TRY THIS For 7 Days To NEVER BE LAZY & Stop Negative Thoughts! (Do This Daily) | Mel Robbins

Beating yourself up will not make you do the work to get healthy. And tearing yourself down over the [ __ ] that you've done or the terrible relationships that you're in, it's not going to empower you to change the patterns that are keeping you stuck. What I've come to realize and what we'll talk a lot about today is that the way that our minds are designed is our minds are designed to stop you at all costs from doing anything that might hurt you. Mhm. And the way that that that that this all happens is it all starts with something super subtle that none of us ever catch. And that is with this habit that all of us have that nobody's talking about. We all have a habit of hesitating. Mhm. We have an idea. You're sitting in a meeting. You have this incredible idea and instead of just you know, saying it you stop and you hesitate. Now what none of us realize is that when you hesitate, just that moment, that micro that small hesitation it sends a stress signal to your brain. It wakes your brain up and your brain all of a sudden goes, oh, whoop, wait a minute. What what What Why is he hesitating? He didn't hesitate when he put on his killer spiky sneakers. He didn't hesitate with the really cool track pants. He didn't hesitate with the NASA t-shirt. Now he's hesitating to talk, something must be up. So then your brain goes to work to protect you. It has a million different ways to protect you. One of them's called the spotlight effect. It's a known phenomenon where your brain magnifies risk. Why? To pull you away from something that it perceives to be a problem. And so you can truly trace every single problem or complaint in your life to silence and hesitation. Those are decisions. And what I do and what's changed my life is waking up and realizing that motivation's garbage. I'm never going to feel like doing the things that are tough or difficult or uncertain or scary or new. So I I to stop waiting until I feel like it. And number two, I am one decision away from a totally different marriage, a totally different life, a totally different job, a totally different income, a totally different uh relationship with my kids. Not like one decision, I'm divorcing you in in the marriage example, but one decision on You know, you could be having a conversation with your spouse and you feel your emotions rise up and within a tiny window, those emotions can take over and can impact how your marriage goes. Or you can learn how to take control of that micro moment and make a decision to act in a way that actually shifts your marriage. Your life comes down to your decisions. And if you change your decisions, you will change everything. Yeah, I mean, that that core concept comes through so powerfully in your book, um which is phenomenal. And I would love it if you would take a second to tell people the story of how And by the way, I wore the NASA shirt because of the Is that why you wore it? Oh my god, I'm like falling my glasses off. That is I did not even get that. I was going to ask you why you wore that shirt. Oh my gosh. Wow. You actually do your homework. Of course, Mel. Absolutely. Okay, so um let me just take you back. So so what what you're talking about is the five second rule, which has become literally my life's work. And it was all a gigantic mistake. I I read up on you, too, and understand how Quest like was born out of misery. The five second rule and my life now and my 20-year marriage and everything that I'm doing and the companies that I've built and sold and the company I'm building now, it all comes back to a point in my life that completely and utterly blew. I was 41 years old. I was unemployed. Um my husband had um started a restaurant business, which was his dream. This is actually a funny story. When he he got laid off from a big job in high-tech, and I think he was really relieved. You know how a lot of us wait to quit our jobs, and then we get laid off, and we're like, "Yes." Um and he said, "I'm not going to look for a job. I'm going to go into the restaurant business." And I think I said the most famous lines of our marriage at that point. I looked at him, and I said, "Listen, buddy. Inspiration is for strangers. You get your butt back to that job, and you pay the mortgage." And um again, micro moment where I'm being a jerk instead of being a supportive wife, but that's an example of where when he said he was not going to go get a job, but he was going to start a business, the first thing that was there was fear. And so, fear was making the decision for me. I love that you can share that though. That's so powerful. Well, so what happened is he the first restaurant was a home run, and of course, what do you do when things are successful? You grow it. Mhm. Grow it really big. And so, they decided to raise some money, and we threw in our home equity line, the kids' college savings. They tried to open a second and a third, and at the same point, a grocery store chain encouraged them to go into wholesale. So, it basically got way too big, way too fast, and the wheels started to come off. And they came off so badly that the second restaurant failed, and they held onto it for too long, like a lot of us do. It's another trick our brains play on us called sunk costs. When you throw a ton of time and a ton of money at something, it's really hard to let go of it. And if you haven't done it in business, we all have a relationship in our past stayed way too long, that was a trick your brain played on you. Um so, by the time that they closed the second restaurant, it was an $800,000 loss. Ooh. I don't I I mean, that meant our entire home equity line gone. Right. It meant um kids' college I get just choked up just thinking about how terrifying it was. And so, I found myself at the age of 41 like just feeling like a complete failure. And so did Chris. And to make it worse, not only had we lost all of our savings, but so many friends and family members had invested. And so, there was this real tension between the truth of what was happening and what you had to do in public because it was a public business. Shame, failure, embarrassment, and the lean started to hit the house. The phone started to ring, and it was nothing but collection calls. And I just remember feeling this tremendous shame. And at some point, I think we all hit that moment in life where things just are not going how you thought they would go. And And what's amazing about those moments is we all respond very differently. So, my husband, he would spring out of bed, and he would head right out that door 6:00 in the morning, and he would go meet his partner, and they would go to the bank, and they would dig right in, and they would face their problems head-on. And I He's also a smart guy. I mean, he did not want to be in the house when yours truly woke up cuz I was a raging [ __ ] at that point in our lives. And the reason why is because when you're scared and you're afraid and you're jealous and you're overwhelmed with emotion, it is so much easier to point the finger at other people. That's a decision, by the way. Sure. One you may not be aware that you're making, but you're still making it. So, what would happen to me is the exact opposite is is Chris would be gone, the alarm would go off at 6:00 in the morning, and I would lie there. And I would think about the lean on the house, and I would think about the uh bankruptcy that we were facing, and I would think about how much we had fought the night before, and I would think about the fact that I was unemployed, and I would hit the snooze button. I mean, why would you get up when your life is like that? Why would you? I mean, I needed confidence. I needed courage. I was so tapped out. And and you know, in the scheme of life, hitting the snooze button is not that big of a deal. But here's the thing about life. None of us wake up and say, "Today is the day I destroy my life." What we do is we kind of check out because it feels overwhelming. Or we check out because we're afraid. Or we check out because we start listening to self-doubt. And then we make these teeny, tiny decisions all day long. We don't even realize it. Decision to not get up on time. A decision to not eat the right thing. A decision to snap at your kids. A decision to not speak in a meeting. A decision to not look for a job. A decision to not deal with your finances. A decision to not call your parent like whatever it is. All day long, these tiny decisions that take you so far off track. And then you wake up like I did and and you you look at your life and you think, "How the hell did I get here? And more importantly, how do we get back over there?" And you have no idea. And so, I was so trapped. And I know from your story, you felt the same way. Like you knew that there was more in store for you. But you couldn't figure out how do you close that gap? How do you find the power that's in you? How do you discover your greatness? How do you solve these problems? It feels so overwhelming. When you can't I mean, I would go to the grocery store and and the items would scan and I would be sitting there readying my excuse because there was no way that my check card was going to clear. Wow. So, um what ha- I I got in the struggle with myself that a lot of us find ourselves in. And that is you get trapped in what I call the knowledge-action gap. You know what to do, but you can't seem to make yourself do it. Right? I mean, every one of us is one Google search away from a list of instructions that if you follow any of them, it will change your life. But how do you get out of your head and stop thinking about what you need to do and actually do it? And in my case, this stuff was pretty easy. Get up on time. Make breakfast for the kids. Get them on the bus. Start looking for a job. Be nicer to Chris. Don't drink so much. Instead of isolating yourself, pick up the phone and call a friend. Get yourself out into the woods and go for a walk. Start running again. Like all these little things that I was capable of, but I couldn't get out of here. Could not get out of here. And if if if you're stuck, that's the problem. The problem is you're you're in your head. You're thinking. That is the universal problem, and it all starts with this knowledge of what to do, and then you hesitate and you think about whether or not you feel like doing it. So, for a couple months I was I was really stuck. I I would Chris would get up at 6:00. I'd hit the snooze, and then I'd hit the snooze, and then I'd hit the snooze. The kids would miss the bus. And then every night I'd do the same thing. I'd I'd go in bed. Have you ever had one of those nights? Probably before you started your company, but it where you go in bed and you're like, "All right, Tom, that's it. Tomorrow, it's the new me." Tomorrow. Tomorrow, I'm going