I just had this moment, Mandy, where I felt, holy cow, we are about to take this to the next level. It's super exciting. But when you're at that moment, when it gets real and when stuff's about to happen, the thing that I'm really thinking about is in order to seize the complete opportunity when the momentum starts to kick in, it's going to require you to change your habits. It is going to require something more of you. What it took for me to build a multi million dollar speaking business, that took a certain set of habits. What it's going to take for me to now successfully launch this show, continue the speaking business, we now have a publishing imprint. We have a book that we're working on about kick-ass confidence and curing anxiety. I realized that I need to have a level of focus and a level of intentionality that I have not yet cultivated in my life. That there's still that I do, that I put in the way, that was fine when I was operating creating and achieving at this level, but now I want to go to this level. What are those things?

Getting up earlier, being a complete hawk about how I'm spending my time and attention. That in the mornings when I'm with my family, literally being hyper-focused on just them so that I'm present with them.

And then, confession, I'll literally work for 25 minutes, and then the ADD kicks in, and then I'll find myself folding laundry for 20 minutes because I allow myself to get distracted.

See, That's the thing about habits and the levels of success that you get to, that when you recognize that jumping to the next level that you want to get to is nothing more than just tweaking your habits a little bit, that it's really that simple, you will start to be able to have quantum leaps. I'm realizing that I have amazing habits, but they have gotten me to hear. If I want to get to the next level, it's going to require a level of focus and intentionality that I haven't demanded of myself before. No drinking during the week, being super, super focused on the stuff that's really important, probably hiring somebody full-time to be a full-time assistant to help me stay organized and focused in terms of scheduling and weeding through all the incoming requests. I think it's just about that, about this maniacal focus on things that are important. Now is the time. What's cool is you can make it happen anytime in your life. If there's some jump that you want to make-Look, I'm an extraordinarily productive person. I've accomplished a tremendous amount in the last three years. But what it's going to take for me to get to the next level and not destroy the people around me with my stress and be an amazing leader and be an amazing mother and be an awesome wife and actually be an incredible businesswoman is a level of focus that I have never required of myself.

What's it going to require of you?

I would say that the biggest thing that I'm... Well, moving to the West Coast and being three hours behind the entire team has already started to make me do the little things. Sometimes you have to force in place. When If you want to work out more, you need a gym buddy that's going to meet you there at 6:30 AM, and you're going to let them down. That's how I operate. I just need to be forced to make those changes, but definitely it's consistency for me because I notice when I do my-What's the last day that you do? Same exact things you do, literally. They are not waking up early enough, going to bed at the same time every single night, being mindful of what I'm putting into my body because that does affect how you operate. I mean, if you put a bunch of junk in, you're going to be slower. You're going to be drinking is another one of those things. For me, it's overall health, just being mindful of how I'm treating myself so that I'm actually setting myself up for success and I can focus for that long because part of it- What would be the next level of managing a team?

Because you manage our team, and we are a lean team. We're ridiculously efficient. What we have going on in May is insane. We have a new course launching. We have, by the way, one of the busiest speaking schedules of professional speakers around. I mean, if you're at the top of your game, professional speaking-wise, you're doing anywhere from 75 to 100 speeches a year, that's us. We have the 5-Second Journal that is back in stock. We have a new book that we're launching in the fall on anxiety and confidence. We have the show launching, a new website launching.

The team management for me. Team management. Team management is all about setting everyone up on Monday. What we used to do is we used to have these big macro conversations. We would be like, Okay, we have this big project and this big project and this big project. Everyone just check in. And now we're starting to do micro Monday morning kick-offs. I think meetings are the reason why corporate America gets stuck. I don't believe in them. I think that when you need something to get done, you pick up the phone and you talk to the person that needs to get it done, and then you collaborate where necessary. But on Monday mornings, an hour with each team and having everyone talk about what they're actually working on, making sure that we're on the same page is huge. I have a question.

Yes.

We have decided, because we own the company together, the Confidence Project, that we are taking our personal accountability to the the next level, that we are demanding more of ourselves because we see the importance in weeding out the little bullshit that's there. Trust me, it's a little bit. When I look at how I've transformed myself over the last three years, I'm an extremely focused and accomplished and successful person, but there's still a little bit better that I can do. And doing a little bit better based on where I'm at is the secret to enjoying what we've created for ourselves. But here's the question, how do we also inspire and support that same level of intentionality bump in our team? Because we're the owners. We know how to inspire people. We know how to make people know that they matter. But given that we're going to demand more of ourselves, what do we need to do in order to have our team feel that they need to do that for themselves, too?

I've even noticed a shift in the team's productivity with just two weeks of Monday morning meetings where we talk about what are we going accomplish this week. For the two weeks that we've been doing that, I've felt the entire team elevate their own game even just because we all know what we're working on. When people know what and why, the intentionality automatically increases rather than, Oh, I could do this. I mean, we're very lucky in that everyone on our team is really autonomous.

Well, then maybe what we should do, I got an idea. Maybe what we should do is on next Monday's call, we do what we're going to do in this video, which is I want you to think about the areas of your life and your work where you're productive and you're in action. That's fantastic. Keep going. What's the BS? The one or two things. What are the one or two things that you need to change, whether it's getting up a little bit earlier or like me not drinking during the week?

I have one that I didn't say. I didn't have Wi-Fi on a five-hour flight the other day, and I actually got the project stuff done because I didn't have access to social media. I didn't have access to text message. I realized how much happier I felt by not mindlessly scrolling through social media and pretending I'm on a strategy hunt, and I just, I got to be done.

What are you doing? What is the commitment?

It's one thing you see in the insight.

