Transcript of Unlocking Your Unique Path Feat. Jamie Kern Lima | Mel Robbins

This was about 14 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 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 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 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. 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 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. 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 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 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 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 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 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. And then I realized, oh, being an entrepreneur or launching a dream is not always that easy. We put every penny we had into it. And once we actually created a product. 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, so No. So 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 research phase of how does this happen. And 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 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 manoeuv? 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, 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.

Is this year 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 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. 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 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 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. I would pray about it and be like, God, I feel like I'm supposed to be doing this, but nothing is going right.

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. How do you stay connected to your intuition in a situation 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 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. And then similarly, go back to a time where everyone was like, Oh, no way. 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 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 like, 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, 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. And 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 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 want 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 Where 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 really too 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 position 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. And what I would say to someone 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. Yes.

Yes.

So let's go to that moment, Jamie. You're three years in. You've burned through the money. You have been told no by everybody. And even though you have leveraged all of the steps that were ordered along way and like an amazing Denny's waitress, you can talk to anybody. You can hustle. You can figure it out. You have nothing but closed doors in front of you and a ton of product and no money. What is the turning point? Why did you not give up? Yeah.

So two big things happened. The first was in the form of a crazy painful rejection. I thought no. So we got a call from a big potential investor and very famous for launching all these unknown brands and making them big products we all buy in grocery stores. And they got in a hold of our product. And I thought like, oh, if they invest in A, I'm not going to go bankrupt. B, we can leverage their clout to get in these stores. They keep telling me no. I had this whole scenario planned out that was like this pretty woman moment, right? Where I was like, Oh, he's going to save the day. And so we started taking meeting after meeting, and it got down to the final meeting with this huge investment firm. And it was in person. My husband and I actually flew to the meeting, and the head guy was about three feet from me. And his whole team was there who was awesome. I just presented our whole future product pipeline. And he says, You should be I'm proud of this product you've created. It's really, really good. But it's a no, we're going to pass on investing in it.

Cosmetics. I was like, okay, can you tell me why? Because I'm so used to hearing no. I was like, okay, even though really I was devastated.

Well, yeah, because they just led you on and you just went through it. And this was supposed to be the meeting where they're like, let's do this.

I was so hopeful and I was so desperate. And he got very quiet and he says to me, do you want to know? I said, Can you tell me why? And he says to me, Do you want me to be really honest with you? I said, Yes, please. And he got really quiet. And he's like three feet from me in person. And he says, I just don't think women will buy makeup from someone who looks like you with your body and your weight. And when he said that to me, and this is why it was such a big moment for me, when he said that to me, first of all, a lifetime of body doubt and self doubt. I remember it flooding my body all at once. When I looked at him, I actually felt no anger toward him. I felt like I was almost staring my own fear straight in the eye. But when he said those words to me, Mel, and this is when we talk about purpose and intuition, he said, I just don't think women will buy makeup for someone that looks like you with your body and your weight. The second he said that, I felt this feeling in my gut.

I can remember it like it was yesterday, this strong feeling that said he's wrong. I felt it, right? I didn't know how I was going to prove it, but I felt that feeling. What I realized later when I look back at that moment, this guy, this dude, gave me a no, but God gave me a knowing in that moment, in that moment. I believe I believe every one of us has had someone tell us we're not the right fit or no, or you don't have what it takes. Sometimes we're the ones telling ourselves that.

I don't love you anymore. Yes.

But if you get still and you learn to hear your knowing, I believe which one you listen to. If you listen to the no, all the nos, all the rejections, all the self doubt, or you get still and listen to your knowing, whether that's from your own intuition, from your creator, from the universe, whatever speaks to you. But we all have it. We all have it. I believe our life and our purpose and our entire destiny comes down to which one we listen to. Do you listen to the no or do you listen to the knowing?

Okay, I promised a master class. That right there is worth a billion dollars. In life, are you going to listen to the no, or are you going to listen to the knowing inside of you? That's it. As somebody who loves you and as your friend, when you shared that story with me and hearing you tell it again right now, I literally go, I'm going to kill that motherfucker. I have that. My knowing goes, Oh, yeah? You think, okay? Okay? Let me show you. I get that mojo thing going when somebody says no like that at a moment like that. It's like, I'll show you. I guess I just got in this moment, this wake up call that my knowing often feels like, I'll show you. You missed out. You'll be sorry. What does yours sound like?

And it's almost always true. That's almost always true, right?

What does yours sound like? So is yours like, or is it more of like- I mean, in that case, I was devastated and at the same time had this strong...

It was just a peace. Honestly, in that moment, it was a peace, he's wrong. And that didn't make sense in my head. Why? Because I had had three years of hundreds of rejections. And this is the thing, right? Jake Azee says, The genius thing we did was we didn't give up. That's one of my favorite quotes of his. In that moment, everything told me to give up, Mel. I mean, it was hundreds of rejections. And now it felt like my last hope of desperation told me something totally different. No, because not only do I not believe in anything you're doing necessarily, but I actually just think you're personally not the right fit. Women just won't buy makeup from me. It was just like, oh, my gosh. It was like all of these nos everywhere. And I want to share that because it's easy for someone to go, oh, wow, she built a billion dollar company. She must have just got lucky, or maybe she just had so many connections. We always think, but really what it comes down to sometimes in this In that case, that big moment for me, do you listen to the nos or do you listen to the knowing, right?

And I made that decision that day to trust the knowing, to trust myself. I kept feeling like I was supposed to keep going. I didn't know how, right?

What do you do when you don't even know the next step? You got this jerk who's like, Yeah, they're not going to buy it because of your body type and this, that, and the other thing. You're like, Yeah, you're wrong, motherfucker. But what do you do next?

So the next right step, the next thing that feels right when you I don't even see how the heck it's going to work out.

How do you even determine what the next right step is?

Yeah, for me, I just get still. I pray. I pray. You know that. I pray. But whether for you listening, it's prayer or it's the universe or your intuition When you get still, all you can do is try to listen, right? And try to live that answer, whatever it is, and take that next right step. And I just felt, I just had this knowing I was supposed to keep going. And even when it didn't make sense, and And I remember crying myself to sleep. I remember writing in my journal, Know your why, then fly, girl, fly. And I read those words every day till I didn't need the reminder. I would Google stories of people that had gone through thousands of rejections who no one would know that they went through them because they're so successful today. Or, and I just kept trying to build this toolbox of things I could lean on.

How did QVC come about? Because you You built It Cosmetics, and it became, because of you, the most successful beauty brand on all of QVC. You did over a thousand appearances. So how did you even get on to QVC because that in and of itself is no small feat.

Yeah. Well, their head guy of beauty, who's like a legend, had said no to me many times. No, you're not the right fit. I happened to be at this big beauty Expo.

And was this before or after this guy was like, No, we're not investing? After. After? After. She has now gotten three years of nos. They're almost out of money. Her intuition is knowing that she's going to fly, girl, fly. She is still showing up to a beauty Expo where I want you to understand in the business world, it's like going to a convention where everybody that you have ever fooled around with who has then broken up with you is attended. So everybody that has said no to her, she walks in and it's like, Oh, here's this check again. The It check, right? The It Cosmetic person that has been sending me this stuff and calling me, and we have told her no. Oh, do not make eye contact. So you are now at this thing. I love this thing.

This describes it exactly. You pulled around with, you broke up with you, and they're like, Oh, don't make eye contact.

It's that. Oh, God. This check again with the skin. Okay. So you're at this You've been told no by the big, big, big, big, big person. It's been three years. We're talking like 2011, 2012-ish.

What do you do? So you get this three-foot table, right? It's a huge convention. There's 6,000 women at this convention. They're walking up and down, and it's every beauty brand in the world.

Are they buying it for their stores? No.

So what it is, it was this big Cosmetic Executive Women Awards show. And why you're there is you get a three-foot table, you're demonstrating your product, you're hoping that someone who walks by either wants to carry your product in their stores or all the presses there, they cover your product, or there's also you can win some big award. So I'm there, and then all the brands you can imagine are there. And there's 6,000 women walking. And when I got there, I saw QVC had this huge booth in the background, and you're not allowed to leave your table. I couldn't afford to get kicked out, but I just kept having this feeling like, okay, I've called them a million times. They've told me I know forever, but I've never met anyone in person. So I kept trying to sneak away from my table. And every time I got over there, the buyers would be mobbed with people. I eventually got over there, made my way to one of the buyers, introduced myself, poured my heart out. I remember sweat just dripping through my clothes because I was freaking out down to no money. I'll cut a real long story short, but she gave me her card.

And it's like when someone says, Oh, DM on Instagram. You don't know if they really mean it. Then you're on your Instagram checking your DMs, and you're like, Oh, they still haven't replied. And I thought, Is that what it's going to be like? But she actually meant it. And I flew out, had a meeting with her. We got a yes, my first big yes for one shot on QVC. And what it meant Mel was I was going to get this 10-minute segment live on the air, live in front of 100 Million Homes. And I either had to sell enough product to hit their sales goal or not come back. We were only doing one to two orders a day on our website.

One to two orders a day, everybody. After three years of this. Yeah.

And barely keeping the lights on.

And so now you get your shot. There are those moments in life. You're at bat, and you got to be ready for those. And so put us right there with you. What happened?

Yeah. What happened was I was about to learn one of the greatest life lessons I've ever learned to this day. And here's what I mean by that. I found that I get one shot, and then I learned it's consignment, which means, first of all, I had to sell over 6,000 units of our concealer in this 10-minute window to hit their sales goal or not come back, which was about $130,000 or $140,000 a product in a 10-minute window.

I also want to point out to everybody, that's 10 years of sales on her website at the current amount. In 10 minutes, everybody, she, on live television, has to move 10 years worth of volume she was selling on her website at that time.

In one shot?

In one shot. She'd never done this before. I realized you were a television anchor, but this is a totally different thing.

Well, QVC, it's unlike stores where can walk in and there's thousands of products in one space, their one minute of air time can get one product. You're competing with the volume of Apple iPhone or Dyson vacuum. You have to hit these high sales goals. What I quickly learned was the offer was consignment, which meant I wasn't guaranteed to be paid for it. I had to figure out how to get a loan to cover the cost of manufacturing 6,000 units of product, shipping it in, going through legal, going through QC, going through all of it. And then I learned if I go on air and it doesn't sell, I have to take it all back and therefore go out of business. So you should never, ever, ever accept a purchase order. You can't afford to lose ever. But at this point, it was like, I think I'm I don't know what else to do. This is it. This is the shot. This is it. And so here's what happened. We went to 22 banks that all said no, and they probably should have. The 23rd Bank, which was California Bank & Trust, gave us a loan that covered our very first purchase order and a little bit more.

So I took the a little bit more. We hired third-party consultants. I'm like, I'm going all in. I want to do the best 10 minutes I could possibly do. I want to have no regrets. And they all told me the same thing. Which is? Which is, if you want a chance at making it, here's what you need to do. You need to use this type of model to demonstrate your product, which is flawless skin, early 20s, all the same skin tone. And I'm like, okay, but that's inauthentic. That's not why I'm building this brand. I'm like, what if I put models in their 70s and then and someone with hyperpigmentation and someone with acne? And what if I take my own makeup off on national TV and I could prove live how the product works? And they were mortified. And here's the thing, Mel, they wanted me to win. They were giving me the best advice that they know how.

This had never been done. So is this 2011?

This is 2010.

Yeah, end of 2010. So 2010, everybody. So this was not something people did. We're talking about the person who changed the industry right here, and this is the moment you're hearing it. Everybody that were the experts were saying no, and this goes back to one of the major takeaways that you were learning from our professor of purpose, Jamie Kern-Lema. That is, there's a huge difference between a no and a knowing. If you're the only you that will ever exist, your knowing is the unique difference that you're going to make in this world. And in this moment, with one shot to go, everything on the line, alone from one out of 23 banks that was willing, she said, no way to the freaking experts. And she listened to her knowing. So when you walked into QVC with normal human beings, no flawless models, No one with perfect skin, all ages, all body types. Yeah. Did people say, Wait, you can't take them on the air? Or was there any... Were people like, Oh, this is just going to be terrible? What was that like when you walked in? Did they even know you were going to take your makeup off?

Yeah, I let them know I wanted to. And QVC was great. Here's the thing about QVC is they want everyone to be their authentic selves. It's just this has never been done this way before. Okay. I wish I could say it was easy for me to just go, I'm just going to go with my knowing. But the truth is, I flew out there a week early, Mel. I sat in a rental car in the parking lot, cried every day. I actually second-guessed myself. I'm like, If I do it, maybe I'll do it their way first. Then I'll make money, then I'll do it my way. But I know That authenticity, you can't fake authenticity. And authenticity alone doesn't automatically guarantee success. But what I do know is in authenticity, guarantees failure every time.

Okay, everybody, stop. The professor class is in session. Did you hear that? That in authenticity, being fake, trying to do something everybody else's way because that's just you're too insecure to do it your way, that never guarantees success. Authenticity, your knowing, your special spin on things. That is the pathway to purpose and success. There is no other way. And so after a week of crying in your rental car in the parking lot at QVC, you were like, I'm going with the knowing.

I'm going with the knowing.

Tell us about that first appearance. You're standing there on a television set. There's a bazillion cameras. The lights are bright. You got your models there. You're taking the risk of your lifetime on live television in front of 100 million homes. You are doing something that has never been done on television before.

Yeah. I remember, literally, I wore two pairs of spank smell, not because I cared how I looked, but I was so freaked out. My hands were shaking I was sweating through my clothes. So I had on double spanks under my dress. And I remember the moment the camera went live, right? And there's a big countdown clock on the floor that started at 10 minutes. And by the way, a minute or two before I went on to the set, I learned you're not guaranteed your 10 minutes. Why? If you are a minute or two into your cell and you're not hitting numbers, they know by the second. Your clock, you might think you have eight minutes still to go, and your clock will jump to one or jump to two minutes left.

Because your product's a flop. Yep, exactly. And you're a flop. So you literally are racing against the clock to be successful out of the gate. So what did you do to hook everybody? Did you take your makeup off right away? What did you do?

So first of all, I go live. I remember it was like, 9:59, 9:58. And I remember I had practiced in my bathroom mirror, right? So many times. If I had known the high five habit, then I would have been way more confident. But I was practicing in the bathroom mirror this demonstration a million times on my wrist. Just how our concealer doesn't crease and the best two selling concealer's crease. And I done this demonstration like this where I show it and they all start to crease. So I'm holding my wrist up, trying to do this as we go live to show that... But my hand's like this now. And it was never shaking when I was doing it a million times.

Meaning it wouldn't bend, everybody. She was so anxiety-ridden that she's sweating through her two pairs of spanks, and her wrist will not bend so she cannot demonstrate that her product won't crease.

Yes. And the host grabbed my wrist and was like, Thank you, sugar. And she took over. And then I remember my bright red, bare face before shot coming up on national television. I remember walking over to our models, real women, all shapes, sizes, skin tones, skin challenges, calling And then beautiful, meaning it. I remember- So when did you take your makeup?

When she grabbed your hand and said, Thank you, sugar? Yeah. Yeah. She's so sweet. Did that wake you up or were you like...

Mel, it was like out of my body. I was just praying.

So did you just then take your makeup Well, they did a whole bare face before shot of me for that show.

I have taken it off live a million times since. That first show, it was like, yeah, bare face before shot, and then the after. And I remember walking over to them. I remember we were, gosh, six or seven minutes in. I didn't know how we were doing, but I knew we weren't cut yet. And then it got down to a minute left, and the host said, The deep shade's almost gone. The tan shade's almost sold out. And I was freaking out. And I remember literally right at the 10 minute mark, this giant sold-out sign came up across the screen, and I start crying on national television. Oh, I love you. They cut from me and went to Dyson Vacuum or something. And I remember my husband came rushing through the double doors of the studio, and he has his arms up and I'm just sobbing and I'm like, real women have spoken. And I'm just crying. And I thought he was going to give me a hug or be all excited. And he just looked at me and he's like, we're not going bankrupt. And I was like,. And that one airing, which was September of 2010, became five more that year than 101 the next year.

And then I did 250 live shows a year. Myself, direct live on on on QVC year after year. So we built the biggest beauty brand in QVC's history. And the only reason that I share that is because it was years of no, and you're not the right fit. And what I love for And for anyone listening who needs to hear this is no one can tell you you're not the right fit. No one. And you can get all the nos in the world, but you have your knowing. And by the way, I believe this, Mel. I believe even when you trust your knowing, and then it seems like it was wrong and things don't go your way over and over and over. I look back at those moments, right? I really wanted that investor to invest in us. Thank God he didn't. When I say everything's happening for us, what I What I mean is like, I was so desperate that if he would have invested in us then, I probably would have given him the majority of the company for probably almost no money, right? By the time, many years, six years later, after that day, six years later, when L'Oréal bought this little company and started in my living room for $1.2 billion cash.

I was the largest shareholder. Paula and I were largest shareholders. And I look back and it's like, oh, gosh, thank God, all the nos happened when they did, even when they sucked, even when it felt like it wasn't fair. And I can look at that in many scenarios. Sometimes we don't have some big positive outcome, but we learn a purpose through a no, right? We learn a calling through a no. We learn a lesson. We build strength. We build resiliency. We appreciate the beautiful moments so much more when we've gone through the tough ones.

So have you ever seen that investor since?

I have not seen him. The day that we- Of course, I asked the petty question.

I'm like, Have you ever seen him to twist the little knife in there?

I heard from him one time, ever again, and it was six years later, the day that L'Oréal announced the deal. Because they're a public company, they announced that they had acquired it. Cosmetics made me the first woman to hold a CEO title of a brand in their 107-year history. They did the big press release.

That's It's surprising. 107 years, L'Oréal, a makeup company. It took them that long to have the first female CEO of a brand?

I hope they have many more now. That is my prayer. You were the Trailblazer there, too. It's been so many things. It's been a journey. And here's the thing, Mel, it was another woman inside L'Oréal. It was Carole Hamilton, who was head of luxury for North America. She'd been there, gosh, 30 plus years. And she championed for me to keep my CEO title, all the things. It was another woman saying, oh. And it's funny because I actually think she should have been the first woman. You know what I mean? And I think, again, there's an example, by the way, of I believe, I'm not going to speak for her. I believe she knows. This is my opinion. I think she probably knows she should be the first female CEO. But look how she used what she went through to then, boom, be a purpose and a service and help make sure that I kept my CEO title. Everything we go through. So they announced it, right? So all of a sudden, it was a homepage, Wall Street Journal, the press everywhere. And that was the first time and only time since that I heard from that potential investor.

And what did he say?

He said, Congratulations on the L'Oréal deal. I was wrong. Is what he said, and wish me the best of luck.

That's a big deal to admit you're wrong.

It is. And so when you speak about petty, so what I did say to him was thank you. But what I wanted to say- What did you want to say? So in that moment, here's what I thought about. I thought about, do you remember the movie Pretty Woman where she goes in the store and they wouldn't help her, and then she goes back? Remember when she goes back? Yes. So I wanted to say to him, big mistake. Huge, huge. I could give you 1.2 billion reasons why it was a huge mistake. But I didn't. I wouldn't have wanted to be him in that situation. We probably would have been one of the most successful investments in this firm's history. And so, listen, it wasn't... I always say, Rejection is God's protection so often.

There's another one, everybody. Rejection is God's protection. Today, you and I are going to walk through some of the steps of the hero's journey and how you can use this story archetype as a framework to learn more about yourself than ever before. Because Because the hero is within you, whether you believe it or not. Your life is trying to pull the hero out of you. And the only way you find out more about yourself is if you go on this bigger journey. Not necessarily to save the world like the Avengers do, but perhaps to save yourself. And in doing so, you'll ultimately save the world around you. So what What exactly is the Hero's Journey framework? Well, it was created by Professor Joseph Campbell, and he was a brilliant mythologist who spent his life studying the stories of religions and myths of culture around the world. He had this huge epiphany that there is a common pattern in all of these stories that we love, that there is a narrative that goes way beyond time and culture and the geography of where the story is coming from, that in every single story about a hero, there's the exact the same patterns of steps, things that are universal about the human experience.

And that's what he called the hero's journey. It's a narrative structure that follows the hero as they embark on an adventure, face challenges and trials, undergo personal growth and transformation, and ultimately return home to their community with newfound wisdom or a valuable new treasure. And it's what you see in every single movie that you love. In fact, when Star Wars came out in 1977, it was unlike anything any of us had ever seen before. The story of Luke Skywalker blew the world away. Here's a very interesting fact that you may not know. Can you guess who George Lucas considered his inspiration and his mentor? That's right. Professor Joseph Campbell. See, the hero's journey isn't just a pattern that happens to pop up in all your favorite movies. The hero's journey is the reason why the movies and stories and myths that you love become popular in the first place. You and I absolutely love The Hero's Journey because it always begins with striking out from the safety of your home and searching for your true calling and your larger power. And today, you will realize that this is the story of your life, too. Because you and I are going to break down the framework of the Hero's Journey to help you understand exactly where you are right now as you are living it.

And by the end of our conversation today, my mission is not only to get you to really embrace the simple truth that, yes, just like Luke Skywalker and Milan and Frodo, you are the hero of your own life, and there is a bigger calling for you. But I also am on a mission to make you think about what that calling might be for you. Because the hero's journey isn't just about storytelling or mythology. It's a metaphor for the human experience, for your experience. And it mirrors the journey of discovery and growth that you undertake in your life, whether you realize it or not. It's a guide to understanding change and transformation. And it gives you the insights that you need to overcome any challenge that comes your way. It is the path to reaching your true potential. We're going to talk about the stages of the hero's journey and how you apply them to your life, both to provide deeper meaning to your past, but also, and this is where it gets real fun, to provide a roadmap for your future. Let's start at the beginning. In Joseph Campbell's research and scholarship, there are 17 levels to the hero's journey.

But today, you and I are going to focus on the four most important ones: the ordinary world, the call to adventure, crossing the threshold, and the midpoint. Let's start with the very first phase of the hero's journey, and that's called the ordinary world. Let's think about some of our heroes and our favorite movies and stories, because when you first meet the hero of a story, where are they? They're living a normal boring, irritating life, right? I mean, you may not remember this from Star Wars, but when you first met Luke Skywalker, do you remember where he was living? He was living on the desert planet, Tatooine. And he has no idea who he really is or what the potential of his life is. He's just living a boring life on some desert planet. He's completely unaware of the enormous world that is out there and his role in it. Same thing with Milan. She's living in China, and her sole duty, remember this, was to bring honor to her family by getting married. She has no idea who she really is or what the potential of her life is or what lies beyond the little town that she lives in.

Or what about Lord of the Rings? Same thing, right? Frodo. Where does he live? At the beginning of the movie? Oh, my gosh. He's there with his big feet in the beautiful Shire. He has no desire to leave it. He's completely unaware of the world that's out there. He's never left the Shire? Are you kidding? He doesn't know he's the person that's going to save the world. Neither do you. So how does the ordinary world, this first step of the hero's journey, apply to you? Simple. You have no idea who you really are and what the potential for your life is. I mean, how could you? You only know what you know based on the life that you're living right now. Same with me. The life you're living in this tiny little part of the big, wide world And that's okay. That's okay. I hope our conversation today makes you open your eyes a little wider, makes you look around and consider there's an entire world that you have yet to discover, and there is power and bravery inside of you that you have yet to tap into. And let's think about the next part that happens in every movie.

This is the call to adventure. It's the moment when ordinary life is suddenly disrupted by the call to something greater. Now, in the Lord of the Rings, you remember when this happened, right? Frodo. He's sitting there in the Shire. He has no intention to leave. Who shows up? Gandalf. And next thing you know, he's hearing all about the One Ring and Modor and all the world that is about to be destroyed. Holy cow, talk about a call to adventure. Or Milan. Milan is told she's not worthy of a husband. Remember that? And so she wants to find a way to make her parents proud. And she thinks, Oh, wow. I know how I'm going to make my parents proud. That could be going to war in my dad's place. In Star Wars, Luke discovers a message that's hidden in the droid. Remember that little projected message? Which leads him on the path to becoming a Jedi. Now, let's talk about you and step two of the Hero's Journey, the Call to adventure. Now, Luke and Frodo, they were both lucky enough to have someone actually give them these calls. But your life probably isn't going to work that way.

That said, the Call to adventure is all around you right now. And there are four things you must know in order to recognize it. And before we get to those four things that help you recognize the call to adventure that's right there right now, I want to take a quick pause to call upon our amazing sponsors who bring this podcast to you at zero cost. And while you listen to our sponsors, share this episode with someone who you think is ready for their hero's journey. All right? Good. And don't go anywhere because I'll be waiting for you when we come back. Hey, it's your buddy Mel, and I made this video because I personally believe you are capable of so much more than you give yourself credit for it. I We're here at the Mel Robbins Podcast Studios. This was just part of my imagination three years ago, and now we're dominating the podcast landscape around the planet. How do you do that? Well, the same way you do anything in your life. I want to teach you how to launch yourself, your life, your business, anything in your life forward. I have a six-month-long coaching program that is so extraordinary.

It's called Launch. It's open for registration right now. The next time I'm doing this in 2025, I don't want you to miss out on getting the support, the accountability, the structure, and all the secrets and science that I use inside a coaching experience to help you make extraordinary things happen. It's going to blow your mind what your life looks like in October if you jump in now. So go to melrobbins. Com/launch before registration closes. Let's go. Welcome back. It's your friend Mel, and we're talking about Joseph Campbell's The Hero's Journey, and we're focusing on four specific steps of it. You just learned the first one, which is the ordinary world. Now we're about to jump into the second one, the call to adventure. The call to adventure is all around you, and there are four things you must know in order to recognize it in your own life. So here's the first thing. Number one, the call to adventure will not likely come from someone else. I mean, a robot isn't going to come and project a message to you. A wizard is not going to show up at your front door and be like, Come on now, we got to go save the world.

This isn't someone coming to you with your future on a silver platter saying, You're the chosen one. That's not how it works in the real world. It works that way in the movies, and we love it. But this call to adventure is something you have to be open to and be willing to see for yourself. Here's one way you can start to open your mind up to this. Ask yourself this question, What is your life trying trying to tell you? I'm going to ask you that question again. What is your life trying to tell you? If you really sit with that question, you'll notice that your life is trying to nudge you in a certain direction. There's something you can't stop thinking about. There's some sign that keeps showing up. There's something that you've wanted to do, but you haven't done And I need you to realize that you've got to be willing to start to look for this call to adventure, because if you don't pay attention, you're going to miss it. Now, the second thing you need to know about the call to adventure in your life is it can come as a very positive signal, or it could be a negative one.

And here's an example that you might be able to relate to of a negative thing that represents a call to adventure. So one of my best friends, Jody, she and I have been literally friends since the fourth grade. Well, she has lived in Santa Barbara for years, and all of a sudden, her rent started going up. She recently left a job she didn't like, and she has just felt like something's been off about where she lives. And then, both of her parents ended up in the hospital at the same time. Talk about a wake-up call. She had this instinct, this pull, I should really move back home to Michigan. I don't know how much longer my parents are going to be around. I'm so far away. I really feel like I should move back home to Michigan. That right there is her call to adventure. Rent going up, leaving a job you don't like, all of a sudden, something changing with her family. That's an example of what I'm talking about. How much more positive do you feel if you You look at that situation and you frame it as a call to adventure? Very different than feeling like life is breaking apart.

Let me give you now a positive example of what could be a call to adventure. This is a small thing. My husband Chris and our daughter Sawyer, when it's snowing outside and it's the winter months, they go to this mountain nearby, and they do what's called skinning up the mountain, which is you take these skis and you put these sticky things on the bottom of them, and you basically hike up a mountain, a snow mountain, with your skis on it. And then when you get to the top, you take the sticky things off, and now you can ski down. And Chris has organized this whole group of people that meet in the parking lot, and they now do it twice a week during the winter. I feel pulled to do it. But I'm scared of it. I'm not in great shape. I'm not as good as they are at this, especially thinking about pulling into a parking where Chris has organized this group, and there's 30 or 40 people there that do this all the time. But here's the thing. As I think about this, I feel the pull. I could see myself as somebody that gets up super early to do that, as somebody that has that level of adventure, of somebody that's doing something that's that cool.

I'm using the word pulled because that's an example of a call to adventure. For you, you might feel pushed, or you might feel pulled. Could be positive, could be negative. Both are a call to adventure. The third thing I want you to be aware of is that it can be big or it can be small. I am so moved by the number of you who listen to this podcast around the world and write to me and say that simply taking on something new or bringing back something that I used to do, that it's made you so happy. It's made a part of you come alive. It's made you tap into something deeper, like taking a painting class or writing every day in your journal again, or just the instinct that you have that you want to make your life a little bit better. These are all examples of small things that are calls to adventure for you. Number four, and this is super important, it is so easy to refuse it. So easy to refuse it. And I think this is why we identify with characters in our favorite movies who are the reluctant hero.

You are the reluctant hero in your own life, just like Luke. I mean, do you remember what happens at the beginning of the movie? He's bending over this robot as he's trying to fix it, and all of a sudden this message pops out, You are my only hope. You are my only hope. And you remember his response? His response was not like, Where's the first flight out of here? His response was, I don't think that I can do this. I hate the Empire, but there's nothing I can do about this right now. I got stuff I need to do on my desert planet. I don't think this is meant for me. Isn't that what you say, too? That there's nothing I can do about this right now. See, whenever you find yourself in a place where you feel stuck, or you feel like you have to stay where you are for the betterment of the people around you, even though you don't want to? That's a sign of this tension between the call to adventure and staying where you are. Luke always felt so different from who he actually is. He always had this inner turmoil between who he is on the desert planet and who he knows he's being asked to be.

I think that's so relatable because it is the human experience, right? That you don't know what you're meant for. So you stay stuck in this tension, and you never leave the comfort of your ordinary world because you don't know where to set out to. And so I'm going to keep coming back to this question that I asked you just a few minutes ago. What is your life trying to tell you right now? This may be exactly where you are in your life right now, the reluctant hero, resisting the call, refusing to acknowledge that there is something more, maybe because you're afraid or you're not sure what What more is? Well, that tension, that right there is evidence that the call to adventure exists right now in your life. Because whenever you say, I'm stuck, that's a way for your soul to say, Can you answer the call to adventure? Get me out of this neighborhood. Get me off this planet. Get me out of this little village. We got something to do. There is a hero inside you. And ding, ding, ding, ding, ding hero inside you is trying to rattle the cage and say, Wake up, we got stuff to do.

And so here's how you are going to use Joseph Campbell's framework, The Hero's Journey. Start labeling these moments of tension as a call to adventure. That breakup, that heartbreak you feel, guess what that is? Call to adventure. That layoff you didn't see coming? Call to adventure. The jealousy that you feel as you watch your friends to move forward with their lives, whether moving across country or they're going to graduate school, or they're moving in with a significant other, or moving out for that matter? Call to adventure. If you're like me, I am looking ahead at my life, and Chris and I are going to be empty nesters this fall. Now, I can sit around and worry about what I am going to feel like as an empty nester when Oakley heads off to college, or I can see this as an amazing call to adventure. A whole new journey is about to begin. A journey where I will only discover what's possible by going through it. I mean, how cool is that? To think of changes in your life as an opportunity community, to see changes in your life as a moment and the ability to find yourself, to become the hero that you need, to discover some power inside you that you didn't know existed.

