Transcript of How Will You Respond To Setbacks? | Mel Robbins

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 Cardleema. 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, 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 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 be 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. I thought I'm saying, you can 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? 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. 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 real, 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's 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, 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 intuition, belief in God, belief that things will turn out. 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 from waitressing at Denny's, pursued a dream that you had of being on television. As a fellow former waitress, I would love How did you start there.

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

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 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. 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. 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. They would take an hour to get pancakes out. 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. So I went I went in to... Did all the jobs, saved up all my money to pay for school, and pushed 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, 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 seasons that feel like setbacks are actually set-ups 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 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 We're interested in Denny's, and it's this. You said our steps are ordered. 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?

I believe everything in life is happening for us, even when it doesn't make I think it makes 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 some job. 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. 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 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 is an incredible purpose. 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 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 it, I took this massive risk, 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 and 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's the thing 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 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. 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 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. Professor of Purpose, Jamie Kern-Lema, right there. That's your takeaway number one. The steps are ordered. Believe in that. This moment is helping you. It's giving you something. 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? Are 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 I'm hearing.

There were moments when I used to be a commentator for CNN, I was pre-menopausal, where I could feel the hot flash coming. Yeah.

I didn't feel it until they said it in my ear, in my earpiece. And then what would start to happen was I would get so nervous and stressed because I kept trying to cover it during commercial breaks. 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. Oh, my God. It started 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. And I took my little The 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. 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.

That was my knowing or this gut feeling. But then my head, Mel, was I'm like, oh, but you got no money, you got no connections, you know 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 the reasons why you're not qualified to do it. Plus, you're in your dream job. And I sat between those two. 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. 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 photoshop, airbrush models. I realized, Mel, like, wow, my whole life, I've actually loved those beauty commercials, and I love seeing magazines, and I always aspired to look like them. 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? What if I could actually figure out how to do it, which I had no idea how, and I had no money. 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. And how 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. Again, I like to unpack these things to make sure. I always say this is not just a listening podcast, it's a doing podcast. I want to make sure nobody's left behind. There was billions of dollars worth of wisdom that you 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. 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. 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 other 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.

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 or 15 years ago. We're talking 2007, 2008, correct? In my opinion, Jamie Kern Lima is the reason You see 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. You've got a woman who is sitting in Seattle, who has no 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 She's going to 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 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. 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 or someone else you want to help, but you think, Oh, someone's already done it. 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. When I launch this- Say that again, Jamie, for the people that are like, Well, 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 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 now because no, when to 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 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 real quick? 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... 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 doing. 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 and why I 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 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, and We were 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. Then I realized, being an entrepreneur or launching a dream is not always that easy. We put every penny we had into it once we actually created a product. We were scrappy.

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

First, I love that technology is right there. 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. Then what I learned is that 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 And the manufacturers work with all the top brands that you see or a handful of them. Got you.

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 there 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 making me samples, and that's how it started, was just really being scrappy and trying to I figured 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.

Is It was like year one or year two? How long did this take?

Yeah, it took a good first year to get that product. 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 and all of the online retailers, QVC, which is live television shopping channel. And I thought, oh, my gosh, this is going to be huge. Every single one of them said no, after no, after no, after no. 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. You should. But why do we do that? Were you doing that?

You want to know what it was? We still believed in it, but we 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 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 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. 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, because I get a lot of questions from listeners who, because of the things that have happened in their past, they don't know how to trust their intuition. I get a lot of questions about decision making and how to truly, in a situation like this, where you are burning through your entire life savings You have left your dream job. You have gotten no after no after no after no, after no, after no. How do you stay connected to your intuition in a like that? What tool do you have or what advice can you give to somebody who's having trouble hearing what the right decision is in that situation?

I think that intuition is like a muscle that we build over time. I think it's a lifelong journey to really learning how to hear it and to trust it. One of the greatest tools, I think, is to go back, think back to times in your life where maybe you had this gut feeling to do something, and everyone around you said, Don't do it. So you listened to them, you didn't trust yourself, and then think about what happened. Then similarly, go back to a time where everyone was like, Oh, uh-uh. No way. No way. And you're like, But I love him. I don't think he's lying. I think his phone really did break five times every weekend. He didn't disappear his phone. Think about that situation when everyone was telling you something, and you didn't listen, or even your gut was telling you, right? And you didn't listen. And you think back to those times, and you start to develop pattern recognition of how it felt in moments in your life when you trusted yourself or didn't and what happened, and you get better attuned to what that feels like.

What does it feel like for you in both situations? Can you describe what it feels like for you when you're like, yes, no, that's a no. And what does it feel like for you when you're I'm sticking with this.

Yeah. Often, it's the tiniest of feelings in my gut, right? Some people describe it as a still small voice. I pray about it. I ask God to give me the answers, and I try to live the answers.

Do you feel the answers that God gives you? Is that what happens for you when you do this?

Right now, when I look at you, right? Yeah. I know you're a beautiful soul, right? I just know it. You know it. You feel it. I feel like you're good. You know what I mean? It's a feeling, right? And We get these feelings, but so much around us is so loud. And we just learn over time. And by the way, not to go, this could be a whole other episode, but especially as women, from the time we're young, we learn not to trust ourselves. We walk in to our parents fighting and we go, Is everything okay? They're like, Everything's great. Everything is great. To protect us, we start to learn to doubt ourselves. You're like, Baloney. Right? But you know, or especially as young girls, you learn to make decisions by consensus often with your friends.

Or making other people happy.

