How to Stop Negative Thoughts & Reset Your Mind for Positive Thinking

Order your copy of The Let Them Theory 👉 https://melrob.co/let-them-theory 👈 The #1 Best Selling Book of 2025 🔥 Discover how much power you truly have. It all begins with two simple words. Let Them. — In today’s episode, you are getting a step-by-step guide on how to change your mindset, stop negative thoughts, and make your mind work for you. What if the voice in your head — the one that criticizes, spirals, and second-guesses everything — could actually help you? In this powerful conversation, Mel sits down with one of the world's leading experts on the mind, Dr. Ethan Kross, PhD. He's a neuroscientist, award-winning psychologist, professor at the University of Michigan, director of The Emotion & Self Control Laboratory, and leading expert on the science of emotion, self-talk, and mental resilience. Today, he's here to teach you how to stop negative thoughts from running your life — using simple, science-backed tools. In this episode, Dr. Kross shares specific tactics, strategies, and insights you can use to break free from spiraling and reset your mind for positivity. If you're tired of overthinking, doubting yourself, or feeling stuck in your own head… this one’s for you. Class is in session, because after you listen to this, your brain will not be the same. For more resources related to today’s episode, click here for the podcast episode page: https://www.melrobbins.com/episode/episode-287. Follow The Mel Robbins Podcast on Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/themelrobbinspodcast I’m just your friend. I am not a licensed therapist, and this podcast is NOT intended as a substitute for the advice of a physician, professional coach, psychotherapist, or other qualified professional. Got it? Good. I’ll see you in the next episode. In this episode: 00:00 Welcome 22:34 The 3 Most Common Types of Negative Self-Talk 28:54 Your Toolkit to Silence Negative Self-Talk 39:37 The Role of Rituals in Quieting Mental Chatter 47:42 A Proven Framework to Stay Committed to Your Goals 57:00 How Your Environment Shapes Your Self-Talk 01:05:17 Proven Tools to Stop Negative Self-Talk Fast 01:11:55 Help Someone You Love Who Struggles With Negative Self-Talk — Follow Mel: Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/melrobbins/ TikTok: http://tiktok.com/@melrobbins Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/melrobbins LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/melrobbins Website: http://melrobbins.com​ — Sign up for Mel’s newsletter: https://melrob.co/sign-up-newsletter A note from Mel to you, twice a week, sharing simple, practical ways to build the life you want. — Subscribe to Mel’s channel here: https://www.youtube.com/melrobbins​?sub_confirmation=1 — Listen to The Mel Robbins Podcast 🎧 New episodes drop every Monday & Thursday! https://melrob.co/spotify https://melrob.co/applepodcasts https://melrob.co/amazonmusic — Looking for Mel’s books on Amazon? Find them here: The Let Them Theory: https://amzn.to/3IQ21Oe The Let Them Theory Audiobook: https://amzn.to/413SObp The High 5 Habit: https://amzn.to/3fMvfPQ The 5 Second Rule: https://amzn.to/4l54fah

Speaker names marked ? are inferred from speaking time and the show’s known hosts — they are not voice-verified.

• 0:00Mel Robbins?

  Hey, it's your friend Mel and welcome to the Mel Robbins Podcast.

• 0:09Mel Robbins?

  I just walked out of the studio here in Boston. I am absolutely blown away by what I just learned about stopping negative self-talk from our guest. You're about to meet him. His name is Dr. Ethan Kross. He's a professor at the University of Michigan, a neuroscientist, and he's spent the last 25 years researching how your self-talk determines your experience of life and how it also impacts what it actually feels like to be you. Now, this is something that I've struggled with, and I know you struggle with negative self-talk too, and the people that you care about struggle with it. I mean, I'm so blown away by what you're about to hear and what you're about to learn. In fact, I've never heard anyone lay out the exact ways you can stop negative self-talk.

• 0:54Mel Robbins?

  In fact, right out of the gate, he's going to tell you there are four reasons why you and I talk to ourselves. I mean, I didn't know these four reasons, and once you hear it, it's so fascinating, and it makes a lot of sense. And then he's going to share that you say 4,000 words a minute to yourself. And just to put that into perspective, that's like reading the first book of Harry Potter series in less than 20 minutes. I mean, that's a lot of words. And if you're anything like me, 99% of what you're saying is pretty terrible. "I'm not good enough, I shouldn't have done this, what if that happens, never should have sent that text." I promise you, you are going to leave this conversation today a different person. Because Professor Cross isn't just bringing the research, he's bringing tools, and he's

• 1:38Mel Robbins?

  bringing a lot of them. Professor Cross is going to tell you, you can turn your inner critic into a coach. He's going to give you tools so that the next time you find yourself falling down that rabbit hole of rumination and worry, you can throw yourself a lifeline. So if you're ready to stop overthinking and silence that self-doubt and finally take back your power, this is the episode you've been waiting for.

• 2:14Mel Robbins?

  Hey, it's your friend Mel and welcome to the Mel Robbins Podcast. I am so fired up for our conversation today. I'm so excited that you're here. It is always such an honor to spend time together and to be with you. And if you're a new listener, I just want to take a moment and personally welcome you to the Mel Robbins Podcast family. I'm thrilled that you're here. And because you made the time to hit play and listen to this particular episode, it tells me something about you. It tells me that you're the kind of person who wants to take control of your inner voice and you want to learn how to be more encouraging and positive, especially when it comes to yourself. And you know what? I think that's amazing because I want to learn how to do that, too. And if you're listening right now or you're watching on YouTube because someone shared

• 2:57Mel Robbins?

  this with you, I want to take a minute and point out to you that that means that you've got someone in your life that really cares about you. And so, thank you for trusting them and thank you for being here. And this is a home run of a podcast episode for you to listen to or watch because Dr. Ethan Kross is in the house. He is a psychologist and a neuroscientist and he's been a pioneering researcher in the field of self-talk and emotions for 25 years. Ethan Kross is also a professor at the University of Michigan where he's taught for the past 17 years. He is also the founder and the director of the Research Institute at the University of Michigan, the Emotion and Self-Control Laboratory. His work has appeared in esteemed journals like Science and the New England Journal

• 3:41Mel Robbins?

  of Medicine. He earned his PhD from Columbia University and he is also the author of two bestselling books, Chatter, The Voice in Our Head, Why It Matters and How to Harness It. And his latest bestselling book is called Shift: Managing Your Emotions So They Don't Manage You. His books have been translated into over 40 languages and today he's going to unpack the insights so that you can use this research to stop the negative self-talk. So, please help me welcome Dr. Ethan Kross to the Mel Robbins Podcast. Thank you for hopping on a plane and being here in our Boston studios. I cannot wait to dig into your work in your bestselling book, Chatter. And of course, congratulations on your new book, Shift. It's so exciting to have you here.

• 4:26Speaker 01

  Well, it's an absolute honor to be here with you. You know, I've been listening to you for quite some time. And the compatibility between a lot of what you talk about and what I write about and do research on couldn't be better. So just an honor to be here.

• 4:41Mel Robbins?

  Awesome. Well, let's just jump right into it. And here's how I want to start. I would love to have you, do you want me to call you Professor Cross? Ethan, what do you like?

• 4:49Speaker 01

  I love Ethan.

• 4:50Mel Robbins?

  Okay, Ethan, we're going with Ethan. Ethan, I would love to have you speak directly to the person who's here spending time together with us right now and tell them exactly what they could expect to have be different about their life if they take everything that you're about to teach us about our self-talk, about our emotions, to heart, and they put it to use in their life.

• 5:12Speaker 01

  Here's what I hope everyone takes away from this.

• 5:14Mel Robbins?

  Okay.

• 5:15Speaker 01

  Three things. Number one, you'll be able to take your inner critic and turn it into an inner coach. Number two, if you ever find yourself falling down the rabbit hole of rumination and worry, we're going to give you some lifelines to pull yourself out. So you can actually use your mind to solve your problems rather than just get stuck in them. And then number three, more broadly, we're going to give you lots of really pragmatic, tactical tools, simple-to-use tools, that you can use to really master your emotions. So if you want to turn the volume on them up or down, or shorten or lengthen how long they last, or even switch from one emotional state to another, we're going to give you some guideposts that steer you in the right direction.

• 6:00Mel Robbins?

  Wow.

• 6:01Speaker 01

  So we got our work cut out for us.

• 6:02Mel Robbins?

  That's a tall order.

• 6:03Speaker 01

  Yeah, we better get started.

• 6:04Mel Robbins?

  Well, I've read your books, so I know you can deliver on that. You know, you have been at the University of Michigan. You are the founding director and have been running this incredible lab, the Emotion and Self-Control Lab. What has it taught you? What do you want us to know?

• 6:18Speaker 01

  The first thing that I've learned over the past 25 or so years doing research in this space is if you ever find yourself going down that vortex of doom and despair or anxiety, or even overcome with other negative emotions that... Don't really feel good in the moment? Welcome to the human condition. We all do at times. And I think that's a really important point for people to take home because I can't tell you how many people I meet who really feel bad about themselves when they find themselves slipping into one of those emotional states. We evolved the capacity to experience negative emotions for a reason. And we'll talk more about that today. When they're experiencing the right proportions, they can be useful.

• 7:00Speaker 01

  So number one, if you experience worry, rumination, if you find your inner critic activating at times, there's nothing wrong with you. To the contrary, I would argue there's everything right with you. Number two, there are no one size fits all solutions for managing these states that we want to bring more under our control. We have evolved to possess lots and lots of different tools. And I think the key to managing our emotional lives more effectively involves learning about what all those tools are and then figuring out what are the unique combinations that work for you based on who you are as a unique individual.

• 7:43Speaker 01

  It's a lot like in my mind's physical fitness. Lots of people have the goal to be physically fit, but the way they get there can be radically different compared to other people. And the same is true when it comes to, if we want to call it emotional fitness. You gotta learn about all the different machines in the gym. And then you gotta figure out what are the exercises that work for me based on who I am and what my goals are.

