#825 Insight & Empathy

Brain Food for Pioneering Spirits: What significance do empathy and compassion have for gaining insight? That’s the question we explore in Room #825 of the Deep Talk Club, under our overarching theme of “Insight (and gaining it).” Listen in on the examples that came up and the perspectives that emerged in dialogue…

Note: This session was recorded live in German as part of the Deep Talk Club, so the video above is German-language audio only. What follows is an English translation of the conversation, lightly edited for readability — the back-and-forth between the moderator and participants is preserved, but the original timestamps and speaker names have been left out.

A very warm good morning to you all. Yes, I’m already really looking forward to this, because today, as announced, we’re continuing with insight and empathy. So under this overarching theme of insight and gaining insight, we’re looking today at the significance of empathy and compassion for gaining insight. And I’d like to briefly build on yesterday. We already noticed yesterday that a lot of aspects came together, about meeting at eye level, about respect and tolerance, that it’s about reciprocal relationships, that we basically can’t change the other person. But that it does make a difference how we react to certain things, for instance, and things like that. And that was about open-mindedness, openness and so on. And so it’s really, really exciting to build on that and continue today, and in this context to look again at what role empathy plays here in generating insight. So I’m very curious what examples and perspectives will come together today, and I’d like to warmly invite you to join in, so that we can step straight into a dialogue and gain new perspectives together in exchange. And just a quick reminder, for anyone who might not know, the room is being recorded in the background. So if you join, you’re agreeing that this recording is running and that the whole thing will be published. That’s one thing, and the other is that we have three small room rules: a profile photo in which you’re clearly recognizable, your first and last name, and at least one sentence in your bio, to make sure we’re not dealing with Clubhouse trolls. So if one or another of those isn’t met yet, feel free to adjust it briefly. Or if someone wants to stay anonymous, that’s fine too, of course — that just means using the chat instead. And I’ll pick up various contributions from there too, again and again. So, with that I’ll mute myself briefly and see who wants to take the plunge with me this morning. And, yes, I’d like to explicitly point out again not to let too much time pass, so that we can really get going right away. So whoever has the time and inclination, best to raise your hand directly. And Marc is already doing that wonderfully. A very warm good morning, dear Marc, what do you have to say on this topic?

Good morning, everyone, lovely to be here with and among you all again. China springs to mind again spontaneously, I learned so much there.

Marc, I don’t know if it’s just me, but I can only hear you in fragments. Either your internet or mine is unstable. Hold on just a moment, please. Maybe someone in the room can give me a hand signal as to whether you can hear Marc well. Then it would be my connection. And if no hand signal comes, then it’s your connection, Marc. So it does seem to be your connection. I don’t see a hand signal. Could you check, Marc, whether there’s some way for us to get a better connection?

I’ve just stepped out of the WiFi. Is it better now?

Yes, much better.

I’m on mobile data now.

Yes, great. Ah, okay, sorry — I hadn’t had that happen before either.

Sorry, let me start again. Yes, I heard that too, it was distorted for me as well. So, let me bring China into play again. I’ve always been lucky enough to accompany a friend on a business trip. And that reminds me — we’ve had this before — that for weeks and months now we’ve always been talking about things that concern us Germans, about the experiences we’ve had here. But empathy, really putting yourself in other people’s shoes and other cultures, is really, really important, and it can even be vital to your survival. And a really fascinating experience I had was when we were at a hotel and had booked an excursion. We asked a Chinese member of staff where the bus for it left from at the hotel. And he explained the way to us. And we got completely lost and almost missed our tour group, and we learned afterward that he’d sent us in a completely… He simply had no idea where we needed to go. But you lose face if you can’t help someone. And it’s better to send someone in the wrong direction than not to help at all. And that’s really burned itself into me, in the sense of genuinely questioning every piece of information. He didn’t mean any harm, that had nothing to do with him not liking me — he was trying to help me, and with the knowledge he had, he sent me in some direction. And that helps me in my professional dealings with China too. China has energy problems as well. And if I ask, for example, when will my goods arrive, when will they be ready, then the Chinese person genuinely can’t answer me that, because he lives in the best country in the world there is. There’s no better country. So he can’t tell me, we don’t have power, and it’ll take three months, or it’s simply not possible. And he can’t solve the problem, but I notice it in these tiny, tiny sentences instead — it might be a bit later, or we’ll have to see. So they’re very, very small sentences that don’t actually state what I asked, but from those sentences I then think, uh-oh, there could be trouble here. And based on the messages we then receive, I know, ah, now I know what’s going on, now I know what he means. He won’t tell me directly. I have to get the rest of the information myself.

