Stop Trying to Fix People: Mel Robbins on the Power of Letting Go

How much of your energy is focused on trying to change people who aren't ready to change? Best-selling author and podcast host Mel Robbins joins Dr. Heather Berlin and Dr. Christof Koch to explore what happens when you stop trying to control others and start reclaiming your own life. Robbins calls it the “Let Them Theory”: a deceptively simple idea that has struck a nerve with millions worldwide who are using it to address frustration, anxiety, their need for control, and more. Mel’s “Let Them Theory” touches on a central idea of the Perception Box, a framework developed by Elizabeth R. Koch for understanding the forces within us that shape how we see ourselves, relate to others, and move through the world. Mel Robbins is a #1 New York Times bestselling author and host of the award-winning “Mel Robbins Podcast”, with more than 40 million followers worldwide. Her book The Let Them Theory was the top-selling nonfiction title of 2025, selling seven million copies in nine months. Dr. Heather Berlin is a neuroscientist, clinical psychologist, and Professor of Psychiatry and Neuroscience at the Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai in New York City. Dr. Christof Koch is Chief Scientist for the Tiny Blue Dot Foundation and the current Meritorious Investigator and former President of the Allen Institute for Brain Science. Join us for new episodes of Science of Perception Box every Thursday. Follow the show on YouTube, Spotify, Apple Podcasts, Amazon Music, or wherever you get your podcasts. Love Science of Perception Box? Write us a review on your podcast app, or tell a friend! Visit unlikelycollaborators.com for more information. Chapters: 05:09 Introducing Mel Robbins 06:43 Parents And Instinct to Rescue 12:32 Helping Without Pushback 14:27 Annoying Spouse Habits 19:00 “Let Them, Let Me” Boundaries 21:03 Losing Control In Modern Life 26:01 The Cold Tea Test 27:12 Flow State Reset 28:51 Why Let Them Works 31:48 Let Them Let Me Boundaries 33:28 Radical Acceptance in Relationships 37:17 Perception Box Reflections 40:24 People Pleasing as Control 43:01 Let Them or Step In Game

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

• 0:00Speaker 00

  The people that you love will not change on your timeline. They will not heal when you're ready for them to heal. They will not get sober when you're ready for them to get sober. People only change when they are ready to do the very difficult work to change for themselves.

• 0:14Heather Berlin?

  Hi, I'm Elizabeth Koch. What's a perception box? It's this invisible mental box that each one of us lives inside, built from the material of our beliefs, life experiences, and the meaning we've made out of those experiences. You could think of it as a kind of reality filter that's constantly shaping how we see ourselves, other people, and the world around us. This podcast explores how, although the walls of this box are always present, they can expand in moments of curiosity, awe, and wonder, or contract in response to fear, anxiety, and anger. In each episode, we invite experts to share how to create lasting shifts in our perception.

• 0:59Heather Berlin?

  I'd like to introduce our esteemed host, Heather Berlin, professor of psychiatry and neuroscience at the Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai, and Kristoff Koch, chief scientist for the Tiny Blue Dot Foundation and former president of the Allen Institute for Brain Science. Welcome to the Science of Perception Box.

• 1:21Heather Berlin?

  This week, our guest is Mel Robbins. What Mel makes clear is how much energy we spend trying to control others and how much freer we feel when instead we go inside ourselves and address the root of our reactivity, which, as we'll see, has much less to do with the present moment than our personal history. We're going to open it up with personal stories. And I want to ask you, has there ever been a time when somebody really frustrated you, but you decided to just let them be? And how did that actually shift things for you?

• 1:54Speaker 02

  I mean, in most relationships, after, you know, there are things that you do find frustrating. They're unable to change, but then you just have to literally let it go and accept people. That's how they are. And if you love them, want to continue to live with them, or they're part of your family, then you just let it go, and it feels great. At that point, you're accepted, and okay, this is what she says, or this is what he does, and it's fine.

• 2:18Heather Berlin?

  Well, how do you deal with your own frustration, though, about it?

• 2:21Speaker 02

  The first couple of times this happens, right? If it's always the same type of stereotype behavior, you really get annoyed. You mention it two times, you mention 10 times, you mention 20 times, nothing changed. Both sides get aggressive, and then you just, one day you realize, huh, I should just let it go. And then it just feels, huh, fine, doesn't bother me anymore.

• 2:39Heather Berlin?

  So basically, accept the things you cannot change.

• 2:41Speaker 02

  Yes. And that's this particular mindset when you do that. And what does it take in your mind to go from, ah, this is so annoying, to, I'm just gonna let it slide? I think that's what they call wisdom.

• 2:54Heather Berlin?

  Ah, do you have that yet?

• 2:57Speaker 02

  Yes, I do, I think, to a certain extent. I mean, we can always have more wisdom. But I think it's part of living and learning to get to know people better, that you look inside and you say, well, I mean, am I willing to live with this person despite his or her faults? And then you say, yes, because I too, believe it or not, may have some faults.

• 3:17Heather Berlin?

  What? This is the first I'm hearing about this.

• 3:20Speaker 02

  Yes.

• 3:20Heather Berlin?

  So you accept the things you cannot change.

• 3:21Speaker 02

  It's purely hypothetical.

• 3:22Heather Berlin?

  Hypothetical, obviously.

• 3:25Speaker 02

  What about you, Heather?

• 3:26Heather Berlin?

  Well, I had somebody very close to me who I thought was drinking a bit too much. And I really care about this person, and I, you know, I said what I thought about it, and it continued to go on for a bit. And then at some point, I had to say, you know, let them. And when they feel it's time for them to make a change, they will. And thankfully, actually, ultimately, they did. I had to kind of hold back because I have a tendency, also, like, as a therapist and someone who's worked with people, you know, who've had addiction problems or impulse control issues, I want to give all my advice. But sometimes it's better to just hold back and let the person find that motivation to change on their own.

• 4:08Heather Berlin?

  Because I found that he was starting to get frustrated with me trying to impose my values. And that doesn't help people change.

• 4:15Speaker 02

  You constantly tell me, don't drink, don't drink this glass.

