How to Stop Caring What People Think of You

every single human being struggles with this we find ourselves in these situations in life where you're like oh my gosh why am I so concerned about what other people think about me that's going to stop today we're going to talk about this topic and I'm going to unpack it by sharing a conversation with you that I had with Chrissy Tegan we were talking on her new podcast and she was so open with what she's struggling with and she struggles with what other people think about her she allowed me to coacher and I got in her

face about this because I want her to have a breakthrough and this is what she had to say in response hey it's your friend Mel and welcome to the Mel Robbins podcast I am so thrilled to be here with you thank you thank you thank you for hitting play on this episode and choosing to spend some time with me it is always an honor to be together with you if you're brand new to the Mel Robbins podcast I just want to welcome you to the family here's what I know about you the fact that you

actually hit play on this tells me that you're the kind of person who really values your time and that you've made the time to listen to something that could truly help you create a better life there is no doubt in my mind you have hit play on the perfect episode because today we are going to unpack a topic that I personally believe is the single biggest obstacle that stands in the way of you and your ability to achieve absolutely everything that you want in your life and what is that obstacle that obstacle is your fear

of what other people think about you mm we all have it we worry about it we care about what other people think we try to manage what other people think you probably don't even realize how much of a default it is for you to stop and consider what somebody might think before you post something on social media before you say something at work before you make the move that you've been afraid to make before you start the convers you always stop and you consider what somebody else is going to think or do in response to

it and you don't even realize how often you do this I didn't either until I discovered the let them Theory and starting to learn to catch myself whenever I was considering what somebody else would think or how they might react and worrying about it and learning how to say let them it has been life altering and one of the reasons why I thought I got to dedicate an entire episode to this is because first of all you struggle with this that's why you chose to listen to this that's why somebody that you care about deeply

forwarded you this episode because they want you to stop worrying so much about what everybody thinks and live your life and be happy but I'm here to tell you you're not alone every single human being struggles with this and so I thought here's what we're going to do we're going to unpack this today because in the 35 press interviews that I've done so far for the let them Theory Book this is the biggest question everybody's asking and I don't care who's on the other side of the microphone with me whether it's Oprah Winfrey or the

New York Times or It's Time magazine or it is the Wall Street Journal everybody wants to know how do I stop caring about what other people think and that's what we're going to do today and I'm so excited because I'm G to teach you this in a really special way we're going to talk about this topic and I'm going to unpack it by sharing a conversation with you that I had with Chrissy tan and before we even jump into it I want to thank Chrissy I want to thank her for allowing me to share this

conversation with you because we were talking on her new podcast and she was so open with what she's struggling with and she struggles with what other people think about her I mean it's almost crippling to her that people would think something negative that they would attack her and she was so open about it and on top of it she allowed me to coach her and I got in her face about this because it's really sad when you hold yourself back because you're afraid of something that you can't control because you're going to learn you will

never ever ever be able to control or guarantee what another person thinks about you never and so I not only got in Chrissy's face about this because I want her to have a breakthrough but I need to get into your face about this because you need a breakthrough about this right now you are holding yourself back because you're worried about what your friends from college are thinking or you're worried about what your parents are going to be thinking or you're worried about you know what your boss is going to think or this or that or

the other thing and more importantly it's not even that worrying about it is the problem it's the fact that you then aim it back at yourself like I think it's fine to care what other people think it it's a sign that you're a good person that's not the problem the problem is how you hold yourself back how you silence your opinion how you use other people's opinions as a means to make yourself feel like you're not good enough as you are that's going to stop today and the reason why we struggle with this is because

you believe that there's a way that you can behave that somehow can manipulate or guarantee that somebody will think a certain thing I'm here to tell you you can't and any time and any energy that you pour into trying to manipulate or control or guarantee what somebody else is going to think about you is a gigantic waste of time and energy and in fact anytime you start worrying about what somebody else thinks about you you actually cause Stress and Anxiety for yourself the fact that you're worrying about what everybody thinks so much is actually a

major source of stress and there is an easier way to live I am going to prove it to you today with the help of Chrissy Teegan and it may surprise you that when you listen to Chrissy and you listen to her share it may surprise you that when you consider her life well this is a woman that is so wildly successful she's an extraordinary businesswoman she has four amazing kids she's got an incredible marriage to John Legend and she struggles with this and so from the outside you see somebody who's succeeding so you don't think

