Pod Insights Good Life Project Why MEL ROBBINS Says Letting Go is Key to Success About this episode Take Our Podcast Listener Survey http://goodlifeproject.com/survey!
Unlock your power to thrive amidst chaos with Mel Robbins, voice behind the global phenomenon "The Let Them Theory: A Life-Changing Tool That Millions of People Can't Stop Talking About." https://amzn.to/4igsl18
In this profound conversation, Mel shares the counterintuitive wisdom of radical acceptance to help you reclaim your energy, cultivate inner peace, and create real positive change - no matter how turbulent your world becomes.
You can find Mel at: The Let Them Theory https://www.melrobbins.com/letthemtheory | Instagram https://www.instagram.com/melrobbins | Episode Transcript https://www.goodlifeproject.com/podcast/why-mel-robbins-says-letting-go-is-key-to-success
If you LOVED this episode, you’ll also love the earlier conversations we had with Mel https://episodes.fm/647826736/episode/Z2lkOi8vYXJ0MTktZXBpc29kZS1sb2NhdG9yL1YwL3dFU1phS1JKelBDanZEb3k4cHFyelYzWGdHaGJHbmIwOFhFZzFHMkZVVlU about taking care of yourself and your health.
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Transcript 11,991 words · 8 speakers
Speaker names marked ? are inferred from speaking time and the show’s known hosts — they are not voice-verified.
0:00 Speaker 00 Spend your time and energy on the things that actually matter to you and not waste it on the stupid shit that currently drains it.
0:09 Jonathan Fields? Mel Robbins is a true phenomenon. Going from hitting rock bottom, being nearly a million dollars in debt and suffering debilitating anxiety, to becoming a leading voice on change and motivation. Millions of people, along with the world's leading brands, come to her for advice. Her videos and top-ranked podcasts have billions of views and she sold millions of books, including her number one New York Times bestseller, The Let Them Theory, which invites people to let go of the need to control others and reclaim the power and agency that you have in your own life.
0:41 Speaker 00 This is the single biggest moment of my career. I'm very clear that it's a moment.
0:47 Jonathan Fields? Take me a little bit deeper into this.
0:50 Speaker 00 People have a lot of stress right now and they're looking for places to aim it.
0:57 Jonathan Fields? What's your take on what that's actually about?
0:59 Speaker 00 You can't take control of your life until you stop trying to control or gaslight yourself into thinking you can control anything out there.
1:09 Jonathan Fields? Where is the line between letting people do what they want to do and allowing harm to happen?
1:19 Speaker 00 Great question. So let's start with...
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1:59 Jonathan Fields? Good Life Project is sponsored by Stio. So I am not in the studio today. I'm actually out on the trail and the Rockies at about 6,000 feet above sea level and boulder. The leaves are exploding with color and it's just stunning out. And yes, I'm wearing my favorite Stio hat. And just last night I was wearing one of my favorite Stio jackets, which if you know me is not unusual. I wear the hat almost every day and my Stio jackets pretty much live on me all fall and winter. There's even a Stio shop back in town practically in my backyard. Here is why I love them. Stio is designed and tested in Jackson Hole at the base of the Tetons by locals who ski and bike and hike and climb and fish there pretty much every day. They have been at it since 2011, so they know warmth and they also know style.
2:44 Jonathan Fields? Everything I have from them, it works great. It holds up in every condition and also looks awesome. And their hometown down is 800 Phil Down, but it feels more like just your favorite hoodie than a puffy. And ski season is almost here, so gear up now the way that the locals do. Go to stio.com/goodlife for 20% off your order. That's S-T-I-O dot com slash good life. Stio.com/goodlife. Stio, designed and tested in Jackson Hole. Good Life Project is supported by Ernesta rugs. So a small confession, our front porch has been the most neglected corner of our homes since we moved in. It's the first thing anyone steps onto and it's been kind of greeting people with a sad too small mat. Ernesta sent me their samples and now they're making us a rug.
3:29 Jonathan Fields? And the cool thing is for $10, you get five oversized 12 by 12 samples. So you see the colors at real scale in your own space before you even get it. So we lived with all five colors for a few days and cool morning light and golden afternoon light. And we're sure to be ross on the sky, but Caldwell just kind of kept quietly winning. The thing you're certain about isn't always the thing that fits. And because Ernesta rugs are custom size, cut to the ins, the one we ordered is made to our exact six and a half feet by nine feet space, not close enough. Visit ernesta.com and order five samples for only $10 and you'll get $50 toward any rug of your choice. That's E-R-N-E-S-T-A dot com.
4:12 Speaker 00 I can answer what the disruption and what it's been like in so many different aspects. Because this is the single biggest moment of my career. I'm very clear that it's a moment. And I keep saying to the folks that work with me, my team members, everybody, this is not normal. This happens once a decade in terms of an idea catching fire and being the right idea at the right moment in time, exactly when a large number of people are ready to hear the idea and want the idea and then share the idea.
4:54 Speaker 00 And so even though you and I know how to launch a successful book, we know how to market something, it is absolutely impossible to have engineered what has actually happened. And so, one of the ways that this has been very disruptive is to recognize that I am in a deeply spiritual experience, where I feel that this book is not a book. It is part of something so much bigger than me, so much bigger than a book, so much bigger
5:34 Speaker 00 than any individual person, that I feel like I am in the slipstream of spreading a message that has been true since the history of time, and reminding humanity of what each one of us knows to be true. That even in the darkest moments in your life, there are still places where you can find light. Even when it seems that all hope is lost, or you have nothing, everything is out of your control. There are things that you can control. And this is not a new message.
