The 5 Second Rule to Change Your Life with Mel Robbins and Lewis Howes

if you accept the fact that you may never feel ready and you may never feel motivated and that's okay but you can still push yourself forward what happens over time is as you start to see yourself becoming the person that takes action and the kind of person that speaks even though your voice is shaky guess what happens you build the skill of confidence and courage welcome everyone to the school of readers podcast we have a special guest Mel Robbins good to see you thank you so much for being here this is the first time I've had a Bill Belichick headset on I feel like I'm gonna be calling plays people here we go you are you know you got to stand down to the podcast world not everyone does this yes you do oh I thought this was because of your arena football bat I know everyone says that but for me I like it because I used to have a mic that would sit on the table I like lean forward the whole time yes you can't relax at all and you can't like move your head at all so that's like the mic is cleared it's crisp and you can do anything yes so I don't care if it's a little big or bulky fantastic I loved it when I first started watching your show because I do watch your show I was like oh some day but I do feel like I got to be like this you know how they all go like this you can't read their lips yes exactly for the little charts yes you've got a new book out called the five-second how do you drink coffee with this on your mouth do you have to like put it up like this I put it up like this oh it moves what about now Mel's got a book called the five-second rule and it's out right now it's about how to transform your life work and confidence with everyday courage and used to be a are you still our CNN analyst are you using I am no but I don't cover politics so it has not been a busy year for me I do more ethics and relationships and business and so when there's breaking news that that impacts human behavior or business that's when they'll call me got it okay yeah now were you always an on-air personality talent analyst or no I have had a crazy career tell me about crazy okay so I grew up in Western Michigan I would to college in law school and the first job I got out of school was as a public defender of Manhattan okay I did violent felony criminal defense work for the city of New York for four years and I would probably still be doing it except for the fact that my husband got into business school in Boston right and so we moved up to Boston and I was not actually licensed to practice in Massachusetts so I went to work for a large law firm and almost immediately wanted to kill myself Wow not like truly and you know we'll talk about the implications of the five-second rule and how beneficial it is not only for productivity and for confidence but also for mental health stuff but hated it and luckily this was 99 in Boston when the startup scene was exploding and you could sneeze and get a job and I networked like crazy and ended up getting a job in a really cool technology company and spent four years doing tech tech memory and well you know one of the things about getting a law degree and I'm not actually telling you to because I think there's there's probably one a practice law it's a mother lode of debt and there is a absolute glutton of attorneys out there and the job market is really difficult and the other thing they don't tell you about law school right now is that you may be an incredible attorney but unless you know how to do business development your career is not going to do what you want it to do you need to bring in business right yeah the network you need to build is there and expect it to come to you that was the old model right that was the I'll go and get clients correct correct Alta Bates then get the motors for large firm yeah because you're not if you're on the partner track you're actually not of value unless you're generating income and and so they don't tell you that in law school but so anyway the law degree though and because it's a degree about learning how to think and learning about how to take mountains of complex information and distill it down into one key takeaway and to the most important elements of something that's what law school trains you to do and so what's fascinating is that when you look at my career whether it was being in high tech or it was then going on to do a bunch of executive code Chiang launching and selling companies and and then having a syndicated radio show being on CNN and what I do now as an author as a speaker as you know somebody like you that's that is out helping people figure out how to launch businesses and change your life it's about taking all of the incredible information that's out in the world and distilling it down into the key takeaways that makes super that makes sense and that are also actionable and so interestingly when I look back in my career even though I've made all these career changes there are still fundamental skills that I developed early on that are the reason why I've become very successful in these other arenas and you know that's one other thing to remember is that the cool thing about the world today and you talk about this too is that all the information that you need is right at your fingertips now all you need to do is watch the show and you will get the secrets to creating the life that you want and being able to make that pivot so that you can let your passion direct you into a business that really helps you create the life that you want so the information is there the guide guidance is there but the thing that's so difficult for most of us is how when you're alone and you turn off this show do you push through the excuses the habits the fears and the the actual physical constraints that you have in your life right now so that you can make the pivot and so I often say that I am NOT a what speaker or a why speaker I'm a how and that there's already incredible information about what you can do and why you should do it and I find that the place that I get stuck is okay well that's great and I do a lot of thinking but how do I get out of here I make it happen our thoughts are our biggest killers of our dreams totally there are the biggest killers or our biggest cheerleaders and if we don't know how to really I guess I don't know not manipulate them but to really hone in on them then we can have a messed up life and I've gone through many years of self destruct growing up just because I didn't know how to manage the thoughts I didn't know how to i was never educated on it really on how to how'd you not control it but I don't know what is it what is it what is it yeah not control it but what is the word I'm looking for well see I talk about it this way so I I like to simplify things because it makes it easier for me I'm almost 50 for crying out loud there's only so much that you can remember where to be you know when he's 33 that's a whole different ballgame but I think about your brain as being in two modes two modes to your brain that you need to know about there's autopilot we've all experienced that you know you drive to work and get there and you're like who drove the car oh my god like I don't remember driving the car here well you did Louis you drove the car but the thing is is that you were in the mode of your brain that's called autopilot well what is