Speaker 1: Hi everyone, I'm Kitty Kuric, and this is next question.
Speaker 1: What if the next time someone annoyed you, antagonized you,
Speaker 1: or confused you, and you just said let them? It
Speaker 1: might sound counterintuitive, but Mel Robbins, the Queen of Practical Wisdom,
Speaker 1: says those two words can actually change your life. In
Speaker 1: her latest book, The Let Them Theory, Mel unpacks how
Speaker 1: letting others be themselves and focusing on your response frees
Speaker 1: you to let go and take control of your own happiness.
Speaker 1: Mel generously offers anecdotes from her own life and from
Speaker 1: her daughter Sawyers, with whom she wrote the book to
Speaker 1: illustrate how she's used, and sometimes to her chagrin, not used,
Speaker 1: the let them let Me theory. It's an amazing tool
Speaker 1: that will stop you from being mister or misfit, which
Speaker 1: come on, can be exhausting, and help you get clear
Speaker 1: about what's really important in life. Sounds pretty good, right.
Speaker 1: Here's our conversation. First of all, Mel Robins, I can't
Speaker 1: believe I've never met you. Welcome to our little podcast.
Speaker 1: Next question compared to yours, it's kind of little.
Speaker 2: Well, it's still important, and I cannot believe I haven't
Speaker 2: met you. Either because I have admired you and watched
Speaker 2: you from afar forever. So thank you for the opportunity
Speaker 2: to meet you, thank you for the opportunity to sit
Speaker 2: down and talk to you. Thank you for the opportunity
Speaker 2: to spend time with the person that is spending time
Speaker 2: together with us right now. I'm really excited.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I am too. And before we talk about your
Speaker 1: new book that you wrote with your daughter Sawyer, called
Speaker 1: The Let Them Theory, which I have a lot of
Speaker 1: questions about, I have to ask you a little bit
Speaker 1: about your life, Mel, because we're just getting to know
Speaker 1: each other. I've read a lot of profiles of you,
Speaker 1: and you're you're kind of exploding right now. Although you've
Speaker 1: been working very hard for I guess the last thirteen
Speaker 1: years or so, building your reputation and your company and
Speaker 1: more recently your podcast. But you've been writing books, you've
Speaker 1: been doing audio books, you've been doing Ted talks, so
Speaker 1: you have been working hard. So how did you become
Speaker 1: Mel Robbins? How did this happen? And I love that
Speaker 1: you give advice, but how did you get to a
Speaker 1: point where you felt like, yeah, I know enough about
Speaker 1: the world and about life to give advice.
Speaker 2: You know, the way that I got to where I
Speaker 2: am is first I screwed up my own life, like
Speaker 2: I have to learn everything the hard way. I don't
Speaker 2: know what it is about me, but I either have
Speaker 2: to fall into a hole because I'm not paying attention,
Speaker 2: or I have to dig one for myself and then
Speaker 2: sit in it and wallow and wish somebody would come
Speaker 2: and help me and solve my problems. And I've learned
Speaker 2: over and over and over in my life that no
Speaker 2: one is coming to save you, and that your life
Speaker 2: is your responsibility. And let's look at the word responsibility.
Speaker 2: Responsibility is the ability to respond. And I didn't know
Speaker 2: until recently that we give so much power to things
Speaker 2: that are beyond our control. Whether it is your past,
Speaker 2: it's already happened. And at any moment, you can decide
Speaker 2: that you're going to become a different person, and you
Speaker 2: become a different person by figuring out what direction you
Speaker 2: want to move in and then slowly but surely aligning
Speaker 2: your actions every day with the kind of person you'd
Speaker 2: like to be or the things it is that you'd
Speaker 2: like to do. And one of the things that surprises
Speaker 2: me now that I look back and I think it's
Speaker 2: the reason why I'm so driven to share, to teach,
Speaker 2: to have conversations like the one that you and I
Speaker 2: are having to with the person that's listening to us
Speaker 2: right now, is that I have caused myself so much
Speaker 2: headache and so much heartache, and I've caused other people
Speaker 2: so many headaches and so much heartache, Katie, because I
Speaker 2: didn't know, and I didn't know what the problem was.
Speaker 2: I didn't know what I was dealing with. And it
Speaker 2: covers everything. It covers everything from I'll just give you
Speaker 2: an example. I had no idea that I struggled with
Speaker 2: ADHD and dyslexia until I was forty seven years old,
Speaker 2: no idea. I am part of a lost generation of
Speaker 2: women who were diagnosed with anxiety in their late teens
Speaker 2: and their twenties when the real issue all along is
Speaker 2: that you had undiagnosed dyslexia or undiagnosed ADHD. And I
Speaker 2: didn't know that the real issue was an anxiety. See,
Speaker 2: anxiety is a symptom. It's a symptom that something is
Speaker 2: not getting addressed. And instead what happened is I would
Speaker 2: sit in classrooms and clearly I've got a brain that's
Speaker 2: not able to learn the way that public schools are teaching.
Speaker 2: And I also have ADHD, which presents other issues around
Speaker 2: the ability to direct attention. But back in the eighties,
Speaker 2: nobody knew that girls could get ADHD because they had
Speaker 2: only studied boys. And so there's this entire generation of
Speaker 2: women that were diagnosed with anxiety medicated for anxiety that
Speaker 2: are now finding out that they have ADHD later in life.
Speaker 2: And you want to know the number one way that
Speaker 2: women find out that they have ADHD. How their kids
Speaker 2: are going through the process in elementary school and middle
Speaker 2: school of being assessed for quote, behavioral problems and then
Speaker 2: a neuropsychoval lo and behold, turns out that they have
Speaker 2: a learning style difference or they have attention issue us
Speaker 2: And if you don't address this, you have a human
Speaker 2: being that can't do well.
Speaker 1: That's so funny that you mentioned your kids, because my
Speaker 1: daughter always tells me I have ADHD. I don't think
Speaker 1: I have ADHD.
