E218 - Mel Robbins: The Secret to Actually Transforming Your Life

In this episode I sit down with Mel Robbins, host of The Mel Robbins Podcast and author of The Let Them Theory. Mel takes me back to the age of 41, when liens on her house, unemployment, heavy drinking, and constant anger had turned her into a person she didn’t recognize. We explore what finally moved her to change, why thinking alone never changes a life, and how she slowly separated her sense of worth from her success through therapy, a quieter life in Vermont, and learning to slow down a nervous system that never stopped running. What We Dive Into: 1. For Mel, change came when staying where she was became more painful than doing the small things she had been avoiding. Her life began to turn once she stopped waiting for someone to rescue her and started acting like the person she needed, one ordinary Tuesday at a time, without waiting to feel ready. 2. Saying let them is a boundary that helps you recognize what you cannot control, from a parent’s habits to a friend’s opinion of you. The real power comes in the second step, let me, where you choose your response, your boundaries, and how you want to show up in the relationship from here. 3. Mel came to see purpose as something that happens in other people when you do what you do. It can be lived anywhere, in a grocery store line or with an Uber driver, through the way your energy and presence leave others feeling encouraged, seen, and a little more hopeful about their own lives. Know Thyself, but not by yourself. A guided space to return home to yourself. https://www.knowthyselfcollective.com ✨THANK YOU TO OUR SPONSORS: https://drinkLMNT.com/KnowThyself Try LMNT & get a free sample pack https://www.sleep.me/knowthyself To get up to $640 off your Chilipad 2.0 with code KNOWTHYSELF ___________ 00:00 Intro 01:58 The Invisible Social Clock 13:07 The Freedom of Transparency 15:21 Perfectionism and Excellence 19:18 The Decision to Change 25:18 Separating Worth From Success 30:23 Healing a Hypervigilant Nervous System 38:31 Understanding the Let Them Theory 44:39 The Hardwired Need for Control 54:41 Context, Compassion, and Responsibility 58:46 Simple Tools for Chronic Stress 1:01:26 Let Them as an Entry Point 1:09:08 Simplicity and Communication 1:20:38 What We Hope to Leave Behind 1:23:35 Navigating Being Misunderstood 1:27:08 What Success Teaches ___________ ✨MORE FROM MEL ROBBINS ↳Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/melrobbins/ ↳The Let Them Theory: https://www.melrobbins.com/book/the-let-them-theory ↳YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/melrobbins ↳TikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@melrobbins ↳https://www.melrobbins.com 📜MORE FROM KNOW THYSELF ↳Spotify: https://spoti.fi/4bZMq9l ↳Apple: https://apple.co/4iATICX ↳Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/knowthyself/ ↳TikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@andreduqum ↳Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/knowthyselfbyandreduqum/ ↳https://knowthyselfpodcast.com/ 👁️MORE FROM ANDRÉ ↳Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/@andreduqum ↳Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/company/know-thyself-podcast ↳Book recs: https://www.knowthyselfpodcast.com/book-list

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

• 0:00Speaker 00

  Most people right now are extraordinarily overwhelmed, extraordinarily stressed out. At some point, the life you thought you were going to be living blows up, or you drive it into a wall. It happens to everybody. I mean, at 41, I was a walking dumpster fire of a human being.

• 0:16André Duqum?

  I love the authenticity and the transparency.

• 0:19Speaker 00

  It's true. I became a person I didn't recognize. I was angry all the time. I was ashamed, and I started drinking like crazy. I got so sick of myself. The one decision that changed everything was realizing it was way worse and more painful to stay where I was. The thing that this period of my life taught me is that the one person you can change is you. Most of us spend 99% of our time and energy being upset about the things we can't control. Just say, let them. It's a boundary. You can exhale.

• 0:51André Duqum?

  Is there something that success has taught you that failure hasn't?

• 0:54Speaker 00

  My success does not define my worth as human being. If people want to misunderstand me, let them. I can't control them. I know exactly who I am. You get one life. If you don't like it, change it. I hope you wake the hell up right now and you start acting like the person you dream of becoming. So there's two things I want to say about this. Number one.

• 1:18André Duqum?

  Hey, everyone. Welcome back to the Know thyself podcast. Our guest today is the host of the widely successful Mel Robbins podcast. She has that show, which is really just, you know, been a rocket ship. It's been number one most followed on Apple, third largest on Spotify, nearing over a billion plays. And her book, The Let Them Theory, has been the number one bestselling book with over 11 million copies in 2025. She's been somebody for decades who's been a guiding light and source of inspiration and motivation for people. Mel Robbins, thank you for being here.

• 1:52Speaker 00

  Thank you. Thank you for having me.

• 1:54André Duqum?

  The pleasure is mine. I like to dive right in.

• 1:58Speaker 00

  Let's go.

• 1:59André Duqum?

  We all feel, I feel like at times, this invisible social clock that somehow we're not supposed to be where we're at in life. And you, by most accounts, are widely, like, one of the most commercially successful personal development voices in the world. But it hasn't always been that way. And so can you paint the picture for me of Mel at 41?

• 2:23Speaker 00

  Oh, my God. Do we have to go here?

• 2:27Speaker 00

  Well, I can. And I do want to, I do want to hover on something you said, if I could. You said that we all have this sense that there is this pressure to be a certain place at a certain time in life. And I've certainly felt that. And one of the things that I love most about being 58, and I love most about the fact that the majority of people who know me around the world only know me because of what I've been doing in the last three and a half years in my late 50s. And it is an example of a fact, which is you need to take whatever the number is on your driver's license or your passport,

• 3:12Speaker 00

  and you need to put it in the toilet and flush it down the toilet. Because the number doesn't matter. What matters is what you choose to do from this moment forward. And some of us are late bloomers. I would consider myself a late bloomer. I would consider myself a slow learner. I would consider, when it comes to life lessons, I'm really good at math, but when it comes to life lessons, I tend to be pretty stubborn about learning the truths about life. And I have to experience a lot of pain in order to wake up and realize that there is a better way, a more peaceful way,

• 3:54Speaker 00

  a more powerful way to address a situation, a relationship, your relationship to yourself. And so, you know, one of my intentions for being here with you is that since you started here with this pressure that you feel to be somewhere other than where you are, one of my intentions for being here with you is that by the end of this conversation, you know that you are exactly where you are supposed to be, that you have everything that you need from the past, and you also have the ability to choose what you're going to do next, who you're going to become next. At 41, I was a walking dumpster fire of a human being.

• 4:38Speaker 00

  I had had probably 14 different job changes. I was constantly searching. I did not know what I wanted to do with my life. I just knew I wanted to do something that made a difference. And I think a lot of people struggle with that. And it's important to kind of understand that backstory because there's a lot of people that come into the planet, and they are born with something in their DNA that says accountant, doctor, priest. Like, you just know. It's in your DNA, and you have the target in you, and you point at it. And I am not that person. You are not that person. I would imagine that as you're listening or watching right now, you're thinking about that fact

• 5:23Speaker 00

  that you're probably not that person either because you listen to and watch this particular podcast because you are searching for more. And so I was at a point at the age of 41 where life had somewhat gone to plan. I was married. I, we have three kids at that point that are 10 and under. I thought I was a very optimistic person. I thought I had myself together. I thought I was a successful person. And then what happened is a lot of, it's kind of a boring story, honestly, because it happens to everybody. At some point, the life you thought you were going to be living disappears or blows up, or you drive it into a wall.

• 6:06Speaker 00

  And in my case, my husband pursued a dream of going into the restaurant business. And it went really well for the first little pizza joint. And then we were morons, and we ignored all of the expert advice from financial advisors. And we cashed out our life savings, and we took out a home equity loan, and we took out credit cards, and we asked friends and family to invest because what could possibly go wrong in the restaurant business? Except for everything.

• 6:37Speaker 00

  This was, you're younger, but at being 58, if you're a little bit more my age, you're going to know that when I say this was happening 2007, 2008, you'll go, oh, because there was a global reception and a housing crisis, and I'm going to take off my hercimer quartz crystals here so we don't bang around too much. And my husband and I found ourselves in a situation where life did not go according to plan. Or at least at the time, it didn't feel like it was part of any plan. The second restaurant they tried to open failed. And by the time they had signed the lease for the third restaurant, they were out of money and on the hook for the lease. And they started taking predatory loans where when a customer'd swipe a credit card

• 7:22Speaker 00

  at the one restaurant that was open, the bank was taking some of the money for the loan to try to get the third one open. Leans hit our house. I lost my job. And that was Mel Robbins at 41. Now, if you have a friend, just stop and think about this. If you have a friend who is, got leans on her house, she is unemployed, she is blaming everything on her husband, she's constantly angry, depressed, full of shame, scared, convinced that there's no way we can get out of this. If that's your friend, what would you tell your friend to do?

• 7:57André Duqum?

  Well, I'd try to bring some compassion to where they're at, maybe not try to just fix their situation right off the rip.

• 8:04Speaker 00

  But if you were to, if you were to act, if you were to tell them, well, here's what you probably should do if you don't have any money and you're unemployed. You should get a job.

• 8:12André Duqum?

  Yeah, get a job.

