It’s time to shape up your empathy muscle From the rise in workplace tensions and school bullying to increased anxiety and depression, a lack of empathy is wearing away at the gears of society, grinding us down to the nubs. But all is not lost. Just as physical workouts strengthen your body, there are ways to build up your empathy that will strengthen your relationships, enhance your communication skills, and become a more effective leader. In Tell Me More About That, brand strategist and thought leader Rob Volpe draws on his years of market research, conducting thousands of in-home interviews with everyday people, to illustrate the 5 Steps to Empathy—the actions you can use in everyday interactions to build a strong and reflexive empathy muscle. Through humorous and moving accounts of interactions with folks from every walk of life, Rob recounts how what often began in a stranger’s house as a talk about brands and daily habits could blossom at any minute into a conversation about family, relationships, hopes, and dreams. Though he may have been invited into these homes as a marketing researcher, he left them as an expert on empathy. Along the way, he discovered that there exists a set of common values connecting us all. Strip away the exterior wrapping of blue state/red state, straight/gay, black/white, and we’re all far more similar than we are different. With empathy, we can all learn and understand more than we ever imagined possible. Let the training begin.