6:15 Speaker 00 I mean, if you're a fan of Stoicism, or the Serenity Prayer, or Buddhism, or Radical Acceptance, or Detachment Theory, or, you know, Viktor Frankl's Man's Search for Meaning, or you read any of the writing of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.
6:29 Speaker 00 These are all teachings, philosophies, spiritual truths about the fundamental aspect of being a human being, which is anytime you try to control something that is outside of you, it creates stress inside of you. And true power lies in focusing on your response to what's happening outside of you. I just happened to come along with a modern version of this, inspired by my daughter yelling at me at, you know, my son's high school prom as I was micromanaging something. And these two words, let them, and the two words let me, have come into existence, packaged the way that I packaged it, at a moment in time where I think, people aren't just going through a transition.
7:14 Speaker 00 I think the average person would say to you, I am stressed out. I feel like things that I used to rely on are spiraling out of control. I'm full of concern about where the world is headed. There's somebody in my family that I'm worried about. I'm worried about finances. I'm worried about AI, that there just seems to be so much out there that the message that actually you do have some control, you do have power. And being reminded of the simple little things that you can do to stop giving power to things you can't control and take your power back and focus on your attitude and the things that you do or don't do in response to the world around you.
7:57 Speaker 00 I think this is exactly when we all are desperate for something we can hold on to, or to remind us that yes, we are more powerful than what it feels like right now. And so on a spiritual level, Jonathan, I feel like I am having a spiritual experience. I feel like I am surrounded by ancestors. I am surrounded by history. I'm accompanied by spiritual.
8:22 Speaker 00 Teachers and philosophy, that this is so much bigger than me. I just, for whatever reason, in the person that was tapped to put this thing into the slipstream of consciousness right now. And so on one level, I've been thinking a lot about how to actually be present for this moment. Because I am very well aware that this is a moment. In fact, I've gotten to the point where I'm like, kind of nervous to get on a plane. Because the only way this gets bigger is if I go down on a plane and then people are talking about it like, you know, after my death. And I'm kind of not kidding about that. And I guess the reason why I say that is because it has been like a rocket.
9:06 Speaker 00 To launch a book on Christmas Eve and to have it become the single most successful self-help book, leadership, success, relationship book ever launched. It is on track to be the most successful nonfiction book ever launched. To have that happened at a moment in time where people aren't reading as much, they're not as interested in this stuff, to have people actually picking up a book and reading or listening to it, sharing it with family members, and turning toward a message that can help them feel a little bit better about themselves or feel a little bit more empowered. That's freaking unbelievably cool. And that's not just me. That's something bigger than me. So I keep thinking of this image, Jonathan, that I'm sitting on an airplane.
9:50 Speaker 00 It's going 500 miles an hour. And the velocity of this thing is something I don't understand, but I'm experiencing it. But my job is to sit in the seat on the plane, keep my feet on the ground as I'm sitting in the seat, have my cup of coffee, talk to my friend Jonathan, and occasionally look out the window and take in the view. Because I know that there will be an arc to this. I know that the let them theory is the legacy I'm going to leave on this earth. And...
10:22 Speaker 00 Kind of knowing you're in that moment, it's a very weird experience. And so that's one thing that has been very disruptive. I think the second thing that has been wild is that in addition to the book launching, the podcast, which I've been doing for two years, has just like 5Xed in growth. And we hit number one on Apple and on Spotify, unseated Joe Rogan. I stayed there for an entire month. And what I found to be fascinating is that I've been in the top 20 podcasts in the world since we started, basically. Nobody cared.
11:01 Speaker 00 Nobody would write an article. Nobody, if you Google the Mel Robbins podcast, the first article that you'll find about the podcast was by Time Magazine in October, four months ago. But other than that, the only other article written about my podcast was by a blogger that worked for a radio station on Cape Cod. And it turns out, the only reason why I know this is because we Googled it once, we found this article, and it turns out I hired that guy without even realizing, and he's now on my team. And so when you hit number one in a world that is full of uncertainty and stress and conspiracy theory and negativity, and there's something about people needing to be against
11:46 Speaker 00 something. It was shocking how almost overnight, the negativity, the takedown, the amount of just garbage flying around social media that, you know, my husband, that I just caught Chris cheating on me and his lipstick on his collar, and they had taken photographs from an appearance I had done on Jay Shetty's podcast and then put AI over it. Like, just the amount of complete garbage, the lies being spread, the rumors, because now all of a sudden, when you are in that much positive light, there is this counteracting force.
12:33 Speaker 00 That has negative come and rise to the surface. And so it's been a very interesting experience to really have to use the let them theory. And to not just use it in the context of my day to day life, but to use it in the context of lies that get spread about you, rumors, negativity, like all that kind of stuff at a scale that I've never experienced. And so that's been something that's been very disruptive, not just to me, but to my team. Because, you know, it's not just, I'm not the only one that kind of is doing the podcast and right, we have a team of people. And so when people start, I don't like that woman and she's a this and, you know, I heard this about like all this, you're just like, whoa.
