Speaker 1: Every human being has a hard wired need to be
Speaker 1: in control of everything. There's three things in your control JA,
Speaker 1: what you think, what you do or don't do, and
Speaker 1: how you process your emotions. If you embrace the skill,
Speaker 1: you're going to be shocked.
Speaker 2: This is by far one of the best self helpe
Speaker 2: books I've ever read.
Speaker 1: Your Mind and Soul are in for a Tree, The
Speaker 1: Queen of grounded science backed personal development Mail Robbist.
Speaker 2: Work has been seen as the number one cause of stress.
Speaker 1: You have a customer that's really rude, you lose a
Speaker 1: big account, you get passed over for something. As you
Speaker 1: notice the stress come up, Jay, You're simply going to
Speaker 1: say let them. If you focus and try to manage
Speaker 1: things that are never going to be within your control,
Speaker 1: it only creates stress, anxiety, and frustration for you.
Speaker 2: Imagine, for every thought you had about that person, you
Speaker 2: have to pay them a dollar. That's how much energy,
Speaker 2: time and money is being wasted.
Speaker 1: You have no idea right now how much time and
Speaker 1: energy is being wasted or drained because of other people's
Speaker 1: behavior or your expectations about how you wish things would go.
Speaker 1: This is I think my legacy. I think that this
Speaker 1: is the thing I was supposed to figure out and
Speaker 1: leave the world.
Speaker 2: The number one health and wellness podcast, Jay Setty Jay Setty.
Speaker 2: If you're struggling right now with things you can't control,
Speaker 2: this episode is for you. If you're someone who's struggling
Speaker 2: at work and negative people and toxic culture, this episode's
Speaker 2: for you. If you're someone who's struggling with your family
Speaker 2: members and your friends and setting boundaries, these episodes for you. So,
Speaker 2: mel where I want to start is work has been
Speaker 2: seen as the number one cause of stress. You write
Speaker 2: about this book in people's lives. How can they let
Speaker 2: them theory help people in the place that causes then
Speaker 2: the most stress.
Speaker 1: It's an excellent question. So first, let me no pun intended.
Speaker 1: Let me explain the theory. So in case you haven't
Speaker 1: bumped into this online, the theory is very simple. It
Speaker 1: is a mindset tool that instantly helps you identify what's
Speaker 1: in your control and what's not in your control. The
Speaker 1: reason why this is important is because any psychologists will
Speaker 1: tell you that if you focus and try to manage
Speaker 1: things that are never going to be within your control,
Speaker 1: it only creates stress, anxiety, and frustration for you. When
Speaker 1: you take the context of work. There is so much
Speaker 1: inside your day to day life at work that is irritating.
Speaker 1: It is stressful. It is annoying from the endless meetings
Speaker 1: and no time to get work done to if you're
Speaker 1: somebody that is working in a retail store, you're doing
Speaker 1: shift work. You don't have control over what shifts. You
Speaker 1: get to feeling like you don't have the chance for promotion.
Speaker 1: It is just endless. And the way that you're going
Speaker 1: to use the let them theory is anytime something is
Speaker 1: happening at work that stresses you out, you have a
Speaker 1: customer that's really rude, you lose a big account, you
Speaker 1: get passed over for something, your idea gets dismissed in
Speaker 1: a work meeting. As you notice the stress come up, Jay,
Speaker 1: you're simply going to say, let them. Let my boss
Speaker 1: be in a bad mood, let my colleague take credit,
Speaker 1: let the customer be rude to me. And here's the thing.
Speaker 1: This sounds almost like you're being a doormat and you're
Speaker 1: being passive. It's the exact opposite. When you say let them,
Speaker 1: you're recognizing that the situation right now that has just
Speaker 1: happened has already happened, and that there is no reason
Speaker 1: to allow it to stress you out. When you allow
Speaker 1: your boss's mood to stress you out or make you nervous,
Speaker 1: you're giving power to your boss that they do not deserve,
Speaker 1: and so you're going to say let them. When you
Speaker 1: allow a customer that is rude or inconsiderate to make
Speaker 1: you feel bad about yourself, or to make you upset,
Speaker 1: or to rattle you, you just gave this rude person
Speaker 1: power over you. When you say let them, something interesting happens.
Speaker 1: First of all, you detach. Second, you feel almost superior.
Speaker 1: It's this weird thing because I don't think this is
Speaker 1: the same thing as saying.
Speaker 2: Let it go.
Speaker 1: You're a very grounded person. Jay, you strike me as
Speaker 1: the kind of person that can let anything go.
Speaker 2: Ha me.
Speaker 1: Whenever somebody would say to me, mel I know, I
Speaker 1: know it's not fair, which just happened at work. You
Speaker 1: gotta let it go, I'd be like, but I feel
Speaker 1: like I lost. I feel like I now have to
Speaker 1: be defeated. I feel more like a doormat. If somebody
Speaker 1: tells me to let something go.
Speaker 2: What's the difference between let it go and let them?
Speaker 1: For me, when I say let them, I get a
Speaker 1: jolt to superiority because I'm like, I can see that
Speaker 1: my boss is kind of a jerk, and I'm just
Speaker 1: going to let them be a jerk, and I rise
Speaker 1: above it. And I feel a little judgy. I mean,
Speaker 1: if I'm being perfectly honest, I mean, this is why
Speaker 1: people get this tattooed on their bodies. Because when you
Speaker 1: say that word let them, or you see it on
Speaker 1: your arm, what happens is you no longer allowed a
Speaker 1: rude colleague or something frustrating at work to derail your day.
Speaker 1: You say let them, and you rise above it, and
Speaker 1: you kind of go, I see what's happening here. I'm
Speaker 1: going to allow this without allowing it. But then there's
Speaker 1: a second part, Jay, and this is the most important part,
Speaker 1: and it's the part that people do not tattoo on
Speaker 1: themselves because it's the harder part. And the second part
Speaker 1: of this theory is saying yourself, let me, let me
Speaker 1: remind myself that in life, there are always three things
Speaker 1: I can control. That's where my power is. My power
Speaker 1: is not in managing my boss or in trying to
Speaker 1: deal with some customer that just doesn't want to be
Speaker 1: in an okay mood, and doesn't want to be calmed down.
Speaker 1: They want to be right. They want to take it
Speaker 1: out on you. So you're gonna let them. But then
Speaker 1: you've created this boundary you rise above. I'm gonna just
Speaker 1: let you be upset here. I'm not gonna let it
Speaker 1: impact me. And then you say let me. And what
Speaker 1: you're reminding yourself of is there's three things in your control.
Speaker 1: Ja what you think, next, what you do or don't do,
Speaker 1: and oftentimes not doing something. It's the more powerful mood
Speaker 1: and how you process your emotions. Those are the three
Speaker 1: things that are always in your control. And when you say,
Speaker 1: let me take responsibility right now for how I'm going
Speaker 1: to respond to this. And the word responsibility, after all,
Speaker 1: is the ability to respond right. And so when you
Speaker 1: say let me, and you remember, I can think what
Speaker 1: I want about this, I can act in response to this,
Speaker 1: and I can process my emotions and either allow them
Speaker 1: to rise and fall and stay steady and calm, or
Speaker 1: you know, you can certainly irrupt if you want to.
Speaker 1: But why would you want to, because then that means
Speaker 1: you've given power to somebody else.
Speaker 2: Why are we so distracted and obsessed with things we
Speaker 2: can't control. I'm sure, we all have a friend or
Speaker 2: know someone who knows they need to be working on
Speaker 2: their business, but they're talking about the news. They know
Speaker 2: they should be writing their book, but they're focused on
Speaker 2: talking about politics. They know they should be building the
Speaker 2: next stage in their career or whatever it may be,
Speaker 2: trying to get that promotion, work towards that next threshold
Speaker 2: or whatever they're trying to achieve, but they're distracted by
Speaker 2: talking about all the people, all the things, all the
Speaker 2: ideas that they can do nothing about. Why are we
Speaker 2: so addicted to it?
Speaker 1: Well, I think there's two reasons, because your question is
Speaker 1: about two different things. One is why are we focused
Speaker 1: on things we can't control? And the other one is
Speaker 1: sort of like why are we distracted? And they're interconnected.
Speaker 1: So let's just address the issue of control. Every human
Speaker 1: being has a hard wired need to be in control
Speaker 1: of everything because being in control is what makes you
Speaker 1: feel safe. So I need to feel in control of
Speaker 1: my thoughts, my decisions, my environment, my future. And the
Speaker 1: problem is so do you. But part of the need
Speaker 1: for control jay extends beyond me, because if you're doing
Speaker 1: something that makes me annoyed or irritated or worried, about you.
Speaker 1: Now I'm feeling a little unsafer, worried because of what
Speaker 1: you're doing, and so now I'm going to want to
Speaker 1: control you so that I feel better. And so it
Speaker 1: is a fundamental, hardwired need inside every human being you know,
Speaker 1: to be in control of yourself. And yet the second
Speaker 1: we step across the line and we try to control
Speaker 1: someone else, whether it's I think you should be healthier,
Speaker 1: I think you should be more motivated. I wish you
Speaker 1: wouldn't like leave the kleenexes when you're blowing your nose
Speaker 1: on the whatever it is that you wish someone else
Speaker 1: would do. I wish my boss wouldn't talk in every
Speaker 1: meeting and would give a chance for us to talk.
Speaker 1: All of that desire for someone else to change. Is
Speaker 1: you attempting to control the uncontrollable. And so I think
Speaker 1: one of the reasons why we do this is because
Speaker 1: we're hardwired to do it. And the problem becomes that
Speaker 1: the second I try to control you, Jay, it's not
Speaker 1: going to motivate you to do what I want you
Speaker 1: to do. It's going to bump up against your need
Speaker 1: for your own control. So you're going to push back
Speaker 1: against me absolutely, And so you also asked about distraction.
Speaker 1: I think the reason why we're so distracted is because
Speaker 1: if you spend so much time and energy allowing the
Speaker 1: world around you to stress you out and drain your energy,
Speaker 1: you are now susceptible to being hijacked by meaningless things
Speaker 1: that are not important to you. And this is one
Speaker 1: of the biggest discoveries that I've made about using the
Speaker 1: let them theory and researching it has spread around the world,
Speaker 1: is that the single biggest benefit is that you get
Speaker 1: time and energy back. You have no idea right now
Speaker 1: how much time and energy is being wasted or drained
Speaker 1: because of other people's behavior or your expectations about how
Speaker 1: you wish things would go. And once you start noticing
Speaker 1: all of these little moments all day long, it's like
Speaker 1: a death by a thousand cus. Do you want to
Speaker 1: know why you're too tired? You want to know why
Speaker 1: you're overwhelmed, You want to know why you're stressed out,
Speaker 1: you want to know why you have no time for yourself.
Speaker 1: It's because of the power you give to other people's opinions,
Speaker 1: their emotions, their immature behavior. It's the ways in which
Speaker 1: you are turning people into a problem in your life.
