Should You Trust Your Gut Instinct? | The Mel Robbins Podcast

Order your copy of The Let Them Theory 👉 https://melrob.co/let-them-theory 👈 The #1 Best Selling Book of 2025 🔥 Discover how much power you truly have. It all begins with two simple words. Let Them. — I guarantee you’ve never heard gut decisions explained this way before. Because I stumbled upon it in a very random way—while touring colleges with our son Oakley! You can use this perfect hack anytime you feel torn, uncertain, or scared about how people might feel. What you’re about to learn is so helpful and memorable, you’ll turn to it over and over again. Going with your #gut always changes the trajectory of your life. It just does. That’s why I don’t like the term "trust" your gut. It’s not about trust. You KNOW your gut is right. You’re just scared to go with it. So join me, Oakley, and two of my friends. I’m taking you on an entertaining and profound tour today. Xo Mel In this episode, you'll learn: 00:00 Intro 04:04 The moment of my junior year in high school that changed my future. 09:38 I am not proud of this mother moment when I lost it. 17:56 The question Oakley asked is what we all do when we give up our power. 19:22 Here’s what a hard no “feels” like for Oakley. 22:27 Do you feel a “yes” in your body like this too? 24:25 What our brilliant tour guide did when he separated parents from students. 25:34 When it comes to big decisions, step away and go on your own tour. 28:19 Here’s what a “no” and a “yes” usually feels like in your body. 30:13 You’re going to love Amy’s “next big thing” story and how she just knew. 34:06 We all have an opportunity in our lives to use this powerful tool. 36:08 Do you have the courage to do this? 43:34 So what do you do when you hear the NO louder than the YES? 1:01:04 Jessie literally followed her heart and became her own “tour guide.” 1:05:11 Stop staying you don't “trust your gut” and start saying this instead. 1:06:49 Take time to do this EVERY day, but especially when you have a big decision. #trustyourgut #intuition — Follow Mel: Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/melrobbins/ TikTok: http://tiktok.com/@melrobbins Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/melrobbins LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/melrobbins Website: http://melrobbins.com​ — Sign up for Mel’s newsletter: https://melrob.co/sign-up-newsletter A note from Mel to you, twice a week, sharing simple, practical ways to build the life you want. — Subscribe to Mel’s channel here: https://www.youtube.com/melrobbins​?sub_confirmation=1 — Listen to The Mel Robbins Podcast 🎧 New episodes drop every Monday & Thursday! https://melrob.co/spotify https://melrob.co/applepodcasts https://melrob.co/amazonmusic — Looking for Mel’s books on Amazon? Find them here: The Let Them Theory: https://amzn.to/3IQ21Oe The Let Them Theory Audiobook: https://amzn.to/413SObp The High 5 Habit: https://amzn.to/3fMvfPQ The 5 Second Rule: https://amzn.to/4l54fah

• 0:03Speaker 0

  It's really hard to find the courage to make a decision that is the right decision for you. We are so quick to consider what everybody else is thinking. We're so quick to weigh how our decision is going to impact somebody else's feelings. That's why we don't trust our gut. And I've been dying to talk to you about this about how you really tune out other people. How you find the clarity and the quiet to hear what's right for you, how you feel it.

• 0:37Speaker 1

  Hey, it's your

• 0:38Speaker 0

  friend Mel, and welcome to the Mel Robbins Podcast. I have been looking forward to talking to you all week long because I just got done with spring break. And let me tell you, it was such a memorable spring break. I just want you to close your eyes for a second, unless you're driving a car. And I want you to just picture the absolute spring break perfection. Maybe you imagine beautiful sandy beaches, tropical waters. Might tie in your hand. You're just laying there with a good book, like a beached whale, sunning yourself with not a care in the world. It's quiet, nothing to do, nowhere to go. Wouldn't it be amazing? That is not what happened for me over spring break.

• 1:25Speaker 0

  Nope, not me. We have a college bound rising senior in high school. That's a fancy way to say we have a junior in high school. And he does sports, which means our April vacation, the time of year I look forward the most to getting the hell out of New England disgusting muddy weather and going somewhere in Florida or somewhere else where I can see the sun and I can tan my zombie gray body. That did not happen this year. Nope, not at all. We piled into my husband's pickup truck and we did college tours. Now it was fun. It was fun, but I did not get tan. And there were a bunch of things though that happened. I learned some things about myself that I'm gonna share with you.

• 2:12Speaker 0

  These are very ugly traits of mine. I was not on my best behavior during college tour week. I will explain why in a minute. But I did learn some really incredible things about trusting your gut and about the outside forces and influences that override what you know is true for you. It's really hard to find the courage to make a decision that is the right decision for you. And it's hard because we are so quick to consider what everybody else is thinking. We're so quick to weigh how our decision is gonna impact somebody else's feelings. That's why we don't trust our gut. And so I'm gonna talk a lot today, and I've been dying to talk to you about this about how you really tune out other people, how you find the clarity and the quiet to hear what's right for you, how you feel it.

• 3:07Speaker 0

  And the interesting thing about this is that I learned this from watching our son Oakley this week. Because if you really think about college tours, if you are at this point in your life, or if you remember what that was like, or even if you didn't go to college, but you were weighing, am I gonna go into the military? Am I gonna go to a tech school? Am I gonna go work uh and get a job because that's what I have to do? It's a moment in your life where you have a big decision to make, and you're weighing options, and it's also this moment where everybody around you has an opinion. Everyone around you. I remember when um I was touring colleges back in the 1800s.

• 3:53Speaker 0

  Uh, no, it was 198, the spring of my junior year, and I was not the world's most diligent student, but I happened to be a phenomenal test taker. So I take the SATs and I destroyed it. I don't know how it happened, but I destroyed the ACTs. No, the SATs, sorry. It was the SATs. And so I'm like, that's it. I'm going Ivy League. Let's go, people. And I was in a small town in Western Michigan. So hello, geographic diversity. Nobody in my tiny, tiny high school, which had a graduating class of 73 people. Nobody left the state. I mean, we were a feeder school in the uh 70s and 80s for Central Michigan University, for Michigan State, for you Mish. Nobody went out of state.

• 4:40Speaker 0

  Like that was unheard of. And so we loaded up the wagoner and loaded in the dog, and we drove across country stopping at the family farm in Buffalo, New York for the overnight, and we went from one school to the other school. Now, being a complete moron that grew up in Western Michigan, I had no idea. There was no internet. I didn't know that half of these, quote, Ivy League schools were in cities. So we pull into these cities. I'm like, this is c this is not what college looks like to me. And we finally get to Hanover, New Hampshire, Dartmouth College, and we pull in. We park on the main street. I knew jack shit about this school. I step out onto the town green, right in the center of campus.

• 5:28Speaker 0

  I'll never forget it. And there were students everywhere. They were playing frisbee. There were dogs running around. And I said, This is college. And I remember going back home after that spring break trip with my parents and going into math class, and I'll never forget this happening. And Mr. Beaver, my math teacher, and I was a fantastic math student. I was a real like math wizard. English, forget it. I can barely speak it with this dyslexia that I have and the mispronunciation that I'm sure that you pick up on all the time. Um, Mr. Beaver asked me. So, you know, how you doing? What do you think? And of course I was wearing a Dartmouth sweatshirt, because now that I've decided it's Dartmouth, you gotta buy the swag people.