What's the commitment? What are you changing? You are a lot younger than me, so you're socially native, but I do see you all day long working and checking social, working, checking social.

What if you were to say, During this three-hour period, every day, 12:00 to 3:00, I turn off social.

You pick that's the thing that's going to be hard, but what would it be for you? Because this is the thing. We can identify what we need to do, but unless you make it specific, you're not doing it. I don't drink Monday through Thursday. It's not going to do it because that's during the week. What I need to get up a half an hour earlier. Instead of 6:15, I need to get up at 5:45. Those two things will make a big difference because they will have a big effect on the rest of my day. What is it for you?

Get up at 6 instead of 7. I would say no social from 10:30 to 3:30 because that's hyper productivity mode for the whole team. Everyone's on. I need to get way back into a workout routine that is essential for my personal accountability for mental health, for physical health. It makes me... When I go to the gym, I'm like, I am unstable, and I can do anything. Those are the three things that I could tweak about what I'm doing right now. Got you.

Back to you. If you were to take your business or your life to the next level, what is one or two things that you need to remove, the BS that you do, the small tweak that you could make that would increase your focus on actually being able to work on the important stuff?

I want you to put it in the comments below. Tell me and tag us. We're doing it. We're going to be documenting it and showing it to you in hopes that it inspires you and helps you make the changes that you need.

You want to be a travel blogger, it sounds like.

Yes. Right.

Okay. Great.

Yeah.

Does that scare you?

Not at all. I'm pushing myself quite a lot. Even before my parents passed, I had the goal, okay, I want to make my illustration job and so on. But here's the thing. Tell me the thing. I'm doing this since, like I said, I mean, I draw for more years now, but I started the online business in 2021. And I'm not making that much income. Sometimes there are months we're making nothing. And that's totally fine because I'm at the beginning. I also have That's also good to know. I have an Instagram. I have a YouTube channel. I love making videos. I'm learning so much. I started TikTok. I have my homepage. I'm writing blog posts. Mel, I also wrote blog post about you. I'll have to read it.

Yeah. So let me ask you a question because there's a huge theme here. You guys are noticing the theme with everybody? You guys all have lots of stuff going on. And that's an important thing if you need to have a lot of stuff going on to make ends meet. And I love that you're saying that your illustrations and that story is at the very beginning of the process, and that that's going to take time. That's true. But here's what I don't hear. What do you want your life to look like?

I want this to go pretty well. I want to be able, like I wrote, I want to be able to travel. And my goal is to make this happen next year. And Okay. Yeah.

So what do you mean by travel? See, the other thing I'm going to keep pointing out to everybody is that before you can figure out the plan or the map to get where you want to go. You got to pick your head up and point at what you want. And the more more specific the destination, the better. It is impossible to give you great guidance and coaching if I don't know exactly what you want. Because here's the thing, if you really wanted life where you travel, I can tell you 10 travel bloggers that you should follow. You can stalk their stories. And with your skills, you could probably be making money and doing that full-time in a matter of three to six months. Because there are magazines that are looking for freelancers to do that. Once you get with one hotel, They connect you with another hotel. Once you start tagging people, cafés, it is one of those things that builds. You've told me you have no debt, that you have savings, that you have a job that is 12 hours a week that is not keeping you somewhere. So what do you actually want?

I know when I do this next year. So my first goal is to go to Japan again for three months. And I know that at my part-time job, they won't let me go and say, Okay, it's unpaid vacation. And when you come back here, you can start again. So I know, okay, I have It's- So here's what's interesting.

You ready? I'm going to push you a little bit.

Yeah, please.

Is that house that you're sitting in a place that you own that you have to pay for?

No, it's a flat. And it's the flat of my best friend, and I have to pay such less money.

Let me tell you something. Yeah. Your whole life is organized around what's happening at this 12-hour a week job.

Yes, exactly.

Do you know why I'm pointing that out?

No.

We are in the single best job market in 40 years.

What was my best job?

No, no, no. This is the best job market in 40 years. People cannot find people to work.

Yeah, exactly.

What I'm trying to tell you is that you're organizing your entire life around a part-time job.

I know where you're going.

Where am I going?

Yeah, I have the exact same thoughts.

They are- No, but where am I going? Where am I going? I'm going to push you.

There are the shitty jobs out there everywhere. I can- There's a shitty job in Japan waiting for you.

Yeah, everywhere.

I know. Yeah.

Your issue The issue is courage.

Yeah. That's fun because courage is one of my things that I'm keeping pushing myself. Okay. Prove it. Yeah, that's right.

And I have a feeling that you holding on to where you are has to do with grieving.

Grieving, and maybe... Okay, because I have a partner, and he also lives here. But I think we can maybe hopefully figure something out.

Elaina?

Yeah.

Hope is for children on Christmas morning who hope that they're going to get a certain present. You are a 33-year-old, brilliant woman who has taken control of her healing, who has figured out how to set up an entire business around your illustrations. You have paid off your debt. You have savings. We are no longer in a game of hope. We are in the business of creating a life that's amazing. And that begins the moment you wake up and go, What the fuck am I doing? I'm worried about this job. I am going to call a meeting tonight with my partner, and I'm going to say, Here's what we're doing. We are going to reinvent our lives. Fuck it. Let's figure out how to go to Japan for three months. Because this shitty job is going to be here, and so is this flat when we Why we don't like it. And if I burn through my savings trying to figure something out because I can't figure out how to make that work, then I'll just save more money. You have nothing to lose.

I'm writing courage. Courage. And courage Big. Encourage.

Encourage means action.

Yeah.

You're going to feel afraid, but this is the day- No, that's normal.

Growth.

You're not going to grow in that flat, and you're not going to grow next year, and I'm not going to allow you to wait another year.

