You're listening to I'm Ama Mia podcast.

Kiday, folks, it's Claire Murphy here.

We hope you're enjoying your journeys with us on well.

In our last few episodes, we've been exploring some cancers that are affecting Aussie women from Gyni to Breston Ball and we have answered all your questions and concerns about how and when to get your health checks done.

Look, we know cancer can be a bit of a heavy topic, and so in this episode we wanted to change tac just slightly and share a no filter interview with the brilliant Mail Robins on the only life lesson you need to know.

This is a woman who's turned her life advice into a global phenomenon, and this discussion is a great example of how to change your approach to life enjoy Keith.

A lot of people will ask we mel, how the hell did you build this insane business that you have and this podcast and these books and how do you have thirty five people working for you and studios and Boston fifty six?

How'd you?

I literally say, by learning how to get out of bed on the mornings I don't feel like it?

Hello and Welcome to No Filter.

I'm kateline Brook and today we're diving into the world of the one and only Mel Robins, someone who's built a global empire not just on advice, but on real, raw, transformative change.

Mel's journey from nearly losing everything to becoming one of the most influential voices in self help is nothing short of extraordinary.

But what really sets her apart is how she's turned that message into a business, a brand, and a worldwide movement, so much so that she's now one of the most in demand speakers on the planet.

Getting Mel on the podcast wasn't easy.

She's got one of the busiest color of any guests that we've booked.

But here we are, and it's absolutely worth the wait.

In this episode, we'll explore how mels Let Them theory has changed the way millions approached their lives, and exclusively here on No Filter, Mel shears huge news for her Australian and New Zealand fans.

This is the global phenomenon that is Mel Robin's.

Hello there, she she.

Hell a lovely one.

How are you.

I'm really well?

I had a I had I had to let them almost disaster this morning when I got up because it's early.

Well it's I got up at four am for you because at six am and I went to have a thank you for doing that.

Well you're worth it, I believe.

Sorry.

I went to have a shower and there was no water, like no, and i'd put a hair treatment in last night.

I happened the council doing something fixing.

Then I had to wake up my husband.

You know that thing?

Will I wake him up?

Will I have to?

I woke him up.

He goes downstairs in his undies.

Outside he's fiddling with the water meat, the dogs behind him, like last night.

I love this man.

And then he says to me, I got a message on my phone that you should also have, which I don't have, from the council saying the sink Kilda water, which is where we live, is turned off until six am.

Well six am is.

Now when I'm a cute Yeah, just drive your treatment area.

Were you not I.

Wash I I would have just left it in and made it at a high.

Bund well I couldn't because it was so greasy.

I wanted to have nice hair for mel Robbins, You've always got nice hair.

Oh are you kidding?

Me.

Do you know the worse I look, the better our content.

Do you think, well, I know, of course I.

Yes.

Like no, my kids will always go like, God, why did you put that video up?

You look terrible?

I'm like I went to the grocery store looking like this, Like what what's the problem?

Now you know what it is.

It's because our brand is really friend and the more dulled up I am, the less it's us.

And so you know, we just kind of roll up to the camera and if hair's a disaster or you know, it just is what it is.

Like, this is how I look.

Do you love your greeting that you always do?

I'm going to say it to you.

Hello friend, Hello Mel Robins, Welcome to No Filter.

I'm your new friend, Caitline Brooke.

I don't think you're a new friend.

I think you've been an old friend and so thank you for welcoming me as a friend.

You know, I kind of believe we are all friends on the of life.

I think about the fact that you can learn anything from anybody if you're willing to kind of lean in.

And there are going to be times, Kate, where as we're on the road of life taking a long walk together, You're going to be a couple steps ahead of me because you and your husband have gone through something that my husband and I haven't yet, and so you can be a friend to us.

And then there are times where I may be just a step ahead of you because I just went through something with my son and figured out that he had dyslexia.

And now I can, you know, be a friend to you as you're sorting through an issue.

And so I love saying it's your friend, mel because that's what I believe, and that's how I feel as I move through life, whether I'm walking into a coffee shop or through an airport, or down a dirt road, or I'm stepping up to a microphone.

It's an interesting thing because your attitude to sharing your knowledge comes from a place of great warmth and vulnerability.

And the model that we have is that often when people achieve a certain degree of success, they start to put the walls up.

They need to protect their privacy.

They won't talk about their personal life.

They da, da DA.

How do you maintain your openness to share your vulnerability with basically the world.

It's a great question, and I'll answer it a couple of ways.

Number one.

I'm grateful that all of this happens so late in life.

And you know, when you go through an experience at the age of forty one where you nearly lose everything that matters to you, your life, savings, your marriage, your sanity, your family, your home, it's a real wake up call.

And it also sears into you what you actually value.