• 6:19Speaker 0

  I mean, that's what I also realized about college tours these days, is that these kids rack up sweatshirts. It's not only the tour, it's like, okay, let's go to the co-op and let's like buy shit from a school that I don't even intend to go to because I got to get the swag to show that I went here. So I'm wearing the Dartmouth sweatshirt. I've just gotten back, and I look at him and I say, Oh, I'm gonna apply early decision to Dartmouth. And he looks me square in the eye and he says, that's a very hard school to get into. Are you sure? And I said, Yeah, I'm sure. And he said, You better not get your hopes up. And he walked away from me. And you know what?

• 7:05Speaker 0

  That's all that Mel Robbins needs. There are some of us that when somebody says it's not gonna happen, you're like, oh yeah, fuck off. Watch me, motherfucker. And so I, of course, did not ask him for a recommendation, and I ended up applying ED, and I got in. And look, I don't know that I would have got it. I don't think I would get into Dartmouth today. I mean, this was the 1800s that we're talking about here. And I was coming from a tiny school where no one had ever even applied to Dartmouth College. Western Michigan, like I had everything working for me. So I end up going, and that was that. But it was that one person's voice.

• 7:49Speaker 1

  Oh, it's

• 7:50Speaker 0

  really hard. That really influenced me. And if I hadn't been such a son of a bitch, it might have made me go, oh, he's right. Who do I think I am? And so that brings me to present day. So present day, we go on these college tours with Oak, and you know, we have two older kids. And when our daughters looked at universities, I was really good. I actually didn't care. I just wanted them to go somewhere that they were gonna be happy. And so I was like a super cool mom on these college tours because I honestly could care less. I didn't want to go to any of the schools that they looked at. I thought that their choices were fantastic. I wanted them to fully own the process. And here's the thing none of them looked at my alma mater because they couldn't get in and they weren't interested in it anyway.

• 8:42Speaker 0

  And so I went through two college tour processes, just having a ball, like, oh my God, this is so cool. Okay, oh, you like this? Oh, you don't like that, like learning about my kids. So, fast forward to last week. We get in the car and we start driving to all these schools in New England because one thing that our son is really clear about is he does not want to leave New England. And I've even tried to influence this. I'm realizing as I analyze my own participation in his college process. I'm kind of a freak. I've been a little micromanage. He's very clear. I do not want to be in a city. And yet I'm still like, you want to look at B you? He's like, Mom, that's in a city. Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah. That's right.

• 9:27Speaker 0

  You want to look at Syracuse? Mom, it's in a city. Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah. That's right. What about Michigan? Mom, it's not in New England. You know, maybe you should look at Colorado schools, mom, I'd like to stay in New England. I like the fall seasons. Well, what about Elon? Mom, that's in the South. I can't help myself, you guys. I don't know what is wrong with me. So we go on the first tour, and there's a couple things that I noticed about myself and about our son as we went through the week. I was not on my best behavior when we got to my alma mater, okay. And I think it's important to. To share this with you, to confess to you what I did because I played a role in trying to pollute my son's clarity.

• 10:13Speaker 0

  I'm kind of embarrassed about it, honestly, because I never thought I was that parent. I always said very vocally to our kids, look, I got to go to the school that I wanted to go to. Your dad got to go to the school he wanted to go to, which was UVM. He freaking loved it. I freaking love Dartmouth. We already had our college experience. You have to choose where you want to be. And by the way, I'm not putting the bumper sticker on the car like some sort of uh, you know, flexed other parents. I'm not gonna buy the sweatshirt. This is your experience. I'm not that person, okay? And I think it worked because I think it took the pressure off. Holy shit. When Oakley said, Mom, I think I'd like to look at Dartmouth.

• 10:59Speaker 0

  I became a sociopath. Honest to God. I don't know what got into me. And here's the thing that's kind of weird about it. The truth is, I freaking loved Dartmouth. It is an incredible school, but I hated myself when I was there. Like we're talking the eight, I mean the 1980s circa version of Mel. I was unmedicated. I had undiagnosed trauma, undiagnosed anxiety. I basically fooled around with just about everybody I met there. And I did not take advantage fully of all the opportunities that were presented to me. And if I could go back and do it all over, I would be a different human being. And so as much as I loved that school, and I have a couple incredible friends from there, I look back on my college years and I'm like, oh.

• 11:45Speaker 0

  I haven't ever even been to a reunion. I didn't own a Dartmouth sweatshirt after I graduated, mainly because I was afraid that if I wore one, Dartmouth alums come up to each other that I'd be bumping into people I'd fooled around with. You know, Chris was like, Jesus, have you like fooled around with everybody that you went to college with? I'm like, you should thank them because I have a lot of skills because of that. Um, but anyway, I digress. So Oakley goes and like I was like, I think I want to look at Dartmouth. He's got the grades. He would honestly probably love it. And so I'm like trying to be like, not like, oh my god, this is incredible. I'm like, oh, okay. Uh that sounds like a good idea.

• 12:31Speaker 0

  Fuck yes. So we pull up on the campus, and it was sort of synchronicity because it looked like the exact same kind of day as when my parents and I pulled up in 1985. Bluebird sky, kids all over the green, frisbees, dogs. And Oakley steps out and he starts looking around, and I'm thinking, I could see him here. Now I'm like fast forwarding, right? I'm going, oh, yeah, I could see dropping him off. I could see him walking across that green. I'm starting to get invested, you guys. I'm starting to think, oh, yeah, this is a good pick for us. This would be really cool for us. And in fact, and now I'm starting to tell myself this story. And I gotta be honest with you, I've never been this person. Something came over me.

• 13:17Speaker 0

  It's like I became a psycho alum, possessed with this all my motor kind of like just hysteria. And I'm thinking, oh my God, if he goes here and he has an incredible experience, then I'm gonna get to relive it in a whole new way, and I will redeem myself, and I will get to love this school even more, and I'll get to go to his reunions because I never went to my reunion, and I'll start to do like and I start to get completely enraptured in the story, and I can come up for the games and oh yeah, and then there's winter carnival, and oh my God, summer, summer session. I forgot about summer session, and I start to just get this tornado of enthusiasm. So then we go upstairs and we're sitting down, and I'm like, oh yeah, this is a way better

• 14:05Speaker 3

  info

• 14:06Speaker 0

  session

• 14:06Speaker 1

  than the other ones. Dartmouth's really cool.

• 14:08Speaker 0

  They're doing it right. They're doing I love this. It's the right people. And then they take us out, and I loved as we're walking down the stairs, and and the stairs are made of marble, and you can feel like the dip in the stairs because the buildings are so old. And Oakley's like, ooh, these stairs are cool. I'm like, that's because these stairs are 200 years old, Oakley. They're the same stairs as when I was there. So we get out on the green and they now separate us out, and there's four tour guides, and the one tour guide on the right is this kid named Nico, and he's super cool, and he's wearing flip-flops and shorts, because of course all the Dartmouth kids wear flip-flops and shorts in April, because you know, it's New Hampshire in the midwinter mud season, and he's wearing like a hoodie, and he sort of toe walks his way on his slides, and I'm like, Oakley, we gotta go with Nico.

