So, the high five habit, I can see why you and I enjoy and admire each other's work so much. Because both the five second rule and the high five habit number one do help you clean up the mess. And ironically, I discovered both of them, not because I was researching anything, but because I had dug a hole or I'd fallen into one in my life, and I needed to manufacture a ladder out of thin air in order to climb out of the hole that I was in. So, my brand and version of personal development, whether it's good or bad, it typically involves me hitting a wall or falling into a hole and having to figure a mess out, clean up the mess. And it's in the cleaning up of the mess or the living through the mess or the standing in the mess, that I discover small, simple things that help me move through it, clean it up, learn from it. And so the high five habit is this very simple thing that, on its face, seems absurdly stupid. And it is just this. I want you to start every morning by adding a high five in the mirror to your morning routine.

And what happens when you start to add a high five in the mirror to yourself as part of your morning routine is it absolutely breaks apart decades of subconscious programming in your mind, body, and spirit. It helps your brain, in particular, create new programming that impacts how you see yourself, how you see what you're capable of, what you think you're worthy of. And the most exciting thing about this high five habit is that you're not actually learning anything new, because what I believe you're doing, and you'll be able to kind of help us understand this, is, I believe that you're taking this neural association that you have with a high five and high fiving other people, and you are unlocking all of that lifetime of positive programming that's already in your brain and already in your nervous system, and you are aiming it back at yourself. And what that does is it changes the way you see yourself. It changes the way you treat yourself. It changes the way you feel about yourself. It changes your mood. It is just extraordinary. And I believe, you know, the book's only been out for three weeks, and I believe that we are just scratching at the surface of what this can actually do for people.

And what we've already learned is extraordinary.

I totally agree with everything that you say, and I'm thrilled that you are opening, helping to open a new way of us looking at ourselves. Because a couple of things that you say in the book that I mean, I just keep going through and saying, wow, this, this lady really knows what she's talking about. You've really seen the inside from, from the other side. And it's very often, Mel, you've probably heard this. It's very often when you're just outside of a paradigm that you shift a paradigm. And, you know, that's, you say you're not a PhD and you're not a this and that, but you're looking in on humanity and on life. And the so called experts on humanity and life are so immersed and stuck in the stuff, you don't always see the stuff. And I've also come at my field from a similar angle. You know, I'm a clinical neuroscientist and communication pathologist, and I've had all the training in psychology, but I've had it from a medical perspective and a science perspective. So it's kind of a angle looking in. And I feel. I kind of almost feel this. I feel an affinity because you look at things differently and sometimes it takes a little bit of time for people to actually catch on and they haven't with a high five, which is amazing.

But what I think is people are already prepared. You make a comment as well in the book about this is not positive psychology. And that's why. Okay, I really like you even more because when you said that, I mean, I really did like you thought this is. You got this. Because we can't just do what you already said. You wake up feeling awful. Okay, I'm going to say my ten gratitude statements. You know, your whole non conscious mind and subconscious, and we can talk about that in unpacking everything. To understand as we go along is not going to believe you or accept you. You know, there's a few principles, so just the positive psychology aspect. You can't just say it and think it's going to go away. You have to do something. And there's something in that action and that celebratory action. You explain that high five concept, what it does so beautifully. So can you explain that? What should you have a beautiful way of saying what it actually does and how. I don't want to take your words. Let's start with that, because I think that's a really good place to start. Why does something as simple as this in the mirror do what it does for you?

I think there's a number of reasons. So I think the most exciting reason why high fiving yourself in the mirror has such a profound and lasting change inside you is because the programming associated with the high five gesture is already in your subconscious mind, and it's already programmed into your nervous system as an act of celebration. There has not been a single moment in your entire life that you have raised your hand to high five somebody and thought, I hate you, or I hope you lose, or you're unworthy. The high five. Whether you're watching a sports team and teammates do it to one another or you're watching a teacher do it to a kid, or you're watching somebody else do it or you're receiving it or you're giving it, a high five has only ever meant, I see you. I believe in you. I love you. We got this. One of the other things that I love about high fives is that when you. When somebody's going through a challenging time. So, in sports, if somebody blows a big play, a pep talk doesn't pick somebody up, but there's something about the energetic transfer between two people.

When you raise your hand to high five somebody that says, shake it off, I get that you just struggled. I get that you just blew it. I get that you just failed. But I still believe in you, and I still got you. And so, particularly in moments of struggle, challenge, isolation, a high five is more than a gesture. It is an affirmation of your deepest, most fundamental emotional needs and all of that stored in your brain. And so when you talk about this from the standpoint of habits and that there's a trigger and a pattern repeated and there's a reward. The trigger for a high five is literally raising your hand and starting it. The second you go to raise your hand and start the high five, it doesn't matter what's happening in your life. It doesn't matter how much you hate your reflection or where you are, your brain recognizes that physical trigger. It grabs all of the patterns associated with it in the subconscious mind, and it starts running on repeat, you get a drip of dopamine. The reward is the drip of dopamine, which is why people always feel a boost in their mood.

A lot of people laugh. Some people cry as they do it. There's the dopamine working. The other thing that people feel is they feel sort of an immediate flip in terms of, like, a flip of energy. It's not like you're like, uh, but you feel like a little, like, kind of lift. And that's your nervous system. Your nervous system is hardwired for celebration. Instinctually, human beings, when they cross a finish line, raise their hands instinctually. When your favorite team stores scores or your favorite band walks on stage, we raise our hands. Instinctually, when we see somebody in just about any culture, we tend to raise our hands. However it is to greet somebody. We raise our hands to hug somebody. You also raise your hands to high five somebody. So your nervous system recognizes this gesture as energizing in a positive way. And so you can be at the lowest moment, which I was when I gave myself a high five, I was just at a moment in my life. It was April 2020. There was a tremendous amount going on. I felt completely overwhelmed by the demands of my business, by the crisis my kids were going through with the packed debt, with the backdrop of the pandemic.

And we've all had that feeling where you wake up and you just feel defeated. That was me. And as I'm standing there in the bathroom, this is where I want to start to unpack this with you, because I think there's so many pieces to this simple high five habit. And by so many pieces, what I want to unpack for everybody is there are a number of things that you are currently doing that are part of your morning routine that I believe most people don't even realize they are doing. And the high five habit breaks these very destructive habits that you have that you don't even realize that you have. And it will do it in about 5 seconds flat. And so let me unpack the destructive habit. So as I'm standing there, April 2020, and I'm brushing my teeth, all of a sudden, I catch my reflection in the mirror, and my first thought is, oh, my God, you look like hell. And then all of a sudden, I start focusing on all the things that are wrong with me or all the things I want to fix, from the dark circles under my eyes to the saggy neck to one boob hanging lower than the other.

And then, of course, once you start this habit, and I'm going to call it a habit because it runs on repeat, it is a habit of self rejection. And as you start to reject yourself, and we do it in two ways, based on our research with, you know, the millions of people that follow us and now hundreds of thousands of people around the world that are practicing the high five habit, we know more than 50% of men and women cannot or will not look at themselves in the mirror. That the level of either disgust or judgment or shame or regret or unhappiness with either what you look like or where you are in life has the majority of men and women not even look at themselves in their. They avoid themselves subconsciously. It's running on autopilot. It is a habit of self rejection that is part of your morning routine. And if you can look at yourself, what you do on default is focus on what you don't like about yourself. Again, another version of this habit of self rejection that begins your day. And when you begin your day by picking yourself apart or ignoring, not looking at yourself, your mind then drifts into cataloging all the things that are also wrong that you're not doing.

