AI transcript
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0:01:29 True story, I was dating a rockhead when I first moved to New York and I went to visit
0:01:34 her in some bad town in Chicago where they were on tour and I walked into their day’s
0:01:40 in room where they were all partying and saw a dancer, a man, doing rails of cocaine off
0:01:43 the ass of a little person.
0:01:46 Not a joke that actually happened.
0:01:54 The dog loves New York.
0:02:01 Go, go, go!
0:02:04 Welcome to the 332nd episode of the Prop G Pod.
0:02:05 What’s happening?
0:02:08 The dog is howling back in the city.
0:02:12 He’s here howling at the Batmobile and I don’t know where to go.
0:02:13 Batmobile.
0:02:14 I’m having an amazing time.
0:02:15 Let’s talk about me.
0:02:16 Let’s bring this back to me.
0:02:19 I know you’re dying to know what’s, what’s going on.
0:02:21 I’m uh, where did I go?
0:02:25 I came back, I came here, did a week last week.
0:02:33 When I did, uh, it’s my son calling, I’ll be back in a moment.
0:02:41 Okay, so I’m back.
0:02:47 So what happens when you speak to your son every night at 4 p.m. your time when you’re
0:02:52 in New York or 9 p.m. their time in London and he calls you at 12.35, which he never
0:02:54 does, you freak out.
0:02:58 My son never calls me out of the blue in the middle of the day and it’s like, it reminds
0:03:03 me of when you see, you look in the rear of your mirror and you see sirens like a mirror
0:03:06 being pulled over that kind of, you take a deep breath in.
0:03:09 Anyways, that’s what I just felt, but everything’s fine.
0:03:13 So back to me and my arrested adolescence tour through the United States.
0:03:18 Friday I went to Boca Raton, spoke at the Jeffries conference, uh, spent the weekend
0:03:23 in Miami at the Faena, had a great time and then I went to Houston for the day.
0:03:28 Not so great, but a nice conference now I’m back in New York and I think New York is absolutely
0:03:29 on fire.
0:03:34 I think this is the golden age in New York and I think it’s, I think it’s wonderful.
0:03:38 Okay, anyways, in today’s episode, we speak with Mel Robbins, an award-winning podcast
0:03:42 host and New York Times bestselling author and expert on mindset, behavior change and
0:03:44 life improvement.
0:03:48 We discussed with Mel her latest book, The Let Them Theory, a life-changing tool that
0:03:52 millions of people can’t stop talking about.
0:03:55 So with that, here’s our conversation with Mel Robbins.
0:04:01 Mel, where’s this podcast find you?
0:04:03 You mean physically?
0:04:05 Yeah, as in where?
0:04:06 You know what I mean.
0:04:07 Where are you?
0:04:08 Well, no, you’re a smart guy.
0:04:10 So I’m like, is this a trick question?
0:04:11 No, no, no, no.
0:04:12 Is this like mental philosophical?
0:04:13 Yeah, yeah.
0:04:16 I’m in southern Vermont right now in my home, above my garage.
0:04:19 You’re legitimately the second biggest podcast in the world.
0:04:22 How did you end up in south Vermont?
0:04:31 Well, my son, who struggled with dyslexia and ADHD, undiagnosed and bounced from public
0:04:38 school to a school for kids with language-based learning disabilities to a private school,
0:04:39 just was really struggling.
0:04:44 And I said, dude, you can pick your high school.
0:04:49 And at the time we had been living outside of Boston for 20 years, our two daughters
0:04:53 had gone through the public high school system there and had a wonderful experience.
0:04:56 And so I just thought, okay, we’re living outside of Boston.
0:05:00 He’s going to pick a school in Boston.
0:05:04 And all of a sudden he’s like, I want to go to a school in Vermont where my grandmother
0:05:05 lives.
0:05:08 And I’m like, but we don’t live there.
0:05:12 And he just kept pressing and pressing and pressing and pressing and the honest to God
0:05:20 truth, I can’t believe I’m telling you this story, is that a psychic medium came on my
0:05:24 at the time daytime talk show at the CBS Broadcast Center.
0:05:29 I had told nobody that I had been fighting with our son because we basically had gotten
0:05:39 to the point in late December of 2021, no, 2019, where I had won, he was going to find
0:05:43 a school in Boston, the whole conversation about Vermont was over.
0:05:45 It was not going to happen.
0:05:50 And then a psychic medium came on the talk show and my dead father-in-law appeared and
0:05:53 spoke to me through the medium in this crazy story.
0:05:54 I can tell you the whole story.
0:05:56 It’s unbelievable.
0:06:01 And that caused us to move and that’s what happened.
0:06:03 That was not what I was expecting.
0:06:09 I thought it was going to be on the long lines that I love to fall leaves or my parents are
0:06:10 here.
0:06:14 I was not expecting to meet your dead father-in-law via a psychic.
0:06:15 Wow.
0:06:18 I’m going to memo to self, I’m going to hire a psychic to tell my wife we should move
0:06:19 to St. Bart’s.
0:06:22 That’s the learning I have here.
0:06:28 So your latest book, The Let Them Theory, a life-changing tool that millions of people
0:06:30 can’t stop talking about.
0:06:35 You write about how to stop wasting energy on what you can’t control and start focusing
0:06:37 on what truly matters.
0:06:43 It feels a little stoic, you and there was one thing that really stood out to us.
0:06:50 You said that the single most powerful thing you discovered was at high school prom.
0:06:52 So say more.
0:06:53 Oh God.
0:06:54 Okay.
0:07:00 Like I can’t believe that this theory that has fundamentally changed my life.
0:07:02 I discovered at my son’s high school prom.
0:07:09 So it was his junior year and like a typical mother, I was being super annoying in micromanagee,
0:07:13 like shoving the boot nearer at him, trying to micromanage what was happening.
0:07:15 As a boy, just let me tell you, I think we need some of that.
0:07:18 I describe myself, not as dad, but as their prefrontal cortex.
0:07:20 So I would keep micromanaging.
0:07:21 But anyways, I’m sorry, Malgo.
0:07:28 Well, the problem is that micromanaging actually backfires.
0:07:31 And you know, I know this, I don’t want to be annoying.
0:07:36 And so here I am like trying to control what they’re doing and like I’m being do this,
0:07:37 do that.
0:07:42 And my daughter was home from college and she just grabbed my arm, Scott, and yanked
0:07:45 me towards her and was like, you’re being annoying.
0:07:46 Stop it.
0:07:47 Let them, mom.
0:07:48 Let them do what they want to do.
0:07:50 If they want to run in the rain, let them.
0:07:51 If they want to eat at the taco stand, let them.
0:07:53 If he wants to ruin his sneakers, let them.
0:07:55 It’s their prom, not yours.
0:08:01 And there was something about this cascading, let them, let them, let them, that it just
0:08:02 hit me.
0:08:04 My shoulders dropped.
0:08:08 And I was like, why do I care about this?
0:08:12 Why am I getting so worked up about this?
0:08:17 And I walked up to Oakley and he’s like, what, because I was being so annoying.
0:08:18 And I said, nothing, dude, here’s 40 bucks.
0:08:19 Go enjoy yourself.
0:08:21 And then his shoulders dropped.
0:08:27 And that wasn’t the moment, the moment was the next couple of days because those two
0:08:34 words stuck with me and every single moment, Scott, where I felt annoyed or frustrated
0:08:41 or upset or worried or judgy about something, I just said the words, let them.
0:08:48 And I immediately felt this release and your right to signal stoicism, but it’s not just
0:08:49 stoicism.
0:08:54 It’s the reason why the let them theory and these two words, let them, and then the second
0:08:55 part is let me.
0:08:57 And that’s the more important part, the let me part.
0:09:04 The reason why this is taken off is that it doesn’t stand on its own.
0:09:12 It has extraordinary roots in stoicism, detachment theory, radical acceptance, Buddhism, all these
0:09:14 therapeutic modalities.
0:09:20 And if I get back to the point of intellectualism, I’ve always wanted to be stoic, I’ve always
0:09:28 wanted to be more of the kind of person that was not rattled by what’s going on around
0:09:29 me.
0:09:34 I mean, I’ve read Victor Frankl’s The Man’s Search for Meaning probably five times, but
0:09:39 knowing something is very different than applying it.
0:09:46 And so what started to happen for me is anytime I felt the outside world getting to me or
0:09:53 another person getting to me when I said let them, it was a tool that helped me apply ancient
0:10:01 wisdom and philosophy and therapeutic modalities in a moment in modern life when the outside
0:10:03 world was getting to me.
0:10:12 And after a week of using it, I was so different in terms of feeling peaceful and grounded
0:10:19 and kind of unaffected by things that I simply put out a reel on social media.
0:10:22 And it was the single most viral thing I’ve ever put out.
0:10:26 It was like 15 million views in 24 hours.
0:10:29 And so then I naturally just did a podcast episode about it.
0:10:36 And so I did one podcast episode in late 2023, and it became the fifth most shared episode
0:10:44 on all of Apple for the entire year, and that was with like a runway of four months.
0:10:51 And so when you have that much data and feedback from the world that something hits, I then
0:10:54 turned it into a research project.
0:11:01 And what we did is we started analyzing 10,000 comments on YouTube videos and on social media
0:11:07 posts, and we crunched all the data, and a couple things came up that were really interesting.
0:11:09 First of all, universally, people love let them.
0:11:16 And in fact, tattoos started rolling in with the words let them all over the place.
0:11:21 And the reason why people love let them is because the second you say let them, you’re
0:11:27 not only applying stoicism and detachment theory and radical acceptance and Buddhism
0:11:33 in the moment, but you feel superior because when your friends go away without you and
0:11:38 you’re annoyed that they’re on a golf trip and you’re not, and then you go let them,
0:11:41 you kind of have a little bit of a like, fuck them, you know, when you say it.
0:11:43 And that’s why it works.
0:11:47 Because when you rise above something, you feel better than it.
0:11:50 But then here’s what our research shows.
0:11:55 The only complaint and concern, other than can I use this with children, which we can
0:12:00 get to in a minute, is I’m saying let them.
0:12:04 And I’m realizing my boss doesn’t care about me.
0:12:07 I’m realizing my friends don’t call me back.
0:12:13 I’m realizing I’m the only one in my family that makes an effort, and now I’m deeply lonely.
0:12:19 And I thought to myself, there’s no way in hell I want to put something out there in
0:12:25 the world that’s going to make people lonelier, so it can’t just end with let them.
0:12:27 There has to be a second part.
0:12:34 And it was based on that research that I came up with the let me part as the second step.
0:12:39 Because one thing’s very clear about life, and that’s this.
0:12:42 First of all, you can’t control what’s going on out there.
0:12:45 And I’ve heard you say this over and over and over again.
0:12:49 It’s not what’s happening out there, it’s what’s happening in here, which is where
0:12:51 your power is.
0:12:55 And the one thing you’ll never be able to control is what another human being thinks,
0:12:58 says, does, or feels, period, full stop.
0:13:03 Cannot control it, and any time that you pour into trying to control what other people do
0:13:08 think, feel, or say, is just going to frustrate you.
0:13:14 When you say let me, you are reminding yourself that the power is always in here because there’s
0:13:18 three things in life, only three things you can ever control.
0:13:19 That’s it.
0:13:23 Number one, you can control what you think about something.
0:13:28 Number two, you can control what you do or don’t do in response to it.
0:13:33 And we forget that we always have control because we get to choose what we do or don’t
0:13:34 do.
0:13:41 And number three, you get to choose how you’re going to process the emotions that rise up.
0:13:45 Are the emotions going to run you over and cause you to rage text or scream at people
0:13:46 or withdraw?
0:13:53 Or are you going to let the emotions rise and fall and process them in a way that’s responsible?
0:13:59 And let’s look at this word responsibility and taking responsibility for your life.
0:14:02 Responsibility is just the ability to respond.
0:14:03 That’s what it is.
0:14:10 And so let them allow me to detach from things I can’t control, which then protects my time
0:14:11 and energy.
0:14:17 And so I’m no longer feeling drained by life because I’m letting people be who they are
0:14:23 and letting them be who they’re not and recognizing my power is not in managing them.
0:14:25 My power is in managing me.
0:14:33 And then when I say let me, I’m queuing myself to the truth about life and relationships.
0:14:38 And that’s that you always are in control and you always have the power.
0:14:41 So yeah, I, that resonates.
0:14:44 I say a lot and it gives me a great deal of comfort.
0:14:48 Life isn’t about what happens to you, it’s how you respond to what happens to you.
0:14:51 And the biggest regret people have at the end of their life is not the, the bad things
0:14:54 that happen to them, but how upset they were about them.
0:14:58 And so just trying to recognize, and I also find, and I’m curious, I’m an atheist and
0:15:04 I find that atheism helps me embrace what you’re talking about in the sense that everyone
0:15:10 I’m worried about or angry at or concerned, they’re going to be dead soon and so am I.
0:15:15 So why wouldn’t I just be more kind to myself, more kind to them and just kind of move on
0:15:18 or just try and make the most of it.
0:15:22 The little bit of pushback where I would love to get some nuance from you around kids.
0:15:26 I think I have a middle, I have two boys, middle school and high school.
0:15:29 And I struggle with the balance of what you’re talking around, around let them.
0:15:34 And I think it’s important that young men, and I imagine girls that I’m raising girls,
0:15:39 make dumb mistakes and occasionally do something stupid and maybe even risk breaking a bone.
0:15:45 When I was in the third grade, it looked like an ER room with casts and eye patches.