• 14:58Speaker 0

  So now I'm even pushing him to pick the purse because I'm thinking if he gets that tour guide, because the kid plays Ultimate, Oakley plays Ultimate. He's like a really kind of cool kid who's into kind of musical. Oakley's into theater. Okay, we're gonna get this kid. So I'm like inching Oakley. I am literally that parent. The tour starts, and I am that parent. I'm like pushing us toward the front. You gotta hear him. You gotta get up close, get up close. See it. He's like, Mom, Jesus. And I can't help myself, you guys. He's talking about the credits and they have a wellness credit. That's pretty cool. And I'm like, do they still require you to pass a swim test to graduate? And he's like, actually, no. I'm like, oh, and he's like, and Oak's like, there was a swim credit. And so now I'm basically leading the tour. And at one point, Chris puts his hands on my shoulder,

• 15:45Speaker 1

  and just ever so gently

• 15:48Speaker 0

  pulls me back towards him. And he's like, Mel, let's let Oakley go on the tour. And I'm like, oh, you're right. I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I'm just, I'm just so excited. I'm so excited. And then the college tour went right past my freshman dorm window. Russell Sage, people. That window. I had a flashback to the last day of freshman year when completely unorganized, undiagnosed, anxiety-ridden ADHD Mel had not planned on the fact that in order to get home to Michigan, she was gonna have to board a flight later that day. And I had not packed anything. And so I finish exams. I walk into my dorm room and I have a complete fucking panic attack because I don't know what to do with my shit.

• 16:36Speaker 0

  So you know what I did? I popped the screen off the window and I started putting stuff out the window. And then I put a bunch of pieces of paper on it that said free, and I left. That's what I did. Disaster Mel. And so I imagined literally the yard sale of shit from the dorm fridge that we had bought to God knows what we had collected to lamps to the rug to odds and end, right at there on the lawn on Russell Sage. And I'm telling you this for a particular reason. Because at one point on the tour, as I was hanging back, we had just left the engineering school, and Oakley's kind of just walking with the students up front, and I'm hanging back with Chris, and we're chit chatting about some stuff, and I'm realizing, Mel, you gotta just fucking chill here.

• 17:31Speaker 0

  You gotta let him like just make the decision. Like you can't put pressure on him. Oakley turns around and he says, What do you think? And I said to him, it doesn't matter what I think. It matters what you think. But I'm telling you this story because I think that moment where he turns around and says, What do you think? That's what we all do when we make decisions, isn't it? Whether you've got somebody annoying like me, going, Oh, you'd be here and oh, you should do this and you should do that, and you should do the other thing, and you should break up with this person, but you should go with that person, but you maybe you should be busy with the or you don't.

• 18:19Speaker 0

  We have this reflexive nature, don't we? Where instead of tuning in and going, I could see myself here, or this relationship is over, or I don't want to do this job anymore, or could I see myself here, or what do I want to do next? We turn around and we go, what do you think? And that's where we lose our power because it doesn't matter what anybody else thinks because you're the one that's gonna have to live with the decision. So we were just doing college tours for the past week on spring break.

• 18:55Speaker 2

  Yeah.

• 18:57Speaker 0

  Well, it was

• 18:57Speaker 1

  actually

• 18:58Speaker 0

  great. I loved spending the time with you. And I loved just watching you go through the decision making process. And we went to the first school. Remember that one?

• 19:10Speaker 2

  I do.

• 19:11Speaker 0

  And it was uh hard no.

• 19:13Speaker 2

  Hard no.

• 19:15Speaker 0

  How did you know? Like, where in your body?

• 19:18Speaker 2

  Just my whole body.

• 19:19Speaker 0

  What did it feel like to have your body experience a no? And how quickly did it happen for you?

• 19:26Speaker 2

  For the first college, I'd say 30 and 30 minutes. Okay. Happened in 30 minutes. What's

• 19:33Speaker 0

  a no feel like

• 19:36Speaker 2

  just very uninterested, unenthused, feels very closed off. Just I don't want to be there anymore. I feel out of place. That's what uh that's what a no feels like for me.

• 19:48Speaker 0

  Does it happen in your body first or in your mind?

• 19:52Speaker 2

  I think it starts in my mind, and then I know over time, I'm like, yeah, my whole body starts to agree.

• 20:00Speaker 0

  Okay. Um second school.

• 20:03Speaker 2

  Yes.

• 20:04Speaker 0

  That was a yes.

• 20:05Speaker 2

  It was a yes.

• 20:06Speaker 0

  Big yes.

• 20:06Speaker 2

  Big yes.

• 20:08Speaker 0

  And that school happens to be my alma mater.

• 20:13Speaker 2

  Dartmouth.

• 20:15Speaker 0

  Startmouth college. And I was having my own sort of existential experience going on that tour because my parents had dropped me off 37 years before we toured that campus. And we the tour walked right in front of my freshman dorm window. And so for me, I was just back in my head back at that school that I had graduated from 33 years ago, and neither of your sisters could have gotten in. And they weren't interested in it. And we didn't even look at it. And so when all of a sudden you're like, I'd like to look at Dartmouth, I was like, oh my God, I did I didn't even consider one of my kids that this is incredible.

• 21:05Speaker 0

  Was it weird to have a parent on the tour with you that went to that school?

• 21:17Speaker 2

  Yes. Yeah. You

• 21:19Speaker 0

  can call me out.

• 21:20Speaker 2

  Yeah, it was weird. How come? It was weird. Because on the tour, we'd be walking and the tour guide would say something, and then you'd be able to go into depth about it, or you'd talk about all these mini traditions that happen. Is that

• 21:34Speaker 3

  annoying?

• 21:36Speaker 2

  I I knew that I wasn't gonna let your opinion or dad's opinion affect me because this is my next four years. Ugh is the next four years of my life. And so no matter how you felt or what you said, I was not going to let it affect me. There was one point where you where we were walking and you were saying something about how my application for Dartmouth needs to look like this and it needs to have this in it. And when I ED here it's gonna need to show this and this and this. And I turn to you and I just say, how do you even know I'm gonna apply here? Because you had already had this vision of me applying and going here because we had different uh perspectives, but I wasn't gonna let that get my way.

• 22:20Speaker 0

  So how did you get to a yes? What does a yes feel like? Because you're really sure about this school.

• 22:26Speaker 2

  Yeah, a yes is super open. You feel lots of possibilities. You feel like you're in the right place, you feel comfortable. Um you can see a bunch of different opportunities and possibilities in this space, stuff like that. That's so

• 22:44Speaker 0

  it's easy to picture yourself and something feels expansive.

• 22:48Speaker 2

  Yeah.

• 22:48Speaker 0

  That's super cool. There was one other thing I wanted to just have you really uh share with everybody. So there was another school we looked at later in the week that was a hard no for both of us.

• 23:00Speaker 2

  Yep.

• 23:01Speaker 0

  Took about five minutes.

• 23:03Speaker 2

  Yes.

• 23:04Speaker 0

  And I I think that you get better and better at reading your gut when you're actually tuning into it. Would you say that's true?

• 23:11Speaker 2

  Yeah, for sure.

