- Speaker #0
Do you struggle with self-doubt, with that harsh voice that tells you you're not enough, you're not ready, you're not worthy? Me too. I honestly think every human being does. At one point in my life, I thought maybe there would be a day when I would arrive, when all of my self-talk would just be beautiful, flowery language of encouragement. But now, at my advanced age of 36, I've realized that maybe that inner critic voice will never fully go away, and that's okay. But there are a lot of things I can do to quiet the voice down. and make sure it's not the one that's making decisions for me and sitting in the driver's seat of my life. One of those things, as I found out from this conversation you're about to hear, is empathy. Yeah, self-empathy is a thing. So we're going to get into empathy for others, empathy for ourselves, and where it intersects with our creativity. Stay tuned for this episode. You're not going to want to miss it. Welcome to Unleash Your Inner Creative with Lauren LaGrasso, my sweet creative cutie. I'm Lauren LaGrasso. I'm an award-winning podcast host and producer, singer-songwriter, public speaker, and creative coach. This show is meant to give you tools to love, trust, and know yourself enough to claim your birthright to creativity and pursue whatever dream or goal is on your heart. And today's guest is Mimi Nicklin. Mimi is the internationally bestselling author of Softening the Edge, the founder of the world's first organizational empathy platform. empathy everywhere.co and the host of the top rated podcast Mimi Yu Yu show. She's also a globally recognized speaker and coach who's leading a movement to bring empathy back to the center of leadership, performance, and purpose. I wanted to have Mimi on the show because of the way she talks about empathy, which is as a bold, actionable skill. I personally am really sick of people talking about things like empathy or creativity as being quote unquote soft skills, they're actually some of the hardest skills you can have. and the most important ones for not only living a better life, but also for financial viability in the future. And Mimi and I are so aligned on that. Empathy is something we all need right now, especially if you're a creative who's trying to quiet your inner critic, push past fear, and show up fully in your work and life. From today's conversation, you'll learn how empathy fuels creativity and innovation, the difference between self-awareness and self-empathy, simple ways to bring more empathy into your work and relationships, and why creating community and connection matters now more than ever. Okay, now here she is, Mimi Nicklin. Mimi, I am so excited and honored to have you on Unleash Your Inner Creative. Welcome to the show.
- Speaker #1
I feel like I have been waiting for months. Lauren, I am really extremely, extremely excited to be here to have this conversation. So thank you for having me.
- Speaker #0
Oh my gosh, my honor. Yeah, we have been waiting for months, but worth the wait, you know, honestly, I've just been like, thinking about your story and all of the amazing things you share. And I'm so excited because you mentioned before we got into this, but there's actually a lot of overlap between empathy and creativity.
- Speaker #1
So much when, you know, our friend that introduced us showed me your work for the first time, I felt exactly that I thought, you know, we're like two sides of a coin, like yin and yang, or even yin and yang, maybe yin and yin. Yeah. Because yes, I share so much of your passion for the role of creativity. And of course, I mean, at least from my point of view, but I'm sure many of your listeners share it. You can't have a lot of creativity without empathy, because if you don't understand things, how can you be creative around them? Right. So yeah, I definitely feel like there's a really good tie between these two things.
- Speaker #0
Oh, yeah, 100%. You were even talking about the connection between empathy and innovation. And I was like, yes, because... I always talk about taking a holistic approach just to life in general, but on this show, creativity. And I love that that's where you come from with your work.
- Speaker #1
Yeah, I think so. And, you know, funnily enough, like the world always, I always believe, Lauren, that the world puts things in the right time frame.
- Speaker #0
Yeah.
- Speaker #1
Right. And just yesterday I did a second session for a client, like a masterclass, like a workshop online. And they are a creative agency. and even though I come from like 16 years of creative agencies so doing creative work and living in the land of creative ideas it wasn't until this week that I had to really discipline myself to write up what I thought because I was teaching someone you know so that that kind of moment and I find that all the time in my work something has to kind of prompt me to put it on paper because otherwise it kind of stays in your heart or your mind but I was training this agency and they asked me to very explicitly look at the connection between empathy and the creative industry. So winning business, converting pitches, retaining clients. So literally yesterday we spent two hours and... It's endless, Lauren, actually, those connection points between higher levels of empathy and therefore better relationships and higher levels of creativity. It's like linear. So perfect timing for this conversation.
- Speaker #0
OK, well, that is so cool. And thank you, Universe, for gifting us this day together. Do you or would you feel comfortable sharing any of the through lines you found?
- Speaker #1
Yeah, I mean, for sure. I think. Look, fundamentally, my work in empathy is about humans, right? It's about relationships. It's about understanding. So maybe we just very quickly start with what empathy is. And then yes, and then I'll tell you what that is, right? Love it. Let's define it. Yeah, let's define it. Because everyone listening, I'm sure you all have a definition. And I always say to my audiences, there is no wrong definition, right? It's not it's not a test. But from my point of view, empathy is perspective taking, right? It is the ability to understand the perspective or the opinion or the mindset of somebody else. It's not about emotions, it can be, but fundamentally the skill set that sits in the prefrontal cortex of your brain, you were born with it, is fundamentally about the ability to take the perspective of somebody else. So when I was looking at the creative industries and this agency were really keen to look at things like retention and loyalty because the creative industries are, well,
- Speaker #0
AI has shifted things and they're more competitive than than ever before and I think they're less human than ever before I mean my like a little bit of my story a very small bit but my dad was an ad man right so if you Lauren do you ever watch Mad Men on Netflix of course it's what got me to try my first cigarette but I've only done two in my life but one was after watching Mad Men and I've been dreaming about smoking. I literally, it was like 23, had never tried a cigarette. And I was like, I have to smoke. So I tried one and then I threw up the whole next day. So anyway, yes, I've watched it.
