Dr. Nicole Price on Learning the Skill of Empathy and Her New Book, Spark the Heart

Episode 166: Dr. Nicole Price returns to the podcast to chat with about Lori and Vonda about Empathy.  Employees value empathic leadership.  They want to not only do their job, but feel as they are a person with a position working for someone who cares. To the surprise of many, empathy is a skill that can be learned. It is not a born attribute.  Join in the conversation with Dr. Nicole Price and learn how you can be a empathy engineer.

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Dr. Nicole Price
CEO, Lively Paradox - former engineer
Originally trained as an engineer, Dr. Nicole Price later found her true calling in leadership development as a keynote speaker, training leader, and CEO of Lively Paradox.
She believes that leadership is personal. Her goal is to always balance courage with caring as she helps clients face and overcome the most challenging leadership development obstacles.
Nicole’s technical background enhances her objective approach to solving process problems, flipping dilemmas, and helping people focus on solutions. She prides herself on helping leaders lead well — while honoring who they are as individuals.

Sponsored by:
Flower Clique
Flower Clique Prep School
Real Life Retail Florist

Transcript

Speaker 1 0:03

And you can keep a straight face, that's usually an indication that you struggle with effective empathy.

Speaker 2 0:13

Welcome

Speaker 3 0:14

To the business and Pleasure of Flowers. We're your host, fond of Fever

Speaker 2 0:18

And Lori Wilson , and we believe that business and fun are a perfect combination, kind of like us. Wanda

Speaker 4 0:25

<laugh>.

Speaker 2 0:27

Morning Von La Fever . How are you?

Speaker 3 0:30

I am fantastic. Lori Wilson . How are you today?

Speaker 2 0:34

Living the dream. It's what I'm doing. I am living the dream <laugh> , so I'm very excited today, as are you because we have a return guest. Um, and here's a hint about her. She doesn't own a flower shop. She is <laugh> . She , I don't even know, I'm gonna say she's not a flat floral designer, but maybe she is. I just am pretty sure she's not. But she does love to get flowers, so, yes. And I

Speaker 3 1:07

Would also say that everyone would love to have her in the flower shop for a week.

Speaker 2 1:12

Oh, oh , a hundred percent right . <laugh> . Hundred percent . Every, there's so many flower shops that we know of that need Nicole for a little bit. So yes . Dr . Nicole C. Price, thank you so much for coming back. How are you?

Speaker 1 1:28

I'm doing very well, thank you. Thank you for having me again.

Speaker 2 1:31

Well, my gosh, anytime . Anytime when we schedule like return guests, anytime we can get you to come back on and talk about something. We both get very excited. So the only, the hardest part of it, Vonda , don't you agree, is keeping it at a time limit. So I think last time we had a part one and a part two, maybe not we did

Speaker 3 1:53

Mm-hmm. <affirmative> ,

Speaker 2 1:54

It may go there. So Nicole, I'm gonna do just a quick little introduction for you. Um, you are the c e o of Lively paradox. Your work brings the power of empathy to companies across the country. Dr. Nicole shed's light on what leaders can do to create organizations that retain top talent and help their bottom line in the process. I love that . I absolutely love it. So that's what it says in part of your bio. You tell me and Vonda , how did you get on this subject?

Speaker 1 2:32

I still can't believe I'm the person talking about empathy. Sometimes

Speaker 2 2:36

I can't either . <laugh>, <laugh> .

Speaker 1 2:39

I think it's because I am just like everybody else using the wrong definition sometimes.

Speaker 2 2:45

Yeah.

Speaker 1 2:45

You know, it's like when I hear empathy, my mind goes to being nice all the time. Um, not being logical and reasonable, lowering the bar for folks and letting 'em get away with things. But that's not what empathy is. Not by definition, not in practice. Mm-hmm. <affirmative>. And so it was interesting because, you know, I used to , uh, teach leaders how to be more inclusive and get like the best of your teams, right? Yeah. And one day there's a guy, he's a philanthropist in my town, and he said, you know, Nicole, I get all of what you're saying intellectually, but I was hoping that you would help me get it emotionally and my brain's really quick. So really quick I go , did he just tell me he don't care what I'm talking about?

Speaker 2 3:30

<laugh> ?

Speaker 1 3:34

I think he just told me , I don't care what you talking about, but with that, he was saying, can you help me care?

Speaker 2 3:41

Yeah.

Speaker 1 3:42

So instead of being offended, I was like, you know, he actually has a really good point and I don't know how to help people care about things they don't care about. But then I realized, what, what was the catalyst that took me from being logical, reasonable, objective, questioning critical, like nails to the wall kind of person, right . To being someone who really does empathy has resulted in me caring . So that takes me, there's two ways to learn empathy . One is through lived experience. Mm-hmm . <affirmative> , nothing like an elder parent , nothing like , uh, getting sick yourself, nothing like , uh, having a child with a special need that causes your heart to open wide up. And for you to understand that group of people Yeah. Differently and better.

Speaker 2 4:34

Yeah.

