I've been researching you for the past few days. Uh-oh. I've been this morning, I watched your TED Talk.

Do you know that's like a 21 minute long panic attack?

I do because I heard you talk about it. And I want to address that a little bit because I think it's interesting. So you do a TED Talk that certainly was uploaded in 2011 and is close to 30 million views now, right? So one of the most watched TED Talks of all time, I would imagine, probably top 10. I guess.

Yeah, I guess top 20 anyway. Maybe longer. I don't know.

Okay. So The outside world, much of society would look at that and go, Mel Robbins is crushing it. She has just nailed a TED Talk and it's gone viral. Now, you're saying that you had a panic attack the whole time, right? So Let's just think for a minute. You're getting the external success, but inside you are eating yourself up with worry, right? Then we fast forward, let's say, nine, 10 years. April 2020, you are successful speaker, motivational coach, best-selling author, and you're struggling with self-doubt in front of the mirror. So is there this slight clash here somewhere where actually you can be successful and not love yourself and be racked with self-doubt?

I think everybody is.

Yeah.

I don't... Success This is not the source of self-love. In fact, most people who are successful or competitive or entrepreneurs, most people are chasing that success because they have married their self-worth with achievement, and I was the same. Yeah. And so right there. Me too. And so this is, by the way, evidence that You have a problem with self-rejection and with self-worth and with self-criticism because you believe you are only worthy of love and you are only worthy of support if you have achieved the thing.

So someone's looking at you and thinking, Man, I wish I was Mel Robbins, right? We'll talk about jealousy if we get to it later, but they might be jealous of you in a nice way. They might think, Man, I wish I had a viral TED Talk like Mel. I wish I had multiple international best sellers. Great. Right.

Right. Great. Apply for one. You can do it. If I can freaking do it, you can do it.

But they might also be thinking, Well, that is success. You've had that even though you were racked with these problems on the inside. And they may think, I'll take that. I'll take that success. And I think this comes to this widely societal point, which is we confuse sometimes success with happiness.

When you anchor your happiness to doing things, it's always out of your control. When you anchor success to the crap you achieve, it is always a moving target. It's a really hard concept to wrap your brain around, because first of all, there's the research that shows, at least in Western countries, that there's the baseline with money. 75 grand is the baseline that when somebody makes 75 grand or more, There's this happiness thing that I can't remember how the exact study goes, but it makes a lot of sense because as somebody who could not pay groceries with three kids, as somebody who had liens on her house, as somebody who is getting the bankruptcy letters in the mail, as somebody who was unemployed during this whole thing and whose husband was bouncing the payroll checks and was running from one restaurant to the other to hide from the collectors that were showing up. I know what it's like to live with the constant relentless pressure that comes from having no money. And until you can get yourself to a state where you can take a deep breath and you can pay the bill and you can buy some groceries and you can put some gas in the car and the phone rings and it's not a collector, you are going to live a stressed-out life because your basic needs are under threat.

And that is a horrendously triggering thing to live through. And we lived through it for several years. It was like that. And so there is a certain level of economic stability that has a direct impact on your happiness, on your safety as a person, and your ability to experience less stress. So I just wanted to be responsible about that because I've freaking lived it. But I do think that, look, I use the five-second rule. I certainly have found my calling. I love building stuff. I'm incredible as a business as a businesswoman. I love the game of making money. I love being smart in deal making. I love content syndication. I'm super excited for NFTs and for how blockchain is going to change the role of being a creator. And so there's a part of this that's a real expression for me in terms of building a business. And the five second rule helped me take action. And the five second rule made me very productive. And the five second rule had me go, no, I don't want to do a talk show. No, I don't want to Is it a talk show. No, I do not want to do a talk show.

Why are we still talking? I just, oh, and this is interesting. When you say no, people want you more. I wish I knew that a long time ago. But so I for sure use the five second rule to push myself to take the actions that have made me wildly successful. But that doesn't change the fact that I would look in the mirror and still see a person that I didn't like. And that as soon as the five second rule book came out, I'll give you an example. So I write the high five habit book. I'm practicing these tools, and I am also human. So when we get word two weeks before the When the book comes out, that the big box stores like Target and Walmart in the United States are passing on my book because I'm not a known author, I get triggered. I punch the wall, I pour a gin martini, light up a joint. I call a bunch of friends and bitch up a storm. I am literally reliving being left out at a sleepover in middle school. I've got this gigantic ridiculous story that But I'm always left out. I'm never part of the group.

There's this group of real authors that are all friends. I have the whole thing.

I'm human. Put the record out. Just press play.

Yes, exactly. I tend I'm not going to be angry, depressed person. Like, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, like breaking stuff. And then I wake up in the morning and I drag myself into the bathroom and I look at myself in the mirror and I have compassion. I'm like, You're right, that sucks. You are a known author.

You deserve to have your work be in places where people can find it.

It doesn't feel fair. And you know what? You're going to be okay. And so the high five becomes It's like a life jacket in the waves of life that keeps you above these waves so that they knock you over, they tumble you around, but then you climb back up, you reassure yourself, And I have this thing that is embodied in the high five. So the high five is also a wildly realistic, optimistic mindset. So part of what I am constantly doing, and I do this as a mother, too. So we have a 23-year-old, a 21-year-old, and a 16-year-old. And every day in everybody's life, there is stuff that happens that sucks. There are friends that go out to lunch that don't invite you. There are people that tell you no. There are schools you don't get into. There are apartments that somebody else gets. There's boyfriends and girlfriends that break up with you. There are people that have cooler clothes and nicer cars and parents who throw the parties. It just there's always going to be something that makes you feel like life is out to get you. Things aren't fair. People don't like you.

It's just like a tweak, right? It's triggering your insecurity. I have this saying that I developed that, again, it embodies this high five, which for me, also having run a marathon, the only reason why I made it across that finish line is because every stranger's high five said, I believe you can Keep going. That's what the high five said to me. I see you, Mel. I see that you're limping. Keep going, girl. And so my mindset whenever I'm working for something and I don't get it, and I feel the sting of rejection or disappointment. I always say to myself, and I say this to my kids on repeat, too.

I say, look, when you work hard, you're going to be rewarded.

