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

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 +1 (614) 350-3960More 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

Speaker names marked ? are inferred from speaking time and the show’s known hosts — they are not voice-verified.

• 0:00Lewis Howes?

  I'm so grateful that you're here. It's a beautiful day. And if you're going through something challenging, then I'm gonna let you know it's all gonna 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 dream you have, the greater the challenge and the friction that's gonna come. But the more you create inner peace, you heal. You learn to love yourself and accept yourself. You release shame. You release guilt.

• 0:44Lewis Howes?

  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 gonna go away. You're just gonna 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 gonna be sharing tools that you need to create deeper connection and really how to understate navigating

• 1:28Lewis Howes?

  these difficult times in your lives. And as a licensed psychologist and instructor at Stanford and the 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 gonna 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 the relationships, we feel like we're falling apart and the world is against us. She's gonna break down the entire process and how you can truly connect with people

• 2:13Lewis Howes?

  to transform challenges into opportunities for peace, purpose, and connection. I'm so excited about this. I hope you enjoy it.

• 2:25Lewis Howes?

  Welcome back everyone to the School of Greatness. Very excited about our guest. 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.

• 2:39Speaker 01

  I am thrilled.

• 2:40Lewis Howes?

  This is the perfect conversation to talk about because you have a book called Validation. 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 struggles that I've gone through and the almost defense mechanism I had to build up through surviving in society by learning the 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.

• 3:23Lewis Howes?

  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.

• 3:40Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 3:40Lewis Howes?

  For making an influence on people in a positive way.

• 3:43Speaker 01

  Yes.

• 3:43Lewis Howes?

  And so I wanted to start by asking you, we're going to do a couple of parts to this. But the first part I want to talk about is really what have you learned as a practitioner?

• 3:59Lewis Howes?

  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?

• 4:19Speaker 01

  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 want to 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.

• 4:54Speaker 01

  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, okay, 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

• 5:35Speaker 01

  in, you know, K through 5? 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 only was it immediately apparent that these skills helped patients and improved, you know, were critical to doing therapy well.

• 5:55Lewis Howes?

  Is this you learning how to validate patients?

• 5:57Speaker 01

  It's me learning how to validate patients.

• 5:59Lewis Howes?

  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.

• 6:13Speaker 01

  Of course, yeah.

• 6:13Lewis Howes?

  So why would I trust and listen to what they're saying and take action on the tools that you're sharing with me?

• 6:19Speaker 01

  That's right.

• 6:20Lewis Howes?

  Interesting.

• 6:20Speaker 01

  It's even a little further than that. So prior to DBT, we had this real focus in psychology on change. Everything was, you know, 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

• 7:03Speaker 01

  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.

• 7:18Lewis Howes?

  Really? What if there's someone that you're, 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 can't, you don't understand that. How can you validate someone that you don't understand?

• 7:39Speaker 01

  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. Okay, but here's the thing. I don't have to validate the entirety of someone's experience.

• 7:57Lewis Howes?

  Okay.

• 7:58Speaker 01

  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 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 was talking, I was talking to,

• 8:42Speaker 01

  I might want some recording so I could go back to it.

• 8:45Lewis Howes?

  Ah, someone more safe feeling.

• 8:47Speaker 01

  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.

• 9:08Lewis Howes?

  What would you say then is the step by step process for making someone feel seen and validated?

• 9:14Speaker 01

  Okay.

• 9:16Speaker 01

  It is. The model I use is called the validation ladder. And it includes eight skills.

• 9:21Lewis Howes?

  Okay.

• 9:22Speaker 01

  And I won't go through them all. But essentially, validation conveys mindfulness, understanding and empathy

• 9:31Speaker 01

  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 nonverbals. And you play this little game in your head,

• 10:05Speaker 01

  which is amazing and super effective. You want me to talk about it?

• 10:08Lewis Howes?

  Yeah.

• 10:09Speaker 01

  Kind of embarrassed. Okay.

• 10:12Speaker 01

  So 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. 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.

• 10:58Speaker 01

  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.

• 11:36Lewis Howes?

  Yeah, but if there's someone that you're working with.

• 11:39Speaker 01

  Sure.

• 11:39Lewis Howes?

  Whether it's a lead 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.

• 11:52Speaker 01

  Sure.

• 11:53Lewis Howes?

  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 game? And then empower them to think a different way?

• 12:10Speaker 01

  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. Okay, 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.

• 12:54Speaker 01

  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 first. The conversation around perhaps changing their opinion is much more likely to be successful.

• 13:13Lewis Howes?

  So validate their point first.

• 13:16Speaker 01

  Validate the valid, yeah.

• 13:17Lewis Howes?

  And then if you're trying to influence or persuade to seeing something differently, how do you move them in that direction?

