I would just love for the new listeners that are here with us that did not hear the story. Could you just give us the thumbnail version of how It Cosmetic started and some of the highs and lows?

It all started with this season of setback in my life and major self-doubt. And what I know now, Mel, is for so many of us, our setbacks are actually setups for what we're supposed to do to live our best life. We just don't know it at the time, but I I was working in what I thought was my dream job. I had done so many jobs, from waitressing at Denny's to bagging groceries in the grocery store to get my way into journalism. And eventually, I was anchoring the news. And I was live on the air one day, and I hear in my earpiece from the producer, There's something on your face. And I'm talking to millions of viewers live. He's like, There's something on your face. There's something on your face. You need to wipe it off. You need to wipe it off. And in the commercial break, I glanced down and I see this bright red rosacea was coming, cracking through my makeup. If you imagine desert clay cracking, my makeup was cracking under the HD lights, and the red was coming through. I have hereditary rosacea, which for me gets really bumpy, really bright red.

I'm trying to cover it during the commercial break, and it won't work. And that set off a moment where I spent all my paycheck trying to find makeup that would work, and nothing would work. And every time I'd go back and I'd be live on the air, I'd hear in my earpiece, It's still there. It's still there. It's still there. Oh, God. I went through this season of self-doubt where I'm like, Oh, my gosh, I'm in my dream job. Am I going to get fired? I'd be talking live on the air, and instead of engaging in the story, I'd be thinking, Are viewers changing the channel? Am I costing the company ratings. And I started this big season of self-doubt. How old were you? Oh, gosh, 31.

Okay, so you're 31 years old. And just to bring you listening in as Jamie's telling the story, I think we've all had a moment like that where maybe you're sitting in a meeting at work and you feel your face flush, or you are giving a presentation and you start to stutter, or you are sitting in a meeting at school and you are there to advocate for your kid and you just can't find the words, or you're even in a relationship, and every day you wake up and you're like, Okay, today's the day I'm going to say this is not working, and I need you to change, and you just start to doubt yourself. Yeah. And so this is a universal experience. Yes. But you amplify this because you're on television in your dream job, and your rosacea is basically melting your makeup and now making its own appearance on the television with you. Yes. So what the hell do you do?

Well, I remember this moment, and I love the example as you just shared, because everyone has these moments where you get this gut feeling or this knowing. I remember thinking, This makes no sense. I cannot. There's thousands of makeup companies out there. Why does nothing work for me? And I got this moment, this knowing that said, well, if you can't find anything that works for you, there's probably a whole lot of other people out there that can't find anything. What if you create something that works for you? It'll probably help a whole lot of people. And then I got this moment where I'm like, okay, my entire life because I was like, this makes no sense that nothing works for me. Then I realized I've never seen a woman with bright red rosacea saying as a model for products.

Oh, that's true. I just want to make sure That as you're listening, you understand something. So this was a time where you didn't see normal people in ads the way that you do now. Right. This was a time where there would never be anybody on social media or in an advertisement or in a makeup advertisement that had no makeup on. We take it for granted because we see before and after, and we see people wearing a more natural look. But that was not the case. Over a decade ago. Yeah.

And I realized, Mel, I'm like, okay, I've always loved beauty ads and commercials and magazines my whole life, but deep down inside, they always made me feel like I wasn't enough. And this moment happened, right? And you mentioned someone I'm saying, I'm about to end a relationship, or whatever situation we're in. I had this moment, this gut feeling where I was like, wait a minute. What if I could figure out how to make a product and not just make a product, but put real women as models every age, and shape, and size, and skin tone, and skin challenge, and try to shift that definition of beauty in the whole beauty industry for every little girl out there about to start doubting herself and every grown person who does. So I had this feeling like, What if? What if I could do it? And that was in my gut, in my knowing. But really fast, my head talked me out of it. My self-doubt was like, Oh, but you got no money. You don't know what you're doing. You're unqualified. You have no connections in the beauty industry. And I sat in that place, and maybe a lot of viewers can connect with this, where you have this gut feeling or you're supposed to do something, or go for it, or tell the person you want to be more than just friends, or put your idea out there.

But then your head is talking yourself out of it, and you're You're about to doubt yourself out of your own destiny. And I sat in that place for a minute and I made the decision, okay, I am going to trust my knowing. I'm going to take a risk, even though I was in what I thought was my dream job, even though I didn't know what the heck I was doing, I tapped. I tried to almost like, turn down the volume on my self-doubt, my thoughts and my mind saying, You're not enough. Turn up the volume on that gut feeling. And these are the moments that change our entire lives, right? When we make the decision to trust that gut feeling. And now, here's the thing. I launched the business.

Okay, now, I just have to ask you a question. Yes. You'd never made makeup before. No. So not knowing how isn't an excuse to not figure out how to do it. Yeah. Put us at the moment of that know versus the knowing, and how the heck, in a moment, When the, but, but, but, but, but, how do you discern whether that is legit fear, or it is just the self-doubt and a sense of unworthiness coming up, and you have something deeper called a knowing. Professor Purpose in the House, people. Let's go.

Every single person listening right now, every day, we get nos. We get nos in all different forms. We're not invited to the party. Someone doesn't include us. We don't know why we're not in the circle of mom standing around and we're feeling on the outside. But most of our most painful nos are the ones we're telling ourselves. The ones we're telling ourselves in the form of negative self-taught all day long. We all get nos all the time, and we tell ourselves nos. But inside, in our gut, if we get still, if we listen to our soul, we get a knowing, an intuition, a still small voice, a gut feeling. Every single moment in your life, in your friendships, in your joy, in your goals and dreams and ambitions, I believe Mel, they come down to which one you listen to. Do you listen to the nos or do you listen to your knowing? And this is the most important thing because our self-doubt will lie to us all day long. It will lie to us all day long. And when we get still and ask ourselves, Is that the truth, right? And you tune into your gut, your gut will tell you the right answer.

I don't believe your gut is ever wrong. I believe that it either leads you to the next right step or the next right lesson.

Oh. So even if you, quote, trust your gut, and it blows up in your face, it was leading you to a lesson that you absolutely needed.

Exactly. I believe... Yep, and I believe our steps are ordered that way. And when we talk about the nos, the moment I decided to trust myself and listen to that knowing over the nose in my own head, et cetera, and launch this business. What a lot of people don't know because they just see the headline Fairytale. Oh, Denny's Waitress builds a billion-dollar Company. It was three years, hundreds and hundreds of nos, no after no after no after no. I would pray or meditate and be like, Why is this not working? Why is no one telling me that they believe in my dream? All these retail stores saying no. I had this vision for inclusivity in the beauty industry. I was saying, Let's have models every age and shape and size. I had this vision. I'm like, Let me show my bare face rosation, prove the product works. And these retail stores were mortified. They were mortified. There was thousands of makeup brands, but I entered that space fully authentically to who I was. No matter what your dream or your idea or your art you want to put out in the world or your podcast you want to launch, if you are one of the brave ones willing to it authentically to you, by definition, it has never been done before.

It has never been done before.

Because?

Because there is not another you in existence, and there never will be. And nobody can compete with that. You're not crazy, you're just first. But I'm going to go off on this for any-Go right there.

That's the first slide. You're not crazy, you're just first. Let's unpack that.

You want me to unpack that? Okay.

Go, go.

