"Mel Robbins"

Mel Robbins joins our friend group as we count 5, 4, 3, 2, 1. A Gabor latte, what’s really under the soda can in the green room trash bin, and did they pick up incidentals? This is you motivated, on an all-new SmartLess.

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

• 0:01Sean Hayes?

  This episode of Smartless is sponsored by Google Book. You know, I'm lucky to have a lot of friends and having them over is great, but with hosting comes all the tedious stuff. The planning, keeping track of who's coming, managing schedules, making sure everything actually comes together. That's where Google Book comes in. It's a whole new kind of laptop. It comes with Google AI Pro, so you can create custom tasks with Gemini. For example, you can tell it to track RSVPs and manage your calendar, and it does that for you, even when the laptop's closed. So there's more time to focus on the fun parts of hosting. Basically, Google Book works hard, so you don't have to. Visit googlebook.com. Available in the Gemini app to Google AI Pro users

• 0:44Sean Hayes?

  in select regions for 18-plus users. Check responses for accuracy. Supervise closely; interrupt when needed.

• 0:54Jason Bateman?

  Did you ever notice the best deals are just obvious? Like hotels.com. What do they do, you may ask? Hotels on the internet. And a lot of them, like hundreds of thousands. I don't know why I just turned into Sean Hayes. Plus, if you join for free, you can save up to 20% instantly with member prices, and you earn rewards every time you book. So your next trip basically starts paying for itself. It's simple, and you get more out of every stay. Sign up for free and book today. Hotels.com. It's all in the name.

• 1:34Sean Hayes?

  The place you call home is important to you. So it's important to Allstate. Because home is where you make all your memories. Things like inviting your friends over for game night and discovering that one of them takes charades way, way too seriously. It's these memories that make a house feel like home. If it's important to you, it's important to Allstate. Switch to Allstate, and you could save hundreds on home insurance today. Not available in every state. Potential savings vary, subject to terms and qualifications. Allstate North American Insurance Company and Affiliates, Northbrook, Illinois.

• 2:10Sean Hayes?

  Sitting in traffic, huh? Watching an old lady with a walker make it further up the road than you have in the last 15 minutes? And of course, your gas tank is in the perfect spot between not a problem to stranded on the highway. Hit your booking point? Book with Southwest and enter airplane mode. Experience award-winning reliability, fly with the best crew in the sky, and never worry about change or cancellation fees. Now tell that old lady to slow down. Kids live around here. Southwest Airlines, enter airplane mode.

• 2:54Jason Bateman?

  All right, listener, we're gonna start with a little, a little brain tease for us just to get us up on our feet and get nice and sharp for the chatter and the banter. What we're gonna do, we're gonna try a little quick little podcast exercise. Here we go, ready? I'm gonna start it out. Ready? S. We're gonna start one more time. Still rolling? Uh, here I go, I'm gonna start. Ready? S.

• 3:16Will Arnett?

  M.

• 3:17Jason Bateman?

  A.

• 3:18Will Arnett?

  R. T.

• 3:20Jason Bateman?

  L.

• 3:21Will Arnett?

  L.

• 3:22Jason Bateman?

  Well, we're gonna go again. We're not really up to podcast.

• 3:24Will Arnett?

  It was my turn. No, but why were you pausing? What are you gonna? I was scared, I was gonna get the wrong letter.

• 3:31Jason Bateman?

  You wanna write it out? Write it out in front of you so you have it in front of you.

• 3:33Will Arnett?

  You don't know how to spell Smartless? We're like a thousand episodes in.

• 3:35Jason Bateman?

  Here we go, I'm gonna start again. Here we go, in three, two, one. Ready? S.

• 3:40Will Arnett?

  M. A.

• 3:42Jason Bateman?

  R.

• 3:43Will Arnett?

  T. L.

• 3:45Jason Bateman?

  E.

• 3:46Will Arnett?

  S.

• 3:47Jason Bateman?

  I almost made it.

• 3:48Will Arnett?

  Welcome to Smartless.

• 3:49Jason Bateman?

  There we go, we limp across the finish line.

• 3:50Will Arnett?

  No wonder that's the title. Smartless.

• 4:09Jason Bateman?

  You know, Will, it's really, uh, Will, it's, uh, it's odd to see you this morning. I, um, yesterday, um, Maple, uh, for, um, the uninitiated listener, that's my youngest daughter, she's 13, um, uh, she's got some friends that, um, uh, were talking about Arrested Development, so she said to me, "Well, I'd like to see Arrested Development," she hasn't really seen it, so...

• 4:31Sean Hayes?

  Oh, wow.

• 4:32Jason Bateman?

  Uh, yeah, it's, "Shut up, Sean, you haven't seen it."

• 4:33Sean Hayes?

  I should watch it with her.

• 4:35Jason Bateman?

  Yeah, no, um, so I was watching Arrested last night, season one, episode three, four, and five. I mean, there he is, look at him, look at this, there's Job right there, I'm a little starstruck. Boy, we were such little kiddies, that was 25 years ago.

• 4:52Will Arnett?

  I know, dude.

• 4:53Sean Hayes?

  Wow.

• 4:54Will Arnett?

  It's crazy.

• 4:55Sean Hayes?

  Isn't that amazing?

• 4:55Jason Bateman?

  We look very different.

• 4:57Will Arnett?

  We all look very different, I know, and it's, Sean has no point of reference, but it's, it's, other than his memory...

• 5:03Jason Bateman?

  Yeah, Sean, just keep quiet through the section, go run some emails or something.

• 5:05Will Arnett?

  By the way, by the way, Jason, he also knew us at the time we were on the show, too, so we didn't watch it then.

• 5:09Sean Hayes?

  I know, I know.

• 5:10Jason Bateman?

  This was during the time we were watching Will and Grace, uh, one of us was actually on Will and Grace.

• 5:15Will Arnett?

  I went on, I went on.

• 5:16Jason Bateman?

  Yeah, no, I know, we loved it, yeah, it was full support.

• 5:19Sean Hayes?

  Yeah, yeah, yeah, well, how about that? Wait, what does it feel like, you guys, 25 years ago? Doesn't it feel like just a week ago?

• 5:25Jason Bateman?

  Uh, it does.

• 5:27Will Arnett?

  Yes and no.

• 5:28Jason Bateman?

  It does, 25 years is pretty short at this age.

• 5:30Sean Hayes?

  Yeah.

• 5:31Will Arnett?

  Yeah, it's pretty weird, um...

• 5:34Jason Bateman?

  So, Shawnee, you're still in London.

• 5:36Will Arnett?

  Sean, what's the elevator update? Sorry, just, I haven't asked in a while, so, how are we doing? Are we okay?

• 5:40Sean Hayes?

  Well, when Jason came, it was broken the day before he came, then they fixed it.

• 5:45Jason Bateman?

  And I'll have you know, during the, what is it, what was it, there, four days?

• 5:48Sean Hayes?

  Yeah.

• 5:49Jason Bateman?

  Four days, didn't ride the elevator once, on purpose, I got through...

• 5:53Sean Hayes?

  Because of that?

• 5:54Jason Bateman?

  No, no, no, I just, I was like, "No, I can do these stairs, I'm gonna, I'm gonna pretend that I'm back in the olden days."

• 5:59Sean Hayes?

  That's right, that's right. Yeah, this, this thing was built, this townhouse was built in 1770.

• 6:05Jason Bateman?

  Crikey, I know, that's Aussie.

• 6:06Will Arnett?

  Elevator two.

• 6:11Jason Bateman?

  And Willie, you're still in, you're just slogging it out there in Blue Collar Long Island.

• 6:24Jason Bateman?

  No air conditioning and sweeping the steps.

• 6:27Will Arnett?

  I mean, you know, I mean, this is, this is such a, for me, it's such a, I'm getting whiplash because like I'm normally, I'd be in the, in the ocean right now, I'm playing golf with beer men tomorrow.

• 6:38Sean Hayes?

  Right. Why, why, what do you mean whip? What do you mean?

• 6:41Will Arnett?

  Just because I'm having to do, because I'm doing this. No, because I had to come downstairs to do this.

• 6:46Jason Bateman?

  Oh, sorry about that.

• 6:47Sean Hayes?

  So sorry to interrupt.

• 6:48Jason Bateman?

  Hey, how has golf been? I'm gonna actually hit balls today for the first time in over eight months, probably.

• 6:53Will Arnett?

  I, I just want to say this, my best, one of my favorite things about JB, one of the many, many things that I love about him is A, his, when he's playing golf, he's playing golf. And when he's not, he's really not playing. Like he won't, he won't go to all, but Jason, what's funny is the number of people who are aware of it. And I get so much on the fringes of like, hey, I get texts like, is Jason playing again? Has he started, has he started yet? Like, everybody knows that when it starts, it's gonna be an avalanche. So I get texts.

• 7:24Jason Bateman?

  You know what else it is? It's people, people miss me, Will. They miss, there's a big hole in their lives. And they want to know when it can be filled again.

• 7:34Will Arnett?

  Yeah, you're right. They want that, you're right. They want that hole. They want that asshole, that hole back. It's a hole. It's a hole that they want back.

• 7:45Jason Bateman?

  Has your, has your, is your game, your game must be good enough where you haven't, you haven't given up the game?

• 7:50Will Arnett?

  No, it's actually, I didn't play for a little bit and it's actually been pretty good recently, to be honest.

• 7:56Jason Bateman?

  Oh, God bless.

• 7:56Will Arnett?

  Yeah. My, I mean, I don't know if our audience wants to hear I'm hitting irons, but you know.

• 8:01Jason Bateman?

  No, of course. You're hitting irons, no woods?

• 8:03Will Arnett?

  I'm hitting irons well. It's been good.

• 8:05Jason Bateman?

  Are you?

• 8:05Will Arnett?

  Yeah, it's been good.

• 8:08Will Arnett?

  Sorry about that.

• 8:09Jason Bateman?

  Oh, Will.

