- Hey everybody, how's it going? I'm Chase Jarvis, welcome
to another episode of the Chase Jarvis Live
show here on CreativeLive. You guys know this show. This is where I sit down with
the world's top creators, entrepreneurs, and thought leaders, and I do my very best
to unpack their brains and help you with your dreams and career, and hobby and in life. My guest today is the most booked female speaker in the world, former radio host that's
not doing radio anymore. You can hear her, don't
look over there yet, and she's the author of a couple books, most recently, The 5 Second Rule. She's got a TED Talk
with 10 million views. My guest is the, Mel Robbins. - Hey! (upbeat music) (applause) - They love you. - I'm hugging you. - Oh, awesome, awesome, awesome. - Welcome to CreativeLive. - Thank you. - I got you first though,
right here on the show. - Yes. - Welcome to the show. - Thank you for taping in black and white. That's wonderful for women because we don't have to worry
about the makeup so much. - People have asked me, so the black and white thing it started. - Yeah, why the hell do you do that? - My background as a
photographer and a filmmaker, and one of the things that I realized in my long illustrious
career as a photographer is that generally things look
better in black and white, so that was a thing. More particularly it is reductive element. It takes a lot of the distraction out like colors and all these different tonals they're arguably a distraction, and I want people to
focus on the conversation just the two humans, so the fact that it is
reductive and simplifies things, the fact that it makes
everybody look like 25% better, and the fact that you can put
all kinds of different lights, and you can film like next to a window, and the temperature of this light is gonna be the same as the window, which made it very easy, so all these things together
made it black and white. Seven years ago when the show started there were no other such
shows on the Internet. It was the first of its
kind and helped define it. - I don't know of another
black and white talk show. - There you go. - Seriously, I don't, so I did wear a lighter, well, brown, so I wouldn't be just a floating head because if I were all black
that would be a problem. - I haven't learned
much from my own format. - You got arms, so you're fine. - I have arms, so that's a
little background of the show, but like we're really emphasizing
the audio portion of it, which is something I want
to talk to you about, obviously, with the radio, so it's really moved more into podcast, but it used to be filmed only live we had in-studio audience
of usually 100 or so people, and that just got a little heavy, and now I'm doing this thing every week. It used to be every month
and now it's every week so that's a little backstory on the show. - Do you take the audio of
this and make that a podcast? - Yes. - Gotcha, okay, so I've only
seen the video side of it. - There you go, it's a very
popular podcast as well, usually up there in the
featured section in iTunes next to a bunch of. - Congratulations. - Yeah, I'm happy about it, but you're here and this is about you, so let's stop talking about the show. We're gonna shift gears. I want to start back at the beginning, way back in the day, not really, it was the first thing
that we talked about for you professionally which was radio. - Gotcha, well, I thought
you were gonna talk about when my parents met in Kansas, and my father got my mother
pregnant at the age of 19. The most amazing part of that story because she dropped out
of college to have me is that they are still married. - High five. - 50 years later how cool is that. - You just shared with me that you had been married 20 years. - 21.
- 21, sorry. - I get credit for that
extra one, trust me. - I'm not taking anything
away from you, Mel, and then what I shared I
reciprocated some sharing, which is that I also have
been married 20 years. - Congratulations. - It was five days ago
or something like that on the 20, uh, pressure, pressure. - Second.
- 22nd. - Yes, mine's the 24th
that's why I know this. I'm not that much of a stalker. - But here's another thing that's parallel is that your parents have
been married 50 years. - Uh-huh. - My parents 50th wedding anniversary was the 26th of August. - No kidding.
- No kidding. - Wow, that's really cool. - We have many of the same things. - You guys have sandwiched us, you and your wife Kate 22nd, and your parents 26th and
I'm the 24th, there you go. - There you go, and your parents have been married 50 years,
too, and same with mine. Here we are, I'm not going back to Kansas, although, I have been to
Kansas, I like Kansas. It's nice, it's hot, Midwestern, and I think you identify very vocally as a Midwestern person, but I want to talk about
early career in radio. One of the things that fascinates me is your ability to move
seamlessly between genre, again, radio and author, speaker. I think there's some similarities there, but they require a
different set of skills, and you've been able to move
seamlessly between them, so let's start at the start. How in the hell did you
get your start in radio? - Oh, my gosh. - This is a big question. - Well, no, my whole life
is like one gigantic mistake that I then scramble using anxiety to try to fix, so, you know, I graduated from college, and I don't know what I want to do, so I follow my boyfriend to DC, and I end up as a paralegal
because I got a temp job, and then I don't know what to
do as he's going to school, so I apply to law school, so then I go to law school and I hate it, and I don't know what I'm gonna do. I mean, like every step
of my fricking life has been literally like a leapfrog game. Okay, we're gonna hop into this thing, oh, shit, now what do I do? I mean, before I even got into the media I was a public defender in Manhattan. I did violent felony criminal defense work as a legal aid attorney. - Wow, and this is the thing you just got a degree in law on the side because your boyfriend was in DC. - Well, we broke up, so that didn't, you know, he's not the one I'm married to. Yeah, I didn't know what to do. I think I felt for a large part of my life lost and searching for my thing. - This is why you're on the show, and you have a thing that I think of the people who are watching
and listening right now that is the dominant paradigm is people haven't found their thing yet, and they think something
is wrong with them. Part of the goal of this show is to A, say there's
nothing wrong with you, and B, what are you gonna do about it? So there's a tactical component of it, so clearly you did something, and it sounds like you experimented. You went to law school. - Oh, my gosh, yes, I just
kind of jumped from one, and it was misery that
propelled me, seriously. - She really sugarcoats things. That's what I like, I'm just kidding. - I loved being a public defender, and then my husband, his
name is Christopher Robbins, isn't that awesome? - Wow, it's amazing. - He looks like an adult
Christopher Robbins, too, with like curly blonde
hair and everything. I mean, I don't want to
go off on a huge tangent because I know that there's a bunch of other tactical stuff
that we want to talk about. - It's okay, but this is a story, too, so tell the story don't be afraid. - I was really lost I
graduated from Dartmouth. You know, you're supposed
to have the answers, Ivy League school, whatever, I had no idea what I
wanted to do or study, so I get a temp job I go
to work for a law firm. I spent an entire year
sitting in a conference room. There is this thing called a bates stamp, and there was a huge litigation going on over whether or not
biodegradable trash bags actually biodegraded, and there was some big
class action lawsuit, and I sat for an entire
year in a conference room, chi-chi, flip the paper,
chi-chi, flip the paper, chi-chi, flip the paper because in 1990 we didn't have any computers. This was how you documented
every piece of evidence. In a class action lawsuit there is so much paperwork