She's on a roll. Let's keep going. I'm fired up. This one lie, oh my gosh, Mel, it is life-changing. And this lie is called, You're not crazy, you're just first. So many of us think and believe the things that are different or odd or strange or quirky or wrong with us. And we should dim our own light, hide them from others because we fear if we show up as who we truly are, then we'll be found out. People might not like us anymore. We might not be loved. And so we end up, so many of us, showing up as who we think other people want us to be. We We end up showing up as our representative, right? Every day, a lot of people wake up in the morning and put on their who they think they need to be uniform with their name on the front.

Like a Denny's waitress uniform. Here I am in my role.

Yes, in my role.

Good daughter, good partner, good employee. I'm just going to keep showing up.

The friend that gets invited, the mom that has it all together, whatever that role is. Exactly. So first of all, it is impossible to have a true connection with another human being if you are showing up as anything other than who you authentically are, whether it's with a friend or a partner or a customer. For everyone listening who thinks like, Oh, if I'm me, I won't be loved, or if I'm really me, then I won't do well on social media, or I won't get the promotion, or I won't get the job, or whatever it might be, who you are deep down inside, and your authenticity is your superpower. And for anybody Nobody listening who has ever felt like that they're different or that they don't belong. Growing up, okay, growing up as a little girl, I was adopted. I have five families.

Five families?

Five families. Can you explain that? Through divorces and then birth family I met later. Oh, got you. Okay. Yeah, five families. Marriage. So blessed. I would not change a thing. And also, growing up, I always felt like I didn't belong. I always... I would have these big ideas like, What if we could solve world hunger? And I was raised in an environment where no one had ever gone to college. And I would hear things like, Things like that don't happen to people like us. Or, You're crazy. They would always call me crazy as a term of endearment. You're crazy for having these different ideas. Fast forward, I am in my late 20s, and I went to therapy. First person in any of my families that I'm aware of to go to therapy. And I literally asked my therapist, I said, Am I crazy? Because I go, I've been called this as a term of endearment my whole life. And she said- Hold on.

As a term of endearment? Yeah. Talk about gaslighting yourself.

Yeah. And my therapist said to me, You're not crazy, but I'm really glad you're here. And she explained that when you are first in your family to maybe break a generational cycle or to actually show up as who you authentically are, to really share how you feel, to share your ideas, to not dim your light to fit in, that it often is met with confusion, resistance, with a feeling like you need to dim your light to belong. And this moment, Mel, hit me so bright like a light bulb that burst. I realized in that moment, I'm not crazy. I'm just first. I'm just first. You are the first ever you that has ever been in existence. And so when you show up as who you are, do not be surprised. If not, everyone gets it. There's never been a you before. Before. It's not just that every one of us has unique fingerprints and irises of our eyes and tongueprints that are unique and heartbeats that are unique. You're the only one in existence who's had the experiences you've had in life and feels emotions the way you feel and sees art and beauty the way that you do.

When you are brave enough to be who you truly are, it's scary at first. But when you step into it and one step at a time, you start saying what you really mean, being who you truly are. It's how you start to live in alignment with your assignment in life. And so I go deep in this lie and worthy about how to unlearnt the lie that the things that are wrong with you, or odd, or strange, or different, are the things you should hide, when in fact, they're the things most right with you. There are so many moments in my life when I was going through rejection after rejection or not being invited to the party or retailers weren't believing in my brand and I was tempted to quit. And I would remind myself, Okay, I'm doing this authentic to me. I'm not I'm not crazy. I'm just first. I'm just first. In any moment where you're tempted to feel like your idea isn't good enough or you shouldn't raise your hand and share how you really feel, so many of us can remember a moment in our childhood, in class, perhaps, when we knew the answer, but for the first time ever didn't raise our hand because we started to doubt, Am I right?

Am I going to get made fun of? Am I going to fit in? And self-doubt starts to kick in. And before you know it, we're 55 and deciding, I think I'm not going to raise my hand on that Zoom call tomorrow, or I'm not going to go after that wild, bold idea because it might not work. And we start to live our lives hiding in plain sight. And we can be crushing things all around us that look good to everyone else, but we know we're not living the truest, highest, fullest expression of ourselves. And so for anyone who's ever felt like who they are isn't enough, it is a lie. You are not crazy. You're just first. They wrote a poem, You're not crazy. You're just first.

One thing about this, especially in the context of a family system structure, When you feel like there's something wrong with you, or when you get pushback from your family, the reframe from the lie, which is everybody... You're crazy. You can't do that. People judging you. You even judging yourself. That reframe is so powerful because I've been really surprised by how difficult it is in my own life, but I know in your life, as you're listening, to break free of that fear of disappointing people in your family or what their expectations were for you. And so to think, Oh, I'm just the first one to go to college. I'm just the first one to not be an accountant. I'm just the first one to really prioritize healing. Well, I'm just the first one that's going to live my life differently than everybody in my family has done forever. And in so doing, I am setting up this lie, You're crazy, and calling it out for what it is and living in the truth, which is, no, I'm just first. First. And as much as I don't want to take a break, I want to hit pause.

Let's hear a quick word from our sponsors. They allow us to bring this magic to you listening for free, so give them a little bit of love. But don't you dare go anywhere. I'm telling you right now, don't go anywhere, because Jamie and I are going to be waiting for you after a short break. And when we return, there's so much to dig into. There are four more lies. There are so many more stories that you're going to hear. And one of my favorite stories is the first time she ever appeared on QVC. I cannot wait for you to experience this. We'll see in a few minutes. Welcome back. It's your friend Mel, and I am here today with one of my all-time favorite people, Jamie Kern Lima. Her resume is so long. She's the founder of It Cosmetics. She's a New York Times best-selling author. Her brand new book is worthy, and we are digging into the five lies that you are telling yourself that are holding you back from reaching your potential. And we are in the middle of covering the first line, which is you're not crazy. Like all those people that told you that you're crazy, it's a lie.

It's a lie. And Jamie Jamie's beautiful, empowering Rockstar Reframe, you're just first. You're just the first one in your family to do this. You're just the first one to go to school. You're just the first one to have this idea. Jamie, I want to add to this conversation and go a little bit deeper because I have a question from a listener named Lisa. Lisa, I have this belief that good things happen to others, but not me. How do I start believing in myself?

Yes. So that is such a common lie that we tell ourselves, that good things happen to other people, but not us. And I was raised around that lie, right? I was raised around that lie, that, Oh, things like that can't happen to people like us. So my whole family, a lot of my family, believes that lie as well. And I remember when I was waitressing at Denny's, I had this moment where I'm like, I think I could run this restaurant, right? I had this moment But guess what? Self doubt kicked in really fast. And that lie that she just shared, Lisa just shared. I remember thinking that, oh, but I'm not qualified to do that. People like me don't run the restaurant, right? And so how do you overcome that? So let me just take a step back. Every single thing in life is the meaning we attach to it, right? And we have the power to unlearnt that lie because this is a lie.

That's true. That's the story you're telling yourself. It's the story you're telling yourself. That things like that don't happen to people like us. That's a lie.

