693: Building Better Relationships through Validation with Michael Sorensen

Pete Mockaitis
Michael, thanks for joining us here on the How to be Awesome at Your Job podcast.

Michael Sorensen
Thanks for having me.

Pete Mockaitis
Well, I’m excited to get your wisdom on validation and the good stuff from your book, I Hear You: The Surprisingly Simple Skill Behind Extraordinary Relationships. But, first, I need to hear you made your own mattress. What is the story?

Michael Sorensen
Yes, I wonder when that would come up. Your intro or your intake sheet asked for something kind of unique and I started thinking, “Well, what do I not talk to many people about?” It’s that. It’s something I’m a little bit embarrassed of, and I’m a little bit proud of. I’ve got a bad back and I set out a few years ago to find the perfect mattress to try to make that back pain go away, and that’s was when Casper and some of these other direct-to-consumer companies were coming online, and they’ve got free return policies, so I thought, “Why not? How can it hurt to order?” so I ordered that. It killed my back.

I ordered the next one, that still hurt, and I actually ordered seven mattresses and then returned them or donated them before I actually sourced my own foam and cut it up and found a cover for it and all of that just to try to find the mattress that would work best for my body. The irony is I ended up finding one that actually works and I tossed my homemade one but, you know, it’s still fun to build things.

Pete Mockaitis
Well, I got to know, what was the difference? What did your homemade version and your final version have the others did not?

Michael Sorensen
This is incredibly nerdy. I would take a picture of myself laying down with my shirt off so I could see my spine alignment, and all of them had my hip sagging lower than my shoulder because my shoulders were propping me up but my hips were down so it was creating this curve. And so, I actually got a different density creating the foam for each section and so my shoulders had a lighter foam and my hips had a heavier foam to try to get that optimal spine alignment.

Pete Mockaitis
Well, that’s good. And someone made one with that in mind. Is that the…?

Michael Sorensen
Actually, I actually didn’t have that. I just lucked out. It’s the Brooklyn Bedding. They don’t even make that one anymore but it’s just the latex mattress but it was my final…it was probably my eighth mattress actually. I slept on it for a few days, a few weeks, a few months, and I’m still loving it today. I’m not paid to promote it but I probably should be.

Pete Mockaitis
Well, I’m impressed with just the sheer force and persistence that you rocked in arriving at this. And, likewise, you’ve got something that you call a superpower – validation. Tell us, what do you mean by validation? What does it do for us and why is it a superpower?

Michael Sorensen
Yes, absolutely. I find, especially in the workplace, since this is largely a podcast about the workplace, we place a lot of focus on the value of listening, being a good listener, and we talk about how important that it is. I think we all kind of nod our heads and we say, “Yeah, I could do better at listening.” But, really, the main premise of my book and the main thing that we’re going to talk about here today is that the truly good listeners of the world actually do more than just listen. They listen, seek to understand, and then validate.

And that validation, that’s kind of a secret sauce. That’s what, like you mentioned, that I call a superpower because so many people are craving that. And validation is essentially just telling someone, “Hey, I understand how you’re feeling and you’re not crazy for feeling that way.” That’s really the essence of it. And it sounds so simple, it is simple, but I’m telling you, Pete, it makes all the difference in the world because most of us just jump in with feedback or advice or we try to help people, we try to make them feel better when they’re coming to us with a complaint or a concern or a question, when really what they’re wanting is simply to feel heard and understood.

You’re venting, you’re complaining, and you just want someone to say, “Man, that’s tough,” or, “Then what happened?” and ask a few questions to kind of get into it with you. That’s validation. And it makes all the difference in the workplace, in your relationships at home, with your friends and family, because it helps us feel better connected to each other.

Pete Mockaitis
Okay. Well, so then can you share, whether maybe it’s in terms of a dramatic transformational relationship that went from poor to okay, or to okay to grand, a nice upgrade, or even maybe some data, some studies? Can you share an illustration of just how powerful this is?

Michael Sorensen
Absolutely. I talk early on in the book about a research conducted by Dr. John Gottman. For your listeners who might not be aware of him or familiar with him, he’s a world-renowned marriage and family therapist, and a number of years ago, he and his colleague set out to determine what makes the healthy happy couples of the world stay in a happy long relationship compared to those who separate or divorce.

And I love the study they put together. They decorated their lab, I think it was the University of Washington, to look like a bed and breakfast, and they invited 130 newlywed couples in, and they said, “Spend the weekend here. Just do what you normally do on a weekend. Cook, eat dinner, watch some TV, read the news, whatever it is, while we observe you,” which, I think, is kind of creepy but it’s funny what people will do for money and science.

And as the observers watched, they noticed that throughout the day, these couples would make small seemingly insignificant requests for connection. They’d be sitting there at the table and the wife would look out the window, and say, “Oh, honey, check out that car.” And what they noticed is that the way the spouse could respond in that instance made all the difference in the connection that they had in their relationship.

