Transcript of From Losing Everything to Gaining Confidence: Mel Robbins' Self-Doubt Solution | Mel Robbins

What we're going to talk about is confidence. What is it? Because a lot of us don't understand it. I know I didn't understand it. I had not the real confidence. I had the fake kind, the really bossy, annoying in kind, where it was really driven by insecurity. What we want to talk about is real confidence. The other thing we're going to talk about is the habit of self-doubt, the habit of self-doubt. So believe it or not, self-doubt is a habit. It's a behavior, a thinking pattern that you repeat over and over, and then it becomes automated. And when I can get you to understand that anxiety, worry, procrastination, self-doubt, they are all habits, then I can show you using science how you can break them? And then everything changes, and it all comes back to these five-second decisions. If you had more confidence, how would your business in life change for the better? I'm going to tell you how mine had when I finally learned what confidence What evidence is and what it isn't. Number one, I know how to say no. How many of you have a hard time saying no? You have clients you can't stand.

You have people that work for you that drain you. The ability to align your goals with values and actions. Fearless negotiator. Fearless. Greater self control. By the way, let me stop there for a second because I believe that in today's world, this is the number one skill for you. Self control. And we're going to give you tools today that are going to give it to you. You're going to make a lot more money, and you're going to be a happier human being. Absolutely. I'm going to show you how to do it. We can talk about change all you want, but I'm the person that's about real advice for real people, and That's going to require some real action. As I'm talking, I want you to notice what are the physical sensations, the feelings that come up in your body. When I ask you, how would your life change if you had more confidence and you have an answer, do you feel yourself shrinking? Do you feel yourself talking yourself out or raising your hand? Because if I can get you to start to isolate that pattern and that habit, simply in how you respond to whether or not you're going to answer this question, if I can break that right there so that you learn to try.

I almost fell off. Okay, there's a thing. You learn to try. Thank you. But it's like crowd surf right now. You got me? Okay. Then you can bring I'm not in that anywhere. I'm into experiential learning because I've got dyslexia, I'm ADD. It's really hard for me to read and retain. So if I feel it, if I have to do it, then it sticks. So let's talk about the myths and the truths about confidence. Okay, number one, confidence is a personality trait. Total baloney. Total baloney. Lots of extroverted people that are really bossy and annoying like I used to be, although I might still be a little annoying, but really insecure. Really insecure. There's a lot of introverted folks that feel uncomfortable putting themselves out there, but they really believe in what they're saying. So confidence is not a personality trait. Confidence is fixed. That's not true. You could be the most confident person in the world, and the person that you love leaves you. That's going to rock confidence. You could be a really great business person and then make a really bad decision and blow it all. That's going to rock you. Number three, the confidence starts with belief.

This is where I go against so many other people. I actually believe that this is not true. I think that thinking positive thoughts will certainly make you feel better in the moment, but it's not going to create change that you want. That you can be a negative, frustrated, depressed, anxiety-ridden son of a and you can still take action. And that taking action is key. You see, here's the truth about confidence. First of all, it's not a skill, it's a trait. And that's good news. Excuse me, it's not a trait. It's a skill, it's not a trait. See, dyslexia on full display. I was not lying about that. Confidence is a skill, it's not a trait. Confidence is situational. So there are areas of your life where you are confident, and then there are areas of your life where you We have a ton of doubt. And here's the most important one. Confidence begins with action. Now, this is not something that I made up. And in a second, I'm going to show you the science. I want you to write this quote down. If you have a problem that can be When you're involved with action, you don't have a problem.

Amen. So a lot of us talk about the problems that we have, but they're actually not problems. We're stuck in one of the traps of self doubt. And that's what we're going to be talking about in just a second. But first, I want to show you how you build confidence. And let's look at the research, because there's really, really strong research on this. If you want more information on this, just Google the Confidence-Competency Loop. The Confidence-Competency Loop. Let me show you what this is. So basically, if you try something, he's either going to succeed or he's going to survive. Now, what happens if you survive it? You really blow You're built, but you survive it. Well, you learn something. And then when you learn something, what are you doing? You're building skills. And when you're building skills at something, what are you gaining? Competency. All competency means is that by learning something over and over and over again, you have to do less thinking about it. So you don't have time to get anxious, just like me in the bed. I had time to lay there, so I was thinking about all my problems. The more you do something, the more that you try, the more you build skill and competency, and that is where confidence comes.

So I want you to walk out of here not only with the 5, 4, 3, 2, 1. Catch yourself when you feel yourself shrinking. Catch yourself when you feel yourself editing yourself or silencing yourself. I also want you to walk out of here with a brand new definition of confidence, which I'm going to give to you in a second. Because check this out. All of us are going to feel failure. Let me show you what happens when you are afraid of failing, when you're fearing it. First of all, You're going to start thinking, aren't you? I don't know if I want to give a speech. I might be really bad at it. And then I don't know what I want to talk about. And I'm not really sure. Am I ready? Am I not ready? Should I wear the tennis shoes? Should I wear the heels? Should I not go this? Should I do this? And then, of course, as you think, you're going to start to doubt yourself. And this becomes this loop. This is what researchers call a habit loop. We're going to get more into this. This is a chunk of behavior that gets encoded in this part of your brain.

You see, you're not a doubter. You have a habit of doing it. The same is true, by the way, when you feel nervous, you start overthinking. The same is true when you start feeling insecure. The same is true when you feel like a fake. The same is true when you start to get overwhelmed. The same is true when you start to fear, rejection. All of This thing's normal. It's normal to be afraid of being rejected. It sucks. It's normal to feel nervous. These feelings are normal. Acting nervous is a choice. There's only one way to break a habit loop. You have to insert a different behavior. Pretty neat, huh? See, we spend way too much time with the red arrows. I got to be fearless. I can't ever worry. It's terrible to feel like a fake. No, it's not. It's normal. In fact, you're going to. When you first relaunch your eco-adventure company, you're going to feel like a fake. That is normal. Acting Being like one is a choice. So the only way to break the habit of self doubt and thinking is to take action. And what action are you going to take?

