DO THIS First Thing In The Morning To Stop Procrastination & NEVER BE LAZY Again! | Mel Robbins

I'm on a mission to make every human being in the world add one simple

thing

to their

morning

routine. This takes five days to work, five days before you have a huge breakthrough in how you see and relate to yourself. People fight despite knowing what. should be doing, they procrastinate, they have these negative thoughts that prevent them from taking action, what do you think is the reason? Well, I think knowing what to do is really simple, I mean it, like you would do it in any year of your life. where you feel stuck you know what you need to do to move the needle to improve the situation at work to change your career to improve your health to be happier working on your marriage information is everywhere and in fact, if you are listening to me right now and you say mel

robbins

you are wrong I have no idea what to do I just know I'm stuck actually you know what to do go to google and type I hate my job and you will get hundreds of millions of links you will probably find a hundred thousand videos made by people who have been stuck in their jobs and they will guide you through a step-by-step process you could follow to change what is easy, the question is how do you force yourself to take action when you are afraid when you are scared when you are overwhelmed how do you break the bad habits how do you break the negative thinking that makes you feel paralyzed?

Do you see the problem for most of us? We are? Think about what we have to do, but thinking won't change your life. The only way to change your life, change your career or change your health is to take action and that is why so many people are held back by

procrastination

. and fear and anxiety

stop

them is because they

never

get past the part of just thinking about it and I think we all have a habit that I call the habit of hesitation and in psychology psychologists and researchers say that there are basically two types of people.

True, there are people who have a bias towards action and those are the type of people who when inspiration comes, when confidence comes, when courage comes or when opportunity comes, they tend to lean towards it and take action. measures and based on research, those people tend to be happier, healthier, more successful, more fulfilled in life and then there are the rest of us and those of us who have what psychologists call a bias toward thinking, which which means that in a moment of uncertainty, a moment of opportunity, a moment when you need courage or confidence. By leaning towards it you move away from it and start thinking about what I should do and it is that habit of doubting in moments of change that keeps you stuck we call it

procrastination

we call it overthinking we call it many

thing

s but it is just a habit of pausing and then you stumble into thought patterns and behavior patterns that have been holding you back for years.

I mean, people say information is power and from what you say there, and I actually agree with

this

information, not everything is. It's like we can have the information, we can have the knowledge, you know, knowledge is power, it is, but it's not everything, it's that you can have the knowledge and not take action. I know a lot of really smart people who are miserable, yes, I know TONS of people who do nothing but read self-help books or watch YouTube videos about inspiration and do nothing, yes, and the reason is that they collect information as a way to feel that you are working on something and that learning is something really important. do like understanding becoming more self-aware is essential for you to improve your life is essential for you to be happier and more fulfilled if you don't understand yourself and you don't understand the thought patterns, the behavioral patterns that keep you stagnant, you will

never

be able to break them and replace them, but you can feel comfortable learning and tricking yourself into thinking that somehow being smarter about what you need to do to be healthy will make you healthy.

That's not true, like reading about Launching a Business doesn't launch a business, so you know one of the other things that I find really interesting and I think

this

is one of the reasons why people really resonate with a lot of what I have. to say. I don't know if it's dyslexia or ADHD, but I don't remember a lot of information in terms of a list, so if I'm trying to recover and you give me 11 things to do, I won't do any of them. If you give me something simple that I can understand, I'll probably try it and I think a lot of times what happens to people, and I know it's certainly happened to me, is that even if the information is empowering, it feels complicated.

I'm not going to, yeah, that's the beauty or one of the beauties that I would say about your approach, whether it's in your you know you've written several books, but the one before this one, including this one, the five habits. You know, the subtitle I think says everyone take control of their life with one simple habit and as you're talking, I can't really tell you how much I connect with what you're saying because it's very similar to the approach that I've tried to teach. patients for over 20 years is to keep it simple. Do you know what that key habit is that will open the door to all the other habits?

Before we start the new book, I have a new team member, uh-huh, and she's a big fan of yours, she's fine, and last night I said, hey, so I brought Mel to come to the studio. She was losing her mind with excitement and she said Mel Robbins would change my life if she was like that. Not for Mel, he would still be in a job that stressed me out so I couldn't take it anymore if it weren't for men, I would still be on antidepressants if it weren't for men. Rule 54321, I wouldn't. I hit apply to join her team, Rongan, and she only joined a few weeks ago and that really hit me hard because of how profound and life-changing her work is because this is a person who has shared how it has helped her your health. well, it has helped her physical health, her mental well-being and it has helped her get a job that, as she told me last night, has taken her out of her comfort zone that she knew she could do but probably wouldn't have had the opportunity . courage to do it yeah well thank you for sharing that and there are a couple of things I want to say about that story does a beautiful job of explaining my mission in the world and that is to discover simple tools that anyone can use to help. they make changes in their lives and so the reason why what's her name is steph, so the reason why steph was so excited and I hear it every day as one of the coolest things, you know, about being on youtube and on social media and Making work and speaking on stages all over the world is when you have a super simple idea, it's so catchy, yeah, anyone can share it, it sounds a little stupid, counting down, okay, you know, You won't forget it because it sounds nice. of silly and the idea itself is so simple and so catchy that anyone can try it and anyone can share it and a lot of times people don't even know my name and they're like, oh my gosh, you're lady five or Robin, you know they like it. they blend in like they don't even like that they've been looking at me and I love that yeah because for me it's about the tools and in Steph's case what's super interesting about her enthusiasm because I literally can't get past such a day period and don't let anyone come up to me and tell me that you changed my life and I always say the exact same thing when someone tells me that, thank you so much for telling me, I appreciate you acknowledging me and following me, but you deserve the credit. because you did the work, I just gave you a tool that I discovered helps you move from thought to action, yes, so she went from thinking about how much she hated her job to 54321

stop

ping the thought by counting backwards and forcing herself to move, it happened From thinking about applying for your dream job and 54321 hitting send, you went from thinking about going to the gym to five four three two one, cutting the procrastination cycle in half and then replacing it with a push to take action.

So what's so elegant, simple, and empowering about the five-second rule or the high-five habit or all the other simplistic things I tend to share with the world because that's what works for me? The thing is that all of these are tools that cut. through what's holding you back and it turns out that your nerdy friend Mel has done all the research to be able to explain to you why science, research and decades of psychological academic work actually boil down to counting backwards 54321 or this new in particular. brain hack the high five habit how to simply high five the human being you see in the mirror every

morning

as part of your morning routine will develop the habit of self empowerment self respect self esteem self encouragement self love as.

This is a powerful thing and it sounds silly, you know, it's like and here's the other thing and you and I were talking about this, I think that life is so overwhelming, yeah, and when your problems seem overwhelming or when your dream job seems impossible far we all make this fundamental mistake of believing that because your problems are so big the solution must be big or because the dream is so far away that the way you are going to get there is so huge and the fact is that it is exactly the opposite, quite the opposite, that when your problems are enormous, it is the smallest thing that moves you in a different direction and begins to crumble it, when your dream is enormous, it is the smallest thing that moves you and when you understand That you can start doing something by doing the smallest thing and that will open something inside of you and let in some light.

That's powerful. One of the reasons I think so many people around the world resonate with you is because you have a real knack for making people feel like you understand them, you get their life and you share a lot of that in the new book, The Habit of Colliding All five of you share many of your own struggles where things didn't go as well as you wanted. on multiple occasions and when I hear you say that people reach out to you on a daily basis, I'm interested to know how you really take those comments and if Mel Robbins of 2021 takes them in a different way than Mel Robbins of say 2011 because I have the real impression that you have evolved you take your readers with you you have talked about it you know and we will get to this you have talked about guilt shame um you know insecurity jealousy all these things beautiful things, those are the beautiful things crying out loud, when are we going to talk about cheating and anxiety attacks and quitting work during panic or homesickness or, I mean drinking myself into anxiety, postpartum depression like I mean?

I just had a roller, I was a very high functioning fucked up human being, yeah, I think there's a lot of them out there, I think most people are like, I mean, you're either one, I think they're all We're kind of finding our way back home. for ourselves, it was, as you felt, I guess, more confident in who you are in your skin because the reason I'm asking about this, I think a lot of people, myself included, have struggled with receiving praise in the past and you say everything kind of thing that you know how to fight or you just know that you accept it but you feel a little uncomfortable maybe with that praise and I'm just interested on a personal level, yeah, what has that been like for you?

Well, was it difficult? sometimes I'll tell you when it's hard, it's hard when I'm with a friend or when I'm with someone like a family member and I know it's annoying for someone else because they see it as in the celebrity lane and it's not a celebrity experience. at all i have no interest in being famous i have no interest in being considered a celebrity personally i don't consider myself a celebrity so much that up until four months ago my damn home address was on my linkedin account that's how dumb i was about the type of reach that I have and so I love those moments and I'll tell you why I don't think those moments are about me at all.

I see a moment like meeting someone like steph. who comes up and says oh my god, holy cow, I can't believe you're in London thanks to you, I have this new job and thanks to you I stayed on my diet thanks to you, I have control of my anxiety or being and I say , thank you, actually you know you deserve the credit, don't give me the credit, I just shared with you a couple of tools that worked for me, you should keep the credit because you are the one who did the work and So, each person like the staff that reaches out to me, texts me, messages me, or puts something in the comments, that's evidence that the work I'm doing by posting a YouTube video is having a real impact. about the lives of people around the world, you know, I'll tell you a story where it was a real turning point for me and it's like this incredible validation that is the source of my drive and that's why I'm a maniac with regarding how the thumbnail looks.

Like on YouTube, I'm a maniac with what we're putting on Instagram, microm, not a title comes out that I don't write and we publish 19 content a day, nothing is published. that I have not signed personally that I have not looked at the edition that I have not chosen the music that I did not like literally I have done everything no, I have not done everything, but I take a lot of care and intention and what we publish and this is the reason, so we were on vacation inIceland as a family for my Dad, I think it was his 75th birthday and we were three hours from Reykjavik and we stopped at a small ranger station outside of a national park to go in, go to the bathroom and have a cup of coffee before going into this national park. going hiking in the middle of nowhere and I'm wearing a parka with a hood, I have a hat on a little beanie, I have my glasses on and my coat with a zipper like this and we're walking towards the ranger station and my husband chris says hi mel , you want a cup of coffee and I'm like oh yeah, I'd love one.

I'll have it with cream and sugar and the ranger, a woman in her 40s, suddenly looks up and says Mel Robbins, she didn't even see me, she heard my voice and I turned around and she left and I said hello, oh my God. , take the hood off my bean, how are you, what's your name, you know and she was so overwhelmed and she said I have to tell you that you helped me get over an abusive marriage your videos made me feel like I would be okay. If I left them, your videos gave me tools to find the courage to ask for help.