• 4:18Heather Berlin?

  Well, you know, or I can just give you advice of like, you know, drinking can cause cancer and like, whatever. But it can get annoying, I know.

• 4:26Speaker 02

  Well, that's great at this dinner that you remind me I might get cancer due to this. Thank you very much for doing that. That really sets up the dinner.

• 4:36Heather Berlin?

  I wouldn't do it in the moment, but maybe at a, you know, when we're not drinking. But the point is that that doesn't really impact people as much as, you know, that they need to kind of discover for themselves. And if they realize, I mean, I think it's okay to at least state your opinion maybe once so they know how you feel. But after that, you have to let it go. You know, say how you feel and then let it go and see if the person enacts change on their own. And I think ultimately, that helps with your relationship with people as well. Well, on that note, we have the perfect guest to help us practice this process of letting things go. Welcome to the podcast, Mel Robbins.

• 5:12Speaker 00

  Thank you, thank you very much for having, I'm so excited to be here.

• 5:15Heather Berlin?

  We're excited, we're very excited to have you. Is it hard for you to watch someone you love not make the obvious change they need to make? Or not make the right decisions? And, you know...

• 5:29Speaker 00

  The hardest thing in the world is to watch someone that you love, and you don't even have to love them, I'm gonna say. Just watch any other human being, whether you work with them, whether you're married to them, whether they're in your family, not do the obvious thing. It is excruciating. It is frustrating. You know, we are so judgmental of other people. It is so easy to look at what other people are doing and to say, oh, well, you should do this. And if I were in your shoes, I would do that, and you must be an idiot. So give me an example.

• 6:05Speaker 02

  You have a child, you dearly love the child, the child is now an adult and is dysfunctional in some way. Drinks too much, does drugs, or whatever else. And you love them, but they, and they're now sort of 25 or even older.

• 6:19Speaker 00

  Yes.

• 6:20Speaker 02

  It then pains you. So what do you do?

• 6:23Speaker 00

  Okay, this is a really hard question. And having a 26-year-old, a 25-year-old, and a 20-year-old.

• 6:29Speaker 02

  One of them is in the room with us.

• 6:31Speaker 00

  One of them who is here.

• 6:31Heather Berlin?

  Oh, really?

• 6:32Speaker 00

  Right? Yeah, Sawyer is here, she wrote the Let Them Theory book with me. At any moment, somebody that you love is probably not doing okay. And the gut instinct that you're gonna have, particularly as a parent, is you're gonna want in, and you're gonna want to run in and rescue them from it. You're gonna want to run in and tell them what they should do. You're gonna want to run in and try to clear away all their problems and try to solve it. And what I have learned the hard way, you're gonna explain the neuroscience behind this, is that that instinct is beautiful because it comes from a place of caring. But the strategy that you're using that is driven by your stress, because you can't tolerate the fact that somebody else is struggling,

• 7:15Speaker 00

  and you also, deep down, have this belief that they're not capable of figuring it out without you. And that's the mistake. The mistake is thinking they need you to solve the problem. That's not what they need you to do. They need you to stand by their side and be ready to support and for you to double down on the belief that they're capable of figuring this out when they are ready to figure it out. And that's the hardest part because the people that you love will not change on your timeline. They will not heal when you're ready for them to heal. They will not get sober when you're ready for them to get sober.

• 7:57Speaker 00

  People only change when they are ready to do the very difficult work to change for themselves.

• 8:02Speaker 02

  But of course, staying with the scenario, you're also concerned that at some point, that child may do something that's irreversible.

• 8:08Speaker 00

  Yes.

• 8:09Speaker 02

  Right, and get them into serious trouble.

• 8:11Speaker 00

  Yes, and they might. And so the issue isn't, do you care? The issue isn't, is this going in the wrong direction? The issue is, how do I intervene or not in a way that is the most effective and the most productive? Not based on my emotional state, but based on what experts like you tell us, is how you influence change in other people? Because let's be clear. This took me a long, 54 years to figure out. I still have trouble with it, especially as a parent and as a spouse. Other people only change when they're ready to change. You can explain this better than I can, that the brain is wired to default toward what feels

• 8:54Speaker 00

  easy right now, and it is wired to push you away from what is very hard right now. And so, in order for a human being to change, which we are designed to do, you have to push against that natural wiring in your brain. I remember it was Dr. Kay who I interviewed for this, you know, for the Let Them Theory book, and he said, basically, that in addiction medicine, which was his specialty at Harvard Medical School, he said that people only get sober when they reach a moment and they realize that being drunk is harder than doing the things that they've avoided doing. That's the moment, and that's also the moment, if you really think about the science of it, that there's something that switches in the brain, and you're like, oh, wait a

• 9:39Speaker 00

  minute, drinking, drugs, being in relationships like this, not motivating myself to change or take, this is actually harder than doing the thing I've been resisting. And so, the question to ask yourself is this, if you have somebody in your life that's struggling, the question becomes, what role do I play so that I could possibly accelerate the moment when the person who needs to do the hard work to change has that epiphany for themselves?

• 10:05Speaker 02

  Well, it may be that there isn't too much you can do at this point, right? That the person has to go through the valley of despair.

• 10:11Speaker 00

  They have to, because the thing that, I'm gonna talk about it from a common sense standpoint, and I hope you talk about it from the neuroscience standpoint. Like, from a common sense standpoint, I'll just give you a scenario with our son. So, our son was profoundly dyslexic, struggled in schools, bounced from the public high school to a school for kids with dyslexia, to a tiny little school where he had no friends, and he felt like the dumbest kid there, and then, all of a sudden, he gets back to a public high school, he has just had the you-know-what beaten up about him, right? Of course, he's not engaged in academics. And one of the things that, as a parent, you know, I want him to be motivated, I want him to do well, because I believe that's gonna make him feel better about himself. So now, I'm projecting my beliefs on him.