Exactly. It is a lie. And so maybe there's a lot of evidence in the past that makes you go, Oh, but I have evidence to prove this. Okay. But first question is, do you want to unbelieve that? Do you want to still continue believing that lie? Because it is a lie, right? I remember hundreds of nos and rejections into a cosmetics. So easy for me to say, Oh, I'm a person that not only gets rejected, but I'm a reject. Let it take root in my self-worth on this level. And then that's when it is a powerful lie that becomes hard to unlear. Things like that don't happen to people like me, right, is a lie. And learning to reframe that first step, identifying it, which she did so beautifully in that question, now deciding, Do I want to believe that? That's the next question, because let me just get really real here. Some of us use our lies as excuses on why something's not happening. So the next question is, do I want to unlear that lie? Because those are just lies that lead to that keep us stuck, that keep us feeling like we're unworthy.

Right now, as we're talking, 80% of women do not believe they're enough. 91% of girls and women don't love their bodies. 75% of female executives deal with imposter syndrome. 73% of men feel inadequate, and they're not enough. Why I wrote worthy is the time to unlearnt these lies has come. For Lisa, A, great job being aware of the lie. A lot of times we tell ourselves lies, we're not even aware of it. We just think they're truths, right? But guess what? You're the character of your main life. You cannot always control all the supporting actors and actresses that come into your world, but you can control the main character and how you describe her and how you define her and what you want her storyline to be going forward. And so the next question is, do you want to keep that lie or do you want to unlearnt it? If you want to unlearnt it, you reframe it. And every time it comes into your mind, you intercept it. You intercept that lie that says things like that don't happen to people like me. You decide, Oh, no, no. My new meaning is, things like that haven't happened yet.

Oh, but they're going to happen. Once I step into who I authentically am, I am the first ever, only me And I'm going to live in alignment with my assignment. I believe, for me, when that lie comes into my head, I'm like, Oh, I'm not crazy on first. And I just reframe it, and I decide the meaning I attach to my story. I decide what that I'm going to believe is going to happen, and I decide that will be my narrative. And the second we do that, because what we focus on is what we magnify, and that becomes our whole life. And when you change your story, you change your entire life.

Was there a moment in the building of It Cosmetics where that lie came up for you? You're getting told, No, no, no, no, no, people, and it's not happening for someone like me.

Yeah, all the time. The biggest struggle for me was, and especially as we started getting success, which was many years in, but we got a big shot on QVC. So after years of nos, I get a yes on QVC, which is a live television shopping channel for anyone unfamiliar with it, and it's broadcast to 100 million homes. At this moment, Mel, we were selling only 2-3 orders a day on our website.

That's not enough to pay the bills, Jamie. I don't know if you know that, but that's not enough to pay the bills.

You were teetering on bankruptcy for years. And after hearing no, after no, after no, after no, even from QVC, I got a yes for one shot. In this 10-minute window to launch the product.

Put everybody at the scene, because this sounds like something that would cause any human being the biggest case of stress, diarrhea on live television, because it is an unbelievable pressure cooker what you have to do. So just for the uninitiated, put us on the set at QVC. You are teetering on bankruptcy. You are only selling two of your products every day. You've been at this for years and years and years, and no, and no, and no, and you're up in your head like, People like me. This doesn't happen to people like me. It happens to them. And the lies are coming up. So what do you What do you do at QVC? What do you have to do when somebody says, Yes, you can sell your product?

Yeah. So okay, I learned I had to sell over 6,000 units of this product to hit their sales goal in the 10-minute window.In 10 minutes?In 10 minutes or not come back. And remember, we're only selling two or three orders a day. I go to 20 banks trying to get a loan to fund the inventory to do this. 22 banks said no. The 23rd Bank, California Bank & Trust, gave us a loan for just the amount to I'll cover this purchase order in a little bit more to get my one shot on QVC. I learned it's a consignment offer, which means if I don't sell it, I don't get paid. I have to take it all back. Everything was on the line. And here's the story about the power of your authenticity, about knowing you're not crazy, you're just first. Because in that moment, I've been told no so many times, right? And we start to doubt, Oh, right? That lie. Do things like this possibly happen for people like me? So we figured all out. I get there. All of these third-party consultants are saying, Okay, if you want to do well, here's what you need to do.

You need to book this type of model to demonstrate your product, which was all people who look like they're 12 with flawless skin. I'm like, That is not why I created this brand. That's not authentic to why I did this. I would tell them, these third-party consultants, and they help a lot of people, and they really wanted me to win. I said, Well, what if I put a model in her '80s and then women in their '40s and '50s with hyperpigmentation alimentation and someone who's dealing with acne? And what if I take my own makeup off on national TV and show my bright red rosacea? And they were mortified.

They're like, you're crazy.

Yes, you're crazy. They said, listen, you get one shot. They're like, you understand you get one shot, right? And I remember Mel, I flew out to QVC in Pennsylvania. And a week before, I sat in this rental car in the parking lot every single day, staring at the front door of the building, praying, crying in the car all alone because I felt I think the pressure was so heavy. And in that moment, those lies come up, and I start to doubt myself. And I think, well, maybe I should be inauthentic. Try it their way. And maybe I'll do well, finally. And then I'll make money. And then I could try it my way. I had all of these thoughts come up. And I remember this moment in that car where these words that while authenticity alone doesn't automatically guarantee success, in authenticity, guarantees failure. Every time, over time. You and I, everyone listening, you can see people popping up online everywhere, and maybe they do well for a minute, but this over time, it does not work. Why is Mel Robin's podcast the number one podcast? Why? Because look how you show up fully, authentically, the same way on air as you are off air.

I know this lesson, yet I'm sitting there in my car telling myself lies, like some of your listeners are writing in, right? Things like this don't happen to me. Everyone's telling me I'm crazy. But I know every single person listening, you are not crazy. You are just first. And when someone does not get you, that's okay, right? You have to align with your authenticity because that's what is your superpower. And I knew that lesson, and I was scared out of my mind to trust that, but I did. And I walked into the building, and the moment I walked in the studio, there's these giant clocks on the floor that said 10 minutes. I got 10 minutes to hit those sales goals or not come back. And then Mel, I learned right before I went on air that you're not guaranteed your 10 minutes. If you're a minute or two into your presentation, they know by the second if you're hitting sales numbers. If you're a minute or two in and you're not hitting sales numbers, your clock, you think you have eight minutes left, it jumps to one minute. You're done. So I learned that.

And I go on air, and you talk about... You were mentioning, imagine, stress, diarrhea. I go on air, I'm drenched in sweat. I have on two pairs Spanks under my dress, not because I care what I look like. I was trying to absorb all the sweat so that I didn't sweat through my dress on national TV. And I remember the lights go on, and I was trying to do a demonstration to show how my product doesn't crease and crack on my wrist and my hand was shaking so much that the host grabbed my hand, put it under the podium. She's like, Thank you, sugar. And she took over. And I remember the moment on national television, my bright red rosacea comes up, my bare face. And I remember walking over to models every age and shape and size and skin tone and skin challenge and calling them beautiful and meaning it. I didn't know how we were doing a few minutes in, but I knew I wasn't cut yet. And then we got down to the one minute mark left, and I hear the host say, The deep shade's almost gone. The tan shade's almost sold out.

