Walk us through a little bit about the... I want you to touch on the high five habit. I want you to talk about the people that, yes, they have physical clutter, or yes, they're struggling, they might be listening to the show, but it's really so much deeper. It's about how they feel. It all comes back to the self-worth.

So just give us some insight into that. One of the things that I think that we've all been trained to believe is that tough love is love. And if you're hard on yourself, If you are critical of yourself, if you are labeling yourself a failure or unworthy or not good enough, why on Earth would you ever feel motivated to change? Just think about it from a common sense standpoint. What's something that you used to love to do when you were little? Ride bikes. Okay. It's a ride bikes. Imagine it's the eight-year-old Lori. Tell me about the bike that you had when you were eight years old. It was a yellow bike with a banana seat. And this is the '70s because And it had a little flower basket on the front. And I used to just ride it around my old neighborhood with my friends. And we were just... Again, this was the '70s, so we were free re-ranging all around.

And we just ride and have fun and stop and play. It wasn't a competitive, organized thing. It was just me and my friends outside playing back in the day. Yeah. Riding around on your banana seat bike, having a ball present in the moment, love in life, happy, enjoying yourself, enjoying what you're doing.

I'm sure when you woke up, one of the One of the things that you thought about that you'd love to do today is hop on your bike and go find your friends, right? Sure. So now imagine that you're riding down the street and there's a group of kids that come up and ride alongside you and start saying, You're terrible at this. Your bike is ugly. You're too big for that bike. What the hell are you out here doing this anyway? Hey, I heard that you really said this stupid thing at school. You don't deserve to be out here playing. Shouldn't you be working on speaking better? What happens to you as somebody else is saying that crap to you? Well, you start to believe it because it's always easier to believe the worst than something good. And if somebody's pointing that out, at least that's for me, is I would start to believe, is that actually true? Yeah. So the eight-year-old you In literally 10 seconds flat of being criticized and beaten down and picked apart, you go from feeling happy to feeling sad.

You go from being excited and Curious and present to withdrawing and to feeling heavy, emotionally and self-conscious.

And tomorrow morning, when you wake up, the first thing on your your mind is not the enthusiasm and the motivation and the inspiration to jump on this bike and go do something that you know you like to do. It's a little bit of fear. And the reason why I'm telling you this story is because if you are somebody that struggles with self-criticism, you are doing to yourself exactly what those other kids did in my story to you, Laurie, as an eight-year-old on your bike. And every single human being, based on our research, and I'm just going to say every single human being, because I have yet to meet one person who says, actually, that's not true about me, Mel. Every single person is speaking to themselves the way that those other kids who bullied you you and who criticized you and who tanked your spirit. Everybody speaks to themselves that way. And it's become so much the default, you don't even realize it. And if you're sitting there listening to me and you're like, Do I beat myself? I don't know if I beat myself up. You definitely beat yourself up, and I'm going to prove it.

Because every single morning when you're brushing your teeth, you have this moment where You're standing before a mirror. Based on our research, and look, there's millions of people that follow us. Based on our research and our surveys and what we've now heard from 145,000 people in 91 countries, 50 % of men and women cannot or will not look at themselves in the mirror. That is a habit of self-rejection and self-hatred. And it begins your day. If If you cannot or will not look yourself in the mirror, and if you're somebody who won't and can't open your bills, you're probably somebody who cannot or will not look at yourself in the mirror. And the reason why you cannot or will not look at yourself in the mirror is because You are sad, ashamed, disgusted, regretful, whatever, of where you are or the decisions that you've made in your life. And so So you begin your day with a deliberate act of self-criticism and self-hatred by refusing to even acknowledge your own presence. And that's how your day begins every day. And it is not just something that you casually do. It is a locked in habit that is as much a part of your morning as brushing your teeth.

This is the core problem that every human being is facing. And if you can look in the mirror, you're like, the 91 % of us who focus on the things we can't stand, that we need to fix. As you start to apply your makeup, you're not doing it as a creative act, as an additive. You're hiding things, you're fixing things, you're making yourself look better. And dudes do this, too. This is not unique to women. This is all human beings. And so, again, if you look at yourself in the mirror and you focus on what you don't like, that is a habit of criticizing, rejecting, and hating on yourself. And so I didn't even realize the extent to which I was doing this. I did not realize that the core way that I spoke to myself was one that was critical. And I'm talking about a time in my life, Lori, where I'm 52. I am living the dream. I have reinvented myself over the course of a decade. I have clawed my way out of a financial fucking crater. I am proud of myself for how hard I've worked, not only hard I've worked to make money, to build a business, to help other people out, but I'm proud of myself because of how much work I've done in therapy and on myself to be a better version of myself.

And here I am, April of 2020, and I'm going through a challenging moment. It doesn't even matter what's going on as the backdrop, because everybody can relate to the feeling of waking up in the morning and feeling overwhelmed by your life. That's what I felt in April of 2020. And I walk into the bathroom, and, yes, I'm the lady that has written the five-second rule. I've sold millions of books. I've gotten myself not only out of debt, but I've put away tons of money. I am employing a ton of people. I have a lot of respect from people that follow my work. I think I respect myself. Not true. Not true. And it's not true because I was not treating myself with respect.

So I'm brushing my teeth this morning, and I catch my reflection in the mirror.

And my first reaction, literally, is, oh, You look like hell. And I focus on the lines on my neck and the dark circles under my eye and the gray hair that's coming in and one boob's hanging lower than the other. And I just start picking myself apart. I start doing what the kids in the story that I told you, the kids that ride up alongside you as you're eight years old, and they start picking apart the way you're riding that bike. I start doing that to myself.

And as you start picking your appearance, you will feel your mood drop.

You will feel your motivation evaporate. You will feel the heaviness kick in. And every single one of us starts our day like this.

And so for whatever reason, I think it was divine intervention because the story is so stupid.

I didn't intentionally high five myself that much. I literally The woman I saw in the mirror looked so sad and so overwhelmed. She looked like she needed a high five. And so I just raised my hand and I high five her. And that was the beginning of this. And it wasn't like the first high five. I'm like, wow, I'm going to write a book about this. It wasn't like that. But what happened is I noticed I immediately felt a little energy shift. And I laughed, of course, when I did it because it's so corny. But But it was the next morning that the profound nature of this really started to kick in. I probably spotted it because I have spent my life in the last five years finding and sharing simple tools that make profound changes in your life. And so I pay attention to when I feel different. And that second morning, I wake up and I feel different. And the first thing I noticed is I'm actually looking forward to getting to the bathroom. I'm thinking about the high five. And as I'm walking to the bathroom, I realize that for the first time in my adult life, you know that feeling?

I'm having this feeling for the first time. And let me explain to you what it is. You know that feeling when you're about to walk into a cafe and meet somebody that you really like? It's been a while, but yeah. Yeah. What were you like? You can conjure it up from our COVID brains. I'm just kidding. What was that feeling like? Yeah, for sure. What do you feel?

Excitement. Lighter in your staff, just Enthusiasm. Yeah. I felt that the second morning about the idea of seeing myself.

Now, let me unpack how profound this was for me. I had I'd always looked forward to potentially seeing an outfit or a haircut or something like that. But I don't ever recall as an adult looking forward to seeing the human being Mel Robbins. And so it strikes me as I round the corner that this is a moment. And I walk into the bathroom, and then I have the second realization. And the second realization I have is that, holy shit, there There are two people in the bathroom every morning. There's you, and there's a human being in the mirror, and she needs you. She's trying so hard. She's exhausted. She is so beaten down by your criticism, and she needs you to see her and to start cheering for her and to support her. She is trying hard to ride that little bike, and all you're doing is beating her down. And as I started to realize that, it was this intense spiritual experience, this deep moment of presence that I think people have sometimes when they're meditating or some of the psychedelic therapeutic modalities, bring it out for people moments in nature where you come around a corner and there's an extraordinary view, these divine moments where you feel deeply reconnected to self.