Making other people happy. People pleasing. We're rewarded for pleasing everyone else and almost ignoring what we feel. So if you're someone who's an adult right now going, I don't even know how to hear my own gut or trust myself, that's why we've been trained out of learning how to do it, right? So it takes intentionality and really deciding, oh, you know what? I'm going to put in some time, even if it's five minutes a day, just to thinking about moments in my life where I trusted myself, where I didn't. If you don't remember any of them, start now.

You know what you just inspired me to think about? I don't even know if it's possible to do this, but imagine if you could go through the rest of today and only make decisions that align with what you truly want. If you don't If you're going to go to that party tonight, don't go. If a friend asks you something and you feel obligated, out of guilt, to lend them that thing, don't actually lend them the thing. Eat what you want to eat tonight for dinner. Don't just go to wherever your friends want to go. I think that would be a real eye-opening experiment if you were to do that.

And you start building that muscle, right? And the more you do that, some people don't even pay attention to what they actually want to eat for dinner. They're just like, What sounds good to everyone? But to your point, when you start paying attention, then you also start building that knowing of hearing your own knowing.

Do you think it's possible to discover your unique purpose in life if you are not connected and listening to your intention? And intuition, I mean.

And your own intuition. Here's how I think it's way more likely, and you're going to actually discover more than one purpose often if you're You're really tuned in to your intuition and you're intentional about it. But what I'll say for someone who feels like they can't hear their gut, but they still want to find their purpose. A friend of mine, Rory Vaden, says that your best positioned to serve the person you once were. Trent Shelton, our friend, says, One day, the things you're going through right now will be the things you made it through. What I would say to someone What I'm listening right now is look at something in the past that has broken your heart, that has caused you grief, that has been something that you care deeply about, whether it's positive or negative, that you've gone through, something you care deeply about, or maybe pain you've gone through, something you have made it through. I believe often when we go through the hardest times in our life, it's for one of two reasons. What are they? It is to either equip us with the strength we need to carry the weight of our success that's to come, to carry the weight of our purpose that's to come, or we've gone through these horrible unspeakable times, things we would never want to happen to us again in our life because we're actually going to get our greatest source of fulfillment and purpose by one day helping someone else who's going through them.

I love that saying that you're best equipped to help the person you used to be. I want you to imagine Mel Robbins is giving you a lifetime achievement award. What do you want to thank your sofa? What have you pushed through? Thank your sofa that. What are the things you're chipping away at? Don't you dare forget the one person that knows exactly how hard it was for you to keep showing up. And that's what I want you to learn how to do today with me. You are the only one who knows what it's like to go through what you had to go through. And thanking your sofa everything that you do. That is an example of speaking your truth. You have power. Hey, it's your friend Mel, and welcome to the Mel Robbins podcast. I have been dying to talk to you. So let me back up and tell you what happened. A couple of days ago, I saw something, and ever since, I have been bursting at the seams to tell you about it. I have been holding this in until I could get up here above the garage in Vermont, get on this microphone, get in front of the camera, and share this with you.

Because today, what I want to talk about, it's going to unlock this power that is lying dormant inside you. And yes, you heard me right, you do have power. Even if you're sitting there right now eating cheese curls on the couch, or you're feeling too lazy to get up and do anything today, or you're out there walking the dog, or maybe you're driving home from a job you hate, I don't care where Now, while you're listening to this. You have power. And I'm so excited because I saw something that motivated me, that lit a fire inside me, and it's going to help me show you how to tap into that power hour, and yes, unlock it today, and you need to. But before we jump in, I just want to say thank you. Thank you for being here with me, and thank you for spending your time listening, or maybe you're watching this on YouTube But thank you for spending your time listening or watching something that can change your life. But before we get into this crazy motivational message, I have to ask you something. I love being here with you. Please subscribe. Please subscribe.

My goal is to get 50% of the people that watch this channel to subscribe. Why? It really helps our channel, and it helps me. It allows me to bring you these incredible videos at zero cost. So hit subscribe. Thank you, thank you, thank you. All right, you ready? I cannot wait to tell you this. Let's go to the episode. All right. Are you ready? Okay, good. Because you and I are cooking up something pretty hot today. The topic is something that I knew the second I saw this thing go viral this weekend. So you and I were in the middle of award seasons, right? For movies and for films. And I saw the most incredible acceptance speech. It went crazy viral. You maybe saw it, too. It was this acceptance speech that was delivered by actor Nisi Nass Betz. Now, if you don't know Nessie, don't worry, I'm going to tell you a little bit about her. She is an amazing actor. She's 53 years old, so just two years younger than me, and she's been in the acting game for decades. I want to put this acceptance speech in context. Because Nisi has been nominated five times for a primetime Emmy, and she's never won, which means she has lost four times.

If you're hearing my voice right now, I guarantee you, at some point in your life, you have experienced a string of losses. Maybe you've gone through four relationships in a row that all ended up in a breakup, or maybe you've had four different career changes, or you've tried four different medications, or you've been passed over at work for at least four different types of jobs or promotions, or maybe you've been searching for a house, and you have been turned down four different times. And I say that because I want to put what you're about to hear in context. I want you to think about what it must feel like to be Nisi. Here you are, you're an actor. This is your dream. You're 53 years old. You have been working at your craft day in and day out, and you get nominated for awards. In fact, you get nominated for the Primetime Emmies four times. And four times, you show up, you sit on national television, They got a camera pointed right at your face. You're all dressed up. You're sitting there in the audience. There's all these other actors around. And four times in a row, they announced someone else's name as the winner.

