Ask Yourself These 5 Questions - Find Peace, Purpose & Design Your Dream Life | Mel Robbins

I wanted to start M with five questions in the introduction of your new book The let them Theory you share these questions that you've been asking yourself for years and you put it to the reader that there's a benefit in them asking these questions of themselves so if it's okay with you I want to go through each of these five questions and i' love your commentary on why it's such an important question okay first question why am I so afraid of failing yeah that's a big one um just stop as you're listening right now and

consider the truth that there is something that you would like to change or try in your life like maybe you want to write a book maybe you want to start a YouTube channel or a podcast maybe you've thought about changing careers and yet even though you have thought about this you have seen other people do it you maybe have felt a little jealous for some reason you're not doing it and there's a reason why and the reason why is because you are worried that if you were to try it you might fail and if you

realize that this is something that's happening in your life that you want to become financially secure this is something that you really dream about you would love to to but you don't even get started it's because you don't believe you're going to be successful MH you're afraid that you're going to fail and so what I started to see in my own life is that there were a lot of things that I wanted to be doing but I was stopping myself from doing them there were a lot of things I wanted to try MH But I

either thought it was going to be too hard it wasn't going to work out so why even bother and what's interesting about being afraid of failing is why would it matter and that gets to the deeper truth about what's underneath it you're not afraid of failing you're actually afraid of other people seeing you fail you're afraid of feeling inferior to other people who tried the same thing M and it worked out for them but it's not working out for you yeah and when you start to realize that my God it's not about failing at all

it's about the opinions of what other people are going to say about me what must be true about me in the eyes of other people if I go after something and I look stupid or it doesn't work out or it's a giant eye roll to everybody so you're not afraid of failing at all you're afraid that other people's opinions will be that you're a failure and when you go deep like that and you realize wait well that stinks because number one I'm never going to be able to control what other people think and I'm allowing

that fear of something I can't control because people are going to think whatever they're going to think about you they're going to have whatever opinions half of them are so consumed in their own lives are not even paying attention to what you're doing anyway but you're allowing that fear yeah I mean this is one of the reasons why a lot of people you know who want to learn how to make money online or who want to learn how to do something with social media or who want to learn how to Market themselves or put themselves

out there don't do it yeah it's because of this nagging sense that if I were to take this risk if I were to make this change if I were to be so bold as to just say I'm going to take my my social media and I'm going to use it to Market my real estate business instead of just posting photos of my kids that other people are going to think something and that makes me a failure it's so powerful M there is actually a story in your book about Molly your friend the interior designer that

really kind of speaks to this yeah so this is a story about and look here's my belief you and I share this belief in the Limitless potential that you have inside you to change your life yeah yeah you have fundamentally changed who you are how you live your life the way that your life looks your career over the past decade yeah I've done the same thing over the last 15 years there is not a chance that in hell that you could come up with a excuse or a reason that would make me say you're right

you have no power here you're right there's nothing you can do there's always something you can do and often times what I've found in my own life is that I've spent so much time and energy looking at what every everyone else is doing that I am not paying attention to what is within my control which is my actions how I spend my time my response to things what I do what I don't do and so that brings us to the story about Molly so Molly not a real name I'll just say that to protect people

you know from feeling like oh my God I I'm in a book um so and I've had like seven people go am I Molly and they're not interior designers because the experience that I'm about to explain is a universal feeling yeah so Molly in the story is an interior designer and she calls me one night and she's all upset about something I'm like what's wrong like it sounds like something really bad happening she's like oh my gosh well and she goes on to tell me the story and there is a woman that is in her

friend group and it's not really a woman that Molly's good friends with it's a woman that's kind of an annoying she a little over her bearing a little bit of a bragger and she has now gotten into the design business and Molly has gotten her certifications Molly has been in business for 10 years Molly has uh employees she has big projects I mean she has a lot to be proud of yeah so all of a sudden this woman from the neighborhood gets into the design business and now their whole friend group is just going on

and on and on about how talented this irritating woman is and as Molly hears about this she of course checks out the Woman's website checks out the woman's social media it's beautiful it's modern and Molly's thinking I haven't updated my website in six years and I know I've needed to I'm not doing anything on social and now all of a sudden this chick who's not even a real designer and who by the way these photos are her house and she didn't even decorate her house and now every like and so Molly loses her mind and

here's the point of the story for years Molly has known that she needs to get serious about marketing her business better for years Molly has been talking about updating her website for years Molly has been talking about the fact that she needs to start to get serious about social media she hasn't done it and now all of a sudden this irritating woman comes along and she is doing the exact thing that Molly has been stopping herself from doing yeah and this is very important because when Molly was like what should I do you know is

she going to steal my clients like everybody thinks she's a better designer again now I'm worried about people's opinions about this woman versus me I'm also mad at myself yeah because I'm seeing somebody body who I know has no Advantage no trust fund no special anything she's done exactly what I've been keeping myself from doing and now I don't have any excuses because if this chick can do it there's nothing stopping me but me and so she's like what should I do I'm like you should pick up the phone and thank her because this irritating

woman is in your life for a reason she's there to make you angry she's there to make you jealous she is there to stir something up inside of you that you need to recognize that your excuses are BS that you can find time you can figure this out you haven't made this a priority but the fact that you're angry and jealous of this person actually means that this matters to you so it's time to get out of your way it's time to stop with the excuses and it's time to just make a plan and figure

this out and it brings me to a point Dr strategy that was so life-changing to me because I was basically when I was in my 20s 30s and even into my 40s I was a walking red flag as a friend because I hadn't done enough work internally and when you're insecure about yourself when you are in a state of struggle or lack you cannot give other people what you do not have to give to yourself yeah and so I was the kind of person Dr chattergy where you know I I would see somebody else winning

in life and I was jealous I could not authentically be happy for somebody even the people that I love even the people that I know work hard even the people that I know deserve it because I was in such a state of lack and what was interesting to me about this story about Molly and learning the let them Theory and starting to use it in my life is that no one can take anything that's meant for you no one can only you can do that to yourself see this woman that all of a sudden starts

posting beautiful things on social media and starts a design business and is doing all these things that you've talked yourself out of doing she's not taking anything from you exactly I never knew that see I would see somebody else's wins as my loss I would see somebody else having a brand new kitchen or a beautiful new house that they deserved that they worked for and I'd walk in and I you know kind of fake smile as I'm getting a tour and it looks like the most beautiful thing I've ever seen in magazines and then I

would get in the car and then because I was so insecure and lacking you know I I I first of all couldn't be authentically happy for that person because I'm like if they're getting this it means I can't and then I get in the car and I turn to my poor husband and and blame it on him why couldn't you have gone into Finance why did you have to be a nice guy that cared for people and doesn't make my like you're like as if it's his fault and here's the message that I have about

other people's success number one other people will never block your way they lead the way sorry to interrupt but to make sure you're taking action after watching this video I've created a free seven-step action plan to help you build the life that you want it contains the seven biggest takeaways from this powerful conversation with a step-by-step action plan to make sure that you are making lasting change instead of spending loads of time trying to figure out what exactly you should do just click on the first link in the description box below or scan the QR

codes here if somebody else has a beautiful kitchen or a brand new podcast or they've got a wonderful relationship with their kids or they've turned their health around and they've lost a bunch of weight that means you can do it too yeah but if you pour time and energy into watching them into allowing your jealousy and your insecurity to consume you you're wasting the very energy and time that you need to focus and wake up every day and chip away at working on the things that you want and this is the biggest Revelation like you

know a lot of us don't feel like we have any power and there were times in my life where I feel like I had zero power too but what I've come to realize is that you will never take control of your life until you stop trying to control everybody else's yeah you will never feel powerful in your life until you stop giving your power away and if you're sitting there listening to my voice or watching us on YouTube right now and you're thinking well I don't have any power baloney you have so much power and

currency your most your biggest power is your time and your energy and you talk so much about energy and your health and I'm going to tell you something if you're exhausted if you're not achieving your goals if you can't catch a break if you're constantly overwhelmed you're not the problem the problem is the power you give to everybody else yeah the power you give to their thoughts to their actions to their moods to their expectations every time you allow somebody else's Behavior to impact you or you allow their emotions to bother you or you allow

their opinions or the fear of their opinions to stop you or you make it your job to make people happy you are giving power to other people and it took me until I was 54 years old to realize that holy cow there's a different way to live yeah and the different way to live is to just let people let let them have their thought let them have their opinions let them have their business and their success and their brand new kitchens let them have their disappointments and their expectations let them yeah I got to focus

