Mel Robbins On Healing Anxiety, Marriage Therapy, & Igniting Transformation

Back for her second drop on the podcast (her first being RRP #630) is my friend, Mel Robbins. Mel is the mega-bestselling author of The 5 Second Rule and The High Five Habit and is branching out into my territory with the launch of her brand new podcast, aptly titled The Mel Robbins Podcast, which has skyrocketed to one of the top shows in the world. Today we go deep into Mel’s recent breakthrough in her struggle with anxiety, what she learned and experienced during therapeutic MDMA sessions, along with marriage therapy, parenting advice, mindset, and so much more. Show notes + MORE Watch on YouTube Newsletter Sign-Up Peace + Plants, Rich Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

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

• 0:01Mel Robbins?

  I deeply believe that you can heal generalized anxiety. I believe that through learning how to experience that alarm that goes off that is completely normal when you feel separate, when you feel invisible, when you feel slightly nervous, and learning how to give yourself the love and the reassurance that you didn't get at whatever moment it was that this alarm started going off, sub-five years old, I think this is game-changing. We let our feelings dictate what we do, and we have to do the opposite if you want to change. You have to lead with the actions that align with the way you want to feel.

• 0:46Mel Robbins?

  The research is conclusive that when you are critical of yourself, it destroys all motivation to act. And so, if you have a bad day, congratulations. You're breathing. You're a human being. Please, do not beat yourself up. Shake it off, look at your list, and pick something you're going to do tomorrow.

• 1:24Rich Roll?

  Hey, everybody. Welcome to the podcast. My guest today, back for round two, is the ever-inspiring, one and only queen of grounded, science-backed, personal development, my dear friend, Mel Robbins. Mel is crazy talented, she's super authentic, and just has this knack for cutting through the noise and the bullshit and telling you exactly what you need to hear to get off your butt and into action. And she does it with a smile, she does it with compassion and wisdom born from a lifetime of both success and, more importantly, epic failures.

• 2:03Rich Roll?

  Mel is a former lawyer turned CNN legal analyst, talk show host, mega bestselling author of The Five Second Rule and The High Five Habit, and one of the most widely booked public speakers in the world. And after absolutely dominating in the world of audible-only audiobooks, Mel is now branching out into my territory with the launch of her brand-new podcast, aptly titled "The Mel Robbins Podcast," which immediately, upon launch, skyrocketed, no surprise, to one of the top shows in the world. Mel truly loves helping people overcome the patterns of thought and behaviors that hold them back, so much so that she begins our conversation by speaking some kind truths

• 2:47Rich Roll?

  into my ear. And from there, we go deep into Mel's recent breakthrough in her struggle with anxiety, what she learned and experienced during therapeutic MDMA sessions. We cover marriage therapy, parenting, mindset, and just tons more. And it's all coming up quick, but first...

• 3:14Rich Roll?

  Okay, it's always an absolute pleasure to spend time with Mel, but I have to say, on this occasion, from the moment she walked in, her energy was really different. And it made this conversation both truly special and uniquely powerful. So buckle your proverbial seatbelt, open your hearts, and please enjoy this enlightening exchange with my friend, Mel Robbins.

• 3:40Rich Roll?

  We're good.

• 3:42Mel Robbins?

  We're going?

• 3:43Rich Roll?

  We're ready to rock. Let's do it.

• 3:45Mel Robbins?

  Okay, great. I can't believe...

• 3:46Rich Roll?

  What were you saying?

• 3:46Mel Robbins?

  Well, so I cannot believe you just said that you feel guilty about making people drive out here to your studio.

• 3:52Rich Roll?

  It's a commitment. It's way out in the middle of nowhere. It's cool. I'm glad you're here.

• 3:57Mel Robbins?

  Rich, it's complete bullshit. First of all, you have this incredible platform that you have built. You have people that hang on your every word, and it is absolutely like a gift that you're giving to people. So the fact that you would feel guilty about somebody spending 45 measly minutes to be able to come and have a conversation with

• 4:20Rich Roll?

  It was probably more like an hour.

• 4:22Mel Robbins?

  Hardly. It doesn't matter.

• 4:24Rich Roll?

  I don't know.

• 4:25Mel Robbins?

  Stop that. Stop that.

• 4:26Rich Roll?

  Yeah, yeah, yeah. Well, this is kind of like, we're going to talk about tangential issues around, you know, this kind of mental ailment.

• 4:34Mel Robbins?

  Yes. And so let me point out another one of yours.

• 4:36Rich Roll?

  Yeah.

• 4:36Mel Robbins?

  So this morning, I was looking on Instagram, and you put up the post about Zac Efron, right, being a fan of your show. And you said, "I might take this down later." And all of your fans, I held back because I knew I was gonna tell you this in person, were like, "Stop. If you didn't actually make a difference in the world, then he would not be doing what he's doing in terms of the way he's gotten his health in order." And so you make a huge difference, and you call it self-promotional, but the truth is, you are creating positive ripple effects. And I think it's very inspiring that you do that.

• 5:19Mel Robbins?

  And so I don't see it as promotional at all. I see it as you demonstrating the reach of your show, and the fact that the people that you have on change the lives of real people. And that has a huge impact on the world, dude.

• 5:35Rich Roll?

  Well, I appreciate that. Now I can clip that out, and I'll put that up on Instagram.

• 5:40Mel Robbins?

  Do not let him. I'm now talking to Rich's team. Mel Robbins will drive back here and literally yell at everybody. I'm telling you, you are humble, which I deeply admire. And it's something that, you know, I might not be sounding humble right now, but you and I share that sort of like awe-shucks thing, because we didn't get into this in terms of podcasts, or writing books, or doing what we're doing, because we had some aspiration to become a celebrity. We have been sharing our stories, because I think both you and I believe that, first of all, if we can do it, you can do it.

• 6:19Mel Robbins?

  And secondly, that there are simple things that you can do to become happier or healthier. And that if you and I can save anybody, the fucking headache and heartaches that we both caused ourselves, that is a life well-lived.

• 6:38Rich Roll?

  I'm on your page with that and you know, I appreciate everything that you just shared and I am trying to grow into, you know, the person who can kind of just gracefully accept nice things when they're said to me, as opposed to, you know, every instinct inside of me, which is to say, "Yeah, but," or to diminish, you know, the kind things. I think in the case of publishing like a, something that really is unabashedly very self-promotional, I mean, on its face, that's what it is, right? There is inside of me a thing like, like the only reason I'm putting this up, it's like it's shining a light on me and I have discomfort with that. Like, I'd rather make it about what you just said, which is the ideas behind it.

• 7:21Mel Robbins?

  Yeah, but you are making it about the ideas. Because you don't sit here and have the conversations and do all the work behind the scenes that you do, that most people are not aware of, that go into making this form of art and this act of service that you're doing for the world by hosting this podcast, by producing it, by putting it out there, Rich. And I think that what's really cool about putting out that post about Zac Efron giving you credit, right, for everything that he knows about health, for training, for Baywatch, for the stuff that he's learned from you, that you're the person that he listens

• 8:00Mel Robbins?

  to, is that he has a big platform. And so he can then send that ripple effect even further. And so, the other thing I wanted to say, because this is going to lead us right into the topic about mental health, about mindset, about happiness, and the profound issues I've been working on in my own life, is I completely understand what you mean when you say, "It's really hard to accept a compliment. It's hard to accept a gift. You'd rather have it be about somebody else." One of the biggest breakthroughs I've had in the last couple of years, Rich, is this epiphany about my inability to receive love.

• 8:42Rich Roll?

  Mm-hmm.

• 8:42Mel Robbins?

  And the fact that I was uncomfortable for a long time hearing a compliment, or having somebody say something nice, or having a birthday party thrown for me, or receiving a gift. And I have recently had this breakthrough because I have learned that there is an extremely tight connection between feeling anxious and not allowing love to come in. And so I have this visual, Rich, and I'm going to explain this to you because I just had this emotional experience happen when you sort of were like pushing away the love I was trying to shower you with. So I think when you block love,

• 9:27Mel Robbins?

  like imagine like there's this closed door. And when somebody tries to link with you, or connect with you, or authentically tell you how amazing you are, if you have a hard time hearing it, you basically have put a solid door between you and the other person. And I've been working recently with visualizing the galley doors in a kitchen that swing both ways. Because you're very good at giving love. You're very good at giving support. You're an incredibly amazing friend because you're always there when somebody needs you, and you always open the door to listen, to advise, to share. And I'm the same way, too.

• 10:10Mel Robbins?

  And for a long time, when somebody would try to give it back to me, the door was closed.

• 10:14Rich Roll?

  So let's talk a little bit about where that comes from. Like, what is the genesis of that instinct for you? Or what have you learned about that?

• 10:22Mel Robbins?

  What I've learned about this, and I would strongly encourage you to bring Dr. Russell Kennedy onto your show. He wrote the book Anxiety RX. He's a medical doctor who also got his degree in neuroscience. And he started experiencing anxiety when he was in medical school. And he has gone on to heal his anxiety. He treats people around the world with anxiety. Like, he is a game changer on this content and the topic of anxiety. So his theory, and I now see this completely in my life. His theory is that all anxiety comes from childhood, and it comes from the experience of being separate in childhood.

• 11:06Mel Robbins?

  And so every single one of us has an experience, and you may not remember it because 80% of your brain is formed by the time you're five years old. But you have an experience where you, as a kid, feel distinct and separate from your caregiver. And he talks a lot about this concept of a parental mismatch. So there are a lot of us that have parents who are wonderful people, or maybe they're not wonderful people, but you have parents who are wonderful people. But for you emotionally, just like the five love languages, there can be a mismatch in terms of the love language you speak and need and what your partner does, that your parent and the way that they provide emotional support is a mismatch.

• 11:50Mel Robbins?

  And so as a kid, when you don't get the reassurance you need, or when you don't feel loved, or seen, or heard, or accepted, you feel separate from the parent that you're biologically hardwired and needing to bond with, which also means you feel unsafe. And so as a little kid, at some point, an alarm would go off in your body whenever you felt separate from your parents. And it could be as innocuous as, "Go hug your uncle," and you're like this. "I don't want to hug my uncle." And they're like, "Get in there." Or, "Don't do that now. I'm busy," or this snapping at you. And you immediately feel that alarm because you feel separate. And so what happens is that this alarm

• 12:34Mel Robbins?

  that starts going off, and going off, and going off, in moments where you feel separate, you're not feeling the love that you need, you're not feeling connected, you're not feeling reassured, it starts to go off all the time. Now, as you get older and older and older. I mean, we've all had the experience of walking in to see old friends at lunch. And for many of us, we feel that alarm go off. They've all arrived there, they're all talking. You feel that sense of separation. That's anxiety. That's what it is. It's in your body. And it is, according to Dr. Kennedy, it is the little you.

• 13:10Mel Robbins?

  Basically waving their hand, saying, "I need a little reassurance right now." That's all that it is. And for decades, I have approached what has been an experience of living with anxiety from the neck up. I mean, the five-second rule is a neck-up approach. And based on the last two years of intense therapy that I've been in, and you know, a lot of stuff that I've recently learned from Dr. Kennedy, I realize it is fundamentally a neck-down issue. That attacking anxiety, and these moments where you feel separate, or scared, or you feel the alarm go off in your body, if you, instead of treating it like a signal that

• 13:54Mel Robbins?

  something's wrong, if you actually treat it as a signal, that you just need a little bit of love from yourself right now, just put your hand on your heart, you can like take a towel and kind of do this on your back, rub it back and forth, and you feel like you're hugging yourself, take a deep breath, tell yourself whatever you need to hear in that moment, in order to reassure yourself that you're gonna be okay, or that whatever, you know, like, "Get it, you know, you feel a little nervous, but all those people at that table love you." It's freaking bonkers how powerful of an approach is, and it's also made me realize that, wow, I am so not used to giving myself that kind of love and reassurance, no wonder

• 14:39Mel Robbins?

  I'm uncomfortable letting other people give it to me.

• 14:41Rich Roll?

