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Overcoming Isolation at Work with Nethra Samarawickrema
103 Plays3 months ago
Nethra Samarawickrema is a career and executive coach who helps people align their work with their values. She supports her clients in making career transitions and writing their own scripts to actualize lives that express who they are. Her work is grounded in empathy and she coaches entrepreneurs, engineers, academics, writers, artists, and startup co-founders to listen to their needs and actualize their full potential. She also works with organizations, combining insights from Anthropology, Design Thinking, and Nonviolent Communication to train teams in transforming their communication to enhance their collaboration. She has a PhD in Anthropology from Stanford University and has taught at the Stanford d.School.
References:
- Upcoming Event: Empathy at Work: Transforming Workplace Communication, Tuesday, September 10
- Work with Nethra: workwithnethra.com
- Nethra's LinkedIn
- Set Boundaries Find Peace by Nedra Tawwab
ABOUT EMPATHY IN TECH
Empathy in Tech’s mission is to accelerate the responsible adoption of empathy in the tech industry to help humanity solve our most pressing and complex problems. We do this by focusing on three key areas:
- Technical Empathy - Close the empathy skills gap in the tech industry by leading a scientific revolution that embraces new research.
- Ethical Empathy - Ensure empathy is used for social good through ethical, equitable, and responsible choices.
- Actionable Empathy - Build a thriving community that makes effective empathy training accessible, affordable, and widely available.
Learn more at empathyintech.com
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Transcript
Reconnecting to Authentic Work
00:00:02
Speaker
The first thing that I do with my clients is to help them reconnect to the things that make them feel most like themselves. The work that makes them feel most like themselves.
Introduction to Empathy in Tech
00:00:15
Speaker
Welcome to Empathy in Tech, where we explore the deeply technical side of empathy. And the critical need for empathy in technology. I'm your host, Andrea Goulet. And I'm Ray Myers.
Meet Nathra Samra Vikramah
00:00:26
Speaker
And today on the podcast, we have Nathra Samra Vikramah. She is a career and executive coach who helps people align their work with their values. She supports her clients in making career transitions and writing their own scripts to actualize lives that express who they are.
Empathy in Coaching
00:00:43
Speaker
Her work is grounded in empathy and she coaches entrepreneurs, engineers, academics, writers, artists, and startup co-founders to listen to their needs and actualize their full potential. She also works with organizations combining insights from anthropology, design thinking, and nonviolent communication to train teams in transforming their communication to enhance their collaboration. She has a PhD in anthropology from Stanford University and has taught at the Stanford D School.
Career Transition and Anthropology
00:01:12
Speaker
Thank you so much for being here, Natra. So to kick things off, tell us a bit about yourself. What got you interested in working with people who don't feel they can be themselves at work?
00:01:24
Speaker
It actually came from my own career transition and the work I was doing in graduate school. So I was doing a PhD in anthropology and the focus of the work was um really the anthropology of work. And I was very, very curious to understand what is the meaning that people derive from their work in addition to the income that they get. you know why Why do we work was a question that I was interested in that was beyond livelihood.
Academia vs. Personal Values
00:01:54
Speaker
um And what was striking to me was as I was exploring this question, I was taken through my research to the opposite of that um focus on meaning, to the notion of alienation.
00:02:10
Speaker
And so I started exploring this concept which is about when is it that we feel cut off from ourselves? When do we feel alienated at work? Why do so many people feel disconnected from themselves when they are at work? And I became very, very interested in exploring this. And what I found as I was exploring it is that there was this there's a sense that many people feel that when they're doing their work, they are disconnected from who they are.
Feeling Like a Cog in the Wheel
00:02:45
Speaker
And they have very different ways of saying this. So for instance, they might say, I feel like a cog in the wheel. I you know i feel drained. I feel burnt out. I feel exhausted.