Speaker 1 4:35

But we can't give people like lived experiences. I cannot make you, I don't at least, I don't want to give you this life altering experience to help build your empathy muscle. I don't wanna do that. But through study, I have learned that we can teach people to be empathetic. That's a , it's an easier way. Yeah . Um, and we just don't, because most of us believe either you are born with empathy or you aren't.

Speaker 2 5:05

A hundred percent . That's what I just always thought. You're Oh. You know, they're just not, they just don't have that gene in them. I wanna read something. Dan , these are your words. So you can't get mad at me. I, I giggled. Because you and Fonda have a lot of the same personality traits as far as business owners in the way you think the , the logic part , um, which, you know, I am always, always impressed by. So you say on here, when should you fire a person? The, this is you saying the moment you think of it. This was the piece of wisdom Dr. Nicole used to share with companies and auditoriums filled with cheering HR professionals to Dr. Nicole. This was simp simple pragmatism owing perhaps to her background in chemical engineering. Dr. Nicole thought she was being extremely logical, cutting the Gordian knot at the roof of the workplace. Stripe remove the detractors and their complaints will leave with them.

Speaker 1 6:10

That's what I used to think. And that's what I used to say,

Speaker 2 6:13

Cut and dry.

Speaker 1 6:14

That's what I used to think of . And that's also what I used to say. And then , um, then I got fired unfairly. So you, you see that thing. Wow . Yeah . When I say nothing like a lived experience to cause you to be empathetic, being fired unfairly is what helped me to open my heart up to, you know, are we giving people the tools they need to get their jobs done? Are we managing our own leadership nonsense that we, like? Are we showing up being jealous? Are we showing up Right ? Delegating and dropping support? Are we showing up in ways that, you know, are less than ideal and then getting mad at our employees? And if so, we have to handle our stuff and I'll double down the way I learned it was being fired unfairly. But we can teach leaders to be more empathetic towards people. And it , it's really simple in this case. So let's say you think you have a performance issue. What I realized was when I was working in hr, people would come to me to tell me about a performance issue. And I'd say, well, have you talked to the person? Oh yeah. Oh yeah , yeah. When I talk to the person, they've never heard any of what it's, you know, it's , they've never heard any of this. Yes. And so is it like, or do we have all of these employees who just are terrible listeners? Or do we have managers who lack the courage and the savvy to be able to have a high standard of expectation and be able to communicate that in a way that another person hears you and, and is very clear on their roles and the goals and their responsibilities. I have found that the latter is less true <laugh> then the, the former, like, we have to own our leadership stuff and we don't. And then we think if we terminate somebody, we're gonna hire somebody else who's the perfect person for the job. Well , you're gonna hire somebody else who has a different set of skill gaps. Now what are you gonna do? You gonna fire them when you figure out what their skill gaps are. Wow. Yeah. I learned the hard way, but I'm working on making sure that other people don't have to learn the hard way.

Speaker 2 8:19

And

Speaker 3 8:19

It kind of starts with listening, right?

Speaker 1 8:23

Listening. So there's an exercise , um, if , uh, the listeners want to do the 14 days of empathy, which I do, but it is to try and you can pick whatever time period you want. You can just do it for one little small conversation a day. But to listen to another person with the only intent of understanding what they're trying to say. You're not trying to solve their problem. You're not judging whether or not they should have a problem. You're not judging how they feel about it. You are just listening with the sole purpose of understanding. And if you do that enough, you'll find that you will be more empathetic to people mm-hmm. <affirmative> , that you will be able to make better decisions more accurately. And , um, I ask business owners, isn't that helpful to you?

Speaker 2 9:11

Mm-hmm . <affirmative>.

Speaker 1 9:12

And the answer is yes, of course. That's helpful.

Speaker 2 9:15

Sure. Well, don't you think so? I mean, for decades, showing empathy people, cuz you , they don't understand it, right? So they assume, oh, they're a baby. I, I have memories being a child and my father, my people saying, oh, Lori , she wears her heart on her sleeve. She just wears her heart on her sleeve. And then I started thinking it , that's bad. Mm-hmm . <affirmative> , I must be bad because they talk about, because I would be crying if my siblings were getting reprimanded, but I was broken just, and so I never really got reprimanded or spanked or anything as a kid because I was crying so hard. My parents didn't have the heart to come to me. But as I got older, I started realizing through other people that I was a , a big baby. And , and so when I was going through this, I started kind of getting very emotional going. I wasn't a baby. Mm-hmm . <affirmative> , I was just really, really deeply empathetic, <laugh> to do everything around me. And I didn't have the words. I didn't know I, so I would, I mean, I would cry at the drop of a hat watching something on tv, seeing a straight an anything.

Speaker 1 10:37

Mm-hmm . <affirmative> . Yeah. And so what you're describing is , uh, the ability to feel emotions deeply. And um, what's interesting is that we're not taught to recognize our emotions. Understand those emotions. Right. Label them appropriately. Because if we can recognize, understand and label, then we have the ability to then express them appropriately.

Speaker 2 11:07

Right.

Speaker 1 11:08

And then to regulate. But what we are taught to do is to suppress our emotions. Mm-hmm. <affirmative> . And guess what happens to suppress the emotions? They're gonna come.

Speaker 2 11:19

No, they come out . If they come out, they come out in a horrible way.

