Speaking and Communicating Podcast

How you get conditioned out of empathy is the same way how you get conditioned into empathy.

Welcome back to the Speaking and Communicating Podcast.

I am your host, Roberta Angela.

If you are looking to improve your communication skills, both professionally and personally, this is the podcast you should be tuning into.

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Now let's get communicating.

Now let's get communicating with Tammy Triolo, whose specialty is empathy on a much deeper level.

And that's what we're going to be focusing on today.

Tammy is the founder of PCQ Consulting.

She had an executive corporate career before she started being on the mission that she's currently on.

She's a TEDx speaker, and she has created what is known as an empathy scorecard.

And before I go any further, please help me welcome her to the show.

Hi, Tammy.

Hi.

Thank you for having me, Roberta.

My absolute pleasure.

Welcome.

Thanks for accepting the invitation.

Please introduce yourself to our listeners.

Thank you.

So my name is Tammy Triolo.

I am the owner and founder of PCQ Consulting, and what we do is specialize in helping companies with their company culture, their diversity, equity, and inclusion with a focus on empathy.

The way that I tell my clients is that DEI is a culture strategy and not a number strategy.

And in order to get to a culture strategy, you have to start with empathy.

DEI being a culture strategy, it's funny because we recently had the US election, and it sounded to me like, because I'm an outside, I'm South African, even though I'm here in Chicago, it sounded to me like DEI is called for black, no?

It is.

It is.

And it didn't always mean black because the people who benefit the most from DEI happens to not be black people, actually.

So we don't benefit the most, but once a word gets coded as black in America, it becomes bad, and it just speaks to the deep anti-blackness that exists here.

And part of rooting out that anti-blackness that exists in many white people, even some white people who are well-meaning, to root that out has to start with empathy, right?

One of the things that I have encountered in my career, which is why I started talking about empathy and building my work around empathy, I was asked by another black woman who has been in a DEI space for as long as I have.

In fact, she's been in the space longer than I had been.

And she said, I just don't understand why we're not making any headway with the advancement for black people in the DEI space.

We seem to be going backwards.

And my answer to her was simple, but it launched this new awakening both in me and my work.

And when I said it at the time, I didn't even know what I was saying at the time or the impact or how true it was.

And I said, the reason why it has not changed for us, the reason why it hasn't gotten better for us is because the people in power have no empathy for us.

And when you don't have empathy for anybody, you're not going to change anything for them.

It doesn't impact you the same way.

And a lot of people operate from a place of sympathy, and they think that it's empathy.

So my work has been about clarifying for people what sympathy is and what empathy is and how it differs and how you get to a place of empathy in actual behaviors and not just in the feeling of emotions, because the feeling of emotions will leave you at the door of sympathy and never usher you in to the door of empathy.

So is it both an individual behavioral issue or a systemic issue as well?

It's both a behavioral and systemic, right?

The reason why we have systems in places is because people put them in place.

And so in order to break systems, you have to get to people.

People either uphold the system or they tear it down.

And what is going to make people want to break down the system?

They have to care about the other person that's being impacted by the system.

If I don't care that you are impacted by a system, I have no vested interest in helping to tear down that system because it doesn't impact me, and I don't care that it impacts you.

Would I care as well if I see the benefit of me caring about you?

You would care if you saw the benefit of caring about me, right?

When you have empathy for somebody, it's an inherent care for that person.

You want for that person what you want for yourself.

So if you and I are in a corporate setting, and we're both Black women, but I know that I am the Black woman they need because I'm darker complexed, right?

So I look more Black than you.

And so I could decide, well, okay, well, I'm the look they're going for.

They want the Blackers of the Black woman in this role.

But if I know me being in that role negatively impacts other Black people in the workplace, in my organization, in my department, I can make a decision and say, listen, I understand why you want me here because you want the darkest person, you want the Blackest person, you want to say that you are inclusive.

But I have noticed that women who are fair skinned or lighter skinned in this organization is not getting the same opportunities as I am.

And what can we do to change that?

Now, that may negatively impact me.

I may then lose out on an opportunity because I said something.

But if enough of us do that, if enough of us start doing that, then those opportunities don't become so scarce.

Then other people have to look at how do we do this in a way that everybody is served and not just a select group.