13:17 Speaker 00 People have a lot of stress right now and they're looking for places to aim it. And so it's, it's been amazing to see both the positive, but what comes with that level of responsibility and that size of a megaphone, if you will, is when you spread that much light, there is a counteracting force that tries to take it out. And so it's been very interesting to notice that's been not disruptive, but just I've been using let them and let me and not giving time and energy to it and still protecting myself from it. And I'm not saying that like I'm whining, I'm just kind of explaining that I think for anybody that tries to make a change in their life or is trying to do something
14:00 Speaker 00 good, even if you're simply wanting to move, or you simply want to change your career, or you want to leave a relationship, you started by talking about transition, that is a positive force in your life to want to change something about your life. And what you will notice is that there will be a corresponding negative response to it by the people around you. And there is just this truth about the balance of that in life because your positive change makes people question where they're at, it makes them question what they thought was going to happen. It's easier to question you than to just sit with the uncertainty
14:42 Speaker 00 of what your changes are going to mean for them. And so it's been interesting to experience that on scale. But I think that the main thing for me is that I've just had this real clarity because I've spent my entire life, like a lot of people, Jonathan, and we've talked a lot about this, and you have been a north star for me in this regard. I've not been effective recently at following your example, but I have certainly suffered from the disease of more. I need to do more. You know, like, I need to do this. I need to do that. Okay, now that this is working, we've got to add more on. We've got to do
15:22 Speaker 00 more. We've got to get bigger. We've got to grow more. And I have gotten to the point where I feel so satisfied by exactly what I'm doing right now, the podcast and the let them theory. And I don't want to do more. And it's a very different thing to look at your life. And when you think about the transition that you may be wanting to go through, understanding when you're building something because you want to create something new versus adding more because you feel you need to, and that's
16:04 Speaker 00 what's driving the transition, this like need to do more, that need to be bigger, that need to do this. For me, it's been a very profound experience to realize that I've just done the best work of my entire life. I feel like an athlete that's retiring. I want to enjoy the impact that the let them theory is having in people's lives and really just focus on doing it well. Because I've been the kind of person that just jumps to the next thing and jumps to the next thing and jumps to the next thing. Like, what would it look like if my transition wasn't doing more? It wasn't reinvention in the way that I think about it? What if my transition is actually reinventing myself to become masterful at just doing?
16:50 Speaker 00 The podcast and really seeing the Let Them Theory book and what this becomes through for the next decade, like what if I do that and I allow myself and give myself the permission to really master something I've never been good at, which is creating systems and a rhythm and a predictable life and not just chase the next thing. And so those are kind of three ways that at least, you know, from a spiritual level, being very present that this is not, this is a very spiritual experience for me and feeling very humbled to be a part of something bigger.
17:33 Speaker 00 And the second thing being this kind of awakening that no matter what you do in your life, whether it's a small personal change or more positivity in your life, there will always be some sort of negative thing that rises in response because of the balance of stuff. And I'm just experiencing it at a scale that I've never experienced it before. And very happy to report that the Latin theory is helping me to just let people say what they're going to say, believe what they're going to believe, do what they're going to do, and let me just focus on what I know to be true and who I am. And the third thing being just this epiphany that reinvention and transition for me is
18:16 Speaker 00 choosing not to jump on all the opportunity. Because when you're all of a sudden everywhere, guess what? Everybody wants to jump in. Everybody wants you to do a supplement and do this thing or do the other thing. And I'm very clear that I actually want to do something that you've been very good at, which is stay true to your values and resist the urge to do more because that's what you think you should do. Do the things that align with what you actually value. And for me, that's my family and actually seeing my friends and spending time in, you know, beautiful part of the world that I live in here in Vermont and enjoying the mountains, just like you enjoy the mountains.
19:01 Speaker 00 And really keeping in mind that, you know, the podcast and the Latin theory is not my identity. This is a job and it's an important job. But the success of it isn't a reflection on my worth as a person because it's the work that I do. My worth as a person is based on how I show up every day and who I am in my life and with my relationships. And so I think those are the kind of the three big things that I'm thinking about. And of course, I'm just like, absolutely, I'm pinching myself. I wrote this book with our oldest daughter. The fact that people are loving it, the fact that it's helping so many people, the fact that it's making relationships better.
19:45 Speaker 00 I just think that's so cool.
19:48 Jonathan Fields? And we'll be right back after a word from our sponsors.
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21:36 Jonathan Fields? And I actually just got the yummiest button down from Quince, which is great as the weather gets cooler. So give the gift of quality this holiday season. Download the Quince app for app exclusive offers or go to quince.com. Get free shipping on your order and 365 day returns. Now available in Canada and the UK too. And when Quince asks where you heard about us, let them know it was Good Life Project. It's the best way to support the show. Good Life Project is supported by Kachava. So I used to think being salty was reserved for bad moods and pretzels, but lately I have come to realize that a little salty edge actually makes life and especially dessert way more interesting. Any pastry chef will tell you that a pinch of salt isn't there to ruin the party.
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23:02 Jonathan Fields? There are so many things I'd love to kind of deepen into there, but the last point, I don't want to brush by because, you know, as we've talked about, I've been in this, what I call my two by 20. I will turn 60 this year, so I'm a couple of years ahead of you. And when I turned 58, I said, you know, I'm two years away from like an interesting age. And why don't I spend two years really just reflecting and running a series of experiments and thinking like, how do I want to step into the next season of contribution in life? What do I want to bring with me? What do I want to leave behind? What do I want to bring with me, but differently? So the way you described it, I think is really fascinating. Like when you think about the major transitions or where you're at right now is, you know, in the past, it was always like more and more different.
23:46 Jonathan Fields? And now you're in this moment where it's like, what if it's this, but deeper? I think that's such a, it's such an interesting option that we don't often visit. Okay, so what am I closing the door on? What's the next thing? Rather than what if I actually strip away some of the things that I'm doing now? Just leave the essence of the work that somehow I'm connected to? And just really pour myself into that? Like, does that count? As like me evolving into the next best version of myself, whatever the hell we want to phrase it? We so often don't look, I think we're conditioned for the more and the different, rather than what about the less and the deeper? And it sounds like that's a lot of what you're exploring now.
24:31 Speaker 00 Yeah, it's a great insight. And the thing that came to mind immediately is that's also what's happened in my marriage. Like I, I heard somebody say, I don't remember who said this, so I don't know who to give credit to, but somebody else said this thing that kind of casually said, you know, second marriages are amazing, especially when they're with the first person you married. And I think that there is this obsession where when we get tired or bored or frustrated or a little stuck in the patterns of where we're at or used to something.