And I think too often it's not until we lose something or almost lose something, that we realize how much it meant to us.

And so to have that experience or my career, at least the one that everybody sees right now, I'm fifty six now that it started fifteen years ago at rock bottom, where I was on the verge of losing everything that mattered.

And so when you have an experience where your kids are standing next to you and you can't pay for groceries at the grocery store, when you have experience where your kids are in the car and you can't fill the tank of gas that they're in, you don't lose that.

And I remember in moments of my life, whether it was that moment or it was moments when I was younger and I was struggling with issues, I didn't even understand.

I wasn't diagnosed until I was forty seven with ADHD, but it impacted me my whole life that I didn't know and I thought I was dealing with anxiety when really I was dealing with undiagnosed ADHD and the main symptom that people women in particular feel when they don't have a proper diagnosis of something focus related or I also have dyslexia, which I didn't know until it was forty seven, that you develop anxiety because you're being asked to do things that your brain functionally, structurally isn't able to do the way other people do.

You start to think that you're an idiot or there's something wrong with you, and then all of that anxiety develops.

And so in these moments where I've really struggled, I just thought I was the only one.

I thought there was something wrong with me, And looking back, I can see that that loneliness and that sense of being closed off in your own experience and then pretending on the surface that something else was going on.

It led to me hurting other people.

It led to me just spoiling really important opportunities.

It led to me acting in ways that I really regret.

It led to me hurting myself in many many ways.

And so.

I guess I'm so open because number one, if anything, that I've learned the hard way and help somebody else from suffering the way that I did.

My God, I will tell you everything.

And the other reason why I'm so open is I've spent so long in my life pretending to be somebody I'm not that.

I just think it's so much easier to be who you are, and you know, and everybody says it's vulnerable.

I actually don't think it's vulnerable at all.

It is the easiest thing in the world when you stop judging your own experience.

You know, when you say you spent so long pretending to be someone that you that you weren't your essential self.

It's interesting because you are so accomplished.

And even when you and your husband Chase hit the skids with the business and you were eight hundred grand in debt and that is dire, you were still a woman of great accomplishment.

You've got a couple of degrees.

You're a lawyer, you are high hating, you a clear thinking who were you pretending to be?

Hard hitting?

Clear thinking?

Got it all together.

Accomplished degrees are something that's on a piece of paper.

That doesn't mean that you feel good about yourself.

And you know, I think for a long time I thought I had to measure up to the Ivy League degree.

I thought I had to be something because of the lawyer thing.

And every one of us has this disconnect from who were presenting to the world versus the experience that we're having internally, and this deep sense of am I enough?

And for a long time the answer was no, And there was never enough that I could do.

There was never enough that was going to prove that I was okay.

I was constantly seeking validation outside of me, constantly seeking approval.

If a new purse, could you make other people like me, if I with the right friend group.

I think we're all searching for that lets level of acceptance.

And it took me getting into a very dire state where I had to rebuild myself from the inside out.

When we were that far in debt, and I got to a point where it was just very difficult to get out of bed and face the nightmare that my life had become.

Learning anew how to wake up and face the day was a skill like learning how to get out of bed when I didn't feel like it was a life skill, like I had spent my life avoiding the things that felt hard.

Avoiding like academics came easy, Like I'm clearly a very very intellectual and smart person, so hitting the books and not having to talk to their human beings easy.

But really learning how to be okay with who I am and who I'm not, learning how to be okay with what social group I'm in and what social group I'm not.

Learning how to be okay with what my body is or it isn't how I measure up the amount of money or no money.

You know what's fascinating is I think that in life, most people know how to have a bad attitude or be in a bad mood for no reason, that for decades you can train yourself to just look at the day ahead and see nothing but reasons to be in a bad mood, reasons to doubt yourself.

What I think is a really important skill in life is teaching yourself to have a good attitude, to be in a positive mood for no reason, for no reason, because learning how to wake up every day and say, you know what today is going to be a great day, and it's not going to be great the whole day, but I'm going to make it a goody because there's something that I'm going to do that's going to make me feel good.

That's a way to program yourself to have a good attitude, learning how to wake up and say, you know, I don't know what's going to happen, but I know I'm capable of figuring it out today.

Doubling down on your ability.

Well, I sometimes think this mood thing I find really interesting.

I did breakfast radio for twelve years, so my muscles to wake up whistling are pretty good.

You've got to wake up happy, you got no, you've got no saying it.

And I've also got four children and they're all sort of wired differently for mornings.

Mornings in particular, I think are so essential, and I always say to the kids, you may as well do it happily because it has to be done regardless.

But I think that sometimes people use the mood that you're talking about to deflect.

You know how, no one will come near someone who's grumpy.

So when you're hiding the inner truth of yourself and you project that anger or hostility or don't come near me to the world.