Your videos and look, I don't feel like it. I am responsible for the fact that she has changed her life. I feel like I am a human being who has had many struggles and because I have met many other human beings who are trying to change their lives. I understand the patterns. I understand the holes we dig for ourselves and fall into, I understand all of this because it's a lived experience and because I literally talked to a coach, I helped inspire so many real normal people who go through things and, you know, it turns out I'm also a trained trainer.

Crisis intervention counselor who worked at a domestic violence hotline for four years. I was a public defender who worked in criminal defense for people who couldn't afford lawyers and there are tons of mental health services and addiction counseling and things and training that go along with it. with that and when I hear that there is a woman in an abusive relationship in the middle of nowhere in Iceland who is watching YouTube videos as a way to have a lifeline so she can find the courage to face the things that happen in her life and find the strength within herself to be able to take those actions and hold on to the hope that things will be better if she does that to me like we would have ended up here if she died in the plane crash on the way home.

I've lived an extraordinary life because I've helped someone and that experience made me say, "This is a lot bigger than a book than a video." I put a lot of intention into what we put out there because I know there's a human being on the other end, high five, yeah, I mean, it's a very powerful story and you know, I think about that melon, I think well, your podcast does the same thing. , you take your experience, your intellectual curiosity, your wisdom, your humanity and produce a sample where you're posting this, can you tell what the difference is for you in terms of moving from treating patients individually and treating their families, yeah, to disseminate life-saving and life-changing information, knowledge empowerment? stories yeah, to help people, you know, I resonate with a lot of what you've been saying, it's the most incredible journey, it's the most incredible feeling, it's really made me wonder what it means for me to be a doctor in 2021 2022.

Do you know what it really means? You know medicine like the law. I'm sure it's a very conformist profession and I know that in a conventional primary care clinic, say NHS, I can probably see 40 patients in a day in 10 minutes. intervals that are not optimal, but we will leave that for another conversation, this program, my books, you know all the things like you, you know, we are reaching with the program if you include YouTube, about a million people a week, right? drowned in messages on Instagram or private messages or letters and it is very moving because you realize that every time you post something it is reaching a human being, yes, they are listening to it, they are changing their perspective of their life and it is impacting, yes , your health. or their relationships and it's amazing and I think it's a great time to be alive because now we have these outlets where we can do that um I mean what I hear about you, Mel, that I wish I really loved, is that so far.

We've talked about how you helped a lady who is fighting domestic violence. We're talking about one of my team members who you helped leave a job she wasn't happy with. You helped change her health and get her out of it. medication um you're not a doctor yet and I think that's fantastic because I think most of what we see now as doctors I think in our 80s and 90s is related in some way to our collective modern lifestyles and how we live and how we live. We are stressed and we work too much and we have anxious thoughts and we don't know that this is what is driving our true health, so the question I ask you is, as you say, you are not qualified, I suppose, as a therapist or a doctor. doctor, but you are helping people with their mental, physical and emotional health, why do you think that is?

Well, you know, I think there are a couple of things, one is that I have experience because my experience comes from lived experience and from sitting in a therapist chair receiving therapy for five to ten years occasionally it comes from taking medications. for 25 years does not mean that I can prescribe them, but it means that they have saved my life thanks to that, it comes from studying these things because, what happens? when you invent something like the five second rule and perfect strangers start telling you that they are counting backwards five four three two one just like they saw you do it on youtube mel and that it is impacting major problems in their lives by losing over a hundred pounds to To stay sober until the end, we know of 110 people who have avoided attempting suicide.

For me personally, I feel a responsibility to understand why something like that works, yes, and then when someone invites you to come to Starbucks or J.P. Morgan because I've seen your videos and they want you to come talk about how the five second rule can help a company change its culture or help a company change or help people who work somewhere be less stressed or be braver. It's best if you can introduce yourself and explain. exactly why count backwards 54321 can be proven using science, studies, case studies and examples from real life people around the world, so the interesting thing is that when I invented the five second rule and this little technique I was just a 40 year old woman with three kids under 10 who was unemployed with 800,000 in debt because my husband and his best friend went into the restaurant business, it was great for a while and then it was business. of the restaurants, yes, and like complete idiots we insured everything with everything we owned, so when things went bad in 2008 and the market changes and the real estate crisis happens and the restaurants start to go under foreclosures, we hit our house , we lost everything, I mean, we didn't go bankrupt.

I mean, just by the grace of God, I had such crushing anxiety despite the Zoloft that I couldn't get out of bed, yeah, and hence the five-second rule, whether you call it an act of desperation or divine intervention. I think it's divine intervention because it sounds stupid, I mean, the idea was just that when I wake up, the anxiety is so dark and I would lie on the ceiling, I would lie in bed and I would look at the ceiling and I would think that we were going to lose consciousness. house and I'm a failure and I hate my husband and no one can figure it out and what am I going to do and how did my life end and so on and so forth and the more I think, the deeper The hole was that I had this idea that God, maybe if I I move fast enough, yeah, when the alarm went off, if I got out of bed fast enough, maybe I'd beat the anxiety, maybe I wouldn't be in bed, so I decided.

I launched out of bed like a rocket and that's where the countdown began. I didn't know that when you count backwards you interrupt the usual cycles in your basal ganglia and direct your attention to your prefrontal cortex. I didn't know this would become one. of the most powerful initiation rituals on the planet in habit research, I didn't know that this little brain trick is a form of metacognition that allows you to interrupt any pattern of thought or behavior and gives you a moment of what psychologists call objectivity to that you can choose. what you do next and then you know you see that quote all over Instagram and all over social media you know it's not what happens it's you know how you respond and that's where your power is but if you're a person and the life is overwhelming. and life is happening, you're like life isn't happening for me, what do you mean by choosing how I respond?

I don't even know, I can't even get out of bed, so 54321 becomes a how is the tool you need to overcome the noise, the fear and the anxiety and seize a moment where you can take control and by that works, that's why therapists use it all over the world, that's why it works on reframing triggers associated with PCD I mean, it's incredibly amazing, it's a great tool, in fact, it's not just used by Steph, who we've already mentioned. I told my son last night, it's only 11. And yes, I often talk to kids. about the podcast I said dad who are you talking to tomorrow so I'm talking to someone named Mel Robbins and then you know I made them go and high five in the mirror.

I'll tell you about that a little bit later, but and Then I told him about this rule of five four three two one and this morning at breakfast he said that dad really works. He was really tired and you had to get him to school so I said five four three two one he got out of bed yeah five four three. two, one, I put on the school uniform, I thought, this is great, absolutely great, yes, but it's great that adults wear it, you know, responsible adults, little kids wear it too, you can use it in any language, any age, any education, any situation where You're thinking about what you need to do and you have to 54321 put in the effort to do it and you know I love that you shared it with him.

I also love this is the other thing that I love about things that that. Whatever I've created is your child can now put it in their back pocket, yeah, and if they're sitting in class and they want to share but they start to doubt themselves five four three two one like what they're doing is now breaking the habit and the thinking bias and you're moving across that spectrum towards having an action bias and of course what we know about confidence is that confidence doesn't start with believing in yourself, confidence starts with the willingness to try, which is why the five second rule is so powerful for building confidence because it is a tool you use to push yourself to try when you are full of doubt and when you try you raise your hand in class or talk more at work or you ask for the raise or you ask to send the email when you try, you might fail, but you gain a little bit of competence and that competence makes you a little more willing to try it next time, and that's where it comes in.

I play this loop of habits of competition and competition and now it is the axis of it. you have a 54321 tool to push yourself and say okay I'm in I'm going to try this I'm bad at myself it's so simple but so effective and I love the way you come up with these things and your experience initially comes from your lived experience , your struggles, how can I overcome myself? That didn't work, ah, that's a little, but oh man, this tool really works, okay, let me share it, oh man, people are sharing that with me, this is working and then you go and find out the science, yeah, which I really find, I love, I love that kind of approach.

I think I heard someone say once that the word for experience and experiments in every language that comes from Latin except English is the same experience, experiments. I really didn't know this is what I heard. I'm not a linguist who would know for sure, but I find it really interesting because you are literally creating evidence through your experience, by sharing it, people are coming back. You're right, this is not a study in a laboratory, but rather a kind of real laboratory study of working life. You know, it's so interesting that we go here because you know I personally believe in experts and I believe. in the credentials and I think it's important that there are controls that you know you need to be a doctor to prescribe medications, you know, I think there needs to be innovation everywhere, of course, I'm very excited about the whole plant. drug-based medications, but I also feel like they need some serious controls, yes, implemented, which can't be done, in my opinion, I think it can be scary to think about someone with a lifetime of trauma not being in the hands of an expert doctor when they're testing some of these new therapies, um, I've personally tried them, you know, with medical experts and they've changed lives in trauma cases, but I'm worried about people tripping over these things, so I believe in theexperience and I believe in ensuring that there are safety studies and protocols and that experts are respected, so I think that's important, but I think what you're saying is that we've reached a point in our society where it's It is important to expand the categories of what we consider experience, for example, there is traditional medicine when my dad happens to be a doctor who when he was a did a lot more type of poop because it is a little bit more holistic in terms of training , but he is an orthopedic surgeon for people in the United Kingdom, he is an osteopath, yes, he is an osteopath, uh, he was an orthopedic surgeon. in the United States and you know, now let's look at the fact that what clearly needs to happen in the medical field is a much more holistic approach and a focus on the whole person and health rather than treating diseases and there are so many different things. ways to treat things instead of just prescription drugs, so people's expertise in these areas is very important to recognize in new ways, very important for you to really make sure it's safe in new ways and what frustrates me to Sometimes it's because the two letters after my name are jd juris doctor, I'm a trained lawyer, right, but they're not md or they're not m.a or they're not the social work title even though I've been studying this for 10 years and I have doctors who use What I'm talking about, I had an entire wing of nurses from an inpatient psychiatric ward in Philadelphia come on my daytime talk show and tell me that, besides prescription medications, the only tool they can give you to someone when they leave. a hospitalization for suicidal ideation severe depression the only tool that really works is the five second rule because it is simple and someone in crisis can remember it and it works and yet no one recognizes me as a mental health expert, people call me motivational speaker.

You'll call me, you know whatever she's into this, she's into that and the fact is, I have, you know, a high-five habit that was a year-long research project, yeah, we have a study that we've done, it's called the High Five Challenge. We've had 137,000 people from 91 countries participate in a fully monitored five-day online challenge we've created over the last 32 days. Many people have been through this and not one person has reported that they have not experienced it. The positive change now is that an academic study probably not, but it's good enough for me and that's why it's interesting because I often find that I was very flattered when you invited me because you're a doctor, yes, and people have taken a while I realize because I think a lot of people hear the five second rule or high five and they say, oh God, and the truth is there's a lot of, yeah, damn research and evidence.

