EP 465: Learning Empathy from Copywriters & Doppelgangers with Samantha Pollack

I have learned a lot about cognitive empathy by learning copywriting. After all, copywriting is a puzzle—the puzzle of figuring out what someone is thinking or feeling and how you can connect your idea to that thought or feeling.

So, it seemed only fitting that I would invite a copywriter to this series on decoding empathy to share her process and give you a behind-the-scenes look at cognitive empathy in practical application. In this episode, I get real nerdy with Samantha Pollack, a positioning strategist and copywriter, and think about how the digital doppelgangers we create via our personal brands might help us get curious about who is behind others' digital doppelgangers.

Footnotes:

• Find out more about Samantha Pollack and Cult of Personality
• Doppelganger by Naomi Klein
• "The Politics of Recognition" by Charles Taylor in Multiculturalism

Find every essay and episode in the Decoding Empathy series.

Every episode of What Works is also released in essay form at whatworks.fyi!

• (00:00) - Introduction


• (01:16) - Doppelganger by Naomi Klein


• (04:58) - The tension between who we are and who we want to become


• (09:11) - Behind the scenes of Samantha's copywriting process


• (12:36) - How Samantha learns more about her client's customers


• (16:01) - How to write in someone else's voice


• (17:45) - How to write in someone else's voice


• (21:45) - Two more tools for learning about customers


• (26:08) - Sometimes people surprise you


• (26:54) - What's the difference between the person and the personal brand?


• (31:09) - Doppelgangers remind us to be curious about ourselves, others, and how we're all connected


• (33:07) - Credits