You say that there are three different types of way that you can motivate someone or yourself to change. Can you? What are the three? And then let's walk through them one by one.

So one is social proof, social incentives. What are other people doing? It is a relatively easy way to change behavior, right? Highlighting the positive action of others. And let me give you an example of how this is done. Maybe we'll start kind of like on a large level than we go into our personal life.

Great.

So the british government, they used to send a letter to people who didn't pay their taxes on time, and they said, you know, it's really important to pay your taxes. And that didn't help very well. So then after that, they added one sentence. And that sentence said, nine out of ten people in Britain pay their taxes on time, right. They are highlighting the good behavior of others and that increased compliance by 15% and fought to bring the government to 5.6 billion pounds. So that's amazing. Easy.

Okay. Now let me ask you though, because here's the thing. If I listen to that example, I think to myself, if I were to march in and say to my husband, Chris, you know, Tally's husband is exercising every day of the week and he looks really great, that would probably not motivate Chris, I don't think. But that's the social proof. Like, how do you use social proof when you're trying to nudge somebody else in a positive way?

Okay. The other kind of thing to think about when it comes to social incentives and social proofs is, again, we talked about this a little bit before, is that if you're trying to change a behavior, it's really helpful to model that behavior. Right. You want kids not to be on their phones and you're on the phone half the time. Right. That's not good. Or you want them to eat well, but then, you know, you're not eating the apple well, that's not good. So you need to model that behavior. And so with, like, getting your husband to go out and run, you can come in and like, be like, all ready for a run and then, you know, try to convince him to come along with you. Right. Maybe it's more like for you. Right.

Got it. You know, the joke of the example that I gave you is that Chris is the one that exercises and I'm the one sitting on the couch. Another one of the three ways to motivate people is immediate reward, right? Can you give an example of how you can create an immediate reward from somebody else and how do you even figure out what's a reward for someone else that they might respond to?

So one clear, immediate reward that everyone loves is kind of like reinforcing them social feedback when they do something. And you say, like, ooh, that's great. So a friend of mine, anytime when I ask him about, like, oh, how are your kids are doing? Or I asked him about something that he told me he was having trouble with, he was trying to get over, there's like, sometimes a colleague that he was having a problem. And then like a week later, I was asking, oh, how did. What happened? What he always says is like, oh, thank you for asking. And by saying, thank you for asking, that causes me to want to do that kind of thing again. Right. To be kind of perceptive about what people are telling me to ask about it. So he's basically reinforcing this behavior by giving me an immediate reward. The moment I did this, he said, thank you for asking. And that's my reward. Right.

This is so fascinating, and I think it's really important. And so I want to see if I am tracking with you and go back into our living room where that unsuspecting person is sitting on the couch happily watching golf, and you walk in the room and you're really stressed out. And if we take what you just told us to do, based on the research, if you were to do something negative and you were to pressure that you should go or whatever, I'm not going to let you turn off that. You're basically saying the brain doesn't even absorb it. They just tune you right out and they are not motivated. But if you were to go, hey, honey, you know, it's beautiful outside, and if you go outside and you actually get your run in after this golf match is over, you're going to be so much more energized tomorrow morning, that that would be a better way.

Yes, absolutely. I had someone tell me that they learned about this, and then they went back to their teenage boy, which usually they had a lot of struggles in the evening about when to go to sleep. Right. And they usually said, well, if you don't go to sleep by 10:00 p.m. you're gonna be tired the next day and so on. It didn't work. But then after reading the book, she went back and she said, if you go to sleep early, you'll look better and be more energetic for your girlfriend. And she said, that worked perfectly well.

Well, I mean, it's such a simple trick, but it makes so much sense. And I'm even thinking about it with myself. Like, I'm constantly shaming myself, oh, I should get up, I should do this thing. I should do that other thing versus thinking about, well, what do I actually care about? Like, if I were to do this, I'm gonna feel better in an hour versus, you know, you. And I guess that brings me to the next question, which is we all know what we could or should be doing, right? You know that if you want to be healthier, you need to exercise today. You know that if you want to write the book, you need to be writing today. You know that if you'd like to be in a different job in a year, you better dust off your resume and do it today. Why is it so hard to make ourselves do those things? Why do we procrastinate when we know what that positive thing is that we do want?

So that positive things, in all the examples that you just gave, they're in the future, right? While the good stuff is just in front of you. Right? So the chocolate cake is there. I can have a bite now, and immediately I'll get a sugar rush. Immediately. It's certain. Or the drink is there, I'll drink it. And for the immediate time, it will make me feel good. Right. Or I can sit on the couch and watch golf or Netflix show or whatever, and that will be an immediate gratification. The joy is immediate for all the other things that you said, I will do the action now, but mostly the rewards will be in the future. So I write the book now, it will be published, like in two years. Right? I exercise now. I will eventually fit into my genes, but it's not going to happen immediately. Right? So there is this problem between. It's a temporal gap between what we need to do, which we need to do it now, and the reward that we will get would be in the future versus the stuff that's probably not good for us, but the reward is immediate.

Right? So that's a problem. And part of the problem is what's known as temporal discounting, or present bias.

What is temporal mean?

Oh, temporal is just time.

Oh, okay, great. So there's a huge gap of time between the action I need to take and the long term benefit of taking this action right now.

Right? And there's this thing called temporal bias, or temporal discounting, which is basically this phenomena which makes sense by which we value things in the present more than things in the future. It's not that we don't care about the future. You care about the future. But if, for example, I tell people, what would you rather have, $100 now or 110 next week? Most people will take 100 now. We discount the future to some degree, which, if you think about it, makes sense, because the future is uncertainty.

Yes.

Maybe I'll go to the gym and I won't actually end up being able to get into my genes. Maybe I'll write the book, but it'll be a failure in the future. So the future is very, very uncertain.

So, plus, you've also taught us that we have this imperative, personally, to stay in control. And so what is also in my control right now is the $100 that you're about to hand me or the Netflix show that's on right now. And so that. Is that playing a role in this, too?

Yes, I think because we have more control now, right. At least a perception of it. In fact, if I do something now, it will impact the future. So I do have some control over the future, but because it's relatively uncertain, because there's so many days and everything can happen, maybe I'll die tomorrow. Right. So I put all this work in and then I'm dead in a week. Right. So it's easier to just go with the immediate. It's more attractive. Right.

And is there a trick to get yourself to act now and do things now that are hard, that actually make your life easy in the longer run?

The number one trick is to give yourself immediate rewards. What do I mean? Let's say usually when you think about going to the gym, you say, I want to go the up. I don't want to, but I need to go to the gym so I can get these future rewards, which I'll be skinny and healthier and whatever in the future. Right. I. But think about what will you get immediately? Or you can do that for someone else. Right. What will you get immediately if you go now to the gym? Not only will you get to the future, so let's say for yourself, it might be, someone told me anytime they go on the treadmill, they allow themselves to watch, like, a trashy show that usually they don't allow themselves. Right. That's the immediate reward. Or you go for a run and you listen to a podcast. Right. Immediate reward. And you can also give it to someone else. There was a woman who came to me after a talk, and she said she wanted to get her husband to go to the gym, and he didn't really like it. But then eventually he went one day, and when he got back, I don't think it was intentional, but she kind of, like, touched his arm and was like, oh, I can really feel your muscles.

Right. And she said, well, that did it. Right. That caused him to go back the next day. So that was the immediate reward.

You know what else I'm gaining from your research is that if the mistake that we've been making by pressuring, judging, guilting, all that other stuff highlights the bad behavior, then when you give your love and attention appreciation to calling out the good behavior, you are really now helping them move toward that instead of creating that paralysis, you're actually fueling the tanks, so to speak. That's super cool.

Yeah. And make sure to do that for some reason, our kind of automatic reaction is kind of to focus on, oh, they're not doing that enough. And when people do, do we just like, we might in our head say, oh, that's nice, but we have to actually verbalize that, you know?