• 13:24Speaker 01

  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?

• 14:06Lewis Howes?

  Does it get too weird if you're copying everything?

• 14:09Speaker 01

  It does, it does.

• 14:09Lewis Howes?

  Like I scratch, you scratch, I switch my feet, you switch your feet. I shift, you shift.

• 14:14Speaker 01

  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.

• 14:29Lewis Howes?

  For you to copy me?

• 14:30Speaker 01

  For me to copy you.

• 14:30Lewis Howes?

  Okay.

• 14:31Speaker 01

  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,

• 14:52Speaker 01

  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.

• 15:30Speaker 01

  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.

• 15:40Lewis Howes?

  Yeah, because we're in the defense.

• 15:41Speaker 01

  That's right.

• 15:42Lewis Howes?

  We're guarding, protective.

• 15:45Lewis Howes?

  So copying is is similar to mirroring or mimicking?

• 15:49Speaker 01

  Mirroring, uh huh, and mimicking.

• 15:51Lewis Howes?

  What is the science behind copying or mirroring? That shows you how much more influential you can be in any relationship?

• 15:59Speaker 01

  Oh, my gosh, so trying to think of some of these really quirky studies. They they looked at, for instance, when waiters simply repeat back an order. Compared to those who don't, they get a 25% higher tip on average. Right? 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.

• 16:44Lewis Howes?

  Wow, just by copying?

• 16:46Speaker 01

  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.

• 17:09Lewis Howes?

  Can you give an example of what someone might say, you know, to say who or

• 17:13Speaker 01

  Sure.

• 17:13Lewis Howes?

  what it was exactly, but an example of a distorted belief?

• 17:19Speaker 01

  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 self-harm. You don't care. You don't care. You think this is fun. You think this is fun. Just really kind of.

• 17:49Lewis Howes?

  Wow, ramping it up, taking it to a whole nother level. It's like a different world in their mind, right?

• 17:54Speaker 01

  It is. And in my heart, I'm feeling responsible for what's going on.

• 17:59Lewis Howes?

  For them harming themselves mentally, potentially physically.

• 18:02Speaker 01

  And then like, I need to get this under control. So it's that type of, those types of situations. And if, if these skills work in those situations, their potential, when the stakes are much lower and folks are much more rational, is significantly better.

• 18:21Lewis Howes?

  Yeah, when someone's more receptive. You know, less aggressive or less like, or just in the same world as you.

• 18:27Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 18:27Lewis Howes?

  Mentally, emotionally.

• 18:28Speaker 01

  Yes. I mean, it's much easier.

• 18:30Lewis Howes?

  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?

• 18:48Speaker 01

  There's a lot of different things that go into that. At this, at that point, what I would start doing genuinely is actually to copy back. Okay, so let me get this right. I want to 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, I, okay. And I need to be careful not to say that wasn't in your email. Just like, so, 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 get, I see, I see, I see. Oh, I'm so sorry you feel that way. Oh my gosh. That is, no, no, no, no.

• 19:32Speaker 01

  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, I, I, I'm, I, it hurts my heart that there was this miscommunication.

• 19:46Lewis Howes?

  But doesn't that feel like you have to walk on eggshells?

• 19:48Speaker 01

  Yeah, a little, I mean, mm.

• 19:50Lewis Howes?

  If that's the real world, maybe with a, a patient who's personality disorder, but.

• 19:55Speaker 01

  No, because I am seeing, like, that's their world, that's their perspective. I do see that.

• 20:00Lewis Howes?

  Right, right.

• 20:01Speaker 01

  I'm not saying anything I don't believe.

• 20:03Lewis Howes?

  Uh huh.

• 20:03Speaker 01

  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.

• 20:21Lewis Howes?

  Okay.

• 20:22Speaker 01

  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 gonna start burning people out. Because the other thing I felt just now was attacked. And scared.

• 20:40Lewis Howes?

  Mm hmm.

• 20:40Speaker 01

  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, you know, make me want to hide under the couch.

• 20:54Lewis Howes?

  Wow.

• 20:55Speaker 01

  So that, that's it. That's that combination. You see how I'm going from validation

• 20:59Lewis Howes?

  Sure.

• 20:59Speaker 01

  to change.

• 21:00Lewis Howes?

  Interesting.

• 21:01Speaker 01

  Right?

• 21:01Lewis Howes?

  Okay. But you said attending, attending was the first step in the ladder, right?

• 21:05Speaker 01

  Yeah, and the second is copying, which is that mimicry that I do.

• 21:08Lewis Howes?

  And attending includes eye contact, proximity, gesturing and nodding.

• 21:15Speaker 01

  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, uh, we were in shutdown from, lockdown from COVID?

• 21:29Lewis Howes?

  Proximity.