• 23:12Speaker 0

  By the end of the week, you were making calls like this.

• 23:15Speaker 2

  Yeah.

• 23:16Speaker 0

  And I think it's because you had spent the week being in your body as you've been making these decisions. So you're getting better and better and better and faster and faster at reading, like this is opening and possibility. And I could see myself here, and this is a hell no, and I feel like constricted and the energy draining. And at this school where you were like hard no, five minutes in, uh, Chris, Oakley and I are texting one another.

• 23:46Speaker 2

  No, you were texting me, and I was not looking at my phone because that is disrespectful to the info session people. So no.

• 23:54Speaker 0

  That's true. You

• 23:55Speaker 2

  were texting me. I was not texting you.

• 23:57Speaker 0

  That's true.

• 23:58Speaker 2

  Don't drag me out of the bus with you.

• 24:00Speaker 0

  I was hiding behind somebody, so they couldn't see me, but I'm probably thinking people. Okay. Okay. So I was texting you, and after the info section, you're like, nope, not even going on the tour. And then do you remember what this particular school did on the tour? Because I think this is a great metaphor for learning how to trust your gut.

• 24:18Speaker 2

  Yeah, they split up the kids and the parents on the tour. So there were basically two separate tours going on at the same time, one for adults and one's for kids.

• 24:27Speaker 0

  Why did you think that was interesting?

• 24:31Speaker 2

  Uh because it when you're a kid and you're touring colleges, your parent is essentially your guide. And they you look to them for answers and praise or denial. And so maybe you're liking a college, so you want to see if they also like it. And if they don't, you may feel as though, oh, well, then I shouldn't like this one because they don't like this one. Or I should like this one, but because they like this one. And so the tour guide split it up because when you're on the tour, you no longer have someone to turn to and ask if they like it or not. You just are on that tour with yourself, having to feel about it, about in your body, understand your body.

• 25:22Speaker 0

  I think that's an incredible metaphor, Oak. See, I think the metaphor of that college splitting parents and kids into two separate groups is a great visual for how everybody needs to make decisions. That there's a group of people whose opinions you're weighing, and right now they're on a tour with you. Whether it's your friends or it's your family, or it's your boyfriend or your girlfriend or significant other. There is somebody that you turn to and go, what do you think? And they're right on the tour with you in life.

• 26:02Speaker 2

  Right.

• 26:03Speaker 0

  And when I think about how you make gut decisions, I come back to this visual of imagine all those people that you want to turn and go, so what do you think about this? Imagine them being on a different tour. You're there alone assessing what you need to do.

• 26:19Speaker 2

  Right. And so you're just in your head thinking about what you think of it. I

• 26:23Speaker 0

  think you need to be in your body. And for those of you who just went, what? What are you talking about? You make a decision with your body. That's not how you do it, Mel. You gotta get a spreadsheet, you gotta weigh the pros and cons. Like, uh why do I have a brain if I'm not using it to make decisions? Well, believe it or not, we're gonna get into some of the science. That is actually not how you make decisions. The science shows that we make decisions in our body first. Our brain is just interpreting the signals that our body is telling us. And so much about making decisions that are right for you is about learning how to read the signals in your body, how to feel your way into it and finding the courage to move in that direction, even though your brain might go, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa.

• 27:18Speaker 0

  Everybody in your family went to you, Mish. What are you doing? Whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa. You can't transfer. What are people gonna think? Whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa. Get a divorce? Are you crazy? We're Irish Catholic. People don't do that here. Whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa. You mean apply to nursing school after you're divorced? You don't people don't do that. You can just do that. Yes, you can. And the more that you realize that there is so much magic for you to discover in your life, but it's gonna require courage. And I'm gonna prove to you that your instincts are always right. The problem isn't your instincts, and that's why I don't want to talk about trusting them.

• 28:05Speaker 0

  I want to talk about the fear that you have in following them. Because nine times out of ten, when you truly tune in and you allow yourself to feel the decision, it's gonna require courage because it's gonna disappoint people and it's gonna require a change, and it's gonna require you to learn something new, and it's gonna require you to step away from the pack, and that's freaking terrifying. And that's why we don't do it. Speaking of this metaphor of the two tours. I have an incredible story to add to this, but I need to hit pause. Let's hear a word from our sponsors. When we come back, I want to dig into this idea of other voices with two stories that will really bring it home for you.

• 28:52Speaker 0

  So stay with us. Welcome back. I'm Mel Robbins, and we are talking today about finding the courage to make decisions that feel right for you. And we all know we need to, but it's really hard to do it because it requires courage. And I was just explaining this metaphor about a college tour and this university that separated parents from students, and how that frees a student up to consider a school and consider their decision without the energy of their parents or the influence of it. And as we were talking about this before the taping as a team, everybody at the table had a story about other people's voices or their own concerns being the cacophony that was causing doubt.

• 29:39Speaker 0

  And Amy, you had an amazing story about when you used to run a marketing and copywriting agency. And you have to tell this story.

• 29:48Speaker 1

  Yeah, sure. So my story is that I was in a mastermind,

• 29:52Speaker 0

  uh-huh,

• 29:53Speaker 1

  which is kind of like a tour, a bunch of people together doing things with their businesses that um that they want to do. Achieving goals together and patting each other on the back and like supporting each other. So one day I showed up at the mastermind and I said, you know what, you guys, this is what I'm gonna do. This is my next big thing. I am going to make what I made last year in this next month. Wow. Yeah. Well, I had heard that this was like a it's a thing that people do. I mean, it's not like it wasn't my idea. I had heard it from somebody else, and it was just if you want to take your business, and at the time I I did, I wanted to take my business to the next level.

• 30:34Speaker 0

  And

• 30:34Speaker 1

  if you really believe in yourself and you, you know, or or want to find out what's holding you back, you know, try to make what you made last year in one month. Can I

• 30:45Speaker 0

  ask

• 30:45Speaker 1

  you

• 30:46Speaker 0

  a question? Yeah. So since we're talking about gut instinct, when you heard somebody say that you can make a quantum leap if you're willing to find the courage to go, that's it. Next month I'm making what I made last year, next month in my business. Did you feel it in your gut? Like what was the process of even going, I'm doing that? Because that's pretty courageous and bold.

• 31:09Speaker 1

  You know, it's it I see how you you say it's courageous, but at the same time, nobody made me do it. It was my decision, and I, you know, if I didn't do it, everybody would say, Oh, well, of course you didn't. Good try. You know, but

• 31:23Speaker 0

  I meant when you heard about it.

• 31:25Speaker 1

  Yeah. Was there something that happened that you remember that was like ding ding ding? Yeah, I'm doing that. What happened? I just felt like I want that. Quantum leap. That sounds amazing. That sounds like living life, you know. That sounds like I'm gonna be in a different spot. And that that is gonna change me. And I'm thinking I'm gonna really love that. It's almost like if you think about the tour analogy, it is like the future where he's like, no, no, no, come over here. Exactly. It really was. It was like, this is your next step. And it's a big one. Wow. Okay, so you're running your copy writing and

• 32:00Speaker 0

  marketing

• 32:00Speaker 1

  business.

• 32:00Speaker 0

  Yes. You go into this mastermind.