to get up on time. I am going to go to the gym. I am going to look for a job. I'm not going to drink so much. It's going to be amazing. The new me, the future me. Woo! Let's do this, right? Then you go to bed, and you wake up 7 hours later, and you're like, you I don't feel like the new me. It's the old who That's a stupid See, motivation's garbage. It's never there when you need it. Ever. Ever, ever, ever. And so, here's what happened to me. And thank you for wearing the NASA t-shirt. Of course. It's a really stupid story. It's a powerful story. So, one night, Chris had gone to bed. I'd been struggling, struggling, struggling. We still had all the same problems. I We still had a lien on the house, still facing bankruptcy, still fighting like crazy. I was still unemployed. He still They still hadn't figured out like the solution yet for the business. And I was about to turn off the TV, and there on the the TV, there was this rocket launching. And I thought, "Oh my gosh. That is it. I am going to launch myself out of bed like a rocket ship, like NASA, right here, had launched me out of that bed. And I'm going to move so fast that I don't think. Mhm. I'm going to beat my brain. Now, here's a really interesting point. Um I talk a lot about your instincts and inner wisdom. And we can get into this a little bit later, but a lot of us talk about the fact that you have a gut feeling. But what all this research that I've done for the book and and all the speaking that I do, what I've discovered that's fascinating is actually, when you set goals, when you have an intention on something that you want to change about your life, your brain helps you. What it does is it opens up a checklist. And then your brain goes to work trying to remind you Yeah. of that intention that you set. And it's really important to develop the skill. And I I say that word purposefully, the skill of knowing how to hear that inner wisdom and that intention kicking in. And leaning into it quickly. So, for me, my brain's saying, "That's it, right there. Move as fast as a rocket, Mel. I wanted to change my life. And I think most people that are miserable or that are that are really like dying to be great and dying to have more, we want to change. We want to live a better life. We want to create more for our families. We want to be happier. The the desire is there. Again, it's about how do you go from knowledge to action? So, the first thing in the story that's important is realizing that the answer was in me. And my mind was telling me, "Pay attention." Could have also been the bourbon. I had had a couple of Manhattans that night, but Anyway, the next morning the alarm goes off and um I pretended NASA was there. It's the stupidest story. I literally went 5 4 3 2 1. I counted out loud and then I stood up. And I I'll never forget standing there in my bedroom. It was dark. It was cold. It was winter in Boston. And for the first time in 3 months I had beaten my habit of hitting the snooze button. I couldn't believe it and I thought, "Wait a minute. Counting backwards? That is the dumbest thing I've ever heard in my entire life." Well, the next morning I used it again and it worked. The next morning I used it again and it worked. The next morning I used it again and it worked. And then I started to notice something really interesting. There were moments all day long all day long just like that 5-second moment in bed where I knew knowledge what I should do. And if I didn't move within 5 seconds my brain would step in and talk me out of it. Every human being has a 5-second window. Might even be shorter for you. You have about a 5-second window in which you can move from idea to action before your brain kicks into full gear and sabotages any change in behavior. Cuz remember, your brain is wired to stop you from doing things that are uncomfortable or uncertain or scary. It's your job to learn how to move from those ideas that could change everything into acting on them in the smallest moment. All right, my friend. I have a big announcement. My incredible and talented wife Lisa is about to launch her new book, Radical Confidence. In it, she has managed to perfectly capture the process of how to go from feeling lost and insecure to taking control of your life and doing amazing things despite feeling fear, sometimes a lot of fear. Now, let me tell you, nobody knows Lisa better than me, but when I read Radical Confidence for the first time and heard her describe what it was like for her to go from having these big, exciting dreams as a kid to then as an adult scheduling her life around the TV shows that she wanted to watch or how lonely and isolated she felt instead of pursuing her dreams, it was brutal for me. I would never say though that it was worth it for her to go through all of that just so that she could write something down that allows others to avoid it, but I will say that at least she was able to capture the strategies that she used to break out of that rut, find her voice, and begin doing incredible things despite her insecurities and fears that she wasn't going to be good enough to achieve great things. Order your copy today because if you act now, you can claim the bonuses that Lisa has created for you at radicalconfidence.com. Then, once you've done that, we'll get back to today's episode. All right, guys, read the book and get ready to be the hero of your own life. Peace out. And for anyone right now at home who's thinking like this sounds too simple, too easy, talk a bit about your community cuz reading some of their comments, it is it's crazy how many people like the sheer volume of people you quote in your book, but if you also go online and just look at the people that are like directly reaching out to you, it it is an avalanche of people that have stories around the 5-second rule. Well, one of the reasons why I'm so excited about this book, and look, you don't have to buy the book. This is an idea that you can use. It's free. It's backed by science. More than 8 million people around the world have discovered it. And, you know, you're talking about the number of people we've heard from more than 100,000 people in 80 countries that are using this rule. We know of 11 people who have stopped themselves from killing themselves using this rule. I I saw one of those while I was reaching out. there was a guy, Steve, that wrote to us who was a veteran. He was suffering from post-traumatic stress disorder. He boarded a ferry overseas with the intention to jump over. He walked over to the railing. Gave me the chills. And his inner wisdom kicked in. In that moment, the 5-second rule, 5-4-3-2-1, counting backwards, moved away from the railing, asked for help, saved his life. His story has inspired countless other people that have heard me in the speeches that I give around the world about this one tool. And so, you know, the thing the the thing that's so cool about this, and and I should tell you the science behind it, because I'm going to be honest with you. It is stupid. Had I ever thought that I would find myself 8 years after discovering it, spending my days telling people about the 5-second rule? First of all, I would have picked a different name, because it reminds you of the one where you have to like pick up food within 5 seconds off the floor, right? Um it was my secret weapon. This was something I did. I never intended to tell anybody. Because I went from getting up on time and waking up on time to shaking up my entire life. Because when you understand the power of a 5-second decision, and you understand that you always have a choice to go from autopilot to decision maker, everything in your life will change. You will be a different negotiator. You will be different in sales. You will will unstoppable in the gym, because you will realize the amount of garbage that you put in the way of your hopes, of your dreams, of your potential, of your confidence, of your courage. Everything comes down to the decisions that you make. We all know what to do. None of us know how to make ourselves do it. So, um I started researching it. Why does something so stupid work? Why? Why does something so silly create such powerful and profound change? Well, here's why. The rule is a form of metacognition. Metacognition is a fancy-pants terms that means something real simple. You can outsmart your own brain in furtherance of goals. I agree. There are tricks that you can use that actually outsmart the tricks your brain plays on you. In furtherance of a higher purpose. We all know this. You can You can restrain yourself if you're in a situation that calls for it. You can jump into a raging river to save your dog or your kid. You can direct yourself in ways if it's important to you. And so, the rule, what it does is it does something really remarkable. When you count backwards, 5 4 3 2 1, what you're actually doing is you're interrupting what researchers call habit loops that get encoded as as closed-loop patterns in your basal ganglia. That's the part of the brain where your feelings, where your emotions, every habit that you have, which is nothing more than behavior that you repeat that you don't even think about. I've heard it referred to as a gearbox. It's a shift your attention from one thing And so, when you go 5 4 3 2 1, it interrupts what's going on here that's spinning without you thinking, and it moves and awakens your prefrontal cortex. So, when you hit one, your habit has been interrupted. So, you've interrupted self-doubt. You've interrupted maybe snapping at your kids. You've interrupted the desire to grab for a drink. You've interrupted uh procrastination. You've also, by counting backwards, done an action. It's awakened your prefrontal cortex. That is the part of the brain that you need that's awake when you're changing behavior, when you're learning new things. When you hit one, it's also a prompt. So, in the language of research, uh you'll hear people talk about um starting rituals. That is that is something that's proven to help you learn a new habit. The 5-second rule, when you repeat it, becomes a starting ritual that triggers you to act with confidence. That triggers you that this is a moment for courage. That triggers you to shift gears. And because you've also done the manual work of awakening the part of the brain that you need to change, you've set yourself up for success. It doesn't work if you count up cuz you can keep going. And also, counting up doesn't require focus. If you count backwards, 5-4-3-2-1, it again awakens the prefrontal cortex and it prompts you to move. When you start to use it and then you read about it, you'll see that that it's being used all over the place. They use it in the armed services in order to align troops and get them to start an exercise. They use it in elementary schools, 5-4-3-2-1, at big assemblies to get a huge room full of kids to stop