Speaker 1: Meaning comes from working on something with intention that has
Speaker 1: importance to you. It's that simple. I think a lot
Speaker 1: about you know, the act of going for a hike.
Speaker 1: The purpose of going for a hike, ironically, is not
Speaker 1: to get to the top. It's to be on the trail.
Speaker 1: If you focus on the fricking trail, whatever step you're on,
Speaker 1: and you keep reminding yourself, this is gonna lead me somewhere.
Speaker 1: That is where the meaning comes in your life. Hey everyone,
Speaker 1: welcome back to On Purpose, the number one health podcast
Speaker 1: in the world. Thanks to each and every one of
Speaker 1: you that come back every week to listen, learn and grow.
Speaker 1: And I am so excited to be talking to you today.
Speaker 1: I can't believe it. My new book, Eight Rules of
Speaker 1: Love is out and I cannot wait to share it
Speaker 1: with you. I am so so excited for you to
Speaker 1: read this book, for you to listen to this book.
Speaker 1: I read the audiobook. If you haven't got it already,
Speaker 1: make sure you go to eight Rules of Love dot com.
Speaker 1: It's dedicated to anyone who's trying to find, keep, or
Speaker 1: let go of love. So if you've got friends that
Speaker 1: are dating, broken up, or struggling with love, make sure
Speaker 1: you grab this book, and I'd love to invite you
Speaker 1: to come and see me for my global tour Love Rules.
Speaker 1: Go to Ja shettytour dot com to learn more information
Speaker 1: about tickets, VIP experiences and more. I can't wait to
Speaker 1: see you this year. Now, today's guest is someone who's
Speaker 1: been on once before, and when she came on last time,
Speaker 1: you exploded. The community was showing the love, feeling the love,
Speaker 1: and the feedback and response was incredible that I've been
Speaker 1: wanting her to come back on and we were waiting
Speaker 1: to announce. She's got a brand new podcast out herself,
Speaker 1: So if you don't already listen to her show, I'll
Speaker 1: announce it in a second. Please go and subscribe. It's
Speaker 1: already crushing it. It's going to be absolutely huge, and
Speaker 1: I know you're gonna love it. I'm speaking about the
Speaker 1: one and only Mel Robbins, who became one of the
Speaker 1: most trusted experts in the world on confidence and motivation
Speaker 1: the hard way by first screwing up her own life.
Speaker 1: As one of the most widely booked and followed podcast
Speaker 1: host and authors in the world, Mel is sought after
Speaker 1: by the world's leading brands and medical professionals for her research,
Speaker 1: back tools and motivation. At the same time, Mellers amassed
Speaker 1: millions of followers online with her advice going viral every
Speaker 1: day pretty much. Meller is a New York Times best
Speaker 1: selling author and self publishing phenom, and her work includes
Speaker 1: The High five Habit, the five Second Rule, and the
Speaker 1: Number one Ranking, the Mel Robbins podcast That's the one
Speaker 1: that you have to supplyte the subscribe to. Mel's female
Speaker 1: led media company produces provocative, life changing content with millions
Speaker 1: of books sold, billions of video views, six number one audiobooks,
Speaker 1: and one of the most viewed TEDx talks in the world.
Speaker 1: Mel's work has been translated into forty one languages and
Speaker 1: has changed the lives of millions of people worldwide. And
Speaker 1: on top of all of this, mell is one of
Speaker 1: my dearest friends. We bumped into each other last week
Speaker 1: in Montreal where we were both giving keynotes. It was
Speaker 1: around ten PM and I get this text saying I
Speaker 1: heard you in Montreal. I said, I still am, and
Speaker 1: we hung out for like a couple of hours. At
Speaker 1: the end of the day, I love this human. I
Speaker 1: believe in everything she says and does. She lives it all.
Speaker 1: She is the same offscreen as she is on screen.
Speaker 1: Please welcome to my Welcome to the show. My dear friend,
Speaker 1: an incredible thinker. Mel Robbins. Mom, Oh my god, can
Speaker 1: I just hug you? Yeah? Of course, Oh god, Oh
Speaker 1: I just love you. True. I just you know, we've bested.
Speaker 1: I think we've you know, whenever we've connected. The first
Speaker 1: time we met. I was thinking about that last week
Speaker 1: in Montroul. The first time we met, we were also
Speaker 1: both speaking. We were at this event in Utah. We
Speaker 1: were both speaking there and I didn't know you then,
Speaker 1: and I think our mutual friends like Lewis House and
Speaker 1: Brendan Bouchard were there too, and they were like, oh,
Speaker 1: you guys should connect. And we spent an evening together
Speaker 1: then and just hit it off. And I appreciate it
Speaker 1: that I was like four years ago now. Yeah, you know,
Speaker 1: I think we've all had this experience where you've been
Speaker 1: at a bar, or you've been at a big party
Speaker 1: and you look across a room and your eyes meet
Speaker 1: somebody and it's like immmediate, like tractor beam, electric pull.
Speaker 1: I felt that way about you for a long time,
Speaker 1: just by watching what you were putting out on social
Speaker 1: media and so I had had a brain and soul
Speaker 1: crush on you for a long time, and so when
Speaker 1: we met, it was like, oh my god. So And
Speaker 1: you know what else I love is that I love
Speaker 1: like I get both you and your amazing wife. I
Speaker 1: love that you are decades younger than me and very creative.
Speaker 1: And here's what else I love about you. I consider
Speaker 1: you not only a very dear friend, but my own
Speaker 1: per so on, monk, there you have it. I love it.
Speaker 1: Just put me in your pocket right there, right there.
Speaker 1: But mel I'm so excited to talk to you today. Literally,
Speaker 1: the last time you came on it was unbelievable, and
Speaker 1: I've genuinely been wanting to have you back on, like
Speaker 1: as much as you want to come back. But I
Speaker 1: know there's a few things we want to talk about today,
Speaker 1: and I wanted to start off with this idea that
Speaker 1: you've always talked about how you learned about things the
Speaker 1: hard way. There were always challenges, and even now when
Speaker 1: we talk offline, we shared that even last week we
Speaker 1: were talking about challenges we were both going through in
Speaker 1: building this opportunity to serve others, And I wanted to
Speaker 1: ask you, like, what do you think is the hardest
Speaker 1: thing you're working on right now, Like, what's the most
Speaker 1: challenging thing you're working on internally or externally. Could be creatively,
Speaker 1: it could be habit wise. What is what is something
Speaker 1: that you're struggling with or grappling with that you're working through. Happiness? Wow, okay, yeah, happiness.
Speaker 1: It's interesting. I was getting ready to come over here
Speaker 1: this morning, and so I my daughter goes to school
Speaker 1: here at the Thornton School for Music. She's a senior,
Speaker 1: and she spent the night with me last night. I'm
Speaker 1: going to tell you the story because it's relevant about
Speaker 1: both learning things the hard way and about happiness. So
Speaker 1: she slept in my bed with me last night and
Speaker 1: it was so awesome, and I just love her. And
Speaker 1: she's twenty two and she's about to burst into the
Speaker 1: next chapter of her life. It is so exciting and
Speaker 1: I miss her terribly, terribly, And oh, I'm gonna get
Speaker 1: like totally choked up when I think about it because
Speaker 1: I live on the other side of the country. And
Speaker 1: I think one of the hardest things that you have
Speaker 1: to do in life, if you really love somebody, is
Speaker 1: to encourage them to leave, to encourage them to grow woof,
Speaker 1: And I can't believe I choked up I'm getting about
Speaker 1: this because I mean, this just happened this morning, and
Speaker 1: I was laying in bed and she's sound asleep, you know,
Speaker 1: like sprawled out like most twenty two year old sleep
Speaker 1: and sweating and just like this, and I thought, oh,
Speaker 1: I want to take a picture of this moment. And
Speaker 1: then I thought, no, she's going to kill me because
Speaker 1: she looks terrible, and you know how that rolls when
Speaker 1: you're twenty years old, And so I close my eyes
Speaker 1: to just capture the memory. And I thought, why is
Speaker 1: it that I am always gripping onto the thing that
Speaker 1: makes me unhappy? What is it about this campaign? I
Speaker 1: call it the campaign of misery? Like instead of focusing
Speaker 1: on the fact that here I am, first of all,
Speaker 1: lucky enough to be in Los Angeles to be able
Speaker 1: to have the means to go see her for parents weekend,
Speaker 1: that I have a relationship with her where she would
Speaker 1: want to come and just snuggle up and spend the night,
Speaker 1: that she is pursuing her passion and dream of being
Speaker 1: a singer songwriter, that she is just killing it, she's happy.
Speaker 1: Why am I always defaulting to the loss and so
Speaker 1: when I say that I'm working on happiness, what I've
Speaker 1: realized about myself, Jay, is that I have done a
Speaker 1: lot of things in life, but I've spent the vast
Speaker 1: majority of my life being so busy and keeping myself
Speaker 1: so busy as a means to outrun I think a
Speaker 1: deep seated unhappiness. And that when the pandemic hit and
Speaker 1: I had to slow down, and I had to truly
Speaker 1: say to myself, Okay, you can't go anywhere. You cannot
Speaker 1: regulate your anxiety by running to target. You can't catch
Speaker 1: a plane, you can't like it's you, and you're like
Speaker 1: you and yourself right now, mel And all the coping
Speaker 1: mechanisms that you used to have that distracted you from
Speaker 1: the fact that you're just not that happy, they're not
Speaker 1: there anymore. And unless I want to drink myself into
Speaker 1: the ground, which I don't and numb it, or hit
Speaker 1: the vapen or take a gut like, unless I want
Speaker 1: to numb it, I got to deal with it. And
Speaker 1: so I've spent the last two years and I continue
Speaker 1: to focus right now on the number one goal that
Speaker 1: I have, which is to learn how to be happy
Speaker 1: and content wherever I am, and so this morning is
Speaker 1: the perfect example of catching this profound sadness, which is
Speaker 1: part of the human experience. Deeply missing somebody is also
Speaker 1: about loving them right and noticing that I was going
Speaker 1: into the negative. And part of being content and being
Speaker 1: happy wherever I am is not trying to fix things.
Speaker 1: It's being okay with things. It's allowing the emotion to
Speaker 1: rise up and then noticing that there's a different way
Speaker 1: to feel. And so in that moment, I just am
Speaker 1: doing what I'm doing a lot of, which is just
Speaker 1: breathing through those deep moments where I'm like, why am
Speaker 1: I complaining about this? This is so stupid? Why am
Speaker 1: I obsessing about this thing tomorrow? And I'm not even
Speaker 1: here right now, and reframing things in a more positive way.
Speaker 1: And this might surprise people because I am a very
Speaker 1: positive person. I am a very optimistic person. But when
Speaker 1: I really slow down, my mind runs a million miles
Speaker 1: an hour, and normally it's fifteen steps ahead, which means
Speaker 1: I'm never content where I am. And so I've been
Speaker 1: doing a ton of work, like in my nervous system
Speaker 1: in my body instead of going right up here and
Speaker 1: trying to wrestle with my thoughts. I've been going down
Speaker 1: into here to just anchor in my body and slow
Speaker 1: things down and be physically where I am, where my
Speaker 1: feet are. And so then there was a second thing
Speaker 1: that happened. So again I'm working on happiness. That's the
Speaker 1: thing I'm really like working on. It's like a muscle. Right.