Like, that morning. As I'm like, ugh. I then start going, why'd I get up so late?

I need to get up earlier.

I've got a Zoom call in eight minutes. You know, why didn't you respond to Carolyn? Like, the beat down begins more rejection, more criticism. And it's so casual. And so I believe this is a huge statement, but I believe that a human being can, by using the high five habit to break that habit of self rejection in the morning, can create a bigger habit of self acceptance that will help you feel more secure in who you are. It will help you break the cycle of people pleasing, of seeking validation outside yourself. And it will help you learn how to bring your confidence, your self worth, your self awareness, and your self acceptance back in house. And that by simply making it a habit to stop down the self rejection and look at yourself in the mirror for just a second and see a human being, because this is the other thing. I don't think that's your reflection. I had this huge epiphany as I've been practicing the high five habit, and that is, that is not your reflection. I want you to consider that you're not alone in the bathroom every morning. I want you to consider that there's a human being in the mirror, a human being who's trying very hard, a human being who needs being that feels so beaten down by the constant criticism and negativity that you're throwing at them.

You know, let's leverage a little bit of the power of objectivity here and ask yourself, you know, every morning as I, when I get done brushing my teeth, I put my toothbrush down because we're going to stack this new habit with the old habit of brushing my teeth. We're going to get the gunk out of my mouth so I don't spread dragon breath all day. Now, I want you to get the gunk out of your mind, body, and spirit of so you don't drag that self rejection into your day. That self criticism that's become your default into your day. And then I stare at the woman in the mirror, and I ask myself, what does she need from me today? And some days the answer is, girl, I just need you to have some fun, for crying out loud, you're working too much. And some days it's, I need you to be a little bit more courageous and tough with the conversations that you need to have. Some days it's, I need you to be kinder to me. I need you to eat better today. And sort of this moment of intentional reflection about the game I'm going to go play in life.

And then I just raise my hand and I seal the intention with the woman I see in the mirror. I create this partnership with myself. It's so beautiful. And one of the coolest things about this is, you know, I, especially using the five second rule, which we can.

Talk about a little bit later, but.

I've become wildly successful. And even though I have been wildly successful, using the five second rule, changing my habits, I've become a person that can basically take action. I can push through anything. We can teach you how to do that, too. But what the five second rule and counting backwards, 54321. To push yourself through procrastination, fear, or anxiety. Get things done. It got a lot of things done. It changed my life. It's turned me into a rock star businesswoman. It's created more success than I ever thought possible, but it did not address the actual problem. And the actual problem was a deep self hatred and a deep sense of unworthiness that for decades, decades, I would look in the mirror and see somebody that was not enough, that was not doing things right. I was relentlessly focused on what was wrong, and it robbed me of so much joy, contentment, motivation, inspiration, of being present and what's happened. Practicing the high five habit for me personally, because I think as extraordinary as the five second rule has been in transforming people's lives, I think this is a thousand times more powerful, because what's happened is it has completely reset my brain.

I don't even see my face anymore. I see my soul. I see a human being I love. That doesn't mean I'm perfect. It doesn't mean that I don't screw up. It doesn't mean I don't have bad days. But just like when you look upon a child in your life or your dog or your cat, somebody you love unconditionally, I would never look at my daughter and obsess about what I hate about her. I now gaze upon myself and see a human being I'm rooting for. And that has changed who I am. It changes my experience of life at such a profound level. It has healed so much in my body, my mind, and my spirit. And that is what is available to you when you start incorporating this simple act of self acceptance, of self compassion, of self support, and you add it into your morning routine every single day.

This is a really profound moment in my life and a major turning point. And, you know, it's not a pandemic moment, but in order to kind of give you the backdrop of what was going on in my life, and given that at the time that you and I are talking, we're still in the middle of a pandemic, I'll just tell you what was going on in my life, at least to the extent I can, based on what the lawyers tell me. No, I'm just kidding.

Hi.

I had been. Everybody knows the moment that their life turned upside down because of COVID Whether you got news that the office was closing or you couldn't go see your grandmom or dad or you were quarantined with your kids and they were in a state of distress, there was that moment. And for me, what happened is I was taping a daytime talk show here in the United States, and they found Covid at the CB's broadcast center in New York, and they walked into the taping room and said, you need to evacuate the building. And within five minutes notice, Fern, my show was canceled. I was fired from what had always been a dream job of mine. I grew up coming home from school. My mom would have Oprah Winfrey or Donahue on here in the United States, and I always wanted to do that and to help people doing it. And so five minutes. Grab everything you can that's not nailed down, run out the door, don't even say goodbye to the 130 people I've worked with for a year. I get in the cardinal, start driving to Boston. I see the New York City skyline disappearing in the rearview mirror.

And, you know, Boston, Massachusetts, is where my husband and I live. And then the phone calls start coming in. My daughter's in college in California. They're closing school. What's happening? What's happening? My other daughter's in Spain. You know, I can't get a flight, and the whole world starts to close down. And we all felt it. So I get home, and those first three weeks were basically a blur of alcohol and living in my pajamas and watching Harry Potter. No kidding. On repeat with the kids. There were aspects of it that were fun. But what happened in those three weeks is I lost my dream job, my book publisher canceled my book and then told me I had to return the money they had given us, money I'd already spent. Every speech I had for a year started to cancel. And I started to get flashbacks to a moment in my life when my husband and I were nearly a million dollars in debt. This was 13 years ago. This is sort of my origin story. We were about to lose everything. And that's when I invented this thing called the five second rule. But I started having these flashbacks.

We are fucked. Like, this is happening again. Are you kidding me? I'm 52 years old. I've got to reinvent my fricking life again. And one morning I wake up and I use the five second rule. You count backwards. 54321. And I get out of bed and the anxiety is thumping through me and I make my bed and I drag myself to the bathroom and I'm standing there brushing my teeth in my underwear and I catch a glimpse of my reflection in the mirror and I think, oh my God, you look like hell. I had these dark circles under my eyes and my gray hair was coming in and I looked haggard and tired. You know, I actually felt sorry for the woman I saw reflected back in the mirror because I could tell she had the weight of the world on her shoulders. She was worried about her kids who were grieving and anxious and distressed. She was worried about herself, her employees. She was worried about the world and the frontline workers and her parents and her business and everything. And as soon as your thoughts go negative, it's like lint catching in a dryer.

More and more and more negativity builds. And so then I started thinking about the day and who doesn't start their day by going, I'm late. I forgot to do the text, today is going to suck. And then I look at my feet and there's my dog and he still needs to be walked and I need to be on a Zoom call in 8th minutes. And I just looked like bloody hell. And I, and I'm starting to feel heavier and heavier. And you know what's interesting, Fern, is if you had walked into the bathroom in that moment, I would have been able to spin on a dime and be like, come on, Fern, you got this. You're awesome. I know this sucks, but come on, let's just take it one step at a time. You can face this. But standing there with myself alone in my underwear, one boob hanging lower than the other, like, I, I couldn't think of anything to say because I didn't feel confident. I didn't feel optimistic. I didn't feel like I could handle what was happening. And as cheesy as it sounds, standing there without a brawn, I found myself just raising my hand and high fiving the woman I saw in the mirror.