• 32:03Speaker 1

  Yeah, all these people that are supposed to be supporting me. And what happens? And dead silence after I announced that. Everybody was just like mentally regrouping from what I had to say. And they, and it was just like total silence. And I said, Well, I mean, it's I've heard other people do it. You know, and I was just like, What do you what do you what do you guys think? Yeah. And not because I wanted to know what they thought, but I just was kind of like, why is everybody so silent, you know? And then the voices started talking and the voices of everybody in my mastermind group. Well, how are you gonna do that? I never heard of that before. Why would you want to do that?

• 32:48Speaker 1

  You can't do that. You need a longer runway, you can't do it next month. How much did you actually make last year? Like, what what are you thinking? What what is this gonna do for you? Why would you want to put that on yourself? And when that started happening, what did you feel? I felt like assaulted almost, you know, like in the sense that I knew that this is what I needed to do. I knew that this was right for my future self. And I couldn't believe that people weren't supporting me in and couldn't see that I could actually do this. I I really couldn't believe that people were holding me back from it. But there was this one woman. I will never forget her. What

• 33:33Speaker 0

  does she look like?

• 33:35Speaker 1

  Well, her name is Rachelli Wright. Okay. She is an American Sicilian. She lives in Michigan, and I love her. She is a ball of fucking fire. Okay. And she said, I think everybody should back off. Because Amy's actually gonna do this. And she's basically told everybody to shut up. She's like, I'm

• 33:57Speaker 0

  taking a different tour. Amy with me.

• 34:00Speaker 1

  And that's what happened, Mel, actually, because when she said, and she said really one of the things that she said that I remember is if she wants to do it, why wouldn't you let her try it? Like, why are you guys trying to convince her she can't? And I love that. Because if I could do it, it meant they could do it. And if I could do it, it meant we all would be a better group because I did it. But look at what they did instead. They just said, no, no, you can't, you can't. Maybe because they didn't want to have to do it, you know? Like I

• 34:30Speaker 0

  did

• 34:31Speaker 1

  you

• 34:31Speaker 0

  do

• 34:31Speaker 1

  it.

• 34:32Speaker 0

  I

• 34:32Speaker 1

  did do it. What? I did do it. I I mean, like I I'll explain to you what happened. I committed to it, and I I'll never forget this. Two weeks into my commitment to myself and my group, even though they could care less except for Rachelli, right. Um, I got a phone call from a current client that said he's a creative director, and and he and I work for him, and and uh we kind of work on jobs together. And he said, one our mutual client has asked me if you would like to write 10 ebooks in the next month, and you know, name your price because she needs this and

• 35:15Speaker 0

  she knows

• 35:16Speaker 1

  you're the person to

• 35:16Speaker 0

  do it.

• 35:17Speaker 1

  I will never forget. I was on Route 684 around the Mount Kisco exit, and the phone rang, and as soon as it rang, I saw who it was, and I was like, this is happening right now.

• 35:30Speaker 0

  Oh my God. I was super cool.

• 35:32Speaker 1

  Yeah.

• 35:33Speaker 0

  I love that. It

• 35:34Speaker 1

  was an amazing feeling.

• 35:35Speaker 0

  Wow. It

• 35:36Speaker 1

  was the feeling that I wanted, right? It was that feeling that I was like hoping I would have when I took on that challenge.

• 35:45Speaker 0

  You know, it's interesting because uh the as you were describing this, I was immediately back in class with Mr. Brown going, you're not gonna get in there. You better not get your house up. And I didn't have the Ricelli right. I had to be that for myself. I had to be like, fuck you, fuck off, watch me fucking do this. And you have to do that for yourself because it's a gift. I remember we just started a walking group here in southern Vermont this morning, and there were like 25 women that showed up, and there was this one woman that was super cool. Well, everybody was cool, but she was telling the story about how she recently went back to nursing school after getting a divorce. And it was because she had a Rachelli right next to her, was like, well, you want to be a nurse, just go back to school.

• 36:37Speaker 0

  She's like, that's all you need to do. It is because when somebody says, just go back to school or just get the divorce, or just change your job or just move. They are saying, come on this tour. Yes. And for that moment, you allow yourself to imagine what life would feel like. And that's what the yes feels

• 36:56Speaker 1

  like. Yeah. And all those people in my mastermind group, they didn't want to be open to that. I, you know, for me and maybe even for themselves too. I think we don't do that a lot. We don't say like what's possible now. We say, like, well, what's the next fucking thing I gotta do?

• 37:16Speaker 0

  It's so true. And that's why I love this metaphor of that moment of going on a college tour. Because it is a moment where you contemplate very intentionally your next move. And we all have that opportunity in our lives at any moment. Yes. To basically go, okay, the tour I'm on is headed over here, and it's these voices, and your story is about very loud voices chiming in, kind of the way I was with the annoying way on the Dartmouth tour. But I also can think about periods in my life where I was the annoying voice because my emotions were the emotions of all those people. But you can't, but you were going this way, but this is how we do things, but this, but that, but what are you gonna do?

• 38:01Speaker 0

  But you don't know how to do that. But that that that that was me during the entire experience of being in law school and being a young lawyer, knowing I don't want this, and yet being that negative voice for myself, like but but but but butt butt butt butt butt butt butt but but but but but but but but you can't do this, but that, but everybody's going this direction. But what are you gonna do? You don't know what you're gonna do, then you better do this. And yet you know. And here's the thing about life. I do believe that there is something specific that's meant for you. And I do believe that what's meant for you will not pass you by. But you will waste years, decades even of your fucking life moving in the wrong direction because you will not slow down and tune in to what you know is true, and you're afraid of it.

• 38:56Speaker 0

  You're afraid of it. That's why I keep saying it requires courage. And yes, you will ultimately end up where you need to go, but you can save yourself the headache, the heartache, and the breakdowns that and the years that you will waste in the wrong direction. Do I regret going to law school? No, because it's a decision that I made, but could I have gotten where I am without it? Of course I could have. Of course I could have. And I didn't have to torture myself the way that I did. Right. And, you know, if anything, I love this visual of the tour. I love the visual of like parents and you know, going off in one direction with their opinions and their agendas and their and like your mastermind group, waddling off in that direction.

• 39:44Speaker 0

  Yep. And then there's another choice. There's the future you going, no, no, no, no, no. Come on over here. Come on over here and let's just take a tour of what life could look like.

• 39:56Speaker 2

  Mm-hmm.

• 39:57Speaker 0

  Doesn't mean it's gonna happen, but I think in even Finding the courage to allow yourself to imagine it.

• 40:05Speaker 1

  And that's the part that I was saying, you know, when you were like, oh, that was really brave. It was like, yeah. And if it didn't happen, like you're saying, it doesn't even mean it has to happen. If it didn't happen, I would have still learned a lot. I would have grown a lot. And I would have known what it's like to feel the support of somebody like Ricelli was for me in that moment. And that would have been great for me to know. And it would have been okay,

• 40:29Speaker 0

  even

• 40:29Speaker 1

  if I didn't make it. And I think that that's why I wasn't really that scared. Because I knew that I would learn so much. And it did happen to happen for me, and that was great. And I absolutely feel like it was a fast forward button that I pushed in my life.