Yes.

My daughter, for example, she in general, doesn't eat much or doesn't like to eat, you know, anything that's healthy, for sure. We went out and she ordered a sandwich that had, like, vegetables in it, and I was like. And I said, oh, Livia, like, well done. I'm so proud of you. You know? So you have to highlight that when people do do these things.

Yes.

A lot of people read that.

A lot of people read that, like, condescending, though, you know how, like, sometimes if somebody, like, is. I I don't know if there's any advice or research on this, but I find that sometimes when people are really defensive, or at least I've. That scenario with the kids when our son finally started eating things that were green instead of a chicken nugget and a french fry, and I'm like, finally, that's great.

A vegetable.

Double digits. At least get, like, we were way into the double digits.

One. One is eating fine, but the other one.

But so, like, there's probably before you let it out of your mouth and it's kind of calling out the finally you're doing it. It's, I'm really proud of you.

The way that you do it with adults. For example, like, my husband has this new thing where he gets up, he doesn't wake me up. He gets the kids ready to school. He takes them to school, and I just get to sleep. And how amazing is that, right?

How did you train him to do that?

I don't know why he decided one day to. To start that. And he knows I don't like mornings. And, you know, if I can sleep just like another hour without anyone waking me up. That's great. But I make sure to say, like, oh, my God, thank you. That was so great. And I think that's good for everyone.

Of course. Of course. The third way you can motivate people to change that we've talked about is progress tracking. How do you use that if you're trying to help somebody get better with money?

Okay, so a lot of progress tracking. I mean, there's a lot of apps for all of these things. You know, there's a reason why lots of these apps, whether you're tracking your steps or you're tracking, you know, your expenses, you know, there's apps for all of these things. Maybe you don't want me to track everything. I don't know what it is that the goal. But think about what the goal is, and then you can track the specific elements that are related to that goal.

How does the progress fuel into your motivation to keep going? Because there must be a connection based on the research.

Right. So it's just the joy that we feel from progress. Right. When we see that we're progressing, that is really what's causing us the joy when we do well, that is also joyful, but it is doing better. Right. That is even more joyful. Like, imagine, like, you're running a marathon and you're doing really well. You do, like, free 30, like 3 hours, 30 minutes, and then the next year, you do 3 hours, 40 minutes. It's still very good. But imagine it's like, oh, now it's 3 hours and 28 minutes. Right. It's so much better because there's some kind of progress.

Right.

We really like seeing ourselves, and, in fact, if we kind of just. Even if we're in the top of our game, if we are not progressing, we're just, like, just maintaining.

Yeah.

That can actually be extremely demotivating. We always need some progress in our life, and it makes sense that our brain has evolved to be like that. Right, right. Because what that does, it causes us to try to progress. Right. It causes us as an individual, but also as a species, to kind of go ahead and because imagine, like, think about your first entry level job. When you got it, you were probably really, really happy.

Yeah.

But, of course, after a while, you kind of are hoping for something else. You're hoping for that promotion. You want to see some progress. And, I mean, it's just the way that we are wired up, and there's a good reason for it. One of my favorite experiments, actually, that show this is about hand washing.

Okay.

So we all know that hand washing is really important. Right. And especially important, I mean, for the. To avoid the spread of disease. And that's especially important in hospitals and in restaurants. So in a hospital in New York state, a camera was installed to see how often medical staff actually washed their hands before and after entering a patient.

Oh, man. Ew.

And they found.

I don't know if I want to know this.

They found that only one in ten. Only 10% of the medical staff washed their hands before and after entering a patient's room. Now, this was before the pandemic.

Okay.

Hopefully numbers are different now, but still 10%. Okay. So they put an electronic board, and also, to be clear, the medical staff knew that the camera was installed. Right. So it's not like it was a nanny camera situation. They knew the camera was installed, and yet it was only 10% that actually washed their hands. And then they made one change. They put an electronic board that told the medical staff how well they were doing every time they washed their hands, immediately they got positive feedback saying, well done, good shift. They could see. See it. The electronic wart was above the patient's door. Right.

Wow.

And they saw the numbers going up of the current shift rate and the weekly rate of people washing their hands and the compliance. So the number of people who washed their hands went from 10% to 90%.

Holy cow.

Which is huge. And it stayed there for quite a while. I mean, it was such a big effect that they wanted to make sure that it was real. So they replicated it in another division in the hospital here, they found something very similar. It started at 30%. So one in three wash their hands, put the electronic board with the feedback. They're well done, good shift. And it went up to 90% again. And so why does that work? It works for all the reasons that we just discussed, which is the normal approach, is just to tell the medical staff, if you don't wash their hands, there will be bad things in the future. Illness and disease. So you have to wash their hands.

Right.

And a, it's in the future, b, it's something bad, so it doesn't cause me to act. So now they flipped it over, and now you're washing your hands to get a positive message, which is immediate, and it's positive. Right.

And how about the fact that you're also seeing that other people are doing it? Does that impact your desire to move toward it and adopt this positive behavior?

Right? Absolutely. So there's two other really important things here. One is it's social proof. Right. I'm seeing that 60%, 70%, 80% are doing it. I don't want to be the one who doesn't. Right. I want to do the good stuff, which is what other people are doing. This is very helpful. I know that sometimes when you take one of these, like, city bikes, there's actually a little electronic board telling you how many people have taken these bikes a day in the city. And that's kind of like, that makes you feel like, oh, a, I'm part of this big group.

Yep.

And b, a lot of people are taking bikes, you know, being green.

Yep.

That motivates me to do. To do the same. So that's social proof. And the other nice thing about it, the numbers keep going up. And the same thing with the bikes, they kept going up because people are taking bikes all over the city. Right. So you're kind of there. You're about to take a bike and you see the numbers going up. And when you take one, the number goes up as well. So that's very gratifying.

Yes.

And same thing with the hand washing. You wash your hands, numbers go up. You see it going up. There's progress.

So you're a parent. How the heck do we apply this to our life? Like, how do I use this to maybe get the kids to do chores, to get everybody to help out? How do we apply this?

So, in fact, I would say with kids is the easiest thing to do.

Okay.

Right. So first of all, let's start with the very beginning. You don't want to control or give them a sense that they're control, that you are telling them what to do. So for example, let's say you want them to eat vegetables instead of saying, here, eat your carrots, say, do you want carrots or would you like cucumbers? Right? So there's a choice. Right?

Okay.

Or even better, make your own salad. So they're in control, right. Or, you know, a lot of times you may ask, do you want me to choose what your vegetable or do you want to choose yourself?

Oh, that's sneaky.

I like that one.

I like that one.

Sometimes they prefer, you know, like, especially, I mean, my kids are now, they're not that old. They're eight and ten, but they dress themselves as that. But like, when they were younger, sometimes I would choose to their outfits, but I would ask, hey, do you want me to choose your outfit or do you want to choose it today? And so sometimes they want me to choose, but telling me that they want me to choose is a choice. So now I'm not taking the control out of them. Right?

Yes.

They're giving it to me. It's a bit different. So they're still maintaining their agency. This comes to play a lot, right. Instead of telling someone, let's say it's like an employee, instead of saying, okay, this is what you're going to work on. Right. This is what you need to do. Give people options. Right?

Yeah.

Same thing with clients. Even if you're a doctor, you could say, well, this is a treatment, I think. Or you could say, well, here are a few options.

Gotcha.

Let's talk them through and see what's best. Right. So you're kind of. And you don't want to give too many. This is also interesting. You don't want to. If you're, whether you're a doctor, giving options to people, or whatever it is, you don't want to give too many options, because that can be overwhelming. There's a famous study where people are given an option to choose between 60 different jams in a store. And some people are so overwhelmed, they just leave empty handed.

Right.

But two or three options, that's an easy way. Giving people a choice is an easy way to maintain their sense of control, agency, and their motivation. Like, for example, you know, if so, I bike to work and I don't always put a helmet on. And so.

Because you're the exception.