• 21:29Speaker 01

  Proximity.

• 21:31Lewis Howes?

  Eye contact, yeah, yeah. I mean, all of it, I guess.

• 21:33Speaker 01

  Gestures get really awkward.

• 21:35Lewis Howes?

  Everything.

• 21:35Speaker 01

  Everything.

• 21:36Lewis Howes?

  Yeah.

• 21:36Speaker 01

  Everything. And.

• 21:38Lewis Howes?

  So it's hard to feel validated if you're not in person.

• 21:41Speaker 01

  Feel seen. It's hard to feel connected.

• 21:44Lewis Howes?

  Hmm.

• 21:44Speaker 01

  Right? And I'm not saying that that explains all of the loneliness we experienced. But as a therapist, I can. 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.

• 22:02Lewis Howes?

  Wow.

• 22:03Speaker 01

  And that is, 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 fare.

• 22:23Lewis Howes?

  Hmm.

• 22:24Speaker 01

  In terms of mental health and.

• 22:24Lewis Howes?

  Really?

• 22:25Speaker 01

  And relationships. Yeah, it's not good stuff.

• 22:27Lewis Howes?

  So attending is the first thing, copying is the second thing. I also saw this quote that I love in your book on page 81. That's, 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, I believe that, uh, 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.

• 23:07Speaker 01

  Right.

• 23:07Lewis Howes?

  And I see that the suffering you're going through.

• 23:09Speaker 01

  Yes.

• 23:09Lewis Howes?

  I see the greatness or the goodness in you.

• 23:12Speaker 01

  Yes.

• 23:12Lewis Howes?

  I see the kind acts you're generating with the world. I see that you're a good friend. It's like, I see that you're a good employee, all these different things.

• 23:19Speaker 01

  Or at the top, I see myself in you. That is real power.

• 23:23Lewis Howes?

  What does that mean?

• 23:25Speaker 01

  When I look at you, it's like looking in the mirror. I, I, I see so much of my own experiences. I can relate so deeply to what you're describing.

• 23:34Lewis Howes?

  Yeah.

• 23:35Speaker 01

  It's like we're one in the same.

• 23:37Lewis Howes?

  Hmm.

• 23:37Speaker 01

  Right? That's that, the moments you have perhaps in self-disclosure, right? When someone says to another, hey, man, I'm also an AA.

• 23:45Lewis Howes?

  Hmm.

• 23:45Speaker 01

  Right? Immediate, there's an understanding there, there's a, there's a sameness.

• 23:50Lewis Howes?

  Connection.

• 23:51Speaker 01

  There's connection. And I would actually go a step further with, with valid, you know, how critical validation is. This sounds like controversial, I, I see that, but I think it is more important than love.

• 24:04Speaker 01

  I think you cannot have true love in the absence of having been and having consistently been validated.

• 24:13Lewis Howes?

  Not being validated.

• 24:15Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 24:15Lewis Howes?

  I mean.

• 24:15Speaker 01

  If you, 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?

• 24:26Lewis Howes?

  So love is not enough?

• 24:28Speaker 01

  No, you can love a facade, but that doesn't feel good. I can, you know, create all these stories about myself and, you know, 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.

• 25:06Lewis Howes?

  Yeah.

• 25:07Speaker 01

  Right? And so they love the parts of us that we've shown or dressed up, but perhaps it's not the entirety of who we are.

• 25:16Lewis Howes?

  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?

• 25:27Speaker 01

  Yeah, so the the research on 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.

• 25:39Lewis Howes?

  Always try to copy more.

• 25:40Speaker 01

  Always try to, right.

• 25:41Lewis Howes?

  So don't do the opposite of what they're doing.

• 25:43Speaker 01

  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.

• 25:53Lewis Howes?

  It's too much.

• 25:53Speaker 01

  It's too much.

• 25:54Lewis Howes?

  You're shifting when they're shifting constantly.

• 25:55Speaker 01

  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.

• 26:05Lewis Howes?

  Yeah. I mean, when you see someone smile, you tend to smile back.

• 26:08Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 26:09Lewis Howes?

  You know, it's like, it's just a quick mimic. You see someone walk at you, unless you're like guarded that day and you're like, don't look at me. But if you have an open, relaxed state of being.

• 26:17Speaker 01

  That's right.

• 26:18Lewis Howes?

  You're more willing to smile when someone smiles at you, a quick gesture, right?

• 26:21Speaker 01

  That's right, that's right. It's, we see it as almost a common courtesy.

• 26:25Lewis Howes?

  Yeah.

• 26:25Speaker 01

  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.

• 26:33Lewis Howes?

  So after attending and then copying, what would be the next level of validation?