autopilot autopilot is the interior part of your brain you'll hear neuroscientists and psychologists talk about the basal ganglia very important thing to understand is that there's a part of your brain that it's entire job is basically to execute your habits habits big fancy word means something very simple behaviors that you repeat without even thinking about it when you pull your pants on in the morning I guarantee you you either put your left or your right leg in first and you have to stop and think about which one it is don't you but not when you're putting your pants on right because that behavior is what researchers call a habit loop it gets enclosed as it gets encoded as a closed loop system right here now the problem for most of us is that half of the day we're on autopilot and that's not me making a guess that's what researchers that study habits and study psychology say that half of your day you're basically kind of checked out and you're on autopilot and when you're checked out and you're on autopilot any behavior pattern that you repeat can take over and guess what our behavior patterns that we repeat thinking patterns so self-doubt worry Macross donación overthinking analysis paralysis fear those are all thinking patterns that are habits one of the most important things that I want people to understand is that you're actually not a worrier you have a habit of worry mmm big difference you're not a procrastinator you have a habit of procrastinating big difference and when you understand that any behavior pattern whether it is a thinking pattern like you doubt yourself all the time or you get trapped upstairs noodling everything and you can never get started or whether it's a behavior pattern like you drink too much or you snap at your kids or you micromanage your team every one of those behavior patterns and thinking patterns can actually be interrupted and replaced using science now let's talk about the second part of the brain drive that's this puppy right here this is what you want this is your prefrontal cortex Drive is the mode where you're in charge of your thoughts okay it's where you are fully awake you are present and you are driving your thoughts and actions when you're doing that your prefrontal cortex is active the prefrontal cortex is the part of the brain that you need in order to learn new behavior in order to do something difficult in order to do something uncertain in order to do strategic thinking so I'm gonna give you an example so I'm a righty if I were to try to write with my left hand like you Lois is gonna torture me and tie my hand behind my back thinking like do this I could do it it would look like I was writing with my foot and if Lois came up to me and said hey Mel you want some bulletproof coffee I'd be like Lois I'm sure I'm trying to concentrate I can't do this my prefrontal cortex would be el fuego because it is firing on all cylinders to communicate to my hand new behavior so the thing that's cool about that is that you can use a simple trick the moment you feel yourself hesitate the moment you've got one of those moments where you know that you need to this is that moment that Lois talks to you about where you got a step outside of your comfort zone and you've got to lean into your passion and you've got to really take some risks and you got to feel the fear and you got to do it anyway that's the moment where you just woke up and now you got a decision to make are you gonna drift back into the habits or are you going to awaken your prefrontal cortex and drive forward and focus and do something new and so the work that I've been doing and speaking about is all about the five-second rule which is a trick that I invented by mistake that helps you manually switch no joke your brain it turns off and interrupts the part of the brain that is where all your habits and your behavior patterns are encoded and it awakens your prefrontal cortex which in five seconds flat allows your brain to help you change and so anyway I love that was rambling on and on because you you went on this thing about how your patterns can be destructive and nobody teaches us and that's absolutely right and what I want everybody to get out of this conversation between us is that you cannot control how you feel you cannot control what triggers you and the fact that you may rise up with anger you may rise up with self-doubt you may have anxiety fill your body but you can always control what you think and how you behave and we spend way too much time trying to focus on manipulating how we feel about things and not enough time practicing the skills of controlling your behavior in your thoughts mmm because if you can control your behavior and your thoughts and the way you feel be different hundred percent and a lot of us are sitting around waiting to feel ready waiting to feel courageous waiting to feel confident waiting for the right time and that's not ever coming ever ever you're not gonna change your life up here you only change it through action and and so to me you know IIIi did this this you know interview with you with your friend Tom and we talked about how motivation is garbage and this somebody memed it and went crazy and so the point that I was trying to make is this is that ya motivation is great if you feel like if you feel motivated but its garbage and it's it's it's it's a losing bet to wait to feel ready mmm-hmm because it's your body's not designed that way and neither is your brain and so I want everybody to understand that first of all you can't control the things that trigger you and the fact that you're going to feel afraid and you're going to feel doubt and you're going to feel uncertain but you can always interrupt that feeling and take control in the moment and actually shift what you're thinking and shift how you behave yeah and you know the bigger the dream the more fear you're gonna have you know like you've conquered the fear of something in order to grow you've got to take on some new challenge and there's gonna be uncertainty there's gonna be some stress or there's gonna be some warrior there's gonna be some ego checking and there's gonna be some identity crisis so there's always gonna be this fear that could arise always always I mean did you do you feel like once you master this that you have no more fear me yeah no the fear still comes but I have 100% control of what I think and do so one of the things that that is important for me to to put on the table is that a lot of times you know people look at your where you are now and so they'll see me on television or there see that TED talk or maybe you'll be in an audience of 20,000 people in the American Airlines Center and I'm on stage and like wow that chick must have just been more in confidence hate her the fact is that's not at all how I how I was i I when when I was 19 I started having crazy panic attacks and they got so bad that I took medication and medication was a godsend for me I took zoloft for two decades when I had our first daughter who is now 17 years old the postpartum depression was so bad that they put me on a divan which turns you into a zombie and I could not be left alone with her so when it comes to well self doubt and to how we can torture ourselves with our thoughts boy have I lived that nightmare and as I started to use the five-second rule which we're going to get into and everything about my