And standing there that second morning in the bathroom, looking at a woman in a mirror that I had been criticizing and ignoring, I raised my hand to her and gave her a high five, and it was truly like a moment of coming home. And I I now have a high five in the mirror as part of my morning routine. I added it in in April of 2020. I have not missed a morning. I do it right after I brush my teeth. I don't say a thing because all the programming is in your brain, and we can unpack it and why it's all exciting. And even Dr. Caroline Leef, the neuroscientist who discovered neuroplasticity 30 years ago, went bananas when she read the high five habit and started to unpack the science around this with me. But what's fascinating is that the change in me is revolutionary. I have fundamentally rewired my brain doing this, fundamentally. When I look in a mirror, I don't even see I don't need my face or my body anymore. I see a human being that I love, that's trying, and that I support. Just like you see your kids. Your kids do things that piss you off.

They make mistakes. They fuck up all the time. They're annoying. And you still love them. And you still view them through this lens of support and unconditional love. And we don't show that to ourselves. That's the thing. We don't know how. We don't know how. All right, so page 37, why not high five everyone else, Mel?

I mean, why isn't the high five habit about high fiving everybody else in life?

Isn't that what we're supposed to do? Well, first of all, you already high five everybody else. You spend too much of your time seeing everything and everybody else and absorbing what they want, what they need, what they expect.

See, this is why you're last on the list. This is also why you carefully manage your appearance, your facial expressions, your reactions. You're so concerned about meeting the external gaze of everyone around you. You think your self-worth and your self-esteem are reflected being backed by how other people perceive you. In fact, in one of the later chapters, we're going to get into people pleasing and insecurity and how to catch yourself when you... How many of you struggle with people pleasing? And how many of you wish you felt more secure? That's right. We are going to help you. The high five habit is going to help you tremendously. Very normal to struggle with people pleasing. Very normal to feel insecure. But the high five habit is going to help you build up the security inside yourself, and it's going to help you learn how to like, support, and love yourself. Because when you like, support, and love yourself, it's not going to matter whether or not other people like, support, or love you, because their like or hate, or their love hate, their like or dislike, their support or lack of support won't change the fact that you like, love, and support yourself.

It starts with you. If they like you or if they think you're smart, worthy or good enough, then you How many of you feel smart, worthy, or good enough? How many of you feel like you only feel worthy if somebody else thinks you're worthy? That you only like yourself if you get the approval of somebody else. That you're waiting for somebody else to love you before you're You're going to love yourself. This is a huge mistake, and you're going to learn how to address this mistake in the high five habit, because we're going to teach you how to locate your self-worth, your self-love, your self-esteem back inside yourself. So you're looking in the wrong mirror, everybody, when you look for your worth and other people's approval. You see, a million likes on social media doesn't mean shit if you don't like yourself. I need you to flip the focus from looking outside of you for external validation and proof of your worth. I want you to stop looking at the number of likes and follows and views and praise and what you're getting paid in the car that you drive and the number that you weigh on the scale.

And I want you to learn how to give that validation to yourself just because you're alive and you're standing here ready, ready to live another day. So here's another question. I'm really surprised by how emotional the high five made me. When I high five myself in the mirror, I got emotional. I see a lot of you saying, me too. How many of you got emotional when you started high fiving yourself? Maybe not even on day one, but day two or day three, or maybe you've been doing the high five habit for a couple of weeks, and you're like, why am I crying? Why does this swell up so much? Well, first of all, we're on page 38 for those of you following along. It is really, really normal to get emotional when you practice the high five habit. In fact, many people who try it are surprised by the emotions that come up, and you might relate to what they had to say. Alyssa said, I high five myself in the mirror yesterday. I didn't think anything would happen, but I started crying out of nowhere. It's like my soul had been waiting on that high five and that recognition forever.

Boy, I needed that. Or Wendy shared that after starting to do the high five habit, beginning her day by high fiving herself in the mirror, taking a moment of intentional reflection, she initially felt exhausted. Did anybody else feel exhausted by the high five? It's such a simple movement, but you feel emotionally gassed. Well, that night she found herself in bed early and overcome with emotion. But by the next morning, she woke up energized and suddenly able to do a bunch of tasks that she had been putting off. And she said, I think that starting my day with an intentional moment where I stare at the woman in the mirror and I give her support and celebration and I send her into her day. I think I released a lot of blocks by doing this. Anybody else relate to that? That you feel like things are releasing, that you're shedding a lot of emotional weight, that something's opening up inside of you by practicing the high five habit. And she said, if this happens to you, I want you to know this is normal. Sometimes the emotional release may make you feel maybe... Maybe sometimes the emotional release, rather, may be really positive.

Michael said, I did the high five in the mirror and it felt amazing. I actually made myself blush. How many of you cracked a smile or blushed or laughed? It's a weird feeling. That's the dopamine, by the way, releasing in your brain, because your brain doesn't know the difference between you high-fiving somebody else or getting a high-five from somebody else or you high-fiving yourself. That's one of the reasons why this is so cool, because you're tapping into science and programming that's already conditioned in your body and using it to boost your mood, to clear away blocks, to build confidence, to feel more aligned with yourself, to build trust and partnership. It's like the coolest thing in the world. Jeanette told me that she can't help but jump in the air after her high five. Look, whatever your reaction is, positive, negative, emotional, whatever, just allow yourself to feel it, because we are trying to break the habit of rejection. We're trying to break the habit of you staring in the mirror and focusing on what you need to fix. Or for more than 50 % none of you. We're trying to break the habit of you rejecting yourself by not looking at yourself at all.

But by practicing the high five habit, you learn how to stand with yourself and be with yourself. So another question in chapter three, because we're handling FAQs in chapter three, why does the high five habit work if it's so simple? Well, the genius and the power of the habit is precisely because it's so simple. It would be easy to think that this is the stupidest thing you've ever heard, but therein lies That's the secret to the high five habit and everything you learn about in this book, all the tools. If it's simple, you'll do it. And I've also found in my work and research that if the tool is cheesy at first glance, and let's face it, the five second rule, counting backwards, five, four, three, two, one, sounds simple and dumb when you first hear it. High fiving yourself in the mirror sounds simple and dumb when you first hear it. High fiving your heart, something we talked about in yesterday's livestream. In fact, you saw me use the tool, high five in your heart to overcome a moment where I felt that wave of anxiety and overwhelm. And I use the high five to the heart, which sounds simple and stupid when you first hear it.

If it's simple, you can use it, especially if you're overwhelmed. And if it's silly or stupid, you tend to remember it. And that's the genius of this, everybody, because tools only work when you use them. How many A lot of you have read incredible books about tools that you can use or habits that you can change, but you've never actually implemented the change into your life because it was too complicated or you couldn't remember what to do? Or there were so many damn steps that, my God, you got just so much to do anyway, that how could you possibly implement this? Tools only work. Yeah, you can read about them, but they only work when you start to use them. And so the genius of the high five habit is it is so simple. It takes less than five seconds. You can sneak in in between brushing your teeth and walking out of the bathroom. And if you're forgetting to do it, remember, take a little post-it note like this one. High five, baby. Look at that. Isn't that cute? High five. This comes from my friend Kate. Hi, Kate, if you're watching over at Akamai.

I stick a little post-it on your mirror and the post-it with a little note or a handprint or trace your hand or write, I believe in you, something I love you. That's an environmental trigger, little piece of science that will trigger your mind, oh, yeah, I got to high five myself before I leave. And then take your moment and do this simple high five. And remember, you don't have to say anything. The gesture alone is what triggers the chemical release in your brain and triggers your nervous system to lighten up and to give you some energy. And it also triggers your mind to start to see that you treat yourself with respect and you treat yourself like you're worthy. It's the gesture alone of the high five, thanks to a lifetime of neural association and programming that's already in your mind, body, and spirit that explains why this so simple thing actually has profound impact on you. Our research shows that to build a new habit, it needs to be easy to add to your routine. And come on, how easy is it to put down your toothbrush and then high five yourself in the mirror?