Do you think that you were protecting yourself from the truth of yourself at that time?

I'm sure, because you know, like, if you think about anybody in your life who's miserable, yes, they're always in a bad mood.

They are always talking about the negative.

There's always some gripe that is a human being that is projecting an inner landscape that they have not dealt with yet.

See, there's a lot in a person like that.

There's typically a lot of sadness, there's a lot of self criticism, there's a sense of isolation, there's a sense that life isn't fair, and that's a very difficult thing to sit with.

I mean, there are those of us that just marinate in that and make ourselves miserable, but we don't project it to anybody else.

But then there's a lot of people that feel those exact same things and they can't tolerate those feelings, so they barfit out at everybody else.

And so when I see somebody that's like that, I just, you know, say let them, let them be in a terrible mood, let them be disappointed, let them be angry at life, because it's not my job to save people or heal them, and I can't.

But let me not allow that negativity to impact me or to become my job to manage, because I find that people that are negative tend to get a lot of attention for that negativity.

They feel powerful because of that negativity.

And it's also a giant kind of shield to have to do everything you know because you can.

There's always, like this is the thing about life, There's always something you can do to make things better.

Even if you're going through the worst thing in the world, there's always something you can do with your attitude and with the little things that you do that can make things slightly better.

I mean, this is the entire thesis of Victor Frankel's seminal work Man Search for meaning that in the middle of the Holocaust and all these horrific things he cannot control in the concentration camp, he recognizes that the only thing in his control in this absolutely unspeakable situation is what he's thinking about and his physical response to what's happening.

That through his thoughts and actions, he cannot only survive this situation, but he can help himself through the situation and to me when you start to understand that you have so much more power than you realize, and that no matter where you are right now, Kate, whether you're like I am and you are just embarrassingly in debt, or you are broken up with for the timeh time where you're horribly overwhet, or you're like one of the most beautiful things about the human design is that you're designed to grow, You're designed to change.

That your body and your mind are waiting for you to program in different thinking and waiting for you to wake up and go how I'm doing life just doesn't feel good anymore, and so I'm going to change.

It's interesting because we live in a time of great comfort.

Comfort's available to us pretty well with egg conditioning or with the running water that I should have had this morning.

You know, we're very we become very resistant to discomfort because we're so used to having EGCN or whatever, or there's a grocery store full of abundance.

How did you face the ultimate discomfort, which I think comes from within and you actually saying let them.

The first step to change in your life is taking responsibility for the fact that your life isn't working.

Now that to me, is the most pain.

That's searingly painful, that realization.

We've all had those in our life.

When you had that.

Moment, how did you get into the depths of that?

Was it because you couldn't get out of bed?

I want to really highlight this question.

The first step to changing is admitting to yourself that the way that you're living your life is no longer working.

That is all it takes to change.

And it's pretty clear when your life isn't working, or when aspects of your life aren't working.

I mean, you know, at this point in the story of my life, I was drinking myself into the ground, blaming everything on my husband.

I would hit the snooze button six times in the morning and wake up hungover to my two children, who were school age at the time, who had missed the bus.

Like, when your kids are waking you up after you've missed the bus, you're basically failing at parenting in life.

I mean, let's be honest, you don't need a PhD to understand that.

That's a pretty clear indication that the way they're doing life ain't working really well, and you don't feel good about yourself, and it doesn't take a rocket scientist or an expert, because people know when they're not doing well.

Like I choose to believe, Kate that we all want to thrive.

We want to do well at work, we want to do well at school, we want to feel connected in our relationships, we want to feel a sense of control about where our life is going.

We want to feel proud of ourselves.

So I choose to believe that that is at the core who you are and what is meant for you, And for just endless and endless reasons, we get away from who we are and we get off track.

And the only thing that you need as the first step to get back on track in your life is to admit that how your life feels, or how your marriage feels, or how your job feels no longer works for you.

And you don't even have to have a reason, just saying it.

It just doesn't feel how I want it to feel.

And this is the piece, this second step, that I think most people miss.

And I've come to believe doing the work that I've done now for fifteen years on myself, sharing all the things that I share, doing all the research that I do, I have come to believe that the single biggest obstacle in every person's way.

So the person watching or listening right now, the single biggest obstacle in your way right now is not ability.

No way, your friend Mel Robbins will tell you you are fucking capable of doing what you need to do, Like, stop with this bullshit and get to work, like I'm gonna I'll clack like I'm not going to hear it.

I'm not going to hear it from you because I choose to believe that through your attitude and through your actions, you can move the needle over time, not overnight overtime.

But here's the obstacle.

It is a lack of hope, discouragement, the belief that it's not going to work for you is the reason why most people stay where they are.

We live in a moment in time where you have more information than you could possibly need.