• 8:05Mel Robbins?

  Well, let's start with going down the rabbit hole.

• 8:07Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 8:07Mel Robbins?

  Because, you know, your first bestselling book, Chatter, The Voice in Our Head, Why It Matters and How to Harness It. When is the last time you went down the rabbit hole?

• 8:15Speaker 01

  Oh, boy.

• 8:16Mel Robbins?

  Like, you seem like such a chill guy, like, like, super tortured yourself about worry or negative thoughts.

• 8:21Speaker 01

  Um, probably maybe a couple of months ago. And it was linked with one of my daughters.

• 8:28Mel Robbins?

  Are you gonna get in trouble for telling this story, Ethan, on a podcast?

• 8:30Speaker 01

  I'm actively, I'm actively monitoring.

• 8:33Mel Robbins?

  See, I always go down the rabbit hole. My wife is gonna kill me.

• 8:36Speaker 01

  Yes, yes, no, this is something I'm used to experiencing. No, this is fair to say. So my youngest daughter was applying to get into the same school as my oldest daughter. And when my oldest daughter was applying to get into a school, you know, there was, okay, if it works out, great. And if not, no big deal. But now with the second daughter, there's a social comparison element here.

• 8:58Speaker 01

  And you know, she has this older sister that she looks up to and admires. And so I'm thinking, well, what would happen if she doesn't get in? And she fortunately did get in and it was a great relief. But I did, I did find myself going down the rabbit hole on occasion, playing the what if this happens? And you know, I should say that when I do that, when I go down the rabbit hole of despair, which I can get stuck in every now and again, like, like the best of us. It always amazes me how exceptionally adept we are at brainstorming endless worst case scenarios to our problems. I mean, have you experienced this yourself?

• 9:36Mel Robbins?

  Every day. Like, I mean, you're like saying a couple of months ago, I'm like, dude, like if you ask me that question, it'd be like about an hour ago. But it is true because we are so good at thinking about the negative and imagining the worst case scenarios. But we're not so great at imagining that things would go right.

• 9:51Speaker 01

  That's right. Well, there's, there's what we call this negativity bias. One of my favorite titles of a paper in, in psychology is bad is stronger than good. One of our few Nobel Prize winners won a Nobel Prize for discovering that we're more sensitive to losses than we are gains in our lives. And that all makes sense if you think about it. The bad things in life have the potential to harm us or derail our lives a lot more than the good thing. So we should be more sensitive to them. But sometimes that oversensitivity to the bad stuff can really lead us astray, especially because no one ever teaches us about how to rewrite the ship when we find it going in the wrong path.

• 10:35Mel Robbins?

  Well, one of the things that you said that I am excited is you said, I'm gonna teach you how to turn your inner critic into a coach. And I would love to start with this amazing book chatter and all your research about the voice in our head. And I want to read a part of your book to you.

• 10:52Speaker 01

  Sure.

• 10:53Mel Robbins?

  Because this was jaw dropping to me. So our verbal stream of thoughts, our self-talk is so industrious that according to one study, we internally talk to ourselves at a rate equivalent to speaking 4,000 words a minute. And to put this into perspective, I crunched the numbers. 4,000 words a minute is the equivalent of reading the first book in the Harry Potter series in less than 20 minutes.

• 11:18Speaker 01

  So when we think, we are not always thinking in full sentences. We're thinking in these soundbites that have deep meaning. And when you spell out what those soundbites are equivalent to, you get essays in your mind. And I'm sure you've you've felt this kind of bombardment of information when you find yourself going down that rabbit hole. It's like our mind is pinballing all over the place verbally. And we're we're just inundated, which is in part why when we find ourselves kind of racked with chatter, it can feel so so oppressive. This is one of the reasons why writing about our experiences, doing something we call expressive writing, can be so helpful for folks because it helps us organize our thoughts so that we're not pinballing all around.

• 12:03Mel Robbins?

  You know, you write that the key to beating this negative self-talk and this chatter in our head isn't to stop talking to yourself. The challenge is to figure out how to do so more effectively. But before we can get into how to control the voice in our head, we need to answer a more basic question. Why do we have one in the first place? So Ethan, what is self-talk? And what exactly is that voice that's in our head that's chattering 4,000 words a minute?

• 12:30Speaker 01

  So when scientists like myself use use this phrase self-talk or the inner voice, what we're talking about is our ability to silently use language to reflect on our lives. And it turns out that is a remarkable tool that we possess for navigating this crazy world. So let me like flag four key functions that this ability to use language silently provides. Number one, we're the same vintage here, you know, age-wise, more or less, and

• 13:02Mel Robbins?

  Be careful.

• 13:05Speaker 01

  When we were growing up, what would you do when you wanted to remember a phone number or a name?

• 13:11Mel Robbins?

  Well, if I didn't have a pen and couldn't write it down, I would repeat it over and over and over again.

• 13:15Speaker 01

  In your head?

• 13:16Mel Robbins?

  Yes.

• 13:16Speaker 01

  Yeah, so.

• 13:17Mel Robbins?

  Or I'd come up with like rhymes or like to try to remember it.

• 13:20Speaker 01

  Right, so that's that's probably the most basic function that your inner voice serves for us. It's part of what we call our verbal working memory system.

• 13:29Mel Robbins?

  Wait, so that's what the basic of your inner voice is, is to help you remember things?

• 13:36Speaker 01

  That's one function it serves. So you could think of your inner voice as like a Swiss Army knife. Multi-purpose tool that does many different things for you. So one thing.

• 13:43Mel Robbins?

  And oftentimes, death by a thousand cuts.

• 13:45Speaker 01

  We're gonna get there.

• 13:46Mel Robbins?

  Okay.

• 13:46Speaker 01

  We're gonna get there. Don't you, don't you worry. So number one, memorizing a phone number, repeating a phone number, repeating a name. Going to the grocery store and asking yourself, what was I supposed to buy? Milk, cheese, yogurt? I guess I'm in the dairy aisle. But the whole point here is you're doing that silently typically, not out loud. That's one thing your inner voice lets you do. Another thing your inner voice lets you do, simulate and plan. So before, and well, you do a lot of presentations for, for, as part of your job. You ever go over what you're gonna say before you go on stage in your head?

• 14:21Mel Robbins?

  Always.

• 14:22Speaker 01

  Okay, that's your inner voice. You are silently rehearsing, preparing, simulating for what you need to do.

• 14:29Mel Robbins?

  You know what else I use that I just realized? When I'm packing for a trip, I'm like thinking ahead to where I'm going and what I'm gonna need.

• 14:36Speaker 01

  There you go. You're simulating and planning. People do this before interviews, before consequential conversations that they are gonna have. I am not as good at giving a presentation if I don't do the simulation beforehand. My favorite function, so the name of my lab at University of Michigan is the Michigan Emotion and Self-Control Lab. I love the topic of self-control. We use our inner voice to control and motivate ourselves. So, all right. So Mel, tell me, what do you do to exercise?

• 15:09Speaker 01

  Keep going.

• 15:10Mel Robbins?

  Well, I'm okay. Because of some of the experts we've had on the show, I now lift weights.

• 15:14Speaker 01

  Okay.

• 15:15Mel Robbins?

  I walk, I do yoga and Pilates.

• 15:17Speaker 01

  Okay.

• 15:18Mel Robbins?

  Um, I have like a super active lifestyle outside, but if, but if I'm quote exercising, I have to drag myself to the gym and then I use an app to motivate myself.

• 15:30Speaker 01

  Okay.

• 15:31Mel Robbins?

  And, and that's what I do.

• 15:33Speaker 01

  Do you ever talk to yourself when you're exercising?

• 15:36Mel Robbins?

  All the time. I, like I did this morning in a class.

• 15:39Speaker 01

  Tell me, tell us, tell.

• 15:40Mel Robbins?

  Freaking hate this. Why are we on our hands? I don't want to do a pike right now. I feel like I'm in a gym class with a woman who's talking like this and who's like screaming at me, like screaming, and why is she playing ACD at 6:30 in the morning? I thought this was a freaking Pilates class.

• 15:55Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 15:55Mel Robbins?

  Like, so it was literally like I'm saying that to myself. Um, as she would walk closer, I would think, get away from me. Go to the other side of the room. So I, or I'm thinking this is too heavy. I'm tired. I want to quit. I, see clearly, I don't have a lot of willpower and discipline because my chatter is a constant barrage of why I should stop doing.

• 16:16Speaker 01

  Yes.

• 16:17Mel Robbins?

  What I'm actually doing.

• 16:17Speaker 01

  We have room for, for intervention here.

• 16:20Mel Robbins?

  Do we?

• 16:20Speaker 01

  We have tons of room. We are gonna make, if you're already doing fine in the gym, we're gonna make you do a lot better by the time this episode is over. So that's another thing. If you're listening, you're gonna take home with you. So.

• 16:30Mel Robbins?

  So it's possible if you are constantly against yourself.

• 16:35Speaker 01

  Absolutely.

• 16:36Mel Robbins?

  To change that.

• 16:37Speaker 01

  You can change yourself talk. So, so, but if we just go back to a second, this is one of my favorite questions to ask people when I'm, when I'm giving talks on this stuff. I just kind of scan the room for what do you say to yourself when you're exercising? Lots of people talk to themselves and what they say varies tremendously from what you just described to, come on, you got this, to, I really want a bagel right now. And, and, and, and so on and so forth. And, and we know that people who are skilled at harnessing this voice to be motivating and encouraging, they actually perform better in those contexts. So, um, so I, I, knowing this stuff.

• 17:16Speaker 01

  I'm very strategic about how I harness myself talk when I'm exercising. I will be motivating, "Come on, man, you've got this." That's right, I refer to myself in the second and third person. We'll talk more about how that works. I also can become somewhat in my head aggressive towards the instructor that is telling me to do painful things.

