Mel Robbins ON: Why You Can’t Stop Procrastinating & How to Eliminate Self-Doubt in 5 Seconds

You can order my new book 8 RULES OF LOVE at 8rulesoflove.com or at a retail store near you. You can also get the chance to see me live on my first ever world tour. This is a 90 minute interactive show where I will take you on a journey of finding, keeping and even letting go of love. Head to jayshettytour.com and find out if I'll be in a city near you. Thank you so much for all your support - I hope to see you soon. Mel Robbins chats with Jay Shetty about the High 5 habit and how it can help you come to terms with your real self. How you start your day sets the tone for the rest of your day and immensely affects your confidence and productivity. And seeing that person looking at you in the mirror, your other self, helps you wipe away the dust that’s blocking you from loving your true self. Mel began her career as a criminal defense attorney in NYC for Legal Aid in 1994, spent 5 years at CNN as a legal analyst, 5 number one audiobooks released on Audible, and 1 Gracie Award: America’s Outstanding News Talk Show Host. Her book, The High 5 Habit, explains the one proven habit that gives you the confidence to transform your life. Go to http://samatea.com/onpurpose to get on the list for early access + receive a free 5-Minute Wellness Journal made to help guide you through your wellness journey and daily routine What We Discuss with Mel: 00:00 Intro 02:38 Think Like A Monk: Is it dust or is it me? 04:46 The High 5 Habit 08:38 How Covid brought many lives on a standstill 13:26 The excitement of seeing yourself for the first time 15:46 How to get into the High 5 habit 22:50 Gestures that are symbols of trust and partnership 26:49 Your mood in the morning impacts your confidence and productivity 29:31 The bouncer in your brain 34:00 How to be kind to yourself 40:43 The research on the snooze button 47:16 Outsourcing love and validation to outside things 53:28 It’s only when you love yourself that you can let others love you 57:14 It’s not your partner’s job to make you happy 01:00:34 Leave room for each other to grow 01:04:22 Jealousy is not hatred, it’s desire 01:09:56 Your brain is designed to protect you and change requires risks 01:13:40 Mel on Fast Five Like this show? Please leave us a review here - even one sentence helps! Post a screenshot of you listening on Instagram & tag us so we can thank you personally! Episode Resources: Mel Robbins | Website Mel Robbins | Facebook Mel Robbins | Instagram Mel Robbins | LinkedIn Mel Robbins | YouTube Mel Robbins | Twitter Mel Robbins | TikTok Achieve success in every area of your life with Jay Shetty’s Genius Community. Join over 10,000 members taking their holistic well-being to the next level today, at https://shetty.cc/OnPurposeGenius See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

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• 0:00Jay Shetty?

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• 0:41Jay Shetty?

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• 1:24Jay Shetty?

  Consumer Reports does not endorse products or services. This episode is brought to you by AG1. Are you feeling September reset too? Shorter days, longer to-do lists, earlier alarms, all those routines you promised to yourself you'd pick back up. It can feel like your whole life is recalibrating. And when everything around you is changing, it helps to have a few things you can rely on. AG1 Next Gen is one of those easy habits to keep. It's the clinically-backed, comprehensive, daily health drink that supports your gut health, energy production, and foundational nutrition all in one scoop. AG1's ingredients are sourced from quality partners for absorption, potency, and nutrient density to deliver the foundational nutrition your body needs.

• 2:10Jay Shetty?

  And alongside a proper diet, AG1 Next Gen meets 94% of nutrient requirements, and it's clinically shown to enrich the gut microbiome. For a limited time, save 20% on your first subscription order of AG1 Next Gen or AG1 Pro at drinkag1.com/onpurpose. That's drinkag1.com/onpurpose.

• 2:35Mel Robbins?

  You don't even know the number of amazing things you do every day. Instead, you focus and ruminate on the one thing you didn't get to, and then you use that as evidence, again, dust on the mirror. To see a human being that's not measuring up and never will, and all that stuff their stupid fourth grade teacher said to you must be true, dust on the mirror. No, you need to interrupt this. Period.

• 3:03Jay Shetty?

  Hey, everyone. Welcome back to On Purpose, the number one health podcast in the world. Thanks to each and every single one of you that come back every week to listen, learn and grow. And I am so excited to be talking to you today. I can't believe it. My new book, Eight Rules of Love, is out, and I cannot wait to share it with you. I am so, so excited for you to read this book, for you to listen to this book. I read the audiobook. If you haven't got it already, make sure you go to eightrulesoflove.com. It's dedicated to anyone who's trying to find, keep, or let go of love. So if you've got friends that are dating, broken up, or struggling with love, make sure you grab this book.

• 3:45Jay Shetty?

  And I'd love to invite you to come and see me for my global tour, Love Rules. Go to jayshettytour.com to learn more information about tickets, VIP experiences, and more. I can't wait to see you this year. Now, today's guest is a longtime friend, someone that I deeply admire. I can't wait to have this conversation with her. Her books, her audiobooks have been revolutionary. They've been absolutely phenomenal. And finally, this is, I can't believe this is the first time we actually have her on On Purpose. I'm speaking about the one and only Mel Robbins. For those of you that don't know, she's one of the leading voices in personal development and transformation and an international bestselling author.

• 4:28Jay Shetty?

  Her work includes the global phenomenon, The Five Second Rule, and the upcoming book that we're talking about today, The High Five Habit. And you can join the High Five Habit Challenge through the link in our description. Plus, she has four number one bestselling audiobooks, the number one podcast on Audible, as well as signature online courses that have changed the lives of more than half a million students worldwide. Please welcome to On Purpose, Mel Robbins. Mel, thank you for being here.

• 4:56Mel Robbins?

  I love you.

• 4:57Jay Shetty?

  Oh, yes, there we go. Let's do both.

• 5:00Mel Robbins?

  I don't know if I can do the left one, too. I think I just pulled a muscle under my rib. Okay.

• 5:05Jay Shetty?

  I can't believe this is your first time here.

• 5:07Mel Robbins?

  Well, first of all, thank you because you've invited me. And I just knew I wanted to wait until I had something truly extraordinary to talk to you about, and I do.

• 5:22Jay Shetty?

  That just shows how modest you are, because you always have something extraordinary to talk about. But I too am happy. Today, we're talking about this incredible new book, The High Five Habit, Take Control of Your Life with One Simple Habit. This is a book that I want everyone who's listening right now to go and order. I know we haven't even started the conversation yet, but I'm so confident in what I've read from the book, my conversations with Mel, not just online but offline. And Mel, I know you have an interesting story about how this relates to me somehow, which you mentioned to me.

• 5:54Mel Robbins?

  Oh, I do.

• 5:55Jay Shetty?

  And I've been holding back since you walked in the room. I was like, save it for the podcast, save it for the podcast. Can you reveal my connection with The High Five Habit?

• 6:03Mel Robbins?

  I sure can.

• 6:04Jay Shetty?

  Okay.

• 6:05Mel Robbins?

  So, when I was coming on, it dawned on me what an incredibly deep and profound connection.

• 6:14Mel Robbins?

  That you and I share around what we're about to talk about. Now, like everybody on the planet, I devoured your book. I literally dog-eared it, I highlighted it. And on page seven, there is a story that you tell that is a beautiful metaphor that illustrates the external influences that obscure our true selves. You know what story I'm talking about?

• 6:39Jay Shetty?

  I do. I believe it's, is it dust or is it me?

• 6:43Mel Robbins?

  Yes.

• 6:43Jay Shetty?

  Is that about the mirror?

• 6:45Mel Robbins?

  Yes, yes. And so the story is all about this metaphor of up in this attic of the ashram, there's a mirror with a thick layer of dust. And when you look at a mirror that's accumulated a thick layer of dust, you can't truly see yourself, your soul, your spirit. And the dust comes from your life. It's not you. I'm gonna get like super emotional already because the high five habit is how you wipe the dust away.

• 7:17Jay Shetty?

  I know. And when I was reading that, for anyone who's not watching right now, Mel is on the verge of tears. But if you're listening, when I opened up the high five habit and you tell that story for you

• 7:32Mel Robbins?

  Yeah.

• 7:33Jay Shetty?

  of you're looking in the mirror, as we all do in the morning, and we wake up to brush our teeth, and you're criticizing yourself. You're poking holes in your appearance, in how you wish you worked out more, how you've got such a long to-do list today, how you have no energy, how you'd rather curl up and watch TV and do nothing for the rest of the day. And that is an experience that we all have had more than we even think. Like, we've had that daily. A lot of us have had that for months and even years. And so it's amazing how that story also starts looking in the mirror.

• 8:07Mel Robbins?

  Yes.

• 8:08Jay Shetty?

  Tell us about what has changed about how you look in the mirror today with the high five habit?

• 8:14Mel Robbins?

  So I have been practicing this habit for a little over a year. And it all began in April of 2020. And this is not something that I was like, okay, I gotta write a book. It's gotta have a five in it. It's gonna be five years since I've written a book. Thank you, dyslexia and ADHD. What am I gonna write about? What am I? That's not how this happened. The high five habit saved me. It was a ladder that helped me climb out of a hole I had fallen into emotionally, physically, spiritually. And a year later, after practicing what is going to sound like a weird, stupid thing, which

• 8:54Mel Robbins?

  you will resist. And Jay, you and I are gonna unpack this because it's sad why everybody resists it. It has to do with the dust that's accumulated. And I will tell you, after a year of practicing this, I don't even see a face or a body. I see a soul. I don't even have to high five myself. I still do because it feels good. And we're gonna explain the science that is bananas about why this actually works for everybody who tries it. Because this is not something that's new. You are tapping into programming that's already

• 9:33Mel Robbins?

  in your mind and body and now directing it back at yourself. It's incredible. I don't ever criticize myself. I don't ever see what's wrong. I see a human being who's trying, who deserves love and respect. And I know that it's my job to give it to her. You know, the five second rule, which I created, I don't know, over a decade ago, that's gone on to help me change my whole life. It's a little starting ritual and a brain hack that you can use to help yourself take the actions and change the thoughts that change your life. It helped me be more productive. It helped me get stuff done. The High Five Habit has changed who I am.

• 10:14Mel Robbins?

  It has deleted a lifetime of criticism and negativity from my mind, and it has reprogrammed the soundtrack to be somebody that's supportive and a cheerleader. It's extraordinary.

• 10:29Jay Shetty?