Speaker 1: And here's the sad fact. The sad fact is other
Speaker 1: people should be the greatest source of happiness and connection
Speaker 1: and inspiration. But if you don't truly learn this skill
Speaker 1: that we're going to talk about today of focusing on
Speaker 1: what you can control and letting people be who they are,
Speaker 1: letting things play out as they're playing out, and then
Speaker 1: bringing the power back in house, and really focusing on
Speaker 1: how you responded. If you embrace this skill, you're going
Speaker 1: to be shocked. You're going to be shocked by how
Speaker 1: much time you've wasted, I'm not kidding. Yeah, And you're
Speaker 1: going to be shocked jay by the fact that you've
Speaker 1: allowed stupid things and people's drama to drain you. And
Speaker 1: that's why I also think we're so susceptible to distraction
Speaker 1: because we've given so much power away all day long.
Speaker 1: Because here's the truth. I'll give you an example when
Speaker 1: I first discovered this and I started playing around with it.
Speaker 1: The very first way that I used it after I
Speaker 1: discovered it was I was standing in line and we've
Speaker 1: all been at the grocery store when it's like six
Speaker 1: people deep and there's one person working, and it's like, beep, beep,
Speaker 1: beep and you start feeling that wave right and immediately
Speaker 1: the wave of stress takes over because you're now irritated
Speaker 1: by what's happening. And what just happens when you start
Speaker 1: reacting to that and you allow that stress wave to
Speaker 1: start to take over, is that you're giving power to
Speaker 1: something outside of you. Now, I can't control what's happening
Speaker 1: right now, so why on earth would I allow it
Speaker 1: to brain my energy? Because as it comes up, Jay,
Speaker 1: what do I then do? I then start talking to myself, Well,
Speaker 1: this is ridiculous. Why have they not done an announcement
Speaker 1: like I gotta get going here? Why are they not
Speaker 1: bringing another Now I'm starting to believe, Jay, that I
Speaker 1: can run a supermarket better than the people that are
Speaker 1: running it. And then you, of course turn to the
Speaker 1: person behind you and your role, like can you believe this?
Speaker 1: And now this is the interesting part that I really
Speaker 1: want everybody. I really want the person listening to embrace.
Speaker 1: In that moment, you just gave away your energy and
Speaker 1: you have a choice. When you say let them, you
Speaker 1: instantly feel a release and then you say, let me
Speaker 1: decide what I'm gonna do right now? Am I going
Speaker 1: to I can leave the store. That's one thing I
Speaker 1: can do. I could stand here and practice being present.
Speaker 1: It's another thing I could do. I could because I
Speaker 1: don't have time at the end of the day and
Speaker 1: I'm always tired and I'm complaining that I'm lonely. I
Speaker 1: could actually pick up the phone and call my grandmother.
Speaker 1: I could text my friend Jayshetty because I've been thinking
Speaker 1: about them. Like, you have so much power, but you're
Speaker 1: going to burn through it in that line, and then
Speaker 1: you're going to feel your stress activated, and then you're
Speaker 1: going to get in the car and then somebody is
Speaker 1: going to pull out in front of you, and then
Speaker 1: you're going to like be stressed again. And then you're
Speaker 1: going to walk into work and you're going to be
Speaker 1: annoyed in some meeting because of what something somebody said,
Speaker 1: and then that's going to hit you again an all
Speaker 1: day long. Because you don't recognize how this stuff is
Speaker 1: impacting you. That energy inside your body is slowly draining,
Speaker 1: and this is why you're exhausted, and so simply starting
Speaker 1: to use it, whether it's at work or it's just
Speaker 1: in your daily life, to say, let them when you
Speaker 1: notice that somebody else is irritating you or your sister
Speaker 1: you know, is doing that annoying thing. Just letter, yeah,
Speaker 1: let her.
Speaker 2: Be the example. That example was great, and I love
Speaker 2: how you explain that difference between just how much you
Speaker 2: notice how your whole life gets immersed in this tiny
Speaker 2: thing where you now talk about it. I've thought about it.
Speaker 2: If you were late somewhere, you're getting somewhere with some
Speaker 2: struggle in trouble, and you had a bad journey getting somewhere,
Speaker 2: you'll talk about it to everyone. You'll be like, oh, yeah,
Speaker 2: this person cut us off in traffic, and then there
Speaker 2: was this new driver that was figuring ou how to learn,
Speaker 2: and then the cops were around. If you had the
Speaker 2: best journey, easiest journey here you describe it in one sentence, right,
Speaker 2: and we just get so absorbed. And so I love
Speaker 2: that example. I want to paint in another scenario for
Speaker 2: people to really understand the system. Let's say you have
Speaker 2: a partner, boyfriend, girlfriend, maybe you're married to them, and
Speaker 2: this person always turns up from work a little bit late.
Speaker 2: They don't wash the dishes. You wake up in the morning,
Speaker 2: the dishes are always still out there. There's a sense
Speaker 2: that you've told them this urged you a million times?
Speaker 1: Did my husband ask you to ask me this question, Jake.
Speaker 2: He's amazing.
Speaker 1: Chris has your number, Chris.
Speaker 2: Yeah. And so I'm mean, I'm speaking from so much,
Speaker 2: not direct personal experience, but personal ext winds in so
Speaker 2: many ways.
Speaker 1: And you're saying this person's not changing. They haven't changed,
Speaker 1: because it's the fundamental role everybody. Number one, You cannot
Speaker 1: change another human being. It is impossible for you to
Speaker 1: change somebody else. Now, you can influence them, but you
Speaker 1: cannot change them. People only change if they feel like
Speaker 1: it and if they can. And wanting and wishing is
Speaker 1: a wonderful thing. Wanting and wishing somebody to be cleaner
Speaker 1: and to pick up after themselves, Wanting your kids to
Speaker 1: be more motivated, Wanting the people that you love to
Speaker 1: take better care of themselves and to be healthier, to
Speaker 1: date somebody that is normal and healthy instead of the
Speaker 1: losers that treat them like crap. That's a beautiful thing
Speaker 1: for you to want for other people, and you deserve
Speaker 1: to do that, and you should do that. Wanting people
Speaker 1: to change is not the problem. Wanting bigger possibilities for
Speaker 1: people is not the problem. How we go about it is,
Speaker 1: And so in this scenario that you're talking about is
Speaker 1: a beautiful example because you have to say let them.
Speaker 1: You see the dishes in the sink. It makes you
Speaker 1: upset because you feel disrespected and that it's annoying, and
Speaker 1: you have higher standards for cleanliness, which means you're probably
Speaker 1: just going to do them anyway, and then you're going
Speaker 1: to feel like you're really taking whatever for granted. But
Speaker 1: you have to say let them. And one of the
Speaker 1: reasons why is because number one, if this is a
Speaker 1: long term, committed partnership, learning how to love somebody as
Speaker 1: they are is a form of love that is deeply important.
Speaker 1: And if you can't say let them in that moment,
Speaker 1: you are going to get frustrated and angry, and then
Speaker 1: you are going to come to the next part of
Speaker 1: the let them theory with tremendous intensity and judgment and
Speaker 1: that's not going to motivate change. What it does when
Speaker 1: you judge somebody or you push against them, is it
Speaker 1: actually creates it's resistance to change. So you have to
Speaker 1: say let them because it allows you to detach from
Speaker 1: your emotions and detach from judgment. Right, it is what
Speaker 1: it is. I see what's happened I'm accepting the reality
Speaker 1: of this.
Speaker 2: Let them.
Speaker 1: Then you come to the let me part. Is this
Speaker 1: something that bothers you? And if it is, remember you
Speaker 1: got three things. I can choose what I want to
Speaker 1: think about this, and so you could think a good thought.
Speaker 1: You could think, okay, good intention. They were probably super
Speaker 1: busy this morning and they meant to do it later.
Speaker 1: Let them Okay, I'm going to choose to believe that.
Speaker 1: You could also then remind yourself. Let me remind myself
Speaker 1: there's something I can do about this, right, And if
Speaker 1: it's really important, what you need to do about this
Speaker 1: is have a conversation. And by the way, Chris has
Speaker 1: had this conversation with me a bazillion times. So if
Speaker 1: you walk into our bathroom, Chris's bathroom probably looks like
Speaker 1: your side of the sink, which is it's like a
Speaker 1: zen seven star hotel Jay like, there's not a speck
Speaker 1: on that man's like basin or whatever you call it.
Speaker 1: You you look at mine, it looks like somebody tipped
Speaker 1: over a Walgreens aisle on top of that thing. And
Speaker 1: it drives Chris crazy. But what particularly drives them crazy
Speaker 1: is when something migrates from my side to his side right.
Speaker 1: And so he's asked me. He's asked me to please
Speaker 1: keep my stuff over there. He has asked me to
Speaker 1: please flatten cardboard boxes when they come in, don't please pack,
Speaker 1: don't unpack them, and then stack them by the garage door,
Speaker 1: as if I'm supposed to do it. And he's asked
Speaker 1: me and asked me and ask me, and then I
Speaker 1: forget well, he finally sat me down, Jay, And this
Speaker 1: is to let me part. You have to take responsibility
Speaker 1: for explaining to somebody what you need and the reason
Speaker 1: why this is important to you. Because when Chris said
Speaker 1: to me, I know you don't intend this, but this
Speaker 1: is the impact Mal When I see the cardboard boxes stacked,
Speaker 1: or I see your hair brush in fifteen products of
Speaker 1: yours on my countertop, it actually makes me feel like
Speaker 1: you think I'm the maid and we don't even have
Speaker 1: a maid. Like it's just like it makes me feel
Speaker 1: like you think it's my job to clean up after you,
Speaker 1: and that doesn't make me feel loved. Now, when he
Speaker 1: took the time, in a very calm way, to drop
Speaker 1: into his values and communicate what he needed, something interesting
Speaker 1: happens if you're in a committed, loving partnership and you're
Speaker 1: with somebody who wants to do better and cares about you,
Speaker 1: it taps into their intrinsic motivation to build new skills.
Speaker 1: If you have that kind of conversation with somebody and
Speaker 1: you explain how their behavior impacts you, whether it's their
Speaker 1: drinking or it's the tone of their voice, or it's
Speaker 1: the fact that they leave their stuff everywhere, or it's
Speaker 1: that they insist that you spend every holiday with their
Speaker 1: family and they have no interest in your whatever. The
Speaker 1: issue is, if you sit somebody down and you take responsibility,
Speaker 1: you've let them be and you've let them shown you
Speaker 1: who they are, and then you say, let me sit
Speaker 1: down and talk about this and take responsibility. I have
Speaker 1: the ability to respond to this a mature adult, and
Speaker 1: you actually express what you need and why, and that
Speaker 1: person doesn't try. You have to let them. And here's why.
Speaker 1: Their behavior is telling you the truth. Their behavior is
Speaker 1: telling you what they care about and what their priorities are.