Speaker 1: I'm in the bathroom and I am terrible at doing
Speaker 1: my hair. I know it looks really decent today, but
Speaker 1: normally I look like a fricking labradoodle on a humid day.
Speaker 1: Like that's just me. I just have never figured out
Speaker 1: the hair situation. And so I finally said, that's it.
Speaker 1: I have got to figure out how to make my
Speaker 1: hair look halfway okay. Like I'm not even looking for amazing,
Speaker 1: I'm just looking for okay. And so I was watching YouTube.
Speaker 1: I'm learning the tutorials. I've got the right sprays, and
Speaker 1: so Kendall comes rolling in after she wakes up, and
Speaker 1: I am sitting there trying to curl my hair right
Speaker 1: with this big fat curl. I'm terrible at it, Jay,
Speaker 1: And all of a sudden, I hit my freaking ear
Speaker 1: and I'm like and I'm like, oh my god, I've
Speaker 1: just burned my ear, and Kendall casually goes, well, you
Speaker 1: gotta learn somehow, and she walks out of the room.
Speaker 1: I think there is so much wisdom in that, because
Speaker 1: that is how you learn. That is how you learn
Speaker 1: how close to hold a curling iron to your ear,
Speaker 1: you burn yourself and then your whole body absorbs the
Speaker 1: lesson and you don't go that close to the fire
Speaker 1: next time. And I'm doing that dance with happiness and
Speaker 1: contentment that when I feel the fire of discontent or
Speaker 1: friction or complaining or looking for what's wrong, I pull
Speaker 1: the curling iron a little away from the ear, and
Speaker 1: I go back into a safer, calmer place. That was
Speaker 1: a beautiful answer. I didn't know what to expect when
Speaker 1: I asked that question. I really appreciate you, you know,
Speaker 1: going that inward with it, because you could have gone
Speaker 1: a number of ways. I fully understand and empathize what
Speaker 1: you're saying because my mom and my family do something similar.
Speaker 1: So and I love my mom. I have a great
Speaker 1: relation with my mom. She's amazing and anything that's good
Speaker 1: about me is because of her. But every time I
Speaker 1: go back to London, the day I land, my family
Speaker 1: will say well, you only here for one days, am
Speaker 1: I twenty one days? Like, that's three weeks. Even if
Speaker 1: you added up all the hours weekly that you spend
Speaker 1: with time with someone, it probably won't account for twenty
Speaker 1: one full days with full presents. And then a week
Speaker 1: will go and be like, oh, you've only got fourteen
Speaker 1: days left, or you've only got seven days left. Oh
Speaker 1: you're leaving today, And that mindset just keeps forcing you
Speaker 1: to think that day twenty one is day one, right,
Speaker 1: as in that day twenty one days left is the
Speaker 1: same as one day left, and you're living all twenty
Speaker 1: one days as there's only one day left. And I've
Speaker 1: taken time and I've sat with my mom so many
Speaker 1: times to have that conversation with her, and I said, Mom,
Speaker 1: if you celebrate that we have twenty one days and
Speaker 1: we're going to make the most of it, and we're
Speaker 1: going to create new memories and create new experiences, then
Speaker 1: you're going to be happier for these twenty one days.
Speaker 1: And yes, you're going to miss me the same, it's
Speaker 1: not going to change that, and I'm going to miss you.
Speaker 1: So I have personal experience of that. On the other
Speaker 1: end of it, with having that conversation with my mom
Speaker 1: where she's really grown in understanding how that thought hasn't
Speaker 1: served her right, and she's so much happier for it
Speaker 1: now when I go back, so that I definitely identify
Speaker 1: with that. What you touched on at the end there, though,
Speaker 1: was really interesting to me. When you talk about happiness,
Speaker 1: it sounds like you believe you deserve it, and you
Speaker 1: sound like you believe it's yours for the taking, Like
Speaker 1: it's like it is a clear goal direction, it's there. Yeah,
Speaker 1: And I think what's happened is subconsciously or consciously, so
Speaker 1: many of us don't feel we deserve happiness, or we
Speaker 1: don't feel we're worthy of happiness, or we actually think
Speaker 1: mediocrity is a safer place to live because then we
Speaker 1: don't have our expectations being unmet. We don't have the
Speaker 1: fall of I wanted this, but I got this right.
Speaker 1: And so I've been at a friend the other day
Speaker 1: who sent me a message and he said, take a
Speaker 1: look at this, and it was all, how, really, we
Speaker 1: shouldn't strive for happiness, we should strive for mediocrity because
Speaker 1: mediocrity is where most people will end up. So that
Speaker 1: was that sucks. Literally, this is the message. So my
Speaker 1: friend messaging me, he goes, what do you think of this?
Speaker 1: I think it sucks. That's I think that's the worst
Speaker 1: advice I've ever freaking heard. How about that, it's the
Speaker 1: dumbest thing I've ever heard. Here's the thing, Jay. So
Speaker 1: one of the things I also want to say is
Speaker 1: that I'm fifty four and it's taken me a long
Speaker 1: time to figure out that I was actually not a
Speaker 1: happy person. And I don't think I really truly understood
Speaker 1: what happiness is. And maybe I'm using the wrong word.
Speaker 1: Maybe the word is the problem because I always associated
Speaker 1: happiness with like parties and laughter and like I'm just
Speaker 1: like full of joy and I'm and I just you know,
Speaker 1: it's like this very positive thing. And again, I am
Speaker 1: a positive person. I'm a very optimistic person. But if
Speaker 1: you were to put a speaker on my head and
Speaker 1: broadcast the things I said to myself, you would literally
Speaker 1: check me into the seventh floor at mass General Hospital
Speaker 1: in Boston, Massachusetts, because it was a constant drumbeat of negativity.
Speaker 1: And as I one by one by one, Jay started
Speaker 1: to fix the problems in my marriage and my finances
Speaker 1: with my anxiety as I built a business. You know
Speaker 1: a lot of people are surprised to learn that most
Speaker 1: of what you see that I've built has been built
Speaker 1: in the last six years. Literally. And so I, as
Speaker 1: I started fixing things outside, that default drumbeat did not
Speaker 1: go away. It just was a situation where I no
Speaker 1: longer had anything outside of me that was rationally wrong.
Speaker 1: So I turned it back on me and just started
Speaker 1: hammering meays, I'll give you an example. So this is
Speaker 1: where I started to have this breakthrough. So I was
Speaker 1: sitting my husband and I have just bought a house
Speaker 1: in Vermont, and I know you guys, you know, are
Speaker 1: in your new home. It's an incredible thing to do.
Speaker 1: It is our dream house. It's the house that his
Speaker 1: parents built, It's the family house. We not only were
Speaker 1: able to purchase this thing, we've been able to completely
Speaker 1: renovate it make it our own. This place is the
Speaker 1: closest place to God that I have ever been. We
Speaker 1: sit nestled between mountains with one hundred and forty mile
Speaker 1: view straight down a valley with cascading like it is
Speaker 1: just spectacular. When I would sit in therapy sessions eight
Speaker 1: years ago and my therapist would ask me to come
Speaker 1: up with like a you know, like a totem or
Speaker 1: a spiritual guide or vision whatever for truth or God
Speaker 1: or whatever. It's always this view. And so lo and behold.
Speaker 1: Eight years later, we freaking live there, and I'm sitting
Speaker 1: on this covered deck looking down the valley. My daughter
Speaker 1: is sitting next to me, our other daughter who lives
Speaker 1: in Boston, who's twenty three. And it's Sunday, and normally
Speaker 1: on Sundays, I'm not even present on Sundays because I'm
Speaker 1: now got the Sunday scaries. I'm now thinking about the
Speaker 1: week ahead. She is starting to now do that. Okay,
Speaker 1: I gotta get going. I gotta pack the car. I
Speaker 1: get going. I got a big week at work this week.
Speaker 1: And it's seven thirty in the morning on a spectacular day,
Speaker 1: and the energy is starting. And I recognize the energy
Speaker 1: because that is the campaign of misery that I have
Speaker 1: lived with for fifty years. And I'm sitting there and
Speaker 1: I'm thinking, oh, this is interesting. That's me. And then
Speaker 1: I stopped in that moment, Jay, and I thought, I
Speaker 1: don't feel that right now. I just feel that exactly
Speaker 1: where I am looking at this view is exactly where
Speaker 1: I'm supposed to be and it was so profound. It's
Speaker 1: almost like that moment where Eckhart Toole has on the
Speaker 1: bench in the beginning of the Power of Now, where
Speaker 1: I have this profound experience where I think, wait a minute,
Speaker 1: is this what happiness is? That I'm not fifteen steps ahead.
Speaker 1: I'm just able to be right here without the anxiety,
Speaker 1: without the stress. I mean, that is like a revolutionary
Speaker 1: experience for me. I don't think I had ever not
Speaker 1: felt the default of a revved up nervous system, an
Speaker 1: anxious mind, or a to do list that was a
Speaker 1: mile long. And I don't want to go back to
Speaker 1: that sort of frenetic busyness that creates chronic stress. And
Speaker 1: you know, the challenge for me right now is how
Speaker 1: do I stay in a space that's happy Because I
Speaker 1: of the game of building a business. I love pushing myself.
Speaker 1: I love and I realized, oh wait, you actually need both.
Speaker 1: You need deep spiritual quiet time and you need the
Speaker 1: business of Los Angeles or Boston or New York in
Speaker 1: small sprints. But that can't be your default anymore. Woman.
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Speaker 1: individual video lessons that are usually around ten minutes long.
Speaker 1: Lessons range from specifically showing you how to execute a
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Speaker 1: One of my twenty twenty three goals is to learn
Speaker 1: more about cooking healthy meals. Lately, I've been watching Alice
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Speaker 1: percent off Masterclass. And that's a that's such a great
Speaker 1: realization and reflection. I think when you come to that,
Speaker 1: and it takes a lot of self acceptance to come
Speaker 1: to that, because I think we think of life as binary,
Speaker 1: like you have to make a choice. You're either going
Speaker 1: to be a hustler or you're going to be peaceful.
Speaker 1: You're either going to be a winner or you're going
Speaker 1: to be a loser. You're either going to be wisdom
Speaker 1: and zen or you're going to be money and materialistic right,
Speaker 1: And it's almost like you feel you have to make
Speaker 1: those choices early in life. And I think when you
Speaker 1: came in here, we were talking about something and really
Speaker 1: really think it's something that a lot of our listeners
Speaker 1: will resonate with. The idea that so many of us
Speaker 1: experience pain of not going after what we want or
Speaker 1: what we need or what we feel is our calling
Speaker 1: because of the pain that comes with that, and so
Speaker 1: we settle for the pain of where we are. And
Speaker 1: I think those two ideas are related because again we
Speaker 1: think there's this choice you have to make at any
Speaker 1: point in time where it's like I'm either going to
Speaker 1: live the life for my dreams or I'm going to
Speaker 1: be stuck forever. And then we're like, Okay, well I'll
Speaker 1: be stuck forever because my dreams seems so far away.
Speaker 1: I remember being there, and it's always hard to help
Speaker 1: everyone who's listening realize how much I felt that way.
Speaker 1: This was six years ago for me. Yeah, six years ago.
Speaker 1: So six years ago I was working safe corporate job.