Speaker 2: Mail well, if your life is working well and you're
Speaker 2: not experiencing anxiety, then maybe you do or maybe you don't.
Speaker 2: But for me, I could never understand why I Why
Speaker 2: am I so confident? And I can't remember birthdays. Why
Speaker 2: is it that I'm always running late? Why do I
Speaker 2: have to have fifty thousand things going on?
Speaker 1: Why are you really managed so well? You went to Dartmouth, right,
Speaker 1: I mean, it's hard to get into Dartmouth.
Speaker 2: Nine nineteen eighty six.
Speaker 1: That's really hard. No, come on, now, I disagree. It
Speaker 1: was still hard to get into the Dartmouth so you
Speaker 1: had to do pretty well. Then you went to law school.
Speaker 1: So I'm just saying you were highly functioning individual.
Speaker 2: Right, Yes, I was high functioning, but let's talk about
Speaker 2: law school. So if you have dyslexia, And by the way,
Speaker 2: Dartmouth was basically one giant wash for me, I don't
Speaker 2: remember it because I was constantly in a state of
Speaker 2: fight or flight, because I had actually not been diagnosed
Speaker 2: with anxiety. So I went through college in a constant
Speaker 2: state of feeling on edge and over compensating by drinking
Speaker 2: procrastinating all nighters. I was a walking red flag Katie
Speaker 2: because I didn't know what the problem was with me.
Speaker 2: And so I was the kind of person that, yes,
Speaker 2: I could freestyle really well, but it nearly killed me
Speaker 2: to finish a paper. And when you start to look
Speaker 2: at yourself through a lens that number one. If I'm
Speaker 2: not doing well, there's probably some problem that's underneath all
Speaker 2: this that I've never actually realized is an issue for me.
Speaker 2: And until I figure that out, I'm going to continue
Speaker 2: to struggle. And the good news is as soon as
Speaker 2: you kind of know what you're dealing with or what
Speaker 2: you would like to change in your life, there are
Speaker 2: simple things you can do.
Speaker 1: The first book, I guess, or one of the first
Speaker 1: books you wrote, was The five second Rule, and that
Speaker 1: was when you were forty one. You were eight hundred
Speaker 1: thousand dollars in debt. That's a lot of unemployed. You're
Speaker 1: watching your husband's restaurant business crumble. That's what you're writing
Speaker 1: in the book. You write, it felt like we had
Speaker 1: failed at life, with no hope of ever escaping the debt.
Speaker 1: Under the weight of this situation, you found yourself procrastinating
Speaker 1: and avoiding solving the problems. But then you were like,
Speaker 1: let's try this five second rule. I mean, how did
Speaker 1: you come up with that?
Speaker 2: And what is it?
Speaker 1: Exactly? Okay?
Speaker 2: The five second rule is a little mindset hack that
Speaker 2: helps you push through any excuse or any emotion or
Speaker 2: any feeling that you have, so you take action. And
Speaker 2: the thesis is very simple. Just like food drops on
Speaker 2: the floor and you have five seconds to pick it
Speaker 2: up right, blow the dog here off, and then you
Speaker 2: can eat it. You have five seconds to act on
Speaker 2: an idea before your brain contaminates your will to move.
Speaker 2: It's that simple. And what happened for me, here's the
Speaker 2: true story is. And again I'm going to jump back
Speaker 2: and forth between what I knew then and what I
Speaker 2: know now, Because when you find yourself stuck in life,
Speaker 2: whether it's crippling grief, which I know you've experienced, or
Speaker 2: it is all of a sudden the world changes, or
Speaker 2: your job changes, or circumstance changes in a relationship and
Speaker 2: you find yourself single, or you find yourself in a
Speaker 2: new chapter, or you find yourself as an empty nester,
Speaker 2: or you find yourself in a situation where you don't
Speaker 2: like what's happening in your community or the world around you.
Speaker 2: It is normal to feel stressed about that and paralyzed
Speaker 2: us right and actually in the moment, if the issue
Speaker 2: is big enough, feeling stressed or paralyzed is a sign
Speaker 2: that you're mentally well because the response is actually appropriate
Speaker 2: to the thing that you're dealing with. The issue is
Speaker 2: that none of us understand that when and you get
Speaker 2: to a point where you're super stressed about something and
Speaker 2: you start to feel anxious, which is simply just feeling
Speaker 2: stressed all the time. I mean, anxiety and stress are
Speaker 2: the same physiological things in your body. I didn't know
Speaker 2: this at the time when I was forty one. I
Speaker 2: just knew that I had eight hundred thousand dollars in debt,
Speaker 2: that the bills were piling up on the kitchen counter.
Speaker 2: I couldn't open them. I didn't have money in the
Speaker 2: bank anyway, I didn't. We were struggling to get gas
Speaker 2: in the tank and food on the table. I hadn't
Speaker 2: told my parents, I hadn't told my friends, friends had invested.
Speaker 2: We're also in a community where we have lots of
Speaker 2: friends and you're trying to keep up and you don't
Speaker 2: want people to know. And so I did feel paralyzed.
Speaker 2: And the thing that's interesting that I really want to
Speaker 2: underscore for particularly the person that's listening and spending time
Speaker 2: with us right now, whether this applies to you in
Speaker 2: your life at this moment, or it applies to somebody
Speaker 2: that you love who is seemingly stuck. Is that nobody's
Speaker 2: actually stuck. A person who's stuck isn't actually paralleled because
Speaker 2: you're in deep conflict with yourself. You know when you're
Speaker 2: not thriving. You know when you're making decisions that are
Speaker 2: taking your life down the wrong road. Like the hardest
Speaker 2: working person in a classroom is not the person getting a's.
Speaker 2: It's the person that's failing because they're struggling all the time.
Speaker 2: Even if it looks like they're not doing anything on
Speaker 2: the outside, they're constantly in conflict knowing that they are
Speaker 2: not reaching their potential, that they're not trying how they can.
Speaker 2: Same thing is true with health. Someone in your life
Speaker 2: that you wish that would be healthy. We make the
Speaker 2: mistake of thinking they're not motivated. That's not true at all.