Speaker 1 11:23

<laugh> . They come out in a horrible way. And if they don't, then it ends up in hypertension, stress, diabetes, all things . And we are like, what's going on? What's wrong with me? Well, we don't have permission to, to feel . And , uh, some people like you are born more empathetic. Like you describing watching another person and you sharing their emotions. That's actually called effective empathy. But I can learn to look at, at your face and try to recognize and understand and label the emotions you feel like, think about emotional intelligence classes. What are we taught in those classes? Gravitas means mm-hmm. <affirmative> appear like the duck on the lake with your little feet going like crazy underneath. But on top you just, and we get so much kudos for that. And I do think that's important, but we even do it in places where it's just not even humanly natural. Right. Like, shouldn't I cry at a funeral? Right . Even where people are trying not to show their emotion mm-hmm. <affirmative> , what is that ?

Speaker 2 12:32

I don't know . It's, and, and you look at other countries Right. And funerals very different ways. Yeah . Conduct another funeral and it's fine. But we see it on tv. We're like, God , what is wrong with them?

Speaker 1 12:45

Yeah. And how dare you still be sad like later?

Speaker 2 12:49

Oh yeah. Exactly. Yeah.

Speaker 1 12:51

And even like, imagine someone being, you've seen us describe people as being too happy about something. Oh, you need to be more humble. You need to, you know, tone that down. Mm-hmm . <affirmative> mm-hmm. <affirmative>. And I know for sure that for me, I used to watch, my mother was incredibly empathetic and I didn't think it was bad. I just thought people used her. But what I know today is that actually she had very good boundaries and only did the things she wanted to do. It was, I was judging whether or not she was being used, but I I , now that I'm old ,

Speaker 2 13:24

Oh yes.

Speaker 1 13:25

Yeah. I know she wasn't in

Speaker 2 13:28

Mm-hmm . <affirmative> . Yeah . Do you find though , and maybe I'm not using the right word, but sometimes I feel that there is empathy can, if not handled correctly , can turn into enabling. Um, and, and sometimes I, I'm talking about even for myself, you know, and my kids and I, oh , I feel so sorry for him because he, once again, he left his homework at home. Whatever . Okay, I'm gonna take it up. Mm-hmm . <affirmative> , that's a little bit of both. Right. But what that's doing is not teaching him, Hey, you do it again. You're on your own. I'm, that's, that's a struggle.

Speaker 1 14:08

Yeah. So what you just described is actually sympathy, feeling sorry for is actually sympathy. It's, I think it's important to practice sympathy. There's some , um, really well renowned people, and I'm not judging their work around empathy. Mm-hmm. <affirmative> who kinda talk about sympathy. Like, it's bad, but I'm a woman of great faith. And there are times when, you know, somebody's dad dies and there's like six kids, I feel sorry for them . Oh yeah. I , I, that's awful. And I want to, I'm , I am moved to compassion to want to help them. Mm-hmm. <affirmative> , uh, however, at work, most of the time what people need from us, and especially in our like relationships, parent and child, what people need from us is empathy. I understand what has happened. I even understand that it's difficult to come and remember all your stuff every morning. And through that understanding, I have to run it through the filter of what I understand about life too. Cons . If you consistently forget things, if you, if I don't build your capacity to remember things, that's gonna be a detriment to you as an adult. But it doesn't mean I don't understand. I understand how short it is to remember. And it might not even feel good to me to not bring you what you need, cuz I know you're gonna get a consequence. And I put that in conjunction with what I know to be true about responsibility and I make a bad a , a good decision. Mm-hmm . <affirmative> . Now, let's say you don't typically forget your things.

Speaker 2 15:42

Right.

Speaker 1 15:43

And one day you do and I'm like , you should have remembered it. You see? Yeah ,

Speaker 2 15:48

Yeah. No, exactly.

Speaker 1 15:50

In that instance, it's like, okay, put yourself in that person's shoes. Right . And walk around in their skin for a bit. Right . And see how , if that's really what you want to, to do. And usually the answer is like, eh , I probably make a different

Speaker 2 16:03

Choice. Yeah. I wanna read the definition , um, that you give , uh mm-hmm . <affirmative> about empathy and it's like , what , what I love when you explain things even the last time, it's just you use simple terms, <laugh> that we remember. And basically you, you write empathy means experiencing someone else's feelings. It requires an emotional component of really feeling what the other person is feeling. Sympathy on the other hand, means understanding their suffering. And that I've, I've always struggled between how to tell the difference , um, or how to share what the difference is . Cuz Rhonda and I've talked about empathy when we've go over our management's training and you know, all of those kind of things. But I love that we sympathy is when we identify with their suffering, empathy doesn't always mean you're gonna be coming up with a sad feeling. Right. And, and a lot of, a lot of times we assume that, that it's gonna make us have to be sad and it doesn't.

