From MindShifting Monday with Mitch January 19, 2026

Empathy is often talked about as if it’s a single trait: you either have it or you don’t. But in my experience, and as I discussed in this MindShifting Monday with Mitch session, empathy is both more powerful and more nuanced than that. To truly “find your empathic power,” you need to understand the different ways empathy shows up in yourself and others.

When things go wrong, most of us default to blame.

1. We blame ourselves, saying things like, “Bad things always happen to me, I never get this right.”
2. We blame others: that person screwed up, that person is always so demanding.
3. Or we blame circumstances: traffic was terrible, the internet is too slow.

All of these are reactions that pull us away from empathy.

Empathic power, by contrast, is about understanding what’s going on with people—including ourselves—and then using that understanding to make the situation better. As I said in the session,

“When I think of empathy, I think of it… as understanding others and feeling for others as two different parts of empathy.” [0:03:38]

That’s the key: empathy has two dimensions—cognitive empathy and emotional empathy.

Cognitive empathy is what we know: our intellectual understanding of what someone is going through. Emotional empathy is what we feel: our ability to emotionally resonate with their experience. When you put those two dimensions on a grid, you get four quadrants, and each one describes a very different way of operating in the world.

In the lower left, low cognitive and low emotional empathy, people don’t really understand what others are going through and they don’t feel it either. They often appear cold, detached, and respond in ways that are inappropriate to the situation. People on the autism spectrum may have low cognitive and low emotional empathy. The important question here is: are they actually trying to harm me, or are they simply low in both kinds of empathy—and is this a teachable moment?

Then there’s high cognitive, low emotional empathy—what I call “weapons grade empathy.” These people understand others very well but don’t feel with them. That makes it easy for them to manipulate, charm, and press their advantage. As I explained:

“This is a person who understands how others feel but they don’t feel it. And this person could use their understanding of how others feel for selfish or harmful ends.” [0:05:40]

Narcissists are typically high cognitive low emotional empathy people, they use what they know about how others feel and will react in order to dominate and control.

On the opposite side, low cognitive but high emotional empathy, are the “bleeding hearts.” These people feel deeply for others but don’t always understand what’s really going on. They are vulnerable to manipulation and burnout. If this is you, your work is to strengthen your cognitive understanding of emotions so you can move toward balance. You can do this through therapy, with a coach, or people have said that my book MindShifting: Stop Your Brain from Sabotaging Your Happiness and Success has helped them.

The sweet spot is the top right: high cognitive and high emotional empathy. These individuals form deep connections, navigate social situations insightfully, and collaborate effectively. The risk here is over-investing time in relationship and problem-solving when a quicker, simpler solution would serve everyone better. A highly-skilled empathic person will use all five conflict resolution styles from their Sage minds, they will not always default to collaboration.

Finding your empathic power means intentionally moving toward that top-right quadrant—with others and with yourself. When you make a mistake, instead of beating yourself up, you can think like an elite athlete who loses a point: the point is over; what can I learn, and how can I win the next one? That’s self-empathy in action.

With others, it means turning judgment into curiosity: What might I be missing? What questions could I ask so we can both move forward? When you can stay curious—even playful—through triggering interactions, you’re no longer at the mercy of your reactions. You’re using empathy as a skill, not just a feeling.

That’s your real empathic power: the ability to understand, to feel, and then to choose responses that move you—and the people around you—forward.

Watch the full episode here: