"Focus On Yourself & Everything Will Fall Into Place!" - LIVE The Life You Really Want | Mel Robbins

Mel Robbins 0:00 People are allowed to cancel plans. They're allowed to have a different opinion than you. They're allowed to change their minds. They're allowed to be upset. They're allowed to struggle. They're allowed to be who they are and who they're not. And your job in life is not to second-guess or to judge or to be pissed off because people are not conforming to your expectations

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 0:32 Mm

Mel Robbins 0:32 See, it goes both ways.

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 0:33 Exactly.

Mel Robbins 0:34 You're exhausted because you think you're supposed to meet everybody else's expectations, and the reason why you're frustrated is because the opposite's true. You actually believe everybody else should conform to your expectations. And so the very thing that is draining your time and energy and making you overwhelmed and causing the outside world and other people's behaviors to piss you off or frustrate you or stress you out or annoy you or just make you feel s- just intense all the time, it's the exact same thing that creates friction and distance and unnecessary drama in your relationships. It's the expectations-

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 1:16 Mm

Mel Robbins 1:17 ... that we hold over each other and ourselves. And when you start to say, "Let them. Let them be who they are. Let them be who they're not."

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 1:27 Mm.

Mel Robbins 1:27 Because the more you let people be who they are, the more you're accepting them as they are, and that makes your relationships better. And the more you let other people live their lives, the more your life gets better because you're no longer holding expectations over other people that they should be different than they are. You are learning the most fundamental and important skill in a relationship, which is learning how to accept somebody as they are and love them as they are and be more compassionate-

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 2:03 Yeah

Mel Robbins 2:03 ... and graceful and loving with people instead of constantly judging and having opinions and inserting your stories and wishing people were different. And then how it works with you is you recognize that the unfair expectation that you've held over your own head, that you should somehow be responsible for every other adult's happiness-

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 2:26 [laughs]

Mel Robbins 2:27 ... and every other adult's social plans. I mean, just think about, you know, when you find the time to have a dinner party-

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 2:36 Mm-hmm

Mel Robbins 2:36 ... and you haven't seen your friends forever because there's a real crisis in friendship that we're all feeling because everybody's-

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 2:42 Yeah

Mel Robbins 2:42 ... busy, and hybrid work screws up everybody's schedules, and people have gotten a little bit more hermit-like because of the experience of being in lockdown and-

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 2:51 Yeah, for sure

Mel Robbins 2:52 ... like, it just... And so if we're all feeling this way, and then you go to have a, a dinner party, and let's say you've got, you know, a couple friends. You invite two people. You're like, "Should we invite... Oh, well, you know, maybe we should invite those two. Oh, no, now we got four. If we don't invite so-and-so and they find out from this person, then they're gonna be upset, so we should probably invite those people." And the next thing you know, you either have a list of 20 people, 15 of whom you don't really wanna spend the evening with because you're worried about what other people are gonna feel-

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 3:23 Mm

Mel Robbins 3:23 ... if they know they're not invited, or you're so exhausted by the thought of, "What am I gonna do with this?" That you just are like, "Forget

Mel Robbins 3:31 it. Forget it."

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 3:32 It, it reminds me. I'm not sure I should be sharing this or not, but, um, you-

Mel Robbins 3:36 [laughs]

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 3:36 ... you pr- [laughs] Which probably means I should. Um, I remember when I completed my first book, Mel, and you know how hard it is to write a book.

Mel Robbins 3:45 Uh-huh.

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 3:46 Okay? These things aren't easy. The most stressful thing is sometimes writing the acknowledgments. I don't know if you found this. I certainly found it with my first book, and my second-

Mel Robbins 3:55 You don't wanna forget anybody

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 3:55 ... you don't wanna forget anyone, and then you end up mentioning everyone by name who you've, who's ever given you a leg up or done anything for you. And it's interesting that as I have let go of the need to be liked by everyone, in my latest, which is my sixth one, it was a very simple acknowledgment section, and instead of name-checking each and every single one of my friends, I said something like, "You know, I'm blessed to have great friends. You all know who you are."

