One of the most common questions in all the entrepreneurship podcasts I listen to is: “If you had to choose only one core skill that leads to success, which would it be?”. My personal answer to this, if I'm ever asked, is empathy. I know, it sounds super cliché, but hear me out.
To me, empathy means “truly understanding another person’s feelings and needs, beyond what he/she is saying”. I’ve tried so many different business models in my short life, and the difference between failure and success has always come down to how well I could understand other people. When translated to the workplace:
Empathy means deeply understanding the needs of your customers (if you’re selling something) or your audience (if you aspire to build a personal brand in a specific niche). We all know that a business has to solve someone else’s problems, but how many startups are just a cool product the founder built to satisfy his/her own desire?
Empathy means finding the best partners or hiring the right collaborators. I've already written about this, but my belief is that any business, past a certain point, becomes only a matter of people. Numerical skills will just bring you to the end of the first chapter. Read any business biography if you’re not convinced yet.
Empathy means managing the (often complicated) relational dynamics of a big corporation. If you’ve ever worked in one, you know what I mean. Is the current head of your department the person with the best analytical skills?
However, the most underrated use of empathy is towards ourselves. Specifically, to our future self. Every time I receive an invite to attend an event, I think about what my future self would want me to do, and how I can make his life easier. How many times have you said yes to something just because refusing was less comfortable, only to make your future and busy self regret it? How many future headaches could be avoided if you just took 15 minutes of your time today to complete a simple task?
I hope these few lines sparked some interesting reflection on your Sunday night 😉