• 17:37Mel Robbins?

  Oh, like the woman that I was like-

• 17:39Speaker 01

  Yeah, like you were just describing. So for me, I find, "Well, why don't you try doing that?" You know, like, "I don't like the way you're talking to me. I want to do it this way." I don't say that out loud, I smile out loud. But in my head, right, I'm having that kind of conversation. So the point here is another thing your inner voice helps you do is control and motivate yourself. The fourth and final thing I want to flag here. To me, I describe this as the most magical feature of our inner voice. Your inner voice helps us make sense of this messy world that we live in. We are bombarded by things all the time that have the potential to lead us astray. We get rejected, we get into arguments, we experience anxiety about what may come.

• 18:24Speaker 01

  And when those different kinds of curveballs get thrown at us, what we do is we often stop and we try to, "Okay, how do we make sense of this so we could get back on track of living our lives?" And we make meaning, we use our inner voice to try to make sense of our circumstances, to essentially create a story that helps us understand what we're going through and who we are. So your inner voice is actually shaping your sense of self. So if we just pause here and zoom out, your inner voice helps you do things as simple as reminding yourself what's on your grocery list and memorizing a phone number when you repeat it in your head, to simulating and planning for the future, to controlling and motivating yourself, to making meaning.

• 19:09Speaker 01

  If I told someone, "I can give you a tool that does all those things." Like, "These are the things that are really important to us in life." Your inner voice is central to all of those things. It's an invaluable tool that you do not want to live life without. The big question, of course, that really got me into this business in the first place was, on the one hand, we have this remarkable capability. We reach for it when we're struggling. But as you know, as I know, as you who are listening knows, oftentimes, we don't activate this voice and get clear solutions to how to move on.

• 19:46Speaker 01

  We just start stumbling. We start looping over our problems in an attempt to work through them, or we start berating ourselves incessantly for mistakes that are endemic to human life. And when that happens, I think that is one of the big problems we face as a species. And as I have said before, I say that not to scare or sensationalize. I say it based on what I know of the data, because if you look at what chatter, which I define as the negative manifestation of your inner voice, when it turns into that negative thought looping, that self-beratement, that just tanks us. It makes it hard for us to think and perform. It creates friction in our relationships, and it undermines our health and well-being.

• 20:30Speaker 01

  These are the things we care about in our lives. And so that's why I think it's just critical to address it.

• 20:35Mel Robbins?

  I have never heard anybody explain self-talk and that inner voice so elegantly and in a way that I actually get it.

• 20:47Speaker 01

  Well, thank you. I mean, it is truly remarkable when you take a 30,000-foot view and think about what does our chatter look like? What does it sound like? I mean, we say things to ourselves that many people not only wouldn't say to a buddy, right? We often talk about that, you know, talk to yourself like you would talk to someone else. This is a great tool, by the way. We'll talk more about that later. We sometimes say things to ourselves that we are ashamed to even say out loud. Sometimes when I do exercises, workshops with groups or students, I'll sometimes invite people to just write down their chatter on a piece of paper. And it's really remarkable.

• 21:30Speaker 01

  People are often reluctant to even put in writing what they're thinking. Even when I assure them, like, the shredder's right here. There's another garbage bag with lighter fluid. Like, not bag, garbage can, right? You can, I'm joking here, but like, no one is gonna look at this.

• 21:45Mel Robbins?

  Right.

• 21:46Speaker 01

  Just admitting to what is happening up here can be so challenging for folks. And I think that speaks to the gravity of what we're talking about.

• 21:56Mel Robbins?

  What are some of the examples of negative self-talk that just show up again and again? I think hearing it from you would really validate it for me and for the person who's with us right now. Because if we don't, if we're reluctant to even be honest with ourselves and put it on paper, what can you validate based on the fact that this is your area of expertise? It's what you research that you see over and over and over again that are examples of negative self-talk?

• 22:21Speaker 01

  There are three, three key forms. Number one, what I call rumination, which is going over the past. Something you did in the past, you can't fix it, right? But you just keep turning it over and over in your mind. Why did I do this? Why didn't I do it that way? What implications might this have moving forward? So rumination is getting lost in this thought. It's a legitimate issue from the past and you're trying to work through it, but you just keep turning it over and over. You're not making any progress. That's often a telltale sign of chatter. Legitimate issue, you want to work through it, but you don't make progress.

• 22:59Mel Robbins?

  So it could be like, just to give it even a more fine point, it could be that you really screwed up in a relationship and now you're telling yourself the one got away. Or you, you made dumb financial decisions, this was me. And now it, why did I do that? I, I should have started with my 401K like my father told me when I graduated from college. Like that, like just hammering yourself into the ground. How did I let myself go? I should have, like, I, I've just, now it's too late. I've been drinking, like, all that kind of stuff that's in the past. And why is this such a predominant form of self-talk for people?

• 23:36Speaker 01

  Well, it's a predominant form because I often think that we, we navigate life in an ideal sense on autopilot. We just kind of want to live the life, knowing that the world is, is orderly, it's safe, it's predictable. And then when we encounter some challenge to that view that the world is safe, that everything's okay, it's like an alarm gets hit in our brains that says, stop, pay attention, fix this. And so then we zoom in really narrowly on what the impediment is. And so maybe it's something from the past and we keep focusing on it until we can resolve it. Oftentimes though, we don't know how to resolve it. We just keep on playing it over and over in our minds and then the alarm button stays pressed.

• 24:18Speaker 01

  And we just get into this rut of turning it over and over and over. Some of us don't want to let go of that either. Because at least if we're focusing on it, that's step one. But in the process of doing that, we're really harming ourselves. We're making it very challenging to think and perform. I mean, have you ever gotten stuck in rumination? And then tried to have a conversation with someone? Or read a book only to find that you're physically there? Or you're reading the information on the page? But nothing is penetrating because your mind is somewhere else.

• 24:51Mel Robbins?

  Oh, completely. Absolutely. Like if I get into that loop where I am obsessing over something that I think I did wrong? I can't do anything else.

• 25:01Speaker 01

  Exactly. So that's thinking and performance, right? Like that is a major, major obstacle to being successful in life. If your ability to really hone your attention now is lost. And the way that works, just if you want to geek out with me for 30 seconds.

• 25:17Mel Robbins?

  Sure.

• 25:17Speaker 01

  Our ability to focus is limited. We have these limited attentional resources. They are subserved by our prefrontal cortex, the front part of our brains. And chatter acts like a sponge that soaks up all of those attentional resources. And it leaves very little left over to do the things that we often want and need to do. Whether that be just pay attention to the person we're talking to? Or read the chapter in the book and absorb the information? That's one of the ways it really sinks us. So, so you asked though, like, how does chatter manifest? Ruminatiion about the past is one. Another one that will be familiar to everyone in the world? Or most of us is, is worry. Right? We, we worry about the future.

• 26:01Speaker 01

  We think about the what ifs. We are what if machines? We can easily, what if this happens? What if that happens? And before you know it, you know. Life is over.

• 26:11Mel Robbins?

  Right.

• 26:11Speaker 01

  Right? And that goes really fast. So worrying is, is getting stuck in these negative thought loops typically about the present and future.

• 26:20Mel Robbins?

  Not it's a rumination.

• 26:21Speaker 01

  Is the past.

• 26:22Mel Robbins?

  The first is the past. The second form of self-talk is getting stuck in a negative loop, talking to yourself about the future. And what's the third form?

• 26:29Speaker 01

  The third form that is very common to folks is this self-beratement. This kind of like, you idiot, you know, you know, how could you do this? You're worthless. So this kind of inner critic is another manifestation of it. It can, however, take different forms. So chatter really is this process of just looping, looping negative information over and over. If you're being super critical about yourself, like that, that's very common. Sometimes it can be just anxiety, right? You're, you're looping over, what if this happens? What if this happens? And so it's really this looping of negative stuff. It's like you keep on getting hit over and over and over. You said it before, I think you said death by a thousand.

• 27:11Mel Robbins?

  Cuts. Yeah, that's what it can feel like when you just start hammering yourself.

• 27:15Speaker 01

  Tiring, right? Like it's exhausting. People often who are experiencing chatter, they, they report just like being fatigued. And I want to be clear also.

• 27:23Mel Robbins?

  Yep.

• 27:24Speaker 01

  We all have this capability of experiencing chatter at times. And, and just because you do, doesn't mean there's anything wrong with you. Again, this is normative. If it morphs into the extreme state, that is like the volume is super high and it's on for long stretches of time, like more than two weeks, then we get into the more clinical state. But what we're talking about here today is really, this is just true of human beings and how we operate. And again, a big, big part of what I hope to do in talking to you about this and sharing the science is to convey first and foremost that this is normal. This is just part of this messy world that we live in. We have these tendencies to slip into the states.

• 28:08Speaker 01

  That doesn't mean there's anything wrong with you. The opportunity though, is to learn about what you can do to help yourself when you go down this path. If you don't want to stay, stay on it.

• 28:20Mel Robbins?

  Ethan, what is the solution? I mean, now that you're exposing all the negative self-talk, I mean, is there a simple way to shut it up? Or a magic wand you can wave in order to just silence all of this negative self-talk? Or is this a much more complicated thing that we need to take on?

• 28:38Speaker 01

  Well, there's not one simple thing that everyone can do.

• 28:41Mel Robbins?

  I don't like that answer.

• 28:43Speaker 01

  Yes, I'm sure you don't, but I'm gonna, I'm gonna give you-

• 28:45Mel Robbins?

  There goes my negative chatter right out my mouth at you.

• 28:48Speaker 01

  But I'm gonna give you, there are lots of simple things you can do.

• 28:51Mel Robbins?

  Oh.

• 28:51Speaker 01

  Is the way to think about it.

• 28:52Mel Robbins?

  Oh, I like that.