  Hmm. That's powerful. I mean, a couple sort of reflections on that. The first being that it tracks in a very similar way to science that's emerging on the nature of trauma. Like, I've just had a couple of episodes with Gabor Maté and Dr. Paul Conti, and both of them, they have, their approaches are a little bit different, but they, they have this shared, shared sense, or a shared perspective that, that trauma arises in early childhood, and for the same reasons, you're, you weren't, the parenting match wasn't appropriate or correct. And it makes me wonder whether kind of all of these things that we experience later

• 15:21Rich Roll?

  in life, where we feel off-kilter, can be tracked back to those very early years. And it's interesting, you know?

• 15:28Mel Robbins?

  I would not be surprised, Rich. I, I think that all, in fact, I start get, I'm now, I'm so... Uh, deep in my own personal exploration of the somatic modalities, whether it's the cold exposure, which has been a game changer for me in many ways, and I still hate, whether it's guided MDMA therapy sessions with my husband, which has been incredible around nervous system regulation, and being able to re-experience past trauma in a controlled setting that allows my body to reprocess it so it doesn't keep triggering me, um, EMDR.

• 16:07Mel Robbins?

  But I'm telling you, just this reframe of thinking about anxiety as not a neck-up approach, of course cognitive behavioral therapy works, of course talk therapy is super important, of course, things like the five-second rule and pattern interruption, and working on different ways of thinking in terms of interrupting the self-criticism with a little bit more encouragement. That stuff is part of the toolkit, but I deeply believe that you can heal generalized anxiety, something I've struggled with for almost 45 years. I believe that through learning how to experience that alarm that goes off

• 16:50Mel Robbins?

  that is completely normal when you feel separate, when you feel invisible, when you feel slightly nervous, and learning how to give yourself the love and the reassurance that you didn't get at whatever moment it was that this alarm started going off, sub-five years old. I think this is game-changing. It has been for me. I've now taught it to two of my kids that are, that struggle with anxiety. They're reporting back like, "Okay, why didn't you know this? Like, when I was eight and the doctor kept saying, 'Change the channel.'" Like, just being able to silence the alarm. And realize, oh, this thing can come and go. I don't have to be ruled by it. It's freaking awesome.

• 17:31Rich Roll?

  The feeling of, of being different than, or an outsider, or other than, and that, you know, kind of low-grade nervousness that comes with walking into a room of people and not really knowing how to connect and feeling like you're on the outside of that. I mean, this is the story of my life.

• 17:49Mel Robbins?

  Mm-hmm.

• 17:50Rich Roll?

  I've never really couched it or thought of it in the context of anxiety. I've thought of it more, I mean, now, and I've said this a million times, so forgive me, but, you know, I kind of perceive all of these things through the lens of addiction and recovery, and the tools that I've learned, you know, through many years of being in that rubric and in that community to make me feel more integrated, and over many years of practicing those tools and, you know, creating a life for myself where I do feel more self-actualized and kind of, with that comes a sense of self-esteem. That has ameliorated, you know, 95% of that feeling that, you know, I used to have that

• 18:32Rich Roll?

  made it impossible for me to be around other people and why I medicated for so many years. But I still have some low-grade aspect of that. I've just never really thought of it as a chronic anxiety as much as just a feeling of like dissonance.

• 18:47Mel Robbins?

  It's the same thing. Because the dissonance or the, like, my biggest experience with anxiety was disassociation. So when I felt separate, or I felt like nervous about something and I, and I, and I didn't understand that all I needed in that moment was reassurance, I would like mentally leave the room and my body.

• 19:08Rich Roll?

  Mm-hmm.

• 19:08Mel Robbins?

  And so, one of the other interesting things, the more that you look into research around anxiety, is there is an extraordinary connection between anxiety and addiction. And the reason why is because if you don't know what to do with that alarm, that is simply the little you going, "Hey, can you just give me a hug right now and tell me we're gonna be okay?"

• 19:30Mel Robbins?

  You find ways to silence it. And so, for you, alcohol and addiction. For my husband, a daily weed habit. Like, he never thought of himself as somebody that had anxiety either. But what Chris was dealing with, in those moments when the alarm was going off, my, my response to the anxiety alarm is, is, is fight. Go, go, go, go, go. Which is why my addiction was an addiction to busyness and to work and to trying to outrun it. My husband's response to that alarm that goes off inside you when you feel separate or you feel nervous about something, or you feel uncertain or overwhelmed, was to freeze and to withdraw.

• 20:11Mel Robbins?

  And so, it became so intolerable for him, that feeling of being separate, that he would hit, you know, the weed pen every day. I didn't even know this, as a way to silence the alarm. And so, you know, I think that, that when you start to talk about it not as anxiety, but as an alarm that has been with many of us since childhood, that feeling of being separate or getting triggered by these subtle moments where you feel like you're on the outside looking in. I mean, I think a lot of people find it hard to believe that somebody who puts themselves out there the way that I do. I was actually pretty shy as a kid.

• 20:54Mel Robbins?

  And my childhood best friend just has a big laugh because she's like, "Most people don't realize you were like this awkward, weird little kid. You were shy, you were always kind of off, you were never like with a big group of friends." And I still, as an adult, feel that way, even when I'm welcomed into big groups of people or, you know, I, I, I do much better one-on-one with people.

• 21:20Rich Roll?

  Well, let's, let's drill down on the busyness thing. On some level, I suppose that's analogous to workaholism. And it, and it's rooted in this drive that, that, you know, was created very early in life. And translates into this, you know, busyness also, what comes with that? The drive, the ambition, the competitiveness, all of these things. And I share all of these traits with you that, you know, as we get older, we learn to be proud of and credit with our success, but also become unsustainable energy sources that end up wreaking all kinds of havoc and mask that anxiety or kind of distract us from really looking inward

• 22:05Rich Roll?

  to kind of course correcting what's not serving us.

• 22:10Mel Robbins?

  So I would say my primary addiction that I still struggle with is busyness. An addiction to being busy. And I would classify at least the busyness that I've experienced in three different categories. So there is the busyness that comes from transactional love and transactional acceptance and worth. And I don't think that necessarily is something that happens in adulthood. I think most of us learn it as kids. That when you get good grades, or you excel in sports, or you do what makes your parents

• 22:47Mel Robbins?

  happy, that's when you get the positive attention that we all so desperately need when we're growing up. Validation that our existence is worthy of love and praise. And so when you start to recognize that acting the way that your folks want you to act, or getting good grades, or doing great in sports, or doing what makes everybody happy, that that's what gives you that emotional support, that creates a certain kind of achievement, a busyness, a chasing of something outside of you, because you were trained as a kid that that's how you got positive emotional feedback. So that's one kind of a busyness.

• 23:31Mel Robbins?

  And it's why so many of us. Find ourselves putting all of our worth outside of ourselves because we were trained to believe that if we're doing something worthy of praise, then we get the emotional support that we need. So that's one kind of busyness. And for sure, I absolutely have that. Absolutely. And it has been wonderful in many regards because that kind of drive, that kind of ambition, that can be very, very successful. It can make you very, very successful. The second kind of busyness is another kind of busyness, and that's a busyness that's born out of crisis. And so, you know, a lot of my success came at a moment in time where my husband and

• 24:14Mel Robbins?

  I were about to lose everything. I told the story the first time that I was here on the podcast. And, you know, when you can't pay your bills and you're about to lose your house and everything is on the line, there is a level of busyness that is motivated by sheer need. And so I also had this problem, Rich, where when I started getting booked for speeches, we had liens on our house. So I became very, very busy because I was in the middle of a crisis. And the problem with that kind of busyness is it's very hard to hit the brakes and to go, I'm not in a crisis anymore.

• 24:58Mel Robbins?

  In fact, I think that based on a lot of the, you know, you and I both do a ton of speaking on the corporate circuit. And what I've noticed even coming out of the pandemic is that every single company and person in the world had an over-functioning anxiety response to the pandemic. The second it hit and we were all in quarantine and everything is uncertain, everybody's like, go, go, go, go, go, go, zoom, zoom, zoom, zoom, zoom, zoom, zoom, change, change, pivot, pivot, pivot. And most companies have not gotten out of that mode because it's a busyness that was created in response to a crisis. And so there's this huge moment right now that everybody needs to step on the brakes and go, wait a minute.

• 25:42Mel Robbins?

  I can't keep responding to day-to-day life like it's a crisis. Not everything requires a Zoom meeting. Not everything requires us to work all day long. I gotta go back to getting focused on what matters and being strategic and thoughtful, rather than driven by this anxiousness.

• 26:02Rich Roll?

  Well, there's almost a PTSD to it. I mean, my version of your story, you know, I relate to that deeply. I went through something very similar. And was, once we emerged out of it and everything stabilized, it was very difficult for me to slow down because I was so desperately afraid of ever being in that situation again, that I was just pushing the accelerator as hard as I possibly could to get as far away as I possibly could from ever being that person, with this sense that if I even eased up a bit, that the whole house of cards was gonna topple on top of me. And it took me a long time to kind of exhale and realize like, yes, I'm not in a crisis anymore. Everything is working fine. You can, you know, breathe.

• 26:47Rich Roll?

  And, you know, it's now incumbent upon you to kind of deal with that anxiety or that post-traumatic stress, or however you would qualify it, and transcend it and overcome it. And that was not, that was not an easy thing.

• 27:00Mel Robbins?

  How did you do that?

• 27:01Rich Roll?

  Well, at the same time, because you're getting, you are growing and you're getting that external validation and things are working. And so there's a, there's a, you have like a feverish, you know, kind of relationship with that because the outside world is praising you for it, which makes it more difficult to slow down.

• 27:18Mel Robbins?

  Mm-hmm. I remember when somebody, I told a bunch of people that you and I know that I had decided that I was no longer going to be speaking on the corporate circuit. And somebody looked at me and said, "Why on earth?" Would you stop giving keynotes?

• 27:36Rich Roll?

  Right, and just to pause it for a moment for people that don't know, you're like the number one self-improvement motivational speaker on the circuit. You were commanding insane fees and there was no shortage of companies that wanted to book you. So you could go on the road and just, you know, bank like serious life-changing cash.

• 27:56Mel Robbins?

  Mm-hmm. I did, for years. And, you know, and this, but I wasn't happy. Like, again, it was being driven by this addiction to being busy and the fact that, just like you, like, my success was born out of a crisis. And so I was trying to outrun that crisis and build as much buffer as I could. And I'm grateful for the experience. I'm grateful that I could pay off the loans. I'm grateful to be in a position that I'm in now with savings and to be able to pay for college and to be able to go on nice trips. But I wasn't fucking happy. I'd missed all of our daughter's high school experience

• 28:41Mel Robbins?

  and I felt deeply disconnected from my husband and I just was exhausted. And somebody looked at me and they said, "But you, like, are in a category of one in this. Why would you give it up?" And I'm like, "It just doesn't make me happy." And I think that's part of how you get out of that mode of the second form of busy, which is that PTSD response that we all had to quarantine and to the world turning upside down. Like, I personally believe that unless you are somebody that has been working on your nervous system regulation, I personally feel, and this is not a medical opinion, this is just Mel Robbins' opinion, that when the quarantine hit and the pandemic hit,

• 29:26Mel Robbins?

  the universe flipped the switch on everybody's nervous system. And everybody, because we were going through an unprecedented experience.

• 29:37Mel Robbins?

  Your nervous system went into fight or flight. The alarm turned on. As you don't know whether you can bring groceries inside, masks everywhere. We're not going back to school. Now it's one month, now it's two months, now it's three months, uncertainty. We're not built for this. And I believe almost everybody listening, unless you are actively working on your nervous system regulation, that you have a major opportunity to do some simple things to flip the switch off and switch off your sympathetic nerve, which, whatever, the parasympathetic nervous system, right?

• 30:20Mel Robbins?

  And flip on the parasympath- I always, I always get them mixed up because I think if it's sympathetic, it should be the one that makes you relaxed.

• 30:26Rich Roll?

  I think the sympathetic, I'm probably wrong, but I think the sympathetic nervous system is the fight or flight.

• 30:31Mel Robbins?