Now here's what's interesting. Almost immediately I felt my shoulders drop. I chuckled because it's so stupid and cheesy to high five yourself in the mirror. And it didn't disappear, the problems, it didn't change all the stuff I was dealing with. But something inside of me changed. I felt this sense of, okay, I know this sucks. Pick your chin up, Melanin, you got this. Come on. And I sent myself into the day. Now, it was the second day that something really interesting happened. Because what happened on the second day is when I woke up, I immediately thought about that. High five. I 54321 got out of bed, I made my bed. And as I was walking toward the bathroom I felt something I'd never felt my entire life. And I'm going to explain it this way. You know, when you're about to go see a friend, you're going to grab a cup of tea or a cup of coffee or something and you're about to walk into that cafe and you feel this sense of excitement that you're going to see somebody you like. And, you know, I felt that as I was sitting, you know, kind of waiting for us to connect, I was so excited to talk to you.

As I walked into that bathroom, I felt this sense that I was about to see somebody that I like now. I'm going to be 53 years old this year. I think for the first 45 years of my life, I have either criticized the woman I've seen in the mirror or I have ignored her. I have looked forward to seeing outfits that I'm wearing or makeup that I've put on. I have never looked forward to seeing myself.

No, I haven't. I mean, it's, there's an awkwardness. There's a real awkwardness about. Because when I was reading this section of your book, I was like, why have I never seen myself in the mirror? I've looked at myself. I've gone, oh, there's, that's what I don't like about it and there's that. And I can improve that with some eyeliner, whatever, but I've never seen myself. And the beauty of that moment you've just described is seeing yourself was a moment where you hijacked the usual judgment that is just so omnipresent. We don't even think about it. It's just there. The time when any of us look in the mirror, we go straight to the points we don't like, but you bypass that to empathy. And that is so rare that we look at ourselves with compassion and that we go, because, you know, the high five habit isn't going like, yeah, you're amazing. You rock. It's. I see you. This is really hard.

I get that.

It's really hard, and it's okay. It's okay to find it hard.

Yes.

But we don't look at ourselves in the mirror like that. Like, I tried after reading the book and I was like, this is so fucking weird. I'm looking at myself. It's really awkward, this. What is that awkwardness?

Oh, okay. This is so sad. Okay. This is really sad. So, you know, I'm going to tell everybody right now, you have to do this five mornings in a row because you will feel resistance and you'll feel exactly what Fern's talking about. You'll feel this awkwardness and this weirdness and this tremendous sense of discomfort. And I want to unpack this on multiple levels because what that resistance represents is so profoundly sad. And this is what the enormous opportunity is when you start to practice habits of encouragement, of empowerment, of self love and self celebration. So first things first. None of us have ever been taught how to truly see ourselves, support ourselves, love ourselves and be kind to ourselves. We have not. We have encouraged our children to do that. We do it for them. But at some point, you stop listening to your parents and you start criticizing yourself. And so first things first. It's weird and awkward because you've never been taught how to do this. So it's not a habit of. Your habit is the exact opposite. And as we know, whether you are trying to create a new habit of eating healthy or not drinking so much or knocking off the caffeine or getting out of bed early, you resist it and it feels weird because it's new.

So that's reason number one. But that's not the sad reason. That's the scientific reason, the real reason why you cannot stand in front of the mirror and be with yourself where you are, how you're feeling in this exact moment of your life is because you drag your entire past to that moment. Everything that you regret, everything that you're disappointed about, everything that you have survived, the abuse, the trauma, the confusion, the heartbreak, all of your hopes and dreams that have not been realized yet, they are with you in that moment. You do not see a person who is trying you do not see a person who is worthy of celebration because of what you have survived in your life. You see somebody who is damaged because of that. You see somebody who is a failure because you're not where you're supposed to be. You see all of the things that you're not instead of all of the things that you are. And so that resistance and that weirdness and that judgment is actually rejection. It is judgment. It is disappointment. And here's the next layer of this. And this is why this habit, while cheesy on its face, I think is the most powerful thing that you could possibly do in your life in terms of adopting a new behavior.

We have made the mistake as human beings of believing that you are only worthy of celebration and support when you achieve something that is worthy of celebration and support. So here you are, standing with yourself every morning in judgment. The scale doesn't have the number on it that it needs to be. My bank account isn't where it needs to be. My relationship isn't where it needs to be. My career isn't where it needs to be. My mental health isn't where it needs to be. And you stand there and judge that, and then you go cross your arms and go, well, I'm not going to cheer for that person until they get there. I'm going to just stand there and judge you. So get out there, you loser, and see if you can lose that weight. Like, it's literally insane. If you watch the marathon in London and those racers are running by, even Brits aren't standing there with their arms crossed going, bloody hell, you suck. I'm not clapping for your ass until you cross the finish line. No, you, like, clap and you cheer people every step of the way. Your life is a marathon, and you have outsourced the single most motivational and important thing that you need to other people.

You're waiting for your spouse or your kids or your parents or your colleagues or your friends or your boss to cheer for you and to validate you. I'm sitting here telling you, you have to learn how to validate yourself and hear for yourself where you are right now, or you're not going to get where you're meant to go.

No, because, you know, that's what we've been, I guess, more recently taught with social media, or certainly encouraged that unless there's outside validation, you do not exist. Which is a terrifying thought, because if you are solely relying on our exterior validation, then when it eventually dissipates or there's a break in it, you're free falling. What are you going to do? So that is a huge problem. But going back one layer, looking at all the judgment and all the past that we lug around, because I recognize that in myself. I'll look in the mirror and I'll conflate my own thoughts about myself with other words spoken from people I've met along the way or strangers, whatever it might be. And I am pulling that along in a massive sledge behind me every morning. How do we. Because everyone's got that. And I'm thinking people at home are going to be like, yeah, yeah, I have that. But how are we moving past that? How are we not bringing our whole past and our lump of regret with us each morning? How do we move on? Because, you know, I know, obviously, sometimes with tricky situations in life, you might have had good intent, but others have still judged you or you've ended up in a tricky spot.

But there will still be times in our past where we acted without good intent. And we know that we did something out of jealousy or cruelty or whatever it might be of just feeling angry about our own lives. So how do we let that go when we know that good intent wasn't anywhere near that situation? How the hell are we stepping over that massive pile of crap?

Well, you know, I think that, look, I think especially your listeners know that you act out in pain because you didn't know any other way to cope. And so when you can bring empathy and understanding to what happened to you, you can start to understand the behavior. And it's only when you understand the behavior from the past that you can spot it and you can catch it and you can change it, because patterns of behavior repeat unless you break them and replace them. And so one of the reasons why this high five habit, and it's just one of a bazillion habits in this book that we can talk about to address this question, one of the reasons why high fiving your reflection in the mirror works is because you don't have to think anything. This is the genius of it. So, you know, when it started to work for me and then I, of course, put a photo on social media, on my story, and within our hundred people, men, women, children around the world were high fiving and tagging themselves, I thought, okay, whoa, first of all, I'm not the only one who's feeling like the world on my shoulders.