- Speaker #1
So that reality was like literally my dad's life. You know, you think, I mean, I'm sure it's a little bit dramatized, but I watched it with him once and I was like, can you tell me? And he's like in his 70s at that point. Like, is this real? Did you really drink whiskey at like 11am? Like at the Ritz in London? And he was like... Yeah. So anyway, I go off track. So my dad was an ad man. So I grew up wanting to be in advertising, which is quite a rare thing. Most people sort of fall into the creative industries, or at least the sort of commercial side of it. But for me, that was my dream from like 12 years old. And I spent most of my career there before I kind of shifted my focus. And the point of that story to say that it was a very... high and very intense, right? It still is probably, but slightly differently now. Very high intensity, high energy, high human industry. When I sat with this team yesterday for the session, but in the run up for it with their HR leaders, it struck me so much how transactional the creative industries have become. And you know, you could see it over the last, I guess, decade, but most of their questions are about financial negotiation and managing procurement and you know one of them finally put it in the chat box and I was like you know thank gosh someone said it which is they spend so much time putting down their clients saying oh they don't know what they're doing they're stupid they're irritating it's become so transactional so when you say what was the kind of through line for the the webinar for me it was quite simple I guess it was saying If you have better relationships, right? If you can make your relationships with your client just more enjoyable at the very simplest, you are going to grow because people like to spend time with people who like people, right? So yes, I mean, that was the premise. There's loads of data points and stuff. But fundamentally, it's about reminding people that we're all humans.
- Speaker #0
I don't even know where to start because I have so many follow-up questions from that. That's brilliant. And it's, I've seen it too, you know, like, I don't think you could have been in the workforce for the last decade and not see what's happened. So many creative companies have gone from being creative companies to running like a spreadsheet. And it's really disheartening to see a place that was once a thriving, breathing, working together organism go into like, I don't know, just gray out. It's really, really sad. And I think... that makes so much sense. I heard a statistic you said on another podcast I listened to where you said like empathy has gone down by 48% in the past three decades. Do you attribute that to technology? Like, what are some of the reasons for it?
- Speaker #1
Yeah, I don't attribute it to technology. I think that tech has a role, social media has a role, and that is like people's favorite demons, right? They want it to be because of that, because it makes them feel better. You know, I heard this morning, Lauren, Goldman Sachs talking about 330 million people who are going to lose their jobs to AI, right? Which is, of course, half the story, because some of them will lose their jobs to AI, but... AI will create new jobs. So some of them will just get new jobs, right? So people love to demonize the world of technology and what's going on. But did that kill our empathy? No, we did. Right? So there's many parts of it. Urbanization, right? So the fact that so many of us, and we're talking over 30, 40, 50 years, have moved to cities, right? We've left our hometowns where we kind of came from, globalisation, you know, in most... most teams now around the world, you have people from all around the world. You know, if you go to somewhere like Singapore or Dubai, which is the side of the world I live on, you can quite easily have 19 or 20 nationalities in a team, right, in the same office, not even across borders, but actually sitting together. Technology, yes. Technology in some ways has disconnected us because, of course, you can sit on a metro and never look up from your phone, never make any human connection. But... At the same time, you and I can hang out on what is, for me, a Friday morning and, you know, start the day with my coffee and Lauren. And we've never met. And perhaps, I mean, hopefully not, but perhaps we'll never meet in real life. Right. So technology also connects us. So there's a lot of shifts around here. Fundamentally, we are lonelier now than we have ever been at any point in history. In fact, the statistics will show you that 52 percent of us are lonely. That's a lot of loneliness. So there's a big part of this, what we call empathy deficit, this lack of understanding of each other in the world. And, you know, we need to turn it around fundamentally.
- Speaker #0
Well, I like that because it's a much more empowering view than just being like, well, it's not our fault. Like we are just like just following technology and we're all addicted. so it's I like that because it puts some accountability, but also empowerment back in the hands of people. It's really it's nice to hear. I also Yes, that's that's wonderful. And I want to get into that. Like what are some ways you've seen proven ways and people that you can begin to build empathy?
- Speaker #1
My favorite one is so simple. My favorite one is just to use people's names. I've realized in this journey, Lauren, that we have to really break this down, which is why my definition is also super simple, right? Perspective taking. That's it. That's the only thing you have to remember because we're failing so much in our human connection. In empathy for all the people out there, all your listeners, everyone I ever get to talk to. In empathy for the world they are living and working in. Let's not give them a framework. I know HR wants a framework, right? But people don't really want to. Maybe they do if they're going through a process. But if we're trying to really shift behavior at the point of life, am I going to sit in the coffee shop when I order my coffee and think, now, what did Mimi tell me the step one was to be more empathetic? No. Right. So we need to make it super simple. And my favorite one is to use people's names, which, of course, in the hospitality industry, the service industry, most people have name tags. Right. So, I mean, at least they do here. Do they still have name tags in America?
- Speaker #0
Yeah, a lot of them do. Yeah,
- Speaker #1
right. So, you know, there's a really simple way to just start practicing connecting as humans, right, using people's names. I think probably naturally, if we look back at the last 12 minutes of recording, I've probably said your name a couple of times, you know, it's just part of who I am. I will throughout the show. Your name is the first gift you were ever given. And when you use people's names, you shift the wiring in the brain a little. well the way that the the wires fire in the rain right um and it works for children and it works in the service industry and it works in your teams so the easiest simplest step is to start using people's names the second bit which we can or don't need to talk about but if we want to is to listen better um because fundamentally if you want to understand other people whether that's for creative purposes or whether that's for you know connection purposes relationships you have to listen Because if you don't listen, how will you understand, right? Listening is the backbone. Listening is the backbone to all, everything, but certainly to empathy. So a lot of my work is in... not even teaching people, just reminding people how to listen better.
- Speaker #0
Yes. I love that. So those are two really simple things. However, I always thought I was an amazing listener. Okay. I've been given this accolade throughout the course of my life. I host a podcast. I have been told I'm a great listener. When I started dating Tim, he was like, you don't listen to me. And I was like, what are you? This is feedback I have never gotten. And what I found out was that we had different definitions of what listening is. So to me, listening was just retaining information. Like I could, if he said like 15 things to me, I could spit back the entire list. And I had listened, okay, in my head. What he meant by listening was seeing him, holding space, taking him in and giving him the space he needed to like share his story because he doesn't. work at the same clip I do. I'm very quick. Like, you know, I'm, I'm clipping along. I've got like some Sicilian fire in me. He moves at a slower pace, needs more time to process and needs more time to share. So I guess I would ask you, like, what is your definition of listening in terms of empathy? We can sometimes even have different definitions of that.