that this is a person who feels Mis understood you don't think that this is a person who feels like she's living in a prison of her own making you don't think that this is a person who lives in fear that she's going to pass this onto her kids and what is it that she's afraid she's going to pass on to her kids well it's this fear of being misunderstood this fear that people are criticizing her this fear that she can never do anything right and the let them theory is liberating in this regard not only

for Chrissy Teegan but also for you and for whomever you share this with and so I just want to thank Chrissy because she is giving me permission to share a few segments from her new podcast self-conscious with Chrissy tan and you can listen to the whole conversation that Chrissy and I had right now if you just go to audible.com Chrissy and Mel so on the opening of her podcast I explained to Chrissy what the let them theory is and in case you're brand new to the Mel Robbins podcast family let me just share what the

let them theory is to you as well so let them Theory is a very simple mindset tool that shows you instantly what's in your control and what's not in your control and there's two very simple parts to the let them theory part one you're going to use whenever you feel yourself starting to get frustrated or stressed out or annoyed or worried about what somebody else is doing feeling or saying just say let them let them say what they're going to say let them think what they're going to think I'm going to stop trying to control

them and just let them and the second step is when you say let me and when you say Let Me You remind yourself that in life there's only three things you can control it's what you think it's what you do or don't do and it's how you process the feelings that are rising up and when you say let me this is where you get your power back let me remind myself that my power is not in what other people are doing my power is always in my response and when you focus on your response and

particularly you focus on showing up in a way that makes you proud of yourself you're now in control of your life and so I explained that to Chrissy on her new podcast and this is what she had to say in response I can say that to myself all I want I can say let them let them let them think their thoughts let yourself be misunderstood it's okay you have a wonderful family wonderful friends a wonderful life but it is so incredibly challenging for me the one thing I wish I could change was that I wish

I weren't so misunderstood and I wish people knew how good I was and it's so desperate sounding and so sad but that for me is my biggest battle in life you know I'm so happy that she shared that because I don't think it sounds desperate at all haven't you ever had an experience in your life where you felt like you just wish that people didn't misunderstand you that you wish people knew how good you were how you had such great intentions I think that's a really Universal fear and I was so glad that she actually

shared that this is the one thing I wish I could change I mean just imagine what would change about your life if you really could just let people think what they think and you didn't worry about being misunderstood and so of course I had to ask Chrissy directly like why are you so concerned about what other people think and what is it exactly that you're afraid of and this is what she had to say since I was little I really wanted to be loved and I really wanted adoration and affection I had a parent that

was not very touchy feely I felt growing up that I was someone that she could show off and so when I was little and going up to people and saying my words in tie or doing what I was told and being good I got really good feedback from that and it got that feeling of always wanting to be really good for everybody and it's been in me since I was little I think it's been inside all of us since we were little I mean if you just think about your own life when did you get

positive attention it's when you were performing or you got good grades or the team that you were on won and so what she's talking about here is something that so many of the psychologists and psychiatrists that have come on the Mel Robins podcast talk about which is the experience that you had when you were little where you got positive attention it kind of tells you oh oh oh when other people are telling me that I'm good when other people are giving me positive attention that's how I know that I feel good about myself but here's

the problem as long as you locate your goodness and whether or not you're doing a good job as a person in the opinions and the moods of other people you're never going to be in control of it and that's why so many of us whether it's Christy faan or it's you or it's me we find ourselves in these situations in life where you're like oh my gosh why am I so concerned about what other people think about me and as I explained to Chrissy look it's natural when you're a kid because you need to be

cared for to be deeply deeply connected to the people around you and attuned to them and looking to them for positive signaling that you're okay and that you're good that's what happens when we're kids but when we are are adults we have to pull that back to ourselves and that's where the let them theory is really going to change things because when you Outsource your selfworth when you Outsource the positive affirmations to other people's opinions you will never feel safe and so I was explaining to Chrissy that you're really going to love the letham theory

because it's going to teach you how to stop looking outside yourself for the thing that you're actually seeking and as I started to explain this to Chrissy that the more you can learn to let other people say what they're going to say be who they're going to be the better your life is going to get because you're going to understand that what you think about yourself is actually the most important thing and in this next part in the conversation that we had on her new podcast self-conscious she started talking about her relationship with herself and