Isn't there that? Don't you put it in all your books and the new ones? one is full of references on the back, full of evidence and then what I'm trying to point out is that you should be seen the same way you know people with the correct letters after their name. I'm not saying we shouldn't do it. We don't need experts, we do need experts, but we also need to broaden our definition of experts and expertise and also the point I'm trying to get at is that I think sometimes we outsource so much expertise to others that we sort of lose trust. our own experience and our own ability to try some of these tours.

I mean, I'll use that 54321 rule with my patients now, since I can think of four or five people that come to mind right away. I think you know what I think next. The time I see them I'm going to mention this because I think it would really help them, yeah, and that's what it's about, because a lot of the big problems with science is that the way that science has been communicated is often very dry. the public already knows, so what's what, let's say there's a paper that says you know there's a paper that says this diet or this technique is really good for your mental health most of the time, the way in which it communicates with the non-specialized public.

It's done in very scientific terms, they talk down and you communicate powerful ideas that work in a way that people see, I think people see you as their friend, they think, oh mel, that's like, well, I'm shoulder to shoulder with ... shoulder yes a thousand percent so think about it that's why they follow the advice and that's why they give you this love because they are your peers yes and you are their guide and their friend but by the way I'm learning a lot from everyone who writes to me like they are for me, yes, because when people share their stories about why they've been struggling, how something worked, what didn't work, how they changed it, for example, yes, and I can tell them a story about that with the habit of high five, how one person's story about the high five habit and their experience with it paved a whole path around a kind of shame and judgment and we can go back, let's get started, why not?

Explain what the high-five habit is, for sure, because I'd love to hear about those kinds of experiences. Yes, just so you know in its simplest terms, I am on a mission to make every human being in the world add one simple thing to their life. morning routine and it's called the high-five habit and this is what it is every morning after you brush your teeth and get that crap out of your mouth so you don't spread that nasty breath everywhere, okay, I want you to take a moment. put down your toothbrush and look at the human being in the mirror that is not your reflection that is a human being that needs you a beaten down human being that feels forgotten who is so sick and tired of your criticism and I want you to stay there and look at them and take a moment because the rest of your day is going to be about everyone else and then I don't want you to say anything.

This is the genius of this habit. You can be on your worst morning, like I was. When it came back to divine intervention or stupidity, you can be the judge, right? It was April 2020 and I was having a time in my life where I felt overwhelmed by life, I was waking up, the anxiety was back, I felt like life was unfair. I had lost my dream job we were in the middle of the pandemic my kids were in a state of great pain and anger and frustration because the university, you know, had closed and you know now they're dealing with it, um, I had a lot of speed like Suddenly my business is imploding and don't forget that a little over 10 years ago I was in a financial crisis where my husband and I were about to lose everything, we couldn't even pay for food, my dad was lending us money.

Yeah, and that's what triggered all of that and I was thinking about this like I worked so hard. I'm a good person. How could you be doing this to me like I don't deserve it? You were already quite successful at that time, weren't you? I wasn't successful. I was the number one motivational speaker in the world. I had a syndicated daytime talk show in the United States, so 175 shows a year giving advice, you know, I had all five. second rule book that was self-published and sold millions of copies, but I think that's what's powerful about this story, even with all that success, you were still plagued by doubt, anxiety, and negative thoughts because you hadn't had The Greatest flash forward of my entire life so far and I had it one morning in April 2020.

You see, the five second rule is extraordinary, but it doesn't address what I think is everyone's fundamental problem and everyone's fundamental problem is that o you hate yourself. or you're just judging yourself and this habit of relentless self-criticism and relentless self-rejection is the reason you're unhappy, it's the reason you're never satisfied, it's the reason you can't accept a compliment and why You feel uncomfortable feeling celebrated and it all comes down to the fact that when you stand in front of the mirror every morning you have this really subtle, not so subtle way of starting your day by rejecting yourself and I'm going to unravel this. because it's incredibly powerful when you start to truly understand this because if you can't look in the mirror and authentically see a human being that you respect, that you encourage, that you like, that you're rooting for, I'll even give up on love. the table because I think that's so unattainable for where people are right now, let's move on to can you accept yourself? can you like me?

Can you see a person who is worthy of support and worthy of your encouragement? Can we just start with that baseline? because for my research that the average person cannot, according to my research, 50 percent of men and women do not or cannot look in the mirror because they dislike the person they see or are disappointed in them and those of them. we who can look at ourselves in the mirror. mirror, we are still rejecting ourselves because we focus on what we don't like or start mindlessly thinking about all the things we haven't done well or haven't done yet, you know, on this particular morning in April 2020.

I'm overwhelmed by my life, I drag myself to the bathroom, I immediately see my reflection and say, oh god, you look like hell, yeah, I start listing all the things, droopy neck, one boob lower than the other , as you know. exhausted I look at the gray hair that appears, how old I am starting to look and then the mind, once it becomes negative, keeps going in that direction unless you are five four three two one without thinking about it, but my mind is like going down By the Drain, I wonder why I got up so late.

I got a Zoom call in eight minutes. God, you didn't even know that he texted her back yet and the dog still needs to be and I'm like the beaten boom boom. The boom starts and you know, I don't know what happened to me, but that morning, standing there, yeah, I couldn't think of what to say and here's the important part when you feel like when you're overwhelmed by your life you're not going to do it. Believe in a pep talk anyway because it doesn't match how you feel and for some reason, I literally raised my hand and high-fived the woman I saw in the mirror because she looked like she needed a high-five.

Like I needed someone to say everything's going to be okay, you can do this, get out and you know from the

first

one you know it wasn't like lightning went through the ceiling and you know it got in my head, that's not what happened. . But there's definitely a switch inside each and every one of us, yeah, so think about the walls here, yeah, even when the lights are off, there's electricity in these walls, even during your worst moments, there's vitality ripping through your veins. , there is an electrical life force. inside you and life may turn that switch off but it's still there, there was something about this high five action that felt like movement when the switch flipped and suddenly the energy was able to connect

again

and something inside It lit up for me now that

first

tomorrow I didn't go, yeah, like that's not what happened, I just felt this kind of change from to, okay, you have a roof over your head, you know your family is healthy, you've saved money , it's not that bad, yeah, you understand. out there like I hadn't even thought about those things, it was more the electricity, the energy in me, this vitality activated, but it was on the second morning when the deep nature of what I was entering really activated, so that I wake up even anxiety up to my ankles up to my legs I feel like the rush of oh god something's wrong five four three two one get out of bed I start walking towards the bathroom and it's like I'm walking towards the bathroom I'm not even there yet I feel something that I've never felt in my entire adult life and it's this thing that you know when you're about to go to a cafe and you're going to meet someone that you're really excited to meet or someone that you really love.

You're not going to see them Yes, what do you feel good when you're about to enter the cafe? you're excited you're you're optimistic you know you're anticipating something good will happen yes, I actually realized what I was feeling that way of looking at myself, yes, I'm now 53 this year. I don't think until that morning in April 2020 I would have had the experience, as an adult, of being excited to see the Mel Robbins human being that I was excited to see. a suit or a haircut or the look of a new eye shadow, but human beings, like our children when they are very young, simply love to see themselves, this unconditional support and celebration that is integrated into your DNA when you are born. and Then when I turned the corner that second morning, that's when the deep nature of this really started to hit me and I stood there and looked at the woman in the mirror and realized she had never asked me the question.

What does she need for me today? I have never associated myself with myself. I've been so busy trying to finish, trying to make sure people like me, trying to make sure the bills get paid, trying to make sure everyone else is okay, trying to do. all these things that are the things in our lives that I have forgotten about the most important person and that is myself and

again

I'm going to come back to a point that you know we've been talking about in various ways that we all know thatAre we supposed to love ourselves? We all know we're supposed to be kind to ourselves.

You can read a quote on Instagram. Instagram. You should talk to yourself as if it were your best friend. The problem is how you know you read. a quote like that you are not like any sherlock how do I do it? I mean, seriously, how do you do that? I don't know, I've been beating myself up for years, how do I stop? I don't know and you know, this is what we logically know is stupid because if punishing yourself, being hard on yourself, rejecting yourself, tearing yourself down, if it really worked, we'd all be millionaires, we'd have rock star bodies, we'd have the best.

Married couples on the planet would never have to work a day in our lives, we would be on a beach, some would like it to work, yes, but instead we have these thought patterns and small behavioral patterns like not looking in the mirror. It is a way of rejecting yourself. Separating is a habit of rejecting yourself and that is why when you start your day like this, what you do and then you go out into the world having rejected your own being. This is why you are so thirsty for validation from others. This is why you look for your worth in the money you make in the car you drive the downloads you get in the likes you get in the neighborhood you live in you think your worth is outside of yourself and I'm here to tell you that the secret of your life is to take that value and bring it back home start practicing a physical habit an action that shows your brain that you respect yourself that you believe you are worthy that you deserve forgiveness that you deserve encouragement that you believe in you and when you begin to practice the physical action the universal symbol of I have you I love you I celebrate you I see you I believe in you when you practice this physical action the neurological association that is already in your brain with the five high-fiving yourself in the mirror is made charge it's crazy how this works science is mind blowing i think this is a thousand times more powerful than that high five habit because it gets to the core of who you are you think you think it's more powerful than five four three two one however, well, yes, yes, because five four three two one is a tool that will prompt you to act 54321 is a tool that you use to cut off the worries that trigger anxiety 54321 is a tool that you use to create a moment of objectivity and control when you are normally activated so that you can consciously choose a different response.

Yes, the high-five habit goes to the core of who you are and how you treat yourself, and when you become a human being who has compassion for yourself and likes you, it won't. It doesn't matter what happens out there, yes, because everything here is healed and cared for and, as you know, someone can tell me: I don't love you anymore. I do not like you. It will hurt, but it doesn't change the situation. The fact that I still like it because I practice it and prove it, that's the difference, yeah, and I think the hidden magic in the high-five habits is because I've been trying it the last few days, right? yes, and what did you experience? powerful because he will guide us as if he were standing in front of the bathroom sink and guide us through his experience.