Speaker 1: And if their behavior is telling you that your needs
Speaker 1: are not a priority, you have to let them reveal
Speaker 1: that because yes, because then you're going to come back
Speaker 1: to the second part, which is let me ask myself,
Speaker 1: is this kind of behavior from somebody what I deserve?
Speaker 1: Is this what I'm willing to accept in somebody? Because again,
Speaker 1: what do we also know? People only change when they
Speaker 1: want to or they can. And you might be in
Speaker 1: a situation where somebody would really love to change, but
Speaker 1: they can't because they're dealing with some challenge right now,
Speaker 1: or they don't have the skill yet. And you may decide,
Speaker 1: if that's the case, to still love and accept the person.
Speaker 1: But there may be times where you have had the
Speaker 1: conversation and it is very clear they're capable of it,
Speaker 1: they just won't do it. And what I find in
Speaker 1: relationships where that sort of invisible distance and the frustration
Speaker 1: and the resentment comes up is twofold number one. You
Speaker 1: can't detach from your emotions and say let them and
Speaker 1: really fully just let the person be who they are,
Speaker 1: and you don't do the part let me where you
Speaker 1: actually take responsibility for expressing in a mature way what
Speaker 1: you need and how their behavior impacts you. And so
Speaker 1: if you don't ever express what you need and how
Speaker 1: it's impacting you, you're not actually giving somebody the opportunity
Speaker 1: to build a skill or to change or to love
Speaker 1: you the way that you need them to love you
Speaker 1: so that you feel loved. The second mistake that I
Speaker 1: see constantly is that you make the ask and then
Speaker 1: the person doesn't do it, and then you start making
Speaker 1: excuses and resentment builds, and you stay in something seeing
Speaker 1: exactly who someone is wishing they would change, living up
Speaker 1: here in your mind about the fantasy of what you wish.
Speaker 1: This was refusing to accept the reality of what it
Speaker 1: actually is.
Speaker 2: Hey everyone, it's Jay Schetty and I'm thrilled to announce
Speaker 2: my podcast tour. For the first time ever, you can
Speaker 2: see my on Purpose podcast live and in person. Join
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Speaker 2: I can't wait to see you there. Tickets are on
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Speaker 2: You've just unlocked a whole new meaning of let them
Speaker 2: for me. How so I've always understood let them when
Speaker 2: I've heard you speak about it, when I read the book,
Speaker 2: this idea of let them be who they are, let
Speaker 2: them act the way they want to act, let them
Speaker 2: say and do whatever they want to do. I have
Speaker 2: to let them. I have to keep that distance. What
Speaker 2: you just unlocked for me, which I really want to,
Speaker 2: you know, everyone to grapple with because I think it's
Speaker 2: so powerful. Is this idea of let them also show
Speaker 2: you who they are? Yes, And if they're showing you
Speaker 2: who they are, let them be that person. Don't make
Speaker 2: them the person you imagine them to be the one
Speaker 2: you want them to be the one that you're wishing
Speaker 2: and waiting and hoping for them to be. They are
Speaker 2: that person. Yes, let them be that is Oh my gosh,
Speaker 2: my mind is literally blown because that is so powerful.
Speaker 1: But you still have power. Jay, Here's the most important thing, everybody,
Speaker 1: This is the most important thing. This is the epiphany
Speaker 1: that I had too. Like, holy cow, I still get
Speaker 1: to choose. I still get to choose use. I get
Speaker 1: to choose how much time and energy I pour into this,
Speaker 1: whether it's this issue, or it's this topic, or it's
Speaker 1: this person. And here's how you know, if you can
Speaker 1: actually love somebody for who they are and who they're not.
Speaker 1: Can you end your complaining and bitching about it? Because
Speaker 1: if you can't do that, then this is something you're
Speaker 1: holding on too, and you're holding over the other person.
Speaker 1: And if they're never going to change, you now have
Speaker 1: a problem because the only thing that's going to make
Speaker 1: the relationship better is either them hearing you and caring
Speaker 1: enough and being able to adjust, or you being the
Speaker 1: one to adjust, because it's your complaining about it that
Speaker 1: is creating the friction and the resentment. And this is
Speaker 1: not only with romantic relationships, Like when I think about
Speaker 1: the broader applications of this for family, there are very
Speaker 1: challenging people in my extended family. It's like everybody's family, right,
Speaker 1: and so there's always one person in your life that
Speaker 1: you wish there just wasn't drama with you, wish they
Speaker 1: didn't have a challenging demeanor or personality. The let them
Speaker 1: theory has fundamentally profoundly changed my relationship also with people
Speaker 1: that have been difficult because when I say let them, like,
Speaker 1: let's say you're talking you, we're talking about somebody who's
Speaker 1: very narcissistic or dramatic or victim or they it's always
Speaker 1: about them and very draining person to be around. Well,
Speaker 1: part of the reason why they're draining is because you
Speaker 1: brace and you get ready for it, and you allow
Speaker 1: their energy to impact you. And I always find it funny,
Speaker 1: Jay that, especially in families and at work, we allow
Speaker 1: the most challenging person to have the biggest impact on
Speaker 1: the whole system. So if you have one person that's
Speaker 1: narcissistic in their personality style, or that is very very
Speaker 1: dramatic and immature in their personality style, they're one. If
Speaker 1: you imagine a spider web, right, I think about a
Speaker 1: system of relationships like a spider web, and you're out
Speaker 1: in the morning, the do's on it when you have
Speaker 1: a challenging person, because we all tiptoe around this person,
Speaker 1: that person's energy is like tap tap tap and shakes
Speaker 1: all the do off. I believe the opposite is true,
Speaker 1: especially after learning to let them theory, because there's been
Speaker 1: people in my life, both in work life and in
Speaker 1: my family life where when that person's around, I literally
Speaker 1: shrink to eight years old. I'm dancing around their mood.
Speaker 1: We all have had an experience like this. Maybe you're
Speaker 1: thinking about a boss, or your mother, or your father
Speaker 1: in law, or a brother or whomever, an adult child.
Speaker 1: Right when I walk into these situations now and I say,
Speaker 1: let them, let them be who they are. Why am
Speaker 1: I making it my job to manage your mood? Why
Speaker 1: am I pouring time and energy into this drama? Let
Speaker 1: me manage my energy. Let me remind myself. I can
Speaker 1: remove myself from any dinner table, any family text chain.
Speaker 1: I can remove myself from an interview, a date, a conversation,
Speaker 1: a relationship anytime I want. And I believe Jay that
Speaker 1: the person that is the most peaceful and centered and powerful,
Speaker 1: because you understand the power of your energy and your
Speaker 1: thoughts and your actions, you actually have more power in
Speaker 1: any family system and any office building, in any room
Speaker 1: anywhere than the most challenging person.
Speaker 2: I can agree more. I couldn't agree more. I love that.
Speaker 2: And I feel like when you start looking at your
Speaker 2: energy and time, if you thought about it like money,
Speaker 2: and this idea that imagine for every thought you had
Speaker 2: about that person, you had to pay them a dollar,
Speaker 2: and you think about how many dollars If you now
Speaker 2: started account the amount of thoughts you having about that person,
Speaker 2: about that situation, about what they said, about what they
Speaker 2: said to so and so, what they thought about you,
Speaker 2: and you had to pay a dollar for every thought
Speaker 2: you had about them. That's how much energy and money
Speaker 2: is being wasted. Yes, and we're not realizing where else
Speaker 2: it could be invested put in. But I think you
Speaker 2: hit the nail on the head there. The reason is
Speaker 2: we feel so attached that we don't feel we can
Speaker 2: actually leave. As tik Nahn would say, we would rather
Speaker 2: live in the familiar pain, right than the unfamiliar pain.
Speaker 2: At least we know what we're going to get with
Speaker 2: this person, and there's a part of us that gets
Speaker 2: attached to that, even subconsciously.
Speaker 1: Well, here's the thing, though, Jay, because I think it's
Speaker 1: a really important point that you're bringing up. But here's
Speaker 1: what I think you're going to discover. I think you're
Speaker 1: only attached to it because you don't value your time
Speaker 1: and energy.
Speaker 2: For sure.
Speaker 1: You're only attached to it because you've never experienced anything else.
Speaker 1: And the reason why you're used to it is because
Speaker 1: in the relationship dynamic, you're up in your head usually
Speaker 1: in a relationship, explaining a way behavior instead of actually
Speaker 1: seeing it with clear eyes and detaching from it. And
Speaker 1: that's the other reason. And I know you knew this
Speaker 1: instantly that the let them theory and saying let them
Speaker 1: and let me. One of the reasons why it's so
Speaker 1: powerful and I'm so excited is I feel literally like
Speaker 1: I am surrounded by ancestors because this is a modern
Speaker 1: application of ancient philosophy spiritual guidance, stoicism, detachment theory that
Speaker 1: you can then apply in any moment, in any relationship.
Speaker 1: And what I also love about this jay is that
Speaker 1: I think it allows you to truly see people, perhaps
Speaker 1: for the first time, and to give them the space
Speaker 1: to be who they are. And from that space, it's
Speaker 1: amazing is you can let people. For example, a lot
Speaker 1: of us are very triggered and motivated when somebody's disappointed
Speaker 1: or when some or we think that somebody is gonna, like,
Speaker 1: you know, really be let down by us. And I
Speaker 1: had this huge breakthrough because I used to feel really
Speaker 1: guilty either by how much I work or the fact
Speaker 1: that Chris and I raised our kids on the East
Speaker 1: Coast and my parents are in the Midwest. And you know,
Speaker 1: I love my parents and I wish we all live together.
Speaker 1: But here's the thing. They're not moving to me, and
Speaker 1: I'm not moving to them. We got to let them right,
Speaker 1: But there's a lot of emotion about it. And I
Speaker 1: know your family's all over the place too, so you
Speaker 1: know you're not like I'm not saying anything because my
Speaker 1: family listens to this s mouth. So so here's the thing.
Speaker 1: If I don't go home with my family for the holidays,
Speaker 1: my parents are disappointed. Let them be disappointed. I mean,
Speaker 1: isn't that a beautiful thing that they're disappointed. Don't you
Speaker 1: want somebody to be disappointed that you're not coming?
Speaker 2: That really messes with people's minds, right, Yeah.
Speaker 1: Like whether you can't make it to a business engagement,
Speaker 1: or you can't make it to a birthday party, or
Speaker 1: you can't make it this year home. I mean, what's
Speaker 1: the alternative that they're like, thank God Jay's not coming,
Speaker 1: I can't stand him. No, seriously, like, really wrap your
Speaker 1: brain around this. And so when you say let them
Speaker 1: be disappointed, something beautiful happens. You actually honor their experience
Speaker 1: of being human, you allow them to be adults. Yes,
Speaker 1: that is a sign that emotion that things are really
Speaker 1: good in your relationships. But then you say let me,
Speaker 1: and the old me would twist myself in knots and
Speaker 1: then I would make myself feel bad, and then I
Speaker 1: would question what I was doing, and then I'd bend
Speaker 1: over backwards to try to be there and try to
Speaker 1: be here. And instead, when I say let me, I
Speaker 1: drop into my values. I deeply value family, and so
Speaker 1: if they're disappointed, that's not the reason I would change plans.