Speaker 2: They're in deep conflict with themselves. They know that there
Speaker 2: are things that they can do. It's not an issue
Speaker 2: of willpower, it's an issue of skill. And so I
Speaker 2: think that's an important backdrop because I didn't know any
Speaker 2: of this, and so you can start to feel like
Speaker 2: you're the only one that's trapped. You're the idiot that
Speaker 2: can't figure this out, that somehow you screwed up when
Speaker 2: truly it's not just you that there are things you
Speaker 2: can do. And for me, I knew what I needed
Speaker 2: to do. I'm not an idiot. I knew that if
Speaker 2: we're that much in debt, Katie, I need to get
Speaker 2: a job. I could ask for help. I need to
Speaker 2: get my butt out the front door and go for
Speaker 2: a walk, because all the experts say it's going to
Speaker 2: make me feel better. I know that drinking half a
Speaker 2: bottle of bourbon every night is probably not helping the situation.
Speaker 2: Neither is waking up hungover and then hitting the snooze
Speaker 2: button six times. But you get so stuck in the
Speaker 2: stress of it, and that keeps you in it. And
Speaker 2: so what happened, And this is the true story. It
Speaker 2: was February two thousand and eight, and so also the
Speaker 2: housing crisis going down, and I'm sitting in front of
Speaker 2: the television.
Speaker 1: I'm like, that's it.
Speaker 2: Mel Robbins. Tomorrow morning, woman, it's a new you. Tomorrow morning.
Speaker 2: You have got to stop drinking. You have got to
Speaker 2: stop screaming a Chris. It's not like he tried to
Speaker 2: fail at the restaurant business. You know, you gotta call
Speaker 2: your parents. You got to you got to pick up
Speaker 2: the phone and look for a job. And by God, woman,
Speaker 2: when that alarm rings, you cannot lay there like a
Speaker 2: human pot roast, marinating and fear staring at the ceiling.
Speaker 2: You have got to get your butt out of bed
Speaker 2: and get those kids on the bus. And all of
Speaker 2: a sudden, this rocket ship launches across the television screen,
Speaker 2: and it gave me this crazy idea. I thought it
Speaker 2: was like a sign from Like, that's a sign from God.
Speaker 2: Tomorrow morning, when that alarm rings, mel you are gonna
Speaker 2: launch yourself out of bed like a rocket ship. You're
Speaker 2: gonna move so fast you're not gonna be in that
Speaker 2: bed when that anxiety hits. Now, it could have been
Speaker 2: the four bourbon Manhattans. It gave me that idea because
Speaker 2: I was drinking an awful lot back then, and.
Speaker 1: It sounds kind of stupid.
Speaker 2: Yeah right, They're delicious, especially this time of year, so
Speaker 2: it sounds stupid. So the next morning, the alarm ring,
Speaker 2: and that's when I saw something that I'd never seen before.
Speaker 2: And once you embrace what I'm about to share with you,
Speaker 2: you will never look at life the same again. There
Speaker 2: is a five second window that defines your whole life.
Speaker 2: It determines how much money you make, It determines how
Speaker 2: healthy you are, It determines the kind of relationship you
Speaker 2: have with your kids and with your parents and with
Speaker 2: your loved ones. It's this five second window between knowing
Speaker 2: what you need to do and actually doing it. There's
Speaker 2: this moment of hesitation that we all have in the
Speaker 2: small moments in life, where you have this instinct that
Speaker 2: you should pick up the phone or start the conversation,
Speaker 2: or get off the couch and go to the gym,
Speaker 2: and instead of actually doing it, we make this fatal
Speaker 2: mistake where we hesitate and then we stop and think
Speaker 2: about how we feel about doing it. And so that morning,
Speaker 2: Tuesday morning, February two thousand and eight, the alarm rings
Speaker 2: and I immediately remember that dumb idea at a launch
Speaker 2: out of bed, and I stop and think, do I
Speaker 2: feel like getting out of bed? I'm like, it's it's cold,
Speaker 2: it's winter in Massachusetts. How the hell is this going
Speaker 2: to help. I'm mean, hundred thousand dollars in day, I
Speaker 2: don't want to get out of bed, and I start
Speaker 2: reaching for the snooze button. Because it was a habit
Speaker 2: and a habit's just a pattern. And for whatever reason,
Speaker 2: I just started counting backwards that morning, five four three
Speaker 2: two one, and then I stood up and it struck
Speaker 2: me like, I was kind of like, that's strange. And
Speaker 2: I was in such a state of desperation that I
Speaker 2: just dismissed my kind of pragmatic, cynical side, and I thought,
Speaker 2: what if this is a sign from God? What if
Speaker 2: this is a magic trip, what if this works? And
Speaker 2: so I made myself a promise. I said, any moment
Speaker 2: that I have today where I know what I could
Speaker 2: do but I don't feel like it, I'm just going
Speaker 2: to count backwards and see what happens. And that was
Speaker 2: the beginning of an entirely new life.
Speaker 1: If you want to get smarter every morning with a
Speaker 1: breakdown of the news and fascinating takes on health and
Speaker 1: wellness and pop culture, sign up for our daily newsletter,
Speaker 1: Wake Up Call by going to Katiecuric dot com. So
Speaker 1: here we are seven years later, and your journey has continued. Yes,
Speaker 1: and you are still writing and thinking about ways that
Speaker 1: could improve your life that as a result, is improving
Speaker 1: the lives of so many other people. And your new book,
Speaker 1: which you wrote with your daughter Sawyer is called the
Speaker 1: Let Them Theory. So that's obviously the focus of our
Speaker 1: conversation today because we want everyone to read this book.
Speaker 1: And I know you just had an interview with Oprah
Speaker 1: and she said, I mean, this is a woman who
Speaker 1: knows about self help. Mel And what did she say
Speaker 1: to you about your book?
Speaker 2: I'm still processing it. She said that this is the
Speaker 2: single best self help book she has ever read.
Speaker 1: Wow, And that.