25:07 Speaker 00 We think that the answer is something new. And I, for one, have absolutely always just gone to the next thing, always just gone to the next thing. Like the shiny penny, it's like exhilarating, it's fun, it's, and there's lots of science around this. I mean, breaking your routine and doing new things. Yeah, we love the novelty of it. We love the novelty, we love the like wash of chemicals in the body like, and it feels like you're doing something new because you are. But what you just said is doing less, but doing it in a deeper way. Stripping away the bells and whistles and really focusing on, well, what really matters to me?
25:52 Speaker 00 And what do I want my life to feel like right now? And for me, I think that's been a theme without me realizing it for the past kind of almost four years. And you know, you've been on a very similar trajectory because you guys left and went to Colorado and completely changed the way your day to day life looks. We did the same thing, leaving a area outside of Boston and going up to a rural area in Vermont. And just that change of having a almost less, like I remember when we first moved, the change was so startling because I started to realize, my God, talk about more and more.
26:33 Speaker 00 I spent, I would literally popcorn through my days, running to, you know, a Walmart or running to this place or that place just because I could. And then you get to a place like where you live now in the mountains and there's nowhere to go to. And so you start to realize, wait a minute. As I strip away less, I'm stuck with myself. And I think that's also why I haven't. Done the deeper focus because it's easier for me to jump to the next thing and kind of stay on the surface and get masterful there and then jump to the next thing.
27:09 Jonathan Fields? I think it's easier for both of us and it also it distracts us from going deeper into the core, which often means that we need to address things we're really uncomfortable with. And so we just keep doing the next thing because it stops us from having to do that work.
27:23 Speaker 00 Yeah, totally. So no, that's kind of it for me. Like I it's been it's been an exhilarating ride. It's taken me 15 years of just army crawling my way through the muck to get to a point where something this extraordinary could happen in this concentrated moment and that I personally, as a human being, have done enough work on myself that I can stay steady and present as I am navigating something of this global scale because I've never navigated anything like this before.
28:02 Jonathan Fields? So one of the things you shared earlier in our conversation is this notion that, you know, well, you gave a specific type of languaging, you know, to this idea in your book. The idea itself is of, you know, the Latin theory. It's not new. It's been around for thousands of years. Buddhism and non attachment, Stoicism and releasing control, existentialism and freedom, Sufism and surrender.
28:23 Speaker 00 See now you're even mentioning things and I'm like, yeah, you're right. I guess we should like, you're right. Like the more it's out there, the more people see the connections. So you're absolutely, you're even broadening it right now.
28:33 Jonathan Fields? Yeah. So like, here's my curiosity. So like, these are concepts we've known for a time immemorial, right? There's and there's a reason that that this basic idea of like, you know, control what you can control and let go of the things that you can control because the opposite of that is suffering defined. This is not new knowledge for any of us and yet. Thousands of years of being, having it repeated to us and, you know, like probably hundreds of traditions and different voices and people, we still walk through the day deeply driven to control everything and everyone that we can possibly control. What's your take on what that's actually about?
29:13 Speaker 00 Well, based on the extremely smart people that I interviewed as I was writing this and researching it and looking at my experience using it and people's experience that follow me who had been using it, it just comes down to hardwiring. You know, we have a fundamental need to be in control of our decisions, of what we're going to eat, of what we think our future is, of what's happening at work. And the reason we have this need is because it makes us feel safe. If we kind of feel like we can scout around and we don't spot danger, then we can take a deep breath and we can rest. The problem, as I see it,
29:56 Speaker 00 is twofold. Number one, the problem that the let them theory primarily addresses is the fact that there is one thing on the planet you're never going to be able to control, and that's other human beings. You can't control what they think, say, do, feel, you're just never going to. But the problem is that their behavior pisses you off, it worries you, it frustrates you, it stresses you out, you want them to change. And so, another person's behavior actually triggers your feeling of being out of control. And the mistake that I've always made is I just instinctually then step across the line and think the way that I'm going to feel safe again is by trying to control what that other person is doing,
30:40 Speaker 00 feeling, or saying. And then the problem is that I'm now bumping up against that other person's need to be in control of themselves. And so I didn't, I like, I think we all kind of know this, but we get into this very frustrating battle for autonomy, control and agency. And we've been in it since we were little kids with our parents. Now, this is primarily a book about adult relationships. But the way that we learned that you love people by controlling them is because we were parented when we were little kids. And parents do need to be in control of what a child is doing and eating and their personal safety and lots of other things.
31:23 Speaker 00 But there comes a time where a child becomes a young adult and now they want their autonomy. And none of us have ever learned truly how to go through life, or at least I haven't, how to go through life and focus on what I can control and not allow the things that I can't control to stress me out or make me angry or waste my time. Like, I knew this instinctually, but I never knew how to apply it. And I think the second thing that's going on and why this message is exploding right now is because of a couple of factors.
32:03 Speaker 00 Number one, I know that you interview a lot of the same, especially medical experts and incredible thought leaders that I talk to on my podcast, but it is apparent from the medical experts that coming out of the pandemic, over 83% of people are in a chronic state of fight or flight. Chronic.
32:30 Speaker 00 And I think everybody underestimates the fact that if 80% of people are in fight or flight all the time. That has an impact on how people vote. It has an impact on how they show up at work. It has an impact on how they talk to you when they come home from work. It has an impact on how they deal with customer service reps. And we've all noticed this uptick in hostility and a lack of kindness and not being civil to one another and the inability to have mature conversations. And I personally believe that one of the reasons why this is true is because 80% of people are just locked in the state of fight or flight.
