You've spent decades studying murderers, liars, world leaders, becoming an expert at decoding this hidden language. What do we need to know in our everyday lives? What are the basics that you want everybody to be equipped with so that we can spot when people are lying, so that we can spot these signals that somebody is giving to us and be more empowered in life? Where do we even begin, Jeanine?

That's a great question, Mel. First, I would start with us before decoding others. Emotional intelligence is self-awareness, social awareness, self-adaptation, motivating others to be the best version of themselves. So let's start with self-awareness. When it comes to ourselves, a lot's happening. I call it a behavioral fingerprint. What's your behavioral fingerprint? What's your movement DNA?

I have no idea.

Well, you're so dynamo. Are you kidding? Listen, You're making a bagel in your kitchen or whatever, and then you say some sound bite, it goes, millions of people are watching it, and lives are being changed because of it. Your body language is great. You're very authentic. And here's why. I love trees. And if you at home can imagine a tree. There's the four stages of how we communicate. And if you think of a tree, Mel and you at home, we're going to start with the roots of the tree. The roots of the tree is what we believe. I spoke at Georgetown University, and someone said, a woman, At the end of my presentation, Excuse me, I have a group interview tomorrow. Five people are interviewing me. Jeanine, is there a question you would ask at the end of the interview? And I said, yes, I would ask to each of them, what do you consider the ideal candidate to look like and How do I measure up to your expectation of the ideal candidate? And the woman, had you all been there, you would have seen her and heard her say, Oh, I could never ask that.

I would look desperate. And you would have heard me respond, You're right. You would look desperate. I would look confident.

Is that because of the roots?

It's because of the roots of the tree. It's what I believe, because I really want to know that question. For the women who are listening, a lot of us women, we really do ourselves a huge disservice. Men go in and men say, Excuse me, Mel, I just found out my mother's coming to town, fourth of July. I'm taking four days off. Confident, solid body language. Women, we ask the same question that same day. We will often, many of us, come in shoulder shrugging. And we put our shoulders up to our ears. Hey, boss, I just found out, shoulder shrug, that my mother's coming to town, shoulder shrug. I didn't know she was coming. Could I take the fourth of July off? And your boss says, yes to Bob and no to Jane. Jane, ask me again in June. And we walk away and say, this is what happens. It's a double standard. Now, I'm not saying there's not a double standard with men and women because there is. But there are some areas where we have to take responsibility for the results we're getting. And here's the right reason. When we shoulder A shoulder shrug, we're going to talk about this, hopefully in a bit, but a shoulder shrug means uncertainty, and it's also connected to deception, which we'll talk about, hopefully in a minute.

But a shoulder shrug means uncertainty, and we have mirror neurons. You yawn, Mel, or Donna, or Jessie or Amy or Andrea, whoever's listening. You yawn, I yawn. Science. Mel, I know you love science. I know you love what's happening in the brain and how the brain and the body are talking to one another because they are. So when I come in uncertain, how am I making my boss feel, Mel?

Uncertain. And they probably don't even realize it. I've been watching a bunch of your Ted talks, and you did this exercise with the audience, and we can do with everybody listening, where simply take a second and say the words, Can I have the fourth of July off? While your shoulders are hiked up towards your ears, and you'll realize your entire body and energy is questioning the words that are coming out of your mouth. It's impossible, Jeanine. You're absolutely right. I've never even thought about it. Impossible to even feel confident if you're talking with your shoulders up at your ears, you're shrugging them up.

You're planting pumpkin seeds and expecting tomatoes to grow.

It's true.

I mean, it begins with the roots, though. It's not our fault. It's not your fault, because no one is teaching us this, okay? We just want to be light. We don't want to be inconveniencing people. We don't know if we're bothering. But if you look at many of the men are in Confident Alpha women, they just come in unapologetically. That's the roots of the tree. What is it that you're planting? Because what you're planting is going to grow whatever the seed is connected to. So get to those roots of the tree. It's what do you believe?

What's the second part? The trunk. Okay, what's the second part?

The trunk of the tree is body language. And now this is interesting because after body language comes the branches. The branches, Mel, and you at home, the branches are thought. So this means body language comes before thought. And here's the deal. It comes up to five seconds before a thought. Mel, do you think five seconds is a good advantage for the military? Would five seconds matter?

It's life or death, I would think.

Do you think five seconds matter with an athlete?

It's winning or losing.

Can five seconds with you, with your 10 second rule, can five seconds make a difference? Can I jump out of bed at five seconds?

Yes.

With understanding what I'm talking about now, Mel, first is the intention, the roots of the tree, then body language, and then thought. This means you get a five second advantage to know how someone else feels before their brain knows how they feel. This is why when I say, Hey, Mel, I can't come and join you for Thanksgiving this year, and you go, Not a problem, Jeanine, and your lips disappear. Everyone pull your lips in and just say, Not a problem. I don't mind. And pull your lips in, okay?

Make them disappear.

Make Let them disappear. And so Mel goes, not a problem, Jeanine. I say, when we don't like what we see or hear, our lips disappear, or a lip roll is emotional control.

What's a lip roll look like?

That's this. Oh, so- Lips disappearing, rolling those lips in.

Okay.

So Mel says not a problem. I now have a five second advantage. I know that there is a problem because Mel's lips disappeared. And when we don't like what we see or hear, our lips disappear. So I know there is a problem. I know So my dad's a hothead. When I see my dad's lips disappear, I've got five seconds to get my kids in the truck and get the heck out of Maine in my dad's cottage before my kids see the angry dad that I grew up with because they don't believe he exists, right? So I have a five second of, we got to go, go. Yeah, move on out. It's like the Indy 500 fixing the tires, really quick. So I might stick around and say, Mel, maybe I'm wrong here. It seems that you're disappointed or there's something you're not saying. Five seconds later, I'm going to tell you what that person is going to say. Yeah, I am mad because last year you were supposed to come and you backed out three days before then. You have a five-second head start if you can decode body language because the body language people are showing you, their brain doesn't realize how they feel just yet.

Body language shows up before the branches, before that thought. And the last one are the leaves. The leaves of the tree, Mel, are the words. And words matter because words plant the next seed. The words matter. What falls off the tree is planting that next seed. I recently heard on TikTok, and by the way, my friend said, you don't say you saw it on TikTok, you say you read it in the New York Times recently. So I told my sons, my three sons, I go, I recently read in the New York Times, and Jackie, he's my wise guy, the little one, he goes, yeah, I heard Terry Moore tell you when you see something on TikTok to say you read it in the New York Times. So what you're about to tell us, did you really see it on TikTok, mom? I'm like, damn you, Jackie, and your wiseness. So here's what I heard on TikTok, and maybe your listeners have heard it, and maybe you've said it, too. Have you talked about the bees and the flies?

No.

So the bees are not flying around, trying to convince the flies that honey tastes better than shit. So I'm going to repeat that. The bees are not wasting time convincing flies that honey tastes better than shit. I want a tribe of bees. I still want to inspire and influence the world, but only for the flies who are interested in tasting the honey. I recently broke up with a guy that was dating named Jimmy. He's amazing. I'm 5'9. I'm thick. He's 6'6. He's an animal, right? It's the first time I ever felt small. I finally started eating carbs again dating Jimmy. I'm like, I can date carbs. I'm dating this giant. And I had to break I'm going to make up with him because of what my mother would call his stinking thinking. He is planting these seeds of a negativity. He's like, people are going to take advantage of your... They're going to mistake your kindness for weakness. He's planting the wrong seeds for me. I want to be. I don't want to fly. So he's a fly. So someone said to me last night, so you've been single for two years and you're in these dating apps.

What's going on? How come you're still single? I said, because I'm looking for bees. I'm looking for bees or flies that want to hang out with bees. That's what I'm looking for. So it goes back to the power of our words is creating what's coming next, right? It's what are you planting? What are you planting? Get out of your thinking. You have 17 seconds to stop complaining. And research says after 17 seconds, you have to bring yourself esteem back up. You have to say at least five positive things about yourself. And after 17 seconds, if you add on a negative thing, another negative thing, you create momentum. And when you create momentum, And then it's hard to stop the negativity. And you may talk about this. So excuse me if you do.