So, in that particular instance, the wife notices the car and her husband could look out and respond in one of three ways. He could say, “Wow, that’s awesome. I love that color,” positively, and that’s validating, matching her emotion, getting excited with her, stepping into it is validating. The second way he could respond is negatively, of course saying, “Oh, I hate that. That’s the worst car in the world.” Or, the third way is simply passive, just go, “Huh, that’s nice dear,” maybe not even looking up from the smartphone.

And it seems simple but when they went back, they gathered all the data, they started analyzing it, and then they waited six years, and they followed up with these couples, and they said, “How are you doing? Are you still together? And if you are together, are you happily married still or have you separated?” And what they found was the couples who had separated validated each other only 33% of the time. Whenever they would make a comment like that, their spouse would either be passive or even negative about it, but they wouldn’t engage, they wouldn’t connect with them.

Whereas, the couples that were happily married six years later validated each other 87% of the time. Nearly nine times out of ten, those healthy happy couples were meeting those bids or those requests for connection. And I thought that was interesting. At that time of my life, I was in a relationship that wasn’t going so well, and I realized, “Oh, my gosh, it’s because this woman isn’t validating me. She’s not connecting with me in this way.”

And I flipped the page on this article, and apparently Dr. Gottman and his colleagues can predict with up to 97% accuracy whether people will be together and happy or separated years down the line simply by observing these types of interactions. So, I love that study because it made a big difference for me personally in my romantic relationships but, I can tell you, it’s every bit as powerful in the workplace because work is relationships, business is relationships.

Whether you’re a manager, whether you have colleagues, whether you have clients or customers calling in, you’re working with people, you’re talking with people, and we want to feel connected and understood. And so, validation is one of the most powerful ways to build that.

Pete Mockaitis
Okay. Well, there you have it. So, then you’ve got a particular four-step method for doing the validation. Can you walk us through this?

Michael Sorensen
Absolutely. And I’ll preface this by saying validation is simple. And so, sometimes people look at four steps and they’re like, “What’s this? It seems complicated. Why do I have to do this?” I’ve reverse-engineered this four-step method to try to help people apply it in some of the more difficult situations.

Maybe we can talk later, Pete, about how to validate someone when they’re angry with you or when you disagree with them because I find that’s where a lot of people get tripped up but it actually makes all the difference in the world if you can, first, hold your defense for a moment, listen to them, validate them, and then get in to your side of the story.

And so, the four steps are, first, listen empathically. Like, really listen for the emotion that the person is sharing, not just the words they’re saying. And then once you’ve identified how they’re feeling, the second step is to validate, just identifying their emotion and offering some justification. So, again, if they’re upset, saying, “Of course, you’re upset. You were up all night working on that and they just threw your work out the window.” That’s validating.

Then, step three is where you give feedback or advice. So, again, if you disagree with someone, or if you have a suggestion, you can give advice but it comes after the validation because it allows that person to feel heard and understood first. And then the fourth and final step is to just validate again. It creates a nice little validation sandwich. Following up the conversation whether it was a difficult conversation, then you wrap it up, and you just say, “Hey, thanks again for coming and talk to me. I know these conversations are uncomfortable and yet we got to have them. I really appreciate your candor.”

Or, if it’s positive, your friends are telling you about something awesome that happened at work the other day, and you’re all excited, and at the very end you say, “Hey, congrats again. You worked your butt off on that presentation, I’m happy to hear it went well.” It’s that final step there to kind of tie it all together.

So, again, those four steps: listen empathically, validate the emotion, offer feedback or advice, and then validate again. And you can go through all those in 30 seconds or you might do it several times in a two-hour conversation but it gives you kind of a loose framework and a basic idea of, “Oh, yeah, hold back on the advice, listen, validate, and then get into it.”

Pete Mockaitis
Okay. Cool. Well, so one of my favorite parts in your book were the demonstrations from like heavy relationship situations and then a toddler exchange, and so it’s nice to show the breadth of it. But let’s take a look, let’s say we’re in the workplace and someone…well, hey, maybe I’ll just take one of the roles and you take one of the others, if that works for you.

Michael Sorensen
Great. Yeah, roleplay. Here we go.
Hey, Pete, how is it going?

Pete Mockaitis
Oh, it’s fine.

Michael Sorensen
Fine? Just fine?

Pete Mockaitis
Well, I was working on this process to get things that, well, automated into be way more efficient whenever we’re handling the widgets and, well, it just all went to heck. Absolutely nothing works the way they say it’s supposed to work. People have told me they’re going to get me things and just, straight up, haven’t gotten me the things. The software keeps crashing my computer. It’s basically a total failure.

Michael Sorensen
Oh, geez. Man, I’m sorry. How long were you working on that?

Pete Mockaitis
Yeah, it’s been about four months.

Michael Sorensen
Four months of work to have it just fall apart at the last minute.

Pete Mockaitis
Yeah.

Michael Sorensen
Oh, my gosh, that’s so frustrating.

Pete Mockaitis
Yeah.