• 8:10Will Arnett?

  I said, I preemptively said sorry.

• 8:12Jason Bateman?

  I haven't seen you guys for a couple of-

• 8:14Will Arnett?

  Oh, we got a classy guest. I can tell by Sean's embarrassment.

• 8:17Sean Hayes?

  No, not at all. I wanted-

• 8:18Jason Bateman?

  Is this your guest, Sean?

• 8:19Sean Hayes?

  No, I wanted to share with Will what Jason was kind of blown away when we, I went for a walk with me, Jason and Franny, and we walked past Buckingham Palace. And I asked a genuine question-

• 8:31Jason Bateman?

  It's such a beauty, Will.

• 8:33Sean Hayes?

  If the family actually lived in the palace. And I was, I'm, but the point is-

• 8:38Jason Bateman?

  He wanted to know if it was just a tourist stu-

• 8:41Sean Hayes?

  That's what I thought it was.

• 8:43Jason Bateman?

  Size place, all the, the infrastructure in and around it and everything, just, just for people to walk by and look through the gates.

• 8:50Will Arnett?

  To look at, like-

• 8:52Sean Hayes?

  Cause I thought like the Mona Lisa, like, I don't think the Mona Lisa, the real Mona Lisa's hanging. I think that's gotta be like-

• 8:56Jason Bateman?

  It sure is. Ding dong.

• 8:57Will Arnett?

  And, and also like, why would they, i- i- if it was for tourists, then they'd let them in, if nobody-

• 9:02Jason Bateman?

  Right.

• 9:03Sean Hayes?

  Oh, that's true.

• 9:04Jason Bateman?

  And I, I looked at him like he was, uh, you know, the kind of, the kind of doorknob that would say, hey, boy, Beatles is spelt B-E-A-T. I never knew. And I'm like, yeah, man.

• 9:15Sean Hayes?

  I had a lot of people backing me up on that.

• 9:16Jason Bateman?

  They still, they still live there. And of course, they've got other castles that they live in sometimes too, but that's home for them. He's like, oh, really? I go, yeah, you dumbass. No, two hours later, he pulls me aside in privacy and goes, "Hey, no, seriously, do they still live there?" I'm like, "Yeah, you fucking dumbass."

• 9:33Sean Hayes?

  I didn't want anybody else to hear me.

• 9:35Will Arnett?

  Been thinking about it.

• 9:37Sean Hayes?

  Yeah, for two hours, like, wow, they really live there.

• 9:41Will Arnett?

  You know what? Next time, spare yourself the embarrassment of us chewing you out and just look it up.

• 9:46Jason Bateman?

  Turn on the Google machine.

• 9:47Sean Hayes?

  I know, I was got, I know. I had it, I had it, I had it, um, in my brain that I needed to Google it later.

• 9:52Will Arnett?

  But is it, most of the memory on your phone taken up by Candy Crush? Is that the problem that Google, that they've throttled your Google down because-

• 10:00Sean Hayes?

  Most of my data.

• 10:03Will Arnett?

  All right.

• 10:04Jason Bateman?

  We haven't done a record for a couple of weeks.

• 10:06Will Arnett?

  I know, it's so fun to see you guys. I know, it's really fun to see you. You guys look great. I miss you guys so much. I miss you too. And then you guys texted me a really nice text and said that we're here, Jason was very sweet and squishy and said, "We're here and we're thinking about you and we're talking about you. We miss you." Yes. And I know, well, I was like, I almost cried. It was so moving.

• 10:24Jason Bateman?

  And then what else? Then I sent you another. I sent you a little link to a fun pair of shoes that we all thought that you'd actually really look at it.

• 10:31Will Arnett?

  I did respond to that.

• 10:32Jason Bateman?

  About three days later.

• 10:34Will Arnett?

  Well, you know, I'm on a delayed.

• 10:35Jason Bateman?

  You're not that busy and I know that that that phone is attached to your little holster right, right next to your sidearm. You're always on the phone. Why do I take three days to get a response? I don't text you enough.

• 10:48Will Arnett?

  No, Will's not a super fast texter, Ben. I'm not, I'm not.

• 10:52Jason Bateman?

  Because he's busy doing...

• 10:54Will Arnett?

  No, when I'm out here, I do try to leave my phone, put my phone down as much as I can. That is true. Oh, dude. Oh, Riley. I've heard Riley in a while.

• 11:07Jason Bateman?

  All right, guys, before we get to the guests, can I just...

• 11:11Will Arnett?

  Oh, no.

• 11:12Jason Bateman?

  Yeah, let's, let's, let's remind everybody, we're very excited about this news, y'all. We are bringing Smartless to one of the most iconic spots in the world. And no, we're not talking about Sean's Cereal Bowl. We're talking about the Hollywood Bowl.

• 11:26Will Arnett?

  Jason, Jason!

• 11:29Jason Bateman?

  So if you're in that Hollywood area...

• 11:31Will Arnett?

  When is it?

• 11:32Jason Bateman?

  This fall, you know when it is. You're so helpful, the way you toss to me. This fall, Saturday, November 15th, here in Los Angeles, if you're in the area, Saturday, November 15th.

• 11:43Will Arnett?

  When do tickets go on sale, then?

• 11:44Jason Bateman?

  The ticket, again, really, Will?

• 11:47Will Arnett?

  I know.

• 11:48Jason Bateman?

  Friday, September 12th, 10 a.m. Pacific time, tickets go on sale, Friday, September 12th. Come see us live.

• 11:55Will Arnett?

  Yeah, before Jason's bedtime, okay?

• 11:58Jason Bateman?

  Yeah, before I go to bed. Or I could sleep on stage. It's fun to see me sleep.

• 12:01Will Arnett?

  What are some of the things you think we can see? I think that we're gonna have some guests, we're gonna have some...

• 12:05Jason Bateman?

  You're gonna have a guest, I'm gonna have a guest. Sean is not get a guest.

• 12:09Will Arnett?

  But I'll bring a bowl of cereal, just to... Sean! ...close the loop on the little... That's what a loop closer you are. You've been closing loops since 1970.

• 12:18Jason Bateman?

  Not just Fruit Loops, okay?

• 12:22Jason Bateman?

  All right, so listen, so once again, that's this fall, at the Hollywood Bowl, November 15th, you can start getting tickets on September 12th.

• 12:29Will Arnett?

  And our listeners have a chance to get tickets first, right? Our pre-sale begins Tuesday, September 9th.

• 12:34Sean Hayes?

  September 9th.

• 12:35Will Arnett?

  Yeah, 10 a.m. Pacific time. Visit smartless.com/live and enter our code. And you guessed it, it's Tracy, T-R-A-C-E-Y, for first access. That's our listeners with a pre-sale chance. September 9th, 10 a.m., smartless.com/live. Guys.

• 12:52Sean Hayes?

  Yeah, this is exciting.

• 12:53Jason Bateman?

  Tickets go on sale Friday 12th.

• 12:54Sean Hayes?

  Can you tell me who your guests are?

• 12:56Jason Bateman?

  No, no, it's supposed to be surprise ding dong.

• 12:58Sean Hayes?

  It's a surprise.

• 12:59Will Arnett?

  It's gonna be a surprise anyway.

• 13:01Jason Bateman?

  And it'll be a surprise to the audience too, for the first time, right? Well, I guess these live shows, it's not the first time, but like.

• 13:05Will Arnett?

  And JB, you were just, you were just at the Bowl too, right?

• 13:07Jason Bateman?

  I was just at the Bowl, watching some classical music with Amanda and the girls. And they hated me for, yeah, they got some nice eye rest. But granddad was really enjoying it. I had a good time.

• 13:23Will Arnett?

  Yeah, he loves his classical music.

• 13:25Jason Bateman?

  But we're gonna, we're gonna liven things up there on Saturday, November 15th. So get your tickets, starting on the 12th of September, or pre-sale on the 9th.

• 13:34Will Arnett?

  It's gonna be a brilliant, it's gonna be a blast!

• 13:37Jason Bateman?

  Okay, let's get to our guest, come on.

• 13:39Will Arnett?

  I'm planning on coming overseas to see it!

• 13:42Jason Bateman?

  All right, here comes our guest.

• 13:43Will Arnett?

  Guest, our guest, our guest.

• 13:45Sean Hayes?

  By the way, circling back to Google, here's somebody you don't have to Google.

• 13:50Jason Bateman?

  You know what? Is this the CEO of Google?

• 13:54Sean Hayes?

  She, could you imagine? No, she's better than that. She's bigger than that. She's amazing.

• 14:00Will Arnett?

  Bigger than Google?

• 14:00Sean Hayes?

  Yeah.

• 14:01Jason Bateman?

  Jesus Christ.

• 14:03Sean Hayes?

  Geez, yeah, I'm a little intimidated by her. She's one of those people who makes you wake up, quit complaining, get your shit together. No, back in college, she proposed to her boyfriend, they got married, they're still together, behind her signature black-rimmed glasses. She's a podcast powerhouse, a full-blown mogul, and the number one bestselling author in the world right now. Please welcome the five second queen.

• 14:26Jason Bateman?

  Mel Robbins.

• 14:27Sean Hayes?

  That's it, five second queen herself, Mel.

• 14:28Speaker 03

  Thank you. He said my name. Oh my God, I literally was like, these fucking losers are gonna spend 50 minutes figuring out who this is and they never guess it's me. I was just shrink.

• 14:40Will Arnett?

  Can you believe these fucking losers? I was, I was thinking the same thing about these fucking losers. We're on the same, I'm not in that. I'm separate from that, but thank you.

• 14:48Speaker 03

  You're welcome, and you know, I got news for you guys. Sean called me. He's sick of your bullshit. I can't change you, so he called in the heavy.

• 14:56Jason Bateman?

  Are you leaving the show, Sean?

• 14:57Speaker 03

  Yes, this is an intervention.

• 14:58Jason Bateman?

  This is the transition? Mel, you're taking over for Sean?