and it was endless. I mean, I didn't enjoy that, and none of the lawyers that worked there seemed all that happy, but I also had this thing
careening toward me, which was my boyfriend at
the time who I loved dearly had gotten into a school in Boston. I didn't have anything to do, so I was gonna get left behind, so I applied to law schools, and ended getting into one
in Boston and so off I went. I went thinking, "Well, I
don't have to practice law." Then what happens and
this happens to all of us is we have like the plan A, which is I'm not gonna be a lawyer, but then we go with Plan B because it seems easier, and inertia and kind of
being where you're at whether it's a job that you hate, or it's a relationship that sucks, but you're scared of leaving it I like jumped into that law school river, and next thing you know three years later I get carried down the path, and I look up and I'm like, oh, my gosh, I'm doing exactly what
I didn't want to do. Now luckily I ended up
getting a job with legal aid, and it was an incredible four years working in the criminal court
system in New York City, and then Chris who is now my husband, we've been married 21 years he got into business school in Boston. This is like a recurring theme. I get dragged up to Boston by some dude, you know, and I've got no plan. I remember I left this job. I left court on a Friday in Manhattan. We lived in Chelsea on
21st between 6th and 7th before it was a nice place to live. - I know exactly I can picture it. - I left work, we packed up the U-Haul, we drove up to Boston, Massachusetts. We moved into this little apartment, and Monday morning came and
he went off to his new job, and to his executive MBA Program, and I was on the futon with
the dog in my fricken pajamas thinking "What the hell just happened?" Like I went from being a somebody that had like a job I loved to nothing, and what am I gonna do? What fascinates me about human beings, and it fascinates me about myself is that we have such a high
tolerance for suckiness. - Isn't it crazy? - As long as the suckiness is a routine, but the second you get
thrown out of your routine, or the second that whether
it's because you lose a job, or somebody moves, or somebody dies, or somebody breaks up
with you, or you break up, like all of a sudden that
awakens the courage in you to make a change because, you know, either you have no choice, or now you got a problem to solve, but fighting that inertia of life is the most difficult thing in the world, so, you know, you asked
me a different question, which was how I got into radio. - No, but this is all leading
up to it clearly, right? - Yeah, you know, I ended up
getting a job with a law firm because it was the path
of least resistance. - In Boston? - In Boston, I hated it because I went from
being in the court room to writing briefs all day. - Got it. - Luckily I got pregnant
with our first daughter who just is starting college, which makes me feel so ancient. I just want to like
punch myself in the face. I have an 18-year-old freshman in college. - Congratulations. - Thank you, but I got pregnant with her, and when she was born I had
horrific postpartum depression. I mean, the really scary kind where you can't be alone with the baby, you're on crazy meds that turn you ... Not the kind you take recreationally, but these are the kind that
like turn you into a zombie. It was a really scary thing, and when I kind of came out
of the eight-week trance of that I looked up at Chris and said, "I've made a decision," and he said, "Okay, what would that be?" and I said, "I don't ever want to answer
the question what do you do "for a living with the response
I'm a lawyer," and he said, "Okay, you realize we've
just bought this house, "and we have a kid and
we have bills to pay," and he said, "So here's the deal. "You've got exactly four weeks "before your maternity leave is over. "You need to make $60,000. "I don't care what you do for a living. "That's your problem go solve it." So I networked like a crazy person because, again, if you're a
human being with a problem you'll solve it, if it
matters enough to you, so I got a job and this was
the first Dotcom boom in Boston I got a job the night before
I was supposed to go back. This was one of the worst
experiences of my life. So imagine this, you've been on maternity
leave for four months. You have been networking
like crazy in secret to get a different job. You're now gonna leave the industry. Here's the problem you get the job, but you have to go back in for
your first day back to quit, and there's no, like I'm not
sure we had email back then you know what I mean? This was like not really
the big email days. I mean, maybe it was
just kind of starting, so it's not really something you did. I think we still had a fax machine. - There you go, you fax in your ... - This story gets so much worse. I go in on the train, and I'm dressed as if I'm still a lawyer, and I go into the high rise
and I go up the elevator, and I walk in and they are
throwing me a baby shower. - No, no, so you had to play along for a certain amount of time. - I actually announced
it at the baby shower. - Wow, that's bold, you'd made a decision. - I had made a decision and I think that people who live with either anxiety, or things that are not complete have not yet made a decision to move on. I have struggled with anxiety
for most of my adult life, and I have two kids that have anxiety because they won the genetic
lottery with me, you know, so they got the ADD, dyslexia, anxiety, woo, what a casserole mom gave you. It brewed so much under the surface for me that I remember feeling so uncomfortable that I wanted to end the discomfort, and the only way to end the discomfort if you're lying about something, or if you're withholding something is to actually say what's so. - And that's what you
did when you walked in. - I actually just walked
in and said something like, I'm first like stunned, I feel grateful and I feel horrible because I'm coming in today because I realize I
cannot come back to work, and there was this talk about like, wow. So then I asked the woman that I reported to if I could talk to her and I just went in I'm sure I started crying, I mean, I was feeling pretty awful. - Yeah, I can imagine. - Typical, yes. - Postpartum, rebound, new job. - Uh-huh, just a huge disappointment. I was already so amped up, you know, how you get
yourself so jacked up to have to have a tough
conversation, so anyway. - Well, first of all before
we go onto actual radio this embedded in your
story is so many things that this show is about
that CreativeLive stands for that is helping people
unpack a lot of these things because there are so many barriers that keep us from the things that we want. I have another show
called the Daily Creative, and I was just answering some questions right before this show, and maybe you'll stick around, and we can do an episode together because one of them is about depression like that is real like
depression and anxiety my understanding is that the phenomenon is dramatically increasing
as culture shifts that anxiety is not going
away it's multiplying. - It's becoming a habit. - It's is it's an epidemic. - We're gonna talk about
it actually in the course. - Excellent. - It's interesting because you asked me before we went live how
do you describe yourself, and it's always a conundrum for me because I actually don't
consider myself an expert. I consider myself to be your like fucked up friend that figured things out
and has become wise. Now I don't want you to
make the same mistakes I did because figuring out some of
the things that I have learned by stumbling into The 5 Second Rule, which we'll talk about
and then researching it because of the fact that it went viral, and had such a profound impact for people. What I've learned about
the science of habits, what I've learned about
the science of confidence, what I've unpacked about the
way that self-doubt works what I've now started to see about the crazy mistakes that I made, and how hard I made my life