5, 4, 3, 2, 1. And that, if you do it over and over, puts a new habit in place. This is how you build confidence, one five second decision at a time. Let me show you a little bit more science. So right here is your brain. And the red part right there, that's the basal ganglia. That's where all your habit loops encoded. Everything that you do that you don't think about, worrying. Let me give you another example. When you put on your pants, do you put your right or your left leg in first? You're thinking about it, aren't you? When you pull your jeans on, it's a pattern of behavior that is right here. Here's the other problem. This is also where worry is. This is where anxiety is. This is where depression is. This is where self-doubt is. It's all right here. This is where procrastination is. What happens when you go five, 4, 3, 2, 1 is you activate the prefrontal cortex, which you know is the part of the brain that you need for strategic thinking, for acting with courage, for changing. So the truth is, in five seconds, you can change anything, and that changes everything.

And I want you to understand that to feel more confident about the things that you want to do in your next chapter, it begins with being willing to try. So if confidence is the decision to try, because I also like the idea of you not thinking that the big topics like confidence are about how you feel. I want to make them action-based because you can't control how you feel at times But you can always choose how you act. So if confidence is the decision to try, here's the definition of self doubt. It's the decision not to. See, one of the things that I've come to realize is that when you When you talk about self doubt, it's such a big term that you tend to think that it's just nothing that you can control. But what if you started to consider that self doubt is actually a decision? It's going to give you a lot of power. Now, remember, I told you that your doubts create mountains and your actions move them. So let me show you the four traps of self-doubt. This is really incredible stuff. So the four traps of self-doubt, because I just said, confidence is about an action.

Self-doubt is a decision not to try. And there are four ways, four actions that we all engage in that are you deciding not to try? Here they are. Hesitating, hiding, hypercritical, and helplessness. So I'm going to unpack these for you, and I want you to be thinking for a minute. I want you to think about that next chapter. And as I roll these out, I want you to think about, are you stuck in this? And by the way, I can relate to every single one of these. So when I think about the next chapter of getting into throwing events and creating more and more courses and doing bigger and bigger things, I can see myself and every single one of these, okay?

This is a simple trick, back by science, that I'm going to teach you today as I read and freestyle from the high five habit about how you can interrupt negative thoughts and flip into a positive mindset. And why would you want to do that? Well, the reason why you want to do that is because your thoughts lead you in a particular direction. And if you start to allow your mind to dwell on negative outcomes, if you start to obsess that things are not going to work out, if you allow yourself to continue to think negative thoughts, you're not only priming your mind to default to negative, but you will literally, through your thoughts, trigger negative actions. If you think about it, you've had experiences in your life where you've really trashed yourself, you've hated on yourself. And when you continually think that you hate yourself or you continually tell yourself that you're screwing up, you tend to do things that you hate, don't you? But when you're in a positive mindset, when you're in an optimistic mindset, when you interrupt those negative thoughts and you start to say, Well, maybe it is going to work out, or I got to just keep on going.

Your thoughts literally can trigger positive action, too. And so that's what we're going to talk about today as we read the High Five Habit. Welcome to the live stream. Also, we are going to take your questions. So for those of you that want to read along, Page 59. We're going to read four pages of the book today, Finish Chapter 4. I'm also going to teach you the one trick all confident people use to stay positive. Here we go. To understand the profound power of accepting and encouraging yourself, which is a way to have a positive mindset, to have a mindset that defaults on being encouraging. Let's look at some research on what psychologists call your core fundamental emotional needs. Let me ask I'll ask everybody, do you know what your core emotional needs are? There are three of them. I want you to go in the comments. What do you think your three core emotional needs are as a human being. These are the core emotional needs that every human being needs in order to feel safe, in order to feel connected to themselves, in order to feel loved. What are those core needs, everybody?

I'd like you to just write them in the comments, okay? Yeah, one's safety, one's love. These are great. What are your needs? Your core emotional needs. I see longing, I see love. These are excellent, excellent responses, everybody. Human connection, love, acceptance. Yep, trust, honesty. What are your core? There they are. I see Felicia has nailed it. To be seen, to be heard and to be, she says validated, but it can be validated, accepted, or celebrated for the unique individual that you are. So to be seen, to be heard and to be celebrated and accepted for the unique individual that you are and the unique contribution that you have. When you feel seen, when you feel heard, and when you feel You feel celebrated or accepted for the contribution that you make as an individual, unique individual, you feel safe, you feel like you belong, and at your core, you feel loved. When you don't feel seen, you feel invisible in life. When you don't feel heard, you're going to feel misunderstood. When you don't feel like you are accepted or validated, you feel completely rejected and disconnected. You feel like you are unworthy or unloved.

And so, again, we're going to talk about your need to be seen, to be heard, and to be accepted and celebrated. You need this at work, you need this at home, you need this in your relationships, your friendships, your romantic relationships, your family. And if you just reflect in your life, where Where do you feel seen, heard, and celebrated? Where in your life do you feel that way? Or is there a person in your life that makes you feel that way? Hopefully, you are saying that you make yourself feel seen, heard, and celebrated. But is there somebody else in your life that makes you feel that way? It could be a caregiver, it could be somebody that you're in a romantic relationship with, it could be a mentor, it could be a friend, it could be your pet, right?

I think one of the reasons why we all love our cats and our dogs so much is because there's such unconditional love.

You walk in the door, they come running right at you. And so you feel seen and you feel celebrated, right? And when they're right there with you or you know, have you ever noticed how when you get really upset and you start crying, what do your animals do? Oh, my God, they hear you and they come right on over. And And those responses that are so innate when it comes to your pets, everybody, they're fulfilling your emotional needs. That's why you feel so safe and connected and loved by your pets, because you feel seen by them, you feel heard by them, and you feel celebrated and loved by them. And I do see people saying, I feel that way about my daughter, my mom, a mentor of mine. These core values, when they're missing from your life, of being seen, heard, celebrated, and accepted, this is what leads you to feeling stuck and disconnected and unfulfilled. The good news is when you realize that these core fundamental needs truly dictate how you feel and experience your life, now you've got the access point to be able to change how you're experiencing your life by focusing on your core fundamental needs and making sure that they are met.