  That's so beautiful to hear because I think so often we like to oscillate from one extreme to another. So people start by criticizing themselves. And then sometimes we've heard in the toxic positivity movement of, "Well, just tell yourself you're amazing and tell yourself you're incredible." And to me, that doesn't always work either because we

• 10:51Mel Robbins?

  It doesn't work.

• 10:52Jay Shetty?

  struggle to say it with feeling and meaning and belief. But what I love about what you're sharing with The High Five Habit is that it's actually looking at, no, you're trying. Let me be supportive. Let me be encouraging. Let me use my words to notice that which I want to grow and work on. But I'm not creating an artificial illusion of either criticism or perfection, both of which are unreal.

• 11:19Mel Robbins?

  Well, and here's the extraordinary thing. You don't have to say a word. You don't have to say a word. Like, one of the reasons why mantras don't work for so many people is you choose something you don't believe. And so as you stand before a mirror or you say it to yourself after a lifetime of beating yourself up, your brain's like, "Yep, no, we don't believe that because you've told me the other opposite story for so long. I'm not going to buy it now." You know, I got to tell you like how this all went down because it's in the kind of unfolding of the story that there's layer after layer after layer. So, you know, the backdrop of this is that it was, you know, I think we all have that moment when we knew

• 12:02Mel Robbins?

  that COVID was going to change your life forever. When was that moment for you?

• 12:07Jay Shetty?

  I was one of the optimistic ones. When it first happened, I was like, "God, the world's going to deal with this in like a month or maybe three months." And so I think it was about three months in where I was like, "Okay, I have no idea how this is going and this is not what I expected." So I'd say about three months in, I'd say probably around that. June time, June 2020.

• 12:26Mel Robbins?

  Got it. Well, for me, it happened on a Wednesday in March of 2020.

• 12:30Jay Shetty?

  Early.

• 12:31Mel Robbins?

  Yeah, early, because I was taping my daytime talk show at CBS Broadcast Center, and they walked in and said they had found it in the building. And within five minutes, we had to evacuate, show canceled, I'm fired from my dream job. I'm driving home to Boston, Massachusetts, which is where my husband and I have raised our kids. I see New York City disappearing in the skyline. Phone rings, it's our daughter who's studying abroad for college, and they're shutting down the borders. Then the other daughter, they're closing down the university here in California. We all get home, and speech after speech after speech gets canceled. And then a publisher I'd been working with on a totally different book concept cancels that contract. And now I've got to give money back that I've already spent.

• 13:13Mel Robbins?

  There's no PPP loans yet, I have no idea how I'm going to make payroll. My kids are in a complete state of crisis and breakdown because their lives are now just imploding before their eyes. I'm worried about the world, I'm worried about frontline workers. And I feel the weight of the world on my shoulders. And I wake up one morning in April, and it's a very familiar feeling. This is not a book about the pandemic. This is a book about how you pick yourself up when you feel like you just don't know how to face your life. So I woke up that morning, and I felt defeated, I felt overwhelmed, I felt exhausted.

• 13:56Mel Robbins?

  I used the five-second rule, five, four, three, two, one, to get out of bed. I make the bed so I don't crawl back into it, and I go to the bathroom. And I'm standing there in the bathroom, and I'm brushing my teeth. And as I'm brushing my teeth, I catch a glimpse of myself in the mirror. And I think, "Oh, my God, you look like hell."

• 14:18Mel Robbins?

  And then my mind started to criticize the woman in the mirror. The dark circles under her eyes, the saggy neck, one breast is hanging lower than the other, just the beat down begins. And then, of course, once you go there, you teach this, your mind is just gonna keep on taking you down. And so it became, why did you get up so late? And you got a Zoom call in eight minutes, and you haven't even walked the dog. And you know what's interesting about this moment, Jay? If you had walked in the bathroom in that moment, I would have been able to turn on a dime. I would have said, Jay, I know, it's a lot. You don't deserve this. But if anybody can handle this, you can. I know you can. I would have lifted you up, like, just, it would have been effortless.

• 15:01Mel Robbins?

  But standing there alone, in my underwear, in my own bathroom? I couldn't think of anything to say. And in fact, here's the thing, I don't think I would have believed it because of what you just said. It didn't match how I was feeling. Now, I don't know what came over me, because it sounds ridiculous, I've never done this before, but I suddenly found myself raising my hand and high-fiving that woman I saw in the mirror, because she needed it. And here's the thing, it's not like lightning struck, right? You know, it's not like the heavens parted and angels are like, oh, life is perfect. That's not what happened.

• 15:43Mel Robbins?

  The dog still needed to be walked, I still had endless things, I was still worried. But something in me shifted. It was weird. And it was kind of this thing, because I thought a lot about this moment. It's like my shoulders dropped and my chin lifted, and I didn't even, like, say anything positive. It's like there was this energy flip, and the energy felt a little bit more, not very Jay Shetty, more kind of Mel Robbins, oh, come on, get out there, stop complaining, get yourself, like, come on, you can do this. Like, it was sort of that, sort of, all right, here we go. But it was the second morning. The second morning is when everything changed.

• 16:23Mel Robbins?

  I wake up, same problems, same overwhelm, exhausted, defeated, tired. 5, 4, 3, 2, 1. I get out of bed, I make the bed. I start walking to the bathroom. And Jay, I noticed that I was feeling something I had never felt in my entire life. And it was this. You know, when you're about to meet a friend, somebody you really like at a cafe, gonna go have a cup of tea, what do you feel right before you walk in the door?

• 16:57Jay Shetty?

  Excitement, enthusiasm, energy, joy, positive nervousness, like that, that kind of like, butterflies even in a positive sense?

• 17:08Mel Robbins?

  Yeah. So at this moment, I was 51 years old. In 51 years of being alive, I don't ever remember feeling that feeling about seeing myself.

• 17:19Jay Shetty?

  Wow.

• 17:20Mel Robbins?

  For the first time in my life, I had this sensation that I was excited to see the human being Mel Robbins. Now, I've been excited to see an outfit or excited to see a haircut. I have never been excited to see the person. And so I round the corner and this sense of how profound this is, is hitting me. And I'm standing there brushing my teeth and I realize something really wild. There are always two of you in the bathroom together. There's you and there is a human being in the mirror, a person who needs you,

• 18:04Mel Robbins?

  a person who has been waiting for you to wake up and realize they are there and they need you to see them and to hear them and to love them and to support them. And so, what's interesting, because you brought up morning routines, right? Is that we all talk about the importance of setting our day up, because it's how it ends up. We talk about gratitude and meditation, and we know the extraordinary benefits of it. But I don't think anybody has truly amplified the fact that there is this dirty habit that we all have. Every single morning, that is a part of your morning routine, unless you have weeded this out. And it is a habit of either ignoring yourself,

• 18:46Mel Robbins?

  or beating the heck out of yourself, every single morning in the mirror. I mean, 91% of women don't like how they look. 50% of us can't even look at ourselves in the mirror.

• 18:57Jay Shetty?

  That's what I was about to say, that eye contact. I think there's such a struggle, what you just rightly said. It's not just that we beat ourselves up or criticize, we can't even look at ourselves. How does the high-five habit help us get that?

• 19:10Mel Robbins?

  Oh, it's incredible. It's absolutely incredible.

• 19:13Jay Shetty?

  Let's talk about the habit, so then we can break it down.

• 19:15Mel Robbins?

  Yeah, yeah, yeah.

• 19:15Jay Shetty?

  Because I know part of it is practicing in the bathroom.

• 19:18Mel Robbins?

  Yes, yes, yes.

• 19:18Jay Shetty?

  And a part of it is looking in the mirror, so let's break it down.

• 19:20Mel Robbins?

  Okay, so here's what you're gonna feel. When you do it, it's very simple. You're gonna look at yourself in the mirror, and you're gonna leverage some research out of Harvard.

• 19:27Jay Shetty?

  We'll talk about that too, yeah, I wanna dive into that.

• 19:29Mel Robbins?

  So, you're basically just gonna look at yourself in the mirror, and you're gonna ask yourself, "What does that human being need from me today? How can I show up for him or her or they? How do I do that today? Kindness, do I need to be more courageous or bold?" You kinda set this intention for yourself. And then you're simply gonna raise your hand, and you're gonna high-five yourself. Now, a couple things I want you to expect. Number one, it will feel weird, period. It feels weird for everybody, because it is the opposite of what you're doing right now. And so, your brain is going to reject it as odd. Number two, you're either going to have one of two reactions. That's it. There's no middle ground. You will either have a very profound, positive experience,

• 20:13Mel Robbins?

  where you're gonna laugh, probably because it kinda feels good and it's kinda silly, or you're gonna burst into tears in a positive way. Because it's a release that you have finally woken up and started supporting yourself. You just got it, and that's where the tears come from. But more likely, although maybe not for you, because you're a fan of this podcast, but more likely, you will feel resistance. And the resistance is the dust on the mirror. Every single morning, Jay, we bring with us our entire past. Whatever's been done to you, whether it's trauma, or discrimination, or abuse, or neglect, or abandonment, it is standing between you and the mirror. It's the dust.

• 20:59Mel Robbins?

  And you see that dust, and you say, "That means that I am not worthy. I am not lovable." So you see a human being that's distorted, and you say to yourself, "Because of what's happened, I don't deserve a high five." Or, if you're a human being, you've done a ton of stuff that you regret, and so all the things that wish you could change, that you would forgive Jay, or you'd forgive Mel Robbins for, you cannot forgive yourself. It's more dust. And so you stand there, and you say, "Because of all that stuff that I did, I'm unworthy, or I'm unlovable, or I'm this, or I'm that." And that dust keeps you from seeing a human being who deserves support and celebration. Or, another form of the dust, which is the resistance, is that you actually believe

• 21:42Mel Robbins?

  that you do not deserve to be celebrated or supported, unless you have the bank account, or the number on the scale, or you drive in the car, or live in the neighborhood, or your hair is less kinky, or you're this, or you're that. And so you withhold the very support and celebration that you need in order to change your life from you, because you haven't done it yet.

• 22:04Mel Robbins?

  That's where the resistance comes from. And so I'm here to say, "You gotta try this for five days, because it's gonna feel weird, you're gonna resist it." And what's gonna happen is, you'll notice, as you raise your hand, and this is where the science gets amazing, as you raise your hand, Jay, you will go from thinking this is weird, or thinking this is stupid, to silence. And this is explained by science. There is a field of study called neurobics. Neurobics is a word that I did not invent. It is aerobic or physical movement with new neural pathway development. And research has shown that when you use neurobics, it is the fastest way to form new neural pathways. So the way that you do it is you take an unexpected physical movement, like high-fiving yourself, something you've never done,

• 22:49Mel Robbins?

  and you marry it with a thought. Now here's where things get crazy cool. You've been high-fiving people your whole life. You've been receiving high-fives your whole life. So Jay, when you high-five somebody, what are you communicating through the gesture?

