The School of Greatness - Stanford Psychologist: The #1 Psychological Skill To Master The Art of Influence & Transform Your Relationships

Episode Date: May 21, 2025

Leave an Amazon Rating or Review for my New York Times Bestselling book, Make Money Easy!What if the key to deeper connections isn't in what you say, but in how you listen? Dr. Caroline Fleck, licensed psychologist and Stanford instructor, reveals the transformative power of validation - a skillset that revolutionized psychology yet remains largely unknown outside clinical settings. Her journey through depression and breast cancer gives her unique insight into why feeling truly seen matters more than love itself. She breaks down the surprising science behind techniques like "copying" that can increase trust by 25% and even overcome implicit bias. This conversation unveils a step-by-step framework that anyone can use to create authentic connection, navigate difficult emotions, and transform relationships - whether you're dealing with a suicidal patient or simply trying to understand your partner better.Buy Dr. Fleck’s book Validation: How the Skill Set That Revolutionized Psychology Will Transform Your Relationships, Increase Your Influence, and Change Your LifeIn this episode you will learn:Why validation is the foundation of all human connection and may be even more important than love itselfThe "validation ladder" – an 8-step process therapists use to make others feel truly seen and heardHow mimicking someone's body language activates mirror neurons that help you genuinely understand their emotionsThe counterintuitive way to handle your difficult emotions – feeling them fully without the narrativeA step-by-step process for self-validation that can transform shame into peace in minutesFor more information go to https://www.lewishowes.com/1774For more Greatness text PODCAST to [phone]More SOG episodes we think you’ll love:Jerry Wise – greatness.lnk.to/1747SCKerry Washington  – greatness.lnk.to/1768SCEvy Poumpouras – greatness.lnk.to/1764SC Get more from Lewis! Get my New York Times Bestselling book, Make Money Easy!Get The Greatness Mindset audiobook on SpotifyText Lewis AIYouTubeInstagramWebsiteTiktokFacebookX

I'm so grateful that you're here. It's a beautiful day. And if you're going through something challenging, then I'm going to let you know it's all going to be okay. I don't know how many times I've felt like the world was falling apart or the world was against me or no one cared about me or no one loved me or it just felt like everything was difficult. I don't know how many years I experienced that. But it always felt like is this suffering and frustration and friction ever going to end?

And I have good news and bad news. The bigger the drain you have, the greater the challenge and the friction that's going to come. But the more you create inner peace, you heal, you learn to love yourself and accept yourself. You release shame. You release guilt. You realign yourself to your authentic power and you truly start to create awareness around yourself and others. Things start to transform and you can navigate and handle difficult challenges in a much

more effortless way. So it doesn't mean like all your problems are going to go away. You're just going to have the tools, the poise, the inner peace and presence and awareness to navigate them and look at them, not as horrible experiences, but as opportunities for growth and transformation. And we've got a powerful episode today, Dr. Caroline Fleck, who is a body language expert, and she's going to be sharing tools that you need to create deeper connection

and really how to understate navigating these difficult times in your lives. And as a licensed psychologist and instructor at Stanford and author of a new book called Validation, she shares this step-by-step process on how you can truly connect with everyone around you so that they feel truly seen and heard. And we dive into this science of validation, a skill set that revolutionized

psychology and is now being revealed as essential for everyone. So it's going to give you powerful tools to create deeper connections. Because sometimes when our relationships feel like they're falling apart or we can't navigate difficult challenges within relationships, we feel like we're falling apart, or we can't navigate difficult challenges within relationships, we feel like we're falling apart and the world is against us. She's going to break down the entire process and how you can truly connect with people to transform challenges into opportunities for peace, purpose, and connection. I'm so excited about this.

I hope you enjoy it. Welcome back everyone to the school of greatness. Very excited about our guests. We have Dr. Caroline Fleck, who is a licensed psychologist and adjunct clinical instructor at Stanford. I'm so happy that you're here and welcome to the new set of the school of greatness. I am thrilled. This is the perfect conversation to talk about because you have a book called

validation, how to, how the skill set that revolutionized psychology will transform your relationships, increase your influence and change your life. And for me, I love these types of conversations. And I love the research that you've done, because it validates my entire life, it validates the like the struggles that I've gone through and the almost defense mechanism I had to build up through surviving in society by learning this skill without even knowing that I was doing this. To fit in, to belong, to get attention, to level up socially from middle school

to high school to college to business. And as I was going through the science and the research that you had in the And as I was going through the science and the research that you had in the book, I was just like, I'm so happy you're talking about this because I believe this is everything that I have used in a good way to support me in building my business and developing relationships for good,

for making a difference in the world. For making an influence on people in a positive way. And so I wanted to start by asking you, we're going to do a couple parts to this, but the first part I want to talk about is really what have you learned as a practitioner? What is a psychological skill that you have learned from all the different clinical work with patients that can help individuals in the real world, all the work you've done, all the skills that you've taught, what's one skill that people could use in the real world to help them transform their life? Validation.

So I, and validation is a set of skills really. So you learn as a clinician, you're trained in these skills to help you communicate acceptance, to help you help another person feel seen and heard. It's very important if you wanna get people to listen to you and to collaborate with you and to work with you. Okay.