Whoa. Now look, I know you're supposed to be grateful that you're even nominated, right? But can we just be honest among friends here? It freaking sucks to lose. That is not an easy position to be in, right? Because here you are, you're now at the fifth award ceremony. And if I'm Nisi, and I'm sitting there dressed up to the nines, I will be thinking, because I want to manage my disappointment, I'm sitting in the audience and I'm thinking, Then, don't get your hopes up. Just put that expression on your face. Lock in the smile because you know that this is not going to happen. You've experienced this four times where someone else's name is called. And in today's world, I do not want my facial reaction to become some a meme when I'm all disappointed. And then all of a sudden, boom, they announced her name. She wins the Primetime Emmy for Outstanding Support actress for the series, Domer. Here's why I wanted to talk about this. Because when Nisi stepped up to that mic, she was like a heat-seeking missile of motivation. I want you to hear it. I am going to take you through parts of her acceptance and speech step by step, because there is something here for you and me to learn as we listen.

I'm a winner, baby.

Thank you to the most high for this divine moment. Thank you, Ryan Murphy, for seeing me. Netflix, every single person who voted for me. Thank you, my better half who picked me up when I was gutded from this work.

Thank That last sentence is takeaway number one. No one tells you that pursuing the things that you love, pursuing the things that you want to do, pursuing the changes you want to make, there will be days that it guts you. It's true. Do not expect your life to be a cakewalk, and do not expect those changes or the ambitions that you have to be easy or to be fun, because here's what I've learned, and I've learned this the hard way. Nothing Everything in life that is worth doing is a walk in the park. In fact, it's the opposite. The higher the stakes, the bigger the battle. It's important to understand who you're up against. Against who you're battling. Because you want to know who you're not battling? You're not battling other actors. You're not battling other people in your company. You're not battling your friends or anyone in your industry. You are in a battle with yourself. Because here you have all these hopes and dreams, and these expectations, and these ambitions, and that's the future you. That's the future you that sees what's possible. And yet every single day, you have to drag yourself out of bed.

You got to do the work. Then you got to come home. You got to feed the dogs. You got to wash the dishes. You got to pay the bills. And some days, some Some days, turn out pretty amazing, don't they? But a lot of days, they just suck. Some days, you're going to be gutded. If you're fighting that battle right now, and you're working on making changes, or you're going after something, or you're chasing down those ambitions, and let me tell you something, you probably are because you listen to the Mel Robbins podcast. I want you to hear this loud and clear. Expect it to suck. Expect it to be a battle. Expect days where you feel gutded at the end of the day because it is harder than you could possibly imagine. Then you got to do the hard part. You got to get up tomorrow in the morning, and do it again. We don't talk about this part enough, that when the work is worth doing to you, it's hard. Whether the work for you is you're trying to get in better shape, or maybe you're trying to get some aspect of your health under control, or you're trying to write a book, or maybe you are a working actor, or perhaps you want to go back to school and get a degree.

I need you to understand, except from the beginning, this is not going to be cakewalk. Expect a battle. I'm going to talk more about that battle in a minute, but I want to go back to her acceptance speech because she was just getting started. You know who I want to thank?

I to thank me for believing in me and doing what they said I could not do. And I want to say to myself in front of all you beautiful people, Go on, girl, with your bad self. You did that.

I love that. Go on, girl, with your bad self. You did that. You know what else Nisi just did? Nisi just gave you a master class in self esteem. What is self-esteem? Self-esteem is how you value and perceive yourself. And being able to thank your sofa doing the work, being able to thank your sofa believing in your sofa doing what people said you would not be able to do. That's self-esteem. And you and I need to know how to do that for ourselves. Self-esteem is critical because when you value yourself, you not only prop yourself up, but you also pave the way for other people to feel valued, too. You lead by example. Nisi gives a beautiful nod to that at the end of her acceptance speech.

I accept this award on behalf of every Black and Brown woman who has gone unheard, yet overpoliced, like Glenda Cleveland, like Sandra Bland, like Breonna Taylor. As an artist, my job is to speak truth to power, and baby, I'm going to do it to the day I die.

I love that part so much where she says, As an artist, my job is to speak truth to power. Now, here's what I want you to consider. It's not just the job of an artist to speak truth to power. It is the job of each and every one of us to speak our truth. Because it's only through speaking your truth that you unlock your power. And thanking your sofa everything that you do. Thanking yourself. That is an example of speaking your truth. Thanking your sofa fighting the battles that you fight, for picking yourself up when you feel gutted, for opening your mouth and saying what needs to be said. That is exactly how that power that's inside you, you know it's in there. That's how that power gets unleashed. One of the big takeaways for me in really experiencing the force that she was in that moment, you can feel it coming through that microphone, right? Is just notice how powerful it is to hear someone thank themselves. I mean, you don't hear that, do you? You don't ever hear somebody say that. And you're so quick to give the thanks to everybody else, to give all the credit away.

Yeah, You should thank people that help you. But don't you dare forget the one person that knows exactly how hard it was for you to keep showing up. And that's what I want you to learn how to do today with me. You need to learn to thank yourself in the moments when you're winning, and you got to learn how to thank yourself in the moments where you feel gutted. Now, here's what's interesting. The second niecey stepped off the stage, everyone was so blown away by her force and her presence and her passion and her words on stage that almost immediately she was asked by an interviewer, Nisi, why was it so important for you to take that moment? Well, I'll tell you what. If you thought that moment she shared on stage was powerful, you better stick around because it was nothing compared to what she said next. Stay with me. You know who I want to thank?