  Yeah, which is, which seems screwy to me. But so I feel like, you know, if you think about it, in the walls of your studio, there's all kinds of wiring for electricity. That wiring is your nervous system. And what happened for many of us, whether it's because of the pandemic, or because of childhood trauma you've never addressed, or because of some traumatic incident, or chronic abuse, whatever it may be, the lights have always been on. And you know how some lights are like, if you feel on edge, if you feel like you're waiting for the next shoe to drop, you have an opportunity to just start to see that alarm

• 31:09Mel Robbins?

  going off in the background and to give yourself the reassurance and the love that you need to flip the switch to go back to your calm, cool, resting state. And there are simple things that you can do, all of which you talk about extensively on the show, whether it's cold exposure, whether it's meditation, whether it's exercise, whether it's breathing exercises, but even the stuff related to toning the vagus nerve. But I think one of the greatest access points is truly understanding that that alarm is just that little kid in you who had experiences when you were little that you don't necessarily remember, that made you feel scared, separate, alone, uncertain, and nobody reassured you.

• 32:02Rich Roll?

  The first step, though, is recognizing that it exists within you, because we have a tremendous capacity to normalize whatever our experience is. And so, we could be completely off kilter, or just so acclimated to a level of chronic anxiety, or whatever the case may be, that it becomes difficult to even recognize in ourselves, because we've just lived with it for so long.

• 32:26Mel Robbins?

  Yeah, and you know, when you realize it's not about being nervous, like, the alarm that you feel in your body could be expressed as anger, it could be expressed as frustration, because you can't tolerate that discomfort that's going off in your body. It might be expressed as withdrawing, it might be expressed as, you know, being on edge, like somebody, you know, like me, which was my experience of feeling always like something bad was about to happen. But then there's a third busyness, and this is the one that has really been kind of a real game changer for me, Rich. I call it the campaign of misery. It may surprise you to know that is positive

• 33:11Mel Robbins?

  and is optimistic of a person, you know, that I am. And I do believe I'm a very positive person, I'm a very optimistic person, meaning that I do believe that your attitude and your actions can have... can improve any situation that you're facing. I had, in the background, a constant campaign of misery that was a tape playing in the back of my mind. And if you grew up around anybody that complains, or gripes, or "life is hard", or "gossips", or just is pointing out what's wrong or unhappy,

• 33:54Mel Robbins?

  you don't realize it, but it becomes the language you speak to yourself. It's how you keep yourself company. And when I started to truly...

• 34:03Mel Robbins?

  Go both, you know, attacking my thoughts, but more importantly, when I started to go neck down, and I started to realize this alarm is something I don't want to live with anymore. This alarm going off all the time, not something I'm going to tolerate. And I started to take the steps to find the switch inside me and to silence that alarm going off in my body. What I noticed, Rich, is holy shit. When I'm not paying attention, the place that my mind goes is to what's wrong.

• 34:36Rich Roll?

  Mm-hmm.

• 34:37Mel Robbins?

  And the more that I fix the outside shit, like, you know, I, we pay off our bills, we start saving money, we are moving to Vermont and renovating this house, and I'm working on my marriage and things are really good, and the more that the outside stuff is good, the louder the campaign of misery actually turned inward at me.

• 34:57Rich Roll?

  Well, it's got to latch on to something.

• 34:59Mel Robbins?

  Yes.

• 35:00Rich Roll?

  If that's your default disposition.

• 35:02Mel Robbins?

  I didn't realize how much my mind scanned for what was wrong. And so it's this third form of busyness where you yourself, in your own mind, are like pointing out the things that aren't good enough. Like, I literally would be sitting in this house that Chris and I built, complete dream house, you've been there, and instead of being able to truly look at the view down the valley, my mind would go, yeah, well, but there's no people here. You're not going to have any friends. You thought you were lonely in Boston? Just wait. Like, it's like the alarm is trying to come back.

• 35:44Rich Roll?

  In fairness, it is in the middle of nowhere.

• 35:46Mel Robbins?

  Okay, now, don't make me nervous, Rich. Does that mean you're not going to come visit? See, now I'm panicked, you're going to go. Everything was, when the alarm wasn't going off, it was as if this campaign of misery was trying to flip it back on.

• 36:00Rich Roll?

  Mm-hmm. So what was the breaking point with that? That compelled you to reckon with it?

• 36:08Mel Robbins?

  It was during, well, I think that it's, I'll tell you the breaking point. It was during a guided MDMA session.

• 36:16Rich Roll?

  Yeah, I want to get into this. I wanted to put a pin in that, but if that's relevant to this,

• 36:20Mel Robbins?

  It's relevant.

• 36:20Rich Roll?

  Let's hear about this.

• 36:21Mel Robbins?

  Well, I have been working with a therapist for two years on just healing past trauma, on trying to figure out how to be more content, accepting, and happy with wherever I am, instead of constantly grinding for the next thing. And between that talk therapy, between the therapy that Chris and I are doing once he got diagnosed with long-term depression and EMDR, and like, I think all of it was compounding to this one breaking point.

• 37:00Mel Robbins?

  So, my husband and I have done two guided therapeutic MDMA sessions with this couple. I can't name them because it's not legal in the state that we were in. But they're part of the MAPS protocol and part of a huge integrative therapy community that is doing the post-integration therapy after these sort of psychedelic experiences. Which I think is the most important part of these experiences, is the therapy that you do afterwards to integrate what you experienced physically, mentally, spiritually, emotionally, back into your life. So, we've already done one. It was absolute game changer, fantastic.

• 37:42Mel Robbins?

  So here we are 18 months later. This was in April, and we're doing a second one. And so the way that it works is you set an intention. You then take the MDMA, and it takes about 30 to 45 minutes to kick in. And I had done ecstasy at concerts or just recreationally. This is a completely different experience. Because once you start to feel this sort of warm wave take over, you immediately go to a separate mattress, or mat, or cot, or whatever, and you climb in under blankets, and you've got all these amazing pillows, and then you put on a mask, and then you put on headphones. And there's a six-hour playlist.

• 38:25Rich Roll?

  Hmm.

• 38:25Mel Robbins?

  And it's the most delicious, amazing, incredible, like Buddha bar meets I don't know what kinda stuff. And they say that the, you know, that the MDMA is the medicine, but the music is the guide. And with every song, change. What happened to me the first time I did this is I would have a completely different image in my mind. It was as if because your, your, uh, vision is blocked. And because, you know, you have all of this like amazing music coming in. The MDMA is a game changer because it blocks the amygdala, so you have no fear reaction.

• 39:07Mel Robbins?

  And so what happened for me the first time I did it is it was the most profound experience of my life. For six hours, I witnessed the highlight reel of my past, present, and future. And I didn't just watch it. I actually was there. And so the first song comes on and it's like I am, you know that Space Mountain ride? Uh, where you're in the dark at Disney and then it comes around a corner and you're, it was a feeling like that and then all of a sudden the clouds broke and there I was. I was, uh, at Bear Lake in North Muskegon, Michigan, where I grew up. And I was in the eighth grade. And I was there with my best friend, Jody, the one who says I'm shy.

• 39:47Mel Robbins?

  And we had the, the jam box out there and Journey was playing and I like felt the whole thing. I was there again. And my intention for the first MDMA therapy session was I wanna look back on my life and remember the good stuff. I mean, our brains are a real bitch with this negativity bias and the fact that you remember the bad things that happened. Like, I don't know if it's three X or five X to the good things. I'm like, please show me the beauty in my life. And so that was the first thing. And then the song changed and the second vision was, um, I could see like little baby feet. And I looked up and there was this big, beautiful, blue sky with these big clouds. And there were kites everywhere, Rich.

• 40:33Mel Robbins?

  And then I looked straight ahead and there was my mom. And she was 19 years old. And there was my dad. And he was 23. And I felt this wave come over me.

• 40:50Mel Robbins?

  They were so young.

• 40:55Mel Robbins?

  And, you know, I love my mom and she loves me, but we have a very kind of mismatched sort of the way that we express. And I know that she feels in many ways that she gave up on her life because she dropped out of college to have me. And for the first time, I just felt this huge intense wave of love and I reached for the therapist that was sitting with me and I'm like, I can't handle this, I can't handle this, I can't. And I started sobbing and then I, and she just put her hands on my chest and was just like, you know, tell me what's happening and breathe into it.

• 41:33Mel Robbins?

  And I felt this crazy amount of just sorrow and, and love that I had never felt in, just at a soul level for how scared she must have been.

• 41:51Rich Roll?

  And this was in the first experience that you had?

• 41:53Mel Robbins?

  Yes, yes. And this is relevant because wait to hear about the second one.

• 41:56Rich Roll?

  And that experience was a vivid memory, like you were actually in that place with the kites and all of that.

• 42:02Mel Robbins?

  Oh, yeah, I was the baby. And then for-

• 42:04Rich Roll?

  And you were able to access a memory from being a baby?

• 42:06Mel Robbins?

  Yes, in, stored here because what happens with this music is it, whatever is going on with this music and this, like the MDMA is, it unlocks something in your subconscious that you can't access for whatever reason. At least this is the way I explain it. God knows if that's what's actually happening. But so for six hours, Rich?

• 42:26Rich Roll?

  Mm-hmm.

• 42:27Mel Robbins?

  Like it was past, present, future. I've already been to my daughter's wedding. I have been there. I've seen it. I know exactly-

• 42:34Rich Roll?

  You traveled to the future?

• 42:35Mel Robbins?

  I did.

• 42:36Rich Roll?

  You did?

• 42:37Mel Robbins?

  Oh, I did. And so- The next day, as we were driving home, I called my mom and I'm like, you know, I had this thing where we did this therapy session and, you know, I saw you and dad and there were a lot of kites and she immediately went, "Oh, that's such and such park in Kansas City." I've never seen a photo of this, Rich. She said, "They would always fly kites and do this and airplanes and stuff." Yeah, we used to go there every, you know, Saturday afternoon when your dad was off-call. Wow. And so, that was remarkable and I had this experience of literally like, almost like my nervous system smoothing out. And so, for the second time, I was so excited. "Oh, my God, you know, we're moving to Vermont.

• 43:20Mel Robbins?

  We thought we would do this to like, start the new chapter. This is gonna be amazing. Meanwhile, I've been doing all this therapy and I'm working so hard on trying to get that alarm to turn off. I have not yet learned the connection between being separate as a child and separation anxiety and all anxiety as adult. I have not learned the connection between this alarm and the little you just needing love." And so, we go into the second session and this time, we're gonna do it at our brand-new home, the first day we move in. Chris is again with, you know, it's a husband-and-wife therapy team. He's with the husband, I'm with the wife. We set an intention and I say, "I want to look to the future and I wanna really enjoy this next chapter of my life.

• 44:05Mel Robbins?

  I wanna stop like, just..." And so, they say that the medicine gives you exactly what you need. So, 30 minutes goes, I'm feeling the warm thing, I'm climbing in, got my little blanket up, I put my head... And here's the other cool thing, I've never had any interest in doing ayahuasca because I don't... I'm like, "I don't wanna shit or puke." Like, that is not... That does not make me feel excited about this. I don't wanna feel out of control. I'm scared about scary things. And so, what I loved also about the MDMA is that the second you take your eye mask off to go to the bathroom, you're out of it.

• 44:46Rich Roll?

  Even though the drug is still coursing through your veins.

• 44:48Mel Robbins?

  Out of it. When I have to go to the bathroom, you know, I'm like, I, I, I need some help going to the bathroom. And I literally sit up, take the eye mask off, no, but nothing.

• 44:57Rich Roll?

  So there's something about the sonic wavelengths and the visual experience and the...

• 45:02Mel Robbins?

  Yes. It's incredible. And then the whole time you're going to the bathroom, you're like, I gotta get back. I gotta get back. So the second time, I climb in and I'm expecting this to be this amazing highlight reel. Nothing happens. So I'm laying there, I'm like, what the fuck? Like, is this gonna work? What's going on? Reaching for the, the gal, the therapist, I, I don't think he gave me enough. Is Chris, is Chris tripping? Is, is, is he, oh, he's, he's, he's in a great place, but worry about you. Just drop in. Just let it happen. I, I don't know how to drop in. Mel, you gotta stop gripping. The medicine is working. Just, just trust what it's trying to teach you. So then I spent probably three hours going, what the fuck is wrong with you?

• 45:47Mel Robbins?

  Like, why can't you just enjoy this? Why can't, and I am just...

• 45:52Mel Robbins?