00:02:54
Speaker
and I have to leave work to come back to myself. And so this question kept sort of percolating in my mind and I found that I was not doing that for my research, not only doing that for my research but also for myself. So I was on track to become an academic and I was in love with anthropology, I was in love with research, I was in love with the ideas, but I hit a wall because I found that the ways in which people engaged each other at work, the work environment, the the the dynamics of work,
00:03:33
Speaker
were antithetical to the things that we were talking about in many, many contexts. And in the Academy we talk about this as a lack of praxis, you know, that there's a misalignment between the values and the lived reality. And I found that for myself, I could not inhabit that incongruence and that I had to find something else. So for myself, I started asking this question, what would bring me back inside myself? How can I find my way to who I am and do what I love?
00:04:06
Speaker
And during this exploration, in addition to anthropology, there were two things that really drew me.
Empathy and Creativity in Coaching
00:04:12
Speaker
One was this beautiful process called nonviolent communication, which a clinical psychologist named Marshall Rosenberg really envisioned and brought into the world. And the other was design thinking, which drew me because it It sort of, I became interested in understanding what is it, what are the conditions that we need for creativity to happen? What are the conditions that we need to come up with ideas outside the box? And both NVC and design thinking brought me to a similar place, which is a deep need for empathy and safety.
00:04:51
Speaker
that when we are safe, when we feel that we are seen and heard and understood, we can tap into our capacities and our potential. And so I became drawn to, I was like, how can I put these three things together and make that the focus of my work? And that's what eventually led me to coaching. And strange enough, and this was unexpected, surprising, and delightful that as I started talking about the value of empathy, as I was talking about my own journey in finding alignment, people started coming to me, the clients started coming to me to work with me who wanted to have their own career transitions. Completely to my surprise, a number of them were engineers who were very interested in empathy. So that's how it got started.
00:05:43
Speaker
Yeah, that's one of the patterns that we've seen is that a lot of engineers feel like they are empathic and compassionate, but yet they feel like they can't be their full self at work. Ray, does this have you
Compassion in Career Guidance
00:05:59
Speaker
seen this? Is this something that resonates with you? Well, it actually reminds me of a conversation I was having just last week and a friend was asking me how I determine what the real priorities are as we get a lot of conflicting signals. And I gave a number of answers, but the last thing I said was just above all, if if there is pain, we should make the pain stop.
00:06:28
Speaker
That has been an orienting principle just that permeates my whole career. And so many opportunities have come from it simply that if people are hurting, we should help them. And any signal that we get that says we should ignore it and let the pain continue is not a legitimate business priority in my eyes. It's just a state of confusion. Yeah, that's literally the definition of compassion. and Do you find yourself that it's like rare? or do you feel sometimes like you're I know this is a little bit of a leading question, so but I also know you a little bit. and um Especially the idea of fixing things. like there's There's a couple layers there of feeling a little sense of not belonging or um being different and feeling like you have to show up differently.
00:07:19
Speaker
Yeah, it's certainly something you deal with if you like fixing things or you're passionate about fixing things that there are a lot of other things that are in the spotlight. Almost by definition, if you focus on an area of neglect, you're set up to have that effort be neglected. Right. So it can be kind of a lonely existence at times. And that's why I make an effort. to encourage people, ah try and give them a little more energy when I see that they're going out of their way to do this kind of thing. But at some point, sometimes it just takes the strength of your convictions, having a really strong personal compass that tells you we can't let the walls collapse in on us.
Alienation in Tech Work
00:08:06
Speaker
Yeah, Nathan, what have you seen? Why do you think people feel so alien, and you know given your experience, especially as an anthropologist? I just think that's so interesting. That brings such an interesting layer to your work. So so what are some of the patterns that you've seen? Yeah. Thank you for asking, Andrea. and you know I mean, as an anthropologist, the bird's eye view is that this experience is shared among many workplaces. um But through my coaching, um there are some specificities that I've found with my clients who work in tech. And um there are three things that come to mind immediately when you ask this question. One pattern I've seen is that you know people are hired for their technical skills and their technical capacities.