You have to believe that this moment is preparing you for something better, that you didn't get this thing because something better is coming. And so there have been a couple of those. For example, the high five habit audiobook is unreal. I mean, I record it. It is the number one selling audiobook on all of Audible ever since it's been out in terms of the number of downloads in one month. It's just destroying it. I know you don't like that word, but it is destroying audiobook. It has been reported in the AP. It has been reported in all these places. It is in the charts, number one. And we are destroying it on the Amazon charts because people are reading it and loving it and sharing it. I freaking love it because it tells me that the tool is spreading. Because my books, like your books, are just vehicles for ideas to get out. So then people can talk about them. And I put all this stuff online for free anyway. So if you can't afford the book, you're listening to this podcast. It's like you're going to get... But so the New York Times puts out a monthly audiobook list.

I self-publish the audiobook. And in the back of my mind, I was saying, Don't get your hopes up, Mel. Don't get your hopes up. You're not a publisher. You're a self-published author. They're very fancy over there. And so the audiobook list came out for the month of October. I clearly destroyed it. I'm clearly the audiobook. We don't even make it. Like a Complete and utter intentional snup. That was another night where I punched a wall and drank a couple of martinis and lit up a joint and called a bunch of friends and felt really sorry for myself. And the next morning, I literally high-fived myself in the mirror. It took about four mornings of high-fiving myself to get over that sting because it felt personal. But I kept saying, something better is coming, something better is coming. Do you know I figured out the better thing that's coming? Well, first of all, sales. Actual sales are better than a list. So let's just get that straight. But I'm human. We all want to be recognized. I was in the New York Times Crossword puzzle today.

Today? Yes.

Isn't that not crazy? For the high five.

I literally It is the coolest thing.

That's cooler than being a New York Times best seller, I reckon. Don't you think? Yeah, I think it is. It's a smaller club.

I'm literally getting off the train and my text messages are blowing up from mates from the United States. And they've screenshot this and it says literally a three-word down on the New York Times. And it said, Motivational Speaker, Robbins. And it was me. And you know what?

It was that that made me so just blown away is that I underestimate the fact that people know who I am.

I think that I am a person who has really screwed up a lot. For a very long time, I have lived inside a body that was wracked with anxiety and fight or flight and doubt and judgment. It has been really hard to live in this body. Yes, I've been high functioning. Yes, I have still gotten okay grades. I've gone to great schools. I've had friends. I've been married for 25 years. But it has been a real bitch to live with this much unedgedness, this much stress, this much self-imposed condemnation, this constant relentless drum beat of what's wrong, and someone's mad at me, and I've screwed up again, and just constantly feeling like nobody likes me, and I can never do it right, and it's all never going to work. And just this grinding feeling that when When I finally started to attack the anxiety and understand it, when I finally started dealing with the childhood trauma that created a dysregulated nervous system in the first place, when I finally understood what was going on and came face to face with the woman in the mirror, and I started getting help and finding a new way because I didn't want to continue continue living a life where I felt that stressed out and that anxious and that worried and where the constant just noise in my head was negative.

Now, through the five-second rule, Through EMDR and psychedelic guided therapy, through traditional talk therapy, through the high five habit and practicing that since April of 2020, I have a totally different experience of being alive. And if I can save anybody the headaches, the heartaches, the struggles that I have been through, that I now realize That you have very simple tools at your disposal that you can use to move the needle on the things that are making you feel anxious and stressed and unhappy and just constantly on edge, that you can come back home inside yourself and reconnect with your true nature. If you think about our true nature, we're wired for love, we're wired for connection, we're We're born accepting ourselves. When a four-year-old sees a mirror, they don't back up and say, God, my thighs are fat, and look at that nose and my hair. No, they're like, they're twirling. They love themselves. That's your true nature. That's why a high five from a stranger feels amazing because it cuts down to the core of who you really are, a person who deserves to be seen, a person who deserves to be celebrated. And it begins with you.

Yeah, it's so powerful, Mel. As you were describing your different experience of life now, you're still successful as you were, but you experience it differently. There's a calmness, there's a There's a groundedness, I guess, with it is what I hear. And it reminds me of a phrase that my friend Pippa Green, she's a psychologist. She used to help the England football team a few years ago, and she has this term winning shallow or winning deep. Sorry to interrupt. If you are enjoying this content, there's loads more just like it on my channel. So please do take a moment to press subscribe, hit the notification bell, and now back to the conversation. And it really epitomizes that. She's dealt with so many Yeah, she's brilliant. It's such a great phrase because she's dealt with elite Premier League footballers. They've been walking up the steps to win the trophy. And on the inside, they're feeling nothing. They thought from a young age, from the age of eight, I'll keep training, I'll keep training, I'll get for a big club, we'll get into the cup, we'll win it. Because they thought, like many overachievers, that actually winning that a medal, getting that number, getting that job, getting the house, getting the car, would make them happy.

But it doesn't because it's an inside job. And that's where I think this high five habits, it's not going to change everything, but it makes everything much easier. You've still had therapy. I feel someone who, let's say, they've got childhood trauma.

Yeah, I do. Everybody does.

And who doesn't, really, on some level. And it's too hard for them to even address it and actually go and see someone. Well, the high five, I think is your way in.

Oh, of course. Yeah. Your sense of feeling like the effort is worth it begins and ends with how encouraging, supportive, and kind you are to yourself.

You have to become aware of it, and you have to realize that sometimes the way you talk to yourself, believe it or not, it does impact us. And whether we want to admit it or not. I think sometimes people, when they're feeling so down about themselves, they have a hard time admitting that something in their life is going wrong because they're already feeling so low that the idea of even having something bring them even down lower, scares the hell out of them, right?

Yeah. So let's break this apart. Let's role play here, okay? So let's say you are... What was the sport that you played as a kid?

I tried to play all sports. I wasn't very good. But I would say the sport that I was the most consistent with was basketball.

Okay. So little Doug is on the basketball court, and there's a foul Al and Doug is the person that is selected to shoot the free throw. And Little Doug steps up to the free throw line, and then all of a sudden, they call a timeout. And you come running back to the huddle.

What would be the most empowering and encouraging and motivating thing that your coach or teammates could do or say in order to help you perform and feel your best when you step onto that line?

I believe in you and you're going to make it.

I believe in you, and you're going to make it. You got this. And then And they send you back into that game with a high five, right? How would that make you feel, little nine-year-old Doug?

