Chris Do (6:25)

So before we can run with dilemma, we need to sit with edge. We need to learn to walk and crawl a little bit here. When I used to teach at Art center to my design students about sequential design, I said, well, what are the two words we hold so precious in our language about what it means to be a creative? And we come to the same two words almost every time. And the two words, no surprise, one of them is imagination. We need the ability to see things that have not been been shown to us before. Okay, cool. And then we have to have empathy because we're telling stories, we're creating characters that we could never possibly inhabit. So we have to really try our best to see the world from their perspective. And here's the weird thing. Creative folks, at least the ones that have rubbed up against me into my world actually are very low in empathy. And you would think they should score really high on that thing. And there's a couple of ways I look at that, and I want to bring it up to you to get your perspective on it.

Maria Ross (7:20)

Yeah, I have a theory on that, but go ahead.

Chris Do (7:22)

Okay. You want to share your theory first?

Maria Ross (7:24)

No, I Want, I want to listen first. I want to hear what you have to say.

Chris Do (7:27)

All right, so when I do sequential design, we're drawing storyboards so frames that kind of look like the what you're going to shoot and produce for a film or a TV show and ask them to tell the story of these characters that they themselves cannot understand. And so like say that like you're a 30 year old straight guy and there's a story about a 16 year old girl who's like dealing with gender identity or whatever it is, and they tell the story still from the perspective of a 30 year old straight guy. What do you think she hears? What do you think she feels? Because when you're telling her story, you need to honor that her feelings and emotions to ground it in some kind of reality. And they have a really hard time doing this. The classic example too is when I tell people, draw a scene and show me what it looks like to prepare for work. From the time in which you wake up, this is a classic assignment. And show me your morning routine. They almost always show it from literally their point of view. So if you're 6 foot tall, the eyeline is always the 6ft tall. If you're 4ft tall, it's always. They don't pause and say, I wonder what it feels like to look at this world from the dust mites that live underneath your bed. Or what does your toothbrush feel in the morning when you grab it the way you do and you shove it in your mouth. So we go through these exercises and they have a really hard time trying to see the world from that pov. What is your theory?

Maria Ross (8:50)

So, so many things to talk about, unpack in that statement. So number one, I think we also need to understand the difference between the two kinds of empathy. There's cognitive empathy where we're using our brain to exactly what you're saying, try to imagine what it might be like. That's when we're using our head to try to understand what someone's reality or experience is. Effective empathy, or emotional empathy is when you actually feel what the other person's feeling. For me, it shows up as whenever I'm a huge dog lover and whenever I pass a missing dog poster, I immediately tear up because I can connect with that feeling of loss and helplessness and just despair if something happened to my dog. For some people it's, you know, someone comes raging upset into your office and all of a sudden your heart rate starts going up, your palms start getting sweaty, you start getting anxious listening to the person. So being able to engage both of those things or even just one of those things. For some people, access to empathy comes through the cognitive side. They're very analytical, they're not very emotional, and that's okay. Empathy looks different depending on our neurodiversity. And so it can still lead you to an act of compassion. It could still lead you to what's the next right thing? Maybe it's, oh, I know I need to just give this person space to vent, or I know I just need to offer a hug, or I know I just need to offer a wow, that must really be hard right now. You can still determine what that compassionate action is through cognitive empathy. But there's two kinds. And I would submit that what's missing sometimes with creatives, a few things, but to that point in particular is there's not a connection to the feelings. Let me see things from this point of view. But even if I've never been a 16 year old girl, what does it feel like to feel awkward? What does it feel like to be scared? What does it feel like to be insecure? There's things in your own life you can draw from to tap into that emotion. I do theater and acting in my spare time, which I don't have any of anymore. But when I do, that's part of the exercise. It's not just how would this person act or think or what are they doing, it's also what they're feeling. And even if I've never been that in my life, I can say they're feeling fear right now. When is a moment that I have felt fear? I did an independent student film years ago, before I had a kid, and I was supposed to be playing a mom whose son and husband had died in a car accident. At that time, I couldn't relate. But you know what I could relate to? I loved my dog like my kid. So what did I tap into? I tapped into my dog dying in a car crash because that was the feeling that I was trying to evoke within myself and try to understand. And as you know, as a master of design and a master of brand, it's not just the logic, it's the emotion that we've got to tap into to be able to show that empathy. The whole thing about creatives, I've worked in an ad agency, I've worked with creatives for most of my career. And I would say that two things sometimes get in the way. Because one thing is ego. And ego kills empathy. When we think we know all the answers and Other points of view are not valid. We close ourselves off to empathy, we close ourselves off to other perspectives or even thinking there might be validity in seeing something in a different way. The other thing is insecurity. When we're not self aware, when we don't have our own house in order, so to speak, when our brain is full of our own insecurities and fears and worries, we have no space to actually take on another person's point of view without defensiveness or fear. So not to say, I mean, I'm very creative and you know, I know when my insecurity and my ego has gotten in the way of me being able to see another perspective that could have been a better solution or a better way of being because I was coming at it from. I know all the answers. I know how this should look, I know how this should sound. And I really think I'm smarter than you at this point. And sometimes that happens when we're dealing with really, really talented creatives is you deal with ego or you deal with insecurity.

Chris Do (13:10)

Sometimes those are two deadly sins there.

Maria Ross (13:13)

And we all have them, right? To varying degrees. It's just, how are we able to regulate around them and actually be aware that they're getting in the way of a productive relationship or they're getting in the way of an innovative solution that we're not seeing because we think we've got the goods on how this should be done.

Chris Do (13:32)

I need to be careful how I'm going to say this next part because I don't want people to think like I'm this way or that way. I highly identify as a logical person, but I can speak to emotion and access emotion in ways that maybe I'm doing it through the cognitive lens. I'm not sure. But as such, I have some suspicions about. People are like, oh, I'm very empathetic. I'm an empath. And they say things like that. I'm like, well, I'm not sure. So let me present to you something I heard and then I would love for, for your take on it. And then maybe we can unpack it and then tie it to other things. So I don't know why there are people in my life who want to tell me they're empaths. I'm like, I know what the definition of an empath is. And they're like, tell me what it looks like in your world. So they say, well, I can go into a supermarket and just feel what people are feeling. Okay, okay, all right. Like I, I'm a Little, you know, woo curious. But I'm not like, totally like in the woo verse, I don't think.

