Read Purposeful Empathy by Dr. Anita Nowak

" Empathy is the only human superpower - it can shrink distance, cut through social and power hierarchies, transcend differences and provoke political and social change "

Anita Nowak teaches social entrepreneurship and innovation, leadership in management at McGill University and has just published a book I finished this weekend.

This tome packs a wallop of meaningful.

With a forward by none other than a Nobel Peace Prizer Muhammad Yunus : the work is an easy read but also a comprehensive 101 .....ranging from the definition of empathy, what is it, why should we care and what does it do for us and for humanity .

The theme is especially timely during a polycrisis such as we live these days, climate anxiety, geopolitical upheavals and the "terminator-terror of AI" being mongered has all of us seeking a calmer ground for perspective. Purposeful Empathy is the path and Anita Nowak shares a tool kit with substance from neuroscientists like Christian Keyser's, head of the Social Brian Lab in the Netherlands whose research delves into the idea of "shared circuits " that suggests that as human beings, we are not strictly separate from each other...in the search for a spiritual connection, understanding that the motor cortices of our brains can impact or be impacted by others...." a little bit of you becomes a little bit of me and a little bit of me becomes you"...

Powerful stuff for educators, humanitarians, activists and social entrepreneurs and just about any human being that cares about the future sustainability of social relations, especially democracy.

This book provides intelligence, positivity and a growing path for those who remain curious and hopeful for the future.

Kudos Dr Nowak on producing an opus of optimism so timely.