And by the way, you can only find by going through this journey. And you know what's interesting about the hero's journey? Is that if you look backwards at your life, especially in moments of challenge, you can see many heroes journeys. You can see how going through something brought out the hero inside you. It offered up this opportunity for growth and discover some treasure that you didn't realize was there. What's so cool about using this as a framework, because my therapist does this all the time, I'm constantly writing down the notes that she tells me as we're having these conversations, is that you can use this framework moving forward. You can stand where you are right now and say, Okay, my life is great, but I'm in an ordinary world, right? There's a call to adventure. And when you open your eyes and you see tension or feeling stuck, or you feel the pull or the push, and you frame it as a call to adventure. Now you're ready for stage three in the hero's journey, and that is crossing the threshold. Now, this is the moment where the hero leaves behind the safety of the ordinary world and ventures into the unknown, fully committing to their journey of transformation.

Now, in Star Wars, Luke leaves his planet, and he goes on this new quest, Mulan. She leaves her home, remember, in the middle of the night, she even disguised herself as a man to sneak into the army's training camp to take the place of her father in the war? Lord of the Rings, crossing the threshold. Frodo leaves the safety of the Shire. I even remember that moment where they stop and turn to one another and say, We've never been this far. And then they set out on their journey and cross the threshold. Now, my friend that I mentioned, Jody, She crossed the threshold. She packed up her house in Santa Barbara. She loaded up her car. She got her Bulldog into the passenger seat next to her, drove across country, and moved home to Michigan. She's going to live with her parents. And she texted me last night, I just arrived for my next adventure. She moved back home, and she's turning the upstairs of her parents house into an apartment. Why? Because she felt pulled to take care of them. Now, they never asked her to do that. I'm sure now that she's crossed the threshold, she's probably going, Oh, my God, what the hell have I done?

Here's the thing. It's not just the physical act of leaving a place. If you say to yourself out loud, I want something different, that can be its own commitment. That can be its own threshold that you cross. You could submit an application. You could step into the gym for the first time. You could throw How about all the alcohol in your house. You could make the doctor's appointment. In fact, just sitting down in a calm and mature way and expressing a boundary about something that needs to change, that's a way that you cross a threshold in a relationship. And yeah, it is hard, as I mentioned, to see the call to adventure, but you want to know what's actually more difficult than recognizing that you're called to do something more? It's actually committing to Crossing this threshold is the most powerful step, in my opinion, because it's a huge turning point in the hero's journey. And once you do it, there's no turning back. It's a declaration of intent. It is a bold and courageous act. And this is why you hear me talk about taking the first step, or getting started, or signing up, or saying what you need to say out loud all the time.

5, 4, 3, 2, 1. Take the action. Because it's bigger than just that first step. If you look at the courage that it takes for you to answer the call to change, to be greater, to do something that scares you, this stage of crossing the threshold is no joke. Because you can live for years with that tension, knowing that you're meant for something greater and never do anything about it. And this is the part of the hero's journey where most people fail. Because there is no journey. Until you take this step and you answer the call and you cross the threshold. It's when you commit to yourself and to the journey that you're officially on the journey, not by thinking about it. I mean, think there would be no Star Wars if Luke just stayed on the planet and thought about it. There'd be no Lord of the Rings if Frodo was still just laying around and eating good food in the Shire. There'd be no Milan if she was like, Okay, I guess I'm not marriage material. I guess I'll just die single in my parents house. No, at some point, you have to not only answer the call, but you have to begin it.

That's what it means to be on the journey. And speaking of a journey. I want to make a hero's call out to our amazing sponsors who bring you the Mel Robbins podcast at zero cost. So take a quick listen. And when we come back, do not go anywhere because we're just starting this journey now. And the next and most pivotal stage is one that you cannot afford to miss. Stay with me. And you want to know one of my favorite sponsors? It's me. That's right. I'm coming in right now with my own ad. And if you're loving the Hero's journey, you're probably thinking, But Mel, I want allies. I mean, Frodo had Gandoff and Sam. Luke had Han Solo and Princess Leia. And Mulan? She had Mushu and Cricky. I mean, come on now. What about me? If you're nodding your head, first of all, consider the Mel Robbins podcast your ally. But second, once a year, I gather amazing people from around the world together, and we spend six months going through our own hero's journey. You can think about it as a way to do a six-month quest with people around the world and discover the power within you and go create something amazing.

If you want to learn more about this program and how to participate in this quest in 2024, just go to melrobinds. Com/launch. And if it's not available, you can just hop on the waitlist for when I open up the quest in 2025. Melrobinds. Com/launch. It's time to become the hero of your own life. Welcome back. It's your friend Mel, and you and I are talking about Joseph Campbell's The Hero's Journey. And we just talked about the powerful step of crossing the threshold. And now, you have come to the midpoint. Now, So this is where you've left the ordinary world. You have answered the call. You've crossed the threshold. This is where the work begins. This, by the way, is also where the magic happens. It's also where you tend to find your mentors and your allies, because once you set off on this journey, if you ever notice that all kinds of people start to show up to help, it's pretty cool, right? But here's the thing about the midpoint. It's also where there there are so many challenges along the way. And it's also not the end of the journey yet. See, this point signifies the second half of the movie, right?

And you're probably going to spend the second half of your life on this part of the journey, too. I mean, this happens in all the stories that we love, right? In Star Wars, along the journey, Luke faces challenge after challenge after challenge after challenge, and one ally after another shows up. And same Everything happens to Milan, including a huge battle that she thinks is the final stand. But it isn't. And in the Lord of the Rings, holy smokes. I mean, just think of how it twists and it turns. And Frodo and his companions also are facing challenge accept or challenge and increasing dangers. And just when you think it's about to all end, boom, something unbelievable happens. And in the movie world, this second act is so long. It just keeps going. I mean, could How many battles are there? How many challenges? How many times are they going to fall down? Well, it's testing your strength and your resilience. And you also get glimpses of success, little wins that keep you going. And here's the thing about the midpoint. Don't you dare turn back. Do not do it. And in your life, the midpoint in your journey could show up in so many different ways.