Yeah. And this is exactly what I'm feeling. Every time I wake up, I'm doing my stuff, and I'm doing quite a lot of stuff. And I wrote it also to you. Wait, let me point this out.

I thought, I don't need this. You don't need that. I don't need the story. I don't care how much you're doing. You're doing the wrong stuff. I'm fucking busy, too. And for a long time, it was the wrong stuff, which is why I was with you all.

The The only thing I felt why I feel so... Why I ask you if it's a naive or so, because I'm not making that much income or not at all income now. Of course. This is why Who cares?

So you're not making a lot of income, which only means if you stay in the place that you're in, you're going to stay trapped because you don't have enough income. You're not going to have enough income next year either. Take a risk. Live a little. You can come back to this.

This was exactly what I was feeling the whole time.

Well, I hope this is exactly what you do. Because feeling it, unless it activates action, Yeah. He might as well just fart because it doesn't do anything. It just is like, you need to get frustrated and say, I'm done with this. I am sick of myself. In fact, let's pick a date right now. What day are you going to Japan or going to another country or quitting this job? Give me the day. Let's commit publicly right now. It's March 22nd.

March or April.

Give me a date. Let's go calendar.

Okay. Let's say April the first.

April first? Hell, yes. All right, great. You're going to keep us posted on where you're doing and what your plan is. I will. Will you put Glow Autonomo, her account in Instagram? Thank you. She started travel blogging, I think seven years ago. And really amazing woman, really good friend of mine, super inspiring.

Okay.

She'll give you tips. And I think on her YouTube channel, she's got all kinds of stuff about how to get started. She's killer.

I also haven't found an illustrator who does this because I would love to- Great.

Listen, I think your ideas are incredible. Go do them. Okay. Here's an illustration. You ready?

Yeah.

Give us an I'll take an illustration of the moment that you got off your ass and quit that job. And then give us an illustration of you buying the plane ticket. And then give us an illustration of how scared you are as you see the savings go down a little. And then give us an illustration of what your partner looks like when he's like, Wait, what? We're going where? And then give us an illustration of your first day in Japan. And then take us on the journey with you.

Yeah.

All right, awesome. You're awesome. I've been saying it a lot that every single day when you wake up, you can decide who you're going to be. And the reason why it's so important to wake up and either consciously choose, decide, or set an intention about who you're going to be. The reason why this is so important to start doing every single morning is because if you don't consciously decide who you're going to be, your habits, your old patterns, and the stress of the day will decide it for you. You see, human beings, this was so liberating when I learned that human beings are nothing more than a ton of patterns. We learn patterns from other people, and then we repeat those patterns. And so if you find that you're stuck in a rut, or you're overwhelmed, or you're in a negative place, and you are really tired of being there, the first step to getting the life that you want is you must wake up every morning and interrupt the patterns and the automatic nature of how you go through your day, just going through the motions. And the simplest way to do that is to wake up and set an intention.

So when I say, decide who you're going to be, what I'm talking about is, what mood are you going to be in? How are you going to behave? What are you going to show up and do today? Are you going to be motivated? Are you going to be patient? Are you going to be present? Are you going to be grateful? Those are decisions that you can make. And when you wake up in the morning and you set an intention, Today, I am going to see the good. Today, I am going to be optimistic. Today, I'm going to turn off the television when I get home. I'm going to spend an hour on my dreams. When you wake up and set an intention and When you decide who you're going to be today and how you're going to show up and what it's going to feel like to be you, you take control of the day. And you give yourself an anchor to keep coming back to so that when something stresses you out or you catch yourself thinking negative things, or you get a text, or somebody doesn't respond to you and you start to feel discouraged, come back to your intention.

Today, I said I would be optimistic. Today, I said I would see the good. Today, I said, no matter how tired I am, when I get home tonight, I'm going to find an hour for me. That's what I mean, Night Queen B, when I say, decide who you're going to be today. And that's why I think it's so powerful when you wrap your mind around the fact that every single day, you get to wake up and decide who you're going to be today. And it's the first step in taking control and creating the life you want.

My name is Amber Parsons. I homeschool my children, and I want to... Well, I also run a ceramic business, but I want to go into mental health and create an art therapy program. Great.

Here's what I love about you. Could you tell as she was sharing that with us, that you were unsure about that? Yeah.

I'm really sure about what I want to do. It's like putting the words together to tell other people.

What is the block? I don't know exactly.

Actually, the block for me getting there, I think, is I'm afraid... I just found out I have ADHD this year.

Oh, me too.

Yeah, but it's really relieving to find out that you have it.

Anybody else been Are you being diagnosed? Great. I'll speak about this in a minute. Okay, go ahead.

But my habits of my ADHD brain totally stop me sometimes.Okay.Get right in my way.Okay.Yeah..

See, I think it's something deeper.

It's probably something deeper.

Yeah. I think that there's probably some mix, and I'm only saying this because you are homeschooling, so you're very dedicated to your kids and nurturing them, that there's probably some mix of it would be selfish or it would impact them negatively?

I want to do it with... I don't want to give up homeschooling.

Okay. Nobody said you had to.

Right, exactly. But it's trying to figure out, well, maybe convincing other people that I could do that.

Why do you have to convince anybody else? I don't. How many of you are relating to this right now? That as everybody's sharing what they're wanting and what they're struggling with, you see yourself. There's only one person that needs to feel inspired and convinced, and it's you. And you could take 11 years to do this because you could find a certification online. My husband got an MBA in seven years. He went to one class a semester when we had young kids because that's all we could afford, and that's all we had time for with both of us working and having young kids. There's a million paths to getting what you want. You just have to find the confidence to be able to start and to say, This is what I'm doing. It doesn't matter if it takes a year, 10 years, 20 years. This is what I'm doing. And I'll tell you another reason to do it. Your kids learn by your example, not by your words. And so if you want daughters and your sons or your kids that identify in any range of the spectrum to pursue their dreams and be themselves, you have to show them what that looks like.