I'd feel pretty confident.

Right. Now, how would little nine-year-old Doug feel if when you came back to that huddle and you're about to go do this free throw, your teammates are like, Oh, him? He's a piece of shit. He screws everything up. Are you kidding me? What? We're going to... What? Oh, Oh, my God. Well, he shouldn't be the one that does. How would that make little dog feel?

It would probably, obviously, make me feel like I'm not going to make the shot, so why even bother?

Correct. What you say to yourself matters. And we understand that from a common sense perspective. But somewhere along the line, we have all stopped saying, You're going to make it. You You got this. And we've started saying, You're a piece of shit. You're not good enough. Why even bother? And when you send yourself into a conversation, into a presentation, into even typing up an email, when you start your day by saying, I look terrible. I screwed up again yesterday. I hate my life. That's not going to motivate you to change it. And And so your sense of feeling like the effort is worth it begins and ends with how encouraging, supportive, and kind you are to yourself. And we can also take this little role play exercise and go, well, let's say you miss the shot and you come back to the sideline again. What could your coach say? Or what would you You want your coach to say to help you get your head back in the game and to brush off the mistake that you just made.

You did your best, Doug. You'll get them next time. Get back in there and And I have a feeling you're going to be a positive contribution to the team.

Yeah, that's right. Shake it off. You did your best. You're going to do it next time. You win some, you lose some. Let's go. Now I need you to win some. I believe in you.

I think one of the role plays that we could maybe go into that I is pretty common with people is that they acknowledge that they maybe have to start talking to themselves better. But whatever they start to say that's positive, there's this cognitive dissonance because they just don't believe it. How do you get somebody who for the last 10 to 15 years has just been completely destroying themselves self-talk-wise, begin to build some consistency with that. So now that becomes a new habit that they're talking to themselves in a more positive way and they actually believe it instead of just saying it.

This is a phenomenal A cool and really smart question. If you have been trashing your sofa 10 years, you do have a cognitive dissonance. You don't even hear it anymore because that negative, you're a piece of shit, you're not good enough, you screw everything up, first began as something you said, then it became a belief. Your brain started to align with the belief, and it starts to become your identity. I always screw things up. And I want you to hear me loud and clear. If you are on on social media and you ever go to the Discover page on Instagram or on TikTok or on any platform, that social media platform has put together a mosaic of content that aligns with everything that you consume in your feed. That social media platform on the Discover page has assembled a world on social media that looks just like the stuff you're always looking at. Your brain works exactly the same way. One of the reasons why it is so important for you to identify how often you are trashing yourself or being pessimistic or you are being negative in your attitude and unkind to yourself is because as long as you think and speak that shit, The Discover page of your mind presents a world that matches to that negative dialog.

So that's why this is critical. The second thing that you need to do because you're unconscious to it, right? Is there are two things that are going to work because just trying to speak kindly often doesn't work because you have so trained your mind that you think you're not good That saying, I'm good enough, doesn't work because your brain literally looks at you like, who are you talking to? Because I can't be you. So there's two things that will help you based on the research. The first one is journaling exercises, because there is something that happens when you create a new habit where every single morning before you look at that social media, You open up a blank page, and the way that I journal is very simple. I always start by writing down five things that I want, and I just let them flow through me. What are five things that I really want? And it might be something small. It might be that I want a really cool new A pair of sneakers. It might be something big. I really want to feel happy. It might be something that is a feeling. This pandemic has kicked the shit out of everybody.

I am not immune from the feeling of burnout or the feeling of languishing, the feeling of disconnection, even from self that we can all feel when you're isolated for this long and you're remote for this long and you're stressed out for this long. And so allowing yourself to write down five things that you want. I want to feel like myself again. It allows the things that you desire to flow through the self doubt and through the negativity and through all the crap that buries it and pushes it down. And it allows it to come to the surface. And the writing it down is important because your mind is paying attention. That discover page that your mind creates pays attention to what you say is important. And if you begin a A new habit of just starting your day with a blank piece of paper and writing down five things that you want. Every day. It can be the same things every day. It can be different things every day. You just allow yourself to do this. You will start to build the skill of being connected to what you desire. You will start to develop a skill of tuning out the self-doubt and tuning into what you want.

And this is really important because your brain is paying attention, and it It doesn't require you to talk to yourself. It just write it on a piece of paper. The next thing that you're going to do, step two, is write down why you want these things. Because if you have a negative dialog, Doug, you have for decades talked yourself out of the things that you want. You have filled your heart and your soul and your mind with all the reasons why it's never going to happen. And so by starting every day with a new habit, write down five things that you and then write down why you want these things. You are developing a skill of listening to what you want instead of listening to the self-doubt. That's step one. That's one thing that you can do to fight decades of negative self-taught. The second thing that you can do is every morning, after you brush your teeth, add a high five in the mirror to your reflection, to your morning routine. That will have a shockingly powerful impact on your negative self-taught. The reason why it does is because your brain watches you do it, and you only give a high five to somebody that you believe in, that you're rooting for, that you're kind to, and that you want to see win.

And what we found, based on researching this It's a simple habit, adding a high five to the mirror every single morning. You don't say a word. As stupid as it sounds, just high five the mirror. What we have found after researching this for 18 months and having 153,000 people from 91 countries do this for five days, is that it has a profound effect on how you speak to and how you see yourself, because it is an action that demonstrates to your brain that you care about yourself and you support yourself. And so those are two physical things that you can do to start to shut down and fight back against the critic that is programmed into your head.

You can interrupt negative thoughts and flip into a positive mindset. And why would you want to do that? Well, the reason why you want to do that is because your thoughts lead you in a particular direction. And if you start to allow your mind to dwell on negative outcomes, if you start to obsess that things are not going to work out, if you allow yourself to continue to think negative thoughts, you're not only priming your mind to default to negative, but you will literally, through your thoughts, trigger negative actions. If you When you think about it, you've had experiences in your life where you've really trashed yourself, you've hated on yourself. And when you continually think that you hate yourself or you continually tell yourself that you're screwing up, you tend to do things that you hate, don't you? But when you're in a positive mindset, when you're in an optimistic mindset, when you interrupt those negative thoughts and you start to say, Well, maybe it is going to work out, or, I got to just keep on going. Your thoughts literally can trigger positive action, too. And so that's what we're going to talk about today as we read the High Five Habit.