Oh, that’s wonderful. Thank you, thank you so much. A great way to start. So that means, for example, knowing or getting to know other cultures and circumstances, and against that background maybe being able to assess certain things better, because you have that experience, or those experiential values, but also genuinely know certain cultural circumstances. I was actually going to ask, how do you deal with it? You’ve basically already answered that, reading a bit between the lines and looking more closely, listening more closely, paying attention to small signals even when they’re not put into words. That takes a certain amount of mindfulness too, or how would you describe it?

Yes, it takes a lot of mindfulness and gut feeling. Now people say I’m a Cancer by star sign, people say I’m very sensitive or empathetic — that may or may not be true — but through this China experience I learned a great deal, simply having this insight that people — they’ve learned from experience, from our cultural background, no, from my cultural background here in Germany — if someone doesn’t tell the truth, then they’re lying. And it’s so fascinating to look at that from different points of view. If someone doesn’t tell the truth there, they’re simply being friendly, they mean well by you, because they’d lose face otherwise. And this shift in perspective simply requires that you talk to each other about it, that you say, look, your opinion and this experience and these insights you’ve learned up to this point — who says they’re correct? And who says the person you’re dealing with has the same insight, the same level of learning, and the same — the word was yours, I think, dear Yasemin — constructed reality. That’s been my word for the year 2023, it keeps reminding me: watch out, I have an opinion on a certain topic now, and that’s just Marc’s constructed reality. That may have nothing to do with the reality of the person I’m dealing with.

Yes, wonderful, thank you, thank you so much. And I’d like to take this opportunity to bring in the others too. So what experiences have you had with empathy and insight? Maybe you have nice examples too, whether cultural or in other contexts, where empathy led to insight — or maybe didn’t, depending. So really, let’s look together at what significance empathy has for gaining insight, and you’re warmly invited to join in, so that we get different examples, different perspectives added in here too. And, Marc, do you have any further examples that come to mind, maybe not related to culture, but touching on other aspects too? Marc, your mic was on for a second, now it’s off again.

Sorry, sorry about that — I was still on my way to the kitchen and have to get the coffee ready on the side too, so it’s all fully operational. Sorry. I’m actually writing a book right now, and I want to share an experience — I don’t know if you’d call it empathy — but I once had the job of selling high-performance microscopes that really cost twenty to thirty thousand euros. And I should say, I’m a total technical idiot. I have zero knowledge of technology. I use it, but I have no idea about it — neither physics, nor chemistry, nor anything else to do with technology. But I took this job because I needed to earn money, and I thought, I’m empathetic, I can sell anything, product knowledge can’t be that important. On the way to see this customer it became clear to me that I really had zero idea what I was doing, and that at this branch I was visiting — I think he had ten locations, it was a local retailer — that he’d throw me right out, because if I had to face this man with technical expertise, in the sense of your competitor has this feature, and your competitor has that feature, and you don’t even have the price listed, then I wouldn’t stand a chance of selling a single unit. And the whole reason I’d even been sent to this customer was that he’d stopped doing business with the company I worked for at the time. And then I thought, okay, I’ll bet everything on one card. If this turns into a technical conversation, he’ll notice immediately that I have no idea. Who wants to work with people who get sent as a specialist and have no clue — I’d write that person off too. So I communicate empathetically instead. I decided to bet on empathy and hoped that maybe he didn’t tick the way I expected, and I just went in and said, here I am, I have no idea, let’s forget about talking about our products, what can I do so that we start working together again, because that’s my task today, but please, let’s not talk about the competitors — I know they exist, and I’m sure they have their merits too, but if we start talking about what they can do and where they’re better, I’m out of here. And then it simply came out in the conversation that there were people at my company he didn’t like, and all I had to do was make sure the orders ran through other channels. That was the real background. This man then invited me to lunch and said, well, that was a short sales pitch. I said, I can’t sell you anything either, I just want us to be doing business together again. I can’t say anything about my products, and not about the competitor’s either. We went to lunch, and it came out that it was simply antipathy toward certain people, that the whole thing had nothing to do with the products — and that was a real turning point for me, empathy in the sense of honesty, and it takes a lot of courage too, to look someone in the eye and really say, I’m here, I want something from you, but I have no idea what I’m actually doing.