• 8:13Speaker 00

  You should ask for help. You should consult experts on what to do when there's leans on your house. You should walk into the bank and explain what's going on and try to figure things out. You should get a second job. You might want to stop drinking. You might want to exercise a little bit. And by the way, laying in bed for four hours in the morning and thinking about your problems while you're hungover and only getting up because your three children are standing next to you and they've missed the bus, that's probably not a good thing either. And I'm being a little sarcastic and making you and the person that's with us think a little bit about this because when it's somebody else, it's so easy to tell somebody else what to do, right? And even when it's you, like, here's the, here's one of the sad truths about living in today's world.

• 8:57Speaker 00

  You don't even have an excuse to be stuck anymore because you can just go to AI and put in what your problem is, and it'll spit out 50 things that you could possibly do that might just work. But then here's the problem. If you're an idiot like me, you'll look at that list and you'll go, well, it's not going to work, and I don't really feel like it. And the debt's too big, and I can't pay this off, and my husband's a jerk. And, and you get so caught in your head. That's where you stay stuck. And that was me. Like, I became a person I didn't recognize. I was angry all the time. I was ashamed. I felt like I was failing at motherhood and being a wife and being a person. I was deeply embarrassed because we were living in a suburban neighborhood and

• 9:42Speaker 00

  nobody knew about the leans. Nobody knew that as my kid was playing town soccer, the check for $120 had bounced. And I started drinking like crazy. I was angry all the time. My habits and routines went out the window and I basically went into an avoidant shell of myself. And I probably stayed there, I'd say, for a good year. And if my husband hadn't also been drinking a lot and just panic-stricken about trying to save the restaurant business and trying to fix the problems there, if he hadn't been so distracted, I'm sure our marriage would have just blown up.

• 10:27Speaker 00

  Because when the world hardens you, you tend to turn toward the person you love the most with hardness. You tend to take your anger out on the person that doesn't deserve it. And it's not the right thing to do, but that's what I did and that's what a lot of people do. And this period of my life taught me some really important lessons. One of the lessons is there's a certain amount of pain that some of us need in order to organize the internal resolve and capacity that you have to change yourself. The second thing that this taught me is no amount of thinking changes your life. Like, you can't learn to swim by reading about it and thinking about it.

• 11:12Speaker 00

  The thing that changes your life are the actions that you take. And I did a lot of thinking about what I could do, but I wasn't doing anything. The third thing that this taught me is that I was 1,000% ruled by my emotions. The emotions of fear, of insecurity, of anger, of feeling alone, scared, abandoned, resentful, like, just this ball, hairball of nastiness is what my emotions were. And when you're feeling this deep sense of discouragement in your life, of course, you're not motivated because you don't feel motivated.

• 11:56Speaker 00

  In fact, you are actively, through your thoughts, because of the weight of the emotion, you are actively arguing against the things that could shift everything. You're arguing against the walk. That if you took a walk for 20 minutes, you might feel a little better. It doesn't pay your bills, but it does something for you. It lifts you up so that you are better equipped to open the bill. And the final thing that this period of my life taught me is that nobody is gonna come and change your life for you. And you don't need anybody. Because you can do it.

• 12:39Speaker 00

  And when you really stop and think about it, well, nobody's gonna come and change your life for you. Nobody is stopping you from changing your life yourself, but you. And so that was the 41-year-old Mel. I was drunk, I was unemployed, I was a raging bitch to my husband. I was blaming all of my problems on the world and I was in an active war with myself, convincing myself that there was nothing I can do. That was me.

• 13:08André Duqum?

  I love the authenticity and the transparency.

• 13:11Speaker 00

  It's true.

• 13:12André Duqum?

  Yeah.

• 13:12Speaker 00

  You know, the thing about authenticity and transparency is it's so freeing.

• 13:17André Duqum?

  Yeah.

• 13:17Speaker 00

  When you are embarrassed to talk about what's happening, you are shaming yourself.

• 13:23André Duqum?

  It's still all in zero.

• 13:24Speaker 00

  Yes, like, people always say to me, "God, you're so real. You're so authentic. It must take so much courage." And what I say to people is, "Well, thank you. And do you know how hard it is to lie? Do you know how much energy it takes to fake it? It is so easy to be transparent. You don't have to manage anything. And what you find is that the silence and the secrets that you keep are a prison that you put yourself in. And there is a bridge between you and everybody on this planet when you are able to talk about the things that you are struggling with

• 14:07Speaker 00

  or the things that you've learned the hard way or the issues that you're grappling with. Not in a vanity way of just venting this crap out there as if it's like wisdom, but when you authentically are willing to talk about the stuff that you're grappling with or you yearn for with the intention of connecting or the intention of trying to open up possibility, like, that's one of the fastest, most incredible ways to connect with other people. And it's an incredible gift that you can give to somebody else because most of us are walking around with a lot of things in our life that we don't know how to face.

• 14:50Speaker 00

  We are walking around with a tremendous amount of weight where we beat ourselves up and we are looking at all the things going wrong. And almost everybody struggles with this.

• 15:01Speaker 02

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• 15:31André Duqum?

  Definitely resonate in my own journey. I feel like the things I thought I would perhaps fear to be judged or criticized for by expressing, I think, were the very things that, when authentically shared, generated the most intimacy. And, you know...

• 15:46Speaker 00

  So, give me an example. What's something that 10 years ago you wouldn't be caught dead saying out loud or talking about?

• 15:50André Duqum?

  Just like perfectionism in general. I would say, whether it's the way I organize my space or like caring about my appearance, you know, like, there's levels of being guardedness towards that and being perceived by others that, like, now, just by growing older, I'm much more comfortable in my skin. And I think that when you say those things, it resonates because these are incredibly unique things. We all deal with different avenues, you know? And so, that's why I think is, when I look at your podcast in particular and the way that you share, there's such a degree of relatability and I feel like people can see themselves in you because you are unabashed and just free in your expression of that. So, I think it's a beautiful gift.

• 16:34André Duqum?

  And I agree, it actually takes up energy to constantly hold up a narrative that is not true to you. And that's exhausting in ways we don't fully consciously have awareness of moment to moment.

• 16:46Speaker 00

  Can we talk about perfectionism?

• 16:47André Duqum?

  Let's do it.

• 16:48Speaker 00

  So, when you say perfectionism, what do you mean?

• 16:55André Duqum?

  A constant, even though sometimes subtle, but pervasive feeling that love will be garnered most through being worthy of it by being good, being right, being holy, looking good, having your shit together in every shape and form.

• 17:18Speaker 00

  Okay.

• 17:18André Duqum?

  Yeah.

• 17:19Speaker 00

  So, there's two things I want to say about this. Number one, there is a huge difference between perfectionism and excellence. And when you describe perfectionism the way that you just did, what I hear is control.

• 17:36André Duqum?

  Yeah.

• 17:36Speaker 00

  That there is this need to control everything as a way to manage the fear that somebody isn't going to love you or approve of you or like you. And perfectionism becomes this delusion that we have that if I get it all just right, then the fear that I have is not gonna come true. And the problem with that strategy is it's flawed from the start because you've already decided they don't love you. And the attempt to get things right proves it to you because you are dishonoring yourself, trying to be this thing instead of loving yourself as you are and then letting the chips fall where they fall.

• 18:21Speaker 00

  And so, for somebody like you, who, being in your space, it's very clear you like things just so. It's very clear that there is an intention behind what you do. But I would call that excellence, not perfectionism. Because the intention of why you're doing it comes from a very different place. Because on the outside, I think people would probably say, "Mel Robbins is a perfectionist." And I would say, "No, I'm not. I have a very high level of excellence that I demand of myself and of the people that are around me, with a whole lot of compassion and messiness underneath it. But the excellence isn't because I'm looking for acceptance. It's because I just hold myself to a certain standard."

• 19:06Speaker 00

  Does that make sense?

• 19:08André Duqum?

  No, absolutely. And I do think two things can exist simultaneously. And the strong striving for commitment to excellence can sometimes masquerade as our need for control in ways that we won't admit to ourselves.

• 19:21Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 19:21André Duqum?

  So, I think the paradox, be able to hold both, is true. Because I agree, like, I'm committed to creating excellent stuff in the world, just like you are, you know?

• 19:29Speaker 00

  And having excellent hairdo. See, my content does way better when I look like shit, so...

• 19:35André Duqum?

  Yeah.

• 19:36Speaker 00

  Seriously.

• 19:37André Duqum?

  Let's try it out.

• 19:37Speaker 00

  Like, the more make-uped up that I am, the more there's a disconnect with just kind of feeling like you're with a friend.

• 19:47André Duqum?

  I think that's being even more appreciated the more AI, perfectly-generated music, songs, visuals are. It's like, we want the raw humans. So, I couldn't agree more. To zoom in a bit more, so you, it sounded like there was just a certain amount of suffering that was needed for you to change. Well, what do you attribute to, like, the single most biggest reason why you were able to actually transform your life?

• 20:14Speaker 00

  Um, well, I think the biggest reason is I wanted to.

• 20:19Speaker 00

  Like, it's very hard to improve your life or achieve your goals by accident. There is a moment in your life where you have to answer the question, what do I really want? And if you don't know the answer to that question, just ask yourself, well, what do I not want? Because when you're feeling like you're in the depths and you feel like a person who has no worth, and if you feel like you've screwed up your life. I mean, I was convinced at 41, there's no hope for me. I'd never get out of debt. I had ruined my career because I'd changed my career too many times. I'd never be able to fix the problems in my marriage. I wouldn't be able to make a comeback. I just believed that.