It could be a series of challenges or setback. It's the moment that you may question yourself. I think of my friend Jody, who just moved back, and I imagine her pulling into the driveway, moving in with her parents who were both recently hospitalized. Can you imagine how she's going to face the challenges? I mean, you can imagine how she's going to question, Is this the right decision? What the heck am I doing here in the middle of Michigan? What is going on? This is not what I thought was going to happen. She's going to have this long time where it feels like she's not making progress or she's not going to break through and she's not going to understand where is this all leading. But it's always leading somewhere, isn't it? And that's the hero's journey. And the same is true for you, to trust that it's leading you somewhere, to trust that when you answer the call, you will be rewarded at some point. That's the midpoint. If you're sitting there holding yourself back and you're telling yourself, It's too late, or, My life is so busy, I couldn't possibly fit in this thing that I want to do, you're wrong.

You're absolutely wrong. You can go to grad school. You can move across country. You can start that business. You do have the time, and you can fit it in. I want to share a personal story with you. My husband Chris, for example, he was in this stage for a long time. When we first got married, he decided that he wanted to get his MBA. He answered the call. He crossed the threshold. And then the midpoint? Holy smokes. Do you know he earned his MBA from Babson? By taking one class at a time. It took the man seven years to complete his degree. Do you know how many times he thought about quitting? He would come home from class at night after working all day and be like, I am literally twice as old as everybody in the class. In fact, it took so long that all three of our children were born while he was in the MBA program. He thought about giving up all the time. This stage, the midpoint, this is a slog. And you want to know what? We all face it. It's part of the hero's journey. I'm in the middle of a slog right now.

I am writing a book. I am so excited about the book. I answered the call. I crossed the threshold. I've been putting pen to paper. I'm also not done with the manuscript. And I am spending every single weekend, all weekend, and every single evening, just slogging away. And in fact, this past week, I sat in a chair for three days straight. I could not write a single word. I felt like I was at that point in the Lord of the Rings, where Frodo is at that weird disgusting pond at the base of Modor, or Modor, or however the hell you say that scary mountain that he's going toward. Just, it's not working. Why am I here? This is the part of the writing and releasing of a book. It's not sexy. I don't feel like a hero. I feel like quitting. This is the midpoint. And I'm experiencing everything that heroes experience in the movies that we love for literally 50% of the movie. The ups, the downs, the questioning of your ability, the unexpected challenges. And here's what the midpoint does. It requires something of you. It requires you to keep showing up, to keep digging deeper and deeper and deeper within yourself, to keep surprising yourself, and to keep going.

It would be so easy to quit. But don't you dare? The movie would be over. The journey would be done. I mean, it is called the Hero's Journey, not the Hero's Finish Line. So you're not finished. In fact, you're never finished. I mean, that's the point of your life, right? And that's my big message to you right now. You are not finished. You have so much more strength, and resilience, and ability that you haven't even tapped into yet. And you won't unless you keep going. Because as you keep facing these challenges in your life, in this midpoint, yeah, you'll have lots of little wins, but it's through facing the challenges that you discover what you're meant to discover about yourself, whether it's Luke defeating the Empire or Frodo destroying the Ring and saving the world, or you finishing the manuscript, or getting your masters, or settling into that new stage of life and creating it to be extraordinary, you'll figure it out. Every single movie that you love ends with the hero of the movie, figuring it out. So let me stop and ask you, what did they actually figure out? What did Luke figure out?

What did Frodo figure out? What did Milan figure out? If you look back at your own life and you think about the most challenging things that you have ever faced and lived through. What did you figure out? You figured out who you are and what you're capable of. You may not think you're changing the world when you go back to school or when you pack up your stuff and leave your job and move across country and back in with your parents. You may not think you're changing the world when you answer the call for adventure that's calling to you. But what you are doing is changing yourself. See, the hero at the end of the story always comes home, home to themselves. And what's interesting when you go back home to where you began, if you've ever experienced this, of going back to your childhood home. What's so fascinating, if you've ever gone back to your childhood home, isn't it interesting how small it feels? The reason why it feels so small is because you realize when you go back, that you've outgrown it. That when you left, you changed. You grew. You learned something about yourself.

That life tested you, that you discovered something by facing this challenge, by answering the call, and you surprised yourself with your ability to face new things in a new place that you never thought you'd be capable of doing. So whenever you When you come back to where you came from, you will be confronted with the fact that it stayed the same, but you haven't. And maybe what you're recognizing as you listen to this is that there have been many, many heroes journeys that you've already learned from in your life. When you left home for college, when you discovered your strength after a relationship ended, when you overcame a health challenge or handled an unexpected setback or layoff, you pushed through grief and learned how to live with it, you moved to a new place and found a new community, or maybe you look back and you see that you're a totally different person today because of the habits and the changes that you committed to and started over a year ago. And look, you and I might not be fighting the empire or truly saving the world. But every single day when you wake up, you're facing your own battles.

You're in the trenches. You're doing the work. You're in the midpoint of some journey that you're on, and you are stronger and braver and more resilient than you know. That's what makes you the hero in your own life. So if you're sitting there feeling like, Yeah, things are a little ordinary. I am a little bored. Or maybe you're realizing that tension isn't tension at all. It's telling you something bigger, and you need to stop ignoring it. You need to see it for what it is. It's a call to adventure, and it's time for you to answer the call and begin the journey. And I can promise you this, You already got me as your ally. I may not be as good-looking as Gandoff, but I'm going to be there right by your side on your hero's journey. And in case no one else tells you, let me be the one to tell you. I love you, and I believe in you, and I believe in your ability to create a better life. And when you commit to doing that, you not only discover the hero inside yourself, but you create a better world.

Here we are, for those of you reading along on page 29. Positive thinking is not the answer. Positive thinking is not the answer. Yes, there's going to be a Spanish version. It's coming out in less than a month in terms of the audio. Positive thinking is not the answer. This is not toxic positivity. We're not saying you can high five your problems away. I'm saying you can high five yourself into a different relationship with yourself. And when you become a human being who feels loved and supported and seen and empowered, you change. And that changes your ability to face the circumstances in your life.

Got it? Good.

If positive thinking alone changed your life, you would have already used it. I want to say something very loud and clear before we keep going. The high five habit is not about fake praise or force positive thinking. This book and the tools within it are about changing the default programming that keeps you trapped in destructive and unsupportive relationship with yourself based on research Search how to do it. You cannot think your way to a new life, everybody. You cannot wish your way to it. It's going to require you to practice new habits. If you want your life to be different, you must start acting differently, and you must start making different decisions. While thinking positive thoughts will boost your mood, I know plenty of people who are still stuck no matter how much positivity they try to instill in their lives. In fact, I used to be one of them, very bubbly on the outside, super toxic and self-destructive on the inside. That's because the obstacles you face are real, and some of them may be extreme. You cannot look at a horrible situation and tell yourself, This is awesome. That's toxic positivity, and you're not going to find any of it in this book.