No, I'm just fascinated listening to everything that you're saying. I want, though, to focus on how we can become better at spotting when somebody's lying to us, at spotting. Because I think that there's a lot of... In the work that you and I do, you often find somebody after the heartbreak, after the cheating, after somebody has lied to you. And what I would love for you to help us understand is how can we get better at spotting the signs that based on decades of research, based on your expertise, the signs aren't lying. We can lie to ourselves, and we can make excuses for the way people are treating us, and we do all the time. And you always say, Stop listening to what people are saying, and start looking at how they're treating you because that's the truth about how they feel about you. But the signs don't lie. And half the time people shrugging their shoulders or folding in their lips or sending these body language signals, they don't even realize they're doing it because the signs don't lie. And so what are the big ones that we have to be aware of. Yeah.

So if I can just put a cap on that last part of understanding yourself. There are body language moves you can do to be seen as confident and powerful. One is I'm doing it now. If you're seeing me, it's called steepling. And you'd see Mr. Burns do this. It's fingertips to our fingertips, making like a church steeple. When we steeple people, we intimidate people. The higher the steeple, the more intimidation. So it's a sign of confidence. So a nice low steeple, especially if you're a woman in a meeting and men are over-talking you, instead of saying, Let me finish with a calm down gesture They're like, you're the police on a raid in telling people to get on the ground. If you just lean back and steeple, someone else at the table will quiet down the people who are interrupting you. So when we steeple people, we intimidate people. It's a sign of confidence.

Let me ask you a question about that. So just so everybody listening gets this, because I think this is critical. You're in a meeting at work, or you're at a family dinner, or you're out with a bunch of girlfriends or whatever, and people are talking over you. You're saying that instead of raising your hand or stop talking over me or continuing to talk, if you lean back, you put your fingertips together and make a church steeple or a triangle, and you lean back in your chair, And then you stare at the person who is talking over you, or what do you do?

Well, you can either stop looking at them or look at their forehead, and you would think that they don't feel it. But when someone's being disrespectful, if you look at their forehead, it can change it. I don't want to get into some advanced stuff, but I'll tell you this. When we talk to people, I talk out of my right eye into your left eye because you're opposite me, right? So I'm talking primarily out of my right eye. All human beings, it doesn't matter if you're right your lefty. We talk out of our right eye into your left eye. If I want to intimidate you because I don't like your behavior or the inappropriate things you're saying, my right eye will go diagonal to your right eye. And you can do this to a waitress, and they come to take your order, and you just focus your right eye to their right eye. So you're going to go diagonal, and they'll start to pacify. You'll see them fix their hair, touch their throat, because it's this little hidden power that we have. So you can look at someone's forehead. You can look out of your predominant right eye here as you're talking to someone's left eye, diagonal, crossing, and then that's people, or just stop looking at them altogether and stop giving them your attention.

And the steepling, someone else at the table, whether it's professional or personal, say, Hey, Mike. Hey, Jeff. Hey, Susan. Stop interrupting her. Let her finish. I like to say, Do you want to be right or do you want to be effective? In the old days, I would be mouthy, and I'd be like, Attitudey. But But I would always leave. I was always the bad guy walking out of the meeting, and I got sick of being the bad guy. And I'm like, okay, I need to be more effective here. My mother taught me steepling. She was a nurse. She since passed. And I had a boss that used to point, and she'd be like, Richard, my office now. Marjorie. She'd walk into this pool of people at desks, and they became cartoon figures. Their eyes popped out of their head, and they looked full of fear. And I called my mother, I was 25. I was in the World Trade Center in New York. And I go, Mom, my boss does this aggressive thing. If she does it to me, I'm mouthy. I'm going to lose my cool job with ATF. My mother was a nurse for elderly homeless people, Mel, in Boston, Committee to End elderly Homelessness, and at Mount Auburn Hospital in Cambridge.

I went home, 5'2, I'm 5'9, she said, Tina. She goes, I want you to do this. This is before I knew it was called steepling and fingertips to fingertips. And I go, What's that call? She goes, I have no idea. I just know when a doctor says my mom was Lorraine, Lorraine, can I talk to you about the last patient? She's always feel like I'm in trouble. So lo and I told Coleen, my boss at the World Trade Center, did it to me two months later. Jeanine, my office. She pointed at me, was aggressive. I pulled out mom's move, which I now know is called steepling. Oprah Winfrey does it all the time. I walked casually behind Coleen with my steeple. When I went into her office, had you been there, you would have heard her say, Do you know why I called you in my office? And with my steeple in hand, I responded the way mom told me. I said, I have a pretty good idea, Coleen. She was, Why? I go, I'm exceeding all your expectations. As you might imagine, she's like, What? I'll do that at the end of the year in an evaluation.

I got to spread it out. I love attention from my boss, still steepling. Every now and then, call me in, and I'll come skipping in. I come in early, I stay late. I know I'm exceeding your expectations. Isn't that why you call me in? She didn't know what to do. I worked for her for three and a half years. She never called me in her office again. The reason she had called me in that day was to bully me. And when I said, Why did you call me in? She said, Oh, I just want to see how you're enjoying living in New York City. She was a bully boss. So if you have bully bosses and bully people in your life, pull out that steeple, because when you steeple people, you have power over people.

Does it work with a spouse or somebody you're dating that's following?

Yes, and kids. They feel like they're in trouble. So if you want to make them feel like they're in trouble, and then you're not going to be pushed around easily. A hundred % steeple.

Steeple. I love it. It's almost like a little shield that you're creating. It's like you can become your own superhero superpower when you steeple. It's like Wonder Twins Unite, and they used to hit their fist. You're now creating a force field. You You are in charge when you put the steeple up. I absolutely love that.

I love it. Do you know Desiree Gruber? Have you ever met her?

No.

So she's in New York City. She came up with the idea marketing company of the Victoria's Secret Fashion Show back in the day. And by the way, Victoria's Secret initially didn't want it. And then when they had it, it blew out the Internet. It was the first time the Internet crashed was the Victoria's Secret Fashion Show. And Victoria's Secret wasn't happy at first. And then the publicity exploded. Victoria's Secret Fashion Show with the wings and the lingerie. Well, she once sent me a picture. She's a client, and she sent me a picture of her steepling in the oval office in the White House because she said she was nervous with all those heavy hitters. So she brought her steeple out in the oval office. Nancy Pelosi, all these people were there. That's pretty cool. And so when you're nervous, people, you can fake it there. And the other move I wanted to say is a chin grab. Indra Nui is the former CEO of PepsiCo. I love Indra Nui. Google her if everyone doesn't know who she is. Indian. She was raised in India. She has a sister. Her mother used to, every night at the dinner table, have her and her sister debate, You're running for President of the United States.

You're running for Prime Minister of Australia. And they would debate. She grows up, becomes a female CEO of PepsiCo. Wow.

Maybe that's what I did wrong. I've just been going to get your elbows off the table. To your kid.

So when she does an interview, look at Indra Nui, she grabs her chin. And I say, when we grab our chin, we're about to win. Take a picture of yourself. How do you normally sit? And now take a picture of yourself holding your chin. Look how much more intelligent we We look like we have a master's degree. We look like we have it all figured out.

I literally look like I just won the Pulitzer Prize. And see, here I figured I was holding my chin because it's very pointy. I don't really like it, so I'm hiding it, but it does look very- What can I tell you about your pointy chin, It means? Yeah. What is my pointy chin?

It's like a shovel, and a pointy chin, you can take something on the chin. And a pointy chin is like a shovel, and that you will fight for people. You will fight. You will have that determination is that That chin right there.

Can you... I have to just tell you a quick story. When my husband was in the restaurant business, we couldn't go out to another restaurant and actually have a nice date because the man would be so preoccupied. Oh, there's 40 seats. There's this many waiters. Like, he was just in the language of running a restaurant.