I want to thank me.

That was Nisi Nashbeth Nassbets, an actor accepting the Primetime Emmy Award for Best Supporting Actress. I'm Mel Robbins. I'm so glad that you're here with me today because we are talking about the importance of self-esteem. As far as I'm concerned, Nisi Ashbets just gave a master class in it in her acceptance speech, and I'm unpacking the lessons step by step. We've already talked about what she said on stage, but what I find more interesting is that when she got off stage and somebody put a microphone in front of her and said, During your acceptance speech, you thanked yourself, you gave yourself the recognition you deserve, which is something that women, especially Black women, can struggle to do. Why is it important for you to take that moment? I really want you to pay attention to what she said.

I'm the only one who knows what it cost me. I'm the only one who knows how many nights I cried because I couldn't be seen for a certain type a row. I'm the one who knows what it's like to go through divorce on camera and still have to pull up and show out, and you still got to go home. You had children in a whole life.

Now, if you're watching on YouTube, you can see me nodding right now, but I guarantee as you're hearing my words and you're listening with me right now, you are nodding along. I'm the only one who knows what it cost me. I'm the only one who knows what it's like to go through what I had to go through, to be here in this moment. And you are the only one who knows what it's like to be you. You are the only one who knows what it's like to go through what you had to go through, for you to be here with me in this very moment. It's so easy to forget that people only see what you're doing on the outside. Nobody but you knows the battle that you've been fighting on the inside. For anybody that's stuck, the first thing you just revealed is you're actually not stuck. You're highly motivated. You're in conflict. And what is the next thing you need to do? If you don't want to stay in that conflict with yourself, where I'm motivated not to make waves, I'm motivated not to go to the gym, I'm motivated to not try to fix this thing and just stay pissed off where I am, what is the next thing once you realize, Oh, wait a minute, I'm not stuck.

I'm in this highly negative motivated place.

So the beautiful thing is that everyone assumes there's a next thing.

Uh-oh.

So science even tells us, and this is what the yogis tell us, that awareness precedes control. So technically, all you need to do is be aware of the conflict. So if you look at the actual... I know people are going to not believe this.

Everyone's like, Dr. K, I don't want to know this. Okay, keep going.

So we're aware- We're going to give you neuroscience research to back this up. Okay, let's hear it. So awareness, technically, all you need is awareness. So let's understand the experience of someone who is stuck, okay? So you want to do something and something arises within you. You get caught off guard, right? This is a positive thing. This will make me feel good. I went on this date, I don't even feel good about myself. I'm lonely. Let me go out and make friends. I go outside. Now I'm socially anxious. I don't want to be here. I'm burnt out. I'm an introvert. Let me go back home. So we're just getting ping-ponged around by ourselves. And we dilute ourselves into thinking that going out is going to fix our loneliness. We don't I think about how it's just going to increase my social anxiety. This is what stuckness is. It's a lot of irrelevant movement. So awareness is the most important thing. And this is what we see in motivational. This is what I see in patience. See, once you understand something, then the body and the brain will act normally. The whole problem is that when we focus on addictions, for example, we focus on insight.

We focus on helping people understand what is the consequence of your addiction. It is an internal understanding. So if I ask you, Mel, if you touch a hot pan and you get burned, you understand that this causes pain. Yes. The problem is that for many of our behaviors, we don't actually have a good understanding of what the consequences are. We're confused because we're like, why do I keep drinking? Why do I never go to the gym? This causes me suffering. But the reason you keep doing it is because you're fucking motivated to do it because of something else that you are ignorant of. So everything that we do is driven by our motivation, and we are ignorant of that fact. So So awareness is technically enough. There's also a really fascinating study about the anterior cingulate cortex, which shows that what we perceive as willpower, technically in the brain, this is going to sound confusing, is monitoring of conflict. So anytime our brain is monitoring a conflict, this is the same thing as willpower. We think about willpower as overcoming a conflict, but technically, if you look at it, the part of the brain that exerts willpower is a monitoring conflict.

I know this sounds weird, but I want everyone who's listening to really pay attention to this. I want you to really think about this. When you are trying to exert willpower, there is a struggle. In the moment that you fail, you stop paying attention to the conflict. If you really pay attention, you will find that as long as you are conflicted, the willpower is active. That's why you're conflicted. But the moment that you give up, the moment the willpower wins or loses, the conflict disappears.

The only way that you can actually increase your willpower is by forcing yourself to do things that make you stay in conflict. So if you If you force yourself to go to the gym today, if you force yourself to not have a drink at happy hour, if you force yourself to sit in the stacks in the library and study chemistry for two hours, even though you don't want to, even though it's hard, even though it's painful, I think about this when I climb into the ice barrel, I hate doing it. I feel that conflict that you're talking about in my body and brain as I'm walking to the barrel, as I'm taking off my sweatshirt, as I'm stepping into the icy cold water. I freaking hate it. The conflict itself and that wrestling with it is what's making you stronger. Isn't that right?

That is willpower. Let's stop and think about your experience. You're walking, Walking conflict, conflict, conflict, conflict.

Well, the second I think about it, I'm like, I got to do this thing today. It begins there. It begins like an hour before I even do the damn thing.

And so then you're monitoring the conflict, monitoring the conflict, monitoring the conflict. And as long as you're monitoring... So notice that even in your example, you didn't decide to go in. Do you see that?

What do you mean? No.