this is where it starts to go way deeper take a listen the relationship with myself is the the hardest part I've always been a Punisher whether it was through diets and food emotionally or drinking I always inflict some kind of pain on myself and punish myself for letting people down or feeling like I wasn't good enough in a group of people and it's so all-encompassing I very rarely leave the house because when I do and I interact with people out in the world whether it's through work or just being out shopping at the grer grocery

store I just destroy myself and work so hard to make sure that they had a really good experience with me and then I come home and I dwell on it forever it's getting so exhausting being this mean to myself and I don't know what it's like to not be that way and if I could heal that part of myself so much would change so much of my day would be free to think of other things that really matter but right now I'm in the prison of it you're clearly in a prison of it because you've

given all the control to other people your worth your value whether or not you're happy whether or not you are proud of yourself is entirely given away to other people's reactions or what they say and just like you cannot control what another human being feels you will never be able to control what someone else thinks about you I can't by being really good no you can't I know no you can't when we're done talking can you control what I'm going to say about you when my two daughters are like was it like can you actually

control what my thoughts and feelings about you are going to be no excellent I know that I'm saying that but there's another level of me that's I can do the best I can to ensure that you so there's a couple things I want to unpack about this because she's describing something that you have experienced which is if you ever had the experience of you wake up in the morning you feel fine you feel good about yourself the day starts and then you get to work and something goes down and suddenly you're obsessing over the email

that somebody sent you or the mood that you're boss is in or maybe something happened at school or with your friends and you start obsessing I should have done this I should have done that should have done the other thing what are we doing when we do that what we're doing is we're giving our power away we're basically saying that our worth lies in what another human being thinks about us that if you don't act the right way at work and somebody's upset with you that somehow now you're the bad person I'm here to tell

you absolutely not this is why you need to let them Theory your boss's bad mood doesn't mean you're a bad person somebody saying something negative about you doesn't mean you have to feel negatively about yourself and I knew that intellectually but I never knew how to separate myself from other people's moods and other people's opinions of me and the let them theory has been life-altering in this regard and this is what I was trying to explain to Chrissy she's literally describing how you probably go through your day too where you're concerned about what people at

work think about you you're concerned about what your sorority sisters think about about you you're concerned about what your family thinks about you what if we were to invert this what if you were more concerned about what you think about you and instead of exhausting yourself over something you'll never be able to manage you pull the power back this is what I was trying to explain to her and I think she's starting to get it and if I could heal that part of myself so much would change so much of my day would be free

to think of other things that really matter but right now I'm in the prison of it you're clearly in a prison of it because you've given all the control to other people your worth your value whether or not you're happy whether or not you are proud of yourself is entirely given away to other people's reactions or what they say and just like you cannot control what another human being feels you will never be able to control what someone else thinks about you I can by being really good no you can't I know no you can't

when we're done talking can you control what I'm going to say about you when my two daughters are like what was like can you actually control what my thoughts and feelings about you are going to be no you know I have to applaud Chrissy because she shared something very personal in this next segment and I I I wanted to share it with you because I think it's really important to stop and consider that how you move through life as an example to other people and using the let them Theory you can truly take the power

back and decide who you want to be that's the let me part let me decide what I want to think about myself let me align my actions with the kind of person I want to be part of Chrissy's new podcast and the conversation that we had that I wanted to share with you because she shared this fear that she had that is extremely personal and I think it's an important part of this conversation check this out one of the worst Parts about it is me feeling crazy or feeling that nobody else will understand this feeling

why am I like this I'm really scared of passing this along to my kids I think that is the big realization for me I can't do this to my kids I don't ever want them to feel like they have to perform for everybody and be good all the time but I know that sometimes I probably am that way I do want them to be the most polite and I don't want people to think that they're just celebrity [ __ ] kids and so I might go harder the other direction to make sure that they don't

come off that way and I really need to break that because I'm okay and this is another reason I'm in therapy I'm okay with me getting the [ __ ] end of the stick on anything or living this life where I'm stressed and in pain but I'm not okay with them yeah yeah well I can see it really bothers you yeah yeah because I see how much my interactions with adults as a child affected me from so many different layers from whether it was sexual or the reason I became such a peop pleaser and that