• 21:05Speaker 00

  And at some point, even in the depth of that type of despair and discouragement, having a moment of clarity where you say to yourself, wait, I don't want this. I don't want to feel like this for the rest of my life. And I know that you, I think you've had Dr. K, the Healthy Gamer, on your show. You haven't had him?

• 21:28André Duqum?

  Yeah.

• 21:30Speaker 00

  He's, 16 years later, I interview him, and he explains better than anybody else that moment of change. Because you ask, what's the single biggest thing that changed your life? And for me, the one moment, the one decision that changed everything was realizing it was way worse and more painful to stay where I was than to do all of the little things I was avoiding.

• 22:01Speaker 00

  And I often say to people in my life that are friends and family members that are going through a hard time, when they come and ask for advice, I just say to them, well, do you want things to get worse before they get better? Because they're going to. And you have control over when you decide this is worse enough. And it's time for me to move toward the thing that I've been avoiding because it would be harder to stay here than to actually change my life. Because my life, changing my life would be easy. This is now getting hard. That's why we avoid. That's why we sit on the couch. That's why we talk ourselves out of things. Because it feels easier than pushing through the resistance and the discouragement and the negative self-talk. That's why we do it.

• 22:46Speaker 00

  We're wired that way. And it would be wonderful if I could have just snapped my fingers a year earlier and snapped myself out of it. But that's just not how I work, and it's not how a lot of us work. And so the thing that really changed everything is I got so sick of myself. And I got sick of feeling like a horrible human being. And I got sick of waiting for somebody else to magically come in and solve all this. And I realized, if I want my life to change, if I want to feel better, if I want to be proud of myself again, if I want to get these bills paid off, if I want to fix my marriage, it's not on anybody but me. And I need to start acting like the person I need. Like, if I think I need somebody to come and wake me up,

• 23:31Speaker 00

  I need to wake myself up. If I need somebody to encourage me to go for a walk, I need to encourage myself. If I need motivation to get a job, I got to motivate myself. And that was the epiphany. It's just like, you have to start acting. Like, it sounds so stupid, but it's true. Because you think your life is out there. You think that your best life is literally five years out, 10 years out. The truth is, your life is right now. Your life is Tuesday. That's your life. It's not what you do on vacation. It's not what you do in the big moments. Your life is 1,000 Tuesdays. That's it. And so you can look at a normal Tuesday right now,

• 24:14Speaker 00

  and you can examine the way you go through your life. And if you stop and think about an average Tuesday, let's just roll the clock forward six years. So now it's 2032. You're waking up on an average Tuesday. If you change nothing, nothing changes. And you don't stop and think about the fact that your current life, how you're living, your current life, your job, your relationship, your morning routine, and by the way, laying in bed looking at your phone is a morning routine.

• 24:47Speaker 00

  Your current life is leading you somewhere. Five years from now, if you don't change anything, you're going to wake up on a Tuesday and it's going to look exactly the same. Is that what you want? And if the answer is yes, great. Amazing. Keep going. If there's aspects of your life, and this is what happened to me, where like, I could see what was going to happen. If I didn't change, I'd be divorced. I'd be bankrupt. I'd be like angry. God knows what I'd be doing for a living. I'd probably be an alcoholic. I could see where my behavior was leading me. And I realized, I don't want that future. That's what changed.

• 25:25André Duqum?

  As it's been said, the pain of staying the same outweighed the pain of change.

• 25:29Speaker 00

  Yes, and I hate that it has to be like that. Like, wouldn't it be wonderful if motivation were on demand? Wouldn't it be wonderful? If, you know, I often think about this. If you just did the things you don't feel like doing, in 10 years, you'd have everything you've ever wanted. It's true.

• 25:48André Duqum?

  It's interesting to see how your fuel source changes over time. So like, you're working with what you got at any given moment, right? And the indignation and the fire of the pain of where you're not, you know, can drive you to great places. I'm curious, contrasted to your experience of life now.

• 26:02Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 26:02André Duqum?

  Because I've heard you share how like many entrepreneurs, they've married their achievement with being worthy of love. How successfully have you detached your internal feeling of enoughness with the external outcomes of what you're doing?

• 26:16Speaker 00

  At 58, I am probably, it's one of the things I'm most proud of. My success does not define my worth as a human being. How I feel about myself and whether or not I was a good friend, a good mom, a good wife, a good person, that I showed up with good intentions, that I was a good boss, that I cleaned up and apologized when I screwed up, that defines whether or not I'm a good person. All of the other stuff is incredible, and it says nothing about how I feel about myself as a person. And I really believe that. And, you know, you talked a little bit

• 27:00Speaker 00

  about the source of motivation. What's interesting is that if I think about being 41, I was addicted to being right. And what I was right about is that this wasn't my fault, and it's not fair. And you cannot be right and also be connected to somebody else. You cannot be right about how unfair things are and be motivated to change things for the better. And when I had this switch in my mind that I don't want to stay this person. I don't want to live the rest of my life

• 27:42Speaker 00

  feeling like an insecure, jealous, righteous, contemptuous bitch. I want to be peaceful. I want to be in control. I want to feel proud of myself. I want to be the kind of person that I would admire because of the way that they move through the world, and they're generous, and they're kind, and they're, you know, doing something that makes a positive difference in the world, in their community. I want to be that kind of person. And that simple switch, I don't want to be the person I am now. You're not stuck as this version of yourself. You can change your mind. You can change your decisions. You can change your relationships. You can change your job. You can change it anytime you decide to

• 28:26Speaker 00

  and you're willing to work at it. But the source of my motivation, if I really think about what drove me, was security. I felt profoundly unsafe because we couldn't pay our bills. Like, I couldn't put gas in the car tank some weeks. And so I became obsessed with this idea of creating security for myself and my family. That's what drove me for five or six years, was just figuring out, how do we pay these bills? How do we feel normal again? How do we make the ends meet? How do we get the leans off the house? How do I write a check that doesn't bounce? That was the source of motivation.

• 29:09Speaker 00

  And it wasn't until I started to get my head above water, and that would have been like 2013, that I was able to look around and ask, okay, well, what is it that is going to be my intention and is going to motivate me now? And it's important to think about it. Like, what actually is the deeper thing that is driving you?

• 29:34Speaker 00

  And if your life isn't working, it's probably something very negative. And if you're having trouble getting yourself motivated, I would take a look at what could be the intention or the why that matters to you.

• 29:50André Duqum?

  What's your fuel source now?

• 29:51Speaker 00

  Impact and encouragement.

• 29:55André Duqum?

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• 30:40André Duqum?

  And for if any reason, it's just not your vibe, they will give you a no-questions-asked full refund. You don't even have to send it back. That's drinkelemente.com/knowthyself. Links down below. I hope you enjoy. You talk about this need for control.

• 30:56Speaker 00

  Mm-hmm.

• 30:57André Duqum?

  Was it not until you became relatively successful that you were able to kind of see through that? And like you said, at 58 now, it's one of the things you're most proud of, right? Of not having your worthiness be attached to your success.

• 31:10Speaker 00

  Mm-hmm.

• 31:12André Duqum?

  Was there a moment when it kind of locked in for you?

• 31:15Speaker 00

  In terms of the... Well, there's kind of layers to this. So if you're in a state where you can't pay your bills, let me just be blunt, that is an acute form of stress that kicks in a survival mechanism. It is very difficult to be chill and peaceful when you can't pay your bills. And so getting to a point where you can pay your bills, I'm not talking about buying a fancy car. I'm not talking about buying a nice handbag. I'm saying just the bills come in, you have reliable income, you can pay your bill, you can put your head down on the pillow and know nobody's gonna come and take your car away. Like that, that sort of safety is foundational. So there's that piece of it.

• 31:58Speaker 00

  Then for me became the next layer, which is I gotta restore the savings. Because once I get the bills paid, I'm at a net zero. I don't have any savings. I don't have a retirement account. I have children that are five years away from going to college. I don't have a college fund. I don't have anything. So I need to get that up because that means something to me to feel safe, right? And so my achievement in achieving those goals were very important for my sense of self-worth as a mom, as a wife, as a human being,

• 32:39Speaker 00

  who it just mattered to be able to feel like I could take care of my family. In terms of divorcing my worthiness as a person from the things that I accomplish, I think that that had more to do with the personal work in therapy and in really learning how to slow a nervous system down. Always been go, go, go, go, go, go, go, go, go, go, go, go. And be able to exhale and be in this moment

• 33:21Speaker 00

  and be present in this moment, rather than on to the next thing, on to the next thing, on to the next thing, on to the next thing. And because the financial crisis and because I've had a lifetime of anxiety and like many people have had experiences in my childhood that I didn't recognize were creating reverb in my adult life. I think it really took until, I don't know.

• 33:56Speaker 00

  I would say maybe 54? Before I really felt like, okay, you can exhale. You did the thing that you needed to do to make yourself feel like you were able to provide for your family. You don't need anymore. And now you can focus on doing things in your day-to-day life and showing up in your day-to-day life where you are excited about what you're doing and you enjoy what you're doing. And it's not about whether or not it does well. And that's when it started to separate majorly.