Speaker 1: Six months from now, I was about to be married
Speaker 1: to Radi, and I was making thirty one five hundred
Speaker 1: pounds a year, and that was my salary at this company,
Speaker 1: and I was doing extremely well at the company, so
Speaker 1: I had a good tract to progress there. And I'm
Speaker 1: sitting there going I've been there for two years, and
Speaker 1: I'm like, I don't think this is where I'm meant
Speaker 1: to be. I was looking at people who've been at
Speaker 1: the company for decades. I've always said to people, look
Speaker 1: ten twenty years ahead of you, and look at that
Speaker 1: person in the company, and go, is that where I
Speaker 1: want to be? And I was like, well, even if
Speaker 1: they paid me as much as that person's paid, even
Speaker 1: if I got all the benefits that person got, I
Speaker 1: don't think I want to do that in my fifties.
Speaker 1: And so I thought to myself, Okay, well then I
Speaker 1: have to take a risk. So and obviously that was
Speaker 1: like a two year journey of even convincing myself. Let's
Speaker 1: talk about that. If someone's sitting there right now, passionate
Speaker 1: about something, wanting to get inspired, wanting to do something,
Speaker 1: but they're set for the pain of where they are.
Speaker 1: And that's why I asked that mediocrity and happiness question. Yeah,
Speaker 1: it is really that Daunce between I'm going to settle
Speaker 1: for where I'm at, where I'm going to be where
Speaker 1: I want to be. How do you think about that, Jenny?
Speaker 1: How do you You don't just popped into my mind. Yeah,
Speaker 1: we're great. Cancer. If you got diagnosed with a cancer
Speaker 1: that was treatable, would you try to treat your cancer? Yes,
Speaker 1: of course you would, because otherwise it would kill you.
Speaker 1: When you feel this call or this this burning desire,
Speaker 1: and I feel like we all have this flame inside
Speaker 1: of us. We are not like a boiler where the
Speaker 1: pilot light can blow out. That is not how a
Speaker 1: human being is wired. You, whether you're stuck, whether you're
Speaker 1: in pain, whether you're suffering, you still have this this
Speaker 1: flame inside you that is burning. And when you actively
Speaker 1: engage in your own campaign of misery, and you actively
Speaker 1: tell yourself the reasons why it's not going to work,
Speaker 1: or the reasons why you can't do it, or the
Speaker 1: reasons why now is not the time, or you're never
Speaker 1: going to make it happen, or it was great for
Speaker 1: Jay or great or for mel but nothing ever works out.
Speaker 1: For when you engage in your own campaign of misery,
Speaker 1: you are creating literally a cancer inside of you that
Speaker 1: eats it at you. And we don't realize that by
Speaker 1: engaging in this campaign of misery because it's active. That
Speaker 1: flame is burning inside you and you are actively convincing
Speaker 1: yourself not to do anything. It is an active engage
Speaker 1: and that's why I call it a campaign, because that
Speaker 1: flame is going to keep on burning, which is why
Speaker 1: the campaign has to get louder and the excuses have
Speaker 1: to get louder. And you know it starts to happen
Speaker 1: is you start to listen to that campaign and you
Speaker 1: start to feel pain because there's something burning inside of you.
Speaker 1: And the only cure for this is to stop listening
Speaker 1: to that campaign and simply start taking small steps, just
Speaker 1: one every day toward the thing that you want. I
Speaker 1: talk to my daughter about this all the time. So
Speaker 1: she dreams, absolutely dreams of being a singer, songwriter, solo
Speaker 1: artist with a successful career literally stadium tours. And if
Speaker 1: I'm being perfectly honest, this kid has all of the
Speaker 1: talent and all of the like she's one of those
Speaker 1: five tool players, and she is a great person, kind
Speaker 1: and just awesome, and she's even in a program for it,
Speaker 1: the best in the country. She has everything, she just
Speaker 1: has to do the work. What is the work, Well,
Speaker 1: the work is simply writing crappy songs every day. The
Speaker 1: work is not listening to the campaign of misery, because
Speaker 1: all around you you're going to see evidence of this
Speaker 1: person's better or that person this or this one's at her.
Speaker 1: When you listen to that pain in your head, it
Speaker 1: is like a cancer inside. It causes pain because you
Speaker 1: can feel when you are giving up on your own potential,
Speaker 1: and that is the worst kind of life to live.
Speaker 1: And we're all I've remember I was the president of
Speaker 1: that campaign in my own life. Like you know, I
Speaker 1: was like when you and I want people to understand,
Speaker 1: this is that everyone you think is doing something good
Speaker 1: with their life at one point they were the presidents
Speaker 1: of this campaign of misery in their own life. I
Speaker 1: remember saying, well, that never's going to happen for me.
Speaker 1: Those things only happen to those people. I remember also
Speaker 1: watching things and this was the key one that I
Speaker 1: realized had to go me and my friends. And my
Speaker 1: dream when I was young was to be a spoken
Speaker 1: word rap artist, Like that was my goal. Like I've
Speaker 1: always loved words, have always loved having a large vocabulary.
Speaker 1: I've always loved bending words and making them rhyme, and
Speaker 1: I think that's why I love words today and what
Speaker 1: we do so much is there. And we would sit
Speaker 1: there and we would rappers or artists that were up
Speaker 1: and coming, and we would critique them, and we would
Speaker 1: almost talk badly about them. We would criticize it, and
Speaker 1: we talk about how rubbish they were and how untalented
Speaker 1: they were, and or if we had those opportunities, how
Speaker 1: how good we'd be. And I realized that today's culture
Speaker 1: is propagating that even more because now we're just scrolling
Speaker 1: through TikTok or Instagram and you'll see someone who's doing
Speaker 1: what you want to do, and you may think you
Speaker 1: can do it better. But instead of doing it, we're
Speaker 1: spending our time watching someone else doing it and going, well,
Speaker 1: that sucks, that's rubbish, right. I Actually have friends will
Speaker 1: message me stuff like that sometimes and they'll be like, look,
Speaker 1: you know, I've been wanting to make videos for a while,
Speaker 1: and they'll send me someone who's made a bad video
Speaker 1: in their opinion, And I said, you know what's really
Speaker 1: interesting when you're on social media, you look at everyone
Speaker 1: who's doing worse than you. I said, when I'm on
Speaker 1: social media, I look at everyone's doing better than me
Speaker 1: and learn, right, It's like there's there's those two mindsets.
Speaker 1: You're either criticizing someone or your cre eighteen and ninny
Speaker 1: and growing. And so I just feel what you're saying
Speaker 1: is so true. And I think I spent so much
Speaker 1: time thinking I had something but then not doing anything
Speaker 1: you did. Yeah, so a couple of things. I want
Speaker 1: to give everybody a visual, yes, because I find Jay's
Speaker 1: into words. I gotta have a picture, like my mind
Speaker 1: is not the words mind. You are either in the
Speaker 1: stands commenting about the game, or you're on the court
Speaker 1: planet and right now, I want you to think about
Speaker 1: that flame inside you, that dream that you have. And
Speaker 1: I'm going to go back to my daughter who is
Speaker 1: on the court, who is writing shitty songs, but she
Speaker 1: will be the first to say that for many years
Speaker 1: she was engaged in her own campaign of miseries, sitting
Speaker 1: in the stands telling herself why she can't get on
Speaker 1: the court right now. And so I like that visual
Speaker 1: because at any moment, it literally like cuts right to
Speaker 1: the truth. Are you in the stands criticizing who the
Speaker 1: people who are playing the game or being jealous of them,
Speaker 1: or in the stands telling yourself it's not time to
Speaker 1: jump in or are you on the freaking court. There's
Speaker 1: only two places to be in life. That's it. There
Speaker 1: is no middle ground here. And so what I want
Speaker 1: to say also is that being in the stands, it
Speaker 1: is loud. It is an active thing that you're doing.
Speaker 1: This is not a passive thing that we do to ourselves.
Speaker 1: We actively argue against our dream and our potential. And
Speaker 1: that is a thousand percent tied to your happiness, to
Speaker 1: your confidence, because if you are arguing against your own
Speaker 1: God given potential, you are actively destroying your confidence. You're
Speaker 1: actively destroying possibility in your life. And here's the thing,
Speaker 1: you freaking know it. People know when they have imposter syndrome.
Speaker 1: They know it. They talk about it openly. And I
Speaker 1: also hate the term fake it till you make it.
Speaker 1: And here's why. When you say I'm just going to
Speaker 1: fake it till you make it, you are calling yourself
Speaker 1: a fake. It amplifies your self doubt. Instead say this,
Speaker 1: I'm going to get on the court and try until
Speaker 1: I make it, because the pain of sitting in the
Speaker 1: stands and never getting down there is way greater than
Speaker 1: tripping on the court, way greater you're causing you and
Speaker 1: This is the thing I want people to understand. You
Speaker 1: are causing yourself so much pain by laughing off and
Speaker 1: making jokes about how it's never going to happen. You're
Speaker 1: causing yourself so much pain by thinking about it. Get
Speaker 1: out of the freaking stands and get back on the
Speaker 1: court in your life. I did this to myself for
Speaker 1: years about the podcast. You know, I'll tell you some
Speaker 1: insane story. So here, I am crazy successful in the
Speaker 1: audiobook world. The most successful self published audiobook in the
Speaker 1: history of audiobooks is the five second Rule that leads
Speaker 1: to a seven book Audible original deals with Audible. Because
Speaker 1: of the success of that, and I kept telling myself, Jay,
Speaker 1: I'd look at you, you know, and I'd look at
Speaker 1: a ton of our other friends who you know, have
Speaker 1: these amazing podcasts you rich roll like, you know, just everybody,
Speaker 1: and I'd be like, I missed the boat. I'm too late.
Speaker 1: There's two million podcasts out there now. I can't do this.
Speaker 1: I don't have anything different to say than Jay. Jay's
Speaker 1: already got you know it covered, Like why would I
Speaker 1: jump in there now? And then I would like in
Speaker 1: the stands for six years, and you know what else?
Speaker 1: I would tell myself, well, you're just successful because Audible's
Speaker 1: your partner, and if you were to try this, you're
Speaker 1: going to fall flat on your face and you don't
Speaker 1: have time. And here's another thing that I tell myself, Well,
Speaker 1: who on earth is going to come to Boston to
Speaker 1: sit in a studio with you? Mal Everybody's remote. Now,
Speaker 1: Boston is not a media place. Nobody travels there, like
Speaker 1: just in the freaking stands, telling myself, no, no, no.
Speaker 1: Now Here's the thing about campaigns of misery. It does
Speaker 1: not actually mute the heartache and the pull that you have,
Speaker 1: because your dreams actually can't leave you. They're meant for you.
Speaker 1: And so all that can painting or the drinking, or
Speaker 1: the numbing out or the avoiding the thing that is
Speaker 1: inside you, it doesn't make the dream go away. It
Speaker 1: just creates more pain. And so finally, you know, it
Speaker 1: was two years ago that I'm like, I have to
Speaker 1: take my own device, and I got to make some
Speaker 1: major changes because I knew when I was going to
Speaker 1: step into the podcast spase that I was going to
Speaker 1: make it the only thing that I was doing that
Speaker 1: I needed to complete all the speaking engagements that I had,
Speaker 1: I needed to create different boundaries around like I had
Speaker 1: to get serious about taking the steps and getting on
Speaker 1: that court. And that's what I've been doing for the
Speaker 1: last two years. And a lot of people don't know that.