Right.

Come on, doc, what are you doing? You're not following your own advice.

Right.

Right.

And so what I do is I say, okay, anytime that I get to work and I have my helmet on, I'm allowed. You know, I can have a little Hershey chocolate or something like that. Something small. Right. So that's a reward. Right?

Can I just underscore something? You are, like, one of the number one neuroscientists in the world. If anyone's brain needs to be protected, it's yours. So I love the fact that you just admitted, after trying to teach all of us how to change other people, that you yourself believe you're the exception and you have to reward yourself to put a helmet on.

Yeah. I have to say, I probably. I mean, it's probably true that, like, it's partially. Cause I think I might. But it is an odd thing, and it's more about convenience. Right? I won't. Well, so in London, where I bike, I had this really bad helmet. So I did put it on every time, but it was obvious that it's not gonna help. Right? It was just, like, not even fitting.

And I literally. Are you arguing for why you don't wear the helmet.

No. Finally, no, I was like, I was wearing the helmet. No, I was wearing it, but I knew that it was just to tick a box. But it wasn't like it wasn't even fitting. If something happened, it wouldn't. It was like wearing a hat. The helmet was so bad. And it. Months and months and months until I finally. I kept telling myself, I have to go buy it. But finally I did. But this was months and months and months of biking in London with a helmet that absolutely wasn't protecting me at all.

Here's what I've learned. You needed to attach an immediate reward to that helmet and to the wearing it. Otherwise, you're going to avoid doing it at all costs.

Right. Well, I mean, I did this in this specific example, I was wearing it, but it wasn't good. I had to. What I was trying to do is get myself to go to a store to buy something that's better, right? And I was like, well, I don't have time when I'm going to go. Right.

Of course. I am so excited to talk to you. And the fact is, I have been dying to talk to you about a particular topic. What is that topic? Self motivation. And the thing about self motivation is that it's something we all want, but it's something that we don't really understand. I mean, I'm sure that you may be thinking about things that you want to improve or change in your life. It's the time of year where everybody's doing it. It's the time of year where businesses are planning big changes. People are thinking about what they want in the next year. And so no matter when you're listening to this, I know that the story I'm about to tell you and the things I'm about to teach you about self motivation are really going to help you. Because the fact is, there are two truths about self motivation that are essential for you to understand if you want to be able to hack motivation when you need it. Because here's the thing. You know, when you're busy making plans or setting goals or deciding kind of what you want to go, do you feel really motivated?

Don't you? But have you ever noticed that life has this funny way of taking the wind right out of the sails? As soon as you really need the motivation, it's like, boom, no wind. You're not going anywhere. And I have a personal story to tell you because this is exactly what's happening in my life right now. I got home a couple days ago, we were down in Boston taping a bunch of episodes down in our brand new studios. Super cool. Right now, I am up above our garage in our little studio in southern Vermont. And when I got home a couple days ago, our son Oakley was about to hear back from his top choice for college. He, like so many kids, applied early decision, which means if the college accepts him, he is going to agree to go. It's like a binding contract. And this particular school that he had applied to is going to let all the kids who had applied early decision know by announcing the decision in an online portal at 08:00 in the morning on a Saturday. So it's Friday night. I get home from a week in Boston. Chris is home.

We have a dinner with Oakley. He's so nervous. We're nervous. We're excited. And Chris and I set our alarm. Oakley sets his alarm. You know, we say good night, excited for the morning. And for the first time since I can remember, honestly, Oakley was awake and downstairs before Chris and I were because he couldn't sleep. He was so nervous and he was so excited to hear back from his dream school. And if I'm being honest with you, neither could I. I could barely sleep either. I was tossing, I was turning. And you've probably had this experience, right? Like maybe you're waiting to hear back on a big job that you've been interviewing for, or you're waiting to hear back to see if you've gotten into graduate school. Or maybe it's a moment where one of the kids that you love is about to find out, did they make the orchestra? Did they make the soccer team? And I got to tell you, I was so excited for him because I watched him pour himself into the application for this college. Over the last couple of months, I mean, he's been writing and rewriting essays. He's been gathering up the recommendations.

He's been working hard to keep his GPA up. And you could tell he not only really wanted this, you could tell he was willing to pour himself into it, right? Because unlike his sister Kendall, he wasn't going to be auditioning for anything. And unlike a lot of his friends who in sports, he wasn't getting recruited by a school. And this particular school doesn't do interviews. So his one shot was how he could present himself as an applicant on paper. And as somebody who is dyslexic, that's basically your worst nightmare. But he went for it. And that morning, standing there, my PJ's, I wasn't really nervous. I mean, I was so excited. I was excited because it wasn't just about the college application. But I, I've seen how hard he's worked for four years straight, and I know that all these schools are now crazy competitive, but I said to myself, look, you don't need to worry about the smell. He's put in the work. He's in the zone of what the school is looking for. And, you know, when you see him on paper, he did a good job. He's got a sick GPA. He's the captain of two varsity sports, senior mentor, won these awards, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah.

If you've heard him on the podcast, he's a great kid and has awesome emotional intelligence. So here we are. His stomach is in knots. I'm really excited. We're gathered around the kitchen island. Chris places his hand on Oakley's back as he cracks open the laptop, logs into the portal, and then it's silent for about 10 seconds. And Oakley pushes back from the island and goes, it's a no. I didn't make it. We sat there in silence. I don't know how much time went by. I honestly thought it was going to go a different way. I thought he was going to thread the needle on this one. And then Oakley said, they didn't even defer me. I mean, I was, like, flat out rejected. The only thing that I could say was, that sucks, buddy. And I'm really proud of the fact that you went for it. I'm really proud of how much work you put into it. And he kind of hung his head down low, and I said, well, tell me what you need me to do to support you today. Do you want me to make you your favorite bolognese sauce for dinner?

Do you need us to just leave you alone? And he said, sure, bolognese sounds great. And then he said, I just, I just need some time. And he kind of shrugged off the hugs we tried to give him, and he went right back up to his room and shut the door. And, you know, I was standing there and I kind of looked at Chris, and it was one of those moments in life where you're not quite sure what to do with yourself right now, you know, and in the context of college, I'm sure you've seen those videos that have gone viral online where the kids are gathered around the laptop and their families are all around them, and all of a sudden, they get the news and they scream and jump and shout, and the family starts crying. And I kind of thought that was going to be us. I don't think I've ever seen a video online of the moment where somebody gets rejected from their dream school, and yet life is full of rejections, it's full of setbacks, it's full of heartbreaks. And you can know that intellectually, but, boy, is it hard when it hits, and it's hard when it hits you.

And it's also hard when it hits somebody that you love. Thankfully, I am smart enough at this point in my life that I knew that that was not a moment to kind of crank up the motivational pep talk. Right? Cause that's the last thing that you wanna hear when your dream school says, nope, you're not good enough for us. Or that job that you've been interviewing for says, sorry, you don't have what it takes. And there's a lot of layoffs happening right now. In fact, someone that is in my family just got laid off after working somewhere for ten years. Just completely out of nowhere. Their boss didn't even know it was coming. I'm sitting here talking about college applications with Oak, and the fact is, you can pour years of your life into something, and all of a sudden you hear, nah, I think we're going to go in a different direction. And when that happens, let's just not even mince words. It fricking sucks. And you do need to wallow in it. You do need to take some time. You do need to feel sad or frustrated. You do need to let all of that come up, because you know what?

Those are very appropriate emotions. In fact, they prove that you're mentally healthy. Because when you work hard for something and you don't get the result that you were working for, it does sting. So don't rush past that feeling. But now, let's talk about what comes next. Because one of the hardest yet most important skills in life is what you do after you've been rejected. Mm hmm. That's what we're talking about today. How do you self motivate? How do you pick yourself back up? How do you motivate yourself again when you feel like life just punched you in the face? And that's exactly what's going on in our house right now. Oakley now has, as I'm talking to you, exactly eleven days to complete all the remaining applications and essays that he needs to work on in order to apply to other colleges. And it's because he was so motivated and excited about this one school that he figured, oh, you know, all the work that I'm doing for this, it'll help me get the other stuff done and I'll wait until I hear and hopefully I'll get in. And if not, then I'll complete the other ones later.