for myself, for my friends the solutions are so simple, so I'm on a mission to share everything that I've learned not because I think I'm right, but because I hope it makes you think about how you're doing it,
and I hope that it saves you some of the hassles and the
heartache and the headache that I put myself, my family, my friends, particularly, myself through, so a lot of it has to do with anxiety, a lot of it has to do with self-doubt, and how that really creeps
in and becomes a habit, and how that impacts your actions. - I'm gonna abandon, I don't even care about how you got into radio now. You've just opened up the box, so I'm gonna shift gears if we can. You just listed a handful of things like a lot of what you
talk about is anxiety. A lot of what you talk about
is unpacking the things that are keeping you from the things that you want to do and be, so let's start at the start like talk about anxiety for a second. - You know, I came out
of the womb with anxiety. My parents always said
that I was a worrier, and that's what you say about kids, right? Because you wring your hands, or you get nervous about tests, or you're chugging Mylanta, remember Milk of Mylanta or
what the hell it was called. We would buy that by the case, I mean, that's what a freak I was. I'd get nervous before the tennis match. I'd have to come home
because I was homesick. I mean, I was constantly on edge. It wasn't until I turned I think I was 21, and it was when I was in law school that the panic really started
to be there every morning. Like I had bouts of anxiety
that were more triggered by particular things
that I was anxious about. Oh, no, I'm talking about being a kid like having to swim out to the red dock, not being invited to a party, having to go to 6th grade camp for a week, playing at band camp. - Those were still things, right? So the 21-year-old you is like this is just omnipresence daily. - It was the waking up with a pit in my stomach every morning. It was walking into class, and having just this awful sense of dread. It was getting called on and
even though I knew the answer having a tidal wave of heat
rise up through my body. It was turning beet red in
the face as I was talking. It was being a liar, I mean,
I used to lie all the time because I was so anxious
about saying the wrong thing that I was constantly trying to think of what I should be telling people. Then, of course, you're nervous because you can't remember what
the hell you just told them. - Yeah, it's compounding. - Yes, it's compounding, so I started to have these panic attacks, and I didn't know what was wrong, and I went to see one of the
like health people at campus, and they referred me to
somebody, and the doctor said, "You just have anxiety
and you're having panic," and then he said, "I think
you should go on Zoloft." Then I had anxiety about taking a drug because it might change me, heaven forbid. I'm so stable why would
I want to be changed? That's the funny thing is that those of us that struggle with these kinds of things we're terrified of taking
any kind of medication because we're afraid
of not being ourselves, and yet the anxiety or the depression, or whatever you struggle with is actually keeping you
from being yourself. - That's the anchor, yeah. - So I argued with him like
a lawyer for six months, and then finally I gave in
and started taking Zoloft, and it was like a miracle. When I took it it was
literally as if somebody had taken a volume dial
and turned it to zero, and that voice that would
sound off in my head on a loop that triggered all the body sensations we're gonna talk a lot about this tomorrow like the difference between worry, and how that triggers anxiety, and then the difference
between anxiety and panic, and then how you can utilize the tools that I'm talking about
to curb the worrying, to control the anxiety,
to stabilize the panic, and like really self-monitor. See, I think that is the
single greatest skill that anybody could have the
ability to self-monitor. You could call it mindset, you could call it self-awareness, but truly to be so in tune with yourself that in a nanosecond you pick up when things are going
south with your thoughts that you understand how
to monitor yourself, your behavior, what you're thinking, so that you align with your
values and your choices, and for the first 40 years of my life I didn't know how to do that. - At 21. - Sure as shit didn't know how to do it. - But you saw through
medication it was possible. - Oh, it was incredible it was like I found myself again I had the capability and
look if you're somebody that really struggles with
anxiety or depression, and it's the kind of thing like I had where it interferes with
your day-to-day life you have to go see somebody. - Biochemical, I'm glad you said this because I'm not a doctor. I've had a fair bit of anxiety myself. I had one small bout of
depression it was on the backside of a major medical problem that I had, and I just gave the
answer in this other show that I was filming around it's like there's like not feeling right, and feeling off and bummed, and there's like clinical
hardcore depression, and sometimes you don't know, so do all the things to
take care of yourself the things that you know that you're gonna prescribe in class, and that we're talking about here, and need to see a professional too. - Absolutely, in fact, I
talk about it so openly because first of all I
think these days most of us have some level of anxiety, and I think it's only gonna get worse because of social media and technology, and the fact that people work 24/7, and just the way that the new cycle kind of bangs at you all day long. I also talk about it openly because I really view it like something that's akin to diabetes you
have a chemical imbalance, and if you have diabetes there's no shame in taking insulin. If you have a chemical
imbalance that's causing you to torture yourself mentally, or make things harder go
fricken talk to somebody, and see if meds would work
for you I really believe that, so what happens is it gives you a leg up like I've seen this with
our 12-year-old, too, who started taking
Zoloft like I don't know when he was 10 for a period of time because he had gotten into
such a hole with anxiety that he was not doing sleepovers, he was not getting in elevators, and he couldn't get out not
with the cognitive tools, but it gave him the leg up to be able to then let the cognitive
tools take effect, and the new habits to take over. - Then when you can do new habits that's ultimately about
getting off the medication if it's in your purview. - Totally, so that was
kind of the beginning for me of this awareness around anxiety. I took Zoloft for awhile, and then, of course, I felt
good so why do I need it? Of course, not going to therapy. I went off it when I had Sawyer who is our first-born
daughter who is 18 now who I had the terrible
bout of postpartum with, so then I jumped right back on, and I stayed on it until
about five years ago. Five ago after introducing The 5 Second Rule to the world, and having it go crazy viral I started to wonder because I saw how I was
using it as a starting ritual to change all my other habits, and to learn self-monitoring, and to be the person I really
want to be in the world, and in my marriage and as a parent I started to ask myself, gosh, you know, if I can change all these
physical patterns that I have I wonder if I could change
the thinking patterns, so I went off Zoloft for the first time in like 15 years, I mean,
that was terrifying, and started using The 5 Second Rule to monitor my thoughts. - How powerful is that. - It is the most freeing, remarkable, I mean, I
get just so choked up thinking about this because, I mean, so many of us torture ourselves. The thing that drives me
is not being on stage, or having a successful book it's the fact that we're getting close to 1,000 inbound
stories and emails a day. - That's amazing. - The strategies that we
are teaching are working, and people are not committing suicide. They're using The 5 Second Rule in therapy for PTSD. They're using it in CBT therapy. They're using it in addiction. It has been the most rewarding