33:15 Speaker 00 And when that's the case, you actually cannot bring your prefrontal cortex online because the amygdala has hijacked how you're operating. And so we are in a moment where, whether it's because of the headlines or it's because people are mainlining social media or it's because you're in a state of fight or flight or it's because of the state of the world, that people are gripped and are on edge. The amygdala is firing. And so people feel unsafe, which means they're going to start to try to control everything and they're going to feel out of control in their lives. And then you don't know how to actually get back into your body and feel peaceful and back in control. And so along comes my simple theory, the let them theory. The more you let other people live their life, the better your life gets.
33:59 Speaker 00 But most importantly, what it does is this, when you say let them, anytime somebody frustrates you or you're in traffic or long lines or you see that and you go let them. What's interesting about that, Jonathan, is that what you're doing is when you say those two words, you are actually recognizing this is out of my control, therefore it is not worth my time and energy. You are also putting up a force field and you're preventing...
34:30 Speaker 00 All of those little micro moments where somebody pisses you off or frustrates you or traffic backs up and it floods you with stress, which then brings the amygdala online, which then drains your energy and your time, it prevents that from happening. And so what's starting to happen for people as they learn about, you know, saying let them and saying let me is they're starting to feel peaceful. They're starting to feel a layer of protection that what's happening out there doesn't actually have to interfere with how I feel in here. And, you know, one of the interesting things that one of the experts said to me as I was, you know, researching all this was, you know, Mel, nobody stops to think that you actually can't get sober until you stop drinking.
35:13 Speaker 00 The same thing is true about taking control of your life. You can't take control of your life until you stop trying to control or gaslight yourself into thinking you can control anything out there. And you also can't get your power back until you first recognize that you've been giving power to people's opinions and to their inconsiderate behavior and you give power to the headlines and you give power to social media. That's why you don't feel powerful because you didn't realize you gave it all away by allowing it to impact you and stress you out. And so when you say let them, it's not being passive. You're not allowing people to trample all over you. That's already happening, by the way. You're not letting the government do whatever the government's doing.
35:58 Speaker 00 No, you're actually recognizing and seeing things exactly as they are, maybe even for the first time. Like, I'm gonna say let them in response to the government because this stuff's already happened. And by the way, if I burn through all my energy screaming at the news every night or just mainlining the news and then gossiping with friends about how bad it is, do I have energy for the second part? Let me remind myself that I still have power. There are things I can do here. I absolutely can do things. I can get involved in my community. I can get involved with the ACLU. I can call my congressperson. I can organize. Like, but if you are burning through all your energy by allowing the outside world to stress you out,
36:43 Speaker 00 you will not have the energy and time to tap into your power to actually make meaningful change happen.
36:49 Jonathan Fields? I think that makes a lot of sense. I remember talking to beautiful travel writer, Pico Iyer, a little while back. And, you know, Pico has spent the better part of his life traveling with the Dalai Lama as his companion. He met her when he was a young child through his dad. It was an actual professional philosopher. And, you know, he studied deeply and learned from him, studied deeply Tibetan Buddhism and all sorts of different traditions. And he really says, you know, we're having this conversation about change and change internally, but also change in society and culture. And he's like, you know, the biggest myth is that, you know, like, we're actually, any one person is capable of doing more than creating change within themselves. Now, maybe once we start there, we can affect a ripple that starts to expand beyond that.
37:33 Jonathan Fields? You know, but it's this notion of we all, so many of us look to the external things that we can do without actually starting with, how can I change my own internal experience first and foremost? Because oftentimes, the external things are more obvious, they're more checkbox, they're more like, oh, I can do that. I can spend that money. I can show up at this thing. And the internal stuff is a lot murkier and a lot harder. So we kind of avoid it.
38:01 Speaker 00 You know, Jonathan, it reminds me of something that just happened. I'll be quick about this. But I, since discovering this and saying, let them, I've been astonished by how much more peaceful I am. And I'm also astonished, and I feel kind of sad about how for the first 54 years of my life, I just allowed myself to be completely rattled by the world around me and other people's moods and just so much stupid stuff. And I had this experience this weekend where I was visiting some family.
38:42 Speaker 00 And it was fascinating because for the few days I was there, every time we're in the car, angry at the driver in front of us, the news is on in the morning, the news is on at night, there's griping about the news in the headlines. There's like just constant negative agitation in response to everything and everyone and all the lines are long and this person's this. And it was this really just profound experience. Because I realized that's a lot of what my energy probably was like. And it is completely accessible to all of us
39:27 Speaker 00 to have a very different existence by simply protecting yourself from allowing all of that to agitate you. And so when you shared that story about how the change starts from within and that ripple effect that it can have, like from a pure energetic level, that peace that you can access for yourself and how powerful it feels to know that you're steady, no matter what happens around you, and then what happens when you bring that into your job, you bring that into your family, you bring that into your day to day life, everything starts to change and you recognize something really profound, which I know you know
40:11 Speaker 00 because of your spiritual practices and because of everything that you talk about and that you teach. We give so much power to all the big stuff out here, and yes, they do have power.
40:24 Speaker 00 But we miss the extraordinary power that you have through your energy and through the way that positive and peaceful and grounded energy actually settles people around you. And that's one of the things that I've been the most moved by in terms of the impact that saying let them and saying let me has really reminded me of. Because once you start to feel peaceful, now you want to protect it. Once you start to feel, you know, like your time back and your energy, now you want to protect it.
40:59 Jonathan Fields? Right.
