I trust you have heard the question “What would Jesus do?” It is often relayed as the acronym WWJD, and I think it has a great idea. Today I am going to explain the most important, yet hidden, meaning of the question. To do that we will take a brief journey into the world of psychology.
Nowadays there is an awareness of the importance of an ability called empathy. A simple definition of empathy is “the ability to understand and share the feelings of another,” and I agree it is an important skill. That said, there exists a larger and more valuable ability called mentalization.
In the 1990s in England, two psychologists named Peter Fonagy and Anthony Bateman created a treatment modality called mentalization based therapy. A simple definition of mentalization is “the ability to understand one's own and others' mental states.” Better yet, here is Peter Fonagy himself to define mentalization.
Hopefully you can see how the question “What would Jesus do?” is excellent practice, helping you develop the ability to mentalize. But, of course, the question can be used with any person.
I will use myself as an example. In addition to Jesus, when making an important decision, I often ask myself what Peter Drucker, or Warren Buffett, or Liah Greenfeld, or Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi would do. And as the last three posts on this blog should have made clear, I sometimes even ask myself “What would Gary Vaynerchuk do?”
Yes empathy is important, but mentalization is even better. Mentalization is an important part of both effectiveness and entrepreneurship. So as a friendly piece of advice, I recommend you study your mentors and customers until you are able to think, feel and act the way they do.