And so if mom When your mom is taking a Thursday night to go to an online course, you are demonstrating what it looks like to prioritize time for your dreams. You're demonstrating what it looks like to have values that align with your actions. And that will seep into the pores of your children. And so you're the only person that needs convincing. Yeah. Is there another layer to this that you see?

My husband probably wouldn't be on board with it. Wouldn't? I don't think so. Why? Because he's already successful. So? Yeah, I don't know.

Have you asked him?

Yeah.

And what did he say?

No.

Why?

Because how would I homeschool the kids?

Well, you will show Tell him how you're going to do it.

I do. I actually secretly under the table already look at it deeply, and that's how I know I'm going to do it. But yeah, just do it.

Yeah, but here's the thing. I think that's important. But I think the bigger issue is, why should you be supporting his dreams if he's not supporting yours? That's true. No, I'm serious. I'm serious. You clearly have something that would make you come alive. He has a fear.

Yeah, not having control of all the things.

Maybe. Maybe he has a fear of losing you. Maybe he has a fear that the way that things are working, it's all going to fall apart. Maybe he thinks everything has to happen like this. He doesn't understand you're talking one class for five years on a Thursday night. But at some point, this also requires you to own your own happiness, because he's not responsible for it, you are. He's not responsible for your dreams, you are. And he's not responsible for getting on board with this. You're the one that needs to create the permission and then enroll people around you. He doesn't get to choose, by the way. That's true. I'm serious.

I know that deep down inside.

Right? So my concern is this, that when we don't have these conversations about the bigger issues of fear and control in my dreams, and that there's a way to do both, we end up doing things that feel sneaky and undermine trust. And so it's important that where you see that you can't be your authentic self, you start to have those conversations because I want you to grow in your relationship. And there's a way for you to do that, even with somebody who's scared of you growing. But you have to be the one that leads the way. Okay? All right. I know it scares the hell out of you. Let me have this. Great job, by the way. When your life blows up and you find yourself in the ocean with pieces of the boat all around, look for a fucking life preserver or a raft, okay? So I want to applaud you for doing what needed to be done when the you know what hit the fan. That same instinct is what is going to make you successful. The The second thing that I want to tell you is once you get a hold of that life raft, you want to grab something else that floats and get yourself out of that water.

And so I am glad to hear that you're looking for a job. And what I would recommend is I would recommend not pretending about the situation that you're in. There is no shame in going to a job interview and at the end of it saying, and I'm asking you for this job. And the reason why I'm asking you for this job is not only because I am going to be incredible at it and you're never going to regret it, but I actually need it. I'm in a really tight jam. I had a life crisis happen. I never thought at the age of 55, I'd be in this situation. And I need the work, and I want the work, which means I'm going to show up here every single day, and I am going to work the heck out of this job. I've never I never wanted a job more than I want a job right now. And you should tell your friends that this is what you're going through, and that you need help, and that you need a recommendation, or you need a place to stay. And you should not do what I did, which was hide what was going on because I was so ashamed.

And I'm also going to tell you, it will take time. Five years ago, I still had the lean on this house. Five years ago, guys. And so it will take time for you to climb out of this. But you will climb out of this. When you're in a shit storm and when the lights go out in your life and things feel really dark and really heavy, there has always been one thing that helps me get through those moments. And it's reminding myself myself that this moment, like every painful moment of my life, was temporary. It passed. And when you can keep telling yourself this moment is it's going to pass and it's leading me somewhere. When you can trust in that, you create your own light in that dark tunnel. And it allows you to look up. And one of the things about learning something new, like how to make money online, is that it acts like a beacon for where you're freaking going. It's not going to be the power boat that gets you there right now.

I know.

You know what I mean? Because you need You should find another freaking life jacket, which means you get a job. I know. You need to just keep going on these interviews. If you've gone on all these interviews and people are like, you're amazing, and then you don't get it, you think it's because you're too old, you're too desperate, they say you're a consultant. There's no shame in writing back and saying, I'm not sure if you filled the position, but I didn't mention that I actually need a job. My pride got in the way. And so if you haven't filled that position or maybe you are looking for more people, I want to make sure you know I'm not looking to be a consultant. I've never wanted to find a great job more than ever in this moment. There's no shame in that. What's the worst I'm going to say? Yeah, we filled the job.

Yeah, I get that. I mean, I've been really even just struggling to even get interviews, too. And it's just a funny thing. And it's like, I did have a really great- What did you do before? Well, I was a rock star visual researcher with directors back in the day, and I took an odyssey out of that when I had my kid and went to Europe, and I had a company doing that. And recently hooked up with my old team Through B-School, we're starting a Pinterest collective, so I'm reactivating this whole visual research space.

Great. Let me tell you what you could do tomorrow.

Yeah.

Project management.

I don't know, girl. I'm like, I'm the worst project manager.

Bullshit. You can't manage your own life. You can manage somebody else's project. Maybe. 1,000 %. Do not look for a job in what you used to Okay. Look for a job managing projects in any company, because you just need structure in a place to go every day in You're getting a paycheck. That's like the rows on the boat, rowing your head. If you're scrappy enough, I can tell, that you'll get annoyed with that job. Then you'll start hustling even more than you are, and you'll get up in the other things. But you need the structure. You need to get out of the house. You need a simple paycheck. You need to do that routine for a couple of months. I am telling you, it is the best job market in four years. I don't give a shit how old you are.