• 15:00Sean Hayes?

  Sean Robbins. She's adopted me, I'm Sean Robbins.

• 15:03Will Arnett?

  Oh, good luck. Good luck having him.

• 15:06Sean Hayes?

  Me and Robbins.

• 15:07Jason Bateman?

  What an honor to have you on the show, Mel. This is very, very nice of you slumming it with us idiots.

• 15:13Will Arnett?

  I know you are slumming it.

• 15:14Speaker 03

  Well, you know, I honestly was blown away, because I know one of the criteria is you have to guess who the guest is, and I thought, oh, well unless Sean says she's constantly ahead of us on the rankings in the podcast charts, you probably will guess.

• 15:29Will Arnett?

  Who's looking?

• 15:31Jason Bateman?

  That came up, I was just discussing you last week with some fancy folks, and they were, they were singing your praises, and they were telling me about the whole let them thing, and so I'm very eager to hear about.

• 15:43Sean Hayes?

  Yes, I can't wait for you guys to hear about it.

• 15:45Jason Bateman?

  Yeah, come on, let us, make us more smart.

• 15:48Will Arnett?

  I like the let them thing too. Oh, there it is behind you.

• 15:50Sean Hayes?

  Well, do this first, Mel, if you don't mind jumping in. First of all, thanks for being on here, huge fan. I, I, I love how you speak, what you speak about, how you motivate me, how you motivate everybody, like it's, I can't get enough of it, I really thrive off of it.

• 16:04Will Arnett?

  This is you motivated.

• 16:05Sean Hayes?

  This is me motivated, no shower, I look fantastic. But, but Mel, can you first talk before we get to let them, which I love, and I can't wait for you to tell Jason what that is, and Will, what about the five second rule? Can you just go over the five second rule? Because for people who don't know, it sounds like, obviously what you do when you drop the food on the floor and blah, blah, blah.

• 16:23Speaker 03

  Well, it is kinda like that. So, you know, I think the first thing to understand is that everything that I talk about, I learned the hard way, by screwing up my own life, and I don't think any of us wake up in the morning, well, Will might, but I, most of us don't wake up in the morning and go, you know what I'm gonna do today? Today I'm gonna fuck up my life. I think I'm gonna drink too much and lie to people and lose my job. What ends up happening to most of us is, over time... You spend too much time thinking about what you need to do and not doing what you need to do.

• 16:52Sean Hayes?

  Right.

• 16:52Speaker 03

  And I found myself in a situation when I was forty one years old, three kids under the age of ten, where my husband had gone into the restaurant business.

• 17:01Sean Hayes?

  Right, lost almost a million bucks.

• 17:02Speaker 03

  Oh, yeah, like, complete idiots. We secured it with our life savings. And the restaurant business was great until two thousand eight hit. And like everybody else, the world turns upside down and we found ourselves eight hundred grand in debt.

• 17:16Sean Hayes?

  Right.

• 17:16Speaker 03

  The liens hit the house, I lose my job, and I couldn't get myself out of bed. And let's be honest, getting out of bed is a relatively easy thing to do when you think about the mechanics. I mean, by the time you're forty one years old, you've done it for forty one years.

• 17:33Sean Hayes?

  Right.

• 17:33Speaker 03

  But the simplest things in life can seem impossible when you're overwhelmed, or stressed out, or anxious, or you have so many problems.

• 17:43Sean Hayes?

  Or depressed.

• 17:44Speaker 03

  Or depressed, or whatever. And so I just found myself in the situation where I would literally wake up every morning and stare at the ceiling and basically be like, I hate my life, I hate my husband, I don't know how I got here, we're fucked. And the more I thought about the problems, the more I felt like a human pot roast marinating in bed. And it became harder and harder to get out of bed. And, you know, honestly, I was literally, I knew what to do, and I think this is one of the biggest things about life, that life is simple. We just seem to make it very complicated.

• 18:18Sean Hayes?

  Mm hmm, yeah.

• 18:19Speaker 03

  You can know what to do in any situation. You guys talk about the Google. Just go to Google or that Chat GTP thing and put in whatever it is that you want, and it'll spit out what you need to do. Making yourself do it is what feels impossible. And so one night, I was watching TV. It was a, it was Monday night in February two thousand eight. And you literally are one decision away from a different life. That's, that is the heart of what I talk about, the power of your decisions. And I was giving myself that pep talk, you know, when you, I don't know if you guys have ever, you can give each other pep talks, when you're giving one to yourself, you're kind of screwed. Where you're like, alright, that's it, tomorrow it's the new you, woman. You gotta pull your shit together, you gotta stop being an asshole to Chris. You gotta put down the alcohol, you gotta get those kids on the bus.

• 19:03Speaker 03

  By God, you gotta, you gotta get a job, you gotta open the bills that have been piling up for six months. And when that alarm rings, you can't lay there and marinate in your fears and hit the snooze button six times. You, woman, have got to get out of bed. And honest to God, a rocket ship launched across the television screen. It was probably like at the end of a Smartless Mobile commercial, you know, like launch right in there.

• 19:25Will Arnett?

  No, but it's not a bad idea, though.

• 19:27Speaker 03

  Right, steal it, take it.

• 19:28Will Arnett?

  I just write that down.

• 19:29Speaker 03

  Take it.

• 19:30Will Arnett?

  I steal it, it was my idea.

• 19:32Speaker 03

  It is when you claim it like that. So, I literally

• 19:36Jason Bateman?

  That's good.

• 19:36Speaker 03

  Thought, oh my God, it's a sign from God. That's it, tomorrow morning.

• 19:41Jason Bateman?

  What, just a rocket on the TV, on the TV, is that what you're talking about?

• 19:45Speaker 03

  Yeah, well, it was probably the four bourbon Manhattans I had that gave me that idea. Because it was kind of stupid, but I was drinking a lot back then. And so, the next morning, Tuesday morning, the alarm rings. And here's the fatal mistake everybody makes. There is this moment where you know what you should do. You should speak up, you should start the damn thing, you should quit the job, you should end the relationship, you should go to the gym. But instead of doing it, you stop and think about how you feel about doing it. And within five seconds flat, in that hesitation, you literally switch gears in your brain, I didn't know this at the time, I do now. But the longer you think about it, the less likely you're gonna do it.

• 20:29Speaker 03

  And in about five seconds, you lose all motivation. And your whole life plays out in this five-second window.

• 20:36Jason Bateman?

  And isn't there science to this too, right?

• 20:38Speaker 03

  Tons of science, I mean, now I know the science, I didn't know it then. Then I was just hungover, waking up to a life that was a nightmare and habits of avoidance.

• 20:47Jason Bateman?

  What was the thing you saw at night on TV? It wasn't literally a rocket.

• 20:51Speaker 03

  It was a rocket ship at the end of a commercial. It was like launched, and I was so drunk, I was like, oh my God, it's God. Okay, I'll get out of bed, I'll launch myself out of bed so fast. I'll move like a rocket, I won't be in there when the anxiety and the depression hits. I'm gonna move.

• 21:05Jason Bateman?

  You took it as a metaphor, you took it to heart, and it stayed with you the next morning, and up you went.

• 21:09Speaker 03

  Yep.

• 21:10Jason Bateman?

  And inside five-

• 21:10Speaker 03

  Well, I counted backwards, and that's the part-

• 21:12Will Arnett?

  What would have happened if you'd seen the image of a sinking ship?

• 21:15Speaker 03

  Oh, God. Right there. Done. We're out. We're just gonna clock out right now.

• 21:21Will Arnett?

  Just for a listener, I don't know.

• 21:22Jason Bateman?

  Or just the flaming Hindenburg.

• 21:24Speaker 03

  Yes, yes. Exactly, exactly. Yeah, but the thing is, Jason, various new point, you have to count backwards.

• 21:34Jason Bateman?

  Okay.

• 21:35Speaker 03

  It's not just moving in five seconds. The counting backwards is critical, what researchers call it.

• 21:40Jason Bateman?

  Like a launch.

• 21:41Speaker 03

  Yes. Five, four, three, two, one. You have to count backwards. It doesn't work if you count up.

• 21:46Jason Bateman?

  Okay.

• 21:46Speaker 03

  One, two, three, four, five doesn't work because you've been saying that ever since you learned how to count in whatever language you learned how to count. When you count backwards, you have to focus for a moment. And that brings your prefrontal cortex online, which is the part of the brain that helps you make decisions. It's the part of the brain that helps you learn new behavior. It's the part of the brain that you need to use if you're going to lock in new habits. And I had a habit of just hitting the snooze button and avoiding everything. This new habit was about taking action. Five, four, three, two, one, move. Before you feel ready.

• 22:21Jason Bateman?

  So the countdown is supposed to be, this is how many seconds I have before this thing I'm ruminating about, I have to get out of it. Is that...

• 22:28Speaker 03

  Yes.

• 22:28Jason Bateman?

  Before I become complacent.

• 22:30Will Arnett?

  Right. So I have to, I have to set this up, so I do this countdown, this final countdown.

• 22:35Jason Bateman?

  Oh, sing it, Will. Do it. Let's see an illusion.

• 22:39Will Arnett?

  I'll never do it. I'll never do it.

• 22:41Jason Bateman?

  Because I don't want to, I don't want to pay for it.

• 22:43Will Arnett?

  Jason, they don't get the reference, which is great.

• 22:45Jason Bateman?

  No, but I do. And I love you. And you were fantastic on that show. You should have gotten an Emmy every year, Will.

• 22:52Will Arnett?

  So, so, so you do, so you, so you're so skinny. So you do, you do the, you do the countdown and the first day it works.

• 23:01Speaker 03

  Yeah, I get out of bed. I'm like, five, four, for the first time in six months, I was out of bed when the alarm rang.

• 23:06Jason Bateman?

  What'd you do? What was the first thing you knocked down? Did you put on, did you put on the Lululemons and you got out there and you just did a?

• 23:11Speaker 03

  No, no, I walked into the kitchen.