So you said, I don't want to do this. I don't want to do this. I don't want to do this. And then you get in. Technically, you didn't... What most people perceive, I know it's so weird. Most Most people perceive that, okay, you make a decision, and then you're calm, and then you go do the thing. That's not what happens. No. You're conflicted, conflicted, conflicted until it happens. You don't make a decision. You're just monitoring the conflict, monitoring conflict, monitoring conflict, and then the thing happens.

I just got something. I think for my whole life, I have looked at people that have discipline and willpower as people who can calmly, without any conflict, walk up to an ice barrel and calmly sit in, or who can calmly see that it's raining outside or hailing and still go for that run. And I think that willpower means that they somehow can do these things that are very difficult without any internal friction. What you just taught me, Dr. K, is you just taught us, no, willpower is conflict and the ability to stay in it.

Yes. So once you have an understanding of something, then it's easy to do the right thing or not do the right thing. So I work with people who are addicted, right? So they'll say for the first couple For a couple of years, it's hard. And oftentimes, they'll have a moment where they have this flash of insight. And this is a very common experience for people. Oh, now I get it. This is no longer difficult. Now I get it. This is no longer difficult. Now I get it. This is no longer difficult. That's what we should be cultivating, understanding. Because once the brain truly understands the risk-benefit ratio, once it understands the consequences of your actions. I have patients, for example, who have to eat a particular diet, otherwise they get constipated. And at some point, they recognize the constipation is not worth the dietary choices I make. This is just better for me. This is what I see when it comes to eating healthy, going to the gym. It is about cultivating understanding because then the behavior will flow naturally. What What are the ways in which we can cultivate understanding? So there's one big mistake that most human beings make, which is not dwelling after an action is completed.

And that's a mistake? That's a mistake.

Okay. So what we need to be doing is sitting with the consequences of our actions, whether they're good or bad. This is the other thing that we don't do, very common in imposter syndrome, by the way, is we don't sit with the positive outcomes. So when you do something well, when you get an A, you don't sit down for 15 minutes on a park bench and think to yourself, What did I do to get to this point? How did I get this A? What do I need to improve? What should I be grateful for? Because for a lot of people who are very successful, it's constantly moving goal posts. There's no sense of gratitude. There's no sense of resting. And this is why everyone's so burnt Because no matter how much you get, you have to do better. You got a million followers on Instagram. Now you need two million. You got a two million. You never give yourself a pat on the back. It's always the next thing. It's always the next promotion. We never sit with the consequences of our actions.

Why is this important?

Because there's research that shows that giving your brain time to mull on the consequences of your actions, you don't even need to come to a conclusion or anything like that. This is what's super cool about it. Just giving your brain space to process, reinforces the behavior. In It's in the positive direction, whatever it is. It doesn't matter. If it's a negative behavior, it'll reduce. If it's a positive behavior, it'll increase.

Let's put this into a normal person's life, okay? Okay. Let's use the example of you are focusing on just taking a walk for 30 minutes a day, two day, not worrying about being consistent, not worrying about doing it for 30 days in a row. I'm going to focus on today. I'm going to take a 30-minute walk. If we do the walk, what do you want us to do in terms of to dwell on what we just did.

So for two or three minutes, sit after you're done with the walk or even stop halfway. You don't have to do at the end. Say, How do we feel about this? Was this a good thing? Was this a bad thing? What was hard about it? Just sit and just notice that behavior and let whatever thoughts come, come. The beautiful thing is if you do that, you'll say, It was difficult to do, but I'm really glad I did it. That's where you get behavioral reinforcement. That's when you have an understanding this was worth it.

Let's say the converse happens. You said, Today, I'm going to find time to update my resume because that's what I'm saying I'm going to do. Then the day goes by and you catch yourself at the end of the day and you've been scrolling for two hours, and now you're in that mode where you beat yourself up and you're about to get back in that stuck mode. How do we use dwelling to help us wake up tomorrow and follow through?

See, great Great question. So now what we want to do is when I say dwelling, I mean awareness. So if you trigger your mental habits of beating yourself up, you're not actually learning. You're just going through a mental habit of shame and beating yourself up. Repeating that mental habit is not awareness. It's actually the exact opposite. It's autopilot. So anytime you have a failure, the mind has a tendency to trigger autopilot. Shame, self-blame, blaming other people. If you're a narcissist, you're going to blame other people. So we have these mental habits that we're not actually aware. So what I encourage you to do is if you had a goal for the day that you didn't hit, stop for a second. Let's think, okay, what do you think about this goal? Was this reasonable to do? Where does the desire for this goal come from? What got in the way? And we know this from business perspectives. In medicine, we literally have something called an autopsy, where we sit and we have a postmortem and we look at what went wrong, what went right. This gets applied in the business world, but we don't do in our personal lives.

We default to, I should have done this. Next time, let me fix it. Don't even jump to fixing it. That's too far. Hold on a second. Take a big step back. Was this reasonable in the first place? Because when we jump automatically to fixing it, we are not acknowledging that hungry part of ourself that wants to be better. And so in that wanting signs us up for unreasonable things. So I want to work on the resume. I want that to be done. I want it to be finished. Why do I want it to be finished? Because I'm tired of having this hang over my head. I see. So your motivation to finish the resume is running away from negativity. If your motivation is running away from negativity and you sit down and work at your resume, is it joyful? Are you having a blast? No, that induces negativity. So now we're ping-ponging between negativity and negativity. And then something beautiful will happen. As you go through this awareness process, you look at this and then you realize in your mind, Okay, there's no way to win this because it's all negative. So now I have a choice.