- Speaker #1
We can. And you know, what's super interesting about your story is that the other day I did a a session with some female entrepreneurs in Southeast Asia. And so we were in Sri Lanka specifically, and they are in like a, like an entrepreneur's incubator, right? These, these women. And we did this masterclass on, on listening and how to use listening to build your business and that type of thing. And at the end we had open discussion. So there's maybe 18 women or 20 women. And very quickly, the conversation came to your story, right? Came to, but can we talk about listening with our husbands and in our relationships. And many of these women are Muslims, and many of them have arranged marriages, which is a very positive experience for anyone listening who doesn't know much about them, right? There's a bit of a misunderstanding of that. But these women are very happily married to men that their families introduced them to years ago. But what that means is that you fundamentally marry into a new family that you don't really know, because the families choose on different levels of criteria, which tends to be extremely successful. But being able to listen, like you just said beautifully then, Lauren, means really different things to different people. And there was this one woman, she was probably maybe early 30s. She told this story to the group and it was very similar to yours. She said, we had this marriage, we were very happy. By this time they have two or three children and it's really not going well, this marriage. But she doesn't want the marriage to break. And culturally and from a... a religious, culturally religious context, right? That's not something she wanted to break, you know, this very important family bond. And so she said she had to sit down with her husband and have this exact conversation and say, listen, we need to talk about what listening means to you, what it means to me, and more importantly, how we practice it. So therefore, how does it look, right? So I tell that story, because I think the answer to your question is less about my definition versus your definition, and more about how you live that listening experience. So I'm going to answer it that way, Lauren, and say that there are a couple of signals that really define what listening is. And the first thing is to understand that listening and hearing are two very different things. So perhaps I'm making an assumption, but perhaps what you might have been doing at other points in your life is hearing things really well. Right. Because you were maybe you were multitasking, you're doing things like you said, you could repeat back the list. If someone said, what did I just say? He said, oh, we need to go to the grocery store and buy tortillas. Right. You've heard them. But actually, most of the time, and this is the reality, most of the time we're listening to ourselves. Right. So for anyone listening, if you imagine sitting in a meeting, for example, at work or on a Zoom call. And someone in that meeting is saying, you know, we're going to need to move the deadline because we can't do this. And we have to make that we have to move the photo shoot in your head. You're thinking, I know we can't do that because I don't have enough time for this. And then I'm going to have to call the photographer and all this stuff is going on. Right. You can hear them, but you're listening to yourself. Right. So the key thing to understand about listening is that hearing is is passive. Listening is active. And therefore, regardless of kind of what you think listening is and what your husband. thinks listening is as a definition the most important thing is to show activeness activity right in that really kind of intentional listening so things like eye contact Things like using people's names, things like smiling even, things like nodding, little noises you can make like, and that doesn't matter what language you speak or what culture it is, signals that show people, often subconsciously, that you are with them. So you can listen to be in agreement, you can listen to be in disagreement, but the best form of listening, is to be with, just to be with them. So yeah, there's many kind of ways to learn it. But that would be how I describe it.
- Speaker #0
I love that. Be with them.
- Speaker #1
Be with them, right? Yeah.
- Speaker #0
It's so nice. It feels very comforting to think about. Yeah, it's amazing, too, because when Tim pointed that out to me, I was like, I don't know what you're talking about. It took me like months to even be like okay he's got a point and then Now that I really have changed the way I listen and sit with him, it has caused me to have different standards of what listening is. And I realize, and I love my family of origin so much. You know, I come from a big Italian American family. We're very close. But this is a family pattern. This is a cultural thing within my family where we all just, we kind of like all talk over each other all the time. And we think we're listening and there's a lot of love and a lot of respect. But like. half the time my parents don't hear what I say you know and so it was like wow it's it's amazing when somebody makes you when somebody invites you to shift your standards for them you know to give them something they need it also shifts and increases your standards for yourself because now I need more out of a relationship of it right yeah and the thing is you know nearly always
- Speaker #1
The lack of listening, like as soon as you said I'm from this big Italian family, like I was like, yeah, yeah. Like I know I have friends in those families, right? The noise, the chat, like you said, the love, the passion, right? Around those tables and meals and stuff. It's well-intentioned. Nobody around that table in your family or any other family is not listening because they don't love you or because they're not interested in you. They do love you and they are interested in you, but in their intent to help. to help you grow, to give you inspiration, to answer your problems or your challenges, people talk, right? So as you said, it's not until you really bring awareness to someone and say, but actually, there's a huge power in acknowledgement over action, right? People generally, Lauren, whether it's your family, your best friend, somebody at work, they don't need you to fix. They just need you to listen. And if you look at the life coaching industry and the huge growth in coaching, I think a trillion dollars by 2030 is the prediction. People are so desperate to be heard. They are paying people to listen to them. Right. And I can't say that that's all. But there's not loads of bad people out. Right. It's not that people don't want to listen. It's just we don't teach it. Right. We tell people to listen. Right. We say to our children, listen to mommy, listen to daddy, listen to teacher. I tell you to listen better. But who's teaching us to listen better? Because this is a skill set. So you're right. Sometimes when you're aware of your own standards in that way, it shifts how you see things. But we have to bring everyone with us because there's just simply not awareness around this. And sometimes, Laura, when I do my workshops and stuff, in the first coffee break, somebody always, normally a man, will come to me and say, Mimi, I just realised... I haven't listened to anyone in my whole life. Well, hey, that's self-aware. Yeah. And then I always say to them, don't worry, you're not alone. Because people, people, until you bring like awareness to this, they're like, oh, I thought I was listening, but I don't think I was. It's like, it's okay. Most of us aren't. So it is about awareness. I think that's, that's a really big part of it.
- Speaker #0
And I love something else you said earlier, because it also, again, aligns with what I talk about with creativity. And that is something that... And that is that empathy is something we just have to remember. I heard you again say on another podcast, 98% of us are born with empathy and like the ability to be empathetic. The same thing with creativity. A NASA study found that 98% of us are born creative geniuses.