• 23:13Jason Bateman?

  Walk.

• 23:14Speaker 03

  No, no, no motivation for that yet. I'm just like, I'm low bar here. We're just talking, like, get out of bed. I literally walk into the kitchen and my poor husband's standing there in front of the fridge.

• 23:24Jason Bateman?

  What are you doing now? He lost all that fucking money and he's down there, he's probably making an Egg McMuffin.

• 23:29Speaker 03

  Correct, motherfucker. And so you know how that thing happens where you see somebody you love and you just want to kill them?

• 23:36Jason Bateman?

  Every day for me, every day.

• 23:38Speaker 03

  Yes.

• 23:39Jason Bateman?

  No, I'm kidding.

• 23:40Speaker 03

  No, I'm not kidding. No, no, no, the people that you love the most are the most annoying.

• 23:45Sean Hayes?

  Sure.

• 23:46Speaker 03

  And so I just went five, four, three, two, one. Because I knew he was trying his best. It wasn't like he was trying to fail.

• 23:55Sean Hayes?

  Yeah.

• 23:56Speaker 03

  And my anger wasn't helping. And so counting backwards interrupted that pattern of snapping and screaming and reacting. And gave me this ability to be in charge of what I was doing instead of constantly letting my emotions dictate. See, this is what everybody gets wrong about motivation. Motivation's garbage. It's never there when you need it. You gotta learn how to make yourself do things that you don't feel like doing. And if you ever did that, you'd have everything you've ever wanted.

• 24:25Jason Bateman?

  And so you put, I'm assuming you put one foot in front of the other. And I'm not asking for a TikTok of the day, but was there, for those out there that are having trouble making this crucial first step, what was the, what really, what was the tangible thing that you did first? And from that, you built on that progress and exponentially put more and more, you know, inertia down the road?

• 24:52Speaker 03

  It's a great question. Everybody hates the answer. But literally, changing your life isn't glamorous, it's grueling. And it does not happen overnight. It happens over time. And I always say, because people are like, how did you do everything that you're doing? Because that was 16 years ago. And so the person that everybody sees now and what I do out in the world is 16 years in the making. And I say that what you see now is a result of one thing. I taught myself how to get out of bed on days when I didn't fucking feel like it. That's the secret. That's it. Because if you can force yourself out of bed when you don't feel like it because of the depression, or the anxiety, or the overwhelm, or the hangover, or whatever it may be.

• 25:31Jason Bateman?

  And the body feeds off that first progress, right?

• 25:34Speaker 03

  Yes.

• 25:35Jason Bateman?

  Yeah.

• 25:37Jason Bateman?

  We'll be right back.

• 25:41Sean Hayes?

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• 26:24Sean Hayes?

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• 26:47Sean Hayes?

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• 27:30Jason Bateman?

  This episode of Smartless is brought to you in part by SkinnyPop popcorn. So I think one of the great journeys in life is finding the snack that's right for you. You know, and it's constantly changing, but what is constant is the love of popcorn. I think that we all have. So finding a snack... That tastes great and feels like a solid choice should not be more complicated than solving a 1,000-piece jigsaw puzzle. SkinnyPop popcorn made with simple quality ingredients always satisfies. No overthinking required. No jigsaw puzzle assembly required. It's a no-brainer.

• 28:14Jason Bateman?

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• 29:00Sean Hayes?

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• 29:40Jason Bateman?

  And now, back to the show.

• 29:43Will Arnett?

  Now, Mel, let me ask you this, and I like it. I like this area a lot, and I like the way that you talk about it. I like that your passion for it and your excitement. And I understand and appreciate the way that you were able to do that that first day and see a result and feel a change in your body and in your mind and your spirit, et cetera, all those things connected. And then, so you do it again, I imagine. I'm sort of skipping forward. You do it a bunch, and you really start to see results. And then you think to yourself, other people can benefit from this too, if I can do it. Or eventually, you get to a point where you think that other people can benefit from the lessons that you learned the hard way, et cetera. But you also have the benefit of this momentum that you've got doing it.

• 30:24Will Arnett?

  So there are other people go, well, yeah, it works for Mel because she's getting feedback from her pushing this out to the world. I don't have, I'm not getting that same feedback on a global level. And I'm not getting that feedback. I'm just, you know, a person in Cleveland who's doing it and nobody's recognizing that I'm doing it. So yeah, it works for you. And you're kicking ass doing it. You're at the top of the game. But if you're just Joe Schmo, like if you're me.

• 30:52Jason Bateman?

  But 16 years ago, she wasn't getting that, right?

• 30:55Speaker 03

  Yeah, no, it was three years of using it in secret before I ever told anybody about it because let's face it, I didn't know why it worked. I'm $800,000 in debt. I am barely making the ends meet. What business do I have telling anybody anything? And so I used it in secret.

• 31:11Jason Bateman?

  And by the way, was that an important part of it, keeping it secret? In other words, holding your power and not bragging to your partner, hey, today I'm gonna start working out. Like I find that sometimes my sticktuitiveness is better if I don't share what my goals and my plans for progress are and I keep it inside and I just do it myself and I've only got myself to answer to. And then once I get some momentum going, then I share like, hey, by the way, I've been working out for a week, you know, or by the way, I haven't had sugar for a week or something.

• 31:42Will Arnett?

  Jason, do you keep a lot of feelings inside though?

• 31:44Jason Bateman?

  I do.

• 31:44Will Arnett?

  I know, I know you do. It's gonna burst.

• 31:51Jason Bateman?

  But was that, was that an important part? Did you, was this a private sort of initial stage?

• 32:00Speaker 03

  No, like I told Chris, my husband Chris, but I, but literally it was self-preservation. I mean, we were in a free fall for crying out loud.

• 32:08Will Arnett?

  Well, what did Chris say? Was Chris like, okay, cool?

• 32:10Speaker 03

  As long as you're not bitching at me and screaming at me, I'll try anything. Like if this keeps you calming off my ass so that I'm working as hard as I can, woman, like finally you see it.

• 32:19Will Arnett?

  Oh, Chris, now I.

• 32:21Speaker 03

  Fuck Chris, I know, fuck Chris, okay? Like, come on, he's a nice guy.

• 32:25Sean Hayes?

  Your TED Talk from 2011 now has over 30 million views from 2011.

• 32:31Jason Bateman?

  I wanna see it.

• 32:31Sean Hayes?

  And is this, was that what it's mostly about? Is the five-second rule?

• 32:36Speaker 03

  No. Okay, so here's the story. So three years go by, I'm using 5-4-3-2-1, 5-4-3-2-1 to get out of bed, to network and get a job, to open up the bills, to just do the basic blocking and tackling that we all need to do, because nobody's coming. You can sit around and hope that somebody's gonna come and fix us, they're not. And the sooner you recognize, you gotta stop waiting to feel ready, and you've gotta get to a point in your life where where you're at doesn't work for you anymore. So you're gonna do something about it. So for three years, I'm just working at it. Chris is going back into the restaurant business, renegotiating leases, like working 100 hours a week. I'm finding odd job after odd jobs, we can just get the bankruptcy off our back and keep ourselves afloat with three kids under the age of 10.

• 33:20Jason Bateman?

  So you're literally just looking to make a paycheck? You're not driving towards some North Star career-wise, like, "I'm gonna build a podcast and it's gonna be a big success." No, you didn't have any sort of direction?

• 33:31Speaker 03

  Absolutely not. And also, I think when you get to a point where you really screw up your own life, because nobody makes a vision board and is like, "Hey, let's put images of bankruptcy and divorce and alcoholism on it."

• 33:43Jason Bateman?

  It's on the back.

• 33:44Speaker 03

  And plus, friends and family had invested in the restaurant business, and so I can't exactly go around trashing and complaining, and so we're just like...

• 33:53Jason Bateman?

  You're looking to pay them back and get your head above water financially?

• 33:56Speaker 03

  Yes. So we're in survival mode. And you're pretty incredible and resourceful when you're in survival mode. And so a buddy calls me, "We still have $800,000 in debt. We still have liens on the house three years later. We are still just making the ends meet." And a buddy calls me from college and says, "Hey, there's a person who is putting on an event in San Francisco that I know that's looking for somebody who's changed their job a lot, and I thought about you." And that's not really a compliment, but she said, "I, you know, they're offering two first-class plane tickets and two nights at the St. Regis. All you gotta do is talk about career change." Now, I had never given a speech on a stage in my life. I'd taken a public high school speaking class, but I'd been a lawyer, a public defender

• 34:38Speaker 03

  in Manhattan, and so I'd worked in courtrooms, but I'd never given a speech. When you're that in debt... That sounds like a free vacation.

• 34:46Will Arnett?

  Yeah.

• 34:46Speaker 03

  And so I'm like, Chris, we're going to San Francisco. Mom, Dad, come watch the kids.

• 34:49Will Arnett?

  It sounds like a free vacation in any, no matter your situation, to be honest.

• 34:53Jason Bateman?

  Exactly.

• 34:54Speaker 03

  Well, I didn't really think through the part of 700 people in an auditorium.

• 34:57Will Arnett?

  Right, right, yeah.

• 34:58Speaker 03

  And so I get out on that stage and it happens to be one of the first ever TEDx conferences. And they weren't a thing.

• 35:05Jason Bateman?

  Where do you get the balls for no stage fright and all that?

• 35:07Speaker 03

  Oh, you're watching a 21-minute-long panic attack. Like, I want you to look close at that TED Talk. I've got this neck rash that people get when they're drunk or they're nervous a minute in.

• 35:17Jason Bateman?

  Oh, yeah. No, I used to get that a ton.

• 35:19Speaker 03

  And I am darting around the stage and this is not about the five-second rule. It's about career change. And I get to minute 19 and I forget how to end the talk. And I look out and I'm like, oh, I know, I do this thing. I call it the five-second rule. The moment you have an instinct to act, you gotta move within five seconds or else your brain will kill your motivation. Thank you very much. Oh, by the way, here's my email if you have questions. And I leave.