Speaker 1: I actually got my start in two thousand and seven
Speaker 1: hosting a local radio show, and I have wanted to
Speaker 1: get back to radio for almost twelve years because I
Speaker 1: love the intimacy of it, and so and I can't like,
Speaker 1: you know this, You can't share your life in real
Speaker 1: time in an audiobook, No, I definitely am. You can't
Speaker 1: do it in a sixty second reel. But I too
Speaker 1: sat there in the stands actively engaged in my campaign
Speaker 1: of misery. Here's another area of my life where I
Speaker 1: engaged in campaign of misery, loneliness. I have been profoundly
Speaker 1: lonely for a while now, and by lonely, I don't
Speaker 1: mean alone because there's people around me, but I have
Speaker 1: and I think a lot of people feel this way,
Speaker 1: and I know a lot of women do, particularly when
Speaker 1: your kids get older and the social things change, and
Speaker 1: I think a lot of us are struggling with adult friendship,
Speaker 1: and especially coming out of quarantine, people are now kind
Speaker 1: of I don't want to leave my house, not because
Speaker 1: of anything going on, but because I like being home.
Speaker 1: And so I started to get serious about the fact
Speaker 1: that I was really in the stands in my life,
Speaker 1: complaining to myself that I didn't see my friends, that
Speaker 1: I don't have friends, that I'm really lonely, but I
Speaker 1: wasn't on the court. What are you going to do
Speaker 1: about it? Because it's easy to actually start making friends
Speaker 1: if you send texts Jeff people and you make plans. Yeah, Oh,
Speaker 1: Jason Montreal, Why don't I text him? Oh he's in
Speaker 1: the same hotel. Why don't I go up to seven
Speaker 1: floors and go see him? Because my monk is in
Speaker 1: the penthouse. You know what I'm saying. I love what
Speaker 1: you're saying. I can resonate with it so much. And
Speaker 1: there's a journey from where is your campaign of misery
Speaker 1: right now? Oh that's a great question. Where is my
Speaker 1: current campaign? And where are you in the stands in
Speaker 1: your life? Jay? Mine is actually I grew up loving
Speaker 1: I went to public speaking drama school, and public speaking
Speaker 1: became a huge part of my life, and drama stopped,
Speaker 1: and drama is something I'd love to get back into. Really,
Speaker 1: I loved acting growing up. I love the idea of
Speaker 1: getting into someone else's emotions, and I love the idea
Speaker 1: of learning about new characters and understanding, and I keep
Speaker 1: wanting to do it. And two years ago, three years ago,
Speaker 1: when the Bad Boys movie came out, I was asked
Speaker 1: by Sony to be in their theatrical trailer for TV
Speaker 1: and so I played the role of a therapist with
Speaker 1: Will Smith and Matin Lawrence and I had so much.
Speaker 1: It was so uncomfortable because I hadn't done it for
Speaker 1: so long. I went to drama school for seven years.
Speaker 1: It was so uncomfortable doing it. And I got an
Speaker 1: acting coach that week and I practiced and I learned
Speaker 1: all my lines. And then I got there on the
Speaker 1: day and they gave me a new script. They said, oh,
Speaker 1: the scripts changed, and I'm going guys. I had five days.
Speaker 1: I knew about this. Five days ago. I had an
Speaker 1: acting coach every day for two hours a day, and
Speaker 1: they give me a new script. Then they come in
Speaker 1: ten minutes before I've been waiting around for two hours
Speaker 1: learning this new script. We get there and they say, oh,
Speaker 1: by the way, Will and Martin have scrapped this script.
Speaker 1: There's no more script. They're just gonna freestyle and you're
Speaker 1: gonna have to freestyle. I'm like, you want me to
Speaker 1: freestyle with two of the greatest to ever do it?
Speaker 1: And I'm not a comedian. Now were you friends with
Speaker 1: Will at this point? Not in the way we are today? Okay,
Speaker 1: So like, because I think people might be like, yeah,
Speaker 1: but you guys are not a friend of Yeah, we
Speaker 1: were acquaintances, but not. I think that's important. Yeah, and
Speaker 1: I didn't know Martin at all. I'd never met him
Speaker 1: in my life, and so I am fully feeling imposter
Speaker 1: snder I'm fully in my discomfort zone. And I had
Speaker 1: the most fun. Yeah, I was on the court and
Speaker 1: I had fun. But then since that day, I retreated
Speaker 1: and so and so that's been If I'm completely honest,
Speaker 1: that's where my heart is. I love the idea of
Speaker 1: getting to be I've I've always loved biographies, and I've
Speaker 1: always loved autobiographies. I've always loved true stories, and so
Speaker 1: if I had the opportunity to learn or play or
Speaker 1: be in a true story, that would fill my heart
Speaker 1: with a lot of joys. Is there's somebody that you
Speaker 1: would I dream? No, No, I don't have that that answer.
Speaker 1: I don't have clear but yeah, that would be my
Speaker 1: honest answer to that question of that's something I'm in
Speaker 1: the stands on. There's so many excuses. I'm like, well, Jay,
Speaker 1: if you did that, then it discredits all the work
Speaker 1: you've done up till now. Well, Jay, if you did
Speaker 1: that and it doesn't work out, then then what about
Speaker 1: the people that you coach in that industry? Like if
Speaker 1: if you if you did it, and you did it
Speaker 1: really well, then people will call you a sellout because
Speaker 1: you just did you chose to do something completely different.
Speaker 1: And it's not saying I want to do that and
Speaker 1: stop doing what I do today. It's just that there's
Speaker 1: a part of that expression that I'm so creatively inspired
Speaker 1: by that I'd like to try. Yeah, and again it's
Speaker 1: try right, it's not and I wanted to get So
Speaker 1: that's what I want to talk to you about. It's
Speaker 1: what was the heart of my question before. I'm so
Speaker 1: glad you asked me that. Thank you. I've never publicly
Speaker 1: talked about that. I've never shared that really with anyone
Speaker 1: beyond my wife. Is what is the difference, because I
Speaker 1: think this is where it goes wrong. I meet a
Speaker 1: lot of people who talk to me about their dreams
Speaker 1: and even mind. And I want to clarify mind in
Speaker 1: a second, the one I just shared with you. What
Speaker 1: is the difference between a dream and delusion? Big? And
Speaker 1: I'm going to share what I my initial thoughts before
Speaker 1: I hear yours. When I say I would like to
Speaker 1: do more drama or acting or experiment with that phase
Speaker 1: of my life. My dream is not at this point
Speaker 1: in time, to win an oscar. My dream is to
Speaker 1: try to creatively express myself and see whether this vehicle
Speaker 1: is a form that brings me joy, happiness and meaning
Speaker 1: in my life. Yeah, that to me is not delusional
Speaker 1: because it is giving myself the opportunity to put my
Speaker 1: using visuals like put my you know what are they
Speaker 1: called stabilizers onto my bike and see if this is real? Right.
Speaker 1: I often find people whose first dream is I want
Speaker 1: to build a billion dollar company, or and they've never
Speaker 1: built a business at all or have business experience, or
Speaker 1: I hear I want this to be the number one
Speaker 1: thing in the world. And while those are nice aspirations,
Speaker 1: I'm not sure that I actually think. And this is
Speaker 1: just my personal take. I never had those when I started,
Speaker 1: and I feel that sometimes without the skills without doing
Speaker 1: the learning, without doing the experimenting, Those things can actually
Speaker 1: stop you from doing it because it's so hard, it's
Speaker 1: so far away, and there's such a big way to fold.
Speaker 1: So I want to understand how do you decipher between
Speaker 1: dream and delusion. When you talk about delusion, what I
Speaker 1: hear is like arrogance and conceitedness. Now, and let me
Speaker 1: explain the difference here, because I think confidence is this
Speaker 1: willingness to try and this belief in yourself and what
Speaker 1: you're trying to do, right, I think arrogance and conceitedness
Speaker 1: is thinking you're better than everybody else. Yeah, And so
Speaker 1: when you frame the delusion as this grandiose thing, it
Speaker 1: feels like it's coming from insecurity, right. It feels like
Speaker 1: it's coming from wanting to be better than versus coming
Speaker 1: from a place where you're willing to take the risks
Speaker 1: and try and get on the court of life in
Speaker 1: a way that's aligned with this thing inside you. And
Speaker 1: so that's what I process in my own brain when
Speaker 1: you ask me the question, what's the difference between dreams
Speaker 1: and delusions? Now, if you have a true dream, is
Speaker 1: it ever delusional? And my answer to that is never.
Speaker 1: And here's why I believe that dreams are not meant
Speaker 1: to be achieved. I believe that your dreams are a
Speaker 1: directional signal that the dream is out there in a
Speaker 1: different chapter of your life, calling you from this moment
Speaker 1: toward that direction. And that the reason why you still
Speaker 1: have this burning flame inside you that relates all the
Speaker 1: way back to something that you did when you were
Speaker 1: younger that you freaking loved, is because when you walk
Speaker 1: toward acting, and what that requires of you to get
Speaker 1: on the court and walk toward that dream and look,
Speaker 1: the dream could be an oscar, the dream could be
Speaker 1: something like that's an award, it doesn't matter. It's in
Speaker 1: the lane of acting. What I believe about dreams is
Speaker 1: that the dreams are deeply personal. They are connected to
Speaker 1: that flame inside you. You are hardwired with them when
Speaker 1: you were born. It is absolutely part of why you're
Speaker 1: curious about things, why you're interested in things naturally, this
Speaker 1: is part of your natural intelligence, and that when you
Speaker 1: get on the court and you start walking toward them,
Speaker 1: that is what's supposed to happen, because if you allow
Speaker 1: yourself to take on some roles in acting, it's going
Speaker 1: to make something come alive inside of you. That's the
Speaker 1: purpose of your dreams. It's to make that flame burn
Speaker 1: brighter inside of you. It's about you awakening something, and
Speaker 1: your dreams are the directional signal that are trying to
Speaker 1: point you in what way to move forward. Going back
Speaker 1: to my daughter, she ever have a stadium tour. I
Speaker 1: don't freaking know. She might, That's not the point. The
Speaker 1: point is to have something come alive inside herself by
Speaker 1: getting on the court of her life and writing music
Speaker 1: and putting it out there. Yeah, whatever happens happens. The
Speaker 1: reason why I wanted to launch the Mel Robins podcast
Speaker 1: is not so that it could become the number one
Speaker 1: podcast in the world. Of course I have those goals.
Speaker 1: Of Course I want to be the number one female
Speaker 1: podcast host in the world. Of course that's what I want.
Speaker 1: But the reason why I am pursuing this is because
Speaker 1: I wanted to connect with people at a deeper level.
Speaker 1: I knew that I would come creatively alive. I knew
Speaker 1: that I wanted to build an ongoing conversation that was deeper,
Speaker 1: and I also knew I wanted to learn more. Because
Speaker 1: when you're constantly putting out content or you're standing on
Speaker 1: stages or you're writing books. It's kind of a one
Speaker 1: way conversation. And so part of my solve for loneliness
Speaker 1: was to stop griping about it to myself and to go, well,
Speaker 1: what would actually make me feel more connected, what would
Speaker 1: be of more service to people, what would create a
Speaker 1: deeper impact. That's why I'm doing this thing. Yeah, that's
Speaker 1: what I'm getting at. That. The clarity and the reason
Speaker 1: why I really want to get this really clear for
Speaker 1: people is that I had a friend last night I
Speaker 1: was talking to and they want to start a podcast.
Speaker 1: And it was the most beautiful intention. Right, everyone wants
Speaker 1: to start a podcast, that everyone wants to start anything today.