Well, first of all, you need to pause your life, whatever you were going to do, it requires an intentional pause to leave, no. Now I'm going to do this action for me and I have to say before I tell you how it went, I think it would have been very different for me a few years ago because I feel self-pity, you know, not looking for your value outside of other people's download numbers like what people say about you, which was a big part of my life, I feel like having put a lot of that to bed now and I really feel like I really like the person I see in the mirror these days, so I feel like five years ago I would have had a different experience with this, but it was still powerful because you just look at yourself and put your hand in the mirror and I think it's just that. pause that moment of looking at me like you're looking at yourself and like I don't know, obviously you know, as a man, what do we do, we often look at ourselves in the mirror, we may be looking at our beard while we shave clean, but You're not looking at your eyes, right, you're just looking, oh, I need to shave, oh, I got a little lost here, let me get rid of that and then you go on okay or look at your face and your hair, but you.

You're not really looking at yourself, right, you're looking at your silhouette, you're looking at yourself, but you're not looking at yourself, if that makes sense, yeah, and that's what I think was really powerful, was that it is just another as I feel it is. just another tool now that will take off two seconds if it's five seconds at most, not that I don't have time to add that, there's nothing wrong with adding it and frankly I like adding it, it makes me feel. well it's like oh and I think that's what you're saying, it's the action, yeah you don't have to say anything if you're not in the mood, I actually don't want you to say anything and the reason is the neurological association. um, what do you mean by that?

Well, this is what I mean by that, so, when you high five someone else, what does the action of high five communicate? It's just a universal symbol of um, you got this, I see you're. Great, we can do this. You know, it depends on the situation, but it's a good feeling. It's a kind of mutual validation experience. What did they tell me about the London Marathon and high fives? Oh, I mean, what did it mean to high-five a stranger? for you just liked it and that's the key to strangers right, you don't know them and they're looking at you and you're looking at that, oh you don't even know, maybe you're not even looking at them.

I just walked by, you high five, it's like you got a shot of feeling good, it's validation, it's like, hey, you know what we're in this together, you're standing on the side cheering, I'm running, but at that moment it was like common humanity, it was like there was no animosity and in fact, it's one of my big takeaways from the learning that the marathon really was and it relates to this, I think that's how we are in what is considered a very divided world. the time i went to the london marathon and all i saw was love to strangers giving love to other people they didn't know well and how they got that love through applause but most of the time with high fives, right , it's a universal symbol of encouraging love of celebration and neuro association, whether you live in a culture where you've been high-fived or not, neuro association is still there because you've seen them in sports, yeah .

You've seen them in marathons. You've seen teachers give them to children. So your brain has a lifetime of programming in your subconscious that is triggered by this action. It's neurologically impossible to give yourself a high five and think you're a loser. You failed. I don't like your face your brain won't let you do it because the neurological association is so ingrained that it has only meant I celebrate you I see you I have you keep going you have this I'm behind you you know how you say that, Mel, it makes you think about gratitude because when we feel grateful we can't feel depressed, we can't feel anxious, we can't feel upset with ourselves and in some ways this is a kind of gratitude towards ourselves, right because Something about gratitude that obviously has tremendous benefits demonstrated in your life.

Most of us are grateful for things outside of ourselves. Yes, what I'm teaching the world to do is unlock the neural association in your mind and in your nervous system and point it back. Look at yourself and use this simple habit to interrupt the critic, break the default loops in your mind associated with judgment, shame, criticism, self-hatred, and replace it with a new default setting of seeing yourself in a new way. the way you see your son, who is love like me. Children do things that bother me all the time and I can be angry or disappointed with them, but I never stopped loving them, yes, and there is something that has happened to each and every one of us which is the pain, the anguish and the disappointments of life. and the setbacks pile up we stop loving ourselves we start judging ourselves more we start condemning ourselves more we start rejecting ourselves more we start trying to seek the love and approval of another person to fill this hole inside of us that we have been digging because we have been rejecting ourselves and then you know it's so powerful because the action alone is what communicates it if you look at yourself and raise your hand on your hardest days what the high five says is not yes, I'm Amazing how this is not going to turn you into a narcissist this is based on compassion yes this is basically saying "I see you, you are right, this is difficult and you know what you can do".

I have your back and when you launch into your day with that physical action, it leaves an imprint on your mind and spirit. Now there are a couple of reasons why I don't even write about this part of the book because I didn't know. this until I started podcasting for the book, yes, dr eamon told me who do you know, one of the leading experts on the brain, that one of the reasons you feel better when you do it, no matter how terrible be the morning, it's because Your brain has always given you dopamine when someone else high fives you, yes, so these types of gestures are rewarded in the brain, so when you yourself just high five, your brain doesn't distinguishes between me high five, me and me high five. you just go oh I know what dopamine is oh I believe in that person the second thing that happens is that your body is programmed for the energy of celebration this is that electricity that is in the walls that has a switch that you can turn on and off And So you know, for example, if when you cross the finish line of the London Marathon, what do you do instinctively high-five someone?

Yes, and you raise your hand just as your favorite team scores. You raise your hand when you scream. Surprised at a birthday party. You raise your hand. your hands when you say hello you raise your arm when you give a high five someone raises their arms and you hug someone you raise your arms this is connected through your entire body and we normally give that celebratory energy to other people or things. I'm here to tell you that when you high-five yourself, you flip the switch, you flip the switch and you give yourself a little bit of that vitality running through you to help you move forward in your day.

Yeah, I look at it like it's almost like it's the High Five, but it's not in a lot of ways because it's like you're going down one path and the high five to yourself sets you off on a different path for the rest of the way. day compared to if you hadn't done it right a thousand times. percent correct, so let's use a great example that everyone can stick to the sport, yes, so if a team is about to play the league championship, yes, and they are the underdogs, what is the best way to send the team to that?

The game is to defeat them. Oh, you did a terrible job at the London Marathon. You're going up against Plant New York, my goodness, and I saw your split times. No, that's not the best way to do it, but that's what it is. What we do to ourselves is right, right, so I'm here to tell you that you don't have to say anything because you're not going to believe it, so let's trick this, let's make a circuit with your feelings passing Right Words , it's like when you take this ridiculous example, but it's like when you take a vitamin B12 supplement but you take it sublingually so that it dissolves, so you avoid having to go to the intestine through the liver and then you get the insulin directly. right and it's something that feels like a thousand percent to me and then you throw yourself into the game of life with that kind of optimism with that resilience with that compassion and you know, look, some days you'll laugh, other days you might cry, people report that some Days you'll feel a little better and other days you'll high-five and laugh out loud from the dopamine and walk into your boss's office and ask for that raise or quit because you're going to remember that no matter what you're going to be okay, you're going to be fine.

Remember that no matter what you have behind you, you are going to remember that it doesn't matter if no one says "excellent job" in that presentation. what you worked on because you can go into the bathroom like people have written to us after you've practiced this hey I did a presentation at work no one said a damn word the old me would have gone into my bucket and cried and thought I was leaving to say goodbye I knew I did a good job, I walked into the bathroom and gave him a high five. Your kids can keep this in their back pocket and it's a way to reset yourself when you start going down that negative path.

Because it is important? It's important because the five. It's not going to eliminate poverty It's not going to eliminate discrimination It's not going to eliminate diabetes It's not going to eliminate the fact that someone just said they want to divorce you It's not going to eliminate all the trauma It's not going to change those things it changes you , yes, and it changes your relationship with yourself and your ability to believe that through your actions and your attitude you can move the needle on those things, yes, I love that last point, Mel, because the similarities between the way you talk of this and the way I've been talking about certain five-minute behaviors and habits foryears, they are so connected and one of the things that I say often and I want to give you credit for what you just said is that it is not going to change your life situation.

I know that if you are in poverty, you will still be in poverty, but you will be a different person, you will be able to cope better with the stresses that are in your life and I think This is a very important point because I have said it before in the program, but always I think it's worth reiterating that many people feel that self-help or wellness is the exclusive domain of the rich middle classes, but in reality habits like This, yes, will help someone who has a lot of money in their bank accounts because many People like that are also tormented by doubts inside, but they will also help someone who is not poor or a single mother who works two jobs and has three children and is really struggling with those little micro moments every morning when she sees herself herself in the mirror, she signals to her brain that she is worthy, that she is actually a human being with real feelings and, despite all her qualities and all of her, you know all the great things she is doing, that has power in this moment, it's free, there is not a single pretty person.

How many are listening to this or watching this right now who couldn't just pause or ankle, okay, let me, I'm convinced, it smells like, come on, I'm going to try it. I'll try. Well, first of all, don't rush, don't rush, so don't go to the bathroom and hit the mirror like I didn't do anything. I want you to do it again, like you said, take a minute and just watch. Look at yourself because for most people that's the hardest part. I mentioned that you know I get smarter and learn a lot from every comment and the people who write their stories.

And one person, uh, Alison Bird, a friend of mine who made my ability to explain the The depth of this is much deeper because she told me one thing when she tried it before the book came out, she said, you know, I think that's working, I feel like I have energy, I said, but you know what surprised him, I said what she says. the resistance I said the resistance what are you talking about she's like oh the first few days I did this I stood in front of that mirror and there was something in me that was like I didn't do it I couldn't even raise my hand there was This resistance and then I said : “Oh, that's interesting,” so of course I posted something.

Hello to the 700,000 people on the newsletter list, anyone who tries this and feels some resistance, we are writing to everyone who is in our small test group. Anyone feels holy. It turns out that most people do not have an immediate positive reaction. Oh, I'm making this reaction. Most people have massive resistance to even trying and I want to explain why because this is extraordinarily sad and it's also a huge growth opportunity because I think based on the fact that one hundred and thirty-six thousand people went through a challenge of five days online that we are monitoring on an app from 91 countries and seeing what they report, I know this takes five days to work, five days ahead of you. have a huge breakthrough in how you see and relate to yourself five days before the chemical, physiological, neurological, physical and psychological change begins to work, holy cow, this is crazy, this is how it works, so resistance It comes from self-judgment and self-condemnation, and I'm going to tell you a story to remind people who stand in the bathroom mirror when they try the high-five habit and feel this resistance in their body.

First of all, let me tell you that it is very normal to think that this is strange because Okay, it sounds so cheesy. For those of us who grew up with Saturday Night Live, you'll think of Stuart Smiley. You know, I'm good people like me, that skit they used to do about the guy who talked to himself. in the mirror you will stay there, be serious, dr. charlie and mel

robbins

you two have lost your mind but that's okay if it's weird while you're doing it that's a sign it's working yeah so dr. leaf told me, well, that's what it feels like when a new neural pathway is opening up, so if you feel like we're okay because we're teaching you to do the opposite of criticizing yourself, but resistance is something else, the resistance is the fact that every morning, when you start the day, you drag all your energy. spent in the bathroom with you and if you are someone who has experienced trauma or been abused or abandoned or neglected or grew up in chaos and addiction or have been a victim of crime or have to constantly deal with discrimination or violence, all the things for which you are not responsible.