• 10:54Speaker 00

  As a parent, I have a certain responsibility to guide him and to try to motivate him and to help him make better decisions, but I didn't understand the basics around human behavior and human relationships and the levers that either make somebody motivated or makes them resist even further and dig in. And I was doing the opposite of what you should do. And so, it's freshman year, and I'd be down in the kitchen, and I'd hear upstairs, you know, as a kid is playing video games, like, oh, oh, go, go, go! You're like, what is going on up there? I know what's going on up there, and it's not studying. And so, I would put down the wooden spoon, and I'd march upstairs, and I'd swing open

• 11:38Speaker 00

  the door, and I'd be like, hey! And he's, you know, spins around, what? I'm like, dude, have you done your homework yet? No, I'm gonna get to it. Honey, you have to get your homework done. Now, let's just freeze this. First of all, do I think he's an idiot? Of course, he knows that in order to do well at school, playing video games isn't going to make it happen. He knows this! He also knows that studying is gonna help. And so, I come marching up there, and I treat him like a moron? Studying's really hard. That's why he avoids it, because he doesn't think he's good at it, and it takes a lot of effort.

• 12:21Speaker 00

  So this makes perfect sense when you think about the brain science.

• 12:25Heather Berlin?

  This is what I would say, though, in terms of some of the science behind it.

• 12:28Speaker 00

  Please.

• 12:28Heather Berlin?

  So, you know, we're, the, you know, concept of this, the Perception Box Podcast, really, is that we all see the world through our own perspective, right? We all have our own perception, because every brain is a little bit different, right? Every brain, I mean, brains are very similar in some ways, but it's each like a unique thumbprint, and so, our experiences are different, our biology is different, and so, we all, the brain sort of constructs our reality.

• 12:51Speaker 00

  Yes.

• 12:51Heather Berlin?

  And it's different for everyone. So the way you're perceiving, let's say with your son, your perspective on him is gonna be different than his perspective of the world.

• 12:58Speaker 00

  Yes, yes.

• 12:59Heather Berlin?

  Right? And so, what we can do in terms of the question of how can we help somebody without, you know, intervening in such a way that they push back, is help put them in the right circumstances that they're gonna find that internal change, they're gonna have that internal locus of control. So for kids, research shows that the biggest influence in their lives are their peers.

• 13:20Speaker 00

  Yes.

• 13:20Heather Berlin?

  Not the parents.

• 13:21Speaker 02

  A teenager.

• 13:22Heather Berlin?

  And a teenager, and the parents of the peers. So, put them in situations where they're gonna maybe be around the kinds of peers you want them to be around that are actually gonna influence them. And then, when you're talking about, you know, doing something hard, like withholding immediate pleasure for some long-term goal.

• 13:40Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 13:40Heather Berlin?

  That takes time to build, right? Your prefrontal cortex, which is...

• 13:43Speaker 00

  You mean, like withholding the video game playing?

• 13:45Heather Berlin?

  Right.

• 13:46Speaker 02

  The marshmallow.

• 13:47Heather Berlin?

  The marshmallow.

• 13:47Speaker 00

  Yes.

• 13:48Heather Berlin?

  Your prefrontal cortex isn't fully developed until about the age of 25, so it's much harder for a teenager to withhold doing the immediate pleasurable thing, playing the video game for some longer-term goal.

• 13:58Speaker 00

  Yes.

• 13:59Heather Berlin?

  Right?

• 13:59Speaker 00

  Yes.

• 14:00Heather Berlin?

  But if, the brain is sort of like, it's a set of ones and zeros, it's making calculations all the time with the input. So sometimes, you give it, you need to give some input, enough input gets in there where it changes the algorithm. Okay, now, it's shifted, and I'm internally motivated for whatever these reasons are that have hit a tipping point.

• 14:18Speaker 00

  Yep.

• 14:18Heather Berlin?

  To shift my own behavior.

• 14:20Speaker 00

  Okay, now, let me give you a $100 million question. You ready? How do I get my spouse to big, take better care of himself? How do I get him to exercise? How do I get him to stop drinking too much? How do I get him to get up in the morning and be an early riser like me? How do you do that using the science?

• 14:40Heather Berlin?

  Well, what I would say is more, like, I would say...

• 14:42Speaker 00

  Now, I'm like, okay, great, let's change the settings in their brain!

• 14:45Speaker 02

  Can I say something that I, that's 2,000 years old that my dad gave me when I was a little kid and acting, doing stupid stuff as a boy as I want to? It's by the Emperor Marcos Aurelius, I think you alluded to him indirectly, his meditation book, 2,000 Years Old. He has a simple maxim, "If thou are pained by any external thing, it is not this thing that disturbs thee, but thy own judgment about it. It is in thy power to wipe out this judgment now." So I think with your husband, I would first and foremost probably suggest, let him be.

• 15:21Speaker 00

  But I don't want to! I don't want to, because he's pissing me off!

• 15:26Speaker 02

  I understand.

• 15:26Speaker 00

  And I want him to be different, and I think I know best, and I, it's hard to let people be.

• 15:31Heather Berlin?

  What I would say from a psychology perspective is to approach it rather than, this is what you should be doing, stay away from any kind of shoulds, is approach it, you want, with love. I love you so much, and I really wanna be able to spend as much of my life with you as I can, and I want you to live as long as possible, because I love the time we spend together. You know, and in a way, shift the perspective, rather than a judgmental...

• 15:59Speaker 00

  Yep.

• 16:00Heather Berlin?

  Perspective of like, I would, I hope you can be so healthy that you can live long, and give him a different kind of a motivation.

• 16:06Speaker 00

  Yes.

• 16:06Speaker 02

  Are you some sort of therapist?

• 16:08Heather Berlin?

  I'm also a therapist, yes! But you know, if you do it because, oh, stop drinking, it's bad for you, that's not a good enough reason, but I wanna spend time with you, I really love you so much, and I enjoy our time together, what can you do to increase your longevity? You know, or, let's do something fun together, like, come to the gym with me, I wanna spend time with you. And approaching it like, from a more sort of tangential perspective, rather than a, stop doing that, or you need to do this directive.

• 16:34Speaker 00

  The problem with that is you have that moment, and we're both crying. I do too, oh, baby, thank you for, and then the next morning, [growling]. And that's when the work happens. And here's one of the things that I think about a lot, which is...

• 16:52Speaker 02

  The work happens for him?