00:08:50
Speaker
And yet they come in with much more than those technical skills. They come in with a number of relational skills. and the people who have been working with, um they who really value empathy, it's a way of being, it's a way of engaging. And so, for instance, they might start, they might show up at a workplace, and they're just being themselves, and they're engaging with others, which means, for instance, that they pay a lot of attention to, um they they listen very deeply, they value collaboration, they want to work together,
00:09:28
Speaker
And they pay a lot of attention to, you know, who is being left out of the conversation? How can I make space for people? How can I check in before I make a decision? How can I get consensus? And so they might come in with all this attunement and and deep care for how they show up with their colleagues at work and have this jarring experience. of have feeling a lack of reciprocity so that the thing that they're giving is not the thing that they're receiving, right? And so they might be giving empathy and they might be met with um communication that is harsh, that is blunt, that is
00:10:09
Speaker
um not really attuned to their needs. um And there's this sort of mismatch between their style of relating to others and the way that others relate to them. So immediately there's this disjuncture. And what can happen is that because we're social creatures and relational creatures, when we're in an environment that doesn't mirror our internal sense of ourselves and how we are in the world. And when the skills that we really value are devalued at work sometimes, then we can internalize that. and And you start to feel lonely and you start to think that that loneliness is because there's something wrong with you.
00:10:56
Speaker
right And that that there can be this sense that I'm not confident enough, I'm not extroverted enough, i'm not I don't have a thick enough skin, I'm suffering because um I'm weak. you know I need empathy because I can't handle myself. None of these things are true, but that's kind of the, when that's the larger kind of water that people are swimming in, there can be an internalization um that can feel very demoralizing.
00:11:28
Speaker
And then there are two other quick things that come to mind. um A number of my clients have said that they also find themselves doing a lot of emotional labor and caretaking at work.
Emotional Labor and Burnout
00:11:39
Speaker
and So they're the people who are mentoring. They're the people who are sort of spearheading the ERGs. They're the people who are doing the organizing. And that this is unrecognized work. you know And so they can also experience a very intense feeling of burnout and exhaustion because they're giving, but they're not being filled back up with the things that that nourish and nurture them.
00:12:08
Speaker
And then the last thing that comes to mind out of the sort of big categories that come up is this um feeling of incongruence and misalignment with their values and the larger direction that the the project or the company is going in. no And this can happen even and with mission-driven companies that once the work starts, you know the people who, the engineers might be like, okay, I really value these values. I really value process, right? And that the timeframes are short. There's a pressure to, you know, produce the products. It's outcome oriented. And one person said something very poignant. She said, the scariest thing for me is that I get pulled into the way of being at work and I find myself operating as someone I don't like.
00:13:05
Speaker
and I lose my sense of who I am, and this is very, very scary, you know? And so that can also lead to this feeling of um two things. One is that you're living two lives. You know, that there's a life you live at work, and then there's the real you who lives the rest of your life. And this sense that you are an outsider, you know, in the world that you spend a lot of your time in. So that can also be very, very painful. So I'm curious if this is something you know that resonates with the two of you because this is really what I've seen. Oh, yeah, absolutely. I think that that fear of not being enough, there's another side of that coin, too, because I came from marketing and sales like is the first part of my career and then I came to software and there's the feeling of I'm not technical enough. Like
Identity Struggles in Tech
00:13:54
Speaker
I don't know enough about software. Everyone's going to find out I'm so stupid. Right. So I think the
00:14:02
Speaker
idea of feeling like you're not enough is a very common one. I think it's like, what do you feel like you're not enough about? And that, tim from what I understand, is is rooted in a sense of shame. It's that fear of losing belonging. Yeah, and I think that over the years, I've had so many people, Ray, you're one of them who it's like, no, you you're good. Like you do belong, right? And so I think having those people who can lift us up when we feel that sense of worry is so valuable. And yet I think what you said about reciprocity, absolutely. Damien Milton has some great research on the double empathy problem where if you're, you know,
00:14:50
Speaker
being expected to behave in a certain way, or if you show up, you know, kind of giving, but you don't receive, it's incredibly draining and it really does hurt your identity um and can absolutely lead to burnout. So, you know, all of the stuff you're saying absolutely resonates with all of the stuff I know and have lived experience in and, you know, the research that I've done. So how about you, Ray? Yeah, just generally something that resonates with me a lot is types of work that the system just isn't very good at encouraging. In the legacy code rocks community, you focused on one of those, right? Taking care of the existing code base and classically other kinds of work like community building.