0:15:47 And seriously, when’s the last time you saw a cast in an elementary school?
0:15:50 And I think that’s both good and bad.
0:15:54 So I like it when we let our kids boys make mistakes.
0:15:59 But at the same time, there’s certain things, certain harms in a modern economy that I do
0:16:02 think we have to step in on and the way I have bifurcated it and I want to get your
0:16:09 view on this is generally speaking, I find that we over protect them offline.
0:16:14 And I am a big believer in embracing and I’ll use it again and I’ll credit you to let them
0:16:15 philosophy.
0:16:20 At the same time, I think we under protect them online.
0:16:26 And I think we need to become much more helicopter parents around their activities online.
0:16:27 What are your thoughts?
0:16:29 Well, I wouldn’t call it a helicopter parent.
0:16:34 I’d call it being rational and smart, like we’re not handing our kids cigarettes and
0:16:36 then pretending it’s not hurting them.
0:16:43 So I 100%, there should be no phones in schools period.
0:16:46 And kids should not have smartphones until the age of 16.
0:16:47 Now, I screwed this up.
0:16:52 The research has come out since I would do things very, very differently.
0:16:58 And one of the things giant caveat around the let them theory is that this is a book
0:17:06 about adult relationships and it applies to adult children and teens in their late teens.
0:17:14 However, when you’re talking about dangerous, destructive discriminatory behavior, you don’t
0:17:16 just let that play out.
0:17:18 That’s the let me part you step in.
0:17:23 This is what I got wrong because ultimately the let them theory is a book about freedom,
0:17:29 power and control, what you can control and what you can’t control.
0:17:35 And I personally worked against the fundamental wiring of human beings for 54 years.
0:17:40 See I thought that since I had to push myself out of bed, Scott, I got to push everybody
0:17:41 else.
0:17:45 And what you’re going to learn when you start saying let them and let me and when you dig
0:17:51 into the research, and this is again research that I learned from speaking to some of the
0:17:56 world’s leading psychologists and researchers on the topic, whether you’re talking about
0:18:00 Dr. K, the healthy gamer, or you’re talking about Dr. Stuart Ablon, or you’re talking
0:18:05 about Tara Swart, or you’re talking about, you know, on and on and on.
0:18:09 I could drop names of the psychiatrist and psychologist and addiction specialists and
0:18:15 people that study motivation and neuroscientists who are cited in this book.
0:18:17 But the simple fact is this.
0:18:22 Every human being, including your children, have a hard wired need for control.
0:18:25 It is part of our survival mechanism.
0:18:27 There is no changing it.
0:18:32 Every human being needs to feel in control of their thoughts, their actions, their future,
0:18:35 their money, their decisions, what they’re eating.
0:18:39 This is why kids freak out when they don’t want to eat something that you want them to
0:18:41 eat because they need to feel in control.
0:18:43 And here’s the mistake that we make.
0:18:49 When somebody else’s behavior, whether it’s your adult kid or it’s your teenager, they’re
0:18:54 doing something that worries you, bothers you, frustrates you, hurts you, whatever concerns
0:18:55 you.
0:19:02 We cross the line because their behavior makes us feel out of control, and we then try to
0:19:04 control them.
0:19:05 Here’s the problem.
0:19:10 The second you step across the line and try to control your teenager or your adult child
0:19:17 or your friend or your colleague or your partner, you’re now bumping up against their hardwiring
0:19:19 and their need for control.
0:19:25 And so your behavior, worrying, pressuring, trying to bribe people like whatever it may
0:19:31 be, supporting people, you’re trying to motivate behavior change.
0:19:33 You’re actually not motivating change.
0:19:38 You create resistance to change by bumping up against their need for control.
0:19:40 And here’s what I was getting wrong.
0:19:41 So I’ll give you an example.
0:19:44 So we were talking about Oakley earlier.
0:19:46 He was not motivated in school.
0:19:47 Why?
0:19:49 Because he’s not doing well.
0:19:53 Do you want to know who the hardest working kid in the classroom is?
0:19:59 It’s not the kid getting A’s, it’s the kid who’s failing because they know they’re failing.
0:20:01 They know they’re not reaching their potential.
0:20:05 You want to know who the hardest working friend of yours is on their health?
0:20:09 It’s not the one going to the gym every day for two hours.
0:20:16 And so here you and I come in and I can hear Oakley playing Fortnite upstairs.
0:20:17 And I think he should be studying.
0:20:18 So what do I do?
0:20:23 I go marching up the stairs and I swing open the door and now I’m like, dude, you got to
0:20:25 get off the Xbox.
0:20:32 You don’t think he knows that playing Xbox isn’t going to help him at school?
0:20:37 You don’t think that your partner knows that going for a walk is going to make him feel
0:20:38 better?
0:20:42 Like, we’re some sort of Einstein that knows better?
0:20:45 It’s a beautiful thing to want something more for someone else.
0:20:51 It’s a wonderful way to love somebody to see their potential and to be concerned that they’re
0:20:56 not reaching it or they’re sabotaging their happiness or their health or they’re dating
0:20:59 some loser that treats them like garbage.
0:21:03 Wanting more for the people that you care about isn’t the problem.
0:21:09 But if you’re like me, you’re actually worrying about it and going about it in the wrong way
0:21:13 because you’re working against human wiring instead of with it.
0:21:18 And so what I discovered is a completely different approach.
0:21:23 It’s this approach where you’re with them instead of at them.
0:21:30 And I learned, I summarize it in the research, I call it the ABC loop because I’m obsessed
0:21:34 with making things easy and memorable because if you can’t remember it, you’re not going
0:21:35 to use it.
0:21:39 And this is the approach I used with our son, changed everything.
0:21:45 It’s the approach I now use with anybody that I would like to change their behavior because
0:21:47 there’s one thing you can never do.
0:21:52 You can never change another person, but I never said you couldn’t influence them.
0:21:58 And so the ABC loop summarizes all of this incredible research from all these super smart
0:22:01 people and here’s what you’re going to do.
0:22:04 If you’re going to stand off with somebody about their weight or their grades or their
0:22:13 job or their finances or whatever it may be or their mental health, start with a apologize
0:22:17 and then ask open-ended questions.
0:22:21 And if you really stop and think about it, when I stop and think about the situation
0:22:28 with our son, I had been nagging this kid forever, hadn’t worked, hadn’t motivated him,
0:22:31 but I continued to do it.
0:22:35 And so when I finally apologized, dude, I’m really sorry.
0:22:39 It must be a giant pain in the ass to have me constantly nagging you.
0:22:40 I’m really sorry about that.
0:22:42 I’m going to stop doing that.
0:22:44 First of all, they’re going to be startled.
0:22:49 Then you ask open-ended questions and this comes from Dr. K. and from Dr. Stuart Ablon.
0:22:55 And this really is this technique motivational interviewing where you’re just going to ask,
0:22:58 you know, I’ve never even asked you, how do you feel about school?
0:23:01 And here’s the most important thing.
0:23:04 It doesn’t matter what they say, Scott.
0:23:08 Like Oakley was like fine and shrugged his shoulders.
0:23:12 And then you just say, okay, well, what’s fine about it, hon?
0:23:13 And it doesn’t matter what he says.
0:23:16 He might be like, oh, I don’t know.
0:23:19 And then you’re going to drop the really big question.
0:23:20 This comes from Dr. Ablon’s research.
0:23:24 You just say, well, have you thought about what you might want to do about it?
0:23:27 Now, if you notice there’s zero pressure there, have you thought about what you might want
0:23:28 to do about it?
0:23:33 Now, this is what Dr. Ablon calls the with them approach.
0:23:40 And your kid or your loved one has been doing nothing but thinking about their weight or
0:23:44 thinking about the fact that they don’t have a job or thinking about the fact that they’re
0:23:48 the loser at school that has no friends or thinking about the fact that they’re really
0:23:52 sad and down and they wish they didn’t feel that way.
0:23:56 Of course they’ve thought about it, but you haven’t asked them because you think you know
0:23:57 all the answers.
0:23:59 That’s how I was because I was so worried.
0:24:02 Have you thought about what you might want to do about this?
0:24:07 There’s no pressure and it doesn’t matter what they say because the whole point of asking
0:24:16 open-ended questions is you’re excavating this tension that they feel about where they are
0:24:19 versus where they know they’d like to be.
0:24:28 And that tension is critical for them to feel the intrinsic motivation and the why that
0:24:35 is necessary for a human being to not only do something once, but to source the motivation
0:24:38 to do the very hard work to change.
0:24:40 And then you’re going to move to be, which is back off.
0:24:46 You got to back off for three to six months because again, come back to control Scott.
0:24:51 For anybody to want to change, they have to feel like it’s their idea.
0:24:55 And in talking to a bunch of people about the let them theory, there is a sentence that
0:25:01 kept coming up over and over from psychiatrists, which is people only get sober when being
0:25:08 drunk is harder than doing the work to face what you’re running from.
0:25:14 And that’s also a principle about human wiring, which is our brains are wired to default towards
0:25:16 what’s easy.
0:25:18 That’s why we sit on the couch instead of going to the gym.
0:25:23 It’s why we think about our business plans or we watch your podcast to my podcast instead
0:25:25 of starting our own.
0:25:27 We move towards what’s easy.
0:25:32 Change requires us to work against our own wiring and do what’s hard, which is why it’s
0:25:37 got to be somebody else’s idea if they’re going to do it, which is why you got to back
0:25:44 off because they’ve got to have the space to sit with the tension and to also feel like
0:25:49 they’re not going to get penalized by you and me when they actually do the thing and
0:25:52 we’re not going to be standing there going, “See, I told you it would be easier than
0:25:53 you thought.
0:25:56 See, I told you that you’d feel better if you went for a walk.”
0:25:59 And then the final thing is C, which is you got to model the change.
0:26:03 Like I can’t be asking my husband to stop drinking while I’m pouring wine.
0:26:08 I can’t ask somebody else to get in shape while I’m sitting on the couch.
0:26:12 And any forward progress, here’s the really important thing.
0:26:17 Don’t be telling the person, “Oh, see, I told you it was easy.
0:26:18 Tell them you’re just proud of them.
0:26:19 So proud of you.
0:26:20 I know this isn’t easy.
0:26:21 I’m really proud of you.”
0:26:28 Because that affirms their agency over themselves and their ability to change on their own.
0:26:38 We’ll be right back.
0:26:43 This is advertiser content from Miro, the innovation workspace.
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0:30:25 So let’s leave childhood, let’s go into young adulthood and specifically I think a lot about
0:30:30 young men and one of the things I think is really hurting young men.
0:30:35 If you are engaging with work, engaging with school, and I think most detrimentally not
0:30:40 engaging in relationships, only one in three men under the age of 30 has a girlfriend, two
0:30:44 in three women under the age of 30 has a boyfriend.
0:30:48 And that might sound mathematically impossible but it’s because young women are dating older
0:30:51 because they want more economically and emotionally viable partners.
0:30:54 And one of the things I find is most useful about being in a relationship for a young
0:31:01 man is that relationship oftentimes implements very healthy guardrails.
0:31:02 I know it did for me.
0:31:07 My girlfriend very crisply told me if you keep getting high every night, I’m not going
0:31:08 to have sex with you.
0:31:09 I’m going to leave.
0:31:15 I mean, if you don’t put on a tie and get into work by nine, we’re going to fire you.
0:31:19 I found these relationships were really important for me because my prefrontal cortex had not
0:31:23 caught up to my female peers until I was 25.
0:31:27 I literally kind of didn’t get my shit together until I was 25.
0:31:29 I think that’s early.
0:31:32 I can’t read all I was 54.
0:31:36 Yeah, still getting is still a current and present term as well.
0:31:38 So how do you balance this?
0:31:40 Well, one, do you agree with that?
0:31:47 And two, how do we help young men who may not have the option to be in a relationship
0:31:52 for whatever reason that provides some of those what I think are healthy guardrails?
0:32:00 How can we develop behavioral therapies or provide an environment for young men where
0:32:07 they can improve themselves, love themselves, quite frankly, just perform better with an
0:32:10 increasingly competitive society?
0:32:13 Because in fact, they don’t have the benefit of a relationship.
0:32:18 I think the biggest challenge is hope.
0:32:23 Like I said earlier, I think the single biggest thing that stands in people’s way is being
0:32:28 discouraged, feeling like it’s not going to make a difference.
0:32:31 And you said something that’s interesting.
0:32:39 I can’t remember the exact phrasing, but it was something about a man not having the option.
0:32:44 See, the thing that I truly believe is that we have lost sight of the power and agency
0:32:46 that we have over our own lives.
0:32:49 We have become obsessed with looking out there.
0:32:56 And for people in their 20s and their 30s and even younger, you are literally growing
0:33:05 up and your psychology and neuro pathways and your nervous system are being programmed
0:33:12 to have this habit of always referencing out there for okayness in here.
0:33:16 And that is a massive problem.
0:33:23 And for young men, I am deeply concerned about how toxic the online dating scene is.
0:33:32 I’m deeply concerned about how everybody has Frankensteined their filters and done a checklist
0:33:37 of creating an AI version of a human being that they would like to meet.
0:33:41 And then everybody’s discouraged, whether it’s the guys are discouraged because all
0:33:46 the guys are going for the same four women and all of the women are going for the same
0:33:47 four guys.
0:33:50 Let me just press pause there and we’ll get some pain on this.
0:33:55 I think that’s more true of women and men, Mel, 80% of men who say, what if you could
0:33:59 find someone with 80% of what you want, 80% say they would like that, two thirds of women
0:34:01 say that’s not enough.