Speaker 2: It is the message and tool that humanity needs right
Speaker 2: now for this extremely overwhelming and challenging and conflict driven
Speaker 2: moment in time that we're all living in. Because ultimately,
Speaker 2: the Let Them Theory is about what you can control
Speaker 2: and what you can't control, and it is ultimately a
Speaker 2: book that will fundamentally change your relationship to yourself and
Speaker 2: your relationship to other people.
Speaker 1: This all started in May of twenty twenty three. Yes,
Speaker 1: when you posted on TikTok about the Let Them Theory
Speaker 1: of video that went uber uber viral. Yes, you were,
Speaker 1: I guess writing the book at the time. Oh no,
Speaker 1: no, no no, So the TikTok video prompted the book.
Speaker 2: Well, what happened is I had an experience I never
Speaker 2: thought i'd be sitting across from you, Katie, saying, I
Speaker 2: discovered something at a high school prom that changed my life.
Speaker 2: But it was our son. We have three children, they're
Speaker 2: twenty five, twenty three, and nineteen. It was Soakley, right, Yeah,
Speaker 2: Oakley was at his prom and I was your typical
Speaker 2: psycho micromanaging mother from the carsage, to the tucks, to
Speaker 2: the shoes to this to that. And we're at the
Speaker 2: pre prom party and our daughter Kendall, who's twenty three,
Speaker 2: was home from college at the time, and they're taking
Speaker 2: photos and then all of a sudden, out of nowhere, Katie,
Speaker 2: it starts pouring ring And so you got twenty kids
Speaker 2: in black tie and all these parents milling about and
Speaker 2: they're about to all leave to head out, and nobody
Speaker 2: has umbrellas and nobody has any raincoats. And by the way,
Speaker 2: for some reason, all the kids in southern Vermont drive
Speaker 2: to the prom, which was new to me, you know,
Speaker 2: raising our daughters in Boston, where everybody had buses and
Speaker 2: this and that. And so I'm like, wait, you're driving.
Speaker 2: Why are you borrowing dad's truck? Like, what's gonna happen
Speaker 2: with it? I don't understand this, And now it's raining.
Speaker 2: And then I say to Oakley, where are you guys
Speaker 2: going for dinner? As they're trying to head out the door,
Speaker 2: and the parents are like, wait, you can't go yeah,
Speaker 2: and he's like, I don't know. And I was like,
Speaker 2: you don't have reservations for prom? He's like no, And
Speaker 2: I turned to my husband. I'm like, they do I
Speaker 2: have reservations for prom? And he's like, a guest's not.
Speaker 2: And I'm like why. I don't know why it bothered
Speaker 2: me so much, but it bothered me Katie. And so
Speaker 2: I go, well, hold on, let me see if I
Speaker 2: can find you something. And now all the parents are
Speaker 2: milling about and I'm starting to you know, when you
Speaker 2: get that like volcano of emotion.
Speaker 1: That just yeah, you know, I'm familiar with that.
Speaker 2: And as it's coming up and you feel the words
Speaker 2: coming you're out of your mouth, or the text that
Speaker 2: you're about to kind of send coming, and I'm starting
Speaker 2: to feel that wave of panic hit as I'm trying
Speaker 2: to find a reservation and we're trying to get twenty
Speaker 2: kids to not run out into a rainstorm and just
Speaker 2: destroy their hair and their dresses and their shoes. My
Speaker 2: daughter sees it coming and she reaches out and grabs
Speaker 2: my arm and yanks me to her, and she like
Speaker 2: grits her teeth and she's like, them, you're being annoying.
Speaker 2: If they want to go to the taco stamp, let them.
Speaker 2: If they want to be in the print, let them.
Speaker 2: If he's going to run his shoes, let them. And
Speaker 2: she started saying this cascade of let her ruin her hair,
Speaker 2: let them ud get under dress, let them do what
Speaker 2: they want to do, and she kind of ended it
Speaker 2: with mom, it's their prom, not yours. Let them, and
Speaker 2: that final let them was like a sledgehammer, And all
Speaker 2: of a sudden, my shoulders just dropped, and I thought,
Speaker 2: let them, like why do I care? Like why am
Speaker 2: I not thinking about where I'm going to dinner? And
Speaker 2: so I said to o, hey, Oak, and he turned around.
Speaker 2: He's like, what you know, because of course I've been
Speaker 2: super irritating and annoying. And I'm like nothing, but here's
Speaker 2: forty bucks. Go have fun. And then you saw his
Speaker 2: shoulders drop and there was this huge smile that his
Speaker 2: face and that was that. And the next day I
Speaker 2: woke up and I'm at the grocery store and there's
Speaker 2: like five people in front of me and one cashier
Speaker 2: and it's like beep pep me. And again that sort
Speaker 2: of like volcano of emotion starts rising up, and I start,
Speaker 2: what do you do in line when that's happening.
Speaker 1: You get exasperated and you're rolling your eyes and you're
Speaker 1: like clearing your throats and you're getting aggravated.
Speaker 2: Yes, and you now think that you know how to
Speaker 2: run a grocery store better than the manager. And I said,
Speaker 2: let them, and my shoulders dropped and I just started
Speaker 2: using it and I started to notice something. Oh my god,
Speaker 2: people are really annoying. Holy cow. People's moods are really
Speaker 2: getting to me. Wow, that Zoom meeting really drained me.
Speaker 2: Holy cow. I've got opinions about traffic, I've got opinions
Speaker 2: about my mother in law's expectations, I've got And it
Speaker 2: occurred to me, holy cow, I'm allowing so many people
Speaker 2: and so much stuff that's beneath me, and that is
Speaker 2: not my job to manage to drain the two most
Speaker 2: precious resources I have in life, time and energy. See,
Speaker 2: your life is determined by what you put your time
Speaker 2: into and what you pour your energy into, and so
Speaker 2: I've got news for you. If you are tired, or
Speaker 2: you are overwhelmed, or you feel like you're last on
Speaker 2: your list, or you're just frustrated with some dynamic in
Speaker 2: a relationship, or you're frustrated with the world at large,
Speaker 2: or you're just not as happy as you'd like to be,
Speaker 2: the problem isn't you. The problem is that you unknowingly
Speaker 2: give power to other people and to things that you
Speaker 2: can't control. And all day long, you're allowing people who
Speaker 2: are an annoying or who are emotionally immature, or who
Speaker 2: are doing things that you're never going to be able
Speaker 2: to control.
