If you listen closely to someone, they will tell you who they are.
Maya Angelou said, “when someone tells you who they are believe them the first time”.
I took that quote literally for a long time.
I thought I had to actually wait until someone said, “I’m an asshole”, then I would run like the wind.
Some people will admit they are an asshole, but I’ve learned that most people don’t really know who they are, and they tell you who they think they are.
Then I learned about empathy.
We are inherently bad at empathy because we see the world our way, through our lens, and we forget that other people have lenses that are different.
When we work at getting over ourselves and start to listen to understand another persons lens we can speak to them in their language.
This helps us go a long way in arguing our points and persuading someone else to see what we see.
People tell you who they are all of the time, but they don’t tell you outright. You have to listen from their point of view instead of your own to figure it out.