• 34:39Speaker 00

  But there was a lot of internal work. Because I was one of those people that was just hyper vigilant. I was always on edge. I was always on to the next thing. I was not present. You know, another thing that really helped is that in 2019, we raised our kids outside of Boston. And in 2019, we bought my in-law's house in southern Vermont because my mother-in-law was downsizing. She was a widower and had been living in this house on a mountain for, God, I don't know, 15 years alone. And she was downsizing and we were in a position to be able to buy it in 2019. And we bought it to kind of keep it in the family. And our kids grew up going there, really, really special place.

• 35:23Speaker 00

  And through a much longer story, we end up in 2020, moving there. And having to calibrate a nervous system that was like a Ferrari being chased by eight cop cars, which is what it felt like to be in my body, to an environment where from my house, it's 150-mile view, straight down a valley. You can't see any other houses. You can't see any other people. It's a 270-degree hug from mountains.

• 36:05Speaker 00

  And it took me about a year to slow my body down to match the majesty of living in a place like that. And I could not believe how when we first moved there, and this would have been 2020, so there was a whole lot of other things going down, I would be in the house and I'm like, there's no... Like, where am I gonna go? There's no TJ Maxx. Like, there's no Home Depot here. And I couldn't believe how often I was running around and running mindless errands because I just had a body that was go, go, go, go, go, go, go, go, go, go, go, go. And so to untangle the knot of how did I get to a point where I was proud enough of myself

• 36:50Speaker 00

  to divorce the accomplishments out in the world from whether or not I'm a good person? It's a combination of deciding to be a good person and starting to act like it. Because your brain is always watching what you're doing. It's a combination of therapy and getting serious about healing things from the past. And it was a combination of moving to a place that was very quiet that accelerated all of that healing. EMDR was a big piece of it. Psychedelic guided therapies under the MAPS protocol as a family was another big piece of it. Marriage counseling with my husband and talking with somebody where it's not even like anything's wrong. We just have a person we speak with once a month that is like, oh, oh yeah, hi.

• 37:34Speaker 00

  Oh, okay, what is going on with us? Like, life's busy. Like, let's talk. That helped. But it begins by saying to yourself, I don't want to be this version of myself for the rest of my life, and I don't have to be.

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• 38:19André Duqum?

  I didn't know you were dabbling in all those modalities, and that makes...

• 38:22Speaker 00

  Dabble, dude. I jump in the deep end. I'm a dabbleist. I'm like, in!

• 38:27André Duqum?

  EMDR. Is there one that was the most profound, or was it really just the concoction?

• 38:30Speaker 00

  I think it's the concoction, but for sure the MDMA MAPS protocol with therapists and integrations.

• 38:36André Duqum?

  As a family.

• 38:36Speaker 00

  As a family.

• 38:37André Duqum?

  Wow. Yeah, that's rad.

• 38:38Speaker 00

  Friggin' incredible. First, I did it with my husband. Then we did it a year later. And the first time we did the MDMA protocol with two therapists was the night we moved into our new house in Vermont in the empty living room. And then we did it a year later on our, I think it was our 26th wedding anniversary. And then the third time that we did it, it was winter solstice during a snowstorm in our barn in Vermont and our three adult kids. And my husband's, she thinks she's 87-year-old mom was with us. It was extraordinary, absolutely extraordinary.

• 39:16André Duqum?

  It's, um, it makes me feel like how much of us are desperately arranging our external circumstances to fix what is fundamentally an inside nervous system regulation job. When you talk about control and this shift of like, one, accepting your circumstance, right, and where you're at in life. To me, surrender, that word can like, almost be perceived as like, just let whatever happens, happen, you know?

• 39:45Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 39:45André Duqum?

  And don't do anything. And when I hear you share about let them and surrendering and accepting as being ultimately like, the impetus for you to actually have power and agency over your life. Could you set the stage for even just like 60 seconds, high level overview? What is the let them, let them theory?

• 40:02Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 40:03André Duqum?

  If, you know, no one's hurt at this point, you're living under a rock.

• 40:05Speaker 00

  No, absolutely. So the let them theory is something that I created, which is basically a modern version of Buddhism, Stoicism, the radical acceptance, uh, the serenity prayer, Viktor Frankl's work. And it's very simple. It's all about control. And the theory helps you in a split second, recognize what's not in your control and let go of it. And then take the control back and focus on what's actually in your control. And here's how it works. It's very, very, very simple. At any moment during the day, when you just feel a flood of emotions, you're frustrated, you're annoyed,

• 40:49Speaker 00

  you are sad, you're hurt, you are wanting to change somebody, you wish somebody was different, the traffic's bad, anything, anything that makes you, ah, just say, let them. It's a boundary. That's all that it is. It's a boundary between you and everything around you. And when you say the words, let them, you're not allowing anybody to do anything. You're forcing yourself to recognize that the situation or person who's pissing me off right now, I can't control. Therefore, why would I waste my time and energy stressing myself out by trying to? I'm just gonna let this person be who they are and who they're not. I'm gonna let them have their opinion. I'm gonna let them be

• 41:30Speaker 00

  disrespectful. I'm not allowing it. I'm recognizing that the person in front of me is doing something that I don't like, but I can't control them. And they probably already just did it. So it's already happened anyway. So just let them recognize that the power's not over there. And then you say the second boundary, which is let me. Let me take control back. Let me decide how I'm gonna respond. Let me take a beat. Let me walk away. Let me lean in with compassion. Let me decide that the person in front of me is mentally unstable. So why do I want to sleep with them? Let me decide that my parent is somebody who can't

• 42:14Speaker 00

  provide the things that I need. I get to choose how much time I spend with them. I get to choose whether or not I try to understand from their perspective. Like, so many people are pissed off at their parents. Have you looked at your grandparents? And what they did to your parents? Not excusing anything, but you get to choose. When you focus on what you can control, let me choose what I think. Let me choose what I do or don't do. The don't do is really important. Let me recognize the emotions coming up and then let me decide how to process them before I send the email or the text or whatever.

• 42:51André Duqum?

  Yeah.

• 42:52Speaker 00

  That was Mel Robbins, 41, just volcano. Um, and what's beautiful about the let them theory is that when used correctly, it teaches you to stop trying to change other people because change is not love, changing other people's judgment and control. It teaches you to stop allowing all these outside forces to rob you of your time and energy and your power. And it gives you your control back and centers the power in your life inside you and your response to life. That's

• 43:30Speaker 00

  all that this is. It's a way to apply the fundamental truths in life at a moment in history where the world is overwhelming and everything is changing and everybody's dysregulated. And the one person you can regulate and the one person you can have control over and the one person you can change is you. And when you change something, everything can change.

• 43:58André Duqum?

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• 44:42André Duqum?

  thyself to get up to $640 off your Chili Pad 2.0 with code know thyself. This special offer is available for Know Thyself listeners and only for a limited time. You get free shipping and you can return it for free if you don't like it with their sleep trial. That's S L E E P dot M E slash know thyself to see why cold sleep is your ultimate ally in performance and recovery. I hope you sleep as well as I do, like a vampire some nights. Back to the show.

• 45:12André Duqum?

  It's the most empowering thing when somebody enters a room with a equanimous state of being.

• 45:18Speaker 00

  Who? An equanimous? What does that mean?

• 45:20André Duqum?

  Equanimous, like peaceful.

• 45:21Speaker 00

  Oh, okay, got it.

• 45:22André Duqum?

  Yeah, George was like, um,

• 45:24Speaker 00

  Yes, you can feel it.

• 45:26André Duqum?

  Right. And vice versa, you know, you can entrain a space if you're super anxious and, you know, it affects. I'm curious, because, you know, I think the distinction between let them and let me is super important. And I'm curious, like, you're, when it comes to the way that you described your own need for control, do you feel like it was anxiety masquerading as responsibility? It's like, the, the control is almost like the outward expression of a dysregulated nervous system.

• 45:54Speaker 00

  Well, you know, I was really curious about this when my daughter and I wrote the book. I mean, there's like 57 world renowned experts that contributed to this book. And what we discovered from talking to people like Dr. K and all these incredible researchers and neuroscientists and psychologists and anthropologists, is that every single one of us has a hardwired need for control. It's a mechanism that you cannot get rid of because it's tied to your safety. If you're not in control of what's gonna happen during the day, if you're, don't know what's gonna happen at work today, you're going to be on edge because it feels threatening if you don't know what's gonna happen. I mean, any one of us who has ever gotten a text, we need to talk. I don't know

• 46:39Speaker 00

  what's gonna happen. Like, and so that just, the need for control and feeling like, I have a general sense of how the conversation's gonna go. I have a general sense of how my day is gonna go. I have a general sense of how traffic is gonna go. That's a fundamental thing inside you that you will never get rid of. The question is, how do you work with it? Instead of having this hardwired need for control constantly work against you. And so that's one piece of this. You're never, ever, ever gonna get rid of your need for control because it's tied to safety. The other piece is, a lot of parenting is control, right? Because, um, you know, you want to keep your kids safe, so you tell them what

• 47:24Speaker 00

  to do. A lot of us get it wrong. Some things we get right. So you are conditioned, as you're growing up, to believe that when somebody is trying to control you, that's like, almost a form of love and attention. And so when we grow up feeling like, oh, yeah, my mom loves me. So, you know, she's constantly telling me to pick up my stuff and no, no, no. It's just what we do as parents.

• 47:50Speaker 00

  You become adult, then, that starts to model that with your partner.