talking. and interesting example, yeah. Because it requires you to focus. It's not a habit. It will become a habit that prompts you to have confidence, courage. But in the beginning, it interrupts patterns of behavior that you do on autopilot. It helps you assert control and it teaches you how to become the kind of person that moves from thinking about something to actually doing it. It's incredible. So, there's so many things in that story. And guys, I'm telling you, it's um you're going to love the depth of brain research that is put in the book. It's really quite extraordinary. You really have a an amazing grasp of the brain and it really really came through in the book. And for me it was a a wonderful balancing act between the just raw emotion of the people writing in and some of the stories that you're sharing, and you know, the imagery of the rocket ship, which, you know, I mean, you're you're very open about it's sort of a silly visual metaphor, but because it's effective, that silliness is somewhat irrelevant. What's incredible is in 5 seconds flat, self-doubt can take over and rob you of your power, and rob you of joy, and rob you of of your potential. Or, in 5 seconds flat, you can actually use one stupid little trick to push yourself to grab it. What I loved in the book is because you paint the picture so very well, you're also just a good writer. So, you paint the picture like I could feel the crisp, you know, winter air of Boston like stalking you out of the, you know, the under the comforter. And so, I could really feel that I was there with you, you know, as as Chris's business is struggling, and so, you really feel all of that. And so, the moment when you do the countdown, you spring out of bed, and you're almost like taking yourself by surprise, and you're like moving before you realize it, and then but you're reading it from the perspective of I already knew who you were. So, it was I get me the chills. It was more difficult to picture you as stuck than it was to know I know where she goes, right? I'd already seen the TED Talk by the time I read the book. I knew what you were doing from a media perspective. I knew how many people and companies you'd helped. So, for me it was like watching it in reverse. So, I'm watching it from the safety of I know she crushes it. So, if this is the thing, and I love that this isn't your first book, like this was the secret that you planned to like keep hidden in the drawer forever. Oh, yeah, I was not going to tell anybody cuz it was stupid, and it also works, and so, it's my thing. Is it your thing? And but see, the real thing that happened for me, and this is this is something that that um is a really important topic for me is that there's a there's when you talk about personality so extroverts introverts a lot of us really I know I did this I was all wrong about what confidence meant. I thought confidence was a personality trait. I love this. Tell me more. I thought that people that are outgoing are the confident ones, right? And the truth is confidence is not a personality trait at all. It's a skill. And a lot of the extroverted people that you know are actually very insecure. I used to be one of them. I used to be the kind of bossy crass loudmouth that didn't believe in myself, that didn't believe in my ideas, that didn't have the confidence and the courage to really be the real me. Right. Who I am, who I'm not, flaws and all. There are tremendous number of introverted people that feel uncomfortable putting the attention on themselves, but they're very very confident in their ideas. They definitely believe in themselves. And so when you start to separate confidence not as a matter of personality but as a skill that you can acquire because confidence is the ability to move, in my opinion, from thought to action. Mhm. Because when you're a confident person, you believe enough in yourself and your capabilities that you're willing to try. That you're willing to share. To me confidence isn't the assuredness that it turns out, it's the willingness to try. And and that was a huge insight for me and and what a lot of people don't know about me, although I I share this on stage and I'm extremely open about this cuz this is a a topic that's really important to me is that the single most profound use of the five-second rule is mind control. And I say that as a lawyer. Mhm. I will tell you you can use this stupid trick to cure yourself of anxiety. Yeah, I wanted to talk about that. So, you struggled very profoundly with anxiety. So, walk us through like some nuts and bolts of how you use the 5-second rule cuz I think we're So, my hypothesis and the reason we founded Impact Theory is that the world is living through two pandemics, the pandemic of the body, which everybody understands cuz it's so visual, Yep. being overweight, dying of um diet-related diseases such as diabetes and things like that, but because the second pandemic, the pandemic of the mind, is invisible, um people don't realize how pervasive um a suicide is and that it's I think it's the leading cause of death among young men. I mean, it's crazy. Uh and then that there are ways that they can go about attacking that and fixing the problem. So, Yeah. walk us through that. Sure, I would love to. Um so, first of all, I literally have struggled with anxiety my entire life. And anxiety for this conversation, the way I define it, is it is habit of worrying Mhm. spiraled out of control. You know, you may say that you are a worrier, that's not true. You have a habit of worrying. A habit is a pattern of behavior or thinking that you repeat without realizing it. So, anxiety happens when that pattern of worrying about things spirals out of control and now it starts to marry and manifest itself with physical sensations, too. That's all that it is. I know that I say that's all that it is. Me, personally, I struggled with anxiety uh I think my entire life. It became quite acute when I was in my late teens and early 20s. I became medicated in the middle of law school. I took Zoloft for two decades. When our first daughter was born, who is now 17, the postpartum depression and the cascading panic was so terrible that not only was I medicated and couldn't breastfeed, but I couldn't be left alone with her. Wow. So, when I say you can cure yourself of anxiety, I don't say that lightly. Mhm. 4 years ago, after I'd been using the 5 Second Rule to change my behavior, how I spoke to my husband, how I negotiate in business meetings, how I conduct sales, the kind of parent that I am, my health habits, my eating habits, curbing the drinking, um I thought, "I wonder if I can use this 5-4-3-2-1 thing to get control of my thought patterns." Not my behavior patterns, my thought patterns. Yes, you can. Huh. So, we're going to we're going to build this conversation, cuz I want to start with something we can all uh relate to, and that is how do you stop worrying? And how do you stop listening to self-doubt? This is how you're going to do it. So, all day long, you're going to have moments where your thoughts drift, and I use that word on purpose, because for me, there is a physical sensation when you start to use the 5 Second Rule, and you start to wake up, Mhm. not only on time in the morning, but you wake up to your life and the opportunities in your life. There's your thoughts drift. Like, you'll just be hanging out with your friends, and then suddenly you're like, "I'm not sure that that person likes me anymore, you know, I haven't heard from my kids lately. I wonder if they're dead, or you know, oh, you know, it's like check like you just start worrying about stuff." Why? Because it's a habit. Because when you're not paying attention, your brain shifts from you being a decision maker and paying attention to you just kind of spinning things on autopilot, and one of your habits is worrying. The second you wake up and you notice, "Holy cow, I'm talking some negative garbage to myself right now." Mhm. 5-4-3-2-1. You've just shifted the part of the brain that you're using. You've shifted from the basal ganglia, which is where your habit loops are spinning, and you've awakened your prefrontal cortex. You've also interrupted that pattern. Now, what you're going to do, because your mind is actually ready to receive a different thought because of the counting. Now you can put in an anchor thought. Like if you have a mantra, if you've got a vision about the way that your business is going to turn out in 5 years, if you just have a thought that makes you really happy and proud, insert that. Now, why does this work? It works because of the counting. And I'm not kidding. We know, based on research, that positive thinking alone not effective. In some instances, trying to force yourself to think positive can actually make the worries worse. Why? Well, the reason why is because it's really hard to just change the channel. What we have to do first is basically interrupt it and turn off the TV and then turn it back on with the prefrontal cortex awakened. So, the counting is essential. And so, you can start using this today. You catch yourself talking garbage to yourself, because we all know if I were to put a speaker on your head and broadcast, you'd be sitting here in the audience, you'd be in an insane asylum, because the crap that you say to yourself is insane. And the problem is we listen to it. You'll be you'll be in a sales meeting and you'll be undermining yourself. They're not going to buy. Oh my gosh, I'm in trouble. You're not even present. 