Women Networking: Empathy Is the Secret to Connecting with Joy

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by Dawn Billings, CEO and Founder of The Heart Link Women’s Network, with over 150 women networking locations is US, and Canada, and TROVA Women Business Directory, showcasing small business women with online advertising that works.

If you want to be a great networker, you must learn to be a great interviewer. A great interviewers are akin to great artists, they are there to be the brush that asks the questions resulting in a beautiful self-portrait. And when I say SELF-portrait, I am not talking about the interviewer, but the interviewee.

How does it feel in someone else's shoes?

In order to be a great interviewer, you must be willing to take off your shoes and try theirs on for size. Ask questions that will take you straight to the heart of the matter. Empathy is as essential in order to develop successful personal or professional relationships. Most people are hoping to find someone who wants to get to know them; someone who want to listen to them; someone who wants to care they are alive.

Empathy is often defined as the intellectual identification with another person or situation.

In other words, empathy is walking a mile in someone else’s shoes, experiencing the joys, frustrations, fears and sorrows of their life without actually having to live it. It is called learning how to benefit from other people’s experiences. Wow, what time and energy that could save us, you think?

Too often we are overcome with the awful enemy of empathy – entitlement, which keeps us egocentric and too self-consumed to notice any else. Self-consumption leads to a sense of entitlement. Entitlement tells us we have a “right to demand” that our needs and desires are met instantly.

Can you look at this picture without feeling empathy?

Empathy 101: Empathy is the ability to understand that even though you have never been a turtle, turned over on it’s back on a highway – you understand the potential danger. You can understand that a turtle might feel fearful, and that he needs help. You know all of that without ever having to be a turtle.

Empathy is like an emotion muscle. The more you use it, the stronger it gets. Empathy is the key to quality business networking, whether it is networking with women, networking at a chamber, or happy hour, or becoming a member of a business networking group. It is the way to build meaningful and mutually beneficial relationships. When you approach business networking events with empathy in mind, you begin to see life through the other person’s eyes.

Take this turtle picture to heart. “The most valuable things in life are not measured in monetary terms [or fame]. The really important things are not houses and lands, stocks and bonds, automobiles and real state, but friendships, trust, confidence, empathy, mercy, love and faith,” Bertrand Russell.

Contentment and a real joy of connecting will come when you stop to experience the emotions and stories of others. If you put your personal agenda on pause, you might be surprised by the rewards that come from sharing the soulful journey of another human being.

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Best Women Networking blog written by Dawn L Billings, author of over 20 books and hundreds of articles on parenting, relationships, entitlement and networking and an ardent advocate for womens and children’s issues. Dawn is the CEO and Founder of The Heart Link Womens Network, winner of the 2010 Women Entrepreneur Business Award of Excellence in the “women’s networking” category, Trova Women Business Directory and Trova Small Business Directory, The Heart Alliance.com international women’s networking organization and online community, and the creator of the new parenting toy/tool called Capables. In 2008 Dawn was selected by Oprah Magazine and The White House project as one of 80 emerging women leaders in the nation. Find out more and buy Dawn’s books To learn more about women networking check out our videos