0:34:08 I think a lot of media has trained women to immediately, you know, ex out a guy.
0:34:11 And you can’t tell women to lower their standards, but I think the dynamic-
0:34:12 Oh yeah, you can.
0:34:16 I think everybody needs to because I think we’ve got your point.
0:34:19 Everybody needs to lower their standards because everybody needs to step out of the fantasy
0:34:23 world of online and back into the reality.
0:34:29 Because what I say is this, there’s so many people who are now no longer dating.
0:34:32 I’m not online, I’m not dating online.
0:34:33 Are you taught?
0:34:36 I saw you do a reel about this the other day.
0:34:41 But if you want to meet somebody, then act like it in real life.
0:34:43 Are you talking to people in line?
0:34:47 Are you having an open posture towards life?
0:34:48 Leaving your house.
0:34:49 Are you saying hello to people?
0:34:50 Are you leaving your house?
0:34:54 Are you going to barbecues in your neighborhood?
0:34:56 Because there are eight billion people on this planet.
0:35:02 There are people all around you, whether you live in a tiny town or you live in a big city.
0:35:10 And using the excuse, again, discouragement, you’re allowing and giving power to online
0:35:15 apps over the most important thing in your life, which is who will become your life partner.
0:35:19 And so, number one, stop giving the power to the apps.
0:35:23 And if you are going to be on them, change all your filters.
0:35:27 Open the aperture, which is what you need to do with your entire life.
0:35:31 Open the aperture by going, “I don’t care about height.
0:35:32 They can be 50 miles from here.
0:35:34 I don’t care about race.
0:35:35 I don’t care about income.
0:35:36 I don’t care about this.
0:35:42 I don’t care about that,” because the whole point of putting yourself out there is not
0:35:44 just so that you can meet people.
0:35:49 It’s also so that you learn more about yourself and so that you become an open person.
0:35:55 And the fact is, like, thinking and telling yourself a story that you’re never going to
0:36:01 meet somebody or why bother or the apps all suck or dating is toxic or the toxic culture
0:36:04 of dating, don’t participate in it.
0:36:10 You give power to it if you talk about it and if you actually participate in it.
0:36:13 And I’m going to remind you of something, and this is where Let Them and Let Me comes
0:36:17 into play for 20s and 30s something, like, unbelievably.
0:36:23 Because part of the reason why dating is so difficult and relationships are so challenging
0:36:29 is because you’re up in a relationship with a fantasy instead of accepting the reality
0:36:31 that’s right in front of you.
0:36:35 And number one, if you want a relationship, prove it.
0:36:37 Get your ass out there.
0:36:39 Start talking to people in lines.
0:36:43 Change the filters, and this goes for men and women.
0:36:48 Second, stop giving the power to the apps and realize that it’s about how you show up
0:36:49 in life.
0:36:54 And third, understand, and this is something that I can’t do for somebody.
0:36:57 It’s something that you can’t do for somebody.
0:37:07 But understand that your happiness, that your future, your earning potential, despite what
0:37:12 the statistics say, and I love that you are talking about the reality of what’s happened
0:37:13 in the housing market.
0:37:17 I love that you’re talking about the reality of what is happening in research.
0:37:24 And at the end of the day, at some point, you have to say yes and I still have power
0:37:29 and I still have within me the ability to learn how to think differently.
0:37:33 I have the ability to get my ass off of social media and to the gym.
0:37:37 I have the ability to watch YouTube videos and update my resume.
0:37:44 I have the ability, just like Mel Robbins did, to pay off $800,000 in debt, not overnight,
0:37:50 but by chipping away at it for 10 years, and that’s the reality.
0:37:54 And so I agree with you, what are we going to do about it?
0:38:01 There’s only so much that we can do about it because what I’ve learned in life is that
0:38:10 there is a corresponding level of pain that is required in a human being’s life to organize
0:38:15 the internal drive and motivation to say enough.
0:38:17 I don’t know how I’m going to change.
0:38:24 I just know that the way that I’m living my life is so painful that I got to do something.
0:38:29 And you don’t have to know, like when I was 41 years old and $800,000 in debt and there
0:38:33 were leans on the house and the anxiety was so bad, I couldn’t get out of fucking bed.
0:38:36 I didn’t know what I was going to do with my life, Scott.
0:38:42 I just knew that I couldn’t stand living the way that I was living anymore.
0:38:48 And so as dumb as the sound, it sounds like the Seinfeld episode, literally, if you don’t
0:38:53 know what you want or what to do, do the opposite of what you’re doing.
0:38:56 If you’re lying in bed all day, get the fuck out of bed.
0:39:02 If you’re tired of living at your parents’ house, then stop playing video games and watch
0:39:07 YouTube videos about how you can update your resume and get a job and make money.
0:39:12 If you’re tired of wasting time looking at influencers online and you really love to learn
0:39:16 how to monetize online, then prove it.
0:39:17 Prove it through your actions.
0:39:19 Do what you don’t feel like doing.
0:39:21 That’s how I changed my life.
0:39:23 I realized nobody is coming.
0:39:27 And at some point, you’ve got to wake up and realize that it’s up to you.
0:39:29 It’s always been up to you.
0:39:34 And when you accept that truth about life, that no matter how discouraged you are, no
0:39:39 matter how overweight you are or no matter what your grades were or they weren’t or where
0:39:43 you are, that doesn’t define where you’re going to go.
0:39:46 And that’s not some just motivational bullshit.
0:39:53 This is how anybody who has gone from a very low point in their life to something better
0:39:55 has done it.
0:39:57 It’s not magical, it’s grueling.
0:40:00 You learn how to get out of bed when you don’t feel like it.
0:40:04 You learn how to put one foot in front of your next foot when you don’t feel like it.
0:40:13 And back to the adult kids, the more you continue to rescue your kids and you shield them from
0:40:20 what Harvard’s Dr. Waldinger says is the greatest teacher in the world, which is life.
0:40:27 The more you shield people from learning from life, the more you keep them from changing
0:40:28 their life.
0:40:35 And this is also an epidemic in terms of what I see as a failure to thrive in kids in their
0:40:37 late teens and their 20s.
0:40:42 Is parents that have stepped in and tried to make things too easy for their kids instead
0:40:48 of allowing kids to learn that when you get drunk with your friends and you sleep through
0:40:50 work, you’re going to get fired.
0:40:54 And when you get fired, then you’re not going to have money to go out and get drunk with
0:40:57 your friends, and you’re going to take your job a little bit more seriously.
0:41:03 I mean, you can call it tough parenting, but I actually think it’s one of the reasons
0:41:09 why kids are struggling, that too many parents have made it too easy for their kids, and that’s
0:41:14 why they don’t know how to dig deeper and drive harder.
0:41:17 Yeah, bulldozer parenting.
0:41:24 On the Jay Shetty podcast, you said, “Love is two things, consideration and admiration.”
0:41:25 Seymour?
0:41:33 Yeah, I think love is just something that is omnipresent.
0:41:35 It’s so simple.
0:41:39 So consideration is just having somebody in mind.
0:41:44 I mean, when you make somebody a cup of coffee and you put an almond milk, even though you
0:41:49 take whole milk, that’s consideration for somebody, that’s an act of love.
0:41:54 When you hold open the door for somebody who’s got their arms full of bags, that’s an act
0:41:55 of love.
0:41:59 You have somebody in mind.
0:42:05 Admiration is the ability to admire something about somebody.
0:42:12 And one of the things that really troubles me as we’ve become so polarized in this world,
0:42:19 that if you don’t agree with everything that I believe, I now just cut you out or can’t
0:42:24 talk to you or dismiss you, and it’s on both sides.
0:42:28 And admiration is the ability, despite the fact that one of your parents might have a
0:42:38 narcissistic personality style, to see that and still admire the fact that they’re hard
0:42:43 working or that they’re loyal and they keep showing up.
0:42:48 And so admiration is this ability to see the good in someone.
0:42:54 And as you say, things aren’t as good or as bad as they seem.
0:43:01 And there’s this inability for us to hold space for other human beings, to see them
0:43:07 as they are, to see them as they aren’t, to accept them as they are and as they aren’t.
0:43:16 Because in that space of seeing that somebody can struggle, Scott, and they also have the
0:43:22 capability inside themselves to meet the challenge of their life.
0:43:51 We’ll be right back.
0:43:58 Let’s talk about all of my favorite basics from Amazon that you need in your winter wardrobe.
0:44:00 Some people think this is weird, but I get all my clothes on Amazon.
0:44:03 This is what I would buy if I didn’t already own them.
0:44:07 I just got in a bunch of super cute packages from Amazon, so let’s open them up.
0:44:09 Their aesthetic is beige.
0:44:10 It’s serene.
0:44:12 It’s a little basic, on purpose.
0:44:16 And now, one is suing the other for stealing her vibes.
0:44:21 There’s a lot of things going on in the actual suit, but what it boils down to really is one
0:44:27 of the women, Sidney Gifford, says that the other woman, Alyssa Shield, just won’t stop
0:44:32 copying her.
0:44:41 Coming up on Today, Today Explained.
0:44:45 This week on Prof2Markets, we speak with Ramit Sethi, best-selling author of I Will Teach
0:44:49 You to Be Rich and his brand new book, Money for Couples.
0:44:54 We discuss why he recommends joint bank accounts for couples, the pros and cons of prenups,
0:44:57 and the most common arguments couples have about money.
0:45:02 Your $20 extra purchase at Target is not the reason that you’re stressed out about money.
0:45:06 It almost always tracks back to two expenses and one big problem.
0:45:10 The two expenses are people overspend on housing, they overspend on cars.
0:45:15 They have no idea how to calculate affordability, and the real problem is they just don’t have
0:45:17 a shared vision for their rich life.
0:45:23 You can find that conversation and many others exclusively on the Prof2Markets podcast.
0:45:27 So, you’ve been very generous with your time.
0:45:32 We were talking about your husband, Off Mike, and I’ve decided he’s my new rabbi or best
0:45:33 friend.
0:45:37 It sounds like such an impressive dude.
0:45:43 Say you’re blessed with a partner, but you love this person immensely, and you want to
0:45:50 not only enhance their life, you want to strengthen the relationship as you enter into years where
0:45:56 maybe the kids are leaving and you’re going to have, as you said, the most important decision
0:46:00 you can make is your partner, and it’s going to become even bigger in your life.
0:46:07 Are there any unlocks you have found with your husband that have tangibly changed the
0:46:10 quality of that relationship?
0:46:18 Yeah, so we’ve been married 28 years, and it has been, you go through a roller coaster
0:46:24 of investing your life savings and cashing everything out and shoving it into one person’s
0:46:27 business, and then you lose it all.
0:46:35 You have been to hell and back, and I think there’s a couple things.
0:46:42 Number one, try to never forget who you married because they’re in there.
0:46:51 I think we see the good in somebody, and we know there’s good intent, and then your relationship
0:47:01 becomes a death by a thousand cuts of things that build up that shield you from recognizing
0:47:04 that that person is still in there.
0:47:11 The second thing is, is I think a lot about a seesaw, and a relationship goes the distance
0:47:18 only for two reasons because you have two people who want it to, and you have two people
0:47:24 who are willing to do what it takes to make it go the distance, and if you think about
0:47:28 your relationship like a seesaw, right, on a playground, there are going to be times
0:47:31 where one of you is up, the other is down, times when you’re up, the other one’s down,
0:47:37 and then lots of times where you’re in balance, and the simple secret is don’t get off the
0:47:45 seesaw because the second you do, because you no longer want to work on it, or you no
0:47:51 longer think it’s going to go the distance, the whole thing breaks, and in any relationship
0:47:57 that you’ve been in where you look backwards, and it didn’t work, you can see that way before
0:48:01 the breakup, somebody got off the seesaw.
0:48:07 And so the first thing that I would say is ask yourself, are you even on it?
0:48:10 Because if you’re not, it’s not going to work.
0:48:16 Now for deeper insight, because my husband and I have worked with an awesome therapist
0:48:23 for the last three years in our relationship, and it’s been incredible, one of the things
0:48:29 that Chris has learned in leading men’s retreats, because he doesn’t really share a lot with
0:48:35 me because it’s confidential that I’ve said to him, “What is one big takeaway?”
0:48:40 And he has had a huge range of men, whether it’s former NFL players or people that have
0:48:48 done six tours of duty, ages 21 to 73, and they all come together for five days in the
0:48:55 wilderness, and to really talk about the meaning and purpose of life in their next chapter.
0:49:04 And he said, “The one thing is, is that every man that comes on my retreat says that they
0:49:10 never have time for themselves because everybody’s needs come first.”
0:49:17 And I was like, “Wait a minute, that’s not true, because women feel like we take care
0:49:22 of everybody else, and you guys are all playing golf or watching the game, and that’s not
0:49:23 true.”
0:49:25 And he’s like, “Oh, no, no, no, no.
0:49:34 We feel a tremendous burden to provide, a tremendous burden to care for, and to make
0:49:42 sure everybody’s okay, and it is such a hard-wired thing, Mel, that most men, including myself,
0:49:49 don’t even know what we need, because nobody’s actually asked us.”
0:50:01 And truly embracing that is true has really changed our relationship, because I started
0:50:03 to think it is true.
0:50:10 You know, Chris doesn’t ask for much, he’s kind of the silent foundation of our family.
0:50:16 He grew up as the youngest of a family of three boys, and so it was just kind of go,
0:50:20 go, go, go, go, and he was the caboose on the train.