If you do not know how to change your life, or make a million dollars or connect with your kids who won't talk to you, just go to chat GGP, type in the thing you want to change.

It will spit out a thirty day, day by day thing to do, and most of it will probably be accurate.

Some of it won't.

But if you follow the step by step protocol that it spits out, I guarantee you it would work.

But you're going to look at that listener and no, that's not going to work for me.

My problems are too and then you start talking yourself out of it.

So I really believe that it is this sense of discouragement that Kate can change your life, but I can't.

Kate can connect with your kids, but I can't.

Kate up at four point thirty in the morning and have a hair mask in her hair and no water, and she'll figure it out, but I can't because Kate has a husband and I don't have a husband, and I can.

And so do you see how this sense that it's not going to work for me, this lack of hope, actually stops you from doing what you're capable of doing.

And so for me, that that admission to yourself that your life is not how you want it to feel, or your relationship is, or your body is.

That's step one.

Step two is actually saying, even if I don't think it's going to work, by God, I am going to act as if I am that person, and I'm going to do it before I feel like doing it.

That is the secret, like not waiting for someone else to do it, not waiting for the motivation to come, because motivation is garbage is not coming.

That's not how your body works.

And this was a huge wake up call for me.

Like I wish I had known this when I was a kid, I didn't know that our minds are wired against change.

They can change, they love to change, but you're not going to feel ready to change your mind's default toward what feels easy.

That's why we sit on the couch instead of going to the gym, That's why we watch TV instead of working on our resume, because our minds are wired to do what feels easy right now.

In order to change, a human being has to do something that is difficult.

You know, if change were easy, we'd all have a million dollars, we'd all have six back abs, we'd all like have everything we've ever wanted.

Change happens when you are ready to do the thing you don't feel like doing.

And that's the formula.

If you just did the shit you didn't feel like doing, you'd have everything you've ever wanted.

And so one of the huge wake up calls for me Kate is realizing nobody's coming.

Nobody's going to do this for me.

I can either circle the drain and go down it bitching about my husband and being right that he's the loser that did this to us.

Or I can wake up and say the way that life is going to work.

If I want to save this house, I got to do something about it.

If I want to stop feeling bad, I got to do something about it.

What was Can you remember the first thing that you did that was difficult?

Yes, yes, I can.

It was a Tuesday morning in February two thousand and eight.

I know the exact morning I had.

For six months, the alarm would ring and I would lay in bed because we had so many problems.

My got Your mind will look for whatever you tell it to.

If you put garbage in it, your mind will have garbage out, just looking for what's wrong.

I would wake up every day and let me be clear, there was a lot wrong about my life.

I was very correct in seeing a lot of negative things.

Because there were a lot of negative things.

I was drinking myself into the ground.

We had eight hundred thousand dollars in debt.

There were six months of bills piled up on that countertop.

There were leans that had hit that house.

Friends and family had invested in my husband's restaurant business.

I had lost my job.

Like, there was a lot of reasons to feel sorry for myself, and boy, oh boy, did I There was a lot of reasons we pissed off at my husband, and let me tell you, I was.

But the question is, are those reasons and that anger actually helping you?

Are they helping you?

Like there's a point in time where you're gonna get so sick of your own bullshit that you finally do something different.

And for me, it was a Tuesday morning in February twenty two, thousand and eight, and the night before I had seen this rocket launch across the television screen and it gave me this like crazy idea to try to launch myself out of bed.

Now, I had had a lot of bourbon that night, and so that's probably why I had that dumb idea.

But for whatever reason, the next morning, the alarm rings and I remember that dumb idea of launching myself like NASA dos five four three two one, like literally count back and launch yourself and I and I started to think about how I felt about doing it.

This is the mistake.

You stop and think about how you feel, and immediately I saw all the negative.

I don't feel like getting out of bed.

It's cold, it's dark, it's February, which is winter in Boston, Massachusetts.

How the hell is getting out of bed going to pay my bills?

I'm pissed off at Chris, like what the and I started reaching for the snooze button, which is a massive form of avoidance.

Great way to start the day, let's just procrastinate by getting out, getting out of bed.

But for whatever reason, that morning, February two thousand and eight, I made one decision that changed my life.

I just started counting backwards five four, three, two one, and then I rolled out of bed.

And it was this weird moment, first time I had gotten out of bed when the alarm ranged in six months, And it felt like a small victory.

And it was because it was the first time that the negativity and the bad mood and the anger and depression and all of the problems.

It was the first time they didn't win because you deserted.

You won, You deserted yourself.

Oh I took action, Yes, yes, I took the action despite the feelings.

And you know, for you listening or watching right now, I'm going to tell you something.

There are things that you know you need to do and you've been waiting around to feel better.

Do not do that.

You're not going to feel better until you take the action first.