• 47:56Speaker 00

  And we can't help it. I mean, I did it this way for 54 years. Boss and Chris around and, you know, he would silently resent me and push back and not do the things I said because he needs to feel in control of himself. This is why trying to change somebody actually backfires. Because you're trying to make your spouse lose weight. Because you think things will be better and you'll feel better because you're worried about them. You're worried about their health. So the concern and the desire to change somebody is coming from a good place. But when I try to get you to exercise, I get you a trainer. I like, you know, say, hey, you know, you wanna, maybe, have you hit the gym today? I start doing the hints.

• 48:38Speaker 00

  What ends up happening is I'm now trying to control you. But you have a fundamental need to be in control of yourself. And so instead of motivating you, I actually trigger you to push back so you can stay in control of you. And we all do it. And, and I think that's why this book has been such a global sensation. Because when used correctly, and you start saying, let them, particularly with your parents, or your adult kids, or your boss, or your friend, but particularly with family. Because families teach you how to love people you hate at the same time. Right? Difference between loving somebody and liking them in this moment.

• 49:20Speaker 00

  And when you say, let them, because your mother is irritating you. And I irritate my kids, my mother irritates, it's just what we do. And I love them. When you say, let her, you're not allowing your mom to do anything. You're recognizing your mom is her own person, with her own incomplete stuff, with her own emotional stuff. I do not have to manage her. I'm not going to change her. I'm just going to let her be who she is and who she isn't. You're practicing radical acceptance and you're creating space for somebody to feel that they can just be who they are without somebody managing them. And then when you say, let me, let me decide what kind of daughter I want to be.

• 50:03Speaker 00

  Let me decide if I'm going to extend compassion, or if I'm going to distance myself. Let me choose how I'm going to show up to this relationship. Instead of living in a fantasy up here, wishing somebody were different. Why don't I live in the reality and just accept who this person is? And then learn how to adapt based on who they are. And what happens, and I think this is why, this is one of the secrets why this book is so wildly successful, is that in using it that way, and taking all the control back and recognizing your family's never going to change, but you can change. And when you change your energy and you show up with more compassion and you show up with better boundaries and you stop expecting everyone else to be different, you've known

• 50:48Speaker 00

  these people their whole life. They're not changing. Ever. So let them be who they are. Let them have the dignity of their own experience. And then let me just be responsible for boundaries and for how I show up. Instead of trying to make everybody different. And all this like bullshit starts to disappear. Because you're now controlling your energy and your time and your values and how you want to show up. And you're not expecting anybody to do anything. And you'll recognize how powerful you are. Because when you're no longer bracing around your parents and you're still choosing to spend some time with them, your energy shifting and you're not expecting anything than what

• 51:32Speaker 00

  normally happens to happen. Oh, my God, like, all kinds of crazy change happens. Because you've changed. And it's bringing people together. And it taught me to approach relationships with a deep sense of compassion and a deep sense of acceptance. And it showed me how judgy I was. Yeah. And it's also, you know, a lot of people have big opinions about their parents, justifiably so. But when I say, look at your fucking grandparents, I mean it. Because a lot of the things that may have happened in your childhood are the result of things that got done to your parents.

• 52:16Speaker 00

  And I'm not justifying anything. I'm just saying, having a bit of understanding for somebody's full story and their lack of capacity does not excuse things that people do. It explains and gives context, which is important information for your boundaries. And it's important information for your capacity to really approach something with a bit more compassion and understanding.

• 52:48André Duqum?

  Yeah, I think it's really impossible to judge something and understand it at the same time. So.

• 52:53Speaker 00

  Ooh, that's a good one. It's impossible to judge something and understand it at the same time. And I love that. And understanding how somebody may came to be who they are, does not mean you're allowing it in your life, or you're accepting it. But it, it dissolves, for me anyway, a tremendous amount of angst and blame and anger and confusion, living in acceptance for what is and what isn't. And understanding that different people, based on their past, and based on the present moment, have they eaten?

• 53:38Speaker 00

  Have they slept? Are they under a lot of stress? People's capacity to give you what you need, or to be present, or to be emotionally mature, is 100% a function of their past, which they haven't dealt with, and the present circumstances that are stressing them out. Again, not an excuse for disrespectful behavior. But you will feel so freaking powerful when you can look at the world that way. Because it's almost like, I, I often think about this example, I talk about it a lot, where I put other people in snow globes. Like, if I see somebody who's immature, disrespectful, emotionally dysregulated, I immediately mentally

• 54:23Speaker 00

  put them in a snow globe. And their dysregulation is like the crap that is in a snow globe. And you know what's great about a snow globe? It stays in the globe. Why does somebody else's energy have to get into you? If you see it coming a mile away, you're like, let them, they're having a bad day. Let me remind myself, I don't have to step in and manage this if I don't want to. If I want to, because the person's being a bully, or they're being bigoted, or, you know, they're hurt, I'm going to step in because that's my value. But I'm not going to let their crap get in me. Uh-uh. No way. God, I wish I had this when I worked retail and I worked in a restaurant. Literally. And when I was a young mom. Because I would be so stressed out at work and I would come home and yell at my kids.

• 55:06Speaker 00

  Because we, we often give the best people the worst of us. And then we apologize, I'm really sorry, I, I had a bad day at work. And finally, one day, my son, he was in middle school, looked at me and he's like, I don't work with you. Why are you taking your work stress out on me? Like, take it out on somebody else. I'm like, you're right. You're right, I need to change this. And you know what changed it? A transition. It's literally the doorknob trick. Before you walk into a room, just take a beat and mentally change the hat you're wearing.

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• 56:12André Duqum?

  I want to go back to something you said, which to me feels like giving so much more space and grace for where people are at and viewing them almost as phenomena unto themselves. I've had some very interesting conversations with cognitive psychologists. We can go into deep philosophical rabbit holes about free will. But when you really, like, if we actually had full context for someone's own developmental journey, for everything they've went through, we would perfectly understand why they're acting the way they are.

• 56:40Speaker 00

  Of course.

• 56:41André Duqum?

  And of course.

• 56:41Speaker 00

  It would make perfect sense.

• 56:42André Duqum?

  Right. And it wouldn't absolve them of the responsibility or consequence, right? But like, I, I often think about this analogy of somebody, like a murder case. If you discovered there was a tumor pressing on their amygdala, does that change your thought around the consequence of the situation, you know?

• 56:58Speaker 00

  Well, now, of course, you know, I'm a lawyer.

• 57:00André Duqum?

  Yeah.

• 57:01Speaker 00

  So it depends on the crime they're charged with. And it depends on if intent.

• 57:05André Duqum?

  Right. And it might not change the consequence of being put in jail.

• 57:08Speaker 00

  Here's what I know. When you understand why somebody is acting the way they act, both the internal reasons, the external pressure, it gives you an incredible capacity to see how people got to where they are and why they do the things they do. And if you for a second took the narcissistic personality style parent that you may have,

• 57:46Speaker 00

  and you took the time to go back and see the horrendous conditions of their childhood, and the fact that they were never given the attention, the love, the consideration that they deserved and needed. And their childhood fashioned them in a way where they have a level of emotional violence and volatility that is basically a mentally illness. That's not their fault, by the way. Like, I think there's a huge misconception about narcissism, that it's a choice. Most narcissists don't, they're not even aware that they're that way. They're trapped in a body that was fashioned by a childhood.

• 58:29Speaker 00

  I mean, Dr. Ramani Diversila, the world's leading expert on it, when she said, nobody's born this way, they're made this way in childhood, I was like, whoa.

• 58:39Speaker 00

  And so when you understand you may be dealing with somebody who has mental illness, you may be dealing with somebody who has a lot of trauma that they've never addressed. And you can judge them all you want for not going to therapy, but this is who this person is. And when you understand that a lot of times this person is so out of control in their own body, thoughts and mind, they're not even aware of what they're doing. It gives the behavior that you're seeing that is hurtful or harmful, a different context to allow you to process it and to create boundaries and to decide how you're going to move forward based on what you now know. But the understanding piece is incredibly important for your own power.

• 59:24Speaker 00

  Because now you're not in judgment, you're in understanding, and now you can have better boundaries. Because you're no longer going, well, maybe today they'll be in a better mood because they're like, you know, heckling, whatever it is, what is that thing? Hide and, what is it?

• 59:38André Duqum?

  Hide and jack.

• 59:39Speaker 00

  Different person. It's whatever. And you're bracing, and now you're tense, and then you walk in, and there's one thing you're like, now I'm on eggshells. Like, what if you're just like, this person's mentally ill? And some days are drunk, and some days are this, and I don't know who I'm dealing with, but I know I'm dealing with somebody that I gotta limit time with.

• 59:56André Duqum?

  You know what's really helped me as one tool is whenever I judge something, to try to identify where I've displayed that characteristic or behavior in my own life. And to me, that brings humility in a way that really diffuses the situation a lot. And is, in a way, similar analogous to let them theory as well. I want to, it feels like some of the biggest spurts of growth in your career have been from these incredibly useful and simple frameworks.

• 1:00:25Speaker 00

  All of them.

• 1:00:26André Duqum?

  The five second rule, the high five, the let them theory, right? And I think that's why they've become so popular, because they're actually useful on a Tuesday.

• 1:00:35Speaker 00

  Well, because you remember it.

• 1:00:36André Duqum?

  And you remember it.