Welcome to the live stream. Also, we are going to take your questions.

So for those of you that want to read along, page 59, we're going to read four pages of the book today, Finish Chapter 4.

I'm also going to teach you the one trick all confident people use to stay positive. Here we go. To understand the profound power of accepting and encouraging yourself, which is a way to have a positive mindset, to have a mindset that defaults on being encouraging. Let's look at some research on what psychologists call your core fundamental emotional needs. So let me ask everybody, do you know what your core emotional needs are? There are three of them. I want you to go in the comments. What do you think your three core emotional needs are as a human being? These are the core emotional needs that every human being needs in order to feel safe, in order to feel connected to themselves, in order to feel loved. What are those core needs, everybody? I'd like you to just write them in the comments, okay? Yeah, one's safety, one's love. These are great. What are your needs? Your core emotional needs? I see longing, I see love. These are excellent, excellent responses, everybody. Human connection, love, acceptance. Yep, trust, honesty. What are your core? There they are. I see Felicia has nailed it. To be seen, to be heard, and to be, she says validated, but it can be validated, accepted, or celebrated for the unique individual that you are.

So to be seen, to be heard and to be celebrated and accepted for the unique individual that you are and the unique contribution that you have. When you feel seen, when you feel heard, and when you feel celebrated or accepted for the contribution that you make as an individual, unique individual, you feel safe, you feel like you belong, and at your core, you you feel loved. When you don't feel seen, you feel invisible in life. When you don't feel heard, you're going to feel misunderstood. And when you don't feel like you are accepted or validated, you feel completely rejected and disconnected. You feel like you are unworthy or unloved. And so, again, we're going to talk about your need to be seen, to be heard, and to be accepted and celebrated. You need this at work, you need this at home. You need this in your relationships, your friendships, your romantic relationships, your family. And if you just reflect, In your life, where do you feel seen, heard, and celebrated? Where in your life do you feel that way? Or is there a person in your life that makes you feel that way? Hopefully, you are saying that you make yourself feel seen, heard, and celebrated.

But is there somebody else in your life that makes you feel that way? It could be a caregiver. It could be somebody that you're in a romantic relationship with, it could be a mentor, it It could be a friend. It could be your pet, right?

I think one of the reasons why we all love our cats and our dogs so much is because there's such unconditional love.

You walk in the door, they come running right at you. And so you You feel seen and you feel celebrated, right? And when they're right there with you or you know, have you ever noticed how when you get really upset and you start crying, what do your animals do? Oh, my God, they hear you and they come right on over. And those responses that are so innate when it comes to your pets, everybody, they're fulfilling your emotional needs. That's why you feel so safe and connected and loved by your pets, because you feel You feel seen by them, you feel heard by them, and you feel celebrated and loved by them. And I do see people saying, I feel that way about my daughter, my mom, a mentor of mine. These core values, when they're missing from your life of being seen, heard, celebrated, and accepted, this is what leads you to feeling stuck and disconnected and unfulfilled. And the good news is when you realize that these core fundamental needs truly dictate how you feel and experience your life, now you've got the access point to be able to change how you're experiencing your life by focusing on your core fundamental needs and making sure that they are met.

All right. You need these three fundamental emotional needs in order to thrive. They talk about this in psychology 101. It's called Maslow's Hierarchy of needs. Here's the background. You have basic needs that are fundamental to your fulfillment, your happiness, and your survival. You know you need water, food, oxygen, shelter, and sleep, right? Because if you don't have water or food or oxygen or shelter or you get enough sleep, guess what? You die. That's how fundamental these core needs are. You also know that you need friendship or else you're going to feel lonely. And research shows that people die from loneliness, It's a huge killer. You may also know that you have a fundamental need to grow because if you're not growing and learning as a person, you start to feel stuck in your life. But what you may not know is that you do have these core fundamental emotional needs to be seen, to be heard, to be loved for the unique individual that you are. When these emotional needs are not met, it's not only a form of neglect, but you will feel unloved, invisible, and unfulfilled. See, I believe that's how we all got so critical of ourselves in the first place, and it's why we're twisting ourselves in knots ever since.

That at some point in your childhood, those core fundamental needs needs stop being fulfilled. You started feeling invisible. You started feeling disconnected. You started feeling like you didn't belong. And as we talked about in yesterday's video, this is all covered in Chapter 4, The five habit, that you then turned that feeling against yourself and you started to go, well, there must be something wrong with me. There must be something wrong with me. No, there's nothing wrong with you. It was that your three fundamental emotional needs were not being fulfilled by the adults around you. That's all that was wrong. So you can change this, by the way, for yourself, because what's missing, if you're not fulfilled in life, is a deeper connection to yourself, because you've probably been so busy running from one thing to the next that you can't even grasp right now how big of a shift it's going to create when you start each morning by simply seeing, hearing, and honoring yourself. And one of the reasons why I love all the research around adding a simple high five in the mirror to your morning routine is that it fulfills your deepest emotional needs as a human being.

This one action of just high fiving yourself in the mirror, add it to your morning routine. How many of you have added a high five to your morning routine, and you're stunned by how much it's changing the way that you see yourself, the way that you treat yourself. Because as you've learned, these three emotional needs were probably never met during your childhood, and you haven't been given the tools until right now to be thinking about this and to start fulfilling these emotional needs as an adult. And the reason why you feel invisible at work, or you feel outside of your friend group, or you feel disconnected in your relationships as an adult, not to mention the relationship you have with yourself, is because there's something missing. And what's missing is a deeper sense that you actually matter. What's missing is the sense that you are being seen and heard and appreciated. This is critical. It's so critical. If you were to wake up and you had a feeling of being connected to yourself and you felt seen in your life and you you felt appreciated in your life and you felt heard in your life, that would absolutely change how you go through life.

That's why this is such powerful stuff, as simple as it is. I love seeing so many of you writing in the comments about how you are adding in the high five and how it's changing your life and how you're starting to take your emotional needs seriously, and you're starting to make it a priority to fulfill them and how it's changing everything. Now look, don't bother arguing with me because I did the math. I think sometimes in life, you forget just how miraculous you are. You get so beaten down by the day to day, and you're so beaten up by what you've survived in your past that you've lost sight of how extraordinary you are. And so I'm going to remind you of how extraordinary you are, and I brought some math to prove it. So I just want you to wrap your brain around this really cool fact. The odds of you being born are one in a million. We're just going to start there, okay? We're going to do some simple math and we're going to build. The odds of you being born are for sure one in a million because your mom carries over one million eggs in her body during in her lifetime.