Okay, that's reassuring. And secondly, maybe this thing isn't that cheesy after all. And so I've spent the last year researching this and so first, let me explain in addressing your question about how do you get your mind to stop going down the road of beating the shit out of yourself for all the stuff that you did when you were just trying to survive, because that's what you were trying to do. You were just trying to survive. And I have been startled. Fearne, you know, I was molested when I was in the fourth grade, and it was a one time incident. I woke up in the middle of the night at a big family thing with lots of different families. And all the kids were in one room, and there was an older kid on top of me. It is that moment that my anxiety began. I literally had a fight or flight response, which is all that anxiety is. Anxiety in your body is just an alarm bell going off when your nervous system goes into a sympathetic or an on edge alarm state. I possumed, I disassociated. I literally left my body. That next morning, I woke up knowing that something was wrong, knowing that something bad had happened.

And in that moment, my nervous system was still on alarm. And when I walked downstairs that morning, my mom was cooking breakfast. The kids were all over the kitchen, lots of other moms around. And my mom turned to me and said, how'd you sleep, honey? And I froze. And I froze because the kid was sitting at the kitchen table. Now, I knew if I said something, my mother, she's a farm galae. She grew up on a cattle farm. She would literally take that spatula and hit him in the next week. Like, there was no concern about my mom. I was concerned about what this person would do. And so my nervous system, in that moment, got hardwired to be on edge, to be worried about how people react. And I have lived in that state for literally ever since 45 years. And so one of the things that happens, we're going to talk about our nervous system, because there's also a high five you can do to your heart that is profound for any kind of anxiety or trauma that you may be feeling. And we're going to explain that in a minute. But first, I want to explain what some of the world's leading neuroscientists have said about why the high five habit works.

When you go to raise your hand in the mirror, and this is how you're going to do it, you can do it right after you listen to this. You can do it tomorrow morning. What I want you to do to make it a habit, first of all, is I want you to do it right after you brush your teeth, hopefully we're all brushing our teeth every day. It's a really good habit to have when you put your toothbrush down, like, right on the counter. Now we're going to practice the high five. You're going to take a minute, and you're just going to look at yourself, and I want you to. In that moment, I want you to set an intention.

And the reason why I want you.

To set an intention as you're with yourself is because there is new research out of Harvard that shows that if you take just a minute in the morning and you think about how you're going to show up today and who you're going to be, and more importantly, what actually matters to you, what game do you want to play that you want to make progress on? Not complete, not win at? Just what's one thing you want to inch forward? And how do you need to show up today to really engage in that game that matters to you? It could be something personal, could be something at work. It doesn't matter with your kids. And then once you have that in.

Your mind, you're going to raise your.

Hand and you're going to high five yourself. And, yes, it will feel weird, yes, it will feel awkward. But I'm going to tell you what's not going to happen. It is neurologically and scientifically impossible to raise your hand and high five your reflection and think, gosh, you suck. Boy, you're ugly. Your chin's really pointy. Your jowls, Mel, are starting to look like saddlebags on a pack mule. Like, you can't think those things.

You just can't.

And here's why. You have spent your lifetime high fiving other people or raising your hands in celebration with other people. You've done it so many times that the gesture of high fiving, even by just seeing other people do it in sports matches, it's already encoded. Like Fearne, what is? When somebody high fives you, what are they saying to you?

Well, I think they're celebrating you on a subconscious level and saying, I see you. Hey. And I think what I'm realizing as you're talking is, this is so obvious to say, but it's just hit me, is that we're not to underestimate habits. Because I think some of the time we're sat there waiting for, quite frankly, an epiphany, there's going to be this moment where I really like myself, or if I get the job, the partner, the thing, then I'm going to like myself. We've got to do the habit bit first to get anywhere near that. And we are all relying on some miraculous. Maybe it's because we, we've been sort of indoctrinated over the years of like, the big reality tv shows where, you know, all of a sudden you're celebrated and you look amazing and you're on tv and everyone's cheering at you, and I'm going to have that moment. It's going to happen down the line. This is a habit. This is, like you say, cleaning your bloody teeth. This is a habit we have to do every day. And it's as much as sort of changing your habit is. Can be tiresome.

Once you're in a habit, you don't even know you're doing it. I don't think I'm washing my teeth. You're just doing it so we can't underestimate habit here.

Yes, and by the way, you already have a habit that we're trying to break, which is you have a habit of ignoring or criticizing yourself, just like you're cleaning your teeth. We got to clean your mind of all that bullshit you've been saying for a while.

That's empowering. Because often we believe it, we think, well, I am just a piece of shit, but it's empowering to know, no, that is a habit that I go to that I think I'm a piece of shit when XYZ happens. It's not true. That also is a habit. Empowering. Both things. Empowering.

Exactly. Exactly. And you have friends that have done piece of shit things in their lives. And you can understand that they did that. They drank, they were addicted, they cheated on people. Whatever they did, they were a bloody asshole. But you can now see that they're trying. You can now see that they're changing and they're working hard and you can love them through it. I'm here to tell you, you have to make a habit of doing this for yourself every day. And you just said this thing about, I'll be happy when I get that job or I lose that weight. The problem with attaching your happiness and your validation and your support to achieving something is once you achieve it, you are stuck with the old habit of still hating yourself. And you're now going to need to find something else to achieve in order to prove that you're worthy of it again. You see, I've been an overachiever my whole life because I've equated achieving with being worth something. And when you are an overachiever and you think it's only when you're achieving something that you are worth loving or celebrating, you will be a jealous motherfucker, because everybody else that's succeeding is now competing with you for the love and for the worth that you want.

And when you start to actually give yourself the love and the self validation that you need, even when you're failing, especially when moments are hard, when you're telling yourself, okay, Rex was an asshole to me last night, and I feel.

Like a terrible mother. And you stand there, fear, and you're like, you know what?

Today. Today I'm just going to show up, and I'm going to be compassionate and patient, both with him and with myself. And you raise your hand, and you high five yourself. What you're doing in that moment is you're shutting down the criticism. It's an act of defiance to that beat down that you've been giving yourself. And because this is the coolest part, everybody. Because you've been high fiving everybody else and watching everybody else do it, all the messaging. I believe you. I love you. We got this. You know, you give a teammate a high five or a kid a high five when their attitude is sinking, to basically say, I get it, it's hard. You blew it. But guess what? Pick back up. We're going in.

Come on.

We got this.

I got your back.

You're not alone here. So it communicates all of that. It's already in your subconscious. When you go to raise your hand, two things happen. First of all, your nervous system recognizes the raised hand as a celebratory action. And so as you start to repeat this habit, it will start to give you a jolt of energy. This research comes from doctor Daniel. Amen. Who is this world's leading neuroscientist. He also said that the act of high fiving gives you a drip of dopamine. So if you do this for more than five days and you start to push through the awkwardness and you start to push through how weird it feels, because it's a new habit. And because you're basically silencing judgment, you're going to feel your mood boost because your brain is releasing dopamine, because of the subconscious programming associated with high fiving. And that's not all. This is really cool. So I know you have a lot of parents that listen, and you need to. I know you've already read the study, but if you'll allow me, I want to unpack this because this is mind blowing. So, there was a study that they did with kids, right, where they wanted to know what's the best way to motivate a human being through a really challenging situation.