Super simple. And since it's easy and it feels really good, by doing the high five habit every day, you're going to prove to yourself that you can stick to a new behavior or a challenge. And that's what's also going to start to build some confidence. You're going to see yourself taking new actions that have a positive impact in your life. And over time, as you repeat this simple habit, it starts to have an even deeper impact in who you are and how you relate to yourself. Another question I got. This is Chapter 3, everybody. We are now on page 39 of the book. I'm reading this for free. My New York Times, Wall Street Journal, Amazon USA Today, number one best seller, number one audiobook in the world right now in terms of the book sales. And we're in Chapter 3. And I'm reading this for free because I want to make sure that if you can't afford a book right now, you still can benefit from the tools and science in this extraordinary discovery that I made called The High Five Habit. And we are in Chapter 3 on page 39. And the other question I got a lot is, all right, Mel, why Why should I trust you?

You don't have to.

That's it. You don't have to trust me. Trusting me is a choice. I'm actually trying to teach you how to trust yourself. I don't want you to look at me for answers. I want you to turn back toward your own reflection in the mirror and dig deep inside your sofa the answers to the biggest questions in your life. I can give you tools to help you listen to yourself, but ultimately, the truth that you is inside of you. And that's really important because I think it's amazing that we're here together. And I love sharing everything that I've learned that has helped me through really tough times and has also helped me become very successful and productive and happier and healthier as a person. But at the end of the day, it's your life, and you've got to live with the consequences of your decisions. So everything that I'm teaching you in the high five habit is removing layers and layers of crap that is built up inside your mind that's made you doubt yourself and feel insecure and be rattled with guilt and feel tons of anxiety. And we are clearing away all those blocks so you can start to recreate a true partnership with yourself and learn how to believe in yourself again, because that's how you will ultimately change your life.

Here's another question on page 39. Hey, Mel, I've got real problems. How can the high five habit, seriously, girl, help me during tough times? Now, as you heard in chapter two, remember Jen? She was high fiving herself through her fifth round of chemo, and she shared in chapter two how she's so good about supporting everybody else and worrying not everybody else, but she has a real problem asking for help. How many of you do you have trouble asking for help? This is so common. And at the heart of having trouble asking for help and support is, A, you've been trained to take care of other people and not put yourself first. You've been told that you're selfish or you're a bitch or you're this or you're that if you put yourself first. And B, if you struggle with self-worth, deep down, this is really sad, you don't believe that you're worthy of it or you assume nobody's going to help you anyway. And so you've created this habit of not asking for help or not understanding even what your needs are. One of the things that my husband has recently discovered in his own therapy as he is facing really long term depression is that for so long, he has suppressed his needs and has felt like they didn't matter, that he's not even sure what his needs are.

And I think that's true for a lot of us that we're not quite sure what our needs are or how to support ourselves. And again, The High Five Habit is a book that foundationally teaches you to reconnect with yourself and to learn how to not only be more aware of what you need, but to, in your heart and soul, know that you are deserving of what you want and need. And it's so cool when you start to have that breakthrough. I just love reading all your comments And so as Jen said, as she's going through her fifth round of chemo, high-fiving herself doesn't cure her cancer. Let me say it again. The high-five habit will not cure her cancer. But what it does, high-fiving herself in the mirror is it helps Jen feel encouraged, supported, and celebrated in her strength and in her resolve and her optimism as she fights the cancer. And the same goes for any difficulty you're facing. You need to high five yourself through it. Lauren wrote, Mel, I'm a single mom, and in the past year, I lost one of my very closest friends suicide. That's happened in my life too many times, too.

Losing people to despair, addiction, depression, mental illness. That's what suicide is. It's a disease of hopelessness. And as I was walking away from a relationship that was not good for me, I struggled with feelings of sadness, feelings of being unsuccessful and not enough. And every time I see a mirror, I now give myself a high five. I I do it to remind myself that I am alive and worthy to get out there and grab my dreams, mostly to inspire my daughters to live their lives happily with authenticity, to know that they are enough no matter what life throws at them. Or maybe you're dealing with a difficulty at work. It's not cancer. It's not losing somebody you love. It's not going through a massive breakup. Maybe work right now is really, really difficult for you. Kendra said, My company hasn't been netting sales, but I still high-fived myself daily to stay encouraged. And Brené wrote, I finished a project today I've been working on and struggling through for a month. As I looked at my final product, I was amazed and proud of my work. I handed the project over to my head with my head held high and a smile on my face.

Now, the feedback I got on my work, it's okay. It's a start. Now, typically, I would spend the rest of this day bashing myself, doubting myself, overthinking, shutting down. Not this time. Something in me forced me to go to the mirror, high five myself, and now I am rewarding my hard work with some me time today. That's right. It's hard to get feedback, especially when you put a lot of work in. And part of the art of learning how to grow is being able to put all your hard work into something and then either get feedback that's like, oh, I still have a lot to do or to fail at something you've put all this hard work in and know that you can still high five yourself through that feedback or through that failure to double down and know that, hey, I'm proud of the effort that I put in. And now I know that with this feedback or what I learned during the failure, I can apply it to what I'm working on and I can actually do even better. That's how high fiving yourself through something changes your life. For those of you just joining us, I'm Mel Robbins.

I'm reading for my instant best seller, New York Times best seller, number two selling book on Amazon, on all of Amazon last week, the number 1 selling audiobook in the world last week. And today, it's called The High Five Habit. You've made it an instant best seller. And because I want the tools in this book that are so transformational and life-changing and simple and grounded in science to be accessible to everybody, I'm reading it cover to cover for free. So today we're on Chapter 3. We're on It's on page 40. For those of you who would like to follow along, we're on page 40. And please tag friends that can't afford the book. Please share this on your social media pages so we can teach the world the high five habit. If you can't afford a book, please get yourself a copy of this. And if you have teams or if you have colleagues or friends that could use the high five habit and could use the science of knowing how to believe in yourself again, how to tap into that positive life force inside of you and that confidence inside of you to go take control of your life, send them a high five by buying them a copy.

I promise you it will be one of the greatest gifts you could ever give somebody because you are giving them the gift of believing in themselves again. Those kids who do the high five in the research study, chapter two is all research, everybody. In the face of failure and challenge, that encouragement and partnership with yourself is exactly what you need. The high five reminds you that you can face whatever it is that you're going through. And it reminds you that you do have the resilience, the stamina, and the strength, and the courage to meet this moment in your life and to come out on the other side. The high five also acknowledges how hard you're working. Just like a teammate would support you in the biggest play of your life, you can support yourself with a daily high five that says, you know what? It's hard, but you can handle this. You know what? These problems blow, but I still got your back. You know what? We got a lot to do today. And I'm going to be here supporting you. You know what? I don't deserve what's happening right now, but I can face it.

That's what the high five habit does when you're dealing with problems right now. You high five your way through it. Well, Mel, what if I don't feel like doing it? Do it anyway.

Do it anyway.

Part of the reason why you don't have what you want in your life is because when you don't feel like doing something, you don't do it. Your life only gets easier when you do the hard things all the time. So push through your resignation, push through your weirdness, and practice the high five habit every morning after you brush your teeth. If you're sitting there on the fence about buying this book, 5, 4, 3, 2, 1, buy the book. You need this. Every human being needs this. This is the book the world needs right now. And if you don't believe me, go read the reviews. They are jaw dropping and profound, and they are from real people around the world, just like you who literally have devoured the book the day they got it because it was so life-changing. So please get yourself a copy. Your life only gets easier when you do the things that you are resisting. Read what Paula had to say after she started doing the high five, because her realization, honestly, it's common and it's heartbreaking. And I think it's why people don't feel like high fiving themselves. And that's why I wanted to share Paula's testimonial with you.

Mel, it's hard for me to cheer for myself because I resent anyone with the audacity to love themselves. It sounds crazy, but it's like, will I even be likable if I like myself? I mean, aren't women who tout their achievements, bitches? I hate women who constantly tout themselves, but they're also the very people I admire, the founders, the work outers, the travelers. I don't feel capable, not because my dreams are outlandish, but because I feel like there are so many people who deserve it more, mostly because they'll cheer hard for themselves. So it's much easier to applaud the people who are ahead of me than it is to cheer for myself. It's easier to stay in the shadows than it is to go for gold and fall flat. It would be just more proof that I'm not good enough, and I have enough evidence of that. Wow. When you read this quote, you can feel Paula's pain. Seen. How many of you can relate to Paula? That if you go for your dreams and you fall flat on your face, it's just going to be proof that you're not good enough, and you already have too much evidence of that.