5 4 3 2 1, switch it back. Get back to that vision that you have about toasting your success or this customer being happy or you being proud of yourself. Whatever that vision may be, you can control your thoughts and this is not just us talking about it. This is a tool that you can use. I started to get back all of the objections that people had to doing it. And they're [ __ ] sad, Tom. And this gets to the heart of why I think so many people are stuck. One of the biggest objections that people had to standing in front of the mirror, take a moment, look at yourself, and then raise your hand. As people said over and over and over again, I haven't done anything worthy of high fiving. High fiving feels like a celebration. I don't have the number on the scale that I want. I don't like my bank account. I don't enjoy what I do for a living. I've made a shitload of mistakes. I'm struggling with trauma. I don't have anything to celebrate. And what I realized is people are making a fundamental mistake. You are withholding the very support, empowerment, and celebration that you need to change and to do the hard work and to face the things that you're scared of. And that's why you're not changing. This is so interesting. So, I'm going to push you on this. I'm super curious cuz one of the things I love about you is you're so blunt and honest about, "Hey, if you want to have self-worth, you have to do things you are worthy." I'm a huge proponent of that. And yet I do recognize that you have to let yourself off the hook to really get started. So, how do you help people anchor on something? Is it just, "Hey, it's the [ __ ] neurochemistry of the situation. You have to do it." Yeah. Pretty much. Because if you can't stand in front of the mirror and raise your hand and high five yourself just because you got your ass out of bed and you're breathing, you will never get what you want in life. Ever. There is something in the resistance to it. And if you unpack the resistance, you will find the reason why you don't have what you want. You either think you're not worthy of it or you think that it's kind of stupid or you have been brought up to believe that for women in particular, you're going to be [ __ ] or selfish or not likable if you're celebrating yourself. There is something in the resistance to you simply cheering for yourself. So, talk to the person though that So, as of right now, they they really believe the world has shown them that they aren't worthy. It's not like they question it, they know it to be true. Yeah. How do you help people cuz I recognize that as a lie or even if it's true, it's useless. But, how do you help people out of that moment? So, the first thing that I would say is how is treating yourself as if you're unworthy helping you? Like, let's just get strategic and common sense about it. Is the negative [ __ ] you're saying and the support that you're withholding helping you feel better? If it's not, try this. Try celebrating yourself 5 days in a row. Literally, try starting your day by waking up and raising your hand and high-fiving yourself in the mirror just because you're breathing and see what happens. Uh we have a a woman that wrote to us who's in a domestic violence shelter. Oof. She's lost everything. She's been in abusive relationships. She has a tremendous amount of childhood trauma. She is doing the high-five habit and here's what she had to say about it. I have nothing right now. I have a tremendous amount of evidence from my life that I have [ __ ] everything up. But, you know what this high-five habit is showing me? I still have me. I can have my own back. I can be here for myself. The world has told me and convinced me that I can't, but every morning when I stand here and I stare at myself in the mirror and I raise my hand in defiance of all the [ __ ] that's happened to me, I keep going. I am saying I believe in myself. And when you have that small reversal, that small act of defiance, and that's what it is. If you're like heavy and you're eating emotionally or you're feeding your trauma, when you raise your hand and celebrate yourself even though you don't like what you look like, it's an act of [ __ ] defiance to all the stuff that you have survived in your life. And the best part about it, you don't have to [ __ ] say anything. And you know, the reason why this is so important is most mantras are complete [ __ ] because you don't believe it. You know, it's There's a huge We all know we need to accept ourselves. We all know we need to love ourselves, but how? How do you do it to your point when you have a bunch of evidence stacked up that you failed or reasons that you see that make you feel like you've blown it or you're not worthy of it. I'll tell you how. You freaking raise your hand and high-five yourself anyway. Because beating yourself up will not make you do the work to get healthy. And tearing yourself down over the [ __ ] that you've done or the terrible relationships that you're in, it's not going to empower you to change the patterns that are keeping you stuck. But raising your hand in an act of defiance or a [ __ ] you to the past that you survived and saying, "I'm still here." Which means I still have a shot to change my life. That is what this means. There's another thing that you talk about in the book that I think ties to this really well, which is the reticular activating system, the RAS. Mhm. And you have this thing uh which you say you look for the hearts. Yes. And it's really an interesting psychological principle of you're going to see what you look for. Yes. And whether that's a red Mazda or whatever you say in the book or whether that's a heart when you're walking around, whether that's a reason to love your wife, whatever. Um if you look for it, you're going to find it. And if it's a problem and a reason that you're, you know, a dirtbag and a reason that you're not worthy and all of that, you're going to see them and they will be there for you and they will overwhelm you. What is this idea of looking for hearts? What is that and how do people use it? Okay, so I love this tool cuz obviously the high five in the mirror, it's like a Trojan horse. It's the beginning of building this partnership with yourself. And throughout the book, I then unpack all these other little tools and habits that you can use that are in this lane of empowerment, support, belief in self. The book and I want to take a second to point this out. The book is rich with a bunch of other ideas. So anybody that's tempted to say, "Okay, well I've already heard the high five myself and I'm done." You did a really good job of the and to be honest, I'm not even sure I guess because it was what unlocked things for you in your life, but there's like 15 things that you could have titled the book after. Yeah. Um so anyway, back to this. So the reticular activity system, the RAS for short. Um for if you don't know what it is, picture a hairnet over your brain that is a live network. And the RAS is a filter and it has a huge job. And it is a filter that blocks out 99% of the world and lets in about, you know, 0.000000001%. And it is always changing. There are only four things, Tom, that get through the hairnet on your head. The sound of your name and you've experienced this because you've been walking through a crowd and you're like, "Did somebody say my name?" Right? Cocktail party effect. Cocktail party effect. The second thing that gets through is any sort of threat. So if you hear a loud noise and you go like this. There are lots of noises you didn't hear, but the loud one you kind of duck because it's a threat. The third thing is when your partner is interested in sex with either you or someone else. That's why you're like, "Why are you checking that person out?" right? You know because the brain is letting that information in. The fourth thing and this is where the transformation begins. Your brain will let in anything that it believes is important to you. The Ziegarnik effect is the documented fact that when something is important to you, and I'll explain what that means, your brain opens up a checklist in your mind. And now your brain, once it puts this item on your checklist, it will store the checklist in your subconscious. It's encoded in your RAS. And your mind is now on the alert to spot things related to it. The way that you make yourself feel like something is important is your nervous system goes on alert while you're thinking about it. You're either super excited about something, oh, this is super important, or this is the trauma effect. You go on alert and you have something really bad happen, which is why things continue to bring it up throughout the rest of your life. So, when you understand that if something's important to you, your filter will change in real time, how you see the [ __ ] world. You now know how to change your brain to work for you. And looking for hearts is the way I'm going to prove to you that this happens. I want to give you one other example cuz everybody's experienced this. If you've ever gone shopping for a new car or you've dreamt about having a new car, what happens immediately when you get excited about that new car is your mind goes Ziegarnik effect, oops, okay, Tom wants the new Bronco. That's cool. So, what do you see now? You see Broncos everywhere. Now, they were always there, but your mind is letting them in because the Ziegarnik effect is now mated on a checklist, it's changed the RAS. And so, I'm going to prove to you that it is unbelievably cool that you can change the way that you view the world by looking for heart-shaped objects. So, tomorrow when you wake up, you're going to start your day by high-fiving yourself in the mirror. I want you to examine what the resistance about because you're going to start to then be able to unpacked what's holding you back. Then you're going to go out in the world and just like tell your mind, I want to see a heart today. Look for a rock. Look for a leaf. Look in your like latte. Is there a little shape there? Is there an oil stain on the floor? And when you see one, stop and go, "Shit. I I just I like there's a scavenger hunt. I never would have seen that before. Thank you, brain." Now your brain's like, "Woo, more hearts." You will start to see hearts everywhere. And when you can start to train your brain and realize, "Whoa, this is actually a cool thing. This is high-fiving your mind." When you can see hearts, you can now go, "Wait a minute. If I can change what I see based on what I tell it, maybe if I got serious about not constantly saying I'm a failure, I wouldn't attach that or see it everywhere. Maybe if I got serious about saying, "I can figure anything out. This is happening for a reason." Instead of "I'm fucked." You say, "Okay, I'm going to learn something with this." It changes the way your brain filters everything. And this is such an important piece to the book because we've all had the experience where you love somebody deeply and you see all their incredible attributes, and all they see is failure. Or all they see is the weight that they can't lose. And it doesn't matter what you say. It doesn't matter what kind of pep talk or support you give them. Your loved one still only sees what they hate about themselves. Blame the filter in your brain. You have been bitching about your appearance or the weight on your scale, the fact that you're a failure for so long, your brain believes it's important to you to see reasons why this is true. And one of the things I got to say about this and everything in the book is the tools are simple, Tom. But it's super important to say, just because you change and start celebrating yourself, it's not going to make the weight disappear suddenly. It doesn't change the number on the scale overnight. What it changes is you. And that changes your ability to deal with the problems and the issues you want to change in your life. Hello, my friend. You know that I believe success requires you to see failure as the ultimate learning tool. Success requires you to be disciplined and gritty and to never ever quit on your dreams. I say all of that because one thing is certain, the road to achieving your goal is not smooth or linear. I wish it