I was like, Oh, and then literally the moment the 10 minute mark hit, this giant sold out sign comes up across the screen. I start crying on national television. They cut from me and go to dice in vacuum or something. And I remember this. My husband comes rushing through the double doors of the studio. I'm sobbing, sobbing. Our very first employee, one of my best friends of 20 years, she was the only person on payroll at the time because we couldn't even afford to pay ourselves. She starts sobbing. My husband comes running over to me, and I thought he's going to hug me. And he just looks at me, and he puts his arms in the air and his fist, and he's like, We're not going bankrupt. And I'm like, Real women have spoken. And just sobbing. And I remember in that moment, all the things people told me about me would not work. The years and years of rejection, the retailers that didn't believe in me, making that decision to remind myself and every person listening right now, I don't know what room you're walking into today, what phone call you're walking into, what Zoom you're walking into, what idea you're about to share, but you're doubting it.

You are not crazy. You are just first. You're just first. It's why I wrote this poem that just poured out.

Would you read us the poem you wrote?

Yes. And what I'll do is... Let me read an excerpt of it. It's the only poem in the book. It's called You're not crazy. You're just first. Who do you think you are? They say. Things like that aren't for people like us. Why are you going around changing? Planning to leave us in the dust? Are you forgetting where you come from? Are we not good enough anymore? And just like that, the temptation to play life small feels more comfortable than before. If you're doubting you're enough, your thoughts, their words have got you down. It's time for your soul to tell your mind there's a new boss in town. See, there's no one else quite like you in the entire universe. And what your soul knows is you're not crazy. You're just first. The first to have your hopes and dreams, The first you there's ever been. So don't be surprised if they don't get you or try to shame you to fit in. They call you odd, strange, different for having dreams bigger than they can see because those dreams weren't given to them. They see them through fear and anxiety. And even the well-intentioned people who love you to the bone can see you pursuing your dreams as a reminder of them not fulfilling their own.

If people like people who are like them, hiding your true selves a comfort zone. But a calling unexpressed inside you leaves you feeling anguished and alone, even inside of your own home. They call you words like crazy and say, We stick together for better or for worse. But what your knowing knows is you're not crazy, you're dispersed. The first to launch the business, to dust your dreams off of the shelf, The first to believe you're worthy of betting on yourself. The first to beat addiction, to live life sober and awake. The first to end the generational cycle that you know you're born to break. The first to start healing. The first to forgive so you'll be free. The first to love others for who they are, not for who you wish they'd be. And when doubt tempts you dim your light, always remember this verse, your soul knows you're made for more. With so much purpose, it can burst. You're born with greatness inside you. And whether it's a blessing or a curse, the world won't be better until your greatness is dispersed. See, there's only one of you in the entire universe, and your knowing knows.

Deep down, you're not crazy, you're dispersed.

Oh, wow.

Are you crying, Mel Robbins? Well, I'm just sitting here.

I'm very proud of you. What does that mean to you?

It means freedom when you and learn those lies that lead to self-doubt, oh, my gosh. And you start to ignite those truths that wake up worthiness. That feels like joy and tastes like freedom. That is when we start to feel alive, right? That That is when the weight of other people's expectations or even the ones we put on ourselves starts to lift. We don't soar to the level of our goals and dreams. We stay stuck at the level of our self-worth. We don't rise to what we believe is possible. We will always fall to what we believe we're worthy of. You will never feel joy and fulfillment in life until you learn to embrace who you truly are and learn to believe you are enough as who you are. And that is the truth. Every person listening I do not care how many past mistakes and failures and regrets, and none of that is relevant when it comes to your worth. And when we learn that, it is the most powerful, powerful thing we can do.

I need a tall glass of water in order to just digest what you just poured into us, Jamie. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. And we're going to take a quick break right now and hear a word from our sponsors. And when we return, don't go anywhere. We have four more lies to cover, and This next one, I know that you're going to get a ton out of it because it's about your past and about the mistakes that you've made. Jamie is going to teach you today how to dismantle that lie and how to discover your worth and to keep on going. Welcome back. It's your friend Mel. I'm here with the remarkable Jamie Kern-Lema, New York Times best selling author. She's here with her new book, Worth. You know her as the founder of It Cosmetics, which she sold to L'Oréal for $1.2 billion. And she is here today in our Boston studios to teach you the five lies that you're telling yourself that are holding you back from all of your power and all of your purpose and unlocking all the joy in your life. And so, Jamie, let's go to lie number two.

My past mistakes and failures determine my future success. And the way that I want to dig into this one is with a question from a listener named Jessie, who writes, Jamie, I keep failing over and over and over again. How do I know when it is time to quit? And this gets us back to, is it a no, like, Hell no, we're not doing this anymore. Or is it a knowing to keep going? What is the specific thing that you could tell her or anybody to do to really tease out a string of rejections. Yes. And whether it's like, this is quitting time, or it's keep going time.

Or it's keep going time. Jessie, I love that you We'll ask this question because here's the thing. You go online, all you see is what looks like everyone's successes. And when we're getting rejected, when we're failing, we think something's wrong with us. We think we're alone, right? We think like, Oh, maybe my gut is wrong. I am living proof that rejections, failures, setbacks, no one else believing in you, things not getting traction, things not going your way for a long period of time are not an indication of the potential of your success. They are not. And the people who succeed the most, and you can Google anyone in history, you can read all about my story, Mel Robin's story, that anybody who has moved humanity forward, who has launched an incredible business, an incredible podcast, written a great book, read about all of them. The people who succeed the most are the same people who fail the most because they're the ones try the most. So anybody listening today who's been hiding their failures and their past mistakes and thinking it's just me, first of all, it is not. You are not alone. You are one of the brave ones willing to actually go for it.

So you're one of the ones now in the rare group who is highly likely to succeed because you're one of the ones going for it. So that is one of the most important things. And how do you know when it's time? Because I do believe that sometimes knowing when to let go of a dream matters as much as knowing when to go after one.

So how do you do that?

So I approach that the same way I approach, is it time for this relationship to end, or me to leave this job, or I need to leave this friendship, or all of those things. I get still. And for some people, this might look like praying. It might look like meditation. I get still. I will pray. I don't talk out loud when I pray. Some people do. There is no wrong way to pray. There is no wrong way to meditate. And so this is a universal tool, whether someone has a faith that they practice or does not. And I literally will ask for the answer. I will ask for the answer, and I will wait until I hear it. And one thing that's important to do is not project the answer you want and think you hear that, right? Because you can block your intuition when you're just focused on what you're hoping for. But to really get still, get quiet, and ask the question, I will wait until I feel an intuition or something as close to a feeling or a knowing as I can, and I will take a step in that direction.

Okay. So I want to really break this down. Yeah. Because we're all hanging on your words because that difference between a no is the truth versus a no is just fear and self doubt. And knowing being deeper.

A lot of people, they go, Well, I don't hear my intuition. What do I do if I don't hear it? This is a skill that you can build. It's like building a muscle. As women, especially, oh, my gosh, really all generations of women, But when you think about women in their 30s, 40s, 50s, 60s, in particular, a lot of us were raised to be quiet, to not actually say what we mean and to be people-pleasers. Or we learn that we're not enough on our own. Look at all the studies that show women will make decisions based on consensus. You look at the studies that show when they ask little girls and boys a question, the boys will give an answer right away. The girls will turn to each other and try to come up with a consensus answer. We, especially as women, learn to not hear our own intuition. As adults, the beautiful thing is we all have it, and you are never too young or too old to start learning how to hear it again. One One of my favorite tools to build your intuition is just to take some time, get still, ask a question, see if anything comes up, and that's okay if it doesn't.