Isn't that wild? You're one in a million. But guess what? That's not even close to the mathematical phenomenon that you are. One in a million doesn't even touch the surface of how extraordinarily unique and amazing you are. Because based on recent research, scientists have also figured out that the egg that formed you was really choosy, and that egg could determine which of your father's 250 million sperm cells it wanted to connect with. That's right. This was not a race with the sperm. The egg was very, very choosy. If that egg had created, if that egg that created you chose any other sperm term, guess what? You wouldn't be watching this livestream. Your sibling would, because you never would have been born. So just wrap your mind around those odds. One in a million plus one in 250 million What are the odds of that? Well, the experts crunched the numbers on that. And the odds of you being the result and being born and being here with me right now, one in 400 trillion. One in 400 trillion. Now, guess what? I'm not even done yet. One in 400 trillion doesn't even scratch the surface in terms of what a miracle you are.

Are you ready? A scientist from Harvard, He heard me cite that number, one in 400 trillion in my TEDx talk, and he wrote a research paper to say, Mel Robbins, you are wrong. You are such a miracle. The odds of you being born It's such a miracle. And the number is so insane. I don't even know how to say the number. Literally, no idea how to say the number. It's like one times 10,000 with that little factor at the top with another million. It's bananas. I can't even explain to you what a miracle that you are. And all of this math, it proves something really important. And that is that someone as unique and special as you deserves to be seen and heard. Feeling like you matter, that somebody cares about you, that you are worth celebrating, It is one of your most important and fundamental needs. I'm here to tell you that because the math proves that you are a walking miracle, there will never be another you. There never has been another you. There will never be another you that will ever walk this Earth. You are the one and only, which means you have something extraordinarily unique to give to the world.

Feeling feeling celebrated and feeling seen and feeling heard. It is so tied into your existence because of how unique you are. That's why you long to be recognized as an individual. That's why you long to be celebrated as an individual. This need, it's so important and foundational to you and the fact that your birth and existence is a miracle, that it's as important to your well-being to be seen and heard and appreciated as food and water. The difference between a good day and a bad day, you know what it comes down to typically? It's just being acknowledged by somebody. You know who's the best person to acknowledge and validate you? You are. That brings me back to that moment every single morning when you come face to face with yourself in the mirror. High-fiving yourself is so much more than a physical act. It's foundational. It's a transfer of energy. It symbolizes an alliance and a belief in yourself yourself and your ability. You aren't congratulating yourself. You're celebrating yourself as you are. And you just heard the math. Your existence is what makes you worthy of a high five. Your presence, your hopes, your dreams, your capacity to love, your ability to heal, to change, to grow, your heart, your soul.

That's what makes you worthy of being seen and heard and appreciated. Not once in a while, but Every single day. That's what you deserve. That's what you need. And the miracle of your existence is why you need it.

See, when you are When you are able to see yourself, when you are able to celebrate yourself, when you are able to treat yourself in a way that you have been wishing your parents would have, or wishing your friends, or your spouse, or your boss would, When you take control, this is what you communicate.

It's incredible. You're basically when you're able to hear yourself and see yourself and support yourself. And I believe that simply adding a high five in the mirror to yourself as part of your morning routine every single day, you start the day by fulfilling those foundational needs that the miracle of your birth demands of you. Number one, One, you're communicating confidence. You're saying, I believe in you when you do that. Number two, you're celebrating yourself.

You're basically like, You're amazing.

You got this. You're validating yourself. You're saying, I see you. I'm not going to ignore you or pick you apart. You communicate optimism. I can do this. I can face this day. I love adding a high five to your morning routine because it is an action. You're demonstrating belief in self. You're demonstrating acceptance of yourself, and you are sending yourself into the day to take action. Wouldn't it be incredible to feel all those feelings at once? I know it would. It would be mind-blowing. Literally, it could possibly blow up your subconscious because your brain, based on your life experience, is programmed the opposite. It's not been programmed to absorb all this yummy, gooy, amazing validation. But guess what? Your brain loves it. Absolutely loves it. See, I believe you were wired for love. I believe that you came into this world, world, whole and complete and loving and seeing and accepting yourself and being deeply connected to yourself. And that's why you miss feeling that way. And it's also why this change of adding a high five to your morning routine is almost instantaneous. This is why the programming that we're activating in your mind, body, and spirit, when you start to acknowledge and accept yourself and treat yourself with kindness, and when you start to flip the way that you think, and you start to cheer for yourself and believe in yourself, this is your default.

You are going back to who you are when you practice the tools that I'm teaching you. It is your true nature to love yourself. It is your true nature to believe in yourself. It is your true nature to feel deeply connected to yourself and a sense of purpose. That's why you miss it. You can only miss what you know. And so I want you to come back home to who you are. That's what I want you to do. Now, okay, I get it, but Mel, how do I think different Different thoughts. And this is what I promise to teach you, the trick that all confident people use to stay positive, the trick that you can use to think different thoughts. Well, the first step to thinking different thoughts is you have to You have to catch the old thought that takes you low, okay? And if you don't know what the thought is that takes you low, here's a hint. It's some version of, I'm not enough. I'm not good enough. I'm not smart enough. I'm not tall enough. I'm not successful enough. I'm not skinny enough. I'm not talented enough. I'm not lucky enough.

I'm not this enough. I'm not that enough. There's something wrong with me.

It's some version of that.

And if you know what the thought is that always brings you down, could you please write it in the comments? Because you will inspire somebody else. You will make somebody else realize they're not alone. What is the thought that always takes you down? Mine is some version of, It never works out for me. People are mad at me. I'm not a good person. Nothing I ever do is going to... It's just some just horrible version of that. So first step, step number one, what is the thought that always takes you I'm not enough. I'm not smart enough. I'm not loved enough. I'll never be this. I see this. I'm not good enough. I'm not smart enough. I'm not lovable. I'm not now, never will be. I'm never going to grow up. I'm never going to get it right. I always screw things up. I'm not thin enough. I'm not smart enough. Other people do it better than me. I'm too big. Anyway, keep going, keep going, keep going. Keep writing this down because you're giving other people permission to take a look. I'll never make enough money. I'll never be a good father. I'll never be a good wife.