life changed because when people first learned the rule what you're gonna learn what you're going to start doing is you're going to start using the rule to push yourself to do things that are annoying you're gonna push yourself to get up on time you're gonna push yourself to work on your business plan you're gonna push yourself to make calls that are scary you're gonna push yourself to get to the gym you're gonna push yourself to speak up more at work you're gonna push yourself to put the booze down behavioral behavioral behavioral and then you're gonna start to actually use it to change the thinking patterns that are self sabotaging so I four years ago wondered as ice started to see myself go from thang facing bankruptcy to building the eight-figure bakers I what what what happened for me is I started to say okay this is a really cool little trick to bring out the most powerful side of you but can I use this to actually cure myself of anxiety and the answer is yes you can and four years ago I went off so loft and I started using the five-second rule which I'm gonna explain in one second to interrupt the patterns of worry and self-doubt which by the way anxiety is nothing more than the habit of worrying spiraling out of control mm-hm and body feelings triggering now the habit of obsessive worrying that turns into anxiety and then kind of escalates to panic I started using the five-second rule to interrupt my thoughts every time I would feel that kind of worry kick in and because the prefrontal cortex is awakened when you use it your mind is now ready to take on a totally different thought it's a very different strategy than just trying to switch the channel on what you're thinking because you're actually inserting the step that nobody talks about which is switching the gears in your mind so that your mind can actually take and believe the thinking yeah interesting yeah so the five-second rule weight first off we'll cover the five-second rule okay so 2009 that's when you first tried it or discovered it or oh it's a total horror show mistake okay yes okay so 2009 I was unemployed and feeling like what employed how well okay watch charisma too much passion yeah cuz everything's working right now things are not working well they're what had happened is I I had had all these career changes and I got into the media business again by mistake I had a coaching business and ink magazine was writing an article about coaches and they featured me in it and CNBC called got it and that led to me doing some stuff with CNBC and I spent a year still coaching people and then doing some stuff for CNBC and then Fox called and they were interested in having me host a television show now you got to understand I'm from North Muskegon Michigan mm-hmm I mean the media business who's the closest thing I had ever seen to a set a celebrity Louis was the Muskegon Lumberjacks the farm team right right from our fur for the Pittsburgh Penguins my dad was the hometown doc for the hockey team there right so I thought the Mayor was a slam my life's about to change I'm about to be a celebrity Wow we're gonna solve all this is amazing you know so um I was originally going to be hosting a show for Fox where we were making over small businesses nice yeah pretty cool right we show up we like do Extreme Home Makeover for the office everybody's happy we all know that doesn't solve business problems for a nice television show by the time I get to LA they've changed the format it's now called someone's got to go and I'm gonna be firing people on national television for real jobs Wow uh-huh that sounds fun horrible plus we haven't told the offices that this is what we're doing my gosh so you show up in act 1 and you've got everybody all like this because they're gonna think they're gonna get new akia furniture and a paint job and this is gonna be the best thing in the world for their small business now meanwhile I'm a fourth-generation small business owner so that's like my people grew up at a kitchen table with farmers and you know my mom at a retail store and my other grandparents were Baker's and so when it comes to like the heart and soul and what's so important when you launch your own business and how personal it is I mean this was like gut-wrenching so I show up the first act you kick out the the owner of the company who then freaks out then all the employees freak out act number two we announce that somebody's getting fired and then that's that's the the bad news the good news is that I'm not picking we're gonna have you vote somebody out so it's survivor in an office place oh my goodness so when when I learn all this I have a panic attack even though I'm on Zoloft and I call the guy that got me the gig and say you got to get me out of this like this is the worst thing that's ever happened to me and he said well I'm sorry but they've already cast the entire show and you're out there for five weeks and you don't have a choice what they're gonna sue you and I said then fine get me some Zen because I don't think I can get through this thing like this is awful luckily we taped two episodes and legal tabled it hmm but here was the problem I was attached to the show and I only got paid if the show was shooting mm-hmm and being an entrepreneur I also yes put all my energy into this shut down the coaching thing I really thought that it also kind of negotiated a deal that was a sort of a back-end deal thinking i'ma fit you know entrepreneur always thinking about God yeah that was a dumb move and I was in a contract for a year while they figured out what to do hmm so he couldn't do another show yeah so you know I just felt like I had made a huge mistake and I felt really embarrassed and I didn't know at the age of 41 what I should be doing with my life and while it's neat that I had jumped careers so many times I started to feel like somebody that actually wasn't successful at all because they didn't have a career track I had a bunch of jumps from one thing to another now looking back it makes perfect sense but standing in the middle of the mess it just felt like everything was caving in probably just like when you were sleeping on your couch feeling injured and like everything I thought that was about to happen isn't happening now meanwhile my husband had opened up a restaurant business it had been his dream he worked in high-tech and came home one day after getting laid off and said I I'm never going to get on a plane and do a PowerPoint presentation for a company I don't care about her own and I said great what's your plan and he said I'm gonna open a pizza restaurant and I looked at him and I said was there a trust fund that was part of this marriage that I was unaware of because I'm not quite sure someone died you got an insurance policy and he said no I then said the most famous lines of her 20 to merit 22-year marriage Louis I looked at him and I said listen buddy inspiration is for strangers you get your ass back to that job and you pay the mortgage and you forget this dream you're not gonna be well cuz change is scary yeah so we fought and he won and the first one was a real home run he was in a pizza store oh he did yeah 40 forty seats right outside Boston Massachusetts he and his best friend Andy they wanted best of Boston it was incredible what do you do when everything let me go they did on the first one so what do you do whenever let's go