If I Had Only Known...

What is the best way to know people?  Google them?

Do a social media deep dive?  Ask people you know if they know the person?

Or maybe.

To know someone is to listen to them.

In the words of a seven-year-old girl, Mimi Nicklin’s daughter Umi, “if we don't listen, we tell people we don't like them and don't want to be their friend.”

To listen is to show someone they matter, that you value them. Wanting to know and valuing someone is to be their friend.

Making friends is not a learned skill; it's an instinctive action for very young children before they can comprehend the opposite.  Go to a day care or a gym child area, and you see friendships all over.

Our brain knows the key to survival is to know and be known, and drives us to act before we can cognitively decide differently.

But what if we thought we never ‘learned’ this? Or maybe knew and then lost the knowing. 

Walls Blocking Empathy

Things happen to us that make the instinct of friendships, caring, and compassion for others go dormant, be walled off, or seem wrong.

Being in a state of constant pressure and risk is one way.  Cortisol drives people to survive rather than serve.

Another way is to block off this practice or feel like we were never taught about Empathy as a means to connect with others.

Mimi shared during our conversation about a workshop she hosted where members of the incarcerated community were attending.

One woman, after hearing Mimi describe Empathy and its power, said this, “If someone had taught us this when we were small, we wouldn’t have hurt people.”

It’s heartbreaking, “if we had known, we wouldn’t have hurt people.”

Yet through extensive research, we have found that empathy is an instinctive skill generated through the prefrontal cortex of the brain.

Yet when people are in unsafe, pressure-filled, or harmful situations, this skill is shut off.

Back to the woman who shared with Mimi, perhaps her ability to empathize was never ‘taught’ to her because the environment she lived in, studied, and existed within never allowed her brain to develop the cognitive pathways needed for empathy to become an instinctive response.

Most likely, this woman had built WALLS to safeguard herself from more harm and damage from the outside world.

I’VE BEEN THERE

I say most likely because I’ve been there.

I built walls; intensity, inactivity, insensitivity, and isolation, enough to protect me from all angles, from the harm the outside world threw at me.

The perception of not being enough.  The theory of not having value.  The pain of misunderstanding and hurt.  All the things that internally made my external world unsafe.

This not only impacted my personal relationships, but it also became my default response whenever I faced any difficulty.  Put my head down and push.

The barrier of protecting my inner self limited my ability to connect, listen, and see others.

And they knew it too.

They said such things as “I was all about me.”  “I was arrogant, insensitive, and selfish.” “I didn’t care about others' feelings.”

In the end, all of those things were said because that is how I showed up.

Eventually, to really connect, lead, and impact others, I had to come to grips with the person everyone saw.

I had to stop accepting the reflection in the mirror as the real me and accept how others viewed me.

Clean Your Window

A few years ago, as I was building content for my Awaken the Leader Within content and course for the IDL Roundtable, I had an epiphany.

Luckily, a friend shared this message with me. 

“Good morning 😊 I was watching your Coffee Chat 😇 I enjoy them! If I may make one observation… when you record, the objects in the background are in reverse… if you reversed them, specifically the “love” and “faith” on the shelves we would be able to read them straight on… just a small thought… those are powerful words that may make a difference in someone’s day as they watch your chat. 😇 Have a great day!!”

This message changed everything about my understanding of how the world saw me.

As I learned, you can ‘mirror’ your camera, so the words in the picture read left to right.  This makes the words understandable, recognizable, and meaningful.

It's the same for us as people.  If we act only concerning our intentions, we dismiss what people really see or experience when they interact with us.

If we drive down the road only looking in the mirrors rather than the windshield, we are bound to crash!

This is step one.  Look through the window.

Next, clean the window.

Inevitably, in life, we will have bugs - circumstances where the ways we act, the words we say, and the ways we wall up hurt people - splat our windshield.

If we don't work to ‘clean the window,’ to ask people how they see us and own it, our window will become so dirty we can only see through the mirror!

Our empathy is blocked.

And when it's blocked, we crash - we hurt people.

I leave you with this thought: sit with people, listen to people, value people, and be a friend.

LAST CALL! 

One last chance to join the Fall Roundtable.  Here is what a few members of the Summer Roundtable shared about their experience.

“I do believe I can be a leader, I am a leader. Through this time here, it has allowed me to be more comfortable in that leadership position.”

“It's allowed me to be more comfortable being a leader, changing my mindset of having these hard conversations to, you know, like you said, come at it with some curiosity and get their perspective and help them that way.”

“... being a more confident and comfortable leader as opposed to like questioning if I am a leader.”

For 12 weeks, we’ll hop on Zoom each week—not just to chat, but to really listen, support each other, and learn side by side. People who’ve joined before often say the best part wasn’t just the ideas or strategies—it was the sense of connection, the relief of realizing they weren’t navigating leadership on their own. Together, we create a space where it feels natural to be real, honest, and a little vulnerable. No one has to put on a front or have all the answers—it’s about showing up as ourselves and growing together.

Click here to join the list!

Did you catch this podcast? If not, listen to it here.