Michael Sorensen
Are you…? What are you going to do? Do you think you can salvage it or is it going to…you have to throw it all out?

Pete Mockaitis
Oh, I guess I’m just going to keep calling these people until they finally give me the right answer and, hopefully, that works eventually.

Michael Sorensen
Oh, man, I’m sorry. I hate it when you spend that much time minding on something and then it just falls apart. You would hope that with a product that expensive, people have it figured out, right?

Pete Mockaitis
Yeah, totally.

Michael Sorensen
Oh, man. Well, let me know if I can help in any way. Honestly, I don’t know if I can offer much help but I’m happy to if there’s any way I can.

Pete Mockaitis
Cool. All right. Well, thank you. All right. So, I saw the steps in action. Anything you’d comment upon in that exchange?

Michael Sorensen
Obviously, where it’s kind of roleplay, we’re both kind of stumbling through it.

Pete Mockaitis
Making it up.

Michael Sorensen
But one of the most important things that I encourage people to do is ask a lot of discovery questions early on. If you already know what’s going on in the person’s life and the situation, you don’t have to ask a lot of questions. But if you don’t, that’s really important to make sure you’re validating the right things and that you’re actually understanding.

I’ve worked with some people who they try to validate right away, and so somebody, they just get right in, they’re like, “Oh, that must be so…you must be so angry,” and they’re like, “Oh, no, I’m not angry. I’m actually embarrassed,” and you kind of go through it. So, I asked a couple questions, not a ton, but then, pretty quickly, I was matching your emotion. I was trying to kind of reflect what I was seeing in you, which is, “Ah, yeah, of course you’re upset if you spent four months on that.” And I’ve actually said as much, “Of course, you’re upset because…” and I showed that justification in saying, “Yeah, it makes sense. That’s maddening to go through all of that.”

And that little piece is so powerful because, oftentimes, we, as humans, are taught to kind of bury our emotions, we’re taught to not be upset, and sometimes we tell people as much, like, “Oh, don’t worry about it. I’m sure it’ll work out,” but that doesn’t usually feel very good. Like, “Well, I am upset. I’m looking for you to see that.” And so, that was that validation piece of me just saying, “Hey, that’s really frustrating, especially if this and that. You would think if they had all this time and money put into it that they would have it figured out.” Those are all validating statements because they are giving you permission to feel the frustration that you’re feeling.

Pete Mockaitis
Now, as you say it, it sounds so simple and yet it feels a little rare. I don’t know if you’ve got stats on this but it seems like we’re all hungry for this and we’re not having our fill, broadly speaking. Is that fair to say?

Michael Sorensen
A hundred percent. And I wish I had stats, Pete, but the stats that I can give you are just looking at the reviews of my book and the emails that I get, the hundreds of thousands of people that are saying, “Oh, my goodness, this is what I’ve been missing.” And it’s all over the board. You see people saying, “I didn’t realize that this is what my spouse was asking for.” Then you see people saying, “If my partner had done this, we would still be together.” Then I get emails from customer service managers saying, “Can you do a training on this? Because I listened to your book and I started implementing it and customers are 1000% happier,” whatever it is.

But, you’re right, it’s so simple but we are craving it and that’s one of the things that makes it a superpower is we’re all craving it, few of us recognize that that’s what we’re craving, but we do recognize that we’re not getting it. And that’s where a lot of relationships kind of hit this rocky point because you’re going, you’ll talk to your boss, and your boss, maybe you’ll express a concern or something, and if he or she just says, “Don’t worry about it. I’ve got it…”

Pete Mockaitis
There you go.

Michael Sorensen
…that doesn’t…you’re like, “Okay.” Well, what do you say to your boss? Versus, if your boss says, “Well, help me understand what’s going on,” and they ask a few questions and they get into it. And if you’re upset, and they say, “First off, thank you. I can imagine how frustrating this is given blah, blah, blah” and you sit there and you go, “Yes, they get me.” It makes all the difference in the world.

Pete Mockaitis
Yeah. Well, so let’s hear about things that are wrong things to say. And I love, in your book, you did this nicely. I remember a couple was struggling with infertility, and then someone said, “Oh, boy, yeah, I just look at my wife and she gets pregnant,” and I’ve heard people say that before. And, of course, when you’re reading it in the context of the book, you’re like, “Wow, that is absolutely a horrific thing to say to a person in that context,” and yet people say it because I don’t think they’re tuned in on this wavelength yet. So, “Don’t worry about it, I got it” is another example of, “We’re not going to get into your feelings. This is already handled.” So, what are some other choice things you hear people say a lot that are kind of the opposite of validating?

Michael Sorensen
The invalidating statements, yeah, it’s things like, “Oh, you’ll be fine,” “It could be worse,” or, “At least it’s not…” fill in the blank. As you listen or you’re hearing these things, ask yourself, “Have you ever said this to someone?” Because you’re right, Pete, people say it all the time, where we say, “Oh, don’t worry. Things will just work out.”