Mel Robbins 4:24 Yeah.

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 4:25 And I said something really nice, but without naming them all. And what, why, why I'm sharing that is because it's not about the names. It's about me, and it's about, um, my need when I did my first book to make sure I'm not disappointing anyone.

Mel Robbins 4:45 Mm-hmm.

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 4:46 What will they think?

Mel Robbins 4:47 Mm-hmm.

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 4:47 I must make sure. You know, trying to manage, trying to control, right? Maybe I'm being a bit harsh on myself, but do you know, do you know what I mean?

Mel Robbins 4:54 No, I think this is... I'm gonna, I'm gonna give an example so the person listening will really feel what you're feeling in case you haven't written a book. So I want you to imagine that you are about to post something on your favorite social media platform.

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 5:08 Yeah.

Mel Robbins 5:08 And for me, I like Instagram the best. So you pull out Instagram. You're gonna select a photo or a video. Now let me look through my camera roll. Uh, is this a good pic- Is that a good picture? Should I do this one? Should I do that one? A good picture for who?

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 5:28 [laughs]

Mel Robbins 5:30 And then you put the photo up, and then you're like swipe, swipe, swipe on the filters, trying to make it look better for who. And then you go and write the caption, and you're like, "Da, da, da. Is this too much? Should I put an emoji? Delete, delete, delete. Should I put this? Should..." For who? And if you ever look at all your drafts, that is the graveyard of your self-expression and dreams. When you do the simple act of trying to share something online, which, let me just remind you, your social media is not for your friends. It is not for your mates from university. It's not for your fa- It's for you. It's for your self-expression. If you're in business, it's a marketing channel, and here you are editing yourself because you believe that there's a certain photo or a certain way to write a caption that is going to guarantee that another person is going to like you-

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 6:37 Mm-hmm

Mel Robbins 6:37 ... or share. Like, you have given all the power to another human being. You will never be able to control whether they follow you, unfollow you, share it, save it, like it, whatever, comment. You will never be able to control that-

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 6:53 Yeah

Mel Robbins 6:53 ... or guarantee it. And yet, in that moment before you hit Post, you are... That's all you're considering. And then what ends up happening is you get so stressed out and frustrated, you hit Draft, and all the drafts are evidence of how often this has happened. And then once you do post, what do you do? You go back and you check it obsessively to see, like, okay, are people like it, are they not? And if you don't... And then, then they're, you're deleting it. And so this is what I'm saying about this very sneaky and destructive habit that we have-

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 7:29 Yeah

Mel Robbins 7:29 ... where we give the power to somebody else, and we don't even realize we're doing it, and we give control to things that are beyond our control and then spend all this time and energy trying to ensure that our behavior somehow guarantees it's... No.

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 7:43 Yeah. It's a form of betrayal, isn't it?

Mel Robbins 7:46 Yes, it is.

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 7:47 I- in- in fact, the example you just used there, if you play this out, not only can you not control who's gonna like that post or not-

Mel Robbins 7:58 Uh-huh

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 7:58 ... or the image or what you've written, okay?

Mel Robbins 8:00 Mm-hmm.

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 8:00 So you're playing a, an unwinnable game.

Mel Robbins 8:02 Yep.

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 8:03 But then the follow-on point from that is you've done something very dangerous. Let's say you have changed your self-expression in order to get validation from other people, and you get that validation.

Mel Robbins 8:16 Yep.

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 8:17 In some ways, that's even worse because now you know that the way to get validation from others is to change who you are.

Mel Robbins 8:25 Just look at every woman that posts on social media with their breasts out and their ass in the camera. You're getting positive reinforcement for that.

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 8:37 Mm-hmm.

Mel Robbins 8:38 And look, if that's your form of artistry, go for it, but I would be willing to bet that 99.9% of those accounts that are actually real human beings and not bots are actually a deeply insecure person who is seeking very toxic attention and getting it, proving your point exactly. And look, here's what I'm gonna say. Let them. If that's how they wanna live their life, let them do it.