All right. You need these three fundamental emotional needs in order to thrive. They talk about this in psychology 101. It's called Maslow's Hierarchy of needs, and here's the background. You have basic needs that are fundamental to your fulfillment, your happiness, and your survival. You know you need water, food, oxygen, shelter, and sleep, right? Because if you don't have water or food or or oxygen or shelter or you get enough sleep, guess what? You die. That's how fundamental these core needs are. You also know that you need friendship or else you're going to feel lonely. Research shows that people die from loneliness, too. It's a huge killer. You may also know that you have a fundamental need to grow because if you're not growing and learning as a person, you start to feel stuck in your life. But what you may not know is that you do have these core fundamental emotional emotional needs to be seen, to be heard, to be loved for the unique individual that you are. When these emotional needs are not met, it's not only a form of neglect, but you will feel unloved, invisible, and unfulfilled. See, I believe that's how we all got so critical of ourselves in the first place, and it's why we're twisting ourselves in knots ever since.

That at some point in your childhood, those core fundamental needs stopped being fulfilled. You started feeling invisible. You started feeling disconnected. You started feeling like you didn't belong. As we talked about in yesterday's video, this is all covered in Chapter 4, The High Five Habit, That you then turned that feeling against yourself and you started to go, well, there must be something wrong with me. There must be something wrong with me. No, there's nothing wrong with you. It was that your three fundamental emotional needs were not being fulfilled by the adults around you. That's all that was wrong. You can change this, by the way, for yourself, because what's missing, if you're not fulfilled in life, is a deeper connection to yourself, because you've probably been so busy running from one thing to the next that you can't even grasp right now how big of a shift it's going to create when you start each morning by simply seeing, hearing, and honoring yourself. One of the reasons why I love all the research around adding a simple a high five in the mirror to your morning routine is that it fulfills your deepest emotional needs as a human being, this one action of just high fiving yourself in the mirror, add it to your morning routine.

How many of you have added a high five to your morning routine, and you're stunned by how much it's changing the way that you see yourself, the way that you treat yourself. Because as you've learned, these three emotional needs were probably never met during your childhood, and you haven't been given the tools until right now to be thinking about this and to start fulfilling these emotional needs as an adult. The reason why you feel invisible at work or you feel outside of your friend group, or you feel disconnected in your relationships as an adult, not to mention the relationship you have with yourself, is because there's something missing. What's missing is a deeper sense that you actually matter. What's missing is the that you are being seen and heard and appreciated. This is critical. It's so critical. If you were to wake up and you had a feeling of being connected to yourself, and you felt seen in your life, and you felt appreciated in your life and you felt heard in your life, that would absolutely change how you go through life. That's why this is such powerful stuff, as simple as it is.

I love seeing so many of you writing in the comments about how you are adding in the high five and how it's changing your life and how you're starting to take your emotional needs seriously, and you're starting to make it a priority to fulfill them and how it's changing everything. Now look, don't bother arguing with me because I did the math. I think sometimes in life, you forget just how miraculous you are. You get so beaten down by the day to day, and you're so beaten up by what you've survived in your past that you've lost sight of how extraordinary you are. I'm going to remind you of how extraordinary you are, and I brought some math to prove it. I just want you to wrap your brain around this really cool fact. The odds of you being born are One in a Million. We're just going to start there, okay? We're going to do some simple math and we're going to build. The odds of you being born are for sure one in a Million because your mom carries over one million eggs in her body during her lifetime. Isn't that wild? You're one in a million.

But guess what? That's not even close to the mathematical phenomenon that you are. One in a million doesn't even touch the surface of how extraordinarily unique and amazing you are. Because based on recent research, scientists have also figured out that the egg that formed you was really choosy, and that egg could determine which of your father's 250 million sperm cells it wanted to connect with. That's right. This was not a race with the sperm. The egg was very, very choosy. If that egg had created, if that egg that created you chose any other sperm, guess what? You wouldn't be watching this livestream. Your sibling would because you never would have been born. So just wrap your mind around those odds. One in a million plus one in 250 million? What are the odds of that? Well, the experts crunched the numbers on that. And the odds of you being the result and being born and being here with me right now, one in 400 trillion. One in 400 trillion. Now, Now, guess what? I'm not even done yet. One in 400 trillion doesn't even scratch the surface in terms of what a miracle you are.

Are you ready? A scientist from Harvard heard me cite that number, one in 400 trillion in my TEDx talk. He wrote a research paper to say, Mel Robbins, you are wrong. You are such a miracle. The odds of you being born is such a miracle. The number is so insane. I don't even know how to say the number. Literally, no idea how to say the number. It's like one times 10,000 with that little factor at the top with another million. It's bananas. I can't even explain to you what a miracle that you are. All of this math, it proves something really important. That is that someone as unique and special as you deserves to be seen and heard. Feeling like you matter, that somebody cares about you, that you are worth celebrating, it is one of your most important and fundamental needs. I'm here to tell you that because the math proves that you are a walking miracle, there will never be another you. There never has been another you. There will never be another you that will ever walk this Earth. You are the one and only, which means you have something extraordinarily unique to give to the world.

Feeling celebrated and feeling seen and feeling heard. It is so tied into your existence because of how unique you are. That's why you long to be recognized as an individual. That's why you long to be celebrated as an individual. This need, it's so important and foundational to you and the fact that your birth and existence is a miracle, that it's as important to your well-being to be seen and heard and appreciated as food and water. The difference between a good day and a bad day, you know what it comes down to typically, is just being acknowledged by somebody. You know who's the best person to acknowledge and validate you? You are. That brings me back to that moment every Every single morning when you come face to face with yourself in the mirror. High-fiving yourself is so much more than a physical act. It's foundational. It's a transfer of energy. It symbolizes an alliance and a belief in yourself and your ability. You aren't congratulating yourself. You're celebrating yourself as you are. You just heard the math. Your existence is what makes you worthy of a high five. Your presence, your hopes, your dreams, your capacity to love, your ability to heal, to change, to grow, your heart, your soul.