So if I care about what's happening to you, even though it may not be happening to me, I may not be negatively impacted by it, my behaviors are going to change in how I see how I operate in this workspace.

Which means don't look at your short-term gain, your personal gain, but rather the bigger picture.

The bigger picture.

That's where empathy can really kick in.

So now let's talk about stories that you've shared with regards to the corporate clients we work with.

Just a quick backstory.

I've never had a white female boss.

I had a 15-year corporate career in South Africa, and my first job, you know we had apartheid, and Nelson Mandela, 94, becomes president for the first time, democratically elected.

95, I start my corporate job.

I've only had white male boss and black boss.

And so the dynamics that you guys, what I've heard, and I've never actually brought it to my attention, I've never had a female white boss.

And so I've heard so much when it comes to your black female corporate clients, and the stuff they go through with white female bosses.

As I said, we've talked about empathy so much here.

No one has brought this to our attention.

Why does it not strike up the conversations that it should?

I think because we don't have a fundamental understanding of what empathy is.

Like I said, at the beginning of this, I think a lot of people are just very sympathetic people.

They hear a story and they sympathize with it, right?

They feel bad.

They offer condolences.

They say they wish things could be different.

They wish things could be better.

And then they just go off into their lives, you know?

Like you've done the socially acceptable thing.

You have said, I'm sorry.

You said you feel bad.

You've expressed emotion.

You may even cry, right?

You've done all the things, and then you can wash your hand and you can go away.

And the other person on the other side of that thinks, oh, well, they were nice.

They were kind.

They said they were sorry, but nothing about your life or your circumstances changed.

When you operate from a place of empathy, it compels you to do something in whatever way that you can.

I think that's why we don't talk about it, because people have a fundamental misunderstanding of empathy.

And I see that when I work with clients one-on-one.

So I will have white women particularly come to me to do deconstructing work or to really get engaged around the work of empathy and understanding how they can show up differently in the world.

And every session that I've had with white people, even when we get to the end, I require people to do a six-month engagement with me, right?

You're not going to come in.

I'm not fixing you in a week or two weeks because my job is not to fix you.

My job is to help you see patterns of behavior within yourself.

And every white woman client that I have ever had, by the time we get to the three-month mark, I'm told the same thing over and over again, how embarrassed they are that they have to be taught this thing called empathy.

Here's the thing, and let me put a disclaimer to my original question.

I've also been privy to white women who say, that's how we are towards each other.

So it's not a race thing.

In case anybody is listening and thinking, oh, the white women are taking the black women.

Uh-uh.

Like you said, they have never been taught, so they even treat anybody else the same way.

They treat everybody the same.

I personally think some white women treat other white women worse because they know they can get away with treating them worse, right?

Because what card is going to be pulled?

If you treat me terribly as a black woman, I could possibly say that that treatment is because I am black.

And a lot of white people don't want to be charged with racism.

Like that is the kiss of death for a lot of them.

But if I'm a white woman and you're a white woman, you could treat me worse.

What charge am I going to say against you?

So then the question becomes, why doesn't corporate America, or do they do something about it?

It's just that maybe they don't know what the solution is.

They don't do anything about it because it benefits the bottom line in corporate America.

Corporate America is a place for money to be made.

It's not for people to be valued.

And when you realize that, when you understand that, you have to do intentional work.

I tell my clients, you have to work within your spare of influence.

You're not going to overhaul the system itself.

So where is your spare of influence?

Your spare of influence is in your department.

It's within your personal coworkers and relationship.

It's within your realm of possibilities.

So corporate America is never going to truly invest around empathy or culture or caring about people, because that impacts the bottom line.

Everybody's there to make profit, and caring about people sometimes slow down how much profit can be made.

If I have to stop and consider that Roberta is sick, and Roberta needs to be out for six weeks, but that's going to put a project behind for maybe eight weeks.

So then I don't have to care about what is happening with you, the person.

I don't have to think about how I can make you feel valued, and care for, and let you know that you can heal, and when you come back, your job will be here.

Nothing will change.

That's how the way corporate America works.

So if you have to be out for six weeks, what happens?

They bring somebody to your desk and say, well, before you leave Roberta, make sure you show this person everything that you do, so we can get this project moving.

Now, what does that do to Roberta?

Now somebody else knows how to do your job.