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 9:07 Yeah.

Mel Robbins 9:07 Let me say something very pointed and provocative to challenge the person listening who may be doing that, who deep down knows that this is not the life you wanna be leading. This is not the attention you actually want, that there's deeper work to do, and you are trapped. And here's the thing, no one's gonna come and fix us. At some point, you're gonna have to wake up and understand that any change you wanna make is on you, and all of the time, all of the energy that you're pouring-

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 9:38 Mm

Mel Robbins 9:38 ... into seeking validation from others, chasing their opinions and their likes and, you know, hoping that people are gonna be happy with you and you're gonna win them over, all of that is a waste of your precious life.

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 9:51 Mm.

Mel Robbins 9:51 You need to take all that time and energy back and really assess for yourself. At the end of the day, when I'm laying on my deathbed and I look back, I want you to be proud of yourself.

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 10:03 Yeah.

Mel Robbins 10:04 I want you to look back. I want you to be surrounded by people that you love and that love you back. I want you to see the time that you had and go, "Wow, I really used the time that I had-

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 10:15 Yeah

Mel Robbins 10:15 ... in a way that makes me proud." And so if you're not in that moment and you can't authentically say, "I am proud of who I am. I am proud of the way that I spend my time. I'm proud of how I start my day and take care of myself," then wake the fuck up and make changes because you can.

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 10:36 Yeah. In fact, one of the top regrets people have on their deathbed is, "I wish I lived my life and not the life that other people expected of me."

Mel Robbins 10:47 Yes. Well, that's, that's question number three.

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 10:49 Yeah.

Mel Robbins 10:50 Question number three, what is stopping me from living my life the way I wanna live it?

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 10:53 Yeah.

Mel Robbins 10:54 You are. No one else is stopping you. You are stopping yourself because you are making other people a problem. You are looking at other people's success, and you think it is an example of your failure. You are looking at other people, and you think they are the source of your happiness. You're looking out there for the validation that you need in here.

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 11:17 Yeah.

Mel Robbins 11:17 And this is why... Look, again, nobody gets sober until you first stop drinking. You will never take control of your own life until you first stop trying to control everyone and everything out there, what they think, what they do, all of it, and you pull it back, and you focus on you and figuring out, "What's gonna make me proud of myself?"

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 11:39 Yeah.

Mel Robbins 11:39 "What kind of person do I wanna be? What do I wanna think about this? What do I wanna do in response to this?"

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 11:44 On, on the subjects of only we're the ones who can make changes in our own life and get us out of a hole or change where we are, it kinda leads on to question four, right?

Mel Robbins 11:55 Mm-hmm.

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 11:55 So question four out of these five questions that you've been asking yourself and you encourage us to ask ourselves is, why do I procrastinate and overthink every decision?

Mel Robbins 12:07 So the procrastination, as you know, Dr. Chatterjee, is a stress response.

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 12:14 Yeah.

Mel Robbins 12:15 And if you think about any of the research around fight or flight, there's a third stress response, which is freeze

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 12:23 Freeze

Mel Robbins 12:24 And if you wanna talk about procrastination from a medical or physiological standpoint, typically you're procrastinating because the thing that you need to do is going to require a lot of mental energy to do it, whether you're procrastinating on paying your bills or procrastinating on balancing your, you know, checking account, or you're procrastinating on working on your resume or you're procrastinating on cleaning out that back closet that you know you need to do, or the garage or whatever. And a lot of us, when we get overwhelmed by life, or we're already, as you've been teaching us, are in a stressed out physiological state, the ability to bring a lot of energy-

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 13:13 Mm-hmm

Mel Robbins 13:13 ... to something that requires focus is not there. And so I just wanna acknowledge that there's a deeper physiological reason for procrastination, and it's almost like a trauma response to life.

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 13:25 Yeah.