Yes, really fascinating, thank you, thank you so much, and this makes it clear that there are all sorts of different aspects that feed into empathy, into this concept of empathy, so to speak. And I actually looked up the definition again too, because we can look at that a bit more closely here as well. So empathy isn’t just something like compassion or similar — the capacity for empathy means, according to the first definition that pops up online, for example, being able to put yourself in another person’s position and understand and relate to their feelings. But there are also definitions like the ability and willingness to recognise, understand and empathise with the sensations, emotions, thoughts, motives and personality traits of other people. And that means various aspects play into it here. You, for instance, relied on openness, and you said — you relied on the other person’s empathy, so to speak, and used various elements like being open and transparent about it, and being authentic, and conveying that in a certain way, and maybe through that winning the other person’s sympathy, and through that sympathy generating empathy on both sides, which ultimately leads to things being received positively and dealt with accordingly. I find that really fascinating.

Thank you, thank you so much. And this concept of empathy, I find that really fascinating too, even when we look toward children, say. I notice this myself, for instance, that it’s not something that’s simply automatically there or present — especially with our ten-year-old, a lot of it actually still has to be explained first. And that some aspects of it — my own son is sensitive, for example, but being sensitive doesn’t automatically mean you already bring empathy to every situation, but rather that in many different facets it’s actually still a learning process on top of that, in the sense of being able to categorise certain things better, embed them better, get explanations, in order to be able to understand certain things better — and that when empathy is shaped by relationships in childhood and so on, this development or expansion of it, that it increases, is to some extent also a learning process, a training process at that point. I find that really fascinating too. That means it also has a lot to do with the social environment in that sense. That means empathy can be developed on the one hand, and on the other hand, the more pronounced it is, the more it might help generate a result in the direction of insight and gaining insight, so that maybe both concepts also depend on each other in turn. Yes, I’m curious, curious what you might have to add to that, Marc, or whether you have further examples you’d like to bring up. And the others are warmly invited to join in too, to open up different perspectives, feel free to share from your own experience too — or maybe you see it quite differently and say, from my point of view you don’t necessarily need empathy to gain insight, or maybe there’s some negative connotation to it in some way, or limits, or maybe some aspects that need to be considered here from your point of view — then feel free to join in, and for anyone who doesn’t want to because they’d rather stay anonymous, feel free to just use the chat, so that we can pick up on the contributions here too and open up more perspectives that way. Marc?

Yes, I can see Sascha just joined. Hello Sascha, I had the great pleasure of meeting you in Rosenheim once too. And I have another contribution, where I think empathy might not come into play and might even prompt different decisions. Namely in large corporations. If Sascha — Sascha has a company, I don’t know your exact headcount, but I imagine if someone at Sascha’s company gets sick and can’t work, Sascha handles that differently than a big corporation would. If I have a university degree and go work at a big company, maybe with 1,000, 5,000, or 10,000 employees, and someone tells me, Marc, we need to cut costs — then I say, yes, where do I cut personnel costs? You’re working too much, you have to go. Then maybe, without batting an eyelid, I lay off 100 or 200 people. That might not bother me at all. Why wouldn’t it bother me? Because those are just numbers and names on paper. For Sascha, those aren’t just numbers and names. I’ve observed this again and again, even at bigger companies, when outsiders come in who didn’t build the company themselves from the ground up, where people know each other, where maybe your father already worked, where there really are relationships — then it’s handled differently, because that relationship is far, far more intense than at a big corporation. And that doesn’t mean to me that people there are worse or less compassionate — it’s probably also got to do with scale. You probably also can’t expect a works council or staff council or whatever to have a relationship with 10,000 employees either, especially not if they’re scattered around the world. But I do think empathy is definitely bound up with trust, with relationship, and maybe also with the size of a company. What do you think about that?

Yes, that’s a really, really fascinating aspect you’re bringing in here, and we can actually differentiate it further too. On the one hand, well, how might that be? You just said, especially at corporations, for the person up top making decisions, in quotation marks, the employees — because of the size of the company, there’s no personal connection there. So they’re names, but because there’s no human connection, because you don’t know the person personally, quite different decisions get weighed and made against that backdrop, whereas that’s different at a smaller company. At the same time, you could also open up this aspect here, in quotation marks, “should it be that way, though?” So we’re a bit into evaluation territory there too. We often have a real issue at corporations when it comes to loyalty, employee retention and so on. And aspects like that surely play a role too, that people might not feel as seen as they would somewhere else, at a smaller company, where the human connection, the closeness, is more present. That means personal connection seems to play a role here, closeness plays a role. And you described or paraphrased that with the words trust and relationship. So I do agree with you that in larger companies, when decisions are made, there’s quite possibly less empathy involved in one place or another, and at the same time that’s exactly, in quotation marks, one of the shortcomings, which of course is difficult to address the larger the number of employees gets. But it’s decisive here too, that the culture of a company, for instance, could or would change if things were handled differently here. What do you say to that, Marc?