was through sleeping with people it travels so far in my life it's not just that I wanted to smile and say my little tie words for people it went in it that it started that way yes but then I ended up believing sorry I ended up believing that I was for everybody and my body was for everybody and it took a hold on every part of my life and as you can see it still has a hold on me now so I cannot imagine this for my kids I hope that they don't want to please

everybody in life and I hope that they know that their body is their own their mind is their own their actions are their own and they can't control other people I cannot have them live this way that I live who is going to teach them this and that's the enormous opportunity that you have when you understand what you're dealing with you have the ability to face it and to make decisions to live differently and that's exactly what you're doing and your kids watch you and they are watching how much strangers and other people impact how

you feel about yourself and so as you take this on and you truly start to separate what is your responsibility to manage which is your thoughts your feelings your words when you focus on that and you align your values with how you show up in life and you put yourself first in that regard you are also showing your children that their opinion of themselves is more important than what anybody else says or does because they're no longer seeing their mom destroyed by what other people are saying it always amazed me that I was the give

no [ __ ] girl I'm like you guys have no idea how many [ __ ] I give well anybody anytime anybody says I don't give a [ __ ] what they think you know they totally do because it's when you have to say that out loud it's evidence that you are still processing something that bothers you it's so true isn't it I I bet you're thinking about somebody in your life who constantly says I don't care what they think this is an episode they need to hear because the fact that they're saying it out

loud means they care what they think I really want to unpack this whole idea of not giving any [ __ ] and let's look at what Chrissy tan actually said because I have it right here it always amazed me that I was the give no [ __ ] girl I'm like you guys have no idea how many [ __ ] I give you guys have no idea how many [ __ ] I give give is the word because when you actually are worried or try to manage what somebody else thinks you give someone else power

that's why Chrissy's crying because she's sensing and realizing how much power other people had over her life and here's the other thing I want to say both to you and to Chrissy and I said this to her on her podcast this isn't your fault this isn't your fault this was conditioned in you as a child when you get positive reinforcement based on other people's behavior your moms or the adults around you of course you're getting conditioned to please other people of course you're getting trained to care what other people think and a bigger issue is

you're actually being taught somehow that you are responsible for other people's moods and opinions and that your worth is outside of you and so I want to come back to the word give when you give [ __ ] or you give a [ __ ] or you give power to what somebody else thinks you are always going to feel stressed out anxious and unworthy because you're never going to be in control of what somebody else thinks and you're always going to be up in your head worried about it and that's why the let them theory

is going to change your life because when you say let them think something negative let them be disappointed let them be upset that I'm not meeting their expectations let them say that I'm rude let them believe that I should be acting a different way let them unfollow me let them think what they're going to think and then a really funny thing happens and this is something that I've noticed in my own life the more I say let them think something negative and the more I take my power back and I really put all my time

and energy into showing up in my life in a way that makes me proud of myself I know who I am and when I know who I am and I'm proud of myself because I'm trying and I'm doing my best and I know what my intentions are I don't actually think about other people a whole lot because I know the truth and that's what's available to you and I want to go back to two things that Chrissy said that really struck me in the moment at the very beginning she said one of the worst Parts

about it is me feeling crazy or feeling that nobody else will understand this feeling why am I like this why do I do this like why am I so mean to myself why am I such a people pleaser why do I constantly worry about what other people are thinking why why why and the truth is we're all like this and it's a fundamental part of the human wiring see we are super hard on ourselves and I'm sure if you really are honest with yourself the way that Chrissy Teegan was honest with me about how she

is bashing herself all the time and she doesn't want to do this and she doesn't want to pass this on to her kids that I don't think we mean harm to ourselves and yet here we are caught in this negative loop with ourselves and so this is why we're looking for validation outside ourselves because we're trying try to escape the criticism that is running on repeat in our own heads we're looking for Clues from the outside world and what I'm here to tell you is that since this has been going on since childhood the better

approach is to learn how to give yourself Clues internally and I never understood this until I talked to world-renowned psychiatrist and bestelling author Dr Paul kti he wrote The New York Times bestseller trauma the invisible epidemic and the introduction for that book The forward was written by Lady Gaga because he treated Lady Gaga and she says that Dr kti saved her life as soon as I was done talking to Chrissy tken I remembered Dr Paul kti and his appearance on the Mel Robin podcast and I'm like this is exactly what he was talking about I