I’ve got a couple siblings who are still single and they desperately want to find their person and I can’t tell you how many times, when they come to someone, and I’m kind of the fly on the wall, and I’m like, “How’s dating going?” and they’re like, “Ah, not super well.” And then, almost immediately, the response is, “Oh, I’m sure you’ll find them eventually. You’re a great catcher. I wouldn’t worry too much about it. It’s going to work out.”

And you can see the look on their face, they’re like, “I know that, I’m not stupid, but I’m not enjoying life right now.” It’s kind of hard. I was looking for a little of that validation. Everybody means well. It’s not like we’re trying to be rude to people but we think that’s helping when, in reality, it’s hurting.

Pete Mockaitis
Yeah. And I think, not to get too deep into this, but one reason we don’t do it is we’re not aware; two is we think we’re helping. I think the third might be that, for a segment of folks, it’s like, “We’re just kind of uncomfortable getting into all that emotional stuff.” And so, hey, if that’s you, what do you do about that?

Michael Sorensen
Well, to that, I would say, and obviously everyone is different, the situations are different. I still hit moments when I’m like, “I don’t really want to talk about it,” like timid people. Obviously, you have to kind of judge the situation. But this is where I think validation becomes, again, such a valuable tool because one of the key reasons I believe people are uncomfortable in those situations is they don’t know how to help, especially if it’s heavier.

I remember talking to a friend whose parents passed away recently and unexpectedly, and prior to knowing how to validate, I would’ve been like, “Oh, what do you say? Like, really, what do you say because I haven’t dealt with that? I’m not about to think that I can give this amazing advice.” But validation is so powerful because you don’t have to say much of anything, you don’t have to fix it. The fix they’re going to figure out and so validations just gives them that space.

And so, when you talk with someone, I like, Pete, your example how you said, “Okay. Well, ask me how I’m doing,” and you say, “Fine,” because that happens a lot. And, usually, it’s when people kind of want to talk about something but they’re not quite sure you want to so they’ll just kind of say, “I’m fine.” And you can read their body language, and then you get to decide whether you want to follow it deeper, but if you do, you can just ask questions. You can see how they’re doing and you just ask questions and then you validate, and you ask questions and you validate, and you don’t ever have to get into solutions.

With my friend, I just said, “Oh, my gosh, I can’t even imagine,” and I just sat there for a moment, and I let her sit for a second, and she said, “Yeah, it’s brutal.” And I said, “So, how did you find out?” and she explained it to me, and I just, again, “Ahh.” And even with that response, “Ahh” is validating. I didn’t even have to use words there. Again, it’s just showing respect, it’s like, “Man, I see how you’re feeling,” and we were able to kind of go through the conversation. I didn’t give one bit of advice. Heaven knows, she didn’t want advice. She just wanted someone to kind of sit in it with her and feel it.

And so, if you’re a little uncomfortable with these emotional situations, I do encourage you to try, the next time you have an opportunity to try it and try to just validate the person. Ask some questions, respond with the emotion that you can tell they’re feeling. And, to tie it off, you can just say, again, like we did on the example, “Hey, I’m here for you. If you ever want to just talk, let me know.” And they’ll usually say thanks, and then you move on.

Pete Mockaitis
Yeah, that’s good. And how do you feel about the “I’m sorry. I’m so sorry,” because sometimes people hate that? And other times, it seems completely appropriate.

Michael Sorensen
In what context?

Pete Mockaitis
Like, so if it’s tragedy or like they say a divorce, a death, an illness, you say, “Oh, I’m so sorry,” and they’re like, “Oh, I’m tired of everyone saying that.” Like, I don’t know, where do you come out on this one?

Michael Sorensen
Again, it’s very situation-dependent. So, in that situation, if they actually responded like that to me, I’d be like, “Oh, hey, I’m sorry. How can I help?” It’s difficult because you kind of have to roll with the punches a little bit. I was talking with someone just the other day about this and, well, yes, I put validation into a nice clean four-step framework. The reality is it’s more of an artform than it is just a tight framework. It’s not something you can just like pull out a sheet, and go, “Okay. Michael says to say this, and this, and then you’re going to feel better, and then we’re going to ride off into the sunset.”

It doesn’t work like that. It’s a skill. It’s a tool, which means we have to figure out how to kind of use it in the right situations. And so, you’re right, certain people are going to respond to those “I’m so sorry,” or whatever, and they’re going to get defensive, especially if they’re hurt, or they’re going to come back at you, and you can still use validation again.

So, let’s just say that you had said that to me, Pete, again, I’d say, “Oh, I’m sorry.” And if they say, “Yeah, everybody just says they’re sorry, and I don’t want to hear that. I want to move on,” then I might say, “Yeah, I don’t blame you. This is a heavy situation.” And then they might say, “Yeah, da, da, da,” and we can keep going on. But you see how I was even able to validate their frustration at me, and just say, “Wow, okay. Yeah, you know what, the more I think about it, I see how that was hard. I’m sorry for that,” or whatever the right response would be.