You just used a great word there, visibility. And I’m firmly convinced that this visibility has to work in both directions. Sure, a big company with a few thousand people, the CEO probably can’t take care of everything personally. That has to be delegated down the ranks, and that way of thinking, that philosophy, then probably has to be passed down to those levels too. But I do think — and this applies to me too — that we all as people want to be visible, and there are really fascinating reports and interviews about why people have made careers at a company, and it’s not always about the people who move up in a company being the ones with the best ideas, or who work the longest hours, or who are never sick — often it’s the people who’ve managed to make themselves visible upward too. Because if I’m the hardest-working employee at a big corporation but nobody knows it, then I’ll always stay the hardest-working employee at that corporation, but probably always in the position I’m already in.

Yes, and something else that comes to mind in this corporate context is aspects related to this visibility too. We’ve just shown something that might be harder at big companies. You can turn it around the other way too. We can also observe, especially at bigger companies, that because there’s a higher number of employees, especially with something like bullying or similar, which also has to do with empathy, with how people treat each other and so on — then at a bigger company I have more of a chance, for example, to apply for a different position or a different department and get out of that whole situation, in quotation marks. Whereas at a smaller company, there’s certainly closeness, but if things don’t quite work out with the boss or with a colleague on the team, I have few alternatives. That means if a good working relationship, in quotation marks, isn’t there, it can get very, very tricky and very difficult, or might even mean I actually have to leave the company because I have no alternative. That means I’m constantly, permanently visible, even if I might not want to be, in quotation marks. So that too — if we look at it in both directions, it has both advantages and disadvantages at that point. And especially this aspect of visibility, in quotation marks — we want to be seen and also perceived and also valued. So here too, all these aspects around respect and so on. We had the room about listening, and how important that listening also is. That means we know this from many contexts, especially in conversations or relationships where we feel comfortable, those are especially relationships where the other person also gives us the feeling of really listening closely to us, being mindful and so on, and also engaging with different things. And all of that feeds into this empathy too, into this concept of empathy. That means being attentive to some degree, and perceiving and accepting me as a person, as I am, so to speak, and responding to that. And the better someone conveys that feeling to me, the more comfortable I feel, in quotation marks, too. That doesn’t necessarily mean we have to agree on every point or anything like that, but then I feel seen, in quotation marks, as I am. And that has an effect on me — and of course the other way round too, when we approach other people that way, that it strengthens the relationship too. And in a trusting relationship, where an encounter takes place on these different levels with these terms that have come up now, I might gain a completely different kind of hearing at that point — and the sentences spoken get a different meaning too. That means, in itself, that a foundation is laid, with empathy, for example, in dialogue, that insight becomes possible again too, because both sides are listening and paying attention, looking mindfully at the content and also reacting, to re-establish connection and so on, which possibly also feeds into this aspect of gaining insight again. What would you say, Marc?

Yes, I can underline that. I’m trying right now, or thinking right now, about whether feelings can also prevent insight — whether I can even connect feelings with empathy. And I keep noticing, when we think about ourselves, that the easiest example of having empathy is over theoretical things, when we’re talking — you can always say, yes, I find that important, and everything you said makes sense to me. But what happens when people turn away from us, both professionally and privately? And my example is always this: there are people who once said “I do” to each other, who love each other. That was the great love, they’d do anything for each other. And when suddenly one person turns away, for whatever reason, then that’s the end of the empathy. Then the lawyers get wheeled out and it becomes a fight to the death. Often that’s how it goes — a lot of lawyers make a living off that. Or in a professional context too, where employees we trusted, who worked with us for a long time, maybe one of Sascha’s colleagues says, hey Sascha, I’ve been with you for ten or twelve years now, I know how this works, I’m going to do exactly the same thing, in Munich too — and of course you’re disappointed then. And bringing up empathy in that moment, and paying attention to whether I’m now acting out of feelings — can I even still be empathetic, or am I completely governed by emotion right now because I’m hurt, and, and, and. That’s always the biggest challenge for me, to really look at it factually too — okay, this is an entrepreneur, he has a family too, he wants to provide for his family too. Maybe that’s the right thing for him, and if something is right for the other person, it doesn’t always have to be what I wish for. And that’s where I distinguish whether I’m noticing, is this a situation I wish were different, or is it a situation where I’m being empathetic, where I can understand what the other person is doing, even if I don’t have to like the situation.