0:50:28 And it’s taken a lot of talking back and forth for him to A, start to understand what he
0:50:39 might need, B, for him to express it, and C, for me as his partner to slow down and actually
0:50:42 listen and provide it.
0:50:50 And honest to God, Scott, it’s everything from profound and things in the bedroom to
0:50:58 the stupidest shit that’s actually everything, like, for example, you know, there’s a bazillion
0:51:03 Amazon boxes that show up at people’s houses these days, and I’m the kind of person that
0:51:08 I get the box, I unpack the box, but then I don’t flatten the box.
0:51:16 I stack the boxes like a Tetris kind of statue next to the door to the garage.
0:51:21 Chris has asked me a hundred times to flatten the boxes, and I’m like, “Yeah, yeah, yeah,
0:51:22 yeah, yeah.”
0:51:28 And finally one day, he sat me down, he said, “Listen, I got to tell you something.”
0:51:35 He said, “Every time I see that tower of boxes by the door, I literally feel like you’re
0:51:41 standing there giving me the middle finger, because I have asked you to flatten these
0:51:42 boxes.”
0:51:46 And, you know, I, of course, would interrupt him and say, “Well, I’m just going to do it
0:51:47 later.
0:51:49 Like, why do it one at a time when I do it later?”
0:51:56 He’s like, “I understand, and you don’t do it later, and that I eventually do it, and
0:52:04 it makes me feel like you think I’m the maid and that I’m beneath you.”
0:52:12 And when he stopped and explained it like that, it hit me because I don’t want him to
0:52:14 feel like that.
0:52:20 And here we are arguing about cardboard boxes when it’s actually about being seen and valued
0:52:23 in this partnership.
0:52:28 And if somebody asks you to flatten cardboard boxes, and they don’t do it, you’ve got to
0:52:33 let them, and then you go to the let me part, which is let me choose what I’m going to think,
0:52:34 do and say about this.
0:52:41 And so, Chris chose to come to me and to have a conversation about the deeper implication
0:52:43 that my behavior had on him.
0:52:45 And this is very important.
0:52:51 In a relationship, your behavior has an impact on other people.
0:52:56 And that might not be your intention to impact somebody that way.
0:53:01 But if a person that you care about comes to you and explains that your behavior is impacting
0:53:06 them a certain way, you get to choose whether you’re going to clean that up or not.
0:53:09 And this gets back to your question about what is the definition of love, and I say
0:53:12 it’s consideration and admiration.
0:53:21 I admire Chris for coming to me when he wasn’t pissed off and sharing the deeper emotion
0:53:26 under this what seems like a dumb issue.
0:53:34 And consideration and love looks like listening, acknowledging, and then changing.
0:53:38 Because an apology with your words is cheap.
0:53:42 A true apology happens with a change of behavior.
0:53:47 And so, after that conversation, Chris has to let me be me.
0:53:50 That conversation is what changed my behavior, Scott.
0:53:53 Now, I get it right about 80% of the time.
0:53:57 There are days where it’s super busy, I stack the boxes, but I’ll text them and say, “Hey,
0:53:58 I got caught up.
0:54:00 I’m going to do the boxes later.”
0:54:04 That simple text is everything.
0:54:12 Because what I had him in mind, it’s a way that I show him that his needs matter to me.
0:54:17 And because I behave the way that I did, I also am showing him through my behavior that
0:54:21 I am a safe and loving person to talk to.
0:54:30 And if you understand and you accept the research, which I do, that most men, through the hypermasculinity
0:54:37 of shut up and don’t cry and don’t be a baby, have been socially conditioned to never actually
0:54:42 express or to share their needs.
0:54:48 If you accept that as truth, which I do, any time a son or a brother or a male colleague
0:54:57 or a partner or anybody, your father comes to you in life and shares a moment where they
0:55:03 need something from you or they’re expressing how your behavior impacted to them, fucking
0:55:04 listen.
0:55:10 Because it takes a tremendous level of courage and trust in you for them to come to you.
0:55:19 And it is an example of somebody trying to change generational and societal programming
0:55:25 to take accountability for how their life is.
0:55:28 And that’s a huge thing.
0:55:35 And so, if you go back to your question too about boys, I would say that it has a lot
0:55:44 to do too with how parents and other adults around young boys and boys in middle school
0:55:53 are also modeling emotional intelligence, emotional resilience, the ability to talk
0:55:57 about your feelings, it really matters.
0:56:01 Just as we wrap up here, I did an interview, I think it was with their Spiegel or some
0:56:06 German newspaper, and they wanted to talk about Joe Rogan, and I’m like, “I’m sick
0:56:07 of talking about Joe Rogan.
0:56:10 I got nothing to say about Joe.
0:56:12 Everything about Joe’s already out there.”
0:56:16 And they said, “Well, who are the next,” things always change, “Who is the next Joe
0:56:17 Rogan?”
0:56:19 And I said, “It’s one of two people.
0:56:20 It’s either Stephen Bartlett.”
0:56:21 I don’t know if you know Stephen.
0:56:22 Of course.
0:56:23 No, I’m well.
0:56:24 And I said, “Or Mel Robbins.”
0:56:26 And they said, “Well, what is it about them?
0:56:27 What do they do that’s different?”
0:56:31 And I said, “It’s not that they do anything that different, it’s just they do every little
0:56:33 thing a little bit better.”
0:56:42 I would love for you to provide some insight into any hacks or secret sauce around what
0:56:46 has made your podcast, which quite frankly, the format’s not that different.
0:56:48 The subject material is not…
0:56:49 Yeah, it is.
0:56:50 I think it is.
0:56:52 Well, then we’ll start there.
0:56:59 What advice would you have for either creators, podcasters, or entrepreneurs in general that
0:57:05 has been an unlock for you and in your eyes has been a key part of your…
0:57:09 There are 600,000 podcasts putting out content every week.
0:57:13 Most weeks you are in the top five, sometimes you’re number one.
0:57:17 What tips and insights would you have for other entrepreneurs and creators?
0:57:18 Couple things.
0:57:21 Number one, being good on the mic is the cost of entry.
0:57:22 And that’s what people…
0:57:23 Have some talent.
0:57:24 Yeah.
0:57:25 Well, no, no, no.
0:57:29 People over focus on that.
0:57:35 And I think that it’s all the little things that actually make you incredible that people
0:57:36 don’t want to do.
0:57:42 So most people roll up to a mic, do an interview, and then post it.
0:57:45 That’s not what I do at all.
0:57:51 And the other thing that I do that’s very different is half of my episodes are solos,
0:57:56 no interviews, and they are the most successful by far.
0:58:02 And here’s the huge tip that I will give you.
0:58:08 Every business and every podcast is one to one.
0:58:11 You will never hear me say the word “us.”
0:58:16 You will never hear me name my audience as some big community.
0:58:21 I am only ever talking to one person.
0:58:29 They are in their car, or they are in their home, or they are taking me on a walk.
0:58:40 And the fact that a human being has not passing time, Scott, but they have chosen to make
0:58:43 time to spend with me.
0:58:49 I take that as one of the deepest and most important privileges in the world.
0:58:53 And so when you’re on my podcast, I’m not actually talking to you, Scott.
0:59:01 I’m talking to the person that has made the time to listen to something that could improve
0:59:02 their life.
0:59:09 And so when I say every single business is one to one, and the mistake that people make
0:59:13 is they think it’s for hundreds of thousands of people.
0:59:21 If you can actually move one person emotionally, if the thing that you’ve created is worth
0:59:25 their time, they will share it with somebody else.
0:59:26 Here’s the other thing you’ll notice.
0:59:29 I never ask you to subscribe.
0:59:33 I never ask you to follow because that’s about me.
0:59:42 My podcast is about you, absolutely everything that we have been done comes down to the intention.
0:59:45 Number one, it’s a walk with a friend.
0:59:49 And my job is to make you feel better and to move you.
0:59:55 I’ve either moved you into action, I’ve moved you intellectually, I’ve moved you emotionally,
0:59:57 or I’ve moved you to share.
0:59:59 That’s the intention of the podcast.
1:00:02 The second thing then is one to one.
1:00:10 If a person who has never heard of me, who has no clue who I am, has never even listened
1:00:15 to a podcast, gets forwarded this from a friend, is it worth their time?
1:00:19 And if we can check those two boxes, we’ve won.
1:00:26 And for me, the success of this is a testament to those two things, the intention and the
1:00:29 focus of who we’re trying to impact and how.
1:00:37 And everything we do is reverse engineered to fulfill against that.
1:00:41 Mel Robbins is an award-winning podcast host, New York Times bestselling author and expert
1:00:44 on mindset, behavior change, and life improvement.
1:00:49 Her latest book, The Let Them Theory, a life-changing tool that millions of people can’t stop talking
1:00:51 about, is out now.
1:00:54 I love some of these quotes from media.
1:00:58 USA Today said that you are a force to be reckoned with.
1:01:04 My magazine said that you give millions of listeners around the globe a reason to believe
1:01:05 in themselves.
1:01:08 What a nice saying to have someone say about you.
1:01:11 Congratulations on all your success.
1:01:14 And you’re going to see a lot of me, because I’ve decided I’m now very good, good friends
1:01:15 with your husband.
1:01:16 Yes.
1:01:18 Because I need him in my life.
1:01:22 This guy sounds so impressive and supportive.
1:01:23 He’s fantastic.
1:01:24 He is cool.
1:01:25 I have to get in touch with you.
1:01:31 Another thing I’m really excited to share with you is that this book is on its way to
1:01:33 break all records for a nonfiction launch.
1:01:34 Love it.
1:01:41 Thanks so much for your time, Mel.
1:01:48 I was a bit of a happiness.
1:01:51 Something hit me really hard this past few days.
1:01:55 I’ve been thinking a lot about the fires as is everyone in Los Angeles.
1:01:57 Specifically, I grew up there, so I recognize some of them.
1:02:02 I used to go on first dates at a place called Moonshadow, so it is no longer there.
1:02:05 Specifically LA, for me, was the incredible experience at the University of California,
1:02:11 Los Angeles, which kind of inspired this inextricable upward spiral for me once I got my act together.
1:02:13 And I absolutely love LA.
1:02:14 I just think it’s magical.
1:02:18 And I think the reason why people rebuild there, despite the fact that it’s an epicenter
1:02:22 for droughts, earthquakes, and fires is because it’s fucking magical.
1:02:29 The collision of entertainment, beach, sky, sea, land, Mexican culture, it’s just so fucking
1:02:30 fabulous.
1:02:34 You wake up in February and it’s 62 and dry with a light breeze.
1:02:40 And then I don’t know, should we go to the Hollywood Bull tonight and see Dua Lipa?
1:02:42 Not sure if she’s played the bull.
1:02:47 Anyways, or maybe just go hang out and walk along the Zuma Beach or go to In-N-Out Burger
1:02:53 on our way to, I mean, LA is amazing and there’s a reason why people take these risks, and
1:02:57 I think the reason why it’s going to build back better and stronger.
1:03:01 Anyways, I was texting people, “Are you all right?
1:03:02 Is there anything I can do?”
1:03:08 And this rabbi who I follow, a rabbi named Stephen Leder, who’s in Los Angeles, wrote
1:03:12 something saying, “Asking people what you can do or how you can help is the wrong thing
1:03:14 to ask.”
1:03:15 Because people don’t want to feel like victims.
1:03:17 People don’t want to burden you.
1:03:23 It feels like a little bit of weakness to say, “Oh, I really could use help here.”
1:03:25 People don’t do that.
1:03:28 The right way to help somebody is not to ask them how you can help.
1:03:31 It’s just to move to help.
1:03:35 And that is show up and say, “Hey, I know you got a lot going on right now.
1:03:36 Can I take your dogs?
1:03:38 Do you need some help?”
1:03:40 Here’s a picture of the room we have.
1:03:41 So you live in Orange County.
1:03:42 Here’s a picture of the room.
1:03:43 It’s ready for you.
1:03:45 Just come down.
1:03:46 Wire them money.
1:03:47 That’s what I’ve been doing.
1:03:52 And I’m virtue signaling, but I’m at a point in my life where I have more time than money.
1:03:54 And so I enjoy giving money away.
1:03:57 It makes me feel generous and masculine, and I’m blessed that way.
1:03:59 So I have been wiring money to people.
1:04:02 I don’t ask if I have their wiring information.
1:04:03 I just wire them money.
1:04:04 And then they call me.
1:04:05 They say, “What’s this for?”
1:04:06 I’m like, “Disaster relief.
1:04:07 It’s chaos out there right now.
1:04:08 I hope it helps.”
1:04:12 I’m a go fund me whore right now.
1:04:13 I’m moving to action.
1:04:14 I’m not calling people.
1:04:16 I’m going to stop calling people and asking them what I can do.
1:04:19 I’m just going to move to do the do part.
1:04:23 And I think it’s so powerful and not only that, it’s so rewarding.
1:04:31 I can’t tell you the emotions and cementing of relationships it has caused or inspired
1:04:34 amongst me and some people in the affected areas.
1:04:38 When you just help them, you just do something and you don’t ask.
1:04:42 You don’t try and pretend you’re strong or force them to admit they need help.
1:05:05 You just do it.
1:05:13 [BLANK_AUDIO]
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0:01:29 True story, I was dating a rockhead when I first moved to New York and I went to visit
0:01:34 her in some bad town in Chicago where they were on tour and I walked into their day’s
0:01:40 in room where they were all partying and saw a dancer, a man, doing rails of cocaine off
0:01:43 the ass of a little person.