So he wasn't-I can reverse engineer what he does with his body language based on you telling me that. Would you want me to tell you what he does with his body language?

Yeah. But what I was going to say is, can you actually be with other people and not be decoding them?

Like that movie where Jim Carrey becomes God, right? And he turns it into sticky notes, and then he turns it into an email system. Some things I can't unsee, but I have ADD, so sometimes I'm daydreaming and not paying attention. So if you prime me in advance to decode whoever you're with, then I'll see it all. Otherwise, I'm not really paying I can't unsee what we're about to talk about, detecting deception. I can't unsee the detecting deception hotspots I'm going to share with you. I can't unnotice them. So we'll go over those in a second. But I'm going to reverse engineer what your husband does. And I've never met him. I don't know him. I know about one business was doing well. He opened up another one and didn't do so well, and another one didn't. And then I know your story about this rocket ship. So I wanted you to do a test. And you at home, anyone who pays attention to all the details like Mel's husband, all these little teeny details, I want you to watch how they drink their water tonight at dinner, or tomorrow at breakfast, or today at lunch, whatever time you're listening to this amazing Mel Robbins podcast.

And I'm going to tell you what they're going to do with their water, these detail-oriented people. And by the way, I am not one of them. Is when they drink their water... Mel, I want you to notice this with your husband. What's his first name?

Chris.

Chris. All right. He's going to drink his water. When he puts the glass or the bottle on the table, he's going to watch it until it hits the table. When he goes to pick up the bottle, he's going to look at the bottle, keep looking at it as he grasps the bottle. He's going to keep looking at it, grasp the bottle. People like me who are not detail-oriented, what I do is I see the table, I look down where the table is, I grab my bottle of water, but I'm still looking at you. So I look just to see, oh, yeah, my water is still there. I look at the water, and then I look back at you, and I pick it up without looking at the water. And now I'm looking at you, and I put it down without looking at the table. I figured, Gravity and the thing I just picked it up from are still there. Detail-oriented people. They have a magnum glass. It's like Inspector Crousseau or Sherlock Holmes. And so when they talk to you, Jimmy Fallon, Amy Schumer, Jennifer Lawrence. Their humor, all three of those people, are about the details.

They remember words from movies and words from songs. Watch them in interviews, right? They will talk. They're like smart bombs. So it's not just the water. It's all their energy is directed in one area. So Jimmy Fallon will talk, and his hand points up and his eyes point up. You see Jennifer Lawrence, Hi, nice to meet you, with a handshake in her head. I feel like I can't get away from their energy. If you're talking to me, and all of a sudden, if Chris, your husband, was doing this, I'd be like, Whoa, detail-oriented, aren't you? You like to research the research and then recommend more research? And watch how they put the drinks down. I'm speaking today at a company called Paylocity, and two of their big executives, I watched them last night at their little cocktail hour, and I secretly I actually videotaped them.

Oh, my God. Are you going to play it during your keynote?

Oh, yeah. I went up and asked for permission today. But as they drank their water, they watched it till it hit the table as if like, Hi, I'll be right back. You made it. And I said, Are you detail-oriented? Do you love to research the research to executives? They go, Yes. How do you know that? I go, Simply by how I watched you drink your water. I said, If I put a coaster on the table and it was crooked, would you adjust the coaster? Both said 100 %. So in meetings, if you're listening in your as a business person, especially sales, make sure you have coasters crooked on the table. Now, some people who aren't detail oriented may just fix it because it's irritating. But watch if they watch their glass when they put it all the way till it hits the table. Someone like me, when it hits the table, my eyes are back on you.

It's not even looking at where it's going. What does that tell you about how to sell to them?

It says they want lots of... Two things. One, they're going to want lots and lots of details. That's number one. Number two, in your emails, if you're detail-oriented, in your emails are probably too long. And someone like me, I'm never going to read your emails. I'm going to pick up the phone and call and say, okay, what do I need to know about this event? What's the dress code? Where is it? What you need to do if you're detail-oriented in your emails or text messages at the top, think like Twitter. Here's what you must know. Here's the three things you must know. Additional information is below. Someone like me who's not motivated by details, I don't look at the water when I put it down or pick it up. I need to do the opposite. Here's what you need to know. Boom, boom, boom. Here's a link to additional information if you'd like to explore on your own. Fun things to do while you're in Orlando, here's a link. Hotels you can stay in Orlando, here's the link. Broadway shows you can see in New York. So if you understand people's behavioral fingerprints, And there's a bunch of things.

Maybe I'll come back and play again and answer questions. You can sell to them differently. You can raise the kids differently. You can understand them. There's seven or eight billion in the world, 26 billion different behavioral fingerprints.

Oh, my God. Now I'm overwhelmed. You know which ones I want to focus on? Yeah. Deception. Deception.

Here we go. Shoulder shrug. A shoulder shrug we talked about earlier is uncertainty. When I say, Hey, Mel, what do you want for lunch? A salad of ELT, I don't know. What do you want? A shoulder shrug makes sense there. Your verbal says, I don't know, and your nonverbal says, I don't know. It's congruent. But when I say, Hey, Mel, your The favorite Ted talk of mine is blank, and I shoulder shrug. It does not mean I don't like that talk, but it does indicate there's something I'm uncertain about. Ask me if I ever cheated on my husband when I was married to him.

Did you ever cheat on your husband when you're married to him?

No. Now, I said no. And for people who are listening, I shrugged at the same time, and that's why Mel's laughing. But it doesn't mean I cheated. See, that shrug means, Mel, you opened a file in a cabinet that says top secret of something I don't want to share with you. And maybe what I don't want to share is that he cheated on me, and I'm called the human lie detector. Hypothetically, he cheated on me. Hypothetically, he went on Tinder two days before Christmas, and my friend told me because he showed up and her out, hypothetically. So the shoulder shrug doesn't mean I'm canceling what I'm saying, but it does mean there's something I'm uncertain about. And I may not even realize it yet. Why? Because you have a five second advantage over my brain. I don't even realize I'm uncertain about something right now. But if you can spot it, you can simply say, I call it M-I-W formula. Maybe I'm wrong. Maybe I'm wrong here, Mel, but it feels to me that you're uncertain about something. And then let the person say, Well, yeah, I just was in the bathroom, and I overheard a woman saying her significant other stepping out on her, and she's devastated.

It's not my story to tell. But when you asked if I cheated on my husband, you open a file to just cheating in general. So So that's why I was uncertain.

Let's start with introverts. What are mistakes that introverts make when it comes to body language?

Okay, so one of the biggest mistakes that we have identified, there's a lot of them, is with our facial expressions. So I think with our facial expressions, we forget how rich our face is in demonstrating emotions or cueing emotions. So a big mistake that I see is people will fake smile. I love smiling, but there is nothing worse than fake smiling. I do not believe in toxic positivity. So people have been told, smile, smile more, which I think is the worst advice. I'm like, smile purposefully, don't smile more. So a really simple mistake is someone will say, Yeah, I'm so happy to be here. Incongruent. So what will happen is, introvert really wants to show up as their best self. They come with the best intention, or someone will hop on a video call and they're trying to be positive. They'll have a lot of incongruent messages by trying to show warmth with a fake smile. The problem is Dr. Barbara Wild and her associates, they actually looked at fake smiling. What they did is they showed people pictures of smiling people, fake smiling people, And neutral people. By the way, just the science of this, a fake smile or a real smile reaches all the way up into these upper cheek muscles.

So if you were to smile all the way up into your upper cheek muscles, they activate your crow's feet. That's a real smile. Only one in 10 people can consciously They activate those muscles. So they really do happen with authentic happiness. Okay. Fake smiles are only on the bottom half of the face. So if I was in a face mask, you could not see my fake smile.

Right. But you could see the smile lines in somebody's eyes.

If it's real.

So a real smile you actually make with your eyes.

Exactly.

Okay.