Right? It's easy to do that when everything's in front of you. But now here we are. Eleven days to complete all this. And not only do you have to complete all this, but you have to do it in the wake of feeling like you're not good enough for the place you wanted to be. So let me ask you a question. On a scale of zero to 100, how motivated do you think he feels right now? If you guessed zero, you would be correct. He is the opposite of motivated. He is demoralized. He feels like he's not a smart kid. And, you know, if I can't get it, why even bother? And he's not the only one. Because when you have a moment where you feel like nothing's working out, that is the kind of emotion of it, right? And for example, if you happen to be single right now and everyone around you, oh my God, everybody's getting engaged, everybody's getting married, and here you are, you're having to put yourself back out there again after a breakup yet again. When is this ever going to be your turn? Or if you've ever had an issue getting pregnant, doesn't it seem like everybody around you is getting pregnant with ease?

This is exactly the feeling. If you're in the financial industry and you've got to pass a huge exam for work, no matter how hard you study, if you don't pass it the first time now you're going to be panic stricken and you're going to feel demoralized, which what makes it so hard to get motivated? I'll give you another example. You started selling real estate, which seemed like a great idea, right? You were super motivated in the beginning. But now it's been a year and no matter how many networking meetings you have gone to, you can't get your own listing. And every time you look around, a new house is on the market and they're listed by somebody else. And why is it that you can't get this? And then you stop to, you don't feel that motivated? Why is this so easy for everybody else? And doesn't it feel like you're the only one who feels that way, but you're not and you can do something about it? And if you're in the position that I'm in right now, which is I'm the mom watching this go down with somebody that I love and intellectually, I'm sitting here saying all the stuff I say to you all the time on this podcast.

This is happening for a reason. Intellectually, of course, I know he's going to end up in the right place, exactly where he needs to be. Of course I know that college does not define who you are. Of course I know all this. But you can feel two things at once. You can know that everything's going to be okay. And you can also feel in your heart something breaking. Right? And that doesn't change the fact that I can't want this for him. He has to want it for himself. And the truth is, I can't motivate him. And we're going to get into why I can't motivate him. Do you know what I would give right now to have motivation on tap? Wouldn't it be so cool that instead of going to a bar for a pint of beer, if you could walk into a bar for motivation and just grab that handle and pour a pint full of liquid motivation and boom, all of this emotion is gone. All of a sudden you're super excited. That would be so amazing. And I want to stay on this example for just a minute of what I'm going through because I think everybody can relate to the dynamic here, whether you're the one that's been rejected or you're the one that's concerned about somebody who is.

Because what our son does or doesn't do in the next eleven days potentially determines what the next four years of his life could look like. And that family member of mine who got laid off after working somewhere for ten years, what they do or don't do over the next few months can really matter in terms of what happens next. And that takes us back to our topic. How do you motivate yourself when you don't feel motivated at all? And here's how we're going to tackle this. We're going to break it down because I want to give you specific tactics based in science for a moment like this. And I also want to make a very important request. If this isn't you right now, I guarantee you someone you love is feeling this way. Please share this episode with them. Give them this information. Let them hear that they're not alone. And let them feel empowered by the fact that there are simple things that you can do, period, to tap into that self motivation. This is the closest thing I can give you to motivation on Tap, this episode right here. Because here's what you and I are going to cover first of all, I'm going to break down the true definition of motivation using the research so that you and I are using the word in the exact same way.

Next, you can't talk about motivation without talking about the word dopamine because so many people and researchers and writers and podcasters talk about dopamine in relation to motivation. There is so much interest in that. So we will talk about that as well. Then you and I are going to cover two essential strategies that you need in a moment like this right now. These are two strategies based on research that a will help you locate that self motivation and b will really inspire you to not only get back up, but to bring your a game when you do. So, don't you go anywhere. I'm going to be waiting for you after a very short break where you can hear a word from our sponsors. Stay with us. Hey, it's your friend Mel. And do not skip this because I have something to give you for free. No kidding. Say goodbye to 2023. Let's say hello to 2024 and make it the best year ever. I have a free 29 page workbook. I made this for you to thank you for being here on YouTube watching all of our videos supporting our work. I'm going to help you answer what you want in 2024.

And then more importantly, you're going to create a plan to go get it. Then I'll be here on YouTube motivating you every step of the way. You and me, baby. Let's create the best year ever. Just click the link. Boom. I'll take you to the page. You'll have this puppy in your hands in less than a minute and be right back here with YouTube for me to motivate you. I love you. Let's do this. Welcome back. It's your friend Mel. I told you I would be waiting for you. We're going to start with a definition of motivation because I want to make sure that you and I are on the same page page when we're using the word. Now, from a scientific standpoint, motivation is the general desire or willingness to act in a certain way. Another way that you may hear people define motivation in the context of kind of science and research is motivation is often used to describe this force that explains why you would initiate something or why you would continue with something or why you would quit something. That's an interesting thing, that you have a motivation to quit something.

Of course you do. That's the force that makes you take the action to quit. It's motivating you and since you listen to the Mel Robbins podcast, you know, I like to simplify things. So I have just this very plain spoken definition that I use that takes into account all the science and research. And here's my definition of motivation, and this is what I want you and I to use as we're having this conversation. Motivation just means you feel like doing something. That's it. Motivation means you feel like doing something, and that means a lack of motivation means you don't feel like doing something. Simple, right? And that's what's interesting about motivation. When you feel like doing something, it's easy to do, right? Because you're motivated, you feel like doing it. And if you googled motivation or you've listened to podcasts on the topics, or you've read about the science of it, I know that you have bumped into the word dopamine. So let me talk about dopamine in the context of self motivation. Okay? Dopamine is a type of neurotransmitter and hormone, and dopamine is involved in so many different aspects of your body functioning.

But when you talk about dopamine in the context of motivation, what researchers, neuroscientists, psychologist, everybody is talking about is the fact that dopamine plays a role in what's called the reward system in your mind. That's why dopamine is often referred to as the molecule of motivation. And when you are listening to anybody or reading about topics like behavior chain habits, in our case, the science of motivation, it's really important to understand the role that dopamine plays, because I think there's a tremendous amount of misunderstanding about what dopamine is and the role that it plays. And a lot of people feel like, oh, dopamine. Dopamine is what makes me motivated. If you could just put dopamine in a pill, I'd feel more motivated somehow that dopamine is sort of like that motivation on tap. That's not technically the case, because dopamine is tied to cravings and to things that you want. Dopamine is present to try to drive you toward things that you crave or toward things that you really want to do. And I'm going to give you a couple examples, because once you wrap your brain around this, oh, my gosh. You're going to be like, oh, my gosh, I totally get this.

So let's just take a scenario. You've been at work all day, you had an early lunch. You've been in meetings all day. As you're driving home, you're hungry right now. When you get home, because you're hungry, you're going to be very motivated to open the fridge, to look inside, and to figure out what to eat or cook yourself for dinner. Right? Why? Because you're craving food. You're hungry. But have you ever noticed that you can be really motivated when you get home to make something to eat and to eat real quick the second you're done eating, it is so hard to motivate yourself to clean up the kitchen and to do the dishes. Why? Dopamine? See, you came home hungry. You were craving food, which is why you were motivated to cook. You felt like doing it. Dopamine is present because it's tied to craving and to the thing that you wanted. And in fact, this is kind of cool research. Let's say that you really love steak. And if you're coming home and you're craving steakhouse, do you know how motivated you are to turn on the grill so you can grill that filet?