Speaker 1: It's very and they should. But what I've learned is
Speaker 1: that anything I've started intentionally has not only more likely
Speaker 1: brought out the consistency and creativity for me, it's not
Speaker 1: only been successful, it's also made me happy. And so
Speaker 1: what I'm trying to get to is, how do you
Speaker 1: plant a seed that goes all the way from not
Speaker 1: only growing consistently to giving you joy as it grows,
Speaker 1: to then giving you that flower, to then giving you
Speaker 1: that fruit, to then giving you the seed to do
Speaker 1: more rather than like I got the flower, we then
Speaker 1: cut it, it then broken. You know, so when I
Speaker 1: look at it, I go I think a lot of
Speaker 1: people are so obsessed with the result that all they
Speaker 1: get might be the result, and then you have nothing else,
Speaker 1: and then that result feels dissatisfying. It's like when we
Speaker 1: had Gwyneth Powder on the podcast. She talked about how
Speaker 1: like winning an oscar in her teens like removed all
Speaker 1: aspiration because she goes, well, what do you do next? Right, Like,
Speaker 1: when you've done that, you've done the epitome, the peak
Speaker 1: of that career in your teens, and now it's like, well,
Speaker 1: what do you do next? And it said, well, when
Speaker 1: it was always when it was if it was only
Speaker 1: about the result, not speaking about her, But if it
Speaker 1: was only about the result, then you stop. And so
Speaker 1: I just want to clarify that what you just said
Speaker 1: is you started it not to be number one. You
Speaker 1: started it because of the impact. You wanted to make,
Speaker 1: the stories, you wanted to totally the connection with your audience,
Speaker 1: and I think if people leaned more into that, to me,
Speaker 1: that's the real dream. Yeah, And you know it's interesting.
Speaker 1: I keep bringing it up my daughter because she's an artist,
Speaker 1: and when she leans into the fact that she's not
Speaker 1: trying to impress her friends in her pop music program,
Speaker 1: she's not trying to impress anybody. Yeah, she wants to
Speaker 1: tell stories with her music that inspire people. Yea. And
Speaker 1: when you really get into the reason why you're doing something.
Speaker 1: So I'm going to give everybody another visual because there
Speaker 1: are two visuals that I think about a lot in life.
Speaker 1: For me, one of the most powerful things that I
Speaker 1: use to coach myself is that when I'm in the
Speaker 1: middle of something, I always remind myself I'm on the bridge.
Speaker 1: So in launching this podcast, something I've been thinking about
Speaker 1: for more than eight years, something I've talked myself out
Speaker 1: of for a long time, something that I finally stepped
Speaker 1: on the court and started working for about two years ago.
Speaker 1: And now we're here. I know that this is literally
Speaker 1: step one on a long suspension bridge that is leading
Speaker 1: me somewhere. And when you remind yourself that you're just
Speaker 1: on the bridge, you stop focusing on how long is
Speaker 1: it going to take and what's it going to feel like?
Speaker 1: And I'm not there yet. You are on the bridge,
Speaker 1: and you are going to be on the bridge until
Speaker 1: you get to this other side, and then guess what
Speaker 1: happens when you get to the other side. There's another
Speaker 1: freaking bridge. Every single episode is like its own bridge.
Speaker 1: The other visual that I use a lot is a
Speaker 1: trail leading up a mountain because the research is so
Speaker 1: conclusive and Jay and I can try to beat it
Speaker 1: into your head that meaning comes from working on something.
Speaker 1: I'm gonna say it again. Meaning comes from working on
Speaker 1: something with intention that has importance to you. It's that simple.
Speaker 1: You can create meaning in your life by planting a
Speaker 1: garden if it's important to you, and for me, I
Speaker 1: think a lot about you know, the act of going
Speaker 1: for a hike. The purpose of going for a hike, ironically,
Speaker 1: is not to get to the top. It's to be
Speaker 1: on the trail. And if you constantly stare at the top,
Speaker 1: you're going to be out of breath. You're going to
Speaker 1: tell yourself you have so much longer will we ever
Speaker 1: going to get there? And you're going to miss the
Speaker 1: entire point of your fricking life, which is the ride,
Speaker 1: the trail, the bridge, the mile markers, all of it.
Speaker 1: And so part of my desire to be happier is
Speaker 1: to continually remind myself. It is not about getting on
Speaker 1: that mountain, because when you get to the top of
Speaker 1: that mountain, the top of one mountains just the bottom
Speaker 1: of another one. And if you're going up, eventually you
Speaker 1: got to come back down. Like that is just life.
Speaker 1: If you focus on the freaking trail, whatever step you're on,
Speaker 1: and you keep your mind finding yourself, this is going
Speaker 1: to lead me somewhere. That is where the meaning comes
Speaker 1: in your life. Because Jay and I will both tell
Speaker 1: you guys that you put all this effort into writing
Speaker 1: a book, it publishes, You're like, okay, now what Yeah,
Speaker 1: it's true. Yeah, and we want it to be something else.
Speaker 1: We want to think that there is this silver bullet
Speaker 1: that if you get to the mountain, if you launch
Speaker 1: the podcast, if you meet the person of your dreams,
Speaker 1: then you'll be happy. And the truth is, for me personally,
Speaker 1: happiness was really about ending campaigns of misery in my mind.
Speaker 1: It was about identifying where I was arguing against myself
Speaker 1: and my potential, and it was allowing myself to get
Speaker 1: back on the trail or start walking across that bridge. Yeah,
Speaker 1: that's it. I love those visuals. They're so powerful and
Speaker 1: so beautiful and there's I mean, when you said the
Speaker 1: bridge one, it reminded me of I believe this is
Speaker 1: from the Christian tradition. I believe it's from the Bible.
Speaker 1: But this statement says, the world is like a bridge.
Speaker 1: Don't build your house on it, cross over it. And
Speaker 1: I've always spiritually gravitated towards that statement very deeply. So
Speaker 1: when you said bridge, that was the first thing that
Speaker 1: came to my mind. The world is like a bridge.
Speaker 1: You know, I also liked the term a couple of reasons.
Speaker 1: So you know, I was telling everybody earlier about how
Speaker 1: I woke up this morning and I'm here visiting my
Speaker 1: daughter who's twenty two and a senior in college, and
Speaker 1: I felt this profound sadness and I noticed it and
Speaker 1: I allowed myself to feel it because I wouldn't feel
Speaker 1: that if I didn't love her so deeply. Right, And
Speaker 1: then I visualize this bridge, that this is just one
Speaker 1: step on a very long bridge that I'm crossing, and
Speaker 1: a bridge that as a parent, like, the most important
Speaker 1: thing that I need to do as a parent is
Speaker 1: to encourage my children to fly into this world and
Speaker 1: to leave and to become who they're meant to become,
Speaker 1: which means going to leave, and there are a lot
Speaker 1: of goodbyes and it sucks, but it's also beautiful. And
Speaker 1: I also love this idea of a bridge because when
Speaker 1: it comes to anxiety, when it comes to separation, there
Speaker 1: is this concept when you say goodbye to somebody, or
Speaker 1: when you're about to leave somebody who's going to do
Speaker 1: something anxious, is you bridge that moment to the next
Speaker 1: moment you're going to see them? So I'm sure you
Speaker 1: do this. When you say goodbye to your parents in
Speaker 1: the UK, you hog and say I can't you know?
Speaker 1: For me, I just said, I can't wait to see
Speaker 1: you on Thanksgiving break. I can't wait to hear how
Speaker 1: this thing goes tomorrow, so that you are staying connected
Speaker 1: and bridging and closing that kind of loop of something's ending,
Speaker 1: because things are not truly really ending. Yeah, they're always
Speaker 1: beginnings to something else. Yeah. One of the questions we
Speaker 1: get in my DMS a lot and comments and everything
Speaker 1: is and I think people subconsciously or consciously have this
Speaker 1: as well. The idea that you brought it about is
Speaker 1: your parents' expectations. So either some people had parents who
Speaker 1: had very high expectations or different expectations to what the
Speaker 1: kids wanted, Like you're very aware that what your daughter
Speaker 1: wants to be and you're happy to support it as
Speaker 1: long as she wants to be it. Some people have
Speaker 1: the experience of, well, my parents had very high expectations,
Speaker 1: but they're not the expectations I want, Or my parents
Speaker 1: actually didn't have any expectations of me, and they were
Speaker 1: actually more negative and they actually didn't believe in me
Speaker 1: at all and didn't really think I'd get anywhere anyway.
Speaker 1: Or when I want to try something, I get the
Speaker 1: toxic feedback of well, you're not going to make it anyway.
Speaker 1: So I think we deal with parenting and a feeling
Speaker 1: of not believing us in ourselves in two ways. One is,
Speaker 1: your parents saw the path they gave you it, but
Speaker 1: you're like, that's not my path. This is and then
Speaker 1: your parents don't believe in it, or your parents never
Speaker 1: believed in any path you were to take. And I
Speaker 1: think a lot of people I'm hearing right now are
Speaker 1: feeling like Jay, I'm just surrounded by family and friends
Speaker 1: who don't believe in me, don't believe in my ideas,
Speaker 1: don't believe in the partner I want to be with like,
Speaker 1: I just don't feel like people support my decisions. Yeah,
Speaker 1: Chris and I have been married twenty six years. We
Speaker 1: have three kids. They're twenty three, twenty two, and seventeen.
Speaker 1: There is no doubt in my mind I've screwed them up.
Speaker 1: How could you not? I mean, we're talking about millions
Speaker 1: of moments where somebody needs emotional support and you are
Speaker 1: a mismatch in that moment, right. And I love this
Speaker 1: term of parental mismatch because it allows those of us
Speaker 1: that still have a good relationship with our parents to
Speaker 1: acknowledge a fact. And the fact is there are things
Speaker 1: that went down in your childhood that you may not
Speaker 1: even remember, that left you with negative or toxic thinking
Speaker 1: patterns that you struggle to get rid of as an adult.
Speaker 1: It is a fact, period. And so I want to
Speaker 1: start off by saying that because we all deal with
Speaker 1: this and it is a result of childhood. In fact,
Speaker 1: doctor Russell Kennedy, who is amazing. You should have him
Speaker 1: on your podcast, says that all anxiety results from a
Speaker 1: feeling of separation from your parents. When you're a kid,
Speaker 1: probably before you were five, a moment where you felt separate.
Speaker 1: There is a mismatch. Maybe you were sitting on the floor.
Speaker 1: You don't even remember this, you're quietly playing, You're in
Speaker 1: a happy space and mom or dad comes home and
Speaker 1: they're frustrated, and all of a sudden, they lie, you know,
Speaker 1: like everybody does at some point, because everybody has a
Speaker 1: volcano moment. It's a fact, and it startles you as
Speaker 1: a kid, your body remembers it. And there's this concept
Speaker 1: in research called ghosts in the nursery that a lot
Speaker 1: of us struggle as adults with behavior that we're like,
Speaker 1: where did that come from? And where it comes from
Speaker 1: is the fact that if you're now an adult and
Speaker 1: you had an experience growing up in a household where
Speaker 1: your parents raged, or your parents were abusive, or your
Speaker 1: parents just ignored you and you just felt separate or
Speaker 1: on edge, when you get into those same situations as
Speaker 1: an adult, your body has a feeling first, we think,
Speaker 1: we think first, we don't. Your body has the feeling first,
Speaker 1: and then your body repeats the behavior that you actually
Speaker 1: observed as a kid. I speak English because I observed
Speaker 1: and absorbed the language my parents spoke. And so there
Speaker 1: are patterns that you're struggling with that do not serve
Speaker 1: you as an adult that are not your own. And
Speaker 1: so I want to say that first and foremost, Okay,
Speaker 1: that one of the greatest gifts of being an adult
Speaker 1: is separating from your parents and deciding how you want
Speaker 1: to talk to yourself, how you want to change the
Speaker 1: way that you think, how you speak, how you support.