00:15:45
Speaker
team building, these things also aren't always encouraged. And this is one of the reasons we make this content, right? This is one of my big reasons for starting on YouTube and so on is is to give energy to people who were trying to do the right thing and It may take some time ah of it being relatively thankless for them to get a big enough win that it actually is rewarded. But I guess one of the things we can do day to day is ah give people enough encouragement so that more of them might get there. Sometimes a little bit goes a long way.
00:16:27
Speaker
Yeah.
Community and Empathy in Tech
00:16:28
Speaker
And I think that's why empathy and tech came to be, right, is recognizing that, you know, that's a very common experience. And if you can't get that from your team at work, here's a space of people who get it and are also in a similar situation where they are empathic, they care, they're executing compassion, and a lot of times it is hard to do that, um specifically within the tech industry. And, Aether, you actually found us like through your work. it's It's kind of a fun story, how we connected. Yes, totally. um I was on the phone with a client who is an engineer and has over the years cultivated
00:17:09
Speaker
a remarkable capacity for listening, for attunement, for facilitation. um And we but we were sort of talking about really this this need for community. you know And i was I was working through this question of like, how do we help you find your people? And on a whim while I was on the phone with her, I was like, you know, let's just put these two words empathy and tech and just see what Google spits out just to see, you know, who is talking about this, who is writing about this? um Because it it seems like these two words are hard to put together. And that was what she and I were sort of working through in our work together.
00:17:52
Speaker
And I typed it into Google and Empathy and Tech showed up and I was like, oh my goodness, look, there's a whole community of people um who are having these conversations. So I was really excited and that's that's how I ended up reaching out to you, Andrea. Yeah, and it's been really neat to explore the work you do and just kind of a little bit of a teaser. We were starting to partner on bringing some of the programming that you taught at the Stanford D School to the empathy and tech community um and doing some listening sessions and kind of ah more of a cohort, things like that. I don't know if there's anything you mentioned real quick, but we'll get into it a little bit.
00:18:29
Speaker
Yeah, know I'm very excited. It's been a long-term dream of mine to have a community of people come together outside of the workplace, you know, like a facilitated safe space to share what their needs are, what their longings are, and more than anything else, just to be heard by each other. so So that's something I'm really excited to um collaborate with you all. I'm excited too. All right. So we've been talking about a lot of abstractions and people may think this sounds very nice, but what does it actually look
Reconnecting Through Reflection
00:19:09
Speaker
like? So I wonder when you are actually working on these transformations, what are just some specific things that you do to help bring about the change?
00:19:19
Speaker
So I work from the inside out, right? And so what I, because the problem of alienation, right, is that we're taken outside of ourselves and feel disconnected from who we are in an environment. So my primary question when I work with anyone is how can we bring you back in? The first thing that I do with my clients is to help them reconnect to the things that make them feel most like themselves. The work that makes them feel most like themselves, that gets them into a state of flow, that feels... It can be very challenging, but it's something that you're kind of pulled to do, that absorbs you, you know? And then so i and this is something that anyone listening here can just start to implement at work right away.