was, but it's not. It's going to be bumpy, sometimes scary. Some days you'll take two steps forward and slide 10 steps back. And that's why success also requires you to know how to pull yourself out of a rut and get unstuck fast. Life is short. You can't be messing around with your goals. You've got to make progress every single day. So, I've pulled a class from Impact Theory University called how to get unstuck, which you can watch for free with the link on your screen or by clicking below. When you join me for that free preview of that workshop from Impact Theory University, I'm going to teach you my strategy for how to understand exactly where you need to be going, how to identify the obstacle that's blocking you and the best way to make the most progress towards that goal and keep your momentum. All right, click that link and let's get to work. All right, I'll see you on the inside. You have some really uh counterintuitive ideas, bold stances on things, which I found incredibly interesting. One of them is jealousy. And that not to just reject that stuff offhand, but that there's actually information carried in those strong emotions. Jealousy is one of the most powerful directional signals on the planet. Because you're only jealous of people that are doing things or have things that you actually want. It's impossible to be fake jealous. Whatever you're jealous of is hitting something deeply personal. [ __ ] pay attention to it. Instead of stewing in it, go, "Oh, flip it." That's interesting. I wonder why I'm jealous. What is it about it? Oh, it's that they're doing it consistently. It's that they've built a team. It's that they've aligned their work together so that they're spending more time together. Huh, how could I take those things that I'm really now really inspired by and take action and go get them in my life? Because the thing about jealousy is it's just your inspiration that's blocked. Jealousy is sort of the insecurity that you have that blocks this inspiration. I guarantee you, back to the Uber driver, he's jealous of all the other actors earning Oscars. Because he's so inspired by the thought of doing that in his own life, but his insecurity is blocking action. His fear is blocking action. So, instead of it being inspiration, it shows up as jealousy. And I'm here to tell you, the second you feel jealousy, freaking stop. Okay, let's unpack that. What exactly is it about it? And now, if I were inspired by it, because there's enough success to go around for everybody, if I can use that as a road map to then go figure out how I might be able to do that for myself, wow. Talk about a game changer. And now let's add in the high five. What if every time I took a little step, I celebrated myself for just doing it? Now you're building small wins and momentum in a direction that's meant for you. That's how you change your life. If you let it go unchecked, what will happen is you will get used to worrying. You will get used to living in a state where you're slightly agitated all the time. Let me talk a little bit about agitation. So, what we know based on research is that physically, in your body, so physiologically, being excited is the exact same thing as being afraid. Let me say that again, cuz it is so important. In your body, being excited is the exact same thing as being afraid. Your body doesn't know the damn difference. Your heart races, your armpits sweat, you're like, you know, you may get tight in your throat. You may your cheeks may get pink like mine do when I get excited. The only difference between excitement and fear is what your brain says. And the problem is if you have a habit of worrying, guess what you're going to tell yourself is going on? That you're that you're like freaking out, that you're not excited, that something must be wrong. Oh gosh, why would you say something's wrong? Cuz you got a habit of saying that all the time. Even as I became a a speaker for a living or I'd be on CNN, when I first started doing it, I would be freaking out backstage. But even even though, like, you know, just a couple just last week, you standing backstage, about to go on, 8,000 people, heart races, armpits sweat, you know, my hands get clammy. I'm not nervous, though. Not at all. I'm excited. And so, I developed this technique and research out of Harvard, not based on my technique, but something very similar, proves that if you basically, right before you're about to do something, take a test, run a race, public speaking, a business negotiation, ask somebody to marry you, whatever it may be that gets your heart racing, just do this. Go, "I'm excited." I'm excited to give that speech. I'm excited to ask him or her. I'm excited to do this race. I'm excited. Because what happens is you give your brain context, so your brain doesn't escalate the stuff going on in your body. Your brain's not worried. Make sense? Yeah, yeah, yeah. So, you can combine this with the 5-second rule. So, we know how to do worrying. You catch You catch your thoughts drift. 5 4 3 2 1, anchor thought. If you start to feel your heart racing, 5 4 3 2 1 to awaken the prefrontal cortex, and then start going, "I'm really excited to do this. I'm really excited to do this." Another technique that you can use is ask um I think they call it interrogat- interrogatory questions, where instead of giving yourself a pep talk, say, "Well, why am I ready to do this? Why am I ready?" Because that'll force you to answer the question, which then convinces you. So, why am I ready to close this sale? Why am I ready to give this speech? Why am I ready? So, those are two strategies that you can use backed by science that are proven to actually make your performance be much better. Now, let's take it a step further to anxiety. So, anxiety is what happens when the habit of worrying spins out of control, your body gets really agitated, and then you allow your mind to escalate it into a full-blown panic attack. So, for those of you that have not had the pleasure of having a panic attack, let me um explain what it's like. So, if you're ever in your car and you're driving down the road and you go to change lanes, and all of a sudden there's like, "Oh my god, there's a car right there." Right? And you swerve a little bit, and then your heart's like and you may sweat a little bit, and and you grip the wheel really tight, and you're super locked in on on the road ahead of you. But then that car pulls away, and the the the near miss scenario passes, and your mind starts going, "Okay, you're all right now. Right. You're all right now. That's it. That's all That's what a panic attack is. Only it happens while you're standing in front of your coffee pot. Seriously, you have that same Oh my god, what is that behind the and your heart's racing and and the problem for your brain is that your brain can't look around and say, "Holy cow, we almost got hit by a car." Right. Your brain's saying, "What the hell is wrong with her? She's making coffee and she's freaking out." And so now your brain is a problem cuz what's your brain's job? It's designed to protect you. Mhm. So your brain will now do whatever it can to magnify the problem. Remember we talked about the spotlight effect? It'll start telling you all kinds of crazy stuff cuz it can't figure out contextually what the hell's going on. She's just making coffee, now her heart is rating racing and she's breathing really Holy cow, maybe she is having a heart attack. A lot of people that have panic attacks say, "I think I'm dying. Oh my god, what's what's happening?" Or you'll see them do the deer in the headlights thing where they got to get out of the room. That is the spotlight effect in your brain now taking control and magnifying everything to get you out of whatever it was. So here's how you use the 5-second rule. You use it to stabilize your thoughts before the panic escalates. And then what happens is it drifts into worry and then it disappears. Right. So the second you feel worry, you catch it, you train yourself to do that. If you start feeling yourself getting, you know, your heart racing, you can 5-4-3-2-1 and use the I'm excited, I'm excited. Um if you if that doesn't work, literally 5-4-3-2-1 and just give yourself an anchor thought, literally, of you being okay. I'll give you another quick example cuz this is one that we have a tremendous number of success with and people that hear the example use it immediately and are blown away. I used to be be of flying. Terrified. Every bump I'd be freaking out and and so I started using this strategy with the plane. So, the second that you feel yourself getting nervous, 5 4 3 2 1 and then your anchor thought is a vision of what you're going to do when you get to where you're going. So, when I get on the plane tomorrow to fly back to Boston, I'll think about walking in the house and the place is like a disaster. It'll look like everybody's stuff got loaded into a cannon and fired all over the, you know, first floor. And so, if we hit turbulence, 5 4 3 2 1, I'll think about that vision because cognitively for my brain, if I'm walking in the house and it's a disaster, the plane made it. That's the power of this. It's incredible. Incredible. What I love about you, Mel, is that A, I love how raw and real you are about your own situation, which cuz people are going to look at you and the first thing they're going to want to do is make you extraordinary as a way not to have to like live up to your standard because what you've accomplished really is astonishing and seeing you on stage is unbelievable. Unbelievable. You're so good at that and I know that it comes from working your ass off, but wow, it's very, very impressive. Thank you. But then that you use techniques like that you've got answers for, you know, how have I done this? I've done it like this. And I've had guests sit across from me that that's not their stick, right? Like they have done truly extraordinary things with their life, but they seem just like totally blind to how they did it. And the fact that you can walk people through it is so cool. Well, I think we're all flawed. And that's the beauty of who you are. And instead of trying to make yourself perfect in every area, it's so much easier when you accept the things that you're terrible at or that are your weaknesses or that are the things about your wiring. Look, if I were diabetic, I would take insulin. I happen to be somebody that's wired for anxiety. No big deal. So, figure out how to, instead of fighting those things, actually trick it. Because the truth is that you're never going to feel ready to make these changes. You're never going to feel like doing them, but you can always make a decision. That's always in your control. Staying with somebody that treats you like garbage is a decision. It is. Staying at a job that you hate is a decision. Staying in the body that you are not proud