on me let me remind myself that I got power here because I can always control what I think what I do and how I process my emotions and that's how I take responsibility for my life yeah that's the big theme for me in your book it's responsibility it's about agency it's about a sense of control that we can take back if we've given it away I mean that's such a key point isn't it one of the reasons we're so tired all the time is because we waste and I use that word intentionally we waste so

much of our own internal energy on things outside our control on the reactions and opinions of other people and that Molly story the reason I wanted to talk about it is because it's a universal story and here's what I want to say about that first of all you said the key word here responsibility responsibility is just the ability to respond that's what responsibility is you take responsibility for your life by understanding that you are in control of your ability to respond to life and that's the secret to life that's the secret right there and this

is not a new idea by the way like I did not create the idea that what's happening around you does not need to happen to you I did not create the idea that your power is not in trying to control out there it's in trying to control in here this is stoicism this is Buddhism this is Victor frankl's Man's Search for meaning and what I love about these two words let them is that it has all its roots in this philosophy and truth that has been true about human beings and life since the beginning of

time which is anytime you try to control something that you can't control it just creates stress and frustration for you yeah and the more you give up trying to control everything the more control you gain and I have spent my entire life getting sucked in well I shouldn't even say sucked in because that implies that somebody else pulled me in I have spent my entire life pulling myself in allowing myself to be involved in people's drama affected by people's moods frustrated by things that I can't control scared about what people are doing scared about their

opinions all of which I can't control and these two words just saying let them it was like discovering there's a completely different way to live because there is when you learn how to detach and this is another thing that the let them Theory really is if you understand Detachment Theory or radical acceptance this is how you apply it in Modern Life it's ancient wisdom and therapeutic modalities and some of the greatest spiritual teachings in a simple tool for a very frustrating and stressful moment in human history yeah so you can apply it that's what this

is and so back to the Molly story the interesting thing about jealousy is that I used to get consumed by jealousy if I saw you know a group of people going away I would be jealous I wasn't invited if I saw somebody else getting you know the promotion I thought I deserved I would be jealous if I saw somebody getting the better shift if I was a waitress on Saturday night I would be jealous and frustrated the thing about jealousy is that you can only be jealous of things that you actually want and so if

you're willing in those moments of jealousy whether it is you know a lot of us see other people renovating their homes right or having a nice car or and you're like I'm jealous of that okay great well let's go a layer deeper because what if jealousy didn't mean that there's something wrong with you what if jealousy is a signal from your values yeah that there's something important that you're ignoring that friend's brand new kitchen that you're happy for her but you're super jealous about okay good let's go underneath that feels like it's a two-step process

what you're describing where process one is understand that you're jealous okay and you you know I think one of the things people love about em mail is how open you are on your podcasts on social media and in this book you you share very openly I think towards the start about I think it's a an old friend of yours and they had the most beautiful house and your kids love hanging out there and you wanted to be happy but you couldn't yes I was so jealous I mean I'm like have you ever had an experience

Dr chattery where you and your wife you pull into somebody's house you're like how do they have this much money the driveway's long they've got the playroom with like four bunk beds and you're like no wonder my kids are always here yeah and the thing about those moments is it's normal to feel that way and it's normal to struggle with these conflicting emotions of being both happy for your friends that worked hard and who are awesome and deserve this stuff but to then also feel sorry for yourself and really jealous and so if you then

can use let them okay let them have a better house to meet let them have the most amazing bunk room for the kids let them enjoy this now let me go to the let me part let me really ask myself what exactly am I jealous of what exactly is bothering me because you know I'm not jealous of somebody that has a penthouse in Dubai I don't want to live there wouldn't even stir any emotion in me but for the things that are meant for you I believe jealousy is a message from your future self I

believe jealousy is such a kind of frustrating emotion that it is trying to organize the energy and friction that you need inside yourself to actually wake up and recognize that where you are is not where you want to be nor where you're meant to be what I think it also says to me is the importance of honesty right so when I say it's a two-step process what I'm hearing from you m is this idea that you pull up to your friend's house and I appreciate you weren't able to do this 10 or 15 years ago

right but you can now do it which is you'll pull up and step one is recognize that I'm not being happy for it I can't be happy for it this is ridiculous she's my friend but despite me loving her and wanting to spend time with her yeah there's something inside of me that's raging I think some people get stuck there mou of course I lived there for decad in stage one without realizing okay stage one be honest with yourself don't try and pretend you're not feeding that which is what I think a lot of people

do but then move to stage two you call it let me the way I hear it for you it's kind of like you recognize it spend a bit time understanding what precisely is it about this person and their love life Molly can apply the same thing with their interior designer business right and then what can I now do about it correct CU here's the thing the let them theory is a very simple mindset tool and it is ultimately about control and freedom that's what it's about yeah see I learned in researching this that there is

a fundamental hardwired need all human beings have it the need to feel in control you talk about it all the time it is a survival Instinct and you need to feel like you're in control of your life your future your decisions what's going to happen at work today the food that you eat what you're going to do this weekend and here's the problem the problem is everybody has the same need for control and if you Dr chattery do something that annoys me or bothers me or hurts me or irritates me or or frustrates me or

makes me concerned about something your behavior now makes me feel something that makes me feel the need to try to control something because your behavior if you're worrying me I now feel a little out of control so I then make a fatal mistake I then cross the line and I try to change you exactly I try to get you to change your mind or change your opinion or do that thing I want you to do or to take away the hurt that I feel and now I'm bumping up against your need to be in control

of what you're doing and that's how I lived my life for 504 years I was constantly crossing over the line in my relationships and in life because I was trying to push other people or I was frustrated by other people or I was jealous of other people or I was angry about what they were doing or I was judgy about what they were doing and you know we all have we all have a family member or a parent who you know you know that any time that you go be with them they're going to have

their opinions and then you brace and so then you wish that they were different this is a dynamic that's never going to change until you change because one thing that you will never ever ever ever be able to control is what another person believes feels thinks says or does you're never going to be able to control that and any time that you spend trying to is a waste of your time and energy it just makes more frustration for you and ironically what I also learned is that when you push other people because you're worried about

them when you try to pressure other people to lose weight or get in better shape or make more money you're not motivating them you're actually triggering their need to be in control of themselves and you create resistance to the very change that you want and I worked against this fundamental law forever and so the let them theory is super simple the first step is anytime anybody else whether it is the person that is whether it's the government or it's traffic or it's one of your kids or it's your boss's mood or it's your in-laws anytime

anybody's Behavior bothers you just say let them because when you say let them you are queuing to yourself I recognize that I can't control the government I can't control my spouse I can't control my mother-in-law's mood I can't control what my boss is doing right now I can't control what they let them I can't control the fact that there's traffic right now on a Monday morning which is super stupid while everyone's trying let them because if I can't control it when I say let them I'm putting up a boundary and I'm saying this isn't worth

my time and energy yeah and then you say the second part which is let me and this is the more critical part I think this is more powerful part because let me every time you say let them you separate yourself from allowing the world to impact you in a negative way and you separate yourself from making it your responsibility to make other people happy or meet their expectations and then when you say let me you now cue yourself every time Dr chattery there's only three things in your control ever it's what you think right now

about what's happening it's what you do or don't do and we forget that not doing something is often the more powerful choice and number three you get to control how you react to your own emotions in this moment do they rise and fall do you breathe through it do you use your three four five breath yeah and some of the tools that you talk about all the time and one of the pillars the four pillars of relaxation and settle yourself or do you allow your emotions to run you over like a freight train and next

thing you know you've said something you've regretted or you've spent 90 minutes if you've written one of those emails where it's like back back back and you're like best and then send and does nothing but keep you in a stressed out State and so it really is a tool that you can use in Endless ways to recognize when life is getting to you and that you're giving time and energy to something that you can't control and you're now choosing to recognize it and say let them which means you protect your time and energy yeah and

then when you say Let Me You remind yourself no matter how scary this is no matter how tired I am no matter how alone I am let me remind myself through my attitude my actions and my ability yeah to process my emotions I actually can make this a little better I have power I have Choice yeah it it's such a powerful tool I mean as you say there are echoes of stoicism philosophy religion but what does that speak to it speaks to the fact that this is a universal human truth but I think what you've

done so beautifully is by distilling it down to two words two very simple words two deceptively simple words that's where the power comes that's where the practicality comes and you know one of the things I'm really passionate about at the moment Mel which I think this book speaks of is this idea that stress has become common Pence now you know how you feeling yeah I'm okay I'm a little bit stressed you know that's how normal it is but I don't think people realize that stress is twofold there's external stress the amount of emails you have

to do the things that your boss has asked you to do your the you know the things you have to do to take your kids to after school club or for your parents whatever it might be but then arguably more important is what I call internal stress the stress that we are generating ourselves right you talk about control this is within our control I am generating my own response to this neutral external events yeah and I think the go in this book for me is and it's a go that I felt on my own life

over the last few years it's this idea that once you understand that there is an event and in between that event and your response there is that choice you can choose you can work on this skill to let them skill right over time and realize I don't have to let that thing stress me no like as I shared with you just before we started recording I'm in Boston at the moment to come on your podcast okay and we've recorded a great conversation and we just flipped the mics I meant to be flying home tonight and

as I was getting ready to come to your studio I got a text message message saying that the flight's cancelled the older version of me would have absolutely stressed out oh no I've got to do this I've learned over the years there is zero point right yes I could even apply let them let the airline cancel the flight right they've already canel it they've canceled it I can't do anything if I generate a whole lot of internal stress what about this what about that it is what it is right let's just see what the next