Mel Robbins 13:25 You freeze. The overthinking and the going up in your head has a lot to do with the fact that, again, when you've gotta do anything in life or you're thinking about things that you wanna do, you immediately consider how other people are going to react to it. Most of the things we overthink about, whether it's how we're going to get out of debt or how we're gonna face this diagnosis-

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 13:59 Mm

Mel Robbins 13:59 ... or how we can care for our aging parents and still find time for ourselves, there's information, and there's simple things you can do. I mean, all of your work, your six books provide the roadmap. The reason why we overthink, though, is since the beginning of being little, we have been around adults that typically are a little reactive, a little predictable, unpredictable. I'm talking about our parents. And as kids, we've had to develop this skill of paying attention to how other people-

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 14:33 Yeah

Mel Robbins 14:34 ... are responding and what their moods are. So we are trained since childhood to consider how our behavior or what other people's moods are in, and then to think about it and respond. And so for me, one of the things that has helped me a lot is when you catch yourself overthinking, "What if this happens? What if that happens? What if the other thing happens? What if..." All overthinking is about things that haven't happened yet, right?

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 15:01 Yeah.

Mel Robbins 15:02 So one thing that has helped me a lot is to say, "Let them," and then whatever the thing I'm afraid of, I just say. So, for example, if I'm worried about what somebody's gonna think, "Well, what is so-and-so gonna think?" And then I start overthinking about it, I say this, "Let them think something negative." I don't ever say to myself, "I don't care what people think. I don't care what they think." If somebody says that, they care what somebody thinks. The best way to deal with overthinking and being afraid of what other people are going to do in reaction is to say, "Let them have a negative opinion. Let them be disappointed."

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 15:42 Mm-hmm.

Mel Robbins 15:43 "Let them be angry with me. Let them misunderstand me." Because now you're calling out the very thing that you're overthinking about.

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 15:51 Hmm.

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 15:53 Yeah. You mentioned this idea that I don't care what people think.

Mel Robbins 16:00 Uh-huh.

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 16:00 Okay.

Mel Robbins 16:01 That's not true.

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 16:02 Yeah. So it's really interesting to me. You are... Well, there's a couple of things that come to mind, Mel. You are, I would say, a once in a generation phenomena. And what I mean by that is there's something about you that people just absolutely love. People can really relate to you. You share so much of your life, your struggles, the things that you've got wrong, right? You know, in, within my team, I've got people who just love you. You know, I shared when you first came on my podcast that one of my team members only joined my team because they used your 5, 4, 3, 2, 1 methods.

Mel Robbins 16:46 Mm-hmm.

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 16:46 They were too scared to write to me and apply.

Mel Robbins 16:49 Mm-hmm, mm-hmm.

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 16:49 And they were reading your book, and they said, "Right, 5, 4, 3, 2, 1, send." She got a job.

Mel Robbins 16:56 And let me give you another example in that, 'cause there's... The person listening, there's an email or... you wanna send or a job you wanna apply to, and isn't it interesting, the only thing that was stopping her is she was worried that you would reject her or worried that you were gonna think she wasn't worthy of it.

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 17:10 Exactly.

Mel Robbins 17:11 And so again, an example of these moments where she was giving power to your opinion over the email that she was waiting to send.

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 17:18 Yeah. And this, you can apply it to your last book, The 5, 4, 3, 2, 1-

Mel Robbins 17:22 Uh-huh

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 17:22 ... Habit, right?

Mel Robbins 17:23 Yeah.

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 17:23 Which she used. So this fourth question, why do I procrastinate and overthink every decision? Well, your last book was on a tool that people can use, right? I need to do this. 5, 4, 3, 2, 1, do it.

Mel Robbins 17:34 Yeah, the five-second rule. Do it.

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 17:36 But again, the same thing applies to the let them theory, because I guess the lady who applied to join my team, as you say, she was worried about what I would think.

Mel Robbins 17:47 Yeah.

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 17:47 You know? "Oh, who's this person?" You know. "She's not worthy," or whatever, whatever story she created in her head.