• 28:53Speaker 01

  So, yeah, you should. There's a lot of hope. There's a lot, there's a lot you can-

• 28:57Mel Robbins?

  There is, because I feel bummed.

• 28:57Speaker 01

  I, I think you should feel good when I tell you that there's not one thing you can do to manage your chatter. Because here's what often happens when you give people one solution. They try it. That one thing doesn't work for them. And now they think, what's wrong with me? Why is this working for everyone else, but not me? We just published some research not too long ago that looked at how people dealt with their anxiety during the COVID pandemic. So we did these large studies. We tracked people over time. And every day, we had them rate their COVID anxiety. And we had them indicate which of something like 18 different tools they used. Now, all we wanted to know was, well, what are the tools that are moving the needle?

• 29:41Mel Robbins?

  Yeah.

• 29:42Speaker 01

  So what was really interesting about that study was there was no individual tool that moved the needle on people's anxiety. It was only like when you used a combination of tools. It's like curling biceps didn't do it on its own. You had to do bicep curls, push-ups and sit-ups.

• 29:58Mel Robbins?

  Right.

• 29:58Speaker 01

  Right? Except for journaling. Journaling was the one tool that alone moved the needle on people's anxiety. However, it was also the most infrequently used tool of all the tools we asked people about. How does that make sense?

• 30:17Mel Robbins?

  Yeah, why?

• 30:18Speaker 01

  It's effortful to sit down for 15 to 20 minutes and actually write. There's also a vulnerability to putting it out there. And so I think teaching people about that is really useful, too, because that could be a powerful tool for folks.

• 30:32Mel Robbins?

  So do you have a favorite journal prompt that's helpful for starting the process of identifying your negative chatter? What is it?

• 30:39Speaker 01

  Yeah, well, for me, it's like straight out of the pages of the literature. So I tell people to write about your deepest thoughts and feelings about whatever it is that's bothering you. Really let yourself go. Don't worry about punctuation or grammar. Write continuously for 15 or 20 minutes. Now, what do we learn from the time we're young about stories? They have a beginning, a middle and an end. So what writing does is it gives these guideposts to help you take this like jumble of crap in our minds, which are making us nuts.

• 31:12Mel Robbins?

  Yes.

• 31:13Speaker 01

  And we're organizing it. And that's the beauty of of what we call expressive writing. So the whole idea here is that we have this remarkable set of tools that we can leverage to help us work through our chatter. But we need to know what those tools are. And what what really mystifies me is we don't get a user's guide for where to find these tools and a user's guide that teaches us how to use it when we are born into this world. We're born into the world with the ability to experience this chatter or this emotion dysregulation. But no one, no one teaches us how to use it or how to how to manage it.

• 31:52Mel Robbins?

  Until now.

• 31:53Speaker 01

  Yeah, and there is hope. There's absolutely hope. What I find it liberating to know that there are so many different tools that I can bring to bear to deal with the different circumstances that I might encounter. You know, my emotional life is utterly distinct. It's like a fingerprint, right? It's very different from yours and every other human being on this planet. So why would we expect the same single tool to work for every single one of us, given how unique we are? My grandfather was a master carpenter. And I remember distinctly, like when he would show up to a job site, he would show up with this remarkable set of tools, this toolkit.

• 32:37Speaker 01

  No matter what problem he encountered on the job site, no matter what he needed to do, he had a tool, a general, you know, he knew how to use these tools and he could wield them to solve the problem. If he showed up with just a hammer, he'd be out of business. And that's how I think about tools. You want to give people those basic tools that exist for pushing our emotions around. And once you have them, you've got a great resource.

• 33:03Mel Robbins?

  I just love how you teach. And you know, what I want to do is just hit the pause button real quick so that we can all just think about what you're sharing so far. And I also want to give you, as you're listening to Ethan, a chance to share this with people that you care about, because I think we all need to know how to stop the negative self-talk. And don't go anywhere, because Ethan is just getting started. There are so many tools that he's going to be sharing with you. Don't go anywhere. He and I will be waiting for you after a short break. Stay with us.

• 33:39Mel Robbins?

  Welcome back. It's your buddy Mel Robbins. Today, you and I have the honor of getting to spend time with and learn from Professor Ethan Kross from the University of Michigan. He is teaching us all about our self-talk and simple ways that we can actually change it. You've got like, I mean, I'm looking at 12 tools that you can use personally. There are tools for getting other people to support you. There's tools for receiving support. Let me start with the first one. Use distanced self-talk. One way to create distance when you're experiencing chatter involves language. So what is distanced self-talk? And how do I use it when I'm going down the rabbit hole?

• 34:18Speaker 01

  And you know, I've actually heard you use this on prior podcasts and you weren't even aware of it.

• 34:23Mel Robbins?

  No, I'm not.

• 34:24Speaker 01

  So can you think about times when you might have coached yourself through a problem using your own name and you?

• 34:31Mel Robbins?

  Oh, you mean like talking, like, like saying to myself, oh, come on, Mel.

• 34:35Speaker 01

  Yeah, there you go.

• 34:36Mel Robbins?

  That's distant self-talk?

• 34:37Speaker 01

  You just did distant self-talk. So distant self-talk involves using your name and you to typically silently coach yourself through a problem. You could do it out loud, but if you do it out loud, you want to be aware of who's listening because it violates social norms, not only to talk to ourselves out loud, but use our own name to do it. We talked before, and you've talked before about how much better we are giving advice to other people than we are taking that advice ourselves. A little factoid there. There's actually a name for that phenomenon that we've, we've studied this in my lab. It's called Solomon's Paradox.

• 35:12Mel Robbins?

  Solomon's Paradox?

• 35:14Speaker 01

  Named after the Bible's King Solomon. Here, I'm going to give you another pop quiz. Don't get nervous. If you get it wrong.

• 35:20Mel Robbins?

  I'm not going to know the answer to this.

• 35:20Speaker 01

  No, I think you will. I think you will. So what was King Solomon famous for?

• 35:26Mel Robbins?

  I have no idea.

• 35:28Speaker 01

  Being?

• 35:29Mel Robbins?

  A king?

• 35:29Speaker 01

  Being wise.

• 35:30Mel Robbins?

  Oh, being wise.

• 35:31Speaker 01

  He was wise. He was a wise guy. So King Solomon, like, super wise individual. People would travel from all over the world to, to receive his, his counsel. But when you look at his own life, he made a slew of terrible decisions. This is true of, of humanity. Like, when I ask audiences, hey, you're much better at, at giving advice to others and taking that advice yourself, every hand in the, in the room goes up. We, when you use distant self-talk, what it's doing is you're using language to automatically shift your perspective, to put you into this, I'm talking to someone else, advice giving mode. Think about the word you. The word you is the verbal equivalent of pointing a finger at someone else. Most of the time, we use the word you. Some are thinking about

• 36:16Speaker 01

  or referring to another person.

• 36:18Mel Robbins?

  So when you use the example of being in the gym and one purpose of your self-talk is motivation.

• 36:24Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 36:24Mel Robbins?

  And you say, come on, Ethan, you got this.

• 36:27Speaker 01

  That's right.

• 36:28Mel Robbins?

  That's an example of using positive motivating self-talk, using this distanced language.

• 36:35Speaker 01

  That's exactly right. You're putting yourself into this coach advice giving mode, right? And what did we say earlier? We don't say to our friends the things that we say to ourselves when we get stuck in that chatter. So when you use your own name and you to coach yourself through a problem, it's like it's putting guardrails up. On your self-talk that prevents you from going down that that more negative route.

• 36:58Mel Robbins?

  Can you give me a couple of examples of just generic positive distance language for somebody that hyper focuses on the mistakes they make or like saying that I'm never going to be good enough, never gonna be like, what are some examples of just things people could start to say to themselves?

• 37:16Speaker 01

  Ethan, all people make mistakes. You've you've made mistakes before. You've learned from them and you'll be fine.

• 37:22Mel Robbins?

  Oh, that's nice.

• 37:23Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 37:24Mel Robbins?

  That's a nice thing to say to yourself.

• 37:25Speaker 01

  Rather than I'm such an idiot, I'm such a, I mean, you have to, you know, I mentioned before we started filming that I grew up in Brooklyn, New York, and although you may not hear the accent right now, in my mind, when I go into the chatter zone, it's a filthy sometimes inner beratement. And so I'm not doing that when when I'm in distant self-talk mode.

• 37:46Mel Robbins?

  So give me another positive one.

• 37:47Speaker 01

  So so really, what we see happening is you get into this more challenge orientation. I can manage this. I can do it, as opposed to being in what we call threat mode. I can't manage this. I'm gonna screw up. So another example would be, one of my favorites from a study was someone was was thinking about having to plan a huge event for someone and it was really, really stressful. You can do this. You can manage this retirement party for this person and get a great turnout. People are gonna come and and they're gonna love it. You've got this. You know, in my book, I actually, I share an artifact from Mr. Rogers. Remember Mr. Rogers?

• 38:28Mel Robbins?

  Of course.

• 38:29Speaker 01

  He he was the.

• 38:30Mel Robbins?

  You're sitting in 143 Studios, which was his favorite number.

• 38:33Speaker 01

  Really?

• 38:34Mel Robbins?

  Uh huh.

• 38:34Speaker 01

  Wow. There is some cosmic connection that led me to bring this up. So Mr. Rogers, in my mind, is the the human equivalent of a warm cup of tea on a rainy afternoon, right? Just kind of soothing. And there was this moment where he had taken some time off from filming his his show, and then he was about to come back, and he was racked with chatter, racked with self doubt. And he journaled a little bit about it and he's, you know, it's, how can I possibly live up to expectations? I've been gone and I'll never be good enough. And then, at a particular moment in that essay, he switches, he starts using distant self-talk essentially.

• 39:16Speaker 01

  You've got this, the hour has come, you're gonna do a great job, and so forth and so on. It's in the book. And it's just remarkable because you see the entire tenor of the conversation shift when he goes into this distant self-talk mode.