Do I want to be negative for one day, or do I want to be negative every day until this gets done? And then they will finish the resume. It'll happen so naturally. It'll happen so effortlessly. And so many people, you'll understand this, that if you really look at your life, there are things that are hard for you, but one day it becomes easy. One day your mind just understands, Oh, my God, this is idiotic. This relationship is not working. And then we default to self-blame there, too. So it's awareness. Hold on a second. Notice your reactions to things. Don't even try to steer yourself a particular way. And The more that we notice our reactions, the more that they melt away.

And the more your resistance to doing what needs to get done melts away and the obvious rises to the top. That is detachment.

The resistance to the difficult thing. Because if we think about what is resistance, it is being attached to the opposite. So I resist going to the gym because I'm attached to not feeling embarrassed because everyone else is in shape. It is my attachment to feeling embarrassment. I don't want to feel. It's the avoidance of the negative thing is what I'm attached to, so I can't do the correct behavior.

What you're teaching us to do is to tap into the deeper our wiring and mechanism of the brain and the body to have it help us move toward the things that we want to feel in our life and that we want to be doing in our lives instead of being in a constant state of conflict with ourselves and feeling out of control. Mel, have you any idea what it's like to hear and read what you're saying, but my mind is still beating me down? I know exactly what that feels like. I know exactly what that feels like, and this is going to be the last question. Thank you. This is one from LinkedIn, and this also goes to another question from LinkedIn, how does one keep the faith if confidence is an issue? This is all tied together because confidence is about your belief in self and your willingness to try new things and your willingness to believe that things are going to work out, and your willingness to believe that through your efforts and through your attitude that you can make a difference in things. And I'll tell you, so many of you probably have followed me for a while, or if you're new to following me, you see a 53-year-old woman who's wildly successful, who is outwardly super positive, who's traveling around the world, who's impacting people's lives, who has a best-selling book, blah, blah, blah, blah, But it wasn't until April of 2020, at a very low moment, when I stumbled into this thing I call the high five habit, that I learned the secret to truly loving and accepting myself.

I have been very busy for the last 10 years, changing my life, building a business, clawing our way out of nearly a million dollars in debt, and going on to make more money than I ever thought possible. I have been busy doing the work to build that business, to get into therapy, to work on my trauma, to become a better person. But I never, ever, ever could figure out how to get down to the core issue that was making me unhappy, because it didn't matter what I did, you guys. It was never enough. 111 speeches a year, becoming the most booked female speaker in the world, not enough. The five-second rule, self-published, became the number one self-published audiobook in the history of audiobooks Not enough. The Five Second Rule book sold 2 million copies, self-published. It's translated into 36 languages, not enough. Landing a daytime syndicated talk show, not enough. Celebrating 25 years of marriage, not enough. Why? The reason why I never felt like anything I did was enough. The reason why I never felt like I could ever slow down is because I would look in the mirror and see a woman that was not enough.

I would look in the mirror and focus on the things that I hated about myself. I would look in the mirror and I would laser in on what was wrong. And because I had that habit of being focused on what I hated about myself or judged about myself. Guess what? That habit of self-rejection, that habit of focusing on fixing and on negativity, it became my default. I then carried that into my day. So I could barely even see all the amazing things that were going on because I was every morning training my own mind to focus on rejecting something I didn't like. Focus on the things that aren't working. Always feel like it's not enough. And if you stand in the mirror, this makes sense. Your relationship with yourself determines your whole experience of your life, everybody. How you view yourself is the lens through which you view the whole world. Let me show you something. So my lenses are clear. I practice the high five habit, right? I practice the high five habit. The high five habit has broken the habit of self-rejection. The high five habit, high fiving myself in the mirror, has reprogrammed the default settings in my mind, raising my hand and making me making me feel the celebration, making me feel the optimism and resilience to go play a cool game, the acceptance of where I am.

It has fundamentally rewired my mind, everybody. I don't look in the mirror and see a human being I hate. Do you know how that's changed everything? I see a human being I love and that I'm rooting for. It doesn't mean I'm perfect. It doesn't mean there aren't things every single day that go wrong. But it means that my resting mental state is compassion, support, and encouragement, the foundation of love. And that has fundamentally changed my whole experience of life, because I no longer have this grinding sense that something's wrong or grinding hatred of the little things I'm doing wrong. I approach things with a sense of optimism, encouragement, and compassion. It's very simple. The high five habit clears your vision. The high five habit allows you to see things as they are and to still accept, support, and encourage yourself. I used to have an experience where I looked at the world with glasses on. When I look through these glasses, everything is shaded through the lens I'm viewing it. Everything looks pink right now. The glasses that I used to wear that filtered the whole world, everybody, was, what am I doing wrong? Everything's my fault.

Nothing is ever going to work out for me. When you have that as a belief, you then look through the world. You look through that filter and it shades everything. Everything's going wrong. Everything's my fault. Nothing works out for me. And so everything that I experience starts to feel that way. I miss a dentist appointment, everything's wrong. I do everything wrong. Everything's my fault. When you do the high five habit, it's a whole different thing. I miss the dentist appointment, Oh, I missed a dentist appointment. I missed a dentist appointment. It's a fact. But since my mind is clear of all that crap from the past, I literally can look at that and Today, compassion, empathy, understanding, love, support. I missed a dentist appointment, so I reschedule it. I pay the $25 fee. I can go through my life without adding the pound down that comes from years and years and years and years and years and years of telling yourself something negative. The high five habit helps you remove those glasses so you can see things clearly, and you can see yourself. And who you are is a person that deserves support, deserves celebration, deserves empowerment, encouragement.

