Empathy is the identifying and understanding of another situation and emotions, even if not in agreement with them. Empathy is an essential skill for people to have, especially those in leadership positions. Stephen Covey wrote a book called The Seven Habits of Highly Effective People. And in the book habit five is seek first to understand then to be understood principles of empathic communication. So in it, Colby writes, and I quote, empathic listening is so powerful because it gives you accurate data to work with, instead of projecting your own autobiography and assuming thoughts, feelings, motives and interpretation. You're dealing with the reality inside another person's head and heart, you're listening to understand.

When you listen with empathy to another person, you give that person psychological air. And after that vital need is met, you can then focus on influencing or problem solving. This need for psychological air impacts communication every area of life. And quote, empathy is a powerful communication technique, because it allows you to show another person that you care and are truly listening to them. Once you can do that people tend to open up their hearts more to you. So let's take a quick look at the empathic response formula.

This is a very simple equation that will help you with your responses for empathy. When speaking with someone. The formula is very simple. It's opener plus emotion. What that means is when you respond to the person, you would pair the opening of your response to any emotion. So let's go over some examples of some openers that you can pair with emotions.

So first opener you can say is I can see how then you can put the emotion How annoying axia annoying that is, so I can see how exciting that is. Or I can see how intriguing that is. All right, so another opener would be that sounds. So you can say, and that sounds disappointing, or man, that sounds shocking. Or man, that sounds exhausting. Another opener you can use is I can imagine.

So you can say I can imagine how exasperating it is or I can imagine how infuriating it is I can I can imagine how exciting that can be. Another one is another openers How? Okay, so you can say how exhausting or how shocking or how terrifying, you know, how concerning Another one is? Wow, that's that so you can say, wow, that's exciting. Oh, wow, that's that's annoying. Oh wow, that's shocking or something like that, all right?

No the opener would be, that must be. So you can say that must be very satisfying or that must be very concerning to hear. So these are, you know, the some examples. So now let's take a look at a quick situation that you can use these, this formula for. So let's say Person A comes to you and says, Man, I didn't pass my math exam today. So now Person B can say I can imagine how disappointing that is.

And that's it. It's a very simple and yet very useful technique to use. Using This technique can be very beneficial in building connections with people. So let's take a look at one more example of expressing empathy. So Person A says, I had a really good time at work today. My boss said I'm doing excellent work, then Person B can say, that sounds very satisfying.

And let me just say this before finishing. communicating with other people is not an exact science, attending skills, questions, paraphrasing and empathy support the exchange of information and understanding between people. With that said, there's not a regiment set of precise procedures that you always follow to be successful. The more you learn about communication and the more you practice using principles and techniques, the more successful you will be. So to paraphrase it's not an exact science. Just Use what you got.

All right, the more experience you get, the better you're going to get at it.