Transcript of 7 Ways To Start Believing Yourself When You Don't! | Mel Robbin

Let's go back to the definition of self esteem. Self esteem is how you value and perceive yourself. And what's so cool in that text is Oakley clearly understands something. He understands what I'm trying to communicate to you, that he's not competing against the other skiers. He is only ever competing against himself.

And when you look at it that way, it is so easy to start thanking yourself for doing the work, even on the days when you don't even finish. You can still thank yourself. You can count it as a win because you went for it. And so it begs the question, when you are fighting against yourself, what exactly does that mean? Well, in order to truly break this down, I'm gonna pull in 1 of the people that really motivates me.

Who am I talking about? I'm talking about David Goggins. The Navy Seal best selling author and f bomb dropping David Goggins. Do not go anywhere because we are gonna talk about what it means when it's you against you, and I'm just getting warmed up, and you definitely do not wanna miss this next part. Welcome back.

It's your friend, Mel Robbins. I am so thrilled that you stuck through the break, that you are still here with me. We are just cranking up the motivation engine right now. I hope that you are taking the time to share this with people in your life. Seriously, you can do that while you're listening to the amazing sponsors of the Mel Robbins podcast because everybody on the planet needs this reminder, the reminder that self esteem is critical, how you value and perceive yourself, and that thanking yourself, particularly on those days when you are not feeling great, when you just tried your best but you didn't finish, that's how you tap into the truth.

That's how you unlock power, and it's also how you motivate yourself to keep going. Now you and I have already been talking about the powerful example that Niecy Nash Betts gave us at her Primetime Emmy acceptance speech. And once I heard that speech, I thought, I gotta tell you. And the very next morning, I hop on the treadmill. This was over the weekend.

I put on my headphones. I turn on this interview, and I'm listening to somebody I love. And that's David Goggins. Now David Goggins, Navy SEAL bestselling author, and he's doing this interview with someone else I listen to. You might listen to him too, Stanford professor, Andrew Huberman.

I freaking love David Goggins because of everybody that I know in the personal development, life optimization, research, science space, I think David's message is the closest to what I'm trying to convey to you every time we talk. And look, I'm not a Navy SEAL. I don't swear as much as he does, although some of you think I do. But his message is always about action, that you cannot sit around and wait to feel like it, that there is always some level of resistance or friction or suckiness or pain in the way between you and the things that you need to do in order to change your life, in order to reach your potential. And that's what I believe too.

And I tell you that every single time that you and I are talking. Action. Action. Action. I even say that this is not just a listening podcast.

It's a doing podcast. I tell you to expect it to be hard because when you expect it to be hard, and it is hard, it doesn't derail you because you're smart. You saw it coming. You expected this, so you push through it. And so here I am.

I'm on the treadmill. It's literally the next morning after I've decided we're gonna have this conversation and we're gonna talk about Nisi's acceptance speech, and I'm listening to him as I'm walking. And it's as if the universe planted him right in my ears because he picked up right where Nisi left off. Nisi was talking about believing in yourself, that you gotta just spoon feed that stuff to yourself, that you gotta thank yourself for doing the work. But it begs the question, how do you believe in yourself?

Well, the answer is simple. You have to act as if you believe in yourself even when you don't. What does that mean, Mel? It means you have to get out the door and start that walk before you feel motivated to get out the door and start that walk. It means you have to quit drinking before you actually feel like or want to.

It means you have to apply for that job or apply to the school, even though you're not sure you're gonna get accepted. The action comes before the belief. It's the action that creates it. And in the case of Niese, on those days when she felt gutted, she didn't lay there on the floor for the next 10 years. She got back up.

She pushed herself forward. She took action. And, you know, the fact is, no 1 wants to hear this. Everybody wants the hack or the 3 this or the other thing or the blah, da, da, da. Give me the easy thing.

No. I'm sorry. But some days it's not easy. In fact, most days it's not. And the reason why it's not gonna be easy is because every single day, there will be at least 1 moment when you feel self doubt or you feel friction.

That stuff is always going to be there. You gotta learn how to push through those temporary emotions. You gotta learn how to pick yourself back up and slowly keep going and moving forward. That's how you spoon feed belief in yourself. Thinking will not create belief in yourself.

So let's go back to David Goggins. Here I am on the treadmill, walking, walking, walking. And and he's talking in this interview about the fact that every day is a battle. That's why whenever you see David Goggins on social media, he's usually doing 1 of those running videos. He's drops about 15 f bombs every 60 seconds.

But here's what everybody gets wrong. He's not swearing at you. He's swearing at himself. And if you don't know his story, it's freaking incredible. You have to listen to his audiobook.

David Goggins, before he was a navy seal, check this out. The guy was £300. He was an exterminator in Indiana. He had suffered extreme childhood abuse and trauma. He's basically illiterate because of his learning disabilities.

He's terrified of water, But deep down inside, as a £300 exterminator, terrified of water, you wanna know what his dream was? He wanted to become a Navy Seal. And the long and the short of it is, you gotta you gotta listen to his audiobook. He did what seems impossible. He decided he was gonna do it.

And he not only lost the weight in the amount of time, which was a crazy amount of time for him to lose the weight, to make the weight requirement, to even be allowed to get into the training. He passed the written test, and then he went through the BUDS Navy Seal training. Not once, failed. Not twice, failed. But 3 freaking times until he passed.

I mean, unfricking believable story. It will motivate you unlike any other story it will motivate you. And what you see on the outside or when you listen to him is you see this drive and you're just like, oh my god. Like, this guy must have been born with motivation and discipline and the mindset and all this stuff. And he's like, no way.

No freaking way. I battle for this every single day. And he said this thing in the interview. He was talking about how you cultivate self belief and self doubt. And this part of the interview comes up and, you know, they kinda joke, and it's not really funny, but it's true.

He said, you know, there's a cure for alcoholism. The problem is it only works 1 day at a time. The same thing is true for self doubt. There is a cure for self doubt, but it only works 1 day at a time. You have to battle self doubt.

The cure is your actions. You prove your self doubt wrong every single day. And so I wanna share with you 1 of my favorite moments from this interview.

There's no hacks, bro. It's you against you. You against you. And if you misunderstand that, you have a real problem. This has to be in you.

Something in you has to wake up, and usually, the only person that can wake it up is you.

If you're watching me on YouTube, you're watching me nod up and down. He's right. He is right. There has to be something in you. And so first of all, I wanna say there is something in you.

That's why you listen to this podcast. But you are the only person that can wake it up. And if you want to tap into something bigger inside of you, whether that's winning a prime time Emmy or it's getting into that school or it's healing whatever you need to heal or it's making 1,000,000 of dollars, you have to figure out how to wake up, how to push yourself every day. And you gotta figure out how to keep going on those days when you feel gutted. Because the only reason why someone doesn't give up on those days when they wake up and they don't feel like it.

And it's the 4th rejection in a row is because somewhere, deep down inside of you, you still believe. In fact, you know, you know the truth. How would you advise someone who's listening to this? And they're like, but I don't trust myself, but I have a string of examples of how I've blown

it. Evidence. You have a string of evidence about how you've blown it.

Yes. So how do you how do you what would be, like, the just the next right step for somebody who's like, I'm in. I wanna go off the cliff. I wanna erase the circle. Mhmm.

I wanna sell the pack of cigarettes. I really want a breakthrough

Yeah.

In testing what I believe about myself. Is there a is there a a way that anybody could kinda set up something like this?

Yeah. So I think that going off the cliff analogy is so terrifying that it's inaccessible. And this is part of the reason why I think people don't act in line with the person they wanna be because they see it as climbing Mount Everest. They Mhmm. They they can see a Mel Robbins at the top of the mountain, but they can also see the 15 years of walking they're gonna have to do to get to where they wanna go.

And as Nir Eyal said on my podcast, we are creatures that are discomfort avoiding. We avoid discomfort. You know, I I always wondered why I procrastinate in some things in my life. And he made a very compelling case to me when he came on my show, Nir Eyal, that it's because there's some discomfort I'm avoiding. So the book I have to write, I get to chapter 11, it's about something I'm not that familiar with, I end up picking up my phone and doing the dishes.

Dishes. I'm avoiding the psychological discomfort associated with the task. Become aware of the psychological discomfort and then break it down into little pebbles so it doesn't feel like Mount Everest. And for me, that's how I've taken on some of my biggest challenges in life. It has to start with an action that sometimes feels count contrary to how you feel, something you said as well.

Right. Can't rely on emotion to get you there. But it's the smallest step you can take to counteract your existing evidence about yourself. 14 years old for me, I was walking out on stage in front of my peers, pissing my pants and running out the room after delivering a talk. I then went back onto the stage a couple of days later.

