Empowering Others Starts With Empowering Yourself

There’s a documentary on Netflix about Eddie Murphy’s life and career, called Being Eddie. Despite being a mega superstar from a very young age, he never crashed and burned like so many of his predecessors and peers. He didn’t drink or do drugs, despite the opportunities and culture that normalized it for celebrities.

In the documentary, Murphy reflects this and shares his explanation for it. He said, “I didn’t fall for that stuff because I loved myself. I loved who I was inside.”

Eddie Murphy was a trailblazer for black actors and comedians. He inspired so many to feel empowered and find their voice. But it all started inside, with a strong sense of value, capability, and responsibility. That’s Compassionate Accountability.

My youngest daughter, Asha, is in her first semester as a 4th-grade teacher. It’s been a bumpy ride, but she is finding her stride. At first, she felt overwhelmed trying to manage a classroom of 25 kids at the same time, learning the ropes at a new school, and keeping up with the curriculum. And of course, there are always those few students who consume the majority of her energy. In particular, the most draining for Asha were the students who acted helplessly. Whenever they didn’t know the answer immediately or when a problem required a little effort, they would give up, raise their hand, and complain or ask for help.

Asha is a pretty resourceful woman. So she struggled with how to handle what she described as learned helplessness. In the first few months of school, she got help and advice from other teachers. She looked for reasons to explain the behavior. The negative impact of social media, parenting, fear of failure, and our culture of immediate gratification. (As an aside, there’s something immensely gratifying when you hear your 22-year-old child say, “Kids these days!”)

Recently, her mom and I visited Asha’s school for the first time and got a personal tour of her classroom. We were so proud of her. While she showed us around and answered our questions, we noticed something different in her. As she was talking about her daily behavior management struggles, she described a recent change in her approach:

“I used to feel helpless and not know what to do. I would get help from other teachers, which was great. Then I realized that I was sometimes acting just like the kids. I didn’t believe I was capable of handling the situation, just like they didn’t believe they were capable. So I started believing in myself to handle it. Then, I chose to start believing in them. Instead of rescuing them from their struggle, I told them, ‘This is hard, and I believe in you. You can do hard things, and I will help you. So, keep trying.'”

Asha instituted several new principles in the classroom. The first one is that whenever you don’t know the answer or things get hard, give it another try and wait to ask for help until you have made your first effort. Any effort is better than none. The second principle was that nobody is perfect and mistakes are OK.

The results were remarkable. Students started taking initiative, figuring things out, and gaining confidence. Asha felt a greater sense of satisfaction and confidence as a teacher. Win-win!

One of my favorite bits of wisdom comes from one of our partners, Aaron Chappell Deckert. He is famous in our office for saying, “What is coming at you is probably coming out of you.” The antidote to this wisdom is another bit of wisdom from Wayne Dyer, “When you change the way you look at things, the things you look at change.”

Compassionate Accountability® is the practice of demonstrating that people are valuable, capable, and responsible. It starts inside by adopting that mindset. Then, we can begin treating others the same way. Humans want to feel valuable, capable, and responsible. So when we give them that chance, they can rise to the occasion.

Whether in show business, in the classroom, or in the workplace, Compassionate Accountability is a mindset, communication framework, and approach to life that yields transformative results.

Copyright Next Element Consulting, LLC 2025