On today’s episode of No Bullshit with Alex Willis, you’ll score your own level of empathy and compassion, reflect on your upbringing, unpack your privilege backpack, flex your muscles of understanding, and rise about the noise. (04/04)
What’s it really mean to be empathetic and compassionate? Do I really need it to be a good leader? We hear these words together all the time: empathy and compassion. But you don’t have to be Mother Theresa to be an empathetic and compassionate person. And you surely don’t have to discredit your hard work and compare yourself to others when it’s unfair.
On today’s episode of No Bullshit with Alex Willis, you’ll score your own level of empathy and compassion, reflect on your upbringing, unpack your privilege backpack, flex your muscles of understanding, and rise about the noise. Alex tells personal life stories on how he navigates privilege and bias, and how treating teammates as unique individuals is key to leadership in the workplace.
In our final segment, The Frame Out, we explore what happens when you work hard but don’t check your privilege: Entitlement. You’ll learn the 4 components of authentic compassion, and how you can show up for others on your team and not burn-out.
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[00:00:00] Alex: Welcome back to episode six, my friends. Welcome to the Frame out where we are bringing all of this together to show you how to flex that empathy and compassion muscle so that you can be a phenomenal leader and connect better and well with your teams. Right now, in the last segment, we really begin to talk about this thing called Privilege.
[00:00:26] Alex: Privilege. And so I'm gonna ask a question. I'm gonna start this segment off for the question. If you've been following me from our first episode, you understand, or you know that I played football at the University of Florida for the Gators. Went on to play for a short, short stint for the Tampa Bay Buccaneers in the N F L.
[00:00:43] Alex: And I love to ask this question, playing in the N F L, was it hard work or was it a privilege? Huh? What do you think? I'm gonna pause for a second now. I'm gonna be honest. Most of my classes fighted out to the death on this one. And most people say, no, dude, you worked your ass off. It was hard work, man. It was hard work, man.
[00:01:04] Alex: Right? That's kind of how they give it to me. Wait, hear me out. I tend to lean on the side of privilege. Now understand, most people can't fathom the concept of privilege because they think you are discrediting their hard work, and we're not doing that when we talk about privilege. Acknowledging privilege.
[00:01:23] Alex: First of all, there's nothing wrong with privilege. Please understand that it's back to that Spider-Man quote. With great power comes great responsibility. So when you realize you have it, it's how you use it for one. But, but secondly, please, please, please understand that just because I have privilege, it doesn't discredit my hard work.
[00:01:39] Alex: So, so understand. Back to my football example. For me, I lean on the side of privilege versus hard work because. It's not like I chose to have this amazing physique in frame, right? No, I'm just, no, but it's not like I chose to have this wide receiver frame. It's not like I chose to have this type speed, athletic ability, the country that I was born in, because had I been born in any other third world country, even if I had all the attributes to play football, because that country doesn't acknowledge football, I probably wouldn't have made it to the nfl.
[00:02:09] Alex: So I tend to lean this way, my friends. I lean heavily on privilege and I was able to take my privilege and be thankful for my privilege, marry it with hard work to take advantage of the opportunity before me. So understand the fact that I wasn't born with some type of challenge or born five three, because that would be very, very difficult to play in N F L, and that would be totally outta my control.
[00:02:35] Alex: So I take the privilege that I have, I marry it with hard work, and all of a sudden now my friends, I can take advantage of this opportunity. Understand this. When you only lean on hard work and you say things like, Hey, I worked my ass off. I worked hard to get here to where I am. I'm a part of the union.
[00:02:51] Alex: I'm a part of this. I'm a part of that. I made it a superintendent of foreman cuz I worked my ass off and it was all my hard work Bullshit. When you lean only on hard work, it's a slippery slope, my friends. It's easy to lean over into that next category of entitlement. Yeah. This is why we get so frustrated with a lot of famous people and athletes because of their entitlement.
[00:03:16] Alex: They forget the privilege that got them to where they are. The privilege and the opportunity. That sometimes was happenstance that, yeah, you take advantage of it and you did work hard, but there was a privilege associated with it. The more I lean on that privilege, the more I lean away from just hard work.
[00:03:31] Alex: I want you to think about it for a second. I'm gonna be honest with you because this is a struggle for me right now for most of us listening right now. There's a struggle as we raise the next generation, our kids, because they don't have the struggle the way we did it because of their parents privileged and taking advantage of marrying hard work.
[00:03:54] Alex: We create amazing opportunities for our kids, but if our kids don't realize how privileged they are to be born in your family, they become very entitled, and that can be horrible. We see that with spoiled kids all the time. I'm gonna use some harsh language right here because I tell my kids this quite frequently.
[00:04:12] Alex: I tell 'em quite frequently. I say, Hey, listen, just because you woke up on third base does not mean you hit a fucking trip. Please understand that. I, I tell my daughters that all the time. Listen, you woke up on third base. You hadn't even swung a bat. It's because of your mom and dad and the privilege that you have of being born in this family, that you have the resources that you have.
[00:04:32] Alex: When we can begin to frame it out like that, and maybe you don't use harsh language like I did with your kids, but when you can frame it out like that with yourself, with those around you, you stay out of that entitlement box, right? So if you can begin to fathom that and grasp that, you can do a great job of connecting with other people, realizing that where you are is a huge result of privilege and as a result of privilege, being able to offer empathy and compassion to others.
[00:05:01] Alex: Now it brings me to this last segment, this last piece. What is empathy and compassion? And for today, we're just gonna lump 'em all together. We're gonna lump both of those together. Empathy, compassion is is sympathetic, pity and concern for the misfortune and suffering of others. Now understand most times we look at compassion just one way and we say, well, the Mother, Teresa, where we give, give, give, give, give.