And we're all going through a really challenging situation right now with how overwhelming the world is. And they said, we're going to divide kids into three groups. And group number one, we're going to give these kids a very challenging bunch of homework to work through super hard, and we're going to do that for all three groups. So these poor kids are toiling away at this challenging stuff. And group number one, the encouragement that they gave these kids was based on the growth and the fixed mindset research from doctor Carol Dweck. And what we know about this is that the fixed growth praise is basically walking up to somebody and complimenting them about something about them. Hey, you're really smart. Hey, you're a good student. Hey, you know, I love the sweater that you're wearing. Keep on going. Yeah, that's sort of motivating because somebody sees you. The next group got the growth mindset type of praise, which is basically to tell somebody that they're doing a good job, working hard. And what we know based on research is when you reward somebody or praise them for their hard work, you feel empowered because you can control your hard work.

So you work a little harder. And sure enough, these kids in this second group, Fern, who were told you're working really hard, keep going. Oh, I love your perseverance. They worked a lot harder than the kids that were told they were smart. But check this out. The third group, the researchers didn't say a word to them. Not a word. These kids simply had a researcher walk up to them and high five them. That's it. Those kids who got a high five outworked, had more confidence, had better results, felt better about themselves than the other two groups combined. And the answer is why? And the reason is, based on psychology. We all have fundamental emotional needs, to be seen, to be heard, and to be loved and celebrated for the unique human being that we are. When those needs of being seen, heard and celebrated are met, you feel affirmed, you feel confident, you feel whole. When those needs are not being met, you feel rejected, you feel invisible, you feel disconnected and lost. So a simple high five was affirming that those researchers saw, wow, you're working really hard. Wow, I hear you. You're struggling with this.

And wow, I'm going to celebrate you right here in this moment for who you are and how you're showing up and how you're going through. And I'm here to tell you, simply doing this for yourself. Every single morning and making it a habit and teaching it to your kids. It empowers you in a way that is hard to describe, because for the first time in your life, you are giving yourself what you have been seeking from other people.

I'm on a mission to get every human being in the world to add one simple thing to their morning routine, and it is called the high five habit. And here's what it is. Every morning, after you brush your teeth and you get that gunk out of your mouth so you're not spreading that nasty breath everywhere. Okay? I want you to take a moment, put your toothbrush down, and look at the human being in the mirror. That's not your reflection. That is a human being who needs you. A human being who's beaten down, who feels forgotten, who is so sick and tired of your criticism. And I want you to just stand there and look at them and take a moment, because the rest of your day is going to be about everybody else. And then I don't want you to say a thing. This is the genius of this habit. You can be on your lowest morning, which I was when I. Again, divine intervention or stupidity. You can be the judge. Right? It was April 2020, and I was having a moment in my life where I just felt overwhelmed by life. I was waking up.

The anxiety had come back. I felt like life was unfair. I had lost my dream job. We were in the middle of the pandemic. My kids were in a state of huge grief and anger and frustration because university, you know, it closed, and, you know, now they're dealing with it. I had a bunch of speed. Like, all of a sudden, my business is imploding. And, you know, don't forget, just over ten years ago, I was in a crisis financially, where my husband and I were about to lose every. We couldn't even pay for groceries. My dad was lending us money.

Yeah.

And so it was triggering all of that. And I was thinking this, like, what the. I've worked so hard. I'm a good person. Like, how could you be doing this to me? Like, I don't deserve. Like, just.

And you were pretty successful at that point already, right?

Yeah. Successful. I was the number one motivational female motivational speaker in the world. I had a daytime syndicated talk show in the United States, so 175 shows a year, giving advice. I, you know, had the five second rule book, which was self published and a huge millions of copies sold.

But I think that's the powerful thing about this story. Even with all that success, you were still racked with self doubt and anxiety.

And negative thoughts, because I hadn't had the biggest breakthrough of my entire life yet, and I had it one morning in April of 2020. You see, the five second rule is extraordinary, but it doesn't address what I believe is everybody's fundamental issue. And everybody's fundamental issue is that you either hate yourself or you do nothing but judge yourself. And this habit of relentless self criticism and relentless self rejection is the reason why you're unhappy. It's the reason why you're never satisfied. It's the reason why you can't take a compliment and why you're uncomfortable feeling celebrated. And it all comes down to the fact that when you stand in front of the mirror every single morning, you have this really subtle way that's not so subtle, of starting your day by rejecting yourself. And I'm going to unpack this because it's unbelievably powerful when you start to truly understand this, because if you can't look in the mirror and authentically see a human being that you respect, that you encourage, that you like, that you're cheering for, I'm going to even leave love off the table because I think that is so unattainable for where people are right now.

Let's just go with, can you accept yourself? Can you like yourself? Can you see a person that's worthy support, worthy of your encouragement? Can we just start with that baseline? Because for my research, the average person cannot. From my research, 50% of men and women do not or cannot look at themselves in the mirror because they are either disgusted by the person they see or they are disappointed by them. And for those of us that can look in the mirror, we're still rejecting ourselves because we focus on what we don't like. Or we start to mindlessly think about all the things that we haven't done right or that we didn't do yet. On this particular morning, April 2020, I'm overwhelmed by my life. I drag myself into the bathroom. I immediately see my reflection, and I'm like, ugh, God, you look like hell. I start ticking off all the things. The saggy neck, one boob lower than the other. Like, you know, how exhausted I look, the gray hair coming in, how old I'm starting to seem. And then the mind, once it goes negative, keeps going in that direction. Unless you're 54321 not thinking about that.

But.

So my mind's, like, going down the drain. I'm like, why did I get up so late? I got a Zoom call in eight minutes. God, he didn't even, you know, text him back yet. And the dog still needs to be. And I'm like, the beat down, boom, boom, boom starts and, you know, I don't know what came over me, but that morning, standing there.

Yeah.

Could not think of a thing to say. And here's the important part. When you feel like shit, when you're overwhelmed by your life, you're not going to believe a pep talk anyway because it doesn't match how you feel. And so for whatever reason, I literally just raise my hand and I high five the woman that I saw in the mirror because she looked like she needed a high five. She looked like she needed somebody to say, it's going to be okay. You can do this. Get out there. And, you know, from that very first one, you know, it wasn't like lightning came crashing through the ceiling and, you know, stuck me in the head. That's not what happened. But there's definitely a switch inside each and every one of us.

Yeah.

So, like, think about the walls here. Even when the lights are off, there's electricity in these walls. Even during your worst moments, there is vitality ripping through your veins. There is an electrical life force within you. And life can turn that switch off, but it's still there. There was something about this high five action that felt like a flip. Like the switch flipped on and all of a sudden the energy could connect back and something inside me turned on. Now, that first morning, I didn't go, yeah, like, that's not what happened. I just felt this sort of shift from. To, all right, you got a roof over your head, you know, your family's healthy, you've saved money. It's not that bad. Get out there. Like, I didn't even think those things. It was more like the electricity, the energy in me, this vitality kind of kicked in. But it was the second morning where the profound nature of what I was stepping into really kicked in. So I wake up. Anxiety, ankles right up the legs. Feel like the rush of, oh, God, something's wrong. 54321. I get out of bed, I start walking to the bathroom.

And it's as I'm walking to the bathroom, I'm not even in there yet, that I feel something I have never felt in my entire adult life. And it's this. You know when you're about to go to a cafe and you're going to meet somebody you're really excited to meet, right? Or somebody you really love, you're not going to see them, what do you feel right as you're about to walk in the cafe.