That's who you are. You are hardwired for love. You are hardwired for inspiration. You are hardwired for growth and connection. And it is high time that you start to see that and celebrate that shit. What does that mean to you, Chana? What are you going to do about it?

So here's the thing. When I think about the question, how are you really or how am I really? Most of us don't want to answer it because we know if we're honest and the answer is, I'm not okay, or I'm not happy, or I'm not good, then we have to do something about it. It's like we have to confront that reality, and that's what will set you free, really. One of the things that I think it's wrong so often in this world with so much information is that we try to go so big, so fast, that all of a sudden when we crash, we say, Why did I ever think I could do that? Who was I to think I could follow through? Who was I to think that I could start the business or lose the weight or get healthier or seek out the relationship? And what we're forgetting is that if we can start to make the smallest progress Progress, like progress that no one can see, progress that isn't Instagramable, progress that just simply proves to ourselves that we are actually following through, that we are actually progressing and moving forward, that we are actually capable.

It's like we're strengthened, and when we're strengthened, the confidence shows up. And when we're confident, we show up in a different way. And when we show up in a different way, we change. When we change, everything happens. And so it's like we live in a world that literally wants everything to be pretty, and we want it to be showcased. It's like, imagine if you and I were sitting in Vermont and I was like, hey, Mel, let's go grab some chairs and watch this tree grow. It would be so boring, right? Nobody would do it. Because on the outside, what we see, we're not seeing anything happening. But underneath the surface, those roots are strengthening and lengthening and growing and reaching and giving this growth the roots that it needs to be sustained. To me, it's like when we When we think about what are we going to do about it, we often try to go big. We go too big. Then we live in this shame cycle that we didn't follow through, that, of course, we weren't able to do it, when in reality, we need to make such tiny little actions. There's a quote in the book that talks from B.

J. Fogg, where it's like, Pick the most minuscule, tiny little steps to progress so that you can build up your belief in yourself. Because the way you show up to battles is directly linked to the warrior you believe you are. And most people don't even feel like a warrior today. Most people don't even feel like they can show up to the battle. And so it's like, how do we build up our confidence through such infinitely small progress, progress that no one else will see, but that we can feel. That's what I think is the difference.

I've been working on something that I don't think anybody can see. I've started to notice after a couple of years of therapy and all these big changes that I put into place, and I wasn't even aware of it. And heck, this is even like with the high five habit that I started to break through the self-criticism, and the high five habit profoundly changed how I see myself. But I still had a layer deeper, Jenna, a dialog that I think is generational in the women in my life of being in conflict about what's going on and simultaneously feeling grief and regret. I've been really blown away and really sad by how much I've tortured myself because I have this habit of focusing on what's wrong and focusing on what I didn't do in the past. And I live there because the women in my life, my grandmother's, my mom, that's their negative mental experience. And so I every day, and none of you I can see this, I catch myself going there. I catch myself slowly torturing myself that where I am isn't the right place, that what I'm doing isn't the right thing. And it is robbing me of what you said which is creating fat minutes where you can feel the full 60 seconds and be present to it.

And so this is something, everybody, that I am working on every single day that nobody can see. It's like when you're doing sit-ups for the first time, you're not going to see any change in the mirror for probably eight weeks. And I think the same is true for me, and the incremental stuff that I'm doing, the what are you going to do about it? How are you really? Because the truth is, how am I really? Is I'm doing all this stuff, but in here, I'm torturing myself because of old mental habits. And I'm committed to catching it and noticing it. And then all I do to break that apart, Jenna, is I try to have what you call a that minute. I try to just go, Where am I?

Yes.

It's all about awareness. What's so crazy is that for so long, I totally believe that I could never meditate. I was like, My brain doesn't work that way. I can't slow it down. I can't not think of anything. I thought that meditating was emptying your mind when in reality, it's just having an awareness for your thoughts. And when I shifted it, I am obsessed with meditation. Before I went on the Today show, I freaking meditated. I was like, who am I? I don't even understand. But it's wild how much of our lives we go through without noticing, whether it's the people, the feelings, how we're really Our thoughts, our narratives, the things that we're being ourselves at work, we go through and we just don't even notice. We don't even feel it. There's a chapter in my book about feeling your feelings. It's not about just letting happiness be the destination in our life. It's moving through life We're not going to live with this richness of feeling our feelings. Our feelings are communicating things to us. And so it is. It's all about awareness. And it's like when you start to pay attention, man, your life becomes more vibrant.

And that richness of the vibrancy, even the highs and lows, it makes you feel your life. It makes you awake to it in a totally different way. I love that.

I want to just say one thing about that.

Do you need to pick somebody up from the airport? I'm slightly concerned here.

Yeah, I do. It's okay. She'll just start anxiety calling, and she started calling in. She's calling Chris. She has to get her. It's all good. We're going to get her. And in the middle of the panic attack, by the way, the ember is flaming because she's like, Oh, and can we stop at Jabbajus and get coffee? I'm like, Oh, okay. Here's one thing I want to say about that. Feeling your feelings can be terrifying for those of us like me who have spent a lifetime keeping themselves busy or drunk at night. Not drunk, but buzzed. So that I didn't have to feel. I think one of the reasons why when I really figured out what I was passionate about, writing, coaching, speaking, that I threw myself into it is because when I was focused on something, my feelings and my mind wasn't spinning. And And so I've been doing everything and how are you really? And the slowing down, the getting back into my life, the being honest with myself about how the busyness was really not making me happy. And I will tell you guys that when you start to slow down and you start to truly feel what's there that you've been noneing or running away from or arguing against, that bridge between the old you and the transition to truly that ember inside you of how you want to feel in your life, which is in it and present to it.