But then also carve out some time to think back to moments in your life when you had a gut feeling about something, and maybe you trusted it, and then what happened. Then similarly, think back to moments when you had a gut feeling, you didn't trust it, you let everyone else's opinion tell you what to do or whatever. You went against your feeling. And then what happened then? And as you focus on those moments in your life, you start to build that muscle of remembering, what does that feel like when I have a feeling? And when I trusted it or didn't trust it, what happened? And you start building that muscle over time. And you've got to give yourself grace, right? Because you talk about neural pathways on your show all the time. But for a lot of us, we haven't learned how to hear ourself or trust ourself our entire life. What if we all take up this hobby of I'm going to learn to trust my own intuition. And every day, I'm going to take one step forward of trusting it, right? Or just asking myself before I just give an answer to someone and say yes when I really mean no, say, Oh, yeah, I'll volunteer for that thing when you don't want to do it, or whatever it is, right?

Just pause and be like, How am I really feeling? Right? And that's your intuition telling you exactly what you need to know. And then just making that decision one step at a time to start trusting and to rebuild that muscle.

If I can offer to you listening just a little explanation for how I do this.

Yes.

So for me, Absolutely. Got to get still. Because I notice that the lies are more dominant, and the self-doubt is more powerful, the busier I am. And the more I'm just in the go, go, go, go, go There's a lot of emotion and energy with go, go, go, go, go, go, right? And so when I get still and I really drop into what is true for me, there is a very distinct feeling associated for me, personally, and the feeling is this. Let's just say that I have to make a phone call. Every one of us has a phone call we're probably putting off or dreading, right? And if you drop drop into, How do I really feel about this? Do I need to make this call? Should I not? Or a conversation. There's a conversation that you need to have, and we avoid it, and we avoid it, and we avoid it. But your knowing is going, You got to have a conversation. But the no is like, not today, not today, not today. For me, I can drop into the knowing if I really try to feel the energy around doing it or not.

So when I'm putting something off, even though it feels a little bit like a relief, I feel a part of me shrinking. There is something about the energy of that that is depleting and constricting and small. And if I access the knowing, what is always true for me, even if it scares the daylight out of me, is that there is something more expansive, and there is something through that experience that I know is going to expand or grow or free me up. And that's how I distinguish at a very deep level, okay, what is actually my knowing versus what is the know being driven by emotion or self doubt or pattern or whatever.

Isn't that so true, right? When we live in alignment with our truth, you feel that expansion, that freedom. That freedom. Even if it's the thing you're dreading, you don't want to do it, but then you do it and you just feel that freedom. Whereas if you're letting yourself doubt take over the thing telling you don't do it, that doesn't feel that same way. And I love how you described it. It feels constricted. And I just think of we think, Oh, I'm going to be who everyone else wants me to be or dim my light to play it safe or to get love. It feels that same way. Dimming our light, not being who we truly are, can feel like the It's a safe thing to do, but it feels constricted. But when we show up fully authentically, even if not everyone gets it, if we make that decision, I'm not crazy, I'm just first, right? You're going to feel what Mel just described, that expansiveness, because it's part of your knowing of who you're born to be, of who you're born to be on this Earth. And like, yeah, I love that. That's beautiful.

I always get the question, and I know you two, too. How do I know the difference between something I'm afraid to do, then the fear is real? And And here's what I have to say to you. Nine times out of 10, I am afraid to do the thing that I know is right.

Yeah.

And the fear is real.

Yeah.

And that's why you have to get still.

Yes, exactly.

Now, there's another lie. So this is the third lie that you really had to dismantle, which is your weight determines your worth. Yes.

For every person listening, Mel Robbins, most of my entire life my life. I believed my weight determined my worth.

What does that mean?

Right now, 89% of girls and women will opt out of meaningful activities, including interaction with friends and loved ones, when they do not like how they look. We miss out on our lives when we are waiting on our wait. And by the way, for some people, it's not literal wait. It's the weight of other people's expectations that they need to stop waiting on, the weight of their own expectations. Emotions. What are you waiting on right now in your life? And how are you letting that determine your worth before you live your best life? So this was a lie that took me most of my entire life so far to unlear. And I created a business that was so about celebrating every person for their authentic beauty. I was able to overcome so many lies that lead to self-doubt in my life. I was able to build self-worth around believing I was worthy of having a CEO title, of running a business, of building a team of over a thousand, all those things. But I still struggle with the lie that my weight determined my worth. And it wasn't until my daughter's one-year birthday, we're at this hotel, and I'm about to opt out of swimming again because I don't want to wear the swimsuit.

I want to sit on the chair on the side of the pool, all covered up, and miss out on this moment in her life. When I realized realized what has waiting on my weight already cost me in my life? And the answer? Way too much. Memories, experiences, joy, all of it. Because as humans, as you know, we're wired to avoid pain at all costs. I had been thinking, Oh, if I go out there in my swimsuit, I'll be judged. I'll be this, I'll be that. I was associating pain with that. In that moment, I flipped the script, and I associated more pain with what I had missed out on, with the pain of regret, with the pain of what has waiting on my weight already cost me. And that is how I flipped the lie around. And I decided no more. And I literally took my cover up off. I shook my cellular with joy, and I got right in that pool, and I made it not about me anymore. I'm like, Me hiding on the sidelines is what I'm doing is I'm telling my daughter she's not worthy of her body either. I am not.

Uh-uh. That lie has got to stop now. The moment we step into our power, that is when we give other people permission to step into theirs. And now Every time I will walk around in a swimsuit, all I think about is, I would never care what someone else looks like. People do not care what I look like. This is about living life with no regret. This is about inspiring other people to embrace all of who are and start considering what has waiting on your weight already cost you. When we think of it that way, that is almost way more painful than the fear that we're making up in our heads about just living our best life as who we are, exactly as we are.

Unbelievable. Unbelievable. I don't have anything to add, so I'm going to go to line number four. So line number four, If I stand out, I'll get kicked out. What does that mean?

This is a big one because as women, we learn to downplay our strengths, to dim our light, to fit in. We often will bond over problems. We'll be self-deprecating. If we get a victory, we'll downplay it and give credit away to someone else. But if there's something wrong with us, we'll tell everyone, Oh, my house is a disaster. My kid is a hot mess. And we bond with each other over problems, and we worry like, Oh, wow, I crushed this. Or, This happened to me. We worry if we share that, then if we're great, we'll get hate.

I actually struggle with this one. There are very few people that I share my success with, or my wins, or the things that I'm really proud of that are going really, really well. I chronically downplay things. You're somebody that I'm the first The first person to text, the first person to be like, Oh, my God, change this thing. Big and small. But this is definitely something that I struggle with, and I grew up around someone who constantly was griping about other people who were wealthy or who had this or who had that or had the other thing. I started to associate any standing out as attracting disapproval, a lack of love.

Yes, exactly. That's exactly it. We think, if I stand out, I'll get kicked out. I will no longer belong and be loved. And so we hide and dim our light. And thank you for just texting me when you have a victory because I hope you sense I'm so freaking excited for you and so happy. That's where I text you. And real friends want the best in others. And it just takes every one of us together to start celebrating winss of other people, to start sharing our own winss. And I think just one tip on that for everybody listening, if you're just hesitant to unlearnt that lie and you're worried that people will think, oh, who does she think she is? Or she's arrogant or all that crap, which is just their own unworthiness being reflected on you because they also believe that lie. Instead of thinking, Oh, I'm going to share my win because of myself, just flip it and think, When I share my win, I'm living an example of freeing another woman to start sharing hers. And you make it about something bigger than yourself. And that is how you unlearnt the lie one step at a time, especially for people that feel like, Oh, self-worth is selfish.