• 26:39Speaker 01

  Yeah, the next level up is to say, is to show some degree of understanding. Right? And usually this is like logical understanding, cognitive understanding. I can see how you got there. Right? And there's a couple of skills here. You can do the, anyone in your shoes would feel that way. Right? Like, anyone in your shoes would be probably anxious about the set coming together.

• 27:02Lewis Howes?

  That's interesting.

• 27:02Speaker 01

  Last minute.

• 27:03Lewis Howes?

  Yeah, yeah. As opposed to saying, I can understand where you're coming from. You'd say, anyone in your shoes, is that what you?

• 27:09Speaker 01

  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 to. Like, me too.

• 27:18Speaker 01

  This, if you think about going to a doctor and them saying like, 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.

• 27:32Lewis Howes?

  Yeah, yeah, right.

• 27:33Speaker 01

  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.

• 27:42Lewis Howes?

  Yes.

• 27:42Speaker 01

  That's kind of what.

• 27:45Speaker 01

  What these understanding skills communicate. One of them happens to double as a Jedi mind trick. I've just got a word.

• 27:51Lewis Howes?

  What's that?

• 27:52Speaker 01

  Proposing.

• 27:53Lewis Howes?

  Hmm. What's proposing?

• 27:56Speaker 01

  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, what are you thinking? Why does this matter to you? I don't answer, I don't, 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.

• 28:19Lewis Howes?

  Can you give me an example? How do we mind read someone?

• 28:22Speaker 01

  Um, you know, a great example was actually an interview with Oprah and Meghan.

• 28:31Lewis Howes?

  Markle?

• 28:32Speaker 01

  Markle, yeah. And Meghan Markle is describing, you know, this, this life of being in front of the, the paparazzi.

• 28:42Speaker 01

  And feeling like she couldn't be her true self. And then she's, she's obviously kind of pained and shamed about having not stood up for herself. And she looks at Oprah and she says, I, I, I just, I was silent throughout this experience. I just, I was just silent. And then Oprah, being Oprah says, were you silent or were you silenced? 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.

• 29:21Lewis Howes?

  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.

• 29:34Speaker 01

  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 you, if it's a, you know, 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 going to 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.

• 30:19Speaker 01

  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 back down the ladder copying, humiliated, hmm, what was humiliating about it? Attending, she gets more information, she gets more, then she tries again. Doesn't stick, she drops down that ladder, starts back with just being mindful and then tries again.

• 30:38Lewis Howes?

  Mm hmm. 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.

• 30:45Speaker 01

  Yeah, be curious.

• 30:46Lewis Howes?

  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?

• 30:52Speaker 01

  That's right, yeah.

• 30:52Lewis Howes?

  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?

• 31:01Speaker 01

  Yeah, yeah.

• 31:02Lewis Howes?

  So that's the mindfulness part of this ladder, attending and copying.

• 31:05Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 31:06Lewis Howes?

  Um, but when you propose something, it's like you're trying to understand them.

• 31:10Speaker 01

  You're trying to show that you understand, that's right.

• 31:12Lewis Howes?

  Proposing, oh, when you were feeling this, when you had your, your, you know, 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 going to come and I was going to have this connection and I didn't.

• 31:30Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 31:30Lewis Howes?

  Right? Some women say that.

• 31:31Speaker 01

  Yes.

• 31:32Lewis Howes?

  Another one was like, it was amazing, this spiritual moment, and then brought him to my chest and ah, I felt one with my child.

• 31:37Speaker 01

  Yeah, great example, right?

• 31:38Lewis Howes?

  It's like showing a few different options, but you might be wrong.

• 31:42Speaker 01

  Now, here's the thing though, in a perfect example, what most people do in that first scenario, when they said, oh, you must have been so excited. And the person goes, actually, no, I was, I struggled with postpartum depression. They go, hmm, really?

• 31:56Lewis Howes?

  Next topic.

• 31:57Speaker 01

  Hard, yeah. 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. And 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 up again.

• 32:18Lewis Howes?

  Start again and ask questions again.

• 32:19Speaker 01

  Yeah, yeah.

• 32:20Lewis Howes?

  Copying, oh, tell me, what was that like?

• 32:22Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 32:22Lewis Howes?

  Yeah.

• 32:23Speaker 01

  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.

• 32:30Lewis Howes?

  Interesting.

• 32:30Speaker 01

  And know when to, how to correct, course correct.

• 32:35Lewis Howes?

  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.

• 32:45Speaker 01

  Right, or at the worst, we're invalidating them.

• 32:48Lewis Howes?

  Invalidating, right?

• 32:49Speaker 01

  Right.

• 32:49Lewis Howes?

  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.

• 32:59Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 32:59Lewis Howes?

  Right, friends, family, teams, employees, bosses, whatever it is.

• 33:03Speaker 01

  Yes.