of is a decision. Is it going to be easy? No, it's not going to be easy to change. It's simple. Do a Google search and then use the 5-second rule to force yourself to do that stuff. Change comes down to 5-second decisions, and this is why the 5-second rule is is important for everybody to know. It's your job to push yourself. And I don't care if you're Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., or you're Michelangelo, or you're Lin-Manuel Miranda who wrote Hamilton, you will struggle with self-doubt. And everybody that you admire, everybody, and the list is the same for everybody. Oh, Oprah Winfrey, and I want to be like, you know, Tom, and I want to be like, uh, you know, Branson, and I want to be like Jay-Z, and I want to like Everybody's list is the same. Oh, Bill Gates, and Do you know what those people do? They do not have the habit of hesitating. They trust themselves. All right, really fast before we go, tell us about the million-dollar mornings and setting yourself Oh, yes, I have a I have a gift. So, here's the thing. Um I did one thing other than the 5-second rule that has changed my life, my marriage, everything. I do not have the phone in my bedroom. The phone is designed by people like your phone You should not have your phone in your bedroom. And here's why, because what's on your phone is not your dreams. What's on your phone is stuff that's been designed by people that study game theory. You know why you check your email all the time? All the time. You know why you're constantly looking at your phone? It's called random rewards. Mhm. It's a psychological principle that explains why we pull slot machines. Because every six or seven times we get a little random reward, so we keep going back. Yeah. I know most emails blow, but every once in a while you get a good one. That's why you keep looking, right? So, um I created this course called The Million Dollar Morning. Whether you want to make a million dollars a year or in a morning, or whether you want to wake up and feel like a million bucks. This is the science-backed strategy, step by step by step for how to wake up. Cuz it's not when you wake up that matters, it's how you wake up that matters. And we filmed it at the house. I walk you through all the science. I show you the whole routine, and we're giving it to your audience for free. Wow. Yes. Thank you. You're welcome. Because, look, I want you to use these things. It's one thing to talk, talk, talk, and think. It's another thing to actually take action. And the more that that you can provide, that I can provide, that shows people what to do, and the more tools that we can give people Mhm. to get out of their heads and into action, the more the world is going to improve, the more your life will improve. Getting people to understand neurochemistry is the game. And once you understand the game that you're playing, then you can play it well. But if you don't understand the game, then you're going to get stuck, and you're going to be stuck forever. And you talk a lot about taking responsibility for that, recognizing nobody's coming to save you. Something you've said in the book, it's something that you've said in interviews, it's something that I absolutely think is really powerful. How do we use that? Why is that important to recognize? Well, it's important to recognize because, first of all, nobody is coming. I mean, if you've been sitting around waiting for somebody to discover you, to pick you, to save you, to rescue you, to give you your shot, it's not [ __ ] happening. Like, at some point you got to wake up and realize when you're 18 and you're out of that house, you have to parent yourself. Your life is your responsibility. And as a woman, one of the things that I found to be extraordinarily transformational is when I stopped, in a very traditional sense, looking to my partner to be responsible for providing for me. Providing financially, providing the support, providing when I realized wait a minute, it starts with me. I have to be able to figure out how to make myself happy. That's, by the way, the secret to a happy relationship. Marry somebody who's happy and work on your own happiness. Preach. And so, when you stop outsourcing your happiness, your validation, your support, all of it, and you bring it back in, and you get responsible for it, it sounds scary, it's so liberating because you could do anything. When you're responsible, when you're the driver of your life, when you're not looking out to anybody else to fix it for you. Can you ask for help? Of course, but the buck stops with you. You're the one that has to do the work. You're the one who has to push your own ass. You're the one who has to figure out what makes you happy. You're the one who has to figure out and become self-aware about what you need, and then you're the one that has to find whatever it is, the courage or being humble enough to ask for help. Even if it's asking for help from the biggest ally that you have, which is the person staring back at you in the mirror every damn morning. Yeah, I don't know why people aren't more obsessed with their goals. It's like if my goals demand that I ask for help, then I'm going to ask for help. Like, I'm not even going to let anything else get in the way. I'm just so obsessed with if my goal is exciting and honorable, then I should actually want to achieve it and therefore whatever it is that I need to do. So, Tom, this is why. And this comes back to what makes has made me really sad and deeply moved by the kinds of things that people are sharing. Most people aren't obsessed with their goals cuz they don't believe they're worthy of them. It's easy to dream about what you want, but in between where you are and what you want, there's a tremendous amount of stuff you got to change and do. And if you have a lot of trauma in your background or you were raised by somebody who beat the [ __ ] out of you or told you were a piece of [ __ ] or if you've had to deal with microaggressions or racist, discriminatory, systematic crap your entire life, you have been given the message over and over and over, even though it's not true, that you don't deserve it, that there's something wrong with you. And if you don't at some point be defiant against what the world or your caregivers or your past experience has pounded into your brain incorrectly, unfairly, you will forever be stuck with that story. You are not responsible for what happened to you. You survived what happened to you. But you do have a responsibility to heal yourself and to do the work to change so that you can be the happy, fulfilled person that you were born to be. Yeah, that's really powerful because it's the only thing that works. And, you know, thinking about so many people have just immense things that have happened that have been unfair and as you said they didn't do anything to deserve it, but now what? Now you're there, you've got the trauma, and no one can heal it for you. It's There's a name for it. So, I think it's called the pedestrian problem. It's like imagine that you get hit by a car and the driver was drunk. And let's say that the driver was Bill Gates. And let's say that um you win a settlement. But if the damage that happened to your body can't be fixed with all the money in the world and you just have to do physical therapy, then it's like even though it is unfair that you have to do the physical therapy, you There is no amount of money that you can throw at it that will stop you from having to suffer to build yourself back up. And I think a lot of people either fall prey to trap number one, which is they don't think they're worthy, or they fall prey to trap number two, which is it's so unfair they just don't take action. Right. But they're nonetheless in the situation that they're in. And if the whole punchline to life is neurochemistry and feeling joyful and you know, being um excited about who you are when you're by yourself, then it's like, well, you have to do the work even if it isn't fair. And that to me is the Especially if it isn't. Why especially? kinds of prisons that you can sentence yourself to or be sentenced to, right? One is all the physical [ __ ] you're talking about. The circumstances of your life, the circumstances of your body, the circumstances that are unfair. And then there is the mental prison. And that's the one you're in control of. So, people can do all kinds of [ __ ] to you. And you can be born into situations that are not uh fair, they're not safe, they're cruel. It's unfair, you didn't deserve it. But the real power that you always have is how you react to it mentally. I'm not saying put lipstick on a pig and ignore the very real problems you're saying. You're you're you're facing. I'm saying it begins with your mental attitude about your own ability to face it and to survive it and to move past it. That's what I'm saying. Cuz without that, like let's go back to the woman in the domestic violence shelter who's had the [ __ ] beaten out of her by partners, who has immense emotional trauma stored in her nervous system, stored in the neurochemistry of her brain. She has a extraordinary amount of hurdles to get through in her life, to heal, to be safe, to break patterns that are associated with the trauma that she's experienced as a child, the trauma that she experienced in romantic relationships, the physical abuse. She has issues related to poverty. Can a human being survive those things and change? Of course they can. It begins though with the belief that you can. And so when I come back to this moment every single morning, you can have nothing and you can still have your own back. You can have tremendous problems and very real obstacles that you're facing. And you can have a mindset that says through my efforts, my attitude, I can have an impact on the situation that I'm in. That's the power that I have. I can ask for help because I believe I deserve it. I can seek therapy because I believe I should heal because I deserve that. I can seek information from shows like Impact Theory about how to break trauma patterns, about how to regulate my nervous system because I believe I am worthy of that. When I raise my hand in the mirror, I'm basically saying [ __ ] off to these people that hurt me because I believe that I deserve better. That's where it begins. It begins with you. Self-confidence, self-love, self-esteem, self-reliance, self-awareness, it all has the same self. You have to give yourself those things. You want validation? Give it to yourself. You want to be cheered for? Give it to yourself. You want to feel supported in life? Start by giving those things to yourself because the most important relationship that you have is the one you have with yourself, and you work on it the least. It's the foundation of every relationship you have. And so I believe that there are simple things you can do from