CREATING AN EMPATHY MAP FOR YOUR READERS

GLYNNIS WHITWER, COMPEL TRAINING

Readers are desperate for someone to trust.

ADS ARE EVERYWHERE

WE ARE WRITING TO CHANGING GENERATIONS

BUSTERS: 1965 AND 1983 MOSAICS:1984 AND 2002

• Relationships are the driving force.

• Being loyal to friends is one of their highest values.

• Have a strong need to belong to a tribe who knows them well and appreciates them.

• Want connection, but also are fiercely individualistic.

• Skeptical of leaders, products and institutions.

• Don’t trust things that seem too perfect.

Whether you're a firefighter or a girl working at a coffee shop, you might feel intimidated when you shop for a used car. You feel like you have to already be an expert at negotiating. We

all want car buying to be like, well, CarMax.

WRITE FOR YOURSELF

• In your journal!

WRITE FOR YOUR READER

• When we make a decision to take our writing to the next level, then something must shift in our hearts. We must start caring about our readers. If we don’t, they will sniff it out. They will know your writing is about something else.

SYMPATHY OR EMPATHY?

• Sympathy: Feelings of pity and sorrow for someone else's misfortune.

• Empathy: The ability to understand and share the feelings of another.

Sympathy stares. Empathy stoops.

copyblogger.com with credit to: David Gray, author of The Connected Company and Gamestorming

Empathy Map

PRELIMINARY QUESTIONS

1. Identify the topic of your writing.

2. Identify the problem(s) they are having.

3. Identify the question they are asking.

4. Identify their hopes and dreams.

PROCRASTINATION

• The problem is people keep putting off things (tasks, goals, dreams, projects) in their lives, which causes painful consequences.

• The question is how to manage all their responsibilities and achieve personal goals.

• They hope for a day free from the overwhelming weight of a heavy to-do list, and free from the regret of what they didn’t get done.

THEY ARE THINKING …

• I’ll never get everything done.

• I’ll never get this right.

• I’ll never change.

• Everyone else manages their lives better than me.

• There’s something wrong with me.

• I’m going to quit …

THEY ARE FEELING …

• Overwhelmed

• Hopeful (at the beginning of a new project)

• Discouraged

• Like a failure

• Anxious

• Depressed

THEY ARE SEEING …

• Other people be more successful than they are

• Watching media to escape

• Reading books on time management

• Messy house

• Cluttered desk

• Annoyed spouse

THEY ARE DOING …

• Running around doing errands

• Driving kids everywhere

• Answering emails

• Working hard, but not seeing a lot of achievement

• Being a caregiver

Looking back, it’s obvious procrastination has been a life-long companion of mine.

It’s always been easy to find other things to blame. But digging down deep unearths the truth – I put things off that I really should do. And in doing so, my to-do list gets out of control.

Procrastination first showed up in school when I’d wait until the last-minute to finish an assignment. Just good enough to make the grade … but never feeling like I’d done my best.

It then showed up at my first job, when I faced hard, challenging work, which quite honestly made me wonder what I’d learned in four years of college. It was easier to plead busyness than to admit I felt under qualified and afraid to try. Would my work show I didn’t have what it took?

Opening to Taming the To-Do List, by Glynnis Whitwer (Revell Publishers Aug. 2015)

By Lysa TerKeurst