• 39:30Mel Robbins?

  You know, one of the other tools that you talk about that's very effective at helping you get a handle on the inner critic and this negative chatter that we have is rituals. Can you explain that?

• 39:40Speaker 01

  Yeah, so, you know, rituals in popular culture get a bad rap because we often equate them with certain forms of anxiety. And there are those links that do exist where you have people who are suffering from anxiety conditions become really over-reliant on a ritual to a point where it can be harmful. But a ritual in the right proportions can be quite helpful. I often call them ancient chatter-fighting tools. So if you think about it, are you religious in any way?

• 40:10Mel Robbins?

  Very spiritual person.

• 40:12Speaker 01

  Okay, very spiritual person. So I'm sure that there are certain spiritual rituals that, you know, you've been exposed to. Grieving rituals, right? Religions around the world have been like, well, let's just stop for a second. Let's pause for a second. Take the loss of someone. This is like a real chatter challenge for a lot of people. Like their worldview is shattered now. How are they gonna go on without this person that they love, that they care about? Religions have identified, hey, that might be a really hard time that people are dealing with. Let's give them a tool to manage that situation. It's a grieving ritual. So here's what we know about rituals. Rituals are relatively rigid sequences of behaviors

• 40:55Speaker 01

  that you perform them the same way each time, more or less. They don't necessarily, it's not clear why you do the things that comprise a ritual. Like if you've ever watched an athlete before a game do a ritual, they do some funky things, like, you know, tug on their earlobe a few times, pick a wedgie, put their hand through their hair. The key is you're doing the same thing in a sequenced order, in a rigid sequence order, the same way. Here's how this can help us. Chatter is often triggered when we don't feel like we have order and control. Things are just not under our control. You've written extensively about this, right? A ritual's under your control.

• 41:38Speaker 01

  You can perform that ritual the same way each time. And when you do, it leads to what we call, this is a mouthful, compensatory control. You're compensating for the lack of control you feel inside when your chatter is taking over by exerting control around you. This is also why people do this, I'm guessing, pretty common thing. I'm gonna guess you do this. Here's another.

• 42:04Mel Robbins?

  I don't know.

• 42:05Speaker 01

  Yeah, I feel like I'm putting you on edge throughout our conversation.

• 42:07Mel Robbins?

  Not at all.

• 42:08Speaker 01

  Do you ever organize and clean when you're experiencing chatter?

• 42:12Mel Robbins?

  Okay, so let's have a conversation about this. Because not only did I see on page 170, tools that involve your environment.

• 42:23Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 42:23Mel Robbins?

  To really get your negative self-talk in control. But the first one is create order in your environment. When we experience chatter, we often feel as if we're losing control. You write, "Our thought spirals control us rather than the other way around." When this happens, you can boost your sense of control by imposing order on your surroundings. Organizing your environment can take many forms. Tidying up your work or home, making a list, arranging different objects. This is, I think, my number one way to combat negative self-talk, and I never knew that's what I was doing.

• 43:01Speaker 01

  So that was true of me as well before I got into this space. And it was, this was a super, a super aha is a technical term for me. So, growing up, I've always been, I would describe myself as positively disposition, very happy, clean. I've always believed in hygiene. I shower daily, sometimes twice.

• 43:23Mel Robbins?

  Twice?

• 43:23Speaker 01

  Sometimes, if I go to the gym, you know, I like to stay fresh. But not terribly organized in the sense of putting my things away. Probably like my wife's biggest pet peeve.

• 43:37Speaker 01

  Are the trail of clothing that exists from the shower to the closet around the room. And if you go into my office, I assure you, it does not look like this facility that we're taping in right now. Piles of books, that's when times are good.

• 43:52Mel Robbins?

  Okay.

• 43:53Speaker 01

  Yet, going back to when I was a kid, whenever I would experience chatter, I would do this. Something deep inside me would beckon myself to, it was like, remember Field of Dreams, like build it and they will come?

• 44:06Mel Robbins?

  Yes, yes.

• 44:07Speaker 01

  For me, it was like, clean it, clean it, and you will experience relief. And so I would like go and put things away. And I do this, you know, I go into the kitchen, do all the dishes, maybe even scrub the counter.

• 44:22Mel Robbins?

  Same even.

• 44:23Speaker 01

  And then even masochistically, and tell me if you do this, sometimes I even go to my kids' rooms and put their stuff away.

• 44:29Mel Robbins?

  Of course.

• 44:29Speaker 01

  And, and like all of a sudden, things feel a little bit better.

• 44:33Mel Robbins?

  I absolutely had no idea this is a technique that we reach for when our overwhelm in our minds get to be too much.

• 44:42Speaker 01

  You're compensating for the lack of control you feel inside by trying to exert order and control around you. And now that you know how this works, you can weaponize this.

• 44:54Mel Robbins?

  Okay, well, let's talk about that. Because I can see lots of various moments in my life, like when my husband and I were really, really struggling. The kids would joke that they would come home from school and every other day I would have moved the furniture around, dragging it and scraping the floor in the room where the TV was, like, just like, I gotta change this around. And even thinking about packing Sunday night to come down, I have this thing about packing.

• 45:18Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 45:19Mel Robbins?

  Where I start to feel very overwhelmed and then I'm mad at myself that I didn't pack before. And now I'm beating myself up relentlessly. Why is it so hard for you? Like, just make a damn list and why didn't you do this on Saturday morning? And Jesus, you meant to leave like two hours ago. And I'm like hammering myself. And that of course makes it impossible to leverage what you've already taught us, which is the planning and forecasting aspect of your self-talk, because I'm so busy berating myself. So literally I come down in the kitchen on Sunday night. I'm two and a half hours late leaving.

• 45:50Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 45:51Mel Robbins?

  I'm not even packed yet, Ethan. And I have clothes still spinning in the dryer upstairs. And you know what I did? I literally pulled out the junk drawer in the kitchen.

• 46:00Speaker 01

  And you started organizing.

• 46:01Mel Robbins?

  Yes.

• 46:02Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 46:02Mel Robbins?

  And my husband comes over and he puts his hand on my shoulders like. You don't need to be doing this right now. And what I wanted to do is scream around me like and I took a deep breath. And I was like, right. But what I'm realizing is that was me trying to create order and what felt like a tornado of negativity in my brain.

• 46:23Speaker 01

  That's exactly right.

• 46:24Mel Robbins?

  Is that why we do to do lists too? Like when we feel overwhelmed?

• 46:27Speaker 01

  It's a way of organizing. And so these can be useful tools for helping people to constrain their chatter. As long as we don't become over reliant on them. And I'm giving you that caveat. That is true, by the way, of all the tools that we're talking about and that I write about.

• 46:42Mel Robbins?

  You know what I find interesting too about what you just said?

• 46:44Speaker 01

  Tell me.

• 46:45Mel Robbins?

  The chaos doesn't bother me when I'm happy.

• 46:47Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 46:48Mel Robbins?

  My desk can look like we tipped over an aisle at Staples.

• 46:52Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 46:52Mel Robbins?

  And just crap everywhere. But if I start to feel overwhelmed or stressed at work, I don't do work. I clean my desk.

• 47:01Speaker 01

  You described yourself so interesting, like you get caught up in this kind of tizzy, so to speak of ah, right? That's kind of how it feels, right? Like let me out, let me, give me freedom. And, and you're reflexively going to clean. And if that's working, great. But we can also get even more sophisticated about beforehand, thinking about what are the two or three things that we want to do when we find ourselves in that state? And then basically ahead of time, coming up with a plan.

• 47:35Mel Robbins?

  What do we do?

• 47:35Speaker 01

  So here's, we whoop it up.

• 47:37Mel Robbins?

  You need whoop it up.

• 47:37Speaker 01

  Whoop it up, just like, like, all right, another, another question here. What, what comes to mind when I say whoop?

• 47:43Mel Robbins?

  Uh, like, I, like, isn't there that song, there it is?

• 47:47Speaker 01

  You just redeemed yourself. Now, now we're back. We're at like 75%. We're getting back. Yeah, whoop, there it is, right? So, so, um, so people have struggled endlessly. You go from listening to a podcast, reading a book, you learn about information. And then the bleep hits the fan and the question is, you don't do it. Right? It's the new year's resolution dilemma. I'm gonna lose the weight. I'm gonna go to the gym every day. Three days later, you stop doing it. And so scientists have spent a ton of time trying to figure out. Why are we so bad at following through with our intentions? And how do we make people better? And you could boil down the decades of research into a simple framework called WOOP.

• 48:32Speaker 01

  Here's what it stands for. The W, that's step one. That's your wish. So what is your goal? So your goal might be to calm the chatter down, like reduce the noise when you find yourself slipping into that state. That's the goal I want to achieve.

• 48:47Mel Robbins?

  Okay, that's the wish.

• 48:48Speaker 01

  That's the wish, okay. The first O, that's the outcome. So what's going to happen to you if you achieve that goal?

• 48:56Mel Robbins?

  Uh, I'm gonna have less stress. I am going to cause less drama for myself and other people. I am going to feel more at peace and more in control. Because all of this negative chatter and overwhelm that becomes very paralyzing, uh, makes me feel out of control and incapable. So the outcome would be very positive.

• 49:22Speaker 01

  So, great job.

• 49:23Mel Robbins?

  Okay.

• 49:24Speaker 01

  And the reason we focus-

• 49:25Mel Robbins?

  I love the affirmations. Just hang around all day.

• 49:28Speaker 01

  Hey, I'm happy to give them. But it's true. And the reason why we do the, the outcome next, now like you've articulated your goal, we want to energize you. Like, this is a goal worth pursuing. This is worth my time. So now you're in this energized state for pursuing this goal. Now we get to the second O, which are the obstacles.

• 49:48Mel Robbins?

  Okay.