I ran out of the room and the piece of paper I was given, my hands were shaking so much that I couldn't read it so I just made up the words. Yep. Blurted out the words, ran out.

Got it. Okay.

The the reason why I can then speak in Sao Paulo with Obama in a big arena of tens of thousands of people is because I put myself in situations whether small or big to counteract my existing evidence. And something a friend once said to me recently was, the reason we don't do that, the reason we don't take that small step forward is sometimes the small step is so unbelievably embarrassing that we don't think it will be consequential. We're so ashamed by how small that step has to be. For some people, that's literally getting out of the bed Yeah. And going to the toilet.

And there's so much shame associated with that. It feels so minute and inconsequential that we don't think it matters. But it's everything. That first step is everything. It's the pack of cigarettes.

I think I can maybe even make this more tactical

Mhmm.

For the personal listening. So if you think about what Steven's teaching you and you let's go to the example of the banker, right, who thinks she wants to be a teacher. And I can imagine her on a standing on a piece of paper with a circle around her.

Yeah.

And the first step is not quitting the banking job. The first step, which literally takes her out of that circle and across the line.

Can I guess what you're gonna say?

Go for it.

Is it using your evenings and weekends?

It could be that. It could be googling teaching certificate. It could be using your evenings and weekends. Like, it's literally 1 move out of the circle.

I always think this with people when they say to me they wanna start a business and then they say to me 6 months later they wanna start a business and then 6 months later, I go, I think part of the reason you're doing it is because you see the the challenge as like Mount Everest and that's causing you so much psychological discomfort that you're channeling that energy into procrastination, talking and deferring it. What you need to do today is start the Instagram page. This for me is 1 of my big hacks in life is the minute I go on Instagram, click create new account and I just write the name, the train has left the station. And it's that. That for me is is starting the business.

But people don't see that as they think they have to launch this website and find

this people.

Hold on. I wanna make sure everybody just got that. Mhmm. How do you believe in yourself, especially in a moment like right now where the future's right in front of you and it is swirling with endings and with beginnings? That's always how I feel in the summer.

Right? Summer is supposed to be this awesome time where we relax. We dial it down. If you're lucky and you can get to the beach, that's fantastic, or a pool. But when I'm at the beach, you know what I'm thinking about?

My freaking future and the endings and the beginnings. And today, I wanna throw how you believe in yourself in the middle of all these endings and beginnings? And how do you believe in yourself when you haven't even started taking the actions? How do you believe in yourself when you don't know how this thing is gonna turn out that you really wanna do? Well, my guest today, she's a super close friend of mine, and she is somebody you wanna hear from right now.

Who am I talking about? I'm talking about none other than Jamie Kern Lima. She's the founder of IT Cosmetics, which she started in her living room, and she sold it to L'Oreal for $1,000,000,000. And here's the thing that I love about Jamie. Jamie is the queen of learning how to believe in yourself.

Because when she started IT Cosmetics, she was not some influencer with daddy's money. No. No. No. No.

No. No. She didn't get a degree in how to start a company. She was a waitress at Denny's with terrible skin rosacea, like the bright pink kinda breakouts all over her cheeks. And it was that rosacea that and that hardworking work ethic from being a Denny's waitress that made her create her own foundation.

And that was the beginning of this $1,000,000,000 company that she created in her living room, IT Cosmetics. And I know you're gonna love hearing from her, which is why I am so excited that you're here to talk to us about your journey. You're 1 of my favorite human beings of all time. I cannot thank you enough, Jamie, for being here as my friend and for being here as the professor on the topic of purpose and learning how to believe in yourself. Ladies and gentlemen, let's give a big warm Mel Robbins podcast welcome to Jamie Kern Lima.

Mel, thank you. Thank you for having me. This is gonna be fun and real and raw, and I can't wait. I hope it just adds so much value to everyone listening. So I'm grateful to be here.

Thank you.

There's no question because, you know, you have those friends in your life that you don't see very often. But every time you do, it's like no time has disappeared, and you just have this, like, kinda twinkle on your skin because you just love being with this person. I love you so much, Jamie. I'm actually mad at you that you live so far away from me. So maybe we should just start right there.

I love you. Thank you. I feel the very same way. And 1 of the things I wanna share I know we're gonna dive in deep on purpose. By the way, I love purpose professor.

I'm like, yeah. Let's do it. Let's do it because it's 1 of our biggest life questions. How do I find my purpose? But I just wanna say, Mel, something really important to me that I didn't wanna leave here without saying you can edit this out if you don't like it, but everybody listening needs to know this.

You are 1 of the rare human beings that is the same off air behind the scenes in your everyday life as you are in all the public things. You know what I mean? And you and I both met so many celebrities and so many people with millions and millions of followers, and it's very rare they're the same. And I just 1 of the things I love so much about you is you are even more funny, even more intelligent and brilliant and kind and raw and real, in real life. So that congruency is, like, 1 in a 1,000,000,000.

And I love you, and I'm just grateful to be here for you.

Wow. Okay.

Just that.

I think the episode's over now. No. We gotta go back in time because, you know, I think 1 of the reasons why I wanted to have you on is because the entire mission of this show is to empower and inspire you listening to us right now to create a better life, whatever that means for you. To take the simple steps that sometimes feel impossible to pursue your dreams, to improve your health, to create greater connections, to believe in yourself. And Jamie truly is not only the professor of purpose, but her life story is a demonstration in cultivating belief.

Belief in your ideas, belief in your intuition, belief in God, belief that things will turn out. And so I wanna go back in time because, you know, I've heard you on the stages that you speak around the world talk about how you started as a waitress in Denny's. Mhmm. And then from waitressing at Denny's pursued a dream that you had of being on television. Mhmm.

And as a fellow former waitress, I would love to start there.

Yeah. Waitress at Denny's, full uniform, name tag to prove it.

Oh, I forgot they had uniforms.

Full uniform. What

was your favorite thing on the menu?

Oh, gosh. I love the pancakes. You know what? Just like simple it's so funny how our steps are ordered, I think, in life. And so often, I remember being a waitress at Denny's.

I remember feeling and and maybe, maybe someone, listening to us can relate to this right now. You have this feeling inside of you, like, there's something more I'm supposed to do, but you don't know what it is yet, and you doubt it might be possible. And I remember being waitress at Denny's and just feeling like I have these big dreams, but not quite knowing, like, how do I believe I'm worthy of them yet. And, it was this big season in my life. At the same time, Mel, the kitchen at the Denny's I worked at was a disaster.

Like, they would take an hour to get pancakes out. So I learned to talk to people so that they wouldn't leave. They often did leave, or they throw like a dime and a penny on the table and leave.

As your tip is if it's your fault? Yeah. Exactly. Uh-huh.

But it's so funny how you know years later when I ended up launching my own business I'm like, oh, I've got to get the operations right or nothing else matters. You know, it's just those little things we learn along the way. But, yeah, after after that, I I, I thought my whole life I would I would have a talk show. I watched Oprah in my living room growing up, so I thought for sure I would share other people's stories of the world. So I went into, you know, did all the jobs, saved up all my money to to pay through, pay for school and and, push grocery carts in the grocery parking lot, sliced meat in the deli, all those fun jobs, and then found myself in my and what I thought was my dream job, working in TV news, and I thought this is it.

Right? And what I didn't realize was I was about to enter this huge season of setback in my life, of self doubt. I have a skin condition called rosacea, and for me it started getting really red, really bumpy, and I would be anchoring the news live thinking, like, you know, okay, this is it, this is it, and I started hearing in my earpiece, from my producer, there's something on your face, there's something on your face, you need to wipe it off, you need to, and I was live on television. Right? And I would glance down during the commercial break, and I saw, oh, the makeup is breaking up on my face, and these big red bumps are coming through.

And it started this season that felt like setback, But so often in life, the the seasons that feel like setbacks are are actually setups for what we're called to do.

Okay. Stop right there. Did you hear that? The seasons of your life that are setbacks are often setups for what you're called to do. I wanna just make sure everybody heard that, and I wanna take a a highlighter and also highlight something that you said about being a waitress at Denny's, and it's this.

You said our steps are ordered. Mhmm. So can you explain what that means particularly to somebody who's listening?

Yeah.

Who may feel like, I know I'm meant for something greater.

Yes.

Why the hell am I at this step and this does not feel like it is, like, on the path of where I'm supposed to go? So what do you mean by the fact that our steps are ordered?

Yeah. I believe, you know, everything in life Yep. Is happening for us even when it doesn't make sense.