all chips in let's put in the home equity line let's put in the kids college savings let's get friends and family and because you're so excited you you think it's gonna work so you go big big big well the second one did not work at all and it did not work at all so badly that when it was finally closed it was close to an $800,000 loss and it meant our entire home equity line kids college savings everything went right down with it that was right when I lost the Fox show so I'm unemployed the liens start hitting the house the phone starts ringing all the time and it's collections calls mmm so you want pop songs me out well you just unplug the phone that's how you deal with that but I I remember like there I remember two things from that period of my life that were really painful and one was having to call the town and tell them that we could not afford the hundred and seventy-five bucks for our sixth grader to play soccer so we needed to pull her out and I remember there being times because I was so afraid to look at the checking account that I would stand at the grocery store and items would scan and I could just feel that wave of anxiety rising thinking I don't I don't think the check card is gonna go through and so I would stand there I always had an excuse and it was to look at the person and go oh that's strange it just worked at the gas station oh my gosh because I what would have been more empowering is to probably say oh well I guess I don't have the money for this let's take this this and this and just kind of like the easiest thing to do is to tell the truth but I was so filled with shame yeah so I started to develop this habit of hitting the snooze button because what would happen is the alarm would go off in the morning and the first thing I would think about is all the problems that we had and how awfully things had gone off the tracks you didn't deal with them no and I and I also didn't know I didn't know I didn't think I could and this goes back to the feelings like you you think that you need to feel confident or courageous in order to get started you don't you actually just have to start and that's the riddle of life that lying in bed hoping that you wake up some morning motivated to change that's not the answer you actually have to learn how to push yourself you have to learn how to how to leverage the power of your decisions and you've got to learn how to take action when you don't feel like it because every morning when I woke up I did not feel confident I felt like a loser I felt like the world's worst parent I felt like I had failed at every single turn I did not know if Chris and I could pull out of this spiral I did not know if we were going to go bankrupt and lose the house and move from our community I did not know if our marriage would survive I knew I wanted it to and see this is the knowledge action gap you can know what you want you can know what you should be doing but how do you make yourself do it when the feelings and the motivation isn't there when all you got is fear and so every night I would I would lie in bed and I would say to myself all right that's it Mel tomorrow it's the new you tomorrow you're gonna wake up and be motivated you're gonna you're gonna get up you're gonna exercise like everybody says you should you're gonna meditate you're gonna get those kids on the bus you're gonna screw Fox you're gonna look for a job you're gonna cold-call Cox media and you're gonna you're gonna do auditions Khan girl let's go let's go let's go you know take a cold shower you know here we go and I meant it when I was saying it maybe it was the alcohol that was talking but but then I would wake up and I'd feel any of those things mm-hmm so I would hit the snooze and I would hit the snooze now why was I hitting the snooze when I knew it wasn't the right decision I'm gonna tell you why and this is something that I was blown away by when I discovered it you don't make decisions with your goals you don't make decisions with your prefrontal cortex you don't make decisions with logic do you know how we make decisions I didn't invent this a neuroscientist by the name of DiMaggio who does his research in Brazil who gave an incredible TED talk and wrote about this forever and ever and ever we make decisions of feelings 95 our decisions are made by how you feel in the moment and that is the problem you need to take control of the moment and leverage the power of your decisions and make them up here because when I was lying in bed I wasn't saying to myself I should get up because that's gonna help me start my day right I was saying do I feel like getting up no you don't know do you feel like making that cold call no you don't do you feel like doing that third set of reps no you don't do you feel like having that hard conversation no you don't do you feel like ending this relationship whether it's in business or in your life that is sucking you dry no you don't we make decisions based on our feelings and that is robbing you of joy and opportunity and it is blinding you from the fact that oh how you change your life is one five second decision at a time one push at a time and if you if you accept the fact that you may never feel ready and you may never feel motivated and you may never feel confident you may never feel courageous and that's okay but you can still push yourself forward what happens over time is as you start to see yourself becoming the person that takes action that you start to see yourself becoming the kind of person that speaks even though your voice is shaking you're the kind of person that that that has a bias toward moving instead of a bias toward thinking guess what happens you build the skill of confidence and courage and so what happened for me is I was stuck Louis I mean I was so stuck I was on I mean we were heading straight for divorce we were heading for bankruptcy I knew I wanted to change things and so one night I see this commercial this is the stupidest story on the planet but this is what happened I see this commercial and you know again I I also was drinking too much I mean I probably had a couple Manhattan's in me she was my drink I'm from the Midwest just like you all right little Manhattan there bourbon and there was a rocket ship launching on a commercial yeah and I had this instinct this innovation this disruptive idea right oh my god no that's the answer tomorrow morning you're gonna launch your ass out of bed like a rocket ship you're gonna move so fast you can't even think about your problems dumb right mm-hmm totally dumb seems like this is the toughest idea I've ever heard I can't worry if I have this chick on my palm I understand I understand it you gotta get moving first yes that's the thing you just gotta wake up at 6 a.m. and wherever it is and go into the gym when you're in the gym you're gonna start moving the first way yes and then you'll start actually people people use the five-second rule at the gym because you know how much time people waste at the gym standing around thinking about the next thing 30 percent of the time 5 4 3 2 1 so the next morning the alarm goes off and nothing had changed in my life I woke up to the lien on the house the fighting with Chris the unemployment the lack of confidence the lack of courage that like the whole thing but I did something I had never done before I went 5 4 3 2 1 just like NASA I actually counted