Pete Mockaitis
That’s good. Well, I guess now I’m curious, so, you said at the very beginning, validation basically conveys, “Hey, I hear you. I understand what you’re feeling, and you’re not crazy.” I’m curious, like when folks are crazy, I mean, maybe either literally, that we’ve got like a sort of diagnosable situation, or they are kind of blending their emotions with like the exact wrong answer, like, “My boss is such a jerk, I’m going to march in there right now, slap him across the face, and tell him in no uncertain…” whatever, I don’t know.

Or, someone is like, “I’m so worthless. The world would be better off without me,” like intense, like I’m sure the right answer is not, “You know, you’re right,” not the right move there. So, yeah, in those trickier places where folks are saying something oh-so wrong, how do you think about validation?

Michael Sorensen
I’m so happy you bring this up, and I’m going to preface this by saying that the FBI uses validation in their hostage negotiations. It’s a critical part. And if you think of high-stake situations, you got people in a building threatening to kill them and themselves, and so that’s very much what you’re saying, Pete. You don’t want to just say, “Yeah, do it. Yeah, you’re right. Yeah, your life’s not worth living.” You don’t want to go there. But that’s not quite what validation is and that’s where the four-step method comes into play here.

Again, first step is listening empathically. So, let’s keep it with the co-worker example and they’re really upset with their boss, and they’re about to march right in there and yell at them, well, let’s just say for a moment, we think that’s a bad idea. So, if we just say, “You can’t do that. You’re going to get fired,” how are they going to respond?

Pete Mockaitis
“Go ahead and fire me. I’m sick of this. This is war.”

Michael Sorensen
They’re probably going to go, yeah, exactly, “I don’t care.” Exactly right, they’re just going to push back, and you can push back, and they’ll push back, and you’re not going to get anywhere. And so, you have to first listen to them, “Well, what happened?” and they vent and they complain. And, again, you can validate there, so you don’t have to validate, you don’t have to say, “Yes, go in and yell at them.”

But if he says, “Well, he called me out in front of everybody in that meeting,” then you could say, “Seriously?” “Yeah, and I’m so…aargh, I’m so angry because I worked my butt off all week.” “Well, yeah, like I’d be upset too.” That’s the validation piece. It’s not, “Yeah, you should go in and yell at your boss.” It’s, “Well, of course, you’re upset given what just happened.”

And so, you keep going through that conversation. You listen, you validate, you listen, you validate. When you can tell they’ve calmed down just a little bit, or maybe they’re about to march right in the door, then that’s when step three comes into play, and you say, “Well, hold on one second. I do have a few thoughts on this. Do you mind if I share it?” Okay, now that intro, that transition to step three is big because it shows respect. If you just say, “Hold on. Don’t do it. It’s a bad idea,” again, they might get defensive and start arguing with you.

But if you, first, ask permission to share your thoughts, most people will say, “Fine. What? What is it? What are your thoughts?” and then you can say, “Maybe yelling at your boss isn’t the best idea. Have you thought about this? Or, have you thought about that?” And what you’ll find is, if you’ve listened and validated first, they are a hundred times more likely to listen to your advice when you bring it up. So, it all comes down to that order.

And, again, you see the same thing in situations where someone is angry at you, you see the same thing in the hostage negotiations. They don’t say, “Sure, kill yourself. Sure, ignite the bomb.” They say, “What’s going on? Where are you…where is this coming from?” and they talk through, they listen, they validate, and they say, “Well, can we just talk? Can we just talk face to face?” And you can see they kind of…The power of validation is to bring the emotion back down so that you can have a human-to-human conversation.

Pete Mockaitis
Yeah. Boy, you know, I remember you talked about FBI hostage negotiation, and we had Chris Voss on the podcast, who wrote an awesome book Never Split the Difference and did FBI hostage negotiations. And I believe there’s a story there in which they just kind of said the same thing over and over again, kind of like, “Hey, it seems like you’re scared that you’re not going to be able to make it out of there, and you’re worried about what’s going to happen to you and your family,” something along those lines, just like repeatedly, and then hours later, the dude just kind of walks out. And so, it’s wild how potent that is.

Michael Sorensen
And that’s why I joke in the book it’s like a superpower. Early on, when I started using this, in my day job, I’m a manager of about 30 people, and I was a very young manager at the time when I wrote the book, and I didn’t know how to deal with certain situations. And as I’ve started using validation, I had some pretty tense conversations, some people yelling at me, some really difficult things, I had made some mistakes, all of that. When I started using validation first, it was shocking at how it made everything easier, and helped me mend relationships, and helped me earn trust and respect.

I had a gal who once worked for me, left the company. A few years later, she was one the beta readers actually of my book. And she actually called me up after she read it, and she said, “I get it now.” She said, “I could never understand why I felt so comfortable talking to you.” And I don’t say this to pat myself on the back, but I say it to illustrate the power it has. She said, “I always felt so comfortable talking to you, and I couldn’t figure out why, and now I get it, and it’s because you listened to me and you validated me. Thank you.” So, it’s powerful.

