BigDeal - #103 Mel Robbins: The Trick To Unlocking A Happier Life

Episode Date: November 12, 2025

Most people know Mel Robbins for her viral “5 Second Rule” or her bestselling book The Let Them Theory. But what they don’t know is the raw, messy story behind how she went from $800,000 in debt and hiding from bill collectors… to building one of the biggest self-improvement empires in the world. In this episode, Mel opens up about the moment she almost lost everything — her home, her marriage, her hope — and what finally snapped her out of it. She reveals the brutally honest conversation that changed her life, how she clawed her way back one tiny habit at a time, and why she says every entrepreneur has to “fight for the first 15 minutes of the day.” If you’ve ever wondered how to actually rebuild when life falls apart — or how to finally defeat failure, jealousy, and burnout — this conversation is for you. Thanks to GoDaddy for sponsoring this video! Head to ⁠godaddy.com/codiesanchez⁠ to get started with GoDaddy Airo® today. Check out Mel Robbins' bestselling book "The Let Them Theory" here: https://www.melrobbins.com/book/the-let-them-theory/ I say it all the time: building real wealth doesn’t require a flashy startup — it just takes one boring, cash-flowing business. Join me at Main Street Millionaire Live to get my exact playbook for finding, buying, and scaling a business. Stop wondering how ownership could change your life, and come find out: https://contrarianthinking.biz/MSML26_BDYT 00:00 Introduction 01:29 Mel's Journey of Starting Over 06:21 Entrepreneurial Challenges and Family Background 08:11 Transitioning Careers and Finding Purpose 12:11 The Reality of Entrepreneurship 16:48 Coaching and Building a New Career 22:28 Facing Hardships and Personal Growth 26:41 The Power of Vulnerability and Honesty 38:49 Oprah's Enormous Gift 39:14 Embracing Excitement and Celebration 39:43 The Power of Savoring Success 40:01 Innovative Education with Joe Lamont 43:25 The Importance of Spirituality 46:44 Finding Joy in Small Moments 50:27 The Hot 15: Morning Routine for Success 01:05:56 Closing the Day with a Clear Mind 01:09:32 Struggles with Jealousy 01:11:51 Financial Hardships and Career Beginnings 01:12:34 Overcoming Self-Doubt and Embracing Podcasting 01:13:48 Understanding and Harnessing Jealousy 01:16:15 Personal Growth and Family Dynamics 01:18:32 Building a Successful Business 01:25:37 The Challenges and Rewards of Touring 01:37:11 Impact and Legacy MORE FROM BIGDEAL: 🎥 Youtube: / @podcastbigdeal 📸 Instagram: / bigdeal.podcast 📽️ TikTok: / big.deal.pod MORE FROM CODIE SANCHEZ: 🎥 Youtube: / @codiesanchezct 📸 Instagram: / codiesanchez 📽️ TikTok: / realcodiesanchez OTHER THINGS WE DO: Our community: https://contrarianthinking.typeform.com/to/WBztXXID Free newsletter: https://contrarianthinking.biz/3XWLlZp Biz buying course: https://contrarianthinking.biz/3NhjGgN Resibrands: https://resibrands.com/ CT Capital: https://contrarianthinking.biz/4eRyGOk Main St Hold Co: https://contrarianthinking.biz/3YfGa8u Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

If you want to make more money, you have to fight for the first 15 minutes of the day. I call it the hot 15. The hot 15. I have built my business 15 minutes at a time. And I get, you know, I'm a non-morning person. I get bullshit. If you've ever felt stuck knowing what to do but not doing it, this one's for you. Mel Robbins, you probably know as a superstar podcaster, best-selling author, the let-them theory.

Today, we break down exactly how to rewire your brain to stop self-sabotage, silence the inner critic, and finally follow through on the things that matter. 69% of people in the United States would quit their job if they could. If you're the kind of person that resents someone who's paying you, then you should figure out a business for yourself. You have no excuse right now because you can go to any AI platform and you can type in your problem or your goal. And if you were to follow it and give up your timeline,

eventually things will get better. I talked to myself out of starting a podcast for probably about six years. And I kept saying, it's too late, you miss the window, that monk, Stephen Bartlett, fuck that guy. I'm not interested in being smart, I'm interested in being useful. If I can save anybody the heartache I've caused myself, that's an incredible way to live your life. On my deathbed, I will remember that experience of my daughters.

Oh, fuck. It's one of the highlights in my life. Hundreds of millions of people know about Mel Robbins. You know, your buddy Mel, your friend Mel. Yeah. And I feel this like friendship with you. I also have been so inspired by what you've built. You're a podcaster.

