Tag

empathy

Hero’s journey

Empathic colormapping of the helper’s role on a hero’s journey

(3 min read)

“If you can’t explain it simply, you don’t understand it well enough.”

— Albert Einstein

 

Big-hearted communicator expends creative energy on audacious and remarkable propositions that will help others to thrive and not just survive.

Armed with real-world experience plus research, data points, case studies and expert insights…

…and grounded deeply in her personal why and her own relatable stories…

…she sets out to gift her audience with memorable storytelling designed to engage, entertain and inspire.

By speaking with compassion and respect directly into the life of the one who is on this daunting hero’s journey, with all its glorious highs and gut-wrenching lows…

…and synthesizing everything she’s shared into meaningful insights specific to the challenge at hand…

…she boosts the morale of the hero with additional tools, weapons, maps and tonics to fortify for the journey ahead.

She imbues her words from start to finish with inclusive language that fosters a sense of tribe…

…and includes random and creative reminders that while this hero’s journey is brutiful, it might also be treated as a kind of infinite game involving playfulness, laughter and defiant joy.

 

(This is part eleven in a twenty part introductory series exploring the intersection of frequency, resonance and nuance, first published on Medium.)

Left-brain loving

On including credibility markers your audience can take to the bank

(9 min read)

This is the litmus test: Our left brain would rather be right than happy. And our right brain would rather be happy than right.

— Dr Jill Bolte Taylor, Butler University commencement address 2016

 

Giving your left brain a power nap

In this Frequency series so far, I’ve made an intentional choice to mostly appeal to your right brain, and to mostly ignore your left brain.

How so?

I began with a fairy tale. Gave permission to your rational left brain to have a little power nap.

No rationality needed here! It’s a fairy tale!

Emoji: Audience response to your Memorable

And what’s this? A bit of symbolism in the fairy tale?

Some anthropomorphism going on?

Lonely, deep-diving mammals humming timeless laments?

 

Emoji: Audience response to your Relatable

Okay. Fine.

Still nothing much for the left brain to do.

Not really.

Because: Emotional! Colorful! Playful sketches!

 

Emoji: Audience response to your Playful

Subsequent articles might have given a little stimulation to your left brain a little bit here or there, adding some layers of interpretation, some details to this color-coded concept of empathic colormapping.

Emoji: Audience response to your Meaningful

A few literary cultural references, a few citations from cultural curators and a social psychology experts. Some remarkable concepts — dazzling visuals and word pictures about cetaceans resonating and prose enchanting and discovering a transcendent enlargement of being.

Emoji: Audience response to your Remarkable

And sure, because as Jill Bolte Taylor reminds us, the left brain deals with language, that means the very act of reading these articles engages your left brain.

But still, getting real cozy with the emotional right brain, by continuing to harness the playfulness of colorful data viz and evocative sketches, and focusing on the emotional stakes — our longings for belonging, significance, meaning, enchantment and not merely to be informed or equipped.

 

Emoji: Audience response to your Personable

Then, giving you a case study from Shonda Rhimes’ TED talk, whose talk arguably (note the nine proposed empathic colormapping elements) lights up both sides of our brains, but perhaps mostly our right brains with her enchanting concept of how we, personally, might rediscover the hum, the hum, the hum. — Life’s hum, love’s hum.

Emoji: Audience response to your Motivational

 

Placating the left brain — introducing the four W’s

But the main way I’ve been ignoring your left brain is that I never introduced myself.

Not properly.

And I know your left brain has either been bugging you about this for a while, wondering whether it’s worth your while to really engage with this material. Or your left brain convinced some of you to stop reading several articles ago.

Because this might be the chatter of your left brain:

“Who is this person?”

“She’s tagged her articles communication strategy, data visualization, frequency, resonance, empathy — is she really an authority on these things?”