It's not. It is not. The more you raise your own self-worth, the stronger you are an example for other people on how to believe they're enough to.

Awesome. The fifth lie I wanted you to explain that you had to confront was labels are permanent.

What does that Yes, Mel. So many of us in our life have let labels that someone else said about us. It could be in our childhood, it could be in a relationship as an adult, something an employer said, something someone said online, something we told ourselves. We've let these labels stick to us and take root, and we've told ourselves the lie that they're permanent.

I have a question for you about this because there is this remarkable thing that happened to you when you were building It Cosmetics, where you are wildly successful. You're sitting in a meeting with a bunch of bankers. You have gone through all of these rounds through this process, and somebody gave you a label And I'd love for you to tell that story and then tell us, how the heck did you peel that label off yourself when somebody so publicly just took you down? Yes.

So often we think the label is permanent, or we don't realize we're carrying it around and we're believing it. We're letting it take root in our identity. But labels are like post-it notes. They have this light adhesive. They come right off when you decide for them to come off. But it's hard when we don't realize they're stuck to us. And they can be like lead balloons on our wings when we're trying to fly. They hold us down. And so I was meeting with this potential investor, huge private equity company. And you guys, I I really wanted him to believe in us because I thought maybe he'll be able to use all his leverage and power to get us into all the retail stores that were telling us no. And this big investor, they're known for taking little small companies and making them huge companies that a lot of us shop for in grocery stores or big box retailers.

And to put this in context, you are already killing it on QVC. This is not like you're in your living room anymore. Yeah. Jamie is legit the biggest brand at QVC. She is destroying it, and now she's going to level this up. And so she goes to somebody in the industry, and she has... You have the results, and you have the product, and you've got the track record, and you've got the revenue, and you go waltzing in there meeting after meeting. And tell us what happened.

And they loved our products. And I just thought, this is going to be so great because we're going to take it to the next level and all these things. And got to the final meeting. I presented our whole product pipeline for the future. I just thought this was going so well. I thought, oh, my gosh, this is going to be it. This is going to be it. And at the very end of the meeting, he's three feet from me. My husband's on the other side. I remember the moment his mouth started moving and he says, Congratulations. You should be so proud of this product, but it's a no. We're going to pass on investing in It Cosmetics. I was like, Okay, can you tell me why? Because feedback is usually a gift. He just got really quiet. And then he says to me, Do you want me to be really honest with you? And I said, Yes, please. He says, I just don't think women will buy makeup from someone who looks like you with your body and your weight. I remember a lifetime of self-doubt and body-doubt, flooding my body all at once, right?

But Mel, the moment he said those words to me, I just don't think women will buy makeup from someone who looks like you with your body and your weight. I got this feeling in the pit of my stomach. I can feel like it was yesterday that said, he's wrong. And what I know happened in that moment, because I got that deep feeling, was that this dude gave me a no, but God gave me a knowing. And it goes back to what we're talking about is whether we're the ones telling ourselves no, or someone else gives us a label and it's a no. It always comes down to which you listen to. Do you listen to the no, or do you listen to the knowing? We let these labels or these stories we're telling about ourselves stick to us, and sometimes we don't realize we're doing it. And whether it's I've had failures, I've made mistakes, everyone keeps breaking up with me, friends betray me, whatever these stories are, these labels can snowball and impact everything we believe. And so in worthy, I go through this exercise on how do you identify these labels. They can impact your self-worth at such a deep level.

And again, in life, so many of us have had failures, rejections, et cetera, that rattled our confidence. But when we let them take root as a label that we're a failure, we're a reject, that's when it impacts our self-worth, that's when it impacts everything in our life. And so learning to identify those labels and then ask yourself, Is that really true? No, it is not really true. It is the story we are telling ourselves. And we can remove that label and replace it with a new empowering label. So in the case of me being adopted, And my parents always working. I was like, okay, I can look at it as I'm unwanted or abandoned. And instead, I'm like, no, no, no. What is something that is actually really true? It has to be true that I'm going to believe about this story. Oh, I'm chosen. My birth mom, her life would have been way easier if she did not have me, but she chose to have me. And then my parents who raised me chose to adopt it. I'm not rejected. I'm not unwanted. I'm chosen. And here's one of my favorite ones for someone listening today.

Oh, my gosh. I'm going to jump in my seat. You are hopping in your seat. I'm hopping in my seat.

She's getting wound up, everybody. Because I feel like- Jamie's winding herself up.

When you talk about our knowing, I just think about every day. We get rejected. We tell ourselves nos. We get people sticking labels on us. We apply for the job. We want it so bad, and we don't know why they didn't see our value, and we don't get it. And we have the person betray us or pull the rug out from under us. And we're so tempted to assign a label label that is disempowering. My favorite way to do this is to replace it with new empowering labels. For example, every time something like that happens to me, I will assign a new label that I believe to be true, whether it was the person that I really wanted to be friends with and they just don't see my value, or the people that don't include me, or the door that closed in my face, or whatever it is, I decide the label is divinement ordered, like my life is divinement orchestrated. And I choose that label and that trust over rejected failure. By the way, Mel, I don't think I've ever shared this before out loud, but in high school, I was voted biggest procrastinator.

Really? The biggest procrastinator in the high school yearbook. And listen, at the time, it was true. You know what I mean? I wanted to hang out with my friends, and I wanted to... I was working for jobs, and so I'd turn in homework late and all these things. If I let that label that people gave me at that time, biggest procrastinator, there right in the yearbook, if I let that take root, I could have never... I could have never, when I had those feelings, when I was a struggling waitress feeling like, Oh, I could launch a business. If I let that label take root, I could have never done it. It's about assigning new labels.

And this is everywhere. I'm thinking people that say, I'm not a morning person, or I'm not smart, or I'm not good with language is, or I'm not great at math, or I could never, or back to-I'm too old.

I'm too young. Got it. My days have passed. No one wants all of it.

I feel like I should just Race out of here and go do something. I'm like, Okay, all right. All right. All right. Go readworthy. If you're a great sermon or emotional motivated, I'm like, Okay, let's go. Let's go. Let's go. But what ever happened to that investor? Did you ever see him again?

Okay, I didn't hear. And by the way, I prayed before this episode. Something that would happen in this room today is exactly for someone listening to us right now. So I love that you feel that way because I feel that way. I cannot wait until people write into the Mel Robbins podcast and share this episode, right? Because we all need to unlearnt these lies that lead to self-doubt. Okay, I did not hear from that potential investor again for six years. The day that we sold our business to L'Oréal, right? Which how wild. I mean, when I was waitressing Denny, saving my tip money. I could have never imagined that this would all happen. I had hoped. I had little feelings. But the day L'Oréal bought our business for $1.2 billion cash, and they were our public company. So it was all over the press. It was the homepage of the Wall Street Journal. That was the first time I heard from him, the one who said, Women won't buy makeup from someone who looks like it. First time I heard from him in six years, and he said, Congratulations on the L'Oréal deal. I was wrong.