Yes, absolutely an important aspect you’re raising there — something like drifting apart, and divorce, is a really classic example of that. Often, especially when children are involved, they’re the ones who suffer, in quotation marks, because consideration often isn’t given to them, and it plays out on a different level, in a kind of conflict. And even in situations like that, actually not losing empathy, in quotation marks, but trying at least to keep the whole thing civil, and also taking into account that often this system — if we think in systems-theory terms — this system of a marriage usually doesn’t just consist of two people involved, but can genuinely have more members too, and if that’s the case, then it naturally has a corresponding impact on other members as well. But even if there are no children involved, and it’s not an official divorce but just a breakup in a relationship, friends are often affected too, for example. So that shouldn’t be underestimated either, especially in long relationships, where maybe shared friends, new friends, also came about together, and then it comes to a breakup. This plays into it here too. Often people are then expected to take sides, or something along those lines. This aspect of empathy plays a role here too, and I find that really fascinating. There’s a question in the chat that fits well right now, and I want to pick up the other contribution again in a moment too, but the most recent one here, from Ismail: how can you develop empathy? Can I influence or encourage my counterpart’s empathy? And since I’ve just brought in this example with the breakups and so on, going beyond marriage too, so also with partnership breakups and so on, I think this question fits really well in this context. Personally, I’d say that it enormously helps to open up different perspectives, to actually open them up in dialogue, so that it even becomes possible to look at things through different lenses, so to speak, and empathy develops through that. Because if I don’t even put myself in the other person’s position, in how the other person is feeling about it, then I often lack compassion too — not because empathy is inherently missing, but because I never even look at it from the other perspective in the first place, at what it might mean for the other person, or how it’s perceived by them. Marc, where do you stand on that? What’s your assessment?

Yes, I have several current cases on my mind right now. And dear Yasemin, I’ve been thinking these past few weeks about how great it is when people can talk well. And I’ve often said, wow, that person can really talk, or hold a discussion. And what strikes me even more this year, 2023, is how great it is when someone asks the right questions. I’ve realised for myself that it’s actually really difficult to ask the right question. And I’d like to give some examples of that too. It’s always about situations, whether among friends or colleagues, that have happened where feelings got hurt. And usually I’d react by saying, I think it’s stupid that you do this or that, or I don’t like it when you do this or that. That’s always already an accusation. To communicate the same thing differently, so to speak — to train empathy, or turn toward the other person — I’m trying now with good questions instead, by simply… How would you feel? So, for example, on the topic of people who are constantly late. I could say, hey Bernd, you’re always late, I really don’t like that, I don’t like that about you. But I can also ask him instead, Bernd, how would you feel if we were meeting up on Saturday for the cinema? You’re really looking forward to the film. The two of us are going to have a proper guys’ night, buddies going out together. And then I just don’t show up, and I don’t even call you. What would that do to you? And then the other person at least has to think about it and give me an answer. So a good question prompts the other person to think. And maybe that doesn’t immediately push them into defensive mode.

Yes, absolutely, that’s one possibility. And at the same time, if we pick up this aspect of cultural differences again — we often evaluate things against the backdrop of the values we hold, against the backdrop of the cultural background we grew up in. Socialisation plays a really big role here. And especially to tie back in with the different perspectives too — we’re constantly making assumptions, or rather we evaluate something like this aspect of unpunctuality right away, for example. That’s actually a really big topic in German-speaking countries, by the way. That means whenever the subject of punctuality or unpunctuality comes up, there’s always a lot to say about it, and it seems to occupy a lot of people somehow. Letting go of that a little here, in quotation marks, apparently proves really, really difficult. But this aspect of punctuality or unpunctuality, depending on which cultural background you’re coming from, is understood completely differently, or is connoted differently, and is evaluated quite differently too. And there are definitely cultures that just wouldn’t understand why we in German-speaking countries place so much value on everything happening exactly on time. The simplest example I can bring up — and there are many cultures this applies to — but the simplest one I can pick is the Turkish background, for instance. There, not nearly as much value is placed on it, partly because it’s simply not always easy to organise and structure things on time. That means, because of the traffic on the ground in the country, especially if you live in cities like Istanbul, you can really only take on one task per day if it involves something local, not something done online or over the phone, but something you have to take care of in person. Because everything else just isn’t possible traffic-wise. You’re on the move, one way or another, for several hours just to get from one side of the city to the other. And then some things might be overly bureaucratic on top of that, or commitments aren’t kept, or whatever, so that something you might have taken care of relatively quickly here in Germany ends up taking many hours there, so that you literally can’t get more than one thing done in a day. And if someone from that kind of cultural background is now supposed to arrive on time to a meeting, and they don’t know that concept, then it’s simply unimaginable for them, they genuinely can’t relate to it. And if you asked them, how would you feel? Well, what are they supposed to answer to that? Well, that wouldn’t bother me at all. So really different components play a role here, and especially these value constructs, these cultural constructs — this is an extreme example now, some of you might think, that probably doesn’t come up that often, but we do have this in many contexts, and you can observe it in coaching sessions too, for instance, that against the backdrop of our own value constructs we make evaluations, and against that backdrop we then think the other person ought to be able to understand it, or that we have to explain to the other person how we feel. Explaining how we feel isn’t wrong in itself, but we mustn’t automatically assume, in quotation marks, that we’re right — which is itself an evaluation — and that the other person can genuinely relate to it either. They might be able to understand it on a factual level, but might have completely different values, and accordingly might not place so much value on punctuality, for instance. For them, as long as someone isn’t three hours late, it might be perfectly fine. And when formulating a question, for instance, maybe not going in with the approach of, how do I have to phrase this question so that it already suggests I’m right and the other person understands me — but instead conducting this understanding aspect on that level, or having the conversation on that level, genuinely putting the other person’s perspective on the table first through whatever form of verbalisation, whether questions or statements, and then just seeing — without having already planned in advance, in quotation marks, what I intend to achieve — what comes out of this dialogue and what insights might become possible here too. And that again requires this openness we already talked about — not going in with the plan of, what’s my goal, what do I want to achieve with this, in the sense of the other person should understand this and should please handle things differently — but instead looking at what might lie behind it, which might also lead to an insight for me. Marc, what do you think about that?