thing in the world to see that something so simple
just a little technique, and that's basically what I focus on is what are the small
techniques that we can all do in various areas of our life and business that give us a leg up, that give us control, that give us the ability
to catch ourselves before we ruin it, you know, before. So it is the most freeing
thing in the world that you can do to learn that you don't have to think
the way that you think. - It's amazing the
connection the physical body, the studies, the sciences
indubitable at this point the mind-body connection. I think, also, so many people, well, I want to get your take, but just conceptually the connection between our well-being and our thoughts. You realize that your
actions I'm gonna reach over, and pick up this glass of water, but when you realize that your brain is a two
million year old computer that's programmed not
necessarily to make you happy, but to make you survive
and to create anxiety as a mechanism for staying
alive in the wilderness, but when you realize that you can actually be the boss of that. Tony Robbins, not related, talks about like it's the brain it's not your brain like when you realize that
you can be the boss of that through The 5 Second
Rule or something else that what an amazing
transformation is possible. - It's the beginning point for everything. The other thing that was really remarkable is we spend a lot of time
talking about mindset from the standpoint of think positive so positive things happen, and I do believe in having a
positive mindset, obviously. I think that the actions that you take are way more important in terms
of developing that mindset, but we don't spend enough time on what you were just talking about, which is understanding how the automatic nature of worrying about stuff all day long how that is making you less money, how it is making you less happy, how it is disconnecting
you from your spouse, how it is keeping you unhealthy, and how it is a habit
that robs you of joy, and opportunity and power, and it is one of the
easiest habits to break. - All right, that is a
very bad ass statement, so can we go there just for a second like tell us how, I mean, you have a practice, well, I'm gonna introduce really quickly The 5 Second Rule is the book. Congratulations, taking
the universe by storm, millions of readers, the fact that you've been
able to then socialize it also through radio and
through things like this, and through your blog and
all these other places what I find beautiful is it's simplicity, so use that as a door walk through that door
that I just gave you, and tell me like A, how you came about it, you know, what it does,
and how you can unlock some of those things that you talked about get out of your own way, make yourself healthy, make your business more successful with being able to control your thoughts. - Number one, your life
happens in five second windows. Number two, in five seconds you can control what you think, you can decide what you're gonna do, and you can change absolutely anything which changes absolutely everything. The 5 Second Rule is a mind trick that's all that it is, a fancy way to call it is
it's a form of metacognition, but it's basically a
hack, it's a cheat code. The way that it works, and this is the challenge
with getting it out there is that it sounds so profoundly stupid like a gimmick that it
took a while for people to actually take it seriously, and to really stack up the science to make anybody that interacts with it go holy shit, like this actually works, so here's what it is. Basically, the moment you
catch yourself hesitating, or doubting, or starting to worry, or about to chicken out,
or shrink, or shut up, or whatever it is that you're about to do that is shrinking your power you just go five, four, three, two, one, you count backwards five,
four, three, two, one. What happens when you do
that don't do it out loud because it will scare somebody like a psycho, five, four,
three, two, one, it's okay. Although, I say it's so simple that people use it with their kids. - This is a Saturday Night Live skit in the making, I can see this. - I would love that, because
that means I've really made it. - It's true. - Your kids will use it on you, so my kids will use it on me. If I have a certain tone that comes out I'll hear my child go, "Five-four-three, watch that tone, Mom," or, "Mom, five, four, three, two, one, "I thought you were gonna go to the gym." - Oof.
- Yes. By counting backwards
the kind of cheat code that you're doing in your
mind is you are interrupting what are called habit
loops that get encoded in the central part of your brain, and you are starting up
the prefrontal cortex. It's a little trick that causes focus, and it's a lot like having a mantra because you're shifting gears, but the thing about having a mantra is, and I suppose that as you count backwards more and more and more
you become used to it, but it becomes a habit
that triggers action, so what you do is you go
five, four, three, two, one, cut off this part of the brain, awaken this part of the
brain and then move, and what happens with
the counting backwards is there's nowhere to go after one, and your mind is socialized in a countdown situation to go. Counting up won't work
because you can keep going. - You can go forever. - And you do it in many
aspects of your life, so it's actually not something
that requires any focus. See, the prefrontal
cortex in functional MRI's is lit up like a Christmas tree when you're doing something
that requires courage, when you're engaged in strategic thinking, or when you're learning a new behavior. So we've invented or I
created a little cheat for switching the gears manually between the part of the brain that actually makes changing
difficult and keeps you stuck, and the part of the brain that
you need in order to change. - So five, four, three, two, one, and then you engage in a
behavior that you're afraid of, or that the crocodile brain part is saying don't do this, or this
is gonna be scary or bad. - So if you're sitting with a client who constantly scope creeps on you, and you know you want to say something, but you start to feel that hesitation you're about to chicken out,
five, four, three, two, one. - Then you say, hey,
this is outside the scope of what we talked about
it's not a huge deal, but we just need to redefine (mumbles) - Yeah, you say whatever, or if you have a drinking problem, and you feel yourself drawn toward it, five, four, three, two, one interrupts the habit of grabbing for it based on whatever trigger made you want to have the drink, and you turn and you move away from it, so it is a way to have
courage in the moment. It's a way to have
self-control in the moment. It's a way to be present
and awake in the moment. It's a way to interrupt
patterns of behavior. I use it right now for my tone of voice. I use it because I get like in the zone, and then I have this
edge to my tone of voice that I really don't like, and the more that we do video and I see it the more I'm like, oh, my gosh, I don't want to sound like that. I use it for sure to exercise because I hate to exercise. Still eight years later, I mean, I discovered this thing in 2008 by mistake trying to beat my habit of
hitting the snooze alarm. - Incredible. - Yeah, and I still everyday
use it every single morning to get out of bed every single morning. I hate getting out of bed I hate it. - Love this about you. - I use it now that I'm 48, soon to be 49, when I wake up at 2:37 and
I have to go to the bathroom I use it five, four, three, two, one to just get out of the damn bed because you know what we all
do at our age we lay there, and we're like, okay, just go back to bed, just go back to bed, that doesn't work. 47 minutes later you still have to pee, so just five, four,
three, two, one, get up, go to the bathroom, come
back, go to bed, all good. - Okay, so you developed this
hack, like scientifically, you're shifting it from
