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 every essay and episode in the Decoding Empathy series.
Every episode of What Works is also released in essay form at whatworks.fyi!
★ Support this podcast ★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