• 40:48Speaker 0

  I love that.

• 40:49Speaker 1

  Oh my God, you have the courage to push fast forward. Fast forward. And of course, when I was in that fast forward moment, I had got a lot of work. I had a lot of work. I write those 10 ebooks. And then after that, I got a ton of work. And guess who I turned to when I had too much work and I needed subcontract?

• 41:09Speaker 0

  Rachella Wright.

• 41:10Speaker 1

  Richelli. Rachelli. She was right there. Part of the success.

• 41:14Speaker 0

  Wow, I love it.

• 41:15Speaker 1

  You know? I

• 41:16Speaker 0

  love it.

• 41:16Speaker 1

  And still, like she comes up in my feed sometimes, and it's like my heart just glows when I see her name because she's behind me. And

• 41:27Speaker 0

  you know what's cool, everybody? Is I want you to also realize that you may be on a tour with your own negative voices or a tour with critical voices or a tour with parents or friends or family that's influencing you to stay somewhere that you know you're not meant to stay. The second that you break from that tour and you join your future self, you catch up to a tour of people that are on the same path.

• 41:53Speaker 1

  Oh, and I just got the chills when you said that. Because that's what I always wanted from life is like my people that I know that have the same vision that I can support that are supporting me. To me, that's really living, right? I always look around and say, like I remember being in grammar school and looking at my class and being like, we're just random people in here. Like we don't really belong together. You're a family sometimes, right? You're just random people. And I always love to be in the company of other people that are just in the same jet stream that I am. Yeah. Like in the same on the same inner tube. Yes. Kind of.

• 42:29Speaker 0

  Yes. You know, it's interesting though, because I think it's more often than not that voices that you're hearing are the ones that you're making up. So as we were talking this morning as a team, Cameron on our team was also sharing a story about how she applied to Indiana University and knew immediately as she was dropping, not for me, not for me. Like way too big, it's too far away. Fuck, fuck, fuck, fuck, fuck. And the voices that kept her there were her own concern and fear. Same as me in law school. What are people people who transfer are losers? What are people gonna think? You know, they're all gonna judge me. And the truth is nobody is going to.

• 43:16Speaker 0

  Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.

• 43:17Speaker 1

  And she even, when she was telling that story, her dad said to her, Well, you can transfer. And she just swatted that away. It's like, I'm not transferring. I'm

• 43:27Speaker 0

  not doing that. People are not going to do that. That's your own story. Same thing that I did to myself in law school. And that sets up the story I want to tell you because I think whether you identify with Amy, and you have people around you saying you can't do that, or you identify even with the experience that Oakley is with, where everybody's weighing in on the decision and everybody's asking, and there's a ton of pressure, and you got to just tune it all out. A lot of us struggle with our own voices, our own insecurities, our own fears. It's not even that other people are telling you what to do. It's that you're so busy looking around and being concerned and making up stories about what other people are thinking and about your own emotions that you can't settle yourself down and be honest with yourself about what's actually not working and what you really want.

• 44:26Speaker 0

  And B, Lord knows you can't find the fucking courage to do what you know you need to do. And for me, that is Mel Robin circa 1990 to 1990. Shit. It was a long time. It was 1999. Nine years of my life. I was on a tour listening to my own insecurities. And let me tell you what happened. In fact, when I was our son's age, I was an emotional wreck. And that's one of the things that I want you to understand about decisions that we make decisions, like it or not, with our emotions, that you feel your way into every decision. And I'm just going to prove this to you really quick with some science before I tell you about circa 1990 to 1996 Mel Robbins. Okay. Um there was a famous researcher named uh Damasio.

• 45:12Speaker 0

  He's still alive. I don't know why I'm calling him in the past tense. And he had this incredible body of research. It's literally one of the most cited studies in decision making, where he basically figured out that we don't make decisions with our brain, we make decisions with our body. And I'm going to give you a super simple example. I don't need to explain the science. We will link to it in the show notes if you want to read all this stuff. But Damasio is the guy that everybody cites. But I'm just going to give you an example out of your own life. If you are sitting at a restaurant and you're looking at a menu, how do you make a decision about what you're going to order?

• 45:58Speaker 0

  Now, for some of you, I know you're like, I got to wait till everybody goes last. And I always order last, and I got to see what everybody else does. But at the end of the day, if you're looking at a menu, and let's just say you're like, okay, do I get the pizza? Do I get the burger? Do I get the wings? Or do I get the salad? Ultimately, there's this subconscious moment where you drop out of your head into your body and you ask yourself this question. What do I feel like eating? What do I feel like eating? Now I realize if you're the person that goes last, I'm often the person that goes last because I like to eat a lot of different things. So I like to wait and see what my husband has ordered.

• 46:44Speaker 0

  That way I know that I might order something different because that way I can feel like eating two different things. So it sounds like I'm using my mind, right? Not really. Because by the time it gets to me, what do I do? I go, Oh, he had the burger. I feel like the Sally. You always consult how you feel. Do I want to go to that party tonight? I feel tired. Nope, I don't. And oftentimes when you have to make a decision that is a decision that is for your higher self, you got to push through negative feelings, don't you? You got to join in with the future you that knows that getting out of the house and going to the party, once you get there, you're gonna feel great that you won.

• 47:30Speaker 0

  It's getting out the door that doesn't feel good. You gotta step onto the tour away from your feelings and with the future you. You got to be your own tour guide at times. So I'm gonna go back to that uh thing that happened at that school where they separated the parents and the kids. Why? Because that school's smart enough to know that when a kid is around their parent, their parents' energy completely fucks with the kids' energy. And the kid starts acting in a way that will make their parents happy. And the kid starts turning around and going, what do you think? What do you think about this? How do you feel about this? Instead of tuning in. How do I feel about this? That's what you need to ask.

• 48:17Speaker 0

  So let's get back to Mel Robbins, the disaster when it comes to trusting your gut. So when it came time for college graduation, I didn't have a job. And all of a sudden everybody scatters. Nobody tells you this part about college that you're like with this pack, and then boom, everybody scatters. And you're like, oh my God, where's everybody going? I didn't know what to do. I just panicked. And so I became such a reactive decision maker. Remember how I said, if you're not careful, your emotions make the decision for you. My main emotion was I'm fucked. I don't want to be left behind. Oh my God, I don't know what to do. And so I just lurched at my boyfriend. He had a job at the Fed in DC.

• 49:03Speaker 0

  I went with him. I get there. I have no idea what I want to do. So I go get a temp job. The first job they put me in is working for a big law firm in Georgetown. I spent the first six months of that job sitting in a windowless conference room in Georgetown, working on a class action lawsuit where a bunch of states were suing uh some garbage bag company that had claimed that their garbage bags were biodegradable. And apparently, according to these states, they weren't biodegradable. So I was part of this huge lawsuit as a just little, I don't even know what you call it. I was in a windowless conference room filled with boxes of paper. And I had in my hand this thing called a bait stamp.