- Speaker #1
I love that.
- Speaker #0
But by the time they followed this group of kids, and so by the time those same kids, the five-year-olds, turned 31, the numbers had flipped. So it was only 2% creative genius, 98% not. So that is literally something I say in my keynote, that creativity isn't something you need to invent or conjure. It's just something you need to remember. Why is empathy the same? How does it get knocked out of us and how do we start to call it back?
- Speaker #1
I paused because I was just reflecting on your sentence, because I love that you said that, because I say pretty much the same sentence as you mentioned there. I mean, my favorite thing to say at the moment, for sure, is that this is not a concept. It's a memory. You were born with this. And I only started saying that about maybe three or four months ago. And when I discovered that sentence, it came to me on an airplane. Everything comes to me on an airplane. Even your podcast stuff you were saying comes from some trip on Delta, right? The power, the power of air flights. But when I had this sort of realisation, exactly to your point, that this is not, this is not, again, I'm not teaching a framework. This is not like some newfangled corporate something. It's just about remembering what we were born with. When two babies are born equally sick, the one that gets more empathy outlives the other. Empathy is a... an evolutionary skill set like i mentioned earlier it's built into your brain right it is there to ensure the survival of the human race not just thriving you will thrive right if you use this more often your relationships your workplace you'll get promoted quicker all kinds of great things happen right but fundamentally we're talking about the survival of the human race and as you touched on earlier we have three decades of decline of this human ability to connect to other people so If you think of us as cavemen and women in, you know, tribal times, and we lived in forests and mountain ranges and stuff, we knew that if someone got disconnected from the group, if they left the group, either they died, or we did. We knew that. We knew that we have to be together to do well. If you ask our children, they know this, like to your point there on NASA research, right? We are born with these things, and then we forget them. So There's this video clip that I use of my own daughter. She's seven. Her name is Umi. And in this video clip, I'm recording some content at home. And she came home and in her seven-year-old way said, why do you get to be on camera and I don't? I was like, sure, I'll come. So she comes and she joins me. The camera's rolling. So she comes. You can see in this video that her hair is messy. She's not like, it's not pre-planned. And I say to her, You know, what should we talk about? And of course she says, empathy, mummy. I'm like, yeah, well trained. So I ask her what listening is. And she tells me. And then I say to her, Umi, what happens if I don't listen to you? And she thinks. And she says, mummy, if you don't listen, I think that you don't care and you don't want to be my friend. She knows. We know, right? We know that when we're not listened to. You don't attribute any value to me. And then all of the work you do in kind of finding confidence and finding your purpose and all those types of wonderful things that you talk about, you can't get there if no one's listening. Because your brain, yourself, will be full of, am I not good enough? Why is no one talking to me? Why does no one want to come and speak to me in the coffee break? Maybe I don't fit in. All of that self-rhetoric, right? We need to be heard. It is fundamental to our survival, but just also to us, to growth. And one of the things, sorry, that's really important to remember is that we're all more alike than we are different. So the media loves to pull us apart because it, you know, sells ads. But in the end, this is human. It doesn't matter where you come from, what language you speak, what background you come from. Being connected is to be human.
- Speaker #0
I love that. I heard you say it sells ads. being that you, being that you Mimi are an ad professional, you watch your dad do it all your life. I'm just curious, like the thing I've been asking myself a lot lately, seeing the state of the world and how many people do really seem to think they're completely different from the person living right next door to them and therefore has have contempt for each other. I keep asking, just asking the question, could we do it differently? Could it be different? with ads let's just take one thing could could they do it differently could that be done differently could it be done from a heart-centered place instead of a place that puts people at odds and it lack yeah of course like a million percent of course it can right so
- Speaker #1
your first question can we do it differently yes and can advertisers yes but i i think the bigger challenge i think the biggest challenge and the more i think about this is speed right we are all time Totally obsessed with winning now.
- Speaker #0
Right. Like, let's pretend I am Sarah Jane and I decide to start SarahJanesPodcast.com today. Tomorrow, I want to be number one. Tomorrow, I want 10,000 downloads. Right. And we're so desperate to win so fast that we will pay anybody or anything, whether that's, you know, AI mechanics or we buy followers or we buy ads to buy us followers in order to achieve that. To not subscribe to that, which is what I'm trying. Lauren, I tried to do this. is hard and gets harder, the more successful you become, right? Because the more successful you become, the more successful people think you should become. So I actually wrote about this last week, which is, when did we become totally obsessed? When did we run our lives by the word scale, particularly in America, right? I'm not American. So this is an outsider point of view. But when I speak to anyone in my American ecosystem, which I'm growing, their first question is, so how are you going to scale? I'm like, well, I wasn't planning on scamming, right? I want to create more impact, but I don't really want a 500-person organisation or even a 30-person organisation, right? So I think our world is obsessed with fast growth. And my opinion on why that is, is because there's so much insecurity. Because the world is so difficult. And because every day something else happens. And because we have 24-7 media, now we watch it. So it doesn't matter if it's in my hometown or my state or a war zone on the other side of the world. I can see it in real time. So what that does to us as humans, and I'm not a psychologist, but in my opinion, is that we live in a state of fear constantly. Whether you're an ad exec or, you know, somebody living down the road running a coffee shop, we're constantly scared subconsciously, you know, of the economy, of social stuff, of politics, of natural disasters, of war. We feel disempowered. We feel that we don't have control. And therefore, this is my full circle, we need to do it now. So can the advertising industry change? Can that kind of growth and marketers change? Yes, but it would take time. And they don't put any value on that time. So therefore, they're going to do what works now. So I'm an optimist. I believe, well, I'm also just, you know, a follower of where human behavior goes. We, of course, we can turn this around. And we're seeing it all the time now. It's definitely happening. But it will take time. So maybe the number one skill set we need to master is patience, perhaps.
- Speaker #1
How do you work on that? Like, what's your personal practice?
- Speaker #0
With patience. Yes. You have to practice patience with patience. And I think I actually think it is the hardest skill for me in this kind of entrepreneurial journey. I talk about three things. I talk about patience tenacity and consistency all right that's kind of my i don't know formula for but like carrying on ptt wait no ptc yes ptc i didn't even think consistency we
- Speaker #1
found our um what do you call it not formula the thing you were saying you don't do
- Speaker #0
Yes, the framework, the equation, the framework.