the crocodile brain into your frontal cortex
so you chose that. What has that unlocked for you? Is it truly that simple
or can you then walk us through a couple of like activations, or some of the results that you've seen, or what you've experienced. I mean, you just talked
about getting out of bed. - Well, 2008, let's just
talk about where my life was. My husband's restaurant
business was failing. We had a lien that had hit the house. I had just lost the first
television show I was gonna shoot, and was stuck on a
contract not getting paid, so unemployed, bankruptcy. Chris is sleeping on the
couch raging like drunk like drinking way too much
totally out of control. The thing that I think
we're gonna cover tomorrow we'll see what comes up. - Sure, sure. - I think knowledge can be a huge trap, and what I mean by that
is we spend a lot of time acquiring knowledge about what to do, but most of us don't spend enough time figuring out how to make ourselves do it. - It's not the strategy that you're lacking it's the action. - Push, yeah, it's the action. The thing that I found for myself, and I'm sure that whatever it is that you're struggling with, or anybody is struggling with you're probably really
frustrated with yourself because you know what
to do to lose weight, but you can't make yourself do it. You know what you need to do in order to grow your business, but you can't make yourself do it, so I was stuck in that extraordinarily I think human experience where I knew should get up on time. I knew I should look for a job. I knew I should be supportive of Chris. I knew I shouldn't drink at night. I knew that I shouldn't isolate myself. I knew I should go see a therapist. I wasn't doing any of it. I was really, really struggling, and it's so ironic that I
now what I talk so much about is how to build confidence
like the real confidence, how to build courage
because I had none of it. I invent this little thing
just to beat the snooze alarm because the kids kept missing the bus. I felt like the world's worst parent, so it worked that first morning, and then here's what I can tell you is that I said earlier
that in five seconds you can change anything and
that will change everything. I also think you're one decision away from a totally different life because when you're the kind of person that's sleeping in everyday, and waking up and feeling like a loser, and you make one decision that all you're gonna do
is actually just get up, no matter how painful it is what happens is that one decision makes you see yourself differently because of the action you're taking. - You've broken the
habit or whatever, yeah, so it's possible almost. - Yes, so I made myself a
promise once this thing worked three mornings in a row to get out of bed, and the promise was this. If I knew that I should do something no matter how much I didn't want to do it I was gonna use this stupid rule, five, four, three, two, one, and I was gonna give myself a push, so I would get up on time, and I'd walk into the kitchen the first thing I'd see was Chris, and I'd just want to kill
him you know what I mean? Because we're fighting like crazy, and it's so much easier to
do the old, it's your fault, and I'd feel that wave come up, and I'd go five, four, three, two, one, and it would give me the self-monitoring, and the self-control to realign what was about to come out of my mouth with what I wanted which was
I wanted to save my marriage. I wanted him to be successful. Cognitively I knew all this. In the moment I found through
these five second windows that I could gain the
self-control to pivot and do it. I would see my sneakers and know all the science says you're
supposed to exercise, but boy oh boy when you need it most you don't feel like it, and I would do that thing
where I'd see the sneakers, I'd see (mumbles) I'm like no, five, four, three, two, one, grab the sneakers and go. So one small decision at a time. I started literally moving
my life in a direction that aligned with the
things that I wanted. In seeing myself do it that's when your confidence
and the momentum, and all the wonderful
stuff starts happening, so I've literally gone
from that period of my life unemployed and tremendous
financial strain, and tremendous marriage strain to making more money than
I ever thought possible, being a complete shark of a negotiator, I mean, I'm an asshole
because I have no fear. I can literally in a business
discussion see what I want. I know what I'll settle for, and if I feel the emotion
coming up I push it back down, five, four, three, two, one, and that is a powerful
thing to have in business because most of us live in fear, and we have the scarcity feeling about what's gonna happen if you say no. - Don't get the job or
the gig or the contract. - Correct, and it's also helped me wrestle the ego piece to the ground because there's so many things that you do in business and in life
that are really driven by deep insecurity and
the need to fill ego versus the things that
actually matter to you, so it just is this incredible little perspective checker all the time. It's like a self-coaching tool like if you have a best friend
that's a pain in the ass that's constantly pushing you this is a way you become
that person for yourself. I mean, I could give you example after example after example. I mean, even the book people told me I was crazy to self-publish. I would have loved to have
made The New York Times list, loved to because I come
from the Ivy League. - And that's the ego. - I come from ego and, you know, I want everybody else
that's fancy to look at me, and be like woo, she made that list, and then I started to realize, well, wait a minute what
do I really care about? What I really care about is first of all having control over what we're doing, secondly, being a smart business woman, so that I own everything, and most importantly how
do I actually make sure this idea spreads that it spreads as fast, as simply as freely as possible, so we made a decision that we
would self-publish the book, which I would tell everybody to do, and what's interesting is my book came out the same
week that Tony's did. It's interesting because the only book that outsold me via
BookScan that week was his, and we outsold the other
nine books on the list, but because we were self-published, and didn't have a lot of
bookstore distribution, you know, we didn't make it, so, of course, I was like pissed, and so like five, four, three, two, one, and I'm like forget it I'll
just be mad for 24 hours. I'm gonna drink five
Manhattans, go to bed, and take five Advil and then get up, and I'm gonna be over it. I was angry because I
felt like I earned it because of the sales, but then I realized, wait a minute. - It's the ego. - Yet, again, this is that ego thing, and I think there's a lot
of things that we all do that are so driven by that instead of really stopping and saying what is the long-term game here? So we had a really
interesting thing happen. I want to talk about this because I'm sure there are lots of aspiring writers that are watching. Because we didn't have
a lot of distribution, and because we basically
pent up all the demand for that one-week spread Amazon sold out in about 15 minutes. Barnes and Noble sold out immediately. Couldn't find the book in Canada because they had sold out. No stores had it, so what happened is-- - What can I get in
the market immediately? - Yes, they went right to Amazon, and right there was the book
is available in two weeks, or you can get audible right now, so the other thing that I
did is for whatever reason, and I know that you believe this, too, I read a couple of interviews
where you were saying that you had read an
interview of Steve Jobs, and you believe that you absolutely have to trust your gut
even though it's hard it is so critical that
you develop that skill. - It is, it's the most
unsung skill in our culture I think is listening to it. - The 5 Second Rule will
give you the courage to actually hear it, or it gives you the clarity to hear it, and the courage to follow it, so for whatever reason I said because we worked with like