Because what happens is, and this is sort of how to break down what's actually happening, is your mind is watching, and every morning that you hit the snooze button six times, it becomes your identity and your brain's like, oh, I'm the kind of person that just avoids doing the hard things, and then you avoid doing more hard things.

This is why you should never allow your children's anxiety to have them opt out of something, because when you allow your children's anxiety to let them avoid doing something that scares them, you allowing them to op out communicates to them in their brain that they're not capable of doing her things, and so you make the anxiety worse.

How do I know that because I did this with my children, I made their anxiety worse because I didn't know.

Now I know, and so I learned through that experience that doing something that you don't feel like doing is a skill learning How to do things just because you know they need to get done, which you can do in lots of areas your life.

Look, I don't like unloading the dishwasher, I still do it.

I never feel like folding laundry, I still do it.

I don't feel like picking up the dog poo in the yard before we mow it, I still do it.

There are areas of your life where you do this, But when it comes to the most important things, you're waiting for the feelings to align with the action.

And it is the opposite act first, and then how you feel changes.

And here's what also happens.

You start to see yourself differently.

Seeing myself get out of bed when the alarm rang starts to become if you start to do it most mornings, you start to see yourself as the kind of person who gets out of bed when the alarm rings, versus the kind of person who lays there and stares at the ceiling like a human pot roast, marinating and fear and all your problems and how that.

And it was the action, not the thinking, that changed the way you see yourself.

And so Kate, a lot of people will ask me, now, how the hell did you build this insane business that you have and this podcast and these books, and how do you have thirty five people working for you in studios in Boston and you're fifty six?

How do you, I literally say, by learning how to get out of bed on the mornings I don't feel like it.

Because if you can learn how to get out of bed when you don't feel like it, if you can learn how to have non alcoholic drink instead of an alcoholic drink when you don't feel when you can learn how to go for a walk when you don't feel like it, when you can learn how to star a conversation that's hard when you don't feel like it, you can do anything.

That's the secret.

And so that period of my life taught me that action and acting consistently with the things that I want gives you what you want in life.

Up next, Mel Robbins dives into how hitting rock bottom saved her marriage and her life.

Don't go anywhere.

How did that extrapolate to your husband and your children at that time?

So they've been living with someone who, like you said, is marinating like a pot roasts, as I guess Chris was at.

The time as well.

Now Chris was running for me because I was a complete bitch to be around.

Like he was a very smart man.

He was drinking himself into the ground.

Yeah, how it translated is my mood shifted.

Problems starting getting solved.

I got myself a job, I started asking for help.

I started being honest about what was going on.

I started five four three two one.

Instead of screaming at Chris, I would settle myself.

So one decision, one action at a time.

I started to take different actions, and those change the course of everything.

And it all starts with you.

Like we're all sitting around waiting to be rescued or waiting for somebody else to do it.

You have so much more power, Like think about yourself and the power that you have.

Like the weather.

You can be sunny and that changes everybody around you.

That's the power that you have.

Or you can be a storm, and we all know people who walk in a room and they are a storm and their energy affects everybody.

You get to choose being in a positive and action oriented mindset for no reason, because right now you're in a very negative or self doubting one for no particular reason other than the fact that you're used to it.

So Chris rose to meet you, the new you, when you could show yourself again to be.

Not really okay, not really?

How was that?

Because you can't make other people change.

You can't like Chris started using five four three two one and went back into his restaurant business and renegotiated leases and laid off a bunch of people and went to the investors.

And it was like a slog for years and years and years turning it around.

But you know, when he left the restaurant business in twenty fourteen, he was a shell of himself.

So six years later he's doing the stuff.

But he hadn't addressed his drinking.

He hadn't addressed the shame that he felt about the fact that, you know, as a man, and this is speaking and very heterosexual norms, he felt he had failed because he didn't provide for his family and his business was in a success and he lost people's money, and he went into a dark depression.

Every want I just yeah, an angry, resentful wife is now out there like having to make the money and you know, working three jobs and making the ends meet while he's barely able to hold it together.

And this is the thing about life.

You cannot heal another person, You cannot do the work for another person.

The way that you actually do the work for other people is you do the work to make you proud of yourself.

You do the work to align your actions every day in a way that makes you proud of yourself.

And if you are proud of yourself because you get out of bed and you make your bed and you have a morning routine that makes you feel like you and then you go to work and you're a good person and you're kind to people, and you do the best that you can, and you try hard to stay in control of your emotion so you're not an asshold of people.

And you end the day and put your head on your pillow and say, you know what, I did the best I could today.

I'm proud of myself.

You're winning.

Yeah, you're winning.

And then people are attracted to the qualities that you are demonstrating.

They're like, mel, how do you know the secret of you always seem like you're in a good mood or thing.

Great things are happening for you.

Taught myself how to be kape and here's why.