Mel Robbins 17:52 Yeah. It's not gonna, it's not gonna matter anyway, 'cause he's never gonna hire me.

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 17:56 Yeah. But she could have also applied let them.

Mel Robbins 17:58 Of course.

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 17:59 Hey, let him. I'm gonna write this email, and you know what? If it's not the right job for me, if I don't get it, that's okay as well.

Mel Robbins 18:07 Yeah, let him.

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 18:08 It shouldn't stop me writing it.

Mel Robbins 18:09 Correct.

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 18:10 Yeah.

Mel Robbins 18:11 Do you see what I'm saying? That's the perfect example of how you have made other people a problem.

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 18:16 Yeah.

Mel Robbins 18:16 I have now... There's a job I want, and I'm not applying for it- Because I am making up a story about what Dr. Chatterjee is gonna do in response to an email I haven't even written yet, and so I have now put Dr. Chatterjee's made-up action-

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 18:32 [laughs]

Mel Robbins 18:33 ... that I can't control in between me and the action I could actually take to land my dream job.

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 18:40 Yeah.

Mel Robbins 18:40 How fucking sad?

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 18:43 It's ridiculous on many levels because if you even think about it through the lens of time, the amount of time and energy we waste, like we said before, right, thinking about other people's opinions, actually writing the email, sending it, would probably take 10% maximum of the time that is spent, "Should I? Shouldn't I? Oh, I'm not sure. I don't think I'm the right person."

Mel Robbins 19:05 [laughs]

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 19:05 "They probably want someone more exper-"

Mel Robbins 19:07 [laughs]

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 19:07 Do you know what I mean?

Mel Robbins 19:07 Yes.

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 19:07 It's like, when you look at it rationally, it's absolutely crazy. But I've shared with you my view. Why do you think so many people resonate with you and your message?

Mel Robbins 19:19 I think it's, uh, th- it's multilayered. Um, the reason why is because, you know, I started sharing things that I was discovering, like counting backwards five, four, three, two, one to get out of bed when the anxiety would pin me down and I didn't feel like I had it within me to face the day-

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 19:44 Yeah

Mel Robbins 19:44 ... because there were just so many problems in my life. So I just started, five, four, three, two, one, and I'd launch myself forward. And you know, I, I was sharing these things with friends, and then friends would tell friends, and then, you know, started to use social media to share these things because I have caused myself and people that I care about so much pain and heartache because I didn't know.

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 20:11 Sorry to interrupt. If you're enjoying this video and you want to learn more, then do check out my free special guide which contains the six crucial steps you need to take in your life to not only build healthy habits, but also to make them stick. If you wanna get a hold of this free guide, all you have to do is click on the link in the description box below.

Mel Robbins 20:33 I didn't know what my problem was. I didn't know what I could do differently. I didn't know why I was trapped in these really negative thinking patterns or these really self-destructive patterns of behavior that hurt me or that hurt other people.

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 20:52 Mm.

Mel Robbins 20:52 And as I started to claw my way out of the mental and the physical and the financial hole that I had dug for myself and fallen into, and I began learning that there were simple things that I could do to treat myself a little better, to be a little bit better of a person, to improve my health, I thought, you know, if I can save anybody the headaches, the heartaches, the pain that I've caused myself or other people, that is a life well-lived. And every time I've shared something, whether it is the simple story that everybody on the planet can relate to of going to a friend's home that is a hell of a lot nicer than yours, and the very childish but normal reaction that you have, and the conflict that you feel, if I can actually tell that story and it makes you stop beating yourself up-

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 21:55 Yeah

Mel Robbins 21:55 ... for being a horrible friend, and it helps you to understand that there's something deeper there for you to learn, then that painful experience has value and meaning for me and for you. And you know, I ... And, and I never, ever will get too far away from the painful things to forget that I'm just trying to share things that help move the needle in a normal person's life.

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 22:31 Yeah.