Speaker 1 17:16

Yeah. There's some really simple ways to tell. If you struggle with effective empathy, if you see children smiling and you can keep a straight face, That's usually an indication that you struggle with effective empathy . If you are watching a , a movie and someone's going through like, and those imagine great actor acting mm-hmm. <affirmative>, they're going through this heart-wrenching experience and you are , and , and nothing happens to you , you're completely, yeah . That's probably an indication that you struggle with effective empathy. It's easier sometimes for people to deal with the cognitive empathy, the, the, the understanding part. So I would, let's say , uh, vda you are embarrassed and you tell me you're embarrassed about something. Maybe I think you shouldn't be embarrassed. That doesn't matter. And empathetic stance is , let me think of a time when I was embarrassed. Oh, I know what embarrassment feels like mm-hmm . <affirmative> . Now let me respond to Rhonda in the way that I might've appreciated when I felt embarrassed.

Speaker 3 18:24

Right.

Speaker 1 18:26

And sometimes people go, well , I mean the people who study empathy, like to the doctoral level are like, no , that's not quite it. It is really simple in terms of practicing it.

Speaker 3 18:36

Yeah. Yeah. Mm-hmm . <affirmative> mm-hmm. <affirmative>. So let me ask you , Nicole, in a case of a leadership, you know, so we're leaders in our business and our communities, and when we are very empathetic, we can relate to what people are going through. And then somebody else is watching this, right. And they're like, oh boy, they're a sap . Or they, you know, it's just sometimes there's a judgment like Lori's saying, you are wearing your, your heart on a sleeve. You're , you , sometimes people feel that is a weakness in leadership positions. And I could see, I mean I'm a small business and I'm, you know, no big deal here, but we're all women. We're always emotional <laugh>. Yeah. Right. But I think sometimes CEOs in large corporations feel that maybe they , that's a sign of weakness instead of strength. And they might struggle with the fact that they need to be more empathetic.

Speaker 1 19:31

Mm-hmm. <affirmative>. Yeah. I will tell you that what you're saying is 100% accurate, that people associate being empathetic with being weak. And uh, to what Lori just said, we're women, we're always emotional. The reason why people think men are not emotional is because they don't appropriately label emotions. Like anger. Yeah . As emotions. <laugh> label emotions like despondent as an emotion. They don't label glum as an emotion. All of those irritated, those are all emotions. The only ones we label are the ones that tend to be in the sad category as being specifically female. Mm-hmm . <affirmative> , here's what I invite executives to think about. Try being empathetic for one week and you tell me it doesn't take courage . Wow. Tell me it doesn't take strength to do it. Mm-hmm. <affirmative> the thing in the world for me to do actually. It's to see myself separate and apart from the people and objective and take a logical , reasonable stance. Mm-hmm. <affirmative>, that's what we're taught to do in engineering school. I am taught if I'm trying to get 50 million rose bouquets out <laugh> in a year or whatever, I can't stop production because one person is having an issue. I gotta be able to plug and play the people. I gotta think about people as cogs and wheels if I've got this huge operation that trains you to not be empathetic. Yeah. Because empathy means you see people as individuals. You, you , you know, and so it is extra work. I will never tell anyone it is not extra work. Mm-hmm. <affirmative>. But just thinking about what happened to someone instead of what's wrong with them. Right . And then through the understanding of what happened, adjust accordingly.

Speaker 3 21:23

I totally understand that you've hid it. When you said men have more of a challenge of that as women, is that part of what you do is go into a company and help train them? Or is this mostly through your book and online services or, or how do you help solve this challenge?

Speaker 1 21:41

Yeah, so one of the things that has been difficult for, for even me is because my history of work experience is not full of empathetic decision making . We're talking about like the last eight years worth of work. Right . Where I've been more empathetic in my position. Um, but I know I can teach empathy. So I have empathy workshops, but it's not Fonda, this is important. It is not holding hands and singing kumbaya. Right. Because I wouldn't sign up for that myself. Right . This is how do you learn how to listen? How do you address performance issues through an empathetic lens. Mm-hmm . <affirmative> , how do you reward and celebrate employees through an empathetic lens? How do you handle conflict through with empathy as the foundation of it? Um, I really am just trying to restore the personal humanity to organizations because there are people at the end of our data points and we get to this thing in our heads where we're like, here's an example in schools. If you're gonna talk about kids who need, you know, are always in trouble, instead of just having their names up there, you put their little faces up there That singular it dunno , helps you think about it less like data and more like, these are people.

Speaker 3 23:11

Wow. Wow .

Speaker 2 23:14

So my question, it kind of segues into this. You're talking about leaders having empathy. Is it important to hire people with empathy or does that even matter?

Speaker 1 23:27

You know, I would think that some people think it probably doesn't matter, but I think empathy helps us do everything better. That's people related. So if you're gonna be working with people, a little bit of empathy works. Mm-hmm. <affirmative> . And you know, Tiana's earlier point about like executives too . Anytime someone has tried to get someone else to understand them, what they were doing was seeking empathy. So if all you believe in is that we shouldn't be hypocrites in the world, if you seek for somebody to understand you, then why wouldn't we seek to understand others? That's, I'm , that's really what I'm, what I'm trying to do here. Mm-hmm . <affirmative> . Now when we're hiring, what I like to do is focus on more behavioral based interviewing where you ask people, tell me about a time when someone did X and how you handled it mm-hmm. <affirmative> and listen to did they seek to understand before they implemented some rule or did they go straight to the rule and then, you know, don't follow the rules and

Speaker 2 24:35

Wow,

Speaker 1 24:36

We're done.