No, I love to hearing that, and I get so frustrated by that because I do... It's like I... You're looking for the wrong job.

You're trying to find a needle in the haystack.

Yeah. You have skills.

Stop looking at industries. You have skills. You can manage things. The woman that I just hired who's going to come on board as my executive assistant, like OrganizeMout, she was a graphic designer. She worked in a branding agency. She had a dog walking. She's never been an executive assistant. Why? Because I just need somebody who can organize shit who's an adult that I trust, who's not going to steal from me. That's what I need. And who can boss me around. Right.

Yeah, I understand. I do think I do have the adult quality. And I- Of course. I'm a pro. I mean, I honestly, though, Mel, I would ruin your flights. I'm the worst. I'm not a project administrative.

Then don't take that job. You're not hearing me. You have skills that you can market. Do not look for a visual organizer needle in the haystack job. Forget that. Get your skills at the top of your resume. Linkedin has an entire It's a learning platform, and there is so much on there about marketing skills. That's what people are hiring right now. It's not about the industry.

Yeah, I do see that. I have eight recruiters working for me that can't place me because it's like, I'm an email marketer. Everything is like one skill, like parsed out. Trust me, look for project management, account services, anything, honestly.

That's just what you need. You need something. Again, at this point, don't be picky. Just get the job. I'm not picky.

I just feel like I don't get any traction with it. It's weird. It's just a weird... I'm not necessarily not.

Okay, so let me tell you something else. You ready?

Yeah.

Because I can tell you don't like the advice, which means you know it's exactly what you need to do. I don't know.

I'm open to doing anything, but I just wish I was good I've worked with project managers, and I value that.

Then don't be a project manager. You're missing the point. If you're working with recruiters, they're not going to place you in a job that's general. Right. Eighty % of jobs are not even marketed. They are filled by referral. You need to be talking to your friends. You You need to be looking at the job boards on LinkedIn. Yeah. And you need to be lowering your standards because you are in a lifeboat right now.

Right.

That's what you need to do. Okay. And as you lower your standards on the job front, and as you start rowing in a direction because you now have a paycheck, you're able to get out of your ex-husband's apartment every day. I'm dead serious. Let's just be honest about where you're at. And you have a rhythm to your week. That structure from that job is going to give you what you need to get going in a different direction. You can't organize your thoughts because you're all over the place because you're in an emergency. Okay? And the last thing I want to tell you is you are capable of figuring this out, and you will get a job, and you will launch a new business, and you will make these things happen, and you will look back on this moment, and you will see exactly why this happened and how it helped you get somewhere awesome.

I believe that.

Excellent. I don't really believe Yeah. Excellent.

Thanks, Mel.

You're welcome. Being tough because I want to see you pull yourself up out of this. I know that a ton of you are graduating from college right now, and you're freaking out because you don't have a job. So I want to say a few things to you. Number one, stop freaking out because it's not going to help you get a job. And more importantly, you're not alone. More than 86 % of respondents to a recent survey said that they were graduating without a job. So it may seem like all your friends are moving to New York or moving to LA, or they're doing something fancy in Chicago. But guess what? If you don't have a job, you are in the majority. The second thing, if you don't have a job, You're so lucky. Do you want to know why you're lucky? Because this is the time of your life where you need to be exploring. You've got 5-10 years, no joke, before shit gets serious. And so please take advantage of this. You should be exploring all the things that interest you. If you're curious about the movie industry, go get an internship. If you're curious about advertising, go get an internship.

If you're curious about what it means to be an influencer, start stalking them. This is the time where you take all the critical thinking skills that you learned in college and you put it to use in a really cool internship. I get it. You got to make money. You got student loans, you got bills to pay. Maybe mom and dad kicked you out, and so now she's gotten really real. Well, get a real job. Seriously, go to a temp agency, go to Starbucks. Heck, if you work there full-time, you'll even get benefits. Make the money that you need to make to just get by. But understand that the next 5 to 10 years, it is so critical for your mental, your spiritual, and your passion health. That sounds super stupid, but I got to tell you, I'm almost 50 years old. Do you know how many miserable people are 50 years old, and they made a critical mistake that I don't want you to make. They panicked during college, and they picked a career track. And then they stayed in that career track. And now when they look up and they got kids going to college and they got a mortgage to pay, guess what?

They're stuck. I don't want that to happen to you. So you got 5 to 10 years to just explore. Figure out how to pay your bills, that's the easy part. You can wait tables, you can bartend, you can make coffee, you can find a job doing something so you can pay the bills. But you owe it to yourself to spend the next 5 to 10 years exploring the things that make you happy, exploring the things that energize you, exploring the things that you're curious about. So go get an internship, take another class, stalk people online, and just figure out how to pay the bills. Here's yet another reason why you don't want a job and a career right now. Once you pick something, inertia sets in. You think that you're just going to take this paralegal job, even though you don't want to be a lawyer, and you think that you're going to take it to pay your bills, and then you're doing it full-time, and next thing you know, a year has gone by and people are applying to law school, and you're down the road, and you start to panic again, like you're panicking right now, that there's nothing else that you could possibly do but be a paralegal or a lawyer, and Newton's laws of physics has taken over, you're now down the road.

And guess what? You're going to wake up and look up 50 years old, and you're going to be a lawyer, and you're going to hate your life. So I'm telling you right now, give yourself five years to explore, to make mistakes, to fall on your face, to intern for jerks, to intern for cool people, to scrape by and learn and absorb as much as you can. This is the time where you can afford to do it, and it's the time when you should. At the end of the day, the single most important thing that's going to happen in the next 5-10 years are the people that you meet. So along the way, make sure that you take great care of people. So again, you are so lucky you don't have a job because now you've got the opportunity to explore whatever the hell you want, so go do it.

