The 50th Law (with 50 Cent)

Analytic empathy: The reason you are able to understand your
friends or partner so deeply is that you have a lot of information about
their tastes, values, and family background. We have all had the
experience of thinking we know someone but over time having to
adjust our original impression once we get more information. So while
physical empathy is extremely powerful, it must be supplemented by
analytic empathy. This can prove particularly helpful with people
toward whom we feel resistant and whom we have a hard time
identifying with—either because they are very different from us or
because there is something about them that repels us. In such cases we
naturally resort to judging and putting them into categories. There are
people out there who are not worth the effort—supreme fools or true
psychopaths. But for most others who seem hard to figure out, we
should see it as an excellent challenge and a way to improve our skills.
As Abraham Lincoln said, “I don’t like that man. I must get to know
him better.”
Analytic empathy comes mostly through conversation and
gathering information that will allow you to get inside the spirit of
others. Some pieces of information are more valuable than others. For
instance, you want to get a read on people’s values, which are mostly
established in their earliest years. People develop concepts of what
they consider strong, sensitive, generous, and weak often based on
their parents and their relationship to them. One woman will see a
man crying as a sign of sensitivity and be attracted to it, while another
will see it as weak and repulsive. By not understanding people’s values

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on this level, or by projecting your own, you will misread their
reactions and create unnecessary conflicts.
Your goal, then, is to gather as much as you can about the early
years of the people you are studying and their relationship to their
parents and siblings. Keep in mind that their current relationship to
family will also speak volumes about the past. Try to get a read on their
reactions to authority figures. This will help you see to what extent
they have a rebellious or submissive streak. Their taste in partners will
also say a lot.
If people seem reluctant to talk, try asking open-ended questions, or
begin with a sincere admission of your own to establish trust. In
general people love to talk about themselves and their past, and it is
usually quite easy to get them to open up. Look for trigger points (see
chapter 1) that indicate points of extreme sensitivity. If they come from
another culture, it is all the more important to understand this culture
from within their experience. Your goal in general is to find out what
makes them unique. You are looking precisely for what is different
from yourself and the other people you know.