Speaker 2 24:37

Yeah. I've noticed, and we've talked about this many times, there are more and more, even just in our small industry of, of flowers, it is talked about a lot more the importance of empathy. Um, I know shops that are having meetings and talking to their team and they're hiring outside , um, council if needed, like adding that. Maybe it's to the insurance, all these things. My question is, do you feel like, is this just a trend for right now mm-hmm . <affirmative> , or do you feel like it's something that we've kind of finally gotten to a point as a society where it's not working, we need to try something different?

Speaker 1 25:25

Yeah. I, so I am biased a little bit. Okay. So I'll just acknowledge that first, I really believe that everybody gets up every day and wants to do a good job. I don't think that people are getting up and saying, Hey, let me see how I can screw things up for you today. Like if mm-hmm . <affirmative> , like if given a choice, people wanna be rock stars , not noodles that need to be pushed. Right. I I I believe that. Um , I do too . I

Speaker 2 25:51

Totally agree with that. Yeah .

Speaker 1 25:53

So through, so through that belief, what I, what I think Covid showed us and this low unemployment rate, these massive shifts in like how companies and organizations get work done, was that oh, showing up in ways that lack humanity, that's not gonna help me. Right . Keep talent. People are deciding that they'd rather be Uber drivers

Speaker 2 26:24

Right.

Speaker 1 26:26

Than to come into a place and be treated less than human. Mm-hmm . <affirmative> . And because people have that, you know, ability, we've had to look at ourselves as leaders and say, okay, hold on, wait a minute. Like , I know I went to the class on emotional intelligence. I know, know, I went to the class on crucial conversations and all the things that they taught me. Inclusion, the ones that I was teaching. Yes, yes. Um, but it's not working. And why not? Well, because you can't feign empathy.

Speaker 2 26:56

Yeah. Mm-hmm. <affirmative> ,

Speaker 1 26:57

If I put it at the beginning of an email, Hey, sorry, you're sick. And then I have a whole paragraph in between why you shouldn't , didn't call in. Like people know you don't care about them. And , um, there's an adage, it's not personal, it's just business. Yes .

Speaker 2 27:13

Mm-hmm . <affirmative>

Speaker 1 27:13

And said it over and over again. Well, through a little bit of research I learned that that adage came from the mafia.

Speaker 2 27:21

Well , really? Really .

Speaker 1 27:23

And so why would we build any of our people related practices on that?

Speaker 2 27:29

Yeah. Wow.

Speaker 1 27:32

People spend 40 hours a week with you. It is , it is very personal.

Speaker 2 27:36

Mm-hmm .

Speaker 3 27:36

<affirmative> . So it's all about understanding the employee and seeing them as a person and not a position.

Speaker 1 27:44

That's correct.

Speaker 3 27:45

Kind of what I'm going that back to. It's like, yes, these are people, they're my employees. Right. They're the employees of this organization, but they're people and yes, they're filling a position, but we need to understand them so that we can work well together and, and they want to work with us too. Right. I mean, the more that we get them feeling like we really care, which we do, then the more they're gonna do, the more they're gonna wanna be part of your team.

Speaker 1 28:15

And people know when you don't care either that

Speaker 3 28:18

Yeah . You know , when you're fake. Right. If you're not authentic.

Speaker 2 28:20

Mm-hmm. <affirmative> .

Speaker 1 28:21

And I will just add to what you said about recognizing that our employees are people. Sometimes folks think that that means that I have not fired anybody in the time that I've started being empathetic. Here's what's more true. By the time I would've normally fired someone in the past, they know it's not working and they quit.

Speaker 2 28:49

Yeah . Which is

Speaker 3 28:50

Always better.

Speaker 1 28:51

We have had conversations, I have given them multiple chances to get it right. It's still not working and they, they start looking for something else and then that , that's wonderful. The other thing that happens that when I've actually had to still go through with the termination, the person is grateful and thankful and appreciates all that I did all the way up to that point. And my personal coach says to me, here's, here's the bar. He says , can you sleep well at night? Not double thinking your decision after you've done it? And if so, that means you did everything you could, but if you're double thinking it

Speaker 2 29:27

Yeah.

Speaker 1 29:28

Did you give it all you could.

Speaker 2 29:30

Yeah. Wow. That's, that's great. So I've got some questions I wanna talk about.

Speaker 1 29:37

Okay . The ,

Speaker 2 29:38

What I want you to talk about your new book , um, that is coming out, I believe in April, and I am pre-ordered it. I know I did that. Um, tell me about it. What's the title? All of that good stuff.