00:20:08
Speaker
which is you can, at the end of each work day, you can make a list of all the things that you did and then ask yourself, when did I feel aligned with who I am and when did I feel misaligned? no And just the act of noticing this, if you do this for even ah you know three or four days, you'll start to see patterns, you'll start to discover things that you didn't know before. no And then then I work with people um to slowly start shifting both their sort of in the ordinary textures and granularity of their work there. How can we create these little shifts towards the things that absorb us and away from the things that drain us?
00:20:54
Speaker
And similarly, I ask people to um put themselves in environments, at work if possible, but mostly this happens outside of work, where their love of empathy is both shared and their way of being in the world is valued.
Finding Empathetic Work Environments
00:21:12
Speaker
so that they have a sense of shared reality and that is really important to break the isolation and the feeling like to put yourself in places where you feel like you are on the inside because of who you are and you don't have to work hard or hide yourself to to to belong in that community.
00:21:34
Speaker
And then um the other thing that I found to be really helpful, and this this comes up a lot in career transitions, um I've tended to ask my clients, you know, who do you feel most at home with? Who do you find easy to connect with and relate to? And we start outside of work. But then then we find that actually there are two or three people at work with whom I can you know share this love of empathy, where I feel a sense of reciprocity. People who listen to me and not just take up all the time speaking. um And then, especially with job searches and career transitions, I ask people to actually filter for that.
00:22:19
Speaker
I had a client who said, you mean I get to like make that a priority, be in a team where the communication is valued? And I said, absolutely yes. And that means when you go for an interview, you see how you feel. know You see what the dynamics are like. And you also have agency and choice about whether you want to go forward or not. i So it's really taking the reins into your own hands and valuing the kind of work culture that you want to be a part of.
Importance of Setting Boundaries
00:22:50
Speaker
And the last thing that I can share um is for people who deeply value empathy, boundaries can be incredibly challenging. Saying no can be very hard. Setting limits can be very hard. Burnout is a thing. And so what I encourage people to do is to practice setting boundaries outside of work in very, very small contexts. You know, try it with your kids, try it with your friends, try it with people who feel safe to draw boundaries with.
00:23:21
Speaker
and then slowly start to practice that at work. And then, you know, you'll find that your time frees up, your energy frees up. There is more respect, you know, and and a sense of dignity where there wasn't before. So those are some of the things that people can sort of put into place. Yeah. Boundaries. So hard for me. so hard for me. I am not naturally somebody who sets boundaries, and that practice of learning to do that has been painful at times, and yet so rewarding. Yes, it's very painful. It has been for me too. Yeah, a lot of times it feels really awkward.
00:24:05
Speaker
But then it's like, oh, no, that's really good. The best book that I found um that really, really helped me is Set Boundaries, Find Peace by Nedric Lovertwab. And she has a workbook too. And that's been really great for me, walking through just like the very specifics of like what is a boundary and when is a boundary appropriate and like what different types of boundaries there are. Because it can be hard to articulate what you want. And I think you know Knowing what's okay and knowing what's not okay is the core of that. and Even just figuring that out sometimes is really hard. how do Can you give us some specifics on like how you help people with boundaries? Yes, absolutely. i mean It's some of the work that I really deeply love to do. um and One of the things that helps, I think, is
00:24:59
Speaker
I think one of the things that's really hard about saying no is that it feels like you're rejecting someone, you are letting people down, you are letting go of your responsibilities, right? So there can be a lot of guilt and shame and fear. And there are also power dynamics, you know, because there can be like a real cost and a backlash to drawing a boundary. And what I find really helps is to ask yourself, what is it that you're saying yes to when you're saying no to something? And that you lead from that yes. First internally and then relationally. And another thing I help people do is to think about what are my capacities? And our capacities naturally have limits. We don't have unlimited capacity. And so if you ask yourself, what do I need to function at a threshold in which I feel good?