0:01:46 Not a joke that actually happened.
0:01:54 The dog loves New York.
0:02:01 Go, go, go!
0:02:04 Welcome to the 332nd episode of the Prop G Pod.
0:02:05 What’s happening?
0:02:08 The dog is howling back in the city.
0:02:12 He’s here howling at the Batmobile and I don’t know where to go.
0:02:13 Batmobile.
0:02:14 I’m having an amazing time.
0:02:15 Let’s talk about me.
0:02:16 Let’s bring this back to me.
0:02:19 I know you’re dying to know what’s, what’s going on.
0:02:21 I’m uh, where did I go?
0:02:25 I came back, I came here, did a week last week.
0:02:33 When I did, uh, it’s my son calling, I’ll be back in a moment.
0:02:41 Okay, so I’m back.
0:02:47 So what happens when you speak to your son every night at 4 p.m. your time when you’re
0:02:52 in New York or 9 p.m. their time in London and he calls you at 12.35, which he never
0:02:54 does, you freak out.
0:02:58 My son never calls me out of the blue in the middle of the day and it’s like, it reminds
0:03:03 me of when you see, you look in the rear of your mirror and you see sirens like a mirror
0:03:06 being pulled over that kind of, you take a deep breath in.
0:03:09 Anyways, that’s what I just felt, but everything’s fine.
0:03:13 So back to me and my arrested adolescence tour through the United States.
0:03:18 Friday I went to Boca Raton, spoke at the Jeffries conference, uh, spent the weekend
0:03:23 in Miami at the Faena, had a great time and then I went to Houston for the day.
0:03:28 Not so great, but a nice conference now I’m back in New York and I think New York is absolutely
0:03:29 on fire.
0:03:34 I think this is the golden age in New York and I think it’s, I think it’s wonderful.
0:03:38 Okay, anyways, in today’s episode, we speak with Mel Robbins, an award-winning podcast
0:03:42 host and New York Times bestselling author and expert on mindset, behavior change and
0:03:44 life improvement.
0:03:48 We discussed with Mel her latest book, The Let Them Theory, a life-changing tool that
0:03:52 millions of people can’t stop talking about.
0:03:55 So with that, here’s our conversation with Mel Robbins.
0:04:01 Mel, where’s this podcast find you?
0:04:03 You mean physically?
0:04:05 Yeah, as in where?
0:04:06 You know what I mean.
0:04:07 Where are you?
0:04:08 Well, no, you’re a smart guy.
0:04:10 So I’m like, is this a trick question?
0:04:11 No, no, no, no.
0:04:12 Is this like mental philosophical?
0:04:13 Yeah, yeah.
0:04:16 I’m in southern Vermont right now in my home, above my garage.
0:04:19 You’re legitimately the second biggest podcast in the world.
0:04:22 How did you end up in south Vermont?
0:04:31 Well, my son, who struggled with dyslexia and ADHD, undiagnosed and bounced from public
0:04:38 school to a school for kids with language-based learning disabilities to a private school,
0:04:39 just was really struggling.
0:04:44 And I said, dude, you can pick your high school.
0:04:49 And at the time we had been living outside of Boston for 20 years, our two daughters
0:04:53 had gone through the public high school system there and had a wonderful experience.
0:04:56 And so I just thought, okay, we’re living outside of Boston.
0:05:00 He’s going to pick a school in Boston.
0:05:04 And all of a sudden he’s like, I want to go to a school in Vermont where my grandmother
0:05:05 lives.
0:05:08 And I’m like, but we don’t live there.
0:05:12 And he just kept pressing and pressing and pressing and pressing and the honest to God
0:05:20 truth, I can’t believe I’m telling you this story, is that a psychic medium came on my
0:05:24 at the time daytime talk show at the CBS Broadcast Center.
0:05:29 I had told nobody that I had been fighting with our son because we basically had gotten
0:05:39 to the point in late December of 2021, no, 2019, where I had won, he was going to find
0:05:43 a school in Boston, the whole conversation about Vermont was over.
0:05:45 It was not going to happen.
0:05:50 And then a psychic medium came on the talk show and my dead father-in-law appeared and
0:05:53 spoke to me through the medium in this crazy story.
0:05:54 I can tell you the whole story.
0:05:56 It’s unbelievable.
0:06:01 And that caused us to move and that’s what happened.
0:06:03 That was not what I was expecting.
0:06:09 I thought it was going to be on the long lines that I love to fall leaves or my parents are
0:06:10 here.
0:06:14 I was not expecting to meet your dead father-in-law via a psychic.
0:06:15 Wow.
0:06:18 I’m going to memo to self, I’m going to hire a psychic to tell my wife we should move
0:06:19 to St. Bart’s.
0:06:22 That’s the learning I have here.
0:06:28 So your latest book, The Let Them Theory, a life-changing tool that millions of people
0:06:30 can’t stop talking about.
0:06:35 You write about how to stop wasting energy on what you can’t control and start focusing
0:06:37 on what truly matters.
0:06:43 It feels a little stoic, you and there was one thing that really stood out to us.
0:06:50 You said that the single most powerful thing you discovered was at high school prom.
0:06:52 So say more.
0:06:53 Oh God.
0:06:54 Okay.
0:07:00 Like I can’t believe that this theory that has fundamentally changed my life.
0:07:02 I discovered at my son’s high school prom.
0:07:09 So it was his junior year and like a typical mother, I was being super annoying in micromanagee,
0:07:13 like shoving the boot nearer at him, trying to micromanage what was happening.
0:07:15 As a boy, just let me tell you, I think we need some of that.
0:07:18 I describe myself, not as dad, but as their prefrontal cortex.
0:07:20 So I would keep micromanaging.
0:07:21 But anyways, I’m sorry, Malgo.
0:07:28 Well, the problem is that micromanaging actually backfires.
0:07:31 And you know, I know this, I don’t want to be annoying.
0:07:36 And so here I am like trying to control what they’re doing and like I’m being do this,
0:07:37 do that.
0:07:42 And my daughter was home from college and she just grabbed my arm, Scott, and yanked
0:07:45 me towards her and was like, you’re being annoying.
0:07:46 Stop it.
0:07:47 Let them, mom.
0:07:48 Let them do what they want to do.
0:07:50 If they want to run in the rain, let them.
0:07:51 If they want to eat at the taco stand, let them.
0:07:53 If he wants to ruin his sneakers, let them.
0:07:55 It’s their prom, not yours.
0:08:01 And there was something about this cascading, let them, let them, let them, that it just
0:08:02 hit me.
0:08:04 My shoulders dropped.
0:08:08 And I was like, why do I care about this?
0:08:12 Why am I getting so worked up about this?
0:08:17 And I walked up to Oakley and he’s like, what, because I was being so annoying.
0:08:18 And I said, nothing, dude, here’s 40 bucks.
0:08:19 Go enjoy yourself.
0:08:21 And then his shoulders dropped.
0:08:27 And that wasn’t the moment, the moment was the next couple of days because those two
0:08:34 words stuck with me and every single moment, Scott, where I felt annoyed or frustrated
0:08:41 or upset or worried or judgy about something, I just said the words, let them.
0:08:48 And I immediately felt this release and your right to signal stoicism, but it’s not just
0:08:49 stoicism.
0:08:54 It’s the reason why the let them theory and these two words, let them, and then the second
0:08:55 part is let me.
0:08:57 And that’s the more important part, the let me part.
0:09:04 The reason why this is taken off is that it doesn’t stand on its own.
0:09:12 It has extraordinary roots in stoicism, detachment theory, radical acceptance, Buddhism, all these
0:09:14 therapeutic modalities.
0:09:20 And if I get back to the point of intellectualism, I’ve always wanted to be stoic, I’ve always
0:09:28 wanted to be more of the kind of person that was not rattled by what’s going on around
0:09:29 me.
0:09:34 I mean, I’ve read Victor Frankl’s The Man’s Search for Meaning probably five times, but
0:09:39 knowing something is very different than applying it.
0:09:46 And so what started to happen for me is anytime I felt the outside world getting to me or
0:09:53 another person getting to me when I said let them, it was a tool that helped me apply ancient
0:10:01 wisdom and philosophy and therapeutic modalities in a moment in modern life when the outside
0:10:03 world was getting to me.
0:10:12 And after a week of using it, I was so different in terms of feeling peaceful and grounded
0:10:19 and kind of unaffected by things that I simply put out a reel on social media.
0:10:22 And it was the single most viral thing I’ve ever put out.
0:10:26 It was like 15 million views in 24 hours.
0:10:29 And so then I naturally just did a podcast episode about it.
0:10:36 And so I did one podcast episode in late 2023, and it became the fifth most shared episode
0:10:44 on all of Apple for the entire year, and that was with like a runway of four months.
0:10:51 And so when you have that much data and feedback from the world that something hits, I then
0:10:54 turned it into a research project.
0:11:01 And what we did is we started analyzing 10,000 comments on YouTube videos and on social media
0:11:07 posts, and we crunched all the data, and a couple things came up that were really interesting.
0:11:09 First of all, universally, people love let them.
0:11:16 And in fact, tattoos started rolling in with the words let them all over the place.
0:11:21 And the reason why people love let them is because the second you say let them, you’re
0:11:27 not only applying stoicism and detachment theory and radical acceptance and Buddhism
0:11:33 in the moment, but you feel superior because when your friends go away without you and
0:11:38 you’re annoyed that they’re on a golf trip and you’re not, and then you go let them,
0:11:41 you kind of have a little bit of a like, fuck them, you know, when you say it.
0:11:43 And that’s why it works.
0:11:47 Because when you rise above something, you feel better than it.
0:11:50 But then here’s what our research shows.
0:11:55 The only complaint and concern, other than can I use this with children, which we can
0:12:00 get to in a minute, is I’m saying let them.
0:12:04 And I’m realizing my boss doesn’t care about me.
0:12:07 I’m realizing my friends don’t call me back.
0:12:13 I’m realizing I’m the only one in my family that makes an effort, and now I’m deeply lonely.
0:12:19 And I thought to myself, there’s no way in hell I want to put something out there in
0:12:25 the world that’s going to make people lonelier, so it can’t just end with let them.
0:12:27 There has to be a second part.
0:12:34 And it was based on that research that I came up with the let me part as the second step.
0:12:39 Because one thing’s very clear about life, and that’s this.
0:12:42 First of all, you can’t control what’s going on out there.
0:12:45 And I’ve heard you say this over and over and over again.
0:12:49 It’s not what’s happening out there, it’s what’s happening in here, which is where
0:12:51 your power is.
0:12:55 And the one thing you’ll never be able to control is what another human being thinks,
0:12:58 says, does, or feels, period, full stop.
0:13:03 Cannot control it, and any time that you pour into trying to control what other people do
0:13:08 think, feel, or say, is just going to frustrate you.
0:13:14 When you say let me, you are reminding yourself that the power is always in here because there’s
0:13:18 three things in life, only three things you can ever control.
0:13:19 That’s it.
0:13:23 Number one, you can control what you think about something.
0:13:28 Number two, you can control what you do or don’t do in response to it.
0:13:33 And we forget that we always have control because we get to choose what we do or don’t
0:13:34 do.
0:13:41 And number three, you get to choose how you’re going to process the emotions that rise up.
0:13:45 Are the emotions going to run you over and cause you to rage text or scream at people
0:13:46 or withdraw?
0:13:53 Or are you going to let the emotions rise and fall and process them in a way that’s responsible?
0:13:59 And let’s look at this word responsibility and taking responsibility for your life.
0:14:02 Responsibility is just the ability to respond.
0:14:03 That’s what it is.
0:14:10 And so let them allow me to detach from things I can’t control, which then protects my time
0:14:11 and energy.
0:14:17 And so I’m no longer feeling drained by life because I’m letting people be who they are
0:14:23 and letting them be who they’re not and recognizing my power is not in managing them.
0:14:25 My power is in managing me.
0:14:33 And then when I say let me, I’m queuing myself to the truth about life and relationships.
0:14:38 And that’s that you always are in control and you always have the power.
0:14:41 So yeah, I, that resonates.
0:14:44 I say a lot and it gives me a great deal of comfort.
0:14:48 Life isn’t about what happens to you, it’s how you respond to what happens to you.
0:14:51 And the biggest regret people have at the end of their life is not the, the bad things
0:14:54 that happen to them, but how upset they were about them.
0:14:58 And so just trying to recognize, and I also find, and I’m curious, I’m an atheist and
0:15:04 I find that atheism helps me embrace what you’re talking about in the sense that everyone
0:15:10 I’m worried about or angry at or concerned, they’re going to be dead soon and so am I.
0:15:15 So why wouldn’t I just be more kind to myself, more kind to them and just kind of move on
0:15:18 or just try and make the most of it.
0:15:22 The little bit of pushback where I would love to get some nuance from you around kids.
0:15:26 I think I have a middle, I have two boys, middle school and high school.
0:15:29 And I struggle with the balance of what you’re talking around, around let them.
0:15:34 And I think it’s important that young men, and I imagine girls that I’m raising girls,
0:15:39 make dumb mistakes and occasionally do something stupid and maybe even risk breaking a bone.
0:15:45 When I was in the third grade, it looked like an ER room with casts and eye patches.
0:15:47 And seriously, when’s the last time you saw a cast in an elementary school?
0:15:50 And I think that’s both good and bad.
0:15:54 So I like it when we let our kids boys make mistakes.
