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January 26, 2025 7 mins
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Episode Transcript

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Speaker 1 (00:00):
We've got a real special guest on the show this morning,
Mel Robbin's author podcast or researcher. And I love this
part here Mel friend.

Speaker 2 (00:12):
Well, we'll see how you feel about that after the conversation. Well,
you know.

Speaker 1 (00:17):
What, Mel, you know, I started following you yesterday. And
here's how it happened. Lisa Diamond is sitting right next
to me, and you're going to be appearing at her
book club. You don't have a definite.

Speaker 3 (00:29):
Date yet, sometime in the future.

Speaker 1 (00:31):
Yeah, and uh. I was having a moment Mel where
I was like angry and ranting, and Lisa turned to
me and said, you know, you really need to follow
Mel Robbins. So I followed you, Mel, and then I
ended up dreaming about you all night last night.

Speaker 2 (00:52):
Oh what were we doing?

Speaker 1 (00:53):
Well? One thing, when Lisa knew I was in the
middle of angry ranch, she made me watch and listen
to this.

Speaker 3 (01:03):
You have that clip justin Here's a simple way to
change your life. Stop beingsidam mad about everything.

Speaker 1 (01:11):
I'm not kiddin.

Speaker 3 (01:12):
Drop the sword. What I mean when I say drop
the sword is notice today how often you bring a
sword to the fight that you brace, you grip, you're
ready for action.

Speaker 1 (01:24):
You have that sword on you today, Bill, No, I
dropped the sword yesterday.

Speaker 2 (01:28):
Nice job.

Speaker 1 (01:29):
You know why, Mel? Tell me because I followed you
and you want to know what happened next. Tell me
I was on the floor doing yoga with you, because
I went home and put this on.

Speaker 3 (01:43):
I want to tell you something you don't hear often enough.
It's okay to be scared. I want to know what
I think about fear. I think it's got nothing on you. Okay, Yes,
it takes courage to push through your fear. Is it
going to be hard? Yes? Are you going to struggle? Yes?
Are you going to fall down? Maybe? You know what? Probably?

(02:07):
But that's part of it, isn't it. It's not supposed
to be easy. You'll feel stronger, more accomplished, more grateful
after you pushed through all the things that are holding
you back.

Speaker 1 (02:19):
Now, Mel, because of messages like that, you've got more
than five million followers on Instagram, two million followers on TikTok.
How did it all start for you? Mel? Oh?

Speaker 2 (02:30):
My god? How long do you have? I guess that
short version, Billy? Is that about twenty miles west of
where you're sitting right now? My husband and I found
ourselves facing bankruptcy. His restaurant business was really really struggling.
Friends and family had invested in like complete morons. We

(02:51):
had put our entire life savings into it, and like
a lot of us, find ourselves, your life is not
where you thought it would be. And so, like you
were yesterday, you have this emotional reaction to it. You're
pissed off, you're ranting, or in my case, you're paralyzed
with anxiety. How the hell did this happen. We've got
three kids under the age of ten. We're about to

(03:13):
lose everything. The leans have hit the house. I'm forty
one years old. This is not how it was supposed
to be. And in those moments, you can let your
emotions just take you down the toilet. And I had
this morning. Billy. I know, you're really kind of cynical
and sarcastic like I am, and so I'm going to
just warn you this is a really stupid story. But

(03:35):
I was literally in Sherburn, Massachusetts. It was February two
thousand and eight on a Tuesday, and I had made
this decision the night before while I was drinking bourbon,
that I would, you know, the next morning. It was
going to be the new being. I was going to
stop screaming at my husband Chris. I was going to

(03:55):
look for a job. I was going to tell my
friends what was going on. I was going to exercise
and how many times. I mean, I know you exercise
like a freak, but you know, most of us who
are normal, we literally tell ourselves we're going to make
these changes, and then we don't do it, and then
we feel terrible about it, and then we beat ourselves
up and we get caught in the cycle. And I

(04:16):
was stuck in that cycle, and so I made myself
this promise. Drunk on bourbon. I got inspired watching this
rocket launch by NASA, and I thought, that's it. That's it.
Tomorrow morning, I'm going to launch myself out of bed
like a rocket ship. I'm going to move so fast
that the anxiety that I'm going to beat the anxiety.
I'm going to beat the depression. I'm going to beat

(04:37):
the procrastination. And so the next morning again, February Tuesday morning,
pruddy day, cold as hell, the alarm goes off, and
I remember that idea that I should just launch myself
out of bed, and then I made the fatal mistake
we all make, which is I stopped to think about
whether or not I felt like doing it. And that's

(04:58):
the kiss of death. That is the kiss of death.
There is a moment of hesitation that kills us all
because we all know what we need to do, and
I'm talking about the little things. We know the right
choice to make, we know what's going to make us
feel better. We know not to explode on our family
because work was frustrating, and yet we hesitate and we

(05:19):
do it and our emotions take over. And so that morning,
I just counted backwards like NASA does, five four three
two one, and I stood up. I go, it's so dumb.
But it turns out if you fast forward fifteen years,
that simple little trick that I created out of desperation
has a profound amount of science behind that. I know.
Now it's called a starting ritual for those data gog

(05:41):
and fans out there. This is like literally how you
get willpower. It's instant confidence, instant motivation because when you
count backwards five four three two one, you manually move
your brain from the subconscious mode where your emotions are,
and you activate your prefrontal cortex and your conscious decision making.

(06:02):
So all those quotes that everybody sees on Instagram, you
can't choose when happens that you can choose how you respond.
You know, that's great, But how I'm telling you five four,
three two one move, That's how. And so I have
built a career finding simple ways to explain complicated science.
I'm very proud to tell you we are number eight
on Spotify and Apple of all podcasts in the entire

(06:25):
world right now, Wow, twelve million followers. And more importantly,
every single day, these simple messages that seem cheesy on
Instagram or TikTok, they're breaking through to normal people who
are just getting up every day, trying to do the
best that they can, slogging away as a nurse, working

(06:46):
as a teacher, coming home, taking care of people, but
want to just get a little bit more out of life.
And so I began all this Billy because my life
was in breakdown and nobody was going to save me.

Speaker 3 (07:00):
It's those practical things that you just put on Instagram
that I totally connect with when I'm feeling bad, when
I'm feeling stuck, and you just have this way of
breaking through very quickly with easy concepts to take with
you every single day,
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