Pete Mockaitis
That’s good. I’m intrigued by when you made some mistakes, how might validation work in that context? Like, “Hey, I can understand to be really frustrating that this guy…” mainly you, means you have to redo a bunch of things now. Or, how’s that go?

Michael Sorensen
Yeah, really, it just comes down to ownership, and that takes humility. It’s not an easy thing to do but if you do make a mistake, there’s no sense in beating around the bush or making an excuse. That never looks good in work or just in life. So, in the times that’s happened to me, I’m trying to think of a concrete example and I’m drawing a blank right now.

But if we just go with a hypothetical, they come back and they say, “What happened? You told me you would have this yesterday,” and I take a moment and I go, “Oh, shoot. You’re right.” And I just say, “You’re right. I’m sorry. I dropped the ball on that. I’m going to figure it out.” And they say, “Well, it threw off my whole presentation, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah,” again, there’s a chance to validate. So, they tell me how it affects them, and instead of saying, “Well, you should’ve followed up with me,” it doesn’t look good. I own it. Again, I say, “Aargh, I’m really sorry. I overbooked myself. It sucks to be expecting something I committed to. I didn’t deliver. You’re right. How can I help?”

It’s almost like a parody but it’s honest, and there’s actually, in my opinion, a great respect that comes from that, and strength to say, “Yup, I messed up. I’m going to figure out how to make it right.” And, in most instances, people will come down on their anger pretty quickly when they see you’re not going to fight them, you just say, “Yup, I’m sorry. I see how that affects you. Let’s figure out how to make it work.”

Pete Mockaitis
Yeah, that’s good. Well, so then you used the phrase, “Hey, I have some thoughts. Do you mind if I share?” asking permission. Any key kind of words and phrases that you like and naturally show up a lot when you’re validating, or some key words and phrases to be banished?

Michael Sorensen
Yeah, so when you get into the validating and such, we’ve talked a lot about that. But if I may, Pete, let’s take it into that step three where you’re giving feedback because that makes a big difference. One place a lot of people trip up, and, again, this is going to sound so simple, but using the word “but” can be quite dangerous when you’re connecting two sentences together.

So, if you try to validate someone, let’s say they’re angry at me, we’ll stick with that example, and I say, “You’re right. I missed it but it’s really not that big of a deal.” Well, I just undid everything. Like, I was going down the path, I was validating, and then I said “but” and that now puts up a red flag in most people, and they’re like, “But what?” Here comes your counterargument, and I say, “It’s not that big of a deal.” Well, woosh, that’s an invalidating statement, and they’re like, “What do you mean it’s not a big of a deal?” and away we go into that cycle.

I’m a big fan of changing that word from “but” to “and.” Now, you still shouldn’t say, “It’s not that big of a deal.” But let’s say, in that situation, I say, “You’re right. I committed to do that, I didn’t. I’m sorry and I wasn’t the only one responsible for it. Can we talk about X, Y, and Z, other ways?” So, there’s the “and” connection point is very powerful, and I get that feedback a lot from people, saying, “Wow, I had no idea changing that one word,” because, for some reason, we, as humans, we really key in on that.

And if someone is saying, “Hey, I really like…” the example I used in the book is, “I like what you’ve done with your hair but…” we go, “Uh-oh, but what?” There’s something else versus “I like what you’ve done with your hair and I like it better the other way.” You still don’t want to hear that but at least it’s a little easier to hold.

And so, when you’re giving feedback to your colleagues, when you’re giving feedback to your friends, or, heck, even your boss, try to avoid the word “but” and just use “and” in there. It actually makes a pretty big difference.

Pete Mockaitis
Okay. Very good. And, I’m curious, if you just don’t feel like you’re relating in any way to their emotion, in terms of you’re like, “I’m mystified as to why you’re so angry or so annoyed by this thing that really seems like nothing to me,” what do you do?

Michael Sorensen
This is where it gets a little tricky because I get this question every now and then. I didn’t address it in the book but in the years since, I’ve really given it a lot of thought. I’ve paid a lot of attention to how I still validate in those situations. First off, I do encourage you to always try to find a way to empathize. Oftentimes, it’s easy to just say, “I don’t care. I don’t care about people.” There’s a lot of value that comes from learning to empathize with people, learning to identify emotions, and that’s a bit of a different topic though.

If, in the moment, you’re like, “Dude, like what’s going on? Why are you so upset about this?” again, ask some questions first. Don’t just dismiss it out of hand and assume they’re being crazy because most people, when you really get into the full picture, act quite rationally. But if you really feel like they’re not, there is still value in, I don’t want to say lip service but, in still kind of going through the motions, and saying, “Yeah, it makes sense that you’re angry. Of course, you would be,” even if inside I’m like, “I don’t really think so,” but it does make a difference still.

Again, it’s not where I recommend going first. Always prefer genuine empathy, but at very least, you can have some sympathy, then you can at least see the emotion they’re feeling, and you can see that they’re upset because such and so and so yelled at them. And that alone can still be valuable and still be helpful to them.