You're excited, you're upbeat, anticipating something good happening.

Yeah. I actually realized I was feeling that way about seeing myself.

Yeah.

Now I'm 53 this year. I don't think until that morning in April 2020, I had ever had an experience as an adult of being excited to see the human being. Mel Robbins. I've been excited to see an outfit or a haircut or the way a new eyeshadow might look. But the human being, the way our kids, when they're really, really little, just love the sight of themselves, this unconditional support and celebration that's hardwired in your DNA when you're born.

Yeah.

And so as I rounded the corner that second morning, that's when the profound nature of this started to really hit me. And I stood there and I stared at the woman in the mirror, and I realized I don't think I've ever asked myself the question, what does she need for me today? I've never joined in partnership with myself. I have been so busy trying to get shit done, trying to make sure people like me, trying to make sure the bills are paid, trying to make sure everybody else is okay, trying to do all this stuff that is the stuff of our lives that I have forgotten about the most important person, and that is myself. And again, I'm going to go back to a point that we have been talking about kind of in various ways, which is, we all know that we're supposed to love ourselves. We all know that we're supposed to be kind to ourselves. You can read a quote on Instagram. You should talk to yourself like your best friend. The problem is how, you know, you read a quote like that, you're like, no shit, Sherlock. How do I do it?

I mean, like, what? Seriously, right? How do you do that? I don't know. I've been beating the shit out of myself for years. How do I stop doing it? I don't know. And, you know, here's the thing. Like, logically, we know it's stupid, because if beating yourself up, being hard on yourself, rejecting yourself, trashing yourself, if it actually worked, we'd all be millionaires. We'd have rockstar bodies. We'd have the best marriages on the planet. We'd never have to work a day in our life. We'd be on a beach somewhere.

Like, it would work.

Yeah.

But instead we have these patterns of thinking and small patterns of behavior. Like, not looking in the mirror at yourself is a form of rejecting yourself. Picking yourself apart is a habit of rejecting yourself. And so when you start your day like that, which you do, and then you go out into the world having rejected your very being, this is the reason why you are so thirsty for everybody else's validation. This is the reason why you are seeking your worth in the money that you make in the car that you drive, in, the downloads that you get in the likes that you have in the neighborhood that you live in. You think your worth is outside of you. And I'm here to tell you, the secret to your fucking life is grab that worth and bring it back home. Start practicing a physical habit, an action that demonstrates to your brain that you respect yourself, that you believe that you're worthy, that you deserve forgiveness, that you deserve encouragement, that you believe in you. And as you start to practice the physical action, the universal symbol for I got you, I love you, I celebrate you, I see you, I believe in you.

When you practice this physical action, the neuro association that is already in your brain with the high five to yourself in the mirror takes over. It's insane how this works. The science is mind blowing. I think this is a thousand times more powerful than the high five habit because it cuts down to the core of who you are.

You think it's more powerful than the 543 two one habit?

Hell yes, I do. Hell yes. Because the 54321 is a tool that will push you to take action. 54321 is a tool you use to cut off the worries that trigger anxiety. 54321 is a tool that you use to create a moment of objectivity and control when you're normally triggered so you can consciously choose a different response. The high five habit goes all the way down to the core of who you are and how you treat yourself. And when you become a human being who has compassion for yourself, who likes you, it won't matter what happens out there because everything in here is healed and taken care of. And so, like, you know, somebody can say to me, I don't love you anymore. I don't like you. It'll sting. But it doesn't change the fact that I still like myself because I practice and demonstrate it. That's the difference.

Yeah. And that's. I think the hidden magic in the high five habits is because I'll be trying it the last few days. Right.

And what did you experience?

It is powerful because, well, walk us.

Through like you're standing at your bathroom sink, and walk us through your experience.

Well, first of all, you have to take a pause from your life. Whatever you were going to do, it requires an intentional pause to go, no, I'm going to now do this action for myself. And I've got to say, before I tell you how it went, I think it would have been very different for me a few years ago because I feel self compassion, you know, not seeking your worth from outside, from other people, from download numbers, likes what people say about you, which was a huge part of my life. I feel that having put a lot of that to bed now and really feeling that I actually like the person I see in the mirror these days. So I kind of feel five years ago I would have had a different experience with it, but it was still powerful because you are just looking at yourself and you're putting your hand on the mirror. And I think what it is, it's just that pause, that moment of seeing me like you are seeing yourself. And I don't know, obviously as a guy, what do we do? We often looking in the mirror. We might be looking at our beard as we're shaving, right.

But you're not looking at your eyes, you're just looking at, oh, I need to shave. Oh, I missed a bit. Here, let me get rid of that. And then you crack on, right? Or you look at your face and your hair, but you're not really looking at yourself.

Right.

You're seeing your silhouette. You are seeing yourself, but you're not seeing yourself, if that makes sense.

Yeah.

And that's what I think was really powerful, was that it's just another, like, I feel it's just another tool now, which is going to take me all off. 2 seconds, if that's 5 seconds tops. It's not as if I don't have time to add that in. There's no harm in adding it in. And frankly, I like adding it in. It makes me feel good. It's like, oh, and I think it's what you say. It's the action.

Yeah.

You don't have to say anything if you're not in the mood to say.

I don't want you to say anything, actually. And the reason why is the neuro association.

So what do you mean by that?

Well, here's what I mean by that. So when you high five someone else, what is the action of a high five? Communicate.

It's just a universal symbol of. You got this. I see you, you're great. We can do this. It depends on the situation, but it's a good feeling. It's a mutual sort of validation type experience.

The London marathon and getting high fives. Oh, I mean, what did a stranger's high five mean to you?

It just gave you, like. And that's the key. It's strangers, right? You don't know them and they're looking at you. You're looking at them or, you know, even. Maybe not even looking at them. You just went through. You give a high five, it's. It's like you've taken a shot of feel goods. It's validation. It's like, hey, you know what? We're in this together. You're standing at the side cheering. I am running. But at that moment, it was like common humanity. It was like there was no animosity. And actually, it's kind of one of my big learnings from the learn the marathon actually was, and it relates to this, I think, is that's kind of who we are, like, in what is considered a very divided world at the moment. I went and did the London marathon and all I saw was love. Strangers giving love to other people that they didn't know. Right. And how did they give that love? Through cheering. But more often than not with a high five.

Correct. It is a universal symbol of encouragement, of love, of celebration and the Neuro association. Whether you live in a culture where you've been high fived or not the neuro association is still there because you have seen them in sport, you've seen them in marathons, you've seen teachers give them to kids. So your brain has a lifetime of programming in your subconscious that is triggered by this action. It is neurologically impossible to high five yourself and think you're a loser. You failed. I don't like your face. Your brain will not allow you to do it because the neuro association is so entrenched it has only ever meant I celebrate you. I see you. I got you. Keep going. You got this. I'm behind you.

As you say that, Mel, it makes you think of gratitude because when we are feeling grateful, we can't feel down, we can't feel anxious, we can't feel annoyed with ourselves. And in some ways, this is kind of gratitude for ourselves.

Correct. Because the thing about gratitude, which obviously has tremendous, demonstrated, proven benefits in your life most of us are grateful for things outside of us.

Yeah.

