How Can a Man Who Saved 100 Soldiers Not Define Empathy?

Key points

The confusion between empathy, sympathy, and compassion is costing us real connection.

Most of us are using the wrong emotional tool without even realizing it.

Science shows empathy isn’t just one thing—it splits into two very different powers.

The secret to influence and connection isn’t more kindness, it’s precision.

A few years ago, my father-in-law, Joseph, casually admitted he didn’t know what empathy was. Not in a “tell me more” kind of way—he literally didn’t know the meaning of the word.

This is a man who kept a hundred soldiers alive in the jungles of Vietnam, built a basketball court out of artillery boxes, and went on to join the top one percent of earners in America. He’s traveled to the South Pole in his late 70s, but somehow, empathy had never made it into hi