Can we just what do you mean happening for us? So to somebody that's, like, really

in it, Jamie.

Yes. What does that mean?

Let me frame it around our topic of purpose. Right? Okay. So often people feel empty because they feel like, oh, my purpose needs to be some job. It needs to be my job or it needs to be this this grand thing I haven't figured out yet.

But for those of us that have accomplished a goal we always dreamed of, we get to it and we're like, oh, this isn't it. Right? It's never in my opinion, purpose is never this this big goal necessarily. Purpose is so often when we're able to serve the person we once were, or serve in a way for something we've gone through, and here's what I mean. I think our purpose can be, like, oh, wow.

I went through a really freaking hard season in my life, and I now am actually realizing I'm born to be a generational cycle breaker in my family. Mhmm. That is an incredible purpose. Right? Purpose can be like, oh, I've been having a hard season for a long time, and when I actually just take a minute and say hi to someone else who's lonely, maybe it's, like, in this in the coffee line at Starbucks, maybe it's the the the neighbor down the street, whatever it is.

You feel in your gut a sense of fulfillment, like, a sense of alignment when you're doing something in your purpose. And I think that the big mistake people make is they think it's this end goal. Right? A lot of times when people, hear my story and they hear the, oh, Denny's waitress builds $1,000,000,000 company, they think my purpose was to be some big entrepreneur.

It wasn't?

It wasn't. What was it? In the journey of how I did it

Yeah.

I took this massive risk. Right? Taking my makeup off on national television when I was told not to, and and being brave enough to be seen and helping other women realize, that they're worthy and enough exactly as they are, seeing them as who they are, to me that is my purpose, and in doing that, it just a byproduct of that with IT Cosmetics is we built a company with 1,000,000 and 1,000,000 and 1,000,000 and 1,000,000 of customers, and what's wild is 5% of our customers actually have skin issues, like I do. 95% don't. It's just that they felt seen and connected with something that spoke to their soul.

Right? For me, being willing to say, here I am exactly as I am, no makeup and, you know, all my skin issues, I think people connected with that, that feeling of of, oh, I'm enough exactly as I am.

You know what else I think is a really important part of your story? It is waitressing. Yeah. It's pushing carts in a supermarket. Yeah.

It's working in the back house of a restaurant. That's my story too. Helping my best friend on her paper route, bossing tables. And I think when you work in retail or you work in a service job

Yeah.

And you feel at times invisible, you start to realize how important it is to treat everybody with respect and kindness.

Yes.

That there is no work that is beneath you. And when you can bring that level of service to the job that you have right now, even if you hate it, even if treat people treat you like garbage, even if the the the the back of the house is not getting those pancakes out on time and people are angry, if you can bring a sense of grace and service and just humility to those roles, I think it changes how you show up when things start working out. Because you don't ever forget what it's like to be treated like shit Yes. Because somebody was mad that their pancakes weren't out on time.

Yes. Yes. And, also, you and I have had this experience where we've truly gotten to see and be almost every type of person in every type of environment. And so now it's, like, whether it's me building a business or you building 1 of the top shows in the world, 1 of the top shows in the world, I feel part of that was like, oh, we understand who who's listening and watching you

right now.

I understand who real people are who built, you know, who bought who bought my products. Yeah. And and so when you mentioned steps are ordered it's like, you know, no matter where you are in your life right now what you're going through I believe every piece of it whether it's, oh, someone just, you know, cut me off in a parking lot and screamed at me or, oh, whatever it might be you're going through, all of those things are happening for you. I believe I

love that.

So that you're amassing this toolbox of understanding, and getting strong enough and equipped enough for the purpose you step into.

Amazing. So professor of purpose, Jamie Curran Lima right there. That's your takeaway number 1. The steps are ordered. Believe in that.

And this moment is helping you. It's giving you something. So that is 1 major tool that you used along the way. Let's go back to that moment because I think you were 28 years old, right, when you're sitting on television in Seattle. Yeah.

You are a local news anchor. You're living the dream. You're on your way, and you are now starting to have this nightmare happen

Yes.

Where your rosacea is breaking through on camera in front of everybody Yeah. The makeup that they put on you.

Yes.

And you've got people in your ear telling you, there's something wrong with your face. Yes. And you're realizing, holy cow, the makeup that they've put on my face cannot cover the rosacea and the skin issues that I have. So what do you do in that moment?

Well, the first thing I did was start freaking out. Right? And I, like, literally, I started entering the season of self doubt where I would be live on the air, anchoring the news, thinking thoughts in my head, like, oh, am I gonna get fired? Are viewers changing the channel right now? Like, am I costing the the company ratings?

Right? So it was this Could you

feel those moments when you could feel, like, the makeup not kinda, like, disappearing? Like, there were moments when I used to be a commentator for CNN. I was premenopausal where I could feel the hot flash coming.

Yeah. I didn't feel it until they set it in my ear and in my earpiece, and then what would start to happen was I would get so nervous and stressed out because I kept trying to cover it, during commercial breaks. I could feel my heartbeat in my ears. So what I remember is, like, anchoring the news live and and you're and sometimes you have to be happy to tell this happy story or or you're serious telling, and I just remember my heart beating in my ears hoping people weren't turning the you know, changing the channel and

Oh my god.

And it started this this thing where I, you know, would spend what you know, it's funny I was I was, anchoring the news and people think when you're doing that you must have all this money, but you really don't get paid much at all and I I took my little paycheck that I had and started spending it on, department store make professional artistry makeup, drugstore. I mean, I couldn't find anything that worked, and I had this idea 1 day, like, oh, if I can't find anything that works for me, there's probably a whole lot of other people out there that feel like makeup doesn't work for them. And and it was sort of this idea where I was like, if I could figure out how to make something that worked for me, it helped a whole lot of people, and that was my my knowing or this this this gut feeling, but then my head, Mel, was like, oh, but you got no money, you got no connections, you know no 1 in the beauty industry, you're unqualified. So I sat in this place. Right?

And I just wanna we're talking about purpose. I had this gut feeling, like, I was supposed to go for this thing, but then my head was like, oh, but here's all the reasons why you're not qualified to do it, plus you're in your dream job. Right? And I sat between those 2. And it wasn't until I had this big big moment of why I needed to do it that pushed me over the edge.

Okay. So what is the moment?

Yes. So so so I realized 1 day, I'm like, this makes no sense. There are thousands of makeup companies out there. How does nothing work for me? Right?

Then I had this moment where I realized I've never seen a model with bright red bumpy skin saying, you know, selling makeup. Like, you always see these photoshopped airbrushed Yeah. Models. And I realized, Mel, like, wow, my whole life, I've actually loved those beauty commercials, and I love seeing the magazines, and and I always aspire to look like them, but but deep down inside, they always made me feel like I wasn't enough. And I had this moment.

I was literally on the news set when this happened where I was like, wait a minute. What if it's not just about launching a makeup product? Like like, what if I could actually figure out how to do it, which I had no idea how, and I had no money. I was, like, what if I could actually launch a product that works for me, and what if I actually put real people as models, like every age, shape, size, skin tone, skin challenge, what if I use them as models, call them beautiful and mean it for every little kid out there who's about to start doubting themselves and and and every grown woman who still does. And that deep source of pain from from from how I was feeling not enough and what could I do about it, that in my opinion is 1 of the strongest ways to find your purpose.

It's it's what has just destroyed you or hurt you that you've maybe made it through. Yeah. And how can you now use that making it through to help someone who's going through it.

Okay. That's like a mic drop moment from our professor of purpose, Jamie Kern Lima. So, again, I like to unpack these things to make sure this is a this is a I always say this is not just a listening podcast. It's a doing podcast, and I wanna make sure nobody's left behind.

Yes.

And there was 1,000,000,000 of dollars worth of wisdom that you just dropped. And so I wanna try to unpack it for anybody that is listening to this, and you have this sense that you're made for more. So 1 of the things that I heard is, look in your life and see what problems or frustrations or things that you're struggling with that feel like a setback. And Jamie gave you the example of the rosacea on her skin and her inability to find something that actually could help her solve this issue of being able to cover it up so that she could do her dream job. And that setback is a setup for something new.

And then get out of your own sort of selfish or self loathing or the self excuses and the self pity and remind yourself that there are 8,000,000,000 people on this planet now. There are other people that are dealing with this. Yeah. And that if you can figure out how to put your energy into making this better for yourself and you bring other people into the fold with you, you now have something that's worth working on because it helps you, and it's gonna help other people. And I also wanna point something out that Jamie will not tell you, but I sure as hell will, and that is that this was about 14 or 15 years ago.