You can't gloss over serious problems, everybody. Problems like childhood trauma, systematic inequalities, addiction, racism, discrimination, chronic pain, abuse, and all the other enormously difficult experiences people face in their lifetimes. I don't know if you know this, but I spent years working as a criminal defense attorney at Legal Aid in New York City. That meant I represented people who had been arrested and accused of crimes who could not afford to hire an attorney. So I was assigned to represent them.

I've seen firsthand how poverty and systematic discrimination has pushed people off the paths that they intended for their lives and that they deserve.

Life can be and is cruel and unfair at times. So whether your problems are merely annoying or you're facing the problems that crush your soul and spirit, Your problems are real, and right now they're in your way. No one knows what it's like to be in your shoes. And I'm going to pause there for a minute because I want to say that again.

No one knows what it's like to be in your shoes.

That's why you must practice being kind to yourself and giving yourself Right now, the love, support, and celebration you need. You have the power to face the problems you're facing in life. You have the power to change your life. You can't change what happened, but you can choose what happens next. And that's where your true power is. I always have said that Oh, you can't change what's happening around you, but you can choose what you do next. The five-second rule, 5, 4, 3, 2, 1, will help you push through. The high five habit and sending yourself into the game of your life Every morning demonstrating that you see yourself, you support yourself, you believe in your ability to face what's going on. That will foundationally tap into the power inside you. It will flip that switch of belief and grounded confidence. It will give you the resilience, the courage, and the resolve that you need to face the very real problems that you have to deal with in your life. And it'll give you the rocket fuel and the belief that you need to go after those monstrous, amazing dreams that you deserve to have come true.

Okay? And we all know you can't think your way to making your dreams happen. You got to work your way there. So no matter how atrocious your past was, you can create a different future. And it doesn't matter that right now your habits are pretty self-destructive or that your mistakes are disastrous. One of the things about getting a copy of the high five habit is when you read some of these chapters about some of the disastrous mistakes that I've made, you are literally going to go, Mel Robbins, you were a train wreck woman I don't even recognize you, Mel Robbins. How can you buy this book? Well, go to Amazon if that's where you are in the world. Waterstones is in England. It's available in English worldwide right now. Spanish audio is coming. We have already sold this book in 23 languages. So by the end of the year, most of it will... Most of those languages will hopefully be out. Get your copy today. If If this public reading is giving you chills, if it feels like I am literally, literally speaking directly to you, give yourself the gift of the high five habit.

You deserve this book. Yes, it's coming in French. Yes, it's coming in Russian. Get it in English right now. I love that in South Africa, Melanie's 49, and the book is changing her life. This is real. This is not a drill. I I believe this with every fiber of my being. If you need more reassurance, you shouldn't. But if you need more reassurance, just look at the reviews on Audible and Amazon. You will literally have to pick your jaw off the floor. Yes, it's coming in Greek. Yes, it's coming. Like, literally, 23 languages in counting. It's going to be out in every language. Arabic, absolutely. You want to know why? You want to know Why?

Because this strikes down to the core of what human beings need right now.

Aren't you tired of feeling uncertain? Aren't you tired of waiting for the world to go back to normal? Aren't you tired of feeling stressed out and feeling like you can't do anything right? Don't you deserve a little celebration? Don't you deserve a little jolt of energy? Don't you deserve to feel more optimistic and supportive and empowered? Hell, yes, you do. Right now is the best moment to take control of your life. So if you've got chills, you better buy this book right now. Period. I see Mary's been doing the high five since the 28th of September. It is a game changer. Period. It is a game changer, everybody. All right. It doesn't matter that your habits are self-destructive or that your mistakes have been disastrous. I've made some disastrous mistakes in my life. And if you don't believe me, just pull up a chair because I think it's in Chapter 2, you better put your seatbelt on. You and I are going to go toe to toe in terms of who has done worst things in their life. And I might got you beat. No matter how deep your pit of shame may be, you can climb out of it.

And you can start a new. High-fiving yourself won't change any of those things that have happened or the very real challenges you are facing right now. It changes you. The habits and tools in this book make you better equipped to face the circumstances of your life. Whether you're waking up in a domestic violence shelter, or you're on the first day after a breakup, or the day after being fired or losing somebody you love, or maybe you're on your fifth round of chemo like Jen is. Look at beautiful Jen, right there. She says, not high-fiving in the mirror, but high-five for my fifth round of chemo. One more reason.

What's that say? One more round to go.

And Jen just appeared with me on Dr. Oz.

She looks amazing. Amazing.

And what I love about Jen is, listen to what Jen had to say, everybody. Got a friend who's struggling with an illness? Why not send them a copy of the high five habit with a little gift note? Seriously. Somebody just popped into your mind, and is going to pop into your mind as I read Jen's testimonial to you. You ready? Jen said, Keeping the right mental attitude is 99% of the battle to getting through cancer and getting through chemo. I'm always concerned about everyone else and pulling everyone else up and encouraging them. And I forget to encourage myself sometimes. That's why I I love just looking in the mirror and giving myself a high five and being like, you can do it. This round of chemo I'm going through has been kicking my ass a bit. So I go and I give myself a high five to encourage myself to be my own cheerleader. It's how I'm taking control and being that positive life in my own life to move forward. How freaking powerful is it? Yeah, and I see somebody saying, with social distancing, it's hard to be able to high five others. You're right.

And that's not what this book is about. This book is about high fiving yourself because we're all really good at high fiving everybody else. I want you to become amazing, gifted, an expert at giving that same high five, that support, that celebration, that encouragement that we all desperately need. Okay? Yes, you will feel an instant boost. Yes, you will. I do agree with you, this book is exactly what the world needs right now, which is why I want you to get a copy for yourself. For those of you reading along, we are almost done. We're at page 31 here, the end of chapter 31. You still need convincing?

Got any cynics on here?

Still need convincing? After an entire chapter on research? Wow. At this point, I know I sound like a broken record, but that brings me back to the mirror. Making it a habit to see yourself every morning and raise your hand in celebration of yourself is the first step in building a new relationship with yourself. It's the most important relationship you have. Your relationship with yourself shapes every other relationship and decisions you make. When you replace that self-doubt and self-criticism and self-hatred that is dragging you down with self-acceptance, self-compassion, self-respect, self-worth, and self-love that will lift you up, your life will change. This is honestly the secret to everything.

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 love you.

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