• 23:04Jay Shetty?

  A feeling of connectedness, a feeling of support, a feeling of "I'm congratulating you" or "celebrating you", a feeling of "you've got this", like that kind of feeling.

• 23:13Mel Robbins?

  Yeah, completely. All of it is programmed in your subconscious brain. When you go to raise your hand to high-five somebody, I can never high-five Jay and go, "You're a jerk!" "Jay, I don't like you!" "Jay, I hope your tea", which I'm a founding club member of, really fails! You can't do it! Because the programming is already in your brain. So you cannot look at yourself in the mirror and think terrible things while you're high-fiving yourself because your brain won't allow it. It is programmed to think something different. And as you repeat this every day, just five days, dear God, give me five days of doing this, you will override the critic and you will reprogram your mind

• 23:56Mel Robbins?

  to associate belief, love, encouragement, support, resilience with your own reflection. This is why I don't even see myself in terms of a body anymore. I see a human being that I love, that I support, just like I would a friend or a child that I love unconditionally. It's mind-blowing, but that's not all. So I talked to our pal, Dr. Daniel Amen. And this isn't even in the book. This is just something I learned two weeks ago. He went bananas when I talked about this thing. So Jay, when you high-five somebody else, your brain drips dopamine.

• 24:34Mel Robbins?

  The reason why, when you do this, even on a low morning, you get a boost in your mood and a little bit of clarity.

• 24:40Jay Shetty?

  Wow.

• 24:41Mel Robbins?

  Is you get a drip of dopamine by high-fiving yourself.

• 24:44Jay Shetty?

  Wow.

• 24:44Mel Robbins?

  Again, because the programming is already in your brain. You're just now turning it from everybody else and giving it to yourself.

• 24:53Jay Shetty?

  Yeah.

• 24:53Mel Robbins?

  And there's a second thing that's super cool. So Dr. Amen was explaining, he said, you know, and you know, Mel, when you leave the bathroom, you feel kind of peppy, right? And I'm like, yeah, it's kind of weird. He said, well, let me tell you what that is. He said, your nervous system is encoded with celebratory energy. When you wave hello, you're raising your arms. When you cross a finish line, you raise your arms. When you hug somebody, you raise your arms. When you high-five somebody, you raise your arms. When you do this every morning, especially when you're going through a challenging moment, your nervous system recognizes the celebratory gesture and gives you a jolt of energy. Is that not incredible?

• 25:33Jay Shetty?

  It's incredible, and it makes so much sense.

• 25:35Mel Robbins?

  Yes.

• 25:36Jay Shetty?

  And, and, and I love, you know, you have this incredible ability to make personal development feel like a light switch. You would never think it's that simple, but we all, every day, flip on a light switch, we expect the light to come on, we flip it off and it goes off. And with the high-five habit and the five-second rule, I feel they're both light switches. They're this really tiny action, really tiny action, but this really big result that just instantly happens, right? What you're just saying now, what you just said about everything Dr. Amen told you, those are massive responses to a really simple action.

• 26:20Jay Shetty?

  I mean, just raising your hand to just high-fiving. And so I feel like you do that beautifully.

• 26:25Mel Robbins?

  Thank you.

• 26:25Jay Shetty?

  You really have this art in simplifying things into seconds' worth of advice. And what I love about that is... That's why our brain has less excuses. Because if it's like, if you're like, Jay, I really need you to take out like 20 minutes of your day, to do this new thing, everyone goes, where am I gonna find 20 minutes? You're literally talking about, again, five seconds.

• 26:46Mel Robbins?

  Yes.

• 26:46Jay Shetty?

  How long does it take to high five yourself?

• 26:48Mel Robbins?

  Even less, probably.

• 26:49Jay Shetty?

  Yeah.

• 26:49Mel Robbins?

  And you don't have to say anything, you don't have to feel anything, you just have to do it. And what's already programmed in your body, it does, you're right, it's such a beautiful light switch. It flips it on for you. And I want you to do it right after you brush your teeth. Because you gotta get that crap out of your mouth, so you don't spread the dragon breath on everybody. Let's get the crap and the dust off the mirror.

• 27:07Jay Shetty?

  Yeah.

• 27:08Mel Robbins?

  So you're not spreading that negativity throughout your day, and you're walking into your day feeling like you have your own back, and feeling that life force that you were born with. And being reminded that, yeah, life may be hard. Yeah, I may have screwed things up, but I know I'm still here trying, and I deserve to feel supported. And so I'm gonna tap into this to send myself out into the game.

• 27:30Jay Shetty?

  Yes.

• 27:30Mel Robbins?

  You know, one of the really cool studies, I'm sure you loved the study about the NBA teams. I know you've talked about this yourself. This is both common sense and science. How does your favorite sports team begin the game? By high fiving each other to send yourself out into the game. But when researchers actually studied NBA teams, they could predict who's gonna be the most successful teams at the end of the season, and who's gonna be at the bottom of the league, based on one characteristic at the beginning of the season in the preseason. And that is, how many times does the team in the preseason do fist bumps, high fives, or pats on the back? And what they found is it's the teams that do that the most in the beginning have the winningest record. And the reason, the question is why?

• 28:14Mel Robbins?

  Well, the reason why is these gestures are more than gestures. They're symbols of trust and partnership. They build momentum. And so many of us are struggling in life with people pleasing, and guilt, and all of these emotions, because we have broken that partnership with ourselves. And this is a way, every morning, after brushing your teeth, we're gonna stack this habit. Put the toothbrush down, pick up your hand, look yourself in the mirror, and say, "How am I gonna show up for that human being today?", and seal it with a high five. That's it.

• 28:46Jay Shetty?

  That's it. That's it. And what I love about this book, for those of you listening, you'll have to get the book to see this, is, is you have these beautiful pictures from your community and beyond of, of people actually practicing it. And do you prefer that one or that one? That one, yeah. Let me know if it's good. You can zoom in. So I just want to show a few pages. Home, at home. Yeah, you got it. Amazing. I want to show you a few pages just because I think it's beautiful to see so many people practicing this. There's a few more that I want to show as well. Oh, the way back, yeah. Yeah. I think, oh yeah, the ones at the back, but there's also these, the one of you is really special to me. That one, I have to show that one. I really like that one because to me that was a... It's chapter two. Yeah, that one to me was, was brilliant. This is when Mel discovered.

• 29:28Jay Shetty?

  Had I known this was gonna be the photo with my retainer in and my bed head. Yeah, that's the best. But it's, it's, it's beautiful because I love how practical it is. I love how everyone can give it a go. I really believe everyone who's listening right now, we can all take five days to give this a go. Even if you think it's silly, which I don't think you will, because you love this podcast and you love Mel and, and you love everything that we're talking about. But it's like, this is the least investment we can make in ourselves. Like it requires zero investment. It requires, it's free. It's free. It, it requires zero time commitment. You're already standing in front of the mirror brushing your teeth. Yep. It's just an extra five seconds on top of that. It's literally nothing more. Tell me about what

• 30:12Jay Shetty?

  this does for the rest of the day. What is the knock on effect of doing something like this in the morning? Because what my head's going to right now is, in this moment, you are choosing to high five instead of beat yourself. That's to me what you're teaching people to do. Yes. You're training people to choose, make a choice that is going to transfer into every choice they have to make throughout the day. So now when their boss says to them, hey, you haven't done this, you haven't done that, you haven't done this. How's it gonna impact? Talk to me about that and what you saw with that. This is absolutely awesome. This episode is brought to you by Amtrak. You know that feeling when you're already tired and you haven't even gotten there yet? That's where Amtrak comes in. Leave the driving behind

• 30:56Jay Shetty?

  and settle into a comfortable seat with plenty of room to stretch out. Catch up on work with wifi, grab a snack at the cafe car, or just sit back and enjoy your favorite podcast. Choose a cellar or Northeast Regional and get there without the stress of getting there. Visit amtrak.com to plan your next trip. This episode is brought to you by Orange Theory Fitness. One of the best investments you can make is in your own strength. The choices you make today can help shape how you feel for years to come. Orange Theory Fitness provides a one-hour workout to build strength, burn fat, and build muscle with an expert coach guiding you every step of the way. Head to orangetheory.com/onpurpose to learn more and get your first class free.

• 31:39Jay Shetty?

  Orange Theory Fitness, helping people live longer, more vibrant lives. Terms and conditions apply. See webpage and studio for details.

• 31:50Jay Shetty?

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• 32:35Jay Shetty?

  Terms and conditions apply. Need to hire? This is a job for Indeed sponsored jobs.

• 32:41Mel Robbins?

  So kind of from a, just sort of the way that people talk about it, this is both what I've experienced and what our audience is constantly writing to us about. And by the way, this is without even having a book out yet. I know. This is simply from having people and convincing people around the world to try it. Everybody says it's weird, but I gotta hand it to you, Mel. This pivots my day and sends it in an entirely different trajectory.

• 33:12Mel Robbins?

  You know, you talk about it all the time. Your mood in the morning impacts your confidence and your productivity all day. We know that research from Harvard tells us that when you get intentional about how you're gonna show up, it not only boosts your productivity and your confidence and your focus, it also changes your ability to make an impact with people. We also know all the research around what's called emotional contagion. When they did, I didn't even write about this in the book. But when you separate leaders into two groups and you show one group a leader, you know, very stressful videos for 20 minutes that make you feel agitated or bummed out, and you throw another group, all these videos with puppies and kittens and Jay Shetty content, that's amazing.

• 33:55Mel Robbins?

  The leaders that go in to their teams, within 10 minutes, the teams feel exactly either the negative agitation or the positive agitation. But it goes even deeper. So, the high-five habit in the mirror, Jay, it's just the Trojan horse.

• 34:12Jay Shetty?

  Of course.

• 34:13Mel Robbins?

  There are dozens of tools in this, and we go deep into something you talk about all the time, the reticular activity system, which is the filter in your brain, that in real time, I think about it, this is not an elegant way to describe it, I think about it like an electronic hairnet that sits on your brain. And in real time, this sucker is changing. We've all experienced its effect when we've shopped for a house or a car. The second you start shopping for your first car, what happens? You start seeing those cars that you're looking for everywhere.

