The conventional framing is: “How do I stop seeking approval so I can speak my truth?” Joe flips it: speaking your truth is the cure for approval-seeking. When you speak your truth, you’re approving of yourself—validating your own perception enough to voice it—so you no longer need that validation from outside.
Joe’s youngest daughter discovered this navigating teenage social dynamics. She realized that if she had to perform to keep friends, she didn’t actually have friends—“she had friends who were friends with somebody who she was trying to be.” With courage, she decided to simply be self-possessed. Weeks later, the approval-seeking had naturally fallen away.
“If you speak your truth, you’re approving of yourself and you don’t have to go looking outside for it.”
The mechanism is self-reinforcing: speaking truth → self-approval → less need for external approval → more freedom to speak truth. It unfolds like a meditation practice—how you do it on day one is very different from ten years in.
Related Concepts
- Chase your own approval
- Approval seeking pushes people away
- Can’t be seen if not being yourself
- Unfelt emotions drive you out of yourself and into others’ opinions