“When it comes to emotional intelligence and social intelligence we’ve heard of Daniel Goleman…”

“Psychology of persuasion? Robert Cialdini is a respected name in that space…”

“Marketing, storytelling, brand positioning, information design, and other big-idea nonfiction? So many credible voices including [peering at the bookshelves lining my office wall] Seth Godin, Bernadette Jiwa, Daniel H. Pink, Nancy Duarte, Chip & Dan Heath, Julie Dirksen, Donald Miller, Olivia Fox Cabane, Jeff Goins, Susan Cain, John Maxwell, Pamela Slim, Carmine Gallo and, and and…”

Emoji: Audience response to your Reliable

All good! I hear your left brain, because it’s speaking to my left brain.

And my left brain is apologising for the fact that my right brain made your left brain feel a little bit left out in the beginning of this series.

See, I get it.

Really I do.

Because I also inhabit a brain that has two hemispheres —including the left brain that, according to neuroscientist Jill Bolte Taylor, would “rather be right than happy.”

I’m intimately acquainted — as you probably are — with a left brain that wants rock-solid credibility, reliable expertise, hard-won insights, and the kind of research you can take to the bank.

Emojis: The left brain lights up when experts are invited to the party

 

The four W’s your left brain urgently demands

I’m a professional, so I know what it is to tease the left brain by withholding information it urgently requires.

What is this urgent information, you ask? I call these the four W’s.

 

  1. Why you?
  2. Why this?
  3. Why now?
  4. Why bother?

1. Why you? (Exposing deep-rooted credibility markers)

In this case “why you?” applies to me, although it does feel awkward to address these points, because I’m used to addressing these things on behalf of my clients, in the introductions of their books or the About pages of their brands.

So, I’m a linguistically-inclined freelancer.

That looks like different things on different days and weeks, depending on what project I’m working on at the time.

On any given day, information designing for me might be represented by the following kinds of verbs:

Editing

Copywriting

Storytelling

Strategising

Sketching

I’ve ghostwritten, outlined and edited, scripted and mind-mapped countless pages of content for various clients over a location-independent career spanning a couple decades across four continents.

But that’s not really the “why you” answer I want to give.

That’s the expected answer.

Because our left brains are in a hurry, we just want the business card.

We want the elevator pitch — and make it snappy — so we can pigeonhole people into the “ah, that’s what you do” box.

As if “what you do” is something static and concrete rather than something fluid, dynamic, evolving, and really — in terms of emotional labor, the dance of diplomacy our messy humanity demands — largely indefinable.

But the real “why you” answer, is that as far as hungry, hungry, hungry is concerned…

I’m the hungriest person I know.

2. Why this? (Really, why explore this particular space?)

The short answer is that I’ve edited and ghostwritten several long and short nonfiction books for clients in the past couple years.

It felt really good — after a career break that involved getting married, having babies, and transitioning back home to my birth country (Australia) after more than a decade abroad (Asia, Europe, the USA)— to finally get back into the thick of working with language.

I was able to throw my linguistic and communication abilities behind helping a handful of clients to communicate timely ideas and stories to their audiences.

For a couple of years there, after that career break, I also took on a wide range of branding and copywriting projects, stretching outside my comfort zone and challenging myself to take on really interesting and not simply easy work.

And it felt great.

When more clients began to approach me in 2017 to craft business books for them, it got me wondering if there was some way to codify the recurring patterns of next-level non-fiction.

I wondered if what I’d been doing intuitively, in my ghostwriting and developmental editing, could be done more intentionally, not just for the books themselves but for the surrounding platform, content, marketing and promoting of ideas.

These new questions fueled a personal literary pilgrimage I was already well into, and made me curious about digging deeper into the secrets of engaging and integrity-infused communication.

In books and beyond.

3. Why now? (What makes empathic colormapping so timely?)

I’m not sure I’m communicating the genuine sense of urgency I feel about what’s at stake here.

But the times do seem to be demanding that we expand our abilities to show up with empathy, diplomacy, and compassion more than ever.

The big fish are singing to us.

Those big-hearted communicators.

Those global-brained titans.

They’re telling us that the stakes are high. That you and I need to show up now more than ever.