• 33:04Lewis Howes?

  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.

• 33:16Speaker 01

  Yeah, that's right.

• 33:17Lewis Howes?

  And we're going to be struggling.

• 33:18Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 33:19Lewis Howes?

  And what is the next level, from mindfulness to understanding? What is the next level of validation that you talk about?

• 33:27Speaker 01

  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.

• 33:42Lewis Howes?

  Yes.

• 33:42Speaker 01

  So if you strike out with these, it can be a little ugly. All right.

• 33:48Speaker 01

  And you know, there's, 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.

• 34:03Lewis Howes?

  Give me an example, yeah.

• 34:06Speaker 01

  There was a great example of Jon Stewart actually talking to the, talking to Congress on behalf of the 9/11 first responders. And he's advocating on their behalf.

• 34:22Lewis Howes?

  I remember that.

• 34:23Speaker 01

  And it's very, I mean, he's, and he's Jon Stewart. He's incredibly articulate, very eloquent.

• 34:29Lewis Howes?

  Passionate.

• 34:30Speaker 01

  But as he's talking, he starts getting choked up.

• 34:37Speaker 01

  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 Stewart. 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.

• 35:21Lewis Howes?

  Expressing yourself and modding, okay. What is disclose? What does that mean?

• 35:27Speaker 01

  Like self-disclosure. Okay, so that would be, for instance, I struggled with depression for about a decade.

• 35:37Lewis Howes?

  Personally?

• 35:37Speaker 01

  Yeah, yeah, from when I was 15 through about 26. It's one of the reasons I wanted to become a psychologist.

• 35:46Lewis Howes?

  To understand your own suffering, your own pain?

• 35:48Speaker 01

  I mean, I'm kind of 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,

• 36:02Speaker 01

  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, what's wrong? You know, and the fact that I'm saying like, no, I'm really struggling. Really struggling here.

• 36:20Speaker 01

  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? Forgot everything, like, poor you, you know, it's just,

• 36:36Speaker 01

  yeah, it was just swirling around my head big time. And fortunately, I got treatment and got better.

• 36:44Speaker 01

  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.

• 37:08Lewis Howes?

  Wow.

• 37:09Speaker 01

  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.

• 37:51Lewis Howes?

  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. It's not a decade of what I've been experiencing. It's not suicide. It's not harming myself.

• 38:14Speaker 01

  Right.

• 38:15Lewis Howes?

  It's not being medicated constantly.

• 38:16Speaker 01

  Right.

• 38:17Lewis Howes?

  What if it makes them angrier by you trying to disclose?

• 38:20Speaker 01

  Remember when I said the higher you go, the harder it hurts?

• 38:23Lewis Howes?

  Oh, right, right, right.

• 38:24Speaker 01

  Right?

• 38:24Lewis Howes?

  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.

• 38:37Speaker 01

  That's right.

• 38:38Lewis Howes?

  And it's probably nothing like what you're experiencing.

• 38:40Speaker 01

  Yes.

• 38:41Lewis Howes?

  But it was, it felt overwhelming for me.

• 38:43Speaker 01

  Yes, yes.

• 38:44Lewis Howes?

  So it's approaching it in that delicate.

• 38:47Speaker 01

  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, you know, making some mistakes there. But the fact of the matter is, I can't emphasize this enough. It's a skill. All right? 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, I've figured out a way to communicate that in a way that feels effective to me and focused on the topic.

• 39:19Lewis Howes?

  Why wouldn't we disclose earlier in a conversation if someone's going through a 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?

• 39:33Speaker 01

  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 pretty, you know, I could go for it.

• 39:44Lewis Howes?

  Right.

• 39:45Speaker 01

  Yeah, but if I don't have rapport with the person.

• 39:47Lewis Howes?

  Right.

• 39:47Speaker 01

  And I don't know. So I have, I've, I made that mistake actually once with a modding that I remember with a client.

• 39:56Speaker 01

  Whose mother, this mother had come to see me. Her daughter had gone to one of these like wilderness programs, which are just a complete scam. She was there for eight weeks, came back and attempted suicide and was in the ICU.

• 40:11Lewis Howes?

  Wow.

• 40:12Speaker 01

  And mom was devastated, mom 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.

• 40:20Lewis Howes?

  Interesting.

• 40:21Speaker 01

  Okay. Cause 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.

• 40:38Lewis Howes?

  She probably felt you were more out of control than her because you were emotional, feeling emotional.

• 40:43Speaker 01

  I got too emotional.

• 40:44Lewis Howes?

  And so she probably didn't feel safe.

• 40:46Speaker 01

  She flat down.

• 40:46Lewis Howes?

  She was like, oh, I can't talk about my experience without someone reacting, you know, in a way that you're reacting.