Upper cheek muscles/eyes. Exactly. So what happens is, what happened in this research experiment is she showed people pictures of real smiling people, and people caught the happiness. It actually affected their positive mood. They felt happier. When people saw the fake smiles, they caught nothing. In other words, queuing for real happiness actually makes you more contagious. Fake happiness makes you less than memorable. Nothing happens. So the biggest mistake that will happen with introverts is they want to come across as warm, and their only tool in their toolkit is smiling. The good thing is there are many other warmth cues.

So what are the other warmth cues that you Okay.

So if you're going to smile, smile for real. And please, please go look at your LinkedIn profile picture. Please, please go look at your dating profile pictures. I either want you neutral, sexy, or smiling all the way. No fake smiles. Okay? So make sure that smile is all the way up into your eyes, because if you have a fake smile in your LinkedIn profile picture, you are literally signaling fake happiness in authenticity. So if you don't want to actually smile, that is totally okay. That's not your only warmth cue. Here are your other warmth options. One, a head nod. So a slow triple nod, one, two, three, is an immediate warmth.

Wow. One, two, three. Okay, we can do that, people. Yes.

And by the way, the funny thing about this, the research found, this just tickles me, that when someone does a slow triple nod, the other person speaks 67% longer. It's like a nonverbal dot, dot, dot. You're literally saying to someone, Tell me more. I want to listen. I want to hear you. So a slow triple nod.

I think they teach that to therapists, don't they? I think they teach the therapist triple nod technique.

Right. So a slow triple nod, very easy. You don't have to smile. It's a warmth cue. The other thing that we found, we did this in LinkedIn profile pictures. If you add a simple head tilt, you are seen as warmer. So if I tilt my head to the side, this is a universal response. If I want to hear something better. So if I say, Mel, do you hear that? We automatically tilt our head and expose our ear. That's the way that we want to hear better. And so when you are on a video call, on a date in your LinkedIn profile picture, if you want to be seen as warm, you can tilt your head to the side as if to say, I am deeply listening. I am really trying to hear you. And it's much more natural than smiling maniacally.

This is fascinating. So we've got the triple nod, everybody. We've got smile with your eyes. We've got tilt your head slightly. What are other warm cues?

Okay, so other warm cues, vocal. So let's talk about vocal. Those were three nonverbal cues. Vocal, remember, is the one that we often forget. You have a lot of power in your voice. So another warm vocal cue is what I call vocalizations. Do we love a vocalization? So a vocalization is surround sound listening. It's showing that you're listening. So this is going to immediately make me sound warmer.

Oh, I just did that. Oh, I'm very warm.

Yes. Actually, you have a very good balance, Mel, of warmth competence. I was I'm going to say you when you ask for an example, but I was like, that's way too brown nosy, so I didn't. But you have a very good warmth competence because you will vocalize for me. So as a speaker, when you nod at me, I can see you nodding right now. Oh, yeah.

I'm just doing it naturally.

Yeah. And that encourages me as a speaker, I'm doing good. That makes my crunchiness smoother.

Oh, that's so awesome.

So your warmth cues are gifts to awkward people. When you show someone who's crunchy, awkward, afraid, I'm listening to you. That was interesting. Oh, aha. You are gifting them lubricant. You are saying, You got this, girl? I'm listening. I am hearing you. This is super smooth, which then makes me more smooth. And so there's two sides of why I wrote this book. Yes, I want you to be more charismatic, but I also want you to be more inspiring. I want you to be contagious in a way that's gifting warmth and competence. And so adding vocalizations is a very easy way, especially for my introverts. Remember, my introverts, I want to teach you how to be heard without being loud. So nonverbal cues, vocalizations, that's a way for you to participate in conversation without saying a word.

That's fantastic. All right, do that again. What are the other ones other than Mm?

Wow. What? Those are all warm vocalizations. In fact, doing them right now should give you the warm and fuzzies, a little bit. She'll be like, That feels so good. So whenever I say So vocalizations are like a warming blanket, it makes the other person feel like, Wow, I'm doing so good.

You're doing better than good. You're doing fantastic, Vanessa. How do you display competence? What are some cues for Competence.

All right. So competence. Low tone, which we talked about already. So not using the accidental question inflection is really important. Explanatory gestures, so being purposeful with our gestures. Eye contact. Eye contact is a hard one because I know that eye contact can be different for culture, different cultures. But what I want us to understand about eye contact is that eye contact produces a chemical. So when we mutually gaze, and they even found this happens through a screen. So if I make eye contact with the camera, we we also produce this chemical oxytocin. Oxy to some of the very complicated chemical. It does a lot of things in our body. But for social purposes, oxytocin is the chemical of connection. When we are making eye contact, when we first meet someone or we hop on video, our bodies go, Oh, we're both mutually gazing. We must be friend, not fo. Therefore, let me produce the chemical that allows me to trust. The more oxytocin that's in our bodies when we're communicating, the more open we are, the more we say yes, the more we feel like I'm on the same page as this person. So eye contact is one of the fastest ways to get or gift oxytocin.

Now, the amount of oxytocin is different. I do not believe, and I really want to repeat this, I do not believe in 100% eye contact.

Oh, thank God. Okay. No. For somebody with... I have ADHD, and I've noticed every time I read anything about body language, you're lying if you look away. And I'm I have a hard time holding eye contact for a long period of time, and I know it has to do with the ADHD.

That is correct. So let's talk about this. First of all, I want to talk about looking up to the left is lying because that's a myth I want to bust. Second, the worst advice that bad body language books give is make more eye contact. No, eye contact is great, and it can produce oxytocin. But actually, we should not be making 100% eye contact or even 80 or 90% eye contact. That is a territorial gesture. Our bodies know that when we're trying to process something mentally, we look away. So for example, if I were to ask you to do some math with me, Mel, if I were to say, Mel, what's 10 times 10 plus 5 minus I'm not going to make you do it, but you immediately break eye contact.

105. I looked up to do the math. Yeah, you looked up. I never noticed that, but you're right. I looked up to go... I looked up at an imaginary chalkboard And imagine 10 times 10 plus 5, 105.

And this is a really important thing for humans to do. Why? If I ask you a complicated question, a technical question, even a memory-based question, Oh, tell me about your last job. Tell me about your last girlfriend. You need to look up to access the memory or to access the knowledge. You do?

Is that a neurological thing? Yes.

Because when we think about this from a chemical perspective, when we are talking and we are bonding, I want to make eye contact. But if you ask me a hard question about my past or a math problem, I need to break the eye contact, stop producing the oxytocin so I can access that memory. So it's our brain's way of saying, Don't give me too much input. I need to I'm going to have to access this input and this information over here. So that's why it can be so confusing for people who are trying to make more eye contact. No, I want you to make eye contact when you want to bond with someone. Absolutely, especially in the first few seconds. But when you're processing or accessing Sensing information, I actually want you to look away because you're going to give a better answer. And humans understand this. So if you were to ask me a very hard question that I didn't know the answer to, and I went, That's a great question. You are more likely to believe my answer. Because I looked away to process it.

That's fascinating.

So that's the first thing I want to bust about eye contact is, do not feel pressure to make more eye contact. Competent people make purposeful eye contact. Competent people, they know that when they're trying to bond and connect, they're right at you. But when they're trying to access a competent answer, they're accessing it over here, or over here, or over here. So that's actually a mark of competence. It's also a way to pause to introduce, I am deeply thinking about what you just said, so I can give you a really good answer. Second thing is we have done a ton of lie detection research in our lab. In fact, we have one chapter on lie detection in the book. I almost put it into its own book because it's so much research. I want to bust a myth. Looking up to the left or looking up to the right does not mean someone is lying. That means someone is accessing different information. What I do think that people should do is know they're lying tells. I think a fundamental piece of information every single person should know about themselves is what they do when they lie.

So here's what I wanted to- Wait, hold on. Let me just make sure. So you're not saying, Here's a tell when someone else is lying. You're We're saying, What does it tell when you're lying?

That's it.

Why do I need to know that?

You need to know that because you need to know when you are accidentally signaling in authenticity. Because what can often happen is you should know your own lying tell because hopefully you're not lying a lot. But oftentimes, people will do their lying tell when they're not even lying, when they're nervous or afraid. And it's signaling to the world, I'm nervous and afraid.

