There’s an Native American proverb that says, “Until you’ve walked a mile in another person’s moccasins you will never really know them.”
In other words, you won’t have real empathy for them until you’ve experienced what they have experienced.
The reason that it’s important to understand empathy is because it’s critical to building trust.
So, if you want to build trust with someone, the first step is to establish empathy.
Here’s how you do it.
It’s all starts with the 3 elements of empathy. They are…
- Visualize – by putting yourself into the other person’s world to understand their situation and how they might be thinking and feeling.
- Appropriately demonstrate that you understand their world and how they are thinking and feeling.
- Get agreement from them that your demonstration of this understanding is accurate.
And, “getting agreement” is critical.
Because it’s not enough just to say that you understand someone.
You have to show it in such a way that the other person AGREES that you “get it”, that you understand them.
That’s when you really have empathy!
This is important because if someone believes that you understand their world – how they are feeling and thinking – they will most likely be more comfortable with you.
And, since trust is the end result of comfort over time, you will likely build trust faster.