So now that you're sitting at home supposedly resting, or should be healing, you're home worried about if I come back, are they going to say, well, we consolidated this?

Because that has happened a lot in corporate American and it's a real fear that a lot of workers have.

So they go out on leave and their job function is absorbed into another person's job function, and now they don't have a need for them anymore.

And so to care about employees in a real way slows down the ability to make money.

So corporate America is never going to make that real investment in that work.

And so my job has been about helping the people in corporate America make the investment in the work for themselves personally and then spread that out within their sphere of influence.

Here's where I get confused, coming from my tiny third world country versus America.

After democracy, we have these organizations like the CCMA, Center for Conciliation, Mediation, and Arbitration, which basically means we protect workers' rights.

You both can't just fire you.

We used to watch movies and TV shows from America, and they go, clean out your desk.

Like, where's the 30-day notice?

If I quit, I must give them 30 days to find my replacement.

If they fire me, they must give me 30 days to find a job.

Does America not have any of that?

You guys can just say, Tammy, you got an hour to leave this office.

Okay, in the banking industry, yes, because of all the private and confidential stuff they have to.

But just generally, a South African worker is usually protected that way.

Why is America not the same?

Because America is about corporate greed.

America is profit-driven.

I don't think South African corporates are saints either.

You think about the people came to South Africa to do what they did.

The Dutch came to you guys.

Yeah.

America was founded on the exploitation of people's bodies and labor.

Different way to start a country.

When you start a country on the explicit exploitation of human body and labor, that is the foundation for which this country is built on, and it's always going to be that.

So what's always going to come before anything else is profit.

That's what human bodies came here to do, to create profit for white men.

And speaking of white men, so back to our original point.

One of your videos, you actually said, not that white men are saints either, when it comes to DEI and race relations.

However, they focus on the goal.

If a black woman is really good at what they do, they will bring that black woman close to the project and spearhead it because they focused on the results.

Therefore, my question is, if you're a white female boss, even if you don't like said black woman, why don't you have the same mentality of the goal, we're all going to win because I know Tammy is really good at this?

So women have, particularly, and I'm speaking specifically in America, black women and white women have such a sordid history that we don't realize, well, I realize, but I don't think a lot of white women realize that when we come into relationship with each other, we're bringing a whole lot of historical baggage with us.

We're bringing a whole lot of epigenetic programming with us.

And that's not to say that that historical baggage and programming isn't happening between white men and black women, right?

Because white men could do whatever they wanted with black women.

But you have coming in the room with these two groups, black women and white women, this historical baggage that's sitting between them.

And white women always saw black women as competition for their men and their men attention.

These white men were going into slave quarters and having sex with the slaves, and having children with the slaves.

You come into the room many, many generations later, and we don't realize the importance or how important epigenetic programming in our cellular DNA is.

That baggage walks in the room with us, right?

Whether we acknowledge that or not, whether we're even aware that that's even between us, but that baggage is sitting there between us.

And so white women, you black women inherently is competition to them.

And so they aren't as cutthroat as they want people to believe that they are.

And I'm talking about even the white women with a lot of power, a lot of resource.

What sits between white women and black women is historical jealousy that just sits there.

And so they can't view black women as an asset.

They always view us as competition in a way that white men already know.

They're top dog.

Nobody's competing with them.

A black woman can't take their job.

But from a white woman's perspective, a black woman may be able to take her job and may be able to do that job better.

And so why would I bring you close to me to take something from me?

White men know we can't take it from them.

White women aren't sure if we could.

Back to the clients that you have when it comes to empathy.

You mentioned earlier that they said they realized that they were not taught this.

It can be done, but I think once you start something for the first time in your adulthood versus when you were a child, that's a very different story.

What else have you found to have been their light bulb moments when you do work with them?

So what I have found to be the light bulb moment for white women in this work of empathy or not understanding how they didn't get it, is when we saw talking about their relationships with their mothers, when we saw talking about relationships with their mothers and how their mothers engage with them relative or not to empathy because our first teachers tend to be our mothers, right?

I tell people all the time, the reason why I think I have so much empathy is because I watched my mother model it, not just with me, but everybody around her.

Like she was always willing to help, sometimes even to the detriment of herself.

She was always giving and not just giving in that performative way, you know, because I was raised very, very Christian.