What's your lying tell?

So my lying tell is I hide my hands. My hands get really cold, and I usually hide them or I clench them. If you see me ever have a clenched fist, I'm like, Keep it together, keep it together, keep it together, keep it together. So a clenched fist or a white knuckling it, or I hide my hands. I also use a little bit of a disgust to my a micro expression. We talked about fear as a micro expression. Disgust is when we crinkle our nose up and we flash the YTS of our teeth. If I were to say, Oh, I smell something bad, disgust is a really common lying red flag because liars, including myself, we hate lying. It makes us feel dirty. Literally, lying makes us feel dirty. Liars will often use more purel afterwards because it makes them feel physically dirty. So you'll see people, if you ask someone, So what do you think of the new girl? Oh, yeah. She's nice.

You've got a disgust face, as you say that. And now, as I'm watching you, I'm like, you're lying because you're saying she's nice, but your face says disgust.

Yeah.

So how do you, though, know your own tell? Because I'm sitting here trying to think.

No. I'm going to give you the most fun.

I don't know what it is.

This is a fun Friday night. If you're willing to do this with a couple of friends, it's really fun to do this. I highly recommend doing this with your partner. My partner and I know each other's tells, which has made our marriage super honest, which I love. Radical honesty, I'm all about it. So here's what I want you to do. Okay.

Get ready, Chris. Okay. Date night. Get ready.

One, if you can film this also, it's helpful to rewatch it together. First, God. I want you to open up your camera or your phone. One, I want you to tell me what you had for breakfast yesterday. Okay? The reason for this is a recall test. You need to know what you look like when you're recalling truth You will notice you'll probably look up to left or look up to the right.

Yeah, I looked at your left.

Or touch your face.

I looked to the left, and then I looped my head around. Okay.

And you also were tapping your foot.

You're shaking your foot. Oh, I was? Okay. Yes. Okay, cool.

Okay, so that's your recall test. That's what you look like when you are accessing truthful information.

You're right. You know why I clicked my foot? It's like I'm cranking the brain back up. Come on. I still can't remember what the hell I had for breakfast yesterday, even though I'm cranking the foot and I'm looking to the left, but okay.

What was it? What was it? What was it?

What is today? Yesterday was Sunday. I can't remember what I had for breakfast.

If I made you sit and think about it, by the way, it's okay if it takes you a couple of seconds to think about it. We'll see exactly what you look like or what Mel looks like when she's recalling truth.

Oh, I'm scrunching my face up right now? Yeah. I'm not sure I had breakfast yesterday.

And that could be the answer.

Yeah. I don't think I ate breakfast yesterday.

So we just saw what Mel looks like when she is recalling truth.

Okay.

That's very important to know about someone, because if you ask your teenage daughter, did you hear about the drug incident at school? And they use truthful recall cues, you're good.

Okay, cool. Cool. I like this game. So how do I know when I'm lying?

It's coming. Okay. So the second question I want you to answer the camera. And by the way, what was it?

What did I have for breakfast? I don't think I ate anything.

Okay, good. Got it. So you can do this all in one take. It's even better. I like the pausing. We want to see what you do in those moments of like, What was it? What was it? Okay. Second question. I want you to tell me your most embarrassing story. The more embarrassing, the better. I want to deliver it right to camera. This is how you look when you're recalling something that makes you nervous. The biggest mistake that we make in lie detection is we confuse nervousness for guilt.

Got it.

They are different. So when you recall your most embarrassing story, and I want you to feel it. You really feel it, I want you to see what you do when you're nervous. That's your nervous tell. And those are also things you don't want to show when you're trying to come across confident because they're your nervous leaks. So common nervous tells are mashing the lips.

Oh, I think I just did that.

Yeah. We try to hold it in. Common nervous tells are touching the stomach, the face.

It's often more like, Oh, nervous. Do people do this on Zoom calls, too? You see them doing this?

All the time. All the time. It's a great way to... I mean, I don't want you to do this to your colleagues without them knowing it. It's always good to do it honestly, but it's very helpful to know. On my team, we do team calls every week.

It It's helpful to know when I'm making someone nervous. Oh my God, I would hate to be on a team call with you. What did you say?

It's helpful to know when I'm making a teammate nervous. I have a wonderful big team, and if I share, Oh, we're having a big New Year's launch, and how does that feel? And I know my team members nervous tell, and I see it on a Zoom call, I can say, Hey, Rob, are we good on that? Any hesitations, any hangups? That then gives him permission to say, I don't know if the graphics are going to be ready in time. So a deeper way to interact, I believe, is radical honesty, where on my team, we know each other's nervous tells, so I can address them.

Can you give us the top five signs that somebody is nervous based on their body language?

Yes. So touching the hands, touching the face, touching the stomach. That actually comes out of Cornell University. They actually found that when we're nervous, we touch our stomach, we clench our stomach, we touch our face. Third is Purposeless gestures. So wringing the hands, cracking the knuckles, touching the back of the neck, gestures that have no purpose. What's the other one? I'm trying to take the research.

Playing with a necklace?

Playing with your necklace, fidgeting. Those are also also purposeless gestures, adding unnecessary pauses or awkward pauses. So someone's in the middle of a talk, and they're really trying to explain it, but they're They're pausing as mid-word or mid-sentence like that.

If you call out somebody on a Zoom meeting for their nervous towel, do they get more nervous?

It depends on how you do it. Intention is everything here. So I don't like being like that, got you. That's not a good way to interact with cues. However, if I notice, I'm on a team call and I say, Hey, everyone, we're having a big New Year's launch. And I notice one of my team members shows a cluster of three nervous tells. One cue by itself does not usually mean anything. For example, we're going to talk about lying in the last question. One of the top lying red flags is touching the nose. Liars have... We have a very specific tissue in our nose, and research has found that when we lie and we're in guilt, it swells and it causes our nose to itch. Bill Clinton, during his Monica Lewinsky testimony, when he lied, he touched his nose 26 times. In his truthful testimony, he touched his nose twice. So this is a response that we have.

Are you lying right now because you just touched your nose?

No, I'm showing you. I'm showing you because... But also, what if you have allergies? What if you have a cold? So one cue by itself is never good. Three cues. So if I see someone does touch, and that's another interesting lying tell is a shame touch. When we touch the side of our forehead, we have to do this when we're very embarrassed. It's an eye-blocking behavior. And I see be a lip purse. So we press our lips into a hard line.

That's three very, very big red flags in a row.

That's when I either will pause the Zoom call and I'll be like, Hey, everyone, I just want to check in. Rob, does this sound doable to you, this launch timeline? Are we good on this? Anything that I should know or that we're not thinking about? That's not me saying, Rob, I saw you touch your nose, which is terrible, but it's me checking in with him. Or I might afterwards hang up the Zoom call call, text him or call him or email and say, Hey, are you good with the launch? I just want to make sure. So I believe in that.

Got it. Okay, that's super cool. So how do I tell what my lying tell is?

Okay, so the last question. So we did what you had for breakfast, your most embarrassing story. The last one is the most important. I want you to make up an embarrassing story that did not happen to you and tell it to the camera and try to convince me it happened to you. This is an example of what you do when you're trying to make a completely false story, and you will see exactly what you do when you lie. Wow.

That's so cool. One final thing. You're on a date and you're really like this person, or you're in a job interview and you really want the job. What is a body language move that you can use to signal, pick me, power, confidence? What do you do?

Two things. Number one, how you start the day in the job I want you to end it. So if you start with a hug, I want you to end with a hug. If you start with a handshake, I want you to end with a handshake. We blow the ending so many times, especially in business, because that's called the recency effect. The recency effect is those last couple of moments that you had with me. What happened there? So if I'm in an interview and you get a call and you're like, Excuse me, Janina, it's a pleasure meeting. I got to take this call. I still want you in a second to lean over that table, stretch out your hand. Not a problem, Mel. It's great to see you again.

Boom.