Speaker 1: Anyway, to impact you.
Speaker 2: And it's stupid. And so I use this for a week,
Speaker 2: and I'm telling you, Katie, just like I felt, I knew.
Speaker 2: I have never felt this peaceful. I have never felt
Speaker 2: like I truly could put boundaries up between me and
Speaker 2: the world. I had never felt more in control. And
Speaker 2: so I naturally went to social media and I shared
Speaker 2: this simple thing, and I was literally like, you know,
Speaker 2: if your friends don't invite you, out let them. If
Speaker 2: your kids don't want to help you do something, let them.
Speaker 2: If the person that you're dating doesn't want a commitment,
Speaker 2: let them. Let people reveal who they are and what
Speaker 2: they care about, stop trying to manage them. Because when
Speaker 2: somebody reveals who they are and what they care about,
Speaker 2: now you get to choose. You get to choose whether
Speaker 2: or not you pour time and energy into this. In
Speaker 2: twenty four hours, it was fifteen million views.
Speaker 1: Why did it resonate so much? You think, why do
Speaker 1: you think it did? Maybe because increasingly people have felt
Speaker 1: out of control in this crazy world we're living in
Speaker 1: for a whole host of reasons. Yes, And maybe their
Speaker 1: impulse to control has gotten stronger as the world's gotten scarier.
Speaker 1: And so maybe that, you know, to Oprah's point, at
Speaker 1: this moment in time, this is what people really needed
Speaker 1: to hear, because people feel out of control, and I
Speaker 1: guess your response is to control more when you feel
Speaker 1: that way, right.
Speaker 2: Exactly, And actually you're the first person that has explained
Speaker 2: it that way, and you're exactly right. And one of
Speaker 2: the things that is so powerful about this, especially in
Speaker 2: this moment in time, is that ultimately every human being
Speaker 2: has a hardwired need to be in control. It is
Speaker 2: it is a survival mechan it is something that you
Speaker 2: will never get rid of. And we've been working against it. See,
Speaker 2: when you're in control of your life, you actually feel
Speaker 2: safe and you feel confident, and you feel.
Speaker 1: Like less scared.
Speaker 2: Yes we are, you know, yes we are. Whether you're
Speaker 2: scared because your adult children aren't doing well, or you're
Speaker 2: scared because your parents' health are failing, or whether you're
Speaker 2: scared because of the state of politics, or you're scared
Speaker 2: because you see the rising cost of living, or you're
Speaker 2: scared because you have a health diagnosis. And so we
Speaker 2: need to feel like we're in control of our decisions,
Speaker 2: of our actions, of our future, of our lives. And
Speaker 2: we also, by the way, and this is where it
Speaker 2: gets tricky, is that when somebody around us does something
Speaker 2: that worries us, or hurts us, or frustrates the hell
Speaker 2: out of us us or stresses us out, guess what,
Speaker 2: it makes us feel like we're not in control because
Speaker 2: now we're worried about you. So then what do we
Speaker 2: do We try to control you and fix problems. Yes, right, yes,
Speaker 2: But then here's the problem, Katie. If your behavior is
Speaker 2: stressing me out and I then step in and try
Speaker 2: to tell you what to do, guess what. You also
Speaker 2: have a need to be in control of yourself, and
Speaker 2: so you are going to push back against me. And
Speaker 2: so we have gotten into this state in our families,
Speaker 2: in our love lives, with our kids, with our friends,
Speaker 2: and even at a global level when you talk about
Speaker 2: global conversations or the way that people are so polarized.
Speaker 2: We have gotten to a point where our need to
Speaker 2: control has spiraled out of control. And the fundamental thing
Speaker 2: that I need that I'm trying to make everybody understand
Speaker 2: is this. If there is one thing on the planet
Speaker 2: you will never be able to control. It's what another
Speaker 2: person does, says, or feels. Period. Any energy you put
Speaker 2: into trying to control what somebody does or trying to
Speaker 2: manipulate how they feel or trying to ensure that they're
Speaker 2: going to think a certain thing will backfire. It will
Speaker 2: create more stress and frustration for you, and it will
Speaker 2: create more friction and tension in your relationships. I worked
Speaker 2: against this fundamental law in every relationship I had for
Speaker 2: fifty four years. And when I discovered the let them theory,
Speaker 2: and I started saying let them because here's how the
Speaker 2: theory works. There's two parts. Any moment that you're frustrated,
Speaker 2: you read the headlines, you're frustrated for me. This morning,
Speaker 2: I literally got stuck in an elevator and had to
Speaker 2: be rescued by the New York City Fire Department. Shout
Speaker 2: out to Latter seven. You guys were amazing. We're in
Speaker 2: there for fifty minutes. Do you want to know how
Speaker 2: I didn't have a panic attack. I recognized in the
Speaker 2: moment what's in my control. It's not, So let them.
Speaker 2: Let them take their time, them figure out how to
Speaker 2: do this safely. Let them do what they're.
Speaker 1: Going to do, the same thing happened to me on
Speaker 1: Saturday night, but only for ten minutes.
Speaker 2: Yeah, but your mind can start spending very quickly.
Speaker 1: Yeah.
Speaker 2: So when you say let them, you recognize there is
Speaker 2: nothing about being in an elevator that you have control of.
Speaker 2: So when you say it, you're actually detaching from the
Speaker 2: thing you can't control, and so therefore you're protecting yourself
Speaker 2: from a necessary stress and you're conserving your energy. And
Speaker 2: then you say the second part.