I'll never... Nobody loves me. Nobody has ever loved me. All of this horseshit that you tell yourself, this has become the default wiring. Step number one is identify what thought takes you down. It's like dropping a guillotine on your power and on your future and on your possibility. It cuts you off from who you truly are and what you truly want and desire and deserve in your life. And whenever you think this thought, I'll never be loved, I'll never meet somebody's standards, I'll never You take the money. You literally also stop yourself from taking the actions that change your life. So great job. You've already done step one. Identify the thought that takes you down. Because here's the cool thing. That's not how you came into this world. You didn't come into this world thinking, I'm not enough. I'm not lovable. I never do anything right. I'll never amount to anything. I never should have been born.

You didn't come into the world thinking that.

Somebody taught you to think that. And so if you can figure out what that negative thought is, right? Pick your poison. I'm not smart enough, good enough, tall enough, skinny enough, rich, whatever it I call it poison. You want to know why? I call it poison because thinking this negative thought is like drinking poison. It kills your spirit and your innate desire to be seen, to be heard, and to be celebrated. You are dropping the guillotine right on yourself when you think this poisonous thought. Okay? Now, what is step two? Step two is, yes, You have to identify it, but it's not enough to just identify it. Step two is we need to replace it. Okay? We need to replace it. And so I'm going to teach you what you're going to do next. The next time, You think that negative, I'm not enough thought, you're going to break the thought by saying, I'm not thinking about that. I'm not thinking about that. And then number three, we have got to to replace the thought. So you're going to catch the thought, you're going to break the thought, and then we're going to replace the thought.

That's what you need to do to get this poison out of your mind and start thinking thoughts that align with your fundamental needs. And what are your fundamental needs? It's what we've been talking about today. It's to be seen, it's to be heard, it's to be celebrated. And one of the things that I love about cultivating a high five attitude is the high five attitude is an attitude that aligns with believing in yourself, seeing yourself, and appreciating, celebrating, and encouraging yourself to continue to move forward. And that's what you're doing. One of the things that you can do, I know this is going to sound crazy, is by adding a high five to your morning routine, it helps you rewire your mind in a very powerful way. And the reason why it will help you rewire your mind in a very powerful way is if your default right now is, I'm not enough, when you add this to your morning routine, your brain sees you treating yourself in the exact opposite way of that negative, poisonous thought. Because you don't high five somebody that you think isn't enough or that sucks or that you hate.

You only high five people that you believe in, that you think are enough and that you're rooting for. And so add a high five to your morning routine because that is part of the positive forward programming of plowing new neural pathways in your mind. Again, let me repeat, the trick all Often a people use to stay positive. You got to catch that negative, poisonous thought. You got to break it. I'm not thinking about that. Talk back to it. And then you must replace it. You have to learn how to replace it and program a positive mind because your brain circuitry is designed to just repeat the patterns that are there. So simply identifying and trying to break the pattern won't work. We got to replace it and program new neural pathways in. This is why all of you who When you're high-fiving yourself, whether you're taking the High-Five Challenge, go to high-five-challenge. Com. It's a free five-day program that I lead you through. You can do it with 150,000 other people from 90 different countries, or whether you've read the book or watched our videos or listen to these live streams. For those of you that are adding the high five to your morning routine, what are you noticing about the way it's changing your mind?

What are you noticing about how those negative, poisonous thoughts are starting to be replaced by more positive programming? That's what this book is about, everybody. Write it in the comments. Now, what I'm going to do is I'm going to jump to some questions. That is the The end of chapter four. Wait, I've got one more paragraph, and then I'll do it with questions. The reason why you want to catch the thought, break the thought, replace the thought, is because we want We're not going to teach you how to let validation, confidence, celebration, optimism, and action, a high five attitude. We want to teach you how to make that the new default, that whenever you feel yourself going mentally low because of poison Poisonous thoughts, that the thought alone, those poisonous thoughts, they paralyze your ability to move forward. So whenever you think that thought, I want you to learn how to catch it, because whenever you have that poisonous thought, you don't want to high five anybody, right? You don't want to high five yourself. You don't want to do anything. You don't feel like doing anything.

It kills your inspiration and motivation.

So we want to catch it. We want to break that thought, and we want to replace it.

You have to You need to visualize in your mind, writing the check and feeling the pain in your legs of uncertainty. You have to visualize in your mind sitting in that plane seat, flying to a conference, feeling the pit in your stomach, being worried about whether or not anyone's going to take you seriously because there's all these big podcasters there. You need to feel your chest contract and squeeze in As you walk up to somebody that you deeply admire and you start a conversation or you walk up to an event organizer and say, I'd like to apply to be on a panel next year. How do I do that? And your chest gets really tight because you feel like you don't belong there because you don't have the numbers yet or whatever your stupid story is. When you picture that in your mind and you feel the negative sensation in your body, you are doing resistance training. This is how you align your mind, body, and spirit to not resist the hard stuff. Here's a cool fact about your brain. Your brain doesn't know the difference between you actually spending the money buying the plane ticket, getting on the plane and flying to that event, or you imagining it in your mind?

When you run through the hard things that you're avoiding in your mind and you allow yourself to feel the negative sensation in your body, you are training and mentally rehearsing the exact same way Olympic athletes do with the nine sports psychologists that the US Olympic team has to help our athletes prepare. You are mentally rehearsing before the actual event so that your mind and your body are trained to anticipate and push right on through all the stuff that's scary because you've already rehearsed it. That's how you use manifesting to help you do the work to get what you want.

Wow. I'm so grateful that we brought that up and that you helped walk me through this.

What did you get out of that?

Well, I definitely, one, I became aware of not only what I need to do, But what's the fear that's attached to it?

What is the fear?