a self-publishing person that printed the books and I just said, there is no way in hell
you're getting audio. There's no way in hell
you're getting audio. I'm severing the rights. I didn't know what the hell that meant, severing the rights. - Sounds good, sounds powerful,
I'm a good negotiator, five, four, three, two, one. - Here's what's happening
we're in the thing I don't even know what I'm talking about. I'm listening to this. I've gotten the right deal that I wanted with the printer/publisher person that was gonna help me self-publish, and he said, you know, audio. I said, absolutely not, I said, what could you possibly
do that I can't do myself? I can rent a studio, I can
talk into a microphone. I can go to Amazon and
I can upload the files, so if I can do the things that, you know, why do I need you? And why would I cut you in? Like it's one thing because
you're printing the books, and setting up the books
and shipping the books, and storing the books and
dealing with bookstores, but I don't want to deal
with any of that stuff. Take your commission, good bye. The audio there's no cost after you record the file, nothing, zero. - Zero marginal cost, yeah. - So many authors right
now the game has changed, absolutely, positively changed. - I'm a huge fan of audio. I mean, that's why this is syndicated. It used to be a video show, and now it's primarily an audio show. I started talking into
my phone and to Siri when it first came out and
people thought I was bonkers, they're like what is this dude doing talking and holding his phone up. My v1 Siri got so good, I mean, the AI and stuff it was very basic back then, but I just realized the 22
things that I could say to it, and it would do all the things correctly, and it was freaking people out. I'm very, very passionate about it, and the fact that this to me that's one of the reasons
I was really excited about connecting with you on this is this to you by admission earlier before we started recording
earlier in the show I've lost track was a
game-changer for you. - Oh, my gosh. - So you moved a lot of
units in the book form, and then audio is where
it really went kapow. - I mean, in the first five months we sold 150,000 audio books. Why are you laughing? - That's awesome. - Guess who owns it? - I know, okay. - Now, can I also though say, honestly, that was God
or the universe's reward for listening to my gut. - Yep, because you saw on that thing. - That was also my reward
for not going for ego. Like I think when you really align your actions with your values
and with the true outcome that you're seeking it is
incredible what happens, so first it was I'm not gonna spend 35, like when you guys walked past
those books in the airport, you go, oh, I wish I could be there. You can, it's $35,000 for three
months, thank you very much. That's right, that's the
big lie that nobody knows. The end caps in the bookstores
you can pay for those too. You can buy your way into The New York Times bestseller list, but you have to know what you stand for, and why you're doing something. If that's something that you have to have. - To take a picture and send it to mom. - Yeah, or because it will be
a game-changer in your career, great, make the investment, but go in being fully aware that that's what you're doing because there's a cost to that decision. - This to me is where I want to go next, so you've said it a couple times. You've been either intentionally or not sort of leaving a little breadcrumb here. I'm gonna go pick all those breadcrumbs up because the path the
breadcrumbs are pointing at, which is what's important is in using the five, four, three, two, one using it for the sake of using it is really not all that important if you don't know what you want. This is a very important
piece of your TED Talk, which I found very inspirational, and you've said it several times here like values lining up with what you want, and then enabling yourself
through self-awareness to take action and to do it, so one of the things that
I'm having, you know, whatever, having an audience
of people who are watching, and listening and have for
years and years and years, and sat down with folks like yourself what I realize is that a lot of people struggle to define what they want. Help the people, tell the people. - Small request. - What is the thing that you've seen that's getting in the way of people being able to define the
thing that they want? - Let me see if I can
answer this succinctly. The mistake that we all make is that we focus on the person, place, or thing, and that we tend to focus
on something way too big. That creates a gap between where
you are in this magical ... - Nirvana. - Rainbow cafe unicorn thing that you think is gonna rescue you from your miserable life right now. That gap can start to be the thing that makes you feel lost. I think that when it comes to
figuring out what you want, and discovering I guess
what your passion is, or your direction is
first you've got to learn to listen to yourself
in the smallest ways, so I recently developed at tool that I haven't been talking a lot about because I'm still doing
a lot of research on it, but it is deadly accurate
and it works in five seconds like The 5 Second Rule, and it is the secret I think to helping people figure this out. - And you're not gonna
tell me this is like. - I will tell you what it is. I don't have a name for it yet. - You don't have to. - I imagine it like. - This is the raw, this is the
unplugged, behind the scenes. - First of all when I
hear the word passion, and you didn't say passion, but that's kind of the word
that people use for that. I need to figure out who I am, and what I'm passionate about, and where I'm going
and what my values are. I believe that passion is another word for energy that's it. - What do you have energy for? - What energizes you, and that we naturally
have a tremendous amount of body wisdom about that, and that everyone of us
has an internal fuel tank that is either empty or full. If you're empty you feel depleted. If you're full you feel energized, so if you simply are in any situation. I mean, any situation and you pay attention within five seconds to does this person energize me? Do they deplete me? Where are they are on the scale? You just gained some tremendous wisdom. The simple way to start
to figure out who are you, and what you want is
start aligning yourself with more things that energize you, so situationally if you're lying in bed, and the alarm goes off
and you feel depleted, and you start reaching
for the snooze button that's a really big sign that
you need to get out of bed. Now being depleted versus energized has nothing to do with whether or not things are hard or easy. It has to do with what naturally actually either expands
you or shrinks you, so if you look at your client list, and measure it depleted versus energized, what shrinks versus expands me you have the actual map, and when you start to find
the courage to make decisions that energize you and that expand you whether they're scary as shit or not that's when everything changes, so that's how I actually
make business decisions. The money conversation comes second. It's does this deplete or energize me? If it depletes me how do you
move it in that direction, or how do I say no? If it energizes me how do I do more? Two years ago when my speaking career exploded out of nowhere
based on that TED Talk it was great for like a year and a half, and then suddenly I started
to notice that the anxiety in the mornings was creeping in when I'd have to leave town that I just felt kind of low and depleted, and I realized that
actually being on stage kind of depletes me, but the thing that energizes me about the speaking
business is meeting people, and it's the emails I get, so I started to pay
attention to that and say, how do I do more of the thing that naturally energizes you? Because if you are energized