0:15:59 But at the same time, there’s certain things, certain harms in a modern economy that I do
0:16:02 think we have to step in on and the way I have bifurcated it and I want to get your
0:16:09 view on this is generally speaking, I find that we over protect them offline.
0:16:14 And I am a big believer in embracing and I’ll use it again and I’ll credit you to let them
0:16:15 philosophy.
0:16:20 At the same time, I think we under protect them online.
0:16:26 And I think we need to become much more helicopter parents around their activities online.
0:16:27 What are your thoughts?
0:16:29 Well, I wouldn’t call it a helicopter parent.
0:16:34 I’d call it being rational and smart, like we’re not handing our kids cigarettes and
0:16:36 then pretending it’s not hurting them.
0:16:43 So I 100%, there should be no phones in schools period.
0:16:46 And kids should not have smartphones until the age of 16.
0:16:47 Now, I screwed this up.
0:16:52 The research has come out since I would do things very, very differently.
0:16:58 And one of the things giant caveat around the let them theory is that this is a book
0:17:06 about adult relationships and it applies to adult children and teens in their late teens.
0:17:14 However, when you’re talking about dangerous, destructive discriminatory behavior, you don’t
0:17:16 just let that play out.
0:17:18 That’s the let me part you step in.
0:17:23 This is what I got wrong because ultimately the let them theory is a book about freedom,
0:17:29 power and control, what you can control and what you can’t control.
0:17:35 And I personally worked against the fundamental wiring of human beings for 54 years.
0:17:40 See I thought that since I had to push myself out of bed, Scott, I got to push everybody
0:17:41 else.
0:17:45 And what you’re going to learn when you start saying let them and let me and when you dig
0:17:51 into the research, and this is again research that I learned from speaking to some of the
0:17:56 world’s leading psychologists and researchers on the topic, whether you’re talking about
0:18:00 Dr. K, the healthy gamer, or you’re talking about Dr. Stuart Ablon, or you’re talking
0:18:05 about Tara Swart, or you’re talking about, you know, on and on and on.
0:18:09 I could drop names of the psychiatrist and psychologist and addiction specialists and
0:18:15 people that study motivation and neuroscientists who are cited in this book.
0:18:17 But the simple fact is this.
0:18:22 Every human being, including your children, have a hard wired need for control.
0:18:25 It is part of our survival mechanism.
0:18:27 There is no changing it.
0:18:32 Every human being needs to feel in control of their thoughts, their actions, their future,
0:18:35 their money, their decisions, what they’re eating.
0:18:39 This is why kids freak out when they don’t want to eat something that you want them to
0:18:41 eat because they need to feel in control.
0:18:43 And here’s the mistake that we make.
0:18:49 When somebody else’s behavior, whether it’s your adult kid or it’s your teenager, they’re
0:18:54 doing something that worries you, bothers you, frustrates you, hurts you, whatever concerns
0:18:55 you.
0:19:02 We cross the line because their behavior makes us feel out of control, and we then try to
0:19:04 control them.
0:19:05 Here’s the problem.
0:19:10 The second you step across the line and try to control your teenager or your adult child
0:19:17 or your friend or your colleague or your partner, you’re now bumping up against their hardwiring
0:19:19 and their need for control.
0:19:25 And so your behavior, worrying, pressuring, trying to bribe people like whatever it may
0:19:31 be, supporting people, you’re trying to motivate behavior change.
0:19:33 You’re actually not motivating change.
0:19:38 You create resistance to change by bumping up against their need for control.
0:19:40 And here’s what I was getting wrong.
0:19:41 So I’ll give you an example.
0:19:44 So we were talking about Oakley earlier.
0:19:46 He was not motivated in school.
0:19:47 Why?
0:19:49 Because he’s not doing well.
0:19:53 Do you want to know who the hardest working kid in the classroom is?
0:19:59 It’s not the kid getting A’s, it’s the kid who’s failing because they know they’re failing.
0:20:01 They know they’re not reaching their potential.
0:20:05 You want to know who the hardest working friend of yours is on their health?
0:20:09 It’s not the one going to the gym every day for two hours.
0:20:16 And so here you and I come in and I can hear Oakley playing Fortnite upstairs.
0:20:17 And I think he should be studying.
0:20:18 So what do I do?
0:20:23 I go marching up the stairs and I swing open the door and now I’m like, dude, you got to
0:20:25 get off the Xbox.
0:20:32 You don’t think he knows that playing Xbox isn’t going to help him at school?
0:20:37 You don’t think that your partner knows that going for a walk is going to make him feel
0:20:38 better?
0:20:42 Like, we’re some sort of Einstein that knows better?
0:20:45 It’s a beautiful thing to want something more for someone else.
0:20:51 It’s a wonderful way to love somebody to see their potential and to be concerned that they’re
0:20:56 not reaching it or they’re sabotaging their happiness or their health or they’re dating
0:20:59 some loser that treats them like garbage.
0:21:03 Wanting more for the people that you care about isn’t the problem.
0:21:09 But if you’re like me, you’re actually worrying about it and going about it in the wrong way
0:21:13 because you’re working against human wiring instead of with it.
0:21:18 And so what I discovered is a completely different approach.
0:21:23 It’s this approach where you’re with them instead of at them.
0:21:30 And I learned, I summarize it in the research, I call it the ABC loop because I’m obsessed
0:21:34 with making things easy and memorable because if you can’t remember it, you’re not going
0:21:35 to use it.
0:21:39 And this is the approach I used with our son, changed everything.
0:21:45 It’s the approach I now use with anybody that I would like to change their behavior because
0:21:47 there’s one thing you can never do.
0:21:52 You can never change another person, but I never said you couldn’t influence them.
0:21:58 And so the ABC loop summarizes all of this incredible research from all these super smart
0:22:01 people and here’s what you’re going to do.
0:22:04 If you’re going to stand off with somebody about their weight or their grades or their
0:22:13 job or their finances or whatever it may be or their mental health, start with a apologize
0:22:17 and then ask open-ended questions.
0:22:21 And if you really stop and think about it, when I stop and think about the situation
0:22:28 with our son, I had been nagging this kid forever, hadn’t worked, hadn’t motivated him,
0:22:31 but I continued to do it.
0:22:35 And so when I finally apologized, dude, I’m really sorry.
0:22:39 It must be a giant pain in the ass to have me constantly nagging you.
0:22:40 I’m really sorry about that.
0:22:42 I’m going to stop doing that.
0:22:44 First of all, they’re going to be startled.
0:22:49 Then you ask open-ended questions and this comes from Dr. K. and from Dr. Stuart Ablon.
0:22:55 And this really is this technique motivational interviewing where you’re just going to ask,
0:22:58 you know, I’ve never even asked you, how do you feel about school?
0:23:01 And here’s the most important thing.
0:23:04 It doesn’t matter what they say, Scott.
0:23:08 Like Oakley was like fine and shrugged his shoulders.
0:23:12 And then you just say, okay, well, what’s fine about it, hon?
0:23:13 And it doesn’t matter what he says.
0:23:16 He might be like, oh, I don’t know.
0:23:19 And then you’re going to drop the really big question.
0:23:20 This comes from Dr. Ablon’s research.
0:23:24 You just say, well, have you thought about what you might want to do about it?
0:23:27 Now, if you notice there’s zero pressure there, have you thought about what you might want
0:23:28 to do about it?
0:23:33 Now, this is what Dr. Ablon calls the with them approach.
0:23:40 And your kid or your loved one has been doing nothing but thinking about their weight or
0:23:44 thinking about the fact that they don’t have a job or thinking about the fact that they’re
0:23:48 the loser at school that has no friends or thinking about the fact that they’re really
0:23:52 sad and down and they wish they didn’t feel that way.
0:23:56 Of course they’ve thought about it, but you haven’t asked them because you think you know
0:23:57 all the answers.
0:23:59 That’s how I was because I was so worried.
0:24:02 Have you thought about what you might want to do about this?
0:24:07 There’s no pressure and it doesn’t matter what they say because the whole point of asking
0:24:16 open-ended questions is you’re excavating this tension that they feel about where they are
0:24:19 versus where they know they’d like to be.
0:24:28 And that tension is critical for them to feel the intrinsic motivation and the why that
0:24:35 is necessary for a human being to not only do something once, but to source the motivation
0:24:38 to do the very hard work to change.
0:24:40 And then you’re going to move to be, which is back off.
0:24:46 You got to back off for three to six months because again, come back to control Scott.
0:24:51 For anybody to want to change, they have to feel like it’s their idea.
0:24:55 And in talking to a bunch of people about the let them theory, there is a sentence that
0:25:01 kept coming up over and over from psychiatrists, which is people only get sober when being
0:25:08 drunk is harder than doing the work to face what you’re running from.
0:25:14 And that’s also a principle about human wiring, which is our brains are wired to default towards
0:25:16 what’s easy.
0:25:18 That’s why we sit on the couch instead of going to the gym.
0:25:23 It’s why we think about our business plans or we watch your podcast to my podcast instead
0:25:25 of starting our own.
0:25:27 We move towards what’s easy.
0:25:32 Change requires us to work against our own wiring and do what’s hard, which is why it’s
0:25:37 got to be somebody else’s idea if they’re going to do it, which is why you got to back
0:25:44 off because they’ve got to have the space to sit with the tension and to also feel like
0:25:49 they’re not going to get penalized by you and me when they actually do the thing and
0:25:52 we’re not going to be standing there going, “See, I told you it would be easier than
0:25:53 you thought.
0:25:56 See, I told you that you’d feel better if you went for a walk.”
0:25:59 And then the final thing is C, which is you got to model the change.
0:26:03 Like I can’t be asking my husband to stop drinking while I’m pouring wine.
0:26:08 I can’t ask somebody else to get in shape while I’m sitting on the couch.
0:26:12 And any forward progress, here’s the really important thing.
0:26:17 Don’t be telling the person, “Oh, see, I told you it was easy.
0:26:18 Tell them you’re just proud of them.
0:26:19 So proud of you.
0:26:20 I know this isn’t easy.
0:26:21 I’m really proud of you.”
0:26:28 Because that affirms their agency over themselves and their ability to change on their own.
0:26:38 We’ll be right back.
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0:30:25 So let’s leave childhood, let’s go into young adulthood and specifically I think a lot about
0:30:30 young men and one of the things I think is really hurting young men.
0:30:35 If you are engaging with work, engaging with school, and I think most detrimentally not
0:30:40 engaging in relationships, only one in three men under the age of 30 has a girlfriend, two
0:30:44 in three women under the age of 30 has a boyfriend.
0:30:48 And that might sound mathematically impossible but it’s because young women are dating older
0:30:51 because they want more economically and emotionally viable partners.
0:30:54 And one of the things I find is most useful about being in a relationship for a young
0:31:01 man is that relationship oftentimes implements very healthy guardrails.
0:31:02 I know it did for me.
0:31:07 My girlfriend very crisply told me if you keep getting high every night, I’m not going
0:31:08 to have sex with you.
0:31:09 I’m going to leave.
0:31:15 I mean, if you don’t put on a tie and get into work by nine, we’re going to fire you.
0:31:19 I found these relationships were really important for me because my prefrontal cortex had not
0:31:23 caught up to my female peers until I was 25.
0:31:27 I literally kind of didn’t get my shit together until I was 25.
0:31:29 I think that’s early.
0:31:32 I can’t read all I was 54.
0:31:36 Yeah, still getting is still a current and present term as well.
0:31:38 So how do you balance this?
0:31:40 Well, one, do you agree with that?
0:31:47 And two, how do we help young men who may not have the option to be in a relationship
0:31:52 for whatever reason that provides some of those what I think are healthy guardrails?
0:32:00 How can we develop behavioral therapies or provide an environment for young men where
0:32:07 they can improve themselves, love themselves, quite frankly, just perform better with an
0:32:10 increasingly competitive society?
0:32:13 Because in fact, they don’t have the benefit of a relationship.
0:32:18 I think the biggest challenge is hope.
0:32:23 Like I said earlier, I think the single biggest thing that stands in people’s way is being
0:32:28 discouraged, feeling like it’s not going to make a difference.
0:32:31 And you said something that’s interesting.
0:32:39 I can’t remember the exact phrasing, but it was something about a man not having the option.
0:32:44 See, the thing that I truly believe is that we have lost sight of the power and agency
0:32:46 that we have over our own lives.
0:32:49 We have become obsessed with looking out there.
0:32:56 And for people in their 20s and their 30s and even younger, you are literally growing
0:33:05 up and your psychology and neuro pathways and your nervous system are being programmed
0:33:12 to have this habit of always referencing out there for okayness in here.
0:33:16 And that is a massive problem.
0:33:23 And for young men, I am deeply concerned about how toxic the online dating scene is.
0:33:32 I’m deeply concerned about how everybody has Frankensteined their filters and done a checklist
0:33:37 of creating an AI version of a human being that they would like to meet.
0:33:41 And then everybody’s discouraged, whether it’s the guys are discouraged because all
0:33:46 the guys are going for the same four women and all of the women are going for the same
0:33:47 four guys.
0:33:50 Let me just press pause there and we’ll get some pain on this.
0:33:55 I think that’s more true of women and men, Mel, 80% of men who say, what if you could
0:33:59 find someone with 80% of what you want, 80% say they would like that, two thirds of women
0:34:01 say that’s not enough.
0:34:08 I think a lot of media has trained women to immediately, you know, ex out a guy.
0:34:11 And you can’t tell women to lower their standards, but I think the dynamic-
0:34:12 Oh yeah, you can.
0:34:16 I think everybody needs to because I think we’ve got your point.