So we're talking 2,007, 2008. Correct? In my opinion, Jamie Kern Lima is the reason why we have this real beauty movement. There always has to be the first person, and she was it. So when you look around the the Internet and social media and you see people doing naked faces, that was not something people did in 2007.

It was all airbrush. It was all perfection. That was the beauty standard. There were no plus size or curvy models. That was not a thing back then.

And so you've got a woman who is sitting in Seattle, who has no experience and no money, deciding that she is going to not only figure out how to create a makeup line for people who have issues with their skin, but that she's going to do something nobody has ever done, which is put real, normal people, like you and me, into her campaigns when she finally gets this figured out, and she's gonna show people what her skin actually looks like in order to sell it. I mean, that was a revolutionary idea. She was the first, and I'm telling you this because you could be the first. You have something inside of you that is a problem, something that you can solve, and you could be the first to change the way that people think about an issue. And so, Jamie, let's pick up the story because how do you go from this moment, like, oh my god.

Oh my god. Oh my god. To doing something. Yes. Because I think some of us have moments.

Right?

Yep. And then we

doubt them.

Do anything.

Yes. Because we doubt them. We doubt them. We think, like, oh, someone's already done it.

Yes.

Or, oh, whatever. First of all, if you're out there right now and you think, oh, you have an idea or or a way you wanna show up in the world or or or someone else you, you know, you wanna help, but you think, oh, someone's already done it. What if there's only 1 of you in the entire universe, which by definition means no 1 has ever done it the way you're gonna do it? So when I launched this

Say that again, Jamie, for the people that are like, woah. Woah. Woah. Woah. Woah.

Kids, calm down. I will wait. Jamie just said something. I was doing my dishes. Say that again.

Talk about the fact that this matters.

This is huge because I think the biggest reason we talk ourselves out of things is we think, oh, someone's already done it. Yes. Someone's already done it before, you know, who must be smarter than me or more talented or more whatever it is than me and and what I have learned and then proven and I wanna tell you too about, oh, I'm gonna get so excited, No. Because, no. When you do this thing, like, don't be shocked then when there's millions and millions of rejections and people don't get it.

Right? Because it's never been done before. Right?

Oh, yes.

Because there's only 1 of you, there's only 1 of you doing it the way you're gonna do it. But but just to recap that there is literally only 1 of you in the entire universe. Right? And so if you are gonna show up to this world authentic that means whatever you do if it's authentic to you it's actually by definition it's never been done before. Right?

And so when you show up that way, don't be surprised if not everyone gets it right away or, you know, in my case, all the experts I put on pedestals all said no. That this idea of of of how I wanted to, connect with women, They thought it wouldn't work, and they thought I wouldn't therefore make them any money. So but can I ask you a question real quick?

How did you go from the

Yes.

To starting? So what did that look like? Like because I think, like, if you're in this space where, you know let's just use an example. You've never actually you don't know the fur you you you have this thing about catering, that you just can't get it out of your head. You wanna do these events.

You wanna you've never actually done this because you had never

Yes.

Done anything with makeup. You had no idea what you were doing. Yep. You have an idea, and you have an moment. Mhmm.

What was the first thing that you did to start to make this real?

So leaning on that, why I had to do it, and why I felt like it was gonna be part of my purpose was a big thing that helped me actually take the risk, quit my job.

But you quit your job because you had an moment?

Yeah. It was deep. I was like, if I had a What did it feel like? It felt like, it felt like if I didn't do it, I would wake up the rest of my life with this pain in my gut, this longing knowing I was created for more. It felt like if I didn't do it, I would have the pain of regret, and if I did do it, I might have the pain of failure and maybe the pain of embarrassment and then maybe the pain of, oh, wow.

That wasn't that doesn't feel like it went how I thought it was. You know, I knew it was this big risk. I knew I was leaving what I thought was my dream job.

Why did you have to quit your job? Just curious.

It was literally from day 1, I was all in. Like, it was I dove all in. I knew if I was gonna do this, I needed to just go all in on it. And, you know, I asked I started I do not recommend this, but I started working, like, 100 hour weeks from the beginning. I was so freaking passionate about it.

Like, I couldn't stop thinking about what if I can actually figure this out. What if I can literally lose it it became a big So did

you have any savings? Like, do

you have a little bit of savings? Little savings.

Because you

didn't pay yourself for the 1st 3 years that you did this.

1st 3 years. So, basically, my husband and I wrote this business plan. Right? Yep. Quit our jobs, dove all in in our living room, we poured all of our savings into it.

I thought, Mel, and this is this is for someone watching us right now, I know this, I thought if I can figure the product out it's gonna be huge. Right. And then I realized, like, oh, being an entrepreneur or or or launching a dream is not always that easy. We put every penny we had into it and I once we actually created a product, I and we were scrappy. If you're not How did you

create a product? Like, are you in your kitchen buying

stuff at the

grocery store? How does this even work?

K. So no. So so first, I love that you know technology is right there. Right? So so researching how are makeup formulations made?

Who makes them? What are the FDA regulatory compliance? All the unsexy stuff I know nothing about just diving into the research phase of how does this happen. And then what I learned is that, manufacturers are are makeup companies' closest held secrets. Right?

Like, closest held secrets, they won't disclose who they work with, but a lot of these big manufacturers work with all the top brands that you see or a handful of them. Gotcha. So I

started So are you saying that all of the brands and top brands that you see are basically manufactured by a handful of companies? Yes.

Handful of companies, and then some do it in house as well. Gotcha. So what I did was scrappy, I walked into a Sephora, I wrote down the name of every single brand in there, went home, you know I had no money, right? Cold call every single brand and say like, oh, I'm looking for a really great manufacturer. Could you let me know who you manufacture?

And then they hang up on me. You know what I mean? 1 after another after another after another. And I got this really small brand in a totally different kind of positioning where the girl who answered said, oh, here's who we use. They're in New York City, blah blah blah.

So that was my first manufacturer, reached out to them, had a meeting in person, had no money, poured this idea out to them, they took a risk of making me samples, and that's how it started. It was just really being scrappy, and and trying to figure it out. All of our money had went into, the product development formula and the advisory board of the product. Yeah. And I thought, okay, now we have a product that works for me.

Right? This was after 100 of formula iterations. I thought that was gonna be it.

So is this like year 1 or year 2, like, how long did this take?

Yeah. It took a good 1st year to get that product and then what I started doing was sending it to everyone I thought was just gonna believe in me instantly, so I sent it to Sephora and Ulta Beauty and all the department stores and all of the online retailers, QVC which is, you know, live television shopping channel and I thought, oh my gosh, this is gonna be huge. Every single 1 of them said no after no after no after no. And to your point, it became 3 years of not being able to pay myself, 3 years of 100 and 100 and 100 and noes of crying myself to sleep at night.

Were you and your husband, like, fighting like crazy? Like, you should go back to work, you should but why do we do that? Like, were you, like, doing that?

You wanna know what it was? We still believed in it, but we weren't sure how we were gonna make it. It was, like, friends and family that were, like, wait, you quit your job? Are you sure you should have quit your job? Or wait, you still haven't made any money?

Like, it's been 3 years. Right? So you hear all of this the voices get so loud. Yeah. The loudest though were my own self doubt.

You know, sometimes we take a chance and go for something because our gut is telling us to do it, and then all of a sudden you face all this opposition and you start to question, is my gut wrong? Is my knowing wrong? And there were so many times where I would literally get this another brutal no from, you know, Sephora or QVC or whoever it was, and I would just literally cry myself to sleep. I would pray about it and be like, god, I feel like I'm supposed to be doing this, but

nothing is going right. So let's just pause in that moment.

Our triggers are stories from our past acting themselves out in our present. And this is why when people say, what about all the types of therapy that, like, don't really care about the past or why do we have to talk about our past? I'm a pure pragmatist at heart. We have to talk about the past to understand it so it doesn't take over the driver's seat in our present life. That stinks when your past lives itself out.

Can I ask another question? Because because I have heard a bazillion times. And I talk about it. I've studied it about how the body keeps the score. The body remembers.

You feel things before your thoughts can explain them. But the way that you just talked about memory, something clicked. And the fact that my lived experience is also that I don't remember. And I also have this hyperdrive, doctor Becky, to go, oh, it was great. Yeah.

I don't remember anybody yelling at me. I don't remember, like, anything like that at all. And yet, the thing that I hate about myself as a parent is that when I get frustrated, I vomit on my kids. Mhmm. I just snap.

And their moments of high stress cause me to be like right at them. And then I quickly apologize. I quickly am like, I'm sorry. It's a bad it's not an excuse that I'm stressed out right now. Yeah.