Speaker 1: I have to look at what do I think, what
Speaker 1: do I want to do, and how am I going
Speaker 1: to process my emotions? And so as someone else is disappointed,
Speaker 1: the old me would feel deeply guilty and conflicted. Now
Speaker 1: with the lethn theory, I have space for them to
Speaker 1: be disappointed and for me to feel a little sad.
Speaker 1: But if I change plans, I don't do it for them,
Speaker 1: because if I change plans for them, guess what I
Speaker 1: just did. I made them the villain in my life.
Speaker 1: If I change plans because it makes me feel like
Speaker 1: a good daughter, makes me feel good. Now I take
Speaker 1: responsibility for my life and I am owning my decisions.
Speaker 1: And it's a small nuance, but it's absolutely everything. Everything
Speaker 1: And the other reason why I love this, especially as
Speaker 1: a parent of adult children, and you know there are
Speaker 1: very This is a book about adult relationships, and so
Speaker 1: I make it very clear in the book, and there's
Speaker 1: resources for parents with younger kids and back But one
Speaker 1: of the coolest things about this is that when you
Speaker 1: let someone like have their emotions and you let someone
Speaker 1: struggle while you say, I'm on the sidelines and I'm
Speaker 1: here to support, but I know that the greatest teacher
Speaker 1: in life is life, and I'm not going to shield
Speaker 1: you from the consequences of some of the things that
Speaker 1: you're choosing. You're an adult, so I'm going.
Speaker 2: To let you.
Speaker 1: When you allow someone the space to process emotion and
Speaker 1: the space to face their struggles and the space to
Speaker 1: heal on their own timeline and in their own way,
Speaker 1: you actually communicate that I believe that you can when
Speaker 1: you step in and try to force somebody to be
Speaker 1: more motivated at school or you let's just take that one,
Speaker 1: because there's a lot of people that listen to my show,
Speaker 1: and I'm sure it's the same people that are listening
Speaker 1: to yours that write in are like, I don't know
Speaker 1: how to make this person more motivated. Oh for sure, right,
Speaker 1: And so here's what I want you to understand. And
Speaker 1: this was another huge breakthrough when I was writing this book.
Speaker 1: You want to know the hardest person, hardest working person
Speaker 1: in a classroom, Jay, it's the kid who's struggling. It's
Speaker 1: not the people that are getting straight a's. It's the
Speaker 1: person who's having a really hard time. Wow, do you
Speaker 1: want to know the hardest person that's working on their health?
Speaker 1: It's actually the person that's unhealthy because they know that
Speaker 1: they want to be healthier, and so they are not stuck.
Speaker 1: They're in deep conflict actively within themselves. And so if
Speaker 1: somebody is already aware that there is a gap between
Speaker 1: their potential and how they're performing, that there is a
Speaker 1: gap between god given right to thrive and be happy
Speaker 1: and be connected and what their life actually feels like,
Speaker 1: they know it. And then you come in and try
Speaker 1: to impose your will or your good ideas. Oh, thanks
Speaker 1: a lot. So I never thought that if I wanted
Speaker 1: to get good grades, I needed to study and not
Speaker 1: play video games. Thank you Einstein. Oh I should go
Speaker 1: to the gym if I want to lose some way.
Speaker 1: Never thought of that. So you come in and you
Speaker 1: have judgment and assumptions. What is it that's more pressure
Speaker 1: on top of somebody who is actually already deeply conflicted
Speaker 1: with themselves? Yeah, and so if you really embrace this
Speaker 1: and you understand that people change when they feel like
Speaker 1: it and when they can. And if somebody's struggling, it's
Speaker 1: because they're not able to. Right now, there's a skill
Speaker 1: that's missing, and one of the biggest things that's typically
Speaker 1: missing is the belief that any of the small actions
Speaker 1: will actually do anything anyway. Yeah, and so you coming
Speaker 1: in and imposing it, you know what that says. It
Speaker 1: actually says I don't believe you can do this.
Speaker 2: I'll do it for you. Yes, I can do it
Speaker 2: for you for you, Yeah, absolutely absolutely. I remember me
Speaker 2: and Rady as you got married and we moved to America,
Speaker 2: and RADI will say this herself that at that time
Speaker 2: in her life had parents had made a lot of
Speaker 2: big decisions for her, and she was following decisions that
Speaker 2: they were making or opportunities that they were putting forward,
Speaker 2: and all of that was with good intention. And then
Speaker 2: when we got married, she'd start to ask me for
Speaker 2: my advice or my insight. This would be anything from
Speaker 2: what plates we should buy for our apartment through to
Speaker 2: like what kind of curtains we wanted. Right, We're talking
Speaker 2: about really small everyday things. And I Remember I would
Speaker 2: always say to well, what do you think? And she'd
Speaker 2: always say, no, no, no, you just tell me. And
Speaker 2: I'd be like, no, but what do you think? And
Speaker 2: in the start it would really frustrate her, But now
Speaker 2: she looks back and she goes that question helped her
Speaker 2: so much because it helped her find her own identity,
Speaker 2: her own strength, her own tastes, her own dislikes, and
Speaker 2: now she's a whole human with opinions and it's so
Speaker 2: fascinating to what's that? And it was because I almost
Speaker 2: had this fore visioning, or this thought that even if
Speaker 2: I make my life easier by just telling her my
Speaker 2: tastes and dislikes and likes, it's only going to be
Speaker 2: easy in the short term, because ten years from now,
Speaker 2: she's going to think she'd became the person I wanted
Speaker 2: her to be and never became the person she could
Speaker 2: be right. And I could see that, and so I
Speaker 2: set up and I was like, no, you just tell me.
Speaker 2: Until this day, I always practice something. I think you
Speaker 2: look beautiful, but I want you to wear what you
Speaker 2: want to wear. It shouldn't be about what I think
Speaker 2: you look better in or worse. You know, that shouldn't
Speaker 2: be the case. And it's so interesting how we think
Speaker 2: love is overcaring, but actually overcaring is over enabling that
Speaker 2: person and overwhelming that person.
Speaker 1: Yes, and it's control.
Speaker 2: It's control.
Speaker 1: You're not like if you think about what love really is,
Speaker 1: and for me, love is two things. It's consideration, right,
Speaker 1: It's having someone in mind. If you pour in oat
Speaker 1: milk instead of the cow milk because that's what they like,
Speaker 1: that's an act of love. It's also admiration, and admiration
Speaker 1: is the ability to see something in somebody that you
Speaker 1: deeply admire. I want to go back to something that
Speaker 1: you said though, because it was genius and it had
Speaker 1: me think about the idea of the power of your
Speaker 1: time and energy. And you were talking about imagine if
Speaker 1: like your time and your energy had dollars associated with it,
Speaker 1: because I don't think we value it. And I started
Speaker 1: to think about one of the biggest obstacles because what's
Speaker 1: ultimately happening when you start to use let them and
Speaker 1: let me, is you're going to see that you've turned
Speaker 1: other people into a major problem. And you have turned
Speaker 1: them into a problem in four ways. First of all,
Speaker 1: you allow them to stress you out, but you're not
Speaker 1: going to do that anymore because you're going to let
Speaker 1: them be. But the second way that you've made them
Speaker 1: a major problem in your life is that you give
Speaker 1: so much weight to other people's opinions. And in the
Speaker 1: example you were just talking about what was happening is
Speaker 1: by asking you what do you think.
Speaker 2: Was doing?
Speaker 1: What we all do but most of us do it
Speaker 1: subconsciously and we don't even realize it, which is before
Speaker 1: we even ask ourselves what feels right for us, we
Speaker 1: stop and consider what we think somebody is going to think.
Speaker 1: And you have that like really brilliant thing that I've
Speaker 1: heard you say a bazillion times that I love. It's
Speaker 1: not what you think you think of think And I'm like, wait, well,
Speaker 1: but so I want to play this out because this
Speaker 1: is so important. Was a huge thing for me. If
Speaker 1: you open up your favorite social media platform, we've all
Speaker 1: had the experience where you go and you pick a
Speaker 1: photo and you then put it up and you're like, okay,
Speaker 1: should a a filter on this? And you start to
Speaker 1: then question is this right photo? And then you go
Speaker 1: back to your photo role and then you start working
Speaker 1: on the caption should I put emoji? Is this too much?
Speaker 1: Should I do this? And then you are worried why
Speaker 1: because you're actually thinking about what other people are going
Speaker 1: to think or do in response to what you're posting. Yes,
Speaker 1: which means if you take the value of it right,
Speaker 1: you just overvalued something that you will never be able
Speaker 1: to control ever, ever, ever, ever, and yet you're doing
Speaker 1: it subconsciously. And what typically happens is if you notice
Speaker 1: everybody's got hundreds of draft posts, you know what that is.
Speaker 1: That is a graveyard of energy. You waste it on
Speaker 1: something that you didn't you'll never be able to control
Speaker 1: because the average person has seventy thousand random thoughts a day.
Speaker 1: You can't even control half the crap that goes in
Speaker 1: your own mind. So what makes you think any post
Speaker 1: is going to guarantee that any human being thinks anything?
Speaker 1: And the let them theory revealed to me Jay how
Speaker 1: often I was subconsciously valuing, oh, for sure, someone else
Speaker 1: and that like, are they going to think negative? They
Speaker 1: gonna think this? Are they going to think too much?
Speaker 1: And there's such a simple way to change this. You
Speaker 1: just let them think negative thoughts.
Speaker 2: That's it.
Speaker 1: The next time you catch yourself stopping to consider what
Speaker 1: you're going to post or what your colleagues might react to,
Speaker 1: and that's what's keeping you silent. Say to yourself, let
Speaker 1: them think negative thoughts, because that's what you're actually afraid of.
Speaker 1: And so when you say let them think negative thoughts,
Speaker 1: something wild happens. You accept the reality that no matter
Speaker 1: what you do, it doesn't guarantee that anybody thinks anything.
Speaker 1: And then you say, let me And here's where this
Speaker 1: gets really cool. Let me remind myself I can think
Speaker 1: what I want and I can do what I want.
Speaker 1: And your social media, in particular, as you and I
Speaker 1: both know, it's your self expression. That's what it's there for.
Speaker 1: And if you can't allow yourself to express yourself there,
Speaker 1: then it's going to be everywhere where you at it
Speaker 1: yourself because you're not just letting people think negative thoughts.
Speaker 1: But if you operate in a way now and you
Speaker 1: now take the value, you take the money back. We're
Speaker 1: not going to pay Jay the money for his opinion.