Speaker 1 29:53

So the book is called Spark the Heart Engineering Empathy in Your Organization. And I live in the heart of the nation in Kansas City. Mm-hmm. <affirmative> and I, I'm a human rights commissioner here for the city of Kansas City in all seven counties , um, that make up the metro area. And I just woke up with this idea one day that Kansas City is the heart of the nation, could be the spark of empathy throughout the rest of the country. And , um, when we were tossing around titles, that's how we landed on Spark the Heart, which is honestly a little soft for me. It's a little soft for me. But because people think empathy is the heart, this muscle in your chest mm-hmm. <affirmative> , I didn't want to lose folks by talking about it. As you know, it , empathy is stored in the brain. It is intellectual computing to be able to be empathetic. And if you can't do it, it's a, it's a kind of intelligence that you don't have. And I am saying that we can build this intelligence in leaders. We do not have to just assume, especially if someone's like a technical professional, think it, think legal, think Right . In the engineers that I think it's unfair to just assume because of the type of work that someone's doing, that they can't learn to be more empathetic towards people. They still marry, they still have children, they still are someone's son or daughter, you know. And so if they are human <laugh>, let us figure out how to build more empathy in the world because w here's what else I know to be true. People who have nefarious intent understanding . Yeah . Let me understand you so I know how to manipulate you. Yes . It is extremely well-meaning people who go, you can't teach folks empathy.

Speaker 2 31:44

Right. Yeah.

Speaker 1 31:48

We can though . Mm-hmm . <affirmative> . So this series of my professional experiences , um, most of the bad ones are like times when I did not express empathy and me sharing how you could , um, dispelling many of the empathy myths. And then at the end of the book, it's full of practices that you can do in order to build. Okay . And the thing is, they're easy. They're, I shouldn't say that. They're simple.

Speaker 2 32:13

Right?

Speaker 1 32:14

So let's say for example, you're not empathetic or you don't really understand immigrant communities. You could read fiction books written from an immigrant's perspective mm-hmm. <affirmative> walking through the world in this fantasy story, you really get to experience life as that person. It is truly getting into someone's skin and walking around in it. So the simple act of reading fiction, and I had no idea this was, was that this was true. Wow . The simple as reading fiction helps to build empathy for the group you're reading now . Wow .

Speaker 2 32:47

Wow. I'm reading, have you heard of the book? Everything sad is untrue.

Speaker 1 32:53

Huh ? I haven't.

Speaker 2 32:55

Okay. Well it's, it's my favorite genre . Genre. It's young adult fiction <laugh>. Okay . But it's historical fiction. Anyway , um, it came across my Amazon way too many times. I was like, okay, I need to read this book. It is that it is a boy that's in school and he came from another country. And the stories , um, that he shares are stories that happen to their family and then, you know, have been for told by other family and the children in the classroom always call him a liar. Mm . Because there's no way that could happen because it's too sad. Mm . Um , but it's his reality. Anyway. That's exactly what it's doing. The whole point of the book, it's, it's fascinating. It is kind of hard to read for me because of my <laugh> . I get a little too in it . But it's a powerful, powerful book and it's not a hard, like, as far as the language, it's not hard to read. And that would be, if anyone wanted to do, start with what you were saying, that it'd be a great book mm-hmm. <affirmative> great book.

Speaker 1 34:04

Interestingly enough, I I never used to read fiction. Um, I always had so many other books I wanted to read, you know, the kind of stuff I read <laugh> Yes .

Speaker 2 34:13

It's

Speaker 1 34:13

Not , it's not light reading the stuff I like to read .

Speaker 2 34:16

Yeah , I know .

Speaker 1 34:17

And it was , uh, a sign to me by my therapist to read some fiction. And so I, I found some, some fiction books that I thought were fantastic. But I, what I learned was, oh, I got to learn about homelessness in ways that I wouldn't have before. Yeah. I got about , uh, being gay in ways that I never would've before. I got to learn about reservations and Native Americans in ways that I never would've before. Uh, there's a book that, this one's not fiction, but it kind of reads like fiction cuz it's so far out there called , uh, working Our Way Home by , uh, workin Our Way Home by Ron Hall and Denver Moore . And it's of a millionaire art dealer and a homeless excon who become real friends.

Speaker 2 35:00

Hmm . Oh my

Speaker 1 35:01

Gosh, doesn't that sound like fiction?

Speaker 2 35:04

It does, yes. Yeah. I'm like, what a great fiction book.

Speaker 1 35:06

Yeah. Yeah. But it's, it's a real, it's a real story, but it reads like fiction and like through that book I even found myself empathizing with a millionaire art dealer and it's like, yeah . That kind of , that person would've never gotten my empathy before. Right . So when you're reading like the risk that he takes, how much money he lost , like the , the fact that people were not supportive of him going into the arts , um, used to Wow . Oh wow. You know, everybody has their things that they do . Big

Speaker 2 35:37

Thing that you connect with . Yeah .

Speaker 1 35:38

Yeah. And isn't that the, isn't that the truth of everybody? Right . They're things that they're dealing with. And so what we do is blow our trauma through each other instead of focusing on healing and empathy is a critical component of that healing process, I believe.

Speaker 2 35:53

Wow. I love that. I'm , I'm excited for your book . Do you have any upcoming , um, online courses or projects that you're working on? I know you have a book, but are you gonna do a little book tour or are you gonna do conventions ?