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what's beautiful about this I want to unpack this because it's a simple example but just like you simplify so many overwhelming topics for us it would be so easy in the telling of that story to miss what you actually did there and to understand how that micro decision in a moment that could be overwhelmingly stressful to take over so when you get the news that the flight is canceled or that the person doesn't love you anymore or that you're getting laid off from your job the thing has already happened yeah so you know sometimes people

say to me well does this just mean you're a doormat does this just mean you don't care I'm like no actually you're a doormat right now and you're allowing too many things to have too much power over you so if the flight's already cancelled doesn't it seem kind of stupid to allow something that's already happened to rail everything else yeah and if you do then work yourself up in a state where the flight is canceled now you're angry at the Airlines and you're upset about this and it feels like this always happens to me and

now I'm G to do this and now pity potty well that and you have taught me just as you have taught the person listening that allowing that agitation means you've just created a physiological chain reaction in your body that has consequences for your health for your focus for your state of mind for your happiness for your ability to connect which means something very important when the airline cancels the flight and you say let them let them like they're doing what they need to do I have no control this I'm just going to let them you

shut down the stress response yeah which means you are now able to meet this moment in a very different way exactly because your calm you can think clearly you're not rattled by it and so one of the reasons why I'm so excited for people to have this tool is because even when life just deals the cruelest blow somebody that you love dies you lose your job and it is the only income that you have let them is not going to take away the pain of what's happening what it does is it helps you understand in

those situations what part of this can I control M I can't control the cancer diagnosis I just have to let them tell me the bad news I have to let the health situation be what it is and when you say that what you're doing is you're protecting your fear and your stress response from something having too much of an impact on you because what you need in the scariest moments of your life and in the scariest moments in your neighborhood or your country or your marriage or your family what you actually need is you need

the ability to think clearly yeah you need the ability to be able to bring the best of you to this moment and if you allow everything to derail you or stress you out you're not actually going to be able to help other people you're not going to be able to help yourself you're not going to be able to truly face whatever the thing is that you're scared to face yeah life today is a death by a Thousand Cuts I mean I think everybody in United States is bracing for four years of just irrational headlines and

scary news and you know My Philosophy about this is why would I give somebody who is that uncontrollable any power like there's nothing I can do to control somebody who is that narcissistic and out of control so I just need to let them because they're going to do whatever they're going to do whether you're talking about somebody that's in government or you're talking about your mother-in-law let them because they're going to do what they're going to do that's not where your power is and when you say let them what's also amazing in your relationships is

that you actually for the first time call out this is who this person is this is who they're not I see you exactly as you are so I'm not going to brace yeah because I know what I'm dealing with I'm going to let you be you and then you say Let me let me focus on how I'm going to respond to this and how I'm not going to respond to it is I'm not going to sit there and stress myself out trying to control or predict what's going to happen because I already know what's going

to happen yeah cuz people reveal who they are through their behavior yeah I mean there so many threats to on there I'm going to go back to these questions just because I think they're so powerful okay so the first one you've covered beautifully why am I afraid of failing the second question that you asked yourself repeatedly and you suggest that we ask ourselves is why do I have a hard time asking for what I need because you have been programmed to believe everybody else's needs and expectations are your responsibility to meet and this is true

for mam women so if you're female you were raised to believe that your parents happiness is your job you're probably leaning more into the people pleaser category like you think if everybody's happy and nobody's disappointed whether it's your friends or it's your partner it's your parents or your kids then you're good so you are so focused on everybody else's needs and moods and happiness that you are last on the list and by the time you collapse into bed you have zero energy left for yourself so you have life inverted that's why you have to why

do I have a hard time asking for what I need because I think my job is to actually give everybody what they need and so I'm not even thinking about my needs for men it's the same thing exact same thing my husband Chris is the founder of a men's retreat called Soul degree and he doesn't share the details about what people share but over the years I've asked him what's like the big theme that comes up at the Retreats that men talk about that that I think people would find surprising and he said oh it's

very clear number one theme and I said what is it he's that the men that he works with say my role is as a provider my job is to take care of everybody my worth is in the work that I do and the money that I make it's in the doing and most of the men that he works with they don't even know what they need now when I first heard that Dr chattergy I'm like that's not true because women feel that way well guess what based on the research that's exactly how everybody feels that

it's your obligation to provide for or to take care of everybody else's needs and because you have put everybody else's happiness and well-being and their their well-being first that's why you got nothing left for you and that's why you might not even know what you need because you've been so focused on everybody else's you've never even stopped and asked yourself what do I actually need how'd you change that well you cannot get sober until you stop drinking you cannot take care of your needs until you stop taking care of everybody else's ahead of your own

and that doesn't mean you become a narcissistic selfish closed off human beings it means you start to create space and boundaries between you and other people and you start to recognize every time you say let them and you say let them be in a bad mood you've just stopped yourself from stepping in and trying to put them in a good one hold on this is really important so we're talking about when we don't put our own needs first and and we're constantly doing things for others right and I think what you're saying m is if

I in that moment decide no no I'm tired I've been overc committing I need an evening to myself tonight to nourish myself yeah and you're saying if someone around you is unhappy with that oh are you really going to stay in but we said that we would go see our friends Dr chattergy and you know I'm just bummed because I thought we were going to do do this come on you're basically saying it's okay for them to be upset it doesn't mean you have to change your behavior to stop them being upset correct it's a

it's a subtle but a really important difference isn't it it's a huge life-changing idea that in that moment when you want to stay in and your partner or your kids or whatever are now disappointed because you don't want to go to the thing or you're not going to the thing let them be disappointed let them get a ride from somebody else let them go without you and here's what's interesting about disappointment like I've lived my whole life navigating other people's moods seriously like if you know I I if you're disappointed I'm going to bend over

backwards to make sure you're not disappointed whether it's in business how many times have you said yes to something you're like why the did I say yes to this well it's because you didn't want people to be disappointed in you but here's what I want you to consider about disappointment and I only saw this as I started saying let them and let me in my own life oh my god I've been so afraid of disappointment it's a beautiful thing it really is I mean if you can't make it out for dinner to a friend's birthday

and they're disappointed isn't that good yeah exactly if somebody wants you to go and do something for the you know a speech or a business or and you can't make it and they're disappointed isn't that good MH of course it is it means they want you there and here's the other thing your parents your children your business partners your boss they're capable of experiencing the normal human emotion called Disappointment and they'll get over it and even if this is a person in your life that loves to hold disappointment over your head let them because it

only has power if you give it power yeah let them try to guilt you it only has power if you change your plans because you're trying to make their mood change and the big takeaway for me in learning to say let them let my friend be disappointed let that business partner be disappointed I love that they're disappointed that I can't make it and still I can't make it let me remind myself that it's my responsibility to live my life in a way that aligns with my values and here's the cool thing I had exhausted myself