In fact, your mouth is just watering thinking about it. Talk about the molecule of motivation. My mouth is watering just talking to you about it. That's how much I like steak. And the research shows that foods that you like spike dopamine levels by 50%. Why? Well, because you both crave it and you want it. That's why you're motivated to cook it. And this is true with all things that you crave or things that you really, really like. And these are not necessarily good things that I'm going to list. But do you want to know the top things that spike dopamine levels? It's not pretty. Meth. Cocaine. Nicotine. Sex. Social media. Video games, sugar. See, people get motivated to find these things because they crave them. You want to know what's not on that list? College applications, updating your resume, putting up a dating profile, stepping on a scale, doing dishes. I mean, who on earth craves sticking your hands in a soapy sink with a bunch of greasy pants? Not me. That's why you never feel motivated to do it. And look, there are so many people out there that are experts at biohacking dopamine.

That's not what we're talking about today. You and I are talking about the reality in a normal person's life, which is, do not expect this molecule of motivation to rescue you. In a situation where you feel down, you feel discouraged, you don't feel like doing what you need to do. It's not coming. And yet, you still need to pick yourself up and force yourself to do the work and just like motivation, dopamine is wonderful when you have it. But this conversation is about the other situations, the 99% of your life, when you don't feel like doing what you need to do. I don't feel like applying to college after I got rejected. I don't feel like going to the gym. I don't feel like working on my business plan. I don't feel like eating healthy when I'd rather have a pizza. I don't feel like putting myself out there because I'm shy and introverted and I got screwed over by the last person I did. I don't feel like cleaning out the garage. I don't feel like having a mocktail when I'd rather have a beer tonight. I don't feel like having that conversation with my mother.

I've been avoiding it for three months, so why not avoid it another one? And notice, when you don't feel like doing those things, you don't do them, do you? That's why you'll often hear me say, motivation is garbage. It's garbage because it's not there when you really need it. If motivation were on demand, if it were on tap, if we could just, ooh, pop a pill, I would pour that sucker into a cup, man. I would drink it every day. And you know. You want to know what else? If motivation were easy, everybody would have a million bucks in the bank. Everybody would have six pack abs. Everybody would be having the side hustle, their dreams and taking vacations, because they would be motivated all the time to do all the things to get you those things. But that's not how life works, is it? Because knowing what you need to do, it's not enough. It's just not enough. And here's the issue, and I know it, because the clock is ticking. Waiting for motivation to strike is basically saying it's never going to happen. And if you're in a situation like we are in, in this household, you got eleven days.

You got eleven days. You cannot afford to let your feelings derail the actions that you need to take right now. And one more point about this. I personally am highly motivated to see our son push through the feelings of rejection and put in the work so that he is proud of himself, so that he knows that he put his best foot forward. Forward. That he didn't let this one school stop him. But I can't do the work for him. I can't just spray him with motivation. In fact, the more pressure I put on him, the more demoralized he's going to feel. He knows what the game's about. He knows what the stakes are, he knows what he's up against. But here's what I'm offering. Even though you can't do the work for somebody else, and even though you technically can't motivate someone else, you can't feel it more than they want to feel like doing it, there are things you can do to help someone tap back into the drive inside themselves in a moment like this. And these two steps are also what you need to do. Moments where you're the one who needs the motivation.

Step number one, you must remind yourself of why this matters to you. Let's say that again. Step number one, you must remind yourself of why this matters to you. This is one of the most important hacks for self motivation, and that is understanding exactly what you want and exactly why you want it. Because number one, if you don't really want it, you're not going to feel motivated to do the work to get it. And if you don't know why you want it, you're not going to feel motivated to do the work to get it. And I'm going to keep coming back to this example because it's so relatable, our son and these college applications. So after he got the news, we just let him go for a day or two, right? You got to be able to decompress. You got to be able to take a deep breath. And then we sat down with him and we had a conversation about all the options on the table, starting with, do you even want to go to college next year? Do you want to take a gap year? Do you want to do something else? Do you want to get a job all the way to the other end, which is just because that school rejected you doesn't mean you can't get into another top tier school.

If that's what you actually want, and that's important, you can't want it because I want it, and I don't even want that for him. I want him to go to the place he wants to be. And I reminded him of this. There are so many amazing schools out there that you could not only get into, but you probably love and be really happy at. So why not put in a couple applications to schools like that so you have options. So we talked and talked and talked through all the options. Don't go at all. Apply to top schools. Apply to schools in the middle. And here's what he said. You know, if I didn't put in a few more applications to some other top choices of mine, all of which are a real reach for me. I realize that. I know in my heart that I wouldn't have given it my all. And I guess, mom, if they reject me, too, then you know what? It's going to make me feel better at where I ultimately end up. I love that. I love that. Because, number one, he's getting in touch with what he wants. And number two, it really tracks back to something that you and I talk about all the time.

That dreams and your goals, they are there for a reason, and they're not necessarily there because you're supposed to achieve them. Dreams set a direction that you head in. Dreams are what you pursue in order for you to become the kind of person that you want to become. See, these dreams and goals that you have, these reaches that you go for, they force you to do things that you wouldn't normally do. And that's exactly what our son was talking about. He knows that by buckling down right now, at the moment where he least wants to do this, this is the last thing that he wants to do. But by doing it and going for it, he is demonstrating something that he cares in terms of his character. That's why he wants to apply. He's not doing it to get into a school. He's applying because that's the kind of person he knows that he wants to be. And I want you to think, like, where in your life have you gone for something simply because you knew pursuing it would cause you to become a better version of yourself? And so let's circle this back and highlight step one, which is you have to know why you want something.

And let's talk about you. Let's talk about your why. Whether you're listening to me right now and you're picking yourself back up or you're cranking along, you got some big goal and you would just love to destroy it this year. I mean, let's level up. Let's amplify. Let's swing for the fences, people. You want to tap into that, like, self motivation to really rocket ship this puppy. What is it that you want? What is it that you're working on, and why do you want it? Why? And as you ponder that, I want to remind you that I can help you answer this. I created this incredible workbook that is free, zero cost. It's my gift to you to help you gain clarity about what you want and why you want it, which is essential if you want to tap into self motivation. It is 29 amazing pages long. You can hear me flipping through it right now. And already hundreds of thousands of podcast listeners from around the world have downloaded this puppy. They love it. They love the tools in it. This is a resource for you, and you can get it right now@melrobbins.com. bestyear please share it with your friends, share it with your families.

And this workbook is going to help you with step one. What do I want? Why do I want it? Because the workbook begins with six clarifying questions that give you those answers. And this is so important. And it's not just me saying it. It's not just common sense. There is breakthrough research that comes from the University of Oregon that has shown that you have to know your why in order to achieve your goals. Knowing your why matters. And based on the research, it's because when you know why something matters to you, it helps you with self regulation. It helps you prioritize doing the work over other things that are not as important but are easier to do. And this is essential because if you know that something matters, you'll come home after ski practice instead of taking a few extra runs with your friends. And you'll work on college applications because you know why it matters. You'll get out of bed a little bit earlier to chip away at your resume instead of sleeping in this weekend because you'll know why it matters. And so this is grounded in the research. Okay, I know what you're probably thinking as you digest this whole story.

How the hell does something so simple work, Mel? I mean, come on, for real. 54321 well, let me get you into action, okay? Because when you try this thing, you're going to experience the change yourself. One of the reasons why this is so powerful is because your brain has one job, and that is to keep you alive, which means your brain will resist any kind of new change you want to make. And the thing I'm going to have you do is going to make you feel this resistance. And it's important for you to realize that this is part of your wiring. You're never going to not have to push yourself to do things when you don't feel like it. Like this is just a fact of life. In fact, one of the hardest things for us all to do is to start something new. And there's a scientific reason why. The reason why is because pushing yourself to do something, whether it's pushing yourself to get to the gym, or pushing yourself to change a habit, or pushing yourself to stay sober, or pushing yourself to speak up more or pushing yourself to express your boundaries.