Speaker 1 36:07

Yeah, so we are gonna do a book tour , um, yay to do several keynote. But , um, one , one of them is like a private organization. You have to be a member of the organization to come. But in Kansas City, the central exchange is , uh, I'm their morning keynote speaker here in Kansas City and that's April 18th. Um, but that's my favorite thing to do to just kind of talk from the stage and inspire people to join this empathy revolution is what I'm calling it. Yeah . That there will be millions of people who will decide each year to spend 14 days reflecting on how empathetic they are or aren't. And then spend an , you know, of that 14 days is split up into two parts. The first seven is just reflection, thinking. Mm-hmm . <affirmative> about mm-hmm . <affirmative> our empathy position. And then the second seven days are little, little actionable things you can do to build your empathy muscle.

Speaker 2 36:59

Wow. I love

Speaker 1 37:01

That. Wow .

Speaker 2 37:02

Well I'm doing the , you're gonna do your 14 days online.

Speaker 1 37:05

Yay. And people can do that anytime . You know, it's always Yeah .

Speaker 2 37:09

Yeah. I'm actually gonna put the link in our members forum that we have cuz I would love for anybody else that wants to do it with me because things like that, it's always so much more fun and inviting when there's a group doing it and can talk about what you've learned. Um, I wanna touch on something. You were a, you were asked to preach

Speaker 1 37:33

Oh yes , yes .

Speaker 2 37:34

<laugh> and you had kind of ver verbalized, you were a little bit nervous. How long, how did it go?

Speaker 1 37:41

I think it went really well. Not a dry eye in the house. <laugh>. So that's how we ,

Speaker 2 37:46

That's so cool. I was so proud of you.

Speaker 1 37:49

When I was thinking about what my sermon would be like when I was a little kid, I thought for sure I was gonna do like the Black Baptist southern preacher, like Yeah ,

Speaker 2 37:56

Yeah.

Speaker 1 37:57

And rolling down the aisle kind of thing, you know, it didn't, it didn't actually turn into being that, and I'm kind of disappointed about that cause I thought

Speaker 2 38:06

<laugh> ,

Speaker 1 38:08

But it was still more of like a keynote situation. And there I had an opportunity to just talk about empathy. The church where I was, many of the , uh, parishioners they , um, I guess serve our homeless or former addicts or just people who've had incredible challenges. And I just had to remind the congregation that sometimes laziness or depression looks like laziness.

Speaker 2 38:34

Oh wow.

Speaker 1 38:36

And I told this heart story, which, you know, the audible version of the book will be available on the 21st as well of the day my mother died. And unless you have some of those experiences, cuz we were also launched into a murder trial, you know, after her death. Um, you don't know that depression can look like laziness <laugh> because you've not experienced it . Wow. And so that morning I'd heard a preacher before me talking about, you know, people being lazy and God not liking lazy. And I just had to remind them, people again, don't just decide I wanna be an addict today. Nobody, no little kid is dreaming of getting old and being an addict. That is not their dream. Nope . Things happen to people and when things happen to people, especially if you're homeless, you don't know what you might do to numb yourself if you had to sleep outside. Um, yeah . And the, and deal with the dangers of being outside. And so I was just reminding people of the compassionate heart of, of Jesus and Right . And , and that we have to be careful about our judgments that we place , um, on the people we serve. Um, and that starts with being empathetic with ourselves first. Like we we're like start at home.

Speaker 2 39:53

Yeah . Well and I mean that transitions so perfectly into the small business arena too, in , when you have an angry customer, you know, or and you're dealing with that taking a step back a bit and, and trying to pull up as much empathy as you can. It, it's very helpful. And cuz we've been, I've been that customer before, not to a flower shot , but Yeah . So when that happened to me, I'm like, all right. I remember how upset and, and even being able to say, I get it. I know, you know, kind of helps lower the temperature in the room Yeah . A bit .

Speaker 1 40:30

Yes. And, and then you, you , and you're probably not feeling good about being the one who's being a little, you know, later you're probably like, oh man, I didn't mean to show up that way. Right. Like, nobody wants that person.

Speaker 2 40:43

Right. It's hard . A few of those people in the world that just choose to show up like that all the time. But that's, I do believe that's minority. I Yeah . With you. I think most people, we, we have those days, but we don't stay there.

Speaker 1 40:59

Right. For sure. Um , you know, I'm glad that you mentioned wearing your heart on your sleeve because if I want you to look that up, I just want everybody who's listening to look that up. I'm not gonna tell you what means to wear your heart on your sleeve, just look it up.

Speaker 2 41:11

Okay.

Speaker 1 41:11

But one of the merchandise ideas I have is to make a sweatshirt with a , uh, the imagery on the book is a heart, a human heart, and actually have a sweatshirt with a human heart, like on the sleeve. Ooh .

Speaker 2 41:25

I need that <laugh> .

Speaker 1 41:28

We need to like let's

Speaker 2 41:31

Love that . It needs to be , be okay . It's okay that you do. Yes . Oh , that gave me

Speaker 3 41:37

Chill . That's so

Speaker 1 41:38

Cool's embraced . Cause you know, I have embraced some things I've been called in the past.

Speaker 2 41:44

<laugh> ,

Speaker 3 41:45

We all have .

Speaker 2 41:47

Yep . Yep . Probably not as , and you know what , shouldn't that be a sign of Oh , she's so not , she's so great. But she wears her heart on her sleeve, like as a beautiful thing instead of Oh, she wears her heart on her sleeve. No , she cries . It's like I need to flip it and just own it. <laugh> .