You can feel Paula's desire. She wants to be seen. She wants to be celebrated. She wants to feel worthy. If holding yourself back is a habit, it's time to break it and learn how to start cheering yourself forward. Right now, Paula's dreams are haunting her, and I'm sure your dreams are haunting you, too. Paula longs to live a high five life. She wants to go for the gold. Now, when you read this, you can see how your own thoughts can keep you stuck in a very low place. And when you cannot give what you desire to yourself, you absolutely will resent those who can. And the high five habit is the first step to clean meering that block away and changing this, giving yourself permission to have what you actually desire. In fact, in the later chapters of the book, particularly, I believe it's like Chapter Nine, we're going to talk about jealousy. We're going to talk about how these feelings of insecurity and unworthiness block you from allowing yourself to even want the things that you deserve in life. And that by high-fiving yourself through these feelings, you You can start to reprogram your mind and treat yourself in a way so that you know that you deserve to be happy.

You know that you are worthy of these things. You know that when you fail or fall on your face, it's not evidence that you're not good enough. It's actually evidence that you're trying, and that's going to make you more confident. Question, isn't a high five only for when there's something to celebrate? How many of you feel like, Wait, do I high five myself when I do something? Sure, but I actually think you get a high five just for breathing. See, encouraging yourself every step of the way is the secret formula for winning in life. One of the most rewarding parts of running or walking a road race is that people line up and cheer for you every step of the way. Learning how to do that for yourself, whether you cross the finish line or not, will build your confidence faster than any medal or accomplishment ever could. It's interesting. I had this insight when the high five habit was named to the New York Times best seller list. My first reaction reaction was I was thrilled. My second reaction is I actually started crying because I was number two and not number one. And that's a very common reaction based on science, because when you're number two, you immediately feel like you were this close to being number one.

And so your brain focuses on that perceived gap. Research shows that if you're number three, you're just as happy as number one, believe it or not, because you're not thinking, Oh, I could have been one. You're like, Oh, thank God. This is amazing. I'm here. And then I literally woke up the next morning super proud and excited again. And here's a big insight that I had. I've always dreamt of being a New York Times bestselling author, and achieving that goal did not feel like I thought it would feel. In fact, it proved something. Achieving your goals and dreams won't make you happy. Working on them will. It's the journey, everybody. It's the pursuit. It's having a cool game to play. It's being up to something that makes you feel like your life has meaning. And so that doesn't diminish the fact that I absolutely earned my spot on the New York Times list that doesn't take away from that at all. But it was a huge reminder that so much about your happiness and a sense of meaning and purpose is anchored in whether or not you are playing a fun game in life right now.

Are you up to something that makes you want to get out of bed? Do you have a goal that you're working on that pulls you out of your comfort zone? That is the secret to meaning and to purpose is to simply setting goals and going for it, whether you succeed or fail is beside the point. It's the pursuit of it and high-fiving yourself through it that makes you feel empowered and fulfilled. Well, what if I feel like a failure right now? This is a big question. This is on the bottom of page 41. Well, if your self-esteem is in the gutter, then you absolutely need to high five yourself. You need it right now and you deserve it. And you've always needed it, by the way. Starting from the very first moment, your life has been a trial by fire. You answer a question wrong and everybody laughs. You speak your mind at the dinner table and you get sent to your room. You You try out for the football team and you get cut. You think someone is your friend and they ditch you. You apply for a promotion and get passed over. You trust somebody and they hurt you.

You run for office and you lose. You fall in love and you get your heart broken. You start a business and it goes bankrupt. You achieve a dream and then you start to feel lost again. I can relate to all of those, can't you? We perceive these as failures, but they're not. They're just life. These are lessons like steal your confidence, resilience, and wisdom. They are forged in fire. Your life is always teaching you something if you're willing to look at it that way. So why not reward yourself not only when you win, but also when you fail spectacularly? I mean, until recently, I had this whole thing reversed. I used to be the person who held out the reward until I achieved the goal. And I was hard on myself every step of the way. I realize now how much harder I was making it on myself to both be happy, to feel fulfilled, to enjoy my life as I was up to a big game. What I've learned is that failures almost always lead to something amazing down the road. In fact, there's a whole chapter about this mindset. This is preparing me for something amazing that hasn't happened yet.

I can't wait for you to read that chapter. The High Five Habit will help you pick yourself back up when it feels like life is knocking you down. And you need to because you have the strength within you and you're going to need it to knock right back when the time is right. Okay, Page 42. Mel, I'm ready to start the high five habit. What's the best way to begin and to remember to do it? Excellent question. First of all, get a copy of the book, The High Five Habit. Read it cover to cover. Come back to it, highlight it, underline it. You need to understand it because then you're going to use the high five habit in the mirror, the high five to the heart, and all the tools in this book to change your life every day. But I've also got something called the High Five Challenge. What is the High Five Challenge? It's simple. It's free. It's five days. And you're going to, for five days, start your day by high fiving yourself in the mirror. That's it. And here's the coolest part. You don't take this challenge alone. You and I are going to do the challenge together with 121,000 other people from 90 countries.

That's how many people have signed up for and completed the high five challenge. 121,000 people from 90 countries, and their results are extraordinary. If you've taken the high five challenge or you're currently in the high five challenge, will you tell everybody what you're getting out of the high five challenge? Every day, you literally watch a video training for me, you journal, you then share what you're learning After you journal in the comments, you upload a selfie, you cheer for other people. It's extraordinary. And it's going on at highfivechallenge. Com. That's high, the number 5, challenge. Com. For five In five days, you're going to be part of a global online community of people who are all taking the high five challenge together. Every morning, you get an email with a link to a video pep talk that's going to teach you something, inspire you, go deeper into the research in this book and the changes that you're going to experience. You'll also be able to track your progress and connect with and cheer for other people. And even cooler, those same people are going to cheer for you back. Look, here are some of the people.

How cool is that? It's so It's awesome when you know that you're not alone. And in just a second, we're going to be done with Chapter 3, and I'm going to take a few questions, okay? So while you may be alone in your bathroom high-fiving yourself, when you join us at high5challenge. Com, you won't feel alone because you're not going to be alone. There's 121,000 other people in there with you. And the best part, it's free. There are no strings attached. When the challenge is done, you will still be able to log into the challenge. You don't have to buy anything. If you don't want to, you do not have to do anything. You can take the challenge, be done with Mel Robbins thereafter, but the high five challenge for five days straight is yours for free. Thanks to me and my friends at a company called Growth Day, which is offering it up on a platform so we don't have to be in a Facebook group. Isn't that awesome? Research tells us that it's a whole lot easier to change when you feel support and encouragement from other people. The fact is, you are not alone.

People around the world are waking up every day and doing this challenge with you. So take a minute, go to highfivechallenge. Com, and get registered for free. After just five days, you'll be surprised by how different you feel. Fran said, I must say it hits different every time I high five myself. I can feel something heal a little more. I believe a little more. This is day five of high fiving myself and being transformed by the renewal of my mind. Now that's a movement. My friends and family started doing it as well, and now I see that I can make a profound difference in the world. Five days. Give me five lousy days, everybody.

It's highfivechallenge.

Com. I realize that's backwards on Instagram and out of focus on every other platform, but we're trying. Finally, Mel, can the high five habit create lasting change? Yes. And the high five in the mirror is just the beginning. In the remainder of this book, you're going to learn a dozen more ways to give yourself the encouragement and support you need. And as you practice using these tools to flip yourself from a place of being stuck into a state of taking action, you'll experience even cooler things related to confidence, happiness, and fulfillment. Your relationship with yourself is the foundation for everything in your life. How you talk to and treat yourself sets the tone for everything you do. It determines how you feel, what you think, and what actions you take. If you look in the mirror and don't see a person we're celebrating, you need to change that. The bottom line is you have a lifetime of positive association with a high five because you've been doing it for strangers, friends, and teammates your entire life. The neural association is in your brain. The programming, everybody, is already there. We're just teaching you to tap into it to change your life by making it a habit to look yourself in the mirror and high five yourself every single day.