• 16:54Speaker 00

  For you. For you. The work happens for you.

• 16:58Heather Berlin?

  You have to sit with that feeling.

• 16:59Speaker 00

  You have to sit with that feeling. And the way that I think about this too, from a common sense standpoint, is that nobody wants to be told what to do, because we wanna feel that we are in control of our own experience. And everybody is afraid to make that change, whether it's breaking up with the person that your family doesn't like, or it's finally motivating and getting a different job, or it's taking better care of yourself. I think we are all afraid of that moment when everybody goes, see, I told you! And then, that moment robs you of your agency and your sense that I did this on my own,

• 17:41Speaker 00

  and I came to my own conclusions, and I am not just some puppet in this family. And that's another place where I see that I made major mistakes in the past, that I didn't realize it. People literally need time and space to not be hounded or reminded and to just, to be allowed to struggle. Without the experience that my husband and I went through in our 40s, where we were 800 grand in debt, and alcoholics, and screaming at each other, and leans on the house, and everything's about to blow up, without that experience of pain, and without life, and

• 18:25Speaker 00

  the decisions that I make, that I take full responsibility for, feeling like a sledgehammer... Without that pain, I never would have had the moment where I could say to myself, honestly, this doesn't fucking work. And if I want my life to feel different, I have to do something different. It's really that simplistic.

• 18:48Speaker 02

  So you need to struggle to come to that realization.

• 18:51Speaker 00

  You have to.

• 18:52Heather Berlin?

  It's like alcoholics, when you say, let them hit rock bottom. Sometimes you have to let people have the natural consequences of their actions.

• 18:59Speaker 00

  You do. Now, look, you can have the intervention. Do that because that's, that's the part of this theory that's like, I recognize let them. Let them isn't like, I'm just gonna let you die in a gutter. Let them is when you say to yourself, I'm drawing a boundary because I'm recognizing that the things out there, this person or the world at large, it is now getting into my head and my body. And I gotta say, let them, not because I'm allowing it. Let them is a boundary where you say, I'm recognizing what's happening. And what's happening is a person that I love is self-destructing. And what they do is out of my control. So I have to say, let them, because their healing, their sobriety, their job, their finances, their future, that is their responsibility.

• 19:44Speaker 00

  But now let me say the second part, let me. Let me focus on what I can control. What are my values? What kind of support do I want to provide? What do I want to think about this? What do I want to do or not do? How am I gonna process the feelings that are rising and falling because this scares me? Because I'm worried? Because I'm anxious something terrible might happen? And let me choose how to show up in this moment so that no matter what happens with this person, I can at least know that I did the best that I could. And so that might mean, I'm gonna have an intervention. Not once, not twice, but three times. It might mean you're gonna drive somebody and pay for them to go to rehab if you can do that. You can only control, I will always be here on the sidelines.

• 20:29Speaker 00

  I'm always here to support you. But I am having to do the excruciatingly difficult thing of understanding, I can't control or change you.

• 20:40Speaker 02

  It's not just one decision that I decide one day, okay, this is the boundary, but it's a constantly negotiated boundary and fluctuating boundary, right? Within myself, what I will tolerate and what I won't.

• 20:52Speaker 00

  Yes.

• 20:53Heather Berlin?

  But I would say there's individual differences. So, so I'm working on this book now, it's called The Fine Art of Losing Control. How do we lose control?

• 21:00Speaker 00

  Wow.

• 21:00Heather Berlin?

  And how do we let go from a neuroscience perspective? And it strikes me, that's probably where you were coming from as being a lawyer. You have a lot of executive control. You have a lot of control. You had three children, you're running a household, you're doing.

• 21:11Speaker 00

  I don't feel like I had a lot of control. Like, maybe it looked like I did. But I think a lot of people have the experience where you are under an avalanche. Your whole day is response, response, response, response. It's only gotten worse now that there's Slack and email and there's social media and your phone notifications and everything's like, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, input, input, input, input. And so even though everybody gets on the bus, even though the emails get answered, even though like it looks like I got it all together, I will go on the record and say that 80% of us feel like we are completely failing, that we are not able to focus time and energy

• 21:56Speaker 00

  on the things that are important and we're not doing a good job at any of it.

• 22:01Heather Berlin?

  But would you find then, because this is kind of the, a concept I'm thinking about from a neuroscience perspective, is that you can actually gain more control by letting go?

• 22:09Speaker 00

  Oh, a thousand percent. When the pandemic hit and there was just an extraordinary amount of change coming at everybody. And everybody went into like a fight or flight responsive mode to the change. It happened at work, it happened at school, it happened with your family, everybody's coming home, everything's changing, we don't know what's happening.

• 22:30Speaker 02

  Were you in Boston?

• 22:32Speaker 00

  I was in Boston for part of it, but then we were up in Vermont for a lot of it. And my whole business turned upside down, like everybody else's, but it also opened up this huge opportunity because instead of giving keynote addresses and doing corporate trainings in person, everything went virtual. And so it opened up this possibility for the first time that maybe I don't need to live in a city in order to do the work that I do. And, you know, that was a positive. There were a lot of negatives, but I started to notice this trend because I was being invited by, you know, major Fortune 100 companies to be doing these trainings. And I started to say, well, why don't you have everybody submit selfie videos and share

• 23:16Speaker 00

  the biggest things they're struggling with? So we would get thousands of videos from biotech firms and from banks and from the big tech companies. And then my team and I would assemble a big presentation responding to all these and then talk about what was going on.

• 23:31Speaker 02

  We would send in two or three minute long videos.

• 23:33Speaker 00

  Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah. And then we assembled an hour long presentation where I'm like, well, we got 87 videos basically asking this question. And it would be from their global workforce of people that were engineers, all talking about anxiety or nervousness, or I can't sleep suddenly, or the self, the chronic self-doubt, or the procrastination has ticked up. And as you two know, this is research that comes from Dr. Aditi Narukar at Harvard Medical School, that when medically speaking, you go into a stress response, and please correct me if I get the facts wrong, you automatically switch from the functioning part of your brain to the amygdala and the reactive mode. And what her research suggests is that you don't naturally switch back.

