About The Guest: Leanne Butterworth is the founder of Empathy First, a social enterprise focused on promoting empathy and emotional intelligence. With a background in exercise physiology and a passion for mental health, Leanne combines her expertise to create workshops and courses that help individuals and organizations develop empathy skills.
Summary: Leanne Butterworth, founder of Empathy First, joins the podcast to discuss the importance of empathy in our personal and professional lives. She shares her journey of discovering the power of empathy and how it can create positive change in the world. Leanne explains the concept of empathy and breaks it down into three types: emotional empathy, cognitive empathy, and healthy empathy. She emphasizes the need for healthy empathy, which involves understanding and validating others' feelings and perspectives without taking on their emotions or trying to fix their problems. Leanne also discusses the connection between empathy, social enterprise, and human-centered design, highlighting the role of empathy in creating ethical and sustainable businesses.
Key Takeaways:
- Empathy is multifaceted and can be broken down into emotional empathy, cognitive empathy, and healthy empathy.
- Emotional empathy involves feeling the feelings of others, while cognitive empathy focuses on understanding others' perspectives and experiences.
- Healthy empathy is the goal, which involves sharing and understanding others' feelings and responding appropriately.
- Social enterprise is a business model that combines doing good with generating revenue to drive positive change.
- Human-centered design is a problem-solving approach that starts with empathy and involves understanding the needs and perspectives of the people being served.
- Empathy is essential in social enterprise and human-centered design to ensure that solutions are truly addressing the needs and experiences of the target audience.
Quotes:
- "Empathy is feeling the feelings. It's how we build relationships." - Leanne Butterworth
- "Healthy empathy is the ability to share and understand the feelings and perspectives of others and respond appropriately." - Leanne Butterworth
- "Useful doesn't have to be practical. Useful doesn't have to be action plans." - Leanne Butterworth
- "Get curious, not judgmental, genuinely get curious about this." - Leanne Butterworth
- "We are all winging it. We are all the ducks below the surface. We are all the iceberg. None of us have a clue what we're doing." - Leanne Butterworth
- "Be less afraid of each other, be less afraid of stuff, and genuinely lean into curiosity and action and standing up and learning about your values and learning about other people." - Leanne Butterworth
Find Leanne here:
www.https://www.empathyfirst.com.au/
www.linkedin.com/in/leannebutterworth