  Is this gonna work? Is it not gonna work? Well, why don't you just lay here and enjoy the music? Why do you have to be so intense about everything? Maybe this isn't supposed to work. Like, does... I reach for her again. I don't think it's working. I, I really think that you should give me more because, Mel, it is working. Because you need to learn how to let go. And I said, but I don't know how. And she said, exactly. And then I got what I needed. Because this is what I said to her. Well, I have to figure this out. Because if I don't, it's gonna be over and I'm gonna have missed the whole fucking thing. And the therapist paused and said, yes, just like your life.

• 46:37Mel Robbins?

  And it made me just stop for a second. And I thought to myself in that moment, I'm like, okay, you're a person who's had fun and you've laughed a lot and you've done some amazing things.

• 46:54Mel Robbins?

  But have you allowed yourself to really enjoy it? Have you ever truly, Mel, like, just allowed yourself?

• 47:04Mel Robbins?

  To receive all the things that are around you, whether it's the beautiful sky that you see as you're out hiking, or it's the people that are around you in this moment. And so, back to the original analogy we were talking about, Rich. Like, is there a closed door that shuts you off? And keeps you trapped with yourself going, "It's not enough, and I gotta do this, and you know, there's no people here in southern Vermont, and why did I do this? And is this gonna be bad?" And that'll, triggered by this alarm. Or can you have a different experience in life? Where you truly are okay with what's happening? And you allow yourself to be content?

• 47:49Mel Robbins?

  And you allow the love to come in? Can you get there? And I'll tell you, like, it just, I then dropped in. And there were no visuals. I just, it was almost like silence. And that's when that campaign of misery really kind of... And what was interesting, though, is that the very next day, you know, we were doing our integration therapy afterwards, and I couldn't get off the couch. I sat on that couch, Rich, for two and a half days? Like, didn't get up. And I felt this almost like energetic shedding

• 48:34Mel Robbins?

  of generations of shit. Of this, you know, I come from a long line of farmers. And my grandparents were from Austria and had a family. But like, super hardworking. Everything was always about work. Everybody always had dirt under their fingers. Everybody, they're bitching about the cows, or the pigs, or the this, or the that, or the... Lots of laughter, but work, work, work. And I felt this just shedding.

• 49:05Mel Robbins?

  Of that, I don't even know what it is, that wiring, that just cloak that was around me? And that's, it hasn't left.

• 49:15Rich Roll?

  Yeah, I was gonna ask, what is the half-life of these experiences? I mean, I think, you know, to your point, like, the integrative, kind of, therapeutic process that follows those experiences is really the key piece. And I say that as somebody who hasn't done this, and I have a lot of baggage and opinions about, you know, those experiences, and I'm somebody who hasn't done it. But I'm always curious, like, you know, I know, I know people that do ayahuasca, like, all the time. They're not enlightened, like, so what are they getting out of it, of the so-called medicine? What is, what is the lasting impact versus the transient, kind of, experience that's

• 49:57Rich Roll?

  cool and perhaps opens a door or a window into, you know, some insight about how to live? But how do you then integrate that into your daily behavior in a way that stays with you?

• 50:10Mel Robbins?

  It's an excellent question. Like, I think it's all about your intention. Is it escapism? Is it a cool experience? Or is it something that you really are doing to truly integrate some type of profound change into your life? And for me, you know, I've spent enough of my life trying to escape it and run away from it. And now that I'm 54 today, I'd like to spend the next half of my life, or however much time I have, really in it, not running from it.

• 50:45Rich Roll?

  And how's that going?

• 50:46Mel Robbins?

  Well, I've only been in it now since April. You know, it's up and down.

• 50:51Rich Roll?

  First of all, happy birthday. I was gonna open this by saying happy birthday. And we're also here on the day after you launched your new podcast, and I know a lot of work went into that. I mean, there's, I mean, come on, there's a lot of hand-wringing in the backstory to this thing. But also, that's gonna flare up, the competitiveness and the measuring yourself against other people and all those external forces that, that rob you of being present in the experience and, and just, you know... That that sense of gratitude or just, you know, being that is antithetical to your disposition. Right? So how does that like in the in the in the wake of this launch?

• 51:35Mel Robbins?

  Yep.

• 51:35Rich Roll?

  How is that showing up for you? How is that MDMA experience buffering against your, you know, default settings?

• 51:44Mel Robbins?

  It's a great question. So I think the single greatest thing that helps me other than the work that I'm doing from the neck down to stay in my body and to stay in the moment and to recognize when the alarm goes off and then to quiet it is to stay deeply connected to the reason why I do what I do. And there's a couple of things that that we've put in place that act like guardrails for when I get way to when I get triggered by, "Why aren't we on new and noteworthy on Apple? We're number 12." Like when we walk in here, we're number 12 on all of Apple podcasts right now.

• 52:27Rich Roll?

  You were number one for a minute.

• 52:28Mel Robbins?

  Yeah.

• 52:29Rich Roll?

  When we launched the trailer, I was like, "Jesus Christ, you're taking up my valuable real estate in the education category, by the way, but, you know, I'm happy for you now."

• 52:38Mel Robbins?

  Sure you are.

• 52:41Mel Robbins?

  There's enough success to go around. That's the one thing that I've I've certainly learned. It's taken me a long time that there's room for everybody. I really believe that. And the reason my mission is super simple. It's very, very much the same as yours. It's to help you create a better life. And selfishly, my mission is that I wanted to get off the road. I wanted to stop feeling so lonely. And I wanted to be able to connect with people and share my life and the things that I'm learning in a much more personal and real

• 53:21Mel Robbins?

  time way that I can't do in an audiobook and I can't do on a stage, you know, giving a speech and I can't do in a 60-second reel. And I, I don't know if you know this about me, but I got my start in local radio.

• 53:34Rich Roll?

  No, I knew that.

• 53:35Mel Robbins?

  Yeah.

• 53:35Rich Roll?

  Yeah.

• 53:35Mel Robbins?

  And so I, I, you know, back when I hosted this local radio show, it was like a lifeline during a really difficult time for me. And so I've been wanting to get back to radio, podcasts.

• 53:48Rich Roll?

  It's just interesting that it took you this long because it's such an obvious, you know, low hanging fruit for you.

• 53:54Mel Robbins?

  Yeah. You know, I guess the reason why it took me this long is because I knew when I finally was going to have a show of my own, that I wanted it to be the thing that I was doing. I didn't want it to be another thing I was doing. I wanted to make a deliberate, intentional decision that I was going to change my entire business and organize the entire business, the rhythm of the week, and what I was focused on, on the podcast show.

• 54:25Rich Roll?

  Mm-hmm.

• 54:26Mel Robbins?

  And so it took me 18 months to complete existing contracts, to finish up the stuff that we, you know, had on deck with Audible, to hire the right people, to figure out what we needed to do. And so that's, that's also why I wanted to go all in. And I think particularly when you look at in-person development, the fact that there's an enormous opportunity for female voices, and they're lacking, you know, I want to see more and more and more.

• 54:59Rich Roll?

  It is incredible. I mean, there's, there's Glennon Doyle and there's Brene Brown, and then it just kind of drops off precipitously from there. Like, it's wide open for powerful, yeah, for powerful female voices.

• 55:11Mel Robbins?

  Mm-hmm, mm-hmm. I agree. And so the way that I protect myself from it is we, I just stay tightly connected to the people whose lives were changing and who are impacted by the content that we put out. And so one of the things that we do that I love is we send out a daily email that's a roundup from all platforms, the inbox of things that real people have actually said about the stuff that we're doing and the impact that it's made. And so, and today on my birthday, my team had tricked me. They said that Tracy was working and could not join us for breakfast. And when I walked back to the hotel room, they had printed out birthday messages from people in our community

• 55:56Rich Roll?

  Oh.

• 55:56Mel Robbins?

  from all over the world. And so, and their photos and, and so, and last night, like at the, at the restaurant we were at, there were four people that came up to us and they all worked at the restaurant. And one of the things about me, and I know this is true about you, is I have zero interest in celebrity. I have zero interest in celebrities. And it's really, you know, just sort of like normal people that are doing the best that they can, just like you and I are. That's the kind of people that I want to connect with. Those are the folks that I really want

• 56:34Mel Robbins?

  to be able to be somebody that can make you feel like somebody believes in you, that you can do it.

• 56:51Rich Roll?

  Right. The danger being for you, of course, that nature abhors a vacuum. And you mentioned, you know, you wanted to go all in, like I'm an all in guy, right? So what does all in look like? Like, how do you not repeat the historic pattern of, you know, filling that vacuum with a lot of noise and busyness?

• 57:10Mel Robbins?

  Yeah.

• 57:11Rich Roll?

  And wrapping it in a bow that says, yes, but I'm launching a podcast and I need to do this for now and blah, blah, blah, and whatever else, only to wake up a year later or two years later miserable once again.

• 57:23Mel Robbins?

  Yeah.

• 57:23Rich Roll?

  With a, with a faint recollection of some MDMA experience that you had two years prior.

• 57:28Mel Robbins?

  Do I hear cynicism from Rich Roll? Is that what I'm hearing?

• 57:32Rich Roll?

  Well, my baggage, you know, my baggage is that I'm a recovery guy, right? And so, and I've said this many times, so I don't want to belabor the point for people who've heard me say it too many times, but, you know, when you tell a recovering drug addict that the solution to his problem, or, or a solution to the problem

• 57:50Mel Robbins?

  Right.

• 57:50Rich Roll?

  lies in a very powerful mind altering drug, like that is, that's, that's, uh, that's intoxicating in and of itself, that idea, right? So I will obsess, oh, this is, I have to do this. This, if I do this, then everything will be fine. And that loop can be very destructive for me. I-

• 58:10Rich Roll?

  I have no judgment on people whose lives who that have been improved. I know lots of people who have had similar experiences and whose lives have been made better by that. It just scares me personally because of my history, even though I know people in recovery who also have explored this and had, you know, a positive outcome from it.

• 58:29Mel Robbins?

  Well, I think you have to pay attention to that.

• 58:31Rich Roll?

  Like putting my cards on the table on that.

• 58:33Mel Robbins?

  Yeah, I think you have to pay attention to that. And I think it's enormously responsible and an act of self-love to say that. And it shows how self-aware you are. And if you were to ever explore something like that as your friend, I would hope that you would explore it with a therapist that specializes in a particular domain. Do you know what I mean?

• 58:58Rich Roll?

  If I was to entertain it, and I'm not, you know, completely, you know, putting it off the table, but it would have to be in a highly regulated environment with people who are super experts.

• 59:09Mel Robbins?

  Yeah, I didn't hop on a plane and go to Peru with travel bloggers and, you know, sit around and look.

• 59:16Rich Roll?

  Well, you could just go to Venice and, you know.

• 59:18Mel Robbins?

  Oh, really? Well, you know.

• 59:19Rich Roll?

  There's plenty of it around.

• 59:21Mel Robbins?

  But I, you know, if that's what somebody wants to do, then that's what they should do. That is not at all what I was interested in. I was not interested in a recreational transformational experience. I was not interested in a Burning Man situation. I was interested in addressing specific things in my marriage, in my past, in my own well-being, with a guided therapist and with my husband and with therapy afterwards.

• 59:46Rich Roll?

  And it's interesting now that, like, why MDMA and not psilocybin? Or now they're using ketamine for similar purposes?

• 59:55Mel Robbins?

  I didn't want to do psilocybin because when I was at Dartmouth, I had a horrendous experience on psilocybin.

• 1:00:02Mel Robbins?

  And I think we basically bought Morel's that had been dusted with LSD or something because I was tripping my ass off in a canyon trying to put my hand in a fire pit. Because I thought there were dancing chipmunks in there. And I was living on like, oh, what the hell's the name of that band? I was living on like an Alvin cover.

• 1:00:23Rich Roll?

  Fish.

• 1:00:23Mel Robbins?

  And it was terrifying. And for a long, long, long, long, long time, I didn't even smoke pot after that because I was so scared of that experience. And I am scared of a experience on psychedelics where you lose control and you're in a dark tunnel. Like, I don't need to take drugs, experience a giant frog chasing me, only to have the outcome be, oh, I can get myself through this.

• 1:00:49Rich Roll?

  Right, but control is at the center of your whole thing, right? And so that experience in and of itself is compelling you to loosen the reins and let go, which is a very uncomfortable place for you.

• 1:00:59Mel Robbins?

  So are you telling me I should do mushrooms?