Speaker 1: Which is let me Right, I was going to ask
Speaker 1: you about let me before we talk about let me melt,
Speaker 1: let me ask you about one of your them examples. Yes,
Speaker 1: and it was letting your kids If your kids don't
Speaker 1: want to do something, let them. So I have to
Speaker 1: say I had an immediate reaction to that, and I
Speaker 1: sort of envisioned my parents wanting me to go to
Speaker 1: Sunday school when I was a kid, or if I
Speaker 1: wanted my kids to go somewhere because we had made
Speaker 1: a commitment to be somewhere. I can't even think of
Speaker 1: an example. I mean, if you just let them, isn't
Speaker 1: that an invitation to raise really entitled spoiled brats. Absolutely,
Speaker 1: and that example, honestly, I was like, I'm with mel
Speaker 1: all the way, but not with kids necessarily.
Speaker 2: Well, it depends on the age of the kids, and
Speaker 2: it also depends on the dynamic. And so first, this
Speaker 2: is really a book about adult relationships, and so with kids,
Speaker 2: you're actually in charge. And there's a huge distinction in
Speaker 2: this book. And at the very end of the book,
Speaker 2: in the appendix, there's a guide that you can download
Speaker 2: that is all about how you use this with small
Speaker 2: children versus how you use this with young adults and
Speaker 2: adult children.
Speaker 1: Got it, But what about say I was envisioning teenagers
Speaker 1: right who didn't want to go to a funeral. I'm
Speaker 1: just throwing that at as an example. I'm not going
Speaker 1: to let them say I don't want to go.
Speaker 2: Well, here's what you can say. You have to let
Speaker 2: them say they don't want to go, because that's what
Speaker 2: they're saying. It's already happened. But then you say, they
Speaker 2: let me part, and you realize that my control here
Speaker 2: is truly in what I think, what I do, and
Speaker 2: how I react to my own feelings, Because if a
Speaker 2: kid doesn't want to go, that might be a really
Speaker 2: mentally well response to a very overwhelming situation that scares
Speaker 2: the hell.
Speaker 1: Okay, yeah, maybe it don't use funeral as an example,
Speaker 1: like a grandmother's birthday.
Speaker 2: Yes, of hear no one wants to?
Speaker 1: Yeah?
Speaker 2: Yes, and so you're going to just you say let
Speaker 2: them right, because you don't want to get pissed off,
Speaker 2: because then your emotions are now driving how you respond.
Speaker 1: And well, how do you respond when your sixteen year
Speaker 1: old says, I don't want to go to Nana's birthday?
Speaker 2: Yeah? I completely understand, and honestly neither do I. But
Speaker 2: here's the thing. Do you love her?
Speaker 1: Yes?
Speaker 2: And how do you think it's going to make her
Speaker 2: feel if you don't go? And what kind of character
Speaker 2: and value do you have as a person? And don't
Speaker 2: you think it's going to make you feel like a
Speaker 2: good person to show up for your grandma? Like sometimes
Speaker 2: in life the decision to make is don't go because
Speaker 2: it makes her feel good, go because it makes you
Speaker 2: know that you're a good person, because you show up
Speaker 2: for people that show up for you.
Speaker 1: So let them is not necessarily for kids or even teenagers.
Speaker 1: Let them acknowledge their feelings, but none don't.
Speaker 2: Override them like a psycho bitch like I used to be, Like,
Speaker 2: I don't care how you feel, Get in the car,
Speaker 2: get your stuff running late anyway? Like do you see what?
Speaker 1: Do you see the difference?
Speaker 2: And do you see the other thing that I was
Speaker 2: doing in the role play?
Speaker 1: See?
Speaker 2: As a parent, you are responsible for your children's emotional
Speaker 2: well being. You're responsible for feeding them, for keeping them safe,
Speaker 2: for providing for them, and you're also responsible more importantly
Speaker 2: for helping them figure out who they are and helping
Speaker 2: them understand what character means. And what I was doing
Speaker 2: because I was able to say, let them, let them
Speaker 2: be a sixteen year old, because no sixteen year old
Speaker 2: wants to go to a grandmother's birthday for crying out loud.
Speaker 2: They want to be on their phones with their friends.
Speaker 2: That's an age appropriate reaction to that situation. So me
Speaker 2: reacting like a tornado or a volcano just makes them wrong.
Speaker 2: And what I do instead is I get control of
Speaker 2: myself and I act like a mature adult instead of
Speaker 2: an immature adult who then bars and vents at my child.
Speaker 2: I acknowledge how they feel, and then I step into
Speaker 2: my role, which is this is a teaching opportunity.
Speaker 1: So I was going to ask you to close the
Speaker 1: circle on the let them and how it leads to
Speaker 1: the let me, because that's such an important part of this.
Speaker 1: So tell me what's in it for me? Everything?
Speaker 2: Just three selfish everything. Do you want to feel peaceful?
Speaker 2: Do you want to feel powerful? Do you want to
Speaker 2: go through life and insulate yourself from all the stressful
Speaker 2: things that happen all day long? Of course you do.
Speaker 2: And you can't do that without first giving up control
Speaker 2: of everything around you. So you can't get sober until
Speaker 2: you stop drinking. You can't take control of your life,
Speaker 2: or your confidence, or your power until you stop trying
Speaker 2: to control everyone and everything around you. And when you
Speaker 2: say let them, two things happen. Number One, you detach.
Speaker 2: So now one of the reasons why this is also
Speaker 2: so extraordinarily powerful is because I didn't just create this
Speaker 2: out of thin airror this exists. The let them theory
Speaker 2: exists in a time continuum that dates all the way
Speaker 2: back to ancient history. The let them theory is deeply
Speaker 2: rooted in Stoicism, Buddhism, radical acceptance, detachment theory. So the
Speaker 2: power that you're feeling is from thousands of years of
Speaker 2: people really talking about Stoic philosophy or being a practicing Buddhist,
Speaker 2: or learning about radical acceptance. In fact, we were with
Speaker 2: doctor Martin Luther King, Junior's son and his daughter in
Speaker 2: law couple days ago, and as we were talking about
Speaker 2: the let Them theory, they reflected that this is representative
Speaker 2: of doctor Martin Luther King's work because it is all
Speaker 2: that is the heart of civil disobedience and peaceful protest,
Speaker 2: that you have to learn that the power is not
Speaker 2: in the oppressor. The power is in your response to it.