and then I stood up and I was like what the hell just happened uh-huh what what that is a dumbest thing I've ever heard the next morning I used it again at work the next morning I used it again it worked and then I started to notice something and this is this is one of those things so we have a we have an 11 year old son who has dyslexia and when they finally diagnosed him it was as if of course it was as if like how could we have possibly missed this are we the worst parents in the world I mean the kid can barely write he can't cut his food he doesn't really like no wonder he doesn't do team sports it was right under our nose and what I'm about to tell you is right under everybody's nose there's a five-second window between the instincts the shoulds the urges the inner wisdom the things that can change your life if you listen to it got a five-second window from the moment you feel that instinct it's a move and if you don't your brain is actually designed to kill it five seconds is all you have the second you hesitate it's actually and you feel yourself hesitating that is a moment of huge power because what's happened is you've just started to pull back from something that you need to lean into and if you count backwards 5 4 3 2 1 and this is the neuroscience behind why this stupid little trick works counting is an action counting backwards requires focus it's also not a habit for you yet so when you feel yourself hesitate you're triggering your mind that something's up like Lewis didn't hesitate when he pulled on his pants he didn't hesitate when he's drinking his coffee he didn't hesitate when he walked out the door to the gym but now he's hesitating to make that call your mind now goes into a cognitive bias called the spotlight effect it magnifies whatever it was that you hesitated doing mm-hmm the moment yeah it's like all of a sudden you're like hey I don't feel like it like I don't I don't know maybe I'll do it later and your mind is doing it because your mind's trying to protect you hesitation signals a red flag to your mind that something's up just that small hesitation it's a habit that we all have should you hesitate if you're getting a tattoo yes should you hesitate if you're gambling yes should you hesitate if you are signing a legal document yes you need your prefrontal cortex for those things you need to interrupt it make a power make a decision should you hesitate on making a phone call no should you hesitate on speaking up in a meeting no should you hesitate when you feel yourself starting to procrastinate and you know you got work that you should get done no you shouldn't hesitate at all should you hesitate and saying the thing that you really feel in your heart no you shouldn't should you hesitate and edit yourself when you're talking no you shouldn't but we've all trained ourselves too so it's actually this habit of hesitating you start catching yourself it's a huge moment of power because you have a decision to make and you got to make it in the next five seconds are you gonna go on autopilot and get trapped in your mind or are you gonna five four three two one and awaken your prefrontal cortex and drive forward so I started to use this rule as I noticed that every day all day long I had these moments of inner wisdom where I would know that I needed to pick up the phone and stop isolating myself I would know that I needed to call a bunch of media companies and start auditioning for radio show hosting gigs I knew that I should get on get out of bed on time I knew I should stop myself before I snap to Chris Wright self monitor yeah I knew I should not feel let the frustration be the things that was driving me and so I started to use the rule all day long whenever I felt this I should this by 4 3 2 1 and I would make myself to it and slowly five seconds at a time my entire life start started to change and my husband used it in his business and he and his business partner Dovan they went on to open seven more restaurants I went on to launch and sell to businesses and get recruited by CNN and joined their team I had a syndicated radio show that that ended up winning the Gracie Award which is kind of the female media you know awards for the number one talk show in the country and you know I never intended to tell anybody about the five-second rule first of all because it's stupid right I mean count backwards as a dumbest that's stupid made-up I think that works works for sure elevate I'll take any stupid that's true okay and so I but I also was like how do you start talking about something like that right yeah so um I was asked to give a TED talk like six years ago in Ted six years ago not the brand that it was today they weren't even putting the talks online yet really yeah the TEDx talks were not online yet and so that was the first speech I've ever given in my life if you want to see what somebody looks like having a panic attack for twenty-one minutes straight watch that speech I was backstage and it was like one PhD after another going out there and like myself and so at the very end I wasn't even planning on talking about it I say oh by the way there's this thing I do that's it I don't even explain it and you know why I didn't explain it Louis I didn't know why it worked mister down the science the researcher just zero zero and then something crazy happened they put that talk online a year later and people started to write we've heard for more than a hundred thousand people in 90 countries that have written to us that are using the rule in ways big and small to change their lives to change their marriages to change their thinking patterns to grow their businesses we know of eleven people that have stopped themselves from killing themselves well in the moment there's a gentleman that we talked about in the book and you can see his social media posts in London he was a he was a veteran and he was suffering from post-traumatic stress disorder and he boarded a ferry with the intention of jumping overboard and he got to the railing and he was standing there and his inner wisdom kicked in and this is another thing I want everybody watching to understand I don't care what you're facing or how low you get your inner wisdom he's always there it is and the thing is is that we often don't listen to it and so he's standing there intending to kill himself and that inner wisdom kicks in and he remembers the five-second rule and he goes 5 4 3 2 1 and he turns and physically moves away from the railing and finds the first person working on the ferry and tells him that he's suicidal hmm saved his life Wow he saved his life because he listened to the inner wisdom and this is the other thing I love about this rule it's not something to think about it's a tool to use so the part of the problem with a lot of the advice that I've found for me personally is that a lot of advice is all about kind of doing mental battle mm-hmm and if I go upstairs I'm behind enemy lines and I tend to get hijacked so I love this tool because five-four-three-two-one interrupts those patterns it actually prompts the part of the brain that I need in order to change and it makes changing easier because I've now got my mind working for me instead of against me and it gets me out of my head and so I'm I'm super excited to share this rule with people because I now know not only that it's working just not not for me it's working for