206: Chloé Valdary on Love & Race

Welcome to the Psychology Podcast, where we give you insights into the mind, brain, behavior, and creativity. I'm doctor Scott Barry Kaufman. And in each episode, I have a conversation with a guest who will stimulate your mind and give you a greater understanding of yourself, others, and the world we live in. Hopefully, we'll also provide a glimpse into human possibility. Thanks for listening, and enjoy the podcast. Today, it's so great to have Chloe Valdry on the podcast. After spending a year as a Bartley Fellow at the Wall Street Journal, Valdory developed the theory of enchantment in an innovative framework for social emotional learning, character development, and interpersonal growth that uses pop culture as an educational tool in the classroom and beyond. Chloe has trained around the world, including in South Africa, The Netherlands, Germany, and Israel. Her clients have included high school and college students, government agencies, business teams, and many more. She has also lectured in universities across America, including Harvard and Georgetown. Her work has been covered in Psychology Today magazine, and her writings have appeared in The New York Times and The Wall Street Journal. Chloe, so so glad to finally chat with you. Likewise. Well, where do where do we even begin? There's so many so many potential starting points. But if it's cool with you, I'd love to start with your theory of enchantment. I'm enchanted with it as a I know. I'm so corny. But anyway, I I am enchanted with it because I, you know, I I have a deep interest in education and and making sure that no kids fall between the cracks. And I just love to hear how your program addresses some of those issues and and just, you know, what inspires you most about that work that you do. Sure. So theory of enchantment is a social emotional learning program that I designed about a year and a half ago, and it comes out of my my desire to construct a framework to teach people how to love using the things that we already love and that we already gravitate towards, so things like pop culture, for example. Because I believe that there are narratives within our pop culture that teach people how to believe in their own sense of self worthiness, believe in their ability to overcome obstacles to endure hardship. And so by blending those elements of pop culture that teach these lessons with ancient wisdom, my theory is that you can teach people how to love themselves, and then, in the long run, be able to get along with and love others. And I'm really inspired and motivated by and especially getting it in as many schools as possible, but really, young people, teenagers, and adults, I'm I'm I'm really excited for for the possibility of seeing how many people become enamored with this approach. So how many years have you been doing that? Like, when did you create the program? So …