It will change the patterns that are stored in your subconscious, the patterns that are relate to you, the patterns associated with your mindset and your outlook and your motivation and your optimism and your confidence. And that will improve your mood. It will help you achieve your goals. And fundamentally, the high five habit and the tools in this book will shift the trajectory of your entire life because it shifts everything about how you relate to see and treat yourself.

So many of us have lost touch with the feeling. Yes. People are like, what is the feeling? And then the self doubt starts to creep in and the judgment and the, well, they probably know better than I do that outsourcing of our intuition. How do you How do you have people practice that? Okay, thank you for opening the door.

I'm going to walk right in.

We're going to talk about this cheesy ass thing. I love it. I invented during a crazy low moment in my life, and I call it the high five habit. And the high five habit, it begins with one habit, but it is a series of small things that you can do every single day to locate your power back within yourself. Because you're right, we have outsourced our self-worth. We look outside of our self for validation. We look at the number on the scale, the amount of money in the bank, the car that we drive, the person that we're dating, the friend group that we have, the amount of likes, the amount of views, all of that external shit is never going to make you feel worthy. The only person that can build your self-worth is you. There's a reason why that word begins with self. It begins within yourself. And so I'm going to tell you the story about how I stumbled upon this thing. And my brand of personal development, improving your life, falls into a particular category. First, I have to fuck up my life. Then Then I have to save myself. Then I stumble upon something that sounds ridiculously stupid on its face.

And when it starts to work, and I'm dumbfounded by how this dumb thing is actually working, I then start to unpack the research. And so whether we're talking about something I created over a decade ago called the five-second rule, or we're talking about the high five habit, brace yourself, because when you first hear this, you're going to think, this is the corneiest thing I have I've never heard. Now, I'm going to just say something that might sound obnoxious. I make millions of dollars. I am wildly successful. I have been married for 25 years. I have three kids who are awesome and irritating. I have lived with anxiety for 25 years. I've healed and continue to work on healing my trauma. And I will stand firm in telling you, the high five habit is the single most powerful thing I've ever discovered. So here's what happened. About a year ago, I found myself in a moment where I felt like life was punching me in the face. The first thing that happened was March, and they found COVID at the CBS Broadcast Center. And at the time, I was in my dream job. I was hosting a daytime syndicated talk show with Sony Pictures Television.

We were wrapping up season one. We had seven more episodes of the 175 that we were taping. I loved this job. And we got five minutes notice. They canceled the show. Didn't have a chance to say goodbye to the 130 people. I'm like, what just happened? I get in my car, I'm driving back home to Boston. I'm seeing the New York City skyline disappear. The phone calls start coming in. Our daughters who were in college at the time are now freaking out because they're closing down USA, and she's got to pack and get home. Everybody remembers that moment when the quarantine and the pandemic shut your life down or turned it upside down or you lost somebody you love, maybe it was that you couldn't go to the nursing home to see your grandmother. Maybe you got that email from the office saying, you can't come in. There was something, some moment that had happened. And so from there, once we got home, it was my husband and I and our three kids, my business went into a freefall. Every single speech that I had for more than a year gets canceled. My publisher calls me and says, That book that you haven't delivered, we're going to cancel the contract and the advance that we've given you that you've already spent.

We need it back. And what happened is I started to get really triggered because when life turns upside down, your old shit will come up. And my old shit includes just 10 years ago being nearly a million dollars in debt and facing that financial crisis Like a lot of high functioning adults do, which is drinking myself into the ground and blaming everything on my husband. That was the moment that I invented the five second rule to help me get out of bed because the anxiety was so profound. It was pinning me to that bed like a gravity blanket every morning. That's a whole another story. So I'm starting to have flashbacks like, are you fucking kidding me? I have thought my way out of that. I have become a success over the last 10 years. I've paid down all that debt. We're saving money. I'm super successful. And this shit is happening again? So I start to spiral. I'm worried about everybody, just like everybody was. What's going to happen to my grandparents? What's happening to my parents? When am I going to see my friends again? What about the frontline workers? It was just a freefall.

One morning, I wake up, I make my bed, I walk into the bathroom, and I see my reflection as I'm brushing my teeth. And I think, God, you look like hell. The gray hair is coming in, and I've got these dark circles under my eyes, and my neck is all saggy, and my jowels are looking like saddle bags on a pack mule, going down the Grand Canyon. One boob is hanging lower than the other. And I've even, at this point, had my breast implants out. I'm just like, what the... And once you have a negative thought thought or the self-criticism starts, it's like lint in a dryer. As it starts to gather, it collects more. And so then I start thinking about the day. Start to get more creative with it. Yeah. I'm like, yes, bit of the story. I'm like, oh, my God, why did I get up so late? I've got a Zoom call in eight minutes. I look like shit. I don't even have a bra on yet. The dog's at my feet. He needs to be walked. I didn't respond to their text. I'm just doing the beat down. And here's the thing.

Most of us don't realize that's your morning routine. We talk a big game about have a great morning routine. But the truth is, your morning routine right now either involves ignoring yourself in the mirror or criticizing. And I don't know what came over me. In that moment, standing there, literally in my underwear, I just felt like the weight of the world on my shoulders. I'm one of the most book motivational speakers in the world. I couldn't think of a damn thing to say to myself. Now, if either of you had walked in to my bathroom that morning, I would have been able to lift you up. I would have been able to tell you what to do. But when it came to supporting and encouraging myself, I had nothing. And for whatever reason, as pathetic and as corny as it sounds, standing there in that very low moment, I just raised my hand and I high five my reflection. Now, it didn't It changed my life, but something inside me shifted. I felt my shoulders drop. I felt my chin lift up. I silently felt myself say, It's okay. You got this. You can do this.

And I left the bathroom. Now, the second morning, this is when things started to go, I got up, I made my bed. I started walking to the bathroom. And then this is what I noticed that's really weird. I started to feel excited to see myself. And it's like as I was riding the elevator up here to meet you two for the first time, I felt this enthusiasm and this excitement because I really admire you two and I love what you're doing out in the world. I felt that same sense of like, I'm going to see a friend. Now, I'm going to be 53 years old this year. I think for the first 45 years of my life, I've either criticized the woman I see in the mirror or I've ignored her. I don't ever remember looking forward to seeing myself, maybe seeing an outfit or seeing what my makeup look like, but never actually seeing me, the human being. And I stood there in front of the mirror and I thought about what was going on in my life, and I thought about how it was going to show up, and I raised my hand in the mirror again.

Now, here's the interesting thing that you're going to notice when you start doing this. It is impossible to criticize yourself when you raise your hand and high five yourself. And there's a lot of research that explains why. And this is the first piece of research that I'll lay on you because it's unbelievable. Basically, you and I, we've been high fiving people our entire lives. So when you give somebody or you receive a high five, what does it communicate to you? Yeah, I believe you. I love you. I got you. I see you. Somebody's attitudes going down and you hit them with a high five. It's like, all right, shake it off. Get back in there. I got your back. All of that positive programming associated with that gesture is already encoded in your basal ganglia, the subconscious part of your brain. When you raise When it uses your own hand physically, the subconscious part of your brain recognizes the high five, it automatically turns on all that positive messaging and marries it with your own reflection. Wow. It's a field of study called neurobics. Now, I didn't make that up. It's like aerobic physical activity with neuropathway development.

And neurobics, marrying an unexpected physical action with a change in thought is the fastest way to develop new neural pathways. So by high-fiving your reflection, you are shutting up the critic, you are interrupting all of the default programming that you've had for your your entire life, and you are leveraging the lifetime positive programming of belief, enthusiasm, support, and celebration. And that's just the fucking beginning. I just spoke to Dr. Daniel Amen, one of the world's leading experts on the brain. The dude has literally scanned 65,000 brains. He has treated Mike Tyson, Miley Cyrus, the list goes on and on and on and on and on. I was talking to him about this high five habit. He geeked out in the way that scientists do. He's like, Okay, Mel, let me tell you what else is going on. You want to know what else is going on? You want to know why when you start to do this as a habit, you start to feel a little jolt of energy? You want to know why your mood boosts a little bit when you can get over how weird it is? I'm like, Yeah, Dr. Amen, lay it on me.