• 35:45Jason Bateman?

  Yeah.

• 35:47Speaker 03

  Now.

• 35:47Jason Bateman?

  You gave your email out publicly?

• 35:49Speaker 03

  Oh, I mean, I'm just a normal person trying to get a free vacation by giving a speech about something I don't know anything about. And so a year goes by.

• 35:57Will Arnett?

  Did they pick up incidentals? Sorry.

• 36:00Speaker 03

  No. A year goes by. Seriously, this is now 2012. A year goes by. I have a job. Chris is still like trying to make, we still have leans on the house. And TEDx decides to put it online. I don't know this. Another year goes by, 2013, I start getting emails at that email address.

• 36:21Will Arnett?

  Yeah.

• 36:21Speaker 03

  People start to write to me from around the world. Mel, I've used 54321 to lose 100 pounds, 54321 to get out of bed despite the depression. I use 54321 to stop myself from jumping over this ferry and find the courage to ask for help. And I was so blown away, this answers your question, Will, about like, at one point, did you start talking about it that while working a full-time job for several years, I would come home at night and pour a glass of wine and answer? These emails from strangers.

• 36:52Jason Bateman?

  Wow.

• 36:52Speaker 03

  Because I felt obligated to figure out, why does this thing work?

• 36:57Jason Bateman?

  Right, right.

• 36:57Speaker 03

  And so I started researching it and talking to people.

• 37:01Jason Bateman?

  And simultaneously building a following and a mailing list that you could then sort of transfer over into the podcast?

• 37:06Speaker 03

  Started to, not yet, like 2012, if you, you can scroll back manually through Instagram, you have to do it manually. All it's, it's just pictures of my kids and barbecues and, you know, I didn't know normal people could make a living giving keynote speeches. And so people started to ask me to speak in 2013, 2014. And like, you know, I went and spoke for free. And then there was this moment in 2014, or 2013, rather, a person came up to me after speaking for free at a big women's conference and said, hey, did you get your check for this thing yet? And I was like, check? You got paid for this? Am I the only idiot here who's doing this for free? And that's what I'm like, I gotta figure this out.

• 37:46Sean Hayes?

  Do you think that when you were younger, that, that this was, this kind of, this kind of thinking was inside you the whole time when you were growing up? You just didn't know it?

• 37:56Will Arnett?

  Yeah, that's what I wondered too.

• 37:56Sean Hayes?

  And like, because I remember your mom used to say, you said, I read that, she said, fix it, wait, wait, fix it, you're, fix it yourself and.

• 38:04Will Arnett?

  Oh, you don't remember.

• 38:05Speaker 03

  Pull up your big girl panties and deal with it.

• 38:07Sean Hayes?

  Figure it out and fix it yourself or something like that, right?

• 38:09Speaker 03

  Yep, yep. I think so. You know, I come from like midwestern farming stock. And so when the chores need to get done, the chores need to get done. Like that's, my mom grew up on a big farm. My dad grew up in a working class family. And so there's just sort of a pragmatism.

• 38:25Sean Hayes?

  Right.

• 38:26Speaker 03

  To, and a focus on doing things instead of talking about things.

• 38:31Sean Hayes?

  Yeah, so, so that was kind of in you then, at the, you know, when you're.

• 38:34Jason Bateman?

  Yeah, and touching bottom often brings out the, the best parts of ourselves, um, you know, cause, cause you need it.

• 38:40Will Arnett?

  Touching bottoms is, is completely revolutionized my life.

• 38:44Speaker 03

  Touching your bottom or touching bottom?

• 38:46Will Arnett?

  Sir, what was the question?

• 38:50Will Arnett?

  No, I do suspect that you do seem to have that. That it's not a, it doesn't feel like a leap. Now, of course, we're catching you after years of doing this and living this way and transforming your life. But I think that there is, I suspect there was a kernel of that, like Sean, kind of what you were saying, that there was a kernel of that in there. And whether it's your Midwestern roots or your blue collar, I think also you're, you're pretty sharp, you know, so.

• 39:17Jason Bateman?

  Well, yeah, you, you say you're a public defender in, in New York. I mean, so you're, you're no ding dong.

• 39:22Sean Hayes?

  Right.

• 39:24Speaker 03

  Yeah, I guess not. I mean, I've done some pretty ding dong things.

• 39:27Jason Bateman?

  No.

• 39:28Speaker 03

  Being smart doesn't mean you're actually smart about how you live your life.

• 39:32Jason Bateman?

  No, but you know, discipline, you went through law school, like there's, there's, you know how to, you know, to ask yourself to really bring it if you need to.

• 39:40Sean Hayes?

  Right. And you, and when you, you had ADHD when you were a kid, but you didn't know that it was ADHD, correct? Yeah. But I think sometimes that's, that's a superpower later on in life. Like I just saw this thing like on TikTok or something a long time ago about. We talked about this the other day. I know, I'm between the truth.

• 39:56Will Arnett?

  I haven't read that book yet.

• 39:58Sean Hayes?

  And it said something about like childhood trauma or childhood, something sometimes in children create ADD as a coping mechanism. They don't, they can't leave their house. They can't leave where they, right? Cause that's your shelter and your food and your family and whatever. But because of some trauma where you can't leave, your brain's trying to constantly figure out how to problem solve. And in doing so, it develop, you develop ADD or ADHD.

• 40:20Speaker 03

  I think there was Gabor Maté that talked about the connection before.

• 40:23Sean Hayes?

  Hang on, let me finish. Gabor Maté, I think said that. Yeah, go ahead.

• 40:27Jason Bateman?

  I had, I had a delicious mate the other day.

• 40:30Will Arnett?

  I had a Gomorrah, I had a Gomorrah latte too. Last time I was in Naples.

• 40:33Sean Hayes?

  What do you think of that, Mal?

• 40:34Will Arnett?

  I will say this, Mal, there were, to that ADHD thing, it sounds like from the little, again, that I know of it, but I know. When it comes to people that I'm related to who have, who have been diagnosed with having deficits in, when it comes to executive function. And I was going to say that earlier, there, there is that moment of, and it is one of the symptoms of a particular type of ADHD where you. You know that you have to do it and you can't start it. And that's an executive function deficiency. Oh, yeah, that's interesting.

• 41:05Speaker 03

  It can also, to Sean's point, it can also be a trauma response, that there's this freeze.

• 41:10Will Arnett?

  Sean's point was so muddled, it was about TikTok and he was like, something and someone said something sometimes all over the place.

• 41:15Speaker 03

  The highly intelligent here can track what Sean's saying. I think, I think like the demeaning him is a way that you deflected.

• 41:22Will Arnett?

  Thank you, Mel.

• 41:23Speaker 03

  You're welcome, John. No, well, so to the point on ADHD is a super interesting. The majority of women today, because women and men and boys and girls experience ADHD at the exact same levels. But women and girls go profoundly underdiagnosed because when it was discovered in the 1970s, they only studied boys. And when a boy has ADHD, yes. And so when a boy had, this is going to explain marriages, this is going to explain your sisters, like just buckle up. Because this is one of those things that every time I explain it, people go, holy fuck, that's me or that's my wife. Holy, and so here's, here's the short backstory.

• 42:00Speaker 03

  So they only study boys and when boys have ADHD, which is like a structural thing that's not working in the switching mechanism of your brain. You can focus, you just have trouble directing it at times. And so, boys are a little bit more fidgety. And you kind of notice it because they're fidgety, they interrupt, they have trouble directing their focus. Girls have the opposite symptoms. They tend to daydream, they get quieter and they get harder on themselves. Now, here's what gets interesting and really life changing for people to learn. If you have undiagnosed ADHD or dyslexia or executive functioning, what happens as the primary symptom is you develop anxiety.

• 42:42Speaker 03

  Because you are sitting in a classroom or in a setting where you're being asked to do things all day long that your brain can't structurally do right now. And so anxiety develops. So there's a huge generation of women, they call us the lost generation, of women that were diagnosed with anxiety in our high school and our college years and then medicated with something to quell the anxiety. But the underlying issue was always undiagnosed ADHD and dyslexia.

• 43:09Will Arnett?

  Well, it's funny you say that, Mel. So I, I, I had a conversation with my own dad because I was talking, there was somebody in my family who, who encountered this. And this is within the last three months. And I said, you know, when I was a teenager and when I was, you know, a young teenager, especially adolescent. In the early eighties, I would get tested a bunch and they say, oh, he's functioning very well. We don't understand why he's not doing his work. And I was kind of labeled a bad kid.

• 43:35Speaker 03

  Mm hmm.

• 43:35Will Arnett?

  And I said, Dad, you know, and this is something I'm a conversation I had with my dad at almost fifty. I was almost fifty five at the time. I'm now fifty five. My dad's eighty six and I said, I now recognize in hearing what this doctor said, this behavior in myself. And I, and I feel like, and of course, you know, I've, you, yeah, you, what ends up happening is you either, you either get prescribed stuff, I'm talking for a boy and I can't speak, but, but, or you self medicating.

• 44:03Speaker 03

  Yes.

• 44:04Will Arnett?

  Um, and that is one of the, you know, to, to, to try to quell the symptoms.

• 44:10Jason Bateman?

  Is there, is there something one can do for attention deficit or that, that is, that is different than medication? I mean, is there something, is there, is there, is there therapy that one can go through?

• 44:23Speaker 03

  It's a great question. There's all kinds of things you can do. And I think kind of just understanding the way that your brain works or learns helps you do all kinds of things. Whether there's systems for organization, there's certain types of interventions that they do with kids that really help develop and train like our, our son ended up, and, and this is how I found out at the age of forty seven that I was both dyslexic and had ADHD.

• 44:49Jason Bateman?

  Wow.

• 44:49Speaker 03

  The same way that most women do. Our kids start struggling in school like you did, Will. They get labeled a behavioral issue. You then go through all of the neuropsych evaluation testing and then you sit back and go, huh.