Dr chattergy trying to navigate life based on people's moods and whether or not people are happy and if I'm doing the right thing according to other people and trying to operate in a way that somebody would think a positive thing about me it's exhausting and nothing that you do actually guarantees that someone's going to think a particular thought anyway like like you could literally bend over backwards after working a full day at the hospital and then go to this party that you are so exhausted that you have no interest in going to because you don't

want your friend to be disappointed and you don't want to let them down and then you get home and you can barely fall asleep and you regret going and even though you bent over backwards and you went the person could be back at their flat going you don't even know why came he was such a bump on the log you hear what I'm saying so no one wins no one wins and the point here is you can't control what another person's going to think and you can't control their emotions and you can't control what they

do and don't do so if that's true and the only thing you can control is what you think and what you do here's what I've found in the last 18 months of using this it's the single most powerful thing I've ever discovered when you start to say let them and you create space between you and other people which helps you not assume responsibility for people's moods and their success and their happiness you also do something important you create the space around the health decisions that we make you create this space when you then say let

me where you recognize something that's really powerful that you've been overlooking this entire time when you say the let me part what's absolutely freaking incredible is that the more that you say Let me let me operate in a way that makes me proud of myself yeah let me make choices that align with what I value and if you know that in your heart you're making the best decisions that you can based on your values that you know your intentions what's interesting is you become very proud of yourself yeah and when you're proud of yourself and

you're proud of the way that you're showing up for life every day you don't actually think about other people much at all I I actually you this morning well what the way I see life these days very much is my responsibility I believe or I would I would say maybe my number one responsibility each day is to make sure at the end of the day I can look in the mirror before I go to bed and look at myself and go yeah I'm proud with how I showed up today I lived in alignment with my

values today because when you do that and when you can take a moment to to appreciate that actually we live in a world of 8 billion people okay not everyone's going to agree with that some people are going to like what I've done some people are not going to like what I've done that's an unwinable game yes but we all have been playing it oh man you know that's that's what these two words taught me I had life backwards yeah exactly I was looking out there for the validation that I need to give myself yeah

there's also something in what you just said which I think is really powerful okay so there's let them and let me but it's when you mentioned your husband Chris and you mentioned his the men's Retreats and when he's sharing with you after you asked him that a lot of men feel I need to be the provider um I'm always there looking out for my family and other people who's there looking out for me I don't even know what I need your initial feeling was what are you talking about this is this is like a a

woman's problem you know this is this is what women say it's not men you guys have got it easy or whatever it might be you watch the game on the weekends you're like playing golf what are you talking about yeah but there's this idea that actually when people say something and share it with us let's believe them mhm I think this also plays into the let them Theory it's like okay instead of me projecting and going what a load of rubbish what are you talking about right just a few weeks ago Mel I was in

London doing some media around my new book and I'm normally when I'm in London I'm busy I don't have a spare moment I'm not there to socialize I'm there to work yep but because of the way a couple of things uh played out in my timetable I had a spare afternoon Sunday afternoon completely free fabulous I've got a friend who lives about 1 hour out of London and hadn't seen him in ages and one of mine intentions for 2025 to spend more time with my friends and I text them I said hey man listen if

you have a moment I'm going to be around in London uh if you want to come and grab some lunch and shoot pool whatever and he got back to me he said give me a couple of days let me see if I can work it in and then he actually told me the day before he said hey man listen I'm going to really struggle we've had issues at in the house the um one of the pipes is leaking the kids have got a lot on at the moment I would love to but I'm just not

going to be able to it's not the right time I think so many of us M we start to make up stories right in that moment it's an event right and it goes back to what I said about you listening to Chris and actually taking people at face Valley sometimes like I'm like yeah you know what I could create a story that oh man if he really cared about the friendship he would have made it in or whatever it might whatever I might have done a few years ago yep but because I I practice similar

things that they let them Theory I'm like no I feel calm I feel good yeah that sounds reasonable no worries I get it it's not the right time for him no worries he's still one of my closest friends he just couldn't come in on that Sunday that's the way it goes so can you speak to that a little bit that particularly with the through the lens of your husband Chris and this idea that we project and we think what are you complaining about you got nothing to complain about your life's easy how how does your

work fit into that well I think it's an incredible question and I can even widen it out even more people are allowed to cancel plans they're allowed to have a different opinion than you they're allowed to change their minds they're allowed to be upset they're allowed to struggle they're allowed to be who they are and who they're not and your job in life is not to second guess or to judge or to be pissed off because people are not conforming to your expectations see it goes both ways exactly you're exhausted because you think you're supposed

to meet everybody else's expectations and the reason why you're frustrated is because the opposite is true you actually believe everybody else should conform to your expectations and so the very thing that is draining your time and energy and making you overwhelmed and causing the outside world and other people's behaviors to piss you off or frustrate you or stress you out or annoy you or just make you feel just intense all the time it's the exact same thing that creates friction and distance and unnecessary drama in your relationships it's the expectations that we hold over each

other and ourselves and when you start to say let them let them be who they are let them be who they're not because the more you let people be who they are the more you're accepting them as they are and that makes your relationships better and the more you let other people live their lives the more your life gets better because you're no longer holding expectations over other people that they should be different than they are you are learning the most fundamental and important skill in a relationship which is learning how to accept somebody as

they are and love them as they are and be more compassionate and graceful and loving with people instead of constantly judging and having opinions and inserting your stories and wishing people were different and then how it works with you is you recognize that the unfair expectation that you've held over your own head that you should somehow be responsible for every other adult happiness and every other adult's social plans I mean just think about you know when you find the time to have a dinner party MH and you haven't seen your friends forever because there's a

real crisis in friendship that we're all feeling because everybody's busy and hybrid work screws up everybody's schedules and people have gotten a little bit more hermit-like because of the experience of being in lockdown like it just and so if we're all feeling this way and then you go to have a a dinner party and let's say you've got you know couple friends you invite two people like should we oh well you know maybe weite those two oh no now we got four if we don't invite soand so and they find out from this person then

they're going to be upset so we should probably invite those people and the next thing you know you either have a list of 20 people 15 of whom you don't really want to spend the evening with because you're worried about what other people are going to feel if they know they're not invited or you're so exhausted by the thought of what am I going to do with this that you just like forget it forget it it it reminds me I'm not sure I should be sharing this or not but um you which probably means I

should um I remember when I completed my first book M and you know how hard it is to write a book okay these things aren't easy the most stressful thing is sometimes writing the acknowledgements I don't know if you found this I certainly found it with my first book and you want to forget anybody you don't want to forget anyone and then you end up mentioning Everyone by name who you've who's ever given you a leg up or done anything for you and it's interesting that as I have let go of the need to be

liked by everyone in my latest which is my sixth one it was very simple acknowledgement section and instead of name checking each and every single one of my friends I said something like you know I'm blessed to have great friends you all know who you are and I said something really nice but without naming them all and what why why I'm sharing that is because it's not about the names it's about me and it's about um my needs when I did my first book to make sure I'm not disappointing anyone what will they think I

must make sure you know trying to manage trying to control right maybe I'm being a bit harsh in myself but do you you know what I mean this is I'm going to I'm going to give examples to the person listening will really feel what you're feeling in case you have't written a book so I want you to imagine that you are about to post something on your favorite social media platform and for me I like Instagram the best so you pull out Instagram you're going to select a photo or a video now let me look

through my camera roll uh is this a good p is that a good picture should I do this one should should I do that one a good picture for who and then you put the photo up then you're like swipe swipe swipe on the filters trying to make it look better for who and then you go and write the caption and you're like da da is this too much should I put on emoji delete delete delete should I put at this for who and if you ever look at all your drafts that is the graveyard

of your self- ex expression and dreams when you do the simple Act of trying to share something online which let me just remind you your social media is not for your friends it is not for your mates from University it's not for your F it's for you it's for your self-expression if you're in business it's a marketing channel and here you are editing yourself because you believe that there's a certain photo or a certain way to write a caption that is going to guarantee that another person is going to like you mhm or share like

you have given all the power to another human being you will never be able to control whether they follow you unfollow you share it save it like it whatever commment you will never be able to control that or guarantee it and yet if in that moment before you hit post you are that's all you're considering and then what ends up happening is you get so stressed out and frustrated you hit draft and all the drafts are evidence of how often this has happened and then once you do Post what you do you go back and

you check it obsessively to see like okay people they and if you don't and then they're you're deleting it and so this is what I'm saying about this very sneaky and destructive habit that we have yeah where we give the power to somebody else and we don't even realize we're doing it and we give control to things that are beyond our control and then spend all this time and energy trying to ensure that our Behavior somehow guarantees it's no yeah it's a form of betrayal isn't it yes in fact the example you just used there

if you play this out not only can you not control who's going to like that post or not or the image or what you've written okay so you're playing an unwinable game yep but then the follow on point from that is you've done something very dangerous let's say you have changed your self-expression in order to get validation from other people and you get that validation yep in some ways that's even worse because now you know that the way to get validation from others is to change who you are just look look at every woman that

posts on social media with their breasts out and their ass in the camera you're getting positive reinforcement for that M and look if that's your form of artistry go for it but I would be willing to bet that 99.9% of those accounts that are actually real human beings and not Bots are actually a deeply insecure person who is seeking very toxic attention and getting it proving your point exactly and look here's what I'm going to say let them if that's how they want to live their life let them do it let me say something very

pointed and provocative to challenge the person listening who may be doing that who deep down knows that this is not the life you want to be leading this is not the attention you actually want that there's deeper work to do and you are trapped and here's the thing no one's going to come and fix this at some point you're going to have to wake up and understand that any change you want to make is on you and all of the time all of the energy that you're pouring into seeking validation from others chasing their opinions

and their likes and you know hoping that people are going to be happy with you and you're going to win them over all of that is a waste of your precious life you need to take all that time and energy back and really assess for yourself at the end of the day when I'm laying on my death bed and I look back I want you to be proud of yourself yeah I want you to look back I want you to be surrounded by people that you love and that love you back I want you to

see the time that you had and go wow I really used the time that I had in a way that makes me proud and so if you're not in that moment and you can't authentically say I am proud of who I am am I am proud of the way that I spend my time I'm proud of how I start my day and take care of myself then wake the [ __ ] up and make changes because you can yeah hey guys I really hope you're finding this useful if you are and you want more content

like it please do check out my book make change that lasts nine simple ways to break free from the habits that holding you back it's in all the usual places as a paperback ebook and there an audio book which I'm the ra thing now back to the video in fact one of the top regrets people have on their deathbed is I wish I lived my life and not the life that other people expected of me yes well that's that's question number three Yeah question number three what is stopping me from living my life the way