• 40:52Speaker 01

  That's right.

• 40:53Lewis Howes?

  Interesting.

• 40:53Speaker 01

  So that, I mean, that was a mistake. It happens.

• 40:56Lewis Howes?

  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 want to emote and connect with that person and say, man, I'm so sorry you're going through that.

• 41:07Speaker 01

  That's right.

• 41:08Lewis Howes?

  You don't want to be a robot and say, okay, tell me the next thing.

• 41:10Speaker 01

  That's, and, and I 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.

• 41:30Lewis Howes?

  What's acceptable in society right now to talk about.

• 41:33Speaker 01

  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.

• 41:42Lewis Howes?

  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 is 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?

• 42:08Speaker 01

  There's always the trends of, I, deep down, I hate myself.

• 42:14Speaker 01

  Which people are not, are not comfortable kind of disclosing or opening up about.

• 42:21Lewis Howes?

  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 gonna love me, I'm an idiot. What's the percentage?

• 42:37Speaker 01

  You know, I don't, I couldn't say, because there's also all sorts of like cultural variations and stuff there. In the States, I mean, I think it's really quite high.

• 42:46Lewis Howes?

  Really?

• 42:46Speaker 01

  Yeah, I'd say maybe like 60% of people think they're unlovable. I was at this Tara Brock training once. I don't know if you know who she is. She wrote this book on radical acceptance years ago.

• 42:58Lewis Howes?

  Hard work, yeah.

• 42:59Speaker 01

  Yeah. She did this very risky thing, in my opinion, where she's got this, you know, whole audience of, 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. Like, don't do that. But you open your eyes and everybody's hand was up.

• 43:28Lewis Howes?

  Wow. These are mental health experts.

• 43:31Speaker 01

  Mental health experts.

• 43:32Lewis Howes?

  Trained psychologists or therapists or teachers.

• 43:36Speaker 01

  Yeah. It was one of the most kind of moving, insightful moments of my life. Really, it was like, oh, this is deep. Like, this is, there's something going on here. This is cultural.

• 43:50Lewis Howes?

  So I mean,

• 43:52Lewis Howes?

  if 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?

• 44:06Speaker 01

  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.

• 44:21Speaker 01

  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.

• 44:29Lewis Howes?

  To fix.

• 44:30Speaker 01

  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 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, I had, 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.

• 45:12Lewis Howes?

  It's such an interesting balance because I remember, I remember feeling like supported and encouraged, but also like told not to cry and like toughen up.

• 45:24Speaker 01

  You got those messages, yeah.

• 45:25Lewis Howes?

  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.

• 45:36Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 45:36Lewis Howes?

  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.

• 46:02Speaker 01

  Yes.

• 46:03Lewis Howes?

  But also, we need to be able to express ourselves when we're feeling certain feelings, right?

• 46:07Speaker 01

  Well, there's a difference between recognizing an emotion, realizing it's valid, and choosing to regulate it rather than express it. Right? So I can, there are plenty of times where I'll feel sad. Okay, about something and I'll start going down that loop. You know, 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, this is upsetting.

• 46:37Speaker 01

  Right now, it's not going to be effective to, to focus on that.

• 46:43Speaker 01

  I'm gonna 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 gonna take a hot bath. Right? So it's like.

• 46:57Lewis Howes?

  And I can let it out, I can express it how I need to.

• 46:59Speaker 01

  Yeah, yeah, but there is this, this, there's, there's not, we have this fear that if we recognize our emotions, they will overtake us and like we'll just be at the mercy of them and express, you know, 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.

• 47:23Lewis Howes?

  When is the time that we should express our emotions versus regulate our emotions? How do we know which one to do in each scenario?

• 47:32Speaker 01

  It's important to feel like you can regulate. All right, so if you're gonna get yourself to a place that you can't get yourself back down from, that's a problem. All right, like that, it's just not 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.

• 48:17Speaker 01

  Like if you do that, if you just say, okay, I'm saying 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.

• 48:31Speaker 01

  That is how emotions operate. They go up, it goes down. I know you're saying it's not gonna decrease, Caroline, it's not gonna decrease.

• 48:36Lewis Howes?

  But it will.

• 48:36Speaker 01

  But if you divorce yourself from the narrative and you just feel it, it can.

• 48:42Lewis Howes?

  And if you suppress the emotion, then what happens?

• 48:44Speaker 01

  It just gets bigger. It gets hungrier. It's like a child waiting, trying to get your attention, isn't it, right?

• 48:49Lewis Howes?

  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.

• 49:00Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 49:00Lewis Howes?

  Eczema or some other condition later, right?

• 49:02Speaker 01

  Seriously, yeah.

• 49:03Lewis Howes?

  It's going to come out in some ways.

• 49:06Speaker 01

  That's right, that's right.

