Comunicación y Empatía… tu Capacidad para Inspirar | Leonora Vega | TEDxMorelia

I'm not a doctor in human relations. I'm not a teacher in family sciences. I'm not a psychologist. I'm human, like you. I interact daily with other people and I share the space with them. I also get angry sometimes. I get desperate. I constantly propose to be more patient. I take care of the way I react. Remember that everyone has their own perspective of life. Yes, neither you, nor me, nor any of us here see the world in the same way. Simply because no one has lived the same life as you. How difficult it is sometimes to accept that even when we repeat our version of the story and explain it to the right and to the wrong, sometimes we simply will not coincide. And it's okay. It's natural. It's human. It's easy to say, but how much work does it really cost us to understand that an argument, n percent of the time, is not about having the reason. It's not about knowing who's right and who's wrong. It's about exchanging perspectives, about sharing our perception through communication. And then complementing and enriching ourselves as people. In life, there are moments that mark us. Not necessarily that traumatize us. Simply moments that lead us to turn things around. And in the best of cases, as a consequence, to act. In my case, this detonating moment is not such an interesting story. So here goes what this story, and what happened, unleashed in me. More than two years ago, in the middle of a pandemic, on vacation, obviously without much to do, after a little chaos caused by a misunderstanding, I woke up in the middle of the night with a thought that kept turning me around. How is it that something that, from my perspective, was so unimportant, could make another person feel so angry, and even aggrieved, when there was no intention to do it? Everything was turning around an idea. We never know what the other person is or has gone through. What something in particular can mean or evoke in them. And this, of course, can be the root of a lot of reactions that, while for some are super reasonable, for others are completely inexplicable. I liked the essence of what I was thinking. It was three in the morning, and I got up to write. And what started out as just an idea, ended up in paragraphs. The next day, I read my reflection, I like what I wrote, and even though it's a disaster, it has no beginning or end, I just know that it's something I want to share. And that's how I summarized my reflection into five main ideas. Communication, perspective, empathy, forgiveness, and love. I can share this reflection with you later. It turns out that I, super introverted, with stage fright, encouraged myself to share this reflection. With the hope of being able to make a change in the people who listen to it. Many people shared, I received super nice comments, and it was there that I realized that I had just crossed an invisible barrier. Through my words, my body expression, sharing my perception of things, I was able to move hearts and spark sparks of light in more people than I imagined. I realized the capacity we have to inspire. And that's why it's right there where the path to why I'm here begins. What was the point of sharing a video that in the end, after a lot of views, comments, anyway, was going to end up lagging between thousands of publications? Finally, for me, the important thing was that my words called to action, that they would really make a change. And I was also aware that if I wanted to preach something, the first person I had to practice it with was me. That's how I decided to start a challenge, and then the challenge of communication and empathy was born. I summarized the five main ideas of my reflection in five purposes, I created a short video explaining more or less what the challenge would consist of, I shared it, and that's it. From my point of view, I had already called to action. I didn't think about it much, I just wanted to create an environment where those of us who were there could exchange our experiences, our perspectives, reflections, and feel motivated to be able to really fulfill our purposes. I created a self-commitment record, and more questions began to arrive. Hey, can I participate if I'm from El Salvador? Yes. Somehow, my words had reached El Salvador. Suddenly, we were 100. 100 people inspired by me and by others around me to continue pursuing their best version. I felt that inner strength that we all have to impact, to transmit, to inspire. But then, here comes the good part of the story. Day 1 of the challenge, I'm super excited, come on, guys, let's fulfill our purposes. And that's when the questions began to come to me. Hey, Leo, how are we going to start? What do we have to do? And I was like, well, let's follow our purposes. Express what you feel, don't add, be careful how you communicate, empathize, put yourself in the other person's shoes, don't assume, ask, listen, and forgive. Yes, literally, the only thing I planned was for us to meet once a week, share our experiences, progress, obstacles, and that's it. At this moment, two thoughts came to my mind. One, I definitely lacked communication. Wasn't it very clear what we had to do? Well, it turns out that the perspective, the origin, the story, the why, I had it. The others didn't, because they were going to know what, for me, was supposed to be the challenge. Thought number two, get your act together, girl, because you have 100 people waiting for you for the next 21 days, and you didn't even think about scheduling half of the calendar. That's how it was. Today I confess to those who were there. And then I started the mission. To accommodate the place, I needed 21 relevant thoughts. Exercises that really contributed and enriched what we were all doing there. And you know what? It was achieved. Thoughts were shared. Exercises to realize how we perceive ourselves and how others perceive us. Because yes, there is a difference. We discovered our communication vices. Bad habits that we generate over the years, especially in our relationship with our families. The way we express ourselves to them, but also what we stop expressing. We discovered that we would rarely talk to them in the same way we sometimes do to the storekeeper, because sometimes we are able to answer our parents, our brothers, our partners. We had meetings with psychologists to see the issue also from a professional perspective. We made community through communication. And together we were, for each other, inspiration. Communication. What a concept so important and often devalued. And it is that we invest in our children so much time and money to give them the best education. We believe it essential that from the age of 7 they always know how much is 7x2 in a second. That they can locate on a map a lot of capitals and countries that they may never visit. That they have the best spelling, that they always say, please, thank you, their values are super well instilled. And yes, of course, all of this is super important. But let's see, what is the case that this little one has the best grades, the best behavior, but when the time comes when he has to relate to others, it is difficult for him to interact because he has no control of the way he expresses himself, of the way he communicates. If he is often generating conflicts because the other person does not think the same way he does. Or he goes through emotional crises because he has no control of his emotions, or he does not express enough, he keeps a lot of things. What happens when this person reaches adulthood and it turns out that it is very difficult for him to close that important negotiation due to lack of assertiveness and tact? That he cannot have a healthy relationship with his partner and therefore generate a healthy family environment that will finally be the breast for the new generations. How many couples, even when there was all the love, all the dedication, ended because it was necessary to learn more about communication, perspective and forgiveness. What if in the way I express myself there was that scholarship for the best university, or the door for my dream job, for my entrepreneurship? How many things have we let go for not knowing how to express ourselves in the right way? And how many people have we hurt along the way for not taking care of the way in which we communicate? Today, I invite you to take care of your communication, the way in which you express yourself, the way in which you transmit what you feel. Pay attention also to what you do not express, generating barriers between your loved ones. I invite you to practice transparency, forgiveness. Put yourself in the place of others. Reflect. How many times have I been darkness in the life of someone else, knowing that I can be light? When a person inspires you, tell them, thank them, share what made you feel. And I tell you something, at that moment, you will become their inspiration. We are used to judging, to reject the opinions that differ from ours, to think that our perception, our version, is the only good and valid. But how often does it not happen that the defects we see in others are actually mere differences? And how gratifying it is to tell a person that you like what they do, that seeing or hearing them makes you smile. During the challenge, I learned that when someone applauds you for what you do, it motivates you to continue, not to give up. It is super nice to realize that you are not alone, that there are people who believe in you and who seek change thanks to you, that it is real that we are a community and that we support each other, that we seek to get the best out of each one of us, always highlighting the best. We are inspiration. You are inspiration. Your words do impact. You transform. You can change lives. Even if you don't realize that what you do, your daily actions, finally impact your environment. Your environment is the result of what you are. Realize how responsible you really are to change yourself and generate change in your environment. Imagine the change we can make if each one of us, from our inspiration through communication, dedicates ourselves to inspiring from our passion. So today I ask you, from today, what attitude are you going to change? And above all, once defined, from today, how are you going to inspire? Thank you.