The 5 Spheres of Empathy

Almost every business problem is a people problem. Empathy is intelligence about people, starting with you.

Most people think empathy means being nice, or feeling what other people feel. That version is useless in a meeting. Real empathy is intelligence about people: understanding what is actually going on, in yourself first and then in everyone around you. It is the skill underneath the rest, and most of us learned it backwards. Learn it properly and you stop guessing expensively.

Coach yourself through a real decision Human Intelligence
Voted a top speaker, Infoshare 2025
200+ startups, incubators, businesses and NGOs across ASEAN, Europe and New Zealand
From the UN and Oxfam to Google.org funded teams
Author of The 5 Spheres of Empathy
Start here, free

Try it on a real decision.

Optomize is the AI coach built on this method. Bring a decision you're sitting with, one you're not sure you're getting right, and it asks what a good coach would ask: what's actually driving you, whose view you're missing, where it leads if it compounds. Go as far as you like, a quick look or the full trace through all five spheres. It can surface real things, so give yourself a little room. Free, in exchange for your email.

Optomize, the empathy coach

A free guided session, plus the occasional letter worth reading.

No spam, no drip sequences pretending to be friendship. Just the session, and an occasional letter worth reading.

Six weeks

Human Intelligence

Empathy is the one thing AI can't replace. Six weeks of guided practice to stop misunderstanding it and start living it, beginning with yourself.

Most people think they already understand empathy. Two hours with the method usually shows them they had it backwards. But understanding it and living it are different things, and that gap is the whole reason this runs for six weeks rather than an afternoon. Each week you do the inner work, the first two spheres, with a small group and with Optomize between sessions, until the knowing becomes a skill you use under pressure. You bring a real decision. You leave deciding differently.

  • FormatSix weeks, 90 minutes live each week, online
  • Between sessionsGuided work with Optomize and your cohort
  • The workThe inner two spheres, traced through a real decision of yours
  • GroupEight to twelve people, chosen by hand
  • StartsWeek of 20 July
  • PriceEUR 1,000 per seat. A deposit holds your place.

Bringing this to your whole team is a different conversation. Get in touch.

Apply for a place
Proof

The same shift, in every room.

Universidad de La Sabana delegation, Warsaw, June 2026: 79% said their understanding of empathy shifted, and they rated it 9.8 out of 10 to recommend.

Optomize, the coach built on this method, powered the AI-augmented facilitation at the ASEAN Startup Connect Summit, funded by the Japan-ASEAN Integration Fund and endorsed by the ASEAN Secretariat. Read the white paper

Universidad de La Sabana delegation at the 5 Spheres of Empathy session, CIC Warsaw, 2026.

I used to think empathy meant feeling sorry for someone. Now I understand it means actively listening, observing, and truly grasping the full context of someone's experience.

Mariana, Universidad de La Sabana

Founders at IGNITE Singapore, 2026.

There aren't many places to discuss these things. Sharing a story forced me to articulate the experience, and the lesson became much clearer.

Nok, IGNITE Singapore

Asking yourself the right questions, and walking away with practical tools to embed empathy day to day.

Maria Zatelli, INCO

It encouraged me to reflect on my decision-making and how to improve it.

Michal, mottl.io

Galeno Chua facilitating a roundtable at the ASEAN Startup Connect Summit.
In the field

AI-augmented facilitation across eight ASEAN delegations and Japan

Optomize powered the facilitation at the ASEAN Startup Connect Summit, funded by the Japan-ASEAN Integration Fund and endorsed by the ASEAN Secretariat. The method surfaced what delegations weren't saying to each other — and turned it into actionable direction.

Read the white paper →
Galeno Chua on the Inspire Stage at Infoshare, 2026.
Galeno Chua, author of The 5 Spheres of Empathy
Who is behind this

Galeno Chua. Mr. G to most rooms.

A Kiwi-Singaporean social entrepreneur based in Warsaw. Nearly two decades working with organisations from the United Nations and Oxfam to more than two hundred startups across ASEAN, Europe and New Zealand. His frameworks have been applied by Google.org funded startups, the New Zealand Government and ASEAN government programmes.

He wrote The 5 Spheres of Empathy because he kept arriving at the same conclusion: almost all business problems and all sustainability problems are people problems. The method in the book, the sessions and the cohort is the one he uses himself, on his own ventures, in real time.

Stay close to the work

Empathy as a practical skill, in your inbox.

Occasional letters on the method, the trust economy, and building something that outlives you. Nothing automated pretending to be friendship. No spam.

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Start with yourself. The rest follows.

Bring one real decision to the coach and see what it surfaces. If the method is useful to you, you'll know inside a single session. Human Intelligence is where you turn that into a skill.

Coach yourself through a real decision

Workshops and team engagements: hello@5spheresofempathy.com