people around the world and you know in the book it took me three years to write it it's all the science behind the rule it's got more than a hundred and fifty social media posts in it so you see stories from around the world of people using it to end procrastination to build confidence to deepen their relationships to launch businesses to explode the sales why does it help with sales I'll tell you why because you can't sell by thinking selling is about action we have we have groups from companies around the world sales teams that put five four three two one up on the wall I'm sure they hate me let's go yes because what cold calling it's a momentum stop and think the phone is not getting the dialing is not happening when you're thinking yeah you're thinking about all this knows you've been getting yes do it again yes feel good yes and if you're in the middle of a negotiation or you're in the middle of a really difficult conversation and again remember what we said earlier you cannot control your feelings that rise up but you can always control how you think and what you do so if you're in the middle of a difficult conversation and you feel those feelings come up that normally trigger you to start editing yourself or to censor yourself or to silence yourself or to think sabotaging thoughts and like a business negotiation five-four-three-two-one awaken the prefrontal cortex get back in the game how is this rule helped you the most in what area of your life with your your marriage your business and being more productive in not having to you know take drugs when you're worried so much what's what's or on stage what's the area where you're like wow this has really had the biggest impact and I'm sure all of it but well the most important thing in my life is my marriage so my relationship with Chris is like the thing that brings me the greatest joy I mean I'll start crying thinking about it and how many years to be married 20 20 years we've been together for 22 years three kids 17 16 11 it has given me mastery over myself like I get so choked up just thinking about this like I used to feel out of control and this rule allows me to be the best version of me and to interrupt like all the garbage that can trigger you to behave in a way that's inconsistent with your values and your dreams and so that has been the single greatest gift that and also you know I think the other thing that's super cool is that it is a tool that certainly prompts you to act but it is also a tool that helps you tune in to your inner wisdom like you're not only going to start waking up you'll be so in tune with those signals that come from your instincts not emotional not instinct like instinctual that that you you get a direct line to your inner voice you get a direct line you know you're all these people one of the things that's always that's always struck me as so if you if you list all the people that you admire right yeah Richard Branson Oprah Winfrey Bill Gates like everybody's got kinda to say yeah I know whatever Louis for sure if you list all those people jay-z beyond like everybody yeah everybody that you admire is doing the exact same thing they actually listen to their inner wisdom they have figured out how to tune out the critic up here and trust the instincts and you know I have this saying about confidence that I've only recently kind of stumbled into as I've been digging into more research around the science of confidence and the skill of confidence because a lot of people think that confidence is a personality trait it's not it's actually a skill that you build through action and a lot of people think confidence is a state of belief it can be but that's not where it begins and so I say that confidence is the willingness to try that's all that it is knowing that you may succeed or survive but you'll still try and to me all those people that we admire most that's what they're doing they have the ability to tune into those instincts that are true for them because the fact is there's only one you that's it and you matter because there's only one you and there's only ever gonna be one you and your instincts and your experiences and your inner wisdom is a gift to the world and every time that you tune it out because of the habit of hesitating or the habit of self-doubt or the habit of worrying or the habit of overthinking you are robbing the world of that gift that you have to give to everybody and you can use this simple stupid silly tool to train yourself to not only hear it but also to develop the skill of courage to act on it hmm powerful and is there any area of your life where you feel like you lack courage still you know I'll admit it's kind of easy I think we all kind of go through those those moments where you feel like you're behind and I think social media is both an incredible tool and it can also be one of those triggers that makes you feel like look at how many followers like it's easy to use technology and social media not for inspiration but actually as a way to bash yourself that you're not doing what other people are saying yes and so I think that I use the rule a lot for patients I noticed that my insecurity rises up because right now you know look I did a ridiculous number of speeches last year I travel way too much I don't want my life to look like that it's a champagne problem I get it yeah but but I also have three kids in a marriage that I love and I really feel depleted when I'm not with them and so I'm practicing patience as I make an intentional pivot in the kind of business that I'm running so that I have more of a life that I want as well so that's one area you know I I don't feel insecure as much as you know you know the term deliberate practice right and you know the five hour rule where practice is not from the town code well the deliberate practice is actually a psychological principle it was in a book called the talent code but you oh yeah okay well it's a psychological principle that you know and you know the 10,000 hours I mean liberal practices yes so so deliberate practice is this idea that yeah you could do 10,000 hours at anything and become an expert at it but the way to do it faster is to deliberate to do deliberate practice which means you're practicing with the intention of improving and there's a feedback loop yeah so just hours and hours as opposed to 10,000 correct like for example if you want to become an expert at guitar learn scales don't just sit there for 10,000 hours and play the same song if you learn scales you get the finger dexterity and the muscle memory and the neural pathway development yes I saw your guitar I saw your guitar you know I always wanted to play guitar but instead I forced my three children to learn that's good I just watch that my brothers uh you know the number one jazz violinist in the world what yeah and so I grew up watching the most incredible now is he built like you to he used to be even like more jacked they used to calm the Incredible Hulk of violin because he was just like wow snap the thing in half he would like slam like Jimi Hendrix style yeah but now he's leaned up a bunch actually and so he's he's incredible so I should just be all awestruck by his gifts it was unbelievable his skill and so I learned guitar I taught myself almost eighteen just cuz I was like I have to know something you know intense music I can barely you know I'm like a hack