And there's a science to this. Like this is, we've researched what is the most effective way, how can you signal acceptance? And as therapists, you're trained in this method. These specific skills were developed for a treatment called dialectical behavior therapy, DBT, which is a specific treatment for folks who have a condition known as borderline personality disorder,

often characterized by self-harm and suicidal behavior, so serious stuff. But here's the thing. I found myself, however old I was, getting my PhD in psychology, studying this very specific treatment, and finally being introduced to these skills that I'm thinking, why isn't this in grade school? Like, why aren't these skills taught in K through five? Why am I just hearing about this now? And like, this is the path it took for me

to get this information. And I mean, not the path it took for me to get this information. And I mean, not only was it immediately apparent that these skills helped patients and improved, you know, were critical to doing therapy well. Is this you learning how to validate patients? This is me learning how to validate patients. Because if you don't validate a patient, they're not going to trust and believe you what you're saying. They're going to feel unseen, unheard, like you don't understand them. So I'm just going to keep living in this world of

no one gets me. Even my therapist doesn't understand me. So why would I trust and listen to what they're saying and take action on the tools that you're sharing with me? That's right. It's even a little further than that. So prior to DBT, we had this real focus in psychology on change. Everything was behaviorism, cognitive behaviorism, which focuses on changing your behavior, changing your thoughts. And that's great for folks who are change-focused, believe in their capacity for change, and are willing to do what you suggest. Okay. If you've ever raised an adolescent or just been in a relationship with somebody where you feel like nothing's working, you know that feeling of like, there are times

when that approach just doesn't work. And so for the longest time, we didn't have treatments that worked for folks who were what we called treatment resistant. And the discovery, the fascinating insight was that if you want to help people make profound changes, you need to help them feel deeply accepted. Really? What if there's someone that you don't understand? Because you don't think the way they think. They have completely opposite viewpoints or they're extreme borderline bipolar or extreme

personality disorder. They're suicidal and you don't understand that. How can you validate someone that you don't understand? So the skills that we learn, you start out with just a couple that basically signal engagement, that help me engage and help me listen in a way that will foster understanding and empathy. But here's the thing, I don't have to validate the entirety of someone's experience. So when I'm working with say a schizophrenic client, someone who literally is seeing and hearing things that are not there, and this person is reacting to me as though I'm working with, say, a schizophrenic client, someone who literally is seeing and hearing things that are not there.

And this person is reacting to me as though I'm a threat. I'm trying to kill them or something, and I'm not. I don't agree with those thoughts, not by any stretch of the imagination. That is not valid. However, the feeling of fear and the desire to protect themselves given what they're thinking makes sense. I can validate that. I can go a step further and say, would you feel more comfortable taping, recording this conversation?

Because I understand that you don't trust me right now. And if I wasn't feeling trust towards the person who I was talking to, I might want some recording so I could go back to it. To make someone more safe feeling. Right, I'm not saying I agree with your thoughts, but I see the validity in your feeling and I can attend to that. Does that make sense?

So like that is critical because what we tend to focus on is behavior that we don't like, we don't agree with, and we fail to attend to the valid emotions behind it. What would you say then is the step-by-step process for making someone feel seen and validated? Okay, it is it the model I use is called the validation ladder and it includes eight skills. Okay. I won't go through them all, but, validation conveys mindfulness, understanding, and empathy in a way that makes

the other person feel accepted. So at the bare minimum, if I don't understand or empathize with someone, all I can do is be mindful and engaged. And to be mindful, you need to project non-judgment. So it's not just listening, okay, because people can tell when you are listening and coming up with your rebuttal and your counter-argument or your judgments.

So you have to listen in such a way that projects curiosity. And we know how to do that, all right? You use specific non-verbals and you play this little game in your head, which is amazing and super effective. Do you want me to talk about it? Yeah. I'm kind of embarrassed.

Okay. So a little therapist trick, but it is, it's how we attend. If I'm sitting across from someone and you're talking to me, the game I'm playing in my head is to solve or figure out this kind of two-part riddle. What's your point? Why do you care about it? And how do I improve upon it? How could I crystallize that argument better?

I'm giving you the benefit of the doubt that you're just thinking on your feet and you're throwing all this together. So in my mind, I'm thinking just how do I make this point better than you're making it now? It's kind of like when you're in a debate and you have to argue a position you don't necessarily agree with, right? Like why you should smoke. And you're just in the, your job is just to kind of formulate the best argument you can. That's essentially what you're doing. So you start asking questions to try and understand their position better. And you're just tweaking it and tweaking it. If you watch great interviewers, like late night hosts,

you'll see, you can see them playing a version of this game. They're trying to pull out the best interview they can. Doesn't necessarily mean that they agree with what the other person is saying or whatever. They're just trying to crystallize that message. And that informs how they listen and then the questions they ask. And without fail, there's a sense of genuine curiosity there because it's genuinely there. Yeah. But if there's someone that you're working with, whether it's an elite executive or someone who's suicidal, and they're trying to make a point. In your mind, you know that's not

what they need to be thinking about. It's actually hurting them or blocking them from creating what they want. How do you play the game of validating their point when you know it's hurting them, or it's a false belief around something, or it's not the truth that's going to support them and setting them free emotionally, psychologically? How do you play that's going to support them in setting them free emotionally, psychologically,

how do you play that game and then empower them to think a different way? Okay. So as I'm playing that game, I'm just asking. At this level, it's just kind of mindful awareness that I'm projecting here. And as I'm listening, I am hearing the emotion. I am starting to make connections in my head. I am looking for what is the kernel of truth in what this person is saying. Where is this coming from? What is the feeling behind this? What function

does this behavior serve? With suicidality, it's often relief from pain. All right. If they had a way to relieve pain, they would take it. And this is the only option they see. I don't agree with that, but importantly, validation does not require agreement. I'm a vegetarian, but I could validate why somebody would choose to eat meat. That doesn't mean I agree with them. I just see the validity in their argument and I can focus on that instead of the part that I disagree with.

And importantly, if I focus on that instead of the part that I disagree with. And importantly, if I focus on that first, the conversation around perhaps changing their opinion is much more likely to be successful. So validate their point first. Validate the valid, yeah. And then if you're trying to influence or persuade to seeing something differently, how do you move them in that direction? That's when I pivot to more like behavioral stuff. Okay, so that would be, you know, we have all sorts of reinforcement shaping that we

do to try and kind of nudge the person in the other direction. But the interesting thing is the person will just be more receptive to you. You're curious, they absorb that curiosity. So one of the other mindfulness skills we use here, there's that attending one, and then there's copying, which sounds so weird. But let me tell you, if you are like up at night, you can't sleep, Google the research on mimicry or copying. It is fascinating stuff. Like simply copying another person's body language. Okay.