One of the other things that I love to do is to bring you behind the scenes. You're actually with me in LA right now in my hotel room. We had some downtime before a huge event, and so I'm taking the time to answer a bunch of questions that we've received. Strick is asking, How do I be more present? It's a fantastic question. Let me distinguish really quickly before we jump into how, the difference between the past, the present, and the future. If If you're living in the past, you're going to be depressed because you are rehashing things that happened to you that are not going to happen again. If you're living in the future, you're going to be anxious because you are anticipating what's coming or you're wishing for things that aren't happening yet. Being in the present is where the gold is. Being in the present moment is where you will have the greatest control, where you will feel the most at ease, and where happiness flourishes. There's a super tight connection between happiness and the ability to live in the present moment. A lot of people believe that happiness is tied to the things that happen to you.

Not so at all. In fact, there is a professor of positive psychology, one of the grandfathers of the movement. He teaches at the University of Pennsylvania. His name is Martin Settelman, and he studied happiness for decades. Now, one of the things that we've talked about a lot is that 40% of your happiness levels are preset by genetics, 60% you are in complete control of. And one of the things that this professor has discovered is that it doesn't matter what's happened to you. In fact, some of the people that have had the worst things, the worst things happen to them, like people that have survived the Holocaust, are actually the happiest and most grateful people in the world. Happiness comes down to this right up here. It comes down to your thoughts, it comes down to your mindset, it comes down to your attitude, and you are 100% control of what you're thinking. You may not be in control of how you feel in the moment, but you can always, always, always, always be in control of what you think, and that will change how you're feeling. One of the most powerful things that you can do in terms of think, and this gets back to Strick's question, is how do you be present?

Being present is literally nothing more than the skill of having your thoughts be in this moment, not in the past, not in the future, but right here. The way that you teach yourself how to do that is that the moment that you catch yourself being distracted, the moment you catch yourself starting to worry, the moment you catch yourself drifting to the future, drifting to the past, that's a moment of tremendous power because you basically just woke up. You basically just noticed that you're not here in this particular moment. So use that wake up call, 5, 4, 3, 2, 1, and ground yourself in this moment. The best way to ground yourself in the moment is to look for something in this particular moment that you can savor. Now, I'm using the word saver on purpose because it's the word that psychologists use to describe what happens when you find something in this moment right now, right here, right now, to focus on and to appreciate. It could be literally the questions. These are printed out questions from people on social media. If I were to stop and look at these and savor them, what I would feel in this moment is a tremendous amount of gratitude because people are taking the time to write.

That makes me feel incredibly grateful. And it also makes me very happy because it means that the folks that are writing are taking control of their lives and seeking out the information that they need. Another form of savoring that we can all relate to is eating. As you're eating, instead of drifting to the future and thinking about all the things that you need to do or hanging out in the past and rehashing everything that's happened during the day, be in this moment, in this meal. Slow down. Think about the food that you're eating. Think about the people that you're sitting with and How do you feel about them. If you want to take it up a notch, actually acknowledge them. Hey, this food tastes amazing. Thank you for cooking, or I'm so glad to see you and that we get the time to have this meal together. Those small, simple acts of savoring are how you expand your happiness inside the present moment. So how do you be more present?

Simple.

The moment that you catch yourself in the future, in the past, worrying, whatever, refocus yourself right here, right now, and then find something right here, right now, that you can savor. And when you do that, you're not only going to be present, you're going to feel more grateful, and you're going to feel a little boost of happiness.

I have a great story to tell you. And And it's a story about the purpose of your dreams and why your dreams are not meant to be achieved. Not necessarily. Your dreams have a different purpose. And what your dreams are meant for is your dreams are meant to act like a beacon outside of you, out in the future. Something that's so inspiring, that calls you through your fear, through your doubt, toward your dream. That's the purpose of the dream, to call you through your fear. And I've got an incredible story to tell you, because when you allow yourself to be pulled forward by your dreams and through your fears and through your doubts, and you work on the things that you really are inspired to do, what's meant for you will find you. So I want to take you back a couple of years when the 5 Second Real Book was launching. It came out in February of 2017. I was a self-published author. It was very important for me to self-publish the book because I wanted to make sure I owned the content. And being a A self-published author is incredible, but you don't have the support of a massive traditional publisher.

So you do everything on your own. And my dream at the time was to be a New York Times best-selling author. I had always dreamt of it, and I had always dreamt of being number one, not just making the list, but being number one. I worked so hard on that book. I put my life and everything I had into that book. And for six months, I did all of the things that you're supposed to do in order to sell as many books as you need to sell in order to make the New York Times bestseller list. And I'm saying for six months, I was schlepping books around to every speech and pre-selling copies and writing lists by hand of people's names so I could send them signed books when the book came out. And I was creating email campaigns and doing Doing stuff on social media and networking with influencers. When I tell you for six months straight, I did nothing but try to figure out what I could do to try to reach my dream of being a New York Times best-selling author, I did everything you were supposed to do. So the week that the book comes on sale, the day that it happens, I send out a newsletter to our newsletter list.

I tell everybody on social media, a bunch of my friends post about the book, and all of a sudden sales start rolling in. I'm super excited. I'm getting text from friends, I just bought your book. And about an hour later, I start getting emails from people saying, I tried to buy your book on Amazon, but it's out of stock. And I thought, That's unbelievable. Holy cow. I was so successful at marketing this book. I've worked so hard. I've been rewarded. We've sold through the tens of thousands of copies that our printing and publishing partner printed for us. It was a self-publishing. I was so excited. I was doing a happy dance. I thought, All my hard work is paid off. My dreams are coming true. And then the emails started to come in It's out of stock. It's out of stock. It's out of stock. And I start to think, I don't have that big of an email list. There must be something wrong. I couldn't have sold through that many books in an hour. And so I go to Amazon, and sure enough, the book is listed out of stock, which the book remained listed out of stock for the first several weeks that it was on sale.