- Speaker #1
I learned about that when I started speaking. They're like, well, do you have a framework? I'm like, I don't know what that means.
- Speaker #0
I know. And now I have one, but only because of exactly that, Lauren. I was like, can you share the framework? And I was like, uh, sure. Yeah,
- Speaker #1
I just combined things. That's the truth. Yeah. I took the things I was already talking about and I just put them in a group.
- Speaker #0
And put a title, right? You know, like earlier. The six steps.
- Speaker #1
The six steps,
- Speaker #0
exactly. Last week, I sent someone a pre-read of a deck that I was going to present. And this person wrote back and said, but could you please add just a slide that has key takeaways? And so I said, of course, no problem at all. And then I looked at my deck and I thought, well, that last slide is key takeaways. So I just added the word key takeaways.
- Speaker #1
Such a good hack.
- Speaker #0
Thanks so much for the changes. And I was like, you're really welcome. Anyway, what were we saying?
- Speaker #1
Oh, we were we were talking about how you build patience. And you said
- Speaker #0
PTC. I love that you gave an acronym to my thing. Yes. So patience, tenacity and consistency. And I think you have to they kind of go in it. There we go. They kind of go in a circle, right? Because in order to keep practicing patience, you have to be very consistent. Because patience, by its definition, as we just spoke about, is slow. even though I subscribe to this and I believe in this sometimes you want something a bit faster right sometimes you think I just spent like an hour on this post and like 28 people saw it I was like is that really a good use of my time you know and even though I'm like anti-analytics in that way you can't help it. Because especially as a solopreneur, right, everything you do costs time, costs money, costs team work. So I think patience is just a continual practice of patience, of reminding yourself. And for me, I have a phrase that I use, and I always say it to myself, which is, this is a 10 year game, not a 10 minute game. Right? And I like go to my coffee shop, and I tell myself, 10 years, not 10 minutes. And that kind of helps me reset. Often, I think, Lauren, and maybe you see this in your work as well, we have to mentally say things to ourselves to swap the brain because the conscious mind leads this subconscious. And it is the subconscious mind that's going, you should be quicker, you should have 28,000 lights and not 28,000, all that stuff, right, because it's absorbing information all day. So that ability to use words in your head, or you can say them out loud, resets the subconscious. So that's why I say to myself all the time, it helps. Try it.
- Speaker #1
It definitely does. I mean, I think that this is a really, really hard, it's hard to unlearn getting your worth outside of yourself in a world that consistently tells you that's where you should look.
- Speaker #0
I know.
- Speaker #1
And so it is that. When I turned 33, I don't know if you know, but that's like the year Jesus died. But like in the spiritual world, everybody says like 33 is your Jesus year. And so I thought that was going to be a good thing for some reason, even though he was crucified that year. I was like, that's amazing. My Jesus year is going to be amazing. It turns out it was a year of deep spiritual lessons. But the biggest one was realizing, oh, like I could get everything I want and still not be happy. Or I couldn't and still not be happy. So I guess I have to stop looking out there and start looking in here. But it is something I have to work on every single day. So I don't think that these things like patience in the world we live in is a daily practice. It's not like learned it and now I'm good.
- Speaker #0
Yeah, yeah, it is. It is a daily practice. And that's why I said I have to say it really like consciously to myself. And sometimes some days, some days it doesn't cross my mind. You know, some days I'm totally relaxed. I guess as a creative. Because I'm extremely right brained. I'm like, you know, and this is the other reason when people say to me, you know, how do you want to scale? Do you want to scale? And I think I don't even know what scale is really, you know, I just like creating content around empathy, you know, I just like helping people have empathy that as creators, we put our love, our heart, our soul, you know, I've seen you singing Lauren on your Instagram page, to be able to sing that well, you have to mean it, right to be able to, to create that. And when someone doesn't respond to whatever that product, that thing is, right, a song, a post, a podcast episode, a video you made, it doesn't matter, a piece of art, right? When you don't get the recognition, the acknowledgement from something you poured into, it's exhausting. It's demoralising, but it's also exhausting. So I think that's partly why we're constantly looking for. external recognition and again that's that point of you know social media and just media at large your competitive set is so huge now so if you think maybe 50 years ago if you were an artist in your hometown probably you were the only one that there may be someone else but they were probably doing a different type of art but today if you're an artist in some small town in i don't know oklahoma right your art is on instagram against the entire world's artists i know so There's a lot to be impatient about, right? Because you think, well, why did this similar artist in Paris do better than my Instagram post in Oklahoma? That's not fair, right? My art's better than his art. And the reality is it's not really fair because of algorithms, because of budgets, because of power, because of investment. The playing field is different now than it was when us humans began our journeys. And I think we're still catching up because it's just too fast for us, right? we Things change every day. And that just gets faster. It didn't used to be that fast.
- Speaker #1
Well, all this leads me into the thing I saw on your website that kind of blew me away because I've never heard of this term before. I talk about self-love on this podcast almost every single episode, but I've never heard anybody talk about self-empathy. Can you define what that is and why it matters?