I just realised that my question would have been exactly a manipulative technique — goal-oriented, in this case oriented toward my goal, not necessarily the other person’s goal. Thank you, dear Yasemin. And I just gave myself a different answer to that very example with the other person. Bernd could now respond, okay, Marc, we didn’t make it to the cinema, but we wanted to have a guys’ night, didn’t we? What’s so bad about that? What happens if we don’t go to the cinema today? We still have plenty of time to go grab a drink somewhere nice. And after all, it’s about us spending time together, not about us watching a film together, but about us wanting to spend an evening together. That’s my insight, and I only got there through the shift in perspective, which is important every time too.

Yes, wonderful, a lovely example. So that shows us that we generate different perspectives in dialogue too. And this shift in perspective specifically leads to us being able to develop empathy on one hand, and generate insight on the other. So, an important aspect. Now, we also have a comment here relating to this aspect we touched on — leftover buffer time, leaving earlier, you don’t want to carry that yourself because you don’t want to wait yourself. Okay, I can’t fully make sense of what’s meant by that. So it’s about buffer times. I can leave earlier, yes. You don’t want to carry it yourself, because you don’t want to wait yourself. I don’t know, can you make anything of that, Marc? Otherwise, maybe someone else, gladly.

Yes, I think it’s like this. So, going by my own interpretation — if I want, well, if I know it’s going to take that long, following your example, that I’ll be on the road longer, then I leave earlier myself. Because if I don’t like waiting, I might also assume that you don’t like waiting either. And so I leave earlier off my own bat, and factor in every traffic jam and every accident, so that you never, under any circumstances, have to wait. Maybe that’s the direction it was meant in — that I’m basically projecting what I feel onto you. That means if I don’t like waiting, Yasemin probably doesn’t like waiting either. But then we’re back at the shift in perspective. Who says that, though? For you it might be a completely different situation. And it has no real consequence. And, well, nobody dies from waiting, it’s not a big deal. It’s actually nice.

