Empathy plays a big part in my life. I find it helps me everyday whether it be an actual interaction with another person or just hearing something in the news. Empathy helps me to better understand where a person is coming from and see their side of things and hopefully get a better understanding of where they're coming from and their motivations.

I think empathy can help one build better software because to create good functional software a developer must understand the user themeself as well as their needs.

Working on a team requires constant, productive communication. In these situations empathy can be extremely helpful in understanding other members of the team even if they have an opposing viewpoint and can help lead to a solution or compromise where all parties are happy.

I once had a job working at politcal advertising and PR firm. We were a smaller branch but there were two partners in our office, one was a democrat and the other a republican. They would often but heads on issues or disagree on how certain problems should be approached. Empathy played a very important role to help understand where everyone was coming from and what issues were most important to them and from there working to find common ground and a solution that makes everyone happy.

I find it most difficult to empathetic in professional settings when I feel that someone is personally attacking me, my values, or someone that I am close to. One way I try and deal with this is to take a deep breath. Hear the person out entirely. Step back and see if there are multiple ways what they are saying could be intrepreted. And finally to try and keep a level head and not lash out entirely based off of emotion.