looking at hearts, which doesn't solve your problems. It proves to you that it's possible to change the way your brain works. That's why I want you to do it. It's not going to take away poverty. It's not going to make you lose a 100 lb. It's going to prove to you that [ __ ] you do have power over the way your mind works. And when you get crafty about training your brain, you can do really cool [ __ ] And when your attitude is optimistic, based on research, we know that you will work harder and keep going because you believe that it makes a difference. It begins with these simple things. Speaking of tricks that you can do to get control of your mind, in the book, you talk about what I'll call a pattern interrupt. Forget the exact phrase you use for it, but you talk a lot about I'm not going to think about that. thinking about that. What does that mean? How do you do it? Why is it useful? So, it's very It's what I started doing before the 5-second rule, 5-4-3-2-1, cuz you can count backwards to do the same thing. But, a lot of times, it's the pattern of negative thoughts. I'm fat, I'm this, I'm that, I'm the other thing, I'm not good enough, I'm not smart enough. Or even just worrying. What if the Delta variant takes off? What if I don't go back to work? What if this happens? What if that How is that helping you exactly? Like there's productive worry, which is worry that motivates you to take action. And then there's destructive worry, which is worry that makes you literally circle the drain mentally. You always want to interrupt destructive worry or any kind of destructive self-talk. So the second you catch yourself going, "Gosh, I look fatter. Boy, I'm a loser. There I go, I failed again." You're like literally slap that [ __ ] away, like high-five it away. "I'm not thinking about that." "I'm not thinking about that." "I'm not thinking about that." And you start with I'm not thinking about that because if you're so used to hearing I'm not good enough, there's no [ __ ] way you're going to believe the mantra I'm good enough. Because the thing about mantras are, and this is why most mantras are [ __ ] is they don't work unless you believe them. And so there is power in creating what's called a meaningful mantra. But the first step to getting control of the negative self-talk is interrupt that [ __ ] Don't listen to it. "I'm not thinking about that. I'm not thinking about that." And then what I want you to do is just do that for a day. "I'm not thinking about that. I'm not thinking about that." If you have any kind of thought that makes you feel bad, that you don't like "I'm not thinking about that." The next day, start to notice what are the patterns in terms of the thoughts that come up. You know, when I was writing this book, one of my daughters talked about the fact that she's constantly feeling like she's not a good person. And so for example, she missed a dentist appointment. And because she's constantly thinking I'm not a good person, missing the dentist appointment becomes evidence. See, there I am again, I missed the dentist appointment, I'm not a good person. No. Are you kidding? Like if somebody doesn't have the story If somebody has a different story like I'm a I'm a pretty good person. I do my best. And you miss the dentist appointment, a lot of us are like, "Oh, thank god. I can't stand the dentist, you know. I'll pay the I'll pay the $20 fee. I don't have to go. You don't attach I'm a shitty person to it. And so, she started using I'm not thinking about that. She's not ready to believe she's a good person yet. Because she's so used to saying I'm not a good person. So, the first step is interrupt the thing. Then take notice, and then you can start to create what I call a meaningful mantra cuz now we want to break the pattern by saying I'm not thinking about that or use the 5-second rule 5-4-3-2-1. And then when you're ready, you can create a meaningful mantra to replace it because any pattern is going to repeat unless you replace it. And so, meaningful mantras are things that you can be like, yeah, I can believe that. So, it might be uh, I'm not perfect, but I'm trying. Uh, I'm not perfect, but I'm doing my best. Uh, you know, I screw up sometimes, uh, but it I'm not a bad person. You know, like those kind of things that are sort of not like, yeah, superhero mantra, I'm fabulous. Like, most of us don't really feel that way about ourselves. So, if you just you're like, I'm doing the best I can. That's pretty empowering. If you think about it. Or I can I can learn I I can learn from this. Or this is temporary. I'll be okay. Those sorts of things are little ways to high-five your mind instead of again going low. You got a choice. Do you take yourself down? Or do you lift yourself up? Are you going outside of yourself? Or you coming back in for what you need? I want you to come in and lift yourself up. That's what the high-five habit's about. As somebody who has gotten into countless Ubers and some small percentage of them know who I am and then of course they start asking questions. Talk to me about chasing your dreams and this quote that you have that an aha moment does not necessarily lead to an aha life. Um yeah, the Uber driver in Dallas that's in this book. Um I get choked up when I think about him. Uh an aha moment up? I get choked up because what happens for me every single day is and you hear from people every single day, you've got millions and millions of people that are inspired by, empowered by, impacted by your content. There are people out there that use your work as a lifeline. And it is humbling. And what I am really present to in the work that I'm putting out, in the stuff that I'm sharing, whether it's my failures or the things that I'm using that are helping me in my own struggles is just how much people are holding themselves back. And how much pain people feel because most folks know what they dream about and what they want. And yet they're spending all of their time and energy arguing against what they want. And so you can have all these epiphanies. I hope that when somebody listens to our conversation and watches this, that they have a massive aha moment. But it's not going to mean [ __ ] [ __ ] if you don't take action and do something about it. The aha moment is the door that opens. But your new life does not begin unless you [ __ ] step through the door. And most people, and that's what was so kind of I you know, the simple idea of high fiving yourself, of encouraging yourself, of supporting yourself. Most people, when you have an aha moment and the door to your new life opens up, instead of going, I got this, let's go, and high fiving yourself to step forward, most of us go, "Mhm, I don't know if I'm worth it. I don't know if right now is the right time to do this. I don't think I'm good enough. I've failed so many times, I can't go through that door." And that's the problem I want to attack right now. That there is somewhere in your life that you know what you want. You can feel it pulling you. And you are actively arguing against it. You're bringing yourself down. You're beating yourself out. Like people will cheer for you and me, they won't cheer for themselves. I'm the same way. And so, this Uber driver, the story that you're talking about, I get into the car and we start driving and I'm on the phone as we're driving and I'm having a conversation with somebody about this daytime talk show that I launched, which was a dream with Sony Pictures Television and then uh I was promptly fired after season one. It was a huge [ __ ] failure because we didn't make it to season two. Huge failure in real world terms. Massive success when it comes to the timeline of my life. And so, I'm talking to this person about the talk show. I hang up the phone and this Uber driver comes alive. He's like, "Oh my gosh, I can't believe you're in my cab." And I'm like, "Why?" And he says, "Because I I want to talk to you about something. I think you can help me." And I'm like, "Great, how can I help you?" And he says, "I have a dream of being a Oscar-winning uh actor and creating opportunities for other black and Latino men to do the same in acting." And I'm like, "Fricking fantastic. What the [ __ ] are you doing in Dallas?" Right? You know, the guy's 25 and so I I I go, "You know, the game is in New York and LA. I mean, sure, you can act, you can write stuff, you can be here in Dallas, but why are you not in LA? Why are you not in New York? And he's like, you're right, you're right, you're right. I need to move to LA. Like, why not? And he says, I have $700 in my bank account. I'm like, that's freaking fantastic. You have $700 and a car? Dude, drop me off and get driving. What are you waiting for? And so we have this whole conversation and I write about it in this book where I am actively arguing for his dream. And he is actively arguing against his dream. And what is so sad is throughout this conversation, Tom, he's like, you're right. $700 could get me there. You're right. I am only 25. You're right. If I keep thinking and thinking and thinking and thinking about what I want to be doing, I'm not only going to drive in circles, my whole life is going to spin in circles as I think about what I want and I don't do [ __ ] about it. And then you are going to find yourself not at 25, but at 45 or 65 and you're going to be so filled with regret that you never [ __ ] put a put a bet on yourself. And so this conversation ends with him declaring that he's going to go to California and me giving him a bunch of tools that I talk about in this book. And the point of the story is does he move or not? I don't [ __ ] know. The point of the story is it's so easy to see what somebody else should do. It's so easy to cheer for somebody else. We all do that, right? We cheer for our favorite sports teams, we follow our favorite influencers and authors, we plan birthday parties for our friends, we take on extra work from our colleagues, we support everyone around us. We do not know how to do it for ourselves. Yeah, it's it's really an interesting trick of the mind and like you I have this similar sense of I want to be able to want it for people. Yeah. And the one thing in my life that I am very grateful for is that I know how to build desire. I know how to go down the process of wanting something. What what is that process for you of desire? Cuz most What I found in this book is here's the thing for most people and I'm hoping that your process will attack this. What I've discovered that is heartbreaking is the average person cannot celebrate themselves. Cannot I'm going to ask everybody who's watching this to tomorrow morning stand in front of the mirror we're going to unpack this whole thing and try to high five yourself. And most people give people the the science behind why that's meaningful. So I have this habit of every single morning I stand