0:34:19 Everybody needs to lower their standards because everybody needs to step out of the fantasy
0:34:23 world of online and back into the reality.
0:34:29 Because what I say is this, there’s so many people who are now no longer dating.
0:34:32 I’m not online, I’m not dating online.
0:34:33 Are you taught?
0:34:36 I saw you do a reel about this the other day.
0:34:41 But if you want to meet somebody, then act like it in real life.
0:34:43 Are you talking to people in line?
0:34:47 Are you having an open posture towards life?
0:34:48 Leaving your house.
0:34:49 Are you saying hello to people?
0:34:50 Are you leaving your house?
0:34:54 Are you going to barbecues in your neighborhood?
0:34:56 Because there are eight billion people on this planet.
0:35:02 There are people all around you, whether you live in a tiny town or you live in a big city.
0:35:10 And using the excuse, again, discouragement, you’re allowing and giving power to online
0:35:15 apps over the most important thing in your life, which is who will become your life partner.
0:35:19 And so, number one, stop giving the power to the apps.
0:35:23 And if you are going to be on them, change all your filters.
0:35:27 Open the aperture, which is what you need to do with your entire life.
0:35:31 Open the aperture by going, “I don’t care about height.
0:35:32 They can be 50 miles from here.
0:35:34 I don’t care about race.
0:35:35 I don’t care about income.
0:35:36 I don’t care about this.
0:35:42 I don’t care about that,” because the whole point of putting yourself out there is not
0:35:44 just so that you can meet people.
0:35:49 It’s also so that you learn more about yourself and so that you become an open person.
0:35:55 And the fact is, like, thinking and telling yourself a story that you’re never going to
0:36:01 meet somebody or why bother or the apps all suck or dating is toxic or the toxic culture
0:36:04 of dating, don’t participate in it.
0:36:10 You give power to it if you talk about it and if you actually participate in it.
0:36:13 And I’m going to remind you of something, and this is where Let Them and Let Me comes
0:36:17 into play for 20s and 30s something, like, unbelievably.
0:36:23 Because part of the reason why dating is so difficult and relationships are so challenging
0:36:29 is because you’re up in a relationship with a fantasy instead of accepting the reality
0:36:31 that’s right in front of you.
0:36:35 And number one, if you want a relationship, prove it.
0:36:37 Get your ass out there.
0:36:39 Start talking to people in lines.
0:36:43 Change the filters, and this goes for men and women.
0:36:48 Second, stop giving the power to the apps and realize that it’s about how you show up
0:36:49 in life.
0:36:54 And third, understand, and this is something that I can’t do for somebody.
0:36:57 It’s something that you can’t do for somebody.
0:37:07 But understand that your happiness, that your future, your earning potential, despite what
0:37:12 the statistics say, and I love that you are talking about the reality of what’s happened
0:37:13 in the housing market.
0:37:17 I love that you’re talking about the reality of what is happening in research.
0:37:24 And at the end of the day, at some point, you have to say yes and I still have power
0:37:29 and I still have within me the ability to learn how to think differently.
0:37:33 I have the ability to get my ass off of social media and to the gym.
0:37:37 I have the ability to watch YouTube videos and update my resume.
0:37:44 I have the ability, just like Mel Robbins did, to pay off $800,000 in debt, not overnight,
0:37:50 but by chipping away at it for 10 years, and that’s the reality.
0:37:54 And so I agree with you, what are we going to do about it?
0:38:01 There’s only so much that we can do about it because what I’ve learned in life is that
0:38:10 there is a corresponding level of pain that is required in a human being’s life to organize
0:38:15 the internal drive and motivation to say enough.
0:38:17 I don’t know how I’m going to change.
0:38:24 I just know that the way that I’m living my life is so painful that I got to do something.
0:38:29 And you don’t have to know, like when I was 41 years old and $800,000 in debt and there
0:38:33 were leans on the house and the anxiety was so bad, I couldn’t get out of fucking bed.
0:38:36 I didn’t know what I was going to do with my life, Scott.
0:38:42 I just knew that I couldn’t stand living the way that I was living anymore.
0:38:48 And so as dumb as the sound, it sounds like the Seinfeld episode, literally, if you don’t
0:38:53 know what you want or what to do, do the opposite of what you’re doing.
0:38:56 If you’re lying in bed all day, get the fuck out of bed.
0:39:02 If you’re tired of living at your parents’ house, then stop playing video games and watch
0:39:07 YouTube videos about how you can update your resume and get a job and make money.
0:39:12 If you’re tired of wasting time looking at influencers online and you really love to learn
0:39:16 how to monetize online, then prove it.
0:39:17 Prove it through your actions.
0:39:19 Do what you don’t feel like doing.
0:39:21 That’s how I changed my life.
0:39:23 I realized nobody is coming.
0:39:27 And at some point, you’ve got to wake up and realize that it’s up to you.
0:39:29 It’s always been up to you.
0:39:34 And when you accept that truth about life, that no matter how discouraged you are, no
0:39:39 matter how overweight you are or no matter what your grades were or they weren’t or where
0:39:43 you are, that doesn’t define where you’re going to go.
0:39:46 And that’s not some just motivational bullshit.
0:39:53 This is how anybody who has gone from a very low point in their life to something better
0:39:55 has done it.
0:39:57 It’s not magical, it’s grueling.
0:40:00 You learn how to get out of bed when you don’t feel like it.
0:40:04 You learn how to put one foot in front of your next foot when you don’t feel like it.
0:40:13 And back to the adult kids, the more you continue to rescue your kids and you shield them from
0:40:20 what Harvard’s Dr. Waldinger says is the greatest teacher in the world, which is life.
0:40:27 The more you shield people from learning from life, the more you keep them from changing
0:40:28 their life.
0:40:35 And this is also an epidemic in terms of what I see as a failure to thrive in kids in their
0:40:37 late teens and their 20s.
0:40:42 Is parents that have stepped in and tried to make things too easy for their kids instead
0:40:48 of allowing kids to learn that when you get drunk with your friends and you sleep through
0:40:50 work, you’re going to get fired.
0:40:54 And when you get fired, then you’re not going to have money to go out and get drunk with
0:40:57 your friends, and you’re going to take your job a little bit more seriously.
0:41:03 I mean, you can call it tough parenting, but I actually think it’s one of the reasons
0:41:09 why kids are struggling, that too many parents have made it too easy for their kids, and that’s
0:41:14 why they don’t know how to dig deeper and drive harder.
0:41:17 Yeah, bulldozer parenting.
0:41:24 On the Jay Shetty podcast, you said, “Love is two things, consideration and admiration.”
0:41:25 Seymour?
0:41:33 Yeah, I think love is just something that is omnipresent.
0:41:35 It’s so simple.
0:41:39 So consideration is just having somebody in mind.
0:41:44 I mean, when you make somebody a cup of coffee and you put an almond milk, even though you
0:41:49 take whole milk, that’s consideration for somebody, that’s an act of love.
0:41:54 When you hold open the door for somebody who’s got their arms full of bags, that’s an act
0:41:55 of love.
0:41:59 You have somebody in mind.
0:42:05 Admiration is the ability to admire something about somebody.
0:42:12 And one of the things that really troubles me as we’ve become so polarized in this world,
0:42:19 that if you don’t agree with everything that I believe, I now just cut you out or can’t
0:42:24 talk to you or dismiss you, and it’s on both sides.
0:42:28 And admiration is the ability, despite the fact that one of your parents might have a
0:42:38 narcissistic personality style, to see that and still admire the fact that they’re hard
0:42:43 working or that they’re loyal and they keep showing up.
0:42:48 And so admiration is this ability to see the good in someone.
0:42:54 And as you say, things aren’t as good or as bad as they seem.
0:43:01 And there’s this inability for us to hold space for other human beings, to see them
0:43:07 as they are, to see them as they aren’t, to accept them as they are and as they aren’t.
0:43:16 Because in that space of seeing that somebody can struggle, Scott, and they also have the
0:43:22 capability inside themselves to meet the challenge of their life.
0:43:51 We’ll be right back.
0:43:58 Let’s talk about all of my favorite basics from Amazon that you need in your winter wardrobe.
0:44:00 Some people think this is weird, but I get all my clothes on Amazon.
0:44:03 This is what I would buy if I didn’t already own them.
0:44:07 I just got in a bunch of super cute packages from Amazon, so let’s open them up.
0:44:09 Their aesthetic is beige.
0:44:10 It’s serene.
0:44:12 It’s a little basic, on purpose.
0:44:16 And now, one is suing the other for stealing her vibes.
0:44:21 There’s a lot of things going on in the actual suit, but what it boils down to really is one
0:44:27 of the women, Sidney Gifford, says that the other woman, Alyssa Shield, just won’t stop
0:44:32 copying her.
0:44:41 Coming up on Today, Today Explained.
0:44:45 This week on Prof2Markets, we speak with Ramit Sethi, best-selling author of I Will Teach
0:44:49 You to Be Rich and his brand new book, Money for Couples.
0:44:54 We discuss why he recommends joint bank accounts for couples, the pros and cons of prenups,
0:44:57 and the most common arguments couples have about money.
0:45:02 Your $20 extra purchase at Target is not the reason that you’re stressed out about money.
0:45:06 It almost always tracks back to two expenses and one big problem.
0:45:10 The two expenses are people overspend on housing, they overspend on cars.
0:45:15 They have no idea how to calculate affordability, and the real problem is they just don’t have
0:45:17 a shared vision for their rich life.
0:45:23 You can find that conversation and many others exclusively on the Prof2Markets podcast.
0:45:27 So, you’ve been very generous with your time.
0:45:32 We were talking about your husband, Off Mike, and I’ve decided he’s my new rabbi or best
0:45:33 friend.
0:45:37 It sounds like such an impressive dude.
0:45:43 Say you’re blessed with a partner, but you love this person immensely, and you want to
0:45:50 not only enhance their life, you want to strengthen the relationship as you enter into years where
0:45:56 maybe the kids are leaving and you’re going to have, as you said, the most important decision
0:46:00 you can make is your partner, and it’s going to become even bigger in your life.
0:46:07 Are there any unlocks you have found with your husband that have tangibly changed the
0:46:10 quality of that relationship?
0:46:18 Yeah, so we’ve been married 28 years, and it has been, you go through a roller coaster
0:46:24 of investing your life savings and cashing everything out and shoving it into one person’s
0:46:27 business, and then you lose it all.
0:46:35 You have been to hell and back, and I think there’s a couple things.
0:46:42 Number one, try to never forget who you married because they’re in there.
0:46:51 I think we see the good in somebody, and we know there’s good intent, and then your relationship
0:47:01 becomes a death by a thousand cuts of things that build up that shield you from recognizing
0:47:04 that that person is still in there.
0:47:11 The second thing is, is I think a lot about a seesaw, and a relationship goes the distance
0:47:18 only for two reasons because you have two people who want it to, and you have two people
0:47:24 who are willing to do what it takes to make it go the distance, and if you think about
0:47:28 your relationship like a seesaw, right, on a playground, there are going to be times
0:47:31 where one of you is up, the other is down, times when you’re up, the other one’s down,
0:47:37 and then lots of times where you’re in balance, and the simple secret is don’t get off the
0:47:45 seesaw because the second you do, because you no longer want to work on it, or you no
0:47:51 longer think it’s going to go the distance, the whole thing breaks, and in any relationship
0:47:57 that you’ve been in where you look backwards, and it didn’t work, you can see that way before
0:48:01 the breakup, somebody got off the seesaw.
0:48:07 And so the first thing that I would say is ask yourself, are you even on it?
0:48:10 Because if you’re not, it’s not going to work.
0:48:16 Now for deeper insight, because my husband and I have worked with an awesome therapist
0:48:23 for the last three years in our relationship, and it’s been incredible, one of the things
0:48:29 that Chris has learned in leading men’s retreats, because he doesn’t really share a lot with
0:48:35 me because it’s confidential that I’ve said to him, “What is one big takeaway?”
0:48:40 And he has had a huge range of men, whether it’s former NFL players or people that have
0:48:48 done six tours of duty, ages 21 to 73, and they all come together for five days in the
0:48:55 wilderness, and to really talk about the meaning and purpose of life in their next chapter.
0:49:04 And he said, “The one thing is, is that every man that comes on my retreat says that they
0:49:10 never have time for themselves because everybody’s needs come first.”
0:49:17 And I was like, “Wait a minute, that’s not true, because women feel like we take care
0:49:22 of everybody else, and you guys are all playing golf or watching the game, and that’s not
0:49:23 true.”
0:49:25 And he’s like, “Oh, no, no, no, no.
0:49:34 We feel a tremendous burden to provide, a tremendous burden to care for, and to make
0:49:42 sure everybody’s okay, and it is such a hard-wired thing, Mel, that most men, including myself,
0:49:49 don’t even know what we need, because nobody’s actually asked us.”
0:50:01 And truly embracing that is true has really changed our relationship, because I started
0:50:03 to think it is true.
0:50:10 You know, Chris doesn’t ask for much, he’s kind of the silent foundation of our family.
0:50:16 He grew up as the youngest of a family of three boys, and so it was just kind of go,
0:50:20 go, go, go, go, and he was the caboose on the train.
0:50:28 And it’s taken a lot of talking back and forth for him to A, start to understand what he
0:50:39 might need, B, for him to express it, and C, for me as his partner to slow down and actually
0:50:42 listen and provide it.