And it wasn't because we had sold all the books. Amazon listed my book as out of stock because we had sent so much traffic to Amazon, and I was a nobody, and Amazon had no idea who I was because I'm a self-published author. And when they get a surge of traffic on an unknown product like that, they list the book as out of stock until they can figure out what's going on in terms of the traffic and their actual inventory in the warehouse. Now, not knowing any better, I didn't know who to call. I had no power to change the situation. And so for three weeks, the book remained out of stock. As all my marketing was happening, as I was appearing on podcasts, as I was showing up on Tom Bilyeu's Impact Theory Show and Lewis Howe's School of Greatness podcast. All of my effort was sending everybody to a page that listed the five-second rule as out of stock. I felt like the world's biggest failure. I felt like God and the universe was punishing me. I regreted every decision I made to self-publish. I felt like there was something wrong with me because I had worked so hard to make this dream come true.

And in that critical three-week period, when all of my effort was supposed to be selling books, the variable of Amazon I could not control. And I just, I literally cried every day. Every freaking day. And here's the one thing that saved me during that Because I just wanted to throw my hands in the air and say, Why? Why? Why? Why? Why, everybody? Why does this always happen to me? I just was going down the pity party negative thought train. And this was the one thought that saved me. I kept saying, There's no way in hell, after working this hard, that the universe isn't going to reward me. I There's no way in hell that I have worked this hard, that the universe is not going to reward me. I would wake up every morning, I would check Amazon, it would say out of stock. I would start crying. All those negative feelings would come rushing in. I'd want to give up on my dream of being a New York Times best-selling, or, hell, at this point, a best-selling author. But I would say, Mel, there's no way in hell that you're not going to get rewarded after working this hard.

There must be something better that's coming. This is a mindset trick that will save you. There must be something better that's coming. And this gets back to my original point. Your dreams are not necessarily to be achieved. That's not their purpose. The purpose of your dreams is to pull the greatest part of you through your fears and your doubts to make you do the work, to have you to start walking toward the thing that's calling you forth. Dreams call the best in you forth. That's the purpose of a dream. And I'm telling you right now, if you continue to work hard, if you continue to put your head down, if you continue to do everything you're supposed to do, and you give up that timeline, you will be rewarded. And I promise you, there is something better that's store for you, something you can't even imagine. That's exactly what happened to me. Because after three weeks of this crap going on, all of a sudden, I get an email, and the email says, your monthly report is available. And it was an email from Audible. See, I had self-published the audiobook, too. I had recorded it myself.

My husband Chris had uploaded the files to the Amazon platform called ACX, which is what you self-publish audiobooks through. And I was so focused on having the hard cover make the New York Times bestseller list. I hadn't even remembered that there was an audiobook. And this whole time, this whole three weeks that the book was out of stock, and I'm crying every morning, and I'm pushing through, and I'm doing podcasts, and I'm doing all the things I had planned on doing, beating myself up, but pushing I'm putting myself forward saying, Mel, there's no way you're not going to be rewarded. There is something better that's meant for you. Just keep going. Well, what happened is that entire three weeks, you guys, that I was working my tail off, crying every day, pushing forward. Everybody was buying up the audiobook like toilet paper in a pandemic because it was the only thing that was available. When I got this sales report, I nearly fell out of my chair. I became the number one audiobook on Audible for the entire year. And because the audiobook was so successful, Amazon got its inventory straightened out, and I became the fifth most read book on Amazon of that entire year in 2017.

The 5 Second Rule audiobook has something crazy, like 50,000 reviews. It's incredible. I'm so proud of it. And even more importantly, my hard work was rewarded because I've gone on to do four more audiobooks as audible originals for audible, something that never would have happened. If I had had a successful hardcover campaign, do you see my dream of being a New York Times best-selling author, even the dream of being number one? The purpose of that dream was to make me work hard, to make me work for it. But that's not the dream that was meant for me at that moment in my life. Something better was meant for me, and I got it because I worked so hard for that dream of being a New York Times best seller. Now, you want to know the kicker? I've never made the list. I've never made any traditional best seller list. Of course, I dominate on Amazon, but the traditional stuff never made it. I wasn't meant to. I was meant to let that dream of being a New York Times bestselling author, pull me forward, make me work, make me believe. And in the work itself, and in telling yourself, you will be rewarded.

You will get what's meant for you. I believe this with absolutely every ounce of my being. Absolutely every ounce of my being. You need your dreams. You cannot give up on your dreams because when you give up your dreams, you give up on a part of yourself. You need your dreams because they pull you through your fear. They pull you through this moment. They give you something bigger to work toward. They activate and energize something inside of you. But if your dreams aren't coming true, remember your friend Mel Robinson. Remember this story that I told you, and you keep your head down, and you keep working for it. Because I promise you, if you give up your timeline, if you keep putting in the work, you will be rewarded. And on those mornings where you wake up like I was waking up every morning and crying and making myself wrong, you flip your mindset and you remind yourself there's no way you won't be rewarded when you work this home. And you remind yourself, that there is something better that's meant just for you. And that's why you haven't gotten what you thought you wanted yet.

I love you. So what does that mean to you, Jen? What are you going to do about it?