What I'm teaching the world to do is to unlock neuroassociation in your mind and in your nervous system and aim it back at yourself. And use this simple habit to interrupt the critic to break the default loops in your mind associated with judgment, shame, criticism, hatred for self. And to replace it with a new default setting of seeing yourself the way you see, your child, which is love. Like, my kids do StuFF that piss me off all the time, and I can be upset with them or disappointed with them, but I never stop loving them.

Yeah.

And there is something that has happened to each and every one of us that is life's pains and heartaches and disappointments and setbacks sort of stack up. We stop loving ourselves, we start judging ourselves more. We start condemning ourselves more. We start rejecting ourselves more. We start trying to seek somebody else's love and approval in order to fill up this well inside of us that we've been digging because we've been rejecting ourselves. And so, you know, it's so powerful BEcause the acT, ACtiOn alone is what communicates it. If you're looking at YourSelf and you raise your hand on your HardesT days, what the High five says is not, yeah, I'm amazing. Like, this is not going to turn you into a narcissist. This is grounded in compassion.

Yeah.

This is basically saying, I see you. You're right, this is hard. And you know what? You can do this, and I'm going to be here, and I got your back. And when you send yourself into your day with that physical action, it leaves an imprint in your mind and spirit. Now, there's a couple reasons why I don't even write about this part in the book, because I didn't know this until I started doing podcasts for the book. So, doctor Amen told me, who's one of the leading experts in the brain, that one of the reasons why you feel better when you do it, no matter how terrible of a morning it is, is because your brain has always given you dopamine. When somebody else high fives you.

Yeah.

So these sorts of gestures are rewarded in the brain. So when you simply high five yourself, your brain doesn't distinguish between me high fiving me and me high fiving you. It just sees. Oh, I know what that is. Drip dopamine. Oh, I believe in that person. The second thing that happens is that your body is hardwired for celebratory energy. This is that electricity that's in the walls that has a switch that you can turn on and off. And so, you know, for example, if you. When you cross the finish line of the London marathon, what do you instinctively do?

High five someone.

Yeah.

And raise your hands right when your favorite team scores. Raise your hands. When you yell surprise at a birthday party, you raise your hands. When you say hello, you raise your arm. When you go to high five somebody, you raise your arms. When you hug somebody you raise your arms. This is wired through your entire body. And normally we give that celebratory energy to other people or things. I'm here to tell you, when you high five yourself, you flip the switch. You flip the switch and give yourself a little bit of that vitality that's coursing through you to help you move into your day.

Yeah, I see it as almost like it is about the hi fi, but it's not in many ways as well, because it's like if you're going down a road and the high five to yourself sets you off on a different path for the rest of that day compared to had you not done it.

Right, a thousand percent. Right. So let's just use a great example that everybody can, can latch on to sport.

Yeah.

So if a team is about to play the championship in the league, right.

Yeah.

And they're the underdogs, what is the best way to send the team into that game? Is it to be to beat them down? Oh, you did a terrible job on the London marathon. You're going to face plant New York. Oh, my God. And I saw your split times.

We're fucked.

No, that's not the best way to.

Do it, but that's what we do to ourselves.

Correct.

Correct. And so I'm here to say, you don't have to say anything because you're not going to believe it. So we're going to cheat this. We're gonna circuit your feelings, bypassing correct words.

It's like when you take like this ridiculous example, but it's like when you take a b twelve supplement, but you take it sublingually so it dissolves. So you bypass having to go into the gut, through the liver, and then you get it straight in.

Correct.

And it's kind of, it's got that.

Feel to me, 1000%. And so you send yourself into the game of life with that sort of optimism, with that resilience, with that compassion. And you know, look, some days you're going to laugh. Some days you might cry, people report. Some days you're going to just feel a little bit better. And some days you're going to high five yourself and laugh out loud from the dopamine and walk into your boss's office and ask for that raise or quit. Because you're going to remember that no matter what, you're going to be okay. You're going to remember that no matter what, you got your own back. You're going to remember that it doesn't matter if, if nobody says, great job at that presentation that you worked on because you can walk into the bathroom as people have written to us, having practiced this, hey, I did a presentation at work. Nobody said a damn word. The old me would have walked into my cube and cried and thought I was getting fired. I knew I did a good job. I walked into the bathroom and high fived myself. Your kids can stick this in their back pocket.

And it's a way to reset yourself when you start going down that negative road. And why is this important? It's important because the high five is not going to remove poverty. It's not going to remove discrimination. It's not going to remove diabetes. It's not going to remove the fact that somebody just said they want to divorce you. It's not going to remove all of the trauma. It doesn't change those things. It changes you. And it changes your relationship with yourself and your ability to believe that through your actions and your attitude, you can move the needle on those things.

Yeah, I love that last point, Mel, because the similarities between the way you talk about this and the way I've been talking about certain behaviors and five minute habits for years, they are so connected. And one of the things I often say, and I want to just acknowledge you for what you just said, it's not going to change your life situation if you're, if you're in poverty, you're still going to be in poverty, but you're going to be a different person. You're going to be better able to face the stresses that are in your life. And I think this is such an important point, right, because I have said this before on the show, but I was think it's worth reiterating that a lot of people feel that self help or wellness is the preserve of the wealthy and the middle classes. But actually, habits like this, yes, they'll help someone who's got a ton of money in their bank accounts because a lot of people like that are racked with self doubt on the inside as well. But it's also going to help someone who is in poverty or a single mom who's working two jobs and has got three kids and is really struggling.

That little micro moments each morning where she sees herself in the mirror, she signals to her brain that she is worthy, that actually she's a human being with real feelings. And for all her qualities and all her, you know, all the great things that she's doing that has power. Right. And it's free. It is free. There's not a single person pretty much who is listening to this or watching this right now, who couldn't just either pause or at the end, go, all right, let me. I'm convinced, Melanin, I'm gonna give this a go. I'm gonna give this a go.

Well, first of all, don't rush it. Don't rush it. So don't go into the bathroom and slap the mirror me like I didn't feel anything. I want you to, again, as you so rightly put, take a minute and just look at yourself. Because for most people, that's the hardest part. I mentioned that, you know, I get smarter, and I learned so much from every comment and people that write their stories in. And one person, Alison Bird, a friend of mine, who made my ability to explain the depth of this so much deeper because she said one thing to me when she tried it before the book came out, she said, you know, I think it's working. I kind of feel. I feel energized. I said, but you know what surprised me? I said, what? She goes, the resistance. I said, the resistance? What are you talking about? She's like, oh, first couple days I did this, I stood in front of that mirror, and I. There was something in me that's like, I didn't. I couldn't even raise my hand. There was this resistance. And so I'm like, oh, that's interesting. And so I, of course, put something out.

Hey. To the 700,000 people on the newsletter list. Anybody trying this and feel any resistance? We write to everybody that's in our little test group. Anybody feel, holy cow, there. It turns out that most people do not have an immediate positive. Oh, I'm doing this reaction. Most people have massive resistance to even trying it. And I want to explain why, because this is extraordinarily sad. And it also is an enormous opportunity for growth, because I believe, based on having 136,000 people go through a five day challenge online, that we're monitoring in an app from 91 countries and seeing what they're reporting. I know that this takes five days to work, five days before you have an enormous breakthrough and how you see and relate to yourself, five days before the chemical, physiological, neurological, physical, and psychological change starts to go, holy cow, this is crazy. This works like this. And so the resistance comes from self judgment and self condemnation, and I'm going to tell you a story to drive this home for people who stand in the bathroom mirror when they try the high five habit and they feel this resistance in their body.