• 24:16Speaker 00

  And that her research, which we write about in this book, is that 83% of Americans are stuck in a state of chronic stress, meaning the amygdala is running the show. I personally believe that nobody understands that coming out of react, react, react, we're on Zoom calls all day long, we're working all weekend, we're doing this, we're doing that, we don't, that we've never exhaled.

• 24:43Speaker 02

  As a society, as a culture.

• 24:45Speaker 00

  Yes. Your job is still a gigantic reaction, emergency response. When everything's important, nothing's important. That if you ask any employee in any company, they probably cannot tell you the single biggest priority that's important for this week or for the quarter. And this has had huge implications on people's ability to feeling control. And so to your point, isn't it true that you gain control when you give it up? Stoicism at the heart of it. The answer is yes. And I'm gonna focus on these things that are important right now, and that's going

• 25:29Speaker 00

  to help my brain focus on the thing that matters. And ironically, by not doing everything, I feel better.

• 25:37Heather Berlin?

  And the prioritization and also just letting go in ways of like going into a flow state, letting go, you know, of your sense of self in a way and doing activities where you can really just not be so much focused in control on what's happening in the environment, but letting go.

• 25:53Speaker 00

  How do you do that? Like, what would be your biggest tip as a neuroscientist, you two? For somebody that comes home, they've been bombarded with emails, they're stressed about their kid who's self-destructing, they're annoyed at their spouse who's like sleeping in and not going to the gym, they're, like, it's all up here. And then what do they do? Grab the phone.

• 26:13Heather Berlin?

  Right.

• 26:14Speaker 00

  Because it feels good and it's almost like your brain's like, ah.

• 26:18Heather Berlin?

  Mind numbing.

• 26:19Speaker 00

  Yes. Because that almost feels like a flow state though, doesn't it?

• 26:22Heather Berlin?

  Right. But it's not because you're bombarded, you're just giving it more information, more information. So I often say like our brains are, you know, these cavemen brains in a modern world. And we're not meant for all this stimulation all the time. I would say, you know, every, letting go is different for everyone. I call it the cold tea test. Whatever your task you do where you make a cup of tea, suddenly you look, it's cold.

• 26:42Speaker 00

  Oh my God, I love that. Wait, the cold tea test?

• 26:45Heather Berlin?

  Yes.

• 26:45Speaker 00

  So if you're doing something and you are in it and you actually forgot about your tea and it went cold?

• 26:53Heather Berlin?

  That's your flow.

• 26:53Speaker 00

  That's a great rule of thumb.

• 26:55Heather Berlin?

  That's what I use as a rule of thumb.

• 26:56Speaker 00

  What do I do?

• 26:57Heather Berlin?

  So you could.

• 26:58Speaker 00

  Scrolling on the phone is what makes my tea go cold.

• 27:01Heather Berlin?

  I would say, first of all, disconnect from the, you don't wanna, you wanna stop with the input. You wanna get more internal, what's happening inside of you.

• 27:07Speaker 02

  Stop all social media consumption.

• 27:09Heather Berlin?

  Daydreaming. Go for a walk outside, go take a shower, do something creative, art, paint, listen to music, something physical. Some people, you know, rock climbing, you used to rock climb.

• 27:20Speaker 00

  Oh, I get that. It looks like you just came down off a wall.

• 27:24Heather Berlin?

  He always looks that way.

• 27:26Speaker 00

  I love that.

• 27:27Heather Berlin?

  That's his look, that's his fashion style.

• 27:29Speaker 00

  But I'm gonna go buy that shirt. I'm gonna Google or search that sucker and buy it for my husband.

• 27:35Heather Berlin?

  But it's really like anything, some people it's physical activity, some people it's art, creating, writing, you know, when you're in that moment, you're in the flow, you lose your sense of self and time and place. And it's almost like a muscle, you're exercising a different brain system, right? You have like a kind of default mode system, you have the executive control. And I think a lot of people are overly in that executive control where the prefrontal cortex turned up. You get rumination and anxiety and worry and you're thinking about everything on your list. And the opposite is this sort of daydreaming, meditation, walking.

• 28:04Speaker 00

  It makes sense.

• 28:05Speaker 02

  Or being fully engaged with a task, whether it's reading or coding. It used to be, you know, for some people, if you write a computer code or doing math, it can't be too easy, it can't be too difficult. And you can totally lose yourself, you can leave, you know, planet ego.

• 28:18Heather Berlin?

  And then also we have psychedelic balance, which is a quick, you know, way to get there. But I'm not recommending drugs to everyone, but that's just another avenue which with people can get to this place. And we can actually see it, you know, there's a lot of neuroimaging studies where the filter system kind of, it's kind of turned down.

• 28:34Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 28:35Heather Berlin?

  So anything goes and it allows for these novel associations between ideas and things from the unconscious can come up. So too much control isn't good. First of all, this book, I mean, I think it sold like seven million copies in nine months. Why do you think so many people were just drawn to this?

• 28:52Speaker 00

  I think there's kind of, I don't know, four key reasons. Number one is the timing.

• 28:59Speaker 02

  Post pandemic.

• 29:00Speaker 00

  Well, we're living in a, in a moment where the world feels like it's spinning off its axis. And the average person feels completely overwhelmed and stressed out. And that everything out there, whether it's AI coming for your job, or adult kids who are struggling, or the bills that are piling up, or just the overwhelming amount of things to do. Everybody feels this massive loss of control. And fundamentally, the let them theory is a modern version of ancient wisdom. It's four words, let them and let me, that help you apply Stoicism, serenity, Viktor Frankl's seminal work, the man's search for meaning, detachment theory, radical acceptance, you name it, in a moment in modern life,

• 29:45Speaker 00

  where you are stressed and burnt out and it helps you feel a sense of control. That's number one. So it is a timely message. The second reason why is it's simple. When you're already stressed out, you're not going to remember something intellectual. This is a tool. If I'm angry about something or hurt by something or annoyed by something, I can't remember anything complicated, but you can remember let them. And that brings me to the third reason. It works. It alleviates the number one cause of your stress, which is other people. They're super annoying, you can't change them, they have huge expectations.