wish he was here talking to me and Chrissy well through the magic of podcasting I can bring him into this conversation because he explained why we are all so negative why we are all criticizing ourselves why we all feel like we're not good enough and also why we give so much weight to other people's opinions why we're constantly looking around at our bosses and our parents and our significant others and our friends for validation that we're a good person and the way that he explains it it's going to help you understand that other people's thoughts

and other people's behavior does not determine your worth even though this is how you've been operating since childhood it's because this missing thing called attribution this is so important that I really want you to hear Dr Paul kti explain this to you children are trying to understand right especially the stage of life where there's so many connections forming and and the child is is growing and learning about the world around them that the child is trying to understand but with without the benefit of abstract thought and of life experience but in children they're trying to

make sense of things without those capabilities so then the idea is it must be me because there's not the thought oh people can have issues of their own that can impact how they're responding so in one sense they're responding to me but they're not really responding to me they're responding to what's inside of their head so if I say you know Mom or Dad can I have something to drink and and the person says just go in the other room or just yells me that that's I didn't really do anything wrong that that the that

person my mom or my dad was in a bad place right they can't do that so so the attribution is to self which is why the the lessons that we learn in childhood can be so so difficult into the future because we we don't have the capacity for the abstract thought we don't have the life experience so we attribute the negative things around us to ourselves and and this is where there was an English uh physician named winot who who wrote about the idea of raising children is so that the child can feel good enough

right and this wasn't an idea of Limp over the line that's not what good enough meant good enough means solidly good enough that I'm good enough to face what there is for me to face if that that's something negative I can get myself through negative things and also I can get myself to better places I can find better for myself if I get knocked down I can get back up again the these are the lessons that we that we want and if we can get through childhood and we can if we if we didn't get

through childhood so feeling good enough and there's aspects of not good enough we carry along in all of us then we can go back and look at that and we can change that later in life and at the deepest level that's what you and I are talking about today if anything that Chrissy Teegan and I shared with you in those moments in her podcast resonated with you or if somebody in your life struggles with people pleasing or if you're constantly on this negative Loop and you really are navigating your life based on people's moods or

their opinions or worrying about them or acting in a way twisting yourself and Knots so that people think that you're the good daughter or The Good Wife or the good mom or the good dad there's a different way that you can live that good enough means that you know that within yourself you have the ability through your thoughts and your actions to face anything that you know based on your thoughts and actions that you're a good person you know what you intended and that you hold the power and you are the person that determines your

worth you know you and I since childhood if you just really really consider what Dr kti is saying since childhood we have been looking outside of ourselves to confirm that we're okay and that we're loved and that we're Worthy and the opportunity of this conversation is for you to take that power back and know inside yourself based on how you act how you treat yourself what you think about what you do what you don't do that you are a good person because you know who you are at your core and nothing has helped me do

that more than learning to say let them because when I say let them if I put it in the words of Dr Paul kti I'm now practicing attribution I'm saying that if that person is in a bad mood let them if that person has a negative opinion about me let them I am attributing their behavior to them and I am not attaching it to me and my selfworth isn't that so cool it's the world's best boundary because you realize that when you let other people think say do feel how they feel that you attribute their

behavior and their thoughts to them alone and then you say the second part let me and you take all the power back and attribute your power to your thoughts your feelings and what you do or don't do and that is how you will know deep in your core that you are good enough that's how you're going to start to change the way that you talk yourself the let me part let me remind myself of who I am and that I'm a good person and I know what I intended and that's how you stop this habit

that so many of us have of constantly bending ourselves in knots or exhausting ourselves to try to please other people enough you do not need to live that way and I want to stay right on this topic because it's so important I really wanted Chrissy to get this point that you will never be able to control what somebody else thinks that's number one and number two that two things can be true at once is a really important thing that I teach in the let them Theory and that I've learned over the last years that somebody

can be disappointed in you and still like you or love you somebody can misunderstand you and you can still be a good person somebody can have a negative thought about you and you can still have positive selfworth two things can be true at once and so in order to make sure that Chrissy and you understand that people are always going to have negative thoughts about you always and instead of exhausting yourself or putting yourself in a prison trying to manage what other people think learning to just accept that people have negative thoughts including the people

that are the closest to you that is a liberating way to go through life you're just going to learn to let them think something negative so in this next segment from her podcast self-conscious with Chrissy tan I want you to hear me set up this next piece of coaching all about how you're never going to be able to control what somebody else thinks and even the people that you love the most they have negative thoughts about you all the time check this out the issue is you're focused on me and what I think of you