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44:05 Jonathan Fields? I want to revisit something that you said, though, and it relates to this as well, which is this notion of, and I imagine you've been asked this question before. I know you have actually. Okay, so let's say you adopt this state of mind, this orientation. Where is the line between letting people do what they want to do, surrendering a sense of control and just focusing on what you're capable of and allowing harm to happen? Either harm to you because somebody's actually treating you in a way that is causing harm or has caused harm, or harm to those around you or the world around you or your community around you? Take me a little bit deeper into this.
44:46 Speaker 00 Great question. So let's start with somebody outside of you. You know, I personally am one of these people that always gets involved. Like I have the first responder gene. So it is very difficult for me to just let anyone do anything. And part of the problem with people that harm themselves or do harmful things is they don't do it in front of you.
45:10 Speaker 00 Like, it's pretty easy if somebody's doing something in front of you. In terms of the thing that they're doing, they're probably already doing it. So the let them part is not, "I'm allowing it." It's recognizing that this is a very serious thing that's happening. I'm letting them reveal that they are in danger and pain. We've all been in a situation where a friend is drunk too much, right? And then we argue about the keys, but what else immediately happens? A lot of people actually back down and just let them drive. I'm not recommending that. But here's what I am saying. I can't actually make the call for somebody. Because what the let them theory does is it actually forces you. First, you say, "Let them." Right?
45:55 Speaker 00 "I'm gonna let them get really drunk here. And I'm gonna let them, like, go on and on about how they're, "Oh, I'm fine with it." Because they're already saying it. But then I'm gonna go to step two. Let me decide, based on my values, based on my character, based on my morals, what I'm gonna do. And if you value someone's safety, or you value someone else's safety on that road, then let me take the damn keys and let me put up with your bullshit when you start acting out, mouthing off to me, and let me put you on the couch at my house or drive you home. And let me do the thing that a lot of us actually don't do, because we don't want to deal with it once the person starts mouthing off.
46:35 Speaker 00 And so, to me, what it sets up is a moral dilemma for every person. Because the power isn't in stopping the other person. The power is in the "let me" part. "Let me decide how I'm gonna handle this." That might mean calling the police. It might mean taking the keys. It might be calling somebody's parents, or calling somebody's spouse. It might mean not making excuses for somebody. That you're not gonna call your adult kid in and blame the fact that they don't want to go to work because they're hungover for the fifth morning in a row on the fact that you've got family plans. You're gonna let them learn from life. And so, I think every situation is different. It's much clearer if somebody's harming themselves or someone else in front of you.
47:21 Speaker 00 But the problem with a lot of the people in our lives and the damage that they're doing to themselves as others is they hide it from you. And so, you can use "let them." In a very important way, which is people's behavior reveals the truth. And too often, we listen to the words coming out of somebody's mouth, the apologies, the promises that they're not going to do it again, the description that it's not that serious, I didn't really mean it, no, I don't need to help, yeah, no, I threatened to take my life, but I didn't really mean it, no, I don't need help, I'm fine. And so you have to look at the behavior, that's the let them part.
48:02 Speaker 00 Let them reveal where they're at, how much they're struggling, whether or not they're thinking clearly, and then let me understand and remind myself, there's only three things I can control. I can control what I think about this, I can control what I do and don't do, and I can control how I process my feelings about what's happening. That's all you got. And so you use this as a tool to remind yourself that if somebody's going to do something, they're going to do it. But the power is in the let me part. I get to choose what I'm going to do about it. I get to choose when I step in and when I don't. I get to choose when I am supporting or I'm not. I get to choose what I pay for and what I don't. I get to choose if I'm getting involved or not.
48:46 Speaker 00 I mean, this is why if we're at a party, Jonathan, and I'm not serving you the alcohol, and you go and drink and drive, that I can't be arrested for not stopping you. We don't hold people accountable to that. I actually think the let them theory forces you to start questioning whether or not you're going to hold yourself accountable to it. Does that make sense?
49:07 Jonathan Fields? It makes sense. And I guess the other scenario that I think is in my head, and I would imagine a lot of our community's heads is, what about that scenario where you feel like somebody's doing harm to you? I'm not necessarily talking about physical harm, although that could be an unfortunate case. But what about a scenario, you're at work, you have a colleague who's constantly, quote, taking credit, constantly, quote, backstabbing, and you're both, you know, and it's affecting not just the way that you feel when you're at work with them, but you can see them actually building social currency, social capital, political currency within the organization, and... In your mind, taking opportunities that really were yours. You know, so these are just like two different scenarios.
49:51 Jonathan Fields? So when you perceive somebody else, and I guess this is really where the corollary, the let me side becomes super important.
49:57 Speaker 00 It's everything. Everybody loves let them because you feel, because you're smug. Let them, you know, let them go out without me, you know, let them do what they're gonna do. Like, there's this superiority thing, which honestly is super effective in detaching from your emotions. Because if your emotions are one that you're hurt, or you're the victim, or something is happening where you're wronged, you are beaten down by your emotions. And so, part of the power of saying let them is you actually feel superior to the people you're saying it about. You feel better than the people that are walking slow. You feel better than the people that didn't invite you. But let's take the scenario that you're talking about, because it's an excellent one. Because this is never about what's right or wrong. It's about, where's the power?
50:42 Speaker 00 And where should you focus so that you have power? Does that make sense? So, in this situation, not fair, not okay. And when you say, let them, you're not just going, let them, and shrugging your show, oh, I guess I'm screwed, let them. No. You're saying it with a little bit of a, let them. Let them, like, I see what you're doing. You're, it's almost like you allow it without allowing it, because you're forcing yourself to see somebody as they are, and oftentimes, to truly see it as it is, black and white, for the first time.