Speaker 1: I'm going to take the money back, and where I'm
Speaker 1: going to put the value is operating in a way
Speaker 1: that makes me feel proud of myself. Because when I
Speaker 1: operate in a way, whether I'm posting something or I'm
Speaker 1: speaking in a meeting, or I'm showing up and not
Speaker 1: responding to my dramatic whatever. I'm proud of myself. And
Speaker 1: when you're proud of yourself, you don't even consider what
Speaker 1: other people are thinking, because you've just anchored all of
Speaker 1: your worth inside of yourself. And that's why this is
Speaker 1: another reason why this is so unbelievably powerful.
Speaker 2: Yeah, and the truth is, no one's thinking about you
Speaker 2: for as long as you think it's true. No one's
Speaker 2: thinking about you for as much as you think. No
Speaker 2: one's thinking about you as much as they even say
Speaker 2: that thinking about you. And we, just like you said,
Speaker 2: we keep draining that energy, consumed by it. You reminded
Speaker 2: me of the beautiful Charles Houghton Cooley quote, and he
Speaker 2: wrote this in eighteen ninety and he said, the challenge
Speaker 2: today is I'm not what I think I am. I'm
Speaker 2: not what you think I am. I am what I
Speaker 2: think you think I am, which means we live in
Speaker 2: a perception of a perception of ourselves. So if I
Speaker 2: think mel thinks I'm not smart, then I don't think
Speaker 2: I'm smart. So it's not even reality, it's not even
Speaker 2: factually proven or checked or tested. By the way everything
Speaker 2: in the let them theory, this book is literally every thought,
Speaker 2: those seventy thousand thoughts, that's what you're addressing in.
Speaker 1: This book gets rid of this fear.
Speaker 2: Yeah, it literally does, because I was talking. I've talked
Speaker 2: to at least three friends this week, and all of
Speaker 2: them are concerned by either heyj I'm thinking about posting
Speaker 2: a video on social media. I'm scared of what people
Speaker 2: will think. So that's for their professional or their passion. Right.
Speaker 2: I've got another friend who's worried that a lot of
Speaker 2: our other friends are talking about him negatively because he's
Speaker 2: recently fallen out with them, Okay, and so he's worried, like,
Speaker 2: what are they saying they're all talking to each other,
Speaker 2: what rumors are they spreading about me? Like, maybe it's
Speaker 2: not true. And the thing that holding onto is they
Speaker 2: just can't let they can't let them, and it's.
Speaker 1: No, but they can ye See, I don't think they
Speaker 1: have the tool. See, here's the thing. If you're worried
Speaker 1: that people are gossiping about you, let them let them
Speaker 1: gossip about you. Here's why you can't control it.
Speaker 2: It's gonna happen anyway.
Speaker 1: Yes, And so if you can't control it, why on
Speaker 1: earth would you allow any time or energy to be wasted.
Speaker 1: It's an act of self torture. So if you are
Speaker 1: worried that people are gossiping about you, first of all,
Speaker 1: let them gossip about you, because they're going to do
Speaker 1: what they're going to do, because you cannot change what
Speaker 1: other people do. You can't control what they think. You
Speaker 1: can't control what they do. If they're going to gossip,
Speaker 1: they're going to gossip. So let them gossip. And when
Speaker 1: you say that, it's a relief because you actually acknowledge
Speaker 1: the thing that you've been afraid of, and it's like
Speaker 1: you're allowing it without allowing it. But then, don't forget
Speaker 1: you have power.
Speaker 2: Let me.
Speaker 1: Remind myself that I get to choose what I think
Speaker 1: about myself. I get to decide what I do and
Speaker 1: what I don't do, whether or not I respond or not,
Speaker 1: and I get to decide who I spend time with.
Speaker 1: And so the bigger question becomes, if you're busy worrying
Speaker 1: about which means you're spending time and energy people who
Speaker 1: are gossiping about you, why would you want to be
Speaker 1: friends with them? And so now you take responsibility for
Speaker 1: your own part in chasing people that aren't treating you
Speaker 1: in a way that you deserve, and you recognize that
Speaker 1: the power here is in just letting people be. And
Speaker 1: when you let people be, your relationships get better because
Speaker 1: people reveal who they are and where you stand. And
Speaker 1: then you get to choose how much time you spend
Speaker 1: or not. And not everybody in your life deserves an explanation,
Speaker 1: they don't deserve a response necessary, and so you also
Speaker 1: get to choose who you tell your story to, or
Speaker 1: who you apologize to, or who how you respond to it.
Speaker 1: And that's where your power is. And I'm not saying
Speaker 1: this makes it easy, because you're probably in a situation
Speaker 1: like that going to have to say let them, let them,
Speaker 1: let them, And then you're gonna see them on social
Speaker 1: media and you're gonna be like, should I black them?
Speaker 1: Should I not block them? Are they going to see
Speaker 1: if I do that? Should I'm not going to let them?
Speaker 1: Let them live their lives, and if I want to
Speaker 1: unfollow them, let me do that because I get to
Speaker 1: choose what comes into my space or not. And when
Speaker 1: you start to really play around with this, because one
Speaker 1: of the big pushbacks that I that I've gotten in
Speaker 1: the research is what Am I just going to be
Speaker 1: a dorm at im. I'll let people abuse me, I'll
Speaker 1: let people. No, Actually it's the opposite, because you're probably
Speaker 1: allowing it right now and then explaining it away. When
Speaker 1: you say let them, you're letting somebody's behavior speak, and
Speaker 1: then you have to bring it back to yourself and say,
Speaker 1: I've got to let them reveal who they are are.
Speaker 1: And if this person keeps gaslighting me or not including me,
Speaker 1: now I've got to ask myself, is this actually the
Speaker 1: relationship for me?
Speaker 2: Well? Do you think we expect too much from people?
Speaker 2: I do.
Speaker 1: I think everybody's really busy and life is very overwhelming,
Speaker 1: and you have no idea what's going on in other
Speaker 1: people's lives. And we've gotten to a point in today's
Speaker 1: world where if I text you, I expect Jay to respond,
Speaker 1: and if Jay doesn't respond, then I make it mean
Speaker 1: something about Jay or me. And I hate that because
Speaker 1: it doesn't give people grace. We're constantly expecting people to
Speaker 1: show up a certain way and then judging them when
Speaker 1: they don't, instead of stopping to consider that other people
Speaker 1: have lives and other people have a lot of things
Speaker 1: going on, and sometimes when people go silent on you,
Speaker 1: it has nothing to do with you. It has to
Speaker 1: do with a crazy busy period in life, or it
Speaker 1: has to do with the fact that something's going on
Speaker 1: with their family and they're so drained at the end
Speaker 1: of the day that the last thing they want to
Speaker 1: do is talk to anybody. And so I do think
Speaker 1: we expect too much because relationships feel very like transactional.
Speaker 1: You do this for me, I do this for you.
Speaker 1: I text you, you better text me back. Now, there
Speaker 1: are rules in terms of just being courteous to people
Speaker 1: and being gracious to people. But I'm deeply concerned Jay
Speaker 1: about the rise of both estrangement. I'm concerned about the
Speaker 1: amount of posts that go viral about you know, I
Speaker 1: got my life better because I cut all the talks
Speaker 1: of people out and I stop and think always, well,
Speaker 1: did you have a conversation about what was bothering you?
Speaker 1: Because if you just ghost other people or you use
Speaker 1: the silent treatment, that's actually punishing somebody and that's extremely immature. Actually,
Speaker 1: it means you can't handle your own emotions, which is
Speaker 1: why you don't have a hard conversation about what you
Speaker 1: need or how someone's behavior is impacting you, and if
Speaker 1: you haven't had that, it's a very immature move to
Speaker 1: just cut somebody off. And so I get very worried
Speaker 1: about the labeling of people as toxic and about the
Speaker 1: ease at which people seem to just drop people. And
Speaker 1: what I really love about the let them theory is
Speaker 1: that it opens up the window to a lot more compassion,
Speaker 1: because we're quick to think that if somebody hasn't texted
Speaker 1: you back, or you've texted somebody a couple times and
Speaker 1: they haven't responded, that you did something bad. And it's
Speaker 1: perfectly fine to be like, did I do something?
Speaker 2: You know?
Speaker 1: I noticed you haven't responded? Is everything okay? If they
Speaker 1: don't respond, then then something's probably wrong, either with them
Speaker 1: or with you, and you get to decide what you're
Speaker 1: going to do next. But I am worried about the
Speaker 1: combination of people being isolated, of people spending way too
Speaker 1: much time on their phones instead of with each other,
Speaker 1: and that we've gotten very transactional with one another, and
Speaker 1: it's easy to forget that people have a lot going
Speaker 1: on and they're not thinking about you as much as
Speaker 1: you're thinking about them, and just because you have time
Speaker 1: to text them, doesn't mean they have time right now
Speaker 1: to text you back. And I guarantee you when they
Speaker 1: saw your text, they probably thought, oh my god, I
Speaker 1: love it. You know, I got a and then something
Speaker 1: came up, and so I do worry about it, Jay,
Speaker 1: I do think we have too much of an expectation
Speaker 1: of something in return. And when you start to use
Speaker 1: this theory, what you're also going to notice is this,
Speaker 1: when you start to say let them, you will notice
Speaker 1: that maybe you're the sibling that reaches out more. And
Speaker 1: it might bother you because when you say let them
Speaker 1: and you keep reaching out and they don't reach out,
Speaker 1: or you have a group of friends and you notice
Speaker 1: that when you stop reaching out or making the plans,
Speaker 1: that you're not included in theirs, and that hurts. The
Speaker 1: thing I used to do when that happened is I
Speaker 1: would make it about me. I would make it like
Speaker 1: some deficiency in me and what I've learned using the
Speaker 1: let them theory and really just saying let them, which
Speaker 1: detaches from the hurt, It detaches from the judgment. It
Speaker 1: reminds you that adults are allowed to live their lives,
Speaker 1: Adults are allowed to come and go in friendship. They're
Speaker 1: allowed to prioritize certain people at certain times. They're allowed
Speaker 1: to have busy periods at work. They're allowed to fall
Speaker 1: in and out of communication. And the more you let
Speaker 1: people live their lives, the better your life gets and
Speaker 1: the more compassionate of a human being you become. And
Speaker 1: the more I've started to recognize, oh wait, like my
Speaker 1: social life is my responsibility. If I have a group
Speaker 1: of friends where if I make the plans, everybody's included,
Speaker 1: but if I sit back, I'm never invited. Then now
Speaker 1: I got an exam and am I investing in the
Speaker 1: right group of friends? Or you might also wake up
Speaker 1: and realize, well, maybe I just like really like introverted people,
Speaker 1: but I'm the party planner and that's my role in life.
