JUSTIN BARISO , Inc.; After a Historic Game, Patrick Mahomes Desperately Wanted to Speak With One Person. It's a Lesson in Emotional Intelligence
"Feeling Empathy vs. Showing Empathy
- Cognitive: the ability to understand how another person thinks and feels
- Emotional: the ability to share the feelings of another person
- Compassionate: taking action, to help however one can
As you can see, compassionate empathy is the only one of the three that is active. Compassionate empathy moves a person to actually do something about what they've discovered. And while it may be the most challenging of the three to demonstrate, it's also the most rewarding.
But you might wonder, what would have motivated Mahomes to make such an effort to speak to a fierce competitor?
Rewind back to 2019, when Tom Brady and the Patriots defeated Mahomes and the Chiefs in a very similar fashion. After the game, Brady made a special effort to speak to Mahomes, to share an encouraging word and to help Mahomes keep his chin up.
"He said that he loved the way that I played," Mahomes once revealed in an interview with Tonight Show host Jimmy Fallon. "It was awesome for him to do that and to show that class at such an exciting moment."
This is why we say empathy begets empathy.
When a person feels understood, they're more likely to try to reciprocate that effort. Or, as Mahomes demonstrates, to pay that empathy forward.
And the more you exercise your empathy muscle, the stronger it gets. For Mahomes, it will become only easier to show empathy the next time--to his wife, his family, his teammates, his coach, his friends, his competitors.
The result? You earn the respect of others, and are able to build stronger, deeper, more loyal relationships.
So, the next time you see someone suffering through something you've experienced, resist the urge to brush them aside. Instead, take a page out of Mahomes's playbook, and show some empathy.
It'll make you, and the people around you, that much better."