• 1:00:37Speaker 00

  So let's keep in mind, some of the leading medical experts have, Dr. Aditi Narikar, who is a medical doctor, professor at Harvard Medical School, and ran the largest stress management clinic in the Harvard healthcare system. Recently published findings that she believes 83% of people, at least in the United States, are in a state of chronic stress. Medically speaking, that means people are walking around in fight or flight with a compromised amygdala. I choose to extend a lot of grace to people because I believe most people right now are extraordinarily overwhelmed, extraordinarily stressed out.

• 1:01:20Speaker 00

  They're spending way too much time online, mainlining fake crap and AI stuff and comparison, and it's creating a compromised ability for people to think clearly and regulate themselves and conduct themselves in a way that is, I don't know, respectful or kind, generous, present? And so I extend a lot of grace right now to people because if I didn't, I would be walking around pissed off at the state of the world. I would be walking around in a state of judgment. And so, I don't remember, I just had menopause brain, I don't know what I was talking about. Okay, where are we?

• 1:01:58André Duqum?

  Dr. Aditi, stress management.

• 1:02:00Speaker 00

  Yeah. And your body, one of the things that she said on, when she was on our podcast, is that your body doesn't actually reset itself. That you need to recognize when your internal alarm goes off. And you need to take steps to find the switch inside yourself and turn it off. And the let them theory has actually helped me do it. Because when I say let them, it's, yes, me cueing myself, okay, the thing that's pissing you off is out of your control now, so let them. I know you don't like it. I know you hate what's happening in the world right now, just let them.

• 1:02:45Speaker 00

  Now you gotta pull your energy back and take control of what I can do, which is the response? I'm resetting the alarm. Because you're basically saying let them when you get triggered and stressed.

• 1:02:56André Duqum?

  Yeah, there's, and to me, there feels like a big difference between let them and let them.

• 1:03:02Speaker 00

  Yes.

• 1:03:03André Duqum?

  And I'm curious, because this is something I'm personally wrestling with, with this, and I want to get your distinction. Because presumably, you have to forego a level of precision for usability. What I mean by that is, when you have these incredibly simple and memorable things that you can use in your life, of course, they're not going to be exhaustive of truth or objectivity. To me, because I've heard sometimes the let them be used as a way to generate like a subtle superiority, or a way to put people on a snow globe, for example. And to me, because what I feel like the let them theory is getting them, is getting at is freedom, like more internal freedom.

• 1:03:44André Duqum?

  And to me, I describe or define freedom as a state of non-resistance to what is. A state of non-resistance to what is. And so I'm curious, and it's a subtle distinction, and it's not one that is easily packageable on a book, right? And useful in your day-to-day life always. Do you see that it can still kind of create this superiority? And it can kind of reinforce your own ego in a way that it once sought to transcend?

• 1:04:10Speaker 00

  Yeah. That's why there's a second part to it. One of the reasons why it works to unhook you emotionally is that if you're in a situation where your feelings are really hurt, like let's say your friends go away for the weekend, they didn't invite you. It hurts. So when you're like, let them, bitches. The superiority unhooks you from the hurt. It helps to let go a little bit. When you see your ex, who you're still in love with, now posting a photo with somebody new, that's like, so when you say let them, and you say it with attitude, that attitude

• 1:04:53Speaker 00

  is trying to help you unhook from the hurt. And that's okay, but you don't want to stay there. People get into trouble with this because they start saying, let them, let them, let them, let them, let them, let them, let them. And those two words are not what this theory is. Those two words are how you recognize what's out of your control. And when you say that, I say that about the headlines all the time, and it's not because I don't care, it's because I care a lot. And I don't like what I'm seeing. And I recognize that so much of it is out of my control, and I hate that. And so the let them piece is reminding me that any time and energy I spend worrying

• 1:05:37Speaker 00

  about something, or being upset about something, and I don't do anything with that upsetness. If I just sit in the feeling that I have no control, I have missed the important thing, which is even when things are horrendous, you always have control over the response to what you're gonna do. And if it bothers you enough, do not waste energy worrying, complaining, like, consuming yourself with discouraging thoughts. Because you need that energy, and you need your brain to be able to figure out how to solve the problems that are upsetting you. That's the let me part. It always comes back to the power and the control that you have through your own actions

• 1:06:22Speaker 00

  and through your response to things. And most of us spend 99% of our time and energy being upset about the things we can't control, instead of taking our power and energy back and figuring out how to respond to it.

• 1:06:36Speaker 02

  When you're building a company, you learn that trust is what closes deals. You may have the best product, but buyers won't sign without proof that your product is secure, especially if it has AI. Vanta gets you compliant fast with SOC 2, ISO 27001, and more, and keeps you secure with continuous monitoring. Hyperbound, a YC-backed startup, used Vanta to unlock the Fortune 100 in under a year. Snowfire got audit-ready in a month and closed a multimillion-dollar deal. Trust matters. Get started at vanta.com.

• 1:07:04André Duqum?

  To me, it sounds like let them is the entry point, not, not the endpoint.

• 1:07:09Speaker 00

  It's a Trojan horse.

• 1:07:10André Duqum?

  Yeah, it's a Trojan horse.

• 1:07:12Speaker 00

  Like, it gets you going. And then you're like, oh, wait, oh, I can't just blame other people? Okay, I gotta take responsibility? Okay, my relationship with my mom is not on her, it's on me? Okay. Oh, God, I gotta do acceptance and compassion here? Whoa, okay. My career is not my boss's responsibility, it's mine? Oof. It's on me? Really?

• 1:07:37André Duqum?

  Yeah.

• 1:07:38Speaker 00

  The let me theory would never have sold.

• 1:07:41Speaker 00

  Honestly, think about that.

• 1:07:42André Duqum?

  Yeah, no, it's, I'm glad we're getting into this distinction here because I agree once it's that helpful entry point and then you get deeper into, okay, it's clever. Let them is clever. Clever is better than being a victim to life. Being free is better than being clever. And so it's like, I guess the issue I was, or the discernment thing I was kind of exploring was like, if we just stopped at let them, then we might be operating-

• 1:08:11Speaker 00

  You can't stop.

• 1:08:12André Duqum?

  I know, we can't. But if we did, we would be under this presumption that others' behavior is somehow ours to permit or not permit, right? Which is again-

• 1:08:21Speaker 00

  Giving them the power.

• 1:08:22André Duqum?

  Yeah.

• 1:08:23Speaker 00

  If you only said, let them, let them, let them, you would start to see that your boss does not value you, that your siblings don't help with your parents, that your partner's disengaged, and you would feel like a doormat in your life. There has to be a second part because once you recognize what's out of your control, it can be very overwhelming because everything's out of your control except for what you do in response to it. And so you would miss the real secret, which is that you've always had the power through your thoughts, through your actions. I mean, this is the thesis of Viktor Frankl's book, The Man's Search for Meaning.

• 1:09:00André Duqum?

  Yeah, the deepest contemplative Stoic Buddhist philosophies.

• 1:09:03Speaker 00

  Yes, yes. But this is how you apply it.

• 1:09:06André Duqum?

  Yeah.

• 1:09:07Speaker 00

  See, for me, I know that my genius in life is taking a massive amount of complex information and laser focusing on the simple thing. And I also know that I'm not a why person, I'm a how person. Because I have been lost in thought. I have a really big brain. I understand very complex things and I can go down a rabbit hole. But if I can't laser focus into the one takeaway that I can then apply, nothing changes. Because if, if you want to change your life, thinking about changing your life doesn't do it, just like thinking about riding a bike doesn't make you ride a bike. At some point, you have to get out of your head and you've got to get on your feet and

• 1:09:50Speaker 00

  you've got to start walking and doing the things that change your life. And so I'm always looking for, okay, yep, all this knowledge makes you smart, but what am I doing? And what is the thing that I will remember to do when I'm stressed, when I'm pissed, when I'm activated, when I'm depressed? Because if I can't remember it, it's useless.

• 1:10:13André Duqum?

  Right, which is the moment you need it the most.

• 1:10:16Speaker 00

  Yes, correct. How many times have you gone into like a deep, deep, deep conversation with somebody or a therapist or a medical doctor? And you're in the conversation, you're talking about what you're going to do when you get back home and you know, you've been fighting with your partner and I'm going to say this thing and it's going to change everything and you get the best advice. And then you walk in the door and their stuff is everywhere and they haven't picked up the dishes and now you're stressed out and instead of applying the thing that you just talked about, you go right into reaction and emotion and you do what you always do. That's because when you're talking to someone about something, you tend to be present and not emotional.

• 1:11:01Speaker 00

  But when you're in the situation, when you need the thing and you get emotional, you can't remember what the hell you're supposed to do. It's unbelievable.

• 1:11:08André Duqum?

  That's why I love so much of the study that you shared in the book around stress and how this perpetual state of vigilance, like when you're operating from that stressful spot, you don't have the cognitive tools you did when we're just philosophizing in a podcast room. It's different when you're actually in the moment of the trigger. So I agree that I do think your gift is to like make it laser focused and simple. And I'm curious because it is a gift and it's something I think a lot of people can learn from when they're trying to learn how to communicate or express their ideas to the world. How do you discern how much precision you're willing to forego in the name of usability?

• 1:11:49Speaker 00

  What does that mean?

• 1:11:50André Duqum?

  Like, let them is very useful. It's very simple. It's of course not fully precise. There's let me, there's more, you know, there's more context to it. So for anyone who's like trying to figure out how to like express their voice and make it actually connect with people, what advice or thoughts do you have there?