but yeah at least I could do something yeah yeah so I'm I'm kind of in this mode of of improving myself and I'll give you one more thing that I'm working on so I kind of think about my life and my work in three buckets so we got this bucket you know we got this bucket and we got this bucket and so when you think about your business or you think about your passion or you think about work I think about okay what do I need to do in terms of how much time and what actions do I need to take in order to develop the skills so that I can perform the work so there's the deliberate practice that goes into practicing your skill and your country yep and your competency yep mastery so that when it comes time to actually deliver the work whether that's selling or standing on a stage or writing a book or talking to people or selling real estate or whatever it is that that it may that may be your passion deliver this is the one I neglected last year this bucket is what are you doing to personally develop yourself so that you are the most capable fulfilled and satisfied human being so that when you show up to do your competency in your skills and the delivery that you as the human being are able to do that yeah and so I've been spending a lot more time consuming content reading books watching you know your incredible show and learning from other people and I think that one of the traps that entrepreneurs get into as we I I was feeling last year anyway like I was on a treadmill and when I wasn't looking somebody was coming by and turning up the speed and I was only in this alley and decreasing the the the hills yes and so anyway if you're my age you need like a diaper when somebody does that you're on a treadmill and a leash do it exactly so I I've been focusing a lot on this and it's been interesting because you and I were talking earlier too about you going to India and some of the stuff that you learned in terms of the different states to be in and I use one where I pay attention to where I'm feeling depleted versus where I'm energized and here's the thing you can be doing things that are really hard that energize you you can be doing things that are really scary that energize you the same is true with things that deplete you there are things in your life they're really easy for you there are people that you hang out with by the way that you've been hanging out with for years mhm but they deplete you and so I've been starting to become more deliberate about how I distance myself from things that deplete me and how I spend more time and energy either doing or pushing myself to do those things that actually energize me and this gets back to your message around passion right and that you know the the art and the skill of building a life that is guided by the things that you're passionate about yeah that's great so what is something that you're worried about or or feeling insecure about or that like is the next big thing for you I know you got a big book launch coming yeah that's one thing I mean I'm talking about a topic on masculinity actually before I'll mention that but here's the thing also I wanted to add if this is you know mastering the skills yeah and this is working on it or executing it right if we you know just to emphasize this I was great at these two things as well my entire life and I would achieve all my goals by executing the the work on the skills but I never had the fulfillment and I was always lacking the inner peace or the inner I don't know I was just never enough and so I never filled this up I always went back to the mastering more skills and taking more action and mastering skills and just feel like it was never enough I hear you I never filled up this cup right and once I started to you know about four years ago opening up about a lot of the different traumas that I went through as a child and just like growing up you know being sexually abused me too by a man that I didn't know my brother being in prison you know parents getting divorced like almost every kid it was and being bullied you know just everything and being dyslexic and being the bottom of my grade and all these things growing up all through school not being on a read and write I never filled this up and so I was just so driven to prove people wrong learn the skills master something and show people that that they're wrong about me and it was just never enough it was just this endless cycle of like never enough no matter how big how much money I made was never enough until I started to work on this cub in this bucket and then everything shifted so it's important that we do that as much as these two yes and you know I know it's sometimes a message falls flat you know when you're in this when you're you're committed to providing that kind of content for people and you can get focused on creating it and not actually yes being somebody that that is consuming enough of it and so that's a huge change that I made funny enough on the on the male side one of the biggest shifts that happened in my marriage with Chris is we had always been kind of even-steven partners both with the parenting and with the finances and and supporting one another except for that phase where I was a real and I was like saying you cannot follow your dreams that was all fear talking um one of the coolest things that's happened for us is that as my speaking career took off organically and the world basically said lady you need to teach the world this message and we don't care how much you're gonna kick and scream about it we're gonna keep putting you on stages and the phone's gonna keep ringing and that we need to know it but people need to know about this my husband had always liked you youngest of three boys dad was crazy successful wasn't around cuz he traveled all the time Chris had always had this thing in his mind that he hoped that they would grow the restaurant business and he would have this big kind of you know liquidity event and then he could take off for years and you and be with our kids and it just so turned out that it didn't work out that way in the restaurant business but my career went like this and so subsequently we wouldn't be able to have the marriage or the family if Chris weren't running point at home right and what sir well yeah but what's so cool is for an entire year he beat himself up about it uh-huh and then he got sober he went to a yoga intensive training he's now a certified yoga instructor he has a tractor he just he runs the Booster Club for our high school sports he created a triathlon in our town that's one of the biggest waters for the town the guys like found himself and his strength and we've realized something in our marriage where he's just not driven in terms of the financial piece or the the the you know in the way that I am and part of the conflict in our relationship for a long time was me putting those societal demands on him him feeling the obligation and so the thing that's also been really cool is that when you start to discover the courage to speak what's true for you it's amazing how things shake out and fall into place and it gives other people the courage to explore and figure out what's true for them because the fact is he is a way better way better parent than I am especially for the ages that our kids are and it's and you know I have this thing where I feel like every phase of your life requires a different you and