Get that handshake. We blow We blow it on the ending. We blow it on the ending. So bookend that, right? So bookend it with that handshake or the hug.

That's number one.

Number two, where you sit is making a difference. Stop sitting directly opposite people. This is the fighting pose. On dates or in job interviews, the seat is right across from the person interviewing me, or you go to the Outback Steakhouse and you're in a booth. Do not sit directly across from this potential new significant other. You want to be 30 % off center. And there's advanced techniques on which side. We'll have to talk about that another time. But be at the very least 30 % off center. Here's why. They have a visual way out. It will decrease their stress and anxiety. You'll have a visual way out and decrease yours. Feel what it feels like tonight at the table or at work. Sit directly across from someone, shake their hand and say, I'm so happy you're here. Tell me what you love about our family. Then come in, move the chair 30 % off center and have that same conversation. Watch what happens. We're all energy at the end of the day, right? I mean, we're always constantly changing. My friend at the FBI, Frank Marsh, you should have him on. He says, Everything says something.

Everything says something. Even no facial expression says something, right? 30 % off center. But Jeanine, if I go into an office and the chair is right there, you want me to move the chair? Yeah, I do. I want you to come in, shake their hand, move the chair 30 % off center. When it's done, you shake the hand and you put the chair back. So bookend it. I end all of my days with my three children I call them up, down, ups. Something good that happened today, something not so good, and something good that happened today, up down ups. So we said, what are your up down ups? I teach my kids for every one bad thing, there's a good thing, bookending it. And bookend it. What are your... A, you can use up, down, ups for yourself or your family. I realized my three kids weren't sharing. How was your day? Good. Up, down, ups, I know very specific information. Just like you give information in that sandwich, negative feedback, you put it in the middle. If not, I wouldn't give it at all. I never take pictures of bad body language ever, because this Andrea Quinn, she teaches you how to figure out your five I am's, who you are, who you were born to be.

And I am truth. I am power, I am generosity. I am a healer, and I am open. And healer, I said to Andrea Quinn, I am funny. I need to do stand-up comedy in my 20s in New York. I opened up for Chris Rock, Robin Williams, Ray Romano, whenever I was 25. I have no pictures to prove it, Mel. And I said, I'm funny. She said, no. Funny is I am a healer. And it shifted my sense of humor like that. How we talk about ourselves will change our actions, our body language. It goes back to that roots of the tree. So when I take pictures, I used to take pictures of bad body language, and I would show it, don't do this, do this, at the butt of the person with the negative body language. Now I use my humor for healing. I'll come in I love the back of the room. I love elbow pops, by the way. An elbow pop, very 30.

I love an elbow pop, too.

Yeah, you pop your elbow over the chair. We'd see Liz Taylor do this with the long cigarette. Look at me, boys. Look at me. Very confident to do an elbow pop. Casual confidence. And I'll go to the back of the room, and I used to say, oh, look at this person. They're important or they think they're important. And everyone would laugh. Now I go, look at this person. They're important or they're on their way to becoming important. On the break, make sure all of you get a picture with this person because someday Yeah, you may be working for them. And that lens shift of I am a healer, my humor is used for healing, goes back to our words, create the seeds, and then create what I believe about myself, that changes my body language and changes what I think. And so it's constantly going there.

Bookend- You got to go. The science shows that we make decisions in our body first. Our brain is just interpreting the signals that our body is is telling us. And so much about making decisions that are right for you is about learning how to read the signals in your body, how to feel your way into it, and finding the courage to move in that direction, even though your brain might go, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, Whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, get a divorce? Are you crazy? We're Irish Catholic. People don't do that here. Whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, you mean apply to nursing school after you're divorced? People don't do that. You can just do that? Yes, you can. And the more that you realize that there is so much magic for you to discover in your life, but it's going to require courage. And I'm going to prove to you that your instincts are always right. The problem isn't your instincts, and that's why I don't want to talk about trusting them. I want to talk about the fear that you have in following them. Because nine times out of 10, when you truly tune in and you allow yourself to feel the decision, it's going to require courage because it's going to disappoint people, and it's going to require a change, and it's going to require you to learn something new, and it's going to require you to step away from the pack.

And that's freaking terrifying. And that's why don't do it. Speaking of this metaphor of the two tours, I have an incredible story to add to this, but I need to hit pause. Let's hear a word from our sponsors. When we come back, I want to dig into this idea of other voices with two stories that will really bring it home for you. So stay with us. Welcome back. I'm Mel Robbins, and we are talking today about finding the courage to make decisions that feel right for you. We all know we need to, but it's really hard to do it because it requires courage. I was just explaining this metaphor about a college tour and this university that separated parents from students, and how that frees a student up to consider a school and consider their decision without the energy of their parents or the influence of it. As we were talking about this before the taping as a team, everybody at the table had a story about other people's voices or their own concerns being the cacophony that was causing doubt. Amy, you had an amazing story about when you used to run a marketing and copywriting agency, and you have to tell this story.

Yeah, sure. My story is that I was in a mastermind, which is like a tour, a bunch people together doing things with their businesses that they want to do, achieving goals together and patting each other on the back and supporting each other. One day, I showed up at the mastermind, and I said, You know what, you guys? This is what I'm going to do. This is my next big thing. I am going to make what I made last year in this next month.

Wow.

Yeah. Well, I had heard that this was like It's a thing that people do. I mean, it's not like it wasn't my idea. I had heard it from somebody else, and it was just if you want to take your business, and at the time I did, I wanted to take my business to the next level. And if you really believe in yourself or want to find out what's holding you back, try to make what you made last year in one month.

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

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

But I meant when you heard heard about it, was there something that happened that you remember that was like, ding, ding, ding, I'm doing that?

What happened? I just felt like, I want that. Quantum Leap, that sounds amazing. That sounds like living life. That sounds like I'm going to be in a different spot, and that is going to change me. I think I'm going to really love that.

It's almost like, if you think about the tour analogy, it is like the future. It was like, No, no, no, come over here.

Exactly. It really was. It was like, this is your next step, and it's a big one.

Wow. Okay, so you're running your copywriting and marketing business. Yes. You go into this mastermind.

Yeah. All these people are supposed to be supporting me.

And what happens?

Dead silence. After I announced that, everybody was just mentally regrouping from what I had to say. And it was just total silence. And I said, Well, I mean, I've I heard other people do it. And I was just like, What do you guys think?

Yeah.

And not because I wanted to know what they thought, but I just was like, Why is everybody so silent? And then the voices started talking, and the voices of everybody in my mastermind group. How are you going to do that? I never heard of that before. Why would you want to do that? You can't do that. You need a longer runway. You can't do it next month. How much did you actually make last year? What are you thinking? What is this going to do for you? Why would you want to put that on yourself?

And when that started happening, what did you feel?

I felt like assaulted, almost, in the sense that I knew that this is what I needed to do. I knew that this was right for my future self. And I couldn't believe that people weren't supporting me and couldn't see that I could I actually do this. I really couldn't believe that people were holding me back from it. But there was this one woman. I will never forget her.

What does she look like?

Well, her name is Richelle Wright. Okay. She is an American Sicilian She lives in Michigan. We love her. She is a ball of fucking fire.

Okay.

And she said, I think everybody should back off because Amy is actually going to do this. And she basically told everybody, to shut up.

She's like, I'm taking a different tour, Amy with me.

And that's what happened, Mel, actually, because when she said... And she said, really, one of the things that she said that I remember is, if she wants to do it, Why wouldn't you let her try it? Why are you guys trying to convince her she can't? And I love that because if I could do it, it meant they could do it. And if I could do it, it meant we all would be a better group because I did it. But look at what they did instead. They just said, No, no, you can't. Maybe because they didn't want to have to do it. Did you do it? I did do it. What? I did do it. I'll explain to you what happened. I committed to it, and I'll never forget this. Two weeks into my commitment to myself and my group, even though they could care less except for Richelle Wright, I got a phone call from a current client that said he's a creative director, and I work for him, and we work on jobs together. And he said, Our mutual client has asked me if you would like to write 10 ebooks in the next month.