Boundaries, right. Or make the cold calls that are going to make you more money. All of that requires you to go from doing one thing, like scrolling on your phone or sitting on the couch to doing something different. You have to summon something called activation energy. You have to activate the movement inside of you. One of the coolest things about why the five second rule works is the counting itself is an action. So it's almost like the little Trojan horse. So you're sitting there on the couch, you know you need to go for a run, but it's raining and it's cold and you don't feel like it. You blew it off this morning. You've already made yourself wrong. It's now 03:00 in the afternoon. You can think of a million things that you would rather do than going for a run. You now know the secret. The secret is motivation is garbage. No one's coming to push your ass off that couch. This is up to you. The second you're sitting there marinating in your excuses and your sad sack, whatever, feeling low energy. I get it. I'm there every day at 03:00 right there with you not feeling like it.

The second you start counting backwards, 54321, you've made the decision to get off that couch and go exercise even though you don't feel like it. The second you hit one, get up off the couch, start walking toward your closet, change into your running shoes, change into your tights, whatever. And 54321, walk out the door. That is how you summon the activation energy to start. And starting is the hardest part. Right. So that's why this works. In addition to the physiology, in addition to the brain science, in addition to everything else. From a real common sense point of view, you are starting with the counting. And so I want to leave you in motion. I don't want you to just learn about this thing because it doesn't work. If you think about it, you got to use the tool, and once you use it, you're going to be able to teach it to anybody in your life that's struggling because they're waiting to feel motivated. You can give it to anybody once you try it. And so what's the best way to get you moving? I want you to do a five day wake up challenge with me.

Okay. I know you're already groaning. I can literally hear it through my earphones over there. I don't want to wake up. Good. Okay. And for those of you that can just spring out of bed, first of all, you're a weirdo and the way that we're going to make this work for you is set your alarm. If you're the kind of person that just, oh, I just naturally wake up, oh, I just spring out of bed. You're going to set your alarm 30 minutes earlier because I want to manufacture the resistance that you are going to push through with the five second rule for the rest of us who just hate getting out of bed. And here's what you're going to do. Tonight, set your alarm. Okay. Tomorrow morning when the alarm goes off, you're immediately going to feel yourself thinking about getting out of bed. You're immediately going to want to stay in bed. We all do. I mean, who wants to get out of bed? It's cozy, it's warm, it's yummy in there, you know, especially if you're sleeping with your loved one or your fur babies. Okay, I get it. That is me.

Every, every single morning when that alarm goes off, you're going to notice this moment of hesitation because you're not going to want to use the five second rule. Good. That's that resistance. That's the fact that activation energy is now required. That's your brain going, but I don't want to change. And then you're going to count. 54321. Throw those sheets off. Stand up. You're going to hate this. Start walking towards the bathroom. By the time you get to the bathroom, you're good. So that's what you're going to do for five mornings in a row. Alarm goes off. Count backwards. 54321. The second you hit one, the sheets are off and you stand up and start walking toward the bathroom. You're going to hate it. You're not going to feel like doing it. If you can push through the resistance that you feel every morning about getting up when the alarm rings, you can push through the resistance. Everywhere in your life. You are building a muscle, a muscle of courage, of confidence, of action. You are building the skill of being able to take action when you don't feel like it. And that skill will pay you dividends for the rest of your life.

Now, I'd like to support you in this wake up challenge and let me support you. And here's how you can let me support you. Go to melrobins.com wakeup. Wakeup. One word, wake up. I don't think it's one word in real life, or maybe it is, but on the website it's melrobbins.com wakeup. If you the instructions for the wake up challenge will be there in case you want to share them with somebody else. And more importantly, if you share your email with me, don't worry, I'm not going to put you in some like, you know, I'm not going to sell your name to anybody. I just want to support you. I will send you a really fun, encouraging email every single day that you're in this challenge for five days because I really want you to try this. And I want you to try this because you know the five second rule, I'm so passionate about it, not because of my experience. I'm passionate about it because of the experience of millions of people around the world who have used the five second rule. First to get out of bed and then to go on to make amazing, courageous, incredible changes in their life.

And the same is going to be true for you, but it's only true if you're willing to push yourself. And here's the interesting thing about this challenge. Notice you don't feel like doing the wake up challenge. What, are you waiting to feel motivated to do it? I mean, isn't that the whole point of what we've been talking about? In order to get what you want, you got to push yourself to act before you're ready, before you feel like it. I mean, what's the worst thing that could happen? That you try it for five days and then you go back to hitting the snooze button. I think something incredible will happen when you place a bet on yourself, when you allow me to support you by sending you these emails. I believe that if you were to practice pushing through the resistance five mornings in a row, and it sounds simple, it is not easy. I think you would be surprised by how good you feel about yourself and the ripple effect that it creates in your life. That's what I believe is going to happen, and I can't wait to support you in it. You are one decision away from a different life, a better life.

And yes, it's not going to change overnight. It changes through those decisions that you're making that add up over time. I hope you find the courage to make the decision that's going to change your life today. I'm asking you to. 54321 sign up for that wake up challenge. Melrobbins.com wakeup and let me support you. When you start making courageous decisions, when you start pushing yourself forward, when you start going for bigger things, when you stop thinking and you start doing, are you going to fail? Probably. Will you mess up? I sure do. That's okay. I want you to just keep waking up every single morning. 54321 and show up for yourself again. Because it's what you do after you fail. It's what you do in those moments when you don't feel like it. It's those moments when you push yourself that matters most. Do not waste another day of your life waiting, wishing or hoping. Motivation comes. All the things you desire are right in front of you. They're waiting for you. Waiting for you to push through all of that resistance and self doubt and walk toward what you want. No matter how old you are or what's happened in your life, you can achieve the life you want.

I'm sorry. You don't have to believe it. I've got enough confidence in this fact to believe for you until you catch up. I have way too much evidence, having seen the lives of millions of people change through these small decisions, to know that yes, you can change your life too. You have dreams to fulfill. You've got a world to change. You've got a life to live. So I want you to get your butt out there and 54321, go do it. I will see you in the wake up challenge. I will see you in the next episode. And I am so excited to be kicking off this whole new chapter of my life with you. Thank you for being here. And more importantly, thank you for trying this because thinking about this tool is not going to change your life. Motivation is garbage. No one's coming, but you got everything inside you that you need. So 54321, go do it. Here's the thing that got me through kind of the loss of the talk show and the way that I think about things that I hope helps if you're listening. Kind of struggling with something I believe.

And I went into the talk show saying this to myself because there's a 99% chance, based on the history of people that have tried to have a daytime talk show that it was going to fail. And I went in there saying this, I'm not doing this because I expect to have a successful talk show. I'm going to put 1000% into it so that I have no regrets and I wouldn't change a thing. But I'm going into this because I know that there is a skill, a person or an experience I am meant to have that will help me for the next chapter that I can't see coming. And the experience was, number one, meeting Mindy Borman, who is my executive producer, now my business partner and CEO. And it was also in working with a team of 130 people and finally being in the right seat on the bus, Louis.

And not having to manage everything but being in your lane.

Yes.

And having a team and you not being the one doing everything, I know that feeling well.

It's not even that I was doing everything. It's that I didn't have anybody managing me.

Right. And so your mind is going to go into, like, opportunity. Opportunity as opposed to focus mode.

Right.

And so if you ever wonder why it feels like we're running in circles, it's because I'm the one leading us in circles. Right.

Yeah.

And so it's a very hard thing to spot when you're in the middle of it. But when I got into a machinery that operated in a way where I was in the right seat on the bus, it was absolutely liberating. And that was the biggest gift of all. And then the third thing is, I think the daytime talk show and being face to face with your audience and having such a big daily audience, it was really amazing to be able to have an impact on a large number of people who feel forgotten because they're a little bit older if they're still watching tv. And a lot of the folks who are still watching tv at home during the daytime do not have the resources that you and I have and may not have access to therapy or live in a community where it's stigmatized. And so having a platform that was reaching people that really appreciated this kind of content and also working with a really diverse range of experts, absolutely incredible. So I felt like I was organizing a killer dinner party conversation every day with real people's problems and the world's best experts.