• 34:45Jay Shetty?

  Everywhere, yeah.

• 34:46Mel Robbins?

  Everywhere. That is what, that's your RAS. You have a bouncer in your brain that has a massive job. And the job of your bouncer in your brain is to decide what gets into the prefrontal cortex, what passes through. There's only four things, Jay, that actually get through automatically. Your name. We've all experienced it. Oh, did they say, Jay? Number two.

• 35:07Jay Shetty?

  That happened to me this morning.

• 35:08Mel Robbins?

  Really?

• 35:08Jay Shetty?

  I had a random person, I think, shout my name out, so I was looking around.

• 35:11Mel Robbins?

  Well, that's a bouncer in your brain, it let it in. And there were a bazillion other sounds, by the way, that you didn't hear, because the bouncer in your brain blocked them out. The second thing is any immediate threat. So like, if you hear a loud noise, you'll kinda like duck. But there are loud noises all day that don't make you do that because the bouncer in your brain is blocking it out. The third one, and this can be tricky for relationships, I know you're writing a book about this, so this is any sign that you think your partner might be interested in sex with you or somebody else, you know, this is that jealousy, "Hey, are you looking at somebody?" And then the fourth one, and this is where the treasure is. This is everything. Your brain filters the world based on what you tell it is important to you.

• 35:55Mel Robbins?

  So when you're shopping for a new car, you suddenly say to your RAS, "This is important to me," and it lets in imagery of the car. This works in positive and negative ways. Trauma is an example of how your filter gets trained by a very negative event. It becomes very important because your nervous system responded to it, so your brain records as much as it can to try to protect you. A positive way is by saying something that you talk about, the writing out of your goals, the having visual and environmental triggers that keep these things front of mind. These are ways to train your brain for a positive effect. So one of the things that happens when you start to high-five yourself, and why it goes

• 36:39Mel Robbins?

  so much deeper even than the boost and the partnership, is that what happens is you're now tapping into an entire field of research called behavioral activation therapy. You talk about it a lot, you know all the science. If you don't know it, there's a very simple way to talk about it. It's called "Act Like The Person You Want To Become." And the reason why this is so important is we know thinking alone won't get you to change. You actually have to take the actions that change everything. And one of the reasons why high-fiving yourself is such a powerful action is the bouncer in your brain, the RAS, it's paying attention. When it suddenly sees you, stop the beat down. And it sees you act differently.

• 37:24Mel Robbins?

  It sees you acting like somebody who actually cares about you, who celebrates you and who sees the high five. It will switch in real time and start to see the world in a way that reflects back the fact that you deserve love and support. So the more that you act like somebody who loves and supports and believes in themselves by high fiving themselves, the more your brain changes and the more your reality changes. Now, to your point with toxic positivity, does it change the very real issues people face? Of course not. It does not change the fact that there's discrimination and poverty and trauma and very real obstacles that you may be facing right now.

• 38:06Mel Robbins?

  What it changes is you and your ability to face those things and your resilience and your belief that through your attitude and your actions, you can make a positive difference in those things.

• 38:21Jay Shetty?

  Yeah. Yeah. What I love about what you just said is that we're all going to face pain and discomfort regardless. The only choice we have is are you going to face pain and discomfort with the feeling of supporting yourself? Or are you going to face pain and discomfort with the feeling of condemning yourself, right? That's the only choice you have. We're all gonna face it. We're all going to have to deal with stuff that we don't want to deal with. And the only choice we get to make is what attitude do I want to affect this from? What thoughts do I want to have as I go through this? And I think all of us would agree that we'd rather be going through with thoughts that say, you've got this, you can do this, we can get there, we'll figure it out,

• 39:06Jay Shetty?

  we'll find an answer, we'll make it through, rather than the voice in your head that's saying, I don't think you should do this. No, this is not gonna work. No, stop, no, you're terrible. Oh, this is the worst thing you could have, which is what we're all hearing.

• 39:17Mel Robbins?

  Right.

• 39:17Jay Shetty?

  Let's talk about what are the key aspects? You talk about this so much in the book, and I do believe this is at the heart of the high five habit and also just the heart of what you're sharing in this book. What are the key principles of how someone deals with themselves when they love themselves, when they care for themselves? What are those key tenets, those key values that we can draw ourselves to and measure against? Say, am I doing that for myself? Does that make sense?

• 39:45Mel Robbins?

  Yeah.

• 39:45Jay Shetty?

  Am I creating that for myself? Because I feel like we know, like we always say, and some of this is similar, but we always say, oh, if your child's, and you have children going off to make friends at school, we always say, well, be kind, you know, you share advice. But we've never been told how to have a relationship with ourselves. What are the key principles to having a positive relationship with yourself?

• 40:04Mel Robbins?

  It's a fabulous question. So I think at the heart of it are two foundational habits that you need, and one you already mentioned. It's being kind to yourself. It's really that simple. And I know you know the study that they did in the UK, where they looked at every possible behavior change that you could do in life. And whether it was changing in diet, meditation, exercise, relationship changes, all of it. The one change that has the biggest impact on fulfillment and happiness is being kind to yourself. And it's the one change we practice the least because I don't think we know how.

• 40:39Jay Shetty?

  Yeah, I don't, how do, yeah, how do we be kind to ourselves?

• 40:41Mel Robbins?

  Well, number one, stop the beat down in the mirror. And despite the fact that it might feel weird, or you're going to resist it, or you got a lot of dust. Oh, boy, we gotta wipe it away. Ooh, it's more like mud, a lot like dust. Jay has dust, the rest of us are caked with mud. Got some elbow grease in there. The high five habit every day is wiping that away. Okay, that's number one. Number two, when you catch yourself in the what if loop, or the beat down, use the five second rule, count backwards, five, four, three, two, one, interrupt it and start just interrupting it.

• 41:20Mel Robbins?

  Because you don't have to listen to it. You can't always control when it pops up, but you can start to create distance from it. Meditation obviously helps with that, but in terms of the hand-to-fist combat with your own brain, I prefer punchback, 5-4-3-2-1, and then I literally go, "I'm not thinking about that." Another strategy that you can use as you're doing the hand-to-hand combat with your own brain is come up with like an avatar for this negative voice, okay? And make it really good. Like when our son was really profoundly struggling with anxiety, he's 16 now, he started to call that worry wart in his head that was beating him up, "Oliver." And he looked like this big, pimply bully of a kid that was out of the diary of the wimpy kid.

• 42:05Mel Robbins?

  And he would literally say, when he was nine years old, "Shut up, Oliver." Like, "You're not invited to sleep." Like, he would literally talk to it. And it sounds like you're giving your kid multiple personalities. That's not actually what's happening. You're leveraging objectivity so you separate yourself from the voice that's talking to you. Yes. Another thing that you can do, I love this for worrying. "Oh, this is a genius," to steal your word, move. When you catch yourself doing the what-ifs, because we know there's two forms of worrying, right? There's the type of worrying that just destroys you, that's destructive worrying, where you just ruminate, "What if, what if, what if?" Then there's the positive form of worrying, which is productive because it motivates you to change. When you get stuck in the "What if, what if, what if?"

• 42:50Mel Robbins?

  Interrupt it with this, 5-4-3-2-1, and then go, "What if it all works out? What if this turns out to be one of the hardest things I do, but the best decision I've ever made? What if placing a bet on myself was the moment my life changed? What if it all works out?" Because you can't argue with that. And it literally stops that sort of cycling because worrying is just a habit that you have. It's like a pathway that you've plowed in your mind. And it's a protection mechanism. You're actually not a procrastinator. You're not a worrier. You're just afraid. Yeah. And by staying in your mind, you think you're safe. And really, what you're doing is you're holding yourself back

• 43:33Mel Robbins?

  from living the life that you're meant to live.

• 43:36Jay Shetty?

  I love that. That's such a great answer. So that's be kind to yourself.

• 43:39Mel Robbins?

  I've got a couple of, yeah.

• 43:40Jay Shetty?

  That was be kind to yourself. And then there's another one.

• 43:41Mel Robbins?

  And then the other ones.

• 43:42Jay Shetty?

  Yeah.

• 43:42Mel Robbins?

  Keep the little promises that you make to yourself.

• 43:45Jay Shetty?

  Hmm.

• 43:45Mel Robbins?

  And there's two simple ways you can practice this that everybody's gonna hate. When you set the alarm the night before, I don't believe in having the same wake up time every morning. Because I think if you have a normal life, things are constantly changing.

• 44:00Jay Shetty?

  Mm-hmm.

• 44:01Mel Robbins?

  And so I think if you were to have one simple habit, which is the night before you go to bed, think about when you need to wake up to truly support yourself.

• 44:10Jay Shetty?

  Mm-hmm.

• 44:11Mel Robbins?

  And then intentionally set your alarm. And if you want to get really intentional with the science here, make it like a random odd number. Don't make it 6 o'clock, make it 6:17. Because there's a purpose behind that. And then when that alarm rings, don't think about it like an obligation. I want you to think about it like it's a promise that you're gonna practice keeping. And this is where you can use the five-second rule. You're just gonna count backwards, 5, 4, 3, 2, 1, to interrupt all of the desire in your mind and body to stay in bed or to hit the snooze button or to argue against what you need to do. And you're going to push through that resistance and take action. And by getting out of bed simply when you said you would, you are, again, behavioral activation therapy.

• 44:56Mel Robbins?

  You're acting like a person who keeps their promises.

• 45:00Jay Shetty?

  And trust yourself.

• 45:01Mel Robbins?

  Yes. Here's another one.

• 45:02Jay Shetty?

  Can we just talk about that one you just said? Have we ever talked about 6:17 before?

• 45:07Mel Robbins?

  Six, I don't even know what 6:17 is.

• 45:08Jay Shetty?

  It's so, I guess, I don't know, it's so strange. When you said, "Don't set it at 6," and you just said, "In my mind," I was like, "Yeah, 6:17," just before you said it.

• 45:17Mel Robbins?

  No.

• 45:18Jay Shetty?

  And, yeah, I'm not kidding.

• 45:19Mel Robbins?

  So is that like your wake up time?

• 45:20Jay Shetty?

  No, it isn't. I wake up at 6.

• 45:21Mel Robbins?

  Okay, so why did you think 6:17?

• 45:23Jay Shetty?