Well, the fear is always going to be uncertain to your scarcity, because I think the one thing that's been beneficial to me in my life is that I've always had my back against the wall from being somebody who is a convicted felon in jail, not growing up with a ton of money, that thing, where I've always been forced to just hustle, hustle, hustle, work, work, work, where I'm used to this situation. But on the flip side, the negative is I'm so used to being stressed because I grew up in a stressful environment. I put myself in a stressful environment from selling drugs and doing drugs for a majority of my life when I was younger, so that a lot of times now I've had to become aware of when I'm creating more stress around something that's a good thing instead of something that I would have seen back in the day as something that was bad or whatever.

Can I unpack that?

Sure.

So you just said that you realize that you're used to having your back up against the wall. That having been a kid that grew up in a very chaotic household who then turned to dealing drugs, who then got arrested and was convicted as a felon and served time behind bars, all of which I'm very familiar with because I used to be a public defender in Manhattan. I have not served time, but I have represented people accused of crimes and who have committed crimes and who have served time for a large part of my career. One of the things that I want to point out is that you were attracted to the chaos of selling drugs because it's all you knew as a kid in your home, and it felt familiar. This is why It can be really challenging to break old patterns. And that's because patterns are familiar. And if they're familiar, they just repeat automatically without you even realizing it. And so here you are now. How many years have you been out of jail?

Gosh. So December 26th, just marked 13 Thirteen years.

So 13 years. On December 26th, it was 13 years since you were released from federal prison.

Or county jail. Yeah.

Okay. Well, county jail. It's still a felony conviction. Thirteen years. You're behind bars. You have turned your entire life around, but there is one pattern that still runs your life. And the pattern that runs your life is chaos. And if you don't If you don't identify that chaos and friction and feeling on edge is what you're so familiar with, if you don't identify that now and recognize all the places in your business where you are creating chaos, creating friction, and putting yourself on edge, that pattern will keep you from living into your full potential. Here's what I would do. I would make a list of every aspect of your daily life or business that creates chaos, that causes friction internally, or leaves you feeling on edge. Then I would do the work this year to put systems, people, process in place so that you create new patterns. I can relate to this so profoundly, not because I have served time behind bars, but because, like so many people, having stored trauma from being molested as a kid when I was nine years old, in my nervous system I have lived my whole life from the age of nine till about 46 when I first started understanding that this was stored trauma and understanding that my anxiety was largely due to the fact that when that happened to me at the age of nine, my nervous system went from calm and cool and resting to on edge, stressed out fight or flight.

And it probably never flipped off of that. My dominant pattern, Doug, is being busy and being on the run and being on the move, because if I can be two or three steps ahead of everybody else, I'm going to be safe. And so the thing that doesn't work in my life is that my whole business, up until very recently, was organized around a pattern that Mel's running to catch a plane, Mel's running to do this, Mel's on the move. I hated how it felt, but I had no idea how to stop being so busy and stop being on the run because I equated being on the run with safety and with control. And it's the opposite. You see, these patterns that we developed when we were a kid made us feel safe when we were a kid because they were familiar. But now that they're an adult, they're screwing up our lives. And so I have gone through the same exercise very recently. What are all the things in my business and that I'm doing in my day-to-day life that I hate? What are the things that cause friction? Where is this behavior making me miserable?

And now Now I am going to work with removing all the friction, removing all the busyness. And I'm going to tell you one... First of all, what are you getting out of me sharing this?

Well, I'm very thankful because my audience is going to totally relate to this And that's why I share what I shared, because there's so many people that struggle with this very thing. And I was very fortunate that I was in a therapist's office, probably, I don't remember, six or seven years ago, and I was stressed. And I had nothing to be stressed about. I was making good money. I was writing books. And I just written my first book, and my therapist was like, what was your childhood like? I was like, my parents got divorced. And I just started explaining what happened. She's like, you grew up in chaos. So you said your nervous system is going to seek out more chaos. And then it began to make sense because she was like, you have a certain level of homeostasis that your body is used to, and your body is always going to revert back to that. You have to create a new normal. And I was fortunate that I I mean, I'm still aware of it. I think just through... I'm aware of it, and I still make mistakes based on it just because I'm still working through a lot of that.

But there's a lot of people that as you're saying that, they never figure it out because they just accept the fact they're always going to be stressed.

You don't have to be. I think the place if you want to heal, if you want to be happier, the place to really focus all your work on is regulating your nervous system. And There's lots of ways you can do it. You can do it through cold exposure therapy by climbing into an ice bath and learning how to breathe yourself through the discomfort for 30 seconds to a minute. You can do it through EMDR. You can do it through guided psychedelic therapies with a licensed therapist. But you're not going to talk yourself out of a nervous system response. You can also put your hands on your heart, this is something I write about in the high five habit, and press on your vagus nerve and say, I'm okay, I'm safe, I'm loved, which will bring you back into your body and it'll flip the switch between your fight or flight sympathetic nervous system back into the parasympathetic nervous system. There are things you can do but understand that these patterns get triggered at an emotional nervous system level before your brain catches up. The reason why, for example, when I I asked you, hey, visualize yourself writing a check that's scary, and you said, I feel that in my legs.

That's your nervous system. That's where your stored tension, trauma, and stress activates. It can be different for everybody. And so back to the advice I was giving you, you have to write down all the areas where you are unknowingly creating chaos. I remember this person said something to me when I first got involved in the speaking business, and my career started to take off. He said, Mel, you better say yes to every speech you can get, because speakers on the corporate circuit get hot, and then they disappear. This is a fad. That triggered that like, I got to go, go, go, go, go. And so for five years, I said yes to absolutely everything I possibly could because my husband and I were in a horrendous financial situation and we desperately needed the money. And I ran myself into the ground, not because I was being intentional, but because this pattern of being busy kicked into full gear, but it was driven by fear. It was driven driven by fear. And I believe that as much work as you have done on yourself, turning your whole life around and now serving so many people and making a huge difference in building this business, if you dig deep, what drives the fear of spending the money and investing yourself is a deeper fear.

Right. No, you're absolutely right. And it's forcing me, or just thinking about it now, it's forcing me to just reinforce that the work never stops. There's always going to be something that comes up. And I think a lot of people think of healing as they climb this mountain, they put a steak in the ground. They're like, that's it. I'm done. And It's not what happens. And I think that's why a lot of people, they stay stuck and they develop this fixed mindset because they don't have the humility to look in the mirror and say, I need to improve this. This area of my life needs some healing. I need to do work. And we touched on, obviously, some things that I need to work on both personally and professionally. But I guess my question back to you is, so the high five habits been out now for several months. We just got through the holidays. What's been like something recently since the book came out where you've had to give yourself a high five and pick yourself back up after you were in a negative self-talk loop, you were feeling low about yourself. Was there something?