And so you kind of do a similar thing here on your podcast. So I know I want to continue to do that, but I'm in the middle of creating it. So if I said anything other than I know it's events, I know it's more courses, I know it's collaborating with more people and getting outside my comfort zone. And I also know that as I set out to write down what I want to do, there is so much freaking fear that I have.

Why is that?

Because I still feel like I'm not worthy. I feel like I don't deserve it, like it's old bullshit. And I think that's the other thing about patterns. Everybody is just because you identify. And for me, as a kid, for whatever reason, I have my own version of feeling invisible and feeling like I'm not good enough. And so my way of coping, both with my anxiety and being a survivor of sexual abuse and wanting love which we all need is I was, like, an overachiever. And so I'm the kind of person that's super busy and a go getter because it got me attention. And if I was the one that was super busy and achieving, I not only got praise, but it also insulates you from other people not picking you because you're the one in a leadership role doing the picking.

Right.

And so there's a part of me at the age of 51 that is realizing that, you know, this. These feelings of feeling unworthy and this hyper drive to try to achieve, it's all coming from a place of feeling inadequate or, like, what I'm doing is not enough.

And so that's at 50. Having the talk show, having a best selling book, having the audible originals, having the platform everywhere, having the impact is still don't have feel. Being the most booked female speaker in the world. Like, you still don't feel so stupid.

It's annoying. And human beings are annoying. We are stuck with this wiring. Like, if you think about it, like, all of the crap you believe is probably a hangover from age zero to ten, that as adults, we walk around thinking the same stuff we thought as kids. And I can't stand that I feel that way. But knowing it, it allows me to catch it before it has me, before it stops me from having an event or writing that next book or taking a risk.

What do you think the biggest fear is? Because you say. You say not worthy or not feeling enough, is that.

I mean, it's just people liking me. I think, like, you know, being a.

People pleaser and, yeah, we're so similar in every way. It's great. Don't like you.

It's lonely. Dude.

Hmm?

What happens if I. What happens if 99% of people like you and 1% doesn't like you?

Oh, I don't about that.

Okay. But if it's like, if it's 50 50.

I think the work that we all have to do, every single one of us, whether you bulldoze, whether you people please, whether you avoid conflict, whether you're impulsive, whether you yo yo, your decisions, whatever it is that is your pattern, the constant trash in yourself. I think the journey your whole life is figuring out how to truly like and love yourself.

It's so true. I mean, I remember this was. My whole life was never loving myself and needing to go prove to others originally that I'm worthy. This was happening, sports and business. Until I started opening up and accepting myself and. And taking off the mask when I turned 30, talking about sexual abuse and just kind of saying, screw it, I don't care what people think about me anymore. This pain inside is hurting so much, it's not worth living with it. So I'm going to start sharing and allow myself to heal and allow myself to finally love myself. And it's so funny that we could just write a book with two words that says, love yourself. And that's all the book needs to say, because a lot of us never remember to love ourselves. Remember to acquire skills which are important, remember to love other people, remind ourselves to take care of our health. But if we don't love ourselves internally, if we don't think we can give ourselves a hug because we're not deserving of it, then none of this stuff is going to matter. To the point of, we're always going to need to do more to feel something, right?

Well, nobody teaches you how to do it. And, see, that's the thing. And, you know, I mean, if you look at human development, we're the only species that literally can't survive without another human being taking care of you. And so we are biologically hardwired to bond with other people. And that is the very. From the very beginning of when you come out, bonding with somebody else and making sure they pay attention to you is your survival imperative. So you are born meeting somebody else. And I think what ends up happening is there's never that kind of clean break or pass off between needing your parents to take care of you, needing your friends approval to fit in, to truly having ownership over giving yourself what you didn't get, giving yourself what you needed. And that's the piece that I've been doing a lot of during the great pause is slowing down because so much of my busyness was fueled by, you know, praise me, love me. Am I doing enough? You know, please tell me I'm doing okay. Okay. I can breathe now. I'm okay now. And when I slow down, and maybe it's a function of the anxiety, that's when things get scary, because that's when you've really got to be with yourself.

And so it's in getting off the road, slowing down, recognizing that I'm super grateful for all the opportunity, and I know the work that I'm doing makes a tremendous impact. And I particularly love hearing from mental health practitioners that the five second rule. I've heard from so many people in inpatient psychiatric wards, Louis, that use the five second rule and the videos we put on YouTube in their group counseling sessions with people and knowing that it is helping so many people. It is like, the greatest gift on the planet to know that it's making a difference. But I know that in this next chapter that I consciously create, I want to have more fun. I really want to love the process. I don't want to make it so hard on myself and be gripping everything so tight. And it's really easy for me to see it in other people because I know what it feels like in here. I'm working hard to break the patterns that still hold me back, and the big one that holds me back is bulldozing. That's the. It's literally when I start to feel any level of tension. This is particularly true in my marriage.

I'm married to a saint. Thank God. Chris Robbins meditates every morning. It's the only reason why we've lasted 26 years. How he puts up with me. When I feel my, like, whatever emotion rise, I immediately raise my voice. It's how I assert power in the relationship. And I am so committed, Louis, to breaking that pattern and being a more fun person to be around and a kinder person to be around.

Wow. That's beautiful that you're getting this. During the pause, what do you think was, what do you think was the biggest lesson you learned about yourself during the talk show experience before the pause, because you covered so many topics and you had to research about so many things, and you brought so many people on, experts, but then just everyday people going through their challenges, what's the thing that you learned that was new? Because this is something you've been studying for years and. And talking about, and was there anything new that you were, like, shocked about, you learned about yourself or about human behavior?

This is going to be a really. Well, first of all, there's two things. The first one, I'll make it deeply personal, and the second one will be a thing that I learned. Okay. The talk show experience was almost like. It's weird. It almost feels like it didn't happen.

Really?

Yeah.

It was your whole life for, like, two years.

Yeah. But, you know, 175 shows. It was in super intense. You know, it was. It was almost a spiritual experience because I had dreamt about it for as long as I could remember, and I stepped onto that talk show set with such a level of mastery. And the reason why I had a level of mastery is because I could look backwards at my life and see that I had been heading to that moment for my entire life. That the ability to create trust and take a complicated amount of information and get down to the human connection immediately. That began to back in 1994, when I was a legal aid attorney doing criminal defense work in New York City. My ability to understand what victims of domestic violence go through goes all the way back to 1986 through 1988, when I was a crisis intervention counselor volunteering on a domestic violence hotline.

Wow.

My ability to read a teleprompter had to do with being at CNN. My ability to work 18 hours days was a function of the reality tv show world. My ability to relate to somebody who had lost everything was a function of what Chris and I had gone through. My ability, like, just everything all of a sudden was like. And it's why I can say with such urgency that you have to have faith that this is happening for a reason, that this is leading somewhere. And if you only just stay awake and you pay attention to what your body's trying to tell you in those moments when you have a signal come up, like, I think right now, aren't you so happy you're a digital entrepreneur? Jeff?

I've been speaking about building an online business for over a decade, and so now I'm like, oh, I know what to do. And everyone's coming to me for the solutions. And our team is digital, so we are virtual, so we know how to run everything. And we. We do zoom meetings every week already.

Yes. And so I literally, when I think back three years ago where I was, like, saw one of your videos or Gary's videos or somebody, I'm like, oh, I just need to start filming the book lines at these. And it was a. It was a moment. It was this little amount of wisdom inside of me that I listened to. And I am telling you, that is the power. You got to tune out the noise, and you got to learn how to make what I call a quiet decision. Quiet decision where you and you hear what your heart is urging you to do. And so I sit here because aside from the talk show ending and the book getting canceled, I was literally like, okay, so online courses, we do zoom. We've got this amazing social media platform. We'll figure it out. And luckily, I was like a squirrel with a nut, and I put a lot of money away because I was not going to make the same mistake twice.