• 1:12:07Speaker 00

  It is very easy to overcomplicate something.

• 1:12:11Speaker 00

  It takes genius level accuracy to make something complicated simple. And I don't think most of us understand that when something suddenly seems obvious, like let them and let me and this theory that I created, it's, it feels so obvious because there was a 18 months of research that went into it. And so you're seeing the tip of an iceberg when you see the five second rule or the high five habit, but it is bolstered by a ridiculous amount of research.

• 1:12:53Speaker 00

  And so simplicity is extremely difficult. And what I would say is that if you want to be better at communicating simple ideas, you have to have a tremendous amount of research to back up why the answer is so simple. And it's important for that because just hearing, oh, count five, four, three, two, one, then move, sounds like the dumbest thing you've ever heard until you understand Chickney

• 1:13:34Speaker 00

  Sentney High's research around activation energy, the famous psychologist from the University of Chicago. Five, four, three, two, one, sounds stupid until you understand locus of control and the bias toward thinking versus the bias toward action.

• 1:13:52Speaker 00

  It sounds stupid until you start to understand the four different parts of the habit cycle that locks something in as a habit and the fact that you have to interrupt that cycle in order to replace the habit with a new pattern. Like it, and so to me, I am obsessed with taking lots of things that are intellectual and turning it into a tool that you can apply in modern life. Now, let's talk about communicating. There's a couple of things that I always think about. I'm a highly intentional person. And if you want to be a better communicator, first of all, just like writing, if you want to be a great writer, you've got to read a lot.

• 1:14:37Speaker 00

  If you want to be a great communicator, you need to listen. And not fake listen, but actually listen actively and be really curious about what the person is saying and be interested in the other person. That makes you a better communicator. Second thing is before you walk into any room at work, at a networking meeting, at a convention, at a bar, ask yourself, what do I want people to say about me when I leave? What are the words?

• 1:15:12Speaker 00

  Because if you want them to think you're smart and prepared, you'll walk in and communicate a certain way. If you want them to think, ah, he's a super chill guy. If you want them to think you're hilarious. If you want them to think that you're strategic. Think about the outcome and that can help drive the way you're going to communicate. The third thing is prepare. Prepare, prepare, prepare, prepare, prepare. The best communicators have put in the work. They know the subject matter. They have practiced. They have put in the reps, so to speak. They look like they're riffing, but they're riffing on top of preparation. The fourth thing, and this is a big one, and most people don't understand this.

• 1:15:59Speaker 00

  The best communicators on the planet don't talk to everyone. They're only ever talking to one person. I will stand on a stage and there'll be 28,000 people in the arena. And I, before I go on that stage, I'm standing backstage and I'm saying to myself, there's one person in this audience that is meant to be in this room. Maybe they have an adult kid going through anxiety. Maybe they're going through a divorce. Maybe they're thinking about a career change. Maybe they're really struggling with a lot of self doubt right now. I'm talking to that person. I could give a shit about the other 27,999 people here. Because I'm only ever talking to the one person that needs to hear it.

• 1:16:42Speaker 00

  And when you do that and you know who you're talking to, you know what it's for and who it's for, right? That's Seth Godin's question. Seth Godin is the godfather of modern marketing. One-to-one permission marketing is what he wrote about 20 years ago. I'm a huge student and fan of Seth's. You got to be able to answer, who is this for and what is it for? And I know that everything I do is for encouragement and I know who it's for. It's for the person standing with me in the grocery store line. It's a person who is exhausted. They have a lot going on in their life. They care about their family. They care about their community. They want to do better. They want to feel better. They have big dreams.

• 1:17:24Speaker 00

  They are tired right now and feeling weary and they want their life to be better and they want their, their family's life to be better. That's who I'm always talking to.

• 1:17:35Speaker 00

  I'm very clear about that. And so when you're clear about who you're talking to, you're a great communicator.

• 1:17:42Speaker 02

  When you're building a company, you learn that trust is what closes deals. You may have the best product, but buyers won't sign without proof that your product is secure, especially if it has AI. Vanta gets you compliant fast with SOC 2, ISO 27001 and more, and keeps you secure with continuous monitoring. Hyperbound, a YC-backed startup, used Vanta to unlock the Fortune 100 in under a year. Snowfire got audit ready in a month and closed a multimillion dollar deal. Trust matters. Get started at vanta.com.

• 1:18:11André Duqum?

  That is so very helpful. I know so many incredibly brilliant, accurate minds that struggle making their work digestible to people, like actually bridge that gap. And so I think all those things you shared from like good communication, starting with good listening and the preparation that comes in, like deciding who you are actually speaking to, because it clarifies the way that you communicate as well.

• 1:18:40Speaker 00

  And notice something. What I notice, having been the most booked female speaker in the world on the corporate circuit, so when Microsoft has a huge event, Mel Robbins. When, you know, you've got an enormous conference, Mel Robbins on that stage. Because I teach how, I teach about change, I do it through storytelling. And what I've noticed is that there's a lot of speakers that love being on that stage because they feel good about it themselves. There's a lot of people that want to be good communicators because they want to feel good and they want to feel seen and they want people to think that they're really smart.

• 1:19:24Speaker 00

  I don't give a shit if people think I'm smart. I want to be useful. I want to be encouraging. And when you are centered on being good at something because it means something about you, that is an intention that will take you in the wrong direction. When you want to be good at something because it does good in others, now your focus is on a person that you're serving instead of serving yourself. See, most of us, I didn't understand what purpose was for a very long time. I thought purpose was a job, I thought purpose was a calling, I thought purpose was this thing that you do. Purpose is not something you do.

• 1:20:06Speaker 00

  Purpose is something that happens in other people when you do what you do. You can move through your life with a sense of purpose when you go to the grocery store because it's about your energy, it's about how you interact with other people, it's about how you do what you do. That leaves other people feeling something because of how you do what you do. You can do that with a waiter, you can do that with your Uber driver, that's purpose.

• 1:20:37André Duqum?

  I love the way that you define that. That's what happens within other people. Because we all want to have something, we meaningfully contribute to the world and it's like because we're improving the lives of the people we're contributing to.

• 1:20:49Speaker 00

  Yeah. Like, think about a funeral. When you go to a funeral, and I want you to think about a funeral where the eulogies are amazing. The funerals are this incredible thing because it is the entire span of the human experience. You have people who are literally next in line to die. You have babies, you have sadness, you have celebration, you have tears and you have laughter. And one of the reasons why going to a funeral can be so motivating, like we've all been to those, you know, celebration of life things where you literally burst out of it, you're like, I need to go live my life. I'm so inspired. What were you inspired by?

• 1:21:32Speaker 00

  You were inspired not by the fact that this was a person that had a company. You were not inspired by the fact that this person, you know, cured something. You were not inspired by the fact that they had a billion dollars. You were inspired by the stories that other people told about who this person was as a human being. You were inspired by the fact that they were a good friend, that they had a sense of humor, that they gave back. That's what it means to have a good life. And so when you think about purpose in that lens, you can start, even if you're unemployed or you have a job you hate, you can start to live with a sense of purpose. You can be driven by purpose right now. I know my purpose is encouragement, I do.

• 1:22:17Speaker 00

  That's why I think about myself as just your friend. I don't think about myself as some big person that's hosting a podcast. I truly think of myself as that screwed up friend of yours that got her shit together and who's there for you when you need her and who tells you the things you don't want to hear, who pushes you out of your comfort zone, who cheerleads you to take that risk, who wants to see you win. That's, that's all that I am. I'm just here to encourage because that's what I've always needed. And when you learn, teach. When you get something, give it.

• 1:22:56Speaker 00

  And so I have gotten encouragement in low moments and that's why I give it, because I know that I needed it.

• 1:23:07André Duqum?

  What do you wish to be said at your eulogy?

• 1:23:09Speaker 00

  Oh, oh, Mel, um...

• 1:23:13André Duqum?

  What do you hope you evoked in everyone there?

• 1:23:16Speaker 00

  Here's what I know people will say. I know people are going to say that I encourage them to make the changes in their life that made them happier and that made them feel better, that I was a friend who was there when they needed me, that I was warm and generous with my time and that I was a good mom and a good friend and I gave it a good run. That's what they're going to say.

• 1:23:50André Duqum?

  I think they will indeed.

• 1:23:54André Duqum?

  It's beautiful to, uh, to feel that you've meaningfully contributed to people in your life and that they felt seen and truly encouraged by you. And it's, you know, we started this conversation talking about fuel sources and then how that evolves to truly just wanting to be of service. And it's really been so sweet to see in recent, the past three years, as you've just been, I mean, astronomical success on all counts, but when it's tied to something that is meaningfully impacting people's life in a way that's like so direct and clear is, is so inspiring. So, so thank you. And yeah, I have no doubt those things and many more will be said.

• 1:24:33Speaker 00

  Well, hopefully it won't say it for a few decades.

• 1:24:35André Duqum?

  Yeah, knock on wood.

• 1:24:36Speaker 00

  I'd like to experience, but most of it's personal. Like I, um, I just want to be around for some weddings and some grandkids and some more time with my husband. There's so much about, of the world I'd like to see. There's a lot more people I'd like to learn from and a lot more good I'd like to be a part of. But, you know, it's funny, when you achieve a certain level of success, people always ask you, what's next? And what are you going to do more, you know, like, like, nothing. I want to spend, I want to see my husband, I want to hang out with my kids, I want to sit on my, my back deck on the Adirondack chair and take in the sunset. I, I want more of that in my life.