I want to live it you are no one else is stopping you you are stopping yourself because you are making other people a problem you are looking at other people people's success and you think it is an example of your failure you are looking at other people and you think they are the source of your happiness you're looking out there for the validation that you need in here yeah and this is why look again nobody gets sober until you first stop drinking you will never take control of your own life until you first stop trying

to control everyone and everything out there what they think what they do all of it and you pull it back and you focus on you and figuring out what's gonna make me proud of myself what kind of person do I want to be what do I want to think about this what do I want to do in response to this on the subjects of only we're the ones who can make changes in our own life and get us out of the whole or change where we are it kind of leads on to question four right

so question four out of these five questions that you've been asking yourself and you encourage us to ask ourselves is why do I Pro procrastinate and overthink every decision so the procrastination as you know Dr chattery is a stress response yeah and if you think about any of the research around fight or flight there's a third stress response which is freeze and if you want to talk about procrastination from a medical or physiological standpoint typically your proc procrastinating because the thing that you need to do is going to require a lot of mental energy to

do it whether you're procrastinating on paying your bills or procrastinating on balancing your you know checking account or you're procrastinating on working on your resume or you're procrastinating on cleaning out that back closet that you know you need to do or the garage or whatever and a lot of us when we get overwhelmed by life or we're already as you've been teaching us are in a stressed out physiological State the ability to bring a lot of energy to something that requires focus is not there and so I just want to acknowledge that there's a deeper

physiological reason for procrastination and it's almost like a trauma response to life you freeze the overthinking and the going up in your head has a lot to do with the fact that again when you've got to do anything in life or you're thinking about things that you want to do you immediately consider how other people are going to react to it most of the things we overthink about whether it's how we're going to get out of debt or how we're going to face this diagnosis or how we can care for our aging parents and still

find time for ourselves there's information and there's simple things you can do I mean all of your work your six books provide the road map the reason why we overthink though is since the beginning of being little we have been around adults that typically are a little reactive a little predictable unpredictable I'm talking about our parents and as kids we've had to develop this skill of paying attention to how other people are responding and what their moods are so we are trained since childhood to consider how our Behavior or what other people's moods are in

and then to think about it and respond and so for me one of the things that is helped me a lot is when you catch yourself over thinking what if this happens what if that happens what if the other thing happens what if all over thinking is about things that haven't happened yet right yeah so one thing that has helped me a lot is to say let them and then whatever the thing I'm afraid of I just say so for example if I'm worried about what somebody's going to think well what is so and so

going to think and then then I start overthinking about it I say this let them think something negative I don't ever say to myself I don't care what people think I don't care what they think if somebody says that they care what somebody thinks the best way to deal with overthinking and and being afraid of what other people are going to do in reaction is to say let them have a negative opinion let them be disappointed let them be angry with me let them misunderstand me because now you're calling out the very thing that you're

overthinking [Music] about Yeah you mentioned this idea that I don't care what people think uhhuh okay that's not true yeah so it's really interesting to me you are well there's a couple of things that come to mind M you are I would say a once- in a generation phenomena and what I mean by that is there's something about you that people just absolutely love people can really relate to you you share so much of your life your struggles the things that you've got wrong right you know in within my team I've got people who just

love you you know I shared when you first came on my podcast that one of my team members only joined my team because they used your 54321 methods they were too scared to write to me in a play and they were reading your book and they said right 543 2 1 send she got a job and let me give you another example in that cuz there's the person listening there's an email or you want to send or a job you want to reply to and isn't it interesting the only thing that was stopping her is

she was worried that you would reject her or worried that you were going to think she wasn't worthy of it exactly and so again an example of these moments where she was giving power to your opinion over the email that she was waiting to send yeah and this you can apply it to your last book The 54321 habit right which she used so this fourth question why do I procrastinate and overthink every decision well your last what was on a tool that people can use right I need to do this five 4 3 2 1

do it yeah the 5sec rule do it but again the same thing applies to the let them Theory because I guess the lady who applied to join my team as you say she was worried about what I would think you know oh who's this person you know she's not worthy or whatever whatever story she created in her head it's not going to it's not going to matter anyway cuz he's never going to hire me yeah but she could have also applied let them hey let him I'm going to write this email and you know what

if it's not the right job for me if I don't get it that's okay as well yeah let him it shouldn't stop me writing it correct yeah do you see what I'm saying that's the perfect example of how you have made other people a problem yeah I have now there's a job I want and I'm not applying for it because I am making up a story about what Dr chattergy is going to do in response to an email I haven't even written yet and so I have now put Dr Chatter's madeup action that I can't

control in between me and the action I could actually take to land my dream job how [ __ ] sad it's ridiculous on many levels because if you even think about it through the lens of time the amount of time and energy we waste like we said before right thinking about other people's opinions actually writing the email sending it would probably take 10% maximum of the time that is spent should I sh I oh not sure I don't think I'm the right person they probably want someone more exper do you know what I mean it's

like when you look at it rationally it's absolutely crazy but I've shared with you my view why do you think so many people resonate with you in your message I think it's it's multi-layered um the reason why is because you know I started sharing things that I was discovering like counting backwards 54 3 21 to get out of bed when the anxiety would pin me down and I didn't feel like I had it within me to face the day because there were just so many problems in my life so I just started 54321 and I'd

launched myself forward and you know I was sharing these things with friends and then friends would tell friends and then you know started to use social media to share these things because I have caused myself and people that I care about so much pain and heartache because I didn't know I didn't know what my problem was I didn't know what I could do differently I didn't know why I was trapped in these really negative thinking patterns or these really self-destructive patterns of behavior that hurt me or that hurt other people and as I started to

claw my way out of the mental and the physical and the financial hole that I had dug for myself and fallen into and I began learning that there were simple things that I could do to treat myself a little better to be a little bit better of a person to improve my health I thought you know if I can save anybody the headaches the heartaches the pain that I've caused myself for other people that is a life well- lived and every time I've shared something whether it is the simple story that everybody on the planet

can relate to of going to a friend's home that is a hell of a lot nicer than yours and the very childish but normal reaction that you have and the conflict that you feel if I can actually tell that story and it makes you stop beating yourself up for being a horrible friend and it helps you to understand that there's something deeper there for you to learn then that painful experience has value and meaning for me and for you and you know I and and I never ever will get too far away from the painful

things to forget that I just trying to share things that help move the needle in a normal person's life yeah and I think the relatability comes from the fact that even in this wild incredible just unimaginable like I I can't on some level even believe that I've gone in 15 years from alcoholism almost divorce almost $800,000 in debt leans on the house on employed to building what I've built and changing who I am like at my core I know I've always been a really good person but there was so much crap that had built up

and so much evidence that I had based on bad toxic behavior on my part that I lost that connection and so I just feel like I've I still have the same values like I what I wanted what I want now is I want more free time I want to see my friends I want to spend more time with my husband I I want to spend more time with my adult kids and my aging parents I live in a tiny small town I have no interest in the Big Shiny [ __ ] that you know people

may think is part of Hosting what is right now the number one ranked podcast in the world on Apple podcast yeah and I think it's very very cool that as a 54-year-old mother of three I stepped into the podcast space and this show is not only making a difference it is dominating globally yeah and so that example Dr chattergy the fact that I don't have a PhD yes I'm an extraordinarily intelligent person and I'm clearly a very very good businesswoman but I'm just you know somebody's daughter I'm somebody's mother I'm somebody who said you know

what I'm tired of thinking about a podcast and being pissed off and jealous that Dr chatter is doing it and my buddy Jay shed's doing it and I'm just going to do it and so I do think that part of the appeal is that people can see that I actually just am exactly who you see that I am and you know we joke a lot in my family because my daughters will call me they're 25 and they're 23 and they'll be like oh my God that V you look horrible why are you why are you