0:50:50 And honest to God, Scott, it’s everything from profound and things in the bedroom to
0:50:58 the stupidest shit that’s actually everything, like, for example, you know, there’s a bazillion
0:51:03 Amazon boxes that show up at people’s houses these days, and I’m the kind of person that
0:51:08 I get the box, I unpack the box, but then I don’t flatten the box.
0:51:16 I stack the boxes like a Tetris kind of statue next to the door to the garage.
0:51:21 Chris has asked me a hundred times to flatten the boxes, and I’m like, “Yeah, yeah, yeah,
0:51:22 yeah, yeah.”
0:51:28 And finally one day, he sat me down, he said, “Listen, I got to tell you something.”
0:51:35 He said, “Every time I see that tower of boxes by the door, I literally feel like you’re
0:51:41 standing there giving me the middle finger, because I have asked you to flatten these
0:51:42 boxes.”
0:51:46 And, you know, I, of course, would interrupt him and say, “Well, I’m just going to do it
0:51:47 later.
0:51:49 Like, why do it one at a time when I do it later?”
0:51:56 He’s like, “I understand, and you don’t do it later, and that I eventually do it, and
0:52:04 it makes me feel like you think I’m the maid and that I’m beneath you.”
0:52:12 And when he stopped and explained it like that, it hit me because I don’t want him to
0:52:14 feel like that.
0:52:20 And here we are arguing about cardboard boxes when it’s actually about being seen and valued
0:52:23 in this partnership.
0:52:28 And if somebody asks you to flatten cardboard boxes, and they don’t do it, you’ve got to
0:52:33 let them, and then you go to the let me part, which is let me choose what I’m going to think,
0:52:34 do and say about this.
0:52:41 And so, Chris chose to come to me and to have a conversation about the deeper implication
0:52:43 that my behavior had on him.
0:52:45 And this is very important.
0:52:51 In a relationship, your behavior has an impact on other people.
0:52:56 And that might not be your intention to impact somebody that way.
0:53:01 But if a person that you care about comes to you and explains that your behavior is impacting
0:53:06 them a certain way, you get to choose whether you’re going to clean that up or not.
0:53:09 And this gets back to your question about what is the definition of love, and I say
0:53:12 it’s consideration and admiration.
0:53:21 I admire Chris for coming to me when he wasn’t pissed off and sharing the deeper emotion
0:53:26 under this what seems like a dumb issue.
0:53:34 And consideration and love looks like listening, acknowledging, and then changing.
0:53:38 Because an apology with your words is cheap.
0:53:42 A true apology happens with a change of behavior.
0:53:47 And so, after that conversation, Chris has to let me be me.
0:53:50 That conversation is what changed my behavior, Scott.
0:53:53 Now, I get it right about 80% of the time.
0:53:57 There are days where it’s super busy, I stack the boxes, but I’ll text them and say, “Hey,
0:53:58 I got caught up.
0:54:00 I’m going to do the boxes later.”
0:54:04 That simple text is everything.
0:54:12 Because what I had him in mind, it’s a way that I show him that his needs matter to me.
0:54:17 And because I behave the way that I did, I also am showing him through my behavior that
0:54:21 I am a safe and loving person to talk to.
0:54:30 And if you understand and you accept the research, which I do, that most men, through the hypermasculinity
0:54:37 of shut up and don’t cry and don’t be a baby, have been socially conditioned to never actually
0:54:42 express or to share their needs.
0:54:48 If you accept that as truth, which I do, any time a son or a brother or a male colleague
0:54:57 or a partner or anybody, your father comes to you in life and shares a moment where they
0:55:03 need something from you or they’re expressing how your behavior impacted to them, fucking
0:55:04 listen.
0:55:10 Because it takes a tremendous level of courage and trust in you for them to come to you.
0:55:19 And it is an example of somebody trying to change generational and societal programming
0:55:25 to take accountability for how their life is.
0:55:28 And that’s a huge thing.
0:55:35 And so, if you go back to your question too about boys, I would say that it has a lot
0:55:44 to do too with how parents and other adults around young boys and boys in middle school
0:55:53 are also modeling emotional intelligence, emotional resilience, the ability to talk
0:55:57 about your feelings, it really matters.
0:56:01 Just as we wrap up here, I did an interview, I think it was with their Spiegel or some
0:56:06 German newspaper, and they wanted to talk about Joe Rogan, and I’m like, “I’m sick
0:56:07 of talking about Joe Rogan.
0:56:10 I got nothing to say about Joe.
0:56:12 Everything about Joe’s already out there.”
0:56:16 And they said, “Well, who are the next,” things always change, “Who is the next Joe
0:56:17 Rogan?”
0:56:19 And I said, “It’s one of two people.
0:56:20 It’s either Stephen Bartlett.”
0:56:21 I don’t know if you know Stephen.
0:56:22 Of course.
0:56:23 No, I’m well.
0:56:24 And I said, “Or Mel Robbins.”
0:56:26 And they said, “Well, what is it about them?
0:56:27 What do they do that’s different?”
0:56:31 And I said, “It’s not that they do anything that different, it’s just they do every little
0:56:33 thing a little bit better.”
0:56:42 I would love for you to provide some insight into any hacks or secret sauce around what
0:56:46 has made your podcast, which quite frankly, the format’s not that different.
0:56:48 The subject material is not…
0:56:49 Yeah, it is.
0:56:50 I think it is.
0:56:52 Well, then we’ll start there.
0:56:59 What advice would you have for either creators, podcasters, or entrepreneurs in general that
0:57:05 has been an unlock for you and in your eyes has been a key part of your…
0:57:09 There are 600,000 podcasts putting out content every week.
0:57:13 Most weeks you are in the top five, sometimes you’re number one.
0:57:17 What tips and insights would you have for other entrepreneurs and creators?
0:57:18 Couple things.
0:57:21 Number one, being good on the mic is the cost of entry.
0:57:22 And that’s what people…
0:57:23 Have some talent.
0:57:24 Yeah.
0:57:25 Well, no, no, no.
0:57:29 People over focus on that.
0:57:35 And I think that it’s all the little things that actually make you incredible that people
0:57:36 don’t want to do.
0:57:42 So most people roll up to a mic, do an interview, and then post it.
0:57:45 That’s not what I do at all.
0:57:51 And the other thing that I do that’s very different is half of my episodes are solos,
0:57:56 no interviews, and they are the most successful by far.
0:58:02 And here’s the huge tip that I will give you.
0:58:08 Every business and every podcast is one to one.
0:58:11 You will never hear me say the word “us.”
0:58:16 You will never hear me name my audience as some big community.
0:58:21 I am only ever talking to one person.
0:58:29 They are in their car, or they are in their home, or they are taking me on a walk.
0:58:40 And the fact that a human being has not passing time, Scott, but they have chosen to make
0:58:43 time to spend with me.
0:58:49 I take that as one of the deepest and most important privileges in the world.
0:58:53 And so when you’re on my podcast, I’m not actually talking to you, Scott.
0:59:01 I’m talking to the person that has made the time to listen to something that could improve
0:59:02 their life.
0:59:09 And so when I say every single business is one to one, and the mistake that people make
0:59:13 is they think it’s for hundreds of thousands of people.
0:59:21 If you can actually move one person emotionally, if the thing that you’ve created is worth
0:59:25 their time, they will share it with somebody else.
0:59:26 Here’s the other thing you’ll notice.
0:59:29 I never ask you to subscribe.
0:59:33 I never ask you to follow because that’s about me.
0:59:42 My podcast is about you, absolutely everything that we have been done comes down to the intention.
0:59:45 Number one, it’s a walk with a friend.
0:59:49 And my job is to make you feel better and to move you.
0:59:55 I’ve either moved you into action, I’ve moved you intellectually, I’ve moved you emotionally,
0:59:57 or I’ve moved you to share.
0:59:59 That’s the intention of the podcast.
1:00:02 The second thing then is one to one.
1:00:10 If a person who has never heard of me, who has no clue who I am, has never even listened
1:00:15 to a podcast, gets forwarded this from a friend, is it worth their time?
1:00:19 And if we can check those two boxes, we’ve won.
1:00:26 And for me, the success of this is a testament to those two things, the intention and the
1:00:29 focus of who we’re trying to impact and how.
1:00:37 And everything we do is reverse engineered to fulfill against that.
1:00:41 Mel Robbins is an award-winning podcast host, New York Times bestselling author and expert
1:00:44 on mindset, behavior change, and life improvement.
1:00:49 Her latest book, The Let Them Theory, a life-changing tool that millions of people can’t stop talking
1:00:51 about, is out now.
1:00:54 I love some of these quotes from media.
1:00:58 USA Today said that you are a force to be reckoned with.
1:01:04 My magazine said that you give millions of listeners around the globe a reason to believe
1:01:05 in themselves.
1:01:08 What a nice saying to have someone say about you.
1:01:11 Congratulations on all your success.
1:01:14 And you’re going to see a lot of me, because I’ve decided I’m now very good, good friends
1:01:15 with your husband.
1:01:16 Yes.
1:01:18 Because I need him in my life.
1:01:22 This guy sounds so impressive and supportive.
1:01:23 He’s fantastic.
1:01:24 He is cool.
1:01:25 I have to get in touch with you.
1:01:31 Another thing I’m really excited to share with you is that this book is on its way to
1:01:33 break all records for a nonfiction launch.
1:01:34 Love it.
1:01:41 Thanks so much for your time, Mel.
1:01:48 I was a bit of a happiness.
1:01:51 Something hit me really hard this past few days.
1:01:55 I’ve been thinking a lot about the fires as is everyone in Los Angeles.
1:01:57 Specifically, I grew up there, so I recognize some of them.
1:02:02 I used to go on first dates at a place called Moonshadow, so it is no longer there.
1:02:05 Specifically LA, for me, was the incredible experience at the University of California,
1:02:11 Los Angeles, which kind of inspired this inextricable upward spiral for me once I got my act together.
1:02:13 And I absolutely love LA.
1:02:14 I just think it’s magical.
1:02:18 And I think the reason why people rebuild there, despite the fact that it’s an epicenter
1:02:22 for droughts, earthquakes, and fires is because it’s fucking magical.
1:02:29 The collision of entertainment, beach, sky, sea, land, Mexican culture, it’s just so fucking
1:02:30 fabulous.
1:02:34 You wake up in February and it’s 62 and dry with a light breeze.
1:02:40 And then I don’t know, should we go to the Hollywood Bull tonight and see Dua Lipa?
1:02:42 Not sure if she’s played the bull.
1:02:47 Anyways, or maybe just go hang out and walk along the Zuma Beach or go to In-N-Out Burger
1:02:53 on our way to, I mean, LA is amazing and there’s a reason why people take these risks, and
1:02:57 I think the reason why it’s going to build back better and stronger.
1:03:01 Anyways, I was texting people, “Are you all right?
1:03:02 Is there anything I can do?”
1:03:08 And this rabbi who I follow, a rabbi named Stephen Leder, who’s in Los Angeles, wrote
1:03:12 something saying, “Asking people what you can do or how you can help is the wrong thing
1:03:14 to ask.”
1:03:15 Because people don’t want to feel like victims.
1:03:17 People don’t want to burden you.
1:03:23 It feels like a little bit of weakness to say, “Oh, I really could use help here.”
1:03:25 People don’t do that.
1:03:28 The right way to help somebody is not to ask them how you can help.
1:03:31 It’s just to move to help.
1:03:35 And that is show up and say, “Hey, I know you got a lot going on right now.
1:03:36 Can I take your dogs?
1:03:38 Do you need some help?”
1:03:40 Here’s a picture of the room we have.
1:03:41 So you live in Orange County.
1:03:42 Here’s a picture of the room.
1:03:43 It’s ready for you.
1:03:45 Just come down.
1:03:46 Wire them money.
1:03:47 That’s what I’ve been doing.
1:03:52 And I’m virtue signaling, but I’m at a point in my life where I have more time than money.
1:03:54 And so I enjoy giving money away.
1:03:57 It makes me feel generous and masculine, and I’m blessed that way.
1:03:59 So I have been wiring money to people.
1:04:02 I don’t ask if I have their wiring information.
1:04:03 I just wire them money.
1:04:04 And then they call me.
1:04:05 They say, “What’s this for?”
1:04:06 I’m like, “Disaster relief.
1:04:07 It’s chaos out there right now.
1:04:08 I hope it helps.”
1:04:12 I’m a go fund me whore right now.
1:04:13 I’m moving to action.
1:04:14 I’m not calling people.
1:04:16 I’m going to stop calling people and asking them what I can do.
1:04:19 I’m just going to move to do the do part.
1:04:23 And I think it’s so powerful and not only that, it’s so rewarding.
1:04:31 I can’t tell you the emotions and cementing of relationships it has caused or inspired
1:04:34 amongst me and some people in the affected areas.
1:04:38 When you just help them, you just do something and you don’t ask.
1:04:42 You don’t try and pretend you’re strong or force them to admit they need help.
1:05:05 You just do it.
1:05:13 [BLANK_AUDIO]
Mel Robbins, an award-winning podcast host, New York Times bestselling author, and renowned expert on mindset, behavior change, and personal growth, joins Scott to discuss the transformative ‘Let Them Theory.’ She shares how this simple yet powerful concept can improve your life and strengthen your relationships.
Her latest book, The Let Them Theory: A Life-Changing Tool That Millions Can’t Stop Talking About, is available now.
Follow Mel, @melrobbins.
Algebra of Happiness: don’t ask, just help.
Subscribe to No Mercy / No Malice
Buy “The Algebra of Wealth,” out now.
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