• 1:01:00Rich Roll?

  No. I'm not telling you anything. I'm telling you that the struggle with your second experience probably had a lot to do with this control issue, right?

• 1:01:11Mel Robbins?

  It had everything to do with not only control, but for whatever reason, feeling like I'm not allowed to be happy. I had an experience as a child of a parent who was never happy. Joyful, loud, fun, but not happy. And I absorbed that and didn't even realize it. And it's almost as if the closer I would get to being happy, the more this sort of programming in my mind that I absorbed as a child would be like, but no, you're not.

• 1:01:50Mel Robbins?

  And so I feel that after lots of therapy and some of these physical experiences facilitated by medicine, facilitated by other modalities, that's the breakthrough that I'm having. Like, at a super deep level, that it's okay for me to be happy when somebody that I love isn't. It's not a betrayal. And that...

• 1:02:20Mel Robbins?

  You know, it makes me sad because I think for a very long time, I didn't even understand that I wasn't happy. And it's because of this silent campaign of misery, which is how I kept myself company because it was there during childhood.

• 1:02:33Rich Roll?

  And what about the fear that that comes up around letting go of that pattern in the sense that it's going to, you know, destroy that engine that's made you successful, right? Like, well, if I actually heal this and I'm happy, then I'm not going to have that motor that drove me and got me to this place.

• 1:02:56Mel Robbins?

  I actually think it's the opposite.

• 1:02:57Rich Roll?

  But did you have to deprogram? Because I'm sure that you would pivot to that, right? That idea?

• 1:03:02Mel Robbins?

  You know, I feel that the engine's there, I'm just giving it different fuel. So I, like, what if we all had a hybrid engine? It could run on electricity or gas.

• 1:03:12Rich Roll?

  So what's the fuel now? Like, how did you make that transition?

• 1:03:16Mel Robbins?

  A lot of therapy and a lot of, like, dealing with this alarm. And allowing myself to have more and more, and like, just kind of flexing this muscle of being in the moment, being content, noticing when the, but there's nobody in Vermont. But why did you move three hours away? You're not going to have any friends. You're already busy enough. How do you think you're going to have a new life? You're three hours away from your kid. What are you doing? Like, catching that. Being like, you know what? It's okay. You're going to be okay. It's like, you're in Vermont. Who cares?

• 1:03:54Rich Roll?

  So here we are. It's your birthday.

• 1:03:56Mel Robbins?

  Yeah. Oh, you know what? You didn't, you asked me, how are you going to make sure you don't have busy?

• 1:04:00Rich Roll?

  Yeah.

• 1:04:01Mel Robbins?

  Come in? You said that really, like, sarcastic and cynical thing.

• 1:04:07Rich Roll?

  Right. Yeah, like, how is the vacuum?

• 1:04:09Mel Robbins?

  First of all, I moved three hours away from an airport, so I put a huge buffer in between myself.

• 1:04:13Rich Roll?

  Right, but we had conversations when you were wrapping your head around how to do this podcast. And one of those, one of the things you were debating was, you know, I need to get a studio in Boston.

• 1:04:24Mel Robbins?

  Yep.

• 1:04:25Rich Roll?

  You're living out in the country. And I was like, don't do that. The Mel Robbins experience will be enriched by the listener knowing that you're sitting at your kitchen table and somebody's knocking over a glass in the background. Like that sense of, you know, reality and authenticity is so important to what you're doing. You don't want to, you know, inoculate everybody from that and then distract yourself from the mission by getting all caught up in the studio and fancy stuff and what's it going to be like and all of that. And then you walked in today and said, I got a studio and flushed it.

• 1:05:00Mel Robbins?

  Yeah. But so here, but so it's not the same.

• 1:05:04Rich Roll?

  I was like, I told you not to do that.

• 1:05:05Mel Robbins?

  You did. I did listen to you and hear me out. So I agree with you. The whole intent for starting this podcast was for me to have a deeper connection in real time with people and to help myself through the podcast and also help other people create better lives and to also learn more. And so a thousand percent yes. You also made me realize that it's not actually a show that you go anywhere to do, that you literally need to figure out how to make your life podcasting. And so you had a enormous transformative impact

• 1:05:49Mel Robbins?

  on me, Rich. And but hold on, but let me tell you about the studio. So what I also have come to realize, much like a hybrid engine that can run on negative energy or positive energy, right? That can run on stress and busyness or can run on strategic, disciplined, like, thinking and priorities, is I've also come to embrace the fact that I'm the kind of person that actually needs two things. I need the deep, quiet and isolation of Vermont to do deeper thinking and to feel connected to Chris and to Oakley and to do deeper work. And to exhale and to commune with nature.

• 1:06:34Mel Robbins?

  And I also need these moments and bursts of the city and of my team and of creative sprints. And that I can't do that if I don't have an office somewhere. But I have to figure out how to not be in that office every week. I have to figure out a business model. So I can create my, so I can live my life and have the podcast be part of it. And I can have a legitimate business that runs like a business, not out of the desk in my house, but at an office that is not my house, which is something I haven't done in eight years.

• 1:07:10Rich Roll?

  Right, and you got like, whatever it is, 200 miles of New England countryside separating you so that you can't escape into that office.

• 1:07:18Mel Robbins?

  Yeah, and the other thing is that I don't want jumping on a plane to give a speech to be the solve for that energy and that, that, that kind of creative thing that I need. I need my projects to do that.

• 1:07:31Rich Roll?

  The challenge, obviously, then, is for someone who's trying to simplify their life and be very focused, to not allow those externalities to fill that void or that vacuum and then create all the insanity that you are trying to get away from.

• 1:07:46Mel Robbins?

  Yeah, how do you do it?

• 1:07:47Rich Roll?

  And repeating that pattern. I mean, it's, that's, you know, I've been on a similar journey with the whole thing. I mean, this studio that we're in now is a relatively new thing. But the good thing about it is that it has allowed me to relinquish a lot of the control and to empower other people, and that's been a huge learning curve for me. And to make it more of a communal effort as opposed to, you know, I'm doing this thing, we're doing it, which has been great. So there is a, there's a, there's a release with that and a letting go that's been instructive and I think empowering for the people that I work with here and also for me as well. That's freed me up to do other things. And I still hold on probably a little bit too tightly, you know?

• 1:08:32Rich Roll?

  As you're finding out, it's more work than people realize to do this thing.

• 1:08:36Mel Robbins?

  It's really hard work to put out good content in this format and to do video.

• 1:08:44Rich Roll?

  Yeah, so, you know, but we've been doing it for a long time and I feel like we're in a really good space right now. And I feel great. And, you know, I haven't done MDMA, but I have all these other therapeutic modalities that I've relied upon and have grown as a result of embracing. And, you know, I, as I'm sure people say to you all the time, Mel, like, what's the, what are you working on? What's the big thing? Where, you know, what's the next thing? Or whatever. I get that question a lot. And I don't, there isn't really, this isn't driving towards something that I don't already have. Like, this is fucking awesome to be able to do this. I want to just be able to wake up every day and be excited about it. I have other creative things that I want to manifest and express in my life, but I'm

• 1:09:29Rich Roll?

  not doing this so that I can do those other things. Like, I just want to be fully plugged into this and to wake up and recognize and be present with what an amazing thing it is. And one of the mantras that I've been practicing is just saying, remember, like, this is the good time. Like, nothing is static. There will come a day where I don't want to do this anymore, or this won't be happening, or, you know, some intervening event could occur that derails me. Who knows what's gonna happen. But right now, like, it's great, you know, and I'm having fun, and I can provide for my family, and I can employ people who seem to enjoy working here. Like, what is better than that? To be excited about what you get to do every day and to share it with people that enjoy it and are nourished by

• 1:10:13Rich Roll?

  it. Like, it's fucking awesome.

• 1:10:17Mel Robbins?

  This is exactly why I'm watching your podcast. But, you know, the other thing that happened for me, because, you know, you and I also share the fact that we've been married for a long time.

• 1:10:28Rich Roll?

  Mm-hmm.

• 1:10:28Mel Robbins?

  And you have four kids, right?

• 1:10:30Rich Roll?

  Mm-hmm.

• 1:10:31Mel Robbins?

  And we've got three. And the other thing that happened for me, Rich, is that my family said very loud and clear that they were tired of our house being my work. And so as we made the move from outside of Boston to Southern Vermont, where our son is going to the public high school and where my husband's family has had a house for 40 years, I really listened. And they were right. Like, I was never not working because I worked at home. And so it was really important for me to try to figure out, and I haven't figured it out yet, we're just got two episodes out as of today. Like, I don't,

• 1:11:13Mel Robbins?

  I work so new at this, this is literally, I put my pinky toe over the starting line of a marathon.

• 1:11:19Rich Roll?

  And you're gonna do two a week?

• 1:11:20Mel Robbins?

  Yep.

• 1:11:21Rich Roll?

  Right?

• 1:11:21Mel Robbins?

  Yep.

• 1:11:21Rich Roll?

  Yeah, that's heavy.

• 1:11:22Mel Robbins?

  Yep. And, uh, will you stop scaring me? Like, all of a sudden, I felt the campaign of misery coming up like, oh, God, should we have done two?

• 1:11:30Rich Roll?

  Take responsibility for your response.

• 1:11:33Mel Robbins?

  Me?

• 1:11:34Rich Roll?

  Yeah.

• 1:11:34Mel Robbins?

  Fuck you. Um...

• 1:11:36Rich Roll?

  I'm not trying to trigger you.

• 1:11:37Mel Robbins?

  I just, you just triggered me.

• 1:11:38Rich Roll?

  I didn't tell you anything you don't already know.

• 1:11:41Mel Robbins?

  Well, you know what? I wanna, I really feel that I wanna be out there two days a week. And I have a lot to say. And I didn't want it to, you're, you're, you're the best, as far as I'm concerned, at interviewing people, period. And I wanted to do a ton of solo stuff, and a ton of stuff with my kids, and husband, and friends. And so, part of it, too, was, I wanted to have an episode every week that was deeply personal, and then an episode that was more me learning from people.

• 1:12:16Rich Roll?

  Yeah, I'm curious about that. I mean, I feel very comfortable having conversations with other people, but if I was just sitting here by myself, trying to do a solo episode, that's about the most terrifying thing I can, I'm not good at that. That is not my, you know, sweet spot at all. It's very uncomfortable for me. It obviously suits you perfectly well. But on top of that, you, you know, you only have two episodes up, but the second episode involves your daughter and a very personal issue. And I'm curious about how, like... How, you know, the relation, like, how you feel about including family members? And I mean, obviously, they're willing to participate in all of this. Like, I just know my kids, like, they wouldn't want anything to do with it. They're doing their own thing.

• 1:12:59Rich Roll?

  Good for you, Dad, but like, we don't want our personal laundry being aired out on the podcast. And like, respect, like.

• 1:13:06Mel Robbins?

  Totally.

• 1:13:07Rich Roll?

  Totally understand.

• 1:13:08Mel Robbins?

  Totally. So, um, boundaries. So, how I handle those boundaries. I don't want to turn my family into a reality show. However, there are things that happen every day in our family that happen in everybody's family. And so, Tate Kendall, who's a senior at USC, she found out the other day, it's like, two weeks ago, that a guy that is her ex, just casual relationship during college, fizzled out, they're not together, but he now likes a friend of hers.

• 1:13:42Rich Roll?

  Mm-hmm.

• 1:13:43Mel Robbins?

  And they're all on the same music program. And this went down in real time, as she is blowing up my phone with texts about this. And I texted her back, and I said, "Would you be willing to talk to me? And could we potentially tape, you know, and can I tape it? And we maybe use it as a podcast episode?" And she writes, "Sure." And here's the boundary I've put in place with my family. You do not have to do this. You can always say no. And say no all the time if you want. And you also can listen back, and will listen back, to whatever we tape, and you get to decide if you're comfortable or not with this.

• 1:14:28Mel Robbins?

  And so, for example, there are a couple things that we've taped with our 17-year-old son that are about things going on at school. For him, the issue that we taped was about him wanting to drop a friend, who's really offensive, but he's part of a larger friend group, and all the drama involved with that. And that is what I would call a melting ice cube moment. That situation that's unfolding in real time, as we're sitting at our kitchen counter, and he's asking me for advice, or we're just talking through it. Is something that everybody can relate to. So we'll capture that, but I wouldn't air that this year. Might not air it next year. I'd wait until he's out of high school so that it doesn't impact people in our community.