They’re telling us that now, more than ever, we need to share true stories well told that illuminate our shared humanity.

They’re telling us that now, more than ever, our increasing proximity to people who are not like us reveals an urgent need to grow in empathy and compassion for “the other.”

The big why

That’s probably the biggest why behind empathic colormapping.

The change I seek to make involves crafting some kind of medium-gnostic mental model, some kind of workable, usable, color-coded and empathic framework to help big-hearted communicators broadcast their stories, innovations, inventions and ideas farther and wider.

Empathic colormapping = reverse engineering recurring patterns in communication.

Exploring emotional literacy

Empathic colormapping is merely a means to an end, to explore diplomacy and emotional literacy in deeper — maybe even unprecedented — ways.

The goal is synthesizing some of the existing research through my unique combination of editorial and writing experience as well as a pattern-recognition lens that continually evolves with input from multi-disciplinary research.

The goal is to help us show up and communicate across present and future channels in the datasphere, to help solve problems in an increasingly complex and problem-riddled world. (That’s all.)

And in the context of discovering resonant frequencies, the goal of empathic colormapping is also about seeking answers to deep and ongoing questions about things like:

what it is to be human,
how to discover joy in life in spite of complicated and messy realities,
and how to live life with wholeness, compassion and integrity.

 

4. Why bother? (What’s the promised transformation?)

The final W of the four is something that easiest to grasp in the context of a nonfiction book introduction.

Answering “Why bother?” involves demonstrating to your reader what they have to look forward to.

Emoji: Audience response to your Proactive

Sometimes (putting on my structural editing hat for a sec) this looks like including a quick overview of the book, the parts and chapters and sections.

Sometimes it involves mapping out a bit of the hero’s journey (the hero being your reader or listener in this case) so that they can see what kind of payoff is waiting for them at the end of the journey — what kind of promised transformation they might expect to walk away with.

Like so.

Taking your hero on a journey with elements of Remarkable, Reliable, Relatable, Memorable, Motivational, Meaningful, Proactive, Personable and Playful

(This is part ten in a twenty part introductory series exploring the intersection of frequency, resonance and nuance, first on Medium.)

 

Audacious mental models

Color-coding empathy so we can use it more intentionally

(6 min read)

The world comes into our consciousness in the form of a map already drawn, a story already told, a hypothesis, a construction of our own making. We perceive only the sensations we are programmed to receive, and our awareness is further restricted by the fact that we recognize only those for which we have mental maps or categories.

— Roz and Ben Zander, The Art of Possibility

 

Transforming intangibles into tangibles

Empathic Colormapping as a developing theory, is an audacious attempt to put some symbolism around what exactly empathy in communication looks like.

And the minute we start to explore intangible territories dealing with abstractions like, for example, empathy — and especially empathy manifested through disembodied mediums — it becomes clear that we need some memorable frameworks if we’re going to form any kind of useful frame of reference or mental model.

Empathic colormapping is behind the metaphorical concepts of frequency, resonance and nuance.

A theory comprised of many mental models

Empathic colormapping (a term I coined in order to give this particular form of data visualized communication) is informed by a growing body of mental models and data derived from systems thinking, behavioral psychology, information design, and more.

But most of all this theory has evolved from observing next-level communicators and the ways they show up to engage with avidly engaged audiences.

Making your entire being hum in recognition

The theory encompasses the concept of frequency — sending out certain frequencies — as well as resonance and nuance — depicted in the fairy tale about Frequency that is resonating with more and more people.

We’re not even close to talking about nuance (all the intangible ways we might communicate complex ideas across multiple channels to diverse audiences).

But resonance — the way that someone in a completely separate geographical location to you, can sing or say or write things that make your entire being hum in recognition — that’s the audacious territory we’re going into.

When Frequency dances with Resonance and Nuance, magic happens

There are a great many case studies in development, that can begin to demonstrate and test the application of this theory, this evolving mental model. But in this article we’re going to touch on a basic overview of the nine primary elements of empathic communication.