Does it get too weird if you're copying everything? It does. It does. Like I scratch, you scratch, I switch my feet, you switch your feet. Yeah, it does. I shift, you shift. It would, but here's the thing. So as soon as we were talking and I was starting to feel like, ooh, this isn't going well,

I would in my head just say like, copy. I'm not going to be too, you know, drilled in, but I just give like myself a message copy. For you to copy me? For me to copy you. Okay. I just tell myself copy. And I slowly start to assume a similar position.

Okay. And I'm intentionally doing that because I'm trying to attune to you. And this isn't me just being weird. Doing this activates mirror neurons, wherein as a result of copying your expression and your body language, I will start to feel, I will start to taste some of what you are experiencing. All right, that is how mirror neurons function.

We are designed to copy babies, mimic the facial expressions of people, of their parents and caregivers. When we're attracted to people or we want to impress them or we like them, we naturally copy them. When we sense threat, we tend to close up. And interestingly, those are the moments oftentimes, conflict, right, where connection would serve you best. It's just not what we're wired to do.

Yeah, because we're in the defense. That's right. We're guarding, protective. So copying, is it similar to mirroring or mimicking. Mirroring and mimicking. What is the science behind copying or mirroring that shows you how much more influential you can be in any relationship? Oh my gosh.

So I'm trying to think of some of these really quirky studies. They, they looked at, for instance, when waiters simply repeat back an order, um, compared to those who don't, they get a 25% higher tip on average, right? Um, copying increases altruistic behavior towards the person who did the copying. It also overcomes implicit racism. So they'll, they have ways of measuring kind of subtle forms of racism that you're not even aware of. They'll give you an assessment to measure that. And then they'll have you copy someone of the opposite race, copy their movements in a move in a video or something. And then they'll measure it again. And that implicit racism has significantly decreased.

Wow. Just by copying. Just by copying, yeah. So this is what I'm saying about how you use these entry skills to cultivate more understanding and empathy. And that is how you move to higher levels of validation. Because my full-time job is working with people

who are saying, doing, and believing things that are distorted to the extent of being pathological. Can you give me an example of what someone might say, you know, to say who or what it was exactly, but an example of a distorted belief? Well, Caroline, it's clear. I guess this is done.

I guess we're not working together anymore. Me saying, I'm sorry, what happened? I emailed you yesterday. You didn't respond? Didn't respond to me? Oh, I'm so sorry. I had so many, immediately I'm getting defensive, right? I am so sorry, I had so many, you know that I,

I self-harm. Wow. You don't care. You don't care. You think this is fun. You think this is fun. Just really kind of... Wow. Ramping it up, taking it to a whole other level. It's like a different world in their mind, right? It is. And in my heart, I'm feeling responsible for what's going on. For them harming themselves mentally, potentially physically. Wow. And then like, I need to get this under control.

So it's that type of, those types of situations. And if these skills work in those situations, their potential when the stakes are much lower and folks are much more rational is significantly bigger. Yeah. When someone's more receptive. Exactly. You know, less aggressive or less like, or just in the same world as you. Yeah, when someone's more receptive, you know, less aggressive or less like, or just in the same world as you. Yeah. Mentally. Yes. Yes. I mean, it's much easier. Interesting.

But if someone's extremely combative or in a completely different world like that, how do you walk them off the edge? I mean, not physically, but how do you walk them off the edge, I guess, pull them back into a place of like, getting back into a reality. Or is that not even possible for some people? There's a lot of different things that go into that. At that point, what I would start doing genuinely is actually to copy back. Okay, so let me get this right.

I wanna make sure I've got this. You emailed me yesterday. From your perspective, this should have been a signal to me that you were in crisis. Okay. Okay. And I need to be careful not to say that wasn't in your email. Just like, so right now I got it. You're feeling like I totally betrayed you. Like I'm intentionally trying to hurt you. Oh my gosh. Okay. I see. I see. I see. trying to hurt you. Oh my gosh. Okay, I see, I see, I see.

Oh, I'm so sorry you feel that way. Oh my gosh. That is no, no, no, no. That is not what happened. Not from my, can I share my perspective? It's okay if you don't want me to because that could sound offensive. But I really, it hurts my heart

that there was this miscommunication. But doesn't that feel like you have to walk on eight shells? Yeah, a little. I mean, if that's the real world, maybe with a patient who's personality disorder, but... No, because I am seeing, like, that's their perspective. I do see that. I'm not saying anything I don't believe. Now, here's the thing. It's acceptance and change, not acceptance or change. They are two sides of the same coin. So I can validate

and then once there's, once I see that that has resonated, I switch gears. But let's look at this for a second. If you keep responding to people in this way when they miss a message from you, I'm worried you're going to start burning people out. Because the other thing I felt just now was attacked and scared and not in a good way. All right. Is there anything we could have done, do you think, that could have brought down the intensity just a little bit so you could give me that message, but not make me want to hide under the couch? Wow.

So that's it. That's that combination. You see how I'm going from validation to change. Interesting. Right? Okay. But you said attending was the first step in the latter, right? Yeah, and the second is copying, which is that mimicry that I do.

And attending includes eye contact, proximity, gesturing, and nodding. That's right. So it's a two-parter. It's that little game that you're playing in the head, and then it's nonverbals. All right. And what was the first thing to go out the window once we were in shutdown from lockdown from COVID? Proximity. Proximity? Eye contacts. Yeah, yeah.

I mean, all of it, I guess. Gestures get really awkward. Everything. Everything. Yeah. Everything. And- So it's hard to feel validated if you're not in person.

