Page 25 - Demo

Roger Addison
Founder, Addison Consulting
: Roger, you’ve joined almost every one of Elliott Masie’s & Telly Leung’s Empathy Concerts since they began in April. When you think about those sessions and what they evoke for you, could you in one sentence say what empathy means to you right now?
: At this point, what empathy means to me is putting yourself in somebody else’s shoes or position and thinking about how they view something.
: How might you be thinking about empathy differently now than you did in the past?
: I’ve always tried to be empathetic in my thought process. I’ve always tried to think about how other people think and to feel their issues. A long time ago, I was mentored by Margo Murray, and she uses a really nice little phrase: “Pass it on”. She means passing on to others whatever you learn. From a mentoring standpoint, empathy is a really valuable skill.
: Can you also say what empathy is NOT?
: That’s an excellent question. A lot of people get empathy and sympathy mixed up. If you have empathy, you often do have sympathy, especially if you think about this time we’re in, when there are so many people that are less advantaged than many of us. You can’t help but have sympathy for those people, but you also have to put yourself in their position to better understand their concerns.
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