Let's just take what happened to you this morning with the hair mask and the water being turned off and all of this stuff in situation like that, and I'm a very pragmatic person.

If you allow the things in life that you can't control.

You can't control the fact that you didn't get the text because you didn't get the text.

You can't control that the water was getting turned off because you can't control the fact that the hairs that the hair masks are because it's already in your hair, so let them, let and let them.

And if you then go into a really negative attitude and you let yourself get all worried and stressed out or worse, you start going, why am I a stupid idiot who always does these kinds of things?

And now I'm going to go to this interview and it's going to be terrible because of this happen.

And you do that to yourself, which we do to ourselves in these moments.

What happens is you trigger your own brain to go from present and fully capable of handling this situation to a stress response, and you're a migdala in the back of your brain turns on.

You go into fight or flight and stress out mode, and the research is very clear when you're a migdala is turned on because you're now negative and criticizing yourself and doomsday and all that stuff that you've done your whole life to yourself, you actually can't think clearly because the prefrontal cortex isn't working at its full capacity.

So your.

Habit of just going into a bad mood and a bad attitude, which then makes you stressed out, actually makes everything worse because you can't bring your thinking and your problem solving online to help you.

That's what happens.

And when I started to realize, wait a minute, I have forever defaulted to doubting myself.

I have forever defaulted to worrying or second guesting, or questioning or like wondering.

You know, if other people are going to approve I've forever trained myself.

To do this.

Why not train yourself to do the opposite?

Why not train yourself to be in a good mood just because you know that it's going to help you in those situations when life goes sideways and there's plenty of things to be in a bad mood about.

But does the bad mood help you?

That's the question.

You know, you tell an interesting story and let them.

And the power of that book and that theory is so great that even when I was doing a really deep dive on you and the book in preparation for our interview, it helped me.

I wasn't looking for it, wasn't looking for help, just that there were I realized that there were instances in my life.

It work related things where you know.

Sometimes you feel excluded from things and their friends and they're working with other people or whatever, and I went, oh, my goodness, let them right.

This is how powerful it is.

Very powerful.

When I was reading about you with the greater purpose not being myself, I still reap the benefit from it.

Extraordinary.

But you tell a story in the book and when you go to your friend's place and they've she's got this renovated house.

Yeah yeah, and you feel jealous, yeah, jealous.

Oh my god, I literally like I literally wanted to die.

Like, have you ever had a friend who all of a sudden they moved to like the fancier town, or they move from renting an apartment to this like brownstone that they buy and then they invite you over for dinner.

And as you're driving up the long driveway.

You're thinking, how the hell do they have this much money?

And then they open up the door, and you're happy for your friend because your friend works hard and your friend deserves to be happy, but you're just not happy for yourself because as you're gripping the wine glass and you're grinning your teeth trying to smile that like freak smile, and every single corner of their house looks like a display on Pinterest.

And then you turn the corner and there is your dream kitchen and she's got a white can that's in the marble countertops, and you're like, you bitch, I shouldn't have shown you my picterss boards.

You stole my kitchen, right, and then you and you literally, you know if you're anything like me at the time, because this happened to me, this particular story when we're still really struggling financially, you hold it together.

And then when you get in the car and you go to drive away, you turn to your poor partner and you're like, why couldn't you have been in finance?

Why did you have to be a nice person?

Why couldn't you be funny?

Like you just like aim it at them?

Oh, my god, it was so bad.

You know.

I believed that six and happiness and friendship and kitchens with white countertops were in limited supply.

I believed and went through life that if Kate has a podcast, I can't have one, that if you go on a vacation to them all days, I can't that if you wear embroidered like that, somehow your success or your happiness is robbing me of mine that there was.

And it's such bullshit.

These things are in limitless supply if you're willing to wake up every day and do the boring, annoying, ruling work that it takes to create these things in your life.

And it doesn't happen overnight, Like you're not going to get the kitchen in the next five years, but you might get it in the next fifteen.

But here's the mistake I was making.

I actually thought I was competing against other people.

Nobody is like against you.

I really mean this, I really want the want you to just understand something that other people don't block your way.

Other people lead the way.

They show you what's possible.

And when you get that jealous I didn't understand jealousy.

Jealousy is so interesting to unpack because you only get jealous of things you authentically want.

It is impossible to be jealous of something you don't want.

I'm not jealous of anybody who drives a yellow Lamborghini.

I don't want one.

But I might be jealous of a friend who has all of their kids, who you know, my kids are now adults who live near them, because I want that.

Jealousy comes from a very deep and authentic place, because it is a desire of yours that is some how blocked.

And it's either blocked because you've told yourself you can't have that, or it's never going to happen, or you've told yourself I can't do that, or things like that don't happen to people like me.

And jealousy rises up because you actually aren't doing anything to walk toward it.