It's hard to feel seen. It's hard to feel connected. Right? And I'm not saying that that explains all of the loneliness we experienced. if you're not in person. It's hard to feel seen. It's hard to feel connected, right? And I'm not saying that that explains all of the loneliness we experienced, but as a therapist, I can vouch for the fact that it was significantly harder. I had one hand tied behind my back

because these skills that I've learned to rely on, I could not use. And that's hard. And that is something we sacrifice by being so online. And if you think there's nothing meaningful there, I would challenge you to look at the research on, on kind of how folks who are online for hours and hours a day fair in terms of mental health and relationships. Yeah, it's not good stuff. So attending is the first thing.

Copying is the second thing. I also saw this quote that I loved in your book on page 81, it's by Henry David Thoreau, that says, the greatest compliment that was ever paid to me was when someone asked me what I thought and attended to my answer. It was the greatest compliment. And I believe that, you know, in a world

of eight billion plus people, the thing we want the most is validation. So the thing we want the most is to be acknowledged, to be seen, and to be accepted freely, which is being validated of our existence. It's like, you're alive, I see you, and then there's different levels of validation. It's like, I see you that you're a human being, and I see that the suffering you're alive. I see you and then there's different levels of validation It's like I see you that you're a human being right that I see that the suffering you're going through

Yes, I see the greatness of the goodness in you. I see the kind acts you're generating with the world I see that you're a good friend It's like I see it's your good employee all these different things or at the top. I see myself in you That is real power. What does that mean? At the top, I see myself in you. That is real power. What does that mean? When I look at you, it's like looking in the mirror. I see so much of my own experiences.

I can relate so deeply to what you're describing that is. It's like we're one in the same. That's the moments you have, perhaps in self-disclosure, when someone says to another, hey man, I'm also an AA, right? Immediate, there's an understanding there. There's a sameness.

Connection. There's connection. And I would actually go a step further with how critical validation is. This sounds like controversial, I see that, but I think it is more important than love. I think you cannot have true love in the absence of having been

and having consistently been validated. Not being validated. Yeah. I mean, if you've been, if there's not enough, if there isn't validation in the relationship, it's hard to feel loved because if you don't feel accepted or seen, what does the person love?

So love is not enough. No, you can love a facade, but that doesn't feel good. I can create all these stories about myself and filter this and filter that and get all sorts of likes and praise, which is a positive judgment. Praise says, I like how you look or I like how you perform. Validation says, I accept you independent of how you look or perform.

Okay? In the absence of feeling seen, feeling accepted, it's hard to feel deeply loved. We don't, I mean, we haven't been vulnerable. We haven't shown ourselves or we have and the other person has been like, whoa, that's weird. And we shut that down. Right. And so they love the parts of us that we've shown or dressed up, but perhaps not the entirety of who we are. I'm curious if you have behaviors that are not verbal to validate someone, whether it be mimicking or copying, is

that a way to get someone to be more attracted to you? Yeah, so the research on attraction is often with copying. So we are more attracted to people who copy us, which is like just if you're going on a first date. Always try to copy more. Always try to, right. So don't do the opposite of what they're doing. Right, right, right, right.

But like, don't be, you know, again, I, as I said before, I give myself just this little cue copy. That's it. Because if I'm like really dialed in on it, it gets awkward. It's too much. It's too much. You're shifting when they're shifting constantly. Yeah, yeah, that's right.

That's right. But again, we're naturally wired to do this. And so if you just kind of remember it in a moment, that's sufficient. Yeah. I mean, when you see someone smile, you tend to smile back. Yeah. You know, it's like, it's just a quick mimic. Yeah, that's right. You see someone walk at you, unless you're like darted that day and you're like, don't look at me. But if you have an open, relaxed state of being, that's right. You're more willing to smile when someone smiles at you, a quick gesture. That's right. That's right. That's right. We see it as almost a common courtesy,

but it is at a deeper level. And when it's used more intentionally to kind of establish connection, it can be used in those ways. So after attending and then copying, what would be the next level of validation? The next level up is to show some degree of understanding. And usually this is like logical understanding, cognitive understanding.

I can see how you got there. And there's a couple skills here. You can do the anyone in your shoes would feel that way. Anyone in your shoes would be probably anxious about this set coming together. That's interesting. Last minute. Yeah, yeah.

As opposed to saying, I cannot understand where you're coming from. You'd say anyone in your shoes. You can do anyone in your shoes. A way more effective way to do it is like, oh my God, yes, I would be so anxious too. Like me too. If you think about going to a doctor and them saying,

if you're like, yeah, I don't know, I think I might, I don't know if I should get a second opinion. You should absolutely get a second opinion. If it was my child, that's what I would do. Right. We're like, yummy. That feels good. There's this sense of like, okay, I'm, I'm valid.

What I'm thinking is valid. It's reasonable. I'm not being dramatic. I'm not being X, Y, or Z. That's kind of what, um of what these understanding skills communicate. One of them happens to double as a Jedi mind trick. I've just got to worry about it. What's that?

Proposing. What's proposing? Proposing is when, you know, I was playing that little game in my head earlier where I'm trying to figure out, like, you know, what are you thinking? Why does this matter to you? I don't answer, I don't actually communicate any of that. This is all just in my head to keep me engaged. But if I come up with some stuff,

I can throw it out there and see what sticks. I can propose something you haven't said. All right, it's also known as like mind reading. Can you give me an example? How do we mind read someone? You know, a great example was actually an interview with Oprah and Meghan Markle. Meghan Markle is describing this life of being in front of the paparazzi and feeling like she couldn't be her true self. And then she's obviously kind of pained and shamed

about having not stood up for herself. And she looks at Oprah and she says, I was silent throughout this experience. I was just silent. And then Oprah being Oprah says, were you silent or were you silenced? Ooh. Boom. Oprah effect. Right? That's proposing. That's articulating something the person hasn't said. And if you're really good, if you really nail it, perhaps you facilitate an insight

that they didn't even have. And you might be wrong, but if you're feeling it and you throw out, okay, what about this, this or this? Maybe your intuition picks up on one of them and it's like, oh my God, you understand me. You're reading my mind. So this is such a critical point. I'm glad you dialed in on that because I can't emphasize enough. These are skills. All right.