There are a lot of people who take all that from their past and when they look at themselves they see someone who is damaged, they see someone who is not worthy, they see someone who is not worthy of being loved because of those things. things and what starts to become a high five when you do it is that it literally becomes an act of defiance it becomes an act of strength it becomes a sign that I'm a survivor it becomes permission to heal it becomes this deep feeling of feeling and knowing where you are and the fact that you have an extraordinary future despite all the pain and suffering that you have endured and survived and then there are people who bring it all, regret, all the shame, all the regret, all of that, so the cheating, the lying, the stealing, the harm you've caused to other people, the missed opportunities, and boy, I had an incredible example of this in my own life so you know I was getting into the habit of crashing myself. all five and during the first days of the pandemic my husband had He was just diagnosed with depression and he is a super healthy guy.

He is a certified Buddhist meditation instructor. He runs retreats for men called Soul Degree. He is a yoga instructor. He is tremendously involved with our community and with our family. He's a super high-functioning guy. He felt heavy, there was like a cloud there, like a heaviness for him, like no, there was no light between his eyes and, fortunately, you know that his therapist finally managed to get him to go see a psychopharmacologist and someone to do the tests for him. advanced tests, they are like a friend. you have dysthymia, you like long-term depression, you're lucky you've been doing all this because it's kept you alive and you know, at one point I turned to it.

I've been doing this for a couple of days or more like a couple of weeks and I'm like, you know, I know I'm not your doctor and I know I'm not an expert on your mental health, but I really think you should try this shock those thing. five. I really believe he will help you. with this depression he's like I'm not going to high five, it's the stupidest thing, I don't care what you're doing, no, and I'm like, okay, if you don't do it for yourself, would you do it for me? ? You do it for five days because we're researching this now and I like it.

I haven't even shared it with my audience yet and I'm like writing in my journal what I'm feeling and I have a couple of people on the team, could you do that for me? He's okay, so he did the first one, like are you happy?, you know, typical spouse thing, so he did it for five days and then I asked him what. he thought and said you're onto something really big and I said why do you say that and um I had no idea how dark my husband's thoughts were. He had no idea how much he was condemning himself, how much shame he felt, um.

He knew he was struggling with depression. I had no idea that for the past seven years the man standing next to me at the bathroom sink would look in the mirror and see a person he hated. He saw a person who had failed, he believed that since the restaurant business was not working and he left us 800 grand in debt and that his wife had to go out and make money, he was the worst father in the world, the worst husband of the world, and he's been condemning himself every day for seven years and the reason he thought high fives were stupid is because you only high five people you care about, you only high five people you care about, you only high five people you care about, people who are winning and he of all people didn't deserve it and to me, you know.

I knew he was struggling with shame in the restaurant business. I knew he was struggling with the amount of debt we had and the fact that you know he had, you know investors lost money. For me, I had a totally different experience. like you guys worked on it for eight years, you blew a hole for your investors as you know, hello entrepreneurship, as you know, we wouldn't have the five second rule without it, are you kidding me?, like we're winning, this is amazing, like Yes I do not. his business partner had the same thing, like he was proud of what they built, proud of how tough they were, Chris, for some reason, that wasn't his story, his story was one of condemnation, regret, shame, he could only see failure. and you know what was crazy.

You know, for years I've talked to Chris. For years I have told him how proud I am of him. You know he was the CFO of the company as my company was taking off like he owned half of it. It's like it's an integral part of everything, yeah, he doesn't see it that way and that's an important part, no one can heal you, no one can change the way you talk to yourself, this is an inside job, so that if you identify with how my husband feels, I want you to understand that what Chris told me was that giving a high five and overcoming resistance is an act of forgiveness, it is an act of healing, it is an act of support and compassion that It allows you and shows you that you are giving yourself permission to do so. feel good again, you deserve to be happy, you deserve it and you can move on and go do better, be better and feel better, and of all people you are going to stop judging yourself, that is the hidden power because you said for him you are great, he was at your company, our company, yes, exactly, working, seeing success, a loving wife, loving kids, but it didn't matter because that can only get you so far if the voice and narrative that sounds in your heads is negative for many people, no matter what the world tells them, they don't tell themselves and therefore high five habits are broken, even if it's just for 20 or 30 seconds, It's still like that. micro moment of compassion of fellowship, yes, right fellowship with yourself, forgiveness like everything, all the things that we know we should do, but we don't know how, yes, because all we see are these things that we regret and, for That's the weights. your mind and you start thinking about it and this what I love about this is not just the science that it is and it's all there in the book oh yes, you can understand that, but I think the most powerful thing is that it is a simple action, so let's go a step deeper because the other thing that's happening is we can dive into behavioral activation therapy, meaning behavioral activation therapy which, as you know, is just as effective and in some cases more effective than cognitive behavioral therapy.

Therapy can be reduced to simply acting as if you are the person you want to become. By the way, this is very different from faking it until you make it act like you act like the person you want to become has an intention for the person you want to be. If you want to be like you want to become a marathon runner, you need to start acting like one. You better buy some sneakers. You'd better schedule some time with your wife so you can go on a training run. You'd better watch some videos on how to reduce the intensity. on the run you better talk different, you better start acting like it, so when you start raising your hand and high-fiving the human being in the mirror, you're acting like a person who cares about themselves, you are acting like an encouraging person. themselves, you are acting like a person who cares, empowers, respects, believes they are worthy and your brain is watching and over time as you repeat this the structure of your brain begins to change in relation to how You sit down with yourself and stop.

You think, believe it or not, about the failed restaurant and you begin to remember that you join in the camaraderie and support to encourage this person to move forward. It's brilliant, it's amazing, yeah, it's actually right because the research on self-compassion is just overwhelming, I don't know. If you know the UK study, yes, but you also know Professor Kristen Neff. No, you would love her work. She's been studying this for about 20 years and she came on the show and was talking about how research shows that people who are self-compassionate are healthier, they're happier, they're more productive, you know, it's not the narrative that We think we have to punish ourselves and when we punish ourselves what motivates us to do it. take action, although I think this is an interesting point, because if I look at the email, yeah, and I've been checking on you for the last two days, I was there this morning and I watched your ted talk, you know it's like a 21?

A minute long panic attack I do it because I heard you talk about it and I want to address that a little bit because I think it's interesting so you do a ted talk that certainly got uploadedin 2011 and now has nearly 30 million views. of the most watched ted talks of all time, I imagine they're probably in the top ten, yeah, I think they're the top 20 anyway, wait maybe more, I don't know, okay, you know, the world Outside, a large part of society would look at that, and melroms is overwhelming. She just gave a Ted Talk and it went viral.

Now you say you had a panic attack the whole time, so let's think for a minute that you are achieving external success, but inside you are being eaten up by worry. At that point we fast forward, say nine ten years, aha, April 2020, you're a successful speaker, a motivational coach, you know the best-selling author and you're fighting self-doubt in the mirror, so is there this slight clash here in somewhere? where you can actually be successful and not love yourself and be tormented, I think everyone is, yeah, not me, success is not the source of self-love, in fact, most people who are successful, are competitive or entrepreneurial, most people pursue that success because they have linked their self-esteem with achievements and I was the same, yes, and right there I was too and, by the way, this is evidence that you have a problem with self-rejection, self-esteem and self-criticism because I think you're only worthy of love and you're only worthy of support if you've made it, then someone looks at you and thinks, man, I wish I were Mel Robbins, right?

We'll talk about jealousy if we make it. See it later, but they might be jealous of you in a nice way, they might think, man, I wish I had a viral Ted Talk right now. I wish I had several international best sellers. Great, write them well. Great, request one. You can do it if You can do it, you can do it, but they may also be thinking that it is a success that you have had, even though you were tormented by these problems inside, yes, and they may think that we know that I will accept it.

I'll take that success and I think this gets to this broadly societal point where sometimes we confuse success with happiness when you anchor your happiness in doing things it's always out of your control when you anchor success in the crap that you achieve it's always a moving target, yeah, and you know, it's a very difficult concept to understand because, first of all, there's research that shows that, at least in Western countries, you know there's a baseline with money of 75 thousand dollars. , is the baseline that when someone wins. 75 thousand dollars or more there is this question of happiness, I can't remember how the exact study goes, but it makes a lot of sense because, as someone who couldn't afford food with three kids, as someone who had liens on their house, as someone who is receiving the bankruptcy letters in the mail they have someone who was unemployed during this whole thing and whose husband was bouncing payroll checks and running from restaurant to restaurant to hide from debt collectors who showed up.

I know what it's like to live with the continent, constant, relentless pressure that comes from not having money, yeah, and until you can get to a state where you can breathe deeply and you can pay the bill, yeah, and you can buy some groceries and you can put some gas in the car and the phone rings and it's not a collector, you're going to live a stressed life because your basic needs are threatened, yes, and that's a terribly triggering thing and we lived it for several years, it was like that, yes , etc. Well, you know there's a certain level of financial stability that has a direct impact on your happiness, your security as a person, and your ability to experience less stress, so I just wanted to be responsible for that because I've lived it. and um, but I think you know, look, I used the five second rule.

I certainly found my calling. I love building things. I am amazing as a business woman. I love the game of making money. I love being smart when making deals. I love content distribution. I'm very excited about nfts and how blockchain is going to change the role of being a creator, so there is a part of this that is a real expression for me in terms of building a business and the rule of five seconds it helped me. take action and the five second rule made me very productive and the five second rule made me go no, I don't want to do a talk show no, I don't want to do a talk no, I don't want to do a talk show why Do we still talk like we just oh?

And you know, this is interesting when you say that no one loves you anymore. I wish I knew this a long time ago, but I sure use the five second rule to push myself and take the actions I have. It made me wildly successful, but that doesn't change the fact that I would look in the mirror and still see a person I didn't like and as soon as the five-second rule book came out, I would give you a For example, I write the book of high-five habits. I'm practicing these tools and I'm also human, so when we found out two weeks before the book comes out, big box stores like Target and Walmart in the United States are carrying my book. because I'm not a well-known author I get angry I punch the wall I drink porridge in a martini I light a joint I call a group of friends and I get angry I'm literally reliving being left out at a sleepover in high school I have this gigantic, ridiculous story that You know what it is, you know they always leave me out, I'm never part of the group, like there's this group of real authors who are all friends and everyone allows it, like you know, I like to have it all.