• 1:25:20Speaker 00

  While I continue to figure out how to, how to do more good, how to have a bigger impact while doing a show that I really, I love it. I, I learned so much from, and I'm sure you feel the same way, and I'm sure you do too as you're listening and watching this right now, that it's incredible to live in a world where there's so much amazing, free, uh, resources that really get you to think about your inner life. Because there's the outer life, but truly taking the time to create an inner life that brings you a sense of peace and hope and grace and freedom. And that's incredible gift to give yourself.

• 1:26:05André Duqum?

  I think what's definitely a gift is how you've been able to maintain your relatability as you've scaled. I'm curious, because every new level of life, there's more unique, different challenges. And when you have so many eyeballs at what you're doing, on you and what you're doing, have you had to increasingly accept being misunderstood? How do you navigate that at this stage?

• 1:26:28Speaker 00

  I mean, it's an occupational hazard. Well, actually, it's, it's, everybody's misunderstood.

• 1:26:33André Duqum?

  Yeah.

• 1:26:33Speaker 00

  Everybody is, it's just a matter of scale. I put zero time into explaining myself. I put zero time into defending myself. If people want to make up lies, if people want to misunderstand me, if people want to say, you know, untrue, negative things as a way to pull attraction to themselves or to lift themselves up, let them. Why would I spend any ounce of time and energy on people who want to misunderstand me when there are so many other amazing people out there that really want the support and encouragement? That's where I'm putting my time.

• 1:27:18Speaker 00

  And here's the most important thing. If you know yourself, if you know your intentions...

• 1:27:27Speaker 00

  You don't care what other people think. It's only when you're not comfortable in your own skin that you're looking for validation outside of you. I don't need to explain myself to anybody. I know exactly who I am. Learning how to be yourself in every room you walk in, that is a skill. And that is what gives you peace. And when you stop seeking validation from other people because you know yourself and you're proud of yourself, holy cow, you're untouchable. It doesn't matter what people say about me. I honestly don't care. Because the people that I care about know me. That's it.

• 1:28:10Speaker 00

  There's that famous thing that Tom Holland said that went viral. You know, if you have a problem with me, text me. And if you don't have my number, you don't know me well enough to have a problem. Period.

• 1:28:19André Duqum?

  It's so true. And I find it fascinating that the things that we really get triggered when people say to us, it's like, it's revealing where we somehow still believe that as a part of ourselves.

• 1:28:29Speaker 00

  But you know, and here's the other thing. I'm a compassionate person. I used to be a very jealous, insecure person. I know what it feels like to see somebody who has something that you think you deserve. I know what it feels like to wish that somebody would see you. And so I can have compassion for somebody that is snarky, or jealous, or triggered, or making up lies, or has, you know, spends a lot of time talking about other people as a way to get attention for themselves. I used to be that person. And I know that somebody who does that's deeply insecure and in pain. And it's not my job to fix that person. It's not my job to heal them.

• 1:29:13Speaker 00

  I have a completely different mission in life. So I don't spend any time trying to change what people think about me. Because I know I can't anyway. I spend all my time focused on what I can control, which is what does, what do I want to do today? What do I not want to do today? How am I going to show up in a way and serve and be aligned with my mission and intention and the kind of person I want to be? And that's where my focus is.

• 1:29:37André Duqum?

  I think you'd probably agree that we learn so much in failure. Is there something that success has taught you that failure hasn't?

• 1:29:47Speaker 00

  I think the thing that success has taught me is that, first of all, I never understood when I was struggling financially, why the rich people get the free shit. Like, I, like, I, it just feels unfair. That's number one.

• 1:30:01André Duqum?

  The rich get richer?

• 1:30:02Speaker 00

  Yeah, like, just like, like, free products, free this, free that. Like, it just like, I needed this when I was, and I had no money. Like, white, um, I, I think what it's taught me is this. I'm gonna, I'm gonna unpack a couple lessons. Once you are financially stable, and I'll even throw on top that you're not just stable, that you have savings. And once you have savings and you can live in a house that you love, and you can afford to take your family on a trip, you know, every year, what more do you need? You're not going to be buried with all this crap you're buying. Like, what more do you need?

• 1:30:45Speaker 00

  Do you need a fancy car so people think a certain thing about you? What, why, why is there this chasing for more, more, more? And so I'm saying that because what success has taught me is that there is an incredible temptation when you start to achieve success, to raise the bar and to say, now I need this. Oh, now I need a bigger thing. Oh, now I need a nicer house. Oh, now I need this. And when you start to feel the temptation for more, that probably means you want more because other people are going to think something,

• 1:31:26Speaker 00

  or you are now chasing the wrong goal. And so success has taught me that once you have a level of success, it's extremely tempting to take your eye off your original intention and aim it up here. And when you start to do that, oh, now I have attention, I want more attention. Oh, now some people know me, I want more people to know me. And if that's not aligned with the original intention of what got you here, you are going to implode yourself and your psychology. So that's number one. That I, it's interesting because I see it everywhere.

• 1:32:10Speaker 00

  And I stay laser focused on the person in line at the grocery store with me and doing work that impacts that person in a positive way. I stay laser focused on the fact that this needs to be free to people. And so any single deal that's a huge deal that would put me behind a paywall, I'm not taking it. Because my intention is that this is free. And supported by brand partnerships. And that's what makes it free. And so staying very clear can become difficult for some people because there's a lot of noise about more, more, more, more, more. In fact, it's interesting to come to LA. I love living in Vermont. Because I don't have a clue what anyone else is doing.

• 1:32:55Speaker 00

  But you come to Los Angeles and it's like, oh, my gosh, that billboard, that billboard. Why, we should have a sweatshirt line. We should launch a perfume. Oh, my God, look what these people are. And then you're like, hold on. Your intention is here. Don't go up here. Because what's interesting is the more you focus here, the more it takes you up there.

• 1:33:12André Duqum?

  And then the more opportunities there are.

• 1:33:14Speaker 00

  Yes, and the more you have to learn to say no. And the hard part about saying no isn't the word, it's tolerating the response.

• 1:33:21André Duqum?

  That's, that's an important line.

• 1:33:22Speaker 00

  Yes. And oftentimes, it's not the response in other people, it's the response in yourself. And I think the other thing about success, what success has taught me, I think that, I'm glad I was not successful younger. I'd probably be an egotistical bitch and I would have imploded my life. I'm grateful that it happened after I almost lost things that mattered. Because once you have an experience like my husband and I did in our 40s, you don't forget what matters. I'm very proud of the fact that this has happened in my 50s and that we just celebrated our 30th wedding anniversary.

• 1:34:07Speaker 00

  And that our three kids were very, very close to. And that we've ridden, that's a word, ups and downs of life and managed to hold on to each other and ourselves through it.

• 1:34:22André Duqum?

  It's such a great reminder. I think we probably both know millionaires are billionaires who live like beggars, right? Where there's just always this insatiable, like, hungry ghost and need more and more and more. And it's, it's just a good reminder to hear, you know? Because sometimes we think that getting the things or making the money will absolve us of that sense of just needing more. But,

• 1:34:46Speaker 00

  It doesn't just happen to millionaires. Like, it happens in suburbia.

• 1:34:49André Duqum?

  Oh, for sure.

• 1:34:50Speaker 00

  It happens in the city. Like, you see your neighbor get a nicer car, now you think you need one.

• 1:34:54André Duqum?

  We both lived in Michigan. I grew up in Michigan.

• 1:34:56Speaker 00

  Yeah, where?

• 1:34:57André Duqum?

  And Livonia, like,

• 1:34:58Speaker 00

  Of course, yeah. No, but this is a thing, the, the keeping up with the Joneses is a thing. And look, you should go for the things you want in life. But make sure you're also practicing daily gratitude for what you do have. Because if you can't appreciate the things that are working right now or the car that you have, even though you hate it right now, you will never appreciate the things that you think are going to make you happy. So learning how to be grateful for the job that you hate because it helps you pay the bills in a time when you need the money, that is a skill that's very important.

• 1:35:36André Duqum?

  Thank you. Last question. If you had 60 seconds and you could whisper this one truth into everybody's ears who, at some point, like we started in this interview, they feel that they are not where they're supposed to be in life, what's one message you would leave them with?

• 1:35:51Speaker 00

  You get one life. If you don't like it, change it. Nobody is coming to do it for you. And nobody is stopping you from doing it either. I hope you wake the hell up right now and you start acting like the person you dream of becoming. Because if you do, one of these days, you're going to wake up and realize you became them.

• 1:36:18André Duqum?

  Mel, thank you so much. This has been an absolute pleasure. Thank you for coming on. I know you don't do a bunch of different podcasts. I'm grateful that you said yes to coming on. And we're going to leave links down in the description where people can stay connected to you, your work, your podcast, your book. And that's it. Yeah, I always feel like at the end of these conversations, I made a new friend. So thank you for sharing yourself.

• 1:36:37Speaker 00

  Well, I'm a friend and a fan. Thank you for doing the work that you do. It makes a big difference in the world. We need more lighthouses.

• 1:36:43André Duqum?

  Oh, thank you.

• 1:36:44Speaker 00

  You're welcome.

• 1:36:45André Duqum?

  All right, everyone. Until next time, be well.