Michael Sorensen

I know people who've literally saved negotiations that were six-figure deals that were about to be lost simply because they stepped in and validated the other party first before negotiating.

It helps people be more open to your feedback and your advice.

It helps you deepen your relationships.

We talk a lot in society today about the importance of listening, right?

Whether it's in your romantic relationships, in your professional relationships, what have you.

And listening is important, but really at the end of the day, the really great listeners of the world are more than just that.

They listen, they seek to understand the other person, and then they validate.

And the big idea here is that that third point, validation, helping somebody feel heard and understood, is what we really all crave at the end of the day.

It's more than just feeling like someone's hearing the words we're saying.

We want to know that they're understanding the emotions that we're feeling, that they really get us.

Right.

Well, one of the biggest issues that most of us fall into is that if somebody comes to us and they're complaining, right, or they're going through something of a difficult nature, we assume that they want our advice, right?

We assume that they want help.

And while that may be true in certain instances, nine times out of ten, that's not really what they want.

Really what they want is for you to help them not feel crazy.

And so validation, I always talk about, has two main points.

So when someone's talking to you, most of the time what they want is validation.

And what that means is they want to feel like you understand what they're going through.

And that you don't blame them, you don't judge them for however they're feeling.

So effective validation identifies an emotion and then it offers justification for feeling that emotion.