• 45:02Jason Bateman?

  Yeah.

• 45:02Speaker 03

  That seems a lot like me. And I literally turned to my pediatrician and said, you know, Mark, why didn't you like, why, do you think I have ADHD? And he was like, Mel, of course you have ADHD. You're the most ADHD parent I know. I'm like, why didn't you tell me? He's like, I'm not your doctor.

• 45:17Jason Bateman?

  Was it something that you inherit from your parents?

• 45:20Speaker 03

  They say it can be, they actually say that it can be impacted by what's going on when you're in utero and the stress levels of the parent or the mom and whether or not she's under a lot of stress because it relates to your fight or flight nervous system as well. And it impacts, the way it was explained to me, because again, like everything in life, it's like bad things need to happen. And then I realized, okay, I'm fucked. I gotta figure this out. And then I turn it into a research project and then I try to explain what I've learned in the simplest ways. So anybody else, if I can save them the headache and the heartache that I went through for

• 46:02Speaker 03

  30, 40 years, not knowing what I was really dealing with, just like you will, not knowing what you're dealing with and self-medicating and acting out and feeling, you know, hypercritical of yourself. If I could just know what this thing is, that I'm not deficient. I just have a brain that works differently. And with ADHD, I would go to this, you know, you know when you are in college or high school and you're like, alright, I gotta study. And you know you can go to the library where you're gonna see your friends, or you go to the stacks. And so I would go to the stacks and I'm like, okay, I gotta study. And I would sit down and I'd be ready to like lock in and honest to God, I could not for the life of me, just like what you were talking about, Will. I couldn't make myself do it and worse. It's like I could hear the mouse pooping in the corner. I could hear my stomach.

• 46:46Speaker 03

  And so that mechanism that like an orchestra conductor, think about all the input of sound like an orchestra warming up. ADHD, there's this conductor in your brain that's like tap, tap, tap, tap, tap. Okay, let's bring it all down. Now let's lift up the sound of the strings only. If you don't have that little conductor in your brain, the whole world sounds like an orchestra warming up. And you can't both direct your attention in certain instances and you can't silence other input and that's kind of what's happening.

• 47:22Will Arnett?

  That's fascinating.

• 47:23Speaker 03

  Yeah, it's super fascinating, but there's lots you can do and you don't have to do medication.

• 47:27Jason Bateman?

  Right, so to that point, half of the fix is actually getting the diagnosis, knowing what you have, and it's your choice whether you want to medicate or not, but at least you know what it is, is you can start to search for a remedy that might be different than medication, or at least just start adjusting your behavior and seeing, trying some different stuff on, yeah?

• 47:46Speaker 03

  Yeah, and having some grace for yourself, like it drives my husband crazy that the faucet's running, or that my sink, I don't know what your guys' bathrooms look like, but my husband's sink looks like the sink at a Zen hotel. Mine looks like you tipped over a Walgreens aisle on top of it. Still? Oh my god, yes. Oh really?

• 48:08Jason Bateman?

  So is the cap off the toothpaste on you all the time? Yeah?

• 48:13Speaker 03

  And you have dusty cosmetics all over the place?

• 48:15Will Arnett?

  That gets JB.

• 48:16Jason Bateman?

  Come on, Mel. Let's get it together.

• 48:19Will Arnett?

  But you know, you know, Mel, I learned all these tricks along the way that I would do, and I was saying to, like, telling somebody before that, like, I have like a thing about like keys in my wallet and I don't lose, so I have like a dish and everywhere I live and everywhere I go, everything goes back in the same spot. My bathroom is very clean and I have taught myself all these things to do, these little routines that help keep me.

• 48:47Jason Bateman?

  Create order.

• 48:48Will Arnett?

  Yeah, that create order.

• 48:50Speaker 03

  That's awesome, because the mind is like this, so the order in the environment helps your mind settle. I love that.

• 48:56Will Arnett?

  And I have a friend, I have one friend, he deals with anxiety in this way and he ends up putting, he has a bottle of Xanax and he puts it in the elevator just in case it breaks down.

• 49:03Speaker 03

  Well, you should actually send him this episode.

• 49:05Will Arnett?

  He keeps a bottle in there.

• 49:06Speaker 03

  No, Will, you should send him this episode, you should send him this episode because the single biggest coping mechanism for anxiety is avoidance, and the more you avoid something, the bigger the anxiety gets. Yeah, for sure. Because when you avoid something, you're telling yourself, I can't handle this. That's what you're doing. So, five, four, three, two, one, helps.

• 49:25Will Arnett?

  It's Sean, it's Sean.

• 49:30Jason Bateman?

  And we will be right back.

• 49:34Sean Hayes?

  Instagram teen accounts have automatic protections on by default. Built-in content settings for the content teens can see, contact limits for who can contact them, and time management tools like daily time limits and sleep mode. Teens are automatically placed into teen accounts, and teens under 16 will need a parent's permission to change any of these settings to be less strict. Instagram will continue adding built-in safety features to help create age-appropriate experiences. Learn more about teen accounts and Instagram's ongoing work to protect teens online at instagram.com/teenaccounts.

• 50:17Jason Bateman?

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• 52:36Sean Hayes?

  And now, back to the show.

• 52:39Jason Bateman?

  Tell us, is "Let Them" something that is a cousin to what we're talking about? Or directly a part of it?

• 52:50Speaker 03

  Again, great question. So, you know, 54321 helps you push through all the resistance, the fear, the hesitation, the anxiety, to take the action that changes everything. But I always wonder, why the hell are we so resistant anyway? Well, it turns out, for me anyway, and seems like for millions and millions of people that this book has resonated with, the main source of resistance and fear in our lives is our fear of other people. And the "Let Them" theory was something that I discovered, and it has fundamentally changed my life. Like, I feel like I have lived my life backwards for the first 54 years, because I have been

• 53:30Speaker 03

  consumed by making sure other people are happy, by worrying about their opinions, navigating my day-to-day life based on people's expectations, their moods, what they want, versus truly learning that there's a different way to live. And the "Let Them" theory is ultimately a modern version of Stoicism, Buddhism, the Serenity Prayer. It's a book about control and power. What you have control over and what you do not. And two simple words, let them, will free you from the exhausting cycle of trying to manage people's thoughts, their opinions, manage their expectations. There's a better way to live. Let them.

• 54:13Will Arnett?

  What's the basic tenet of it? Sorry.

• 54:16Jason Bateman?

  Is it let them have their judgment, let them be upset, it's none of my business, let me just take care of number one?

• 54:24Speaker 03

  Well, here's yes and, so there's a second part, let me, but the basic tenet will is that in life, there are only three things you can control, only three. You can control what you think about, you can control what you do or don't do, and you can control what you do in response to your emotions.

• 54:44Will Arnett?

  Right.

• 54:44Speaker 03

  And any psychologist will tell you, when you focus on things you can't control, and the number one thing in life that you will never be able to control is other people, what they say, what they do, what they believe, whether or not they change, whether or not they're motivated, whether or not they're anxious, whether or not they get sober. You can't control other people and yet we exhaust ourselves and waste so much time and energy allowing meaningless shit and other people's stuff to drain your most precious resource.

• 55:15Will Arnett?

  Well Mel, and part of that too is, is you also can't control, I can't, there's not enough time for me to go around and everybody I meet and tell them how they need to treat me as well. That's kind of part of it for me. That's it. And I was talking about this this morning with some people, I was saying, I, we've talked about it on here before. Part of that also for me is, and it's people and it's things, I can't be at the effect of circumstances. Because I gotta make my own weather, in a sense. Because if I'm at the effect of circumstances, man, that's tough sledding. That is really tough sledding. Do you know what I mean?

• 55:55Speaker 03

  So are you talking about like if you're in your car and traffic builds up? And for most people, they're gonna grip the wheel and get pissed off about the traffic. And the truth is, you can't actually control the traffic.

• 56:07Will Arnett?

  Yeah.

• 56:07Speaker 03

  And so why would you allow something like that to drain your time and energy?

• 56:13Will Arnett?

  A hundred percent. And I'll take it a step further, and this is sometimes where I lose people. I'll say, when there's a lot of traffic and you've, you know, you've come a long way and then people are trying to get in and you're like, and most people are like, "Fuck you, I've been waiting for a mile, I'm not gonna let you in." And if you let people in, I guarantee you, traffic will open up for you. It works for me every time. The more I give it away, the more I go, "Go ahead, go ahead." It's, it works every time. It's the craziest thing. I don't know what to tell you.

• 56:42Speaker 03

  It's not just the traffic opens up, something opens up inside you. You recognize.

• 56:46Will Arnett?

  Well, that's getting to love, and then you get, that works with love, too.

• 56:48Speaker 03

  It does, but it's something else first. Because most of us are really selfish. And when we say, "Let them, let them in," traffic's either gonna open up or it's not. And I do believe what you believe, that it does start to shift things. But what it shifts first is you recognize that your energy and your time is worth something. And when you start to value and protect your time and energy from people's expectations, people's moods, people's rude behavior, traffic, long lines, you value and have more time and energy. You become more in control and more empowered as a human being, and then everything starts to change, because you're not at the effect of all the shit going on outside of you.

• 57:33Will Arnett?

  That's right. And, yes, and if I'm stingy with my attention, with my love, with my kindness, I will get stinginess from the universe in return. That is a lock, for me, anyway. And I think that feeling of feeling unloved is generally because I'm not pushing out enough. And the amount, anyway, sorry.

• 57:56Sean Hayes?

  No, go ahead. Well, I didn't mean to cut you off.

• 57:57Speaker 03

  Sean, what was your question?

• 57:58Will Arnett?

  No, Sean, I went to, any theater stories?

• 58:03Speaker 03

  Let him, Sean, let him. Go ahead, what was your question, Sean?

• 58:10Jason Bateman?

  She did give you a good one up there on stage. Didn't know how to end it.

• 58:13Sean Hayes?