Maria Ross (14:32)

But okay, wait. Woo curious and woo verse. I have to add that to my vernacular.

Chris Do (14:37)

There's one more. Because my wife is deep in the woo. I tell people I'm open, but I have secondhand woo because I. There's a lot of it at the house. So I want to say, like, there's a possibility that there's frequencies you can tap into and energies. But I don't think that's what they're saying because they're not professing to be a channeler of energies or things like that. And I really suspect something else is going on, that a lot of what it is is projection. And this is where I think empathy gets really dangerous because I have a lot of examples of people projecting their feelings. I'm like, I'm not feeling that. I'm really not feeling that right now. And you're saying you're an empath and you're empathetic. Where's that coming from? So I think they go into the supermarket feeling happy or sad or depressed and painful, and something will just set them off and it'll trigger a response in them. It has nothing to do with the other person or the people. What's your take on that? Please.

Maria Ross (15:29)

Oh, my gosh, I love that. That is so juicy. Let's dive into that. So first of all, I'm laughing because ever since I started writing about empathy, I always have people clamoring to come up to me to tell me how empathetic they are. And, you know, they probably are. But to your point, I'm an empath. Life is so hard for me because I feel everything right. And I think there are that are. It's been proven by science. There are highly sensitive people. I do believe there are people that can tap into their intuition more than other people and they can sense energies. We all actually can. We've all walked into a meeting, maybe we didn't hear a word that was being said, but we can just tell by the vibe that someone's in trouble or something bad just happened. Right. And that's. I think that's intuition. I don't know that that's empathy per se. So maybe what some of those people are feeling is the vibe. I 100% agree that a lot of that can be projection as well. Like what mood are we in that we're manifesting and projecting onto everyone else? I have a very logical, data driven husband who's from the uk And I am a hot headed Italian woman from New York. Right. We are very different people. And so sometimes I tell him, his reaction is, why are you mad? Or why are you being arrogant? Or why are you. You know, I'm assuming all these things about him because of what I think I'm getting from him. And he's like, I'm just listening, I'm just taking it in. Right. So that I think that is a really.

Chris Do (17:02)

All husbands feel this, by the way.

Maria Ross (17:04)

I know, I know.

Chris Do (17:05)

We're very simple. It's like, what's going on? Nothing. What do you think about nothing? There's nothing here. And women cannot understand this.

Maria Ross (17:12)

Yeah. Now you're frantically trying to think of something like poetic to say that you were thinking about. So there's that. I had a situation with a client a few years ago who was actually unhappy with the work that we produced. And this person kept saying, I'm very, very empathetic. And so I'm going to tell you exactly how I feel. Because I'm empathetic. I don't hide my feelings. I'm empathetic. I let people know exactly what I'm thinking when I'm thinking it. And fast forward it turned out they just completely misunderstood what we were trying to do for them or what we actually delivered according to the contract. But the perspective was I can unleash on you and be completely insulting to your point. I can make all these assumptions about you and your team, but it's okay because I'm empathetic. Like empathy gives me the right to share every emotion I'm feeling at any moment that I'm feeling it in any way that I feel I should communicate it. And you know, this is the thing with, when we hear the term radical candor. Radical candor is good, I guess, but kind candor is better. I spoke to Claude Silver, who's the chief heart officer at Vaynermedia, and she said they lead with kind candor, not radical candor. Because there's a difference. You actually do have to think about the needs of your audience and be empathetic. Even when you're delivering something tough, even when you're delivering a hard truth, you want the message to land. That's the point. It can't land if you just in whatever name of empathy you think you're being, you're spewing your emotions out on somebody else. And so I just find that really interesting that there are people who hurt with the truth, who hurt with their words, and their justification is, well, I'm Empathetic. I just feel things deeply. Like, this is just how I. I operate. I'm being empathetic because I'm being honest with you. And so we really have to get away. I have a term in the book Weaponizing Empathy, of using empathy as an. Number one, as an excuse to inflict pain, but also as an excuse to take advantage of someone because of their empathy. So you're my client or you're my manager. And I know, Chris, you're a really empathetic person. So I might try to game the system by guilting you into things to get my way. You're asking me to work overtime. And now you've overstepped my boundaries, Chris. So I'm going to need a mental health day to process you overstepping my boundaries. And you're like, what is happening right now? But you might let it slide because you, you have dipped into people pleasing over empathy. That's a very few and far between. I always like to say those are outliers that are actually weaponizing empathy in that way. But we do have to be alert for them. We do have to actually understand where people are coming from and notice if there's a pattern of bad intentions or bad motives and be able to be strong enough to remain empathetic and say, I hear what you're saying, but that's actually not what's happening here. And we have an agreement as a team that when there's a client crisis, we're going to work overtime. We're going to do what we need to do to solve that problem. So I'm sorry you feel that your boundaries were crossed, but this is just the way we're operating. We need you and we need you to step up. That's a very different response than, oh, my gosh, I'm so scared that I'm going to piss this person off. So I'm just going to let them go and take their three days off while I clean up the mess as the leader. And this is why leaders get burned out in the name of empathy when what they're doing is actually not empathy.

Chris Do (20:53)

I think, and I've witnessed this myself, when people say, in the spirit of or I am empathetic or honest, or I'm trying to practice radical candor, radically transparent. They actually don't understand what they're saying. Those are all ways to pad the punch that's about to come.

Maria Ross (21:10)

Yeah, exactly.

Chris Do (21:11)

That's all it is. It's like, hey, what's this over here? And then boom. And I have Friends and producers who used to do this with me. And then I would respond in the same way, like, that's not what you're doing, friend. So when people say, I want to be really honest with you and this thing sucks and I want to make more money, it's like, that's not really in the spirit of trying to be honest. You're going to make a complaint or you're going to make a request that doesn't seem reasonable and you want to package it that. Like that. So then I say, well, that's not really what we're doing, but let me show you what that looks like, which is, I'm going to be radically honest. No. And I don't accept that.

Maria Ross (21:43)

Yeah, exactly.

Chris Do (21:44)

Does that make you feel any better? No. So let's just strip it down. You're asking for something. Let's just focus on what you're asking for, and let's see what merits and what kind of flexibility we have.