• 30:22Heather Berlin?

  Jerry Seinfeld.

• 30:22Speaker 00

  Oh my God, he's like people. Oh my God, the close talkers, the slow walkers, the traffic, the people that are very slow in the checkout line. You got somewhere to be, what the heck? And, and, and the people that annoy you the most are your family. Because one of the reasons we have family is it teaches you how to love people you hate sometimes. And, and, and you're never going to change these people. And so why on earth are we allowing something that you can't change? Annoying behavior, inconsiderate strangers, the headlines that are written to make you pay attention? Like, why would you allow that? To drain your life force, to steal your attention? You don't have to.

• 31:05Speaker 00

  And so when people start reading this book, or they literally, you don't even have to buy the book. You can use these four words for free right now. The next time you're stressed out, somebody sends a notification for a video conference call at five o'clock on a Friday. What kind of an idiot loser who has no life is doing that to the rest of us? Right? But you need the job because you got to pay your bills. So let them. I'm just going to make a cocktail and turn off the screen, you know, and start my psychedelic trip while I drop in while you're having your dumb meeting, right? And I'm going to run AI to take my notes for me. And then I'm going to say bye, everybody have a great weekend. That's the let me part. So you start to recognize that life right now is a death by a thousand cuts. But it doesn't have to be. It doesn't have to be.

• 31:51Speaker 00

  And so when you start to go, oh, let them, oh, let them, let, oh, my mom's disappointed, let her be disappointed. She's an adult, she'll get over it. Oh, let them, my friend's bummed that I can't come out to a birthday party for their 37th birthday, where I'm going to split the check with 14 people and talk to people I don't want to see right now? Let them be disappointed. I had a busy week, let me take care of myself and let me ask my friend if I can take them like out to a yoga class this weekend. So we can have some one-on-one time. And when you start to practice these little boundaries between your habit of allowing it all in, your habit of judging other people and getting pissed off at them or frustrated,

• 32:32Speaker 00

  your habit of trying to please everybody, only to make yourself miserable, that's the let them part. The let me part is what you say now that you've taken your power back. Now you get to choose what you do with it. That's how you take responsibility for your experience in life. And the word responsibility is the ability to respond to what's happening. And that's where your power is, what you think, what you do or don't do, and what you do with the emotions. And the fourth reason, and this is, this is the big reason. As you're reading, you're like, oh, my mother needs this book.

• 33:07Speaker 00

  Because I'm the villain in this book. I'm the control freak, I'm the annoying person, I don't want to be. Everybody is either that person, or you know, somebody who is. And this is the most beautiful part of the book. People buy the book because when you say let them, there's an attitude and superiority. Like when you're, when you start saying let them with your family and you notice that your siblings aren't helping with your aging parents, or you notice that your siblings don't make an effort. First, you're going to be like, oh, let them, let my sister be like that. And you feel superior, which I think is one of the secrets to why the detachment from the emotion works. This little like jolt, and that's why people love it.

• 33:50Speaker 00

  Because you feel better than the idiot that just cut you off in traffic. But then as you start to sit in the radical acceptance of the state of your relationships, or the fact that your boss is disrespectful, or that you're in a relationship with somebody who doesn't care about you, or your value is no longer aligned. It's not that you're allowing anything to happen, it's that you're finally forcing yourself to recognize what's happening. What happens is this space opens up where I had to confront how judgmental I was. There was a lot of opinions and emotion and intensity and stress that I was bringing to my relationships.

• 34:31Speaker 02

  Telling your son how to run his prom.

• 34:34Speaker 00

  Correct. Yes, you know, because I believed I knew best. And in a relationship, you can either have connection or you can be right. And when you start to create this space where you're teaching yourself to truly learn how to love and accept people as they are and as they're not. That's what love is. Can you accept somebody as they are and as they're not, without holding your opinion and your judgment over their head? And I had never done that. I had never done that. And so learning how to basically just let my husband be my husband, let my mom be my mom, let my dad be my dad,

• 35:15Speaker 00

  let my daughter be who she is, let her have her big feelings, let her be selfish, let her not, let her this, let her that. Learning how to give people the space to have the dignity of their own experience is a completely different way to love somebody and hold space for them. And it's a way for you to have a deeper connection. Because when people feel accepted, they soften and they move toward you. And when people, when you have the conversation you were talking about, like it really worries me. How do you feel about your health? Do you worry about how this might impact how many years you're going to have? You know, do you worry about like how stressed out you are? Is there anything I can do? When you have that, and then you let them. If you give them three to six months, something surprising happens.

• 35:59Speaker 00

  As you're no longer judging and you show up with more grace and compassion, they have to deal with themselves. Because one of the reasons, one of the biggest reasons why people don't change is because they're pouring so much energy in resisting your push to change. It's how they stay in control themselves. Because if my husband all of a sudden starts exercising, now he has to admit that I'm right and he loses control of himself.

• 36:25Speaker 02

  No, but there may also come a point in time when you realize this person doesn't have the power to change.

• 36:31Speaker 00

  Yes.

• 36:32Speaker 02

  For whatever reason. And then you have to decide, am I okay living with that? Or this is just beyond the pale for me?

• 36:38Speaker 00

  Yes, you do. And that is a deeply personal decision. And what happens in that moment is you now let them. People are who they are. I don't think people are confusing at all. I think we confuse ourselves. Because we're trying to explain away behavior and we're holding on to the hope and the opinion that they should change. If you just look at people's behavior as very black and white, they tell you exactly who they are.

• 37:09Heather Berlin?

  We end each show with asking a perception box question.

• 37:14Speaker 00

  Okay.

• 37:14Heather Berlin?

  And we don't know what it's gonna be. One of us asked it this week. Kristoff is going to be asking us the question.

• 37:21Speaker 02

  What do you imagine other people imagine about you?

• 37:24Heather Berlin?

  Um, God, that's a very difficult question. I think on the surface, I think people think a lot of times because I do so many things and, and you know, I'm involved in a lot of things that I have it all together.

• 37:36Speaker 02

  That you're in control?