  I have no idea. That's why I was asking you. Have we talked about it before? And I was like, "Is that the time you wake up?" Or did we discuss that in Napa or?

• 45:30Mel Robbins?

  No.

• 45:30Jay Shetty?

  That is so strange. I literally, I literally was like, "Yeah, she's gonna say 6:17."

• 45:34Mel Robbins?

  That is bizarre.

• 45:35Jay Shetty?

  And I'm trying to think now, where in my mind is 6:17? Anyway, but, but the point being, I, I really, really like that principle. And, and what I've found, and you're so right that every day is different, is I've found sleeping the same amount of time

• 45:48Mel Robbins?

  Yes.

• 45:48Jay Shetty?

  is more important than waking up at the same time.

• 45:51Mel Robbins?

  Well, do you know the research around the snooze button?

• 45:53Jay Shetty?

  Yes, yeah.

• 45:54Mel Robbins?

  Yes, okay.

• 45:54Jay Shetty?

  Please tell us, please tell us.

• 45:55Mel Robbins?

  Okay, so, so literally, it also, when it comes to productivity and focus and fulfillment, it's not when you get up, it's how you get up. And there's all this crazy research, like, I'm not some sort of like psycho about the alarm clock or the snooze button. I personally love sleeping in. But I also know that, as somebody that's struggled with anxiety for three decades, lying in bed in the morning or at night is the worst place I can be.

• 46:21Jay Shetty?

  Absolutely.

• 46:22Mel Robbins?

  That is where the anxiety can pin you down like a gravity blanket. And so, understanding that the habit of hitting the snooze button has a detrimental impact on your productivity all day. Because what happens is, when you wake up, your brain is typically ready to wake up. When you drift back to sleep after hitting the snooze button, your brain drifts back into a sleep cycle, which, based on research, takes about 75 minutes to complete. When the alarm goes off nine minutes later, your brain is now trapped in a sleep cycle, and researchers say it takes you about four hours to snap out of what they call sleep inertia. That impacts your productivity all day long. And so, you're complaining that

• 47:04Jay Shetty?

  "I didn't get enough sleep and you feel groggy."

• 47:07Mel Robbins?

  No, you actually got plenty of sleep. You screwed yourself over by hitting the snooze button, and now your prefrontal cortex can't snap back into operation until you're ready to go.

• 47:19Jay Shetty?

  And what to speak about emotionally, which is what you were talking about earlier, about you've broken your trust with yourself. And that's why when we set these unrealistic targets, "I'm gonna wake up at 5:00 AM tomorrow, I'm gonna wake up at 6:00," whatever it is that's unrealistic for you, and then you hit the snooze button four times, and you wake up at the time you would've woken up at anyway. That's just made you lose faith in yourself over nothing, right? And that's the problem.

• 47:40Mel Robbins?

  Totally. See, I, I'm kinda one of these people, that I sorta like lame goals. Because I want you to win. You know, I'm, I'm just asking for a high five in the mirror. I'm just asking that you roll out of bed 5, 4, 3, 2, 1. Here's another wonderful one. Make your bed. And here's why. Not because I need you to be a Navy SEAL, but because when you literally, and I'm not even talking pop a quarter off of it. I'm talking, throw the blanket across, karate chop a pillow, throw a throw on a diagonal, we're done here, kinda thing. Here's why. Number one, it's a beautiful gift you can give to yourself. Because as you walk back into your room... It's done. You don't see a mess. Your brain sees a person that actually is kind to themselves and follows through on things.

• 48:24Mel Robbins?

  Tonight, when you lay down to dream, you have a nice place to come back to. And this is what I'm talking about with lame, lame goals. And what I call simple discipline. Simple discipline is roll out of bed when the alarm rings. Simple discipline is make your bed. Simple discipline, I'm even gonna make exercise easy. You wanna hear?

• 48:44Jay Shetty?

  Yeah, go for it.

• 48:45Mel Robbins?

  This is so easy. Okay, you ready? Tonight, in your closet, get your exercise clothes out. Lay them on the floor. Put them right in your way, so you can't step around them. Because then, they're there as a trap on your floor the next morning. Again, you don't have to think about it. You're like, oh my gosh, stepping over them is you breaking a promise. When you pull them on, I know you're more likely to exercise today because they're already on your body. And so, but in my book, we're practicing simple things here. So you get a high five just for pulling the tights on, man. Like, I'm not even gonna count exercising. If you get the exercise clothes on, we've gotten up, we've made our bed, we got our exercise, now we're gonna high five them here?

• 49:29Mel Robbins?

  Honey, you just got four wins. You've only been up for 20 seconds. This is the Mel Robbins program. This is how you build trust with yourself. By setting really small goals, little tiny promises, because you're building a new muscle. And the most important promise in all of this is how you treat yourself in the mirror. Because, as you know, Jay, that relationship that you have with yourself is the foundation for every relationship that you have. If you can't look yourself in the eye, you will never be able to allow somebody else to love you because you don't first love yourself. If you struggle with people pleasing, that's not about other people. That's about your insecurity with yourself.

• 50:13Mel Robbins?

  So it comes back again to this simple discipline of looking at yourself and learning how to be secure with the one human being you spend your whole life with. And the only way you're gonna start being secure with who you are is when you start accepting and loving who you are, no matter where you are. Whether you exercised today or not, whether you blew it yesterday or not, whether you really are trying hard and winning or not.

• 50:38Jay Shetty?

  I love that. For me, making my bed also improves my relationship with my wife, because she happens to wake up earlier than me and therefore, we have a rule in our house, whoever wakes up second does the bed, which means I end up doing the bed.

• 50:50Mel Robbins?

  I don't like that rule, because my husband gets up first.

• 50:52Jay Shetty?

  Yeah, so anyway, I also have to do my bed. But my wife also liked to have like 20 pillows on the bed. So there's more pillows on the bed than there is a bed. And, and so I really don't enjoy it in the bed, because I have to like organize these pillows.

• 51:06Mel Robbins?

  Now, does she do the karate chop? Do you have to have the karate chop on the bed?

• 51:09Jay Shetty?

  I have to do, yeah, I have to do the karate chop. I have to lay the throw. I've got to put three pillows, one behind the other. I mean, it's, it's like real work. But by the time I finish doing that, I'm like, I can do anything.

• 51:19Mel Robbins?

  Yes.

• 51:19Jay Shetty?

  I, I love all these principles you're talking about, but the biggest thing is the theme that's underlying all of them is, celebrate, congratulate, build trust, which you're so right that this, if anyone's listening and thinking, oh, well, if I celebrate these little things and I'll never do anything big. No, it's, it's the other way around. It's that if you build trust with yourself doing these little things, you'll trust yourself with bigger things. And, and anyone that you see that's doing big, bold, incredible things today is because they trusted themselves with the tiny, small incremental changes.

• 51:50Mel Robbins?

  Yeah.

• 51:50Jay Shetty?

  And so when Mel's saying, celebrate, just putting the gym clothes on, she's saying that because if you celebrate that, you'll notice that, hey, I can trust myself for this.

• 52:00Mel Robbins?

  Yeah.

• 52:00Jay Shetty?

  Let's talk about celebration, because for both of us, and, and I also see this in you, and I think, you know, when we're in Napa and we're with all our friends, I feel that celebration is something that everyone struggles with the more successful they become.

• 52:14Mel Robbins?

  Hmm.

• 52:14Jay Shetty?

  And we, because the goals get bigger, the time length of the next project gets longer because it's harder. It's like launching a TV show, as you did, or you wrote another book after five years. There's more pressure this time because the last thing was incredible and now you're doing something bigger. I find like we live in this world where it's easy to stop celebrating. Did you find that? Or have you always found time for yourself to celebrate your wins and your successes? I'm just asking on a personal level.

• 52:40Mel Robbins?

  Uh, the honest answer is that I think it wasn't until I discovered the high five habit that I...

• 52:48Mel Robbins?

  Profoundly realized how much self hatred I was dealing with.

• 52:52Jay Shetty?

  And Despite everything else, yeah.

• 52:54Mel Robbins?

  Well, and this, I think, is a really big piece of the power of this. Especially if you're somebody who's achievement oriented and everybody that listens to this podcast feels a big calling and wants to do more in the world and make a bigger difference and a bigger impact. There's a real danger that's very common, Jay. That you start to marry, or you've always married, being worthy or lovable with what you're doing. And what you're achieving. And it works both ways in terms of if you're don't have the number on the scale. It means, again, the dust on the mirror. You are not worthy because you haven't achieved it yet. And for those of us that have achieved some things that we've set out to do.

• 53:39Mel Robbins?

  What happens is you find that as soon as you achieve the thing. You actually need to do something else.

• 53:45Jay Shetty?

  Bigger.

• 53:46Mel Robbins?

  Bigger, better, because it was a thing that you achieved that made you lovable or worthy. And the real trick, and this is everything. Is being able to know and feel in your bones. That you are lovable and worthy just because you're breathing. And that was a huge breakthrough for me. And so, no, I never celebrated because I think I was so married to this idea that if unless I'm doing or winning or achieving. And and it happens so subtly when you're little because you start to get so much positive praise. When you get a good grade or when you do something at school or when you make your mates laugh or whatever it might be. That you start to go, oh.

• 54:29Mel Robbins?

  That's what love feels like. Oh, if I do that. And so you outsource love and validation to outside things. And I'm here to tell you, we all got to learn how to bring it back home. And anchor the validation and love that you need. Where you are right now, every single day. And it's only in discovering this that I had to confront. Just how much I was beating myself up, just how much I was tearing myself down. And how I was chasing these things because what I actually wanted. Was to feel loved. Like if you ask yourself, okay, great, you want to make a million dollars. Why? There's a feeling. That you're looking for from that.

• 55:10Jay Shetty?

  Mm hmm.

• 55:11Mel Robbins?

  And if you can start to work on bringing that feeling into your day to day life for yourself.

• 55:18Jay Shetty?

  Mm hmm.

• 55:19Mel Robbins?

  It changes the way that you go about achieving things. Like, I didn't even enjoy half the stuff that I did because I was constantly maniacally focused on the things that weren't working, rather than the hundred things that were. And the same is true with everybody's day. You don't even know the number of amazing things you do every day. You feed the dog, high five. You got the kids to school, high five. You read ten pages of the book, high five. You said a nice thing to a stranger, high five. You got something done at work, high five. You got through seventy percent of your inbox, high five. Instead, you focus and ruminate on the one thing you didn't get to, and then you use that as evidence. Again, dust on the mirror.