That's what makes you worthy of being seen and heard and appreciated. Not once in a while, but every single Every single day, that's what you deserve. That's what you need. And the miracle of your existence is why you need it. See, when you are able to to see yourself, when you are able to celebrate yourself, when you are able to treat yourself in a way that you have been wishing your parents would have, or wishing your friends, or your spouse, or your boss would, when You take control. This is what you communicate. It's incredible. You're basically, when you're able to hear yourself and see yourself and support yourself, and I believe that simply adding a high five in the mirror to yourself as part of your morning routine, every single day, you start the day by fulfilling those foundational needs that the miracle of your birth demands of you. Number one, your You're communicating confidence. You're saying, I believe in you when you do that. Number two, you're celebrating yourself. You're basically like, You're amazing. You got this. You're validating yourself. You're saying, I see you. I'm not going to ignore you or pick you apart.

You communicate optimism. I can do this. I can face this day. And I love adding a high five to your morning routine because it is an action. You're demonstrating belief in self. You're demonstrating acceptance of self. And you are sending yourself into the day to take action. Wouldn't it be incredible to feel all those feelings at once? I know it would. It would be mind-blowing. Literally, it could possibly blow up your subconscious because your brain, based on your life experience, is programmed the opposite. It's not been programmed to absorb all this yummy, goo, amazing validation. But guess what? Your brain loves it, absolutely loves it. See, I believe you were wired for love. I believe that you came into this world whole and complete and loving and seeing and accepting yourself and being deeply connected to yourself. And that's why you miss feeling that way. And it's also why this change of adding a high five to your morning routine is almost instantaneous. This is why the programming that we're activating in your mind, body, and spirit When you start to acknowledge and accept yourself and treat yourself with kindness, and when you start to flip the way that you think, and you start to cheer for yourself and believe in yourself, this is your default.

You are going back to who you are when you practice the tools that I'm teaching you. It is your true nature to love yourself. It is your true nature to believe in yourself. It is your true nature to feel deeply connected to yourself and a sense of purpose. That's why you miss it. You can only miss what you know. And so I want you to come back home to who you are. That's what I want you to do. Now, okay, I get it. But Mel, how do I think different thoughts? And this This is what I promise to teach you, the trick that all confident people use to stay positive, the trick that you can use to think different thoughts. Well, the first step to thinking different thoughts is you have to catch the old thought that takes you low, okay? If you don't know what the thought is that takes you low, here's a hint. It's some version of, I'm not enough. I'm not good enough. I'm not smart enough. I'm not tall enough. I'm not successful enough. I'm not skinny enough. I'm not talented I'm not lucky enough. I'm not this enough. I'm not that enough.

There's something wrong with me.

It's some version of that. If you know what the thought is that always brings you down, could you please write it in the comments? Because you will inspire somebody else. You will make somebody else realize they're not alone. What is the thought that always takes you down? Mine is some version of, It never works out for me. People are mad at me. I'm not a good person. Nothing Anything I ever do is going to… It's just some just horrible version of that. First step, step number one, what is the thought that always takes you down? I'm not enough. I'm not smart enough. I'm not loved enough. I'll never be this. I see this. I'm not good enough. I'm not smart enough. I'm not lovable. I'm not now, never will be. I'm never going to grow up. I'm never going to get it right. I always screw things up. I'm not thin enough. I'm not smart enough. Other people do it better than me. I'm too big. Anyway, keep going, keep going, keep going. Keep writing this down because you're giving other people permission to take a look. I'll never make enough money. I'll never be a good father.

I'll never be a good wife. Nobody loves me. Nobody has ever loved me. All of this horseshit that you tell yourself, This has become the default wiring. Step number one is identify what thought takes you down. It's like dropping a guillotine on your power and on your future and on your possibility. It cuts you off from who you truly are and what you truly want and desire and deserve in your life. And whenever you think this thought, I'll never be loved, I'll never meet somebody's standards, I'll never make the money, You literally also stop yourself from taking the actions that change your life. So great job. You've already done step one. Identify the thought that takes you down. Because here's the cool thing. That's not how you came into this world. You didn't come into this world thinking, I'm not enough. I'm not lovable. I never do anything right. I'll never amount to anything. I never should have been born. You didn't come into the world thinking that. Somebody taught you to think that. And so if you can figure out what that negative thought is, right? Pick your poison. I'm not smart enough, good enough, tall enough, skinny enough, rich enough, whatever it is.

I call it poison. You want to know why? I call it poison because thinking this negative thought is like drinking poison. It kills your spirit and your innate desire to be seen, to be heard, to be celebrated. You are dropping the guillotine right on yourself when you think this poisonous thought. Okay? Now, what is step two? Step two is, yes, you have to identify But it's not enough to just identify. Step two is we need to replace it. Okay? We need to replace it. And so I'm going to teach you what you're going to do next. The next time you think that negative, I'm not enough thought, you're going to break the thought by saying, I'm not thinking about that. I'm not thinking about that. And then number three, we have got to replace the thought. So you're going to catch the thought, you're going to break the thought, and then we're going to replace the thought. That's what you need to do to get this poison out of your mind and start thinking thoughts that align with your fundamental needs. And what are your fundamental needs? It's what we've been talking about today. It's to be seen, it's to be heard, it's to be celebrated.

And one of the things that I love about cultivating a high five attitude is the high five attitude is an attitude that aligns with believing in yourself, seeing yourself, and appreciating, celebrating, and encouraging yourself to continue to move forward. That's what you're doing. One of the things that you can do, I know this is going to sound crazy, is by adding a high five to your morning routine, it helps you rewire your mind in a very powerful way. And the reason why it will help you rewire your mind in a very powerful way is if your default right now is, I'm not enough, when you add this to your morning routine, your brain sees you treating yourself in the exact opposite way of that negative, poisonous thought. Because you don't high five somebody that you think isn't enough or that sucks or that you hate. You only high five people that you believe in, that you think are enough and that you're rooting for. And so add a high five to your morning routine because that is part of the positive forward programming of plowing new neural pathways in your mind. Again, let me repeat, the trick all confident people use to stay positive.