Speaker 1: And instead of you being transactional, you actually recognize the
Speaker 1: gift that it is to people. Right, And you know,
Speaker 1: it sucks that maybe your siblings get together because they
Speaker 1: live closer and they don't include you, and it does hurt,
Speaker 1: and feeling a little bit of pain like that means
Speaker 1: your mind and body is working properly. It's a sign
Speaker 1: that you're mentally well. It doesn't mean there's a sign
Speaker 1: that there's anything wrong with you. And so when you
Speaker 1: can say let them, and then you say let me,
Speaker 1: let me decide what I want to do about this,
Speaker 1: you can have the conversation and you might realize that
Speaker 1: they just click and you don't have as close as
Speaker 1: a relationship. But then you get to decide how you
Speaker 1: value family and if you're going to bring different energy
Speaker 1: or if you're going to try a little bit harder,
Speaker 1: because again, you get to choose. And when you realize
Speaker 1: how much power you have, you see that through you
Speaker 1: the way you think about it or you respond to it,
Speaker 1: you actually can shift anything for the better for sure.
Speaker 1: And I'm really excited about this. I wrote this actually
Speaker 1: with my daughter who's twenty five, and it was an
Speaker 1: amazing experience because she was bringing a much different perspective
Speaker 1: and when we wrote the section about how you use
Speaker 1: to let them theory with love, she started researching the
Speaker 1: breakup section because the fact about love is people choose
Speaker 1: who and how they love, and sometimes they won't choose you.
Speaker 1: But you also get to choose who and how you
Speaker 1: love and how you're going to create it, and people
Speaker 1: forget that. And so we get to the part about
Speaker 1: when a relationship is ending and her boyfriend of two
Speaker 1: years breaks up with her, and she's book like, this
Speaker 1: is horse, you rip this stuff. I have to let
Speaker 1: a walk out the door. I have to let to
Speaker 1: believe it. There's a bullshit of it, like just like
Speaker 1: And it was this unbelievable experience because when somebody that
Speaker 1: you love is grieving or going through heartbreak or struggling,
Speaker 1: you would jump in front of a car to take
Speaker 1: their pain away. And the let them theory and the
Speaker 1: experience of this book taught me that the best thing
Speaker 1: I could do was to let her grieve, to let
Speaker 1: her be heartbroken, to let her go through her process.
Speaker 1: You know, I think about it this way, like arm
Speaker 1: around somebody. You're not blocking and tackling. You've got your
Speaker 1: arm around somebody. But if she's on the floor sobbing,
Speaker 1: letter because she needs to, you know, if we need
Speaker 1: to remove the photos from the family thing because this
Speaker 1: is a two year long relalationship, because that is actually
Speaker 1: a huge recommendation that I make in this book that
Speaker 1: you've got to follow a thirty day rule of zero contact,
Speaker 1: zero photos, zero videos, because you're not just letting them leave.
Speaker 1: You have to unlearn the patterns of your life. Yes,
Speaker 1: that were with them. It's a withdrawal like anything else. Yes,
Speaker 1: And any sign of that person actually triggers the old
Speaker 1: patterns in your nervous system and it delays your ability
Speaker 1: to move through it absolutely, And it's impossible when you're
Speaker 1: in it to just let them move on because every
Speaker 1: part of your wiring and programming, you're going to want
Speaker 1: to check their location. You're going to want to listen
Speaker 1: to the voice memos, You're going to want to saturate
Speaker 1: yourself because the life that you wanted is over and
Speaker 1: you're either going to trap yourself in a life that
Speaker 1: you're no longer in by watching their life play out
Speaker 1: from afar, and you're going to keep re triggering these
Speaker 1: patterns in your nervous system because you're going to keep
Speaker 1: this person in your life even though they walked out
Speaker 1: the door, which is why you have to let them.
Speaker 1: And then you've got to let me do the hard part,
Speaker 1: which is I get to choose how I'm going to
Speaker 1: move through this. And the research is also really empowering.
Speaker 1: It gets better for the majority of people. Seventy one
Speaker 1: percent of people start to feel better by eleven weeks.
Speaker 2: That's that's not eleven weeks.
Speaker 1: Eleven weeks, and you may feel better in eleven days.
Speaker 2: What happens at eleven weeks.
Speaker 1: What happens at eleven weeks if you're not cyberstalking somebody,
Speaker 1: is that you've actually allowed your body to break the
Speaker 1: old patterns. See the reason why when you're going through
Speaker 1: a heartbreak, and heartbreak and breakups are just like death.
Speaker 1: That's what they are for sure, because you're grieving what's
Speaker 1: no longer there.
Speaker 2: The life you have. Yes, and.
Speaker 1: Aside from the thirty day rule, which is remove like
Speaker 1: do not look at voice, memos, location, social nothing, no photos,
Speaker 1: because it triggers everything to stay alive in you. But
Speaker 1: during those thirty days, what's going to happen is every
Speaker 1: time you wake up, you're going to feel them there.
Speaker 1: Because your body remembers. That doesn't mean that's a sign
Speaker 1: you should get back together. That's actually a sign that
Speaker 1: you're unlearning something. Let those memories come up. Let your
Speaker 1: nervous system process this. Every time you have news in
Speaker 1: your life, you're going to want to reach out to them.
Speaker 1: Why because that was the pattern. That doesn't mean you should.
Speaker 1: So you've got to do the let them leave and
Speaker 1: let me remind myself, I'm going through this process, and
Speaker 1: every day that you do that, you're actually unlearning these patterns,
Speaker 1: and by the time you get to about thirty days,
Speaker 1: you feel less intoxicated. Another huge recommendation is do something
Speaker 1: in your bedroom, like paint a wall, move the bed,
Speaker 1: do something, because you spent a lot of time there,
Speaker 1: so walking back into it is like a graveyard of
Speaker 1: your old life and it can be very triggering. And
Speaker 1: so she did that, And the eleven week mark is
Speaker 1: important because what's happening is you're now starting to create
Speaker 1: new patterns as you've let them leave. You're now letting
Speaker 1: me move on. You're letting me take the actions that
Speaker 1: show me that my life is moving forward. And my
Speaker 1: therapist and Davin, who's the smartest woman of human being
Speaker 1: I've ever met, she said, you know, now, the thing
Speaker 1: for Sawyer to ask herself is if she knew that
Speaker 1: the love of her life were literally just a couple
Speaker 1: months away, what would you do right now with this
Speaker 1: period of time? And when you think about it that way,
Speaker 1: because again, as long as you're holding on to somebody
Speaker 1: who already left, you actually are not open to meeting
Speaker 1: anybody else.
Speaker 2: That is beautiful, that idea of what would you look like,
Speaker 2: what would you be thinking? Yeah, how would you behave
Speaker 2: if the love of your life was two months away?
Speaker 1: Yeah, or two years ago or a year away or whatever.
Speaker 2: Crazy?
Speaker 1: See, because we think because when somebody leaves that you love,
Speaker 1: you think you're unlovable. You actually think you're never gonna
Speaker 1: find it again. You hate yourself. That's why most of
Speaker 1: the advice about this is complete bullshit. Go love yourself.
Speaker 1: How am I going to go love myself and the
Speaker 1: person I love more than anything just left me? I
Speaker 1: hate myself. I despise myself. I am terrified of the
Speaker 1: day that they're going to meet somebody. I'm never gonna
Speaker 1: find that again. I'm never going to have sex like
Speaker 1: that again. I'm not like you hate yourself and so
Speaker 1: telling somebody to just go on a revenge diet or
Speaker 1: leon love yourself it's horrible. Instead, I want you to
Speaker 1: face reality they left, let them and then let me
Speaker 1: grieve and follow my therapist and Davin's advice. You have
Speaker 1: to do a thirty day detox, and if you are
Speaker 1: somebody that's been holding on to somebody that left a
Speaker 1: year ago, I guarantee you you have not gone thirty
Speaker 1: days without listening to a voice memo or looking at
Speaker 1: a photo. You are keeping them alive, which is keeping
Speaker 1: you trapped in something that's dead. And your inability to
Speaker 1: let them go and let them leave, and then let
Speaker 1: me accept reality and start moving forward, and let me
Speaker 1: believe that the person that I am meant to meet
Speaker 1: they are in the future. They're not in my past.
Speaker 1: And by the way, even if you kind of hold
Speaker 1: out secretly hope it might be the person from the past,
Speaker 1: it might be, but they're not the version from back there,
Speaker 1: and neither are you, and neither are you, and so
Speaker 1: you have to again come back to where the power is.
Speaker 1: It's not in getting them back. It's not in making
Speaker 1: them jealous, because if you focus, I'm making that person
Speaker 1: jealous or what? But where are you putting your power then?
Speaker 1: And something you can't control, You have to put your
Speaker 1: power here. And the reason why I love the thirty
Speaker 1: day rule in the eleven week mark is because it's
Speaker 1: the truth. This is going to suck. The only way
Speaker 1: to get over someone and to go through heartbreak is
Speaker 1: to go through it. There's no avoiding it. There's only
Speaker 1: delaying it, and we delay it because we don't want
Speaker 1: to accept people as they are. When somebody breaks up
Speaker 1: and leaves or cheats on you, they have just revealed
Speaker 1: who they are for sure, and your inability to accept
Speaker 1: it instead of explaining it away and living in a
Speaker 1: fantasy up here, that's what's keeping you from having and
Speaker 1: creating the love you actually deserve and want in your life.
Speaker 2: I was talking to a friend recently, and everything you're
Speaker 2: saying is just so true and it's resonating so strongly
Speaker 2: to me. I was doing to a friend recently and
Speaker 2: she was saying to me, I wish my friend would
Speaker 2: just be honest with me. I wish this person who's
Speaker 2: just screwed me over, just let me down, would just
Speaker 2: be honest with me rather than pretending to be my friend.
Speaker 2: And I said to them, they are being honest with you.
Speaker 2: Them lying is showing you their truth. That's how much
Speaker 2: they value you. Them pretending to be your friend is
Speaker 2: their truth. You don't want the truth. Actually, you want
Speaker 2: them to lie to you, and you want them to
Speaker 2: be someone else. You want them to become the honest person.
Speaker 2: But they're showing you that they're not an honest person.
Speaker 2: That is the truth.
Speaker 1: It's true. And here's the other thing. Why are you
Speaker 1: pretending to be this person's friend and not bringing it up?
Speaker 1: Why is it on them to tell you the truth?
Speaker 1: Let them lie to you and then come to the
Speaker 1: let me part. If aren't you pretending that you're their friend?
Speaker 1: If you haven't brought this up, and you're actually holding
Speaker 1: that in your head, right, there are so many applications
Speaker 1: of this, so many, it's just credible. And the thing
Speaker 1: that I'm really really excited about is that, you know,
Speaker 1: the other massive thing that I think this is going
Speaker 1: to help people with is that one other way that
Speaker 1: you make people a massive problem is that you see
Speaker 1: somebody else's success or happiness or the things that they
Speaker 1: achieve in their life is somehow robbing you of yours.
Speaker 1: And the thing about life is that you're never playing
Speaker 1: against people. You play with them. And somebody else's success, happiness, love,
Speaker 1: like the things that they achieve, it's in limitless supply.