Maria Ross (21:53)

See, but that's actually. I just want to point out, Chris, that's actually empathetic because you're. You're listening and you're trying to get to the root of what the person's context is. So you're not just hearing the words and reacting to the words. That's actually highly empathetic in that you're going, okay, I hear what you're saying. That's completely. You're in outer space right now. We can't actually accommodate that. But let's try to get to the root of what it is you're actually asking. And what is the real problem here? And that requires curiosity. That requires active listening. And so even when you respond in that sort of tough way of like, no, but let's look at what the root cause is. That's highly empathetic.

Chris Do (22:32)

The thing that I find really funny is somebody's like, I'm very empathetic. I find very rarely that people who are empathetic need to tell you that they're empathetic. Just like I'm a really honest, trustworthy person. The fact that you say it makes me question it. And the likelihood of you being that person and announcing it ahead of time makes me really suspicious. Like, demonstrate it. You don't need to label it. So I already know bad things are about to come. Nine out of 10 times, maybe one out of 10, I'm surprised. Like, wow, that was really empathetic what you said. Let's get back into it. Right? So you mentioned something about walking into a room and your intuition says something is funky. And I could admit to that too. And here's what I think it is. I'd love to get your perspective on it. Let's say people are talking about you, like, not in a good way. And they're like, oh, my God, Jenny or Bob sucks and they did this. Can you believe that? Oh, my God. So blah, blah, blah. They're wasting time and money. And then they said this. Then Bob or Carrie or Mary walks in the room and then everybody just stops immediately. I don't think you're an empath when you see that all of a sudden something's halted. Like when a train comes to the stop at a station, we don't say, I'm an empath. We just notice a change. And the change we noticed is people were talking. Their body language has just suddenly changed. And we're noticing that now. What we'll do is we'll assume, based on experience in history, oh, it's probably something they didn't want me to hear. Could be a number of different things. Stock options are buying plans for dinner that they don't plan to invite me to. Or Chris sucks and he just walked in the room and we're going to stop talking about him right now. But that's not being an empath. It's just noticing things.

Maria Ross (24:17)

Yeah, I mean, really being an empath is again, going back to can you see things from someone else's perspective and can you connect through feeling? Do you have an emotional reaction that's connecting to that person emotionally? Whether it's anger or sadness or delight, you can actually be empathetic with someone. Enjoy. Right. Funny thing, I am actually a game show junkie. I love watching game shows. I re. I'm a dork. I record Jeopardy. And I watch it on my lunch break. And. And I love game shows because of the empathy moment. When someone else wins, I get a high, I smile, I start feeling excited. I love that about game shows. And I've noticed that some game shows, someone is always a winner or other game shows that don't always do very well is where no one wins at the end because you don't get that empathetic hit. You don't get that. That moment of connection of. Of feeling that high and that excitement with that person. And now I'm not on the game show. I'm not there. I'm not winning the money, But I'm experiencing it as if I could feel it myself. And I do feel it myself in my heart rate and my physiology. I feel it. And that's Why I, and probably so many others are addicted to game shows because it's definitely an exercise in sharing an emotion with someone because you're just so. You're so happy, or you're so excited for them, or you're seeing them and you're smiling back. You know about mirror neurons, right? When you're telling me something and you start crying, I might start tearing up. If you are standing there with your arms crossed, I might cross my arms and start to defend myself, too. Mirror neurons are how we ended up discovering that empathy is innate to us as human beings. Those scientific research projects that told us about mirror neurons showed us that empathy is present in even babies, in young children. And what happens is, barring any outlying pathologies. Right. Psychopathies. Everyone is born with empathy, and it's how our species has survived. What happens is that for some of us, the muscle atrophies. We are in environments where it's not celebrated, it's not rewarded, it's not acknowledged. We might even be punished for it. And that could be a family environment, that could be a work environment for other people. The muscle's really strong because it has been rewarded and modeled and celebrated, and now it just becomes part of their operating system. They're not trying to be empathetic. They just are. And that's why there's so much work being done with children from a social and emotional learning standpoint, to help them continue to cultivate and nurture that natural empathy. So that books like mine don't have to be written in the future because they're going to say, I don't understand why I have to read a book about empathy. It just will be who they are, and it'll be part of their identity. And that's what we hope for.

Chris Do (27:15)

If you like game shows, because it helps you to feel something. I wonder if you enjoy watching those videos where people do random acts of kindness, because that's like the purest expression of that. You don't even have to wait for the commercial break.

Maria Ross (27:29)

Oh, yeah.

Chris Do (27:29)

Because it's all designed to help somebody. Somebody who's down and out. Right. And I think that's why those videos are so popular.

Maria Ross (27:36)

I think so. I think they are, because they tap into a shared connection and a shared.

Chris Do (27:40)

Emotion that we feel also, like amazing humans. When somebody does a quadruple backflip off a bicycle, I'm like, whoa, my God, you're a special person. That is amazing. Dang. You know. Okay, I have an admission. My wife is a very emotional person, and she is in her fields, and she'll say something and she'll start to cry. And I'm sitting here listening to her, and I don't cry. I mean, I cry when it's appropriate. And maybe this. I'm like, I'm trying to understand what she's going through, and I'm listening, and I think she would probably feel better if I just started crying. But I have this whole theory. So if we're in a professional setting or in an environment where there is no. We don't have an intimate relationship together, we're not partners in life. And somebody cries and then somebody else cries. My logical brain says, if you cry and then I cry, the person who needs some understanding, some empathy, is being robbed of it. Because now I made it about me and I have problems with this. And so let's talk about it as a person who has maybe higher mirror neurons than. Than I have. Maybe. I don't know. I'm like, I. I have to control myself. Like, don't make it about you right now.

Maria Ross (28:58)

Yes. I'm so glad you brought this up. And by the way, I might be an empathy expert, but I'm not an expert at empathy. Like, just ask my husband or my son. On any given day.

Chris Do (29:07)

It took me minutes to process the difference between those two.