You got to catch that negative, poisonous thought. You got to break it. I'm not thinking about that. Talk back to it. Then you must replace it. You have to learn how to replace it and program a positive mind because your brain circuitry is designed to just repeat the patterns that are there. So simply identifying and trying to break the pattern won't work. We got to replace it and program new neural pathways in. This is why all of you who are high-fiving yourself, whether you're taking the High Five Challenge, go to highfivechallenge. Com. It's a free five-day program that I lead you through. You can do it with 150,000 other people from 90 different countries, or whether you've read the book or watched our videos or listened to these live streams. For those of you that are adding the high five to your morning routine, what are you noticing about the way it's changing your mind? What are you noticing about how those negative, poisonous thoughts are starting to be replaced by more positive programming? That's what this book is about, everybody. Write it in the comments. Now, what I'm going to do is I'm going to jump to some questions.

That is the end of chapter 4. Wait, I've got one more paragraph, and then I'll do it with questions. The reason why you want to catch the thought, break the thought, replace the thought, is because we want to teach you How to Let Validation, Confidence, Celebration, Optimism, and Action, a high five attitude. We want to teach you how to make that the new default, that whenever you feel yourself going mentally low because of poisonous thoughts, That the thought alone, those poisonous thoughts, they paralyze your ability to move forward. So whenever you think that thought, I want you to learn how to catch it. Because whenever you have that poisonous thought, you don't want to high to high five anybody, right? You don't want to high five yourself. You don't want to do anything. You don't feel like doing anything. It kills your inspiration and motivation. So we want to catch it. We want to break that thought, and we want to replace it.

I have this saying about confidence that I've only recently stumbled into as I've been digging into more research around the science of confidence and the skill of confidence, because a lot of people think that confidence is a personality trait. It's not. It's actually a skill that you build through action. A lot of people think confidence is state of belief. It can be, but that's not where it begins. I say that confidence is the willingness to try. That's all that it is. Knowing that you may succeed or survive, but you'll still try. To me, all those people that we admire most, that's what they're doing. They have the ability to tune into those instincts that are true for them. Because the fact is, there's only one you. That's it. And you matter because there's only one you, and there's only ever going to be one you. And your instincts, and your experiences, and your inner wisdom is a gift to the world. And every time that you tune it out because of the habit of hesitating, or the habit of self-doubt, or the habit of worrying, or the habit of overthinking, you are robbing the world of that gift that you have to give to everybody.

You can use this simple, stupid, silly tool to train yourself to not only hear it, but also to develop the skill of courage to act on it.

Powerful. Is there any area of your life where you feel like you lack courage still?

I'll admit, it's easy. I think we all go through those moments where you feel like you're behind. I think social media is both an incredible tool, and it can be one of those triggers that makes you feel like, Look at how many followers this guy has. I'm like, I'm so tiny compared to this guy right here. It's easy to use technology and social media not for inspiration, but actually as a way to bash yourself that you're not doing what other people are doing. A comparison or whatever. Yes. I think that I use the rule a lot for patients. That's good. I notice that my insecurity rises up because right now, look, I did a ridiculous number of speeches last year. I travel way too much. I don't want my life to look like that. It's a champagne problem. I get it. But I also have three kids in a marriage that I love, and I really feel depleted when I'm not with them. I'm practicing patience as I make an intentional pivot in the business that I'm running so that I have more of a life that I want as well. That's This one area.

I don't feel insecure as much as... You know the term deliberate practice, right? And you know the five-hour rule where- Deliberate practice, is that from the talent code? Well, the deliberate practice is actually a psychological principle.

I think it was in a book called the talent code, but yeah.

Oh, yeah? Okay. Well, it's a psychological principle, and you know the 10,000-hour rule.

I mean, deliberate practice is in sports.

Yes. So deliberate practice is this idea that, yeah, you could do 10,000 hours at anything and become an expert at it. But the way to do it faster is to do deliberate practice, which means you're practicing with the intention of improving, and there's a feedback loop.

Yeah, so you do 2,000 hours as opposed to 10,000.

Correct. For example, if you want to become an expert at guitar, learn scales. Don't just sit there for 10,000 hours and play the same song. If you learn scales, you get the finger dexterity and the muscle memory and the neuropathway development. Scales are hard, by the way. Yes, I saw your guitar over there.So hard. I saw your guitar. I always wanted to play guitar, but instead, I forced my three children to learn. That's good.

He just enjoy it.

He just watched them.

My brother's the number one jazz violinist in the world. What? Yeah. I grew up watching the most incredible...

Now, is he built like you, too?

He used to be even more jacked. They used to call him the Incredible Hulk of violin because he was just like super Jack.

Snap the thing in half?

Is he like, Yeah, I'm playing it? He would. He would slam it like Jimi Hendrix style. But now he's leaned up a bunch, actually. He's incredible. I used to just be all awestruck by his gifts. It was unbelievable, his skill. I learned guitar. I taught myself when I was 18 just because I was like, I have to know something in terms of music. That's pretty cool. I can barely... I'm like a hack, but at least I could do something.

I'm in this mode of improving myself. I'll give you one more thing that I'm working on. I think about my work in three buckets. We got this bucket here, we got this bucket, and we got this bucket. When you think about your business, or you think about your passion, or you think about work, I think about, okay, what do I need to do in terms of how much time and what actions do I need to take in order to develop the skills so that I can perform the work? So there's the deliberate practice that goes into practicing your skill and your competence. Skill mastery. And your competency, mastery, so that when it comes time to actually deliver the work, whether that's selling or standing on a stage or writing a book or talking to people or selling real estate or whatever it is that may be your passion, deliver.

This is the one I neglected last year. Which is?

This bucket is, what are you doing to personally develop yourself so that you are the most capable, fulfilled, and satisfied human being so that when you show up to do your competency and your skills and the delivery, that you, as the human being, are able to do that. I've been spending a lot more time consulting consuming content, reading books, watching your incredible show, and learning from other people. I think that one of the traps that we entrepreneurs get into is we... I was feeling last year anyway, like I was on a treadmill, and when I wasn't looking, somebody was coming by and turning up the speed. I was only in this alley.