Mel Robbins 22:32 And I think the relatability comes from the fact that even in this wild, incredible, just unimaginable, like I, I, I can't on some level even believe that I've gone in 15 years from alcoholism, almost divorce, almost $800,000 in debt, liens on the house, unemployed, to building what I've built and changing who I am. Like, at my core I know I've always been a really good person, but there was so much crap that had built up and so much evidence that I had based on bad, toxic behavior on my part, that I lost that connection.

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 23:20 Mm.

Mel Robbins 23:20 And so I just feel like I've ... I still have the same values. Like, I ... What I wanted ... What I want now is I want more free time. I wanna see my friends. I wanna spend more time with my husband. I, I wanna spend more time with my adult kids and my aging parents.

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 23:36 Mm-hmm.

Mel Robbins 23:37 I live in a tiny, small town. I have no interest in the big, shiny bullshit that, you know, people may think is part of hosting what is right now the number one ranked podcast in the world on Apple Podcasts.

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 23:52 Yeah.

Mel Robbins 23:53 And I think it's very cool that as a 54-year-old mother of three, I stepped into the podcast space, and this show is not only making a difference, it is dominating globally.

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 24:09 Yeah.

Mel Robbins 24:10 And so that example, Dr. Chatterjee, the fact that I don't have a PhD, yes, I'm an extraordinarily intelligent person, and I'm clearly a very, very good businesswoman- But I'm just, you know, somebody's daughter, I'm somebody's mother, I'm somebody who said, "You know what? I'm tired of thinking about a podcast and being pissed off and jealous that Dr. Chatterjee's doing it, and my buddy Jay Shetty's doing it, and I'm just gonna do it."

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 24:38 Mm-hmm.

Mel Robbins 24:39 And so I do think that part of the appeal is that people can see that I actually just am exactly who you see-

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 24:47 Yeah

Mel Robbins 24:47 ... that I am. And, you know, we joke a lot in my family, because my daughters will call me, they're 25 and they're 23, and they'll be like, "Oh, my God, that vi- you look horrible. Why are you, wh- why are you posting that video of you?"

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 24:59 That's what people like. [laughs]

Mel Robbins 25:00 But no, but, but here's the thing. That's not a gimmick. See, I went to the grocery store looking like that.

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 25:08 Yeah.

Mel Robbins 25:09 Why the fuck would I put on makeup? You know, and here on the podcast, it's a little different, 'cause these lights are damn bright, right? But, you know, when I'm home-

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 25:18 Yeah

Mel Robbins 25:18 ... when I'm just living my life, and so I feel like I am just very tied to making sure that I never forget that the reason why I'm doing this is because I wanna continue to learn.

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 25:35 Yeah.

Mel Robbins 25:35 I wanna continue to be a better person, and a better friend, and a better mom, and a better sister, and a better wife, and a better daughter. And I also am doing this because I know how much pain I've caused myself and people I love, and I didn't mean to. And I think we can all do a little bit better.

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 25:54 Yeah.

Mel Robbins 25:54 And when I was at my lowest moments, Dr. Chatterjee, it wasn't ability that was missing, it was hope.

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 26:03 Yeah.

Mel Robbins 26:03 It was this opinion that things are so far gone or I'm such a shitty person, that even though I believe what Dr. Chatterjee is saying, I'm convinced this won't work for me, so why would I try?

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 26:18 Mm-hmm.

Mel Robbins 26:18 And so I think that's one reason-

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 26:21 Yeah

Mel Robbins 26:21 ... why people, people really understand that I mean it.

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 26:25 Yeah.

Mel Robbins 26:25 Like, I'm not the kind of person that, that, that fakes it. I'm not the kind of-

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 26:30 Yeah

Mel Robbins 26:30 ... I spent too much of my life pretending to be somebody I'm not.

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 26:34 Uh, I've been hanging out with you for the day on and off the mic. Mel is literally the same person [laughs] off the mic-

Mel Robbins 26:40 [laughs]

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 26:40 ... as she is on the mic, okay? I've seen it firsthands. Um,

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 26:44 with such a big public profile, Mel, you're obviously, like anyone with a public profile, subject to criticism.