Speaker 1 42:06

Yeah. Smack it up, flip it and rub it down and wear

Speaker 2 42:09

It and wear it on my sleeve.

Speaker 1 42:11

Yeah. Yeah. I , you know what, when somebody said that at , um, at a conference that I'd done and I was like, yes. And that's what we

Speaker 2 42:22

Should do .

Speaker 1 42:23

Like the blend between logic and reason and empathy and compassion I think is a beautiful balance. And I think we, yeah . We are really smart people. We can tow that line very well and somebody just has to push us to hold ourselves to account of what we say we want to be.

Speaker 2 42:41

Yep . Well and like you said at the very beginning of this podcast, when that man came up to you and ask for help in feeling it, that's where if we all get there , you're gonna be able to learn. Mm-hmm. <affirmative> , you know , he was there and he was aware, Hey, I don't have this, how can I get this?

Speaker 1 43:01

Mm-hmm. <affirmative>.

Speaker 2 43:02

Mm-hmm <affirmative> , I mean that's , and I

Speaker 1 43:03

Had to get over myself, right. I had to get over myself to

Speaker 2 43:07

<laugh>

Speaker 1 43:08

Of what he was saying. Um

Speaker 2 43:10

Right .

Speaker 1 43:11

And I'm now, I'm like, couldn't be more grateful that he was honest because here I am doing my inclusion workshops all over the country trying to teach people about belonging. Well how do you do that if you don't care about the , the subject matter? Right,

Speaker 2 43:24

Right, right. Love it, love it, love it. Preach it. Nicole <laugh>. Good stuff. So, well you're gonna have to come back for your next book,

Speaker 3 43:35

<laugh> . It's right . Where , where is the best place for them to order, pre-order the book? I see it's on Amazon. Is there a better place for them to

Speaker 1 43:44

Order it? They can do Amazon, they can do Target, Barnes and Noble. Um, I think it might even be on Good Reads. So we're trying to have it everywhere books are sold. Um, uh, once I have, you know, copies cuz I don't even have copies, just <laugh> then people will all , you know, obviously be able to buy through my site too. But right now I'm just, I really would love for more people to have the book in their hands , um, to buy the book for their , uh, coworkers so that they can have book club discussions cuz they're reflection questions throughout the book for people to think about. And of course the 14 days of empathy that you can do online for free, but you know, more detail is actually in the book around those 14 days as well. So

Speaker 2 44:25

Yeah. There's also a cool quiz. Are you an empathy revolutionary? Yes . Which I took , um, no surprise. Yes , I am empathetic. Um, but if people want to get more information, they can go to dr nicole price.com, that's n i c O L e price.com and we will put the , your website and everything in our show notes and shared on our social media.

Speaker 1 44:52

My hope is that I can have a whole bunch of empathy engineers out there in the world. Oh,

Speaker 2 44:56

Wouldn't that be amazing?

Speaker 1 44:57

Yeah. And so , um, if people are willing to join the revolution, they can give me their information promise not to spam them with a whole bunch of daily inform , like yeah , I'm not that person. But what I will do is provide, like let's say you're a school district, we've put together a compilation of curriculum , uh mm-hmm . <affirmative> items that teachers can use in their classroom to build empathy and children. Um, if you're Christian and a preacher, we've put together a series of sermons, five week sermon series on the different types of wow preachers could use. I'm trying to think. Oh we've got social media swag that you can, you know, put a frame around Yeah . And say you're empathy revolutionary. We're even coming up with empathy games for people to play. Wow. To be , to build and talk about it. So , um, all of the downloads, you know, as best possible are going to be free, no cost , low cost solutions because we just really need this.

Speaker 2 45:55

Yeah.

Speaker 1 45:57

Believe we need it more than almost anything else in the world right now. You're right,

Speaker 2 46:01

You're right. And, and God is using you to change hearts and minds and lives and it's pretty exciting. And I, for one and honored that you are my friend, so it's pretty cool. And one of these days we're gonna be face to face <laugh> one

Speaker 1 46:18

Of these days face to face . Lemme know when I gotta make a , I'm

Speaker 2 46:22

Gonna give you some big speaking gig here in Houston so you can just come stay with me.

Speaker 1 46:26

<laugh> . And I love Texas. I , you know, especially in the winter, you know, it was like Yeah , exactly.

Speaker 2 46:32

Yeah .

Speaker 1 46:32

It's give me a reason Texas when it's nice. Yeah,

Speaker 2 46:35

Exactly. Okay , thank you so much Nicole

Speaker 1 46:38

For sharing with us. Thank you

Speaker 5 46:40

Again.

Speaker 1 46:41

Pleasure.

Speaker 2 46:42

Thank you so much for listening to our podcast. We hope you enjoyed spending time with us because we enjoyed spending time with you. If you did, make sure you hit that subscribe button or add the business and pleasure of flowers to your Google Morning routine or your flash briefing on Alexa. We look forward to seeing you next week,

Speaker 5 47:03

So please come back and join us and discover how a bit of knowledge and one small change in your mindset can take you to new levels in your life and

Speaker 4 47:13

Business.