• 1:15:10Rich Roll?

  Right, so the episode that just went up with your daughter.

• 1:15:13Mel Robbins?

  Yep.

• 1:15:13Rich Roll?

  You know, it's been up a day.

• 1:15:15Mel Robbins?

  Yep.

• 1:15:15Rich Roll?

  You have to assume that it's gonna leak out and her friends and classmates and whoever else is gonna hear this or be aware that this exists. And that obviously impacts how she's gonna be able to navigate this whole thing.

• 1:15:29Mel Robbins?

  Yep, but here's the thing. Like, it is so past. She's already dating somebody else. Like, she, and, and the thing is, is that the episode is not about, it's not Love Island. Like, we're not trashing anybody. She's calling me to process in real time that wave of emotion that hits you when you find out that your ex likes a friend, or you find out that you didn't get that job, or you find out, and you now are wrestling with which version of you.

• 1:15:58Rich Roll?

  Right, how to respond effectively to that.

• 1:15:59Mel Robbins?

  How do I respond to this? Because the truth is, she doesn't wanna not have them in her life. She also doesn't wanna feel the shit she's feeling.

• 1:16:06Rich Roll?

  Mm-hmm.

• 1:16:07Mel Robbins?

  And so how do you, in those moments, when the emotional tsunami hits? How do you find your power? And so what I am really proud about in that episode is I'm not even giving her the advice. She's actually unpacking it in real time for herself as she's going, "Do I not collaborate with him? Do I do this? Am I upset? Do I even care? I actually want these people in my life. And I'm realizing that they're better musicians than I am, which is making me feel insecure." Because maybe that's why they like each other. And now it makes me, like, so there's so much in there. But what I'm so proud of is, first of all, that she's comfortable sharing it. Secondly, that even if you're the two people, I would imagine that she talks so nicely about both of them.

• 1:16:51Mel Robbins?

  And at the end, she's happy for them. And she has risen above her own insecurity and turmoil to be able to conduct herself in a way that allows her to get what she wants, which is to remain friends with people, collaborate with them, and open the door to new possibilities. And wouldn't you know it, five days later, literally, an amazing human being walks into her life.

• 1:17:13Rich Roll?

  Mm-hmm, mm-hmm. What I got out of it and what I found instructive was this sort of... Instructional audio about how to help somebody navigate through a problem and disabusing people of the idea that, like, oh, here, well, how do I say this? Here comes Mel. She's the one who's gonna tell you, you know, what's wrong and how to fix it. And, you know, the parent is supposed to come in and tell the kid what to do to solve the problem. Instead, you illustrate the more effective path, which is to, of empowering somebody by just asking questions and providing space for them to process it so they can arrive at what is correct for them, right?

• 1:17:58Rich Roll?

  Like, it's not like, I'm not gonna tell you what to do, but let me ask you this, let me ask you this, let me ask you this, and just kind of retreating a little bit into the background and allowing them to, you know, hit that, you know, stick that landing, which is the most empowering thing you can do. And it's difficult as a parent, because you do wanna solve the problem, even if you can clearly see they should do this and not that. It's very difficult not to just say that.

• 1:18:24Mel Robbins?

  Well, that's one of the things that I've been working really hard on, is not trying to solve my kids' problems and not trying to fix anything. Because I've learned the hard way that my kids don't want my advice. They want me to listen. They don't want me to correct what they're doing.

• 1:18:43Rich Roll?

  I got into a fight with my daughter the other day, because I stepped right into that trap.

• 1:18:47Mel Robbins?

  Yeah, well, I use, steal this sentence for me, I can't remember who I got this from, but literally, anytime they're upset, or whatever, or they're blowing up, "Do you want my advice, or would you just want me to listen?" Nine times out of 10, when I say that sentence, they're like, "I just need you to listen." And then, when they're done, blah, blah, then they'll typically go, "What do you think I should do?" And I'll be like, "Do you want my advice, or do you just really want me to validate what you just said?" And it's amazing how much they're mostly seeking connection and validation, not the solve. And I think if you get them talking, you know, ideally, you wanna raise independent human beings that have the ability to think through an issue and come to a decision after

• 1:19:32Mel Robbins?

  considering all different options. And I really appreciate what you just said about the experience of listening to that second episode, because... I agree with you. I don't sit here and say, "I have all the fucking answers." And I don't want this podcast to be preachy or know-it-all. That's not at all like how I relate to myself. I feel like I'm shoulder to shoulder with everybody. And it's way more illustrative and empowering, I think, to hear that conversation unfold than to have me recount a story, "Oh, so let me tell you. My daughter called me and this is what she said. This is what I told her to do, and this is the tool she said." Way more relatable to hear that actual phone call.

• 1:20:14Mel Robbins?

  And an interesting thing is that, so this morning, when that episode went up, our website has been flooded with questions about, like, because there's a form for submitting topics. I'd say almost every other one is, "How do I create a relationship like that with my kid?" How do you, and I don't even feel like the expert on it. Like, I don't, I don't fucking know. Like, I, I would actually bring all three kids on and say, "Parents are writing in, saying, 'How do you create a relationship like that? What's your advice to parents?" Because you're on the receiving end of whatever it is a dad and I did. What did we do right? What did we do wrong? What is it that they're listening to? Because what they're listening to, I think, when you hear the episode with Kendall,

• 1:20:57Mel Robbins?

  is you hear the fact that she trusts me and I respect her, and she's willing to share all kinds of intimate details about what she's thinking, what she's done, who she's intimate with, very freely. That's not something that happened overnight. That comes over time.

• 1:21:17Rich Roll?

  Mm-hmm.

• 1:21:18Mel Robbins?

  And I don't even, like, I, I wouldn't, I don't think I even know how to boil that down. It would have to be them saying what created that.

• 1:21:26Rich Roll?

  Mm-hmm. What does your instinct tell you, though?

• 1:21:29Mel Robbins?

  Um, I think my instinct is probably, you know, one of the gifts of the work that you and I do, and how much therapy we've both engaged in, and self-reflection and self-work, is that you do stumble upon really interesting research that's very informative. And I think more than anything else, Chris and I have this philosophy that our kids are not extensions of us. We do not own them. We do not control them. As our, as parents, our job is to help them figure out who they are and how to make decisions and how to live with the decisions and accept the consequences of them.

• 1:22:10Mel Robbins?

  And so I think we've done a really, really good job of trying to emphasize who you are as a person rather than the outside shit. So like, for example, here's a tactical thing. And I don't, I don't even remember where I, where I got this. But whenever we would go into a parent teacher conference and they go to talk about work, Chris and I literally go, we actually, I don't need to see their schoolwork, don't need to, maybe that's how we missed Oakley's dyslexia for years.

• 1:22:40Rich Roll?

  Keeping that channel open is everything.

• 1:22:42Mel Robbins?

  About who they are at school. Tell me about the kind of person our kid is. And I'm way more interested in developing kids that are kind, that are self-reflective. And I don't know, I think, I think, oh, oh, and then the other big thing is just like all the growth mindset stuff. I think it, I think it actually works when you praise a kid for their effort and for their trying. And you know, as crazy as this sounds, I also think about like parenting, kind of like training a dog.

• 1:23:24Mel Robbins?

  Like you don't train a dog by beating it and correcting it all the time. You actually reward the good behavior. And so if you want to see more kindness, call it out and model it at home.

• 1:23:36Rich Roll?

  And there's a dispassionate kind of disposition that you have to have. When you were talking earlier about, you know, disentangling yourself from generations and generations of a certain way of being that was tied to workaholism and busyness and drive and the like. As much as, you know, as much work as you put into that, like I know for myself, in my weaker moments, like that still ekes out and it ekes out in my parenting. And so to parent from a place of relative neutrality, where you're not projecting that ancestral bullshit onto your kid, I think is super key.

• 1:24:16Rich Roll?

  And when your daughter calls you up, there's a sense of feeling safe and not being judged. Right? Like you're not evaluating her. You're just listening and that's it's it's difficult as a parent.

• 1:24:30Mel Robbins?

  I wasn't always like this.

• 1:24:31Rich Roll?

  Yeah.

• 1:24:31Mel Robbins?

  I don't I definitely was not always like this. I think that it really all started, I think, a huge breakthrough that Chris and I had was was when we really thought, how are we going to address the issue of daughters and sex? And we took a very, um, probably radical approach. I decided that I was gonna address it head on. And so, you know, I don't think that we talk enough about pleasure, especially with young girls. And so what I did is I basically, I basically, uh, kind of hijacked the conversation and sat our girls down when they were age appropriate, which probably 12 or 11, maybe even earlier,

• 1:25:15Mel Robbins?

  I don't remember, right about when they were doing the sex ed at school. And what do you know? What do you want to know? Okay, great. Now let me tell you. Sex is one of the best things about being an adult. It's amazing, especially when you're having sex and making love to somebody you care about and who deeply cares about you. So here's the deal. When you are in a relationship with somebody very special, I want you to come to me and Dad and tell me when you're ready to have sex. Because we will then take you to the gynecologist. You will make sure you are protected. And when you're ready to do it and you have your protection, we'll leave the house.

• 1:25:59Mel Robbins?

  You can have the house, you can be in your bedroom, because it is something that is so amazing that we want you to have your first experience with somebody who is worthy of it. And you're worthy of that. And you're not ready to have sex, something that's incredible, unless you can actually tell us you're ready. And what's incredible is your kids are like, wait, are you telling me to have sex?

• 1:26:24Rich Roll?

  Oh, no!

• 1:26:25Mel Robbins?

  Like, are you actually saying I should have sex? But there's some grenade that goes off in their head.

• 1:26:31Rich Roll?

  What if they came back a month later?

• 1:26:33Mel Robbins?

  Great, okay. What makes you think you're ready? How do they treat you? That's funny, because the person's never been at our house.

• 1:26:42Mel Robbins?

  So, why do you think you're ready? Yeah, if this is what you really want, okay. But there are ways to continue to, but you shower them with the praise for coming to you. See, most of the times, our kids come to us and we're like, "You shouldn't be drinking, you shouldn't be doing this." Versus, "Take a deep breath," even though inside you're like, "Fuck, fuck, fuck, fuck, fuck." Because when, you know, she came to us, both of them, same thing, a couple of years later, it's like, "Okay, I'm ready." They'd been in long-term relationships. And you're like, "Oh, my God, I'm not ready." But you are honoring the fact that they're gonna do what they're gonna do. Do you want them getting relationship advice from their dipshit friends? Or do you want them actually coming to you?

• 1:27:27Rich Roll?

  Yeah.

• 1:27:28Mel Robbins?

  Do you want them to be safe? Or do you want them in the corner of somebody's basement during a party? And not judging what they bring to you is the hardest part. Because you kinda wanna be like-

• 1:27:39Rich Roll?

  Well, the channel doesn't stay open if you're judging.

• 1:27:41Mel Robbins?

  Totally.

• 1:27:42Rich Roll?

  That's the thing.

• 1:27:43Mel Robbins?

  Totally. So, that created this kind of opening. That, you know, I remember when one of our daughters was being intimate with somebody and she's like, "You know, how do you, like, give a blowjob?" And I'm like, "Ask your father." I don't know, like, what feels good. And she did. Chris was mortified, but of course, talk to her about it.

• 1:28:08Rich Roll?

  That just feels like an episode of A Sick Calm or something.

• 1:28:12Mel Robbins?

  Well, you know, but here's the thing. Otherwise, they're talking to their friends, or they're going online, or they're-

• 1:28:17Rich Roll?

  This would be a very popular episode of the Mel Robbins podcast.

• 1:28:21Mel Robbins?

  I'm sure we'll, I absolutely wanna have this conversation with our kids because most parents wanna just turn their heads and be like, "My kid's not drinking, they're not doing this, they're not doing that." And when you make something taboo, first of all, they never tell you what's going on. And secondly, you make it more enticing. When you say you have permission to do these things within guidelines and with respect-

• 1:28:51Mel Robbins?

  They start to respect themselves.

• 1:28:53Rich Roll?