• 37:37Heather Berlin?

  That I'm in control. And the truth is, like you were saying, I am, you know, often feeling out of control and feeling like I'm just barely keeping things, you know, going in the train where I have two small children. I'm, you know, that I'm, I'm going through a divorce. I have a clinical practice and research and science communication, and it's a lot. I just barely have it together. But don't worry, it's fine. Everything's fine.

• 38:07Speaker 00

  Today.

• 38:08Heather Berlin?

  Yes, today. What about you?

• 38:11Speaker 00

  This is gonna sound really weird. I don't often think about what other people think about me.

• 38:16Speaker 02

  That is exactly.

• 38:18Heather Berlin?

  That's great.

• 38:20Speaker 02

  No, this is exactly this.

• 38:21Speaker 00

  But that's, but that's actually new. I was consumed for my entire life with what other people thought. I made decisions based on what would make them happy, what I thought would make people think a certain thing, all of which is a gigantic illusion. And it also makes you feel out of control because you've put the source of your value as a person and others. And the let them theory and saying let them and let me every single day and parsing through the moments of my life where I'm about to try to change or control somebody else, or I'm allowing the headlines or other things to just freak

• 39:01Speaker 00

  me out. And that's not to say there aren't important things in this world that need our attention and need our work and important things that need to change for the better. It is this belief that I have to protect my time and energy so that I can do the work to make things better. Learning, using let them and let me has been like a reordering of my experience as a human being because I am very clear about who I am. And when you know that you are doing the best that you can and you're making decisions based on your values and you clean up the messes that you make and your intent is kind-hearted,

• 39:46Speaker 00

  you can lay your head on the pillow at night and feel like you did an okay job today. And bringing the, my personal value back to the way I think about things, the things I do or don't do, the things I say yes or no to, and having that aligned with the kind of person I want to be, it is extraordinary. You don't really think about what other people think about you at all because you know exactly who you are.

• 40:11Speaker 02

  I couldn't agree more. Maybe it's a nerdy thing.

• 40:14Speaker 00

  God, I got it wrong, damn it.

• 40:15Speaker 02

  Maybe it's a nerdy thing.

• 40:16Speaker 00

  You're wrong because it's your perspective.

• 40:17Heather Berlin?

  What about people pleasing? You know, not, that's, I think, a big one too, is you don't have to please everybody. It's okay to say no.

• 40:22Speaker 00

  Well, here's the thing about people pleasing that blew my mind for me personally and made me really clean this up. People pleasers love the framing that you're weak or you're a doormat or you're being stepped on. I want you to consider that if you struggle with pleasing other people and making everybody happy, you're actually very manipulative. And the reason why I say that is because even though it's an adaptive strategy from childhood that's hardwired and we can get into all of that, you are doing whatever it takes to make sure people like you. That means you're trying to manipulate what people think.

• 40:58Speaker 02

  Big time.

• 40:59Speaker 00

  Big time.

• 40:59Heather Berlin?

  Right, right.

• 41:00Speaker 00

  And there's an easier.

• 41:02Heather Berlin?

  That's a good perception, a perspective shift.

• 41:04Speaker 00

  Yes. Because you've been conditioned to believe that people pleasing is this weak, meek, doormat thing. Oh, no, no, no. You do it subconsciously or consciously because you want to control what people think about you. That's a form of manipulation. And so when you start to say let them, let them be mad at me, let them be upset, let them be frustrated, let them hate me, let them misunderstand me. Now you're drawing a boundary between that adaptive behavior and you're recognizing you're controlling nature, even if it comes from insecurity.

• 41:34Heather Berlin?

  Ah, that's great.

• 41:35Speaker 02

  So I never had this need to, to please other people.

• 41:37Speaker 00

  That doesn't surprise me.

• 41:40Speaker 02

  Well, does it have to do with?

• 41:41Speaker 00

  Can we turn that into a shot for the rest of us?

• 41:44Speaker 02

  Well, it may come with drawbacks because I feel it comes with sort of being slightly on the spectrum. If you're on the spectrum, you simply, you know, you understand less about complicated social interactions. And so to a first order, you simply care less. I, I, I wanted to do things and I didn't care that much what other people thought about it.

• 42:03Speaker 00

  Yes. Well, I think there's a difference.

• 42:04Heather Berlin?

  Less theory of mind.

• 42:05Speaker 00

  There's a difference between caring about what people think, right, and their opinions, and caring deeply about the unintended impact that something may have on somebody. Do you see what I mean? Like, because you strike me as the kind of person that doesn't really care about other people's opinions. But if you did something that really hurt someone, you would be the first to apologize.

• 42:28Speaker 02

  Of course, yes.

• 42:29Speaker 00

  So I just want to draw that distinction because even though you're the one that said, you know, I wonder if it's something where you're slightly on the spectrum and you don't pick up on the social cues and you're not really, you're thinking about other things, that may be true. But I still believe that the kind-hearted part of you cares about the impact. It's that somebody else's opinion isn't going to stop you from doing what you want to do or saying what you want to say, which is an incredible strength and quality.

• 42:52Heather Berlin?

  It's very empowering. I'm gonna end with, we have this little game. It's a very quick little game.

• 42:56Speaker 00

  Okay.

• 42:57Heather Berlin?

  It's called let them or step in.

• 42:59Speaker 00

  Oh, okay.

• 43:00Heather Berlin?

  So I'm gonna give a couple of scenarios and you just either say let them or step in. So the first one is if your friend cancels on you for the third time in a row, let them or step in?

• 43:13Speaker 00

  Let them.

• 43:14Heather Berlin?

  Let them.

• 43:14Speaker 00

  Let them. Like, let them because let me just take a step back. I have no idea what's going on.

• 43:20Heather Berlin?

  Okay.

• 43:21Speaker 00

  I don't know, like, what's happening in their life. And I also feel like we need to be more flexible with our friends. People have a lot going on right now.

• 43:31Heather Berlin?

  I agree.