But is it normal to not remember what your parents did when

you were, like, emotional? A 100%. So it's normal to not remember in this 1 version of memory that we all kind of accept as the whole truth. Right? So going back to our body.

So a kid gets yelled at. They're 3. They get yelled at. Like, we all know. Like, I by the way, I yell my kids too, and I'm gonna yell at my kids later today.

Like, we all do it. Right? I'm stressed. It's not them. We don't respond to our kids.

We respond to the circuit in our own body that gets activated when we witness things in our kids.

Okay. Everybody, I want you to hear that. You're not responding to your kids or your dog or your colleagues or your spouse. You're responding to something in your body that gets activated in that situation.

Exactly. So my kids, let's say, with this dad, he's like, this kid is having a tantrum. Uh-huh. Right? And an example was, like, a classic 4 year old tantrum.

You know, I cut the grilled cheese in half instead of leaving it whole, or I cut it in half as triangles instead of How

dare you?

You know, how dare you? You horrible parent. Right? And and by the way, for the kid, that's also a trigger moment for them. They obviously were filled up with frustration and that was just the spillover point.

But I see this thing in my kid. Then my body does this inside. What do I know about overwhelming kind of extreme displays of emotion? And my body kind of scans its circuits. And if I've learned in my own past,

oh, no no no no no.

That is so dangerous. That would get you sent to your room which is fear of abandonment. That would get you called a spoiled brat. That would get you those and I know this from doing it as a parent. That would get you those dart eyes that just say everything we need to say as a parent.

Mine's a tone shift.

Right. They're like, you are a horrible person. Right? Which kids are like, oh, no. This is literally dangerous.

Kids need us to survive. They need us to get food, shelter, and water. So they pick up on what feelings and parts of them are allowed and what feelings and parts of them are threatening and they adjust accordingly. So if I had to learn in my childhood, oh, yeah, those big displays of emotion, even if I don't remember with my, you know, language, yeah, that would never have been allowed, then my body scans itself when I have a tantrum that I'm witnessing for my kid. And then here's actually the most, I really think the most compassionate and game changing part.

It's not okay that I yell at my kid. Definitely not. And yet, my body is essentially saying, oh, I'm trying to help my kid. I'm like, no. Shut that down.

That is so dangerous. Now I'm still living in 1975 when it was dangerous for me. Right? But my body is actually trying to help the situation. So let me see

if I can understand that. So if you are an adult now and your child is upset that you did not cut it, the sandwich into fours in triangles, which I completely understand. We were sort of the, like, sticks with no crust at our house. How dare you do anything else? Mhmm.

And your child starts to get overwhelmed and stressed. It then triggers this stored experience for you. So you are still in your 1976 body.

Yeah.

Are you now just repeating what you saw the adults do?

In a way. So I'm extremely inspired by internal family systems and Dick Schwartz's way of understanding the mind and our body. And what he really explains so well is when we have an experience as a kid and many, not 1, where we essentially learn this part of me, the part that gets overwhelmed and doesn't yet have the skills to manage those overwhelmed feelings, so they just explode out Yep. As a volcano. If that part is really what I would say is non conducive with attachment, I don't get.

It's not like I need my parent to say tantrum away but I don't get presence, I don't get compassion, I just get yelled at. I need to develop, okay, and stay with me here, a different part of myself that shuts down that part. So I literally develop a different part. It's like, Becky, you ungrateful kid. You are too much.

Stop doing this. And that's actually called, in IFS language, a protector part. It sounds mean, but I think we all understand, like, its function early on is to protect me. Yeah. Because at least if I do

that to myself and I'm gonna shame myself,

at least then parent or I don't get sent to my room. I don't get

hit or I don't get

this awful punishment. Right. So it's helping me adapt. And so it's helping me shut down

A part of you.

A part of me. Now fast forward to 2022. What a trigger really is, and by the way, not only with our kids, with a partner, with anyone at work, is I think we see a part of someone that we had to learn to shut down harshly

Yeah.

In our self. And then that protector part in us, it really does. It comes to, like, the CEO seat of the board table. It's like, I got this, guys. Like, I got this.

Right? And then our kid or our coworker, they kinda become like a pawn in our game. We we we act out on them what we had to learn

to

act on ourselves.

Right.

And and the most empowering shift, okay, is we often when things trigger us, we look to shut down someone else and kinda make them more like us. I would never have this explosive emotion or I would never, you know, with, like, a whine. Why is whining so triggering? To me it just represents, like, helplessness and

I

grew up in

a pull up your bootstraps family and I would never be a puddle of girl panties

is the family. Yeah.

Exactly. Then if you really wanna work on your triggers, the question we have to ask ourselves is not how can I make this person like me? But what am I seeing in someone else that I need to be inspired by? That I need to actually grow that part in myself? So let's take let's walk through some triggers.

So let's take you were talking about whining Yep. Which is a cry for help. So what is the part so when you go so what is the exercise we go through for ourselves as adults to let these moments that are triggering us Yep. Become a moment to repair things or rewire things. Or what word would you use?

Great.

That both of those. Right? So because the truth is with our trigger moments, we often think, yeah, I have to repair with my kid. I don't like that I yelled at them. But what you're on too much is so true is first we have to repair with ourselves.

Yes.

We have to do both. Right? So probably my most popular workshop I do, shockingly, is called my triggers workshop. So it's it's 75 minutes with like a whole step by step process, but I can get into some of it here. So the first step is in a calm moment, kind of asking ourselves a version of what is my most generous interpretation of this trigger event in someone else?

We always come up with the least generous interpretation with the trigger. My kid's pathetic. My kid's so helpless. My kid's so annoying with whining. Right?

It's easy to come up with.

What about anxiety? Because that's a big trigger for me. Like, my daughters my son, not so much anymore, but our 1 of our daughters in particular is little Mel. And there is intense coming at me. I am tech like, 15 texts in a row when she's nervous about something.

And then the second I answer the question, it's, well, you're not right. And then hang up. Yep. And that is deeply triggering.

To you? Yes. So is it the tech setter triggering? Is it the you're not helping me that's triggering? Which is the worst part?

Or the whole arc? The whole arc of

it is so, like, un it's just like this I feel like a punching bag almost. Yeah.

So I guess the question I would ask myself there is, like, okay. So what's my most generous interpretation of what my daughter's doing just so I can start to see my kid as a teammate so we can be against this pattern together that doesn't work for either of us instead of me looking at my child like they are the enemy and they are the problem. So I think, for example, you might say to soften it

What just what just got me

Yeah.

There is the word enemy. Like, I feel like there was an experience as a kid that if I did something that upset my mom, I was the enemy.

Yes. Yes. And I think that's for so many of our trigger moments. Actually, we can be when you ask yourself what's the most generous interpretation of someone's behavior, I think this is the big framework shift that I think is the most important in any relationship where there's conflict is we go from sitting across from someone and looking at them like they're the problem to sitting on the same side as the table as someone and looking together at the problem. So I always think about that or I try to.

Like, am I looking at my kid like they're the problem, or can I reframe what's happening so I feel like it's me and my kid against a problem? So can we be together against helpless whining versus am I looking at my kid like a helpless annoying kid who's just bothering me? Can I look at my kid like, wow, something important is happening with anxiety and it's tricky to figure out? It's tricky for us to figure out something that's gonna be helpful versus does my kid come and vomit her anxiety and then versus does my kid come and vomit her anxiety and then reject me and that's just annoying? I promise as long as we're in that second mindset, nothing's gonna be useful just because, like, we don't like our kid when we think about them that way.

So true. I well, I love the reframe of bring them to your side of the table. What do you do if you're a kid that grew up with somebody who is wildly controlling? What you wore, how you dress, go hug your uncle, know you're doing sports. What would I

say to that kid?

How do you like, if you're now the adult Who was that kid? Yes. Because what I wanna focus on are kind of the the the top experiences that you experience as a child. Right? So 1 would be overly sensitive like I was, overly worried, overly needy, over like like I was just a super sensitive kid.

K? And when you're a super sensitive kid that feels separate and unsafe emotionally, yeah, And you, don't get those needs met, it develops into a certain type of adult. When you are a kid that is controlled by a parent, you develop into certain types of patterns as adult. When you have a parent that is, emotionally abusive, either weeks of the silent treatment or struggling with their own mental illness or they're not there for long periods of time, That develops certain coping mechanisms as a kid. And what I love about what you're saying is so many of us have experiences inside our emotional, life of being separate.