You're a businesswoman. You know, you had a corporate career historically. And you've been somebody that almost lost it all and then got it back. Yep. And did the really uncomfortable thing, which is share it. And so on this podcast today, I really want to dive a lot into how to help someone change their life. Yes. I loved this quote, which is start late.

start over, start scared, start again, just start. Yes. And I think you've lived it because at one point... Yes, I have. In your 40s. Yes. 800 can debt. Yep.

Business struggling. And now best selling author, top podcaster, big businesswoman. Yeah. What happened? Oh, my God. Well, can I just blame it all my husband? That'd be okay? I think that's what we do.

I just met mine. My husband's name is Chris as well, by the way. Oh, no. Yes. So, you know, the long story short is we face. That's what happened. We failed. My husband went for his dream and wanted to open a restaurant, and the first one was successful. And then like complete morons, we ignored everybody's advice, everyone's advice. Because when things start to work, you gaslight yourself into thinking they're always going to work. And then you start to go, oh, you know, I don't want to dilute myself. And, you know, we're going to get friends of everything. And so we. cashed out our life savings. 401Ks, kids' college savings. We have three kids under the age of eight at this point.

And we get a home equity line, that's free money. We find credit cards. Cashed out, that's free money. And what happened is a very, very, very predictable thing that happens in the restaurant business, which is when you start to expand, you better be rigorous about the formula that's working. They had park and walk downtown 40 seats. The second location, which seemed like a dream, was a different type of location. It was a strip. It had a big anchor tenant that was very high end.

It had a lot of other high end stuff. But a park and walk is a different psychology in a suburban town than a big strip that people are driving past commuting-wise. And it was a little bigger than the first one. And so, you know, you know this in hindsight. But so the second location, it was double the cost. It took twice as long to build. So by the time the second location was actually open, there was no money left for the third location, which they had signed a lease that had the percentage of profits, a cost plus lease on it, which,

that'll kill your retail business. And within six weeks, they knew the second location was a dog. And then on top of it, you know, we live in the Northeast. This was in the Boston area. There were five nor'easters. Five nor'easters. And if you're living in an area where you don't have stone, that means the abominal snowman turns into a blizzard, blows through your town and shuts things down for three days, which means nobody's getting paid. No cash registers are ringing.

And by the way, this was 2008. Oh. So if you don't know what that means, recession in the U.S. housing market turns upside down. We have secured everything with our housing market. And by God, we found ourselves in this situation where we were $800,000 in debt. Credit cards maxed.

The home is upside down in equity. Leans, hit the house. And if you're somebody that goes into business as a dream, you are a dreamer. You have a big vision for yourself. You've probably made a vision board and written a business plans. and you know, you have this idea of what you think it's going to be. Nobody makes a vision board and plasters an image of divorce and alcoholism and bankruptcy

and a closed restaurant on it. But when it happens, and if you're in business, I'm going to tell you something, you will fail. You will lose money. It is going to test you. It is the price of entry. It is you against you. And in the hindsight, you will see that you made some dumbest, stakes, you can learn from them. And in hindsight, it's very easy to tell this story. When you're in the

thick of it, oh my God, I lost my job. By this point, the kids are 10 and under. Galene's hit the house. Cody, the bills were piled up on the counter. I didn't even open them. And if you've ever struggled financially, you know the certain kind of shame and pain that comes from seeing bills arrive that you can't pay. And so this moment of my life, it was really, it was, it was, the type of stress that you feel, when you have no money, it was, it was, it was, the type of stress that you feel, when you have no money, is a crushing, grinding, unbelievable amount of stress. And here's the other thing, Cody. I knew Chris and his partner were doing,

they were doing everything they possibly could. Like some of it was just kind of decisions that in hindsight we would have done differently. Other stuff is just life's unfair. Things happen. There's so much out of your control. And I also in this period of my life, one of the things that I turned on Chris.

like I literally turned him into the enemy because when when you face a breakdown like this in your life, especially when you know, you can't make payroll. You've got vendors showing up and you're hiding in the bathroom. You are coming home and your spouse is angry at you. Like this poor guy, when I think about like the fact that I was so scared and it's easier to be angry than it is to be afraid. And so my story begins at the age of 41. I had been a lawyer. I had done the startup thing.

I had to add mild success. My husband and I, the first business that we ever had, it was a paint your own pottery franchise, like one of those places that you take your kids. Totally. Completely lost money on that. We even one day walked in

in the high school kid that we had had, the amount of stuff that goes sideways in a small business. I'm sure you hear it in your, And when you're coaching, your small business owners are at these events. I remember showing up, and there was a birthday party going on. And I'm like, where the heck is someone that was supposed to be running the place that afternoon? I walk it, she's having sex in the bathroom with her boyfriend.