or expanded by something you will do it for no money, you will do it happily, and you will suddenly wake up and say, oh, my gosh, I'm pursuing my passion. How did that happen? What happened one five
second alignment at a time in the right direction so that you were actually
working with your natural wiring, working with your natural energy, tapping into your wisdom, so, again, The 5 Second Rule is this tool that allows you to tune in
and give you the courage. This is the tool that gives
you the wisdom that you need in order to make those decisions, so when I get wigged out because I don't make The New
York Times list or whatever I tune back in. Well, what is it that's energizing me? It's not some stupid ass list it's that this idea is helping people. - Is it your philosophy
then that by tuning in, and following what energizes
you that is the path? - 100%. - You have the path now
you use The 5 Second Rule. - Because I'll tell you why. You can't until you actually
learn the wisdom of you, and the power of you, you can't look at the big stuff, and successfully in my mind go get it. You'll be the kind of person
that maybe checks boxes, but never feels satisfied as you do it. You're always onto the next. You're always chasing the next because you have run right
past the number one thing that you're supposed to
figure out in your lifetime, which is who you are
and how to listen to it. - That's so powerful. I think we've referenced
to Tony Robbins earlier there's a thing that he says that is conjured up when you say that is there are people who
have been wildly successful. They have mastered the
science of achievement, which is the ability to get shit done, and check boxes and run at things, but what they have failed to master is the art of fulfillment
which is who are you, why do you do things it's
like the Simon Sinek why, like what gets you out
of bed in the morning? - This is the way you
find the answer honestly because if you can't
listen to your own wisdom about whether or not you should get up, or whether or not you should exercise, or whether or not you should
curb that drinking problem, or whether or not you should like get over your fear of cold
calling and start doing it. If you can't master the little stuff you will never answer the big stuff ever. - It's so powerful, it's
so simple I love it. - It took me a long time to figure out. I was just having this
conversation with my daughter who is starting her first year in college, and she's going through
all kinds of anxiety. We were just having this conversation where she was making new friends, and you know that thing where
you have your roommates, but you don't necessarily want them to tag along with your new friends, and then you don't want your new friends to tag along with your roommates. I looked at her and said, listen, it took me literally 45
years to learn this lesson. I mean, I didn't say it I was like don't be a passive aggressive bitch, okay? The world's a big place. There's no kind of set number of friends that people are supposed to have. The more generous you are, the more generous you are the easier and more satisfying
and fun your life is, period. It took me so long I don't know why to realize that there's enough success and happiness for everybody, and the second that you figure out how to stay in your lane, which is were you
energize, where you expand, and still be able to cheer that's actually I think
how I figured it out is that when you focus on in your lane, which is what your wisdom is telling you, energizes and expands you you have so much capacity
to cheer for everybody else, and what's fascinating so this
audio book that started off kind of like this is the
reward it caught fire one of the reasons it's
one of the most successful audio books of all time
for audible already, and we're already six months in it's the most successful
self-published one that they've ever had and
it's only gaining steam. Amazon has launched all
these most read lists like the top 10 most read, the top 10 most wanted, the top 10 bought we have been on it since they launched because of the audio book, and the numbers that it's driving. What's interesting is that I've had a ton of really famous authors call me. Like there's a famous author that I'm not gonna tell you the name of that sent me an email yesterday, and the first time I got
the email I'm like what the? What does this guy need me for? He's fricken best friends
with Oprah for God's sake. Why is he calling me? Then I realized I had a
little bit of that old residue of I'm not telling them my secret, and then it's like wait a minute five, four, three, two, one there's enough room for
everybody, period, period. I'm so committed to just trying to stay in that space because the thing that
I find very difficult with my own psychology
is I have the propensity because I'm intellectually curious to look at what everybody else is doing, and then either use it as
a way to beat myself up because I'm not like I
don't have the platform, or I'm not whatever they are or whatever, you know what I'm saying? Or to convince myself that I'm
not doing it the right way. I find it to be one of
the biggest challenges about running a business right now is that there's so much information about what other people are doing that it can really
pollute what you focus on, so it's super important
to always look around, but then calibrate it against this idea of what expands versus what shrinks you, what energizes versus what depletes you. It's cool, right? - It's so cool. I'm gonna try and like
go into the last segment of our talk here. You did a nice job incidentally I think of opening the door for me because you talked about into the space. When I think of your space
there's the personal space that you occupy the things
that you decide is your lane, but there's also the space that you've either very intentionally
or accidentally backed into, which is the human performance, or self-actualization space, and it is wildly absent
of female leadership. - And diverse voices. - There's a handful of women who I feel like have taken a huge amount of a small space there's still slots there, and to me we have to change that. The same with people of color, and I was wondering if you could talk a little bit about that? - The first thing that I would say is that I did stumble into this because what happened is I invented The 5 Second Rule by mistake. I transformed my own life and marriage, and just who I am as a person using it never intended to tell anybody because it sounds so damn stupid, plus I didn't really
understand why it worked. I honestly thought I'm a witch. I've come up with a spell. I, you know, went onto
go, you know, join CNN, and had a syndicated radio show, and launched a little content
aggregator and sold it. Chris actually saved
the restaurant business, so life was good and
I gave that TEDx Talk, and it was actually about
like career change, truly, and I let the rules slip at the end. It was an afterthought. I didn't even explain it because I didn't really
know how to explain it, and people started to write. We've heard from more than, you know, I don't even know how many at this point, but by the time I had heard from 100,000 people in 67 countries. - This is a thing. - It wasn't even that it was a thing. It was that when you have three or four people write
to you and tell you the story about how they didn't commit suicide, and that they used The 5 Second Rule to turn away from the
railing or put down the pills I felt an obligation to figure out and be able to
explain why something so simple creates such profound results, and what I also learned is that when you email the
world's leading researchers, and you have CNN in your
name people respond to you. - Nice. - All of a sudden everything
that I had ever done was preparing me for this moment, so the law which teaches you how to take super complicated amount of information, and synthesize it down to one takeaway, basically, or key takeaways
that came into play. The understanding that
advice is boring as hell, so you got to be entertaining to actually have people pay attention. Just my natural curiosity,
