Skip to content
The Mel Robbins PodcastThe Mel Robbins Podcast

Do This for 1 Week to Manifest the Future You Want with Shonda Rhimes

Order your copy of The Let Them Theory 👉 https://melrob.co/let-them-theory 👈 The #1 Best Selling Book of 2025 🔥 Discover how much power you truly have. It all begins with two simple words. Let Them. — This episode is a MUST listen. If you’ve ever felt stuck, small, or tired of letting fear dictate your life, you need to hit play. This is the most eye-opening, empowering conversation you’ll hear this year. It’s time to stop playing small. There’s a bigger possibility for your life, you are more capable than you know, and you can manifest the future you want. Today’s episode will show you how. In it, Mel is joined by Shonda Rhimes. Shonda is one of the most powerful voices in entertainment history. She’s the creator of Grey's Anatomy and Scandal and the Executive Producer of Bridgerton and How To Get Away With Murder. She’s won Golden Globes, Emmys, broken records, and built Shondaland, a global storytelling empire. But this is not a conversation about groundbreaking TV shows. It’s about taking your life back. Shonda reveals that despite all her success, she was still living in fear. Still hiding. And in this conversation, Shonda will challenge you to do the same things she started doing: to stop doubting yourself, stop waiting for permission, and start saying YES, even when it’s terrifying. This is a masterclass in courage, clarity, and finding your power. By the time it’s over, you won’t just believe change is possible. You’ll know it is. Because the life you want? It’s on the other side of YES. And it starts right now. For more resources related to today’s episode, click here for the podcast episode page: https://www.melrobbins.com/episode/episode-341/ Get Shonda’s book, “The Year of Yes: 10th Anniversary Edition,” here: https://a.co/d/4HFKL84 Follow The Mel Robbins Podcast on Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/themelrobbinspodcast I’m just your friend. I am not a licensed therapist, and this podcast is NOT intended as a substitute for the advice of a physician, professional coach, psychotherapist, or other qualified professional. Got it? Good. I’ll see you in the next episode. In this episode: 00:00 Meet the Guest 4:51 Shonda Rhimes' “Year of Yes”: Why Saying Yes Changes Everything 10:29 The Mindset That Changes Your Life Immediately 16:55 How to Set Health & Wellness Goals That Stick 23:03 The Right Way to Have Difficult Conversations 32:00 What to Do When You Feel Stuck In Your Life 40:48 How to Stop Being a People-Pleaser for Good 53:08 How to Find the Feeling of Home 1:06:35 The Lifelong Benefits of Mentorship 1:12:44 Life Begins at the End of Your Comfort Zone — Follow Mel: Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/melrobbins/ TikTok: http://tiktok.com/@melrobbins Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/melrobbins LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/melrobbins Website: http://melrobbins.com​ — Sign up for Mel’s newsletter: https://melrob.co/sign-up-newsletter A note from Mel to you, twice a week, sharing simple, practical ways to build the life you want. — Subscribe to Mel’s channel here: https://www.youtube.com/melrobbins​?sub_confirmation=1 — Listen to The Mel Robbins Podcast 🎧 New episodes drop every Monday & Thursday! https://melrob.co/spotify https://melrob.co/applepodcasts https://melrob.co/amazonmusic — Looking for Mel’s books on Amazon? Find them here: The Let Them Theory: https://amzn.to/3IQ21Oe The Let Them Theory Audiobook: https://amzn.to/413SObp The High 5 Habit: https://amzn.to/3fMvfPQ The 5 Second Rule: https://amzn.to/4l54fah

Shonda RhimesguestMel Robbinshost
Nov 9, 20251h 17mWatch on YouTube ↗

At a glance

WHAT IT’S REALLY ABOUT

Say Yes For One Week: Shonda Rhimes’ Blueprint For Reinvention

  1. Mel Robbins interviews Shonda Rhimes about how her ‘Year of Yes’—a commitment to say yes to everything that scared her—transformed a wildly successful but emotionally small and fear-driven life into one that feels expansive, joyful, and self-directed.
  2. Rhimes explains how chronic fear, people-pleasing, and living in her imagination kept her hiding from real-life experiences, relationships, health, and even her own definition of happiness, despite massive career success.
  3. By practicing small, consistent yeses—to public speaking, her health, her body, difficult conversations, ending an engagement, moving across the country, and finding hobbies—she built the confidence and clarity to also powerfully say no.
  4. The conversation positions ‘yes’ as a practical mental tool: a way to confront fear, stop self-cruelty, exit misaligned lives and expectations, and deliberately author a life that feels like home to you, not to everyone else.

IDEAS WORTH REMEMBERING

5 ideas

Use ‘yes’ as a tool to move through fear, not to please others.

Commit (even just for a week) to say yes to things that scare you—public speaking, going alone to an event, applying for school—and treat each ‘yes’ as an experiment to build courage and data about what you actually like, not as a way to impress people.

Start with very small yeses to yourself to rebuild agency.

You don’t need a dramatic life overhaul; begin with tiny, specific yeses like drinking more water, making one doctor’s appointment, accepting a compliment, or spending one evening on something you enjoy to prove to yourself that change is possible.

Recognize that your ‘nos’ quietly accumulate into a life you don’t want.

Repeatedly saying no to exercise, applications, social invitations, or honest conversations feels minor in the moment, but over time it compacts into poor health, isolation, stalled careers, and relationships that don’t fit you.

Say yes to difficult conversations to stop silently betraying yourself and others.

Avoiding breakups, feedback, or firing conversations drains more energy than having them; leading with the hard truth (“This isn’t working and here’s why”) is kinder long-term than staying in situations that are wrong for both sides.

Differentiate between saying yes to growth and yes to performance.

Rhimes learned to tell when she was saying yes to expand her life versus saying yes to prove something or avoid being disliked; that discernment lets you say a strong no to trips, projects, or roles that deplete you, even if they look impressive.

WORDS WORTH SAVING

5 quotes

Saying no has gotten me here. Here sucks. Saying yes might be my way to someplace better.

— Shonda Rhimes

Why do you like them and want them to be happier than you like yourself and want yourself to be happy?

— Shonda Rhimes

The words you say to yourself are like casting a spell.

— Shonda Rhimes

Doing the thing that you’ve been so afraid of generally undoes the fear.

— Shonda Rhimes

The only person who can change your life is you, and the only person who’s going to be disappointed if you don’t change your life is you.

— Shonda Rhimes

The ‘Year of Yes’ framework: saying yes to everything that scares youFear, small lives, and how avoidance masquerades as safetySaying yes to health, body acceptance, and ending emotional numbing with foodMarriage, relationships, and saying yes to your truth even when others disapproveThe power of difficult conversations and stopping extreme people-pleasingRewriting success: moving, finding home, hobbies, and non‑work identitySelf-talk, self-cruelty, and treating yourself like someone who matters

High quality AI-generated summary created from speaker-labeled transcript.

Get more out of YouTube videos.

High quality summaries for YouTube videos. Accurate transcripts to search & find moments. Powered by ChatGPT & Claude AI.

Add to Chrome