  She did.

• 58:13Jason Bateman?

  She gave you a great theater story.

• 58:15Sean Hayes?

  It was good. What do you do, Mel, as far as let them go in this world that we live in about social media and comments and people coming at you with... What's that?

• 58:26Jason Bateman?

  Nothing.

• 58:26Speaker 03

  Let him.

• 58:27Jason Bateman?

  No, it just... Sounds great.

• 58:29Sean Hayes?

  Yeah. No, I was gonna say, with people, like, for you, I'm sure you get all kinds of comments. And I know people, other people, they get, you know, comments that they can't... They thrive on the positive comments and they, you know, lose themselves in the negative ones. So what about let them for those? And for yourself, by the way, for yourself.

• 58:47Speaker 03

  Well, you can never control what somebody else thinks, Sean.

• 58:49Sean Hayes?

  Right.

• 58:50Speaker 03

  So let them think what they're gonna think. Let them not like you.

• 58:52Sean Hayes?

  Okay, fine. I just wanted to put that out there.

• 58:53Speaker 03

  No, I mean that because...

• 58:55Sean Hayes?

  It's what's destroying, you know, a lot of society today. You know, people actually put weight into what people say about them and to them on social media and everywhere else.

• 59:05Speaker 03

  It goes even more than that, Sean, because like, let's just unpack this. Let's say that you are pulling out Instagram and you're about to post something and you pick a photo and they're like, "Oh, not that photo." And then, uh... And then you put the filter on it and then you go to write the caption and then you put the emoji and then you backspace. You're thinking, "Is this too much? Is this a..." For whom? Before you even express yourself, you're already jumping into the brain of another human being and trying to anticipate what they're gonna think. And here's the truth. There is nothing you can post that will actually guarantee somebody has a positive or negative thought because you can't control it.

• 59:39Sean Hayes?

  Yeah, right. And even if you could, you can't get them all.

• 59:41Speaker 03

  Yeah, just let them do what they're gonna do. Let them unfollow me. Let them misunderstand. Let them be disappointed. Let them, let them help them.

• 59:48Jason Bateman?

  Way to go, Mel. Here come the dick pics.

• 59:49Speaker 03

  Yeah, here, let them. Let them. I don't have to look at... Let me decide what I'm gonna look at.

• 59:54Jason Bateman?

  Here we go.

• 59:55Speaker 03

  I'll take them. Let them. The poor interns that are now in the DMs. Thanks, Will.

• 1:00:01Sean Hayes?

  That's so funny. Um, okay, so wait, I got some, I got some good stuff here. Wait, uh... Oh, what's the most shocking coaching request you've ever received? Because you do private coaching too, right?

• 1:00:11Speaker 03

  Oh, I don't do any private coaching.

• 1:00:13Sean Hayes?

  Oh, I thought you did. I thought you did one-on-one coaching with like wealthy people.

• 1:00:16Speaker 03

  No, no, no, no, no. Don't have time for that anymore. But the most shocking request, um...

• 1:00:22Speaker 03

  Well, I got a request. None of them are shocking.

• 1:00:24Sean Hayes?

  Yeah.

• 1:00:25Speaker 03

  They really aren't because when it's not you, it's easy to give people advice because you're not emotionally attached to what's happening. And if you listen closely to anybody, you can really tell what they're grappling with. And what most of us are grappling with is either the fear of disappointing somebody.

• 1:00:43Sean Hayes?

  Yeah.

• 1:00:44Speaker 03

  Or the fear that if you do this thing, somehow people are gonna judge you and you're gonna end up alone.

• 1:00:51Sean Hayes?

  Right.

• 1:00:52Speaker 03

  And so everything comes back down to this fear of what other people are gonna think about you.

• 1:00:58Sean Hayes?

  Right, for sure.

• 1:00:59Speaker 03

  And how their actions dictate your value. And here's the secret. The secret is you have to like you. And you will only like yourself if you can learn how to let other people be unhappy and learn how to let people be disappointed and let people have their opinions and let me really be clear about the decisions that make me proud of myself. Because when you're proud of yourself, you kinda don't give a shit what other people think.

• 1:01:26Sean Hayes?

  Right, okay, so but so so for a lot of people that that are fans of yours or people that read your books or whatever, they, you know, you come off as this fearless. You have fearlessness and confidence and so you must have some self doubt about something.

• 1:01:41Speaker 03

  Every day. I was literally sitting here going, am I gonna have a moment where I kind of have an accident in my pants like Jason did in the green room, you know, in Colbert?

• 1:01:52Sean Hayes?

  Oh, that's a great callback.

• 1:01:54Speaker 03

  Because I'm so nervous about meeting these guys. Like, I literally... Yeah, well, actually, you and I are gonna be on Jimmy Fallon on the 17th of September. And I'm sorting through your garbage to see if you've hidden underwear in there under a Diet Coke can. Get the DC out of the way, man.

• 1:02:10Sean Hayes?

  I can't wait to meet you. Well, I was gonna ask this same question. Like, have ever, are you enjoying that your...

• 1:02:17Jason Bateman?

  Your state of confidence and sort of leaning forward in the things actually creates the privilege of new anxieties. As you reach and hurdle forward, you're now seeing a whole new level of complexities and challenges that are a result of you leaning forward and breaking through.

• 1:02:39Will Arnett?

  In the open, too, like to a broader audience.

• 1:02:41Speaker 03

  You know, I'm really grateful that all this happened later in life.

• 1:02:46Will Arnett?

  Yeah.

• 1:02:47Speaker 03

  I really am, because, you know, when you go through an experience where you literally almost lose everything that matters to you, whether that's your marriage, or your family, or your home, or your sanity.

• 1:02:59Jason Bateman?

  Or in your case, all of it, right?

• 1:03:01Speaker 03

  Yeah, all of it.

• 1:03:02Will Arnett?

  All of it, and being a parent, I mean, that must have ratcheted up, too, worried about the welfare of your kids.

• 1:03:06Speaker 03

  Oh, my God, you guys.

• 1:03:08Will Arnett?

  I can't imagine.

• 1:03:09Speaker 03

  Our kids would come downstairs at night after Chris and I had been fighting and screaming at each other, and they would find us collapsed in chairs, like hungover.

• 1:03:18Will Arnett?

  Yeah.

• 1:03:19Speaker 03

  That's how they, like, you know you're not winning at the parenting game when your kids wake you up so they can catch the bus.

• 1:03:25Will Arnett?

  Yeah.

• 1:03:26Speaker 03

  Like, it was not good. And so, all of this that you see now, whether it's the massive scale of the podcast, or the number one book, I mean, this book is on track to be the most successful nonfiction book ever launched, six million copies in six months.

• 1:03:42Jason Bateman?

  Amazing.

• 1:03:43Will Arnett?

  Wow, awesome.

• 1:03:44Speaker 03

  And part of it is because, I'm just reminding you guys of what you know to be true. Like, stoicism is not a new idea. Viktor Frankl, Man's Search for Meaning, what's happening out there is not where the power is. Your power is in your response to it. But these are all intellectual ideas. What I love about saying, "Let them," and then "Let me," which is, "Let them" is where you release the control over something you can't control, and "Let me" is where you take the power back and focus on what you can control, which is your response to what's happening. This is the tool, but it reminds people of what they know to be true since the beginning of time. And what I'm grateful for is that, having almost lost everything I care about, and having just clawed my way out of debt.

• 1:04:30Speaker 03

  And built this just brick by brick over the last 16 years. I have stayed laser focused on what really matters. I live in the middle of nowhere in Vermont. I have no interest in the bigness aspect of all of it. Because you guys know, the second something hits, everybody thinks they know what you should do next. Everybody sees something bigger for you. I would like more time with my husband and my kids. I would like to, you know, enjoy some of this success, meaning I'm not actually working all the time. And so for me, I think the anxiety or the issues that I face is more around just saying no and letting people have their expectations about what the podcast should become

• 1:05:13Speaker 03

  or what I should do next and staying laser focused, not on up here, but on what's right in front of me right now. Because if you lose sight of what got you to where you are, you basically blow up everything you created. And so I am staying very focused on waking up every day and just making decisions that make me feel proud of myself and doing the best that I can and giving people a little bit of grace and focusing on what I can control and what I can't. And then the rest will take care of itself, you know?

• 1:05:45Jason Bateman?

  I love that. What's the, what's the single thing that people think will make them happy but won't? In your opinion?

• 1:05:53Speaker 03

  I think the single thing that people think will make them happy that doesn't is achieving the thing. There's so much research that, you know, when you get the million dollars, you're going to be happy. When you win the race, when you get the person. It's the pursuit of it. It's, it's, everybody needs something that gets you out of bed. Everybody needs something that you're excited about, whether it's video games or it's bird watching or it's volunteering. If you don't have something that you're pursuing that's bigger than you, then you're always going to be stuck in that sort of survival autopilot, same old, same old.

• 1:06:30Jason Bateman?

  Yeah, you've got to give yourself an opportunity to get proud of yourself, as you said earlier. And that's usually a pursuit of something.

• 1:06:37Will Arnett?

  But I, I think that the, for me, I would imagine, I would suggest that part of that is, is a spiritual experience.

• 1:06:45Speaker 03

  Very much so.

• 1:06:46Will Arnett?

  And, and I think that that is, that's the true. It's funny, I was watching, um, sort of.

• 1:06:51Jason Bateman?

  Love Island?

• 1:06:52Will Arnett?

  Yeah, have you seen it?

• 1:06:54Speaker 03

  It's the episode you're on, Jason.

• 1:06:58Will Arnett?