So my mother would not just drive to your house and make sure you and your kids had something.

She would then come back home and she'd be on her knees and she'd be in prayer.

And I'm talking about fasting and praying.

So I saw empathy modeled for me, right?

Like I didn't see my mother do the backbiting that most women do.

I didn't see my mother talk about people.

So I was watching, empathy was being modeled for me.

And so a light bulb moment for a lot of white women is when we saw talking about how their mothers interacted with them and the people around them.

They go, I didn't even know that I was being raised to not have empathy for people, to not care, to only see myself.

But when I think about like when I would see my mother, either see somebody else hurting or see somebody in a bad way, she'd be like, well, that's not us.

Go get the car.

Just dismissing people and not caring.

And it's a light bulb moment for a lot of them.

Like how you get conditioned out of empathy is the same way how you get conditioned into empathy.

So a lot of us, particularly as black people, because we had to create communities within ourselves to take care of ourselves.

So for a lot of black people, we were raised with a sense of not just individual empathy, but community empathy in a way that white people were not.

And so the light bulb moment for all of them is always when we start talking about the relationship between themselves and their mothers and how a lot of those relationships, even with white women and their mothers, are full of competition.

In mom and daughter?

Yes, it's not loving.

It's competition.

White women, a lot of them are taught very early how to even manipulate men, their fathers, their husbands.

They're taught manipulation from their mothers.

They're never taught empathy.

Black people, I think they're the same globally.

Because we have the same thing.

It's very communal.

I remember my grandma taught my mom that when you cook dinner, you must cook more than what you're going to feed your family.

Because the next day, we don't serve coffee and tea when a neighbor walks in.

We give you the full meal.

That's just how we are.

So when it comes to that as well, there's been this interesting debate of, black people call each other sis, I call you sis.

And then some of your white clients who go, why can't I call you sis?

Or, us white women don't call each other that.

What is going on in that?

Well, because they don't.

White women don't have community with each other.

White people don't have community with each other.

The only time white people come together is to be cruel to people outside of whiteness.

But that cruelty outside of that white space doesn't go.

They don't go, well, we'll just be nasty to those people, but then we'll be loving to us.

Right?

They come together temporarily to harm other people.

We see that even in the way that they vote.

They come together temporarily to harm other people, and then they go back into their lives separate from each other.

Individualized.

There's no community.

Yes, they go back into their individual lives.

There's no community for them to go back into.

So when white women get upset, that black women won't let them into this thing that's so community-focused for us, by calling each other sis, or calling each other brothers, right?

Or calling each other cousins.

You know, black people will say, that's my cousin.

Call each other cousins.

I say that black Americans are my cousins on my mama's side, and Africans is my cousins on my daddy's side, right?

And so we call each other cousins, and white people don't have that.

They don't have that.

And so when we say you are not allowed into this thing, it is a thing that they cannot access from black people.

They can access our body, they can access our labor, they can access our resources to some degree because the federal government...

They can access us in a myriad of ways, but in this one way, we have full and total control over their ability not to access us.

That's the thing that drives them crazy.

They think it's about calling us cis.

What they really have said about is that this is the one thing from black people they cannot have access to.

They cannot corporate their way into it.

There's no access unless we allow you in and bring you into community.

You can't bully your way in.

Yeah, it's ours.

I'm not even sure they know that that's the thing that's driving them crazy, but that is the thing that's driving them crazy, is that in every other area of being able to access black people, black body, black spaces, black culture.

Listen, we know that all genre of music started with black Americans, right?

And now country is predominantly white.

So they know anything that they want black, they can take.

But this is the one thing they cannot have.

They cannot come in and take it.

Even if they try to call each other sis, it rings so hollow and it feels so foreign to them that they just wouldn't do it.

It's the one thing that black people have that they can't have entrance into.

And I think that's what drives them crazy.

And I wonder if that also feeds into the corporate America dynamic.

So you've created an empathic scorecard.

I took it yesterday before this interview.

Very good questions.

And after this, I would like for you to share the story.

You shared the story of one of your clients.

Because like I said, we just had an election.

They had a political discussion with their father.

So the last section is forgiveness.

Here's my personal experience of forgiveness.

I will give you all the leeway and benefit of the doubt at first.

But when you harm me, I'm not going to carry the grudge or anything because I don't want that energy, that bitterness to carry, that hatefulness with me.