- Speaker #0
Oh, yes. It's really funny because when I started talking about self-empathy, well... this journey for me is only four and a half years old so it's been a I guess a relatively short time and when I started talking about self-empathy even for me I I was like why why do I know what this is and nobody else seems to know what this is right as you said you never heard of it what's interesting is you hear a lot about self-awareness self-compassion many other things self-kindness self-love But for some reason, people don't talk about self-empathy. But if you put that into context for a minute, if you know you're anxious, right? I recognize I am self-aware. I know that I'm an anxious person. If I don't understand why, how am I going to fix it? So self-awareness without self-empathy understanding is kind of misplaced. Because to be aware of something but not understand it doesn't help you. progress ever, whether that's inward like you, self-empathy or empathy in the world. I can be aware that my team in the workplace is underperforming and miserable. But if I never have any empathy to understand why, I can't fix it. So self-empathy is the same thing, but internally, right? Self-empathy is the ability to understand yourself. What drives you? What do you love? What do you not like? Where do you do the best work? For me, Lauren, it took until my... 30s as well to have to be anywhere close to getting this right and one of those examples to bring it to life is that I don't do well if I'm alone for too long right so if I work from home for a week because of I don't know my daughter or something for the first like two days I'm like this is awesome I can like work in my pajamas right this is amazing or whatever I'm wearing but by day three I feel a bit weird and it always takes me maybe like 30 minutes And I'm like, ah, I've been alone too long. All I need to do is sit in a coffee shop. Literally, like six minutes into the mall, I'm like, okay, we're good, right? I need to be around people. That is my self-empathy that tells me that. It's my understanding of me. I'm just rubbish on my own. I feed off the energy of other people. And by the way, I'm an introvert and not an extrovert. So that kind of definition that everyone says out there, that introverts get their... energy from inside and extroverts get energy from people. I'm an introvert, but I get my energy from people. So yeah, self-empathy is that ability to understand yourself. And we have two forms, inward and outward. Inward is self-empathy, so understanding of yourself that you can solve for. I know I do better work after a run. I know that. I can act on it. I'll go for a run. Outward self-empathy. It's knowledge of yourself that somebody else has to shift something to impact. That would be you and your fiancé. That would be when your fiancé said to you, Lauren, I don't feel you are listening and it's making me feel disconnected. Could you try and change your behaviour to help me feel better? Outward self-empathy. He understood something about him and then he asked for help from you to solve something for him. So yeah, inward and outward self-empathy.
- Speaker #1
I love it. So something I talk about on the show a lot is self-knowledge. I am a little confused. What's the difference between self-knowledge and self-empathy? Are they different?
- Speaker #0
Do you know what? I never heard of self-knowledge, but I think I would say self-empathy is probably deeper. And maybe we're kind of, you know, clutching at straws, because as I said in the very beginning, I think the simplest things in life are always the best. So arguably on the surface, they're probably very similar. But I think probably the difference between knowledge and empathy as concepts is that, and I'm not, you know, a dictionary, but when I hear you, knowledge to me feels very surface level and top. I know that this is a watch. I know that, right? I know it's a watch. It's knowledge. Empathy has depth. Empathy is about understanding. So I know Lauren has a podcast and she talks a lot about the role of creativity in life. But do I understand you, your drivers, your purpose? Well, not yet because we haven't hung out. So I think self-knowledge is probably closer to awareness. It's I know that. That's very different from I understand that.
- Speaker #1
That would be fine.
- Speaker #0
But listen, I'm talking because I never really thought about self-knowledge before. So I'm talking on the cuff. But I think. Yeah, no,
- Speaker #1
I think that's that's interesting. So would you say that's true with empathy, too? It's the difference between knowledge and understanding.
- Speaker #0
Yes, for sure. From an empathy point of view, I think that's true. Again, you can know that someone's unhappy. That doesn't mean you understand. It doesn't mean you've asked, hey, how are you? Do you want to talk about that? Right? It's just the top. It's the top. Knowledge is important, but it's not depth.
- Speaker #1
So it's the knowing plus the why.
- Speaker #0
Yeah, the why. Exactly. The context. That's why I always say empathy is perspective taking. It's about forming a perspective around. Why someone in your team is doing... worse after their promotion so you have this great performer in your team and you say listen Mimi you're doing brilliantly I'm gonna promote you and you expect that that's gonna be great and Mimi's gonna carry on growing and then you realize a couple of months later she's not doing as much as she used to she doesn't feel as motivated like what why right that's your empathy knowledge is I can see she's not doing as well as she was empathy is to say why is she not doing as well as she was so yeah I'm making like a tea because I'm a visual person right like the the knowledge is across the top and the empathy is going down the middle there we go we created a new framework oh god yeah the slide is already formed in my head i want to picture it i'm seeing you pointing to it right now um so
- Speaker #1
for somebody because inner critic also is a thing that i know really holds back from holds people back from pursuing their creative passions. So for somebody who has a really loud judgmental or even like a paralyzing inner critic how can self-empathy soften that voice a little bit
- Speaker #0
I think it helps you understand where that critic is coming from and I had that that that that critic was like my best friend until my um my my my early 30s probably I at some point in my late 20s I was living in Hong Kong And I can remember coming home from a work event one evening. I was probably like 27 or something. And I came home to my tiniest apartment you can imagine in the whole wide world. And my brain, like my anxiety was like going bonkers, right? This critic was like, did you say enough? Maybe you didn't say enough. Maybe they didn't like you. Maybe you're never... All that stuff, right? And I remember it was just exhausting. And I can remember that particular occasion, but I think it happened all the time. I think in those years of my life, even though I was doing very well on my career and I had been moved to Hong Kong and I was a senior account director or something, I was like, had some great title and a team and all these things. But I just felt like maybe it was because I had been promoted so quickly. I've never really thought about this, but maybe I had just moved up so fast that I wasn't able to keep up with what people thought I could do. So that inner critic was really a lot. for me then. Self-empathy helps you work out why. What is it that's making me feel like I don't fit in or that I'm not good enough or that I'm concerned about this? And again, talking earlier about time, you have to slow down to do that work. For as long as you keep running, you'll keep putting it off and then you'll never understand it. Because it's the same with empathy. I say to people, you can't empathise when you're running to a coffee shop. You have to stop. right even if it's a short time people say to me i don't have time for empathy you can create empathy in less than 90 seconds but you still need 90 seconds all right you can't do it whilst running so self-empathy helps you understand that in a critic there's a reason that it's there it's based on an experience or a memory or how you were brought up or maybe for me it was about speed of promotion i just i never thought about this before lauren but maybe i've been promoted too fast right I just, I couldn't, my confidence. couldn't keep up with my performance maybe so I didn't have a lot of self-empathy then because I hadn't discovered this work and I was very young but certainly when I moved into my my 30s that became easier for me and yeah by my mid-30s
- Speaker #1
I had my friend my critic friend had gone away he's not always gone sometimes it comes back of course sometimes I move back in you just gotta be like all right you can sit in the trunk but not in the front seat with me exactly You know, you said before I discovered this work, I'm so curious how you did, because I always believe, you know, when I'm coaching someone with creativity or, you know, doing a podcast coaching, I believe the topic we're meant to sit on lays somewhere between our greatest joy and our greatest pain. That it's somewhere in between the two that comes this mission statement of our lives. How did it become empathy for you? Like what drove you to this work?