And to develop any skill, you've got to strike out, right? Usually, if it's a skill for like a sport or something, you're getting coaching on the side. As therapists, I'm getting a lot of coaching on the side. And you're just taking that feedback in to sharpen those skills. But with this stuff, we tend to really internalize the feedback

and get shut down or feel rejected or like, oh God, I'm just gonna make things worse. And that is a mistake. You have to look at these things as skills that you develop. And you're right, you strike out, you get some feedback. Oprah strikes out all the freaking time. It's amazing, like go watch these and she's throw things out and it's just like, no, I wasn't scared.

I was humiliated, you know? And she's like, humiliated. She goes scared. I was humiliated, you know, and she's humiliated. She goes back down the ladder, copy and humiliated. Hmm. What was humiliating about attending? She gets more information. She gets more than she tries again. Doesn't stick.

She drops down that ladder, back with just being mindful and then tries again. Yeah. You've got to attend. The mindfulness is about attending and copying, right? It's like, how can I be present with you is what I'm hearing you say. Yeah, be curious. How can I focus on you rather than think about myself or what I'm going through or what I want to say in this moment?

That's right. Yeah. How do I not, how do I be curious and continue to follow up with asking questions as opposed to acting like I'm smart and having the answers? Yeah. So that's the mindfulness part of this ladder, attending and coppering. But when you propose something, it's like you're trying to understand them. You're trying to show that you understand.

That's right. By proposing, oh, when you were feeling this when you had your child, I'm assuming it was a lot of anxiety, but also a lot of joy at one point. And maybe you can be like, no, it was a nightmare. Like the whole 24 hours was not joyful. And I thought the baby was gonna come and I was gonna have this connection, and I didn't. Yeah.

Right, some women say that. Yes. Another one was like, it was amazing, and this spiritual moment, and then brought him to my chest and ah, I felt one with my child. Yeah, great example, right? So it's like showing a few different options, but you might be wrong.

Now here's the thing though, in the perfect example, what most people do in that first scenario when they said, oh, you must've been so excited and the person goes, actually, no, I was, I struggled with postpartum depression. They go, really? Oh, next topic. Hard. And they don't, they might, they just don't ever try again to show understanding. They've like, they're like, okay, I don't get it.

I don't want to make things worse. That is the biggest mistake. You've got to stay in the game, just take it as feedback. Clearly, you weren't paying close enough attention. So go back to those two skills, keep working them and then go on again. Start again and ask questions again.

Yeah. Yeah. Copying. Tell me what was that like? Yeah. Yeah. Oh my God. So this is like, I talk about each of these skills individually, but the real skill is being able to Yeah. Copying. Oh, tell me what was that like? Yeah. Yeah.

Oh my gosh. And so this is like, you know, I talk about each of these skills individually, but the real skill is being able to kind of like move between these things. Interesting. And know how to correct, course correct. So every day we are in relationship with others when we're around other people, whether we know it or not, we're either validating or not validating someone. Right. Or at the worst, we're invalidating them.

Invalidating, right? Right. And I would say that the quality of our life is related to our ability to validate effectively, it sounds like, with the people in our life, right? Friends, family, teams, employees, bosses, whatever it is. If we're not attending and listening, if we're not able to contextualize or propose opportunities for people, then we're probably not going to be enjoying our relationships that well. Yeah, that's right. We're going to be struggling. Yeah. And what is the next level from mindfulness to understanding? What is the next level of validation? So at the top, you've got these empathy skills and they communicate mindfulness,

understanding and empathy in one fell swoop. This is powerful stuff. It's also at like the top of this, if you visualize a ladder. So you can imagine when you fall down from a high position, it hurts. Yes. So if you strike out with these, it can be a little ugly. And you know, they're not all super intense. Some of the most basic ones are just like emoting, like expressing your genuine emotion. Okay. But I'm trying to think of, I almost need to like

show you what it looks like. Give me an example. Yeah. I'm trying to think of, I almost need to like show you what it looks like. Give me an example. Yeah. There was a great example of John Stewart actually talking to Congress on behalf of the 9-11 first responders. And he's advocating on their behalf. I remember that. And it's very, I mean, he's John Stewart. He's incredibly articulate, very eloquent. Passionate.

But as he's talking, he starts getting choked up. He just gets so mad. And it's just such an injustice. And like, holy cow, you can feel how much, like, he just so swiftly validated their outrage, their sorrow, the injustice of it, simply through his emotion, right? He broke character from his like standard, you know, John Starr, like that was not who showed up. It was a person who was deeply vulnerable and it was clear that he was deeply affected

by their experience. And that's kind of what it can show. It doesn't have to be negative emotions. Like I'm a big one for jumping up and down and like high-fiving and hugging. Just like it's breaking character, I think. Expressing yourself, emoting, okay. What is disclose? What does that mean?

Like self-disclosure. Okay. So that would be, for instance, I struggled with depression for about a decade. You personally? Yeah. Yeah. From when I was 15 through about 26. It's one of the reasons I wanted to become a psychologist.

To understand your own suffering, your own pain? I mean, I'm kind of an a-jerk. Yeah. Like, I wanted to see if I could treat depression on some level. In part because so much of what I received felt damaging. In retrospect, I felt invalidated by most of the mental health providers I saw. There was this, and I can see it. I was high functioning. There was this disconnect between like, you look fine, you know, and the

fact that I'm saying like, no, I'm really struggling. I'm really struggling here. Um, and so I felt dismissed. I felt, I doubted if this was even real a lot of the time. There was this whole narrative of like, what's wrong with me? I forgot everything. Like, poor you. You know, it was just, yeah, it was just swirling around my head big time.