Speaker 1: And when you wrap your brain around the fact that happiness, love, money,
Speaker 1: like all of it limitless supply, so other people can't
Speaker 1: block your way. They actually lead the way. And so
Speaker 1: if you let them lead the way, and you see
Speaker 1: their wins not as your losses, but you see it
Speaker 1: as an example to follow. You Now, stop making other
Speaker 1: people a problem, and you stop using them as an
Speaker 1: excuse for why you can't do what you're capable of.
Speaker 1: Other People don't block you, you block your way. Allow
Speaker 1: people to lead the way, and the way that you
Speaker 1: do that, you say, let them be successful, let them
Speaker 1: get married, let them have the baby, let them have
Speaker 1: the nice car. Because they're showing me what's possible. And
Speaker 1: the cool thing about really embracing let them in that
Speaker 1: regard is that other people also show you the formula. Right,
Speaker 1: they show you exactly how to do something. But if
Speaker 1: you're so busy going, oh well, Jane launched a podcast
Speaker 1: and there's too many podcasts Now, I can't launch a podcasts.
Speaker 1: Who's blocking you? Correct? You're capable of learning to be
Speaker 1: a better player in the game of life from other people, Yes,
Speaker 1: so stop playing against them and let them show you
Speaker 1: the way.
Speaker 2: Now, why is it so hard to make friends as
Speaker 2: we get out of.
Speaker 1: There is a massive shift that happens in adult friendship
Speaker 1: when you hit twenty that nobody sees coming. The rules
Speaker 1: of friendship completely change when your twenties hit and I'm
Speaker 1: going to explain the rules when you're little, and then
Speaker 1: we're going to talk about the rules of adult friendship.
Speaker 1: So when you're little, your entire life is organized around
Speaker 1: friendship and making it possible because you're with people your
Speaker 1: age all the time in class, in sports, true, you
Speaker 1: move in groups because you're on teams and you're in
Speaker 1: neighborhoods and you're always together. You also celebrate the same milestones.
Speaker 1: You're hitting the same birthdays. You're all talking about the
Speaker 1: next level of school or this thing this summer. You're
Speaker 1: watching the same movies because you're all the same age,
Speaker 1: and so there's so much synergy and relevance and the
Speaker 1: conditions to spend a ton of time together are there.
Speaker 1: Then you get to university and you spend even more
Speaker 1: time together. And what happens when you hit your twenties, right,
Speaker 1: is that it moves from this big group sport where
Speaker 1: you just kind of expect to be around your friends
Speaker 1: all the time. You expect the group to get invited
Speaker 1: because that's what's always happened. You expect to see them
Speaker 1: all the time because you do always see them all
Speaker 1: the time. But then your twenties hit, the rules change
Speaker 1: and what I call the Great Scattering happens. Everybody moves
Speaker 1: in different directions and friendship goes from group sport to
Speaker 1: individual sport. You can no longer expect friendship. You are
Speaker 1: no longer part of a group that is expected to
Speaker 1: be invited everywhere because everybody scatters and suddenly everybody's on
Speaker 1: different timelines. You're in different cities, you're moving in different directions,
Speaker 1: so there's no way to locate yourself inside your friend group.
Speaker 1: And the only thing that's keeping you together from your friends,
Speaker 1: from your little is a text chain that starts to
Speaker 1: go quieter and quieter, a quieter as people start to
Speaker 1: focus on the people in front of them. And that
Speaker 1: brings me to two major shifts that I want you
Speaker 1: to embrace using the let them theory. Number one, you
Speaker 1: can no longer expect friendship. You have to take a
Speaker 1: way more flexible approach and a more proactive approach. You've
Speaker 1: got to let people come and go super important, and
Speaker 1: then you've got to let me take the actions to
Speaker 1: create the friendships. I got to go first. I got
Speaker 1: to be the one planning. I got to seek out
Speaker 1: new people. But there are three pillars of adult friendship
Speaker 1: based on research that are also going to help you
Speaker 1: understand that when people come and go in your life,
Speaker 1: ninety nine percent of the time, it's not personal and
Speaker 1: you actually haven't lost them as a friend. One of
Speaker 1: the three pillars is missing. So the three things that
Speaker 1: need to be required to have a friendship happen are
Speaker 1: the same three things that were around all the time
Speaker 1: when you were a kid. Number one, proximity. Proximity matters tremendously.
Speaker 1: Proximity means who are you actually physically next to. In fact,
Speaker 1: they've done research, Jay, if you and I were in
Speaker 1: a dorm and we lived across the hall, I don't
Speaker 1: I don't remember the percentages exactly, but it's like ninety
Speaker 1: percent chance we're going to be friends interesting the poor
Speaker 1: person at the end of the hallway ten percent chance
Speaker 1: that we're going to be friends with them because of proximity,
Speaker 1: even a matter of fifty feet makes a difference. And
Speaker 1: so when you were little, you were in proximity to
Speaker 1: people your age all the time exactly. The research also
Speaker 1: shows that to have as an adult a kind of
Speaker 1: casual friend, you need to spend approximately seventy hours with
Speaker 1: somebody to have a close friend two hundred hours. So
Speaker 1: when you're an adult, that creates a big problem because
Speaker 1: who are you spending all your time with once you're
Speaker 1: twenty The American time study shows that it's with people
Speaker 1: you work with. So why aren't we best friends with
Speaker 1: people at work because you have proximity and you're spending
Speaker 1: a lot of time together. But here's the thing, timing.
Speaker 1: When you were little, you were in the same timing
Speaker 1: of life with everybody. When you hit your twenties and
Speaker 1: it's now individual, everybody's on different timelines. Some of your
Speaker 1: friends are getting married, some are going to graduate school,
Speaker 1: some are now pursuing jobs. Other people are moving out
Speaker 1: of the city into the city. Everybody's timing is now different.
Speaker 1: And this also explains why you're almost never best friends
Speaker 1: with people at work because the timing is off. You're
Speaker 1: sitting next to people that are in very different times
Speaker 1: of their life. You may like them a lot, and
Speaker 1: you may be friends, but you never spend time outside
Speaker 1: of work because they're at home with their family and
Speaker 1: you're going out with your bodies your age on the weekends.
Speaker 1: And then that brings me to the third thing that
Speaker 1: needs to be present for a friendship to truly click.
Speaker 1: And that's energy. And the thing about energy is it changes.
Speaker 1: And you can have fantastic energy with somebody, and then
Speaker 1: if you decide you're not drinking anymore, the energys off.
Speaker 1: If you decide to get really focused on fitness, the
Speaker 1: energy is off. If you have very different political beliefs,
Speaker 1: the energy is off. It's not personal. It's one of
Speaker 1: these three pillars. And it has helped me so profoundly
Speaker 1: Jay to realize that people come and go and it's
Speaker 1: a beautiful thing and you should let them. And you
Speaker 1: should really if you have a friendship that starts to dissipate, right,
Speaker 1: ask yourself before you blame them or you blame you.
Speaker 1: Are any one of these three pillars missing? Are we
Speaker 1: not near each other anymore? Is the timing of our
Speaker 1: lives off? Is there just something about the energy that
Speaker 1: hasn't clicked? Because you can't force those things. But what
Speaker 1: I've found is that when you recognize that those are
Speaker 1: really important factors to your connection to someone else, that
Speaker 1: if a friendship starts to fade, for me, it's so
Speaker 1: easy to say let them. And I don't wish anybody bad.
Speaker 1: I literally wish people well because the other thing that
Speaker 1: I've learned, and you know, being fifty six, I've had
Speaker 1: a lot of friends come and go in different phases
Speaker 1: of my life that you would be startled by how
Speaker 1: many people from your past that you no longer quote
Speaker 1: consider friends because you haven't seen them in a very
Speaker 1: long time, or things just got weird. If you actually
Speaker 1: called them, they'd pick up the phone if you texted them.
Speaker 1: The research shows that when you get a surprise text
Speaker 1: from somebody that you haven't heard from in a long time,
Speaker 1: the amount of joy that you feel. And so I
Speaker 1: want you to consider, if you're very lonely right now,
Speaker 1: that there's actually probably hundreds of people from your past
Speaker 1: that still consider you a friend. And if you take
Speaker 1: the approach that I'm talking about, which is friendship is
Speaker 1: your responsibility, you need to go first, let me create
Speaker 1: the friendship and the connection that I want. And you
Speaker 1: can start by literally taking a look through your past
Speaker 1: and thinking about people that you remember fondly and just
Speaker 1: sending them a text, and you will be startled by
Speaker 1: what comes back because they're there, they haven't actually gone anywhere.
Speaker 1: The connection is still there. And oftentimes even if you've
Speaker 1: had somebody where something's been off again, let them and
Speaker 1: wish them well, and there will be a time, I
Speaker 1: promise you, where the timing or proximity or energy comes
Speaker 1: back around again.
Speaker 2: Yeah, and often you're so right. When as I'm listening
Speaker 2: to your talk, I'm just thinking of how conscious we
Speaker 2: have to be with all of our relationships, the ones
Speaker 2: that matter to us, the ones that we want to
Speaker 2: invest in. And it's what you said there was we
Speaker 2: were actually dealt such a tough card in the fact
Speaker 2: that basically from the moment you joined school at four
Speaker 2: till the moment you were twenty one, if you went
Speaker 2: to college, you basically didn't have to make really any
Speaker 2: major decisions or think about the next step because you
Speaker 2: went from seventh grade to eighth grade, to ninth grade
Speaker 2: to whatever it is, right, And so then all of
Speaker 2: a sudden, you're in the world at twenty one, yeah,
Speaker 2: or eighteen if you didn't go to college, and you
Speaker 2: all of a sudden now have to figure out what
Speaker 2: to do for the next fifty sixty years.
Speaker 1: All structure of your life just that just disappears because
Speaker 1: there is no structure and it makes no sense.
Speaker 2: And as I'm hearing you talk, it sounds like to
Speaker 2: me that it would have been harder to watch your
Speaker 2: daughter have to practice to let them theory than it
Speaker 2: is for you to practice to let them theory yes
Speaker 2: when she was going through her business. Would you say,
Speaker 2: that's in your deep vicinity of people that you're close
Speaker 2: with the hardest way you've had to practice to let
Speaker 2: them do yes.
Speaker 1: The hardest way is when you recognize the potential in
Speaker 1: somebody and you see them struggling, and when you recognize
Speaker 1: that somebody that you love deeply is in pain. When
Speaker 1: you're saying let them, you're not abandoning somebody. You're actually
Speaker 1: recognizing their ability to meet these difficult moments in their
Speaker 1: life with you by their side. And I think when
Speaker 1: I think about supporting versus enabling, because the more you
Speaker 1: kind of step in and rescue people from their feelings
Speaker 1: or from the consequences of their decisions or their inaction,
Speaker 1: the more people continue to drown in their problems. I
Speaker 1: really believe that I do too.
Speaker 2: I really believe that.
