Being self-possessed isn’t only good for you — it gives you the capacity to actually see other people, and that, Joe says, is what cures their judgment and criticism. When someone is upset, disappointed, or critical, underneath it they feel unseen, either by themselves or by others. The move is not to defend or out-argue them but to get curious.
“If you’re just stop and you say, ‘Hey, what do you mean by that? What’s going on? What am I missing?’ You’ll notice that they’ll get calmer. They’ll start talking. They’ll feel heard.”
Crucially, they don’t need you to agree, and they don’t need you to be smart. “They just need to feel heard.” Ask anyone who’s criticized you what their criticism is, what you’re missing, what they’d have you do — and the criticism transforms into engagement, wonder, relationship. But you can only do this if you’re already in yourself; if you’re chasing their approval, you can’t.
Joe sees this weekly in the connection course: family members and business partners with years of accumulated judgments, disappointments, and guilt trips watch it all fall away the moment they truly sit and see each other. Because the real want was never to be right — it was to feel connected. Once connection lands, the rest drops away.
Related Concepts
- Self-possession is what people are actually attracted to
- How we listen shapes what people share
- Every fight can bring you closer together
- Chasing approval separates you from yourself
- Subtle superiority is a protection pattern that creates isolation
- Emptiness is the source of empathic attunement
- Saying ‘ouch’ to the inner critic creates distance from it