We’re excited to be working with globally recognised millennial business leader Mimi Nicklin on the campaign for her new book, Softening The Edge. We asked Mimi our 5 questions to find out more about her, her book, and her vision:
1. Pitch in 10 - sell us your book in less than 10 words
A leaders guide to empathy, humanity & navigating our world
2. Audience of One - If you could choose ONE person to read your book who would it be and why?
I would choose the CEO of any business because change and impact start at the top. Our world needs leaders who understand the need to rebuild humanity into our businesses and to balance humanism with capitalism to create the regenerative leadership of the future. I believe my book creates a compelling set of stories and evidence to do so!
3. Behind the Book - Who or what inspired you to write this book?
After 30 years of declining empathy levels, the deeply sad realities and contentious events occurring in our world led me to write this book. I have a deep sense that this is a conversation we all need to hold. We only need to look around ourselves to see what that picture looks like. Anxiety levels are on an ever-upward spiral, nearly 400,000 million people suffer from depression and we live with the deeply unsettling truth that the second biggest killer of our youth, globally, is suicide. When our children are killing themselves rather than choosing to stay on the planet with us, we have a problem.
Empathy is evolutionary and it is a critical skill in connecting and protecting our workplaces and our teams. It is a skillset that leaders and managers can use to truly impact society and its leverage is the new benchmark for any organisation that gathers humans behind a mutual goal. Empathy is innate, but the choice to use it is in each of our hands, and I hope my book encourages more businesses to consider this critical skill.
4. Guess what? Tell us one thing that readers might be surprised to hear about you.
I live in Sri Lanka and work remotely from a tropical island currently going through a financial crisis and power shortage – working in the heat and the dark! But beyond that, I believe that empathetic influence is this decade’s most critical human and scientifically validated skillset. The ability to connect authentically as people has the power to not only change our business environments but to change the shape of our world. Writing this book allowed me to share the story of the perilous journey I took to lead a broken business to a thriving one with humanity at its heart and the impact that had on my reality, as well as all those that worked with me.
5. The next chapter - what’s next for you?
The closing paragraph of my book summarises how I see the future and my commitment to waking up each day to driving more understanding into our businesses, teams and societies.
“May this book be the beginning of your own conversation and practice of humanity’s greatest trait, or if not so bold, may it simply have been a reminder that in practising empathy you will always be doing the right thing. For your business, for your team, and for the world.”
My immediate focus is to launch the third season of The Empathy for Breakfast Show podcast which will further open up the conversation to high profile guests from all over the world. Beyond that, I continue to build our remote, hybrid creative advertising agency, www.findfreedm.com to work with clients all over the planet on empathetic branding and content that drives ROI, understanding and impact. Find out more on our site or via my empathy consultancy platform www.empathyeverywhere.co
To get a review copy or to book in an interview, contact Matt Davidson at matt@thebookpublicist.co.uk