Pete Mockaitis
Yeah, that’s good. And I guess I’m also thinking about have you really entered into their world? I guess I was recently on a fishing trip and someone was angry that another person had parked nearby our campsite and started fishing. And I actually don’t care that much about the fishing on the trip. They’re just great guys, I like hanging with them, and they go fishing so I go with them.

And so, someone is getting kind of worked up about this. And I thought, “What’s the matter? It’s a big old river or lake.” But I think, as I dove deeper into it in terms of what this person wants most is to catch big fish. It is rare they have the opportunity to go catch fish, and they perceive rightly/wrongly. I don’t actually know enough about fishing but that person’s placement there is going to diminish that, and that there are many other places he could choose from, then I can understand, “Yeah, that’d be irritating that that guy did that when he could just go somewhere else.” But it takes some doing for me to get there.

Michael Sorensen
Yes, it does, and there are times. Again, going back talking about how it’s a tool. It doesn’t mean you always have to use it. I am guilty almost every week of my wife and I’ll get into a little argument, even just have a discussion, and if she gets upset about something, I want to jump to fix it, and “I’m literally the guy that wrote the book on it.” And I’m just like, “You know what, let’s just do this, do this, fix it, and we’ll be done.” And she’s like, “Really? You’re not going to validate me at all?” And I’m like, “Ahh, crap. You’re right.”

But there are times when you have to just kind of pick and choose, and there are times also when you might just jump in. If we stick with your example there of that guy, if he comes up and he’s yelling at you because he wants your spot, you’d be like, “Dude, really? Like, it’s a campsite.” And he’s like, “Well, blah, blah, blah,” you can then choose to validate or you could choose to just dismiss it. If you paid for it, it’s rightly yours. You can walk away, you don’t have to engage with people who are upset or angry, but if you want to, it will work. Nine times out of ten, 95%-99%, I’m making out stats here, but most times it’s amazing how you can calm someone down.

And so, if he’s all upset, you say, “Yeah, yeah, I’m sorry. We booked it.” And he’s like, “I booked it too.” “Well, there must’ve been an issue with that. That’s really frustrating. If you came all the way down here expecting to see this, I get it. Let’s go chat with the front office at the campsite or whatever and let’s see if we can figure it out.” But just that little, “Yeah, if you expected all this and came down here,” that’s validating, and that can help tone it down just a little bit.

I’ll give you an example of, this was a few months ago now but it worked, a certain employee, who’s no longer with the company, placed an order for 40,000 T-shirts that we didn’t need, but he thought we needed them, he thought he was going to be awesome. Well, a few months later, I get a call from another guy in my team, saying, “Hey, just so you know, the T-shirts arrived. This other company who prepared them, they’re expecting payment. I don’t think we owe it to them because we didn’t approve it, so don’t worry, I’m handling it, but you just might hear about it. You might want to know.” And I thought, “Well, hold on one second. Can you send me the email thread? I want to make sure that we’re being honest here. If we said we’re going to order them, we got to pay them.”

So, he sends me the email thread, and I see this back and forth, and it was my guy was being quite invalidating, frankly. He was very kind of traditional negotiation tactics, “Hardline no, not going to happen.” And, obviously, that’s not going to go well on the other end, and it was getting really heated. And so, I actually took over the conversation and I reached out to the guy, and I said, “Hey, do you mind if we hopped on a call?” And his response was very curt, “Yeah, this time.” Period.

So, in advance of the call, I did a little bit of research, and I determined that we actually weren’t on the hook for the T-shirts, but I still wanted to smooth things over. I still wanted to do right by them. So, in advance of the call, I thought, “Okay, I’m going to come right into this, he’s going to come in ready to fight, he’s bringing his A-game, I’m just going to validate him first thing.”

So, I picked up my phone, I gave him a call, he answered, and I said hello, but then, before anything else, I said, “Hey, before we get in, I just want to apologize. This has obviously gone on far longer than either of us want. As I’m digging through, it looks messy, there’s a lot of back and forth, emotions are running high. I apologize for that. I’m hopeful that we can get on this call and just talk man to man and figure something out.”

And, literally, the shock was audible in his voice. He literally stuttered on the other end, he was like, “Oh, ah, okay. Well, what do you have in mind?” And we were able to chat, and we talked through it, and I explained my side, he explained his side, and we reached a resolution that both parties felt good about. It didn’t take long but it had been going on for months, literally months, Pete, back and forth, and tensions were running high. And in about five minutes, I was able to undo almost all that tension and find a resolution with just a little bit of listening and validating.

Pete Mockaitis
That’s beautiful. Well, Michael, tell me, any final key things you want to share about validation before we shift gears and hear about some of your favorite things?

Michael Sorensen
I think maybe the last thing I’ll say on it is I think it’s important to point out that when I talk about validation, we’re not validating people’s worth. That’s one thing that sometimes validation gets a bad rap because people say, “Well, validate me. Tell me I’m worthy. Tell me I’m good enough.” That’s dangerous. I’m not talking about that. We’re talking about validating emotions and situations that people are dealing with.