And increasing the hills. Yes.

If you're my age, you need a diaper when somebody does that, you're on a treadmill and a leash to keep you attached to it.

Exactly.

I've been focusing a lot on this, and it's been interesting because you and I were talking earlier, too, about you going to India and some of the stuff that you learned in terms of the different states to be in. I use one where I pay attention to where I'm feeling depleted versus where I'm energized. Here's the thing. You can be doing things that are really hard that energize you. You can be doing things that are really scary that energize you. The same is true with things that deplete you. There are things in your life that are really easy for you. There are people that you hang out with, by the way, that you've been hanging out with for years, but they deplete you. I've been starting to become more deliberate about how I distance myself from things that deplete me and how I spend more time and energy either doing or pushing myself to do those things that actually energize me. This gets back to your message around passion, right? And that the art and the skill of building a life that is guided by the things that you're passionate about.

How do you believe in yourself, especially in a moment like right now where the future is 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 want to 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 going to turn out that you really want to do? Well, my guest today, she's a super close friend of mine, and she is somebody you want to hear from right now. Who am I talking about? I'm talking about none other than Jamie Kerr and Lima. She's the founder of It Cosmetics, which she started in her living room, and she sold it to L'Oréal for a billion dollars.

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, Denny's, with terrible skin rosacea, like the bright pink breakouts all over her cheeks. It was that rosacea and that hard working work ethic from being a Denny's waitress that made her create her own foundation. That was the beginning of this billion dollar company that she created in her living room, It Cosmetics. I know you're going to love hearing from her, which is why I am so excited that you're here to talk to us about your journey. You are one 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 going to 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 here. Thank you.

There's no question because 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 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 one of the things I want to share, I know we're going to 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 one of our biggest life questions. How do I find my purpose? But I just want to say, Mel, something really important to me that I didn't want to leave here without saying, you could edit this out if you don't like it, but everybody listening needs to know this. You are one 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 have 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 one 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 in real life. So that congruency is like one in a billion. And I love you, and I'm just grateful to be here for you.

Wow.

Okay.

Just that.

I think the episode is over now. Now, we got to go back in time because I think one 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. 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 want to go back in time because I've heard you on the stages that you speak around the world talk about how you started as a waitress in Denny's, and then When from waitressing at Denny's, pursued a dream that you had of being on television. And as a fellow former waitress, I would love to start there.

Yeah, waitress at Denny's, Full uniform name tag to prove it. I forgot they had uniforms. All 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 And so often, I remember being a waitress at Denny's. I remember feeling, and 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 I'm worthy of them 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, how do I believe I'm worthy of them yet? And it was this big season in my life. At the same time, And Mel, the kitchen at the Denny's I worked at was a disaster. 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'd throw a dime and a penny on the table and leave.

As your tip, as if it's your fault. Yeah, exactly.

But it's so funny how, 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. It's just those little things we learn along the way. But, yeah, after that, I thought my whole life 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 with the world. I went into, did all the jobs, saved up all my money to pay for School, and push grocery carts in the grocery parking lot, slice meat in the deli, all those fun jobs, and then found myself in 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, 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, 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 seasons that feel like setbacks 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 set ups for what What you're called to do. I want to just make sure everybody heard that. I want to take 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. So can you explain what that means, particularly to somebody who's listening who may feel like, I know I'm meant for something greater. Why the hell am I at this step? And this does not feel like it is 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 everything in life is happening for us, even when it doesn't make sense.

What do you mean happening for us? So to somebody that's really in it, Jamie. Yes. What does that mean?

Let me frame it around our topic of purpose, right? So often people feel empty because they feel like, Oh, my purpose needs to be It needs to be my job, or it needs to be 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? In my opinion, purpose is never 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. Here's what I mean. I 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. That isn't It's 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 in the coffee line at Starbucks, maybe it's the the neighbor down the street, whatever it is, you feel in your gut a sense of fulfillment, 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're here, oh, Denny's Waitress builds billion dollar 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 I took this massive risk, right? Taking my makeup off on national television when I was told not to 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, a byproduct of that with It Cosmetics is we built a company with millions and millions of millions and millions 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. For me, being willing to say, here I am exactly as I am, no makeup, and all my skin issues. I think people connected with that, that feeling 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. It's pushing carts in a supermarket. It's working in the back house of a restaurant. That's my story, too. Helping my best friend on her paper route, bussing tables. I think when you work in retail or you work in a service job and you feel at times invisible, you start to realize how important it is to treat everybody with respect and kindness. That there is no work that is beneath you. When you can bring that level of service to the job that you have right now, even if you hate it, even if people treat you like garbage, even if 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 because somebody was mad that their pancakes weren't out on time. 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 one of the top shows in the world, one of the top shows in the world, I feel part of that was like, oh, we understand I understand who's listening and watching you right now. I understand who real people are who bought my products. And so when you mention steps are ordered, it's like, 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 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, 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 Purpose, Jamie Kern-Lema, right there. That's your takeaway number one. The steps are ordered. Believe in that. And this moment is helping you. It's giving you something. So that is one 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, you are a local news acre. You're living the dream. You're on your way, and you are now starting to have this nightmare happen, where your rosacea is breaking through on camera in front of everybody, the makeup that they put on you. And you've got people in your ear telling you, there's something wrong with your face. 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 literally, I started entering this season of self doubt, where I would be live on the air, anchoring the news, thinking thoughts in my head like, oh, am I going to get fired? Our viewers changing the channel right now? Am I costing the company ratings?

So it was this big- Could you feel those moments when you could feel the makeup not disappearing? There were moments when I used to be a commentator for CNN. I was of menopausal where I could feel the hot flash coming.