Yes. And what I would love to hear you help us with is as you're starting to realize as, you know, we listen to you and dig into your work, doctor Becky, that this is very, very normal and it's also a huge opportunity for you to take control of your adult life and your adult experience, which then completely changes how you parent and how you love another adult and how you show up at work. Like, I'm sitting here thinking 1 of the biggest things that, a lot of women write into me about in the work landscape is just feeling terrified about speaking up. Yep. And that's directly tied to you being shut down as a kid.

I mean, a 100%. Now this is my favorite topic to talk about is, especially for women, our relationship with desire. All tantrums are, and meltdowns are explosions of desire. That's what they are. You want something badly and your parents, you know, and something gets in the way of having it.

I wanted my grilled cheese cut in a way. And what we so often do as a parent is we shut it down. We're like, you're being ridiculous. But what a kid learns is my desire is unsafe. My desire.

And I actually think about this a lot with with I have 2 boys and 1 daughter. I think about all of them, but I think about it a lot with my daughter. How can I help her learn regulation skills while preserving access to desire? And I think that, yeah, desire in terms of asking for a raise, desire in terms of sex, desire in terms of am I allowed to want things for myself. Right?

That's what I think all of us adults are trying to, like, reclaim.

Right.

Right? Am I allowed to want things even when it makes someone else upset? Is another right? And most of us, me too, early on learned to quote be a good girl which just means I have learned that I had to for my survival to be adaptive, pay more attention to what others wanted of me than what I might want for myself. So what's the process of reclaiming that?

Can I ask 1 more question before we go into reclaiming? Because this is a huge Yes. Area. Huge topic. We're now also stepping into people pleasing and stepping into perfectionism.

All of it. And stepping into overthinking Yep. And questioning yourself Yep. And the inability to take risks. Mhmm.

And this is particularly true for women.

Mhmm.

And this fear of being seen. And I see exactly what you're saying. That it is tied to a deep seated belief that you don't deserve to be seen or that your the stuff that you want doesn't matter.

Well, because you're you learned early on that whenever you were most in contact with your want, with your desires, it endangered your relationships.

Can you give us just a couple examples that really bring it home for people that are like, wait. What are you doing?

So here's a great example. Because I also think we do this, like, black and white thing. We're like, oh, so I just let my kid have the tantrum. Like, we we give ourselves buckets. So let's say you're in the toy store with your kid.

I think this is a perfect example. Anyway, we're just going to the store to get a birthday present for your cousin. Okay? Yes. Something like that.

And you're like, okay, this is gonna go well. And then, of course, it doesn't go well. Your kid is in meltdown because they want the Lego set and you don't you don't wanna get it for them. It wasn't your plan. So when we say to our kid, what is wrong with you?

Like, I told you we're here for your cousin, can you ever focus on someone else? My kid doesn't learn anything except wanting things for myself is bad and wrong, period. Now the opposite isn't good either. Oh, okay. I mean, I guess we'll get you that Lego set and that's okay.

I mean, if you wanna get the Lego set for your kid, obviously, get the Lego set. But if your plan wasn't to get it and you didn't want to get it, actually, that's another tricky message for your kid. A kid learns my wants and needs are so overpowering to me, but, wow, they just made my sturdy leader become not so sturdy and change their mind. That's actually also dangerous. Here's where that in between is.

Oh, it's so hard to be in a toy store and see all these fun things and not get anything. Of course you want that Lego. It's normal to want things. It's actually awesome that you know what you want, you know, you want this Lego. Here's the thing, I could take a picture of it.

There will be a time whether it's Christmas or Hanukkah or birthday that something's coming up, we're not gonna get it today, sweetie. It's just not 1 of those days where we're gonna buy you an extra thing. I know that's so hard. And so what my kid learns there is my parent sees the want under the meltdown. I didn't become a bad kid.

I became a kid who's a good kid who wants something for myself and that's just a hard thing to want something and not have it. I'm preserving access to my desire while I still have a very boundaried sturdy leader.

How do you, as an adult, reclaim that access to desire and repair this?

I think starting, I think for anything we're trying to shift, it's actually hugely helpful to our circuits, to our body, to just start with, like, the things that I struggle with today, they were all adaptations. That's why I it's actually why I don't like diagnosis as a psychologist, it's why I don't love the word symptoms. I think it's, like, kind of this cruel thing we do to people that we're, like, yeah, wow, you were really crafty as a kid and learned to adapt and now we're gonna solamac a label that like is pretty mean on you, like what's wrong with you? You know, and I do feel like there's something in our body that's like, hey, can you recognize, like, everything I did for you? You know, like, okay, maybe I don't work for you anymore but like I need some credit, Right?

It's like anything else in life. Right? You have to say to an employee at your table, like, that's a great idea. We're gonna hold that for next quarter. Right?

And if you only say to them, no. No. No. They they just get louder and louder. They wanna be seen too.

They don't necessarily

Or they shut down.

Or they shut down and it comes out in another way.

Right.

So I think actually there's something to saying. There's not something. There's so much to saying. I have a phrase I always use for myself. Thank you for your years of service.

Like, I I think, you know, when I'm struggling with something, so if someone's now like, yeah. I have this time and I'm trying to, like, do stuff for myself and figure out what I want. And all that happens is I have a panic attack. It's so hard to know what I want. Just to put your hand on your heart and and even say to that feeling, like, this must have been adaptive early on to actually not know what I want.

And it's frustrating for me now, and still, like, I appreciate the way that you helped keep me safe for probably 18 years. Like that was really meaningful. And then I could continue. I'm gonna try little experiments here and there, you're gonna resist, you're gonna tell me I'm being selfish, you're gonna tell me this is stupid, you're gonna tell me I'm not good at things, that's okay, that's your role. But now that I know that, like I'm gonna show you over time that that we're safer now to to try different things.

Like, and if someone's listening being, like, do you actually mean I should say that to myself? Like, I literally mean you should actually put your hand on your heart and say those words inside your head or actually just say them out loud. And if you start tearing, that would be completely normal or if you're tearing now, completely normal. And I I often think these tears we have, they're like tears of relief from yeah, like an inner child in us that have that's been waiting to hear a certain message. Right?

We have to honor the things that hold us back in the way that they used to help us before those things are willing to a little bit release themselves.

How do you how do you start to figure this out? Do you start with the triggers? Like, wherever you feel that alarm or that sort of discomfort in your body?

Yeah. I think that's a great place to start, especially if you have a visceral reaction. Right? Because often what we do after we have a trigger is we blame ourselves. I'm a horrible person or if it's I messed up my kids forever.

I'm an awful person. I'm a monster. So what we do is we actually repeat the pattern that got us there. We add aloneness and self alienation and self blame And that's actually the experience of shame. Shame used to be an adaptive emotion when we were kids.

Shame stops us in our tracks from being in a part of ourselves that would have been met with distance. Yeah. So it's trying to help us out, but shame really does, it's a freeze state. So every time now we add on shame and blame, we add a frozenness and most people I know who wanna change are like, yeah, change isn't conducive with freeze, it's conducive with movement. You have to so it's interesting people say, especially after you yell at your kids or something like, oh, but I feel like if I treat myself with compassion or something, I'm like letting myself off the hook.

If you wanna let yourself off the hook for change, shame and blame yourself because that will make it impossible to change. Impossible.

Well, it's interesting what you're saying about the fact that when you pile on

Mhmm.

After you've been triggered and you make yourself wrong for having this stored, memorized Yes. Adapt adaptive reaction, whether it's to withdraw or to yell or to blame or whatever, that when you said the piece about you're alone Yes. I think this also contributes to why so many of us feel lonely and feel separate the older we get. That we have spent so long, and it sounds like almost from childhood, adapting to situations that we didn't quite understand. And then we continue to do it and continue to do it and continue to do it.

And so you feel like just isolated, you know, with yourself. But all we really want is love. Like, I know that your whole premise is we are all good inside. I believe the same is true. I always say, first of all, anybody is capable of changing.

And second, just assume good intent. Before you freaking pile on some of it, just assume good intent. Easier said than done.

And about yourself, assume good intent.

Right? That's probably the piece I missed.

That's hard. Like, I didn't wanna yell at my kid. I didn't wanna yell at my daughter. Like, nobody I don't know any parent who's like, you know what I'm gonna do? I'm gonna eviscerate my child.

Like, no 1 wants to do that. And and then it doesn't make it, quote, okay that you did it. But I always think we just ask the wrong questions. You'd be like, so it's okay. It's like, no.

It's not okay or not okay. It happened. Now we just have a choice of if we wanna be effective and change, period. It's not about evaluating it is okay or not okay. The thing already happened.

Like, is it okay that a car crashed? No 1 would say that. You're like, well, the car crashed. Okay. Now what?

