High Performance Mindset | Learn from World-Class Leaders, Consultants, Athletes & Coaches about Mindset - 344: 3 Ways to Show Compassion

Episode Date: June 9, 2020

In this time of uncertainty around the nation, we can show compassion with others by gifting others with kindness and understanding. As leaders, we can realize people are suffering and have an authentic desire to listen and understand. Showing compassion is essential for human survival. We can listen with an open mind without judgment, work to understand another person’s perspective, and show ourselves some self-compassion at the same time.    This week’s Power Phrase:  “I show myself and others compassion while listening with an open mind to understand their perspective.”  

Hi friends, my name is Dr. Sindra Kampoff, a national leader in the field of sport and performance psychology. Every week I'm on the local radio sharing my top tips on exactly how to develop the mindset of the world's best, so you can accomplish all your dreams. Get ready for a jammed, packed episode focused on practical tips to help you get after your goals and step out of your comfort zone. Let's go. Time to check in with Sindra Kampoff this morning to get a little bit of positivity on this day.

And Sindra, we're talking about ways to show compassion today, which I think is just an excellent topic. Thank you for selecting that particular one. Absolutely. We're going to start with the quote that I like from Dalai Lama. Love and compassion are necessities, not luxuries. Without them, humanity cannot survive. And do I even need to ask what inspired the topic today?

I'm not sure. Probably not. But really what inspired it was, you know, right in our backyard, we had the death of George Floyd two weeks ago. And since Floyd's death, there's been protests all across the country in more than 100 cities. Minneapolis has been one of them. And some of the protests have lasted for days. And I think it's more important that we show compassion, understanding of other people's perspectives, I think more than ever before. So, Cyndra, I have a question about compassion.

Okay. What is that? It's really, you know, an emotional response when we perceive that other people suffer. And it's really this desire to help. So what's interesting is, like, compassion is part of our human survival. Like, we've had to have it. It's within us. And it really means just gifting other people understanding and kindness.

And there's some research that actually shows that when we show compassion, it boosts our well-being. It helps us broaden our perspective beyond just ourselves. And it increases our connection to other people. So there's a lot of other benefits, like personally, too. So how would you tell us to start with compassion? I think we start with listening and having an open mind without judgment. And I think that without judgment can be really difficult, but just keeping the perspective that everyone has different upbringings

that have shaped how we experience the world. And so to me, listening with an open mind means, you know, making eye contact, listen quietly, maybe paraphrasing what you've heard and asking open ended questions. You really, you know, you're really listening, not just hearing what they're saying. Sandra, can you expand a little bit more and tell us more about understanding perspective and how that can help us show compassion? Perspective to me just means understanding another person's point of view and our perspective is shaped by a lot of different things like our own identity, who we hang out with, our peers, our family, our life experiences, and certainly our race and even what we've been exposed to in the media. So, you know, during this time, I've just tried to keep a perspective as a white person, knowing that I experienced privilege and knowing that just

knowing that helps me be open to another person's perspective. So what's it? Oh, go ahead. Yeah, go ahead. What is another way that we can show compassion to people at this time? Yeah, I think, you know, we also need to show ourselves some compassion and self-compassion is really the practice of being kind to ourselves. And sometimes we think the more we're harder on ourselves or we beat ourselves up, the better we'll do. And no one's really told us that, you know, self-compassion is really important, but that just means showing the same kindness that we give to other people. And we actually have to show compassion with ourselves before we can show compassion externally.

Wow. Yeah. I mean, it's not very often that we talk to ourselves like that. No. We're usually pretty mean and beat ourselves up. Right. Like, I can't believe I didn't know this or, you know, or just anger. How do you summarize today for us? I'd say, you know, or just anger. How do you summarize today for us? I'd say, you know, during this time of change, we can show compassion with others, realizing that people are suffering and just having an authentic desire to really listen and understand. And we talked about how compassion is really part of human survival. So we can listen

with an open mind without judgment, just trying to understand another person's perspective and then show ourselves some self-compassion at the same time. So what's this week's power phrase? I show myself and others compassion while listening with an open mind to understand their perspective. Oh, I like this. Compassion and three ways to show compassion. Cinder Kampoff, how do we get in touch with you if we want more information or want to follow along with what it is that you do? You can head over to Dr. Cinder, so D-R-C-I-N-D-R-A dot com.

Cinder, thank you so much. Thanks for having me. Way to go for finishing another episode of the High Performance Mindset. I'm giving you a virtual fist pump. Holy cow, did that go by way too fast for anyone else? If you want more, remember to subscribe and you can head over to Dr. Sindra for show notes and to join my exclusive community for high performers, where you get access to videos about mindset each week. So again, you can head over to Dr. Sindra. That's D-R-C-I-N-D-R-A.com. See you next week.