Thank you, thank you so much. Yes, and it’s also been confirmed that that’s what was meant — so if you want to make it on time, you can leave earlier. When it comes to Istanbul, I can only say, anyone who’s experienced Istanbul once will know that this simply isn’t possible. So even if you leave three hours early, you still don’t know whether you’ll get there on time. So, again, that comes from this cultural background, from the structures we might know here — we’re assuming something completely different. You can’t transfer that to other countries and other customs like that. I still remember clearly that it once happened that it started raining heavily, which meant that even though we’d left many hours earlier — and we only noticed the rain that morning — we set off immediately once we realised it, and it still resulted in me missing my flight at the time, because there was simply chaotic traffic and it wasn’t possible to reach the airport on time, even though the airport was in Istanbul too. We were in Istanbul, not somewhere outside the city or anything like that. And this same rain scenario would be totally uncritical here in Germany, but there in Turkey that kind of infrastructure just doesn’t exist, for instance. That means even leaving three or four hours early doesn’t necessarily help you get there on time. And people there are simply shaped by these circumstances. That doesn’t mean someone couldn’t adapt here — of course they could. But because they grew up in that kind of environment, they approach the aspect of punctuality in a completely different way as a matter of course. That means they’ve learned, in quotation marks, well, you set a day for it, or I’ll come by on Tuesday, that’s how it’s said. And then you don’t know when exactly they’ll come by. Usually nothing is narrowed down further, not even morning or afternoon — you just know someone will come by at some point. And that’s a really, really fascinating phenomenon. And if someone has grown up with that cultural background, then they might not initially be able to relate to it properly, and so on. And it really is a learning process for them to gradually come to understand, over time, that things are handled differently here, because things really can be planned and implemented much better here too. And that’s really fascinating at this point. And now I’d like to pick up another contribution that came in earlier — it’s fairly long, I’ll just read it out. Insight and empathy are closely connected: through insight, in particular through knowledge of God’s wisdom and commandments, we can understand what’s right and wrong and how we should behave toward others. Empathy, on the other hand, allows us to put ourselves in other people’s shoes, to understand their feelings and needs, and to respond to them appropriately. When we have both insight and empathy, we can make wise and compassionate decisions that meet the needs of others and help us grow and develop as human beings. In this sense, insight can help us show empathy, and conversely, empathy can help us attain insight and attain wisdom. Lovely. Again, this aspect of reciprocity. Marc, what do you say to that?

I think that’s spot on, and yes, I think it’s lovely. Thank you for the contribution — to whoever wrote it, I haven’t seen who that was.

Thank you. Yes, that’s from Tobias. And I find this reciprocity really interesting again too, in both directions. That means they depend on each other to some extent. And on the other hand, especially this closing sentence — in this sense insight can help us show empathy. So through insight, showing empathy. And conversely, empathy can help us attain insight. So I find it really fascinating too, seen from one side and then from the other. Now, we also have another aspect here — some people lack the emotional intelligence to develop empathy. Emotional intelligence is maybe another term that hasn’t come up yet at all. Yes, maybe a really important point too. Marc, what would you like to say about emotional intelligence?

Yes, I immediately think of our politicians and have to smile. Your topic today is insight and empathy, and this is actually really topical right now. If we’ve reached the insight that we all need to do something for the climate, then I don’t think there’s any disagreement there. But what I often miss in the discussions is the empathy, because, for example, with what’s really topical right now and all over the media — the heating systems — if we say, as of now there’ll be no more gas heating and no more oil heating, then that’s an insight where you say, protect the climate, great, I fully support that. At the same time, if empathy is missing and isn’t communicated, you have to say, or I don’t understand what’s going on in people’s heads, that they at least don’t communicate, hey, before you all get worked up, we know there are a lot, lot of things tied to this and we haven’t thought it all through yet. So before you get worked up, we haven’t thought it through completely yet. And then I think, for example, of an elderly retired couple living on their pension, whose heating breaks down — they simply can’t save sixty thousand euros for a new one, just as an example. And politicians would probably avoid a lot of these discussions if they just said, yes, I know, there are a lot of points that haven’t been thought through yet, we don’t have an answer to that yet either. The only insight we have is that we need to do something, and we’ll also discuss these specific sub-points. But they don’t communicate that, and then I don’t know whether that’s a lack of empathy or simply — I can’t find another word for it — but I think they’d have a much easier time in some talk shows if they didn’t present everything as set in stone and instead just admitted it. There are open questions, I can’t give you an answer to that today. I don’t know. All I know is we need to do something, but I know there are still open questions, and we’ll clarify those. By leaving a door open like that, nobody can accuse me, and there’s no fate to fear, because I’ve still left a door open — and that’s what I feel is missing sometimes. And that’s what came to mind just now, insight and empathy. We’re handed a lot of insights, but sometimes at least I feel the empathy is missing to be able to relate to it, to understand it.

Yes, thank you so much, and I’d like to bring in one more aspect that we haven’t talked about quite as much yet. When it comes to empathy or emotional intelligence, we often think, to some extent, in terms of competencies or what I can observe in the other person, or putting myself in the other person’s shoes and so on. But if we turn the focus back on ourselves for a moment, against the backdrop that it also means, for instance, perceiving not just the other person’s feelings but our own too — understanding that, for example through a shift in perspective, and responding to it — but also actually first realising in ourselves, something’s coming up in me here, something’s happening right now — and this mindfulness toward our own feelings, becoming aware of them in the first place, also plays a really important role in this context. How important is that from your point of view, Marc?