[00:05:23] Alex: No. There's another side of compassion also where I show tough love. Because there's a third word we want to keep people out of, which is enablement. Now, I can't just allow the homeless person on the side of the road to give them 10 bucks every day to enable them to stay where they are. No, no, no, no, no, no, no, no.
[00:05:41] Alex: The other side of compassion, my friends, is sometimes that I'm going to cut you off so that I can help you become who you are meant to be, and that's another form of compassion, right? I want you to think about that now as it pertains to this thing of compassion. Psychology Today says there are four things that must happen in order for you to truly show empathy and compassion to another person.
[00:06:02] Alex: So one of those four things. Number one is you must have an awareness. You must be aware of what's going on, aware of the situation, aware of the people around you. Number two, you have to have an emotional connection to that situation, to those people. Number three, you have to have a wish to actually see the situation removed from the person.
[00:06:20] Alex: I wish this person wasn't in this situation. And then number four, you have to have a responsiveness to remove it, meaning you jump into action to do something to actually remove it from them. Now, psychology today says, unless you do all four steps, you're not truly being compassionate. Now, oftentimes my friends, Some of the acts of kindness that we do, we do it to feel our own buckets, not to be truly empathetic and compassionate.
[00:06:45] Alex: What do I mean by that? Well, if you go from level one awareness to level four, immediately response to move it, oftentimes that's to make ourselves feel good or to get the person out of your hair. That's you just rolling the window down, giving five bucks to the person on the side of the road, speeding off.
[00:06:59] Alex: Right? So I wanna challenge you, I wanna know of the four, what's most difficult for you? Awareness being emotionally connected. Actually wishing to see it. Removing, wishing better things for the person or actually responding to removing, right. I have no answer for you on that. That's something that you need to struggle with and see how you can begin to work things out.
[00:07:22] Alex: Please, please, please understand my friends, I love this quote that I heard years ago from a gentleman by the name of Andy Stanley. He's a pastor in Atlanta. Andy said this, well, lemme say before I tell you. Andy's court. You can't help everyone. Let's be honest. You can't help everyone. You don't have time.
[00:07:38] Alex: But Andy said, Andy Stanley said this, Hey, do for one what you wish you could do for all. Do for one what you wish you could do for all. By going through those four steps you have to decide, understand there's a lot of gray area. Is this a time when I need to slow down and stop and help this person out?
[00:07:58] Alex: Is the time when, hey, maybe this isn't one of the people that I'm gonna do for one, which I wish I could do for all in this moment. There's no right or wrong answers, but in order to really create belonging environments to create diverse inclusive environments, we have to learn sometimes to just slow down and not allow life to get in the way of my friend.
[00:08:19] Alex: Let's recap. If you could begin to expand your identity, who you are. Far beyond your ethnicity and your gender. If you can begin to understand that at times you play both the role of the agent and the target, if you can begin to unpack that privileged backpack and then walk through these four steps of awareness, emotional connection, wishing to see the situation removed and actually responding to move it.
[00:08:45] Alex: You'll begin to see tremendous gains in your level of empathy and compassion. I'm a witness of it. Yeah, I'm, I'm at a three right now. I told you that. 2.53, but man, I was in a negative digits. I'm getting much better because I'm learning to slow down, see the other person, challenge my assumptions, ask questions, and really begin to understand.
[00:09:07] Alex: I don't know their story, and as a result of not knowing their story, I can do better. The last thing I'm gonna leave it with you is this. Don't be jaded if you get burnt every now and again. I had a guy in our construction class the other day said, Alex, I gave money to a homeless guy. Well, no, he didn't give money.
[00:09:23] Alex: He said, the guy asked me for money and I asked. I said, Hey, listen, I don't have money. I won't give you cash, but if you want something to eat, I'll go in the store and we can buy something together. So he went in the store, bought the guy a bunch of stuff. He said, Alex, when I got in my car, as I was driving out, I looked back, I looked up in the rear view mirror, the guy was going back into the store to return all of the items to get cash.
[00:09:41] Alex: He said, because of that, I don't give money to anybody anymore. And I said, dude, you can't do that, brother. You can't do that, man. Understand that's one person. Every person that you get to encounter to offer empathy and compassion too, is a different person and you have to come to a place. Well, I'll say this, Alex has come to a place in life where I'm comfortable enough to say, you know what?
[00:10:02] Alex: I'm trying to do my best for humanity and society. Right, and, and if I get burned every now and again, I'm okay with that because I'm being honest with you. Five, 10 bucks, man, it's not gonna hurt me, right? I would prefer to be able to try to connect with people, show empathy and compassion, so outside on that side of arrow versus just cutting everyone off.
[00:10:22] Alex: So I wanna just thank you for being here to with me today. I wanna challenge the work complex, that muscle, my friends, you got it in you, but you gotta practice it. Have a good one, guys. So I wanna thank you again for tuning in to No Bullshit with Alex Willis, the go-to source for leadership development in the construction industry.
[00:10:39] Alex: Be sure to subscribe on YouTube or your favorite podcasting platform so that you can be notified when we have new episodes released. My friends right now, Leave us a comment, leave us a comment, let us know what you think about the show. Also, if you have any leadership challenges, we wanna know what those are so that we can make sure we're we, uh, cover those on the show.
[00:10:59] Alex: Here's why, because we are here for you. We wanna make sure we help you be a phenomenal leader, both at work and at home, my friends. So until next time, have a great with my friends. I'll see you later.