  Yeah, we've had this experience with our, with our 18 year old and, and she is open to a fault. Like, oh my God, she'll come home and, oh man, you should see what's happening and it's terrifying. Right. But I think it's also important to understand and appreciate that just because you're doing that doesn't necessarily immunize yourself from the problem. Like, there will be, you know, it's like, these are fraught years and stuff happens and shit like that. So when that thing happens, to not then get activated and, you know, regress away from that whole approach that got you to the open communication place.

• 1:29:33Mel Robbins?

  One of the other things about regulating that alarm inside you is a lot of times your kids bring you alarming things. And we've all had an experience of working for a boss or having a parent, that when you bring news that's disappointing or upsetting, they freaking vomit on you. And their emotional reaction is actually what you're afraid of. And so Chris is way better at this than I am. Chris is yoga instructor, meditation instructor. He also now is studying to be a death doula dude.

• 1:30:06Rich Roll?

  Oh, wow. Long way from being a restaurateur.

• 1:30:09Mel Robbins?

  No kidding.

• 1:30:10Rich Roll?

  Yeah.

• 1:30:10Mel Robbins?

  And so he is Mr. Chill, non-reactive, able to just hear and be with. And I've learned a lot from him. And I think that non-reaction is incredible because it is a freaking gift when your kids share their lives with you. It's a gift when people that work for you feel comfortable coming to you and talking about the stuff that's not working. It's a gift that somebody feels safe enough and linked and connected enough to you, that they will bring hard things to you. And so that's the thing that I have found to be like, super

• 1:30:52Mel Robbins?

  rewarding about managing my own shit in terms of the reaction.

• 1:30:56Rich Roll?

  And the marriage is good?

• 1:30:58Mel Robbins?

  You know, it depends on the day.

• 1:30:59Rich Roll?

  Yeah.

• 1:31:00Mel Robbins?

  Uh, no, the marriage is really good.

• 1:31:02Rich Roll?

  How many years have you been together?

• 1:31:03Mel Robbins?

  Twenty-six years, Mary. How about you guys?

• 1:31:06Rich Roll?

  Twenty-two?

• 1:31:08Mel Robbins?

  Yeah, the theme that Chris and I have been working on a lot is that, um, we're really good, not surprisingly, at the doing. And we're, and it's not a situation of being roommates. It's something almost deeper, because if it's roommates, it feels like, I don't care about you. But our lives have gotten so much about the puzzle pieces.

• 1:31:31Rich Roll?

  Yeah.

• 1:31:32Mel Robbins?

  Especially as the kids have flown the nest and they're all over the place, that we were both very emotionally sequestered from one another. So, you know, we're doing all this stuff together, but we're not wanting to burden one another with the things that we're wrestling with in our own journals, or with our own therapist, or, and, and the issue that we've been unpacking in therapy is that if I'm the kind of person, and we've talked a lot about this busyness, where I am so going all the time, that I quickly take care of things, and quickly do things, and quickly jump ahead,

• 1:32:12Mel Robbins?

  and Chris is a person that is easily provoked to take a step back. As I'm doing, doing, doing, part of my campaign of misery is going, why is Chris not doing any of this stuff? And as Chris is sitting back, he's feeling unfulfilled, because he's like, when, I can never make her happy. So why, like, I'm just gonna go on a hike, I'm just gonna do my thing. And so, we, over the last couple of years, particularly, you know, as we've been in the process of moving and building this place for two years, we definitely have gone into our emotional corners. Not in a way that's like, I hate you, or, but just this sense of loneliness that we've both felt.

• 1:32:53Mel Robbins?

  And so, we're really good right now, because I feel that through having a therapist that we talk to once a week, it's, what a gift, to be able to kind of have a place to come to, to say.

• 1:33:10Rich Roll?

  Mm-hmm.

• 1:33:11Mel Robbins?

  That, like, one thing happened today, our son has been sick for four days. They were supposed to fly out today for Parents Weekend, for my birthday, for the podcast launch, and we pulled the plug last night. And we were able and now have the tools to talk about what is the right decision, but to also take a moment and check in with each other about how you're feeling. Because I'm sad, you know, I'm sad that they're not here. And I also know I can be two things at once. I can be sad that they're not here and I can also be grateful that Chris is home with Oak and that they're making that decision not to get on a plane. I mean, he's COVID negative, but the kid's really sick.

• 1:33:52Mel Robbins?

  And I can also prioritize finding time to be with him when I get home next week.

• 1:34:00Rich Roll?

  And you can focus on what you came here to do without distraction. And maybe that's a negative, you know, busyness oriented kind of perspective. But I even feel myself thinking like, yeah, but she's here to like launch this thing. And now she can just do it and not be worried about, you know, other people's needs.

• 1:34:20Mel Robbins?

  Yeah.

• 1:34:21Rich Roll?

  It's tough, man, like being together for a long time. I mean, I definitely relate to a lot of that, like Julie's super busy and she's got her startup and she's, you know, putting together this retreat. She's taking people to Egypt and I have things that I'm interested in doing. And, you know, we, we birthed a lot of creative projects together. But over the years, we've kind of, you know, we have our own respective corners now. And there's something great about that, like we each have our domains and we support each other completely. But it is a lot about the puzzle pieces and, you know, all our kids are still at home and they're somewhat independent, like they're kind of, like the boys have girlfriends. I never know when they're there, when they're not there. And Mathis has a boyfriend and she's gone a lot too.

• 1:35:04Rich Roll?

  But there is a, you know, a transit authority kind of role that you're playing a little bit. And it's very easy to.

• 1:35:13Rich Roll?

  Lure yourself into believing that you're communicating because you're talking about those things.

• 1:35:18Mel Robbins?

  Yes.

• 1:35:19Rich Roll?

  Which actually have nothing to do with your relationship.

• 1:35:21Mel Robbins?

  Yes.

• 1:35:22Rich Roll?

  So there is an autopilot. And with that kind of autopilot, you can delude yourself into thinking everything's cool and it's static, but it's not really static. If you're in that place, you're regressing.

• 1:35:32Mel Robbins?

  Yeah.

• 1:35:33Rich Roll?

  And that's something I always have to remind myself of. Because we have, you know, been in places where it's like, oh, our lives are, you know, we're living separate lives right now. Like, we need to sort this out and, you know, get back to the intimacy that, you know, is why we're together in the first place.

• 1:35:50Mel Robbins?

  Well, for Chris and I, it became an even deeper and more urgent opportunity and directive because what I've discovered is that, you know, kind of trying to break apart my own reaction to that alarm and trying to outrun it and always being busy, right? And Chris's reaction to his alarm is to retreat.

• 1:36:12Rich Roll?

  Retreat.

• 1:36:13Mel Robbins?

  We actually, in many ways, our default patterns were keeping one another trapped in those patterns. And so there's been a real opportunity that we're now showing up differently. I mean, 28 years into knowing somebody, which is super cool, so that Chris is more of, my code name is trip leader, because as I was trying to think about, what are the moments where I am most attracted and feel the most connected and safe with the guy? And there's two images. One is anytime we go on any kind of outdoor adventure, Chris is in fucking charge, man.

• 1:36:54Mel Robbins?

  That guy is Mr. Knowles, Mr. Outdoor Wilderness, Mr. Experience Education. And then there's this other image I have of him, where when we first met, we were in New York City, and I was meeting him for a date, and he came rollerblading in a suit down Fifth Avenue, weaving in and out of traffic with a messenger bat on from work. And he just looked like he was a kid at play. And that's the guy I want. And that's the part of him that, that really makes me come alive. But my fucking busyness? It sends that dude into the corner.

• 1:37:32Mel Robbins?

  And so I'm working now, both for my own happiness and my own boundaries with work, and my own ability to enjoy what I'm doing. I'm also working on breaking that pattern because it allows a part of Chris to step forward that he has not been able to do because I've been such a dominant bitch.

• 1:37:52Rich Roll?

  And how's it going? I mean, can you turn it off? Can you be at home and not work and chill?

• 1:37:56Mel Robbins?

  Yes.

• 1:37:57Rich Roll?

  Good for you.

• 1:37:58Mel Robbins?

  It's really good.

• 1:37:58Rich Roll?

  Good.

• 1:37:59Mel Robbins?

  I have really good boundaries with my phone. I mean, I'd like to get to the point where as of 5:30, 6 o'clock, I'm not working. Noon on Friday is not working. I put boundaries in place with speeches. It's a no unless it's middle of the week and something I want to do and a direct flight. Um, only two a month.

• 1:38:16Rich Roll?

  Yeah, that's good.

• 1:38:17Mel Robbins?

  Yeah, I'm trying. I'm taking the tools. The tools only work if you use them, Rich.

• 1:38:23Rich Roll?

  Right. I hate that that's true.

• 1:38:25Mel Robbins?

  I do too.

• 1:38:27Rich Roll?

  I want somebody else to do it for me, Mel.

• 1:38:29Mel Robbins?

  I know you do.

• 1:38:29Rich Roll?

  Just fix it.

• 1:38:30Mel Robbins?

  I would like that too. Although I don't think either, you and I would never be happy doing nothing.

• 1:38:38Rich Roll?

  Right, but isn't that the ailment? Like, that's, that's the place to go to understand why it is that you can't just be. Like, shouldn't we be able to just be happy doing nothing, even if for a moment?

• 1:38:55Mel Robbins?

  Well, I can do it for a moment. An evening, a weekend.

• 1:38:58Rich Roll?

  Well, define moment.

• 1:38:59Mel Robbins?

  Uh, a week on vacation, you know. A, I, I, I, yeah, I think I could for a month. But after that, no, I've got to put my brain onto something.

• 1:39:10Rich Roll?

  Yeah, I mean, I take a month off every year now.

• 1:39:13Mel Robbins?

  I have not, I've never done that, and I know that you do. And I also know that you go off the grid for a while. There's a lot, I'm stalking you, Rich.

• 1:39:21Rich Roll?

  Yeah.

• 1:39:22Mel Robbins?

  I'm assembling a book called Rich Rolls Best Practices.

• 1:39:25Rich Roll?

  Now I look forward to it, and it's been very nurturing. And it's allowed me to, you know, remain enthusiastic about all this stuff. You have to take breaks.

• 1:39:34Mel Robbins?

  Well, I feel like moving to Vermont is very much like that.

• 1:39:36Rich Roll?

  Yeah, but you can occupy your interior space with your busyness and,

• 1:39:41Mel Robbins?

  That's true.

• 1:39:42Rich Roll?

  You know, delude yourself.

• 1:39:44Mel Robbins?

  Are you living with me?

• 1:39:44Rich Roll?

  Because you're geographically, you know, remote from a city that you're, you know, that you're dialing it back when in fact you're not.

• 1:39:51Mel Robbins?

  That's true.

• 1:39:52Rich Roll?

  The tricks we play.

• 1:39:53Mel Robbins?

  Mm-hmm. You know me well.

• 1:39:54Rich Roll?

  Yeah. Well, the last thing I want to talk to you about is this idea of temporal landmarks. You talk about this in the first episode. Explain this to me and then, you know, maybe I'm gonna push back here. I don't know. Let me see.

• 1:40:07Mel Robbins?

  Okay.

• 1:40:07Rich Roll?

  Yeah.

• 1:40:08Mel Robbins?

  Well, so there's this thing that researchers call the fresh start effect, which is this moment typically in time that opens up sort of this inspirational, aspirational behavior and thinking in all of us. And they have studied the fresh start effect. And again, there's a million examples of how this works. But in the studies around the fresh start effect, they talk about specific dates and experiences that create this moment where you break from your past self and you literally feel like you have a fresh start.

• 1:40:51Mel Robbins?

  And so the perfect example of this is January 1st. On January 1st, you turn the page on the last year and you, you know, flip the page and it's a brand new year. And they call dates and experiences like a birthday or January 1st, or the beginning of a school semester, or a sports season, or for some people a Monday, for other people a fiscal year that opens up. They call these temporal landmarks. And a temporal landmark is something that gives you for a moment a break from the past. It opens up a new window of time where you consider the future and you consider the future you.

• 1:41:36Mel Robbins?

  And so, you know, a great temporal landmark, today's my birthday, is the moment when they're gonna bring out the cake. And there are the candles. And as I close my eyes and I blow out the candles, what do you do?

• 1:41:49Rich Roll?

