There’s more to do with people skills before we ever open our mouths. It’s about listening and validation, which are somewhat lost arts. Simply put, are you listening in your interactions, or are you simply waiting for your turn to speak? This is an important distinction, as the former creates flowing conversation and the latter creates battling monologues. There are many aspects of listening that are similar to validation, as they are focused on providing a specific positive outcome.

Many times when we try to validate, we are actually worsening the situation by using invalidating statements. These are statements that dismiss or minimize people’s feelings, such as “Oh, you’ll be fine” or “You shouldn’t feel that way!” They feel more prescriptive and try to convince people to see the bright side of things—but that’s not what they are interested in at the moment.

A helpful six-step path to validation is as follows: being present, accurately reflecting emotions, guessing emotions, understanding emotions in context, affirming emotions, and then being honest.

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Show notes and/or episode transcripts are available at https://bit.ly/social-skills-shownotes

Visit the podcast on Captivate.fm at https://bit.ly/social-skills-home

Patrick King is an internationally bestselling author and social skills coach. emotional and social intelligence. Learn more or get a free mini-book on conversation tactics at https://bit.ly/pkconsulting

For narration information visit Russell Newton at https://bit.ly/VoW-home

For production information visit Newton Media Group LLC at https://bit.ly/newtonmg

Get the audiobook on Audible at https://bit.ly/ImprovePeopleSkills

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