Smart. Yeah. And you've been doing a lot of research, and you've been diving in and making sure you make the right decisions. We've been texting, chatting about different stuff. And so the biggest.

The biggest insight, though, is we did a show that had, I can't believe. I can't remember the gentleman's name. He's an. He's from Washington, DC. And it was a show about heroin and heroin addiction, or the opioid addiction and heroin, and how this has been an epidemic in the black community for 20 years. And it only became a big national story because opioid addiction got linked to heroin abuse, and it became a white problem. And so he came on the show with three former addicts. It was the most profound show that I have ever done because I learned something that I never even understood as a public defender, and that is, living in poverty and living with systematic racism creates trauma. And when people experience trauma in their bodies and in their nervous systems, your response, particularly if you have no resources or treatment, and. And the vast majority of us do not get treatment for the trauma that we experience, most of us want to numb it. And he connected the dots between the chronic trauma that the folks that he was serving had experienced growing up in extreme poverty, around violence, dealing with racism and bigotry and violence, and the natural inclination to reach for something to help you numb that pain.

And he connected the dots between deep emotional trauma and addictions that result in a way that I had never heard anybody explain so eloquently. And it was such an eye opening experience. Use this mantra. You talk about it a lot. I'm allowed to be human.

I am. I'm allowed to be human. And we talk a lot about, like, nobody has to be perfect. But in our head, we still have categories of acceptable imperfection and unacceptable imperfection.

What are some of the big categories that you see in your work that people say are unacceptable categories? We covered not brushing your teeth, but what are unacceptable categories?

Like, being mean to somebody.

What do you mean?

Like, if you were rude or you were mean to someone or if you blew a huge deadline, if you didn't show up to something that was really important. And now you look absolutely ridiculous in front of your whole profession, like, things where you've upset someone or someone's angry with you or you've let someone down. And we're not saying that that was, you know, let's repeat it because it's not functional. We're not saying that people don't get to have their feelings about whatever you did or said or however you showed up. It's just that, like, I can make, like, a genuine, bona fide mistake, and it can be very wrong of me to have done, and I still get to be human. Humans do very wrong things sometimes times. And what I want to respond to it by going, okay, I don't like that. I don't want to do that again. How can I grow and heal so that I can move away from that? And I think that that's kind of what it comes down to. And if you're someone who finds yourself in this state chronically, that's when we want to start thinking about accessibility.

How can I make my home more accessible? How can I make these tasks more accessible? Because there's a difference between, you know, I am nine months pregnant for only three months, and it's hard for me to bend over. And so things just kind of pile up and I just let it because I have the right priorities and it'll get. But if you have some, if you're someone with chronic back pain, that's not really something you can just go, well, it'll just pile up and I'll get to it when I feel better, right? That's when we need to think a little long term, which is like, well, maybe you need a grabber.

What's a grabber?

Like a. Like a grabber.

I don't know what a grabber is.

If you've ever had, like, surgeries and you can't, like, reach up or reach down, you, like, pull the handle and it's a long stick and there's, like, a little tongs at the end that pick things up for you.

Wow.

Maybe you need a small.

We're so busy. What I'm getting from you, casey, is that when you caught. When you get caught in this loop where everything's a moral obligation and everything that you're not doing is evidence that you're a loser and that you can't get yourself together, you get so stuck in making it a problem that you don't see the obvious solutions that are right in front of your face. If you were to simply just give yourself a frickin break.

Yes. Because if what's wrong with you is that you're failing, the only solution is try harder. But if the issue isn't some moral failure, then you trying harder on the same kind of broken wheels isn't going to produce anything else.

So.

But if you go, this is a morally neutral problem, but I deserve to function, how can I get creative? How can I fix this? All of a sudden, the world opens up and there's all of these creative possibilities. Can I stop folding my clothes? Can I use paper plates for a bit? Can I get a wheelie stool? Can I get a grabber? Can I, you know, can I do a toy library for my kids where two thirds of their toys stay in this closet, and they only have some of their toys out, and they can check them in and out as much as they want, but then they. Right. Like, all of a sudden, you have so many ideas. What if my, what if I had a 32 gallon trash can on wheels in my kitchen instead of these tiny little trash cans? Because my kids, I seem to. I seem to fill up trash cans twice a day, and I don't seem to take out trash enough to keep up with it. And so most of us think, well, the answer is, make yourself take the trash out. Make yourself more motivated. Make. But what if we focus less on that and there was just a simple upgrade the trash can to be bigger.

It's so great. I was recently thinking about how much we aim criticism at who you are. I got to be more of a, there's something wrong with me. Instead of looking at, well, what are you doing? And what could I change about what I'm doing? Like putting a bigger trash can on wheels in the space instead of making 55 trips every day and where. Where things are. Like, what's. What is it about the environment? What is it about the way that you're thinking about things? I want to give you a couple of our listeners sort of challenges and role play a little bit with you about what hacks or mindset flips or what you would want them to do as a first step. One listener writes, in the midst of my son's autism diagnosis, every single task felt like it would kill me. I had to talk myself through everything step by step to avoid the anxiety for months when somebody's in that kind of a state, I felt, I said this about 18 months ago out loud. I can't handle one more thing. If one more thing breaks down in my life, if one more bad thing happens, you're gonna have to check me in to an inpatient facility.

I can't handle one more thing. She was talking herself through coaching, step by step by step. What's another strategy somebody could use?

So we want to start with the perspective, which is, I would say to this person, we often picture a highway as life and these sort of, like, side roads as, like, not life. And we're off on the side road with a broken car kind of going, well, I'm pushing the car. I'm pushing the car, and I just want to get back to life. This isn't how it's supposed to. I can't. And I think it's more helpful to envision that, like, there's not this like mystical place of life where everybody's running on, like firing on all cylinders. Like life is in fact getting an autism diagnosis for your child and needing to process through that and just figuring out how we move forward, there's nothing that this person is doing wrong. They are using so much cognitive, emotional energy to process this diagnosis. I would also just say from a personal perspective that, but your son's going to be okay. Your autistic child can have a very happy, full life and so can you. And so you're going to be okay. You're not doing anything wrong. You are not supposed to be able to do more than what you're capable of doing now.

And you're right. What can we do to keep things survival, you know, level functional while you get through this? And that's when I would say if this person, first off, I want this person to start using paper plates immediately. I want paper plates, I want paper napkins. I want you to be able to throw everything away right after a meal. I want you to, as much as your budget allows, outsource anything you can, whether that's cleaning or laundry or grocery delivery. I want you to pick one tiny corner of your house that you can make beautiful, and you can get it beautiful in under five minutes. And that's where you get to go and sit when you just can't look at anything else. I want you to make a hygiene kit for yourself with baby wipes and dry shampoo and something that smells nice. And I want you to go on Amazon. I want you to buy those toothbrushes that are single use toothbrushes that are pre pasted in individual packages. And I want you to put little hygiene kits all around your house because you're just going to be in the middle of it and smell yourself and go, oh, gosh.

And then you'll never be more than a few steps away from ability to take care of yourself when you can't leave your child alone in the room. I want you to put a laundry basket and a trash can in every room of your house so that anytime you create laundry or trash, you're only a few steps away from being able to be done with it in one step, not three, four, five steps. And I want you to rest.

I feel like that's what your best friend would do for you. What you just did was beautiful, and I think it's also an extraordinarily tactical example of your space should serve you, and so is the visual of the highway. So I'm thinking about one of our daughters who is, you know, just processing a breakup. And she sounded so good today. This is like 24 hours. And she's like, yeah, but I'll be crying probably in an hour because that's my process. So I'm gonna take myself on a walk and I'm not gonna force myself to do anything today. And as I was listening to her, I'm like, wow, that's exactly right. You don't have to motor through it. You don't have to get on a revenge diet. You don't have to gossip about it all day. You can just take a step back and allow yourself to be human. 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.

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