One of the oldest lessons we're taught is to walk in another person's shoes before you judge, criticize, or dismiss.

You have no idea what they're going through.

"…No sh**, Mike."

Most of us nod at it and move on. 

But I came across something recently that made it feel urgent again.

In his best-selling book*, Bruce Feiler spent years collecting thousands of life stories. 

He sat with people across every background, every age, every circumstance, and asked them to share the moments that shaped their lives.

But what he found surprised even him:

He distilled all the stories into categories.

Kinda like the four suits of a deck of cards

Love (Hearts), Identity and Beliefs (Spades), Work (Diamonds), and Health (Clubs). 

Across thousands of lives, he found that each person experienced "a pivotal disruption" in one of these four areas every 12 to 18 months.

Think about that. 

On average, you're going to pull a new card every 18 months. 

Maybe you think you're lucky or that your life is “the same ole”,  but then you'll get hit with 5 cards in 5 weeks after 5 years of nothing.

For some people, the cards are manageable…. difficult, repeatable, but manageable.

You absorb the disruption, make some adjustments, and keep moving.   

Then there are the Ace cards. 

Now and then, a card hits that doesn't just disrupt… it disorients. 

It destabilizes.

It's huge.

It changes the direction of your life entirely. 

The card is pulled whether you like it or not.

Bruce calls these cards "lifequakes."

Here's why this matters to you, professionally:

The person across from you, the prospect who seems distracted, the client who's gone cold, the coworker who's short with everyone, they are pulling from this same deck too.

They may be mid-transition right now. 

They may have just drawn an Ace. 

You have no idea. 

None of us does, because most of us carry our disruptions quietly, invisibly, and alone.

This is what empathy actually looks like in practice. 

Not “a sales technique.” 

Not “a rapport-building tactic.” 

A genuine recognition that the human in front of you is navigating their own card game and that the cards they're holding may be heavier than anything showing on the surface.

The greatest professionals I've observed don't lead with pitch or pressure. 

They lead with empathy. 

They understand that how someone treats you in a given moment may have almost nothing to do with you and everything to do with what card they just drew.

This framework hit so hard that I wrote and drew it: 

"You don't know what they're struggling with, Mike."

The transitions are constant.

The lifequakes will come for all of us. 

^{*Feiler, Bruce. Life Is in the Transitions: Mastering Change at Any Age. Penguin Press, 2020.}

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