First of all, let me say it's really normal to think this is weird because it is.

Okay.

It just sounds so cheesy. For those of us that grew up with Saturday Night Live, you're going to think of Stuart Smiley. You know I'm nice. People like me. That skit they used to do about the guy who talked to himself in the mirror. You're going to stand there? Go. Seriously, Doctor Charlie and Mel Robbins, you two have lost your mind. But okay, if it's weird as you do it, that's a sign it's working. So doctor Leaf told me. Oh, well, that's what it feels like when a new neural pathway is getting plowed. So if it feels we're good because we're teaching you to do the opposite of criticizing yourself. But the resistance is something else. The resistance is the fact that every morning as you start your day, you drag your entire past into the bathroom with you. And if you're somebody who has experienced trauma or been abused or abandoned or neglected or grew up with chaos and addiction, or you've been the victim of a crime, or you're constantly having to deal with discrimination or violence, all stuff that you're not responsible for, there are a lot of people who take all of that from their past.

And when they look at themselves, they see somebody who's damaged, they see somebody who's unworthy. They see somebody who is unlovable because of those things. And what the high five starts to become when you do it is, it becomes literally an act of defiance. It becomes an act of strength. It becomes a sign that I'm a survivor. It becomes permission to heal. It becomes this deep sense of feeling and knowing where you are and the fact that you have an extraordinary future despite all of the pain and suffering that you have endured and survived. And then there are people that bring everything they regret to all the shame, all the regret, all that. So the cheating, the lying, the stealing, the hurt you've caused yourself or other people, the missed opportunities. And, boy, did I get an unbelievable example of this in my own life. So, you know, I was doing the high five habit myself. And during the early days of the pandemic, my husband had just been diagnosed with depression. And he's a super healthy guy. He is a certified buddhist meditation instructor. He leads men's retreats called soul degree. He's a yoga instructor.

He's wildly involved with our community and with our family. He's a super high functioning guy, but it's just. He's just felt heavy. There's been like a cloud there, like a heaviness to him, like. No, there's no light between his eyes. And so, thankfully, you know, his therapist finally got him to go see a psychopharmacologist and somebody to do the advanced testing. They're like, dude, you have dysthymia. You have, like, really long term depression. Like, you're lucky you've been doing all this stuff, because it's kept you alive. And, you know, I turned to him at one point. I've been doing this for a couple days, or a couple weeks, rather, and I'm like, you know, I know I'm not your doctor, and I know I'm not an expert in your mental health, but I really think you should try this high five thing. I really think it's going to help you with this depression. He's like, I'm not high five. Stupidest thing. I don't care what you're doing. No. And I'm like, okay, if you won't do it for yourself, would you just do it for me? Would you do it for five days? Because we're in the middle of researching this now, and I'm like, I haven't even shared it with my audience yet.

And I'm kind of, like, writing down in my journal what I'm feeling, and I've got a couple people on the team. Would you just do it for me? He's like, all right. So he kind of did the first one, like, are you happy? You know, typical spouse thing. So he did it for five days. And then I asked him what he thought, and he said, you're on to something really big. And I said, why do you say that? And I had no idea how dark my husband's thoughts were. I had no idea how much he was condemning himself, how much shame he felt. I knew that he was struggling with depression. I had no idea that for the past seven years, the man who has stood next to me at the bathroom sink, next to me would look up at the mirror and see a person that he hated. He saw a person that had failed. He believed that since the restaurant business didn't work and since it left us 800 grand in debt and that his wife had to go out and make the money, that he was the world's worst father, the world's worst husband, and he has been condemning himself every day for seven years.

And the reason he thought the high five was stupid is because you only high five people you care about. You only high five people who are winning. And he, of all people, didn't deserve it. And for me, I knew that he was struggling with shame around the restaurant business. I knew he was struggling with the amount of debt that we had and the fact that investors lost money. For me, I had a totally different experience. I'm like, you guys worked at that for eight years. You made your investors whole. Hello, entrepreneurship. Like, you know, we wouldn't have the five second rule without it. Are you kidding?

Like, woohoo, we're winning.

This is amazing. Like, I didn't. His business partner had the same. Like, he was proud of what they built, proud of how hard they were. Chris, for whatever reason, that was not his story. His story was condemnation, regret, shame. He could only see a failure. And what was wild about that is I've for years talked Chris up. I've for years have told him how proud I am of him. He was the CFO of the business as the company was taking off. He owns half of it. He's an integral part of everything. He doesn't see it that way. And that's an important part. Nobody can heal you. Nobody can change how you talk to yourself. This is an inside job. And so if you relate to how my husband feels, I want you to understand that what Chris said to me was that this high five and pushing through the resistance is an act of forgiveness. It's an act of healing. It's an act of support and compassion that allows you and shows you that you are giving yourself permission to feel good again, that you deserve to be happy, that you deserve, and that you can continue to push on and go do better and be better and feel better, and that of all people, you're going to stop judging you.

New York Times bestseller again. Number two selling book on all of Amazon for the high five habit.

Now, how do you feel about hearing.

The impact and reach of this project? Well, you know, it's interesting. I am really blown away, and I am a person that is driven by impact. So it's wonderful that we've made the New York Times, but I would rather not make it if it meant that we would reach more people. You know what I mean? Like, I think those accolades from, from outside sources are absolutely amazing. In business, they're super important, because if something like the New York Times gets you on their list, then more and more people find out about the book, more people write about it. But I am a entrepreneur that is driven by making an impact in a real person's life. And so what blows my mind is the fact that this book has only been out for three weeks, and there are 128,000 people from 91 countries who have taken and completed a five day free challenge that I created as part of this book. And not a single person that has completed the five day challenge out of 128,000 people has said that they didn't feel something change in their life. And so knowing that that is what's going on.

And look, I know that you're a 75 hard person. My daughter and my husband. My husband's already completed it. He's now doing it a second time. Our 23 year old daughter is doing it. I understand challenges. I was more like a 75 ride along kind of person this time around. But I am so committed to getting the tools of this book into the hands of people. I got an email last night from a guy who wrote into our just the website randomly. You'll probably never see this, but people would be surprised to know I see everything because it's important that you measure what matters in your business and life. And what matters to me is the impact. So I'm constantly looking at, how is this impacting real people? So this gentleman is a truck driver who has lost, like 300 pounds. Credits the five second rule, another tool that I invented with helping him change his habits. To do that, he has read the high five habit. He was writing about it on Facebook. Some woman that follows him randomly reached out for help. She had the bottle of pills in her hand, ready to end it.

Overwhelmed by life, he used what he learned in chapter four, five, and six of this book, where I talk about something called the reticular activity system in your brain. That's a filter that you can change in real time to help your brain work for you instead of against you. He used what he learned to in those three chapters of the book. A truck driver with a high school education to help a woman through the worst moment of her life. And now she literally. Reading the book feels a totally different outlook because she has the tools to take control of her mind and take control of her default thinking, and that changes her entire experience of life. That is the shit that matters right there.

I love that.

Hey, it's Mel.

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