Ep 104: Tim Wenzel | Responding to labels and stereotypes with kindness

Rethinking Communication

What shifts in the moment someone tosses aside your unique humanity in favor of a damaging and hurtful stereotype? Where you become a caricature of a certain type of person in someone’s mind rather than the nuanced and intricate person standing in front of them?

This week's guest, Tim Wenzel, believes that for so many of us, we’re conditioned to be thoughtless in our response to being mislabeled or misunderstood — we buy into the fiction that our response should be more about the clap-back rather than the step-back.

Tim has been there, and he’s sharing his experiences and perspectives here in this episode.

Tim is the creator of The Kindness Games, a challenge born out of the recent pandemic intended to counter the disruption, hate, and discontent that has engulfed our world. It’s an initiative rooted in following your curiosity rather than your ego, because as Tim details in our conversation, he knows firsthand that tension, conflict, and distrust can be overcome when you choose to respond to the sting of a stereotype with curiosity.

Check out The Kindness Games at https://thekindnessgames.com/ and connect with Tim on LinkedIn at https://www.linkedin.com/in/relevant-perception/.