the phase that I'm in right now and the kind of parent that I am is will be totally different when our daughter heads off to college next year different phase of my life is gonna require a different phase of me and so it's been so killer to see us step into this different phase where he is so happy and self expressed and you know I was I I was reminded of it cuz you talked about this project and I want to hear more about it about what you're working on because he's now launching this tiny little retreat for guys Wow you know going he's a big Knowles guys so they're going off into the mountains and really exploring success is one thing what does it actually mean to be satisfied with your life on your own terms and who you are and so he's in this really cool inquiry about what does satisfaction with your life really look like when you take full responsibility for what truly matters to you hmm powerful yeah yeah fulfillment I mean we can all learn how to be successful if we can't be fulfilled and it's a failure you know yeah successful failure without fulfillment so yeah I am you know the book I'm talking about is it's called the mask of masculinity and it's tapping into really what it means to be a man and redefining the new man as opposed to like what society is put on it might be on you guys wearing skinny jeans exactly yes exactly yes so I'm you know I'm I'm excited about it I guess I'm confronting yeah I mean cuz in every chapter I breakdown myself and all the mistakes I've made as a man and like you know now are you in a relationship I am yeah you are how long have you been about three years yeah okay yeah with a break in between but yeah with the same person yes okay so it's it's been a lot of growth for me yeah a lot of scary you know uncomfortable conversations fears that I've you know 5 4 3 2 1 right into it it addressed it and you know I'm still figuring it out I don't have all the answers still I think the reason I love doing this show is because I interview and connect with the most inspiring people in the world who I want to learn from and see you know how I can be better in the the areas that they're strong in so for me it's a selfish reason doing this show to like take on so much great information say how can I apply that to my life and how can I share that with the world you know it's it's amazing and you know one of the things that you said to me when we first started is what do you want to get out of this and I talked about how I just want to spread the idea that you can change your life in 5 seconds and I want to spread the idea that you can't control how you feel but you can always choose how you think and what you do and one of the things that's so cool is that you know you and I are both outcome thinkers so we think about the outcome that we want and then we figure out how am I going to get there and when you go through life like that it gives you so much mastery over how gonna behave because you're thinking about the things that you want to cause yeah it's powerful I want to wrap it up for the few final questions I'll get to leave here soon so this one is called the three truths and if it was the last day for you many years from now and you've achieved everything you want or if the plane crashes today you've achieved everything you want right and you've written all the books on the world that you want to the courses the speeches everything you've done you've spoken to the world of whatever reason all you have is a pen and a piece of paper to write down three final truths and they have nothing else to be reminded of you are you trying to make me cry no so we talked about this so all your books are erase all your videos are gone the TED talks with hundreds of millions of views are gone you know a piece of paper and a pen three final truths that you would share with the world and this is all they have to remember you by what would that be it would be that there's only one you and there there will only ever be one you so make sure that you listen to what your heart is saying and always do that I would say you can change your life in five seconds and the moment that you feel the instinct to act count five four three two one then go awesome I want to make sure everyone gets this book this is gonna change your life five-second rule make sure to go grab it right now get it on Amazon get it on Barnes & Noble go to your local book store it's everywhere go get it and send a message to Mel on Twitter or Instagram or Facebook what's your is it the same handle everywhere yeah that's basically Mel Robbins we use the hashtag five-second rule and one cool thing I want you to know when you when you spend the its 15 bucks right now in Amazon and I'm so proud because we're number one new release in four categories congrats amazing thank you and more importantly it's changing lives around the world we taped 31 crazy awesome mentoring sessions and on the back page of this book there's a little URL right here where you get them for free awesome cool yes you get these videos that we shot at the house that are awesome about my Jedi mind tricks that I use and parenting and relationships and overwhelm and all that stuff Mel Robbins comm / 31 sessions and check out Mel Robbins comm to get more information I'm excited we'll link everything up in the show notes before I ask the final question on technology for a moment Mel for your incredible gift and contribution to this world you are a unique inspiration and I'm dead serious I didn't know who you were before about three weeks ago and I reached out to you that's just like I'm really curious about learning more about you and connecting with you and I'm so glad that I did because you are making a massive impact so I'm so grateful we've connected I'm so glad my audience against to watch this and hear about you and make sure you guys follow her because she's a game changer so thank you all right right back at you so listen I've been stalking you for more than two years okay and so I feel like a little bit of a fangirl walking into to tape this and the thing that really jumps out to me is just you are a guy that is all about abundance and passion and the thing that is so rare in this world is people that open up their hearts and their influence to help everybody around you and so I just love your heart I love your soul and I love the generosity of spirit that you have for the world and it has been such a privilege and such a fricking fangirl moment to be here with and get to share this with your audience truly so anything I can do to help you you you put me on speed dial brother I will I will I have one final question please what's your definition of greatness of greatness hearing your truth and speaking it no matter how your voice shakes Mel Robbins thank you so much for being here appreciate it thank you I love you you

Channel: Lewis Howes

Views: 1,329,641

Rating: 4.8665414 out of 5

Keywords: Lewis Howes, Mel Robbins, The School of Greatness, The 5 Second Rule, success, mindset, entrepreneur, business success, procrastination, relationships, MOTIVATION, MEL ROBBINS TED TALK, 2017, MEL ROBBINS 2017, interview, audio podcast, why motivation is garbage, anxiety, live, global, tedx, stop saying you're fine, best selling author, decisions

Id: supVPLOHWPg

Length: 59min 59sec (3599 seconds)

Published: Wed Mar 01 2017

Reddit Comments

[u/winwithzach]

This is great!