• 49:49Speaker 01

  The personal obstacles that are gonna stand in the way of you achieving this goal. So what, what might be an obstacle that might prevent you from turning the, the volume on your chatter down?

• 50:01Mel Robbins?

  Um, I am fluent in negative self-talk.

• 50:03Speaker 01

  Okay.

• 50:04Mel Robbins?

  I am fantastic at criticizing myself. I, uh, can whip myself into a human tornado in a nanosecond.

• 50:14Mel Robbins?

  And it can be very effective when I get into a tizzy because other people try to help.

• 50:21Speaker 01

  Okay.

• 50:22Mel Robbins?

  So I think those are all lots of obstacles. Like just being honest about like, I don't even know if I can do it would be an obstacle.

• 50:28Speaker 01

  Yeah. So you mean turn the, turn the volume down?

• 50:31Mel Robbins?

  Yeah.

• 50:31Speaker 01

  Yeah. So you've just, you've just gone through your obstacles. So what we would then do, we would focus on one of those obstacles to start. And we get to a P, which is our plan.

• 50:41Mel Robbins?

  Okay.

• 50:42Speaker 01

  But it's not any kind of plan. It's what we call an implementation intention. It's easier to call it a plan.

• 50:50Mel Robbins?

  Yes.

• 50:50Speaker 01

  It's basically an if then plan. So if I find myself doom casting and becoming, you know, this savant in negative self-talk, then, and you plug in what you are going to do, you plug in the tools that you are going to use in that situation. So if I find myself berating myself incessantly, then I'm going to coach myself using distant self-talk.

• 51:17Mel Robbins?

  Mel, you can handle this. It's not that big of a deal.

• 51:19Speaker 01

  Go for a walk in nature.

• 51:20Mel Robbins?

  That's another tool in your book. Go for a walk in nature.

• 51:22Speaker 01

  Jump into the mental time travel machine, go forward and back. We'll talk about that in a little bit.

• 51:28Mel Robbins?

  Okay.

• 51:28Speaker 01

  Right? So what I've.

• 51:29Mel Robbins?

  Let's talk about it right now. What do I do?

• 51:30Speaker 01

  What, okay, so.

• 51:31Mel Robbins?

  Because I'm sorry, I'm not going to remember it.

• 51:32Speaker 01

  Mental time travel are, are, these are two of the, the most useful tools that I possess along with distant self-talk. Super simple.

• 51:39Mel Robbins?

  Okay.

• 51:40Speaker 01

  We talk a lot about the importance of being in the moment, grounding ourselves in our breath. That is useful. But what we forget when we talk about being in the moment is number one, our minds evolved to travel in time. And you can actually use that to your benefit. So number one, how am I going to feel about this issue next week, next month, next year? Most of our emotions follow a time course. They get triggered and as time goes on, they eventually subside. Most of our emotional experiences follow that trajectory, but when we are stuck in chatter, we just zoom in on the awfulness. It feels like it's never going to end. When you jump into the time travel machine, how am I going to feel about this 10 years from now?

• 52:23Speaker 01

  20 years from now. It highlights the fact that what you're going through, as bad as it is. It's not permanent.

• 52:31Mel Robbins?

  Hmm.

• 52:31Speaker 01

  Things will eventually get better. It gives you hope and that turns the volume on our chatter down. That's one thing you that's mental time travel to the future.

• 52:39Mel Robbins?

  I think that could work.

• 52:40Speaker 01

  That's powerful for me.

• 52:42Mel Robbins?

  And then that helps me also access the positive distance talk that you've taught us.

• 52:47Speaker 01

  Exactly.

• 52:48Mel Robbins?

  Which is if I time travel even two week, like a week from now, though you've already packed and been on the trip and now you're home. Like it's not that big of a deal. And then I can start to go, Mel, take a deep breath. You're capable of packing.

• 53:00Speaker 01

  You got it. So you you're blending these tools, which is off also how these things actually operate in daily life. Right. So we go back to the one thing. It's not one, now we're doing two.

• 53:10Mel Robbins?

  And you know what else I want to point out, because I think it's important to keep highlighting this. You've given us other tools of creating a ritual and playing music and going outside and taking a walk. In that moment, playing a song and taking a walk would just stress me out more.

• 53:25Speaker 01

  Don't do it.

• 53:26Mel Robbins?

  Right. And but but I can see how now you're starting to build this toolkit.

• 53:31Speaker 01

  That's right.

• 53:31Mel Robbins?

  Where I'm not going for a walk right now, but I can time travel to calm myself down. And then I can use positive distance talk to say, Mel, you can pack a bag.

• 53:41Speaker 01

  That's right. So you can customize the tools based again on who you are and the circumstances you're in. So let's close the loop, though, on mental time travel, because we just talked about going into the future. You could also go into the past, works a little bit differently. For me, this is my is ace in the hole the right term? I think it is.

• 54:00Mel Robbins?

  I don't know. What does it mean?

• 54:01Speaker 01

  It's like my secret superpower.

• 54:03Mel Robbins?

  Oh, gotcha. Okay.

• 54:04Speaker 01

  Yeah, I think I might have gotten wrong, but that's okay. So.

• 54:07Mel Robbins?

  We'll give it to you.

• 54:08Speaker 01

  Yeah, now you're giving me the aphorisms. This is reciprocal. It goes very well. So so I the story I open up my my second book with shift is a story of my grandmother in World War Two, surviving the Nazis basically slaughtering her whole family. My grandmother is my ace in the hole. When things feel so big. And and just kinda how am I possibly gonna get through this? I jump into the mental time travel machine. I go back to 1940, whatever. I spent just a little bit of time with my grandmother in my mind. And what that does for me is it zooms me out. It makes it super clear to me that what I'm going through,

• 54:52Speaker 01

  as difficult as it is, it pales in comparison to what she went through and survived. And I think we all have those personal experiences or experiences in our family or in our culture that you can anchor on to put what we're going through in perspective.

• 55:10Mel Robbins?

  Is there a something you would add to that, though? Because if you're a world-class self-critic and berater, I could see that strategy being something that only becomes more evidence, where you go, and you're such a piece of crap that you're sitting here working yourself up about this thing. How, you know what I'm saying? Like, you actually shake. So how do you take that to give yourself perspective, but then keep yourself lifted in your capacity to coach yourself through it?

• 55:41Speaker 01

  You want to keep the spotlight on the challenge that they endured compared to what you're dealing with right now.

• 55:48Mel Robbins?

  Right.

• 55:48Speaker 01

  And really use it as a source of motivation.

• 55:51Mel Robbins?

  Got it. Okay.

• 55:52Speaker 01

  Exactly. Not to, not to, you don't want to slip back into the, well, you know, anything sets you off. That would defeat the purpose of that exercise. And if you find that doing that leads you into that territory, don't use that tool. Use a different one.

• 56:10Mel Robbins?

  That's great.

• 56:11Speaker 01

  And that's, that's, that's a really important take home for these tools. Different tools work for different people in different situations.

• 56:18Mel Robbins?

  This is so fascinating. And I could just talk to you all day. I have so many more questions, but I want to take a quick pause so we can hear a word from our amazing sponsors. And I also want to give you a chance to share this amazing conversation with people that you care about. Because there is zero doubt in my mind that these tools are gonna help me stop the negative self-talk. And I want that for you, and I want that for the people in your life, too. So share this with people you care about, and don't go anywhere. Because as you are learning, Ethan has a lot of tools. That's right, plural. And he's got a lot more to share with you when we return. We'll be waiting for you after a short break. Stay with us.

• 57:04Mel Robbins?

  Welcome back. It's your buddy Mel Robbins. And today, you and I are learning from Professor Ethan Kross from the University of Michigan. So, you know, over the break, Ethan, I was thinking about something else I wanted to ask you. And so where I want to go next is, how important of a role does environment play in self-talk being positive or negative?

• 57:23Speaker 01

  It can play a big role in a few different ways. So, we already talked about your local environment, how the way you structure your environment, how organized it is, can affect what's happening between your ears. There's also ways of putting things in your environment to trigger positive experiences, like pictures of loved ones, which, you know, sounds so silly on the one hand, but we did this research years ago where we had people think about really painful experiences. And we had them then look at a picture of a loved one, or a picture of someone else's loved one, to see what are the implications of looking at your, what we call, attachment figure, someone you're really connected to.

• 58:08Speaker 01

  And what we found is that looking at that person that you care about, this activates a sense that there are people in this world that support you, which sped up how quickly people recovered from a distressing experience. So after that research, I like went on a shopping spree for picture frames. And like, my, my, all of my offices have pictures of my family and friends all around it, for that reason.

• 58:34Mel Robbins?

  Yeah, I think that, you know, if you think about walking through an office, oftentimes that's the thing that tethers you through the day.

• 58:39Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 58:40Mel Robbins?

  Is the reminder of what's meaningful in your life, especially when you're having a stressful day.

• 58:45Speaker 01

  Exactly.

• 58:46Mel Robbins?

  Sort of like the way that you time-traveled backwards to your grandmother.

• 58:48Speaker 01

  Helps put things in perspective.

• 58:50Mel Robbins?

  Correct.

• 58:51Speaker 01

  So that's, that's one thing you can do.

• 58:52Mel Robbins?

  Okay.

• 58:53Speaker 01

  Green space exposure. I was a little hesitant to really buy into this when I first started researching this space. I come from a place, we talked about before, Brooklyn, New York. I like to remind people that one of the most famous books to come out of this borough, or about this borough, was titled, "A Tree Grows in Brooklyn," singular, right? So like, there's not a lot of... Um, there was not a lot of green space growing up.

• 59:21Mel Robbins?

  Yeah.

• 59:21Speaker 01

  And I'm a city guy. I find green space exposure to be quite profound in terms of how it impacts my emotional life. And there's been a lot of research on this. And what happens is when you're stuck in chatter, it consumes your attention. It's the only thing you can think about.

• 59:39Mel Robbins?

  So true.