- Speaker #0
So the first thing is that when people ask me, you know, how did you find this purpose? I always say I didn't because it found me because I wasn't looking for it. I had no intention of leaving the corporate world or ever leaving advertising. I loved advertising. I don't have like a, I mean, I have many horror stories of the corporate world, but I don't have like a disaster story of why I left. I just left because I found something I love more. And that was a high bar. because I loved my work already. So it found me because I I moved to Dubai in 2018 to take over a big American businesses regional office. And I had come out of corporate. So I had come out of teams with like big finance teams and big procurement. I was surrounded by people, like people to share business with. And this role saw me all on my own. I went in to run this small business, maybe 40 people. And when I got there, the business was not doing very well, to put it gently, right? And the honest truth, Lauren, I had no idea how to turn it around. I was not an entrepreneur. I'd never run a small business. I'd never been responsible for a P&L other than a client P&L, which is one client, you know, amongst the global business of 50. So at that time, I went to see a coach, like a life coach, a business life coach. And we were having lunch and she was asking me about my leadership style. And at the time I was talking about intuition, being an intuitive leader. And then she stopped me and she asked me a question that in the end changed my life because she said, Mimi, is it intuition or is it empathy? And I remember thinking, no way, right? It's not empathy, right? What's empathy got to do with business or me? And today it's funny because obviously I say that word like, you know, 70 times a minute, but then I don't think I'd ever thought about empathy really much ever. But I went away and I started to research it and I discovered the empathy deficit that we touched on at the very beginning, this lack of connectivity in our world. And I just couldn't believe that nobody was talking about this. There was really, truly, and still today, there's very few, but then, I mean, there was, I don't know, maybe five people, all Americans, except for me, in the world talking about empathy. It just was not a thing. So I thought, well, I'm going to talk about it. I just couldn't understand how something so huge, something that was so clearly, at least to me, pulling apart our workplaces and our world. You know, I found this data set at the time about youth death rates. And I read that the second biggest killer of our youth today, so 14 to 24-year-olds, was no longer vehicle accidents, but suicide. So our children, they have such a lack of belonging. that they would rather not stay in the world with us. And I thought, somebody needs to talk about this. So Laura and I did. So I don't remember sort of day one, but I just started to talk about empathy. I started to write. I started to write, I think for me, right, to work through the challenges of turning this business around, which we did. And it was a happy ending in the end. And once I started, I couldn't stop. And I guess today I'm still going. And about a week ago. We had our, I said I don't really care about analytics, but it's still interesting sometimes. My team sent me our data for the first 150 days of the year and we reached 2.5 million people. Wow. But I promise you at this point, I had like 200 connections on LinkedIn. So I just got up every day and started talking about it and hoped that somebody was listening and they weren't. But I carried on anyway, right? I carried on and today I get to talk to people like you about it. So it's moving in the right direction.
- Speaker #1
You know, so beautiful. I do want to ask because maybe not everybody has the exact career trajectory you have. It sounds very unique. But what people can relate to is the fact that you reinvented yourself. And I know it was kind of natural. It sounds like it was a natural progression. But that still takes some work when there's a little girl that at 12 years old was like, I am going to become an advertising maven. And you suddenly decide, actually, I'm going to be an empathy expert and talk about this in the world. Did you have to do any inner child work and talk to that 12-year-old girl and let her know, hey, I'm not giving up on this dream. We did this dream to the fullest extent. Now we're going in a new direction. Was there any sort of reinvention within yourself that you had to do?
- Speaker #0
No, I think I'm doing that now. So that's a slightly bigger discussion. But what I would say is, I believe that what's meant for you will come for you. But in order to get there, you have to lean into it. And that means you have to be really open to signs. And back to tenacity that I said earlier, you have to be very tenacious. And I guess another way of saying that is resilient. It's like the trending word right today. So I had to... trust the process a lot and I think probably because I couldn't trust myself because as I said I think I'm only doing the work now to really lean into what this could be I think it's hard I think it's very hard and to get your head around you know people have been saying to me for the last two years you know your personal brand I'm like no no no I'm not a personal brand I don't have a personal brand I'm just talking about empathy right I've now kind of accepted it but see I have to say the word kind of like I'm not I'm still not quite there even though there's you know all these thousands of people watching and great stages and podcasts and all these amazing things and I I'm very aware of that I'm very grateful of that I'm very joyful I love this I love I get up every day I love it but that like inner work to really step back and say look what you did or look what you're doing I think I've done it yet I don't I still don't think I have the confidence in myself so that is why I very rarely you'll see now it's slightly changing but very rarely talk about myself my instagram Until literally, Lauren, like the last three weeks, four weeks, there's no stories or there used to not be any stories like about me or my life. Or even though for years people have been asking me and every content team I work with is like, hey, could you do something about your life? And I'm like, no, no, no, no, no, no.
- Speaker #1
Could you do something about your life?
- Speaker #0
I'm like, no, I can only talk about empathy, right? Empathy has to lead and Mimi will follow. right I have and I think it will always be that way and I and I believe that will keep me very down to earth right that this isn't about me it never was about me it's about empathy it's about us actually so I think that inner work is still going on in order to kind of let go of maybe where I was going and now where I am because I just the other thing I say is and maybe this is useful for people listening is I think the media tells us as women to say no a lot particularly the western media and again I live in the east so and I have been for like 20 years so I can see the west from outside the west even though I look like I'm from the west the western media and coaches and much of that personal growth rhetoric tells you protect your boundaries say no stand up for yourself charge your value all good things right you should protect yourself and you should charge your value but if you keep saying no how are you ever going to grow so but I say yes to everything. And people say, well, then how do you have time? I say, well, I create time. The more I say yes, the more time I seem to have. So that's the other thing that I've been doing for like four years now is unless it doesn't align with my values, unless I feel like this person's exploiting me or, you know, there's many podcasts, honestly, that I do say no to because I think not always by men, but often with men, I think I actually just my gut instinct. tells me I don't really want to hang out in a room with your energy. I don't think our energy is going to match. So say no to what doesn't fit you. But otherwise, say yes. And if you don't have the answer, say yes anyway, because by the time it comes, you'll find the answer.