I want you to start focusing on you and what you think of you that's what matters and I'm going to prove something to you the people that love you the most so who loves you more than anybody on the planet John and who do you feel the safest with John do you think John has negative thoughts about you no baloney I know you love John so give me some negative thoughts and opinions that you've had about JN today or yesterday oh God I think one of the only fights we really get in is about scheduling

or being home enough being together enough without kids sometimes I I'll I'll share some for mine so my husband gets up in the morning and farts and I'm like you're disgusting or I worked late last night and they came down in the kitchen and he was eating cereal and I'm like why you're not making dinner what the hell that's a negative thought my daughter Sawyer she's so intense I'm like you need to chill dude my daughter Kendall I love her to pieces thing is easier for me I probably have cuz the kids can drive you

crazy but John is so even keeled and just but doesn't that drive you crazy aren't you like sometimes God actually yes I want some passion sometimes I want him to get mad at me I want him but yeah so that's an example of even though you love the person negative thoughts pop in your mind it doesn't make you love him less and there are times where you drive John flipping crazy he may not be telling you this but he's thinking in his mind something about you and the point I'm trying to make is the average

human being has 70,000 thoughts a day Chrissy and they can barely control what they're thinking there is never going to be a moment where you can ensure that another human being thinks something that you want them to think that's not where your power is your power is in the let me part so whenever you feel yourself getting worked up whether it's a press storm or it's something else let them when you spend all your time and energy exhausting yourself to make everybody else happy you lose yourself it is not your job when you become an

adult Chrissy to manage or fix other adults emotions as a parent are responsible for helping your children process their emotions because children cannot regulate their own emotions without an adult helping them but you are never responsible for managing someone else's emotions when they are an adult no matter what you do and I'm going to share some things with you to have you really try to embrace the truth of what I'm saying and the freedom that is available to you because it's so sad to me to see a woman that I respect who has an extraordinary

marriage you do so many remarkable things you are an unbelievable businesswoman and you place all of this power that you have in the hands of strangers on the internet and you don't have to live like this it's so interesting When someone tells me something that I needed to hear or when I have an epiphany about something I get this like incredible throbbing in my wrists and arms and I can really feel it so hard now and I hope you're feeling it too and the sentence I want you to really laser in on is you don't

have to live like this and you don't have to have the millions of followers that Chrissy Tean does to be paralyzed by people's opinions I'm going to give you a simple example that I want you to think about and it's an example that I know that you're going to relate to and I shared it over and over and over when I would get asked about how you use the let them Theory to stop caring about other people's thoughts and I would say well you're never going to stop caring because it's important to care what other

people think otherwise you'd be a selfish jerk and I don't want you to be that what you need to do is care more about what you think and so learning to let people have negative thoughts first of all it recognizes number one that you'll never be able to control what somebody else thinks therefore it is not worth your time and energy because you protect your time and energy and second you also recognize that your value as a human being is not in what somebody else thinks it is in what you think about yourself and three

when you let people think negative thoughts you are acknowledging the fear that you have because the reason why you worry about what everybody else thinks is because you're afraid that it's going to be negative so when you say let them you're allowing this fear without allowing it and you're also really valuing your time and energy because you're saying I'm not going to waste time and energy on something that I can't control and I also know that the power is not in what somebody else thinks the power is in me and what I think about myself

and I know myself so let them think something negative and let me remind myself that the PO is in what I think about myself and as long as I conduct myself in a way that I'm proud even if somebody misunderstands me or is is disappointed I know the truth do you see how that means you hold the power that you could be misunderstood and still understand yourself that's true power that's what's available to you and so let me give you this example that I shared over and over and over again as people would ask me