00:25:58
Speaker
that I feel alive, that I'm not drained, that i I feel whole rather than fragmented. And based on that capacity, then you set limits around the things that um that drain you. you know So again, it's that yes, how do I want to feel? What do I need? How do I want to be treated? And the other thing that I find actually really beautiful from watching my clients do this both at work and outside of work is that when they find their people, you know people who relate to them in the way that they want to be treated,
00:26:39
Speaker
The boundary drawing is not a massive effort because the other person is checking in. Is this okay with you? Is this too much, right? So you develop you can develop and cultivate relationships where other people are actually supporting you in checking in about your boundaries and they're helping you hold them so that you're not doing it alone. And this is where finding support is so, so important. Yeah, and so tell us now a little bit like you've generously offered to bring some of these amazing insights like this is just like tip of the iceberg um to our community by partnering with us to develop a course for our community members. So can you tell us a little bit more about
Transforming Communication with Empathy
00:27:21
Speaker
what you'll be teaching. The title that we've come up with is Empathy at Work, Transforming Workplace Communication. I'm so excited to teach this, Andrea. Really, really excited. um It's a course I've taught for many years now in different versions, and the first version that I taught was at the Stanford D School, and this is where I just felt so lit up by what we discovered. I was teaching it with a collaborator who is a human-centred designer and the idea of it was basically to create a kind of lab, an experimental space where people could come and learn skills of relating, learn skills of empathy, learn skills for having difficult conversations and there's a whole slew of things that we cover that are around how do you listen
00:28:12
Speaker
How do you listen to yourself? How do you listen to others? How do you listen when someone is speaking to you in a judgmental way? How do you listen to things that are hard to hear? Then we look into really understanding, and a lot of people say, I don't know what my needs are. I have a really hard time figuring this out. you know And so that's another thing we dive into. um And then i my favorite things to teach are how to ask for what you want and make requests.
00:28:43
Speaker
and how to hear and say a no. Because in the um in between these two things, the issues around asking and and hearing and saying a no, is a whole world of our everyday relationships. How we tend to ourselves, how we tend to each other, how we stand up for ourselves and how we stand up for each other. And then we'll also be thinking about it as a way of creating a community. And and this is what came to me through experience of teaching this course, and which I've done in a number of workplace contexts. um But the first time I taught it is my favorite memory um at the d.school with a range of people. and
00:29:28
Speaker
It was very beautiful because what I discovered was that as we were teaching these skills and we would teach them in a way that anyone could come and make mistakes, mess up, practice and and really fine tune. the skills that they were learning. As they did this, they started to relate to each other through those skills. you know So in the classroom, when one person spoke, nine people were just listening with a lot of attention and empathy. And slowly over the course of several weeks, what we found is that it was almost like that the world we wanted to live in started to fall within the container of the class. And the community started to fall. you know
00:30:12
Speaker
And it became a space where this young engineer who was there, you know she said, this is the first time in the six years I've been here that I have been, felt safe to speak in class. no And when she spoke, she was held. And so this is um something I'm really excited to bring because I think that if you feel like an outsider at your workplace because you value empathy, this is a place where that can be at the center of your interactions with others.
00:30:48
Speaker
So yeah, that's a little snippet. Yeah. And a couple of times you mentioned the Stanford D school. It's D for design for anyone not familiar. I wonder if you could tell us a little bit more about your
Design Thinking and Creativity
00:31:00
Speaker
experience with them. For me, the the work at the d.school, which is this idea of design thinking that was developed there, and um design thinking for me really opened up a lot because there's ah there's this idea that you cannot learn without making mistakes.
00:31:22
Speaker
And that creativity is essentially essentially requires trial and error. And so, for instance, I remember when I was writing my dissertation and I was stuck and I was like, I couldn't actually write because I had writer's block. There was so much. The stakes were so high. The pressure was so high to get it right. that I was frozen, which is why I walked across campus. It was like, how can I i access flow again? you know How can I access my creativity? And what I discovered through design thinking is this beautiful permission to make mistakes and to get all your wild ideas out and to prototype and to be really, really comfortable with failure.