Speaker 1: So that's number one. Number two, it is so common
Speaker 1: and natural to feel this kind of complex mix of
Speaker 1: guilt and of pressure to want to please your parents.
Speaker 1: Why because you needed them to survive as a kid.
Speaker 1: It's not like you could leave. And what we learn
Speaker 1: as kids is that there is a given, a take,
Speaker 1: and that oftentimes that love that you need and that
Speaker 1: support that you need is very transactional. That mom and
Speaker 1: dad are in a great mood, and you get a
Speaker 1: lot of attention when you're doing well in sports or
Speaker 1: doing well in school, or you're doing what they want
Speaker 1: them to do. And what we women learn in particular
Speaker 1: is that if you're not doing what I want you
Speaker 1: to do, that's bad because guilt, by definition, is feeling
Speaker 1: bad about what you just did. We learned that feeling
Speaker 1: during childhood, and it happens to everybody. And so I
Speaker 1: want to just say this because I want to normalize
Speaker 1: that these are things that don't mean that you're damaged.
Speaker 1: It's stuff that we have to heal for ourselves as adults.
Speaker 1: And so here's rule number one. If your parents or
Speaker 1: your family are not paying your bills, they have no vote.
Speaker 1: If your parents are paying for your bills, there is
Speaker 1: going to be power in what they're saying. There is
Speaker 1: a transaction there because they are paying your tuition or
Speaker 1: they are paying whatever, and not all parents are transformed.
Speaker 1: And so I'm saying that because one of the fastest
Speaker 1: ways to free yourself is to pay your own way.
Speaker 1: And when you pay your own way, you start to
Speaker 1: feel very empowered to pave your own way. And that's
Speaker 1: a really important thing, because I actually don't think it's
Speaker 1: fair for somebody whose parents are paying for their rent
Speaker 1: and somebody whose parents are paying for their credit card,
Speaker 1: and somebody whose parents are paying for their car lane
Speaker 1: for you to then bitch about your parents' opinion about
Speaker 1: how you're spending your life because they're paying for your life.
Speaker 1: And so I feel like that's a little bit of
Speaker 1: a double standard. And I just happen to not believe
Speaker 1: that I pay for my kid's life, and therefore I
Speaker 1: control their life. I happen to believe as a parent
Speaker 1: that my job is to help my kids figure out
Speaker 1: who they are. And you do that by listening. You
Speaker 1: do that by validating their experiences. You do that by
Speaker 1: not seeing them as an extension of you that what
Speaker 1: school they get into somehow means that you're a good
Speaker 1: parent or a bad parent. The best thing that you
Speaker 1: could do for your kids is figure out what's going
Speaker 1: to make them happy and support them in doing that.
Speaker 1: And the other thing that you can do is help
Speaker 1: them make decisions by helping them figure out what decisions
Speaker 1: are right for them. So I'm saying all of this
Speaker 1: because zero to eighteen. So let's use another metaphor, because
Speaker 1: I again love metaphors. Life's one big road trip. Okay,
Speaker 1: every year of your life is a mile marker from
Speaker 1: zero to eighteen. You're not even driving the damn car
Speaker 1: somebody else's. You're in somebody else's car. They're telling you
Speaker 1: what to do. They're controlling what's happening. The second you
Speaker 1: get to university or you leave home, you get to
Speaker 1: navigate your own life, but not if somebody else is
Speaker 1: paying for it. Yeah, I think that perspective is empowering
Speaker 1: if you're willing to take that risk. But what we've found,
Speaker 1: you know, the research shows this as well. There was
Speaker 1: a study a few years ago that I looked at
Speaker 1: which talked about how you know, with men and women,
Speaker 1: when when men see a job description and they can
Speaker 1: do like fifty to sixty percent, say I can do it, right,
Speaker 1: And then when a woman sees a job description and
Speaker 1: even if she can do eighty percent of it, she'd
Speaker 1: be like, I can't apply because I can't do twenty percent.
Speaker 1: And so I find that there's a we do it
Speaker 1: in dating too, by the way, right, So yeah, so
Speaker 1: that that disproportionate self doubt that comes in there, or
Speaker 1: that lack of self confidence, as as someone who's a
Speaker 1: mom of girls, like does that do you see that
Speaker 1: playing out differently for you and for them? And so
Speaker 1: there's a tremendous amount of research on this with girls
Speaker 1: and confidence. And I have a theory as to what happens,
Speaker 1: and I know what age it happens at, typically for girls,
Speaker 1: because girls struggle with crippling perfectionism in numbers that far
Speaker 1: outweigh what happens to boys. And I believe there is
Speaker 1: a specific reason why. So at the age of twelve,
Speaker 1: boys and girls have the exact same levels of confidence. Jay,
Speaker 1: at the age of thirteen, girls confidence fall off a
Speaker 1: cliff according to the research, and I think I know why.
Speaker 1: The reason why, in my personal opinion, is because that
Speaker 1: is the average age that a girl goes through puberty
Speaker 1: and she starts menstruating. Now, here's the interesting thing about
Speaker 1: girls when they go through puberty. It's like a public conversation.
Speaker 1: And what's the first thing that somebody says to a
Speaker 1: little girl when they get their period? You're a woman now,
Speaker 1: And it's also something that happens to your body. So
Speaker 1: there's this like implied maturing, this implied notion of sex.
Speaker 1: There's also the fact that your boobs are growing and
Speaker 1: your budding, and people are self conscious, and so now
Speaker 1: you're wearing a sweatshirt. You also know who's got their period. Somehow,
Speaker 1: everybody knows when this is happening. Everybody's talking about it,
Speaker 1: and so you in that moment lose the control of
Speaker 1: the conversation about your body. And for most girls, it's
Speaker 1: incredibly uncomfortable. Like I remember one of my daughters wore
Speaker 1: like a gigantic sweatshirt for two years just to hide
Speaker 1: her developing body. Other girls might show it off because
Speaker 1: you get more attention, but it becomes this public conversation
Speaker 1: about where you are in relation to everybody else, and
Speaker 1: most girls, in addition to the socialization that you get
Speaker 1: from the media and from culture, you start then wishing
Speaker 1: you look different. You start to obsess about yourself. If
Speaker 1: I could just get a perfect if I wear the
Speaker 1: perfect sweatshirt, then nobody's going to notice, and you start
Speaker 1: micromanaging as a defense mechanism to public judgment. That's what
Speaker 1: I think happens because the perfectionism is off the church too.
Speaker 1: When you dudes get hit puberty, it's typically when you're fifteen,
Speaker 1: and it benefits you. I mean, because we're not talking
Speaker 1: about what's happening with your balls, right, It's not like
Speaker 1: some conversation about that. We're talking about the fact that
Speaker 1: your voice is deeper, you've gotten taller. It benefits you
Speaker 1: in high school sports, and so it doesn't impact your
Speaker 1: guys's confidence. It actually helps you. And that's where it
Speaker 1: begins in my personal opinion, along with the fact that
Speaker 1: there's so much that happens generation generationally, where boys are
Speaker 1: encouraged to take risks. Boys are in sports where they're
Speaker 1: knocked around, boys are picked up and shoved back in
Speaker 1: the game. Girls are coddled a little bit more and
Speaker 1: told to be a good girl, be a nice sister,
Speaker 1: go hug your uncle. All those things that send a
Speaker 1: message that leads to the struggling with confidence. What do
Speaker 1: you think, then, are some of the things that you
Speaker 1: did later on and you want for your daughters to
Speaker 1: do to develop better confidence? Like, what are some of
Speaker 1: those steps towards better confidence? Because I think it's it's
Speaker 1: so difficult right to confidence requires you to do so
Speaker 1: many things you don't want to do to develop it. Yeah,
Speaker 1: Like I think the problem with the word confidence when
Speaker 1: I look it up in the dictionary, it's one of
Speaker 1: my favorite definitions of a word. One of the definitions
Speaker 1: is acknowledgement and self assurance in one's own abilities. Right, Like,
Speaker 1: you're acknowledging and you are aware of and you're reassured
Speaker 1: of your own abilities and your qualities. And so when
Speaker 1: I look at that definition, I go, Okay, that requires
Speaker 1: you to do things that, like you don't build your
Speaker 1: self respect when you sat out on the beach but
Speaker 1: you do build your self respect when you went and
Speaker 1: hiked up a hill and then walked back down. Right, Like,
Speaker 1: your self confidence doesn't grow because you sat out in
Speaker 1: your garden and didn't do anything. Your self confidence grew
Speaker 1: because you learned how to God and do something right.
Speaker 1: Your self respect, self esteem and self confidence grow when
Speaker 1: you do things, yeah, that are not obvious or easy
Speaker 1: or simple. Right, But like you're saying, we don't trained
Speaker 1: in that way. So what are some of the steps
Speaker 1: that people could take towards self Confidat first, here's what
Speaker 1: I want to tell you, and then I'll give you
Speaker 1: some steps. So confidence is one of those topics, Jay,
Speaker 1: that we have backwards. Everybody hears the word confidence and
Speaker 1: they think it's belief. Like up here, yeah, I agree. Confidence.
Speaker 1: My definition of confidence that I want everyone to walk
Speaker 1: away with is confidence is the willingness to try. In research,
Speaker 1: there is something called the confidence competency loop, and what
Speaker 1: that means is that as you try something for the
Speaker 1: first time, like I was curling my hair this morning
Speaker 1: and I freaking burned my ear, and my daughter casually says,
Speaker 1: got to learn somehow by trying and by the way,
Speaker 1: screwing it up and burning my ear, I still am
Speaker 1: gaining a little bit of competence. I know to hold
Speaker 1: this thing a little bit further away from my ear.
Speaker 1: Now by gaining competence by burning my ear, I now
Speaker 1: am going to try again, and I'm gonna be a
Speaker 1: little bit better, and I'm going to gain a little
Speaker 1: bit more competence, and then I'm going to try again
Speaker 1: and I'm going to learn even more. And so confidence,
Speaker 1: at the heart of confidence is action. It's the willingness
Speaker 1: to try. And all you need is to know that
Speaker 1: if you try, you're not going to die. You're just
Speaker 1: going to learn something. And when you learn something, it
Speaker 1: removes a little bit of the insecurity so that it
Speaker 1: makes it slightly easier to try again. And so I
Speaker 1: would follow the sixty percent rule, okay, And I use
Speaker 1: sixty percent because that is the figure that was in
Speaker 1: the HP study about men applying for jobs when they
Speaker 1: feel sixty percent qualified. If you look at something that
Speaker 1: you want to do or try or apply for and
Speaker 1: you feel whether it's sixty percent qualified, okay, I got
Speaker 1: sixty percent of the stuff. Because the truth is a
Speaker 1: job description everybody a dating profile that is not requirements,
Speaker 1: that's a wish list. Okay, if you got sixty percent
Speaker 1: of this stuff, freaking go for it. That's rule number one,
Speaker 1: the sixty percent rule. The other thing is is that
Speaker 1: if you're looking at doing something that you're scared to do,
Speaker 1: maybe it's signing up for an improv class, maybe it
Speaker 1: is ordering the podcast equipment, maybe it's signing up for
Speaker 1: genius like even thinking about even thinking about it, you're
Speaker 1: thinking about it. If you on a scale, you're on
Speaker 1: this teeter totter, if you tip more toward I'd really
Speaker 1: like to so about sixty percent, right, wait versus forty percent.
