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A few weeks ago, I was at a leading marketing and advertising conference with some of the best and brightest minds in the industry. We talked about new ideas, new tools, and new strategies—all ways to become better marketers.

We also talked a lot about Millennials.

At least two or three sessions became heated discussions about the worst generation this country’s ever seen. There wasn’t just anti-Millennial sentiment. There was Millennial hate.

Agency life is thrilling. We get to work on exciting projects with amazing clients. We get to build incredible web apps and create beautiful designs. We get to be on the forefront of marketing and technology. We get to help brands tell their stories and connect with their customers. We get to push the envelope and take chances. This industry may be brutal, but for those of us with the willingness and fortitude to survive, we wouldn’t trade our careers for anything.

However, if you ask agency folks what they dislike most about their jobs, the answer is almost unanimous: bad clients.

Atlanta is poised to be the Florence of the Digital Age.

There’s a rumbling of chatter and growing excitement about Atlanta and its future. You hear it at every marketing event. Every digital conference. You hear it every time a local politician speaks. You see it on billboards and in blog posts written by community leaders.

And I suppose everybody wants their city to be the best. To believe their city is the best. But in Atlanta, that feeling doesn’t come from a place of default hometown pride. It doesn’t come from a place of hubris or lack of worldliness.

It comes from experiencing, first-hand, exactly what it is that makes Atlanta so special. A feeling you can only understand once you’ve lived here. Worked here. Grown your career here or started a family here.

Nebo celebrated its 10th birthday earlier this year. To say we’ve been very fortunate along the way would be an understatement.

We’ve grown for 10 consecutive years. We’ve been named to the Inc. 5000 list for the past four years. We’ve never laid off a single employee. We’ve never had a down year. We’ve won over 100 digital awards in the past two years alone. We have 50 of the most talented and passionate people in the industry.

Yet, I’m still completely terrified. I still feel like we haven’t made it. I still feel as scared and humble as I did the day we decided to launch Nebo.

Conventional wisdom says empathy can’t be taught, learned, or strengthened. Conventional wisdom assumes our empathy ability is relatively set in stone.

But our empathy system is complex. It’s an interesting interaction of several neurological elements working together. Part of empathy is relating to others. Part of empathy is being able to understand what others feel and think. Part of empathy is going beyond knowing, but caring and feeling.

Thankfully, the term empathy is moving beyond pseudo science and toward actual science. Thanks to fMRIs and other tools we can actually see, measure, and evaluate “empathy”.

In a previous post, I mentioned that empathy was the most important tool in a marketer’s toolkit. Not fake empathy. Not user personas. Not demographics. Not primary or secondary research. Not insights or key motivators.

Actual, real empathy.