• 49:49Speaker 0

  And a bait stamp is like um, you know, when you go and you travel somewhere and they like stamp your passport. It's the exact same stamp. But it numbers and dates paperwork. And I hand stamped boxes of paperwork every day, all day. For months. I hated that job. I had so many paper cuts. I was bored out of my mind. The only thing that I looked forward to is that if I worked 10 hours a day, they gave us $30 for dinner. And so I worked every day to get that damn free dinner. And I just stamped and stamped. And I swore to myself I would never ever work in a law firm. But then something happened. Everybody I knew started applying to graduate school. And I thought, I don't want to be left behind.

• 50:35Speaker 0

  Emotions. Did I ever stop and intentionally go, what do I want? No, I did not. Why? Because I was looking around. I was on a tour with everybody else. I was so busy going, what is everybody else? Do they like the school? Are they going to school? What am I doing? What are we going? Where are we going, everybody? I don't know. And so I applied. Where do you think I applied, everybody? Law school. Even though I knew deep down, if I fast chorded and I looked at what my life would look like, every single lawyer in that law firm was freaking miserable. You could tell they were miserable people. I was miserable there. I knew that I wasn't going to be happy, but I was so driven by my emotion.

• 51:20Speaker 0

  I just started doing and reacting and panicking, and I followed everybody else. Because everybody else in that windowless conference room. Fate stamping. They were applying to law school too. I'm on the tour with these people. So I'm going. So I get to law school. And here's the funny thing. I got wait listed. And I knew I was relieved. But again, the emotion, I'm on the tour with everybody else. I'm not stopping to consider what's actually going to work for me. And so I do everything I can to get off the wait list. And I go and I get to law school and I'm like, I hate this. I hate this so much. I get panic attacks before I go to school. Maybe that's a sign that this isn't a place for me.

• 52:06Speaker 0

  Not for Mel Robbins. Why? Because I'm still on a tour with everybody else. I'm still sitting in these classes with everybody else who seems to like this. I don't like this at all. I am having nightmares at night. I'm having panic attack after panic attack. Do I quit? No. Why? Because I am not able to center myself. I am so overrun by emotion. I am so overrun by turning around and going, what do you think? What do you think? Should I quit? Should I not quit? What do you think? No, you should stick it out. No, you shouldn't quit. I don't know what I'm going to do. But here's what I did know. I knew that I didn't want to be a lawyer. I knew that I didn't see a future doing this. But I kept at it.

• 52:52Speaker 0

  Why? Because I was so influenced by everybody around me. And it's almost like when you step into a current like that, it's like jumping in the Colorado River. You start a major and all of a sudden it takes you down the river. And it feels impossible to swim against the current, but it's not. It's not at all. But it takes courage, doesn't it, to say this isn't for me. It takes courage to go, I don't want to work for a law firm or the attorney general this summer. In fact, that freshman year, there's this kind of infamous story about me that I got a job with the Michigan Attorney General after my first year of school because again, I didn't know what to do. Everybody seemed to be doing this, and I didn't want to swim against the current.

• 53:41Speaker 0

  Why? Because it takes courage. But I got into this job, and here I am driving 45 minutes each way from North Muskegan, Michigan to Grand Rapids, Michigan, the entire drive. I was so anxiety riven ridden that I don't remember commuting for an entire summer. I was that out of my body. My whole body was like, no, no, no, no, no, no, no. You don't want to do this. I would go into the attorney general's office and I would sit and talk with the other interns most of the day. The attorney general pulled me aside and gave me this huge research assignment and said, I want you to do a research project, Mel, where you research all of the recidivism rates, meaning the rates of return to jail among uh people, felons, because I want to kind of understand what types of crimes have people returned to jail.

• 54:35Speaker 0

  I want to know the recidivism rates we can understand what programs are working and aren't working. I didn't crack a book. I didn't do the research project. I ghosted the attorney general of Michigan. Near the end of the summer, I walked into work, I got called into his office, I made up some lie about how the project was going, and I left. I left, I ghosted, I quit. I literally ghosted before ghosting was a thing. I'm not proud of this, by the way. I again was undiagnosed with anxiety, undiagnosed with trauma. I was in the wrong place and my body knew it. And that's the other thing. If you continue to go on the group tour and you continue to ask people, what should I do?

• 55:20Speaker 0

  What should I do? What should I do? You will waste decades of your life doing the wrong thing. And ultimately, your body and your spirit will have such a revolt that you will be forced to confront the truth, which is you were not meant to be doing that thing. And you knew it, but you stuck with it because you didn't have the courage to do something else. And ultimately, I didn't have the courage. I graduated from law school. I ended up getting a job as a public defender. I actually loved that job, oddly enough, but we then moved to Boston and I was back in a fucking law firm. I could have worked anywhere else, but I was back in a fucking law firm. Why? Because it seemed like the easy thing to do.

• 56:07Speaker 0

  That's why I'm saying that trusting yourself, slowing down enough to go, wait

• 56:12Speaker 1

  a minute.

• 56:14Speaker 0

  How do I feel about this for real? Do I really see myself here? If I fast forward and I go on a tour with my future self, I take myself on a tour of my life. Is this the life I want? Because if it isn't, you will know. And that's why I keep saying it's gonna require courage. And what ultimately happened for me is I didn't get courage. That that's not even something that I can tell you that I got. What happened is I got pregnant and I had a baby. Her name is Sawyer. She's now 24 years old. And when I was on maternity leave, I had such a mental health breakdown that I finally got clear that I could not go back to that job. And that's all you need. See, you don't need to know what direction you need to head toward.

• 57:01Speaker 0

  You don't need to know where it's leading you because I didn't know what I wanted to do with my life. That kind of clarity I hadn't had yet. I just finally had the courage to say, I can't do this anymore. The gig is up. And remember what I also said? You hear the no louder than the yes. And so if you're sitting here going, I gotta take my future me has to take me on a tour. I got to tune out what my spouse thinks, what my boyfriend or girlfriend thinks, what my family thinks. I gotta fast forward and I gotta ask myself, do I picture myself in this life a year from now? And if the answer is no, you damn well better get on a tour with the future you and start feeling out what do you want to do?

• 57:47Speaker 0

  And all you need to know is not this, not this. Anything but this. Anything but this. And so I said, anything but this. And then you get into reality. And it's amazing what happens when you have a problem to solve. See, you're a great problem solver if you give yourself a problem to solve. And the problem that I had is okay, if not this, then I gotta find something that'll pay me $60,000 a year because I got a mortgage to pay. And I don't have a trust fund. And if I can find something that I can do for $60,000 a year that's not the law, I've just won the jackpot. And so I took myself on the tour with the future me who was not working in a law firm. And I'll tell you what, I have never hustled so fucking hard in my entire life.

• 58:35Speaker 0

  It took me four weeks flat to network my way into a job that paid $55,000, and that was good enough for me because I figured I'd do odd fucking jobs for $5,000 to cover the difference. And that's how I started to find the courage to follow what was true for me. So whatever wake-up call you're having right now. Because I think you're probably realizing there's an area of your life where you are literally kind of surrounded by loud voices. Whether the loud voices are your own fear or your own story or the voices of your parents. I remember when we were going to move to Southern Vermont, and one of the things that I was really worried about is my mom and dad. Because my mother-in-law lives here, and you know, we're gonna be living close to her, and my folks are in Michigan, and I know my mother does not like the state for various reasons, and I just thought, oh God, oh God.