No shit. It's funny. I know I've joked with you before about this, that in that moment... I just think for anyone who's seen the movie Pretty Woman, where she goes in the store and they won't help her, and then she comes back later. What I wanted to say to him in that moment was, Big mistake. Huge. I can give you 1.2 billion reasons why. It was a huge mistake. But I kept it classy. I did not say that. I I wouldn't have wanted to be him. And I believe I go into worthy about-But here's the thing.

Here's the thing. If he had said yes, you wouldn't have sold your company for over a billion dollars to L'Oréal, and you wouldn't have been directed on the path you were meant to go. And one of my biggest takeaways always when I I listen to you and I hear your wisdom is that it's easy to look backwards at your life and both go, Thank God it happened that way, or, I now understand how all the dots connect.

Yes.

What you're talking about is the life-changing magic of learning how to be in the present moment, the present day, and trust that the dots will connect, and that your life is directing you toward the lessons or toward the life that you are supposed to be leading. And that if you can get out of this self-doubt, and if you can tee up the lies and the labels that you keep telling yourself that simply aren't freaking true, that you can drop into this deeper knowing, and the deeper knowing can be as simple as, it is going to work out. I am figuring it out. I do know what is right for me.

And I'm worthy of being who I am. I'm worthy of my goals and my dreams. Our self-worth is our ceiling. Our self-worth is our ceiling in every area of life. And it's those lies that I'm so grateful we got to dive into. They create a ceiling for us. They create a ceiling, right? And so unlearning those lies and learning to believe that you are worthy exactly as you are. You are not crazy. You're just first, right? That your past failures do not determine your future successes, right? That if you stand out, you'll get kicked out. If you stand out, that is how you step into alignment with your assignment and the person that you're born to be. So it's like, I'm learning those lies is the greatest way to get on your North Star of who you're born to be and to enjoy the journey. Because when we're living under the belief of all these lies, you cannot be fulfilled. No matter how much you accomplish, you cannot be fulfilled when you don't believe you're enough. You cannot accomplish your way into fulfillment when underneath it all, you don't believe you're enough. You cannot get married and have the kids and get the six-pack abs and do all the things you thought, and then those will make you fulfilled.

They will not make you fulfilled when underneath it all, you do not believe you are worthy or enough. And so that is why this episode is so powerful that you're putting out about unlearning the lies. You are fully worthy. And learning to believe you are and that you are enough, that is what brings fulfillment in your whole life. That's when you, on that path, are able to be fulfilled as you step into all the most beautiful and hard and difficult parts of your life. And last thing I'll say is when you believe you're worthy, you become more fearless and more ambitious, right? Because you know, Oh, I might go for it and fall flat on my face. It might shake my confidence for a little bit, but it cannot touch my self-worth, right? So your self-worth is your ceiling, which is why I'm so passionate about this, because when we don't believe we're enough as we are, we'll either stay stuck, we'll go for things and sabotage them, we'll hit a ceiling, or we'll actually achieve them, but feel empty and like something's missing. So believing you're enough, building your sense of worthiness, it's the key.

I did a lot of things my whole life where I did not feel fulfilled, and I thought something was missing even though I was achieving, and I didn't know why. And it's because deep down inside, I didn't yet believe I was enough. So that is the one thing that will change everything.

Jamie Kerr and Lema. I cherish her friendship.

I love you.

I love your wisdom and how relatable you are. Mel, have you any idea what it's like to hear and read what you're saying, but my mind is still beating me down? I know exactly what that feels like. I know exactly what that feels like, and this is going to be the last question. Thank you. This is one from LinkedIn. And this also goes to another question from LinkedIn, how does one keep the faith if confidence is an issue? This is all tied together because confidence is about your belief in self and your willingness to try new things and your willingness to believe that things are going to work out and your willingness to believe that through your efforts and through your attitude that you can make a difference in things. And I'll tell you, so many of you probably have followed me for a while, or if you're new to following me, you see a 53-year-old woman who's wildly successful, who is outwardly super positive, who's traveling around the world, who's impacting people's lives, who has a best-selling book, blah, blah, blah, blah, But it wasn't until April of 2020, at a very low moment, when I stumbled into this thing I call the high five habit, that I learned the secret to truly loving and accepting myself.

I have been very busy for the last 10 years, changing my life, building a business, clawing our way out of nearly a million dollars in debt, and going on to make more money than I ever thought possible. I have been busy doing the work to build that business, to get into therapy, to work on my trauma, to become a better person. But I never, ever, ever could figure out how to get down to the core issue that was making me unhappy, because it didn't matter what I did, you guys. It was never enough. A 111 speeches a year becoming the most booked female speaker in the world, not enough. The Five Second Rule, self-published, became the number one self-published audiobook in the history of audiobooks, not enough. The Five Second Rule book sold 2 million copies, self-published. It's translated into 36 languages. Not enough. Landing a daytime syndicated talk show, not enough. Celebrating 25 years of marriage, not enough. Why? The reason why I never felt like anything I did was enough. The reason why I never felt like I could ever slow down is because I would look in the mirror and see a woman that was not enough.

I would look in the mirror and focus on the things that I hated about myself. I would look in the mirror and I would laser in on what was wrong. And because I had that habit of being focused on what I hated about myself or judged about myself, guess what? That habit of self-rejection, that habit of focusing on fixing and on negativity, it became my default. I then carried that into my day. So I could barely even see all the amazing things that were going on because I was every morning training my own mind to focus on rejecting something I didn't like. Focus on the things that aren't working. Always feel like it's not enough. And if you stand in the mirror, this makes sense. Your relationship with yourself determines your whole experience of your life, everybody. How you view yourself is the lens through which you view the whole world. Let me show you something. So my lenses are clear. I practice the high five habit, right? I practice the high five habit. The high five habit has broken the habit of self-rejection. The high five habit, high fiving myself in the mirror has reprogrammed the default settings in my mind, raising my hand and making me feel the the celebration, making me feel the optimism and resilience to go play a cool game, the acceptance of where I am, it has fundamentally rewired my mind, everybody.

I don't look in the mirror and see a human being I hate. Do you know how that's changed everything? I see a human being I love and that I'm rooting for. It doesn't mean I'm perfect. It doesn't mean there aren't things every single day that go wrong. But it means that my resting mental state is compassion, support, and encouragement, the foundation of love. And that has fundamentally changed my whole experience of life because I no longer have this grinding sense that something's wrong or grinding hatred of the little things I'm doing wrong. I approach with a sense of optimism, encouragement, and compassion. It's very simple. The high five habit clears your vision. The high five habit allows you to see things as they are and to still accept, support, and encourage yourself. I used to have an experience where I looked at the world with glasses on. When I look through these glasses, everything is shaded through the lens I'm viewing it. Everything looks pink right now. The glasses that I used to wear that filtered the whole world, everybody, was, what am I doing wrong? Everything's my fault. Nothing's ever going to work out for me.

When you have that as a belief, you then look through the world, you look through that filter and it shades everything. Everything's going wrong. Everything's my fault. Nothing works out for me. And And so everything that I experience starts to feel that way. I miss a dentist appointment, everything's wrong. I do everything wrong. Everything's my fault. When you do the high five habit, it's a whole different thing. I miss the dentist appointment, oh, I missed a I missed a dentist appointment. I missed a dentist appointment. It's a fact. But since my mind is clear of all that crap from the past, I literally can look at that and say, Compassion, empathy, understanding, love, support. I missed a dentist appointment, so I reschedule it. I pay the $25 fee. I can go through my life without adding the pound down that comes from years and years and years and years and years and years of telling yourself something negative. The high five habit helps you remove those glasses so you can see things clearly. And you can see yourself. And who you are is a person that deserves support, deserves celebration, deserves empowerment, encouragement. That's who you are.