Right? And, yeah, I think assuming positive intent about ourselves actually leaves us on the hook for change because we can see we're a good person who did not a good thing. And then we actually have the energy to be curious. Right? And I think that's where we change when we're curious.

Okay. So I yelled at my kid. Okay. Something happened. My kid complained about the dinner I made.

But I think a question we often have to ask ourselves about a trigger is not where did the pathway end in a trigger, but where did that pathway start? Right? Like, do I have any time to myself? Where do I practice meeting my own needs? Do I need more help at dinner time?

Right? That I can't wait till I get

to the point until they get to me. Take this Yeah. Because we're we're getting close to you needing to blaze to go teach everybody about mom rage. So let's just take this specific example and break down the tools. Great.

Because I want everyone listening to be able to walk out of this not only empowered around what these emotional triggers are trying to teach you, but to also have a couple concrete steps to take today Yep. So that they can start to do the repair. Because I agree with you that if you start to repair yourself, if you start to become whole, that is going to be the best way to improve your marriage, to improve the way that you impact the team at work, to improve your relationship with your kids, to improve everything. Everything. In this video I'm gonna show you the specific way that you can use the 5 second rule to stop doubting yourself and worrying so much.

Now a lot of people will tell you, oh, just think positive or meh, try not to worry. It sounds simple but it's not easy. And the reason why it's not easy is because it doesn't work. And actually research shows that when you try to ignore your worries it can actually make them worse. Look, I understand this topic more than most people because I struggled for decades not only with worrying and self doubt, I actually suffered from anxiety and panic attacks for almost 25 years and in fact, I took Zoloft for 2 decades to control my anxiety.

Using the 5 second rule, I've not only been able to stop worrying and doubting myself, I've cured myself of anxiety, and I've been off meds for more than 4 years. I'm panic attack free, and I almost never ever worrying about anything and you can teach yourself to do the exact same thing using the rule. First, here's what I want you to know, you're not a worrier. Lot of us call ourselves a worrier. Right?

Oh, I'm a worrier. You're not a worrier. You have a habit of worrying. That's a very big difference. You've allowed your mind to drift and linger on negative thoughts so many times.

It's now a pattern of behavior that you repeat and you don't even realize it. And that's actually good news because that means that you and I can use the science of habits to break the habit of worrying and the habit of doubting yourself. In the language of habit research, the 5 second rule is what psychologists call a starting ritual. It's it's a tool that you can use that will interrupt the negative thought patterns that are encoded in your brain as habits and trigger positive new thought and behavior patterns. The 5 second rule is shockingly effective because it works with all the latest research about habits.

What I've learned using the 5 second rule is that I do in fact have control over what I think. And when you use the 5 second rule, you'll discover that you do too. Here's how you're gonna use the rule. The moment, the moment that you feel your thoughts drift and you ever noticed how worrying and self doubt they have a way of literally like taking you away from a situation. You can feel your mind go from the present moment to drifting to something negative.

Maybe you're sitting in a meeting at work and, suddenly you start talking down at yourself and doubting yourself, it happens like that. But the moment that you catch yourself do it that's a moment of tremendous power. You have a decision to make. You can either sit there and listen to the worry and listen to the self doubt and let it hijack you or you can make a decision to assert control. That's when you use the rule.

You're gonna use the countdown trick 54321, it's essential. Counting backwards interrupts the negative thought pattern. It's also going to awaken your prefrontal cortex which is the part of the brain that you need to override a bad habit and replace your bad habit with a positive new 1. So every time you feel your thoughts drift to something negative or you find yourself worrying about things you can't control 54321, it'll switch the gears in your brain, it'll interrupt the negative thought pattern, it'll activate your prefrontal cortex and you've just created a starting ritual that will prime your mind to accept a more positive thought. That is how you use the rule to change.

Some days you might use the rule 20 times to interrupt your habit of worrying and doubting yourself. I write about this story in the new book, The High 5 Habit and, I'm gonna take everybody back 4 years ago. So this is the first book, The High 5 Habit is the first book that I have written and published in almost 5 years. Back in 2007, I released a book called The 5 Second Rule. And Lisa and her husband, Tom, played a pivotal role in 1 of the biggest professional breakdowns of my life.

And they had no idea that it was happening at the time.

No clue.

And Lisa, I think you just found out about it by reading about it in chapter 12 in my new book. Yep. So here's what was going on. I had written the 5 Second Rule book. I had self published it because I thought that, that was the best thing to do.

I had a dream of being a number 1 New York Times bestselling author. And I put it up on my vision board, and I dreamed about it, and I thought about it, and I studied all the authors that we all admire. And I did my best to do all the things that you, are supposed to do in order to sell enough books to grace the New York Times bestseller list. Right? So I email my newsletter list and I am doing speeches all over the place and I'm pre selling books as best I can in the back of a room with my pad of paper taking people's like literally for months, I did everything I could.

And when the book came out, I sent the email out to everybody and folks on my email list and everybody I'm related to immediately went to Amazon to buy the book. And here's what happened, within an hour or 2, the book was listed as out of stock. Now I thought, yes, yes, I have won. I am a best selling author. I have sold out of Amazon in a matter of a few hours.

Oh, my God. Oh, my God. This, like, literally, this this proves all the things that everybody said about me in middle school is not true anymore. I I've done it, Lisa. And then I started to realize I had not sold all the books because I did not have I had 20,000 books at Amazon.

I did not have that many people on my email list. And people started to email back going, it's out of stock, it's out of stock, it's

out of stock. Like, do

you think your dream, like,

the height of your freaking dreams come true at

this point? Yes. I think I've done it. Like, I've so like, I am a success. I am a phenomenon.

This is unbelievable. I think the dreams are coming true. And then within a couple hours, people start emailing going, it's out of stock, Mel. It's out of stock. It's out of stock.

It's out of stock. It dawns on me, there's no way I sold 20,000 books. There's no fucking way. I call the printer that I worked with that helped me self publish and, you know, it's a little self publishing publisher. And he tells me that he's seen this happen before where when Amazon gets a flood of traffic to something that they're not expecting, they will turn off supply to make sure it's not a bunch of bots and to also check inventory.

And we had no ability to figure this out. So for the 1st couple weeks that the book was available, it was out of stock. So here I am in this 2 week period where I have worked my ass off. I have done everything you're supposed to do, Lisa. And my book is out of stock.

I have sent my entire marketing campaign to a product you can't get. And I'm thinking, why are you doing this to me, universe? I have worked hard. Why do I have to be the bad news bearers? Why am I not part of that super like awesome group of best selling authors?

1, is it gonna be my turn? And I start to go down the drain. Enter Tom and Lisa Vilio. So when I come here and I am doing your show, I show up here and I'm like, this is my last hope. Because by the time this thing gets on air, maybe the book will be available.

I have got to pull myself together. So I walk in here and I was just I I didn't know you yet because I only knew, like, impact theory and I only seen it. I knew this was a big deal. I knew that being on Tom's show could really like change things for me. And I walk in here and I feel like a complete failure.

You are lovely and delightful and I immediately start feeling like I don't freaking belong here. I mean, they just had this best selling author and that best selling author, and this famous person was just here. What am I doing here? I am a self published author with a book that's out of stock. Yeah.

Like, I'm I'm failing. I hope that they don't know because this is terrible. Like, he is going to figure out before I enter the set that I don't belong here. You think impostor syndrome galore? Oh, completely.

So I'm up stairs in the bathroom and I am having a case, no kidding, of stress diarrhea. Like, I have got to empty the bowels because I am so sure that I'm about to be called out for the fraud that I am, that the book is not successful, that Tom's made a mistake. I look at the mirror, my cheeks are as red as a baboon's ass. I am sweating profusely. I've got pit stains on my red shirt, and then there's a knock on the door.

We're ready for you, Mel. I splash water on my face. I literally am like 54321, like pull your shit together, Mel. Get the fuck out there. And I open up the door and I go.

I was

like, oh my God, Mel frickin' Robbins. This woman is amazing. This woman is so freaking badass. Oh my god, she's got confidence to wear funky shoes. Oh my god, this woman is like, I'm in awe.

And so I'm like, do I do I have the right to talk to her?

Oh, it's for God's

sake. I'm

like, can

I ask her how the book is going?

Like, I'm all tense. I'm all nervous. I'm like, I'm okay. Okay. Is the team right?

Like, are we impressing her? Does she have her right coffee? Like, I'm in my own freaking head. Not and it's so funny, again, why I want to bring this up is how different our perspective I was in fucking aura of you, girl, and I still am. But I was like, you are on a pedestal and you get on set and you sit down, and the first question, you're like, motivation is garbage.