Speaker 2: That peace, that love, that non response at times is
Speaker 2: so much more powerful than hate, and that's the only
Speaker 2: thing that's in your control. And so I know that
Speaker 2: this works because I have such deep respect for the
Speaker 2: lineage and the history through religion, through philosophy, through psychology,
Speaker 2: through some of the most important moments in human time
Speaker 2: about what actually created power and breakthroughs for people for
Speaker 2: moments in time. And it's in focusing on the power
Speaker 2: that you have. You know, Professor Margaret Meade said that
Speaker 2: quote that you and I both love, which is, you
Speaker 2: know it just takes a handful of committed citizens to
Speaker 2: change everything. In fact, that's the only thing that ever has.
Speaker 2: And if you don't like what you see happening in
Speaker 2: your community, or in your family, or in your marriage
Speaker 2: or with your adult children, don't look to them to
Speaker 2: fix it. Look to yourself. Stop underestimating your power, your
Speaker 2: ability through your energy and your action to shift anything
Speaker 2: over time. And that's why I think this has resonated.
Speaker 1: I would think this would be the anti let me
Speaker 1: fix it mentality, right not.
Speaker 2: See, most of us when we say let's fix this,
Speaker 2: are obsessed with what we're trying, with the thing we're
Speaker 2: trying to fix, or what other people are doing. Stop
Speaker 2: looking at what everybody else is doing, and come inward
Speaker 2: and drop into your value and your character and decide
Speaker 2: what matters to you and the way that you know
Speaker 2: that something matters to you is not because you're thinking
Speaker 2: about it. It's because you're doing something about it. And
Speaker 2: when you are spending so much time I'm worried about this,
Speaker 2: or I'm worried about that, or that person's frustrating me.
Speaker 2: What's happening every time you allow somebody else's behavior or
Speaker 2: what they say to hurt you, to impact you, is
Speaker 2: you're draining the very energy and time that you need
Speaker 2: to get to work or to get out of the relationship.
Speaker 2: And one other thing I want to be very clear
Speaker 2: about because you know, one of the things that a
Speaker 2: lot of people, you know, when they are saying, well,
Speaker 2: what about this, it's always about kids, And you're one
Speaker 2: hundred percent right. This is not for little kids. This
Speaker 2: is for you as an adult to actually be the
Speaker 2: mature adult and to be in control of your emotions
Speaker 2: and to model behavior and values for your children, because
Speaker 2: that's who they learn it from. And most of the
Speaker 2: problems that we have right now are because we've got
Speaker 2: a bunch of adults walking around that are basically immature
Speaker 2: eight year olds inside of big bodies, and we're treating
Speaker 2: them like adults instead of seeing that their little children
Speaker 2: emotionally let them because you can't control them, and then
Speaker 2: when you say let me, there's only three things you
Speaker 2: can ever control. It's your thoughts about what just happened
Speaker 2: and what you want to do next. It's whether or
Speaker 2: not you want to respond and how you respond. And
Speaker 2: it's how you allow your emotions to rise and fall
Speaker 2: and what you do with them or whether you let
Speaker 2: them run you over. That's it.
Speaker 1: That's all you got, speaking of emotions. It's I think
Speaker 1: you make some interesting observations about jealousy and about comparison.
Speaker 1: And I think we live in a world where you know,
Speaker 1: when I was growing up, I didn't know who had
Speaker 1: what I mean, I might have known the neighbors got
Speaker 1: a fancy new car, right, you know, could afford to
Speaker 1: do something my family couldn't. But it wasn't, you know,
Speaker 1: it wasn't in my face all the time. Yes, And
Speaker 1: now we are seeing all these different life experiences. And
Speaker 1: in addition to Margaret Meade, I love the quote that
Speaker 1: comparison is the thief of joy, which I thought was Emerson,
Speaker 1: but it's actually Teddy Roosevelt. Although a lot of people,
Speaker 1: I guess have been that quote has been attributed to
Speaker 1: a lot of people. You talk about using those in
Speaker 1: a positive way. That jealousy is actually not a bad thing.
Speaker 2: No, unless you're wishing somebody bad, But again let them like,
Speaker 2: I can't control whether or not what somebody does with
Speaker 2: their jealousy, but I can teach you how to use
Speaker 2: it to your advantage. So, first of all, jealousy is
Speaker 2: deeply personal because it's tied to what you desire, and
Speaker 2: you're never going to feel jealous over something you don't want.
Speaker 2: Like I'm not jealous in the least when I see
Speaker 2: somebody pull up in a Lamborghini. I don't want one.
Speaker 2: I don't care about it. There's nothing that you could
Speaker 2: do to make me jealous of somebody. But if I
Speaker 2: see somebody that I was just talking to my friend
Speaker 2: Jays Shetty and he has.
Speaker 1: Really does any of the most beautiful eyes not to
Speaker 1: be oh my gosh, you're like.
Speaker 2: Light light, light, light, light green. So we were just
Speaker 2: hanging out the other day, I were really really good friends.
Speaker 2: And that's the other thing I want to say. The
Speaker 2: very people that you're jealous of because they're doing what
Speaker 2: you're doing, should be your closest friends because they're the
Speaker 2: only people on the planet that know what you're going through.
Speaker 2: And what a shame is it that you look at
Speaker 2: people that are in your industry or that are doing
Speaker 2: what you want to do as competitors or enemies that
Speaker 2: you're against, because they should actually be your greatest collaborators.
Speaker 2: This was this huge revelation with let them, because I
Speaker 2: used to look at my friends and be like, they
Speaker 2: got a new kitchen, she has a beautiful handbag, she
Speaker 2: just got a promotion, now she's getting married, they're pregnant.