Maria Ross (29:09)

It's a practice. It's a practice because we're human. Our capacities are not always going to be full. That's the whole point of the Empathy Dilemma book, is to provide five pillars to say, strengthen these, and maybe your empathy will still enable you to balance performance and accountability and not dip into these other more negative areas. Right. Part of that is self awareness and self care and understanding where you are when I'm tired and hungry. I'm a horrible mom. Like, I just have no capacity. My fuse is short. I don't care what life is like for the other person. But to your point, we, with all good intentions, sometimes engage in what I call empathy hijacking. And I am guilty of it, too. I'm just like empathy anonymous here. Like, I am just as guilty of this as anyone else. In an effort to connect, you tell me a story about a horrible car accident you were in. Whatever. And I say, oh my gosh, Chris, I know exactly how you feel because three years ago I was in a car accident. And then this is what happened. And I got sent to the. I mean, you didn't even go to the hospital. I got sent to the hospital. Now all of a sudden, you're not even talking anymore. I am de Centering the narrative from you to me, when really maybe you just needed to talk, maybe you just needed to share and process how you felt about being in this car accident. But it's actually a very good, like I said, it's with all good intention. We do it to try to make each other not feel so alone. And I really learned this Lesson when in 2008, I almost died from a brain aneurysm. I had a ruptured brain aneurysm. And spoiler alert, I survived, right? I had a miraculous recovery. And I'm back at my work and back in my life again. But with adaptations and my recovery period, my year or so of recovering. I can't even tell you how many times people said, oh, don't worry about it, I have no short term memory either. Like, I have to write everything down, I know exactly how you feel, or oh, I can't remember names that easily anymore. It's like, first of all, you're completely minimizing my experience because this was something for me that one day was and the next day was not. Right. Second, it's not about you. It's not that. It's like we were talking before we started recording. We were talking about the fires in Southern California. One form of empathy hijacking is the, well, at least, well, at least you and your family got out safely. It doesn't matter that your house burned down, you lost everything and you have to start over. Well, at least you're sort of taking a toxic positivity of making somebody look at the bright side, when all they may need to do at this moment is sit in their emotion and sit in in their suffering, whatever it is, right? All you need to do to respond. Because people go, I don't know how to respond though, if I don't share my story or I don't tell them this happened to me and make them feel less alone. You know what you can do? You can just say, wow, that sounds really hard. That sounds really hard right now. Tell me more, tell me more about it. And you can ask for consent. You can say, I have an example in the book about, you know, if you've experienced something professionally that another person has experienced, instead of automatically launching into, well, you shouldn't feel bad about that because here's what happened to me and it turned out great. You can say, that must be really tough. I do know how you feel. If you're open to it, I can share with you a similar experience I had. But if you're not ready to talk about that Right now and hear that perspective. Let's talk about how you're feeling some more. And maybe at a later point, that person might say, actually, I do want to hear about your experience. Can you share that with me? I'm actually in. I'm in advice receiving mode now. But before, I just needed to unload. I just needed to feel the feels, as you said. I just needed to process, and I just needed someone to witness that. I just needed someone to be there so I didn't sound like a crazy person talking to myself. Right. So I think, again, that empathy hijacking is something that we do with all good intentions to connect, but it de Centers to your point. It makes it about you and not them. And that's the opposite of empathy.

Chris Do (33:21)

My empathetic friends, please listen. Let the word sink in. Savor it for a second. And now I want to dive back into it again. So I'm not an expert at any of this stuff, so I'm just curious here. All right. You gave a pretty clear example of how you can hijack. So the people who are listening are like, wow, I don't do that. I would never do that.

Maria Ross (33:42)

Oh, my gosh, we all do it. We all do it.

Chris Do (33:47)

So let's kind of slowly unpack some of this. Number one is if we're experiencing something, it helps most people to talk it out, not to themselves, because it's kind of bizarre practice to do. And so if we interrupt them in getting it out, we interrupt their healing process, their sharing process, their ability to connect. And there's lots of things we can do to disrupt that. Number one is we make it about us. We inadvertently are trying to connect with them so desperately, maybe it's out of our own insecurity to. To prove that we care so much that we go overboard. It's the overreaction, the overaction. Okay, that's number one. That was very clear. And you said that. Number two is. And I would love to. To share or ask you about this is if I'm having, like, just. Just like a broken moment, and then you start bawling your eyes out. Now I'm worried about you. And like, oh, my God, don't feel so bad. So that is also a form of making it about you, I think.

Maria Ross (34:44)

Yes, a hundred percent. Yeah. It's about what does that person need right now? Do they really need you breaking down with them? Maybe not. So you have to have some emotional regulation, even if that's what you feel like doing, you're so upset for that person. You want to cry too. If you're being really empathetic, it's you need to temper yourself and say, what does this person actually need from me? Maybe I go cry by myself after I leave them alone. But it doesn't mean you're any more empathetic because you're completely matching the emotion that they're having. Because maybe that's actually not what they need. They need some stability. They need some stoicism. They need some. Some comfort. And they don't need you falling apart as much as they're falling apart in that moment.

C (35:30)

It's time for a quick break, but we'll be right back.

Maria Ross (35:33)

Foreign.

Chris Do (35:41)

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C (36:05)

And rebecc welcome back to our conversation.

Chris Do (36:09)

So empathy, as we've been talking about, is your ability to see from their perspective, not from your perspective. So I might be brokenhearted, but there's a thousand ways of my heart to be broken. And if you map your own experiences like you're having heartbreaking moment, but it's not the one that I'm having right now and it's for a very different reason. So here's the Idiot's Guide. This is for my friends who are idiots with this kind of stuff, is if you just practice this one thing, it's just to be a little bit more curious a hundred percent. If you just start there, forget about all these other words, whether it's cognitive or emotional, just like, what is it you're going through? I just, I want to sit here until you're done processing and the very next thing I might ask is what would be helpful for you right now? They're like, nothing, just give me a minute. Or I would love to hear about your experiences or I need some advice or I need five bucks, whatever it is. And we also assume that what we would want, we give to the other person. It's like, that's not what they want right now.