• 59:34Speaker 0

  And, you know, to their credit, they have been very supportive of the move, but I was on the tour with them, weighing the decision instead of being on the tour with myself. There's my dog barking. I can hear him in the background. We're up here above the garage and suddenly. And so you got to notice. When are you turning around going, what do you think? When are you realizing that you've taken all these other people on the tour with you when really you need the future you to go, no, no, no, no. Come on over here. Let's just uh kind of time travel forward. Let's consider this decision of going back to nursing school. Let's consider this decision of stopping the crying and stopping looking backwards.

• 1:00:20Speaker 0

  And we're not doing that anymore. Let's consider what it looks like if you start to like put your life back together. Let's do that. And it's not easy. I'm not saying this is an easy thing to do. I'm saying it's the thing you need to do. There's a difference between something being easy and something being right. Uh, I I noticed Jesse who uh runs video production here is starting to get all tearied eyed.

• 1:00:47Speaker 3

  Shocking. Yeah, I hearing you guys say that the these life-changing moments, these pivots that you ultimately have to make yourself, and you have to have the courage to make it yourself. I did that when I was a it was after my sophomore year in college. I was a pharmacy major. That was not my gut. I knew it going in, signing up for college. Why am I? I don't want to do, I don't want to be a pharmacist, but I'm gonna do it. This is all I know. Why was it

• 1:01:17Speaker 0

  all you knew?

• 1:01:18Speaker 3

  I worked in a pharmacy in high school. Oh counting pills after high school. I had my job at Harris Teeter grocery store, loved it. Thought, this is the only thing I know. I guess I'll be a pharmacist. So I just look back hearing you guys say that because it's like I'm just so proud of that 20, 21-year-old Jesse, who made a fucking huge pivot and was scared shitless, and I did

• 1:01:45Speaker 0

  that moment.

• 1:01:46Speaker 3

  Um it was the summer, I had to do summer school for organic chemistry too. I passed organic chemistry one. Not so much organic chemistry too, which is why I had to do summer school. And I I wasn't, I mean, I I had to take a test. I was back home for the summer, took a test, and my professor pulled me after the test and was like, I don't remember his name, but he's like, Do you really want to do this? Because you didn't, you know, you're not doing so great in class. So of course it's no, no, I don't. You called me out. Thank you. I don't want to do this. I'm not gonna understand. I can't wrap my head. Organic chemistry is so hard, period. This is just not my thing.

• 1:02:29Speaker 0

  Right.

• 1:02:30Speaker 3

  So after that, of course I sobbed. I'm going home. I've got all my books for the, I think it's the PSAT, the pharmacy school books that you take. I've been studying my ass off, trying to like make this just fit this into my life. So I I was like, I have to change my major. I don't know what I'm gonna do. So changed it um to broadcast journalism. And here I am with a now 14-year career in broadcast. And I'm just so proud of that girl. Because she did it. And I have had such an incredible career so far that I'm really proud of that is not pharmacy. It's what my heart wanted that I always knew I wanted. I didn't know anyone going after this path.

• 1:03:16Speaker 3

  I didn't know anyone who wanted to do broadcast journalism. I didn't know anyone who was gonna stay an extra semester because I changed my major.

• 1:03:27Speaker 0

  How did you know? Like, how did you find the courage, given that you were gonna have to stay an extra semester, that you didn't know anybody, that you didn't know the career path. You just felt pulled towards it. How did you find the courage to do it?

• 1:03:42Speaker 3

  Oh. I don't, I I don't, I wish I had a clear answer, but it was something that I wanted to just try.

• 1:03:51Speaker 0

  Where did you feel it in your body?

• 1:03:53Speaker 3

  Oh, in my heart, in my heart, for sure. And sure enough, when I changed my major and got like with changed all my classes and added an extra semester. I when I went back to school that fall, I was like, I'm I have to find an internship. So I found an internship with the football program. And that was just again, like, good job, kid. You did that with no one helping you. But you helped you. I was my own little tour guide.

• 1:04:17Speaker 0

  There you go. You were your own little tour guide. And I think that is a huge takeaway from this. You have to be your own tour guide in life. You have to let the future you and the heart and your what you're drawn toward go, hey, over here, leave the pack and come in this direction. And when you do that, things magically align. And I think that's the other thing that you know, Amy and I were just talking about, which is we think we're going off alone, but there's actually a whole nother group of people you're catching up to.

• 1:04:48Speaker 3

  Yes. And now some of my best friends.

• 1:04:51Speaker 0

  Yeah. You gotta, you gotta trust that. Oh my God, so cool.

• 1:04:55Speaker 3

  Thank you. Thank you guys for sharing that. It just made my heart tick a little bit. So

• 1:05:01Speaker 0

  well, I think that's the whole point of this conversation. That whether you're catching yourself from influencing somebody else, which is a big one, or you are realizing that you have been on a tour heading in the wrong direction, and it's time for you to find your future self and walk in a new direction. That's exactly what I wanted. I wanted this conversation to make your heart flutter, and this conversation to make remind you that you've done this in the past and to remind you that you can do it again and again and again and again. And it will never not require courage because it requires you to step out on your own. Beautiful.

• 1:05:47Speaker 0

  I really hope that you've gotten a lot out of this conversation because this is exactly what my vision is for our Monday episodes. Like you and I are taking a walk together. And to me, what I've learned over the course of this week and all these conversations is so powerful. We all know we need to trust our gut. That's like that's duh. The thing is how. And so takeaway number one that I want you to leave with is stop saying trust your gut and start saying I need to have the courage to make decisions that are right for me. Second, feeling, feeling, feeling. Give yourself the ability and the time and the the quiet to drop into your body and feel whether or not the decision or the direction opens up possibility, makes you feel like you're growing and thriving, it levels you up.

• 1:06:42Speaker 0

  It may be scary as hell. I mean, think about Amy's story. How the hell are you gonna like do 12 months of revenue in one month? You have you just declared that? Who the fuck does that? You do. If it feels like a part of you is opening up, there you go. There's your decision. If it feels like a part of you is shrinking, oh, I'm going here because everybody in my family went here. I'm a doctor because everybody in my family is a doctor. I live here because everybody lives here. That's not the right decision. And finally, when you do drop in and you allow yourself to step onto a tour with the future you, you're gonna feel the no first. Listen to it.

• 1:07:28Speaker 0

  You're gonna feel the yes because it feels like an opening. Find the courage. All right. I think that's all that I got. In case nobody else tells you today, I love you. I don't care where you went to college. I believe in you. I believe in your ability to tune out the noise to step onto a tour with the future you and to walk into the direction that you know is right for you. All righty. I'll see you in a few days. Go Dartmouth. Oh, one more thing. It's the legal language. This podcast is presented solely for educational and entertainment purposes. It is not intended as a substitute for the advice of a physician, professional coach, psychotherapist, or other qualified profession.

• 1:08:33Speaker 0

  Hey, it's Mel. Thank you so much for being here. If you enjoyed that video, by God, please subscribe because I don't want you to miss a thing. Thank you so much for being here. We've got so much amazing stuff coming. Thank you so much for sending this stuff to your friends and your family. I love you. We create these videos for you. So make sure you subscribe.