"Writing Copy is Empathy"

For a Living

I was young and full of 20-something angst when I asked my first boss whether writing copy all day wasn’t sort of a vapid career … no matter how much fun it was. He smiled at me and said, “I spend my whole day inside of other people’s heads. Interested in what moves them. Caring about where they hurt. Imagining what makes them smile. All so I can offer them things they may or may not even know they need. What’s more empathic?”

For a Life

Now I know that putting words to anything should come from a place of empathy. Trying to understand what truly matters to the recipients of everything we say, email or tweet is the best way to use our words to connect with other human beings and not just scream our desires into a canyon.