Your Setbacks Are Setting You UP for Something Better | The Mel Robbins Podcast [ENCORE]

(ticking sound) Summer's supposed to be this awesome time where we relax, we dial it down. If you're lucky and you can get to the beach, that's fantastic, or a pool. But when I'm at the beach, you know what I'm thinking about? My fricking future and the endings and the beginnings. And today, I wanna throw how you believe in yourself in the middle of all these endings and beginnings. And how do you believe in yourself when you haven't even started taking the action? My guest today, she's a super close friend of mine, and she is somebody you wanna hear from right now. (upbeat music) Hey, it's Mel. I, there are so many times that I sit down and start talking to you, and I just wish I could see you. I wish you were here with me so that I could see you as we're having this conversation. One of these days, maybe we need to do the podcast live so that I could see you, or maybe we could organize a walk where we could walk and talk, because that's always been my vision for the Mel Robbins podcast. Now, when you and I met on Monday and we talked last time, it was all about graduation. That was the theme. Do not give up on your dreams. Graduation, failure is not an option. Absolutely loved that conversation, and I wanna talk about it again. (laughs) Not, not that exact thing, but about the future, because it's in the air. This time of year, everybody is thinking about the future, and some of you are thinking about the immediate future, the future that's right in front of you, and you're super excited about it. You know what your plans are. You know what you're doing. That is so awesome. But there are so many of you that are looking out into the near future and you're freaking out. Like, for example, I was just talking to my daughter this morning, and she picked up the phone, we were on FaceTime, and she had just gone for a run. I'm like, "How are you doing?" She's like, "I'm totally stressed out." And I'm like, "What's going on?" She's like, "I gotta pack up this thing. My roommates are signing leases. The lease is gonna end," and I'm- I'm- I'm thinking, "Your lease ends in three months. Like, why are you freaking out about this today?" Why? Because she's thinking about the future and she's starting to get nervous about all the stuff that needs to happen, and she's starting to doubt how it's gonna happen and freaking out about it, and- and it's kinda everywhere. Maybe just in the Robbins household, but here's another example of it. Everywhere I go with our son, Oakley, who's a rising senior in high school now, I bet you can guess the question that adults ask him. "So, do you know what you're doing next year?" Referring to college. Like, it's an obsession with adults. "Where are you going to college? What are your plans? What are you gonna study?" And at that age, I would think 99% of us are like, "I don't have a fucking clue what I'm gonna study. I'm going to college to help me figure out." If you're the kind of person that came out of the womb into the world knowing your life's mission, like our daughter did, who wants to be a singer-songwriter, boom, good for you. The rest of us morons are figuring it out for our entire lifetime. And so, every time somebody asks me, "So, does Oakley know what he's doing next year?" I say, "Yeah, he's got four schools that he's super interested in. He's got one that he's gonna apply ED, but honestly, he'd be happy at any of them." There's my answer. When somebody asks Oakley that, there's something interesting that I notice. He always starts out with the school that he knows he's gonna get into. Now, of course, there are no guarantees, but based (knocks on table) on his grades and based on just kind of how things are, pretty sure he's gonna get in. But there's a small hesitation before he tells them the school he wants to ED to. And that hesitation is because it's a reach, and so that hesitation, hiding in it is this small kernel of doubt. "Should I say this? Do I really believe that I can get in there? Do I have the right to apply to that school? Should I even think that I'm in- within the thing?" And I think every one of us has an example of that in our life, right? Where if you look out to the immediate future, there's probably something going on with you or somebody in your life where there is this uncertainty, and that uncertainty can come up as a hesitation or a holding back or being kinda quiet or shy about what you're thinking about, or it can come across as, like, a total freakout. Like, you're already worried about something that is about three months or a year away and you're working yourself into a tizzy. What's needed in both situations is believing in yourself, because when you can believe that you're gonna figure out the whole thing, uh, about moving out of your apartment, and I think why our daughter is so triggered is because she's not signing a lease in Boston. She's doing something totally different. And so, seeing her roommates sign leases for apartments in Boston certainly makes her reflect about the fact that she's not planning on doing that. She's got something else going on. And so, the freakout is also about, "Do I believe that it's gonna work out? Am I making the right decision?" And I talk a lot on this podcast episode about action, right? I'm always like, "This is not a listening podcast, you guys. This is a- this is an action podcast. You gotta do something." And I also believe that when you take action, the belief catches up. But it sure is a hell of a lot easier if you can believe in yourself along the way, and that's what I wanna talk to you about today. How do you believe in yourself, especially in a moment like right now where the future's right in front of you and it is swirling with endings and with beginnings? That's always how I feel in the summer, right? Summer's supposed to be this awesome time where we relax, we dial it down. If you're lucky and you can get to the beach, that's fantastic, or a pool. But when I'm at the beach, you know what I'm thinking about? My fricking future and the endings and the beginnings. And today, I wanna throw how you believe in yourself in the middle of all these endings and beginnings. And how do you believe in yourself when you haven't even started taking the actions? How do you believe in yourself when you don't know how this thing is gonna turn out that you really wanna do? Well, my guest today, she's a super close friend of mine.And she is somebody you want to hear from right now. Who am I talking about? I'm talking about none other than Jamie Kern Lima. She's the founder of IT Cosmetics, which she started in her living room, and she sold it to L'Oreal for a billion dollars. And here's the thing that I love about Jamie. Jamie is the queen of learning how to believe in yourself, because when she started IT Cosmetics, she was not some influencer with daddy's money. No, no, no, no, no, no. She didn't get a degree in how to start a company. She was a waitress at Denny's, with terrible skin rosacea, like the bright pink kind of breakouts all over her cheeks, and it was that rosacea that, n- and that hardworking work ethic from being a Denny's waitress that made her create her own foundation, and that was the beginning of this billion-dollar company that she created in her living room, IT Cosmetics. And I know you're going to love hearing from her, which is why I am so excited that you're here to talk to us about your journey. You are one of my favorite human beings of all time. I cannot thank you enough, Jamie, for being here as my friend and for being here as the professor on the topic of purpose and learning how to believe in yourself. Ladies and gentlemen, let's give a big, warm Mel Robbins Podcast welcome to Jamie Kern Lima.