And I was like, this woman is the most confident, strong woman I've ever met

in my life. Well, because, you know, that's what fell out of my mouth because I was basically having a panic attack in your bathroom. So motivation is garbage. I wasn't feeling motivated when I walked on that set. I was feeling scared.

And 1 of the things that you believe that I believe too is that your feelings are gonna rise and they're gonna fall. And feeling nervous and feeling scared and feeling on edge and imposter syndrome, it's all normal stuff. You gotta develop the ability to feel all that stuff, have your cheeks be as red as a baboon's butt, and walk out there and do it anyway. That's what you've gotta develop in life. Mhmm.

And that moment taught me that. And there was something else that happened. So when I left that set, the whole time that the book was out of stock and I'm sitting here going, woe is me and I've failed again and I screw everything up and why doesn't anything ever work out for me, I would catch myself and I would say this. There's no way Mel that you've worked this hard that something amazing isn't gonna happen. You have to keep going.

You have to believe that this moment is preparing you for something amazing that hasn't happened yet. That was the mantra that had deep meaning for me in this moment because it was a way for me to take an attitude that was going down the toilet and flip it into what I call a high 5 attitude that was more empowering and supportive and encouraging. And so I kept repeating it, Lisa. There's no way something isn't gonna happen when you work this hard. This moment is preparing you.

It's giving you an experience, a person, a skill, something Mel that you need because something amazing is coming. You don't know it but something amazing is coming. That gave me the resilience to keep going even though the book was out of stock. Even though by all measures I had failed. So your interview releases and I all of a sudden get this email from Audible.

I had forgotten that I had published an audiobook.

Mhmm. I

had self published that too. My husband had uploaded it himself to the Amazon platform called ACX, which is a self publishing platform for Audible. Platform called ACX, which is a self publishing platform for Audible. I had

completely forgotten about the audiobook because

I was so focused on this New York Times things. And by the way, here's another thing. You can't make the New York Times list if you're a self published author. Something I didn't even know when I started. So here I thought I'd fail, didn't achieve my dream, the whole thing.

I get this email, your monthly report is ready. And I'm like, monthly report? What are they talking about? I click on that report. I open it up.

I am literally like, oh my God. Audiobooks. Audiobooks. Who knew audiobooks were a thing? Here's what happened.

The entire time that I kept going, something amazing was happening, Lisa. They were going to the hardcover, but it wasn't available. They bought the only thing that was available, the audiobook. The 5 Second Rule became the number 1 audiobook of the year, Lisa. It, to this day, is the most successful self published audiobook in the history of Audible.

And it created a brand new partnership that I have with Audible. Something, by the way, that I never would have had happen had my hardcover campaign be successful. And here's the other thing, I have never achieved my goal of being a New York Times bestselling author. I might never achieve it. I've never made a traditional bestseller list and it proves something that I believe very deeply.

And that is that your dreams and the things that you put on your vision board have a very important purpose. They pull you through your fears. They inspire you to take action, but they are not necessarily meant to be achieved. I believe when you pursue your dreams and you keep going and you keep telling yourself that if I work hard, something amazing is gonna happen. You'll achieve something better, something that you don't even know or can even think about right now because it's not even on your radar screen.

Those dreams are dots on the map of your life that pull you in a direction you're meant to go, but you might never end up there because you're meant to end up somewhere else.

I actually have an incredible quote of yours about dreams. You say when it comes to your dreams, you have 2 choices, pursue them or be haunted by them.

Mhmm. Okay.

It's

true. You can't forget a dream. You can. When you do it, it's very simple. You're gonna look at yourself in the mirror, and you're gonna leverage some research out of Harvard.

We'll talk about that too. Yeah.

I wanna

dive into that.

So you're basically just gonna look at yourself in the mirror, and you're gonna ask yourself, what does that human being need from me today? How can I show up for him or her or they? How do I do that today? Kindness? Do I need to be more courageous or bold?

You kinda set this intention for yourself. And then you're simply gonna raise your hand, and you're gonna high 5 yourself. Now a couple things I want you to expect. Number 1, it will feel weird, period. It feels weird for everybody because it is the opposite of what you're doing right now, and so your brain is going to reject it as odd.

Number 2, you're either going to have 1 of 2 reactions. That's it. There's no middle ground. You will either have a very profound positive experience where you're gonna laugh, probably because it kinda feels good and it's kinda silly, or you're gonna burst into tears in a positive way. Because it's a release that you have finally woken up and started supporting yourself.

You just got it, and that's where the tears come from. But more likely, although maybe not for you because you're a fan of this podcast, but more likely, you will feel resistance. And the resistance is the dust on the mirror. Every single morning, Jay, we bring with us our entire past. Whatever has been done to you, whether it's trauma or discrimination or abuse or neglect or abandonment, it is standing between you and the mirror.

It's the dust. And you see that dust and you say, that means that I am not worthy. I am not lovable. So you see a human being that's distorted, and you say to yourself, because of what's happened, I don't deserve a high 5. Or if you're a human being, you've done a ton of stuff that you regret.

And so all the things that wish you could change that you would forgive Jay or you'd forgive Mel Robbins for, you cannot forgive yourself. It's more dust. And so you stand there and you say, because of all that stuff that I did, I'm unworthy or I'm unlovable or I'm this or I'm that. And that dust keeps you from seeing a human being who deserves support and celebration. Or another form of the dust, which is the resistance, is that you actually believe that you do not deserve to be celebrated or supported unless you have the bank account or the number on the scale or you drive in the car or live in the neighborhood or your hair is less kinky or you're this or you're that.

And so you withhold the very support and celebration that you need in order to change your life from you because you haven't done it yet. That's where the resistance comes from. Mhmm. And so I'm here to say you gotta try this for 5 days because it's gonna feel weird. You're gonna resist it.

And what's gonna happen is you'll notice as you raise your hand, and this is where the science gets amazing. As you raise your hand, Jay, you will go from thinking this is weird or thinking this is stupid to silence, and this is explained by science. There is a field of study called neurobics. Neurobics is a word that I did not event event. It is aerobic or physical movement with new neural pathway development.

And research has shown that when you use neurobics, it is the fastest way to form new neural pathways. So the way that you do it is you take an unexpected physical movement, like high fiving yourself, something you've never done, and you marry it with a thought. Now here's where things get crazy cool. You've been high fiving people your whole life. You've been receiving high fives your whole life.

So, Jay, when you high 5 somebody, what are you communicating through the gesture?

A feeling of connectedness, a feeling of support, a feeling of I'm congratulating you or celebrating you, a feeling of you've got this. Like that kind of feeling.

Yeah. Completely. All of it is programmed in your subconscious brain. Mhmm. When you go to raise your hand to high 5 somebody, I can never high 5 Jay and go, you're a jerk.

Jay, I don't like you. Jay, I hope your tea, which I'm a founding club member of, really fails. You can't do it. Yeah. Because the programming is already in your brain.

Yes.

So you cannot look at yourself in the mirror and think terrible things while you're high fiving yourself because your brain won't allow it.

Right.

It is programmed to think something different. And as you repeat this every day, just 5 days, dear god, give me 5 days of doing this. You will override the critic, and you will reprogram your mind to associate belief, love, encouragement, support, resilience with your own reflection. This is why I don't even see myself in terms of a body anymore. I see a human being that I love, that I support just like I would a friend or a child that I love unconditionally.

It's mind blowing, but that's not all. So I talked to our pal, doctor Daniel Amen. And this isn't even in the book. This is just something I learned 2 weeks ago. He went bananas when I talked about this thing.

So, Jay, when you high 5 somebody else, your brain drips dopamine. Mhmm. The reason why when you do this, even on a low morning, you get a boost in your mood and a little bit of clarity

Wow.

Is you get a drip of dopamine by high fiving yourself. Wow. Again, because the programming is already in your brain. You're just now turning it from everybody else and giving it to yourself. Yeah.

And there's a second thing that's super cool. So doctor Amen was explaining. He said, you know and, you know, Mel, when you leave the bathroom, you feel kind of peppy. Right? And I'm like, yeah.

It's kinda weird. He said, well, let me tell you what that is. He said, your nervous system is encoded with celebratory energy. When you wave hello, you're raising your arms. When you cross a finish line, you raise your arms.

When you hug somebody, you raise your arms. When you high 5 somebody, you raise your arms. When you do this every morning, especially when you're going through a challenging moment, your nervous system recognizes the celebratory gesture and gives you a jolt of energy. Hey. It's Mel.

Thank you so much for being here. If you enjoyed that video, by god, please subscribe because I don't want you to miss a thing. Thank you so much for being here. We've got so much amazing stuff coming. Thank you so much for sending this stuff to your friends and your family.

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