• 56:00Jay Shetty?

  Yeah.

• 56:01Mel Robbins?

  To see a human being that's not measuring up and never will and all that stuff their stupid fourth grade teacher said to you must be true, dust on the mirror. No, you need to interrupt this, period.

• 56:12Jay Shetty?

  Yeah. That is so, so powerful, everything you just said. I was just nodding along, thinking, this is so true. I saw a video recently from a good friend of mine, Jason Goldberg, and he was talking about a study at the Olympics where people who win bronze are happier than those who win silver. And so coming third makes you happier than coming second, because the people that come second, they go, oh, but I was a second away from first, and so they feel disheartened. Whereas the person who came third goes, at least I made it on the podium.

• 56:47Mel Robbins?

  Yeah.

• 56:48Jay Shetty?

  And that's what you're saying.

• 56:49Mel Robbins?

  Yeah, thousand percent.

• 56:50Jay Shetty?

  Make it to the podium.

• 56:51Mel Robbins?

  Yes.

• 56:51Jay Shetty?

  Put on the clothes.

• 56:52Mel Robbins?

  Or, or just put on the clothes.

• 56:54Jay Shetty?

  Just put on the clothes, but that's making it to the podium. Like, to me, that's like just getting there. It's not about... And, and actually, what, what you really hit something when you were saying that about celebration for me. It's not just about celebration. It's about what we celebrate in our lives. So when we celebrate our birthday, we're celebrating life. When you're celebrating an achievement, you're still celebrating a thing.

• 57:17Mel Robbins?

  Yes.

• 57:18Jay Shetty?

  And so celebrating life, when you're celebrating your breath, when you're celebrating your life force, your energy, your soul, the ability to love, the ability to be kind, the ability to have relational exchanges like we're having right now. That's what you celebrate. Because if you only celebrate things, now you're waiting for the next thing. And I actually learned that completely from my wife, Radhi. Whether it was consciously or unconsciously, she didn't even know what she was doing. This was totally all in my own head. But I realized that every time I reached a new external peak or a new thing, I expected to receive more love from her. I expected that she would think something more cool of me. And the answer was she didn't. She loved me the same.

• 58:03Jay Shetty?

  And I would always wonder, how, why does she not love me for this? Like, how does she not respect me? How does she not feel it differently? I mean, look what I'm doing, look what I've achieved. And when I kept working with that thought, and I reflect deeply, and I love breaking down my own thoughts and figuring it out, and I really get stuck in there, I realized that my wife loves me for my life and who I am, not what I do.

• 58:28Mel Robbins?

  Yes.

• 58:28Jay Shetty?

  And so she unintentionally trained me and taught me to disconnect my value from what I do to who I am, which is what she loves me for. And I realized that that was so much more beautiful and so much more powerful and so much more meaningful to be loved for who I am.

• 58:44Mel Robbins?

  Yes.

• 58:44Jay Shetty?

  Than what I do and achieve.

• 58:46Mel Robbins?

  Yes, and here's, here's now an even bigger thing.

• 58:48Jay Shetty?

  Please.

• 58:49Mel Robbins?

  You already do this. But as you're listening to Jay and I, I want you to actually grasp how profound it would be if you could feel that way about yourself.

• 59:02Mel Robbins?

  If you could always just look in the mirror and see a human being that's trying, and that's worthy of a high five, and a human being that failed, and okay, we're gonna brush it off, and that's worthy of a high five, somebody who is running the marathon of life, that you're going to celebrate every step of the way. And you know, I also want to take this and flip this in the opposite, because I think this is where people really get mucked up. This happened in my own marriage, and it's only a recent discovery between Chris and I, and that is, that we had the opposite thing happen, Jay. So, when Chris and his best friend went into the restaurant business, and they poured seven years into it, and gave it their go, and at the end of the day, they sold it, you know, for pennies on the dollar to the next investor, and they did not return the profit

• 59:48Mel Robbins?

  that they had hoped they would return to their investors. Now, what was interesting about watching this all go down, is that our best friend, who was Chris's partner, was able to leave the experience and go, "Okay, entrepreneurship. I'm so proud of us. We put in so much work, we built something amazing, we had an incredible brand, we're incredible leaders, da-da-da-da-da." Did we return the profit? No. But that's not everything in life. And he moved on. My husband could not. He literally said, "Because I didn't achieve, because I failed, I am a failure who is not worthy of love." And for seven years, he has walked into a bathroom with the dust that has said, "I am a failure."

• 1:00:33Mel Robbins?

  And so, as you have been looking for, "Why doesn't she love me more?" Somebody who fails goes, "How can you still love me?" And it's only until, it doesn't matter how much I love the guy, it doesn't matter how much I build him up, and you know, I'm so proud of everything that he's done, and all the stuff that Chris is doing, and he's had a massive breakthrough in this, and part of it is through the high-five habit, because of the resistance, "But I can't do that. Look at, look at the failure that I've been." If you don't love yourself, you won't allow somebody else to love you.

• 1:01:06Jay Shetty?

  Yeah.

• 1:01:07Mel Robbins?

  And so when you can separate what you're doing from your soul and your intention and your spirit and your humanity, and you can stand with yourself every morning, and that high five doesn't necessarily become celebration, it becomes acceptance, and it becomes compassion, and it becomes acknowledgement, and then it becomes slowly celebration and momentum and forward energy that you need when life drags you down.

• 1:01:36Jay Shetty?

  Yeah.

• 1:01:37Mel Robbins?

  And so it's really a profound point you just made, that it's only when you love yourself for breathing, for living, for being, just as you are, that that level of acceptance that we so want from everybody else. And I'm telling you, you have an opportunity to do it for yourself by keeping your promises, by being kind to yourself, by standing before yourself and seeing a human being who needs you and who loves you and who's gonna be with you your whole life.

• 1:02:06Jay Shetty?

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• 1:02:51Jay Shetty?

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• 1:03:36Jay Shetty?

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• 1:04:19Jay Shetty?

  It's beautiful. It's amazing. Just, just sitting there listening to you talk about that. And when I'm thinking about what you said with Chris, we, we recently celebrated your 25th wedding anniversary, which is incredible. Congratulations. I mean, that's goals, like me and my wife, we've been married, what, five? Together for eight. When I hear you're 25, I'm like, share all the wisdom, give it to me.

• 1:04:44Jay Shetty?

  Tell me about what it's been like learning from each other, especially seeing as your job is teaching.

• 1:04:49Mel Robbins?

  Yeah.

• 1:04:49Jay Shetty?

  It's coaching. It's working with CEOs and organizations and people, and of course, millions of people online, but you're working with so many companies as well. How has it been for him and for you to learn from each other? Has that been easy? Has that been harder? When you talk about the seven years and you're saying that broke partly through the high five habit for him. I love hearing that because that makes me go, yes, like not only does this work for everyone, it works for the people closest to you, which says so much. Can you tell us a bit about that?

• 1:05:19Mel Robbins?

  Well, you know, and also, you know, to Chris's credit, he also got into therapy and, you know.

• 1:05:25Jay Shetty?

  He did the work, yeah.

• 1:05:26Mel Robbins?

  He did the work and he started a men's retreat to help other men called Soul Degree to do the work. And we've done a lot of work together, which I think is really important. It's so important to do work on yourself because it's not your partner's job to make you happy.

• 1:05:43Jay Shetty?

  No.

• 1:05:43Mel Robbins?

  It's your job to figure out how to bring the happiest and healthiest and kindest you into the relationship. Because when you can do that. You can build like a nurturing crucible, if that's even the right word. Where you buy, is that the right word? I don't even know what you can build like a pot. I don't know. That sounds very unglamorous, but we camp a lot.

• 1:06:05Mel Robbins?

  You know, I think the hardest thing, and it took me a long time, was realizing that the most important thing in a relationship, if you want it to go the distance, is being kind and actually staying interested in the other person's experience and point of view. Like the challenge of being in a relationship that long as you think you know somebody.

• 1:06:31Jay Shetty?

  Yeah.

• 1:06:33Mel Robbins?

  And

• 1:06:33Jay Shetty?

  So true.

• 1:06:34Mel Robbins?

  The fact is, I don't care how great your relationship is or how bad it is or whatever, but how great it is in particular. There are parts of the person you're with that you don't know because even they don't know that.

• 1:06:45Jay Shetty?

  Totally.

• 1:06:46Mel Robbins?

  And I don't even think Chris realized the extent to which he was subconsciously pile-driving himself with his mindset. And it didn't matter that I thought he was the most incredible person in the world or the greatest father or wonderful spouse or my biggest cheerleader. He didn't feel like those things. And so I would say being kind, listening, I think also making requests of each other are really important. So instead of pointing out what's wrong, think about what you need. Because even though Chris and I have been together for 27 years now, married 25, I'm still not a mind reader. And when you can make requests about what you need

• 1:07:30Mel Robbins?

  instead of letting it get to you and then acting out, that changes everything.

• 1:07:37Jay Shetty?

  That's incredible. I love hearing that. Thank you for sharing that. And thank you for opening up. I met Chris for the first time probably about a month ago now. He's wonderful. Like, he's just such a gentleman, so kind, so sweet, so loving, very warm. I mean, we had so many beautiful interactions and conversations while we were in Napa together. I just love seeing you both continuing to, you know, really just show what real strength looks like as a couple.

• 1:08:04Mel Robbins?

  Well, you know, Jay, I think one of the other things that has been fascinating is you've got to leave room for each other to grow.

• 1:08:09Jay Shetty?

  Yeah.

• 1:08:09Mel Robbins?

  So we've also gone through tremendous evolutions as a couple where, you know, for a while, we were both working and we were sort of 50/50 in terms of what we earned. And then Chris started to outearn me and then I kind of took the second role. And then next thing you know, he's going into entrepreneurship and I'm sort of growing in the corporate market. Next thing you know, we find ourselves financially imploding, $800,000 in debt, horrible experience 12 years ago, about to lose everything. And what was interesting is it was that crisis that flipped us into the right roles.

• 1:08:40Jay Shetty?

  Wow.

• 1:08:41Mel Robbins?