in front of the mirror and I take a moment and I raise my hand and I give my reflection a high five. And there is so much science behind this. So instead of seeing yourself, right, and have having this moment in the mirror, you know what the average person does? First of all we beat ourselves down. So I would look in the mirror for 40 some years and be like, "Oh my god, my freaking jowls look like saddle bags on a goddamn horse going in the Grand Canyon. My eyes have all My neck is all these stripes. My boob One boob's hanging lower than the other. I look like [ __ ] My gray hair." Like I start bringing myself down. And when you start going down that road with your reflection, then your thoughts go to I didn't get to that email. I forgot to text Lisa back. I Oh my gosh, the dog still needs to be walked. I've got 9 minutes for my first Zoom You're now checking out. And that moment in the mirror every morning could be a profound moment where you lift yourself up and you check back in with your your So the first piece of research, and this is recent from Harvard Business School, is that a simple moment in the morning where you set an intention about who you're going to be today impacts productivity, how you show up as a leader, it impacts your confidence, it impacts your mood all day long, just that simple moment of setting an intention. So, that's research number one. Instead of standing in front of the sink in your bathroom and criticizing your appearance or mindlessly going on autopilot, check back in and let's teach you to have make it a habit to lift yourself back up. I hope you guys enjoyed this episode brought to you by our sponsors at athleticgreens.com. To receive a free one-year supply of vitamin D and five free travel packs with your first purchase, visit athleticgreens.com/impacttheory. Enjoy the episode. Second piece of research, and this comes from a whole field of study called neurobics. Neurobics is like aerobics for your mind. I didn't make this up. This is literally you can speed up the development of new neural pathways by marrying physical activity with a change in thought. And so, traditionally, I know you've covered this on your show. If you, for example, were to brush your teeth, I'm a right-hander, if you were to brush it with your other hand, and think uh a new thought, the fact that your brain is focusing on brushing with your non-dominant hand activates more focus on the new thought, it accelerates the learning. So, you take neurobics, a physical activity with a different thought, and let me let's talk about a high five, for example. What does a high five mean to you? That somebody did something awesome or I did something awesome. Correct. And if you think about the times in your life when you've gotten a high five, it's because somebody's like, "Tom, you're amazing. Tom, get your attitude out of the can. You got this. Tom, you're going to make this shot. Tom, we can still win. I believe in you. Keep going." You have a lifetime positive association with giving other people high five stored right here in your subconscious mind. When you raise your hand to your own reflection, it is impossible for you to think, "God, I look fat. Boy, am I an [ __ ] I really screwed up my life." You can't do it because your lifetime association with this motion is all, "I believe in you. I got you. I see you. I celebrate you." And so you, in the moment of doing it, override decades of negative self-talk. It's incredible. Now, have you ever gotten a high five where somebody misses the hand or it's sort of like It sucks, right? Yeah, what do you do when that happens? I redo it. Correct. That's because a high five requires you to be present, and there is an intention behind it. So you can't raise your hand to your own reflection without now grounding yourself in the moment. That's just the beginning of the research. I can go on about the NBA and Do you. That That was my favorite part, hearing about the NBA. Like even now it's giving me chills. Like and especially because we're recording this still as everybody thought we were getting out of the pandemic, and now we've got the the variant. Now even I'm starting to worry about the lack of physical contact and just like this the the cues that we give each other through touch like that. So Yeah, this was one of my favorite parts of the book, the NBA thing. Yeah, oh I I love this research, too, because you know what happened with the high fives? Look, I did this on a low moment for myself. Like so my brand of self-help is Mel's life is kind of [ __ ] up at the moment, and she can't figure out how to help herself, so she stumbles by accident on something really stupid on its face. And it feels good. And then I share it with my audience, and if they pick up on it and they then I'm like, okay, we're onto something. So for me, the high five Tom began I'm fired from my talk show, my book contract is canceled, every speech has been canceled, my kids are now home, so we got three kids 22, 20, age 15 all in varying states of distress. I am triggered because my origin story, as you know from being on the show and us being friends, the five second rule was 12 years ago losing everything. And so I'm now having this feeling like I'm about to lose everything. And I'm also feeling like I'm losing grip on reality as the pandemic is hitting and as my kids are in distress and I don't know what to do just like everybody on the planet. I find myself in my bathroom one morning in my underwear. And I am having this spiral of negative thoughts. I look like [ __ ] I don't know how to fix this. I wish somebody would solve this for me. I feel overwhelmed. I feel scared about my parents' health. I feel scared about everybody on the front lines. And even though I'm literally like you, somebody that empowers other people, I didn't know what the [ __ ] to say to myself. And as pathetic as it sounds, I found myself just raising my hand. Just in a way to basically be like shut up, Mel. Come on, girl. You like put your shoulders back, lift your You You got this. You can do this. And something shifted and I went on with my day. And then the next morning, I walk into my bathroom and this is the other weird thing about the high five. I've literally either criticized myself or ignored myself in the mirror for decades. When you start to have a moment with yourself, the crazy part is you start to build a partnership with yourself. That's interesting. Like, you know when you are pulling out of your driveway or you're walking down the street and you see a neighbor and they greet you? You will start to have that experience when you create this intentional moment with yourself in the mirror every morning. And so, as I started to do this, I thought this is actually making me feel like the wind is at my back when I leave the bathroom. It's making me feel just like when you leave a huddle in sports and you high five or you're a runner running a race or doing some big endurance challenge and some spectator high fives you or another racers like, "Come on, you got this." as you're dragging down low, it gives you a little energy. Like, I think too about this high five a lot. Like, I know you know, you're friends with David Goggins. I'm a huge fan of Goggins and so and I know there's a lot of people that watch this show, especially men that are like, "This sounds kind of stupid." This is the equivalent of Goggins' cookie jar moment. So, we all think like we've all been raised like tough love, hard on myself, this woo woo woo. [ __ ] The research is clear on this. Being hard on yourself is not [ __ ] motivating. It's demotivating. And if you already feel like a failure or you feel a sense of shame or you're overwhelmed, beating yourself up where you are does not [ __ ] work. It drives you into the gutter. The most motivating force in the world on the planet based on research, hands down, is empowerment, encouragement, support, and celebration. And for our entire lives, we have outsourced that to somebody else. The research is very clear. So, the NBA study, they did this big study looking at NBA teams and they could predict in the study who was going to be in the championship rounds based on in the preseason what teams had the most high fives, fist bumps, and back pats? Why? Because those kind of gestures create partnership and trust. And I'm here to tell you when you start doing it in the mirror, you're creating partnership and trust with yourself. And so, you know, one of the things that I love about this is that in a moment when you feel alone, you can give yourself the boost, the support, the empowerment that you need to keep going. And here's another piece of research that's also like, "Holy cow." You're a big proponent of the growth mindset. You guys talk about it all the time on the show, right? So, researchers wanted to know, what is the most empowering way to motivate kids through a really big challenge, okay? They divide the kids into three groups. This takes the marshmallow test to a whole 'nother level. You got one group of kids that are doing a challenging task, and they're getting the fixed mindset praise, which we all know does not work. "Oh, Tom, you're so smart. Oh, Tom, I love your glasses. That's going to help you. Oh, Tom, you got a great smile. Oh, Tom, you know, I I just love so much about you. I know you can do this." So, that's one group. The second group gets the growth mindset kind of praise. "Tom, you are such a hard worker. Tom, your perseverance is unbelievable. Tom, you just keep going." That does better, obviously, than telling you that you're smart, because it makes you motivated to work hard. The third group, they just got a simple high five. The researchers didn't even say anything to the kids. They just walked up, gave them a high five. The group of kids that got a simple high five outperformed, out worked through all of the challenges, all of the other forms of praise. Why? Because a high five is something deeper than praise. It fulfills your most fundamental needs as a human being. When somebody high-fives you, you feel seen, you feel heard, and you feel like somebody has acknowledged you for the unique person that you are. Let's just talk a first second about the things that go viral. You can always find going viral a teacher standing outside of a classroom doing what? Greeting kids with individual handshakes. And we see that we're like, "Oh, that's amazing." Why? Because every one of those kids before they walk into the classroom feels seen, they feel heard, and they feel acknowledged for the unique individual that they are. Our experience, um, our conscious experience in this moment and all of the content that's flooding in through this experience is a result of brain processing. And if you change the brain, the experience changes, the thoughts change, the feelings change. It's it's, um, it's all correlated.