And fortunately, I got treatment and got better. And now when I work with clients and I've got someone who says, you know, like, you don't possibly, you couldn't possibly understand. You're sitting here and you're like, you're with your degrees behind the wall and you think you've got it all. And I say, yeah, but I had ECT for depression. That's electric shock therapy. Okay. That's a big deal. I understand suffering. I understand being at that level of pain where you would do anything to relieve it. And it kills me that this person I care so much about is in this exact same situation. But I got through it. And I won't quit. I will do whatever I can to see how to get you through it. Okay? There is a connection there. There's, you know, you can feel that, again, it's I see myself in you.

I'm not better than you. We're in this together. That's what disclosure can do. What if you disclose something where you're like, okay, I had a little something, but someone else is feeling like they have a much bigger something. So you're like, okay, I see you're trying to relate to me, but your example of having a weekend of depression or whatever, I'm not making this up, there's not a decade of what I've been experiencing. It's not suicide. It's not harming myself. It's not being medicated

constantly. What if it makes them angrier by you trying to disclose? Remember when I said the higher you go, the harder it hurts when you go up. Oh, right, right, right. Right? So it's like you have to be sensitive in how you approach it. And maybe it's like, listen, I know this isn't anything you're going through, but I've gone through my own periods of like not understanding or feeling pain or feeling sadness or depression. That's right. And it's probably nothing like what you're experiencing.

Yes. But it was, it felt overwhelming for me. Yes. So it's approaching it in that delicate nature. That's right, that's right. And I have all sorts of tips in the book around how to kind of repair if you think you've screwed up, how to avoid making some mistakes there. But the fact of the matter is, I can't emphasize this enough, it's a skill. And so if you want to get good at this, you practice it.

You practice it. You know, I wasn't coming on podcasts saying that I had had ECT and major depression. Like I figured out a way to communicate that in a way that feels effective to me and focused on the topic. Why wouldn't we disclose earlier in a conversation if someone's going through his challenging time? Why wouldn't we disclose and say by relating and mimicking or copying through disclosure, why wait to go up the ladder to disclose to the very last moment?

Well, you don't have to wait to the last moment. So that's an important point. With validation, you want to go as high as you can, authentically and effectively. So if I get it right away, I could go for it. Right. Yeah. But if I don't have rapport with the person, and I don't know... So I have, I made that mistake actually once with a moting that I remember with a client whose mother had come to see me, her daughter had gone to one of these wilderness programs, which are just a complete scam.

She was there for eight weeks, came back and attempted suicide and was in the ICU. And mom was devastated, mom's seeking treatment for her. And she's telling me about this. And I'm allowing myself to just kind of tear up a little bit. Interesting. Okay. Because I am feeling like just, oh, I hate the system and this poor kid. I'm just having all this stuff.

And I just, I lost control of it. I work with suicide and self harm day in and day out, but I just got worked up. I like lost the- She probably thought you were more out of control than her because you were emotional, feeling emotion. I got too emotional. And so she probably didn't feel safe or-

She sat down. She was like, oh, I can't talk about my experience without someone reacting in a way that you're reacting. That's right. Interesting. So that, I mean, that was a mistake. It happens. But you gotta try stuff.

And you can't be inauthentic to like, if you're really feeling the sadness of what someone's going through, you wanna emote and connect with that person and say, man, I'm so sorry you're going through that. That's right. You don't want to be a robot and say, okay, tell me the next thing. And unfortunately, I think that's where we've kind of been pushed in society and especially with all of like the facades and this, or we'll disclose like the things that are really

trendy to disclose, you know, that you're struggling with this or that because everyone's talking about, I don't know, menopause now or something, right? But the other stuff that's not trending. What's acceptable in society right now to talk about. Interesting. Yeah, yeah, yeah. But maybe the other stuff, someone hints at something they're going through that you've also gone through,

but that's not something we talk about. What's not really talked about in society right now is suicide not an open conversation. Because I feel like mental health from the pandemic, like menopause, like you said, I feel like sexual abuse, sexual trauma has come a lot in the last five to eight years with Me Too and other kind of movements that have brought people more safety to talk about these things. But what is a big taboo topic that people are unable to talk about these days?

There's always the trends of deep down, I hate myself, which people are not. Are not comfortable kind of disclosing or opening up about what's the percentage of people in the world that you believe, they believe truly hate themselves that are, I'm truly unlovable. I hate myself. I get everything wrong constantly. No one's going to love me. I'm an idiot.

What's the percentage? You know, I don't, I couldn't say cause there's also all sorts of like cultural variations and stuff there in the States. I mean, I think it's really quite high. Really? Yeah, I'd say maybe like 60% of people think they're unlovable. I was at this Tara Brach training once. I don't know if you know who she is. She wrote

this book on radical acceptance years ago. Hardware, yeah. Yeah. She did this very risky thing, in my opinion, which she's got this whole audience of maybe 80 folks, all mental health providers. And she says, everyone close your eyes for a second. And I want you to raise your hand if you believe there's something about you, something you've done, something specific to your character

that makes you unlovable. Okay. Now open your eyes. Don't do that, but you open your eyes and everybody's hand was up. Wow. These are mental health experts. These are mental health experts. Trained psychologists or therapists or teachers.

Yeah. It was one of the most kind of moving, insightful moments of my life. Really it was. Like, well, this is deep. Like this is, there's something going on here. This is cultural. So I mean, if most people in the States don't love themselves and have a hatred towards self, then how do we learn to validate ourselves in a way that is healing for our mental health

and helps us move forward in our lives. It's just like I almost get worked up because it's something I'm so passionate about. I think unfortunately, most of us were raised on problem solving. When we came to our parents with a problem, they had a solution. Study more. Let's get you a tutor. Don't worry. You can try out next time. This kind of impulse to make it better. To fix. To fix. And unfortunately in the process, there's this subtle message

that you shouldn't be feeling that way. Stop feeling that way. Okay. Not, it's totally valid that you're disappointed. I get it, man, I get it. Oh God, I remember being your age. Oh, I once failed a math test, but it was nothing compared to this. But like, and I couldn't even, my mom came and picked me up from school, I was crying. I can't believe you made it through the day.