I'm human, pull out the record, just press play, yeah, exactly, I tend to be an angry, depressed person, you know, yeah, yeah, I like breaking things and then I wake up in the morning and I drag myself to the bathroom and I look at myself. . in the mirror and I have compassion, I think you're right, that sucks, you're a well-known author, you deserve your work to be in places where people can find it, it doesn't feel fair and you know what you're going to do. Being okay and then the high five becomes this, it's like a life jacket in the waves of life that keeps you above these waves so that yes, they knock you down, they spin you around, but then you get back up, you calm down and I have this thing that is embodied in high five, so high five is also a tremendously realistic optimistic mindset, so it's part of what I do constantly and I also do this as a mother, so we have a 23 year old years old, a 21 year old boy and a 16 year old boy and every day in everyone's life things happen that suck, there are friends who go out to lunch and don't invite you, there are people who say no to you, there are schools you go to You can't enter their apartments.

Does anyone else understand, there are boyfriends and girlfriends who break up with you, there are people who have cooler clothes and nicer cars, and parents who throw parties, and you know, there will always be something that makes you feel like life is waiting for you. Your things aren't fair, people don't like you, it's like an adjustment, right? It's triggering your insecurity and I have this saying that I developed again, it embodies this high five, which for me is also having run a marathon, The only reason I made it across that finish line is because all the high-five strangers said, "I think you can keep going," that's what the high-fives told me. working for something and I don't understand it and I feel the sting of rejection or disappointment, I always tell myself and say, I tell my kids over and over, I also say, look, when you work hard, you will be rewarded You have to believe that this moment is preparing you for something better that you didn't get this because something better is coming and you know it so there have been a couple of those like for example the high five habit audiobook it's unreal I want say, record it, it's the number one selling audiobook on all of Audible since it came out in terms of number of downloads in a month, like it's destroying it and I know you don't like that word, but it's destroying the audiobook that it has.

It's been reported on the app, it's been reported on all these places, it's on the number one charts and we're destroying it on the Amazon charts because people read it, love it and share it, and I love it because it tells me how The you know the tool is spreading, yes, because my books, like yours, are just vehicles to get ideas out there so people can talk about them and obviously I put all this stuff online for free anyway, so if you can't afford the book, You're listening to this podcast as you're going to listen to it, but the New York Times publishes a monthly list of audiobooks.

I self-published the audiobook and in the back of my mind I was saying don't get your hopes up. Mel, don't get your hopes up, you're not a publisher, you're a self-published author, they're very fancy there, that's why the audiobook list for the month of October came out, I clearly destroyed it like it was clearly the audiobook we don't even do it as a complete and utter intentional snub that was another night where I hit a wall and drank a couple of martinis and lit a joint and called a group of friends and felt so sorry for myself and everyone else.

In the morning I literally high-fived myself in the mirror. It took me about four mornings of high-fiving to get over that pain because it felt personal, but I kept saying that something better is yet to come. Something better is yet to come. You know, I discovered the best. that's okay, first of all, real sales are better than a list, so let's make that clear, but I'm human, you know we all want to be recognized, I was on the New York Times crossword today, yeah, isn't it ? Crazy, literally, is the coolest thing that's cooler than being a New York Times bestseller.

I think you don't think, yeah, I think it is, so it's a smaller club. I'm literally getting off the train and my texts are blowing up. from friends in the United States and they took a screenshot of this and it says literally three words less in the New York Times and it said um motivational speaker Robbins and it was me and you know what that was that left me so impressed. What happens to me is that I underestimate the fact that people know who I am. I think I am a person who has really made a lot of mistakes and for a long time I have lived inside a body tormented by anxiety, fight or flight and doubt. and judgment and it has been very difficult to live in this body yes, I have been high functioning yes I have still gotten good grades.

I have attended excellent schools. I have had friends. I've been married for 25 years, but it's been like that. It has been real to live with so much peace of mind, so much stress, so much self-imposed condemnation, this constant, relentless drumbeat of what is wrong and someone is mad at me and I have messed up again and constantly feeling like no one likes me and that I will never be able to. It's okay and everything is never going to work out and just this overwhelming feeling that when I finally started to attack the anxiety and understand it when I finally started to deal with the childhood trauma that created a dysregulated nervous system in the first place when I finally understood what was going on and I I came face to face with the woman in the mirror and I started to seek help and find a new way because I didn't want to continue living a life where I felt stressed, anxious, worried and where the constant noise right in my head was negative now a through the five second rule through emdr and psychedelic guided therapy through traditional talk therapy through the high five habit and practicing that since April 2020 I have a totally different experience of being alive and if you can save anyone the headaches, the headaches, the struggles that I've been through and now realize that you have very simple tools at your disposal that you can use to move the needle on the things that make you anxious, stressed, unhappy and fair. constantly nervous that you can come home within yourself and reconnect with your true nature if you think about our true nature we are designed for love we are designed for connection we were born accepting ourselves like when a four year old sees a mirror, They don't stand back and say God, my thighs are fat and look at that nose and my hair and no, they like that they're hanging around, they love themselves, that's your true nature, yeah, that's why they high five a stranger. feels amazing. because it gets to the core of who you really are a person who deserves to be seen a person who deserves to be celebrated and it starts with you yeah it's so powerful mel um as you were describing your different experience of life now that you're still successful like you were but you experience it in a different way there is a there is a calm there is a um there is a grounding, I guess that's what I hear and it reminds me of my friend Pippa Grange's phrase, she is a psychologist who the England football team used to help a few years ago. years and she has this term winning superficially or winning deeply sorry, interrupt if you're enjoying this content, there are many more like it on my channel, so take a moment to hit subscribe, hit the notification bell and now.

Let's get back to the conversation and it really sums up that she's dealt with so many, yeah, it's brilliant and it's a great quote because it's with her, you know, elite top division footballers and you know they've been walking the walk to win the trophy and inside they don't feel anything thatthey thought from a very young age until I was eight years old I will continue training I will continue trying I will reach a big club we will enter the cup They will win it because they thought, like many winners, that winning that medal getting that number getting that job getting the house getting the car would make them happy, but it's not like that because it's an inside job and that's where I think these high five habits lie.

I'm not going to change everything, but it makes everything a lot easier. You know, you've still had therapy. I sense someone who, let's say, has childhood trauma. Yes, I do. Everybody does it. And who doesn't. Actually, everyone knows it. Yes, on some level. and it's too hard for them to even approach it and go see someone, well, high five, I think that's your way in, oh, yeah, yeah, you start doing that, yeah, I think within a few weeks you'll be up on the phone to someone and make an appointment because you realize you exactly deserve it or when you say things didn't go as planned at the launch of this book and I know all about that kind of thing, um, that drink you served . yourself and that moan with your friends that was one night, right, it seems to me that high-five habit, just put a flag in the sun and say, okay, you know what we did, but today is a new day and today I see myself to myself.

I'm going to move on now yeah, it's like the way a team gets rid of a bad play and restarts the game on its own and you know there's some interesting research on that in chapter two because you know that's where it's all the investigation. People love to hear about the study with NBA teams in the United States, so the Berkeley researchersI wonder if there are preseason habits in the professional basketball league, in the United States, preseason habits that can predict which teams are going to have a winning record and, in fact, there are yes and um, the habit in the preseason that determines which teams are going to have the most winning records are the number of pats on the back, fist bumps and high fives. hands that team members give each other and you know, it seems so far-fetched that the Wall Street Journal in 2011 did an independent study that they paid people to watch. tapes and tell it yes and in fact it is true and it is also true that the teams that had the fewest back slaps and fist bumps during the preseason had the worst records because well you already said it when you got high - five someone with who you are building trust in the partnership you are in this together when you withhold those gestures you are selfish you are critical you are in this for yourself and one of the things that is helping me now to feel this way deeply winning is the fact that I know that I am associated with myself yourself and when you know you can count on yourself, you know that whatever happens, even a massive tragedy, even the biggest heartbreak or betrayal of your life, you know you will like it.

Those waves of life come out the other side, yeah, it's going to suck for a while, but you know you have within you the ability to get through it and I think that's where my kind of deep, deep-rooted winning sense comes from, and you know that's not It doesn't mean I'm not immune. I'll give you an example in real time. We come here from the United States. I travel with our 23 year old daughter and our CEO, who is my sister. -politicians, we had an incredible time and I felt super proud, honored and excited. You know you had us on your podcast and last night, because it's covered, we have to do all these tests correctly.

You have to send them. all this documentation to even come to the UK and then when you arrive on the second day you probably know that you have to do this two day test and then there are all these complicated things that you then have to carry to get a pass so you can then know that you'll be able to stay here and then you have to have another test and you have to have that test within a certain number of days and you can't have that test unless you get the coat as is. incredibly stressful so we got tested last night and it's the much coveted 19 swab and we take the photos and upload them and we go to dinner and we come back and we're still not approved and my daughter starts saying oh my god what if This happens and what if that means we're going to Paris on Thursday?

What happens if we cannot return to the United States? What if I really have greed? test about peace like her and then I start saying oh god you're right what if we get stuck here? What do we have to do a PCR test like what do you mean if these don't come back? but they were supposed to, she says they are going to come back in an hour but they haven't come back in an hour, is there something wrong? It is not like this? Like the swamp, they didn't come back last night, we woke up and now.

I'm completely I haven't high-fived I'm completely in wake-up-in-the-dark mode at six in the morning we're on the main street we're at the hotel my daughter is in bed with me and she wakes up and says mom, are you awake ? I'm like, yeah, and she's like, check your email, like um, she's like we don't have our results active, we do it and I'm like, no, we don't know we don't. They are not negative, I know they are negative, they are negative like me, not you, I took two coveted tests before coming here, I know they are negative, we have been using and that is why we are working.

We become frantic, I go into the bathroom, look in the mirror and say: What if it works? And if? What if you arrive in Paris and the PCR test is negative or positive? Let's go like we're not even there. worried about a positive test, we were worried that the form we had to submit would somehow not be accepted so we wouldn't be able to leave and then it became this madness just acting out all these fictitious yes and we's. Everyone's had this thing happen where your mind hijacks you because of the way the moment I got on the train we got the email results are negative, you're ready to go, you can leave the country, you know what.

I mean, they say, oh God. God, I wasted probably five hours sorting this out with my daughter allowing my mind to take me down a path that was absolutely ridiculous, which is part of the human experience and it was honest to God, high five in the mirror in that pause. and just like if you can this is going to be fine and then my favorite kind of mantra when I remember to use it is what if everything works? and then I said well, Sawyer, what if everything works? Follow this, let's say we can't leave Britain, you've always said you want to live in London, let's say we can't, we can't get home for Thanksgiving, maybe Dad and those two will come, yeah, can we? and if everything?

It works, yes, what if I record the audiobook next week here in London or Paris instead of coming home to the US? What if we can't leave? Yes, what if everything works? There's a beautiful section in the book about that. which I loved and I think a lot of people will resonate with that maybe a different scenario, but this is just hypothetical, so you just bleed time and hours and before you know it, the amount of energy you've wasted on that is just amazing, right? It's amazing and I'm telling that story because I want everyone to understand that just because I'm sharing tools doesn't mean I always use them, yeah, it doesn't mean I have a disappointment or a stressful situation and my mind is suddenly zen, like it's just as vulnerable to the waves of emotion that carry me downstream, but what I have developed is what I love.