That was one of the learning experiences I got to take away for myself in 2023, from a time when we once took words apart together in this room. And on my travels it also happened that I was on the phone with someone who said, I’m disappointed, and I congratulated him. I said, that’s actually great, because I learned from you that “disappointed” — in German, “enttäuscht” — just means the end of the deception, and if something has ended, well, the end of the deception, that’s actually excellent. Of course, always looking at it not as the outcome I wished for, but now it’s the end of the deception. That’s a shift in perspective again too, and you notice, what feelings are coming up in me right now? I’m angry, I’m disappointed, someone deceived me, I invested so much time. Really, really strong feelings come up. But basically, it’s the end of the deception. And this shift in perspective, and recognising the feelings that are surfacing in me right now, helps me arrive at a new evaluation. And this new evaluation then helps me deal with the situation better. Because anger — I already said this yesterday too — anger at someone else, or even at ourselves, poisons our body.

Yes, wonderful, lovely. Thank you, thank you so much. And that shows us too, at this point, that it’s not just about the other person, or about how I might manage to get the other person to do something, this goal-oriented approach, but really that a great deal of it has to do with us ourselves too, at this point. And we’ve come to this as a result again and again from these rooms. Especially when it comes to processes of change, to a dialogue with each other, where it’s not just about talking about things but genuinely stepping into a certain depth, understanding, triggering processes of understanding, generating insights — then there are also many moments where we first get to look at ourselves mindfully and attentively. What’s actually happening here? Just noticing an emotional impulse in the first place, and then not reacting to it impulsively, as if we were a victim of it, in quotation marks, but actually taking a moment to reflect and analyse first, and then moving into an evaluation for ourselves, and maybe making decisions based on that too — how do I actually want to handle this situation, for myself and also in dialogue with the other person, in the encounter with the other person. And that requires mindfulness, not just in dealing with the other person, but in dealing with ourselves too. So that I even recognise it, perceive it, and then reflect on it to some extent, in order to arrive at a result for myself, or make a decision. How do I want to handle it? And so I find this aspect really, really important too. Yes, wonderful, dear Marc. Thank you, thank you, thank you so much for all your contributions here in exchange with me, and for the wonderful contributions from the chat too. I think quite a lot came together. And tomorrow we’ll continue with insight and time as a dimension — so what role does time play in gaining insight? I’m really curious what levels we’ll open up here with this dimension of time. And so I’m looking forward to tomorrow. Do join us again at 8am in the Deep Talk. And with that, I’d like to move into today’s closing round. Marc, is there anything else you’d like to underline, anything you’d like to pick up on again, or your highlights from the room?

Yes, something that’s really, really important to me, when I listen to or take part in other rooms myself — all of this sounds easier than it actually is. And I really want to say, because it matters a lot to me, that this shift in perspective is really, really hard for me. And I don’t want the impression to arise — this sometimes bothers me in other rooms — that people always say, well, just do a shift in perspective. What good does that do? Just change your attitude and evaluate it differently. There are situations, like death, for example the death of a family member, that make me sad and knock the ground out from under me. And in that moment it doesn’t help me at all if the person I’m talking to says, just do a shift in evaluation, or do a shift in perspective. And if I lose my job, then I can’t support my family. And it doesn’t help me in that moment either if I say, I’ll find a new job, what good does that do. And maybe we’ll talk about that tomorrow, dear Yasemin — then time helps. Simply relying on time, as you’ve said before. In the future we’ll be able to reassess the past and see what it was good for. But sometimes there just are situations where there simply isn’t a right answer and a right solution today, where we so badly wish for or need the answer.

Yes, thank you, thank you so much. A really important point, I think. And let’s definitely pick that up again tomorrow, because it also fits wonderfully with this dimension of time. And it might help us as a first impulse, so to speak, to start with this topic tomorrow, and what role that plays — how you deal with a situation of loss or pain, for instance, when it’s not simply resolved just like that, or when it needs space, so to speak. And these are exactly the aspects we want to look at more closely tomorrow, and so I think it’s a wonderful start if we pick this up and use it together as our opening for tomorrow. So you’re warmly invited to join again tomorrow morning at 8am, as I said, when we open up the room topic of insight and time as a dimension in the Deep Talk. And to talk exactly about these aspects — maybe you have further examples you’d like to bring in too, just bring them along and join in, either on stage or through the chat, so that we can pick up these various points and shape another many-faceted room together tomorrow, in the spirit of reflection. With that, I wish you all a wonderful morning and a good start to your day, whatever you have planned, and I’m looking forward to tomorrow. Until then. Bye!