Speaker 2: I'm what does that do? That sort of energy just
Speaker 2: rises the stress in you, and then you start thinking
Speaker 2: about it and you tell yourself it's never going to
Speaker 2: be me.
Speaker 1: And I love this idea of upward comparison versus downwards. Yes,
Speaker 1: so it is basically envy versus gratitude.
Speaker 2: Yes, like we are we default to looking up and
Speaker 2: above and seeing people that are doing better and then
Speaker 2: using somebody else's example to shame ourselves or beat ourselves up.
Speaker 2: It's never going to be me. There's already too many podcasts.
Speaker 2: I shouldn't launch one now. Ur I'm never going to
Speaker 2: be able to renovate my kitchen because she just did.
Speaker 2: I can't have white cabinets because my friend is going
Speaker 2: to think I somehow copied her, yes, exact. Can you
Speaker 2: know what ridiculousness this is? And so learning to say
Speaker 2: let them taught me something important about life. Other people
Speaker 2: never block your way. They only lead the way because
Speaker 2: you're not actually playing against people in life, you're playing
Speaker 2: with them. And if you can say let them, let
Speaker 2: them have their success, let them have their Lamborghini, let
Speaker 2: them have a million dollars, let them get married, let
Speaker 2: them have the love story, let them earn a million bucks,
Speaker 2: let them do this, let them do that. Now you're
Speaker 2: detached because you're only jealous because you want that thing.
Speaker 2: So let them, let them lead the way, and then
Speaker 2: say let me, let me remind myself that if they've
Speaker 2: done it, there's a formula, and if I'm not so
Speaker 2: day i'm emotional and jealous, I can wake up and
Speaker 2: follow the formula. And if I just let me remind
Speaker 2: myself that if I put my head down, I can
Speaker 2: slowly chip away at it. And I can ten years
Speaker 2: from now, fifteen years from now, five years from now,
Speaker 2: I can save my money. I can change my job.
Speaker 2: I can learn how to be financially responsible. I can
Speaker 2: learn how to find love again. Let them, let them,
Speaker 2: let them, because the more you let them lead the
Speaker 2: way and then you say let me, the faster you're
Speaker 2: going to find the way to all the things that
Speaker 2: you want.
Speaker 1: At the end of the day. I guess your book
Speaker 1: is really about control and letting go and not sweating
Speaker 1: the small stuff or really the big stuff. Right now,
Speaker 1: sometimes letting go can be very painful, especially I think
Speaker 1: during these divided times. And you write in your book.
Speaker 2: But this isn't and go. It's very different, I believe, okay,
Speaker 2: because for me, being a complete type a control freak,
Speaker 2: I don't want to let anything go because it means
Speaker 2: I lost. See when you say I just have to
Speaker 2: let it go, I have to let it go that
Speaker 2: you know they voted for that person. I have a
Speaker 2: different I have to let it go. Doesn't that feel
Speaker 2: like you're surrendering to defeat. Yes, that's why I hate it.
Speaker 2: I've never been able to let anything go. Let them
Speaker 2: is very different because let them is you seeing things
Speaker 2: as they are and you are detaching from it, which
Speaker 2: means you are choosing to no longer put time and
Speaker 2: energy into it. And it's the opposite because when I
Speaker 2: say I have to let it go, I feel defeated
Speaker 2: and less than when I say let them, I feel
Speaker 2: superior because I'm kind of like, I see what you're
Speaker 2: doing over there, and I recognize that my time is
Speaker 2: better spent attacking this a different way.
Speaker 1: But also, I think you mean let them do whatever
Speaker 1: they're going to do, because, as you write in the book,
Speaker 1: these people will reveal who they are through your detachment, yes,
Speaker 1: and allowing them to show their true character, true selves.
Speaker 2: Yes. So you know some people will say, wait, I'm
Speaker 2: just supposed to be treated like a doormat. I'm supposed
Speaker 2: to let them abuse me. Absolutely not, You're already doing that.
Speaker 2: When you say let them, you're actually, for the first
Speaker 2: time doing what psychologists need you to do, which is
Speaker 2: you're detaching from the person and you're probably seeing them
Speaker 2: for the first time. It's amazing because when you say
Speaker 2: let them, you detach from something you can't control. When
Speaker 2: you say let me, you take your power back because
Speaker 2: you prompt yourself. In any moment, whether it's at the
Speaker 2: grocery store line that's stressing you out or it's something
Speaker 2: that somebody said that hurt you, let me is where
Speaker 2: you actually get to choose what you do in response
Speaker 2: to it because what you think, what you do, how
Speaker 2: you process your emotions. They'll let me part is everything
Speaker 2: because that's where your power is, and you always have power.
Speaker 2: And that's what this taught man, It's what it's going
Speaker 2: to teach you.
Speaker 1: I love that you take your life experience and then
Speaker 1: translate it into great practical tips for people. Mel Robbins,
Speaker 1: thank you very much. The book is the Let Them
Speaker 1: Theory written with your daughter Sawyer. I want to make
Speaker 1: sure she gets credit here too. Thank you so much.
Speaker 1: This was so much fun and I can't wait to
Speaker 1: put into practice this whole philosophy because I'm a bit
Speaker 1: of a control freak too.
Speaker 2: Well, you're going to love it and your kids are
Speaker 2: going to love it even more.
Speaker 1: Thanks for listening everyone. If you have a question for me,
Speaker 1: a subject you want us to cover, or you want
Speaker 1: to share your thoughts about how you navigate this crazy world,
Speaker 1: reach out send me a DM on Instagram. I would
Speaker 1: love to hear hear from you. Next Question is a
Speaker 1: production of iHeartMedia and Katie Couric Media. The executive producers
Speaker 1: are Me, Katie Kuric, and Courtney Ltz. Our supervising producer
Speaker 1: is Ryan Martz. And our producers are Adriana Fazzio and
Speaker 1: Meredith Barnes. Julian Weller composed our theme music. For more
Speaker 1: information about today's episode, or to sign up for my newsletter,
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