Speaker 1: I'm kind of nervous, freaking do it. That's how you
Speaker 1: build confidence because back to the original thing that we're
Speaker 1: talking about, self doutgrows when you engage in negative talk
Speaker 1: to talk yourself out of the things you want to
Speaker 1: be trying. There is so much pain, jay in talking
Speaker 1: yourself out of trying things, and it just makes me
Speaker 1: so sad and frustrated to see so many of you
Speaker 1: that are listening wasting years of your life really feeling
Speaker 1: this desire to try something and putting all your energy,
Speaker 1: all your energy into talking yourself out of it. Here's
Speaker 1: something that I just recorded an episode about this, and
Speaker 1: it's the fall, so I'm thinking a lot about the
Speaker 1: fact that in the fall season, at least in New England,
Speaker 1: and I realize in other areas of the world, is
Speaker 1: not the fall right now, the leaves fall off the tree.
Speaker 1: Right here's an interesting fact. This is not a beautiful,
Speaker 1: graceful thing that happens. The tree pushes those frickers off
Speaker 1: its branches as an act of survival because leaves have
Speaker 1: a huge surface area and they require a lot of
Speaker 1: water to be able to capture the sun and convert
Speaker 1: it into energy for the tree. And overwinter there ain't
Speaker 1: no water, and if those trees are there, the leaves
Speaker 1: are there, the tree is going to die. And it's
Speaker 1: an energy conserver. It is an energy issue. You are
Speaker 1: putting so much negative energy into things that you won't
Speaker 1: let go of complaining into relationships that don't work, into
Speaker 1: your excuses. Do you know how much energy it takes
Speaker 1: to walk into a job you can't stand and yet
Speaker 1: you do it every day. Imagine if instead of sitting
Speaker 1: at your desk resisting, complaining, gossiping, and coming up with excuses,
Speaker 1: imagine if you just redirected some of that energy towards
Speaker 1: looking for something else that, like the leaves get pushed
Speaker 1: off a tree, you make a decision that today I
Speaker 1: am actual going to let go of the gossiping and
Speaker 1: complaining about this because that is zapping my energy and
Speaker 1: I'm going to direct my energy it's something positive because
Speaker 1: once I get rid of that, I got room for
Speaker 1: something positive to grow. And complaining to yourself and robbing
Speaker 1: yourself of just trying something. Yeah, and we don't think
Speaker 1: about it that way. It takes the same amount of energy.
Speaker 1: I think more yeah more potentially it definitely. Yeah, it's
Speaker 1: more draining, but it is, if anyone wants to think
Speaker 1: about it, Yeah, it's it's that same energy just put
Speaker 1: in a different direction could change the cause it does
Speaker 1: change the course. And it just needs to try it.
Speaker 1: I love that willingness to try. So the sixty percent rule,
Speaker 1: there's one takeaway and confidence. Okay. The second thing that
Speaker 1: you can do with confidence, because it's action basis, is
Speaker 1: where the five second rule is a game changer. Just
Speaker 1: use my five second rule. Literally in those moments where
Speaker 1: you feel self dowtkick in, you got to be careful
Speaker 1: because you have a habit of hesitating you have a
Speaker 1: habit of doing what psychologists say you have a bias
Speaker 1: towards thinking. And so a second takeaway is use my
Speaker 1: five second rule. And when you catch yourself hesitating, when
Speaker 1: you catch the self doubtcoming in, when you catch the
Speaker 1: feelings and the excuses rise up, count backwards five four, three,
Speaker 1: two one, and by the time you get to one,
Speaker 1: the prefrontal cortex will have focused on the counting and
Speaker 1: you've got literally a split second to move. And the
Speaker 1: trick about this is when you start counting, you've made
Speaker 1: a decision to try, and the counting itself is like
Speaker 1: a trojan horse because it's the first action. Yeah. I
Speaker 1: love that rule, and the book's there too, in case
Speaker 1: anyone needs all the added information I think I lost.
Speaker 1: Interview is all about that. So I want to ask
Speaker 1: you about one final area of thought because we were
Speaker 1: talking about it before and I think a lot of
Speaker 1: our community. Does I have to ask you because I
Speaker 1: just wrote a book quote eight Rules of Love, which
Speaker 1: is out next year, and I talk about this in
Speaker 1: one of the chapters to hear your perspective on it.
Speaker 1: But the idea where you've been married for twenty six years, right,
Speaker 1: Congratulations as incredible and that's beautiful. In that time, you
Speaker 1: and your partner are going to go through different stages
Speaker 1: of personal growth, personal evolution, collect collective growth, collective evolution.
Speaker 1: Sometimes you're going to feel ahead, they're going to feel behind.
Speaker 1: Someone's they're going to feel ahead, you're going to feel behind.
Speaker 1: Sometimes it's not even about ahead or behind. The question
Speaker 1: I have is if someone's listening and their partner, or
Speaker 1: even if they're not in a relationship, their friend. I
Speaker 1: was just mean to someone the other day and they
Speaker 1: were saying, yeah, my friend is a bit envious that
Speaker 1: I just landed my dream job, just meeting the guy
Speaker 1: that I You know, we always feel ahead or behind
Speaker 1: of the people that were closest too, even if we
Speaker 1: love them and we want them to win. There's that feeling.
Speaker 1: If someone's in a relationship, someone's got a friend that's
Speaker 1: feeling behind, or maybe they're the person who's feeling behind
Speaker 1: someone else. What do we do in that scenario? How
Speaker 1: do we support ourselves support others? How can we think
Speaker 1: through that? Because I think feeling ahead or behind is
Speaker 1: never fun. Even feeling a head is not fun. Yeah,
Speaker 1: when you feel behind, that's your insecurity, putting a lid
Speaker 1: on what you believe is possible for you. So that's
Speaker 1: number one. Recognize that it is that's insecurity blocking you,
Speaker 1: and you can use that as a sign that, oh,
Speaker 1: all I have to do is start walking toward things.
Speaker 1: The second thing I want to share with everybody is
Speaker 1: that it is normal to feel envious or even be
Speaker 1: somewhat of a jerk when somebody that you care about changes.
Speaker 1: And I want to tell a story to explain why.
Speaker 1: And the story I'm the villain, Okay, basically the role
Speaker 1: I've played in my marriage port Chris. Chris is wonderful. Yes,
Speaker 1: Chris is amazing. So Chris a couple of years ago
Speaker 1: decided he was going to completely stop drinking. And he
Speaker 1: went on this deep spiritual journey and he was going
Speaker 1: to stop drinking for a couple of years, and he
Speaker 1: became a Buddhist meditation instructor and a yoga instructor and
Speaker 1: started his men's retreat business. And I'll never forget the
Speaker 1: first night that he was not drinking, I opened up
Speaker 1: a bottle of rose. I'm pouring a glass of rose.
Speaker 1: Everything's great because I'm cooking great. The second night, as
Speaker 1: I'm opening up a bottle of rose, and Chris is
Speaker 1: like cracking open, like I don't know, like a Saint Croix.
Speaker 1: I'm starting to feel agitation. I'm starting to feel the campaign,
Speaker 1: the complaining this and the that, and I notice it
Speaker 1: and I'm like, don't say anything. The third day is
Speaker 1: when mel the villain showed up. And I'm not proud
Speaker 1: to admit this, but I want everybody to hear this
Speaker 1: so you understand what's actually happening inside of your relationship.
Speaker 1: I crack open the rose. I'm pouring my glass of
Speaker 1: wine and I turned to Chris and I'm like, come on,
Speaker 1: you want to have glass rose with me? And he says, no,
Speaker 1: I'm good, and I said, it's like juice. It's like
Speaker 1: cher I do not want a glass of wine. Stop
Speaker 1: asking me. And I said, okay, I'm sorry, it's just
Speaker 1: that it makes me feel bad. And this is when
Speaker 1: he said something that just he said, nobody cares what's
Speaker 1: in your glass but you. And if what I'm putting
Speaker 1: in my glass makes you question what you're putting in yours,
Speaker 1: then maybe you have some work to do. And it
Speaker 1: is easier everybody to question somebody else's change. And even
Speaker 1: sabotage it because they're change and growth creates a change
Speaker 1: in energy and ripples and changes in patterns that make
Speaker 1: you wake up and start realizing that maybe some of
Speaker 1: the things you do don't work for you. So when
Speaker 1: that friend of yours stays in to write a business plan,
Speaker 1: how many of us on a Saturday night and you're like, oh,
Speaker 1: come on, you work on it tomorrow. Do you have
Speaker 1: to go to the gym today? Stay in bed with me.
Speaker 1: That's that same behavior of dragging somebody to join in
Speaker 1: with you and pour what's in your cup. And so
Speaker 1: I want you to understand this is normal, and it's
Speaker 1: a really good sign because it means that your behavior
Speaker 1: is not only changing you, but is sending waves at
Speaker 1: somebody else that has just given them a wake up call.
Speaker 1: And most of us push against those wake up calls,
Speaker 1: and that's what they're doing because you're very safe to
Speaker 1: do it with. And so that's something that's really important understand.
Speaker 1: And I find that the best way to support somebody,
Speaker 1: because we all know we can't change somebody else, is
Speaker 1: you keep a laser focus on what you're doing, because
Speaker 1: the bigger the change becomes, and the happier you become,
Speaker 1: the more difficult it's going to be for your friend
Speaker 1: or your family to ignore it, and the more it's
Speaker 1: going to stir up more things and eventually inspiration. And
Speaker 1: the best thing that you can do is ask leading questions.
Speaker 1: Do not tell somebody what to do. That is the
Speaker 1: worst thing you can do in a relationship or friendship
Speaker 1: or as a parent. Instead, like literally, hey, you don't
Speaker 1: seem happy. Is there anything that I can do to help? You?
Speaker 1: Don't seem like yourself? Is something going on? Do you
Speaker 1: need support in something? And you know, my favorite sentence
Speaker 1: on the planet as a parent and as a wife
Speaker 1: is do you need me to listen? Or would you
Speaker 1: like to know what I'm thinking? And nine times out
Speaker 1: of ten, my kids, my husband, the folks that work
Speaker 1: for me, they just want me to listen. And so
Speaker 1: I think when you create an opening for somebody to
Speaker 1: stop engaging in their own self doubt and their own
Speaker 1: very active and painful kind of reasons why they can't
Speaker 1: join you at the gym, or reasons why they're not
Speaker 1: going to meditate, or reasons why they're not going to
Speaker 1: join you in dry January or whatever it may be,
Speaker 1: or the reasons why they can't. Can't we all have
Speaker 1: a friend, can't look for a job, never going to
Speaker 1: find anybody. That's not true, and you know it. So
Speaker 1: create the space. You be the light on the path ahead.
Speaker 1: And when you hold your light higher, eventually that jealousy
Speaker 1: and those excuses, it actually allows it to disappear and
Speaker 1: you become part of the force that pulls them forward.