But now you realize that you must have friends who are jealous of you.

Sure let them.

I'm not stopping them from doing anything.

And now what I realize is how sad that I went through my life for the first fifty four years jealous of people that actually could have, for those fifty four years, been a source of inspiration, a source of information, a source of support, Like, no, my friend was never against me, leaned in and been like, oh my gosh, Like I how do I go from where I am to where you are?

Like?

What if I just painted my cabinets white?

Now it's not going to be my dream kitchen, but I'm now signaling to my own brain that it's something that I want that I don't have to wait for sure.

It kind of sucks that I can't afford to hire somebody, but I can make it a date night and paint the cabs as myself with my husband, Like why do I have to let somebody else's wins be my loss?

You need to see these things as signals of what your own heart is calling you toward.

And it's like a wake up call.

Get to fucking work, Like, stop telling yourself you can't have this stuff.

Stop coming up with excuses, because there are a million ways to figure out.

Yeah, you know, if you have a friend that's in fantastic shape because she's like got serious about her hormones and she's been lifted weight, now you know, shit's better than she did in her forties.

If you're jealous of it, okay, great, get going ask for what she did.

Ask for what supplements.

She texts, ask her what her exercise routine.

Let her lead the way instead of telling yourself a lie that somehow okay, well she's done a no Oka do it because it be car being no, that's ridiculous.

After the break, Mel Robbins explains how to let them theory became a global movement and later makes a huge announcement that you are not.

Going to want to miss.

When your daughter Kendall gave you the let them.

Basically the mantra the night that you were trying to control things, a story that you've told about your your son Oakley's prom night when you were trying to control and she just kept saying, let them, let them, let them go to the taco stand, let them go in the let them just do what they want.

What was the moment when you realized, oh, my goodness, this is something to live by.

It did not like that night was when my shoulders dropped and I'm like, why do I care so much?

Like I was being your typical controlling mom and let me be honest about something, Kate.

I've been trying to be more stoic my entire life.

I'm married to a Buddhist it's super annoying when you're like crazy controlling and you grip the wheel of life, and Chris is.

Just like, let them, let them.

Buddhists say, let them.

Well, that's why this theory has exploded.

It's not a new idea.

It is a modern version.

I created the theory, I made the case for it.

But the reason why it's exploded is I'm reminding you of what you've known to be true since the beginning of time.

The let them theory is how you be stoic.

The let them theory is how you apply the serenity prayer when life is pissing you off.

Let them theory is radical acceptance because when you say let them, you're not allowing anybody to do anything recognizing who they are and what they're doing.

When you say let them, you're practicing CBT therapy and detachment therapy.

See, it's a tool that allows you to access these deep, deep, deep things.

The second part of the theory, let me Hell.

My mother has a version of this.

She is a needle pointed pillow that says, pull up your big girl panties and deal with it.

That's let me.

That's what that is.

And so people read this book and they're nodding along because we all have a sense that we've always known that this is true.

We just never knew how to take these intellectual and therapeutic concepts and apply them in a moment where you're hurt, or you're stressed, or you're scared, or you're upset about something.

And so you know, for me, I have been posting about these topics for years, But the truth is, when life would get overwhelming, I would be just like everybody else, I'd be completely like freaked out and unable to access stoicism, and so I'd just like spiral.

But as she said that, it stopped me for my spiral.

And then I just started to any time I was stressed out or annoyed or bothered, I would literally just say let them, whether I was standing in a long line or somebody's walking slow in front of me.

And here's what I noticed.

People are fucking annoying, and they stress you out and they hurt your feelings, and most of the things that make you stressed have to do with other people.

And I started to recognize there's a totally different way for me to live my life.

Why am I giving so much time and energy to other people.

Why am I giving time and energy to things I can't control?

Why am I trying to change everybody?

Why is it my job to make everybody happy?

Let them be miserable, let them try to make me feel guilty, let them.

And here's the thing though, I want to tell you, Kate, is that it was just to let them.

Theory, it was just let them, let them, let them, let them, let them, let them.

For the first six months, it was let them, let them, let them.

And I started writing this book and I finished the first draft, and I'm like, something's wrong because the book was let them, let them, let them, let them?

What them?

What them?

What the what them?

Let them?

Let them?

And my daughter came home and from a big solo backpacking trip.

She was actually in Australia, New Zealand and all over Asia, and she needed money because she was broke.

And I was like, you are a walking human Excel spreadsheet.

So I'm going to give you a research assignment.

I've just finished this draft of this book.

Something's missing.

I want you to go back into all the inbox and look at the comments on the podcast episode I did about this, and look at the comments on the YouTube episode I've done about this.

Nobody knew I was writing a book yet I had just done the podcast episode, and I'm like, I want you to look for what's not working.