And so, if you have a co-worker, or if you have a family member, or even a spouse, who’s constantly complaining, where they’re always just like, “Hmm, I need more. I need you to tell me that I’m good enough,” that’s a separate conversation, that’s a place for boundaries, that’s a place where having a conversation, and saying, “Hey, I care about you,” or, “You’re my buddy, and…” again, there’s the “and” instead of “but” “…and this isn’t working for me,” or, “I’m not sure how to help you because every time I give you advice, it seems to go in one ear and out the other.”

So, I think it’s an important clarification because I never want people to think that I’m saying, “Well, just tell people what they want to hear. Just tell people that they’re great and everything is going to work out.” Again, validation being a tool, you use it with other tools, and use well that earns you respect, that helps you set boundaries, that helps you earn trust with those around you. And that is why it’s such a powerful skill.

Pete Mockaitis
Thank you. Well, now could you share a favorite quote, something you find inspiring?

Michael Sorensen
The quote that I go to most often is “Action kills fear.” I don’t even know where it came from or who said, it but I stumbled across it years ago, and I print it out, and I stick it up in my offices because it’s just true. If I find myself kind of getting paralyzed or I’m uncertain about something, just take action, any kind of action, even if it’s just the first step, it unlocks that and allows you to move forward.

Pete Mockaitis
Okay. And a favorite book?

Michael Sorensen
I love The Compound Effect and The Slight Edge. They’re both the same principle, two different authors, all about how small simple things build up over time to great results. And that’s been…that’s, frankly, how I got to writing the book in the first place. I committed to 15 minutes a day at least, and sometimes it would snowball into hours and into weekends on end. But 15 minutes, small simple things got me to where I am today.

Pete Mockaitis
And a favorite tool?

Michael Sorensen
we’re talking tech tools. I’m a big fan of the TextExpander.

Pete Mockaitis
Oh, yeah.

Michael Sorensen
Where you type in a shortcut or like a snippet, like I type in Cphone and it types out my full cellphone, or Pmail, it’s my personal email. Little things like that to save a ton of time, that and a clipboard manager. So, I copy a lot of things and paste a lot of different things. If you, listeners, don’t use those, you should check them out.

Pete Mockaitis
You know, what’s the best clipboard manager for a Mac in your opinion?

Michael Sorensen
I use Copy’Em. That’s what I found thus far. There’s probably better ones but it works well for my needs.

Pete Mockaitis
Thank you.

Michael Sorensen
You can do a lot of form-filling. I don’t know, man. I use it all the time. I think it’s an underappreciated or underutilized little tool.

Pete Mockaitis
All right. And a favorite habit?

Michael Sorensen
Well, I spoke to this earlier on The Compound Effect, but it’s just these simple little things every day. So, if I have a goal in mind, or I’m a big goal-setter, I’ll break it down into tiny little chunks that I can’t not do five minutes a day, 10 minutes a day, 15 minutes a day, just to make sure I’m doing it.

Pete Mockaitis
And is there a particular nugget you share that seems to connect and resonate with folks; they quote it back to you a lot?

Michael Sorensen
Yeah, it was, because I think off the top of my head, that idea that when people vent or complain to us, they usually already have a solution in mind; they’re not looking for advice. They’re just looking to be heard and understood. As I go into the Kindle book, in the most popular highlights, that’s number one. It’s the, “Hey, if someone is venting to you, chances are they don’t actually want your advice. They just want you to hear them and they’ll figure it out on their own.”

Pete Mockaitis
And if folks want to learn more or get in touch, how do you point them?

Michael Sorensen
My website is probably the best resource or the best place to find me, MichaelSSorensen.com. You can contact me via contact form there, and read a lot of my free content.

Pete Mockaitis
And do you have a final challenge or call to action for folks looking to be awesome at their jobs?

Michael Sorensen
The biggest thing that I’ve learned is, at least what I appreciate most, is people who really don’t use the word “can’t.” I guess it kind of comes full circle. We joked about my building my own mattress. But I’m a big believer that you can do anything. That’s so trite when we say it. I don’t mean in like, “You can be an astronaut,” though you can be. But if you want something, you can figure it out. And it just depends on if you’re willing to put in the time and the effort and the money.

And so, people on my team or at work who say, “No, I can’t do that. Can’t do that,” I hate it because it’s so small-minded. I’d much prefer to say, “Well, we probably could but it would take the world.” I’d rather say, “What would it take? How could we do it?” Even if it’s wild and out there, you’re just, “What would it take? How can we get there?”

My opinion, people bring that into the workplace, that can-do attitude, that “I’m going to figure it out no matter what it takes,” that stands out to me, and I think that is what makes people very successful in life.

Pete Mockaitis
Michael, this has been a treat. I wish you much luck with validating and being validated.

Michael Sorensen
Thanks, Pete. Appreciate the time. Great chatting.