Yeah. I didn't feel it until they said it in my ear, in my ear piece. 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 because I could feel my heartbeat in my ears. So what I remember is anchoring the news live. And sometimes you have to be happy, tell this happy story, or you're serious telling. And I just remember my heart beating in my ears hoping people weren't changing the channel. And it started this I had this thing where I would spend what... It's funny. 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. I took my little paycheck that I had and started spending it on department store makeup, professional artistry makeup, drug store makeup. I couldn't find anything that worked. I had this idea one 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 it was this idea where I was like, if I could figure out how to make something that worked for me, it help a whole lot of people.

And that was my knowing or this gut feeling. But then my head, Mel, was like, oh, but you got no money, you got no connections, no one in the beauty industry. You're unqualified. So I sat in this place, right? And 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 All the reasons why you're not qualified to do it. Plus, you're in your dream job, right? And I sat between those two. And it wasn't until I had this big, big aha moment of why I needed to do it that pushed me over the edge.

Okay, so what is the aha moment?

Yes. So I realized one day, I'm like, this makes no sense. There are thousands of makeup companies out there. How does nothing work for me? Then I had this moment where I realized I've never seen a model with bright red, bumpy skin selling makeup. You always see these photoshopped, airbrush models. I realized Mel, wow, my whole life, I've actually loved those beauty commercials, and I love seeing the magazines, and I always aspired to look like them. But deep down inside, they always made me feel like I wasn't enough. 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? What if I could actually figure out how to do it, which I had no idea how, and I had no money. It 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 every grown woman who still does.

And that deep source of pain from how I was feeling not enough and what could I do about it? That in my opinion, is one of the strongest ways to find your purpose. 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-Lema. So again, I like to unpack these things to make sure this is a... I always say this is not just a listening podcast, it's a doing podcast. It's a doing podcast. I want to make sure nobody's left behind. And there was billions of dollars worth of wisdom that you just dropped. I want to try to unpack it for anybody that is listening to this, and you have this sense that you're made for more. So one 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. 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 set up for something new. Then get out of your own selfish or self-loathing or the self-excuses and the self-pity and remind yourself that there are 8 billion people on this planet now. There are There are people that are dealing with this.

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 going to help other people. And I also want to point something out that Jamie will not tell you, but I sure as hell will, and that is that this was about 14 It was 10 or 15 years ago. We're talking 2007, 2008, correct? In my opinion, Jamie Kern-Lema is the reason why we have this real beauty movement. There always has to be the first person, and she was it. When you look around 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 going to 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. Jamie, let's pick up the story because how do you go from this aha moment, like, Oh, my God, oh, my God, oh, my God, to doing something? Because I think some of us have aha moments, right? Yes.

And then we doubt them. But we don't 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 a way you want to show up in the world, or someone else you want to help, but you think, Oh, someone's already done But literally, there's only one of you in the entire universe, which by definition means no one has ever done it the way you're going to do it. So when I launch this- Say that again, Jamie, for the people that are like, Whoa, whoa, whoa, kids, calm down.

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. Someone's already done it before, who must be smarter than me or I'm more talented or more whatever it is than me. And what I have learned and then proven, and I want to tell you, too, about all... I'm going to get so excited. Mel, because no, when you do this thing, 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 one of you. There's only one of you doing it the way you're going to do it. But just to recap that, there is literally only one of you in the entire universe, right? And so if you are you're going to 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 in my case, all the experts I put on pedestals all said no, that this idea 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.

But can I ask you a question How did you go from the Aha to starting? So what did that look like? Because I think if you're in this space where, let's just use an example, you've never actually You don't know the first... You have this thing about catering, that you just can't get it out of your head. You want to do these events. You've never actually done this because you had never done anything with makeup. You had no idea what you were You have an idea, and you have an aha moment. 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 it felt like it was going to be part of my purpose, was a big thing that helped me actually take the risk, quit my job.

Wait, you quit your job because you had an aha moment?

Yeah, it was deep. I was like, if I had- What did it feel 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 doesn't feel like it went how I thought it was. 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 one, I was all in. I dove all in. I knew if I was going to do this, I needed to just go all in on it. I do not recommend this, but I started working like 100-hour weeks from the beginning. I was so freaking passionate about it. I couldn't stop thinking about, what if I can actually figure this out? What if I can literally... Because it became a big dream.

So did you have any savings? Do you have a little bit of savings? Very little savings. Because you didn't pay your sofa the first three years that you did this.

First three years. So basically, my husband and I wrote this business plan, right? Yeah. Quit our jobs, dove all in in our living room. We poured all of our savings into it. I thought, Mel, and this is for someone watching us right now, I know this. I thought, if I can figure the product out, it's going to be huge.

Right.

And then I realized, oh, being an entrepreneur or launching a dream is not always that easy. We I poured every penny we had into it. And once we actually created a product. And we were scrappy.

If you want to know how- And how did you create a product? Are you in your kitchen buying stuff at the grocery store? Or how does this even work?

Okay. No. So first, I love that technology is right there. So researching, how are make-up 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 manufacturers are our makeup company's closest held secrets. 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. Got you.

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. Got you. So what I did was scrappy. I walked into a Sephora I wrote down the name of every single brand in there, went home. I had no money, right? Cold call every single brand and saying, Oh, I'm looking for a really great manufacturer. Could you let me know who you manu... And then they hang up on me. You know what I mean? One after another, after another, after another. And I got this really small brand in a totally different 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, They had no money, poured this idea out to them. They took a risk making me samples, and that's how it started, was just really being scrappy and trying to figure it out. All of our money had went into the product development formula and the advisory board of the product. I thought, Okay, now we have a product that works for me. This was after hundreds of formula iterations.

I thought that was going to be it.

So is this year one or year two? How long did this take?

Yeah, it took a good first to get that product. And then what I started doing was sending it to everyone I thought was just going to believe in me instantly. I sent it to Sephora and Ulta Beauty and all the department stores and all of the online retailers, QVC, which is live television shopping channel. I thought, Oh, my gosh, this is going to be huge. Every single one of them said no, after no, after no, after no. And to your point, it became three years of not being able to pay myself, three years of hundreds and hundreds and hundreds of nos, of crying myself to sleep at night.