• 59:40Speaker 01

  When you go for a walk in a safe, natural setting, what happens is your attention is captured by your surroundings, but in a very gentle way. The sights, the sounds, the smells, like your attention just drifts on them. And what that does is it gives you this opportunity to rest and restore over the course of that walk. So you finish it, you're feeling more rejuvenated, and you actually have more attentional capacity to work through your problems. So that's one way that your environment, in particular, green space exposure can help you.

• 1:00:12Mel Robbins?

  You know, I just had an experience where last week I got some very, very difficult news. And so I had a horrible night's sleep, could not fall asleep, woke up, it was like 5:15 in the morning, which is ungodly early for me. And it was pitch dark outside, my husband, Chris, was gone, and I laid there and I could just feel the negative, what if this and where, where you're just kind of trying to problem solve through something that's scaring you to death in your life or your work or whatever. And I thought, I need to get the hell out of this bed. So I got up, I got the dogs outside, and then I thought, I should go for a walk, even though the moon is still out and it is pitch dark, because my mind is a horrendous place right now.

• 1:00:57Mel Robbins?

  And the last thing I want to do is look at social media or try to solve it that way. So, or log on to email. And so I put on my coat, and I still had my pajamas on, and I started walking down the driveway. And as I was walking in the pitch dark and I'm seeing the moon start to lower, and I started thinking to myself, sort of like you thought about your grandmother, about the fact that in the scale of humanity and the fact that I am but a speck on this planet hurtling through space, the crap that's keeping me up at, like, I'm sorry, again, still negative, shaming myself if you take notice. But as I rounded the corner and the moon is set, it probably took about 13 to 15 minutes of walking.

• 1:01:41Mel Robbins?

  But there was an owl, it was like, whoo, and I'm like, oh. That the owl doesn't care. And as I kept walking and my senses were activated, it pulled me into the experience of the walking. And then the sun started to come up and slowly, but surely, I noticed that the beat down was gone.

• 1:02:04Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:02:05Mel Robbins?

  Why does that work?

• 1:02:06Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:02:07Mel Robbins?

  Because I think we've all experienced feeling better and clearing our mind.

• 1:02:11Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:02:12Mel Robbins?

  When we either take a walk or if it's available to you, you can get outside in green space.

• 1:02:19Speaker 01

  Yeah, so a couple of things I want to point out. So number one, you said 13 minutes. You said it took about 13 minutes. And the way I interpreted you saying that was like, it took a while.

• 1:02:28Mel Robbins?

  Mm hmm.

• 1:02:29Speaker 01

  But if you think 13 minutes is a while, how much time have you spent in that negative self-talk?

• 1:02:36Mel Robbins?

  Fifty six years.

• 1:02:37Speaker 01

  Fifty six years. I think 13 minutes is pretty damn good. Like 13 minutes is probably quicker than the amount of time it takes for Tylenol to have its effect when you've got a bad headache.

• 1:02:48Mel Robbins?

  Hmm.

• 1:02:49Speaker 01

  Right, like that is pretty magical. So we talked a little bit about how nature can help us restore. That's one way it can help us. Another thing that it does is it gives us the opportunity to experience the emotion of awe, which is an emotion we experience when we're in the presence of something vast and indescribable, something that just feels bigger than ourselves. And nature is replete with those awe triggers, like the moon. It's so beautiful and these, you know, you're in, you're in southern Vermont. I've been up there at times. It's gorgeous up there.

• 1:03:22Mel Robbins?

  Mm hmm.

• 1:03:23Speaker 01

  When we experience this emotion of awe, what it does, it leads to what we call a shrinking of the self. You feel smaller when you're contemplating something vast and indescribable. Here you are, Mel, you're worried about this thing. I'm sure it's a legit, it feels, doesn't only almost feel legitimate. I'm sure it feels existential in the moment that you're having it. Like it's over, I'm over, the world is over, right? Like, yeah, we've all been there. We know what it's like. Well, when you're in nature and you have this opportunity to experience awe, it's just, it makes you and your concerns feel a whole lot smaller when you're contemplating. The vastness of maybe like the site you're in, I mean, you're probably walking somewhere,

• 1:04:05Speaker 01

  trees are alive for hundreds of years, right? Like that makes what you're dealing with just feel a little bit more insignificant. And when we shrink ourselves in that way, our problems shrink too. So I will often weaponize this by going for walks in the local arboretum when I'm really struggling with something. And it inevitably helps. It's like, what am I worried about this? Like when there are so many more things happening in the universe, like, come on, let's get back into gear.

• 1:04:35Mel Robbins?

  Yeah. And more importantly, I think it helps you access the other tools because you know, the thing is, is that the walk didn't disappear the problem. It actually lowered the chatter. And so when I got back and into my workday and inevitably other things happen that then bring it back up, whether I started organizing my desk, or I'm using the other tools, I can see what you're teaching us, which is you have the ability to catch it.

• 1:05:00Speaker 01

  That's right.

• 1:05:01Mel Robbins?

  When it's taking you down.

• 1:05:02Speaker 01

  That's right.

• 1:05:03Mel Robbins?

  And then use these tools to create distance from it. So there are so many tools in the book, and we've covered a bunch of them so far, but what are some other quick and simple tactics and tools that the person listening can use to make their inner voice more positive?

• 1:05:20Speaker 01

  Okay, so let's enter into the rapid fire part of the conversation. Sensory experiences, tremendously underutilized tool. I was blind to this up until relatively recently in my life, when my daughter was in a terrible mood, was bumming me out. And one of the great songs of all time came on the radio in the car or iPad, whatever you call it nowadays, Journeys, Don't Stop Believin'. And everyone got excited and happy in the car. Music effortlessly shifts our emotions. You can use this yourself. You can use it to shift other people's emotions. All of the senses are useful tools to shift our emotions. Scent. I'm staying at a hotel

• 1:06:01Speaker 01

  not far from here. The moment I walked into the hotel, I was awash with this pleasant scent that the hotel has been piping through the ventilation system to make the patrons feel comfortable. We spritz ourselves with chemicals to make ourselves feel good and make other people feel good. Our senses are powerful tools. Let's talk about other people, though. Because other people, I think, are really important. And it touches back to this problem where sometimes you go to other people and we push them away. So how do you, how do you find other people in your life to actually help you when it comes to your chatter? Or your, the big emotions you're experiencing? I call these our chatter advisors.

• 1:06:46Speaker 01

  Okay. How do you find your chatter advisors? You want to look for people who do two things. There are two key steps to providing good chatter support. Step one, you want to listen, empathize, validate, connect with the person. Right? Lots of big terms there, but what I mean is like, you want to be there emotionally for that person. I want to learn about what you're going through. Like, I really would like to know what set you off at 5:00 AM the other day? Tell me about it. Terrible. Like, I've been there too. Genuinely connecting. What that does is it, it helps satisfy the person who's suffering these needs they have to feel connected. Once I do that, then I want to shift into this kind of advice or cognitive mode.

• 1:07:30Speaker 01

  So, all right, now we're connected, you can rely on me, but the problem's still there. Let's try to look at it. And, and as someone who is not going through the problem myself, I'm in a great position to help put it in perspective for you. Yep. Those are the two steps to providing good chatter support. And you would be amazed at how frequently people who are exceptionally well intentioned, don't follow those two steps. There are two ways it breaks down. Number one, some people think that their job is just give you a sounding board to let it out. Just keep going, right? There's value in that, in connecting and learning. But if that's all we do in a conversation, it can lead to what we call co-rumination.

• 1:08:15Speaker 01

  Now we're just kind of bathing ourselves in the, in the problem together. And as a function of that, we often leave the conversation feeling connected, but the problem's still there. That doesn't work. The other thing that doesn't work, you come to me with a problem, and within five seconds, Mel, this is simple. You know, like, I wrote a paper on this. Here's what you need to do. Just do A, B, C, D. You'll be fine. Call me in the morning. We call those people jerks, right? Or Mel Robbins. I doubt, I doubt that. And so, so you really want to follow both of those steps in that order. Listen and then advise. There's an art to doing that well. I'll use my wife here as an example. Is she gonna kill you? She might kill me, but it's okay. We love each other.

• 1:08:59Speaker 01

  So if my wife came to me with a problem that she was experiencing some chatter about, I would immediately start listening, empathizing, connecting. And when I sensed that she had gotten it out, and I really understood the problem, I would ask her for permission. I'd be like, hey, I totally get it. I have, I have a thought. You wanna, do you wanna keep going? Or can I share it with you? Sometimes, the way that she'll answer that question is, no, I'm not done. Just let me keep going. And then I let her keep going, and then I come back to it. Okay. At other moments, it'll be, yes, please, what do you think? Let's, you know, help me. And so what I love about this framework

• 1:09:43Speaker 01

  that I essentially just described, that we just talked about, is it gives me guideposts for how to steer this conversation. When someone comes to me, that's my wife, my friend, my students, whoever, there are these two steps that I follow in the same sequence each time. Step one is I'm there to empathize and connect, listen and learn. Step two, now I'm gonna try to help work with the person to broaden their perspective. So this has happened to you before. How'd you deal with it last time? Or, you know, something like this happened to me, and here's what I did. Simple ways for broadening perspective, like a couple of questions like that you ask. It often helps the person find the answer. I will often ask people to do a chatter advisor audit.

• 1:10:25Speaker 01

  So I'll have people like divide their world into personal and professional. And then I ask them to list who, all the names of the people they go to to talk about the chatter when it erupts. Then I'll explain to them how this art of chatter advising that we've just gone over, that the key to being a good advisor is to empathize, listen, and then shift into that advising. And I'll have them circle the names. Of the people on their list who do both of those things. And I haven't crossed out the names of the people who who don't. The people whose names you circle, that's your advisory board. And it's not always the people that you're closest to.

• 1:11:02Mel Robbins?

  Oftentimes, it's actually not.