And name your price, because she needs this, and she knows you're the person to do it. I will never forget. I was on Route 684 around the Mount Kisco exit, and the phone rang, and as soon As soon as it rang, I saw who it was, and I was like, This is happening right now.Oh.

My God.Yeah, it was super cool.Yeah, it was super cool.

Yeah. I love that. It was an amazing feeling. Wow. It was the feeling that I wanted, right? It was that feeling that I was hoping I would have when I took on that challenge.

It's interesting because as you were describing this, I was immediately back in class with Mr. Brown going, You're not going to get in there. You better not get your humps up. And I didn't have the Richelle right. I had to be that for myself. I had to be like, Fuck you. Fuck off. Watch me fucking do this. And you have to do that for yourself because it's a gift. I remember we just started a walking group here in Southern Vermont this morning, and there were 25 women that showed up, and there was this one woman that was super cool. Well, everybody was cool, but she was telling the story about how she recently went back to nursing school after getting a divorce. It was because she had a Richelle Wright next to her who was like, Well, you want to be a nurse? Just go back to school. She's like, That's all you need to do?

It is.

Because when somebody says, Just go back to school or just get the divorce, or Just change your job or just move. They are saying, Come on this tour. And for that moment, you allow yourself to imagine what life would feel like. And that's what the yes feels like.

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

It's so true. And that's why I love this metaphor of that moment of going on a college tour. Because it is a moment where you contemplate, very intentionally, your next move. And we all have that opportunity in our lives at any moment.

Yes.

To basically go, Okay, the tour I'm on is headed over here, and it's these voices. And your story is about very loud voices chiming in, the way I was with the annoying way on the Dartmouth tour. But I also can think about periods in my life where I was the annoying voice because my emotions were the emotions of all those people. But you can't. But we're going this way. But this is how we do things. But this, but that. But what are you going to do? But you don't know how to do that. But that, that, that, that, that. That was me during the entire experience of being in law school and being a young lawyer, knowing I don't want this. And yet being that negative voice for myself, like, but, but, but, but, And there is something specific that's meant for you. And I do believe that what's meant for you will not pass you by. But you will waste years, decades even, of your fucking life moving in the wrong direction because you will not slow down and tune in to what you know is true. And you're afraid of it. You're afraid of it.

That's why I keep saying it requires courage. And yes, you will ultimately end up where you need to go. But you can say believe yourself the headache, the heartache, and the breakdowns, and the years that you will waste in the wrong direction. Do I regret going to law school? No, because it's a decision that I made. But could I have gotten where I am without it? Of course I could have. Of course I could have. And I didn't have to torture myself the way that I did.

Right.

And if anything, I love this visual of the tour. I love the visual of parents going off in one direction with their opinions and their agendas and your mastermind group waddling off in that direction. And then there's another choice. There's the future you going, No, no, no, no, no, of what life could look like. It doesn't mean it's going to happen, but I think in even finding the courage to allow yourself to imagine it.

And that's the part that I was saying, when you were like, Oh, that was really brave. It was like, Yeah, and if it didn't happen, like you're saying, it doesn't even mean it has to happen. If it didn't happen, I would have still learned a lot. I would have grown a lot. And I would have known what it's like to feel the support of somebody like Richelle was for me in that moment, and It would have been great for me to know. And it would have been okay, even if I didn't make it. And I think that that's why I wasn't really that scared, because I knew that I would learn so much. And it did happen to happen for me, and that was great. And I absolutely feel like it was a fast forward button that I pushed in my life.

I love that. Oh, my God. You have the courage to push fast forward.

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

Richelle Wright.

Richelle.

Richelle Wright. She was right there.

Part of the success. Wow, I love that.You know? I love it. And still, she comes up in my feed sometimes, and it's like my heart just glows when I see her name because She's behind me.

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

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

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

And she, even when she was telling that story, her dad said to her, Well, you can transfer. And she She just swatted that away.

It's like, I'm not transferring. I'm not doing that. People are not going to do that. That's your own story. Same thing that I did to myself in law school. And that sets up the story I want to tell you, because I think whether you identify with Amy and you have people around you saying you can't do that, or you identify, even with the experience that Oakley is with, where everybody's weighing in on the decision and everybody's asking, and there's a ton of pressure, and you got to just tune it all out. A lot of us struggle with our own voices, our own insecurities, our own fears. It's not even that other people are telling you what to do. It's that you're so busy looking around and being concerned and making up stories about what other people are thinking and about your own emotions, that you can't, A, settle yourself down and be honest with yourself about what's actually not working and what you really want, and B, Lord knows you can't find the fucking courage to do what you know you need to do. And for me, that is Mel Robin, circa 1990 to 1990.

Shit, it was a long time. It was 1999. Nine years of my life. I was on a tour listening to my own insecurities. And let me tell you what happened. In fact, when I was our son's age, I was an emotional wreck. And that's one of the things that I want you to understand about decisions. That we make decisions, like it or not, with our emotions, that you feel your way into every decision. I'm just going to prove this to you really quick with some science before I tell you about circa 1990 to 1996, Mel Robbins. There was a famous researcher named Dimasio. He's still alive. I don't know why I'm calling him in the past tense. He had this incredible body of research. It's literally one of the most cited studies in decision making, where he basically figured out that we don't make decisions with our brain, we make decisions with our body. I'm going to give you a super simple example. I don't need to explain the science. We will link to it in the show notes if you want to read all this stuff. But Dimeo is the guy that everybody cites.

But I'm just going to give you an example out of your own life. If you are sitting at a restaurant and you're looking at a menu, How do you make a decision about what you're going to order? Now, for some of you, I know you're like, I got to wait till everybody goes last, and I always order last, and I got to see what everybody else does. But at the end of the day, if you're looking at a menu, and let's just say you're like, Okay, do I get the pizza? Do I get the burger? Do I get the wings? Or do I get the salad? Ultimately, there's this subconscious moment where you drop out of your head into your body and you ask yourself this question, What do I feel like eating? What do I feel like eating? Now, I realize if you're the person that goes last, I'm often the person that goes last because I like to eat a lot of different things. So I like to wait and see what my husband has ordered. That way I know that I might order something different because that way I can feel like eating two different things.

So it sounds like I'm using my mind, right? Not really. Because by the time it gets to me, what do I do? I go, Oh, he had the burger. I feel like the salad. You always consult how you feel. Do I want to go to that party tonight? I feel tired. Nope, I don't. And oftentimes, when you have to make a decision that is a decision that is for your higher self, you got to push through negative feelings, don't you? You got to join in with the future you that knows that getting out of the house and going to the party, once you get there, you're going to feel great that you went. It's getting out the door that doesn't feel good. You got to step onto the tour away from your feelings and with the future you. You got to be your own tour guide at times. I'm going to go back to that thing that happened at that school, where they separated the parents and the kids. Why? Because that school is smart enough to know that when a kid is around their parent, their parents energy, completely fucks with the kid's energy.

The kid starts acting in a way that will make their parents happy. The kid starts turning around and going, What do you think? What do you think about this? How do you feel about this? Instead Instead of tuning in, How do I feel about this? That's what you need to ask. Let's get back to Mel Robbins, the disaster when it comes to trusting your gut. When it came time for college graduation, I didn't have a job. And all of a sudden, everybody scatters. Nobody tells you this part about college, that you're like, with this pack, and then boom, everybody scatters. You're like, Oh, my God, where's everybody going? I didn't know what to do. I just panicked. I became such a reactive decision maker. Remember how I said, If you're not careful, your emotions make the decision for you? My main emotion was, I'm fucked. I don't want to be left behind. Oh my God, I don't know what to do. And so I just lurched at my boyfriend. He had a job at the Fed in DC. I went with him. I get there. I have no idea what I want to do, so I go get a temp job.