• 49:07Lewis Howes?

  Or you're just gonna have headaches, or it's just gonna be like, ah, I can't sleep and I'm ruminating. It's gonna be expressing itself internally until you express it externally.

• 49:15Speaker 01

  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,

• 49:42Speaker 01

  that suggests that you're, you're not, you're not quite at peace with yourself.

• 49:46Lewis Howes?

  Hmm. Man, so how do we get at peace with ourselves?

• 49:49Speaker 01

  Practice a lot of self-validation.

• 49:52Lewis Howes?

  Interesting.

• 49:52Speaker 01

  That, I mean, this is, I go through these steps almost every single night in bed. I go through these steps of like.

• 50:00Lewis Howes?

  What's this process look like? If we don't feel like anyone else in the world is validating us.

• 50:04Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 50:05Lewis Howes?

  What is the, how many steps are there to self-validate?

• 50:08Speaker 01

  I, 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.

• 50:19Lewis Howes?

  Wow.

• 50:20Speaker 01

  And it profoundly affected my daughter.

• 50:23Speaker 01

  And she felt like after I lost my hair, I was a different person. Uh, she's 11, but she has felt this really acutely. And I've had to really work on rebuilding that relationship.

• 50:40Lewis Howes?

  Wow.

• 50:41Speaker 01

  And so we're here in LA, uh, doing all this great stuff. And I had an article that I needed to get out by, uh, 9:00 AM this morning. And so she's wanting to watch Friends in the hot tub. Like, come on, what gets, what's better than that, right? Like, we're staying in this fun place. And I just didn't have time. Like, I, I was able, 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 gotta write this, you know? And I'm texting my husband, can you like read to her tonight? And so I got in bed and I just felt so bad about myself. Like, I felt, so I had to sit there and be like, all right, what am I feeling? All right, this is, uh, this is shame.

• 51:22Lewis Howes?

  Hmm.

• 51:23Speaker 01

  Okay, um, now that I've, the first step is just to acknowledge it. Give it an adjective.

• 51:27Lewis Howes?

  Yeah. Like mom guilt or shame.

• 51:29Speaker 01

  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. Um, 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.

• 52:14Speaker 01

  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, I'm not being the type of parent I want to be.

• 52:33Lewis Howes?

  Hmm.

• 52:34Speaker 01

  Like, that makes sense. There's a lot of societal expectations around being a, a mother and a working mother, what that's supposed to look like. And I don't feel like I'm measuring up.

• 52:48Speaker 01

  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 I wouldn't think they were a bad person.

• 53:00Lewis Howes?

  Yeah.

• 53:00Speaker 01

  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 are kind of the last two steps. The first is to take action in some way to self soothe.

• 53:21Lewis Howes?

  Hmm.

• 53:22Speaker 01

  Okay, so I'm usually lying in bed when I do this, so I'll do like um soft touch. So rubbing your shoulder, hand on the tummy, whatever it may be. Um.

• 53:31Lewis Howes?

  Hmm.

• 53:31Speaker 01

  And then you gotta pay that forward. You gotta do something with that negative energy. So if I'm, if it's during the day, I would go and I've 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.

• 53:52Lewis Howes?

  Interesting.

• 53:53Speaker 01

  And last night, it was just a loving kindness meditation. So I thought about all the uh mothers out there who had had cancer and who were also struggling. And just like, you know, imagined um like, let me take that on. And like, let me just imagine them being more at peace.

• 54:08Lewis Howes?

  Wow.

• 54:09Speaker 01

  And that's it. But so that's like, that's a, it sounds really.

• 54:11Lewis Howes?

  Process, yeah.

• 54:12Speaker 01

  Yeah, it sounds kind of exhaustive, but like, it's, oh, it's so soothing.

• 54:17Lewis Howes?

  Well, I mean, it's it's not exhaustive. I think it's necessary and it should be as long or exhaustion as it it takes until you get back to peace.

• 54:26Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 54:27Lewis Howes?

  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.

• 54:39Speaker 01

  It's such a good point, right? Like, there doesn't have to be the stopwatch.

• 54:42Lewis Howes?

  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.

• 54:47Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 54:48Lewis Howes?

  A a case like you've been through, it might take a year.

• 54:51Speaker 01

  Yes.

• 54:51Lewis Howes?

  Longer to process a complete transformation.

• 54:54Speaker 01

  Yes.

• 54:55Lewis Howes?

  Of who you've become.

• 54:57Speaker 01

  That's so validating.

• 54:58Lewis Howes?

  And your daughter, and your daughter thinking that you're a different person, whether it be physically or emotionally, or just like energy wise.

• 55:04Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 55:05Lewis Howes?

  And you having to grieve the person you once were, and the relationship you once had with your daughter, and be, and create a new person inside of you and a new relationship with your daughter, right?