51:27 Speaker 00 And for real. Like, let them try to take credit. Let them try to build the social currency. Let them try to do this to me. And then let me remind myself, I actually have power here. There's a lot I can do. And so, there, and when you recognize that you do have power, you stop wasting it by being upset and wounded and victimized by the other person, and you pull the power back, and you start to focus on, well, what can I do? And when you start to say to yourself, well, I do, I have what I think about this, and I think this is bullshit. I have the things I can do and what I can do is I can recognize that what this person is masterful at is they actually are masterful at making their contribution
52:11 Speaker 00 knowns and taking credit and I'm shitty at it. So I let me start to speak up. Let me start to write my boss an email at the end of every week claiming the contributions I'm making. Let me speak up in meetings when this asshole is taking credit for my work and say, well, actually, Mike, that's not how it went. Sally was the lead on that and I spent 60 hours working on it and now you're taking credit for it. That's not how that went. Call him out. And so there are things you can do. You can also get a different job. You're not stuck. But the more that you focus on what the other person is doing and the more you allow their
52:51 Speaker 00 behavior to beat you down, the less energy, time and power you're going to feel internally and you're not going to see all the things that you could or can do if you choose to try to change the situation for the better. Yeah. And I also want to say one other thing because you know, that's an example that's frustrating, but there's also examples where you might have somebody that you're in a relationship with and you're starting to realize they have a narcissistic personality style. You might have somebody in your family that has an extraordinarily challenging behavior. You might have somebody in your life that is battling addiction. When you say let them, you're not allowing somebody to succumb to addiction.
53:35 Speaker 00 You're not letting some narcissist walk all over you. That's already happening. When you say let them, let them be exactly who they are right now. Let their behavior reveal who they are and where I stand. Because I think part of the problem that we get into with other people is that we live in a fantasy in our head, making excuses for behavior that's disrespectful. Because we don't want to deal with it, or we hope they're going to change, or we're just used to this pattern, and we have trauma in our background. And so there's more complicated reasons why we do this. But my hope is that when you say, let them make it all about themselves. Let them be passive aggressive.
54:20 Speaker 00 Let them be a challenging personality. Let them have their addiction. What you're doing, Jonathan, is you're forcing yourself to practice radical acceptance. This is what I'm dealing with. And I am going to stop gaslighting myself into believing this person's going to change. I'm going to stop bracing because I'm wishing they would be different. And I'm going to walk into this experience with this person and this relationship with my eyes wide open. This is who this person is. And now I do the let me part, which is if I know I'm dealing with somebody that has got an active addiction and they are lying to me, their behavior tells me that.
55:02 Speaker 00 Let me decide what time and energy I'm going to give to this. If I am dealing with somebody who's got a narcissistic personality style, and they always make it about them, and they always erupt, and they always gossip, and they always are draining, let them be that way. Now let me decide how much time and energy do I give to this person? Let me remind myself, I'm not going to change this person. The only thing that can change is my energy and my behavior around it. And if I'm going to choose to be around this person, then if I want it to feel different, I have to be different. And it starts with recognizing that this is exactly who this person is. It's who they've always been. It's who they are right now. And they're showing you who they are through their behavior.
55:47 Speaker 00 So let them, because when you let them show you who they are, you now are dealing with the facts, which changes how you show up. That is, that, and this is easier said than done, particularly when you're in a cycle of abuse, when you have past trauma.
56:03 Jonathan Fields? Or if you really care about the other person.
56:05 Speaker 00 Of course.
56:05 Jonathan Fields? That's, it's like you're trying to, like, in that case, you're really trying to protect them because it's like you feel like you can see three steps ahead. You can see the harm that's coming their way, and you don't want it to happen. But at the end of the day, you also don't want to suffer the anxiety of seeing them experience that harm. So part of it is your own discomfort with, you know, like-
56:24 Speaker 00 Correct.
56:25 Jonathan Fields? The feeling that you don't want to have. What jumps out to me, what you just described also, is this notion that- It's almost like the let them part is a prerequisite to the let me part. You know, there's a Buddhist tenet that translates roughly to abandon hope. I always hated it. I completely, I was like, how futile is it? How awful is that? That's a teaching that you should follow. And then, as you know, like I've had tenderness, I have a sound that, you know, has been in my head for years now. And in the very beginning, it was destroying me. It was taking, really taking me out. And all day, every day, all I could try and figure out was how to stop this from happening. And I couldn't function and I was looking for every cure, every possible thing. And, you know, like for many people, it does never go away. Sometimes your brain habituates and you're, you know, pretty fine, sometimes not.
57:08 Jonathan Fields? It causes just great distress and harm. For me, I got to a point, and I remember thinking about this Buddhist slogan back then. And I was like, enough, I can't abandon hope that this will someday change. And then I finally got to a point where I tried so many different things. Right? And I was like, okay, so for some reason, my brain is, and the them in this scenario is literally my own brain. My brain is generating a sound inside of my head that only I can hear. Right? I can't do any, I've literally tried everything. All the doctors are like, there's nothing big time wrong with you and there's nothing we can do to help you. So I get to a point where I'm like, okay. This is me for life. Then what? Which is the functional equivalent of saying let them or let it, let my own brain.
57:53 Jonathan Fields? The brain is my them at this point. And until I hit that point, I was spending zero energy trying to figure out like, if I do have some power in this scenario to be okay, if this doesn't change, if it's just going to go on this way, what is, what does that power look like? What is this? And that's when everything changed for me, when I started to actually understand like, okay, so are there practices? Are there things that I can do? Are there skills I can develop that will allow me to make peace with this thing if it never goes away? And in fact, it worked.
58:26 Speaker 00 I think that is a beautiful.
58:29 Jonathan Fields? Yeah, but I couldn't get to that place of me stepping into the place of power until I let go of literally the them that was a part of my own brain.