However, I will have a protective layer when I deal with you next time.

Because now I know you've shown me who you are.

Is that true forgiveness?

It is.

People believe forgiveness means that you harm me.

We both acknowledge that harm.

I am never going to be okay with being harmed.

So forgiveness can be, I acknowledge that you harmed me.

I acknowledge you are sorry that you harmed me.

But I'm never going to forget that you harmed me.

And so now, going forward, the way that my forgiveness is set up with this is that I am now walking into relationship with you with caution.

When you first meet people, or build a friendship, or build a relationship.

Now, this is just the way that I engage with people.

People can decide how to do this differently, right?

When I engage with people, you come in at 100% of my trust.

I don't have time to be building people up to trust.

That's too much emotional and mental labor for me.

So Roberta and I decide that we're going to be friends.

Well, guess what, Roberta, I trust you.

Thanks.

And then you're either going to do things that make me trust you less, or you're going to do things that make me trust you more.

But from a baseline, it's a baseline of trust that we have.

And if you do something that breaches that trust, that hurts that trust, that harms that trust, I can acknowledge that what you did hurt me.

I can acknowledge that you are sorry for hurting me.

And I can even forgive you for that harm.

But that doesn't mean I have to forget that harm.

And all it means is going forward, I'm proceeding with caution with you.

That's it.

My forgiveness doesn't mean that I have to wipe the slate clean, and people go, well, you said you forgave me.

Yes, I forgave you for that offense.

Now my eyes are opened, so I don't miss any other offense.

Because here's the reason I asked that question.

We were both raised Christian.

That forgive and forget Bible has messed up.

Listen, I honestly believe has extended black people's oppression beyond measure.

I think blanket forgiveness, naked forgiveness has been the greatest tool to further our oppression.

And I believe it's why we were taught it from the Christian Bible to forgive 70 times 7, to relinquish agency of our energy, because a lot of it is just harvesting our energy, but to relinquish agency of it.

And so forgiveness for me is just about being able to say, I acknowledge that you did something, you acknowledge that you did something, and then you have to really earn that forgiveness back.

It's like, what are you doing to earn that back?

But give this is not a blanket check for me.

It's never been a blanket check for me.

Like you were saying about empathy, actively doing something about the situation.

Yes, yes, yes.

Right, like if you want true forgiveness, and the same is not just about you being able to forgive people, but people turning forgiveness towards you, right?

Because there's some things that we have to be forgiven for.

And so what work are you moving towards to make sure that that person knows that that forgiveness that they gave to you is earned, that you earned it, and that you will continue to earn their forgiveness because you know that you have committed a wrong.

So, like, a lot of times when people take this empathy scorecard, they only think about the forgiveness in terms of, well, do I have to forgive?

Well, what have you been forgiven for?

Like Ian Levinson said, somebody's on a therapist's couch because of you.

Exactly.

Exactly.

There are some things and there's some harm I have done to people that for some people it's been irreparable.

And so I may never get their forgiveness.

Do I forgive myself?

And you have to be okay that you may never get their forgiveness.

When you do your empathy scorecard, I like to do it from different vantage points, particularly with the forgiveness.

What am I still holding on and I am unforgiving of myself?

Because sometimes when we harm people in ways that are out of character for us, or we didn't intend to do that, even when those people have forgiven us, we're still sitting in that place because we haven't learned to forgive ourselves.

Right?

Because part of white supremacy culture is perfectionism, that we believe that we are not allowed to be humans, but that we have to be perfect.

And so I want forgiveness to be the very last thing, because I want people to really consider what forgiveness is for them.

What it is for them.

Those questions are just a guide for you to figure out, what does it mean for me to be forgiven and what does it mean for me to forgive?

Yeah.

I certainly do struggle with the self-forgiveness.

It takes me a while if I realize, oh my goodness, I've found somebody.

Please share the story.

I was really touched by the story about how one of your clients said after the election, all the political differences in families, which have been very divisive.

They use the empathy scorecard to be more understanding of their dad.

So when I created the empathy scorecard, I had a lot of people unsure, like why did I pick the sections I picked, right?

And I start that part with active listening.

Because if you can't hear somebody, there's no empathy to be given, right?

You first have to be able to truly hear people.