So here's the thing. When I think about the question, how are you really or how am I really? Most of us don't want to answer it because we know if we're honest and the answer is, I'm not okay, or I'm not happy or I'm not good, then we have to do something about it. It's like we have to confront that reality, and that's what will set you free, really. One of the things that I think it's wrong so often in this world with so much information is that we try to go so big, so fast, that all of a sudden when we crash, we say, why did I ever think I could do that? Who was I to think I could follow through? Who was I to think that I could start the business? Or lose the weight or get healthier, seek out the relationship. And what we're forgetting is that if we can start to make the smallest progress, like progress that no one can see, progress that isn't Instagramable, progress that just simply proves to ourselves that we are actually following through, that we are actually progressing and moving forward, that we are actually capable.

It's like we're strengthened. And when we're strengthened, the confidence shows up. And when we're confident, we show up in a different way. And when we show up in a different way, we change. And when we If we change, everything happens. And so it's like, we live in a world that literally wants everything to be pretty, and we want it to be showcased. It's like, imagine if you and I were sitting in Vermont, and I was like, hey, Mel, let's go grab some chairs and watch this tree It would be so boring, right? Nobody would do it. Because on the outside, what we see, we're not seeing anything happening. But underneath the surface, those roots are strengthening and lengthening. And growing and reaching and giving this growth the roots that it needs to be sustained. And so to me, it's like when we think about what are we going to do about it, we often try to go big. We go too big. And then we live in this shame cycle that we didn't follow through, that, of course, we weren't able to do it when in reality, we need to make such tiny little actions.

There's a quote in the book that talks from B. J. Fogg where it's like, Pick the most minuscule, tiny little steps to progress so that you can build up your belief in yourself, because the way you show up to your battles is directly linked to the warrior you believe you are. And most people don't even feel like a warrior today. Most people don't feel like they can show up to the battle. And so it's like, how do we build up our confidence through such infinitely small progress, progress that no one else will see, but that we can feel? That's what I think is the difference.

I've been working on something that I don't think anybody can see. I started to notice after a couple of years of therapy and all these big changes that I put into place, and I wasn't even aware of it. And heck, this is even like with the high five habit that I started to break through the self-criticism And the high five habit profoundly changed how I see myself. But I still had a layer deeper, Jenna, a dialog that I think is generational in the women in my life of being in conflict about what's going on and simultaneously feeling grief and regret. I've been really blown away and really sad by how much I've tortured myself because I have this habit of focusing on what's wrong and focusing on what I didn't do in the past. And I live there because the women in my life, my grandmother's, my mom, that's Their negative mental experience. And so I every day, and none of you can see this, I catch myself going there. I catch myself slowly torturing myself that where I am isn't the right place, that what I'm doing isn't the right thing. And it is robbing me of what you said, which is creating fat minutes where you can feel the full 60 seconds and be present to it.

And so this is something, everybody, that I am working on every single day that nobody can see. It's like when you're doing sit-ups for the first time, you're not going to see any change in the mirror for probably eight weeks. And I think the same is true for me. And the incremental stuff that I'm doing, the what are you going to do about it? How are you really? Because the truth is, how are you really is, how am I really is I'm doing all this stuff, but in here, I'm torturing myself because of old mental habits. And I'm committed to catching it and noticing it. And then all I do to break that apart, Jenna, is I try to have what you call a fat minute. I try to just go, where am I?

Yeah. Yes. It's all about awareness. What's so crazy is that for so long, I totally believe that I could never meditate. I was like, my brain doesn't work that way. I can't slow it down. I can't not think of anything. I thought that meditating was emptying your mind when in reality, it's just having an awareness for your thoughts. And when I shifted it, I am obsessed with meditation. Before I went on the Today show, I freaking meditated. I was like, who am I? I don't even understand. But it's wild how much of our lives we go through without noticing, whether it's the people, the feelings, how we're really, our thoughts, our narratives, the things that we're being ourselves at work. We go through and we just don't even notice. We don't even feel it. There's a chapter in my book about Feeling your feelings. It's not about just letting happiness be the destination in our life. It's moving through life with this richness of feeling our feelings. Our feelings are communicating things to us. And so it is. It's all about a awareness. And it's like when you start to pay attention, man, your life becomes more vibrant.

And that richness of the vibrancy, even the highs and lows, it makes you feel your life. It makes you awake to it in a totally different way. I love that.

I want to just say one thing.

Do you need to pick somebody up from the airport? I'm slightly concerned here.

Yeah, I do. It's okay. She'll just start anxiety calling, and she started calling in. She's calling Chris. She has to get her. And in the middle of the panic attack, by the way, the Ember is flaming because she's like, oh, and can we stop at Java Juice and get coffee?

Like, oh, okay.

So here Here's one thing I want to say about that. Feeling your feelings can be terrifying for those of us like me who have spent a lifetime keeping themselves busy or drunk at night. Not drunk, but buzz. So that I didn't have to feel. I think one of the reasons why when I really figured out what I was passionate about, writing, coaching, speaking, that I threw myself into it is because When I was focused on something, my feelings and my mind wasn't spinning. And so I've been doing everything and how are you really? And the slowing down, the getting back into my life, the being honest with myself about how the busyness was really not making me happy. And I will tell you guys that when you start to slow down and you start to truly feel what's there that you've been numbing or running away from or arguing against, that bridge between the old you and the transition to truly that ember inside you of how you want to feel in your life, which is in it and present to it. Crossing that bridge can be terrifying, but you can do it. And so it goes back to what we started in the very beginning.

There is an ember that's burning inside you, even if you feel like a Bart, toast, piece of crisp pile of ashes. I hope that this conversation has fanned so that you feel it burning a little bit, a little bit of yearning. Hey, it's Mel. Thank you so much for checking this video out. If you like this one, I have a feeling you're going to like this one, too. I'll see you there.