posting that video that's what people like but no but but here's the thing that's not a gimmick see I went to the grocery store looking like that yeah why the [ __ ] would I put on makeup you know and here on the podcast it's a little different because these lights are damn bright right but you know when I'm home yeah when I'm just living my life and so I feel like I just very tied to making sure that I never forget that the reason why I'm doing this is because I want to continue to

learn I want to continue to be a better person and a better friend and a better mom and a better sister and a better wife and a better daughter and I also am doing this because I know how much pain I've caused myself and people I love and I didn't mean to and I think we can all do a little bit better and when I was at my lowest moments Dr chattergy it wasn't ability that was missing it was hope it was this opinion that things are so far gone or I'm such a shitty person

that even though I believe what Dr chattery is saying I'm convinced this won't work for me so why would I try and so I think that's one reason why people people really understand that I it like I'm not the kind of person that that that fakes it I'm not the kind of I spent too much of my life pretending to be somebody I'm not I've been hanging out with you for the day on and off the mic Mel is literally the same person off the mic as she is on the mic okay I've seen it

firstand um with such a big public profile Mel you're obviously like anyone with a public profile subject to criticism uhhuh okay so there seems to be a very natural uh connection between the let them theory that you write about yeah and how you might tackle and deal with criticism oh of course so how do you find public criticism and how do you use the let them Theory maybe there was a time in your life where you didn't use it yeah and now that you do use it how do it change things oh I just let

them let them say what they want people are going to think believe have opinions about and feel things even when they're not true let them I if you can't control what people are going to say do and feel about you why would you spend any energy trying to manage it there is nothing that somebody could say that would actually upset me and here's why I know the truth of who I am and I know the truth behind the intention of what I do and why and so people can have what whatever opinions they want they

can write whatever they want they can comment whatever they want let them it's so liberating I hope like if people don't have negative opinions then I'm not saying anything yeah of Interest see somebody that comes at you Dr chattergy he's a quack he this advice is so stupid who needs a medical degree people attack the messenger and the message that they actually would probably be saved by you know the biggest criticisms that I get is typically kind of snarky comments around how simple it is like I remember when the New York Times wrote an article

that was largely very very positive same thing with Time Magazine the only kind of negative vibe in it was that you know this is kind of profoundly stupid and simple stuff she's saying backwards 54 3 21 whatever here's the thing for me let them because if the only thing that you're able to question is the Simplicity then you don't even understand the complexity of issues that keep people stuck yeah exactly and you don't understand the reason why somebody deeply relates to me I understand how hard your life is I understand how overwhelming things are the

last thing anybody needs in today's world is somebody being intellectual and trying to be smarter than you yeah because you're already carrying the weight of the world MH so I am in the highest service and can be the most impactful if like you Dr chattery I am handing you something that is so simple that even with the weight of the world on your shoulders and even when you feel like there's nothing that's going to work that you feel a sense of hope that maybe just maybe this might yeah and so if it doesn't matter what

people say I mean like let people Simplicity all the time they don't realize how difficult it is to get to Simplicity yeah you know I I've experienced similar things myself and it's like simplicity is how you help people make changes when you make it complicated so you have to do this and track this and do this and do this who does it very few people and here's the thing when somebody is able to make something look easy whether they make a podcast look easy or they make a speech look easy or they make their marriage

look easy or they make the fact that they're in good health look easy or they make the process of change look easy what you know know when it looks easy is that there was an extraordinary amount of hard work that went into making it easy yeah on the subject of criticism not bothering you yeah because you know a big part of the let them Theory Book is about well let me just say something because you were framing the question in terms of strangers and in terms of the public and in terms of the press um

if my daughter is upset with me because she believes like a a recent thing that happened is she said to me uh our daughter that lives out in Los Angeles and I know she won't be upset by this um she just said I'm excited that you're coming out but can you please not just fit me into a work trip can you take an extra day can you come a different time if you know I'm going to only see you for dinner and that bothers me what bothers me about it first of all I'm grateful that

she told me yeah because here I am and again this gets to the point too about relationships two people can have very different opinions about the exact same thing and we often do and still love each other very much my daughter can think I am squeezing her in and she's an afterthought and I can think that this is extraordinary that I'm able to go to Los Angeles for work and Kendall's schedule lines up because she's very busy too that we can actually go to dinner and we can actually do a yoga class and we'll be

able to see each other and both things are true so let her have her opinion let me have mine and then let us come together share openly without trying to manage each other or change each other's opinions and figure out what to do about it and so the reason why her opinion matters and the reason why I care about her opinion is because my deepest value is family and connection my deepest value is making sure the people that I care about know that they matter to me and so it does make me sad and upset

that my actions are the way that I've behaved in the past and here I have been thinking this is amazing I have a job that gets me to La every quarter and I get to see my daughter and how cool is that whereas her experience is I only see my mother if she's on a work trip yeah and both are true both are true and when you start saying let them and let me what's so fabulous is you actually create space for both things to be true and then to learn how to without changing each

other's opinions accept both and then figure out what we're going to do about it it's much more honest actually yes it's much more honest because when we're trying to change other people's opinions without realizing it we're kind of being a bit manipulative yes or we don't tell you the full truth because we're afraid you're going to be disappointed we're afraid you're going to be hurt and then there's this weird friction because you can already tell when somebody's like kind of a this is especially to family I'll tell you we went on a family trip where

my dad was turning 80 and his big bucket list is going to Macha Picchu and so if you've ever been on one of these trips where there's like 11 of you you may be in matching t-shirts or not you know around the person's birte you're in a van you're traveling around with a tour guide and when the trip started my brother and his family arrived and my nephews Who are 16 identical twins one of them had the flu so the flu then moved from row to row to row in our van as we're traveling through

Peru it was the single best vacation we've ever head why because anytime somebody got testy or hungry or you know whatever you could hear people in the van go let them let her my mom was like oh you don't want to you don't want to come today on the morning stuff no problem stay let them there was Zero controlling yeah there was just space for everybody to be with each other and be more flexible with one another and more gracious with one another and respectful that you're another individual and you see the world differently right

it's it's really beautiful and you know I know controls at the hearts of the book but so is compassion deeply see people misunderstand the message in the beginning because everybody loves saying let them because you feel Superior yeah like a lot of times when traffic's backing up you're like let them or the the plane gets cancel like let the airlines you're just like I wouldn't do it that way but I'm going to let them and to Rise Above This and I'm a little judgy my friends go without me let them but everybody misses the let

me part because if all you do is say let them let them let them let them you're going to then find that you feel a little isolated and lonely well you feel like a doormat sometimes I guess yes well the interesting thing about the doormat is that you can feel that way but when you start to see that you're a doormat you're going to recognize I've always been this way see when you say let them you're not saying let them abuse me yeah let them not call back let them talk down to me what you're

saying is I for the first time in my life when I say let them I'm actually recognizing that this person's treatment of me is how they feel about me I am calling out when I say let them talk down to me I'm not allowing it I am naming it yeah and then I say let let me remind myself I choose who gets my time and energy and if this person talks down to me if this person ghost me if this person will not give me the love and the respect that I deserve I have to

let them because they're revealing what they actually feel about me now it's on me I get to leave any relationship any conversation any job any interview any date any dining room table any anytime I choose yeah there's a beautiful bit in the book where you say the more you let people be who they are the better your relationships will be that's right because this was a big concept for me my relationship for example with my mom is not my Mom's responsibility it's mine yeah and if I want the relationship to get better I have to

stop wishing she would change and I have to change and we often focus on the other person and the changes that we wish we would see in them I wish they managed their mood better I wish they didn't drink so much I wish they treated me better I wish they did this that and the other thing I wish they M more money I wish they were a more positive person more social more proactive stop it stop it trying to change somebody isn't loving them let them be who they are let them be who they're not

if you want the relationship to change you have more power than that person you change your energy you change your approach and if in doing that it gets worse or nothing changes and you still have complaints then it's time to look in the mirror and say let me ask myself if I can actually choose this relationship or not yeah there's a key suty in the let them Theory I'm Keen for us to highlight okay so let's go back to criticism yep and what you said a moment ago okay some people may say well is some

of this a bit of toxic positivity right is you saying let them someone's going to criticize me let's say I'm member of the public we're not talking about your family now or even the family yeah let them it doesn't bother me I didn't say it doesn't bother you the reason why you have to say let them is because it does bother you okay so this is the key point because you're not saying ignore your emotions and just stoically move on no right so let's just let's just explore that because I don't want anyone to misinterpret