And I think with the advent of social media, especially, and the advent of everything moving so fast, we don't know how to actively listen.

Like that is a skill that has been degraded in us a whole lot.

So I wanted people to start, when you think about empathy, you first have to think about what am I actually hearing?

What is being said?

So this client, she had been following me for a while on TikTok, and she goes, I was here, you talk about your empathy scorecard.

And I was like, well, I don't really need that, because I think I have empathy.

I don't understand what perspective is and listening, like what does all that have to do with empathy?

So she goes, I never got it.

I just didn't get it.

And then the election happened, and I was so angry, and I was so furious, and I had no empathy to give to anybody anywhere.

And I was resentful if anybody even asked me for it.

So she said, I was just not in the mood to do it.

So I was like, okay, well, if I'm feeling this angry about it, let me get this empathy scorecard and see if this is going to shift anything for me.

Because what I have found, particularly after this election, is people feel justified in their anger.

And I'm not here to validate that or invalidate that.

People feel justified in their anger, and they think that to give empathy is to relinquish that anchor and to basically concede the win.

And they're not ready to concede that win.

So they don't want to lay that down.

So to engage in empathy feels like they're laying down and conceding to the win.

Almost like when you're saying, I'm giving away my power.

Yes.

Yes.

Yes.

So that's what it feels like for a lot of people.

She said, but I knew Thanksgiving was coming, and I knew I was going to be with families.

And so I really wanted to grab the scorecard to see if this in any way, would this help me move through or navigate this Thanksgiving thing.

So she said, so I did the scorecard.

She goes, when I opened up the area about active listening, she goes, I was reading all the different sections, understanding perspective, helping behavior, non-judgmental attitude.

She goes, I was never going to make it to non-judgmental attitude because I was judging.

So I was reading down the list, and I was like, I'm not doing that.

So she goes, I'm just going to start with section one, active listening.

I'm going to start here.

And I sat with the questions, and she goes, every time I wanted to answer in a way that affirmed me to be a good person that does this, I stopped myself.

And I said, but do you really do this?

And she said, when I would ask myself, but do you really do this?

My answers to change.

She goes, I really wanted to engage with it, honestly.

I did not want to answer it in a way that confirmed for me and myself that I am a good person.

I wanted to really engage because I was going in to what was going to be a really tough Thanksgiving.

She said, so that section that only had eight questions, it took me 45 minutes because every question made me stop.

It made me stop because I knew what I was getting into.

So dinner happens.

Everybody's keeping it light because everyone wants to eat.

They at least want to get through the meal.

So everybody's keeping it light because we want to at least enjoy the food.

And then like every Thanksgiving, we go, we sit on the couch.

I knew my grandfather was going to go into this thing about the election because I just knew it was coming.

And I'm sitting there and I screenshotted the questions.

So I had it with me.

And she said, when I screenshotted the questions and my grandpa started talking, I literally was going point by point through the questions.

I, but to look at my phone, to look at the questions, she goes, I literally turned my body into him.

And I just listened.

And it was weird because he could see me turning my body in to listen because I do this more in my work with my clients and side corporations and 101, that we're communicating with our body too.

Like communication is not just what we say, our body is communicating to all the time.

I feel like verbal is like 7% of communication.

Exactly.

So be mindful what your body is doing.

Be mindful the way you hold your arms.

Like this is closed off when you do this, you're shutting yourself off from really engaging with people.

And sometimes people do it as they just think it's to be comfortable, but it's sending a message that you're closed off to the person saying something to you.

So she goes, so my body was open, and my grandfather, once he noticed that I was listening, shifted.

Funny when that happened, the points that he was making that was just filled with all of this, his tone came down.

Like as my body language shifted, so did his tone.

And she said, I would go to your cart and I would probe.

I would ask probing questions.

I would repeat what he said.

I would go back and forth.

We started from a tone here, and then before I knew it, we were down here.

Then he was returning questions back to me.

He was interested in why she believes what she believes.

Correct.

Correct.

I promise you, she goes, me and my grandfather have not agreed on anything political in a very, very long time.

Never.

We just don't agree on a lot of things.

This was the beauty of that conversation, which is why I wanted to share the story.

They did not end believing anything the same.

That was not the goal.

The goal was not about converting her or converting him.