00:32:06
Speaker
And so um I can only speak, I think, to the way like my way into design thinking and my experience of um coaching people um using the process, is that you start with running very small experiments. and you find all the ways you can to lower the stakes of whatever it is you're trying out, and then you just iterate. You know that it's okay to fail the first time because you have 25 other things that you're gonna try. It's a way that I have discovered it's a very powerful, both tool and a process for um breaking down perfectionism, for getting unstuck.
00:32:50
Speaker
for cultivating like a real sense of use about trying things out. And so I'll bring some of that in. Awesome. So we have just one final question that we ask all our guests.
Operationalizing Empathy in Leadership
00:33:09
Speaker
What is the most important thing you think should happen at the intersection of empathy and technology? I love the question. I think the most important thing is for empathy to be valued in tech. To centralise the value of empathy. and i think that um
00:33:31
Speaker
In terms of the the practicality of it, I see two two sort of pathways in which this can be brought about. One is to move from the sort of valuing of it at the level of ideas to actually bring it down to practice, to operationalize it at all levels of a company and an organization. And I know that the work I've done with leaders has shown me that the leadership buy-in is so crucial because otherwise there's a bottleneck. You can build it from the ground up, but then you get stuck at the top. no But if the leadership is advocating for empathy and is actually interested in cultivating self-awareness and bringing about changes in their own ways of communicating, so much transformation is possible.
00:34:21
Speaker
Because I think and the power of this is that we need collaboration at work. And collaboration breaks down when the communication breaks down and when there's no psychological safety. And so creating teams where people really feel safe to express themselves, to try out ideas, to fail, to to say, this is not working, I need help, right? These things are really, really crucial. So that's one thing.
Joining Empathy in Tech Community
00:34:52
Speaker
And the second thing I think is that's really important is to create a supportive community where people who value empathy and feel like outliers can come and say, I can lay my head down here.
00:35:06
Speaker
I can come home. I don't have to work hard to be seen. i I can just show up and know that I'm going to be held as I am in a community of people who value both empathy and technology you know and that that they can really get the support they need. Yeah. And that's exactly what empathy in tech is trying to do. And it's so exciting to partner with you. This has been such an amazing conversation. Nithra, how can people get in touch with you and learn more about your work? And we'll put links in the show notes too.
00:35:41
Speaker
Yes, so they can find me primarily through my website. And it is www.atworkwithnathra.com. And um I send out a newsletter with workshops that I run. I run a biweekly workshop called the Holding Space that people can come to. and But yeah, they can go check out my website and they can find me there. Awesome. And then we will be sending out ah information about the courses and the events that we're doing together. So if you're not on our mailing list, go to empathy and tech dot.com, sign up for the newsletter and you will be the first to know about all these awesome things that we're doing.
00:36:22
Speaker
So thank you so much, Nathan, for coming and sharing your wisdom and your experience. These are great practical tips that I know are going to help people. And that is exactly what this whole podcast, what this whole community is about. um And thanks to you for listening. Thanks for spending time with us today and making compassion and empathy a little bit more about what your work is about. And empathy in tech really is on a mission to accelerate the responsible adoption of empathy in the tech industry. We do this in several ways. We're working on closing the empathy skills gap by treating empathy as a technical skill, teaching technical empathy through accessible, affordable and actionable training, and building community just like Nathan was saying, and breaking down those harmful stereotypes and tropes about who has empathy and who doesn't, and then promoting technical empathy for ethics, equity and social justice. so If you listen, you found this conversation interesting, come on over, join our community. Go to empathyintech.com. Keep the conversation going and join our community of compassionate technologists. Thanks so much for listening. Thank you, Ray. Thank you, Nathan. And thank you, everyone. And we will see you in the next episode.