Here's Here's the thing. What do you do when you cross a finish line in a race? You raise your hands. What do you do when you see somebody? You raise your hands and say, Hi. What do you do when you hug somebody? You raise your hands. What do you do when you pat somebody on the back? You raise their hands. What do you do when somebody... You do You do the double high five. You raise your hands. When your favorite band comes out, you raise your hands. When somebody blows out the candles on a birthday, we all raise our hands. Raising your hands is remembered in your nervous system as a celebratory activity. And so when you do it with yourself, your nervous system starts to switch off from the sympathetic fight or flight into the calm or more celebratory cool. Wow. Sympathetic nervous system or parasympathetic nervous system. Parasympathetic. And then on top of it, you get a drip of dopamine. That's why your mood boosts. That's why you feel more focused. That is why some of the science says this works. Wow. Now, of course, I didn't know any of that. I didn't know any of that.

I didn't know any of that at all when I first started to use it. And I just used it in secret for the first couple of weeks. And then I posted a photo online. And within an hour, a hundred people had posted posted photos of themselves, high-fiving themselves, and tagged me, and I thought, All right, maybe there's something here. Maybe this isn't so fucking cheesy. Maybe science can explain why Taking this simple ritual and doing it right after you brush your teeth is possibly the single best thing that you could do for self-love, for self-confidence, for self-worth, for investing and strengthening the relationship you have with yourself. But there is something about that practice. And then even too with people, even if we're talking about health and wellness, and we were like, all you've got to do is get eight hours of sleep, drink a lot of water, eat really well. It's almost too easy. I think about that with meditation. It's like, it can be hard to calm the mind, but a lot of the biggest solutions in life are actually very easy. It's like, say sorry, show up, get sleep, drink water, all these things.

But when you provide that solution for people, they don't want to... It's too simple. So we always need more of these explanations. It needs to be more complicated. I don't know if that's something where we're so used to things being hard or we want it to be hard, but there is a part of us that tends to complicate things where they don't need to. When we hear a solution like that, we're like, That's corny. That's cheesy. Yeah. And also, let me unpack the resistance. Yes. So when you first stand, I tell people, You have to do this for five days. You have to try it for five days. Because 99% of people who try this will stand in front of the mirror and you are going to feel this major resistance to doing it. And I'm going to tell you why, because the resistance is really sad. And this resistance to high-fiving yourself is the exact same resistance that stands between you and absolutely everything that you want in your life. So when you stand before yourself in the mirror, what you bring with you is all of the judgment and regrets and shame and trauma and abuse and the stories that you have about who you are and what's happened to you.

And most of us do not see a person who is worthy of celebration. The resistance comes from a deep-seated belief that because of what's happened to you, you do not deserve to be celebrated because Because of the mistakes that you've made, because of the regrets that you have, you do not deserve it. I'm here to tell you, I'm on a mission to make every man, woman, child, everybody on the planet to understand that if you can wake up and drag your ass into that bathroom and look yourself in the eye and you are still breathing and you're still trying to do a little better today, you not only deserve to be seen, supported, and celebrated, you need it It. Withholding that from yourself is exactly why you're not feeling motivated and encouraged. You're waiting for your boss or your lover or your friends or your parents to tell you you deserve it. I'm here to tell you You have to learn how to give it to yourself every single fucking day. Like your life depends upon it because it does. And if you hear passion and conviction in my voice, it is because despite my success, despite the amount of stuff that I have muscled my way through, I have spent the majority of my life hating the person I saw in the mirror.

And I think, truthfully, most of us do. And that's not the only reason why you're resistant. The other reason why you resist it is because we have all bought into this lie that unless you do something worthy of celebration, you don't deserve it yet. So for example, if that number on scale isn't the right number, you don't deserve a high five because you haven't hit that goal yet. Unless you're the prettiest one in the room, or you have the bank account, or you've gotten pregnant, or you're married now, or you're in love, or you're this or you're that, you are standing there in judgment because you don't see a human being that needs those things. You see somebody that hasn't measured up yet. So you're going to withhold that stuff. Now, I want you to think about something. If you've ever watched a marathon race or you've ever run one, something interesting happens. Nobody stands on the side of a marathon with their arms crossed and is like, Yeah, let's see if you can do this, mother. Everybody is like, Hi, five in the runners and cheering for them every single step of the way.

I remember when I ran the New York City Marathon in 2001. I was a brand new mom. I had two kids under the age of three. I I had no business running that race. I had barely trained. I did not get the memo that you should buy sneakers longer than two weeks ahead of the race. But I had gotten the lottery number, and I was hell-bent. It was like a bucket list thing. I'm going to tell you, when my bladder started leaking at Mile 7, and the blood blisters started. The only thing that kept me going was the slap of a stranger's hand. Somebody else's belief made me believe that I do it. And I'm here to tell you every single morning, I don't give a shit that it's cheesy. In fact, if you think it's cheesy, I want you to fucking do it. Because you, in particular, if you bring that level of resignation or arm crossing or eye rolling to this shit, you are going to be miserable. You may be an overachiever just like I am. And there's two things about being an overachiever. Number one, most of us that are overachievers focus on all the shit that's going wrong.

So despite all the amazing things that you're doing, you literally focus on the one thing that's going wrong and you pound yourself into the ground, so you have no joy. You rob yourself of momentum and of the experience and happiness of small wins. The second thing about chasing achievement is that most of us that are driven by achievement, somewhere along the line as little kids put two and two together. Oh, when I'm winning at sports or I'm getting good grades or I'm elected to the class president, or I'm the first chair of the flute section, people love me. And the problem with that association, achievement equals love, is you will always chase it. You will feel that you are unworthy and unlovable unless you're achieving. And you'll also struggle with jealousy, because when anybody else is achieving, it makes you feel like you're no longer worthy of love because they're beating you at something. And the fact is, when you got to lasso that back in, you got to be able to stand in front of that mirror, and you got to be able to look at yourself in the eye, and no matter where you are or what you're going through, and particularly if it's a challenging moment, you've got to develop a habit of seeing yourself, celebrating your sofa showing up yet again.

And when you start to celebrate these small little things that you're doing, I just got out of bed. High fucking five. Those little things start to add up, and you start to realize over time, holy shit, I do get things done. I am a good person. I am worthy of being treated well because I'm treating myself well. Well, maybe just maybe I could do anything.

First off, when did you discover the five-second rule? Okay, so 2009. This is when you first tried it or discovered it? Oh, it's a total horror show mistake.

Okay.

Yes. Okay. So In 2009, I was unemployed and feeling like-Are you unemployed? How? Well, okay. Too much charisma, too much passion. Yeah, because everything's working right now. That's why. I'm not like this when things are not working.

Ask my husband.

I have 22 years.

Well, what had happened is I had all these career changes, and I got into the media business, again, by mistake.

I had a coaching business, and Inc. Magazine was writing an article about coaches, and they featured me in it, and CNBC called.

Got it.

That led to me doing some stuff with CNBC. I spent a year still coaching people and then doing some stuff for CNBC, and then Fox called. They were interested in having me host a television show. Now, you got to understand, I'm from North Muskega, Michigan. I mean, the media business, Fox, LA, the closest thing I had ever seen to a celebrity, Lewis, was the Muskegan Lumberjacks, the farm team, right? For the Pittsburgh Penguins. Yeah, the AA team. Yeah, my dad was the hometown doc for the hockey team there. Right, right, right. So I thought, wow, my life's about to change. I'm about to be a celebrity. Wow, we're going to solve all. This is amazing. I was originally going to be hosting a show for Fox where we were making over small businesses. Nice. Yeah, pretty cool, right? We show up, we do extreme home makeover for the office. Everybody's happy. We all know that doesn't solve business problems, but it makes for a nice television show. By the time I get to LA, they've changed the format. It's now called Someone's Got to Go, and I'm going to be firing people on national television from real jobs.

