Build Empathy with Video and Film
In this Voice Studio episode we discuss the power of movies to help us grow in our understanding of others. If you want to meet people where they are, we need to know how they are experiencing the world.
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Transcript
Hey, hey! It’s Andrea Wenburg and welcome to my Voice Studio where we are playing with the idea that developing a voice of influence is quite a bit like developing a singing voice, which is something that I have a little bit of experience with.
So today, I’m going to talk about Episode #4 with Mike Tringe. He has shared a lot of information about his story and how he got interested in the video and film school and then the beginnings of his company CreatorUp and how they are making film and video education accessible to anybody.
So if you haven’t already gone to his website, the website CreatorUp website, I would go there and check out their offerings because it got all kinds of amazing classes that are short to the point and really are very, very impactful when it comes to you learning how to use a video. One of the things that we talked about was this idea empathy and how video really allows us to empathize and really understand the perspective that somebody else might have, somebody that’s different than you.
Now in Episode #1 – Aspen Klausen, discussed how important it is for us to meet people where they’re at in order to be able to drab them in and lead them to light bulb kinds of moment. And then in Episode #2 – Finka Jerkovic, she talked about how important it is for us to tweak our messaging so that the person who’s listening can truly understand. So we base our messaging on where they are, not where we are. But how do we really know where other people are? How do we meet them where they are? Well, it has a lot to do with empathy.
Empathy is being able to put yourself into somebody else’s shoes and see the world through their eyes. Now, this doesn’t mean that you necessarily agree with everything that they say or believe that they should be handling everything or whether they’re handling it. It simply means that you are putting yourself in a position where you’re willing to truly see the world as they see it which might help you to be able to speak more directly to where they are in the moment. And that is why film is such a powerful medium. I love to go to movies because they give me an opportunity to experience the world through somebody else’s eyes and yet kind of pull away at the same time.
So I’m not totally in it but I’m able to observe the world that they’re experiencing and that is super powerful because when I allow myself to feel the feelings that the characters in the movie are feeling then I am able to better understand what it’s like to be who they are, to be in a position they’re in. Now, it’s important when we do put ourselves in that position to understand the actual value that we can get out of the movie.
Movies are typically not something where we’re supposed to get our beliefs from. OK, so if you have a belief about one thing but you go to a movie and your experience is that it is maybe different than your belief that is in my mind OK to the degree that you’re able to sort of separate your experience from your beliefs. So you experience the movie with great empathy, understanding who this person is and what it’s like to be them but you don’t get your actual belief from the movie. What you get is you gain an opportunity to truly understand another person, to tap in to their emotion and to know how to speak to it more clearly and that is super powerful.
So as you think about how you are going to develop your voice of influence, one of the things that you can do is go to a movie or watch a movie at home, something that maybe the characters aren’t just like you but they give you an opportunity to see the world through their eyes. So even if you don’t totally agree with everything that’s going on in a movie, you can at least gain perspective and understand how they are human and how you could speak and have a dialogue with somebody who’s in a position like they are.
These kinds of exercises like reading books, watching movies, or maybe watching YouTube videos. Again, you don’t necessarily get your theology or your beliefs from a movie; however, you can certainly gain and experience a deep and rich, a human kind of experience that will allow you to create a better dialogue with the people around you. So can you think of a movie that has really changed your perspective on how you see somebody else? I would love to hear about it. Come join the Facebook group Voice of Influence community and let’s continue the conversation there. So take this idea and go make your voice matter more!
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