  Chris, as you met, his name's Christopher Robbins. He's like the world's most nurturing man, you know, Winnie the Pooh's owner for crying out loud. He doesn't care about money and building things and fancy stuff. He would live in a yurt if I would want to. I do not. Did you hear that, Chris? I do not. It was through that that I discovered my own ambition, that I actually do care about building things. I do want to go out and play that game in business. I frickin' love it. And it happened at the perfect time because it was at the moment when we had kids in middle school and they needed somebody more nurturing than me to be home and they needed somebody. And so our kids have had the greatest gift because they've seen our partnership evolve. They've seen a dad that stayed home for a while. They've seen a mom

• 1:09:26Mel Robbins?

  off in the world building something. And the biggest message is that you're only going to stay together if you continue to talk.

• 1:09:35Jay Shetty?

  Yeah.

• 1:09:35Mel Robbins?

  One of the things that our therapist has said to us that I think about all the time, so steal this. It's really easy, when you get along, to do the logistics and transactions of life. But you can start to find yourself very sequestered from each other, but together and in roles, but never going deeper. And so I think when you notice that either you're not growing or your partner's not growing, that's when it's really important to start turning toward one another.

• 1:10:08Jay Shetty?

  Yeah, that's so true. That's so true. I've always said like, for me right now, watching Riley grow is like my favorite thing in the world because she's almost just in the last 18 months really discovered her purpose. She's always been very skilled and talented and had lots of strengths, but it was in this last 18 months that I saw her really embrace herself, high five herself.

• 1:10:28Mel Robbins?

  Yeah, yeah, yeah.

• 1:10:28Jay Shetty?

  Like she really got to that point where-

• 1:10:30Mel Robbins?

  She has high five energy.

• 1:10:31Jay Shetty?

  Yeah, high five herself and to really claim that and own that. And it's the most fun thing seeing your partner find that. And I was like, we're gonna clear up your whole schedule so you can just do that because I see that that momentum's coming for you. And I think often what it is, and you talk about this, I have a few more questions I want to ask you, but it's this idea of, often even in our partners, you talk about jealousy in chapter eight. You talk about a chapter which you call, "Why is life so easy for them and not for me?" And I've noticed that this sometimes can even creep, I want to talk about it broadly, but it can also creep into our own marriage and relationships-

• 1:11:04Mel Robbins?

  Oh, for sure.

• 1:11:05Jay Shetty?

  Where people think, "Oh, well, I didn't..." And, you know, there's pros and cons to this. So, obviously, in our life, I was the one who built my purpose and career and Riley was building her skills and her strengths. And it's so easy to get caught up in the mindset of, "Well, I didn't have someone who was gonna help me out when I started out because I didn't." And you can even have that in your own relationship and it can be so poisonous and toxic in your own relationship. But you also talk about how jealousy can be used as a tool.

• 1:11:35Mel Robbins?

  Oh, yeah.

• 1:11:35Jay Shetty?

  So I wanted to hear about that because I think we do live in a world today, whether it's in our own relationships, whether it's broadly, we always look, "Oh, it's easy for them. It's not for me. Oh, everything's working out for them. It's not for me. I work even harder than that person does, but they're winning. I'm not. I'm more talented and skilled than that person." But so, when you're feeling it, how do you use that as a tool?

• 1:11:53Mel Robbins?

  Okay, so I love that you asked this because this is a powerful tool. First of all, we all misunderstand jealousy. You think jealousy is hatred. That's not what it is all. Jealousy is desire. That's all that it is. And when it starts to bubble up and consume you, and it used to consume me like crazy. I used to be just like that person that you were talking about, Jay, jealous of everybody. "Jay, I hate Jay. Jay has a podcast. Oh, for crying, I hate Jay. Jay's been at this longer. Look at all those followers that Jay has. Oh, of course, he lives in LA. Of course, he's got a..." Like, I mean, I could just, woo, spin it all. But here's the thing. This is the coolest part about jealousy. You ready? You cannot be jealous of someone or something that you don't truly desire.

• 1:12:38Mel Robbins?

  I'm not the least but jealous of somebody who has the most extraordinary apartment in New York City. I don't want to live there. It's not meant for me. Jealousy is a clue. It's a directional signal. It's a dot on the map of your life. And the desire is blocked by fear, or comparison, or insecurity, or stress, or whatever. And so, when you start to recognize, "Oh, interesting, there's jealousy." Well, I'm jealous of Jay. He's got this incredible podcast that's reaching millions of people. He's making this huge difference. What is it about that? Is it about Jay? Yeah, no, but really what it's about is I've been wanting to do a podcast forever.

• 1:13:20Mel Robbins?

  So, instead of aiming that jealousy out at the world or at myself, aim it into inspiration. Aim it into motivation. Recognize and give yourself permission that if you unpack whatever it is that you're jealous of, "I'm jealous of their marriage." What is it about it? Is it the fact that they seem to have a date night? Is it the fact that they're really kind to each other? Explore it, lean into it. Give yourself permission to have that thing. And then, get off your ass and go make it happen. That's it. Because here's the thing. Your jealousy's not going away. And it will either continue to consume you, or you are going to blow the lid off that blocked desire,

• 1:14:01Mel Robbins?

  and you are going to empower yourself to start moving toward what you want. That's how you do it. And again, this high-five habit is so important because if you stand in front of the mirror and go, "I'm too late. I'd just be a copycat." "All these people, see? You dumb..." Like, this is what the beat-down is. Yeah. If you go, "No," you high-five yourself, you're like, "I see you. You are a little bit later than everybody else." Great. They're guideposts on the map of your life. Yeah. All these people are your co-creators. Everybody you're jealous of is literally somebody that is running point for you. Totally. But you haven't allowed yourself the permission. To unpack it and actually question and go on an inquiry that's so rewarding of,

• 1:14:46Mel Robbins?

  well, wow, what is really calling me about this?

• 1:14:49Jay Shetty?

  Yeah, I think that's so true, and I love seeing jealousy that way. And you said something that was really important that I want people to catch on if they didn't, is jealousy is a tool when you're self-aware. Like, you are self-aware, I don't want an apartment in New York. Hence, if someone has a stunning apartment in New York, I don't feel jealous. But a lot of us, our jealousy is just scattered because we don't know what we want or what our dream truly is. So then everyone's dream feels exciting and better than ours. And that's why I think what you said is so true. When people actually can develop a little bit of self-awareness of what is my genuine dream? Because I remember, I talk a lot about like, when you don't find your purpose, you're jealous of everyone.

• 1:15:32Jay Shetty?

  And when you know your purpose, then you become jealous in your space of your purpose. And at least it narrows it down. But it's like, when you don't know, it's like, I could look at a singer and be like, oh, I wish I could sing, like, oh, I should have had that. Or if I'm a, and I know I can't sing to save my life. So when I have that self-awareness, I can detach. Okay, don't need to be jealous of Justin Bieber. I'm not Justin Bieber, that's okay.

• 1:15:53Mel Robbins?

  Right.

• 1:15:53Jay Shetty?

  Right? Or like Cristiano Ronaldo, I love soccer, I adore soccer, but I was never good enough to play soccer in a, for the Premier League club or whatever. So I can let go of that. And that's why I think self-awareness is so important. Because otherwise jealousy will just drive you crazy. And I think that's where it starts, that jealousy can be a tool when you actually know yourself.

• 1:16:12Mel Robbins?

  Well, and jealousy, let's take this a step further. Actually can help you know yourself.

• 1:16:17Jay Shetty?

  Yeah.

• 1:16:17Mel Robbins?

  Because I think what Justin Bieber and, you know, the soccer player have in common is they are living full out.

• 1:16:24Jay Shetty?

  Yes.

• 1:16:24Mel Robbins?

  Their life force is on display.

• 1:16:26Jay Shetty?

  Yes.

• 1:16:26Mel Robbins?

  That's what you're attracted to.

• 1:16:27Jay Shetty?

  Yes.

• 1:16:28Mel Robbins?

  And so if you were to even take all your scattered jealousy and sit with a cup of amazing tea and calm yourself down and, you know, like, we haven't even talked about high-fiving your heart, which is a way to flip your nervous system into a calm state and map it all out and be like, oh, interesting. All these people that I'm jealous of, that I follow online, that I obsess over, that I like their posts, it's their life force.

• 1:16:49Jay Shetty?

  Yeah.

• 1:16:50Mel Robbins?

  It's their artistry.

• 1:16:51Jay Shetty?

  It's the obsession with an art, yeah.

• 1:16:53Mel Robbins?

  Yes, and so that is, there is, there is a common theme there, and it can help you gain the self-awareness.

• 1:17:00Jay Shetty?

  Absolutely. I want to ask you one last question before we go to final five. This is about a chapter that you call, uh, How About I Start Tomorrow? And I love this because I think so many people will be listening to this and be like, "Okay, tomorrow I'm gonna start doing this." And that's, you know, we all know that, "Okay, next Monday." "Okay, no, 2022, I'm gonna read this book, January 2022," right? People, we start thinking like that. Tell us about how that mindset doesn't help us.

• 1:17:29Mel Robbins?

  Oh, "Do it tomorrow"?

• 1:17:31Jay Shetty?

  Yeah.

• 1:17:31Mel Robbins?

  Are you kidding? So first of all, motivation is complete garbage. Everybody's sitting around waiting to feel like it, Jay, and this is a recipe for never seeing your dreams come true and dying with a lot of regret. Thank you very much. Welcome to my TED Talk. This has been very inspiring. No, seriously, I want you to understand that you will never feel ready to do things that scare you. You will never feel ready to jump off the cliff. You will never feel ready to take that leap. And the reason why is based on science and research. Your brain is designed to protect you. And change requires risk. And so you are protecting yourself by saying, "Maybe tomorrow." This is where the five-second rule comes in super handy.

• 1:18:14Mel Robbins?

  So if you are constantly procrastinating, you probably have a bias towards thinking, and you can use the five-second rule to literally push yourself to take action. All you're gonna do is count backwards, 5, 4, 3, 2, 1. That's it. I know, it's as dumb as the high five. It's as simple as the high five. It has profound research behind it because what you're doing when you start counting backwards, and you have to count backwards. It does not work if you count up. Doesn't work. Because counting backwards, 5, 4, 3, 2, 1, requires you to focus. When you focus, you flip the switch and your prefrontal cortex turns on. This is a starting ritual that interrupts the patterns of overthinking, of fear, of anxiety, of procrastination, of comparison that are making you go, "Ah, tomorrow, not today. I don't feel like it."

• 1:18:58Mel Robbins?