Maria Ross (37:10)

Right? That's the golden rule empathy requires. And I did not coin this, the platinum rule, which is do unto others as they would have done unto them. And that's where we get confused with being nice with empathy. And to your point, I have a tool in the book that I give to leaders or managers. You've got someone coming into your office distraught or angry or whatever, and they start going off about something or getting emotional or getting angry. And so your response, your natural inclination might be to fix it for them. I admit I do this with my husband all the time. When he complains about things, about work, I immediately go into problem solving mode. Well, did you send this email? Did you talk to this person? Did you blah, blah, blah. And he goes, babe, I'm just trying to vent right now. It's like, oh, okay, okay. But as a manager, you can say, I see this is really important to you. You don't have to go spinning off as your own whirling dervish to match their level of intensity, right? You can take a breath, take a pause. That's the most important thing. Take a pause. And to your point, curiosity is the number one trait of empathic people. Because they don't guess what your point of view is. They ask you. So the manager can say, I see, I want to acknowledge first, I see that you're really upset and this is important to you. So it's important to me. How can I best serve you? Do you want me just to see it? Do you want me to solve it or do you want me to support you? Meaning see it? You just need someone to vent to solve it. You want me to brainstorm solutions with you? Support you is provide some resources or some avenues of direction for you to go in and some support. Even if it's emotional support or comfort or whatever, we don't do that. We immediately jump into problem solving mode because we don't like seeing people in pain, right? Whether their pain is anger or actual pain, or their pain is frustration. And this is something I have to try so hard with my 10 year old is I can't fix everything and he doesn't want me to fix everything. And so, hey, you're bitching about something. Do you want me to see it? Do you want me to solve it, or do you want me to support you? Now, I will tell you, I'm not a perfect parent and I don't do that all the time. In case anyone has any delusions that I do that all the time. But it's what I strive to do, it's what I hope to do. And that's why when your capacity is full, when you've got your own house in order and you're feeling secure, you're feeling grounded, you're feeling present, it's much easier to, you know, take that Breath before you react. And that's so important.

Chris Do (39:52)

See, there's more than one option. There's at least three that we know about the three S's. There is just to sit in silence and see it work on proactively finding a solution with the person, especially a solution that they would find to be helpful and just to support them in whatever way that they need support in that moment. Right. We don't have to always go into solutions mode. Actually, I prefer that we don't go into solutions, but we need to flip the script. I don't know where it is in, in our socialization, our culture, to give answers all the time and prize answers so much. I think it's destroyed a lot of basic human connection and communication, for sure.

Maria Ross (40:33)

And your community and my community, we're communities of doers, we're communities of creators. And so our tendency is what can be done. And I am constantly fighting against this for myself. Sometimes the thing to be the next right action that I talked about earlier is just to listen. The next right action is to just hold space for someone.

Chris Do (40:55)

I want to take this to pricing and then I want to get back to the book. This is going to be a weird angle for you. Okay.

Maria Ross (41:00)

Okay. I love it. Bring it.

Chris Do (41:02)

Okay. So people in the creative space, they have generally fixed pricing, hourly pricing, and they bristle against this idea that you need to price the customer, not the job. They feel like that's opportunistic. It's taking advantage of people's need. And the example they always go to is if someone's dying of thirst on the the desert and have a bottle of water, I'm not going to price the client. That's exploitive. Right, right.

Maria Ross (41:28)

You're not going to price gouge. Yeah, yeah.

Chris Do (41:29)

That's a pretty extreme example. You know, when nobody has toilet paper, like it's 10, $10 a sheet. Okay, that's not what I'm talking about. Right, yeah. So what I'm saying to them is this is by having fixed pricing or hourly pricing, it's the least empathetic thing that you can do. The case I make is this. Not all customers are the same. They have different needs, they have different capacity to spend. And the outcomes of the work that you do, despite it being exactly the same, will have different impacts on people. The same logo you designed for Walmart, it's going to be very different than Joe and Mary's bakery. Very different. So if you want to be empathetic, we should try to understand the customer's needs first and what kind of impact and charge accordingly. Sometimes it's not much so charge less and sometimes it's a lot more charge more. I know that's a weird angle to take with this empathy conversation. What's your take on it?

Maria Ross (42:29)

So that's really interesting because I, you know, have done brand projects for a really long time and I have different pricing for for solopreneurs versus companies that I work for or funded startups. Now the work is more when you're dealing with a cross functional team that you have to wrangle versus a solopreneur. They're the sole decision maker, they're the only person I have to deal with. Less cats to herd, as they say. The process is the same but to your point, the value and also the research and my time commitment is more with the larger companies. I would say I'm going to argue both sides of this. So I tend to do this a lot. The agreement with that is yes, price based on impact, price based on value and how you can be transparent so you're not spending your time dealing with people that can't afford you is to put a floor. My projects start at X, so at least someone has a point of reference to say I shouldn't even bother wasting an hour of Chris's time on a discovery call if I can't even hit that minimum. Right. The flip side of that I'm going to play devil's advocate is that one of my pillars in the new book is clarity. Clarity is actually empathetic because it doesn't leave people in the dark. It doesn't leave people fumbling around going, where am I? What's expected of me? What can I expect? All of that type of stuff. So that part of me says pricing like that is good because it's, hey, I'm laying it out. You know exactly what to expect if you get on a phone call with me. But it also, to your point, doesn't leave room if the price needs to go up or down. And that's why I'm a big fan of my packages. Start at my work, starts at my projects, start at. And then you leave room to say, let me assess your needs and assess the impact of this work and also how long I think I'm going to have to invest in it. With one project, I might not have to invest a lot of time with another, I might have to do a lot more research, a lot more customer interviews, whatever it is, but it leaves me room. But then you don't leave the person you need to give Someone an anchor in where something's going to go in terms of what their budget even is. So I'm arguing out of both sides of my mouth on that one. But I think that's also about experimentation and your customer and what you feel comfortable doing. Because one thing that does bother me is if I don't have any understanding before I get on a 45 minute call with somebody, if I can even afford this. So I want some sense of like, you know, hey, I might not have a budget for this, but I might be able to find the money, which is normally what happens with my brand clients. Right. Like I don't have a budget set aside for brand strategy, but if I see value in it and I know where it's going to take me, I'll find the money. But nobody wants to waste their time on a conversation if we're not even playing in the same ballpark. So that's kind of where I land on that. I don't know what's worked for you, but that's what's worked for me.

Chris Do (45:28)

I didn't hear it as you making conflicting arguments. Not at all. I think the job of any service practitioner is to make clear really early on what some of the expectations are. Because if it's not a good fit, let's not spend time talking about this.

Maria Ross (45:43)

Exactly.

Chris Do (45:44)

So you can easily say, are you doing at least $30,000 a month in revenue? Are you prepared to at least X number of Y? Okay, great. Now we have the rest of the conversation. Otherwise I'm wasting your time. And that could happen on the website, it could happen on an appointment set or all that kind of stuff. That's all good. So I recently got an inquiry in my DMs. Somebody had asked me, we'd love for you to be on the advisory board to this company. What do you charge? Well, I'm not going to answer that question because what are you asking of me? What is going on? And unlike in the whole like brand or design. Yeah, you could work more hours. So I want to take it out of like that context. I'm going to show up for whatever time and the same person, whether you're a tiny little fledgling company or a multi billion dollar company. So at that point I have to really kind of take into consideration what is it that you're asking of me, what are your expectations and what is the commitment? And then I will sit around and think about it with you to see like what feels right. And that's a conversation. I'm not going to sit there and say, well, it's 2,000 bucks or it's 2 million. I just don't know. I don't know.