  No, it was the sort of the few days leading up to the the open, the British Open, the Gulf, and Scottie Scheffler gave this press conference that I found to be fascinating. And he was being asked all these questions. He's world number one. He has been dominating golf for the last couple of years. And he gave this answer, and the room was silent. And he sort of said, "Part of me thinks I spent all my life to win these tournaments, to win this tournament that Byron Nelson in his home, in my hometown, to have a few minutes of like, yeah, and then I realized, what's the point?" And he went on from there, and I found it absolutely fascinating. And I go, here is a guy who is at this crossroads,

• 1:07:40Will Arnett?

  and he's having this deep and almost spiritual experience where he's realizing that there's got to be, he's looking for perspective. He's gaining it, and he's looking for more. You know, our buddy Rob Mitterell has jokes, "Perspective is a really hard thing to get if you don't have it." And hearing him, hearing this guy who's at the top, I mean, the millions of dollars. He's basically saying like, "Now what?" Well, yeah. And he's saying, "And why?" And he actually said a few times, JB, he said, "What's the point?" And honestly, it was chilling, almost, listening to him. And he wasn't poor me, and he was very happy for all the success, and he felt he was very

• 1:08:21Will Arnett?

  grateful, rather. And yet, at the same time, I could see that he was struggling with that idea. And there's something really, really fascinating about that to me.

• 1:08:30Sean Hayes?

  Mel, this has been a blast. You are brilliant. We've taken way too much of your time.

• 1:08:35Will Arnett?

  Brilliant, brilliant.

• 1:08:36Sean Hayes?

  And look, you have a whole studio behind you, and you stopped to talk to us about

• 1:08:39Speaker 03

  it. Yeah, it's above my garage in Vermont. That's this one. We gotta have you boys come to Boston. Although you don't go anywhere. We got you guys do stuff. If you ever want it, you have an open invitation to the Mel Robbins podcast.

• 1:08:51Will Arnett?

  Thank you.

• 1:08:51Sean Hayes?

  It's so nice.

• 1:08:52Will Arnett?

  Man.

• 1:08:52Speaker 03

  I mean it. I'd love to have you on. Pick you apart on live camera. This would be amazing. No, I'm just kidding.

• 1:08:59Sean Hayes?

  No, I do.

• 1:09:00Jason Bateman?

  I'm really looking forward to meeting you on the 17th. That'll be, that'll be awesome.

• 1:09:05Speaker 03

  I'm looking forward to meeting you too. Thank you, Sean, for selecting me. I literally was so moved and I can tell you the cheese ball thing now because I hate it when people come on and gush and fan. But I, you caused so many problems in my marriage, you guys, because when I first started listening to you, like everybody did, I would come home because I was so jealous of your friend group. And I thought, why are my friends boring? And I would come home to my husband like, you need to start picking on me. We're not interesting enough. And it turns out, picking on your spouse is not a great thing for a marriage. You gotta let them be who they are, right?

• 1:09:38Will Arnett?

  It's our love language. It's our love language.

• 1:09:40Speaker 03

  I love that. And thank you for allowing us, as your listeners, to feel like we are part of this friend group. Because to have a friend group. Where you can really see that you guys love each other deeply and still jab at each other, it is a very rare thing. And it's a gift to experience it in our lives, to listen to you guys that way. So thank you for welcoming us in.

• 1:10:08Jason Bateman?

  Well, thank you for saying that. And truly, truly, thank, thank you for coming on this podcast. You're a very big deal.

• 1:10:14Will Arnett?

  I know, I wish this was two hours. I feel like I've learned a lot.

• 1:10:18Sean Hayes?

  I know, right?

• 1:10:20Jason Bateman?

  Well, we can, maybe, maybe we can open up those private sessions.

• 1:10:22Will Arnett?

  I know, yeah, yeah, yeah.

• 1:10:24Sean Hayes?

  Yeah, yeah, yeah.

• 1:10:25Will Arnett?

  I'm gonna DM you for a one-on-one.

• 1:10:27Speaker 03

  Just a dick pic, okay?

• 1:10:28Sean Hayes?

  Just a dick pic. You'll know who it's from, that's for sure. Thanks, Mel, I appreciate it.

• 1:10:34Will Arnett?

  Thank you, Mel.

• 1:10:34Jason Bateman?

  Thank you, Mel, very much.

• 1:10:36Sean Hayes?

  Yeah, yeah.

• 1:10:36Speaker 03

  See you soon.

• 1:10:37Jason Bateman?

  See you later.

• 1:10:38Speaker 03

  Bye. Bye.

• 1:10:42Jason Bateman?

  What a pleasure. That was awesome. I literally, literally was just talking about her the other day. That's so.

• 1:10:46Sean Hayes?

  That's amazing. Yeah, she's been on my list for like, you know, a couple of years now. But she, you know, six, over six million copies in that book. Let them. I mean, it's amazing. It's also amazing when people like her or for... You know, another example would be Oprah or these people who lend their brains, you know, to the masses for what they've learned or discovered and they pass it on to other people, hopefully, hoping they can help other people too. I love that kind of stuff. Kind of like, if I can do it, you can do it, kind of thing.

• 1:11:16Jason Bateman?

  Yeah, what a gift, um, that she's, yeah, as a result of her own personal circumstance, you know, and touching bottom, as she was saying, you know, and, and, and developing these, these coping skills out of, out of necessity and desperation, that she found herself with a vehicle to share all of that knowledge and enlightenment with, with so many millions of people. And, uh, obviously has helped, um, and, uh, so, so, so many folks. What a, what a great use of your life, right? We're all gonna look back when we're, when we're old and gray and did we use our years right? And, uh, what a great success.

• 1:11:53Sean Hayes?

  And you listen to her talk and it's kind of like, oh yeah, well, that makes, how did I not know that? It's like all common sense, basically.

• 1:11:59Jason Bateman?

  Yeah, well, oftentimes.

• 1:12:00Sean Hayes?

  You know, but we just need to be told.

• 1:12:01Jason Bateman?

  Yeah, I mean, I think we all have some coping skills in us that, but maybe they're just sort of dormant until you hear somebody put them to words and you go, oh, somebody just articulated what I kind of feel in me, but didn't know if I was allowed to kind of use it. And if somebody kind of puts it into words and puts it in somewhat of a scientific form, you're like, oh, great. Yeah, let's use that.

• 1:12:22Sean Hayes?

  Yeah, for sure, for sure. Um, guys, can I share some?

• 1:12:26Jason Bateman?

  Oh, boy.

• 1:12:27Will Arnett?

  Oh, boy.

• 1:12:27Sean Hayes?

  Can I share some British words I've learned while I'm here?

• 1:12:31Jason Bateman?

  Uh, sure.

• 1:12:33Will Arnett?

  I guess so. I mean, how much of a choice do we have?

• 1:12:35Sean Hayes?

  Not much. It's gonna take 30 seconds.

• 1:12:37Jason Bateman?

  Can we have a dad joke before, before you get into your bi section?

• 1:12:41Sean Hayes?

  Sure, you want one?

• 1:12:42Jason Bateman?

  Yeah. Oh, I like it. We've got a book listener. It just, don't, don't rifle through. Just stick your finger on a certain page.

• 1:12:49Sean Hayes?

  I literally just opened it up.

• 1:12:50Jason Bateman?

  Yeah. Here it comes.

• 1:12:50Sean Hayes?

  A good elevator joke works on so many levels.

• 1:12:54Jason Bateman?

  Great. Love it.

• 1:12:55Will Arnett?

  Great. Love it. Love it.

• 1:12:57Jason Bateman?

  Thank you. And, and into our bi section now.

• 1:13:01Sean Hayes?

  And now he's pre- Speaking of that, I've just, these are the three things I've heard. You take the lift, I'll take the apples and pears. I didn't know apples and pears meant stairs.

• 1:13:09Jason Bateman?

  Yeah, it's Cockney, right?

• 1:13:11Sean Hayes?

  It's Cockney, yeah, the way they do that. I don't know. And then if somebody calls you, give me a call on my dog and bone. I gotta call on my dog and bone. I didn't know phone was dog and bone.

• 1:13:19Jason Bateman?

  Seems like you're saying five words instead of one. I don't really get it, but go ahead.

• 1:13:24Sean Hayes?

  That's right. And then the last one, somebody brought in, and this is, this is a true story. Somebody brought in bagels the other day for, at rehearsal for Good Night Oscar at the-

• 1:13:33Will Arnett?

  I can't wait. Look who's back!

• 1:13:39Will Arnett?

  Just when you thought he went away, he's back!

• 1:13:43Sean Hayes?

  Look who's back. Anyway, so he brought these bagels from a store, and this is the truth. And the na, the way they spelled bagel was B-E-I-G-E-L. And that's the, that was the brand name.

• 1:13:57Jason Bateman?

  Huh. And how would you pronounce that?

• 1:13:59Sean Hayes?

  How would you? I think it's, I think I'd pronounce it. Bagel.

• 1:14:05Jason Bateman?

  Bagel. Would you like a sus and bagel? Would you like a bagel? Would you like a bagel?

• 1:14:12Will Arnett?

  Smart. Less.

• 1:14:18Will Arnett?

  Smart. Less.

• 1:14:24Will Arnett?

  Smartless is 100% organic and artisanally handcrafted by Bennett Barbaco, Michael Grant Terry, and Rob Armjarf.

• 1:14:36Will Arnett?

  Smart. Less.

• 1:14:41Jason Bateman?

  Learning to invest is kind of like learning to drive. Putting your teen's hands on the wheel is the best way for them to learn. With a Fidelity Youth Account, your teen can make their own trades while you supervise as needed. It's the only brokerage account a teen can own independently, and investing 101 lessons are built into the app. Learn more at fidelity.com/youth. Investing involves risk, including risk of loss. Fidelity Brokerage Services, LLC, member NYSE, SIPC.

• 1:15:20Sean Hayes?

  Being safer on the road starts with the person behind the wheel. That's Mazda's philosophy when designing every vehicle. Their proactive safety features help keep you more aware, connected, and engaged during every drive, which means your car does more than help protect you. It helps make you a safer driver, which helps protect everyone. That's why Mazda has been named Consumer Reports' safest new car brand. To learn more, visit MazdaUSA.com. Consumer Reports does not endorse products or services.