And if so, what was it?

It's basically every day. You just said you've written a high five habit. It's a wildly successful book. Is there a moment that you have to pick yourself back up? The reason why I start every day with a high five in the mirror as part of my morning routine, and I do it like... I've repeated it so many times. I don't even think about it because it's just like brushing my teeth. I brush my teeth. I I wouldn't even think about starting my day without brushing my teeth. I wouldn't think about starting my day without high fiving myself in the mirror and experiencing the benefit neurologically and chemically to what it does. I need one every day. Life is fucking hard. Just this week, I have one daughter who has started a new job after graduating from college, having had two of her college experience imploded. She is starting remote at a large tech company. She is profoundly capable, and she's a nervous wreck. That makes me feel sad and distracted and upset for her. We have another daughter who is a junior in college, which basically means she's had six months of a traditional college experience, who just got word that school is now pushed back a week.

It's starting remote, that rushes online, just things that seem trivial, but it's her whole world. So her trying to grapple with how to make sense of the ever-changing world that we live in. I was supposed to fly down and see my parents who are on the panhandle of Florida this weekend. Given Even the surge that we're in the middle of, I think I need to push this thing off because there's connections involved, and I don't want to spend the weekend in the airport, and it's a lot of money to fly down there right now. And not that I don't have it, but I'm feeling like, God, I don't want to I'm going to call my mom, but I really don't want to spend two days in an airport, and what do I do? And so it's like, Mel, come on, make the phone call. Every single day, life is going to throw situations, emotions, distractions, stuff at you that you can't control. And the whole game is how you support yourself in responding to it. I have I develop the skill of being so in tune with my nervous system and when I'm in my body and feel uncomfortable in my own skin, and when I am triggered I go on edge.

And the second I feel myself go on edge, I have a skill of putting myself in pause, 5, 4, 3, 2, 1, and checking in with myself and getting aware of what is going on. Let's take the example of the high five help this morning, of feeling on edge about calling my parents who we haven't seen since end of September and saying, I think we should push this off three weeks. It's my mother's birthday. I deeply miss them. I want to see them. I know in my heart, the right decision is to push this off a couple of weeks. And yet I still feel the emotional trigger. Am I going to disappoint somebody? Does that mean I'm a bad daughter? Am I a selfish jerk for doing this? All of which could either settle in and put me on edge all day, or I could recognize that's what happens and go, 5, 4, 3, 2, 1. I'm not thinking about that. I'm going to do what works and what feels right for me. I know I'm a good daughter, and I know that this is the right decision, and my mom and dad can have their reaction.

And when I see them three weeks from now, when there are less flight delays and the weather is better, and I have more time to spend with them, we won't even remember the moment I made the phone call and said. So every single day, you have to practice these skills because life is always changing. That's why I like thinking about it like skills. Writing words on a piece of paper is a skill. You use it every day. Scrolling through your phone is a skill. You use it and practice it every single day. Drinking a cup of water is a skill. You use it and practice every single day. Self-awareness is a skill. Recognizing when you're on edge is a skill. Knowing how to come and get back into your body and become aware of what's triggering you and then work through it and choose how to respond based on your values, that's a skill. And in life, you need to draw upon, strengthen, and practice these types of skills every single day.

So beautifully said, and thank you so much for opening up and sharing that, because I think that's something that a lot of people, especially the last few years, have struggled with. A, it's people-pleasing, right? Being afraid of doing the right thing for themselves because they fear it's going to hurt somebody else. And then also regulating yourself and not creating more stress in your life, which then you and I have both struggled with coping with substances to help numb anxiety, stress, and that's not good either. There's a lot of people that do that. If you were to say you had one or two things other than the five-second rule that when you're feeling emotionally charged, you give yourself the five, four, three, two, one, and then you do something to get your body back to some stability, what would those things be?

Okay, so in a moment of stress, what are the top tools that you can use? I can think of a number of them. You already mentioned the first one. So the first one is the five-second roll. Simply counting backwards, 5, 4, 3, 2, 1 interrupts your nervous system response, and it interrupts the racing thoughts. And it gives you just a moment where you can choose what you do next. And so you could count backwards 5, 4, 3, 2, 1 and take an action to respond. Or what I often I do is I count backwards 5, 4, 3, 2, 1 to stop the racing in my mind and to stop my heart from taking off in terms of flooding my body with adrenaline and cortisol and all this. 5, 4, 3, 2, 1. And I put myself in pause. I take a deep breath and I just do nothing for a minute. Deciding not to react is a powerful way to react. Gathering yourself is a power move. And so that's number one. The second thing that you can do in moments where you get triggered or stressed or you feel the emotional wave come on.

Get outside, put your phone in your back pocket, preferably turn it off, and take a walk. Simply getting outside for 10 minutes will slow your breathing down. It will raise your gaze and attention on something other than the whatever situation train wreck that just happened or the phone call you need to make or the text you just got. A 10-minute walk outside will work wonders in settling your mind and your body. A third thing that you can do is you can get out a blank piece of paper and you can do what I call a brain dump. Get all that crap that you're thinking out of your mind and just write and write and write, just as if you are barfing after a big night of drinking. Just barf it all out on a piece of paper. Get it out of your head. And as you stop writing, ask yourself anything else and just keep writing. And it'll just be a mishmash of stuff. But eventually, you'll get it out of your head and your body, and you will calm down. A fourth thing that you can do, if you have a bathtub, you can draw a bath, and soaking in a hot tub will stimulate your vagus nerve and it will settle your body.

A fifth thing that you could is you can run a cold shower and step into a cold shower. Let me tell you something. I don't care how horrible that text was that your ex just sent you. If you step into a cold shower, it is so shocking that the only thing that your brain and your nervous system will pay attention to is the cold shower. Get in there and stand in there for 30 seconds to a minute and breathe through it. And something miraculous will happen. You will literally feel a flood wash over your body. Those are five free things that you can do that will help you take control in a moment where life has triggered you and made you scared or anxious or freaked out or whatever. 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. I love you. We create these videos for you, so make sure you subscribe.