gear-up.md

1. What role does empathy play in your life and how has it helped you?

• Empathy plays a large role in my life. I have degrees in psychology and counseling, and previously have spent a lot of time working in education and human services. Working at improving my empathy skills has helped me to better connect and build relationships with others. It has also helped me to improve my own self awareness and ability to understand myself. I have grown as a person, friend, and family member by improving my abilities at empathy.

2. How does empathy help you build better software?

• Empathy can help you build better software by understanding the issues that are affecting your users. If you know the issues and problems effecting users, you can think of ways to address those problems to make your work more accessible to everyone. It also allows you to connect with users and listen to what they are saying. If we just ignore what our users are saying are issues, our work will never evolve and grow into something truly useful for everyone.

3. Why is empathy important for working on a team?

• Empathy is important for working on a team because it helps to build connections and relationships with others. If you are able to empathize with others, it allows others to rely and trust you if they come to you with problems and issues. Also, if a team is created with empathy as an important part of it, everyone will put in effort to understand where everyone is coming from and it clears up a lot of the little issues that will pop up faster than if people aren't trying to understand where everyone is coming from. Empathy helps you to understand others, which shows you care, which will build positive connections with others on your team, which will improve morale and enjoyment of the work you are doing.

4. Describe a situation in which your ability to empathize with a colleague or teammate was helpful.

• A coworker I didn't like in the past had issues with cutting. Another coworker had been playing with a knife and wouldn't put it away when she had asked and after he had left she was really upset. I sat with her for 45 minutes to help her calm down and make sure she felt safe to leave without harming herself. By using empathy, I was able to connect with her and help her talk through her feelings until she felt like she was safe and understood. It also helped us to improve our relationship and helped her to realize she could come to me with her issues.

5. When do you find it most difficult to be empathetic in professional settings? How can you improve your skills when faced with these scenarios?

• I find it most difficult to be empathetic when someone is arrogant, egotistical, or full of themselves. It's very hard to empathize with people who can't empathize with others. I think what would work to empathize with these people is to separate the personality from the problem. If I approach the problem without looking at the personalities, I should be able to empathize better with their problem. And if their problem is caused by the personality, I can at least be honest and tactful in explaining that they their problem may be solved by addressing their own approach to the situation.