Maria Ross (46:48)

Right. I do that with speaking as well. I get inquiries of, we'd like you to come and do a keynote. Please send us your rate. And I'm like, no, no, no, no. It depends on where you are. It depends on the audience. It depends on how much prep I have to do. It depends on how long you want it to be. It depends on your goals. It depends on if you want me just to lecture to people or have some interactivity and role plays. Like, there's a lot there. And that question is so hard to answer. I have, you know, of course, we all, as business owners have list prices and what we base our financial projections on, but I can also be very flexible with people. And that's the joy of working for yourself, is if you decide, hey, this is someone I really want to work with. That's what I always tell my clients, is even when I send a proposal, this is a jumping off point. If this is going to work for you, great. If you want more, let's get creative.

Chris Do (47:36)

Out of curiosity, this is a sidebar here. Not to talk about numbers unless you want to talk about it, but of the different kinds of things that you can do. What do you charge the least for and get most enjoyment for, and what do you charge the most for because it's the least enjoyable thing for you. I have my own hierarchy. Right. So there's workshops, there's prepared talks. There are, like, fireside chats and panel discussions. I just want to know. Just, you know, professional curiosity.

Maria Ross (48:03)

Yeah, it's funny, you're getting me at a point where I'm shifting some things around in my business model. So this is very, like, top of mind. I mean, the easiest things that are also rewarding for me are fireside chats where I'm like, we don't know how it's going to go. I have an idea of what questions you want to ask. But it's very organic, and it can be very open to spontaneous moments and open to questions. I really love those. And that's probably my least expensive option, but also very rewarding for me because it might still take the same amount of time as me delivering a keynote, but there's less prep, there's a little bit more unexpected magic that happens. And so I love doing those. I think probably with my leadership workshops, which can be anywhere from 90 minutes to 120 minutes, that has a curriculum that has specific exercises we're going to do together. It's more time and energy, but that's actually my higher ticket item. But it's also one of the most rewarding things that I do because when you can get people in a room for that amount of time and you can watch them come to their own realizations. I love teaching. I love being on stage and seeing people, I love seeing their eyes light up. That moment of like, oh, I see something in a new way that I never saw before. And now with my work, you know, that was always true with my branding work and doing brand workshops, which I still do. I'm just much more selective about those. But when I do talks, I love to be able to get that energy back from the audience where they're nodding their heads and they're leaning forward and everyone's clamoring to ask a question. When the question time comes. Even when you've got those skeptics in the room, and even at my, by the way, even at my brand workshops with companies, there's always one right in the room who's like, I don't even know why I have to be here. Because I, I bring people in that are not in marketing into my brand workshops. I want to know what engineering thinks, I want to know what technology thinks, I want to know what sales thinks. Because I want to have a 360 degree view of the customer and the product. But there's always that person that's sitting there with their arms crossed waiting for me to impress them. And with my brand projects, those people always end up being my biggest evangelists by the end. And it's because of empathy, Chris. It's because they've been silenced in their own organizations because maybe they're cranky or they're a squeaky wheel and I give them space. I tell them, tell me about that. Tell me about that problem. Like, no, no, no, don't interrupt him. Let me hear more about that. They end up becoming your biggest champions when you give people space to listen. And they're the ones actually defending the decisions that come out of the brand work. And with my works, my empathy workshops, I always get the, I call them the what abouts. They're the people that are determined to show that empathy has no place in business. And they don't even know why they're in this workshop. Right, but what about the situation when. But what about if my team's underperforming? But what about if people are just whining about coming back to work? I love being able to listen to them and hear their concerns and get them maybe not agree with me, because that's not what empathy's about. Right. But get them to see it in a different way. Where they start even in their body posture, they uncross their arms, they relax a little bit. They're like, okay, okay, I'll let this in to marinate a little bit. I love that moment.

Chris Do (51:24)

So, quick recap on the whole talking thing. You are like me and probably like a lot of people, which is you'll pay the most for the things I find to be most painful. So if it's a fireside, an ama, it's interactive, and we don't have to worry about worksheets and formal rubrics and things of that nature. We're gonna have a lot of fun. That'll cost at least. Not to say that it's cheap, but it'll cost at least. And on the opposite end is like, leadership training with heavy curriculum, heavy expectations. Everybody's minute is very expensive there. So we got to make sure it's tight. The agenda, the food, everything's got to be super tight. Right? And talk somewhere in the middle.

Maria Ross (52:01)

Yeah, depending. I mean, I like, probably like you, I always give nonprofits a break. I always, you know, especially if I. If I agree with their mission, you know, I don't know. But for me, it's also the passion of getting the message out into the world.

Chris Do (52:13)

So it's just for the record, so people know why I'm laughing. It's because I don't give a break. It's like, I don't care if you're a nonprofit. No.

Maria Ross (52:20)

Oh, wow. Okay.

Chris Do (52:20)

I either show up or I don't. And because you can go to the poor house and lose all of your time in the world of nonprofits, you really can. And the thing that I know you know this, but our audience might not, is some nonprofits make a lot of money. They just don't want to pay you. Some of the most profitable companies I know are nonprofits. And it's like, what? It's a tax classification, everybody. It's not about how much money to have.

Maria Ross (52:44)

So, I mean, I'm talking about true non profits. I'm talking about, like, ones I've been on advisory boards on that have hired me to do brand work. I'm like, I know your budget. I know how much you stretch a dollar, and I want to help you have impact with this work. I believe in this work, and if I have a talent and a skill that can help you amplify that you.

Chris Do (53:02)

Bought in, I get you.

Maria Ross (53:03)

I'm going to give you a break.

Chris Do (53:04)

Yeah, I got you. I'm not saying I'm not flexible, everybody, but it's a case by case.

Maria Ross (53:09)

No, I'm just kidding.

Chris Do (53:12)

Okay. If the audience is listening, they're feeling the feels, they're like, oh, I like the nuanced approach in which you're talking about this. It's not so deep in the woo and it's not about all our feelings and expressing whatever woke moment we're all having together and they're excited. Like, you know what? I like what you're talking about. Tell me now or help me understand why someone should pick up the book, the empathy dilemma.

