins of your life! Find out what the benefits of positive thinking can do for you.
34. Well Being = Positive Mental Health — Article which talks about how gratitude is more important than prosperity in determining happiness.
35. YouMeWorks.com — a site containing articles on feeling good often and becoming more effective with your actions.

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I’m sure many of you have heard the saying “When life gives you lemons…make lemonade”. Well for those of you who know me, you know that I enjoy working out and staying in shape. Some of my personal exercise passions include running, weight and resistance training, and martial arts. Recently, I injured myself while working out in the gym. The injury wound up to be a partial tear of both my right iliopsoas (hip-flexor) and my lower rectus-abdominis (the six pack muscle). Don’t ask me how I did it. Let’s just say that even though I had been working out already for over 40 minutes, and was more than warmed up, one wrong angle on a particular exercise can make all the difference. Needless to say, the injury put me out of being able to work out at all until the injury is healed. The injury didn’t even allow me to drive a car!

That was a recent lemon that life gave me and it’s now about a month ago. I’m still not allowed to work out or drive a car until I’ve gone through a certain amount of physical therapy.  According to the sports orthopedic doctors who’ve examined me, this type of injury could take between six months to a year to heal…UGH!

Not being able to work out, run or do martial arts is shear torture for me! On top of that, I also enjoy eating various types of foods. The food I enjoy may be healthy for the most part, but food none the less. Without the ability to be as physically active, the amount of calories my body needs has gone way down. If I continued to eat the way I was before my injury, I would for sure pack on the pounds!

What Do I Do Now? Importance Choosing Your Attitude

So what did I do with the lemon I got thrown?  I could’ve complained, gone into a bout of self-pity with a negative attitude, but I chose not to!  I decided on maintaining a positive attitude. To do something more productive with the time I now had by doing something I never did before. I started a blog. In addition, I started to read many other people’s blogs as well.

What I did not expect was how much joy creating a blog, adding to a blog and reading other people’s blogs would be. In the past month I’ve met a lot of great individuals and groups online. I’ve been able to share experiences, discuss topics of interests and learn from people who I did not even know a couple of months ago. Now I look forward to adding to my blog, commenting on other blogs and sharing ideas. Choosing your attitude is so important. For me, this was the lemonade I chose to make with the lemon I got and it’s opened up an entire new world that I otherwise would not have known.

An Inspiration

A personal favorite of mine is the New York Times best seller “No Excuses: The True Story of a Congenital Amputee Who Became a Champion in Wrestling and in Life” by Kyle Maynard. Kyle is a congenital amputee who was born with arms that end just above the elbow and legs that end at the knees.

Here is a person who had many reasons to not do things in life, but his choice of attitude helped him to not give in and become a champion high school wrestler. An example of his attitude towards the challenges of his life, and life itself:

“Whenever I’ve faced adversity, I’ve used that challenge as motivation to win through, no matter the cost. When I meet with failure, I pick myself up, dust of the dirt from the fall and focus on trying again. You can’t let failure beat you or give into the temptation of taking the easy way out. The world’s greatest accomplishments aren’t achieved on the first try.”

I read Kyle’s book a few years ago, but it still remains in my top 10 favorites. His attitude to choose the positive made all of the difference in his life. That example is one of the things to this day that helps me maintain my positive attitude.

Some Sources for a Positive Attitude Boost

Regardless of who you are, myself included, we all get days when it seems as though the only choice is to have a negative attitude. When those days come into my life, the thing that has helped me out is of course my own personal faith. Additionally, there are many other things that help me regain a positive attitude.

• A favorite song
• A favorite book
• The memory of someone whose company I enjoy.

Blogs and websites are also some of great sources for re-acquiring a positive attitude. Below are some of my favorites that may help you in choosing your attitude:

• Adversity University
• Chicken Soup for the Soul
• KatieFrieling.com
• KeithFerrazzi.com
• Ramblings from a Glass Half Full
• Success Consciousness
• Think Simple Now
• WellReadLife
• Zen Habits

What are some of your favorite ways to develop a better attitude? Do you know of anyone who is always in a positive mood? How do they keep such a positive attitude going? Inquiring minds would like to know.

(My sincerest wish is that the above has helped to make a positive difference in your life or in the life of someone you know! If you know of someone who you believe needs to see this post…let them know!)

Warmest Regards,

Gil

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