• 1:11:03Speaker 01

  It's not, and that's okay. You know, there are people who I love, who I'm super close to. I don't talk to them about my chatter. It doesn't help me. It actually pushes me in the wrong direction. But my board is an amazing asset that I possess. And I lean on it frequently to deal with my chatter.

• 1:11:20Mel Robbins?

  Ethan, what does a person do if they're, you know, listening to you? And they've got someone in their life who's really struggling because of the way they talk to themselves. I mean, just down on themselves, down emotionally. What is the best thing that you can do to help somebody that you care about? When you see them really beaten down?

• 1:11:41Speaker 01

  So I like to divide the way of helping others into into two buckets. One thing you can do, if they come to you for help, as often happens to us, people want to talk to us, people want our support. Then you you follow that that guide that we just talked about. You listen and learn, and then you advise. And part of the advice is giving them the tools. The way we help others is is teaching others about these tools. I do this to my kids all the time, right? Like, I'm constantly complaining that we're born into the world with the the ability to experience chatter and big emotions. We're not born into the world with the user's guide that teaches us these tools. So if my kids come to me, I listen, I and then I offer them tools.

• 1:12:24Speaker 01

  But then there's another situation where you see people you care about, your colleagues, your loved ones, and they don't ask you for help. And then the question is, well, what do you do? Do you let them just figure it out on their own, suffer in silence? Do you volunteer the support without them asking? There's been research on this, and and it's tricky. The research shows that if you volunteer the support without the person asking, it has the potential to blow up in your face. As a parent, I'm sure you've experienced this, as I know I have. So sometimes if I've seen my kids, I know they're struggling with something. This is something I can help them with. And I volunteer the advice. You know, it's basically a mild version of how they respond.

• 1:13:06Speaker 01

  When you offer support and it's not asked for, what that does is it communicates to the person that they're not capable of handling their own circumstances. And that can elicit defensiveness. So here's the really cool thing. We have learned how you can still help people when they don't ask for help. And what it involves doing is providing support invisibly.

• 1:13:31Mel Robbins?

  Okay, is this another one of these secret weapons?

• 1:13:33Speaker 01

  This is a secret weapon that everyone that you are listening, if you're listening, you now have a secret weapon.

• 1:13:39Mel Robbins?

  Lay it on us, Ethan. How do we do invisible support?

• 1:13:41Speaker 01

  Invisible support is providing people with support, but without shining a spotlight on the fact that you're doing. You kind of asked me about this earlier when you asked me about how do you tactfully help another person when they're struggling? This is how you do it.

• 1:13:54Mel Robbins?

  Okay.

• 1:13:55Speaker 01

  And there are many forms this can take. I'll give you a couple of examples. Let's say someone on my team or, you know, my lab is working under a really tense deadline. And they don't have time to take care of themselves and do simple things. I can just order in food for them. If my wife is struggling with like lots of stress at work, lots of chatter, it's her turn to get the groceries. Like I just do the groceries, pick up the dry cleaning. I don't do it, come home and ask for a pat on my back. I just do things to make the other person's life just a little bit easier, a little bit more manageable. That's one way of supporting someone invisibly. Let's say someone else is struggling with a skill.

• 1:14:40Speaker 01

  Let's say it's public speaking. So someone on my team is struggling with communicating their science in a way that people can understand with impact. Before I take them aside and say, hey, I've noticed that you could do a little bit better here. Here are three things I want you to try. I'll first have a team meeting. And we'll all share out best practice. What are the two or three things that we've all benefited from for speaking more effectively? What I'm doing there is I am getting the person information they can benefit from, but I'm not shining a spotlight on the fact that I'm targeting it to them. So even sharing sources that you've benefited from, podcast episodes, books, share that with someone else.

• 1:15:23Speaker 01

  You don't have to target it to them and say, hey, this is going to help you. But if you found the material meaningful, just share it in that context. And what it does is it, it gives them the opportunity to benefit as well. But without you think, without them thinking, this was specifically targeted to them.

• 1:15:41Mel Robbins?

  Oh, you can always do it in a group chat. That's my favorite thing to do is just hit the family group chat, hit the friend chat. Hey, everybody, great episode.

• 1:15:47Speaker 01

  Great. This episode was awesome. I learned so much or this book was great. Yeah, those are simple things you can do and I do that all the time. Let me close the loop on invisible support because I told you about two ways you can do it. There's a third and it's my favorite.

• 1:16:02Mel Robbins?

  What is that?

• 1:16:02Speaker 01

  It's affectionate, but not creepy touch. Are you familiar with this one?

• 1:16:08Mel Robbins?

  Yeah, that's what aunts do, not uncles.

• 1:16:10Speaker 01

  Well, definitely not uncles, but it's what moms and dads do.

• 1:16:14Mel Robbins?

  That's true. Affectionate, but not creepy.

• 1:16:16Speaker 01

  Yeah, like what do you do with your kids when they're born into this world? First thing we do.

• 1:16:19Mel Robbins?

  Oh, I just pulled them against you, you hug them.

• 1:16:23Speaker 01

  That's right. And, and we have receptors on our skin that encode for an affectionate embrace. And when it's registered, there's this automatic release of, of stress fighting chemicals that flood our system. And so, you know, if, if my daughters are experiencing something challenging or my, my wife, I'll, you know, just kind of give them a hug, caress their back. Again, not creepy. But even at work, you know, like a fist bump.

• 1:16:49Mel Robbins?

  Right.

• 1:16:50Speaker 01

  Right? Is a simple way. We are a social.

• 1:16:52Mel Robbins?

  Pat on the back to somebody.

• 1:16:53Speaker 01

  Pat on the back, right? Tactile species. That's a way of supporting someone invisibly as well.

• 1:16:59Mel Robbins?

  I totally get it.

• 1:17:00Speaker 01

  Yeah, you do want to make sure to convey the not creepy part of it, though.

• 1:17:04Mel Robbins?

  For sure.

• 1:17:04Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:17:06Mel Robbins?

  I would love to have you speak directly to the person listening because you have shared so much with us about your research and ways that we can flip that negative chatter into a positive coach. And just so many tools to reach for that will help you do that. If the person takes just one action, based on everything that you've poured into us from your two books, Chatter and Shift, what is the most important thing to do?

• 1:17:37Speaker 01

  The most important thing to do is learn about the tools. Just familiarize yourself with them. What I love about these tools is decades of of research have gone into their identification. Complex, backbreaking effort, but the take homes are super simple. Mental time travel. How am I going to feel about this next year into the past? You know, how does this compare with what Bubby went through, my grandmother? Ethan, you've got this. I mean, these are simple things that don't take a whole lot of time and energy to practice. Just familiarize yourself with them and then start self experimenting.

• 1:18:20Speaker 01

  That is the the launch pad for gaining control of your chatter. And so, so my invitation to you is to familiarize yourself with the tools that are out there. Start self experimenting, find the tools that work best for you and share them with other people. That is the way I think we help really combat this this universal affliction.

• 1:18:41Mel Robbins?

  Ethan, you are so awesome.

• 1:18:43Speaker 01

  Now you're giving me all the.

• 1:18:45Mel Robbins?

  Well, no, I actually mean it. Like, I'm stunned because this topic can be so heady and you made it so accessible and tactical, just like you said that you would. Congratulations on the bestselling book, the manual that now exists for all of us to turn our inner critic into positive coaching chatter. Congratulations on your mega bestseller, Shift. I am so happy you came. Thank you, thank you, thank you.

• 1:19:09Speaker 01

  Well, the feeling is totally, totally, totally mutual.

• 1:19:14Mel Robbins?

  And I also want to thank you. Thank you for choosing to spend time listening to something that can help you create a better life. And there's no doubt in my mind that everything that Ethan taught us today is going to help you change your self-talk from something that is beating you down to something that's lifting you up. And that will change your life and the life of people that you care about. Thank you for sharing this with people that you care about. And in case no one else tells you, I want to tell you, in the words of Ethan, you got this, you can do this. And I also want to tell you, in case no one else does, I love you. I admire the fact that you're taking time to listen to something like this. And I know it was worth your time. And I also know it's going to help you create a better life. All righty, I'll talk to you in a few days. And I will be waiting to welcome you in to the very next episode, the moment you hit play. I'll see you there.

• 1:20:03Mel Robbins?

  My brain is like, take a bunch of mice, put them in a cardboard box and tip them over in a restaurant.

• 1:20:09Speaker 01

  I see.

• 1:20:10Mel Robbins?

  That is how my brain works.

• 1:20:11Speaker 01

  Sounds liberating.

• 1:20:14Mel Robbins?

  Why, are you like a spreadsheet on legs?

• 1:20:16Speaker 01

  No, I'm a little bit of both. Positively shifting people's emotions. At how big the shift you get from going to the bathroom when you really need to go.

• 1:20:26Mel Robbins?

  Oh, it's true, because you're managing it. You're probably bracing on tents.

• 1:20:29Speaker 01

  I just went up like on a 10-point scale, four points. I'm so much happier.

• 1:20:33Mel Robbins?

  Is that one of your tools? Negative self-talk, take a leak.

• 1:20:35Speaker 01

  Yes.

• 1:20:36Mel Robbins?

  Professor Cross is going to tell you that there are four reasons why you actually talk to yourself. Oh, I always said that actually. Is it sounding all right? And what I want to know is after having... Oh, wait, sorry, your work has been cited, sorry.

• 1:20:50Speaker 01

  That was great, thanks so much.

• 1:20:51Mel Robbins?

  So good, oh my god.

• 1:20:55Mel Robbins?

  Oh, and one more thing. And no, this is not a blooper. This is the legal language. You know what the lawyers write and what I need to read to you. This podcast is presented solely for educational and entertainment purposes. I'm just your friend. I am not a licensed therapist. And this podcast is not intended as a substitute for the advice of a physician, professional coach, psychotherapist, or other qualified professional. Got it? Good. I'll see you in the next episode.