Maria Ross (53:38)

Yeah, so they need to pick it up if they don't understand what empathy is. And they're trying to see real scenarios and real examples of empathetic leadership in action that leads to high performance. I have data in there, just like I do in the empathy edge of how empathetic cultures and leaders benefit, teams benefit, customer revenue, benefit retention, benefit the bottom line. They also want to pick it up if they are struggling with the demands of their people versus the demands of the business. And that could be whatever size business you are, the market has changed, customer tastes have changed, revenue models might have to change, business models might have to change. But you might have people, whether it's your clients or your, your staff that have all these new demands. Now we are coming out of the pandemic with a fundamental shift in workplace culture and leadership paradigm. The shift was coming, let me be clear. The trend line was already going that way. It got accelerated because of the pandemic. I remember shopping around my first book in 2017 and agents saying, but I don't get it. Is it a business book or is it a self help book? And I'm like, no, it's a business book because it's about the ROI of empathy on your bottom line and how to practice it. Like, what are actionable strategies to bring it into your workplace that are not crying on the floor. Right. What are the benefits? What are the ways that you can structure meetings? What are the ways that you can communicate in a performance review? Practical ways to apply empathy. And so I want people who, who are struggling with that idea of, okay, there's, there's this new paradigm and I'm scared. So what's happening with a lot of leaders is they're snapping back to bossism because they don't know any other way to lead. They don't know how to embrace empathy in the workplace. There's a statistic done by Business Solver's State of Workplace Empathy report. And I can't remember the exact statistic right now because I'm not a numbers person, but it's something like 60 to 80% of executives don't believe empathy has any place in the workplace. Which is ludicrous to me because is your workplace not full of people? Anytime you have people interacting with other people in pursuit of a goal, you need empathy. That's like saying there's no. There's no place for integrity or honesty. To me it sounds just as ludicrous. Right. If you want to work effectively, if you want to get results, if you want to increase productivity, if you want to decrease turnover, if you want to decrease absenteeism, if you want to decrease quiet quitting. And all of the things that empathy helps on every vector. Being an empathetic leader in an empathetic culture. And from a brand perspective, when you have Data that says nine out of 10 customers want the brands they support to show empathy, when they say that, 97% say that empathy is the most important part of the customer experience. We have to pay attention as responsible business leaders. We have to pay attention to that. And so I want them to come away from, especially the most recent book, with an understanding of how to balance people with performance and their own boundaries. I don't have to give up my mental health in the name of being empathetic for my clients or for my people. I don't have to work myself into the ground by doing that. So I just want to give people permission and also data to say empathy is a good thing and we should all be embracing more of it.

Chris Do (57:22)

I guess you have one of these strange missions where if you do such a good job, the world won't need you anymore.

Maria Ross (57:27)

Exactly. That's what a vision should be is I always challenge my brand clients when they come up with their vision. So statements. Your vision statement should be a future state in which your work is no longer needed. What is that state? You know, and that's scary. Well, then I put myself out of business. I mean, we're talking. You're never going to attain it. But where do you want to go? Where would be that perfect vision of utopia where your work is no longer needed, where your mission is done? That's what we have to be striving for. We can't just be striving for mediocrity just to keep ourselves in business. That's not going to work.

Chris Do (58:04)

Right. So I like that. I'M going to make a joke here. Warning. So you asked this question in the vision statement, like, where is it that when you're done with your work, it will no longer be needed? What state is that? I'm like California, making it hard for the Marine to be here.

Maria Ross (58:25)

I know.

Chris Do (58:26)

I guess I'm not needed here for different reasons. Not for the right reasons, but that was my joke. If you're in California, you understand the pain. NorCal, SoCal, Central Coast. Y'all are in on this with us. One thing after the other. It's been tough.

Maria Ross (58:40)

Been tough.

Chris Do (58:41)

I hope you have some empathy for us, California.

Maria Ross (58:43)

I know, I know.

Chris Do (58:45)

Okay. For not avoiding the fires. We're avoiding floods or whatever else. Like atmospheric rivers.

Maria Ross (58:50)

Exactly. I was going to say bomb cyclones. What else?

Chris Do (58:53)

Yeah. Okay. But, you know, don't cry for us because we have beautiful weather and beautiful people and culture, and that's why we. We. We choose to. To stay here.

Maria Ross (59:02)

Oh, a trade off. Yeah.

Chris Do (59:03)

Yes. Okay. Somebody's in love with all of this. Where do they go to find out more about what you do and pick up their copy of the book?

Maria Ross (59:10)

Okay. I love it. Thank you. The easiest place is they can go to theempathydilema.com and that will take them to a page on my website. My business is called Breads, but on that page they can download a free chapter, they can join my newsletter, they can learn more about the book, and then they'll see all the wonderful things up in the menu about my speaking and my courses and all that kind of good stuff. They can follow me on Instagram, Ed Slicemaria, or they can connect with me on LinkedIn. I'm Maria J. Ross. But if they connect with me on LinkedIn, this is always my public service announcement. They have to write a note that says they heard me on your show. Otherwise I'm going to think that they're selling me something.

Chris Do (59:46)

So that's not an empathetic approach to cold outreach, everybody.

Maria Ross (59:50)

That's not. That's not.

Chris Do (59:52)

Okay, so just so we're clear, go to theempathydilema.com yes. And you'll find all that you need there. And that'll bring you into the whole.

Maria Ross (60:00)

It'll be on my website. My main website. Yep. And they can find all the things and I hope they join my newsletter and stay part of the community and get some insights and inspiration. And they can download a free chapter of the book if they want to check it out before they buy it.

Chris Do (60:12)

Wonderful. Well, before I ask you, my very last Question, which is a personal, light question, I think I want to thank you for being here. I hope, if you're listening, dear audience, is that you're either vindicated, validated, or you got some work to do. It's all fine.

Maria Ross (60:27)

I love that. Vindicated, validated, or you have work to do. Okay.

Chris Do (60:30)

I don't know.

Maria Ross (60:31)

That's great.

Chris Do (60:31)

I know. I'm just saying to you, if you want to share a problem with me, I'll ask you if you want me to see it, solve it, or just to support you. I can do that for. For you, everybody. Okay. Now, here's the personal question ended on a slightly weird note.

Maria Ross (60:44)

Okay.