Speaker 1: And the other thing you have to understand is that
Speaker 1: there are going to be legs of your journey in life,
Speaker 1: and this is one of the hardest things. Where people
Speaker 1: are going to pull off and take a different route.
Speaker 1: That's okay. They may come back at another time, that's okay.
Speaker 1: And you know. The final thing that I wanted to
Speaker 1: say about this is it's a very simple exercise that
Speaker 1: you can do with somebody. And this helps somebody who
Speaker 1: is either struggling with happiness and doesn't know how to
Speaker 1: get started, or is struggling with confidence and is not
Speaker 1: able to take action, or who is resisting the changes
Speaker 1: that you are doing, and you would love to see
Speaker 1: them do. We did this with our daughter who is
Speaker 1: now twenty three, and last summer when she graduated from
Speaker 1: college really unhappy. I mean two years of college had
Speaker 1: been imploded, and she was extremely depressed and basically just
Speaker 1: drank her way through it and graduated and was not happy,
Speaker 1: big life change. Nothing was going according to plan. She
Speaker 1: had planned this huge trip to go to Cambodia and
Speaker 1: do a big service trip for four months that wasn't
Speaker 1: going to happen. Just lost. And so Chris and I
Speaker 1: sat with her for a couple hours and then I said,
Speaker 1: and She's like, I don't know what to do. I'm
Speaker 1: twenty two, I'm stuck, am miserable. I don't even know
Speaker 1: how to start. And I said, I actually think you do.
Speaker 1: I think you're just scared. Take out a blank piece
Speaker 1: of paper, draw a line down the center on the
Speaker 1: left hand side. I want you to write happy me. Now,
Speaker 1: close your eyes and think about a time that you
Speaker 1: remember being happy, or more confident or alive. It could
Speaker 1: be any word you want, right, and you might have
Speaker 1: to go back to childhood. Our daughter closed her eyes
Speaker 1: and she said it was senior year in high school.
Speaker 1: And I said, okay, so right down, all of the
Speaker 1: things that you were doing in a week of your
Speaker 1: life senior year in high school, just describe your life
Speaker 1: for me. Oh, I got up and do it in detail. Everybody.
Speaker 1: I got up at seven am or six thirty. I
Speaker 1: was leaving the house by seven. I was with my
Speaker 1: friends all day. I was looking forward to go in college.
Speaker 1: I was playing varsity lacrosse. I was exercising six days
Speaker 1: a week. I was only parting with friends twice a week. I,
Speaker 1: you know, was in a healthy dating relationship. I ate
Speaker 1: four dinners a night at home. Like, just do great,
Speaker 1: write down what your life looks like now. I sleep
Speaker 1: till one. I drank every day. I feel like I
Speaker 1: don't see my friends because everybody's scattered. Now that we graduate,
Speaker 1: I don't have anything to look forward to. My trip
Speaker 1: to Cambodia is canceled. I'm not exercising. Okay, compare the two.
Speaker 1: Your own life experience offers the map, and we want
Speaker 1: to over complicate these big words like happiness I know
Speaker 1: I did for decades, or confidence. It's actually found in
Speaker 1: the little things. If you do this simple exercise of
Speaker 1: drawing a line down a piece of paper, and you
Speaker 1: write down what life looked like in great detail. When
Speaker 1: did you wake up, when did you go to bed,
Speaker 1: how are from your friend's family, what were you doing
Speaker 1: for work? Exercise, what were you eating If you then
Speaker 1: compare that to what life looks like, now you now
Speaker 1: know what to do. And the fact is, your whole
Speaker 1: life is the little things. It's when you wake up,
Speaker 1: it's the first thing you look at. It's what you
Speaker 1: do with your body. It's how you greet your spouse.
Speaker 1: It's how you talk to yourself. It's what you say
Speaker 1: to yourself when you look in the mirror. It's the
Speaker 1: mood that you walk into work with intentionally. It's how
Speaker 1: you greet your animals or your roommate when you end
Speaker 1: the day. It's the tone of voice that you use.
Speaker 1: That's your whole life. And if you were to just
Speaker 1: take the time and intentionally write down a few simple
Speaker 1: things that you do when you're happy in life, and
Speaker 1: you were to focus for the next seven days on
Speaker 1: just adding one of those in a day, you would
Speaker 1: be very surprised how getting some of the little things
Speaker 1: right actually starts to turn your life in a completely
Speaker 1: different direction. So powerful. Now, it's been an absolute pleasure
Speaker 1: having you back on the show. The Miles of Robbins
Speaker 1: podcast is out right now. You can go and listen, subscribe, share,
Speaker 1: please please please go and do that well. I love
Speaker 1: sitting down with you. I love today was that perfect
Speaker 1: balance as I was talking about before, of playing tennis,
Speaker 1: going back and forth, and at the same time just
Speaker 1: getting some really practical, insightful advice from you on step
Speaker 1: by step strategic, systematic breakdown of how to do things.
Speaker 1: I want to thank you from the bottom of my
Speaker 1: heart for being a dear friend to me and RADI.
Speaker 1: I hope me, you, Chris, all of us get to
Speaker 1: spend lots more time together genuinely, or even if it's
Speaker 1: not lots more time, but it's deep time together that
Speaker 1: would make me very happy. And I wish you all
Speaker 1: the best on defeating the campaigns of misery for yourself
Speaker 1: and everyone else in the world through your show, through
Speaker 1: your books on Audible, through through your book in the
Speaker 1: five Second Rule, and also for helping me start working
Speaker 1: on my campaigns and misery as well. So thank you
Speaker 1: so much, Malay, deeply appreciate you, very grateful to you.
Speaker 1: I love you, Jay, and I can't wait to see
Speaker 1: you acting. Yeah now I have to. Now I have accountability.
Speaker 1: So I want to offer another mistake I've made, and
Speaker 1: I've made this with both Chris and with her daughter
Speaker 1: Kendall so Chris as he is running Sole Degree, which
Speaker 1: is men's retreat, and her daughter Kendall as she's writing music.
Speaker 1: One of the best things that you can do to
Speaker 1: help create momentum is to call out the teeny steps
Speaker 1: are taking. I made a mistake with our daughter for
Speaker 1: a long time where I kept talking about the big stuff,
Speaker 1: or I kept saying, but you're not writing songs, or
Speaker 1: this would make a great song, or you play me
Speaker 1: something new, and she would go, stop talking about this,
Speaker 1: stop telling me what to do. Because when somebody loves you,
Speaker 1: they respect your opinion and trust me, they know when
Speaker 1: they're not doing what they need to do every day.
Speaker 1: So you will support somebody more when you say, you know,
Speaker 1: I'm really proud of you for the fact that you're
Speaker 1: very relaxed about this. I'm really proud of you for
Speaker 1: the fact that you're not beating yourself up that it's
Speaker 1: not happened sooner. I'm really proud of you from march
Speaker 1: into your own drums. I'm really proud of you for
Speaker 1: writing a song today and playing it. That's freaking awesome.
Speaker 1: Acknowledging the little stuff is incredibly powerful because the person
Speaker 1: has to push through so much of their own stuff
Speaker 1: that if you go, oh, and you should do it
Speaker 1: this way, or oh have you tried that, or oh
Speaker 1: it'd be great if you do this, you're not actually
Speaker 1: building momentum. You're pointing out what wasn't done. And that
Speaker 1: was something I was guilty of for a long time,
Speaker 1: catching myself and trying to look for, oh, what are
Speaker 1: they doing and giving them that pad on that back,
Speaker 1: that hug, that high five, that verbal acknowledgement of the
Speaker 1: effort done, or even the fact that the fact that
Speaker 1: they haven't done anything but they're thinking about it that
Speaker 1: is worth it too. And the reason we do that,
Speaker 1: you know this is because we don't give ourselves a
Speaker 1: pout in the back for doing something small, so we
Speaker 1: don't even acknowledge when we do something small. We are
Speaker 1: waiting and we are saying to ourselves, oh, well, all
Speaker 1: you did today was go to the gym. All you
Speaker 1: did this week was go to the gym twice. That's
Speaker 1: not enough, yep. And because we talk to ourselves like that,
Speaker 1: when someone in our life doesn't, it triggers us about
Speaker 1: going Yeah, they only went to the gym twice a
Speaker 1: week too, Like that's terrible. Yeah, and so I couldn't
Speaker 1: agree with you more. And I've Yeah, I think I've
Speaker 1: had to be my own cheerleader for so much of
Speaker 1: my life and notice the little things that I've done
Speaker 1: in the little progress that with rad I've definitely seen
Speaker 1: that and she appreciates it. Where I'll just notice those
Speaker 1: smaller things. But I realized that any time I get
Speaker 1: triggered by someone's lack of growth, it's because I'm triggered
Speaker 1: by my own lack of growth, and I'm just reflecting
Speaker 1: that back onto them. I'm upset with myself for not
Speaker 1: going to the gym more times this week, and because
Speaker 1: they haven't, I'm now releasing that on them. And that's
Speaker 1: been such a great way of going, Okay, well, I
Speaker 1: need to be kinder to myself too for the little wins. Yes,
Speaker 1: it took you two years to launch this podcast, but
Speaker 1: there were things in those two years that you learned
Speaker 1: about getting to where you are now that you made
Speaker 1: so many steps of progress, and that's why. Yeah. And
Speaker 1: also there are so many little steps about completing things
Speaker 1: so that you can create room. Yes. So one of
Speaker 1: the other things I want to offer too is, yes,
Speaker 1: that tendency for us to jump in and be like,
Speaker 1: oh did you try this or do this orda and
Speaker 1: like kind of create this snowball. It does come from
Speaker 1: the fact that a lot of us are not encouraging ourselves,
Speaker 1: but it also comes from a really altruistic loving space,
Speaker 1: because you love this person so much, you want it
Speaker 1: so much for them that as soon as you see
Speaker 1: a tiny stuff for you're like, ah, let's do this,
Speaker 1: and you want to join in with them. And so
Speaker 1: it can come from both a place of your own
Speaker 1: lack of support for yourself as a default unintentionally, but
Speaker 1: it also comes from a really good place because you're
Speaker 1: just so excited and you then amplify things and then
Speaker 1: they feel crushed, Yeah, because what they did do doesn't
Speaker 1: now feel like enough. Absolutely, I love that clarification. I
Speaker 1: agree this both. Everyone's been listening and watching today. Make
Speaker 1: sure you tag melan I on Instagram, on TikTok, on Twitter,
Speaker 1: whatever social media platform you use with all the greatest
Speaker 1: insights nuggets of wisdom from this episode. There were so
Speaker 1: many scattered across the entire time we've been talking. Make
Speaker 1: sure you grab the screenshot of the episode, share it
Speaker 1: with a friend. Maybe there's someone in your life that
Speaker 1: would benefit from listening to this with you and then
Speaker 1: having a conversation about it afterwards. I think that's something
Speaker 1: I'm really encouraging. I find that when we're collectively having
Speaker 1: an experience, it's even better than saying, hey, I just
Speaker 1: heard this amazing thing. Listen to with friends, listen to
Speaker 1: with family, and then discuss it amongst yourselves. I hope
Speaker 1: we've given you enough tools and insight and thoughts to
Speaker 1: start a conversation to ask a powerful question. And I
Speaker 1: hope that you're leaving here today feeling happier, healthier, and
Speaker 1: more healed. Thank you so much on Purpose community. I
Speaker 1: love you deeply, and thank you to Mel for joining
Speaker 1: us again today. I'll see you on the next time.