Wow. . That sounds fun.

Horrible.

Oh, my gosh. Plus, we haven't told the offices that this is what we're doing. Oh, my gosh. You show up in act one, and you've got everybody all like this because you think they're going to get new IKEA furniture and a paint job, and this is going to be the best thing in the world for their small business. Now, meanwhile, I'm a fourth-generation small business owner, so that's like my people. Grew up at a kitchen table with farmers, and my mom at a retail store, and my other grandparents were bakers. When it comes to the heart and soul and what's so important when you launch your own business and how personal it is. I mean, this was like gut-wrenching. I show up, the first act, you kick out the owner of the company who then freaks out, then all the employees freak out. Act number two, we announced that somebody's getting fired, and then that's the The bad news, the good news is that I'm not picking. We're going to have you vote somebody out. So it's survivor in an office place. Oh, my gosh. Oh, my goodness.

That sucks.

When I learn all this, I have a panic attack, even though I'm on Zoloft, and I call the guy that got me the gig and say, You got to get me out of this. This is the worst thing that's ever happened to me. He said, Well, I'm sorry, but they've already cast the entire show and you're out there for five weeks, and you don't have a choice. They're going to sue you. I said, Then fine, get me some Xanax because I don't think I can get this thing. This is awful. Luckily, we taped two episodes and legal tabled it. But here was the problem. I was attached to the show, and I only got paid if the show was shooting. Being an entrepreneur, I also put all my energy into this, shut down the coaching thing, really thought that it also negotiated a deal that was a back-end deal, thinking I'm an entrepreneur, always thinking about, got to have a piece of the action. Take a little less up front. Yeah, of course. Yeah, that was a dumb move. I was in a contract for a year while they figured out what to do. So you couldn't do another show.

Yeah.

I just felt like I had made a huge mistake, and I felt really embarrassed.

I didn't know at the age of 41 what I should be doing with my life. While it's neat that I had jumped careers so many times, I started to feel like somebody that actually wasn't successful at all because I didn't have a career track. I had a bunch of jumps from one thing to another. Now, looking back, it makes perfect sense, but standing in the middle of the mess, it just felt like everything was caving in, probably just like when you were sleeping on your couch, feeling injured and everything I thought that was about to happen isn't happening now. Meanwhile, my husband had opened up a restaurant business. It had been his dream. He worked in high tech and came home one day after getting laid off and said, I'm never going to get on a plane and do a PowerPoint presentation for a company. I don't care about her own. I said, Great. What's your plan? He said, I'm going to open a pizza restaurant, and I looked at him and I said, Was there a trust fund that was part of this marriage that I was unaware of? Because I'm not quite sure how we're going to pay.

That's where you get the money. Exactly. If someone died, you got an insurance policy. Yes. And he said, No. I then said the most famous lines of our 22-year marriage, Louis, I looked at him and I said, Listen, buddy, inspiration is for strangers. You get your ass back to that job, and you pay the mortgage, and you forget the stream. You're not going to do this. Well, because change is scary. We fought and he won. The first one was a real home run. You went to a pizza store? Oh, he did. Yeah, 40 seats right outside of Boston, Massachusetts. It's he and his best friend. They won best of Boston. It was incredible. What do you do when everything's... They make money, though. They did on the first one. So what do you do when everything's working?

Let's do another one.

Let's go all chips in. Let's put in the home equity line. Let's put in the kids' college savings. Let's get friends and family. Because you're so excited, you think it's going to work. So you go big, big, big. Well, the second one did not work at all. It did not work at all so badly that when it was finally closed, it was close to an $800,000 loss. It meant our entire home equity line, kids' college savings, everything went right down with it. That was right when I lost the Fox show. I'm unemployed. The lean start hitting the house. The phone starts ringing. All the time in its collections calls. So you unplug the phone. That would stress me out. Well, you just unplug the phone. Oh my gosh. That's how you deal with that. But I remember two things from that period of my life that were really painful. One was having to call the town and tell them that we could not afford the $175 for our sixth grader to play soccer, so we needed to pull her out. I remember there being times because I was so afraid to look at the checking account that I would stand at the grocery store and items would scan, and I could just feel that wave of anxiety rising, thinking, I don't think the check card is going to go through.

And so I would stand there. I always had an excuse, and it was to look at the person and go, Oh, that's strange. It just worked at the gas station. Oh, my gosh. Because what would have been more empowering is to probably say, Oh, well, I guess I don't have the money for this. Let's take this, this, and this, and just the easiest thing to do is to tell the truth. But I was so filled with shame. So I I started to develop this habit of hitting the snooze button because what would happen is the alarm would go off in the morning, and the first thing I would think about is all the problems that we had and how awfully things had gone off the tracks. You didn't want to deal with them. No. I also didn't know. I didn't think I could. This goes back to the feelings. You think that you need to feel confident or courageous in order to get started. You don't. You actually just have to start. And that's the riddle of life. That lying in bed hoping that you wake up some morning motivated to change, that's not the answer.

You actually have to learn how to push yourself. You You've got to learn how to leverage the power of your decisions, and you've got to learn how to take action when you don't feel like it. Because every morning when I woke up, I did not feel confident. I felt like a loser. I felt like the world's worst parent. I felt like I had failed at every single turn. I did not know if Chris and I could pull out of this spiral. I did not know if we were going to go bankrupt and lose the house and move from our community. I did not know if our marriage would survive. I knew I wanted it to. And see, this is the knowledge-action gap. You can know what you want, you can know what you should be doing. But how do you make yourself do it when the feelings and the motivation isn't there? When all you got is fear? And so every night, I I would lie in bed and I would say to myself, All right, that's it, Mel. Tomorrow, it's the new you. Tomorrow, you're going to wake up and be motivated. You're going to get up, you're going to exercise like everybody says you should.

You're going to meditate. You're going to get those kids on the bus. You're going to screw Fox. You're going to look for a job. You're going to cold call Cox Media, and you're going to do auditions. Come on, girl. Let's go. Let's go. Let's go. You're going to take a cold shower. Here we go. I meant it when I was saying it. Maybe it was the alcohol that was talking. But then I would wake up and I didn't feel any of those things. So I would hit the snooze, and I would hit the snooze. Now, why was I hitting the snooze? When I knew it wasn't the right decision. I'm going to tell you why. And this is something that I was blown away by when I discovered it. You don't make decisions with your goals. You don't make decisions with your prefrontal cortex. You don't make decisions with logic. Do you know how we make decisions? I didn't invent this. A neuroscientist by the name of Demacio, who does his research in Brazil, who gave an incredible TED Talk and wrote about this forever and ever and ever. We make decisions of feelings. 95% of our decisions are made by how you feel in the moment.

And that is the problem. You need to take control of the moment and leverage the power of your decisions and make them up here. Because when I was lying in bed, I wasn't saying to myself, I should get up because that's going to help me start my day right.

I was saying, Do I feel like getting up?

No, you don't. No. Do you feel like making that cold call? No, you don't. Do you feel like doing that third set of reps? No, you don't. Do you feel like having that hard conversation? No, you don't. Do you feel like ending this relationship, whether it's in business or in your life, that is sucking you dry? No, you don't. We make decisions based on our feelings, and that is robbing you of joy and opportunity. It is blinding you from the fact that how you change your life is one five-second decision at a time, one push at a time. If you accept the fact that you may never feel ready, and you may never feel motivated, and you may never feel confident, you may never feel courageous, and that's okay, but you can still push yourself forward. What happens over time is as you start to see yourself becoming the person that takes action, that you start to see yourself becoming the person that speaks, even though your voice is shaking. You're the person that has a bias toward moving instead of a bias toward thinking. Guess what happens? You build the skill of confidence and courage.