• 55:17Speaker 01

  That was so validating. That was like really good proposing.

• 55:21Lewis Howes?

  That's good, that's good.

• 55:22Speaker 01

  So like I felt that, I mean.

• 55:24Lewis Howes?

  I feel it with you opening up because I'm like, I wouldn't, 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 says, mommy, you're different. What happened? Like, why are you different? What's wrong? Like, something wrong or? You're, you seemed off or something.

• 55:39Speaker 01

  Nobody else sees it. Like, why doesn't anyone else see it? Like, you're not the same person. You're a different person.

• 55:44Lewis Howes?

  But you're not the same person.

• 55:46Speaker 01

  I know.

• 55:46Lewis Howes?

  You, you had to let go of an old way of being physically.

• 55:51Speaker 01

  Yep.

• 55:52Lewis Howes?

  And transform into a new human.

• 55:55Speaker 01

  Yeah, but you know what's so fascinating? Despite having written this book and knowing all this stuff, there have been times when I, my inclination has been to say like, no, honey, I am the same person. Okay, I love you just as much as I did before. And that is invalidation.

• 56:12Lewis Howes?

  You probably love her more.

• 56:13Speaker 01

  I love her more, right? But me saying, no, nothing has changed. I'm invalid, I'm dismissing her emotions. I'm saying they're wrong.

• 56:20Lewis Howes?

  Yeah.

• 56:21Speaker 01

  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, and, and I said that you, you must feel like you're grieving a parent that's still alive. Like, that is some heavy stuff.

• 56:44Lewis Howes?

  I know that feeling.

• 56:45Speaker 01

  Yeah, and I, 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.

• 56:52Lewis Howes?

  Yeah.

• 56:53Speaker 01

  But you also have those opportunities to circle back.

• 56:55Lewis Howes?

  Repair. Yeah, repair and reconnection and, and, and bringing it even stronger together the next day or the next month, or whenever, whenever you decide to repair or reconnect. And revalidate, right?

• 57:06Speaker 01

  That's right, because that's what I want her to do as an adult. I want her to circle back with people when she realizes, ooh, that was, that was invalidating, or that was unkind.

• 57:17Speaker 01

  The only way kids can figure that stuff out really is through modeling by seeing it.

• 57:21Lewis Howes?

  That's 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.

• 57:33Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 57:33Lewis Howes?

  I mean, 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?

• 57:48Speaker 01

  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 gonna, you're gonna 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.

• 58:17Lewis Howes?

  Yeah.

• 58:19Speaker 01

  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.

• 58:28Lewis Howes?

  Maybe if you're, you know, the, the experience with your daughter, or if you're working with a patient.

• 58:33Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 58:34Lewis Howes?

  Who you're trying to influence to take a certain action.

• 58:36Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 58:37Lewis Howes?

  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.

• 58:45Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 58:47Lewis Howes?

  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?

• 58:56Speaker 01

  Yeah. So it just kind of, the one kind of bleeds out of the other. As I kind of described earlier with that one patient, it's this like, oh my God, like I totally see where you're coming from. I totally validate, 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.

• 59:18Lewis Howes?

  You feel it.

• 59:18Speaker 01

  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?

• 59:29Lewis Howes?

  Hmm.

• 59:30Speaker 01

  You know, I'm, 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 diet, when you put your face in cold water and you come out, it drops your blood pressure and then you feel better, whatever. So then I turned, at that point, I transitioned into, yeah, skill building.

• 59:54Lewis Howes?

  Solutions.

• 59:55Speaker 01

  Mm-hmm.

• 59:55Lewis Howes?

  Yeah.

• 59:55Speaker 01

  Let's try this, let's try that.

• 59:57Lewis Howes?

  Interesting.

• 59:58Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 59:59Lewis Howes?

  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, and you want to stop making money hard in your life, but you want to make it easier, you want to make it flow, you want to feel abundant, then make sure to go to makemoneymeasbook.com right now and get yourself a copy. I really think this is going to help you transform your relationship with money this moment, moving forward. I hope you enjoyed today's episode and it inspired you on your journey towards greatness. Make sure to check out the show notes in the description for a full rundown of today's episode with all the important links.

• 1:00:41Lewis Howes?

  And if you want weekly exclusive bonus episodes with me personally, as well as ad-free listening, then make sure to subscribe to our Greatness Plus channel exclusively on Apple Podcasts. Share this with a friend on social media and leave us a review on Apple Podcasts as well. Let me know what you enjoyed about this episode in that review. I really love hearing feedback from you and it helps us figure out how we can support and serve you moving forward. And I want to remind you, if no one has told you lately, that you are loved, you are worthy, and you matter. And now it's time to go out there and do something great.