- Speaker #1
Yeah, I so resonate with that. I mean, yeah, I think there's good parts of what that like whole say no movement did and is doing. But I saw something the other day, and I'm sure you'll appreciate this living in the East that was like, Normalize inconveniencing yourself sometimes to be there for people and show up for people. Boundaries have gotten so out of control in this culture that people now think it's totally fine to never show up for anyone because you're like protecting your energy. And I put that in quotes for those that can't see. And yes, you have to sometimes. Sometimes you do have to choose guilt over resentment, right? Like if you're going to resent someone else for saying yes to it, than choose your own guilt. But sometimes you just have to put yourself aside and show up for people. And I think that that's a really, really important thing to remember. And the other thing I really resonate with what you just said is saying yes. I answer my phone still. Call me crazy. I always think, what if it's an opportunity? Yeah. You never know. And you never know if you do a podcast and it reaches one person and it changes their life. or they end up hiring you for something, or they end up becoming your friend. Like, you just never know. And if it feels warm, even if to your brain, it feels crazy. If to your body, it feels like a yes, go toward it.
- Speaker #0
Yeah. And not just because it might be an opportunity, because it might, right?
- Speaker #1
Yeah. But because...
- Speaker #0
As I said earlier, what's meant for you will come for you. So if it's coming, there's probably a reason, right? Again, if you feel that it's the right one. Because we're meant to meet people. We are, again. We're pro-social, right? So, I don't know, you know, for some weird reason, nobody might listen to this episode. But it doesn't matter because I've still started my day with you. You can see how much I'm loving it. I'm going to leave this and go to my daughter's International Day school party. And I'm going to walk into there like, you know, like this has filled my cup, as it were. and say I think what you touched on is such an important piece, and I'm working on a new solution for this, which is that the self-help personal growth industry, I feel, has been so focused on me, me, me, me, my, my, my, I, I, I, that we forgot about the we. And so we have been growing in isolation of each other. And arguably, that is why we have a loneliness. deficit, right? An epidemic, actually, of loneliness. According to the World Health Organization, this is very new data, maybe three weeks, 900,000 people a year die of loneliness, and 335 million people say they don't have a single friend, right? 335 million. So, but perhaps as individuals, they're doing very well, or at least on LinkedIn, they look like they are, right? So... I think it is such a huge problem for us that we are growing ourselves without the people around us. And I'll tell you one very short story. I know we're probably coming to the end, but I was recently with a phenomenal CEO on this side of the world. I mean, he's set up, he's worth, I don't know, probably billions. Really, really phenomenally successful man. And we're having coffee in a hotel lobby. And at some point in the conversation... he's talking about something at home and he talks about upstairs I say to him do you live in this hotel and he said oh yeah yeah I do so thanks for coming you know it's really convenient I said oh okay so you know how long have you lived in this hotel he said oh five years I was like uh okay so you've you've lived here alone for five years he said yeah you know great hotel blah blah conversation goes on and in the next maybe five minutes he says to me the thing is I don't have a single friend in this city. All I have is my work, so a hotel is fine. He carried on. He didn't feel the depth of that statement, but I did. So it begs the question, Lauren, what is success? What is personal growth? If you suddenly have all this money and your name is in the newspapers and you are flying in innovation, and yet you're living in a hotel room, eating dinner alone for five years. without a single friend in the city that you're living in. Is that success? I don't know. I'll leave it open to other people to define, but I think it's questionable.
- Speaker #1
No. Well, that's why I think our work is so aligned because I really see this show as a means of approaching creativity in your dreams from a platform of self-love and self-knowledge and self-trust instead of going after it because you're always looking outside of yourself. but going inside. But what I love about what you're saying and what I've been feeling more along the past year is it's, yes, I think that's always going to be your foundation and allow you to show up authentically, but it means nothing if we can't create with each other. And so I really think the thing I would love to leave listeners with is all these great tools we've shared that Mimi has shared, but also... to encourage you all to find your creative community and make things together. Because no matter how it's received by the rest of the world, if we are making things in community and seeing each other, it's going to help you remind yourself of your inherent value as a person, of the creativity you make, and allow you to be that mirror for others too. So thank you for that call to action. And just for who you are. I mean, I have to agree with your social media team. I, your messages are so powerful, but who you are is the most powerful thing about you. So thank you for sharing some of your story today and so many amazing tools and frameworks. I might ask everybody to check out the slideshow. Um, but I just adore you and I can't wait to meet you in person. And, uh, yeah, you're just a gift to this world. So thank you for being who you are and for all of the amazing work you do.
- Speaker #0
No, thank you. I mean, right back at you. I said at the very beginning, I was super excited to come and it's been really, really fun. So thank you for allowing me to talk about it because I want to reconnect the world and I can only do that by talking to them. So thank you. Yes,
- Speaker #1
you made my day. You're the best, Mimi.
- Speaker #0
Thank you.
- Speaker #1
Thank you for listening and thanks to my guest, Mimi Nicklin. For more info on Mimi, follow her at Mimi Nicklin and visit her website, miminicklin.com. Unleash Your Inner Creative is hosted and executive produced by me, Lauren LaGrasso. It's edited by Blondel Garcon with theme music by Liz Full. Again, thank you, my sweet creative cutie, for listening. If you like what you heard, rate, review, follow the show wherever you get your podcasts. Also, comment on Spotify. This does make a big difference and pushes us up. the algorithm. You can share the show with a friend and post about it on social media. This also really helps us grow. And if you do post on social media, I will repost to share my gratitude. Also tag the guests at Mimi Nicklin so she can share as well. My wish for you this week is that you practice one small act of empathy, whether that's really listening to someone you love, using someone's name, or extending a little bit more compassion toward yourself. Each moment of empathy brings you closer to your creativity, your community. and your humanity. I love you so much and I believe in you. Talk with you next week.