And it was in that moment I go, well, god damn it, that's what active listening means relative to empathy.

Like that's what it means.

She goes, because in that moment, I was giving him the empathy of saying, I see you.

I don't have to agree with you, but I see you.

And in return, he gave that to me in a way he never has.

That's all that's needed.

Because I think that's where a lot of conflict comes as well, is that me trying to convert you to my side and just shoving my belief system down your throat.

Yeah.

Yeah.

And nobody's going to convert, not in this political climate, right?

But in any of the personal relationships, whatever it is.

Anything.

You're not going to convert people.

But what happens is when you engage in empathy in a real way through that active listening, just showing people that you're listening to them, then you get to section two, you understand their perspective.

That doesn't mean you agree with their perspective, but you understand it.

And the thing is, when people feel seen and heard by anybody, I don't give it to your mom, your dad, your boss, your co-worker, your lover or whatever, when people feel seen and heard by you, they're more inclined to want to let you know that they see and hear you too.

And sometimes it is planting seeds, like being able to even have a conversation that is constructive.

She may be planting seeds in her grandfather that somebody else may be responsible for watering.

And that's where I look at my life.

Like for me, it's like I may be planting the seed.

I may not be the person to water it.

I may not be the person to see the growth of the first thing coming out the ground, of that tree being birthed.

I may not ever see the beauty of the tree, and I may never sit up underneath that tree, but I was the seed.

I may be the seed, you may be the waterer.

Somebody else may be the person that watches the first break in the ground, and somebody else may be sitting underneath that tree enjoying the shade.

Which means we need to stop wanting these short-term wins, because I think that's what we do.

We want the short-term win and the long game of, this is the right way to do this, and it's going to take time, and it needs work.

It's going to take time.

Empathy is the seed that we need to be planting in the world.

Empathy is the seed that we need to be planting in the world.

And then you need more people with empathy watering.

You need more people with empathy, being the one to prune the tree as it grows.

You need more people with empathy that takes care of the shaping of the tree so that more people can sit underneath it.

And we want the minute we engage somebody, for them to have empathy right away and change their mind.

And it was a beautiful demonstration of how engaging, and this is why I say empathy, it's about behavioral, which is why I wanted to create the scorecard to lead people to behaviors that get them to where they're trying to go.

Because if you just rely on you feeling for somebody, you'll never get there.

It's not just feeling.

It's something really needs to change.

Tammy, any last words of wisdom?

Anything I didn't ask you, you were hoping to share today?

Well, what I want to lead people with is that empathy has to be a choice.

It has to be a choice.

Relying simply on feeling for people, feelings are temporary, they're fleeting, and they are impacted by so many different things.

But when you start engaging with empathy as a choice, then every day you choose to show up for people in a kind and empathetic way, and you have to do the work.

It's like building a muscle.

Once you have that muscle, you still have to work it.

And if you're not working your empathetic muscle, you will lose it.

And you will find that you lose it when you hear stories and you see people.

All of a sudden, you'll be like, well, I don't really care.

Where before you did care.

So empathy is not just a thing that you inherently have, and it never goes away.

We have to build and make sure that we're minding our empathy all the time.

Every day I wake up, I go, mind your empathy, mind your empathy.

And I think if you remember that you have to constantly be working on your empathy so that you maintain your empathy, you won't just rely on feeling because that's fleeting.

Mind your empathy, words of wisdom from Tammy Triolo, the founder of PCQ Consulting, whose mission is to make the world and especially the workplace a more empathetic place.

You have taught us so much, Tammy, and we will continue to mind our empathy on a daily, hopefully.

Thank you so much for being here today.

Thank you.

My absolute pleasure.

Before you go, where can we find you online?

So you can find me at my website, pcqconsulting.com.

There's an info form.

If you want to get in touch with me, you can just submit a form that way.

And I'm on TikTok a lot.

That's where Roberta found me.

I'm on TikTok at MyStyleFile.

All one word.

All one word.

Or the Delusional Influencer.

So you can find me there.

I'm also on YouTube at Empathy Embodied.

So pcqconsulting.com.

On TikTok where we met Delusional Influencer and Empathy Embodied on YouTube.

Thank you very much, Tammy Triolo.

Thank you.

My pleasure.

Thank you for joining us on the Speaking on Communicating Podcast once again.

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