We just, we're not raised on that. And so it's no surprise that as adults, when we make a mistake, we struggle to see the validity in our emotions, our reactions. We're not trained to do that. It's such an interesting balance because I remember feeling supported and encouraged, but also told not to cry and toughen up. You got those messages. But it was like a mixture of both. Sometimes it was like, okay, I told not to cry and like toughen up. You got those messages, yeah.

But it was like a mixture of both. It was like sometimes it was like, okay, I'm here to hug and support and like watch you cry. And then other times toughen up, don't cry. It was like a, it was a mixture of both. Yeah. And so it was always kind of confusing. Like, what am I supposed to do?

Am I supposed to like toughen up? Am I supposed to show emotion as a kid? And we can't all be like crying all day long as adults also. It's like we have to be able to regulate emotions and process and like have some thicker skin in some scenarios. So we're not just like every little thing triggers us and makes us react emotionally. Our nervous system needs to be calm under chaos. But also we need to be able to express

ourselves when we're feeling certain feelings, right? Well, there's a difference between recognizing an emotion, realizing it's valid, and choosing to regulate it rather than express it. So there are plenty of times where I'll feel sad about something and I'll start going down that loop. The story starts coming together of like why I suck and how I should have done something better. You know, it makes sense that I'm sad. I was really looking forward to this, didn't come through. This is pretty, this is a

setting. Right now it's not going to be effective to focus on that. I'm going to feel worse if I draw more attention to myself. So how can I take care of myself right now? I probably just need to get through this, and then when I get home, I'm going to take a hot bath. And I can let it out, I can express it how I need to. Yeah, but there is this... We have this fear that if we recognize our emotions, they will overtake us and we'll just be at the mercy of them and kind of falling apart all over the place. It's really the exact opposite. When you see the validity in your emotions, you stop wrestling with

them, okay? And you get to be the pilot a bit more. When is the time that we should express our emotions first, regulate our emotions? How do we know which one to do in each scenario? It's important to feel like you can regulate. So if you're going to get yourself to a place that you can't get yourself back down from, that's a problem. It's just not going gonna be constructive for you. And so knowing how to regulate pretty much determines the extent to which you should kind of wallow

or not wallow. But in general, the interesting thing about emotions, I mean, they're called feelings because we feel them. If you just sit with a feeling, like whatever feeling you're feeling right now, if you just sit with it, this is part of self-validation. You first kind of notice the emotion, you label it.

And then you just try and feel it as intensely as you can without feeding it the narrative. Like if you do that, if you just say, okay, I'm sorry, I'm gonna feel this as intensely as I can, sadness, sadness, no story about why, just sadness, sadness, feel it, really, really squeeze out that sponge. It will decrease.

That is how emotions operate. They go up, it goes down. I know you're saying it's not gonna decrease, Carol, it's not gonna decrease. But it will. But if you divorce yourself from the narrative and you just feel it, it can. And if you suppress the emotion, then what happens?

It just gets bigger. It just gets hungrier. It's like a child waiting, trying to get your attention, isn't it, it can. And if you suppress the emotion, then what happens? It just gets bigger. It gets hungrier. It's like a child waiting, trying to get your attention, isn't it? Right? Screams louder and louder. You stuff and stuff and stuff and try to contain it, it's going to react in some way. Right? Whether it be energetically in your body, your nervous system, eczema, or some of the condition later, right? Seriously, yeah. It's going to come out in some ways. That's right, that's right. Or you're just gonna have headaches or it's just gonna be like, I can't sleep and I'm

ruminating. It's gonna be expressing itself internally until you express it externally. That's right. I think what you'll find, you know, if you struggle with being alone, I think that's a real tell for the degree to which you are facing and at peace with your emotions. Because when there's no one else around and your phone is dead and you're the only person you're with, if that is painful and uncomfortable and you can kind of feel things trying to like crawl out, that suggests that you're not quite at peace with yourself.

Mm. Man. So how do we get at peace with ourselves? Practice a lot of self-validation. Interesting. I mean, this is, I go through these steps almost every single night in bed. I go through these steps of like... What's this process look like?

If we don't feel like anyone else in the world is validating us, what is the, how many steps are there to self-validate? I had a breast cancer about a year ago and I had to go through all of the nastiness, the chemo, the radiation, the mastectomy, the surgeries, all this. And it profoundly affected my daughter. And she felt like after I lost my hair, I was a different person. She's 11, but she has felt this really acutely. And I've had to really work on rebuilding that relationship.

Wow. And so we're here in LA doing all this great stuff. And I had an article that I needed to get out by 9 a.m. this morning. And so she's wanting to watch Friends in the Hot Tub, like, come on, what's better than that, right? Like, we're staying in this fun place. And I just didn't have time. Like I was able to, you know, we did a little bit of time in the Hot Tub, but she's like,

can we watch it in your bed? And I'm like, I got to write this, you, we did a little bit of time in the hot tub, but she's like, can we watch it in your bed? And I'm like, I gotta write this. And I'm texting my husband, can you read to her tonight? And so I got in bed and I just felt so bad about myself. So I had to sit there and be like, all right, what am I feeling? All right, this is shame. Okay.

Now that I've, the first step is just to acknowledge it, give it an adjective. Yeah. And then- Ob-guilt or shame or- Yeah, sure. Guilt, shame, devastation, disappointment. And then I repeat whatever that emotion, I copy it. I keep repeating it. This is shame. This is shame. And as I'm repeating it, I'm trying to feel it in my body. Where is it? Is it in my chest? Is it behind my eyes?

Try and feel it as intensely as you can without reliving the evening or replaying it in my head or all the reasons why I'm a failure as a mom or I've screwed up my kid. I'm never going to be able to repair this relationship. Here I am now prioritizing my career. All these things that want to like fight their way in to feed and stoke that shame. I'm just putting them over here and I'm just, my mantra is, this is shame, this is shame. Feel it. This is shame. Feel it. And it goes up and it does come down. And once it comes down, I need to look for the kernel of truth in that shame. Where is it coming from?