The first job they put me in is working for a big law firm in Georgetown. I spent the first six months of that job sitting in a windowless conference room in Georgetown, working on a class action lawsuit where a bunch of states were suing some garbage bag company that had claimed that their garbage bags were biodegradable. And apparently, according to these states, they weren't biodegradable. So I was part of this huge lawsuit as a just little, I don't even know what you call it. I was in a windowless conference room filled with boxes of paper. I had in my hand this thing called a bait stamp. And a bait stamp is like, when you go and you travel somewhere and they stamp your passport, it's the exact same stamp. But it numbers and dates paperwork. I hand-stamped boxes of paperwork every day, all day, for months. I hated that job. I had so many paper cuts. I was bored out of my mind. The only thing that I looked forward to is that if I worked 10 hours a day, they gave us $30 for dinner. And so I worked every day to get that damn free dinner, and I just stamped and stamped.

I swore to myself I would never, ever work in a law firm. But then something happened. Everybody I knew started applying to graduate school. I thought, I don't want to be left behind. Emotions. Did I ever stop and intentionally go, What do I want? No, I did not. Why? Because I was looking around. I was on a tour with everybody else. I was so busy going, What does everybody else? Do they like the school? Are they going to school? What am I doing? Where are we going, everybody? I don't know. So I applied. Where do you think I applied, everybody? Law school. Even though I knew deep down, if I fast forwarded and I looked at what my life would look like, every single lawyer in that law firm was freaking miserable. You could tell... They were miserable people. I was miserable there. I knew that I wasn't going to be happy, but I was so driven by my emotion. I just started doing and reacting and panicking, and I followed everybody else. Because everybody else in that windowless conference room, baits tamping. They were applying to law school, too. I'm on the tour with these people, so I'm going.

So I get to law school. And here's the funny thing. I got waitlisted, and I knew I was relieved. But again, the emotion, I'm on the tour with everybody else. I'm not stopping to consider what's actually going to work for me. And so I do everything I can to get off the waitlist, and I go, and I get to law school, and I'm like, I hate this. I hate this so much. I get panic attacks before I go to school. Maybe that's a sign that this isn't a place for me. Not for Mel Robbins. Why? Because I'm still on I'm still on tour with everybody else. I'm still sitting in these classes with everybody else who seems to like this. I don't like this at all. I'm having nightmares at night. I'm having panic attack after panic attack. Do I quit? No. Why? Because I I am not able to center myself. I am so overrun by emotion. I am so overrun by turning around and going, What do you think? What do you think? Should I quit? Should I not quit? What do you think? No, you should stick it out. No, you shouldn't quit.

I don't know what I'm going to do. But here's what I did know. I knew that I didn't want to be a lawyer. I knew that I didn't see a future doing this. But I kept at it. Why? Because I was so influenced by everybody around me. It's almost like when you step into a current like that, it's like jumping in the Colorado River. You start a major, and all of a sudden it takes you down the river. It feels impossible to swim against the current, but it's not. It's not at all. But it takes courage, doesn't it? To say, This isn't for me. It takes courage to go, I don't want to work for a law firm or the attorney general this summer. In fact, that freshman year, there's this infamous story about me that I got a job with the Michigan attorney general after my first year of school because, again, I didn't know what to do. Everybody seemed to be doing this, and I didn't want to swim against the current. Why? Because it takes courage. But I got into this job, and here I am, driving 45 minutes each way from North Mesaquida, Michigan, to Grand Rapids, Michigan, the entire drive.

I was so anxiety-ridden that I don't remember commuting for an entire summer. I was that out of my body. My whole body was like, No, you don't want to do this. I would go into the attorney general's office, and I would sit and talk with the other interns most of the day. The attorney general pulled me aside and gave me this huge research assignment and said, I want you to do a research project, Mel, where you research all of the recidivism rates, meaning the rates of return to jail among people, felons, because I want to understand what types of crimes have people returned to jail. I want to know the recidivism rate so we can understand what programs are working and aren't working. I didn't crack a book. I didn't do the research project. I ghosted the attorney general of Michigan. Near the end of the summer, I walked in to work, I got called into his office, I made up some lie about how the project was going, and I left. I left. I ghosted. I quit. I literally ghosted before ghosting was a thing. I'm not proud of this, by the way. I, again, was undiagnosed with anxiety, undiagnosed with trauma.

I was in the wrong place, and my body knew it. And that's the other thing. If you continue to go on the group tour and you continue to ask people, What should I do? What should I do? What should I do? You will waste decades of your life doing the wrong thing. And ultimately, your body and your spirit will have such a revolt that you will be forced to confront the truth, which is you were not meant to be doing that thing, and you knew it, but you stuck with it because you didn't have the courage to do something else. And ultimately, I didn't have the courage. I graduated from law school. I ended up getting a job as a public defender. I actually loved that job, broadly enough. But we then moved to Boston, and I was back in a fucking law firm. I could have worked anywhere else, but I was back in a fucking law firm. Why? Because it seemed like the easy thing to do. That's why I'm saying that trusting yourself, slowing down enough to go, Wait a minute. How do I feel about this for real? Do I really see myself here?

If I fast forward and I go on a tour with my future self, I take myself on a tour of my life. Is this the life I want? Because if it isn't, you will know. And that's why I keep saying it's going to require courage. And what ultimately happened for me is I didn't get courage. That's not even something that I can tell you that I got. What happened is I got pregnant, and I had a baby. Her name is Sawyer. She's now 24 years old. When I was on maternity leave, I had such a mental health breakdown that I finally got that I could not go back to that job. And that's all you need. See, you don't need to know what direction you need to head toward. You don't need to know where it's leading you, because I didn't know what I wanted to do with my life. That clarity I hadn't had yet. I just finally had the courage to say, I can't do this anymore. The gig is up. And remember what I also said? You hear the no, louder than the yes. And so if you're sitting here going, My future me has to take me on a tour.

I got to tune out what my spouse thinks, what my boyfriend or girlfriend thinks, what my family thinks. I got to fast forward and I got to ask myself, Do I picture myself in this life a year from now? If the answer is no, you damn well better get on a tour with the future you and start feeling out what do you want to do. All you need to know is not this. Not this. Anything but this. Anything but this. And so I said, Anything but this. And then you get into reality. And it's amazing what happens when you have a problem to solve. See, you're a great problem solver if you give yourself a problem to solve. And the problem that I had is, Okay, if not this, then I got to find something that'll pay me $60,000 a year because I got a mortgage to pay, and I don't have a trust fund. If I can find something that I can do for $60,000 a year that's not the law, I've just won the jackpot. I took myself on the tour with the future me who was not working in a law firm.

I'll tell you what, I have never hustled so fucking hard in my entire life. It took me four weeks flat to network my way into a job that paid $55,000. And that was good enough for me because I figured I'd do odd fucking jobs for $5,000 to cover the difference. And that's how I started to find the courage to follow what was true for me. So whatever wake-up call you're having right now, because I think you're probably realizing there's an area of your life where you are literally surrounded by loud voices, whether the loud voices are your own fear or your own story or the voices of your parents. I remember when we were going to I moved to Southern Vermont, and one of the things that I was really worried about is my mom and dad, because my mother-in-law lives here, and we're going to be living close to her, and my folks are in Michigan, and I know my mother does not like this state for various reasons. I just thought, Oh, God. And to their credit, they have been very supportive of the move, but I was on the tour with them, way in the decision, instead of being the tour with myself, there's my dog barking.

I can hear him in the background. We're up here above the garage in Southern Vermont. And so you got to notice, when are you turning around going, What do you think? When are you realizing that you've taken all these other people on the tour with you? When really you need the future you to go, No, no, no, no, come on over here. Let's just time travel forward. Let's consider this decision of going back to nursing school. Let's consider this decision of stopping the crying and stopping looking backwards, and we're not doing that anymore. Let's consider what it looks like if you start to put your life back together. Let's do that. And it's not easy. I'm not saying this is an easy thing to do. I'm saying it's the thing you need to do. There's a difference between something being easy and something being right. Hey, it's Mel. Thank you so much for being here. If you enjoyed that video, by God, please subscribe because I don't want you to miss a thing. Thank you so much for being here. We've got so much amazing stuff coming. Thank you so much for sending this stuff to your friends and your family.

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