• 43:31Speaker 00

  And if they cancel, it means they've got something going on and I get to choose whether I take it personally. Now, here's the thing, this is all data. I, I can continue to invite this person or I could start inviting other people. Doesn't mean I have to cut this person out of my life. I could also, if I'm starting to pick up on a spidey sense that something's going on, I could write and say, no problem at all. I'm sure you have a lot going on. And by the way, if there's something going on and you need support in some way, because this is now the third time that life has swept you aside, I'm just a little worried about you and I want you to know I'm here.

• 44:05Heather Berlin?

  Yeah, that's great.

• 44:06Speaker 00

  That's it.

• 44:07Heather Berlin?

  That's wonderful.

• 44:08Speaker 02

  You update your priors in Bayesian language.

• 44:10Heather Berlin?

  Yes, yes, that's true.

• 44:11Speaker 02

  About this time, sure.

• 44:12Heather Berlin?

  Yes, you update your priors. It's a Bayesian analysis.

• 44:15Speaker 00

  I don't even know what Bayesian means.

• 44:18Heather Berlin?

  Your partner still hasn't taken out the trash after three reminders.

• 44:21Speaker 00

  Did Chris call you and tell you to ask this?

• 44:25Heather Berlin?

  We have a little, yeah, we had a little back and forth.

• 44:28Speaker 00

  So you let them because saying let them helps you diffuse your own emotion because the mistake that we make, if you're a jerk like me, is you take a photo of the trash and then you text it and say, thanks a lot. I found I asked you about this.

• 44:42Heather Berlin?

  Oh, my God.

• 44:43Speaker 00

  Right? And that's your emotions. And so you let them and then you remind yourself, maybe they meant to and they forgot. This is me, I forgot.

• 44:54Heather Berlin?

  Okay, ready? Now we're gonna do three rapid fire ones.

• 44:56Speaker 00

  Okay.

• 44:58Heather Berlin?

  Your coworker takes credit for your idea at work.

• 45:01Speaker 00

  Let them do it and then let me, um, say something about it.

• 45:05Heather Berlin?

  Okay. You get a, a negative comment on your Instagram.

• 45:10Speaker 00

  Let them because let me remind myself that anybody that's spending time commenting on social media to somebody that they've never met needs hobbies.

• 45:18Heather Berlin?

  And it's not worth your time.

• 45:19Speaker 00

  Yes. Why would I take advice from somebody like, that doesn't even know me?

• 45:25Heather Berlin?

  Your daughter, who's here with us, wants to dye her hair green just before a big family wedding.

• 45:31Speaker 00

  Let her. Let her, let her, let her. And let me remind everybody.

• 45:36Speaker 02

  You heard that?

• 45:36Speaker 00

  Yeah. Let, let me remind everybody, those family photos where one of your kids in that phase, you're like, you will cherish those more than anything. Our son, when he dyed his hair blue, shout out ninja, like, I love those photos. I love the, the phases where he was wearing the soft pants that came up to here because he went, like, I let them, let them, let them. This is the beauty of life.

• 46:07Heather Berlin?

  I love it.

• 46:07Speaker 00

  Not to make it look perfect, but to let people live.

• 46:10Heather Berlin?

  I went through a phase when I was 18 where I shaved my head and had a nose ring. It was not a great look. But now my mom loves showing, you know, my new boyfriend, the, my look.

• 46:20Speaker 00

  I bet you have a great noggin. It's nice and round.

• 46:24Heather Berlin?

  It was a Sinead O'Connor kind of thing.

• 46:25Speaker 00

  I bet. You got big eyes and beautiful smile. You could pull that off.

• 46:29Heather Berlin?

  Thank you. So your mom gives you unsolicited advice yet again.

• 46:33Speaker 00

  Okay, let her. Let her because she loves you and let me, there's, there's a thing about this. Like, why are you getting agitated about it? And if it's a hot trigger thing like you haven't met anybody, are you having kids? Then let me have a conversation when I am calm and when she hasn't said it. And tell her the truth. I'm so sad it's not happening, mom. Or, mom, I don't, I'm not choosing to have children. And I want to honor the fact that you are grieving, that you have the right to have a vision for your life that included grandchildren. That is yours. I can't take that away from you in terms

• 47:16Speaker 00

  of your right to grieve something you thought would happen. And that doesn't mean it's the right decision for me. And so we got to figure out how to hold space for each other. Me for your pain, for how you thought life would be, and you for honoring that this is my life and I need to be able to live it in a way that makes me happy and fulfilled. And, you know, if that means, mom, that you've got to, you know, be a wonderful great aunt to your sister's grandchildren, or, you know, you need to get involved in the community to fill this for, I realize it's not the same. But I want to see your

• 48:01Speaker 00

  perspective and I am asking that you understand mine. Like, we are so quick to want people to conform to us that we don't stop and develop the skill of understanding that people are allowed to have their feelings.

• 48:18Speaker 02

  That's a tough one. It's a good one.

• 48:19Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 48:20Speaker 02

  It's a tough one, yeah.

• 48:21Heather Berlin?

  Um, acceptance, radical acceptance.

• 48:23Speaker 02

  Radical acceptance.

• 48:24Speaker 00

  Not easy.

• 48:25Heather Berlin?

  I love it. Um, it's been such a pleasure to have you here. Thank you so much.

• 48:31Speaker 00

  What a great duo, you two are.

• 48:33Speaker 02

  Thank you.

• 48:34Speaker 00

  Thank you, thank you, thank you.

• 48:35Heather Berlin?

  Thank you so much.

• 48:36Speaker 00

  Appreciate it.

• 48:36Speaker 02

  Thank you, Mel.

• 48:37Speaker 00

  You're welcome.

• 48:38Speaker 02

  Thanks for coming.

• 48:38Heather Berlin?

  Thanks again to our guest, Mel Robbins. And if you'd like to learn more about your own perception box, spend some time this week answering the same perception box question that we asked our guests. And check out our other questions on our website at unlikelycollaborators.com. You can also subscribe to our YouTube channel and watch the show or listen wherever you get your podcasts. This has been Science of Perception Box, created by Unlikely Collaborators in partnership with Pod People. I'm Dr. Heather Berlin.

• 49:10Speaker 02

  And I'm Dr. Kristoff Koch. Thank you.