Why am I feeling this way? Well, of course I'm feeling shame. I'm not being the type of parent I wanna be. Like that makes sense. There's a lot of societal expectations around being a mother and a working mother, what that's supposed to look like. And I don't feel like I'm measuring up. That shame makes sense.

Okay. I get where that's coming from. If I were to look at this from the outside and see a friend in this position, I wouldn't think they were a bad person. I would have empathy for them. Okay. So I do this kind of understanding, kind of looking for the validity in the emotion, in the emotion, if it's there at the same time, maybe challenging it, if it's not

serving me, and then the most important things I do are kind of the last two steps. And the first is to take action in some way to self soothe. Okay. So I'm usually lying in bed when I do this while I do like soft touch. So rubbing your shoulder, hand on the tummy, whatever it may be. And then you got to pay that forward. You got to do something with that negative energy. So if it's during the day, I would go and I've done all sorts of wild things to like, you know, everything from working out to fostering kittens, right? Trying to just do something I wouldn't have done that day,

were it not for this suffering. Interesting. And last night, it was just a loving kindness meditation. So I thought about all the mothers out there who had had cancer and who were also struggling and just like, you know, imagined, like, let me take that on. And like, let me just imagine them being more at peace.

Wow. And that's it. So that's like, that's a, it sounds really... Process, yeah. Yeah, it sounds kind of exhaustive, but like it's, oh, it's so soothing. I mean, it's not exhaustive. I think it's necessary. And it should be as long or exhaustion as it takes until you get back to peace.

Yeah. So there's no better place to be than at peace. And if you're in stress, then it should take as long as it needs to of your time and attention to get back to regulating your emotion through expressing your emotion. It's such a good point, right? Like there doesn't have to be the stopwatch. It doesn't mean, ah, should be in two minutes. I should be back to like perfect. No, it's like, it might take hours. It might take days this stopwatch. It doesn't mean, ah, I should be in two minutes. I should be back to like perfect. No, it's like it might take hours. It might take days sometimes. A case like you've been through, it might take a year longer to process a complete transformation of who you've become and your daughter thinking that you're a different person, whether it be physically or emotionally or just like energy wise

thinking that you're a different person whether it be physically or emotionally or just like energy wise and you having to grieve the person you once were and the relationship you once had with your daughter and Be create a new person inside of you and a new relationship with your daughter, right? It was so validating that was like really good proposing Though like I felt that I mean feel it with you opening up because I'm like, I can't even imagine what that would feel like having a daughter where you have a certain relationship. And then all of a sudden she said, mommy, you're different. What happened? Like, why are you different? What's wrong? Like something wrong or you seemed off or something. Nobody else sees it. Like, why doesn't anyone else see it?

Like you're not the same person. You're a different person. But you're not the same person. I know. You've had to let go of an old way of being physically and transform into a new human. Yeah, but you know what's so fascinating, despite having written this book and knowing all this stuff, there have been times when my inclination has been to say, no, honey, I am the same person. Okay?

I love you just as much as I did before. And that is invalidation. You probably love her more. I love her more, right? But me saying, no, nothing has changed. I'm dismissing her emotions. I'm saying they're wrong. And I have done that.

And then I have followed up the next day to say, last night when you said this to me, my knee-jerk response was, I haven't changed. And that is not fair to you. Like, and I said that you must feel like you're grieving a parent that's still alive. Like, that is some heavy stuff. I know that feeling. Yeah. And I don't know how you're dealing with it. So you can screw it up

in the moment, as I have, and every single parent will. But you also have those opportunities to circle back. Repair. Yeah, repair and reconnection and bringing it stronger together the next day or the next month or whenever, whenever you decide to repair or reconnect and revalidate, right? Because that's what I want her to do as an adult. I want her to circle back with people when she realizes, oh, that was invalidating or that was unkind. The only way kids can figure that stuff out really is through modeling by seeing it. That's it.

What would you say then is the difference between validation and persuasion or influencing someone? Like if you want to get something out of someone, maybe not in a bad way, but you're trying to create an opportunity, try to create a connection, you try to make an introduction, you're trying to get a deal, whatever it might be, what's the difference between validating versus persuasion and influencing? Well, the two are not mutually exclusive in the sense that people are more easily influenced

by those that they trust, okay? That is just a fact. If you trust that I understand what it takes to run this podcast, and I'm the best podcaster in the business, you're going to trust my suggestions. You're going to be more likely to be influenced by me. Okay. So those two things kind of do go together. But influence is kind of a change agenda. Like I'm trying to push you in some direction rather than the acceptance of just what is. Maybe if you're, you know, the experience with your daughter or if you're working with

a patient who you're trying to influence to take a certain action. Whether it's be an intimate relationship with you, with your daughter or someone in your life or a patient or client that you want them to take action. How do you then shift from validation to let's take action on the next step together or you need to take action on the next step? Yeah. So it just kind of, the one kind of bleeds out at the other, as I kind of described earlier with that one patient, it's this like, oh my God, you're like, I totally see where you're

coming from. I totally valid. you know, this is all valid. I see you. And I think, you know, once that's, and I keep saying once that's landed, and like to me, it's really clear, having done this a lot, there is a look. You feel it. You feel it. Yeah, there's a moment. And after that moment, then there's a door that opens. And you can say, like, but is there a better way for us to come at this? You know, I think that if you had... Okay, so imagine if you could regulate, like if you could just bring down that intensity, you wouldn't have come at me so angrily, right? I think that's what we need to work on.

Oh, I actually just read this article about, there's this technique you can try called the mammalian dot, when you put your face in cold water and you come out, it drops your hair at blood pressure and then you feel better, whatever. So then I turned, at that point I've transitioned into- You give options. Yes, skill building. Solutions. Yeah, interesting.

Let's try this. Let's try that. Interesting. Yeah. Okay. I have a brand new book called Make Money Easy. And if you're looking to create more financial freedom in your life, you want abundance in your life,

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