Were you and your husband fighting like crazy? You should go back to work. But why do we do that? Were you doing that?

You want to know what it was? We still believed in it, but we weren't sure how we were going to 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? It's been three years. So you hear all of this, the voices get so loud. The loudest, though, were my own self-doubt. Sometimes 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 another brutal no from Sephora or QVC or whoever it was, and I would just literally cry myself to sleep.

What do you think are the reasons we doubt ourselves, or what do you think is the steps to gaining more confidence in ourselves when we So I always thought that confidence was a thing that you feel.

And I have come to prefer that confidence is something that you do, meaning that a lot of people like to think, okay, well, you're going to feel confident first, and then once you feel confident, then you'll take the action. And that's wrong.

It's not a chicken or an egg in my mind.

I think what happens is you have to force yourself in a moment of self doubt to do something.

And when you see yourself taking action, the confidence follows.

So I have created my own definition of confidence, which is confidence is the willingness to to try. And you display the willingness to try when you take action. It's a lot like the relationship between courage and fear. You can't have courage without fear. Courage isn't the absence of fear. It's acting in the face of it. And confidence isn't the absence of self doubt. It's being willing to try, even though you doubt yourself.

So That's beautiful. That's going in the book. I'm quoting you in the book.

Take it, baby.

Make it your own.

I love that. That's powerful. Yeah. And I think, I'm sure you probably... We're very similar in the sense that we do a lot, and we build confidence because we would take action. You in law school and public defending and all these different things you've done, which like, okay, I'm afraid, but let me go do it and do it. And now, okay, I'm getting better. Now I feel more confident. It's not just, let me learn something or let me read a book, and now I'm confident in a skill that I haven't applied, I must apply it and fail a bunch and realize, okay, I've gotten better. I have fallen over and over, and now I'm standing, and I'm actually doing okay, and I'm doing even better now. Let me build my confidence there. Yes.

And look, here's the thing.

I think that preparation and studying something so that you feel like you have an understanding of something can be an important first thing that you try. But don't Don't let the studying of something become the reason why you don't actually take the next action.

Well, I need to get my master's. I need to go to a business school. I need to go to whatever and then never actually do it. When you can start doing something much sooner before needing to have all the credentials necessarily.

Yes, there's very few things- Except for being a doctor.

Okay, maybe don't do surgery. Correct.

Yeah, a chemist, a doctor, something that requires you to actually have accreditation and specialized knowledge, an engineer, whatever. But most things that you will master in life will not be mastered by reading a book. You cannot learn how to ride a bike by reading about it. You have to get your ass on that seat and find your balance. That's how you find balance is by falling. Because balance is somewhere in between not being on the bike and falling, or being on the bike and falling, rather.

That's beautiful. Hi, Mel.

My name is Tanesha. I'm a first-generation college graduate, and soon to be, law school graduate, I hope. I need your help because my self-doubt is starting to overwhelm me. I have dreamt about being a lawyer since I was three years old. I took out loans and I bet on myself that I could be the first in my family to really push the needle and graduate from law school. But I've recently lost my mom to lung cancer, and I cannot even describe the pain and grief and doubt. This would be a time I talk to my mom and ask her for advice, but I can't, so I figured I'd ask I'm so close to the end of law school, but I'm filled with so much self-doubt and overwhelm, and I'm struggling to figure everything out, and I wonder if I should finish or just drop out. So, Tanesha, I'm so glad you asked me, and I want to start with one particular sentence, and that is this. This would be a time I'd talk to my mom to ask her for advice, but I can't. I actually don't think that's true. I realize that your mom has passed away, but she's still here.

And I bet if you were to close your eyes and you were to think about her and you were to ask her what you should do, I guarantee you you know what the answer is. And being a mother, I can also tell you that Every mother lives and dies to see their child achieve their dreams. That is exactly what you want for your children. And so I guarantee you, if you get really still and you close your eyes and you think about your mom and you ask her that question, you will get the answer. Keep going. Don't give up on your dreams. You made your mother so proud, and you are going to continue to make your mother so proud. And even though she's not physically here, you know darn well she is here with you because you can feel her, you can sense her guidance. And here's the thing about dreams. If you've had a dream of being a lawyer since you were a little, little, little girl, I guarantee you you were born with that dream woven into your DNA. You see, See, dreams are deeply personal. That's why you can be super little and be drawn to something like being a lawyer and have no explanation for why.

And this is important for you to understand, because if you give up on your dreams, your dream is going to haunt you. See, it's just not that easy as dropping out of law school. You've always wanted this. You've always worked for this. You've dreamt about this forever, and it's not going to leave you. That's why we I would say, your dreams are in the back of your mind. So you don't have a choice about this. If you've always wanted this, and the death of your mom has overcome you with grief, you have to do two things. Number one, you've got to take care of yourself because you're grieving. And grief can feel like doubt. It can feel like overwhelm, it can feel like anxiety. It can feel like all kinds of things. So you got to take the fact that you're grieving, and that's like riding waves of emotion. And the second thing that you've got to do is you got to keep going. You have got to complete law school. You are so close to finishing, and you've got to complete law school because this is a dream that is personal to you. You will always regret dropping out.

Always. And so for the sake of your dream and for the sake of your mother's memory, I want you to honor both yourself, and I I want you to honor her, and I want you to just keep going. Now, that said, so we've... Your mother and I agree on this. You're going to finish law school, okay? And you're going to be an amazing lawyer, and you've got an amazing, beautiful life ahead of you. That said, if you're so overcome because you're grieving, then you should go to the dean's office and you should explain what's going on. And if what you actually need is to pause and to just take a break from school for a little bit so you can take care of yourself in the wake of your mother's death, that's very different than quitting law school. That's giving yourself what you need while honoring your dream. Now, I can't answer that question for you. I can only implore you to figure out what you need to do right now in terms of your own grieving process while being responsible for this dream that you better not give up on, young lady, because your mother and I are watching you.

So I want to know when you've completed law school, because we're going to be cheering for you, and I really appreciate you thinking of me for such an important and amazing question.

Hey, it's Mel.

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