And so what happened for me is I was stuck, Lewis. I mean, I was so stuck I was on... We were heading straight for divorce. We were heading for bankruptcy. I knew I wanted to change things. One night, I see this commercial. This is the stupidest story on the planet, but this is what happened. I see this commercial. Again, I also was drinking too much. I mean, I probably had a couple of Manhattan's in me. That's my drink. I'm from the Midwest, just like you. All right. Little Manhattan there, bourbon. There was a rocket ship launching. On a commercial? Yeah. I had this instinct, this innovation, this disruptive idea, right? Oh, my God, Mel, that's the answer. Tomorrow morning, you're going to launch your ass out of bed like a rocket ship. You're going to move so fast, you can't even think about your problems. Dumb, right? Totally dumb. It's the dumbest idea I've ever heard. I cannot believe I have this check on my podcast. I understand it. You got to get moving first. Yes. That's the thing. You just got to wake up at 6:00 AM or wherever it is and go into the gym.

When you're in the gym, you're going to start moving the first weight, and then you'll start moving the second weight. Actually, people use the five-second rule at the gym because you know how much time people waste at the gym standing around thinking about the next thing? Probably 70% of the time. 5, 4, 3, 2, 1. The next morning, the alarm goes off, and nothing had changed in my life. I woke up to the lean on the house, the fighting with Chris, the unemployment, the lack of confidence, the lack of courage, the whole thing. But I did something I had never done before. I went 5, 4, 3, 2, 1, just like NASA. I actually counted. Then I stood up and I was like, What the hell just happened?

What?

That is the dumbest thing I've ever The next morning, I used it again. It worked. The next morning, I used it again. It worked. Then I started to notice something. This is one of those things. We have an 11-year-old son who has dyslexia. When they finally diagnosed him, it was as if... Of course. It was as if, how could we have possibly missed this? Are we the worst parents in the world? The kid can barely write. He can't cut his food. No wonder he doesn't do team sports. It was right under our nose. What I'm about to tell you is right under everybody's nose. There's a five-second window between the instincts, the shoulds, the urges, the inner wisdom, the things that can change your life if you listen to it. Got a five-second window from the moment you feel that instinct to move. And if you don't, your brain is actually designed to kill it. Five seconds is all you have. The second you hesitate, and you feel yourself hesitating, that is a moment of huge power, because what's happened is you've just started to pull back From something that you need to lean into.

If you count backwards 5, 4, 3, 2, 1, and this is the neuroscience behind why this stupid little trick works, counting is an action. Counting backwards requires focus. It's also not a habit for you yet. When you feel yourself hesitate, you're triggering your mind that something's up. Like, Louis didn't hesitate when he pulled on his pants, he didn't hesitate when he's drinking his coffee, he didn't hesitate when he walked out the door to the gym, but now he's hesitating to make that call. Your mind now goes into a cognitive bias called the Spotlight Effect. It magnifies whatever it was that you hesitated doing. The moment. The moment. Yeah. All of a sudden, you're like, I don't feel like it. I don't know. Maybe I'll do it later. And your mind is doing it because your mind's trying to protect you. Hesitation signals a red flag to your mind that something's up. Just that small hesitation. It's a habit that we all have. Should you hesitate if you're getting a tattoo? Yes. Should you hesitate if you're gambling? Yes. Should you hesitate if you are signing a legal document? Yes. You need your prefrontal cortex for those things.

You need to interrupt it, make a decision. Should you hesitate on making a phone call? No. Should you hesitate on speaking up in a meeting? No. Should you hesitate when you feel yourself starting to procrastinate and you know you got work that you should get done? No, you shouldn't hesitate at all. Should you hesitate in saying the thing that you really feel in your heart? No, you shouldn't. Should you hesitate and edit yourself when you're talking? No, you shouldn't. But we've all trained ourselves to. It's actually this habit of hesitating. You catching yourself. It's a huge moment of power because you have a decision to make and you got to make it in the next five seconds. Are you going to go on autopilot and get trapped in your mind? Or are you going to 5, 4, 3, 2, 1 and awakeen your prefrontal cortex and drive forward? I started to use this rule as I noticed that every day, all day long, I had these moments of inner wisdom where I would know that I needed to pick up the phone and stop isolating myself. I would know that I needed to call a bunch of media companies start auditioning for radio show hosting gigs.

I knew that I should get out of bed on time. I knew I should stop myself before I snapped at Chris. Self monitor. I knew I should not feel, let the frustration be the things that was driving me. I started to use the rule all day long. Whenever I felt this, I should do this, 5, 4, 3, 2, 1, and I would make myself do it. And slowly, five seconds at a time, my entire life started to change. My husband used it in his business, and he and his business partner dove in. They went on to open seven more restaurants. I went on to launch and sell two businesses and get recruited by CNN and join their team. I had a syndicated radio show that ended up winning the Gracie Award, which is the female media awards for the number one talk show in the country. I never intended to tell anybody about the five-second rule. First of all, because it's stupid. Right. I mean, come on. Count backwards. That's the dumbest thing I've ever heard. That's stupid of me, though. Anything that works, works for me. That's true. You know what I mean? I'll take any stupid thing.

That's true. But I also was like, How do you start talking about something like that? I was asked to give a TED Talk six years ago. Ted, six years ago, not the brand that it was today. They weren't even putting the talks online yet. Really? Yeah, the TEDx talks were not online yet. That was the first speech I'd ever given in my life. If you want to see what somebody looks like having a panic attack for 21 minutes straight, watch that speech. I was backstage and it was I have one PhD after another going out there. I'm like, what the hell have I gotten myself into this? This is the dumbest thing. At the very end, I wasn't even planning on talking about it. I say, Oh, by the way, there's this thing I do. That's it. I don't even explain it. You know why I didn't explain it, Lewis? I didn't know why it worked. So you didn't have the science, the research, you were just like... Zero. Then something crazy happened. They put that talk online a year later and people started to write. We've heard from more than 100,000 people in 90 countries that have written to us that are using the rule in ways big and small to change their lives, to change their marriages, to change their thinking patterns, to grow their businesses.

We know of 11 people that have stopped themselves from killing themselves. In the moment, there's a gentleman that we talk about in the book, and you can see his social media posts. In London, he was a veteran, and he was suffering from post-traumatic stress disorder, and he boarded a ferry with the intention of jumping overboard. He got to the railing, and he was standing there, and his inner wisdom kicked in. This is another thing I want everybody watching to understand. I don't care what you're facing. Or how low you get. Your inner wisdom is always there. It is. The thing is, is that we often don't listen to it. He's standing there intending to kill himself, and that inner wisdom kicks in, and he remembers the five-second rule, and he goes, 5, 4, 3, 2, 1, and he turns and physically moves away from the railing and finds the first person working on the ferry and tells him that he's suicidal. Saved his life. He saved his life because he listened to the inner wisdom. This is the other thing I love about this rule. It's not something to think about. It's a tool to use.

The part of the problem with a lot of the advice that I've found, for me personally, is that a lot of advice is all about doing mental battle. If I go upstairs, I'm behind enemy lines, and I tend to get hijacked. I love this tool because 5, 4, 3, 2, 1 interrupts those patterns. It actually prompts the part of the brain that I need in order to change. It makes changing easier because I've now got my mind working for me instead of against me, and it gets me out of my head. I'm super excited to share this rule with people because I now know not only that it's working, just not for me, it's working for people around the world. In the book, it took me three years to write it. It's all the science behind the rule. It's got more than 150 social media posts in it. You see stories from around the world of people using it to end procrastination, to build confidence, to deepen their relationships, to launch businesses, to explode the sales. Why does it help with sales? I'll tell you why. Because you can't sell by thinking. Selling is about action.

We have groups from companies around the world, sales teams, that put 5, 4, 3, 2, 1 up on the wall. I'm sure they hate me. That's cool. Yes, because cold calling, it's a momentum thing. If you stop and think, the phone is not getting... The dialing is not happening when you're thinking. If you're thinking about all those nos you've been getting, you're not going to want to do it again because it doesn't feel good. Yes. If you're in the middle of a negotiation or you're in the middle of a really difficult conversation, and again, remember what we said earlier? You cannot control your feelings that rise up, but you can always control how you think and what you do. So if you're in the middle of a difficult conversation and you feel those feelings come up that normally trigger you to start editing yourself, or to censor yourself, or to silence yourself, or to think sabotaging thoughts in a business negotiation, 5, 4, 3, 2, 1. Awaken the prefrontal cortex. Get back in the game.

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.