  5, 4, 3, 2, 1, your prefrontal cortex turns on. That's the part of the brain you need to either learn new behavior or take action. That's inspired. So now, when you get to 1, you got a shot at doing something different. So move. And here's the real secret to this. The second you started counting, you actually made a decision to change. So the counting is the Trojan horse to the bigger thing you're avoiding. 5, 4, 3, 2, 1 launches you through the resistance, and it pushes you into action. That's the only way you're gonna change. Sitting there, listening to us, lightning is not going to strike you on the couch. Jay and I are not going to show up and kick you or drag you out of your house and make you go on that run.

• 1:19:41Mel Robbins?

  If you want to change your life, you must make a decision to change your life. And you know, I'm going to say something that I really hope happens from you listening to Jay and I today. I think it's very easy to sit in this moment in your life and to look back at your life and to see how everything that's ever happened to you, positive and negative, is a dot on the map of your life that has led you here. True power is knowing that this moment right here is also a dot on your map and that this moment too is connecting you forward on the map of your life, towards something extraordinary that hasn't happened yet. And you can either sit here and listen to this and let this dot come and go, or you

• 1:20:26Mel Robbins?

  can wake the heck up and realize at some point, the map takes you to a final destination and we don't know when that is. But if you want to change your life, you got to make a decision to change your life. And sitting around and waiting to feel ready is not the decision I want you to make. So when you're done listening to this, 5, 4, 3, 2, 1, I want you to turn toward that thing that you've always dreamt of, that you've been waiting to do, and you go and you move toward the thing that is meant for you because that's the only way you're going to get there.

• 1:20:57Jay Shetty?

  The one and only Mel Robbins, everyone. The High Five Habit. Mel, we end every episode with the final five, which suits you perfectly, with the five-second rule and the High Five Habit. It's like we planned it. And this is our Fast Five, so every question has to be answered in one word to one sentence, maximum.

• 1:21:16Mel Robbins?

  Oh, okay.

• 1:21:17Jay Shetty?

  So I give one sentence.

• 1:21:18Mel Robbins?

  Yep, yep, yep.

• 1:21:19Jay Shetty?

  Okay, so the first question is, what is the best advice you've ever received?

• 1:21:20Mel Robbins?

  Never leave a bathroom without high-fiving yourself in a mirror.

• 1:21:23Jay Shetty?

  I love it. All right. Question number two, what is the worst advice you've ever received?

• 1:21:27Mel Robbins?

  Someone else can make you happy.

• 1:21:30Jay Shetty?

  Absolutely.

• 1:21:31Mel Robbins?

  They can make you a cup of coffee.

• 1:21:32Jay Shetty?

  Yeah.

• 1:21:32Mel Robbins?

  They can make you happy.

• 1:21:33Jay Shetty?

  A lot of people hear that. It's very true. I didn't get to ask you this probably, but I want to hear about it. Tell us about high-fiving your heart, hand on your heart.

• 1:21:42Mel Robbins?

  Oh, this is incredible. So this comes from research from Dr. Judy Willis, and this is why this is so important. Right now, I think everybody's nervous system is in a state of fight or flight. If you feel constantly exhausted, stressed out, you can't focus, you're on edge, you're waiting for the other shoe to drop, and honestly, what we've just lived through, the human body is not built to sustain that level of uncertainty for that amount of time. So what you're going to do to high-five your heart is we're going to teach you how to flip off your fight or flight nervous system and flip on your parasympathetic, calm, cool nervous system. And so here's how you do it. It's very simple. You're going to take your hands and push them on the center of your chest, and you're

• 1:22:27Mel Robbins?

  going to take a deep breath, blow it out, and then you're going to repeat these three sentences. "I'm okay."

• 1:22:35Jay Shetty?

  "I'm okay."

• 1:22:36Mel Robbins?

  "I'm safe."

• 1:22:37Jay Shetty?

  "I'm safe."

• 1:22:38Mel Robbins?

  "I'm loved."

• 1:22:39Jay Shetty?

  "I'm loved."

• 1:22:40Mel Robbins?

  And some mornings, you might need to do it 53 times. What's happening, and what do you feel, Jay, when you do that?

• 1:22:49Jay Shetty?

  I feel, I mean, on a physical level, I feel like my heart rate's slowing down. I feel like my body's become more relaxed. In an emotional or mental capacity, I just feel a sense of more stoniness, a sense of more clarity in certainty.

• 1:23:04Mel Robbins?

  Exactly. What you're doing on a scientific level is you're tapping into a treasure in your body called the vagus nerve. Now, you talk about this all the time. It runs from your seat to the top of your head, through every major organ, through your vocal cords. There are lots of ways you can strengthen the vagus nerve. It is the on-off switch between your stressed-out nervous system and your cool, grounded one. And so every morning, I want you to high-five your heart. I want you to take a deep breath and start your day by saying, "I am okay, I'm safe, and I'm loved," and repeat it, and repeat it, and repeat it, until you feel yourself come back into your body. You feel the stress level decrease.

• 1:23:45Mel Robbins?

  And the fact of the matter is, if you can hear yourself even thinking those three sentences, it's true. We had a woman who wrote to us from a homeless or a domestic violence shelter. And she said that she's had tremendous childhood abuse. She's just escaped a very abusive relationship. She's lost everything. She said for five days, she's been waking up and high fiving her heart, telling herself that I'm okay, I'm safe, I'm loved. She's been starting her day with a high five in the mirror. And she said, after just five days, I realize I have a very long road ahead of me. But now I know, at least I still have myself.

• 1:24:26Jay Shetty?

  Wow. That's incredible. It's absolutely beautiful. I, uh, it's funny because when, when I was reading about that in the book, I didn't realize it. So I have a habit of, that's probably one of my go to hand gestures in my day to day life. And I do it usually when someone thanks me. So if I bump into someone on the street and they're like, hey, Jay, I listen to the podcast. I really love it. I'd always say, thank you so much. Like, that's a very natural.

• 1:24:49Mel Robbins?

  You do do that.

• 1:24:50Jay Shetty?

  It's my, so when I read about it, I was like, I didn't know about it. I do it because it's just a natural thing for me. But I'll literally put my hand out, I'll be like, thank you so much. That means the world to me. I'm so grateful for that. Like, that's, that's, and I do that all the time. It's, it's like my go to hand gesture. Not that I've trained it or thought of it, it's subconsciously been what I've done. And now that I know that it does that, I'm like, wow. Like, it's, it's incredible to think that some of these things actually happen quite subconsciously and, you know, naturally. So anyway, that was something I had to ask about. Okay. Question number four. What is, how would you define your current purpose?

• 1:25:25Mel Robbins?

  Oh, it's, uh, cracking the wall of darkness that people live in and letting a little light in.

• 1:25:34Jay Shetty?

  And the fifth and final question, if you could create one rule or law or habit that everyone in the world had to follow, what would it be? I'm not sure.

• 1:25:43Mel Robbins?

  Uh, it would definitely be because of the impact in my life. Never leave a bathroom without high fiving the human being you see in the mirror.

• 1:25:51Jay Shetty?

  Yeah, I love that. I'm gonna be doing it every day this week.

• 1:25:54Mel Robbins?

  Awesome.

• 1:25:54Jay Shetty?

  And forever, I'm gonna hope that it continues to last and last and last as a habit. But I'm so grateful to you, Mel. We could talk for hours. There's so much more in this book to unpack. And I want every single person who's been listening or watching to this podcast to go and grab a copy of The High Five Habit. Take control of your life with one simple habit. As Mel has talked about in this podcast, there are way more than one habit inside this book. It's not just one habit. There are so many beautiful gems. And I always believe when you deeply study a habit, it becomes easier to implement it. You can hear about something or read about an article or hear that little nugget of wisdom. But if you study a habit, the implementation is that much deeper. Mel, you have a high five challenge.

• 1:26:36Mel Robbins?

  Yes, Jay, and you're partnering with me on it. Yes, Jay's gonna do it. So it's a five day challenge to help you break through and wipe away the dust on, or the mud in my case, with the elbow grease on the mirror. And it's five days of literally teaching and tools. And here's the best part, a massive global community that's gonna be high fiving you back. It's free. Come play with us, come be with us. Let us give you the lift that you need right now because you not only need it, you deserve it.

• 1:27:05Jay Shetty?

  That's amazing. Thank you, everyone who's been listening or watching. I want to make sure that you tag me and Mel on Instagram with all the reflections, all the insights. Anything that Mel said that resonated with you, please tag Mel and I on Instagram, on Twitter, on Facebook, whatever platform you're on. We love seeing what resonated with you, what connected with you. And don't forget, you can help someone else with this by just passing it on. Just simply sharing it is you taking part in impacting the world and improving the world around you. Share it to your mother, your father, your sister, a friend, a partner. Your children, it could be an amazing habit to them, for them to train just starting right now. Imagine they had this since they were five or six or seven or 10. It could be amazing to see where it goes for them. So, please do not deprive anyone of the growth

• 1:27:50Jay Shetty?

  that's possible for them by resisting pressing share or passing this along to a friend. Mel, thank you so much again for making the effort to be with us physically, for writing this beautiful book, for showing up in the way that you do and sharing your energy. And I'm so grateful that we got down doing it now. I'm so grateful that we got to spend this time together. And I am so excited for this to get out into the world. I can't believe the impact it's already had and the impact that it's gonna have. So, as Brendan would say, I sense something amazing is about to happen.

• 1:28:20Mel Robbins?

  Thank you. And thank you for being one of those people ahead of me that I used to be jealous of, but I now see is a light on the path. I love you. I love you. It is such a joy to watch you live your purpose and light the way for so many of us. I am honored to be your friend and to walk beside you and celebrate you every step of the way. Jay Shetty, high five.

• 1:28:48Jay Shetty?

  I love it. I love it. And it's actually totally the opposite way around. I made, I made a really important decision about a company that I worked with based on you.

• 1:28:56Mel Robbins?

  Oh, is it wasn't a good one, I hope?

• 1:28:58Jay Shetty?

  It was a great one. And so, and so, we could talk, but, but the admiration was very mutual. I was, I loved what was happening in your world and your career, and I made decisions based on that. So.

• 1:29:10Mel Robbins?

  Awesome.

• 1:29:11Jay Shetty?

  Just want you to know that.

• 1:29:12Mel Robbins?

  Thank you.

• 1:29:13Jay Shetty?

  Thank you, Mel. If you want even more videos just like this one, make sure you subscribe and click on the boxes over here. I'm also excited to let you know that you can now get my book, Think Like a Monk, from ThinkLikeAMonkBook.com. Check below in the description to make sure you order today.

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