Recently I was interviewed by Edwin Rutsch. The director of Center for Building a Culture of Empathy. Edwin’s organization is portal for resources and information about the values of empathy and compassion. One of the biggest problems speakers face is focusing too much on themselves and not enough on their audience. Edwin and I had a fascinating talk on ways to develop an empathetic approach to public speaking.
Here at Ginger we’ve talked extensively on the topic of empathy and how it features greatly in how we relate to the audience. So many presenters fail to realize how important empathy truly is, focusing on their ever growing list of information they wish to impart. They think more about what they want to say versus what the audience wants to hear. “I just have to get through all this material during my talk.” – sound familiar? While it’s true that informing is an important part of the process, focusing on who you’re speaking to makes the difference between talking at your audience and helping them to learn from you.
Here’s the empathy interview in all it’s Gingery goodness…