This idea of ​​winning superficially and winning deeply. Yes, I have developed this toolkit, especially with high five and mirror. Especially with this, everything is preparing you for something extraordinary that is going to happen, that if you didn't get what you wanted and you have worked very hard it is because something better is going to happen, so keep working, you know, literally, you know one. One of my favorite friends who grew up in London, Paul Wilmington once gave me the best advice for an interview, yeah, and he said that when you're interviewing for something, you go in and give it a thousand percent, you just turn it on and then when you leave that interview, forget what happened and go and focus on being amazing at what made them want you in the first place, yeah, because if you don't get that job, you weren't meant to do it and something better is yet to come, yeah, and I what I love.

About that Mel is that we have a choice in life, right, you can choose not to believe you can choose to believe I didn't get that job, man, that was my dream job, everything would have been perfect, I was in the right city. the right salary that I've been working for, you can do that, but where will that take you? The option to believe that something better is actually coming is a choice, right, yes, and making that decision no matter how difficult it may be. in that moment your shoulders drop you feel calmer you feel stressed you are much more likely to see the opportunities that are on the other side of that than if you are stuck in that stress mode I mean, have you written i i have read about what the Stress does to the brain just when you're in that panic, what does that do?

Yeah, well, if we suddenly smelled smoke and the fire alarm went off and I couldn't do it. Do a math problem, yeah, because your nervous system takes over and goes into fight or flight, which then affects your brain's ability to focus on something rationally, yeah, or strategically, so you made me think about something that I think. which is really useful to understand, I know. It was very helpful for me to understand this point and it relates to this, the story of how I suddenly got scared and stressed about the fact that our documents were not being uploaded to the UK, you know, the passport thing, you can choose . what you tell yourself about a situation that is happening, but it was useful for me when I began to understand that your emotional waves and the response of your nervous system occur before your thoughts appear, so it is very important that everyone They realize that you won't be able to control them. the fact that there will be times when you are disappointed times when you feel angry times when you feel betrayed times when you feel angry times when you feel let down times when you feel irritated and these waves wash over you you will never be.

You can control them coming up, but you can choose what you're going to tell yourself about what's happening and the other thing is that when it comes to trauma, I mean, all of this is kind of a dysregulation in your system. nerve that is stored there. it keeps reactivating itself and so if you're dealing with a traumatic response, you're not going to be able to think about how to get through it first and part of what's really helped me is when I started to understand, oh, the wave of emotion and feeling. It comes before my brain can help me regain control and when I started to understand that, oh, there will be these waves of emotion, don't resist them, let them come, feel it like someone who likes to hyperprocess, yeah. that's my weird word for it, which is basically um, I'll say I feel really angry, I just express it because it feels like it pushes it out.

I'm working on not venting emotionally on people. I'm working on saying put myself on pause. and Chris says, honey, do you have the ability to hear me, like I'm talking about something that has nothing to do with you and he's like, actually, yes. Why don't you make yourself a drink and I'll sit down? here with my glass of water and listen to you rip mel, you know, I like that kind of responsible being that is progress, yeah, oh, that's huge, seriously, it sounds funny, but it's actually a big progress, it's huge, it's a kind of real awareness of the situation.

It is not like this? It is a real awareness of your emotional ability. Now I'm about to give up. Yes, let me check that the person I love is okay with this. It is respectful. Oh, I'm so happy you said this because I just found out. This in our couple's counseling we thought about going to see this marriage therapist who just takes care of our own things and the depression and my things and and holy cow, I didn't realize that I turned to Chris, my best friend, my partner in life, my lover, my husband for 25 years, I never knew that in the last seven years I would turn to him and say: yes, British websites don't do this because part of their story is that I am not a good husband and I have failed at this business and my wife is out there doing this and I'm the one who should probably be making the money and that makes me less of a man and all the crap, yeah even if I was venting and upset about something. that had nothing to do with him, he would tell himself that if you were doing your job you could fix this if you were a good husband, she wouldn't be stressed in England right now, so I unknowingly vent, which I thought It was okay, he's like we were in this as he could.

He felt as if there were more reasons why he was incapable. Now I didn't know any of this. Yeah, so I really appreciate you saying that because I think a lot of us are in our. In the most important relationships we simply assume that our spouse or our lover can absorb everything and there are many times when they cannot, yes, and be more responsible for what you feel and what you are about to express, whether someone has or not the ability to listen to him or help you with something right now, yes, you're right, I made a joke about it and it's somethinghugely important and this is something very new to me.

I appreciate you sharing because This is again, I think the kind of power of your work now seems like you know the subtitle, take control of your life with a simple habit, but our life is not just us, right? We are relational beings, we only exist in relationship with other people, so you show yourself a little self-compassion, you create that little space to process your emotions, see yourself and validate yourself, then you will show up differently in all the interactions in your life. life, including those with your loved ones your children your partner and you know why I realized that is because I feel like in my own marriage that, and even with my children, if I'm honest, I guess close relationships are a real understanding of what it is.

Do you want from me now? What do you need from me? Say, for example, my wife tells me something to complain about or she is anxious about something. Now I will ask you in a way that I did not do a few years ago. Hey baby, do you love me? to try to provide a solution or do you want me to just listen 99 out of 100 times I just want you to listen and that has changed everything because the old me would have just jumped to the solution, yeah she didn't want that. she just wants me to listen and in the same way if I have something to say because she produces the podcast right oh awesome yeah great job so you know thank you for hiring me so it's like sometimes it can be difficult because to our entire personal lives. "I can consume myself trying to get this show off.

This is a big problem in my marriage. By the way, I can believe it, but I didn't realize it, so I think it's amazing when couples can work together," I thought. We were getting closer and I was actually making it very difficult for Chris because our marriage turned into work, yeah, and it's one of the reasons he left the business, oh my God, well, literally this morning before you came on video and I was talking and We've decided that we're going to look for a new producer because she's brilliant at it, but it's too much, the show is too big now there's too much intensity to put out this show every week and I think no matter how much she likes it.

It's my thing, yeah right, this is my thing, I chose to do this, she helped me with this, but it's not her thing and it's taken a while to get to that point, but we feel pretty free and we think it's okay now. we have to find someone, oh I'm sure it's going to flood now that that's up in the air, yeah, but it's kind of like that. I'm so proud of you because we were so busy and caught up. our roles both in the company and in our marriage, I think for Chris in particular, I couldn't see a way to break up without feeling more disappointment because he had failed there too and I couldn't see a way to have someone else. taking on his role as CEO, yeah, because I trust him with my life, so we both had these habits that felt broken, but it was just thought patterns that were broken and you know, I have to give Chris the credit because he's the one that was like uh we need to go talk to someone about this yeah I mean that's it that's really wonderful to hear that and you've come out on the other side of that it's still going on yeah but to the point about being respectful of others because work takes up a big part of our personal and professional lives, like I'll always ask or do the best I can and in the same way it's like, look, I just want to ask you a question about the podcast or about the schedule of production.

You know, now is a good time, yeah, and even that little thing is really cool because it's like you know what you just don't or I could say Hey babe, I really don't want to talk about work right now. Can we leave it? See you tomorrow, just open it up instead of someone trying to say it and the other person getting really frustrated. I'm trying to relax. Now you know why you bring work, which could also happen. Well, that's what our life became. We talked about it being all of us because it was so consuming and you know none of us had built a damn media company or a production company or been in this business so we didn't know what we were doing which added more. stress, yeah, so I'm really proud of you two for acknowledging that you're certainly doing it faster than us, women versus men, what do you mean, have you noticed a difference in who really resonates with your work, of course everyone does. are? individuals, right, there are no types of women, they do this, men do that, there are certain patterns that are often seen.

I guess what got me thinking is that you mentioned her husband earlier and how the high-five habit has helped him and how he really finds it. really useful in their life since you published your work, are you seeing a trend? Actually, you know this resonates more with women than men and I guess I would expand it to different cultures. You know you have come to the UK. I know giving high fives in the mirror is like a lot of Brits balk at that. I'm sure you know, I'm not saying Americans wouldn't do it, but I think everyone does, yes, but I think a lot of Brits would think so.

I can see Americans getting on board with that, but yeah, we're not going to do it right, so I guess you're seeing a difference in the sexes in different countries, different cultures just in your experience. I'm really interested because I think this is a universal Habit that can help us all, but who lands the best? I mean, so I could unravel your question a million different ways. First, personal development content is consumed by 85 to 90 women. Yeah, I think most people would probably be surprised. hearing that in any kind of health, wellness, mindset or personal development category, even though most presenters are men, most listeners are women, that's number one and it's always been that way, yes, women buy books, women go to seminars, women are consumers. of this content and of course I resonate with women because they are the ones who tend to consume content that says: I've spent six years as one of the most reserved speakers on the corporate circuit, the biggest brands in the world, I mean .

Jp Morgan hired me 51 times Starbucks hired me when they arrested two gentlemen in Philadelphia and shut down Starbucks global operations for a day. I was one of three speakers they brought in to train 174,000 people, so you know I'm about respect. that i have talked about how human beings change, talking about habits, talking about how to motivate and inspire other people to present themselves at their best, i have a large number of male followers on certain platforms, platforms like linkedin, youtube, skus, more mail, it's still predominantly female, but you know the numbers are quite high, you'd be surprised, but I also have a very hands-on approach that I think there's a real appeal, yeah, I have a unique female voice in that as well.

I've been told that my timbre is kind of like a lot of women's voices sound higher and there's something about lower voices, yeah, and the kind of richer tone in the way I speak that makes me more attractive to a man. and a woman. audience and I say this because this really matters if someone is irritating to listen to or if someone talks too fast or someone has a tone that feels strange or grating if someone's accent is hard to understand it will skew your audience in a certain way Yes, I think that's because of the nature of my voice and the interesting thing is that I get recognized all the time if I'm talking to someone behind me who doesn't even look at me because my voice is so distinctive. and because I worked a lot at audible and because our following on YouTube is very large, but the other thing is that I have never promoted myself as a person who promotes women's empowerment because the things that I talk about are universal, yeah, I am.

Talking about mental health, I'm talking about your relationship with yourself, I'm talking about changing habits, I'm talking about little research-based tricks you can use to improve your life, I see anxiety hitting our sun as deeply as it has . our daughters I see that depression hit my husband as deeply as it did one of my best friends. I have watched my father struggle after retiring from being an orthopedic surgeon with a sense of meaning and what do I want to do in my life as much as I do? I've seen women struggle with that and I think that when you look at someone as a human being, yes, you know that the problems that women face are different than men, of course, there is socialization that is different, of course, You know, it's interesting.