Ten core human desires a touchpoint for empathy

The overview also touches on the “ten desires that drive us” theory expounded by social psychologist Hugh Mackay (mentioned in a previous Medium article, “Engaging the Grey Matter,” in this Frequency series) and proposes which core desires each element might spark and speak to.

As a quick refresher, those ten core desires (these are proposed core desires beyond our physiological needs) are the following:

  1. The desire to be taken seriously
  2. The desire for ‘my place’
  3. The desire for something to believe in
  4. The desire to connect
  5. The desire to be useful
  6. The desire to belong
  7. The desire for more
  8. The desire for control
  9. The desire for something to happen
  10. The desire for love

Highlighting these core desires might begin to explain why, when genuinely caring teachers, mentors, communicators bother to show up, we resonate so strongly on their frequencies.

Nine primary elements of empathic communication

It’s a new theory. An evolving mental model. It’s medium-gnostic. It’s a work in progress. This is the latest iteration, from the lab, tested on a few dozen peers and mentors and presented from the reader/viewer/listener’s perspective:

Empathic connection 01: Say something remarkable

Grab my attention with something worthy of remark.

Speaks to my core desire: for something to happen; for more

Remarkable: Purple

Empathic connection 02: Say something reliable

Earn my trust with your credibility markers and experience.

Speaks to my core desire: for something to believe in; to be taken seriously

Reliable: Brown

Empathic connection 03: Say something relatable

Capture my emotions with your personal origin story, lows and highs.

Speaks to my core desire: to connect

Relatable: Dark green

Empathic connection 04: Say something memorable

Hold my interest with your stories, anecdotes, analogies and metaphors.

Speaks to my core desire: to connect; to belong; for something to happen

Memorable: Light green

Empathic connection 05: Say something motivational

Engage me directly with your affirmations and personal pronouns.

Speaks to my core desire: to be taken seriously; for ‘my place’; for something to believe in; to connect

Motivational: Orange

Empathic connection 06: Say something meaningful

Transform my perspective with a synthesis of your findings.

Speaks to my core desire: for something to believe in

Meaningful: Yellow

Empathic connection 07: Say something proactive

Reward my investment (of time, attention, resource) with actionables.

Speaks to my core desire: for more; for control; to be useful

Proactive: Red

Empathic connection 08: Say something personable

Draw the circle bigger with inclusive language.

Speaks to my core desire: to belong; to connect; for love

Personable: Blue

Empathic connection 09: Say something playful

Introduce delight by using humor and novelty and multi-sensory input.

Speaks to my core desire: for something to happen

Playful: Pink

Combining empathic signals adds resonance

So this is a start to trying to break down a little bit behind this visualizing-empathy theory. I began developing this theory within big-idea nonfiction books, but since those are much longer-form reading, I’ve begun introducing the concepts through this lens of a TED talk.

Case study: Data viz of Shonda Rhimes’ 18 minute, 44 second TED talk.

 

“It’s all about the hum” case study: Data viz of Shonda Rhimes’ 18 minute, 44 second TED talk

Extrapolating the theory

The evolving theory involves the audacious question as to whether it was possible to build out a mental map that was truly medium-gnostic. Clearly, there would be special considerations for each platform. But when it comes to connecting — really connecting, engaging, learning to write or speak or sketch or audio-visually communicate words and ideas that resonate — might there be an overarching model for doing that effectively?

For creative allies

We’ll explore it more! Whether you’re a communicator or a reader, you might think about whether any of the signals —remarkable, reliable, relatable, memorable, motivational, meaningful, proactive, personable, playful — remind you of your favorite big-idea books, blogs, TED talks, events, workshops, or other informative and educational and entertaining types of communication.

I’d love to hear if this sparks anything in you, if it lights up your brain in any particular ways. And I can’t wait to share with you a visual case study of someone who’s been deeply embedded in working with resonant frequencies and colors that help to map light-up-your-brain communication.

(This is part nine in a twenty part introductory series exploring the intersection of frequency, resonance and nuance, first published on Medium.)