58:40 Speaker 00 Jonathan, that is so beautiful. I apologize for talking over you. I, it's sometimes challenging, you know, on the remote, it looks like you're done. I, what I wanted to say about that, because it ties back to the relationship thing.
58:56 Speaker 00 There is one thing that you will never be able to change, and that's another person. And I once heard Dr. Romany, who's regarded as the world's leading expert on narcissistic personality styles, say that the single biggest thing that causes a lot of damage and keeps people in a lot of dynamics with people that have narcissistic personality or borderline personality, like all those challenging dynamics, is the hope that they're going to change. And there's obviously a lot of research underneath that is more trauma-informed, but it's exactly what you're saying.
59:39 Speaker 00 And I feel like there is a way to hold out the belief that somebody is capable of getting sober, the belief that somebody is capable of taking better care of themselves, the belief that somebody is capable of being more responsible with money, or the belief that somebody is capable of working through their issues and getting into a very healthy, long-term relationship. But that is different than hoping somebody does. Because to me, what you're describing is the hope that this is going to change
1:00:22 Speaker 00 often can keep you doing in relationships exactly what you did with your own brain, which is looking for ways that it can change instead of going, you know what? This is exactly how it is right now. And I need to adjust my life and how I show up with the reality of what is, instead of resisting what is in the hope that it changes. And so I think what you just explained summarizes this exactly. Because let them forces you to let people be who they are. Because when you let people be who they are, your relationships get better. Because you now see who you're dealing with instead of imposing an expectation or hope that they be different.
1:01:05 Jonathan Fields? It is fascinating to me that there's this, this sense of abandoning hope can actually be one of the most empowering things that you can do. It's a little counterintuitive. And it's like you said, like, it's not like you're just giving up on the possibility that something outside of your control can change. That'd be awesome if it could, but you have to like, that is like the unlock key. If you say, let me now re allocate my energy to what I actually am in control of myself. And that is where certainly all the way back to earlier in the conversation, fundamentally, at the end of the day, this is really a conversation about power and agency. You know, and that's where you start to reclaim it. And I think especially in this day and age, so many of us feel so devoid of power and
1:01:47 Jonathan Fields? agency that it's a really powerful message to explore.
1:01:51 Speaker 00 I agree with you. I was, I'm sitting here kind of just noodling the, the part about hope. Because, you know, I, I often say that I think one of the single biggest things that stand in a person's way, when it comes to changing anything about your life, is this sense of discouragement that it's not going to work. And I think what the nuance that I would put in this is that, you know, hope to me is kind of one of these things. It's sort of like a wish that I just really hope that somehow this turns around. And to me, this idea that belief, and I'm thinking about it in the context of when
1:02:34 Speaker 00 you have a family member that's really struggling, like all the experts that we talked to when, you know, we were looking at Let Them and Let Me, especially in the area of addiction. There's this famous saying in addiction that people only get sober when getting, when being drunk is harder than doing the very hard work. Of facing the things that you don't want to face. And that's why you can't make anybody get sober. You can't make people heal. That people only heal and people only change when they're ready to do the hard work to change. And people are typically only ready to do that hard work when they're ready for themselves. And if you look at all the brain science around this that, you know, we quoted in the book and talked to all these neuroscientists.
1:03:19 Speaker 00 If you look at the basic wiring of the human brain, we default towards what's easy right now. And we also like push away from what's hard. Which if you put it in the context of any kind of change, this is why changing is so hard because we reflexively move towards what we know and what's easy. And we reflexively push away from the thing that's hard. So there is almost nothing that you could do that would have something happen in another human being's brain over the long term to make changing suddenly easier. They have to have that happen within themselves. And it's a hard thing to grasp, to understand
1:04:03 Speaker 00 that there is a necessary amount of struggle that every one of us has to go through in order to organize the necessary internal friction that has your brain shift and go, okay, sitting on the couch and literally making the world's worst choices and letting myself go is now harder than getting up and just go into the damn gym because I've gotten so frustrated with myself that I'm not going to do that anymore. But it has to come from within. And that's a extremely difficult thing to grasp. And the let them theory doesn't make it easy.
1:04:46 Speaker 00 It gives you the tools, as you said so beautifully, to understand where is power? Where is agency? And particularly when you're dealing with two people, power and agency are in different places for both of you. And you want to work with the laws of human nature, not against it like I was for 54 years.
1:05:08 Jonathan Fields? Absolutely. It feels like a good place for us to come full circle in our conversation as well. So I've asked you this question before. It was a bunch of years ago at this point in this container of Good Life Project. If I offer up the phrase to live a good life, what comes up?
1:05:23 Speaker 00 To spend your time and energy on the things that actually matter to you and not waste it on the stupid shit that currently drains it.
1:05:34 Jonathan Fields? Thank you.
1:05:37 Jonathan Fields? Hey, before you leave, if you loved this episode, safe bet, you will also love the earlier conversation we had with Mel about taking care of yourself and your health. You'll find a link to that episode in the show notes. This episode of Good Life Project was produced by executive producers Lindsay Fox and me, Jonathan Fields. Editing help by Troy Young. Christopher Carter crafted our theme music and special thanks to Shelley Del Bliss for her research on this episode. And of course, if you haven't already done so, please go ahead and follow Good Life Project in your favorite listening app or on YouTube too. If you found this conversation interesting or valuable and inspiring, chances are you did, because you're still listening here, do me a personal favor, a seven second favor, share it with just one person.
1:06:20 Jonathan Fields? I mean, if you want to share it with more, that's awesome too, but just one person even, then invite them to talk with you about what you've both discovered, to reconnect and explore ideas that really matter, because that's how we all come alive together. Until next time, I'm Jonathan Fields, signing off for Good Life Project.
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