Applying professional expertise to my personal life

Hello,

How often do you apply your professional expertise to your personal life? Over the past several months, I’ve accompanied my youngest daughter through the college application process — and identified numerous ways for colleges to adapt, improve, and ensure their accessibility and relevance.

I shared my insights on LinkedIn, and they seem to have hit a nerve. I’d be curious to hear what innovations you’d apply to the college application and search process, based on your experiences and expertise.

Plus, read on to learn how to activate empathy and create business impact, to see the global risk that the World Economic Forum failed to mention, and more.

4 Ways to Start Tapping Into Empathy & Driving Financial Performance

Neuroscientific studies have proven that emotions influence decision-making and drive purchases. So, it’s critical to identify and act upon the drivers of your brand’s ability to empathize with users and buyers. To get started, I recommend the following:

1. Host listening sessions with customers and users. Plan to spend at least 80% of the time listening, and the other 20% asking open-ended, non-biasing questions.
2. Look critically at your customer experience. Where might there be inconsistencies between your customers’ and users’ emotional needs and how you deliver?
3. Read complaint narratives for vital insights. Focus not just on the complaints themselves, but the emotions that drove customers to complain.
4. Engage colleagues across Customer Service, Operations, Tech, Marketing, Product, Legal, and Compliance to internalize, process, and brainstorm ways to close your brand’s empathy gaps. The support of all of these groups (and others) is essential in creating the end-to-end experience that delivers not just product features, but that also creates an emotional connection that leads to loyalty.

Empathy isn’t a buzzword — it’s what draws people together. And I’ve been fortunate to work with leading brands to activate empathy, reach the people they serve, and create the results they’re looking for.

Global Institutions Must Address Mental Health Risks

Recently, Private Company Director magazine approached me with this question: what global risks should be added to the latest World Economic Forum’s Global Risks Report 2024?

My answer: mental health challenges.

These are not individual risks — these are global risks that lead to widespread impact, including:

• Economic impact. Mental health issues have a severe impact on productivity, impacting effectiveness and health care costs.
• Political impact. Governments are recognizing the need to allocate resources to their populations’ mental health challenges, and will need to continue to provide funding.
• Societal impact. These issues affect community well-being, family dynamics, and social cohesion. Unaddressed they lead to more homelessness, substance abuse, and crime.

It is a privilege to share my perspective on this important topic. I urge companies to ask themselves what steps they are taking to address their stakeholders’ mental health. 

Here is what I have learned — and continue to learn: Your future is created by the sum of every single short-term decision that you make.

Leaders who make daily decisions that deliver on immediate needs and contribute to their future vision can achieve remarkable results.

What is your north star? How are you leading towards it? Where are you getting stuck along the way? I’d love to hear about your experiences and to see how I can help. My services include business strategy design and development, go-to market strategy and results, keynote speaking, and more.

Warm regards,