Crossing that bridge can be terrifying, but you can do it. It goes back to what we started in the very beginning. There is an ember that's burning inside you, even if you feel like a burnt, toast, piece of crisp pile of ashes. I hope that this conversation has fanned so that you feel it burning a little bit, a little bit of yearning. The book is, How Are You Really? My friend is Jenna. First of all, it would be really smart of me to write down a long list of what I want in this next chapter of my life, for real, and the why. And you explain that in the example around legacy. So if what I'm really after is more peace, a hell of a lot more fun and a greater impact with more ease. I need to unpack what does that actually mean, and get very clear about the why. And I know that the why has to do with more time with family, more time with friends, more time and space to do bigger thinking instead of racing around being busy. The second thing that I got out of this is very radical.

And that is when the fear, or the anxiety, or the worry, or the self-doubt, that little... We're going to talk about the negative bitch first before we talk about the whisper. The negative bitch in your head is just your ego trying to protect you. And so when that anxiety comes up or I wake up and I feel like that hot lava on my neck and my thoughts start to swirl, don't try to outrun it. Face the bitch and be like, All right, bitch. Oh, you You think I'm going to be lonely in a mountain because I'm lonely and suburbient. You think I'm not going to have any friends there because I don't have friends here? Okay, you think I'm not going to be successful doing it there because I'm not like, Okay, okay. And hear it. And then the way that you take the bitch and your flipper and to your best friend is you say, what is this trying to warn me? What is this trying to coach me? What are the things that it's saying? Hey, if you're going to go do this, just know that you might feel lonely, and that's okay.

So what are you going to do If you're going to go do this, just know that you should probably reach out to friends that are doing podcasts from remote places. If you're going to do this so that you know what steps to take, and it's in taking the steps forward to prepare for plan B so that you got a plan for when that stuff happens that is going to allow you to access the radical confidence, which feels radical in a moment where you're doubting yourself. And you just keep pushing forward, and you do it over and over and over and over and over again. Because you know what's interesting is you also said this thing about the whisper, that the things that are meant for you and the things that are true begin as a whisper. And when you really start to hear the whisper, whether it's, I'm going to sign up for this program, even though it scares me, or I'm going to not have kids and sit down with my spouse, even though it scares me, or I'm going to make a major your life change, and it scares me. As you start to hear the whisper, I think there's a pretty close period of time where that whisper turns into a fucking bitch.

Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Right? Well, because she's like, hang on a minute, you're freaking ignoring me. Let me get my megaphone so that you don't.

Yes. Yeah. Yeah. Wow.

And then that last piece is making sure that you understand why you feel the way you do actually, Mel. Because you even said your Your parents never moved out of the house that you were born in, correct? Your grandparents never did. So you have a somewhat... It seems like a belief system that holding onto the house that maybe your kids were brought up in It's something may, and I don't want to speak for you, but maybe something you feel like you should do, or maybe feel like it's something that you saw your parents do, and now you're actually breaking that pattern. And for me, it was the same. My entire... And my literally, my My grandparents, my mom, everyone ended up basically thinking that I would be this stay at home wife, or I would be a mother. And in order for me to listen to the silence and break that, I had to say, oh, it's because I believe that this was what was going to happen. I never questioned it. So I don't know if you've ever questioned whether the house that you're in, whether it should be something that you should be in for the the rest of your life, or if it was just a belief system you hold on to.

It's just a belief system I hold on to. I know, just like you knew, at some point, that was where became the truth for you.

Right.

I know that it's the truth. And everybody that knows me well is literally like, I thought you would have sold that house years ago, because with the amount of stuff you're doing, it just doesn't make sense for you to live there. And so like somebody else I all saw it in you.

Yes. Oh, my God. Yes. Exactly. And now, because- Because when I talk to you, and I saw other friends of ours last week because they were visiting Boston, and I was going in the beginning of the in Crest Downfall, and it was Joel Maron and Kat.

And Kat looks at me and she's like, Wait, are we really having this conversation? You're worried about some place in Vermont, whether you're going to live in an apartment, whether you're going to feel... You're Mel fucking Robbins.

What the fuck?

And I'm like, You're right. I know how to do that. Why am I? Because of human, and because your ego comes in, and because if you keep running, this shit will catch up with you. Which is why radical confidence is really about turning and facing it instead of being afraid of it.

And then knowing that the path you choose to take in life will mean that you leave things behind. And that's where the morning piece comes in. It It's like, just because you're making a decision that's right for you shouldn't mean that you shouldn't embrace, that you have to mourn the life that you're leaving behind or the life you thought you were going to live. So maybe, Mel, for when you had your kids, and I, again, don't know, but maybe you're just like, this is the house I'm going to bring them up in. And you've told yourself year after year after year that that's going to be the house. But now you've changed. Now your goals have changed. Now your life has changed. And now your reassessment of that isn't the same with a person who maybe first had those children.

I know what it is. You're giving me another breakthrough. Dude, I need to pay you for this.

I'm here for you. You're my bestie. You know that.

I literally feel like you just saved me. No offense to SSRIs, but I'm feeling like I'm back. I'm feeling like the woman that crawled out of the crib this morning and my team had to crop up and be like, Oh, God, Mel is not Mel today. That you have brought me back, woman. 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. I love you. We create these videos for you, so make sure you subscribe.