How to use Kindness or empathy to help new generations when facing life’s challenges.
After listening to the lively talk that Daniel Lozano, CEO of KindWorks.AI, presented to 11th and 12th graders and their parents at his High School, I couldn’t help but be inspired to share the learnings about the three statements he gave the attendees in order to motivate them to be extraordinary.
Effort and Resilience
For gen Z or also known as the ‘snowflake generation’, we are the consequence of different factors, but I highlight the ones that for me have been the most influential:
- Lack of patience: The ease of having information in the palm of our hands and the speed with which the internet allows us to navigate online has taken away our patience.
- Worsening mental health conditions: Social networks have allowed us to have a greater vision of the world, but it has had negative psychological and hormonal effects on us. Terms such as anxiety, depression, procrastination, dopamine overproduction, among others, are increasingly common.
- Weak mental models: Parents who did not want to repeat the mistakes of their own, ended up being more permissive and the lack of rules created weak mental models, clearly, without any intention to do so.
Therefore, young people and adults in their early twenties often don’t understand the concept of resilience. If I don’t like something online, isn’t it easier to close the tab or scroll to the next video? Stick with one person when I can meet hundreds online? No thanks. In short, a mindset that finds little or no value in things or people.
I don’t know if the following quote belongs to a specific author, but every time I read it, I ponder if the present is associated with any of those stages. It goes like this: ‘Hard times create strong men, strong men create easy times. Easy times create weak men, weak men create hard times.’
Compounding
This is the financial term that explains what happens when investment interest is added to capital, forming a larger base on which profits can accumulate. Daniel was talking about how the accumulation of experience makes you stronger and gives you more value in the world, whether you want to be an entrepreneur or you want to stand out among your peers.
I would like to add the importance of the 1% a day mentioned multiple times by the author of Atomic Habits, James Clear. We underestimate the value of practice and whether they are positive or negative habits, we will have a strong muscle in the future thanks to consistency. Therefore, it is important to be aware of who I am today and what I would like to improve in order to be my best version tomorrow. If personal growth is not a goal, it also applies to the acquisition of professional tools or other personal goals.
Life is hard
During the conference, I was reminded of the quote by the poet Yevgeny Yevtushenko: ‘Life is a rainbow which also includes black.’ If we talk specifically about Colombian social culture, many times young people do not dimension the depth of the color black.
The lack of education in self-knowledge, emotional intelligence, conflict resolution, etc., has caused adults and young people to not have a sense of resilience when things don’t go according to plan. It has meant that adults and young people do not have the tools to have difficult conversations or to practice empathy with others. It seems that they live in a bubble and when they touch any surface they run the risk of bursting their small worldview.
Therefore, I consider KindWorks.AI’s mission as a great tool to positively impact both the individual and their environment. Creating spaces that generate security of being oneself, respecting the difference of opinion because it is understood through empathy and having the opportunity to share with others through Acts of Kindness, from my perspective, are the first seeds to have a better world with happier people.
In conclusion, it is our responsibility to develop the skills and tools necessary to face life’s challenges. Through the practice of empathy, self-knowledge, kindness and other qualities, we can aspire to become the generation that overcame its limitations.