questions about this I want you to think about posting on social media so you open up your favorite app mine is Instagram and let's just say that there's something that you want to be using social media for and maybe it's because you want to launch a new business or maybe you're a singer and you want to put out your music or maybe you're an artist and you want to post about your Artistry or maybe heck you just want to put up a photo of you in a bathing suit or without a filter so you're at

this moment where you've got social media open you go and you select a photo or you select this kind of video that you've shot and then what do you do as you look at the photo or the video you're like oh is this uh you know I don't know filter filter filter should I put this on it should is this too much too much for whom as you're looking at the photo who are you thinking about you're not thinking about how you feel about the photo you've actually in that moment as you stop and consider

the photo you are giving power to somebody else's opinion about the photo or video that you want to post this is how quickly you put yourself in a prison and then you go to write the caption and you're like blah blah blah blah oh delete delete delete Emoji Emoji Emoji is this too much is for who I want to remind you of something your social media is for your self-expression it's for your business it's for your Artistry it's not for your sorority sisters from college it's not for your family it's not for your the the

women in your mother's group it's for you and you want to know how sad it is that you literally have so many draft posts that you've saved those are the graveyard of your dreams and self-expression all those draft posts that you never posted on social media why because you sat there you looked at the thing you wanted to do and then you gave power to somebody else's opinions or feelings they're going to unfollow me what are people going to think and that's something you're never going to have control over this is why you don't feel

control of your life this is why you don't feel like you're understood it's because in this moment you're actually censoring yourself do you want to know how sad this is you don't have to live like this let them think a negative thought about what you're going to post let them unfollow you let them roll their eyes let them gossip you can't control any of it anyway the only thing you can control is you can control what you think of yourself and so in that moment on social media if you like the photo post it if

you want to say something say it your social media you are giving power to people people all damn day long you will never be able to control it there's a different way to Live use the let them Theory let them think something negative let them do something negative like unfollow you or write some comment or whatever let them you know that the power is not in someone else the power is in you and let me remind myself that what I think about myself matters more than what anybody thinks says or does or feels about it

what I do or don't do is where the power is that's why I'm going to post what I want to post I'm going to post the bathing suit photo I'm going to post this video without the filter I'm going to write something powerful in the description and not dumb it down with an emoji because I'm afraid of what somebody thinks all of which is beyond my control that's what we're talking about here let them think something negative and take the power back for yourself and you are going to feel so different in your life your

social media is going to be different you're going to be different at work different with your family because you're going to stop giving power to something that is beyond your control you do not need to live that way and the let them Theory will help you take your power back I just want to give one more big shout out to Chrissy Teegan and to our partners and friends at audible thank you thank you thank you for allowing me to share some of that extraordinary conversation with you if you want to hear the whole thing just

go to audible.com Chrissy and Mel and you can listen to the entire thing and I also want to thank you thank you for hitting play and finding and making the time to listen to something that will truly change your life and I wanted to have this conversation in the way that I did because I knew that if you listen to some of the conversation with Chrissy you would see yourself or somebody that you love in it and by bringing in the deeper explanation from Dr Paul Conti I knew it would hit you at a much

more profound level it is possible to change how you think it's possible to change how you talk to yourself it's possible to feel good enough and it is possible to learn how to let people think negative thoughts about you because when you know the truth about who you are you're not really going to think much about other people at all all righty and in case nobody else tells you this I wanted to be sure to tell you that I look you and I believe in you and I believe in your ability to take what you

just listened to and watch today and use it to change how you talk to yourself and to change where you pour your time and energy and to take your power back and when you do that there is no doubt in my mind that your life is going to get better and I will be waiting for you in the very next episode as soon as you hit play and thank you thank you thank you for watching all the way to the end I love being here with you on YouTube and one more thing it would mean

the world to me because I know you're the kind of person that loves supporting people that support you and I show up here every day and do my best to support you if you would just hit subscribe it's my goal that 50% of the people that watch this channel are subscribers it's free and it's how you can tell us that you love the videos and the worldclass experts and content that we bring you every single day so thank you thank you thank you for doing that for me I really love you and appreciate you for

that and I know you're thinking Mel all right we're on a roll what should I watch next well obviously I think you should watch Dr Paul Ki and that entire interview next because it's incredible so check this video out and Dr KY and I will be waiting for you as soon as you hit play we'll see you there