this part I think this is a brilliant question so here's the thing the issue isn't caring the issue is that you give more weight to your family's opinions than you give to your own and with family in particular it feels like we we've gotten to this point in the world where everybody is completely intolerant of holding space for opposing opinions about anything and what troubles me is I see this almost kneejerk stress response in relationships where if I don't like your opinion then I cut you off if I don't like that you're disappointed in the

fact that I don't want to be a lawyer anymore I don't want to major in business I want a major in philosophy and now you have an opinion that I'm screwing up my life then what I'm seeing that really troubles me is an inability to lean toward somebody instead what I see is people icing people out not sharing about their life not leaning toward somebody to say well why do you believe that yeah and so the let them theory is not supposed to actually hurt your relationships it's supposed to teach you the emotional maturity and

the compassion and the confidence to be able to care about what somebody thinks to care about why they may think that way yeah but to care more more about the decisions that you make about how you're going to live your life and again learning this incredible skill that two things can be true at once yeah I love that yes and so I'm not saying that it's easy if your parents for example have a bigoted opinion or if they do not accept the person that you want to date or that you want to marry that's not

an easy situation it's also not easy if you are in a career that is sucking your soul dry and you want to go and launch a business and your partner is the loudest voice against you let them because here's the issue the reason why most people criticize what you're doing is typically not because they think you're an idiot it's because they're deeply concerned that it might not work out or they're concerned that you're changing and now they feel like you're some rejecting them and when you don't understand that people can have their opinions they can

be disappointed in you they can be pissed off at you they cannot understand why you're making decisions that you're making and they can still love you yeah that's basically the definition of family learning how to love people that you hate sometimes if you are able to go let them let them believe what they want to believe let them have their opinion but then you also now that you have space because you're actually allowing somebody to be an adult yeah people are allowed to believe what they want to believe and most of the time when people

believe something that you don't understand there's a deeper reason why that has to do with their life experience yeah like I believe certain things about money and about savings and about wealth that my great-grandmother would never believe yeah because of when she lived and her experience in the depression I mean cuz her frame of reference is totally different everything makes sense actually once you understand someone's life story of course it all makes sense like yeah if I were you if I had your childhoods your experiences your first job your toxic boss I'd probably see the

world in the same way as you like let me just play this out because I love that you brought this up let's just say you're in this situation where your parents do not understand why you don't want to become a doctor right their hopes and dreams and expectations and based on their upbringing the highest most respected thing that you could become as a doctor it would mean that they are wildly respected it would mean they had done their job as a parent that's their belief let them have it now you over here you're like in

University you're an artist you you were going to be a doctor but now that you're studying you're like I don't like any of this and you start to realize wait being a doctor was their dream and expectation it's not mine here's what's interesting about this moment the person who's at University is terrified of disappointing their parents the parents are terrified that their child's going to screw up their life they're also worried about what their relatives and their friends are going to think they're also now questioning did we make the right decisions because our Dream had

always been XYZ and here's what's interesting about about this the parents expect the child to believe the same thing they do yeah the child expects the parent to believe the same thing they do and so the problem isn't the people and their opinions the problem is we expect other people to do as we please and to think what we want and that's not how human beings work and so when you say let them you create the space for someone to have their life experience and to have their beliefs and then because you're not at all

trying to manage it you then get to say let me remind myself I get to choose how I live my life and I also get to choose how I'm going to respond to this disagreement do I lean toward them or do I lean away and it's my hope that more and more people learn this skill to lean towards somebody that is disagreeing with them to understand why so that we can seek deeper connection because if we can't do that the the division that we see online the tension that people see the polarization it's going to

get worse and worse and so if you can start to practice this in your family and with your loved ones that's the ripple effect that I'm hoping that this achieves yeah that example is so powerful because if that kid at University then sacrifices their dreams and their desires and their wants in order to keep their parents happy yeah just fast forward 10 15 20 years cuz frankly I've seen this a lot in so I'm in a family of Indian immigrants okay so growing up I knew a lot of other people like me and in Indian

immigrant families in the UK you will usually find one of the kids are at Medical School why because it's hugely valued okay now for some people it's the right choice yeah for a lot of people it ain't the right choice and so one of the reasons I find that people in their mid 4S suddenly wake up and feel stuck lost unmotivated they're drinking to excess on Friday and Saturday nights is actually a symptom of the problem the problem is they actually had what I call an overreliance on being liked by other people yeah and as

I say the cost of being liked by everyone is that you no longer like yourself correct and that's why you know one of my favorite bits in this book is the middle section dealing with someone else's emotional reactions which I think a lot of us don't want to do and there's such a powerful bit at the start of that section when you write the reality is adults are as emotional as children and it is not your responsibility to manage someone else's reactions as long as you let other people's emotional immaturity dictate your choices you'll always

come last in your own life it's true that is life dude changed my life um I was just one of these people that felt so tuned into other people's moods and emotions and the second somebody was emotionally reactive upset angry or passively aggressive silent treatment stuff I my job to make everything okay my job to make everybody in a good mood my job to make sure my kids aren't sad or upset or bomb nobody's disappointed to me and it was a life-changing realization in researching this because I started to notice I say let them a

lot if somebody's snarky I say let them a lot if somebody rage texted me I don't need to respond and what I started to learn from the experts and I'm sure you know this to be true is that the skill of emotional maturity which is the ability to understand your emotions and the ability to feel them and process them in a mature way without barfing them on other people or acting like a kid throwing a tantrum inside an adult body it is not anything someone's born with it's a skill you have to actually want to

learn it you have to be taught it you have to practice it and there is almost no one on the planet that has ever been taught how to do this and one of the main reasons why is nobody none of our parents were taught how to do this exactly and so I have this rule that I adopted from my brilliant therapist Dr an Davin she basically I was talking about this family member who's got a narcissistic personality style we all have somebody like this in our life that it's always about them you know an evening

with them is going to to be fraught with all the attention on them it's draining and one of the coolest things about the let them theory is you know you used to go into those situations with said family member or friend and you would brace and you would wish that things are going to be different and you would hope things would be different you can just now go let them I know who this person is why would I expect them to be any different I'm going to just let this play out and remind myself let

me remind myself I don't have to sit at the table I don't have to part of this conversation I don't have to give this a lot of energy because this is who this person is but I was talking to my therapist an about how can I make sure this person really doesn't bother me and she said look Mel the vast majority of adults are just eight-year-old kids in big bodies yeah and it was so lifechanging to hear that because she said to me she said you know just think about it most adults can't handle their

emotions it's why your boss screams at you yeah it's why people write those like three page long emails and then sign it best regards you know it's why you'll be out to dinner and a if a friend has a location you're like I see that you're near me why didn't you let me you're like what this a grown ass adult it's why people give you the silent treatment in fact there's a there's a part in the book where here it is it's on page 112 where you line up childlike Behavior so this is a behavior

of an 8-year-old when kids are overwhelmed emotionally they run away from you what do adults do we avoid confrontation same thing yeah when a kid doesn't get what they want what do they do they go sulk in the corner what does an adult do they give you the silent treatment right when a kid like feels like deeply sad or scared they shut down adults oh you men you guys act stoic all the time as if things aren't bothering you same thing when a child is at a store and they don't get the toy they want

they flop on the floor and they throw a tantrum it's exactly what adults do they rage text at you they flip you off at traffic they vent at you that is an adult tantrum it's emotional immaturity kids slam doors adult slam doors kids lie adults lie all the time and so these are all examples of when somebody gets flooded with emotion and they have not developed the capacity or skill to actually process it so they tend to either shove it down and then pout or give you the silent treatment or lie about how they feel

or drink it away or they vomited at you and I was a vomiter I was the kind of person that when I would get frustrated by life I was the classic person that would come storming in the door and slam down my bag from work and then I would be horrible to the people that I care about the most and then I would say this I'm so sorry it's just been so stressful at work traffic and I and for years I had this inability to protect myself from outside stress and I had this inability to

process all the frustration and inconsiderate Behavior and the tension that I felt and so I just would literally take it out on the people that I care about and when I started to recognize okay I'm just like 8 years old like there's a little third grader in my body right now now Mel I don't want to act like this anymore how do I get control of this well you get control of it by first of all recognizing that this is everybody and so what I also love about this is that if you have somebody in

your life that's emotionally volatile or narcissistic in their personality Style We tend to fear them yeah and tiptoe around them when you start to imagine that your boss is just an eight-year-old kid on the other end of that nasty email you pity them and it's not a demeaning thing you literally are like I feel sorry that you live in a body that must have that much stress and tension that you actually think you need to take it out on me I see what's happening here you have no ability to process normal human emotions and what