You are hardwired for love. You are hardwired for inspiration. You are hardwired for growth and connection. And it is high time that you start to see that and celebrate that shit. All right, everybody, I believe in you. Now it's your turn to do the work to start to believing in you, too. If you don't have social proof, that can plummet your self-esteem. What do you mean by social proof?

Social proof tells a student or an adult that you are important in this world. You make a positive impact on the world around you. The idea of mattering, whether it's for students or for people at work or for people who are retired, mattering matters throughout life. Young, old, rich, poor. There is what researchers call an instinct to matter. So beyond food and shelter, it is the instinct to matter that researchers say drive all of human behavior for better or for worse. When we feel like we matter, we show up in the in our world in positive ways. We achieve in healthy ways. We want to give back to society. We want to be a good neighbor. We want to be a great colleague. We want to lift people up because we have this deep core of mattering. When we feel like we don't matter, matter. When we are made to feel marginalized, we can either fall inward, get depressed, anxious, lean on substances to feed our loneliness, or we can act out. So a school shooter is among the most tragic examples. You don't think I matter? I'll show you I matter. This is a universal need that we all have, and we are living in a society where it is going unmet for too many people.

And that, to me, is the driving force behind the loneliness we're feeling, the anxiety that we think we're not worthy, the depression when we feel invisible, when no one cares about us, or when we think no one cares about It sounds like we all have this innate, important, critical need to feel as though we matter in the world at large or to other people, that we have something to contribute.

That that is the core issue that most of us are struggling with, and the symptoms that it's not being met are things like loneliness, despair, feeling angry, anxiety. All of those things rise to the surface when this core need isn't met. I really want to dig deeper and deeper into this, because I think when our audience, which is now in 94 countries, When people write in, I have no friends, I don't know what to do with my life, I believe this is an issue that this person has no social proof that they matter. Can you give us examples of what is social proof that you matter?

In a corporate event, a 30-year-old raised his hand and he said, Sometimes I feel like I don't matter. Is there a mantra I could say to myself to help me put myself in that mattering mindset? And I said, No. I said, Here's what you need to do. You need to go down to your cafeteria and you need to smile at the cafeteria lady who always smiles at you and asks you how your day is going. And you need to say to her, These days have been a little rough for me, but knowing that you're going to be there greeting me with this delicious meal, making me smile. You brighten my day every day. I just want you to know that. Unlocking the mattering in other people feeds our own mattering. So instead of a mantra, better to go out and be kind and caring to the person at the drug store who's ringing up, who's probably being attacked day in and day out for not moving fast enough or not. And just thanking them, just thanking everyday people, thanking a friend who's been there for you. Just a quick text. Mattering is felt in big moments, right?

When we are celebrating a milestone birthday and somebody gives a toast to us and tells us why we matter to them. But it's also found in little everyday moments, too, in those little moments of mattering or not mattering pile up. I just remember distinctly, I was at an office party with my husband, and a guy guy was talking to me, but on his phone and texting the entire conversation. And I thought to myself, wow, I really don't matter here. I really don't matter to this guy. He wasn't being rude to me. He was just showing me, yeah, you don't matter as much as this phone. So when our kids come up to talk to us and we're scrolling or we're doing a work email, they can be getting those small signals of not mattering like I got at that office party.

You recommend When kids come home from school, that there's one question that you ask that shows that you matter. What is that question?

I lead with lunch.

What does that mean?

What I used to do before researching this book is my kids would come home and I'd be thinking, How'd you do on the Spanish quiz? How'd it go on your report today? And what I realized in doing the research was that the signal I was sending my kids, one, was that achievement mattered. Two, This is what I've been thinking about all day while they were in school. And so instead, now, when they walk in the door, I lead with lunch. I ask them, What do you have for lunch today? I got that idea because my grandmother, in every conversation I would have with her, she's since passed away. It would always be, What did you have for lunch? It was, I care about you. I care about your nourishment. I care about things that have nothing to do with how you look, what grade you got, how your career is going. I just care about you and your basic needs.

What did you see change in the dialog with your kids when you started asking about lunch instead of the Spanish test?

Well, first of all, what I have realized and what the research shows is my kids don't need me to ask about their Spanish test. They already are getting the signals everywhere that achievement matters so much. So what I've realized is that my home needs to be a place for kids to recover, for my teens to recover from the pressure they're feeling from their peers, from their peers' parents, from teachers, from the college admissions process. My home needs to be a haven from that pressure. So I don't need to ask about their Spanish quiz because they're going to tell me. It's already on their minds.

So is the same true when your partner comes home from work or your roommates come home from work? How do you signal that they matter to you? What's the question that you ask?

I think, what was the best part of your day? I think it What mattering to me is that I value for who you are at your core. It is not contingent on your performance. It's not contingent on how you look that day. It's not contingent on how many dates you're going on. You matter no matter what. Unconditioned traditional mattering, and we need to be a source of unlocking it in other people.

And if you want to build your own self-esteem, put your attention on other people and unlock it in them. Make eye contact, smile, point out what you appreciate the people are doing for you. Thank people, compliment their nails. It's so easy to do, and not enough of us are doing it. And you do get back this reciprocal exchange of energy that makes you feel important because you just made somebody else smile or you just made somebody else light up when you said their name. There was a Gallup study that was done that I found to be shocking, that something like 80% of people haven't been told by their boss that they're appreciated in the last year. Not single acknowledgement that what you do here matters, and I appreciate you for doing it. And that, to me, is stunning, except for the fact that the same research showed, if I recall correctly, that most people assume You know how I feel about you. And that's the huge mistake that we're all making, that we assume that our kids know that we love them, but we never say that, that we put our attention on other things, like the Spanish test, which then cues to somebody, that's what she cares about.

That's all that she cares about. She's really happy when the team wins. She's not so happy when we don't. And so I think what you're revealing is this real thing win veil that separates us from one another that we don't realize we need to have to get super, super proactive about.

One of the reasons that people, research finds this, that we don't tell people much they mean to us and how much we appreciate them is because we think they're going to be embarrassed by our feedback.

Really?

Yeah. There's a research on gratitude about why people don't express their gratitude because they underestimate how the other person will receive it, and sometimes they think they'll embarrass the other person. But the research does not bear that out. So just to clear up any misconceptions.

You just said that 80 plus % of parents believe that if your kid is doing poorly on a test or gets bad grades, it is a reflection on your parenting. But you've got this amazing reframe. What does a bad grade mean?

Yes, I got this wonderful advice from a child psychologist, Lisa Demour, and I have used it in my own home as well. So when a child brings home a bad grade, instead of dismissing it or saying that's okay, help them widen their perspective. Here's what a bad grade on a one-off test tells you. It tells you that that's what you knew that specific day. It doesn't mean how much your teacher loves you. It doesn't mean how well you're going to do in the future. It doesn't define who you are as a student. It's one test on one particular day, and we all have bad days.

I love that. 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.