I want you to look for how are people using it?

What are they saying about it?

What are they saying in terms of I started using it, but now it's not working, and come back to me.

I thought it would take her four weeks.

She came back within thirty six hours.

She had a twenty seven page Excel spreadsheet, columned, tabbed sourcelings, and she had this synopsis at the top, and she's like, can't write the book?

Like, what do you mean you can't write the book.

I'm writing the book.

She's like, Mom, you can't write the book.

I said, why can't I write the book?

She said?

People are using let them, and they're lonely because when you say let them, you realize, wait a minute, I'm the only sibling in my family that reaches out, and when I stop reaching out, nobody does.

And wait a minute.

My friends are jerks because I invite them everywhere, but they often make plans without me.

I'm supposed to just let them.

Wait a minute.

This person that I've been dating for a year actually treats me like crap.

Like I'm basically thinking, I'm going to marry somebody who won't put a label on this relationship.

I'm supposed to just let them.

And she said, there has to be a second part, mom, because once you recognize the truth in your relationships and the truth that your boss doesn't recognize your contributions, you don't want to sit in feeling disempowered and lonely.

There has to be a second part.

And I was like, what's the second part?

She's like, let me.

And so the second part of the theory, which is how you take your power back and you recognize it.

In life, there's only three things you control, what you think, what you do or don't do, and how you process the very real emotions that rise and fall every day.

And it was because of her and her research that the theory became fully developed.

And then we spent the next nine months writing the book.

Mel Robbins, Thank you for you, Yeah, thank you for being a friend to so many.

Thank you for changing lives.

As a final glimpse into you, what would you like to change in yourself?

Oh?

What would I like to change in myself.

I think in a moment like this, where you have this enormous thing happening, it's very very easy to want to do more.

And because I nearly lost everything that mattered to me my family, my home, my sanity, my marriage, I don't want to get so busy that I lose sight of the things that are important.

And so it's not that I know I'm trying to change anything.

I want to make sure that I don't change that I stay laser focused on showing up in a way that makes me very proud, that I really protect my time and energy so that I can continue to spend a life of it with my family and with my friends.

That I don't ever forget who I am at my core and get all caught up in the bigness of this or anything else huge that I lose sight of who I am.

Yeah, Like, that's why I like this is being proud of yourself because of how you live your life is the winning formula.

And you have full control over training your mind to think differently.

You have full control over how you wake up in the morning, the series of actions that you take once you do.

And I really hope that you will take the truth of what I'm sharing with you in these simple tools, whether it's five four three two one or it is let them and let me, and you try them like you don't have to buy the book.

Try the theory.

It's so simple.

And see if you feel better, See if you're less stressed.

See if learning how to accept the challenging people in your life for who they are and who they're not.

See if learning how to do that actually brings you closer to them.

Because I'm telling you, if you really embrace this and you try this in your life, you will recognize that you've had You've got the tools, and you have all this power.

And when you stop giving it away and you reclaim it and you push yourself to live your way in a life that makes you proud, you will be proud of yourself.

No matter what people say about.

You, mel Robins, you deserve to be proud of yourself.

Well, one thing I want to tell you is that twenty twenty six, I'm coming to Australia New Zealand and the only way that You're gonna and I have not told anybody, we have not announced it yet, but for your audience.

Yeah, if you're not on my newsletter list at Melrobins dot com, you better get on it because that's who's going to hear about this first.

And I cannot wait to be in person.

Okay, the Mama Maya audience will love this.

Will you bring the family?

Yes, I am honored to be able to share that with you for the first time.

Bring them all, Bring all the Robinsons.

We want all of you.

Wow, that's quite an announcement.

Mel Robbins is heading our way in twenty twenty six, and we got the exclusive here on No Filter.

What really stands out for me is how Mel has turned her personal journey and to let them theory into not just a movement, but a global empire.

It's pretty mind blowing to see how she's taken and her message and made it into a business that has touched millions, myself included.

The executive producer of No Filter is Naima Brown.

Senior producer is bre Player, with audio production by Jacob Brown and video production by Josh Green.

And I am your host Kate Lane Brook.

I will see you next week.

The presenting partner of this episode of I Never Told You This was Meddibank Live betterup with Medibank an amazing chat.

If you are after more women's health news, well is your full body Health Check dropping every week on a Thursday.

Coming up.

In our next topic, we're going to be talking about our skin from anti aging injectables and fillers, skin conditions like ex mersoriasis and roseasha, and then also skin cancer which is a very important topic for us Sossies.

As usual, there is a link to follow us in the show notes.

Have a good one.

Mamma Mia acknowledges the traditional owners of the land.

We have recorded this podcast on the Gadaghl people of the eorination.

We pay our respects to their elders past and present and extend that respect to all Aboriginal and torrest Rate islander cultures.