Mel Robbins 26:52 Uh-huh.

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 26:53 Okay? So there seems to be a very natural, uh, connection between the Let Them theory that you write about-

Mel Robbins 26:58 Yeah

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 26:59 ... and how you might tackle and deal with criticism.

Mel Robbins 27:04 Oh, of course.

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 27:04 So how do you find public criticism, and how do you use the Let Them theory? Maybe there was a time in your life where you didn't use it-

Mel Robbins 27:11 Yeah

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 27:11 ... and now that you do use it, how has it changed things?

Mel Robbins 27:15 Oh, I just let them. Let them say what they want. People are gonna think, believe, have opinions about, and feel things even when they're not true. Let them. Like, [laughs] if you can't control what people are gonna say, do, and feel about you, why would you spend any energy trying to manage it? There is nothing that somebody could say that would actually upset me, and here's why. I know the truth of who I am, and I know the truth behind the intention of what I do and why. And so people can have whatever opinions they want, they can write whatever they want, they can comment whatever they want. Let them. It's so liberating. I hope... Like, if people don't have negative opinions, then I'm not saying anything-

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 28:13 Yeah

Mel Robbins 28:13 ... of interest. See, somebody that comes at you, Dr. Chatterjee, "He's a quack. He, this advice is so stupid. Who needs a medical degree?" People attack the messenger and the message that they actually would probably be saved by. You know, the biggest criticisms that I get is typically kinda snarky comments around how simple it is. Like, I remember when The New York Times wrote an article that was largely very, very positive. Same thing with Time Magazine. The only kinda negative vibe in it was that, you know, this is kinda profoundly stupid and simple stuff she's saying, count backwards, five, four, three, two, one, whatever. Here's the thing for me. Let them. Because if the only thing that you're able to question is the simplicity, then you don't even understand the complexity of issues that keep people stuck.

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 29:16 Yeah, exactly.

Mel Robbins 29:17 And you don't understand the reason why somebody deeply relates to me. I understand how hard your life is. I understand how overwhelming things are. The last thing anybody needs in today's world is somebody being intellectual and trying to be smarter than you.

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 29:37 Yeah.

Mel Robbins 29:38 Because you're already carrying the weight of the world.

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 29:41 Mm-hmm.

Mel Robbins 29:41 So I am in the highest service and can be the most impactful if, like you, Dr. Chatterjee, I am handing you something that is so simple that even with the weight of the world on your shoulders and even when you feel like there's nothing that's gonna work, that you feel a sense of hope that maybe, just maybe, this might.

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 30:09 Yeah.

Mel Robbins 30:09 And so if, it doesn't matter what people say. I mean, like, let them have negative thoughts.

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 30:15 People attack simplicity all the time.

Mel Robbins 30:16 Of course.

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 30:16 They don't realize how difficult it is to get to simplicity.

Mel Robbins 30:20 Yeah.

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 30:21 You know, I, I've experienced similar things myself.

Mel Robbins 30:23 I'm sure you have.

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 30:23 And it's like simplicity is how you help people make changes. When you make it-

Mel Robbins 30:29 Yes

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 30:29 ... complicated, so you have to do this, and track this, and do this, and do this.

Mel Robbins 30:32 Right.

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 30:32 Who does it?

Mel Robbins 30:33 Right.

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 30:33 Very few people.

Mel Robbins 30:34 And here's the thing. When somebody is able to make something look easy, whether they make a podcast look easy, or they make a speech look easy, or they make their marriage look easy, or they make the fact that they're in good health look easy, or they make the process of change look easy, what you know when it looks easy is that there was an extraordinary-

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 30:59 Yeah

Mel Robbins 30:59 ... amount of hard work that went into making it easy. [upbeat music]

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 31:05 If you enjoyed that short clip, I think you are really going to enjoy the full conversation, which you can check out here.