  You make a wish.

• 1:41:50Mel Robbins?

  Right. And have you ever noticed that when you go to make that wish, you no longer hear people singing? Because you are taking a break from the moment to consider. A bigger possibility. And the same thing happens on January 1st and the same thing. And so these temporal landmarks are something that naturally occur in life. They happen when somebody dies. They happen when you get married. It's these sort of new chapter effect, if you will. And for just a moment, I'm not saying that the motivation is sustained. I personally think that the fresh start effect that we all can relate to when you make a birthday wish is more about your willingness to see something beyond where you are, rather than the motivation to make this shit happen.

• 1:42:33Rich Roll?

  Yeah. I think it's about ceremony and ritual, right? Like when you inject a certain date or event with kind of a ceremonial energy, it opens up that portal for you to reflect a little bit more deeply on your life and cast your gaze forward towards that better self. Unfortunately, the human brain is wired in such a way that these things have a very short, back to the

• 1:43:01Mel Robbins?

  Short period of time?

• 1:43:02Rich Roll?

  The half-life of these things, right? Like it's a trope at this point. It's not even worth discussing.

• 1:43:08Mel Robbins?

  Well, I disagree because I think you could actually, through ritual, create these sort of temporal landmarks in your day-to-day life.

• 1:43:17Rich Roll?

  Right. That's what I'm saying. I mean, we can, there are January 1st, your birthday, et cetera, but the choice resides within you at all times to make that different decision. If you want to decide that tomorrow is the day that you're going to create that ritual and ceremony, you have that opportunity.

• 1:43:34Mel Robbins?

  Of course.

• 1:43:35Rich Roll?

  We just don't, you know, it's harder and we don't generally do it.

• 1:43:37Mel Robbins?

  Well, I think this is one of the reasons why morning routines are so important. Because if you get intentional about setting up your morning, almost like it's a series of temporal landmarks that trigger you.

• 1:43:49Rich Roll?

  Right. And that creates a sustained focus on these things that's going to put you in a better place to actually move the ball forward.

• 1:43:56Mel Robbins?

  Correct.

• 1:43:57Rich Roll?

  Yeah.

• 1:43:58Mel Robbins?

  Correct.

• 1:43:59Rich Roll?

  It's fucking hard, though, right?

• 1:44:00Mel Robbins?

  Well, that's why you have to listen to the Ritual Podcast every week.

• 1:44:03Rich Roll?

  No, you just need to do the things.

• 1:44:05Mel Robbins?

  Because Rich's podcast creates temporal landmarks.

• 1:44:07Rich Roll?

  Yeah. But, you know, you can listen to the podcast as a distraction from actually doing, you know, the actual things that are going to move your life forward as well, right?

• 1:44:14Mel Robbins?

  I call that personal development porn.

• 1:44:15Rich Roll?

  Yeah. There's a lot of that, right? I don't know, man. Well, what is, why don't you, why don't you take us out with, you know, some sort of inspiration or maybe a tool for the person who is stuck, who maybe has made that birthday wish, or had that experience of a withering New Year's resolution, you know, not really panning out for them. Like, how do you get people to basically turn right rather than left, to use your parlance from episode two?

• 1:44:47Mel Robbins?

  That was Kendall's. That was Kendall's, right and left. Um, you know, when you sum up advice, it sounds so stupid and so simple. But I do think a lot about alignment. And I think a lot about how so often, because we are resigned, or we convince ourselves that there's no hope, there's no way this is gonna make a difference, the problems are so big, there's no, like, without the actual kernel of hope inside you, which I do believe, even if you're stuck, you still have, that there is this, it's almost like

• 1:45:31Mel Robbins?

  a burner on a furnace, although sometimes those blow out, the ones inside us don't. And there is, inside of you, this desire to be happier. And I believe that the reason why you want to be happier is because you miss being happier. And you can only miss things that you know. And so that tells me that it's within you. And we want to make it more complicated than it is. But I'll give you a simple exercise that you can do that I did with one of our daughters, after she graduated from college, and two years of it had been imploded by COVID. And she basically dealt with the depression and the

• 1:46:15Mel Robbins?

  grief by drinking herself into the ground and, you know, putting on a ton of weight and becoming very sedentary. And then she just had a complete breakdown after she graduated. And so she was sitting with Chris and I, and we were just listening to her as she cried. And she's like, I just don't know what to do. I'm 21 years old. How do you, how do you, how do you get unstuck? How do you do this? I said, okay, well, here's where you, let's start here. First of all, I want you to have this breakthrough where you realize you do know what you need to do. So take out a piece of paper, and I want you to draw a line down the center. And now, I want you to think about, when was a time that you felt happier than you feel right now? And she said, senior year in high school.

• 1:46:59Mel Robbins?

  So that was like four and a half years from the moment we were talking about. And for some people, it might be some moment in childhood. It might be high school. It might be last year. I don't know. And I said, great. Now, on the left-hand side of the paper, I want you to write down all the things that were happening in your life then. Like, what did your day-to-day life look like? Well, like, what time did you get up? What did you do during the day? What did you do near the end of the day? How did you spend your weekends? And she starts right. I left the house at 7:00 a.m. I was at school all day with my friends. I went to lacrosse practice, five days, you know, five days a week. I drank twice a week. I was looking forward to college. I exercised every day. Like, just boom, boom, boom. And I'm like, great. Now, write down what your life looks like now.

• 1:47:44Mel Robbins?

  I sleep till noon. I drink every day. I don't leave the house. I don't exercise. Like, compare.

• 1:47:54Rich Roll?

  Mm-hmm.

• 1:47:56Mel Robbins?

  And change accordingly. And what happens in life, and I'm guilty of this too, is we get so overwhelmed by how big the distance is that we need to travel in order to change our lives, that we miss the solution that's right in front of us, which is, your whole life is about those little things that you do every day. And if you're not happy, get out a piece of paper, draw a line down the center, and write down the things that you were doing when you were a happier or healthier person. And add one in tomorrow. And if you simply just get out for that walk, or buy yourself those flowers, or start texting a friend today to make plans, or you, I don't know,

• 1:48:39Mel Robbins?

  put your name on the list for one of the huts for the national park in the spring, so you have something to look forward to. Your life contains the clues to what actually makes you feel a little happier. And when they're sitting there on a piece of paper, and then you take a piece of duct tape and you tape that sucker to the wall next to your bed so that when you wake up in the morning, you see that there's the road map, "Pick one of those damn things", you'll slowly start to feel better. And if you can feel better today, you can feel better tomorrow.

• 1:49:08Rich Roll?

  And that day that you slip up and revert back to the old version?

• 1:49:14Mel Robbins?

  Beat the shit out of yourself. Yeah, just beat the hell out of yourself. Tell yourself, "See, I suck."

• 1:49:20Rich Roll?

  It's useless.

• 1:49:20Mel Robbins?

  Useless, it never works out for me. Heap on the self-criticism, grab the alcohol, eat your face off, sit in your house, isolate. That's what you should do.

• 1:49:32Rich Roll?

  Okay.

• 1:49:33Mel Robbins?

  No, what you need to do is recognize that you're human. And to be human means that you are going to have days where you don't do what you said you're gonna do. Rich, I have not exercised, like, for real in a month. Not at all. Of course, I feel like, I know I look relatively, you know, skinny, but I feel so bloated and disgusting on the inside. I know what I need to do. I need to get back into my rhythm. There are things that work for everybody. And here's the major mistake we make, you talk about it all the time. We let our feelings dictate what we do. And we have to do the opposite if you want to change. You have to lead with the actions that align with the way you want to feel

• 1:50:18Mel Robbins?

  after you've done the actions. You have to take action first. Because if you allow your feelings of, "I'm tired, I don't feel like it, it's hopeless, why bother", that feeling will dictate you doing nothing. And that's gonna keep you on the right side of that page. If you just look at that list that you created of all the things that you know you should be doing that would just uptick your happiness slightly or make you slightly healthier, slightly this, or slightly that, then... Act like the person on the left-hand side of the page. And then every time you take that action, your feelings will fall in line and you'll start to feel more like that person.

• 1:51:01Mel Robbins?

  You know, I don't, I know I feel bloated. I know I'm not exercising. I don't fucking care right now because I've got something else that I'm focused on in terms of this podcast and the move to Vermont and, you know, landing the plane, so to speak. And I also know that the second I get home on Wednesday of next week, I'll get back into that rhythm. So why on earth would I beat myself up right now? Don't, because that is the reason why you're not motivated. The research is conclusive that when you are critical of yourself, it destroys all motivation to act. And so if you have a bad day, congratulations. You're breathing. You're a human being.

• 1:51:44Mel Robbins?

  Please do not beat yourself up. Shake it off, look at your list, and pick something you're gonna do tomorrow.

• 1:51:52Rich Roll?

  And take the next right action.

• 1:51:55Mel Robbins?

  Correct.

• 1:51:56Rich Roll?

  Powerful Mel Robbins, coming in hot with the Mood Follows Action Wisdom on her birthday nonetheless.

• 1:52:03Mel Robbins?

  Say it's my birthday! Ne, ne, ne, ne.

• 1:52:05Rich Roll?

  I love you, Mel.

• 1:52:06Mel Robbins?

  I love you.

• 1:52:07Rich Roll?

  Thank you for coming by today and sharing your birthday with us.

• 1:52:11Mel Robbins?

  You know, I can't think of a better way to spend my birthday than to get to spend two hours with you, Rich Roll. And it was my honor to drive here. In fact, I would fly across the country and drive those 45 minutes to an hour because it is a privilege to be able to sit in this seat and be able to spend time with you and to have the generosity that you are giving to me and to everybody else by sharing this conversation with people that really love and respect you. So, thank you.

• 1:52:46Rich Roll?

  And I will respond to that by simply saying, "Thank you." And I'm so excited for this podcast. It's going to be massive. It already is huge. It's already a success right out of the gate. So I will throw it right back on to you to say that you are an amazing servant to humankind. And my hope for you is that you can truly enjoy the process and not get caught up in the externalities, because this is the good time, Mel.

• 1:53:15Mel Robbins?

  This is the good time.

• 1:53:16Rich Roll?

  Yeah.

• 1:53:17Mel Robbins?

  Right now.

• 1:53:17Rich Roll?

  So come back.

• 1:53:18Mel Robbins?

  I will.

• 1:53:19Rich Roll?

  On the other side.

• 1:53:19Mel Robbins?

  And come to mine.

• 1:53:20Rich Roll?

  And let me know how it goes.

• 1:53:21Mel Robbins?

  Come to mine.

• 1:53:22Rich Roll?

  All right, cool. Thanks, Mel. Love you.

• 1:53:24Mel Robbins?

  I love you.

• 1:53:25Rich Roll?

  Cheers. Peace.

• 1:53:32Rich Roll?

  That's it for today. Thank you for listening. I truly hope you enjoyed the conversation. To learn more about today's guests, including links and resources related to everything discussed today, visit the episode page at richroll.com, where you can find the entire podcast archive, as well as podcast merch, my books, Finding Ultra, Voicing Change, and The Plant Power Way, as well as the Plant Power Meal Planner at meals.richroll.com. If you'd like to support the podcast, the easiest and most impactful thing you can do is to subscribe to the show on Apple Podcasts, on Spotify, and on YouTube, and leave a review and/or comment. Supporting

• 1:54:16Rich Roll?

  the sponsors who support the show is also important and appreciated. And sharing the show or your favorite episode with friends or on social media is, of course, awesome and very helpful. And finally, for podcast updates, special offers on books, the Meal Planner, and other subjects, please subscribe to our newsletter, which you can find on the footer of any page at richroll.com. Today's show was produced and engineered by Jason Camiolo, with additional audio engineering by Kale Curtis. The video edition of the podcast was created by Blake Curtis, with assistance by our creative director, Dan Drake. Portraits by Davy Greenberg. Graphic and social media assets courtesy of Daniel Solis, Dan Drake, and A.J. Akpodioti.

• 1:55:03Rich Roll?

  Thank you Georgia Whaley for copywriting and website management. And of course, our theme music was created by Tyler Pyatt, Trapper Pyatt, and Harry Mathis. Appreciate the love, love the support. See you back here soon. Peace. Plants.

• 1:55:20Mel Robbins?

  Namaste.