a shame you're going through life like that but I am going to let you because it's not my job to be your parent exactly and I think my sense from you Mel and you can tell me if I'm right on this or not my my sense is that one of the reasons you're so passionate about this new book and this let them Theory idea is because you know damn well what it feels like when you don't live your life in accordance with this Theory yeah say hello to the first 54 years of my life yeah

and you also know the Cal the freedom the sense of control the peace I didn't know this was possible yeah I would hear like people like you talking about what's possible when you really relax when you really start taking care of yourself and I will admit I had that thing like I could I could get a little bit of that but I didn't really understand what it meant to be in a body that feels calm and present well I don't think I knew until recently I I why I'm so passionate about these ideas that I

share that you share is because on the other side of this deep realization that you can't manage other people you can't control their behavior you can't change them right that for me at least this idea that every external event really is neutral and it's the perspective that we choose to take on it that determines its outcome yeah that really resonates with me and my brain and how I see the world once you get that and you practice right because people aren't just going to buy the book and immediately go Oh I've got this nailed right

they they're going to learn it and through the stories you share in the book They're going to go oh I can apply it there and little by little week by week month by month you start to change yeah and in a month in two months in three months you're going to feel like a different person oh I'm never going back yeah well you can't go back because even if you did go back I contend that you'd notice oh there I go again I'm falling back I'm not doing it not doing it I I the level

of peace and look there are days that are frustrating there are days where the stress gets to me there are days where I vent at my business partner and then I'm like why did I do that I'm so sorry but here's what I'm proud of the amount of time between the emotional reactivity and my ability to clean it up and apologize is like a minute yeah it's not a day and that's massive your relationship massive and the number of times that it happens 95% less because I value my time and my energy and my peace

so much that I've now been saying let them and let me so much I don't I like the let me part especially that I am not going to allow myself to have things that don't matter affect me the way they used to yeah and actually one thing that I really believe about this new book of yours M even on the surface it could be seen to be about relationships and it is it is yeah right it's about relationships with other people relationships with your your your relationship with yourself to me it's also about health right

and to me the reason there's many reasons it's about health but one of the key reasons which added don't think people talk about enough in health and wellness is the why behind our behaviors right so if you're constantly getting triggered and stressed out by the actions of other people what do you do sugar alcohol like numbing distraction right so we think more knowledge about the sugar is what we need no if you apply the let them theory in your life and you develop this inner calm I bet the people's behaviors are going to get better

as well their health behaviors cuz those behaviors were there as a symptom of the internal stress they created by the way they interacted with the world the easiest way to start using the let them theory is to Simply protect yourself from daily stressors like you know if you're standing in Q at a little market and there's two cashiers open five people in front of you and there's like tons of people around but but five other empty cashier register things and it's like beep beep beep yeah what do you feel in your body yeah you feel

the flood of stress and in that moment if you're the old Mel Robbins you would start rocking back and forth you'd anxiously look at your phone I'd turn around and roll my eyes at the person behind me I'd get frustrated if I saw people working in the store but they're not coming to the cashier and now I'm thinking I can run the store better than the people running it and I'm mad and here's what I've just done I've allowed something stupid to put me in a fight ORF flight response and Trigger the stress psychology in

my body which impacts me for the rest of the day and I've also lost sight of something I have control let them be slow let them run the store like this and let me remind myself that I can leave yeah I could actually instead of rocking back and forth I could actually close my eyes and practice your 34 five breath technique yeah anything you want once you realize that you have the power that's the key that's the key message in this book right yes and to your point if you do that in a micro moment

and you do that all day long let them with the stressful email let them with the traffic let them with no seat being offered to you even if you're pregnant and you're on the tube let the uh patients family that you're taken care of as a nurse be rude to you because they're stressed out and scared yeah just let the parents of the kid who you're teaching you know not understand how hard you're to let them yeah like if you insulate yourself from those moments of stress that drain you that just impact your health one

two word phrase at a time you're actually protecting yourself from the things that are hurting your health yeah I love it so we've done four of the five questions got it so to finish off the loop because I said five at the start so I'm going to remind people of the four and then get to the fifth one okay so the first question why am I afraid of failing number two why do I have a hard time asking for what I need number three what is stopping me from living my life the way I want

to live it number four why do I procrastinate and overthink every decision and the fifth one arguably the most powerful one what is underneath all that doubt what's underneath all that doubt is your attempts to control things that you will never be able to control every time you try to control what somebody else thinks or you wor worry about it or you are frustrated by somebody's opinion or their behavior or you're annoyed but by what somebody does or doesn't do or you navigate your life around people's moods or you make it your job to make

everybody happy around you you are focused on something that is outside of your control and if you are spending time and energy on something that you'll never be able to impact of course you're going to doubt yourself I mean it's never going to work yeah and so you're in this Loop where by constantly thinking about what other people think believe do feel all of your energy and power is going to other people so you have none left for yourself and then you've missed the single biggest truth about life it was never over there the power

is in here the power is in what you do what you think how you process your emotions and when you start to focus on what you can do on the choices that you do have on what you want to think about what's happening all of those times that you focus on your response you take your power back you recognize that oh my gosh no matter what's happening there are things I can control and when you focus on what you can control it makes you feel safe it makes you recognize that you have agency it makes

you feel like there are things that create forward momentum and every time that you lean into what you can control it makes you feel a little bit more capable yeah which then makes you feel a little bit more confident I mean you doubt yourself when you stop yourself from taking action and when you obsessively push against a wall that it's never going to move yeah and I think we know when we're quietly giving up on ourselves I think you know see I choose to believe that everybody has within them the ability to change your life

for the better and I also believe that you are capable of achieving things that are Way Beyond what you could imagine for yourself and I also believe that any thing that is in your way is something that you have put in your way because you have told yourself that there's nothing you can do and that's a lie there's always something you can do through your attitude through the actions you do or don't take and through the way you react to the emotions that you feel earlier on M you said that you've caused people a lot

of pain in your life M I think a lot about the concepts of regrets yep okay and I'm interested as you've evolved as a human being over the last few years even in the writing of this book which clearly has been lifechanging for you and for many of the hundreds of thousands of readers around the world [Music] now I guess my question is what's your relationship like with regrets you know there is um tons of regrettable things I've done and there's a tremendous number of things that I wish I hadn't done and it's a long

list and I wish that I could go back and remove any of the pain that I caused other people because I do know that I never intended to there's a big difference between what you intend though and the actual impact and so while there are things that I wish I hadn't done and there's a lot of pain that I wish I hadn't caused I have created space for two things to be true I understand that absolutely everything that's ever happened to me has led me to this moment yeah and given the impact that I am

able to make and the things that I have experienced and achieved and most importantly AR ring at a moment in my life where I am truly proud of the person that I am which is something I could not say about myself for probably the first 54 years of my life wow I was proud of some of the accomplishments but deep down I still wrestled with a lot of hatred a lot of regret a lot of Shame even though I talk openly there was still something unresolved and so I have created this space for do things

to be true I hate that things that I did cause people pain and I wish that I could erase it but I can't erase parts of my story yeah and I've apologized for the things that I've done and I've done the only thing that you can do when you cause yourself or other people pain and that is to dig deep to understand the very important and personal message that and the lesson that you needed to learn through those things exactly and then work your tail off to become a better person and not do that again

because you can apologize through your words but that's important but a true apology is a change in behavior and what I know as I sit here today is that I have changed who I am through my attitude and through my behavior over time and one one of the reasons why I do believe that the person listening and the person that they're going to share this with can change their life is because over the course of the last 15 years I've changed absolutely everything about mine and it's not going to happen overnight but if you make

a decision that where you are is not where you want to remain that you do want to grow that you do want to learn that you do want to change the way that you move through your day then that decision is all you need because it turns your life in a completely different direction and then what you need to do is I encourage you like think about a 15-year timeline like we often think about what could I do in a month when you're thinking about whether or not you could change your life M and give

yourself a decade do you know how much you can change in a decade yeah you can change everything you can meet the best friends of your lifetime you can have an incredible marriage you can get yourself out of debt and make a ton of money like people around the world have figured out how to do this and they've been in the exact situation that you're in you just have to make a decision that where you are is not where you're going to stay and then you have to get up every morning and put one foot

in front of the other and that's all that it takes well you're an incredible human being you are doing such phenomenal work in the world you've written a quite brilliant book thank you for coming back on the show thank you for learning me your studio for the afternoon to have you back on the podcast and I can't wait for the next time we get to chance me either thank you if you enjoyed that conversation then I think you are really going to enjoy this one that I picked out especially the only challenge I I think

with addictions is that if you can't think greater than how you feel your life will stay the same yeah the solution then is