Speaker 1: And it's a very very difficult balance because you're going
Speaker 1: to hit your frustration and rock bottom and worry with
Speaker 1: somebody before they do, and somebody said something in the
Speaker 1: Addiction Commune. I can't remember who said this, but it
Speaker 1: just is so true that somebody only gets sober when
Speaker 1: getting drunk is harder than facing the thing that they
Speaker 1: don't want to face. And the same is true with
Speaker 1: anything like really motivating yourself to get in better shape,
Speaker 1: recognizing that you have a pattern of dating people that
Speaker 1: are emotionally abusive, and taking a break and really digging
Speaker 1: deep into the issue that keeps coming.
Speaker 2: Up for you.
Speaker 1: That's really hard. That's why we avoid it. And so
Speaker 1: when you see somebody that you know is capable or
Speaker 1: who deserves better, wanting that for them is a form
Speaker 1: of loving them like you should and want the people
Speaker 1: in your life that you care about to be doing better,
Speaker 1: and you I hate seeing somebody with so much potential
Speaker 1: squandering it. But again, I'm going to come back to
Speaker 1: something that I learned from doctor Stewart Ablon at mass
Speaker 1: General Hospital. People do well in the can and I
Speaker 1: want you to start to assume that if somebody in
Speaker 1: your life is not doing well, or if they're going
Speaker 1: through a challenge, there is a skill that's missing, or
Speaker 1: there is emotion that needs to be processed, or there
Speaker 1: is pain that needs to be felt before they can
Speaker 1: galvanize the ability to do the very difficult work to change.
Speaker 1: And in the case of watching my daughter go through
Speaker 1: this heartbreak, I mean I literally found myself Jay wanting
Speaker 1: to text you know, her boyfriend, her boyfriend's mother are like,
Speaker 1: you know, hey, maybe we can like just because I
Speaker 1: want to fix it. But when you step in and
Speaker 1: fix it, you literally demean someone else. Because I do
Speaker 1: know that she has the ability to move through this.
Speaker 1: And so the way that I love thinking about support
Speaker 1: is this way. The next time you have somebody in
Speaker 1: your life who is truly struggling, whether it's in school,
Speaker 1: or in relationships or with an addiction, I want you
Speaker 1: to think, how can I create an environment that supports
Speaker 1: their healing, not stepping in and doing it. It's rarely
Speaker 1: an issue of will like It's not willpower for people
Speaker 1: or the desire. It's actually more about skill and the
Speaker 1: ability and need to process things and do it on
Speaker 1: their own timeline. So how can you create an environment
Speaker 1: for that to happen? And for me, it meant removing
Speaker 1: any imagery. It meant letting her stay up in her
Speaker 1: bedroom and every once in a while knocking on the
Speaker 1: door and being like, do you need anything, and allowing
Speaker 1: her to be in her pajamas for four days and
Speaker 1: be in a depressive state, because guess what, being in
Speaker 1: a depressive state and falling on the floor and crying,
Speaker 1: it's a sign she's mentally well, that's what you do.
Speaker 1: It's a sign that you're okay. Yes, it would be
Speaker 1: scary if she wasn't feeling anything, And then when you're ready,
Speaker 1: you kind of put your arm around people and say
Speaker 1: how can you do this? When she was born, actually sawyer,
Speaker 1: I had severe postpartum depression. Jay I had a very
Speaker 1: traumatic delivery, lost a lot of blood, and I just
Speaker 1: was so out of it that they put me on
Speaker 1: these drugs that turned me into a zombie. I couldn't breastfeeder.
Speaker 1: I wasn't allowed to be alone with her. I missed
Speaker 1: the first three and a half months of her life,
Speaker 1: and nobody asked me if I needed help. They showed
Speaker 1: up and created an environment where I could get better.
Speaker 1: I had my parents drive out and just stay and
Speaker 1: they just did laundry and they cleaned and they did
Speaker 1: what needed to be done. And people who are struggling,
Speaker 1: they don't even know what they need, and so don't
Speaker 1: ask somebody what you can do. Find something you can do.
Speaker 1: Show up with the meal, walk into your brother's bedroom
Speaker 1: and pull open the curtains in the morning when he's
Speaker 1: struggling with depressions so the sunlight comes in. Create a
Speaker 1: playlist for somebody pick him up. Like, don't say you
Speaker 1: want to meet at yoga. Say here's what we're going
Speaker 1: to do. I'm going to come over on Saturday and
Speaker 1: pick you up and we're going to go to that
Speaker 1: yoga class. Or I'm going to come over on Sunday
Speaker 1: and I'm going to watch the kids and the dog
Speaker 1: so you can go to the park and read a
Speaker 1: book for two hours. That's how you create an environment
Speaker 1: for someone else to get better. And the other way
Speaker 1: that you do it is instead of judging, you're going
Speaker 1: to let them be who they are. You're going to
Speaker 1: let them struggle, and then you're going to use this
Speaker 1: technique that's incredibly effective. I labeled at the ABC so
Speaker 1: that I can remember it. First, you're going to apologize,
Speaker 1: so let's talk about like, this is an issue I
Speaker 1: had with our son. He didn't seem motivated, so I
Speaker 1: would constantly be like why aren't you motivated? Why don't
Speaker 1: you study hard? Why are you doing this? It didn't work?
Speaker 2: Yeah, it doesn't work.
Speaker 1: No, And so I finally A you're going to apologize,
Speaker 1: I'm sorry, I'm pressuring you, I'm sorry, I'm questioning you.
Speaker 1: And then A you're going to ask an open ended question,
Speaker 1: how do you feel about this issue? And it doesn't
Speaker 1: matter what they say, because you're probably asking for the
Speaker 1: first time how they actually feel about the issue. And
Speaker 1: then you're going to ask a really important question. You're
Speaker 1: going to ask what would you like to do about it?
Speaker 1: If anything? And their answers don't matter because what you're
Speaker 1: doing by apologizing is you're removing the pressure that you're bringing.
Speaker 1: And now by asking these questions, and I like to
Speaker 1: do this in a car Jay because they're trapped and
Speaker 1: because you're both looking ahead, so it's not as confrontational,
Speaker 1: and there's something in the science around forward ambulation and
Speaker 1: the movement that actually opens up your thinking. And then
Speaker 1: you ask, you know, what do you want to do
Speaker 1: about it? If anything? And what happens is you're now
Speaker 1: revealing this tension because people that are stuck know it,
Speaker 1: people that are struggling know it. People who are failing
Speaker 1: at school know it. Nobody wants to fail. It's not
Speaker 1: like people are trying to be depressed. It's not like
Speaker 1: people are trying to be very unhealthy. People know when
Speaker 1: they're letting themselves go. You don't need to remind them.
Speaker 1: But have you ever asked them what would you like
Speaker 1: to do about this? If anything, what happens in that question,
Speaker 1: whether they answered or not, is that friction between what
Speaker 1: they know to be true about what they desire and
Speaker 1: where they actually are rises up. That is the organizing
Speaker 1: intrinsic motivation that somebody needs to want to do better.
Speaker 1: And then you've got to do beat back off. That's
Speaker 1: the hard part. Let them, let them, let them, let them,
Speaker 1: let me shut up, let them, let them, let me
Speaker 1: not rollin eyes, let me. And people need space to
Speaker 1: have it be their idea. And I'll give you a
Speaker 1: quick example. I used to be the kind of person
Speaker 1: that would eat like they would eat lunch and work
Speaker 1: on my computer and like tapping on my computer, shoving
Speaker 1: a sandwich on my throat right. And there would be
Speaker 1: this colleague that would stand up and go for a
Speaker 1: walk most days, and every time she came back she'd
Speaker 1: have a smile on her face, and she take her
Speaker 1: earbuds off, and she'd then get back to work. And
Speaker 1: this would go on for weeks, and then finally one day, Jay,
Speaker 1: I look up outside and it's a nice day, and
Speaker 1: I think, I think I'm gonna go for a walk.
Speaker 1: Now here's the interesting thing. I didn't credit her. I
Speaker 1: thought it was my idea. Her example influenced my desire
Speaker 1: to do it. The people that you are close to
Speaker 1: need enough distance from you. This is why you have
Speaker 1: to back off for that friction, Yeah, and that stirring
Speaker 1: to sit with them in order for them to feel safe,
Speaker 1: to be able to take the step forward. And then
Speaker 1: you better keep back and off because you do not
Speaker 1: want to be like, oh I saw you in mentor
Speaker 1: in your tet, like that's going to no. And so
Speaker 1: you keep going let them. And then the sea part
Speaker 1: is any small thing, you celebrate it in a non
Speaker 1: passive aggressive way, and you actually model the change. You
Speaker 1: can't ask somebody to stop drinking while you're pouring yourself
Speaker 1: a glass of wine, for sure. You can't ask somebody
Speaker 1: else to get healthy if you're sitting on the couch
Speaker 1: eating chips. So you model the change and make it easy,
Speaker 1: just like my colleague did with the Walk, and just
Speaker 1: like you and I constantly buy things online because it
Speaker 1: looks so easy and fun. Your behavior in backing off
Speaker 1: and that tension inside them actually creates the space for
Speaker 1: somebody to truly want to change, and that's how it's
Speaker 1: done well.
Speaker 2: I want to thank you so deeply for writing this book.
Speaker 2: They Let Them theory a life changing tool that millions
Speaker 2: of people can stop talking about it. It's true, Mel
Speaker 2: I've learned so much from you today, honestly, and you've
Speaker 2: connected so many dots to me. I know I'm going
Speaker 2: to be recommending this book to so many people in
Speaker 2: my life because I really believe it's the thing that's
Speaker 2: holding them back. Yeah, I want to thank you for
Speaker 2: writing it. I want to thank you for pouring your
Speaker 2: heart into it. I want to thank you for just
Speaker 2: showing up so brilliantly and emphatically today as you always do.
Speaker 2: And I'm just so grateful to call you a friend
Speaker 2: and grateful to know you in this journey called life,
Speaker 2: and genuinely so thankful that you're constantly trying to find
Speaker 2: really simple, practical tools that all of us can apply
Speaker 2: in our lives to make it easier and make it
Speaker 2: a bit more livable, but also thrive. So thank you
Speaker 2: so much. Truly.
Speaker 1: Well, I'm not as smart as you, Jay, so I
Speaker 1: can't do the intellectual stuff. I gotta find simple things.
Speaker 2: You'd agree.
Speaker 1: Well, you know, I have to tell you I really
Speaker 1: appreciate simple and beautiful and I truly accept and feel
Speaker 1: how heartfelt and honest those words are. Because this is
Speaker 1: I think my legacy.
Speaker 2: I do.
Speaker 1: I think that this is the thing I was supposed
Speaker 1: to figure out and leave the world.
Speaker 2: I believe it too. Thank you, Thank you the best.
Speaker 2: If you love this episode, you'll love my interview with
Speaker 2: doctor Gabo Matte on understanding your trauma and how to
Speaker 2: heal emotional wounds to start moving on from the past.
Speaker 1: Everything in nature grows only where it's vulnerable. So a
Speaker 1: tree doesn't go o where it's hard and thick, does it.
Speaker 1: It goes where it's soft and green and vulnerable.