my business acumen, like it all came in like this. Then as the TED Talk took off, and people started asking me to speak, and I started sharing the research things started taking off, and that's when I looked up, and we're like, oh, my gosh, there's like no female speakers, and there's like nobody
in personal development. There's a lot of amazing
women in the spiritual space. There's very few of us that crossover, and mind, body, business performance. I don't know why that is. I don't know if it's
because of the same reasons that there's a lack of diversity
in corporate environments. I don't know if it's
because it's a small world, so when I look at people's podcasts everybody has the same guys on all their podcasts all the time, but the thing that's always fascinated me is that when you look at the data the majority of the products and courses are being bought by women, so there is for sure a huge opportunity. Now here's the challenge as a woman. If you go too much after
that particular market then you label yourself as an expert for women. Like Oprah never branded
herself as a brand for women. She spoke to everybody, but attracted whatever
87, 93% female audience, but she never actually
became a brand for women. I've made a very mindful business decision not to do a ton of women's conferences, not to have a ton of speeches about women, and bias in the workplace, which I've done a tremendous
amount of research in, and can explain the science,
and explain what bias is, and can explain how we learn in chunks, and how bias gets encoded, and how it's like peanut butter and jelly, and once you have that pairing it's very difficult to
separate like I mean, so I could write a book
about women and confidence, and I'm fascinated by it, but it would be catastrophic to my appeal to humans across the board. Right now when we look at the fan base that follows us and we're
a very data driven company in terms of informing
some of the decisions almost 45% of the people that follow me, and buy the stuff that we do, and certainly that sit
in the audiences are men. I think that there's a huge thirst for more diverse audiences. I didn't answer your question
why I don't know why. - To be it's the conversation it's like you don't
have to have an answer, but we need to talk about it like that's the thing that's happening. - The other thing that's
happened a lot with me you and I are similar in that
we started somewhere else, and found our way into being curious about
personal development, being a student of it like, you know, you don't talk about stuff that you don't actually do, same with me. I have been shocked by
the number of people that have told me that it is so refreshing to be around somebody
that didn't read a book, and became a coach in
somebody else's program, not that there's anything wrong with that. Everybody finds their way, and if that's what your
supposed to do fantastic, but I think one of the differentiators, of course, is that I'm a woman. The other differentiator is that I do crossover to business, and have a very loud and
strong business point of view, and a legal background
and a media background, and I did a lot of other things before I stumbled into this. I also don't think I have the answers. I think I'm figuring it out in real-time, and I'm just dumb enough to
be sharing it as I'm going. - I think that's brilliant. - Because I like the
connection, I like the feedback, I like learning from other people. - That's part of the nature of my question that's why this show exists in part is a little bit selfish
like I'm trying to learn from the people who've done it, from people who better me and divert me. - I'll tell you also why there aren't a lot of women in this because we do get attacked differently. You say something provocative
and you're an asshole. I say something provocative and I'm ugly, or I'm the C word, or I'm
some bitch that nobody like, I mean, it gets so personal so fast. If there's one thing
that I learned at CNN, and being on the team there, which has been a remarkable experience it's literally how to if somebody comes after me
I love it, you know why? You don't attack somebody who
hasn't actually poked you, so if I say something
that makes you that angry there's a kernel of truth
that really angered you. I see that kind of I've developed an insulation, and a perspective about it that actually helps me in this business, and I think it's very difficult for women. The things that people say to the female on airtime
at CNN are disgusting compared to what they say to the guys. There's tons of research about it, about how we get attacked for
our appearances or clothes, almost never for what you say. - Brené Brown does it really good. She talks about the same
thing with the TED Talk the one she gave about
vulnerability and shame. - Oh, yeah, people talk about
like what she was wearing. - Yeah, it's horrible. I love your perspective on it. I think we need to culturally, also there's this crazy
feeling of optimism that I have around the
rise of the feminine in a historically male oriented
world I feel the shift, and just even words like vulnerability, and the fact that you're
in the position you are, and your dynamic and all of the things that I feel you represent
in this conversation, but also the classes, the
TED Talks it's so inspiring, and I'm trying to get more of it. If there's any advice that you have for anyone whose listening
or watching we're all ears. It sounds like you feel
like you don't know. - In terms of more women I
just think that for women what your gut tells you is that the online course business, or the speaking business or writing like telling your story if that is something that
really energizes you, and expands you, five,
four, three, two, one use that tool to push
yourself through the fear, and through all of the obstacles that you're putting in the way. Everyday just push a little bit further. I think for those of us in the space number one, we need to be way more proactive about seeking
out diverse voices. This is something that's
just coming to mind, but I think since a lot
of experts these days are now forced into the position of having to market themselves that we get very siloed like I remember the guy
that does Art of the Charm I can't even remember his name he wanted to have me on the show to talk about The 5 Second Rule, and then he found out that
Lewis Howes had booked me, "I can't have you on." You realize there's how many billions of people on the planet, and not everybody is
listening to the same stuff, so I think there's a very insular like mindset about I don't know whose paying attention, or how much overlap there is. You know what I'm saying? I see lots of examples of
people really trying hard to bring lesser known
voices, diverse voices. I don't know the answer, I don't. - You've given us plenty to think about. We kept saying like
tomorrow, tomorrow, tomorrow just as a reminder you're gonna
be on CreativeLive tomorrow, so anyone whose listening to this. - Later you can buy it, yes. - Yeah, we're not live right now so, yes. - 99% of what we do is free, but this course you can buy. - I'm super excited to have you. Thank you so much. - I am too. - I'll be glued to your class tomorrow. - I hope it doesn't suck. - It's not gonna suck it's awesome. Thank you so much for being
on the show, and big fan I'm gonna just continue
to push your message I think it's brilliant. - Just take it it's not my message. See, that's the thing it's not my message. This is an idea that everybody on the planet needs to know. - You can't actually end with
a better statement than that. Thank you for being on
the show I appreciate it. - I want a hug you're not
gonna give me a handshake for gosh sakes after that. - All right, I'm gonna
sit back down again. Thanks again I appreciate
you guys for tuning in. It's exhausted, we're just gonna like until tomorrow or maybe the next day. - I'm gonna go get
working on that PowerPoint for this class tomorrow. - You should, you should. Until next time, bye bye. (upbeat music)