I know my husband, part of the reason he thinks he's a failure is because men have been told their entire lives that to be successful you have to make a lot of money, yes, that a good guy is tough and not You know how to do it. a lot of money and he doesn't cry and I really admire a lot of people you know, like Jason Wilson and other people who are coming to light in the mental health and emotional strength space for men, so, that's the same pressure and judgment that Many women feel that because they have been socialized into you based on the culture that you are, you must look a certain way to be worthy and desired, so I think there are a lot of differences in terms of the pressures of socialization. not the expectations that are put into the minds of men and women from a very heterosexual point of view, but the way they are absorbed into the brain and nervous system, the way habit loops are encoded in the basal ganglia, the way a human being can start to feel paralyzed, overwhelmed or trapped in their life, it's universal and that's how I would answer yes, you mentioned children in that and there was a very powerful section in the book, I don't remember the subtitle you gave. but he was essentially saying the added benefit of adopting not only the habit of high fives, the book is full of other practices.

I was wondering: Should we call high-five habits? Should we call it the high-five habit? Should we call him? I made a strategic decision to just call it the high five habit because if a tool came out I wanted this one and I knew if we called it the high five habit everything would be fine what are the high five habits? become a list in terms of PR, so it was strategic even though there were like 11 tools in there, yeah, we have a world of empowerment, yeah, I mean, we could do a whole podcast about my struggles with the titles of the books, um, but I think it's a great title and there are a lot of practical tools in the book beyond the five habits, but I love that part where you talked about how doing these things helps you be a better role model for your children, you know? show them how you handle difficult situations, show them that you are worthy of compassion for yourself, yes, and I reread it several times because, if I'm brutally honest, I think one of my own impulses is to become a better person, a calmer person. a less critical person a less reactive person means being a better parent because when you see things about yourself that are reflected through your children you think you know what I could tell them not to do that or I could look in the mirror and try to figure this out for myself myself, so I thought it was really powerful.

I think it's not easy. There's a story in there that I didn't include that I can tell you, that really brings it home. So, I remember, uh, we were, maybe I put it in the book, I don't remember right now, um, we were. I was taking a selfie with our two daughters who were 23 and 21 years old. And oh, I know what we were. talking about um just body image, yeah, and one of our daughters is very tall and skinny and the other one is shapely and beautiful and amazing and the best human being they've ever both been, um, but me and the reason why I paused is because I was making a mistake that all mothers tend to make: complimenting our daughters on their beauty and not on the fact that they are loyal, intelligent, incredible human beings and hard workers, so Because they did it to us us and the brain learns patterns, we are simply repeating the patterns with our daughters, so it is very important that I learned so late to complement the attributes that you like instead of constantly complementing outfits, nails and hairstyles and the way they You see, that's something they can do and we were talking about this and I thought: why do they like me to see them? and they are so incredibly beautiful like I looked like a troll when I was in college. like I got a Dorothy Hamill haircut and then got a dance perm, I mean you guys look amazing and I'm asking you why not, why are you so judgmental like you're constantly looking in the mirror, right? where does that come and without it?

Skipping a moment, my 21-year-old daughter turned to me and told me that she comes from you. I said what do you mean? She said are you kidding me? Have you ever heard of yourself? I'm like, what not, what are you talking about? Every time we take a photo with you, do you know what you say about the photo? I say, "No, she says, see, she really see meso and mom, we think you're beautiful, so if we think you're beautiful and you." You constantly criticize and question how you look, why would we trust you when you tell us that you think we're beautiful and I was like Mike had fallen?

Well, it's 10 years of therapy. You can put that on my credit card, girls, because. I'm clearly awake, but when I laugh because otherwise, what are you going to do? But you know, seriously, I think? that you know your kids are watching and learning patterns and one of the things that excites me in terms of tools in this book is that I think in terms of winning deeply, there's an opportunity for you to not just break your own habits that are self-destructive, but you have the opportunity to break generational habits, yes, because self-criticism did not start with you self-rejection did not start with you this is your father's voice or your mother's voice and before that it was your voice. grandmother or your grandfather's voice no one taught them to feel worthy and to love themselves and to accept themselves and to forgive themselves and when you start to take on this project of really practicing and showing yourself every morning in the mirror that you you like that you think you're worth it that you respect yourself that you validate yourself that it will support you that builds and breaks cycles and cycles of generations of self-criticism and that means it can stop with you and you can show your children a different way because you know that I also know that you know look your kids are going to uh you can't help the comparison you can't help those feelings of insecurity you can't help but um look around the world and see places you fit in places you don't fit in and it's heartbreaking when you're a parent and you get a text message from one of your kids asking you why no one likes me or why no one asks me to the dance or why I'm the biggest of all my friends or the darkest or the darkest or why do I have the curly hair?

Why am I so tall? Why do I have to do this? kind of like ah, if it could be different, yeah, you won't be able to change that, but through the habit of high fives and the tools in this book, you can demonstrate what self-acceptance looks like so that eventually learn to do it for themselves, I think that would be my hope too because I know my kids are a little bit younger than yours, 11 and 8 right now and I think these two habits that we've talked about and there are many more in the book. but five four three two one go yeah and high five habits I don't see any reason why they can't be adopted in all schools of course a lot of teachers listen to this podcast and I would love for some of them to get on it contact and allow me We know that right now we have teachers all over the world who put a mirror in the classroom and the kids come in and give the mirror a high five and you know, as part of the bullying programs, a high five or a high five. four three two one is a tool. that's how, you know, look when they say, I'll know, don't you dare tell your pe and you start to follow the path, but everyone will hate me and this 54321 tells the damn adults as one of the design flaws most painful things in a human being is that when you're a kid and something bad happens to you you don't have the life experience or the wiring unfortunately to say, "Oh my God, if this loser is doing this to me, I can't." Imagine what's happening at home or these adults are screwed.

Someone call the fucking police because you can't talk to me or treat me like that. No, all children, it is the design of a human being to say what happens to me, yes, you point out. You turn it back on yourself and you use this abusive, toxic, or negative behavior or treatment and you, because you don't know any better, it's the way our brains are designed, it's what we all do, we think there's something wrong with us and it's because you don't. You don't have the support system, you don't have the life experience and that's what the brain does, yeah, and I think I've been doing that to myself for 40 years and I've just discovered this habit of high fives. able to break it down and say there's nothing wrong with me, I'm just a human being who feels a lot of things, is doing a lot of things, is doing the best he can and life is so much richer, more rewarding and full. of joy and that is, when you can start each day knowing that you like the person with whom you spend your entire life and that you are going to support them no matter what they weigh, no matter how little money they have, no matter how many sins or curly that is your hair that you have bad.

I could talk to you for four hours. I think there are a lot of things we haven't talked about yet and I encourage people to read the book to learn all those tools that are out there. There's so much interesting science like ras that you didn't mention that I wanted to get into, but you know it would really encourage people to get into the habit of high fives. I think it is very well written. Your voice, your energy permeates through it. and it's not easy to write books like that. You know, they're so easy to read and there's a lot of science behind them.

I know very well what it's like to try to simplify that message. It was painful. Let me tell you it was. really painful, it's harder to write books that are so easy to read than it is to dig in and follow pages and pages. I really want to give you credit for that, I think I was saying thank you, very good reads, thank you, I mean, it's been almost. five years since I wrote a book yes, because it is very difficult for me and because the right idea was not ready to be born yes and you know, for better or for worse, it seems that my destiny in life is that I have to fall into a hole or I have to dig one for myself and then I have to be angry and sad and overwhelmed and then I have to have the epiphany that no one is coming to save my ass and I need a ladder so I build one and that's what the rule of thumb is. five seconds was that's the high-five habit, so this book I just started writing probably gosh, I mean, we started researching it at the end of May, I started writing maybe in August, I wrote that in about four months. and then when I looked at the first draft I realized I was writing it for fancy people like you who have a title so you could see the research and it was so boring and in 14 days we tore that book apart and rewrote it. because I realized I was going back to that tried-and-true thing of wanting to seem smart when really I just wanted to make a difference for the woman in Iceland or for Steph who's thinking about sending an email or for that person who just lost their job. either you're going through a divorce or I'm feeling overwhelmed by life because I know what that's like because I've lived it and if a book isn't easy and fun to read you're not going to read it well, like I said at the beginning.

There are so many similarities in our lives, we've lived different lives on different sides of the pond, but that's exactly the same story from my first book, which is called the four pillar plan in the UK and it's called how to make disease disappear. in America's First Book he was right. I remember writing it in the first two weeks. I really want doctors to like this. Lots of research there. I was doing it, maybe not even two weeks, about a week. I remember just looking at it. and things are going badly for you, what are you doing, why are you writing this book?

Are you writing it so doctors will like it and then like you? or are you writing it to help people mm-hmm and I went for a long walk in nature and It was like no, I know I have a way of posting these messages that will help people because I know I can do it one-on-one with patients. , that's why I'm writing it. I threw away the manuscript and started again. I thought well, you'll have that reader in your mind throughout this entire process and it's wonderful to meet someone else who has gone through the same process even just a year ago you were going through it.

This podcast is called Feel Better Live. more when we feel better about ourselves, we get more out of our lives right at the end of what for me has been an incredibly enjoyable and insightful conversation, what are your final words of advice and wisdom for people listening and watching how They can start getting more out of their lives. You know you only have one life and I want you to enjoy it and I hope that the conversation you just heard not only gives you hope and the possibility that there is a way. and a path for you to really make some changes and enjoy your life, enjoy the experience of being, enjoy what it is to wake up and move forward during the day.

I hope that you also have some tools that will help you do this because I know that I believe that at some point you will have an awakening and I hope that it is right now that you have to give yourself permission to feel happy. You have to be willing to say that I don't want to feel that way anymore because I know that deep in my heart, I'm meant to feel better and if that's all awakening is, all you need is to know that you deserve to feel better because you do. you do and whether it's a high-five habit or counting 54321 and shutting up the critic in your There are simple tools you can use to help you start feeling better every day.

Mel Robbins. Are you an incredible human being. You have written a fantastic book. High five habits. You are helping millions of people. Thank you so much. Thank you so much for coming to the studio and I can't wait for the next time we meet. Put it in there if you enjoyed that conversation about how we can improve the relationship we have with ourselves. I think you'll really enjoy this one about how we can improve the relationship we have with ourselves. we can get more purpose in our lives and if you want to download my free practical guide on breathing just click here there is a very easy way to discover what you value there are two things you should consider