Chris Do (60:44)

Oh, you had an aneurysm. You have a scar.

Maria Ross (60:48)

I think I do. Probably under my hair somewhere.

Chris Do (60:51)

Yeah, my brother had aneurysm. He has a. He's like, here's the scar. You want to check it out? They have to drill a hole in your head.

Maria Ross (60:58)

Well, yeah. So my. My first one was an emergency situation. It ruptured, and they were able to do a coiling, which means they don't actually go through your skull. They go through your femoral artery all the way up, and they plug it up. But I had another aneurysm that they saw that was small at the time. And as it got bigger, I actually did have to go back in 2019 and get a elective surgery. Not elective, but I made the decision to go get the surgery where they actually did go in through my skull and clip it and then put, like. Not to get graphic, but put my skull back on. Put that piece back on. So that definitely had a scar. Yeah.

Chris Do (61:34)

Okay, now here's the question. My brother had an aneurysm. It was an emergency. Emergency thing. He collapsed while walking. Thank God they got him to the hospital. They drilled a hole, drained the fluid.

Maria Ross (61:45)

Yep, I have that, too.

Chris Do (61:46)

Here's the thing, is he's not the same person that he was pre aneurysm. And here's the weird thing. He's a lot more emotional. And so my mom's like, it was a good thing that that happened because he's way more kind and empathetic and emotional, and he's very, very logical to the extreme. He's a software engineer. So I want to ask you this question if you care to disclose it.

Maria Ross (62:10)

I would love to. I'm a brain injury awareness advocate, and I volunteer for organizations, so I'm happy.

Chris Do (62:15)

Okay, so here's the question, right? How are you different?

Maria Ross (62:18)

Well, I am different. So, number one, I wrote a book about this experience called rebooting my brain that your family and your brother might be very interested in checking out. Because I learned a lot about the unseen impacts of brain injury, Even if you look fine on the outside. So for me, any brain injury depends on where in the brain it happened. So for me, my rupture, my hemorrhage was in my frontal lobe. And that impacts your executive skills. So I had to do a lot of work and a lot of therapy around emotional regulation, around fighting depression, around vocabulary recall, around prioritization. I am much more unorganized than I used to be. My short term memory still, this was in 2008, it's still an issue now. It might be blending with perimenopause for me, but you know what, whatever, right? Aging. But I definitely am more emotional, I'm more quick. If you talk about fight or flight, I more fight than I used to be. So definitely that filter, that emotional regulator gets impacted when you have a brain injury. And for some people it can be your social graces are gone. Like you're saying really inappropriate things to people in public out loud. Right. For some people it's a loss of, you know, they cry at everything. They get very upset. For me, I just have like, I go from 0 to 60 when it comes to anger. I'm very like. And I start yelling. I'm different in that I cannot, which is a good thing. I cannot multitask the way I used to because we're not actually designed to multitask. But it was a noted difference for me. And I'm different in just the way that I work and the way that I manage my schedule. Like I try not to over plan, I try not to have back to back meetings, for example, even working with clients, I only take on a few at a time. I don't try to scale. And so it really changed the way that I live, the way that I interact and the way that I work. Even when you are, you know, lucky enough to survive. So that's why I ended up writing that book. Rebooting my brain was to help other people who didn't have a voice explain what it feels like from the inside. To experience that and to, you know, what is your identity if your identity is wrapped up in. I'm good at remembering names, I'm great at multitasking, I'm good at numbers. And all of a sudden that gets stripped from you. What are you left with? So do our brains define our identity or do. Does our identity influence how we think? Was kind of the Question I asked in that memoir, and I shared a lot of resources and a lot of information there. So thank you for asking that.

Chris Do (64:57)

What is your husband's name?

Maria Ross (64:58)

His name is Paul.

Chris Do (64:59)

I just want to say this, that you had two aneurysms, right?

Maria Ross (65:03)

Well, I had. I. I had aneurysms. Only one ruptured. The other was proactively clipped or closed, whatever. Yeah, people think aneurysm. That's the. That's. You probably know this. People think aneurysm is an event, like a heart attack. One in 50 people actually have an unruptured aneurysm in their brain that they don't know about. An aneurysm is just a weak point in your blood vessel that blows out like a balloon. You could have it and live your whole life and never know you have it. It's when it ruptures or it gets too big, that that's when it causes the problem. So when people say, I had an aneurysm, I like to say, well, I had an aneurysm rupture, and then I had another aneurysm that got closed off, if you will.

Chris Do (65:45)

The dangers. That push puts pressure on your brain.

Maria Ross (65:48)

If it gets big enough. But if it stays within, there's actually like a. That was what I was under surveillance for, for years, was how big it was. And if it stays that way, great. But if you've had one rupture, your likelihood of others rupturing goes up. The odds of another rupture happening goes up.

Chris Do (66:06)

Okay, so you disclosed this earlier. I'm gonna wrap the show here in that you're a Italian from, like, a New Yorker who's Italian, and so we can always say your short temper is tight.

Maria Ross (66:21)

And I'm a redhead, though.

Chris Do (66:22)

Yeah, you're a fiery redhead Italian New Yorker living in Northern California. You got a lot to be ang out. So this may have been the COVID Like, you see, I was not angry before and short fuse. So I just want to say this. I want to say this to your husband, Paul. You're a good man. Stay with this lady. See her, support her, love her, appreciate her. Thank you very much.

Maria Ross (66:47)

You're gonna make me cry.

Chris Do (66:50)

Am I?

Maria Ross (66:51)

Yeah. That's so sweet.

Chris Do (66:54)

Sometimes I get accused the worst.

Maria Ross (66:56)

I love it. I love it.

Chris Do (66:58)

Thank you.

Maria Ross (67:00)

I'm Maria Ross, and you're listening to the Future.

C (67:08)

Thanks for joining us. If you haven't already, subscribe to our show on your favorite podcasting app and get new insightful episodes from us every week. The Future podcast is hosted by Chris do and produced and edited by Rich Cardona Media. Thank you to Adam Sanborn for our intro music. If you enjoyed this episode, then do us a favor by reviewing and rating our show on Apple Podcasts. It will help us grow the show and make future episodes that much better. If you'd like to support the show and invest in yourself while you're at it, visit thefuture.com and you'll find video courses, digital products, and a bunch of helpful resources about design and the creative business. Thanks again for listening and we'll see you next time.