Learning to Connect

By Ken Stewart on July 13, 2008

Experience = Learning I’ve been thinking a lot lately. The specifics aren’t relevant to this conversation, but I would venture a guess that if you reading this you 1) Think a lot, and 2) want to think a lot because you like being exposed to new ideas.

I’ve been trying to get better about two things:

Telling stories to interact with the other person(s)
Being empathetic and seeking empathy from the other person(s)

In telling stories, I am finding it easier to connect with people – which is the point of empathy. But you know what I found? To be empathetic to my audience, I have to seek commonality.

This doesn’t mean I have to imitate them, far from it. What is does indicate is that I have to be able to share experiences with people in order to relate. This translates into me living: I must live to have experiences from which I can empathize.

So in order to empathize, I always have to be learning new things. Wow, what a great way to connect to people – through learning!

Image courtesy of Becky Carroll

Ken Stewart’s blog, ChangeForge.com, focuses on the collision between the constantly changing worlds of business and technology. Ken is also the Director of Technology at Kearns Business Solutions.

Empathy: The Bridge Connecting People

Living Life In The Rearview

Posted in Change, Culture | Tagged Empathy, Experience, Learning, life lessons, Story-Telling

Ken Stewart

People-focused, business-minded, technology-savvy leader who likes to ask: "Why?"

Strong One

Hmm.. isn't that what blogging really is? Story telling?

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ChangeForge is a place where business and technology collide with a desire to alter a paradigm and improve how we perceive those things around us. This site is built upon the premise of offering a platform to share ideas and start conversations. This site focuses upon change and shifting paradigms, offering perspective on how technology can be applied to business problems while maintaining a people-friendly perspective. ChangeForge covers a wide variety of topics, but will primarily focus on strategies revolving around bridging technology and business, hosting authors from different walks of life and offering brain-fodder on many different fronts.

In this day and age, people don't seem to get that you can have an opinion of your own, and that people are entitled to a responsible opinion. As such, ChangeForge is a place for me to post opinions on various things relating to business and technology. These opinions are those of the author alone, and do not necessarily reflect the opinions of respective employers, co-workers, or those referenced within this site. If you take issue with these opinions, you are most welcome to move on to another slice of the cloud. My hope, however, is that you will engage in some level of an intellectual debate in an effort to learn something, teach me something, or simply make the world just a little better...