Do you feel that it’s possible to be empathetic while also maintaining a monetary ambition/monetary success?
I think there’s probably a fair balance that everyone is able to achieve, but I think the level of achievement is based off the person. You have to realise that you can have a monetary ambition that’s like very high but at the end of the day if you screw up, do you want someone to be empathetic to you? And give you those tools to avoid making that mistake twice? Or do you just want to be shat on? Like what does that do for anyone?
So how would you then maintain that balance between empathy and ambition?
I think that the people if the people who work for you are working towards the same goal sort of have a similar passion, then you’re sort of able to find that balance, because if everyone is working towards the same end goal, then I think empathy can come naturally.
What happens when we want to incorporate ego into the mix. How would you feel about some being empathetic and having an ego? Is that even possible?
Well, I think it is, but this is coming from a guy with an ego. At the end of the day you have to be able to practice what you preach. So, if you have a massive ego and you’re working very hard to justify that, as long as there is no sense of disrespect, then it’s very doable.
And what about when we’re talking about empathy with people that you’re not necessarily working with, ego in general; friends, family or people in the street?
I’ll give you a good example that happened yesterday. There is someone who lost out on a sale, because of CoVid, and so one person was saying “we just told ourselves a few thousand bucks and now this person wants to come after us”, but in my opinion, we have to have some empathy. It’s not all about the bottom line. What could we do for this person to A) help them out, and B) also just be a good person?
How did you go about succeeding in being a good person in that situation?
Well, it’s about putting ourselves in their position right? If you can empathize with any sort of negative experience, taking away a certain level of selfishness, then you’re able to do it. If you have an ego and you’re selfish, it’s never going to work out. Or karma will be a bitch.
How do you feel about keeping yourself humble, in both winning and losing situations? Or in situations where you
It’s a lot about being proud of yourself actually. Humility comes from confidence in always setting the bar higher, funnily enough. Knowing that what you do is good, but knowing that it can be better, and knowing that you can make it better. At the end of the day, you want to constantly be challenging yourself no matter what profession you’re in, in order to not only build your professional portfolio, but to build your passion. So yes you’ve accomplished doing ‘A’, but if you want to do ‘A’ next year, how do you take ‘A’ to a different level.
And then do you feel like there’s a correlation between finding your passion, executing it, and maintaining humility?
I think so. Because you have to make every mistake in the book to really, I don’t want to say master your passion, but to continue to evolve your passion. So, if you want to continue to evolve yourself, you have to be willing to help evolve other people. And most people evolve by making every mistake in the book.
Any closing statements that you would like to say? Do you have any questions for me?
Lead with empathy. But like, that’s the way I function.
Jake Stendel Non Fiction Writing 