Like, welcome to small business. Like, this is like, what's happening? At least it wasn't in front. Yes, that's true. You go, thanks for doing it where nobody could see it. Okay. That's true. That's a Tuesday.

Yes, they should have locked the door. Like, you know. Oops, sorry. Let me. You know. Oh, sorry to work. while I'm paying you to run my store. Exactly.

You have to laugh, though, otherwise you die. Oh, yes. And so, you know, and I also come from entrepreneurs. So my grandparents are cattle farmers and hog farmers and own machine shops. And my other grandparents owned a small bakery. My dad was not only an orthopedic surgeon, but he invested in PT clinics. My mom had a little retail store and sold, like had a kid. kitchen gourmet kind of store. And so I just grew up in a family where it was in the blood

system that you can do your own thing. And then I became a lawyer and I got to tell you something. You know, they were a lawyer too. Oh, my God. Okay, well, that's a long story. But basically, I had no idea what to do with my life. So I attached myself like one of those fish that attaches itself to a shark and just followed whoever I was dating to whatever they were doing. And so I ended up going to law school because out of college, I got a temp job. And the first place they put me as a law firm, and I didn't know what to do with my life. I hated that job, but my boyfriend was applying to get a PhD in economics. And everybody around me was applying to law school. And so I just kind of jumped into that current thinking I could do something else. But then the current of where you are

takes you on to the next thing and you can slide into the next thing. And I want to tell you something, I am the world's lousiest employee. I am built to be a business owner. If you're the kind of person that resents someone who's paying you to do a job, then you should make your own way and figure out a business for yourself. I was the kind of person that was looking for every way to leave before five, I would put my coat on my chair at the law firm and go out for lunch and I'd spin my computer around so nobody could see that I wasn't still in the office. Oh, I am the worst. Yes, because I didn't like it. What you're talking about right there is so relatable. Yes. I think especially to people listening today who want to be an entrepreneur and if somebody is listening

and you're like, I want to do all that, but I also hate my job, but my job's terrible and your boss is the worst. How do you flip your mentality from saying, I hate my job, I want to do the least to I actually want to build an empire and maybe I just could. Oh, well, you definitely, well, first of all, not everybody should. Not everybody is built to run a business because you got to be willing to do it for 10 years. You got to be willing to accept the risk that comes with stepping out on your own. Like, you got to be willing to do all the things you don't want to do at work, but do it in your business because it's for you. And so that's, like, maybe you're not cut out for this, and that's okay too. Right now, 69% of people in the United States would quit their

job if they could. And what I want to tell you is, if you, there's a simple way to know if you should be doing something else. If you're driving to work or logging on to, you're driving, to Zoom and you have tension in your body. You have a sense of dread. You don't want to go in. There's your signal. Now the question becomes, what are you willing to work at for 10 years

in order to build something for yourself? And if you don't trust yourself to do it on your own and you're not yet at one of Cody's events or in the coaching program, because that's the other thing. Like the beautiful thing about what you do is Chris and I didn't know what the hell we were doing. And everything was on the line. We didn't have somebody that was advising us.

So you're just kind of like trying to figure it out and scrambling and doing it on your own. And so there are, there's so much more support even today because this happened, you know, almost 20 years ago. So that's number one. Number two, you're not stuck where you are. You're not stuck in a job. You're not stuck with a boss. Like that's a lie you're telling yourself. you can't quit your job if you have bills to pay.

But number one, the first thing you need to do is flip that mindset from complaining about it to saying, I get to work today and I get to pay my bills. And that's a good thing. But I am going to stop wasting my weekends, watching television or partying with my friends, and I'm going to use the time on the weekends if I don't like the job that I have to figure out what is the next thing I want to. to do. That's all you have to do. And obviously, it doesn't happen overnight. It happens over time. And one way that I started to figure out, well, what might I like to do is I started doing experiments?

So one experiment that, and for me, you've got to understand, Cody, I'm a very negatively motivated person. So if I have a problem, I'm very motivated. And one of the first problems that helped me start to figure out what I wanted to do was, you know, I was working a large law firm in Boston. I got pregnant with our first daughter Sawyer. On maternity leave, I started to have that feeling that you may have as you're going to work, which is, I don't want to go back there. I don't want to ever answer the question. What do you do for a living with the answer?

I'm a lawyer. And so I went to Chris. I'm like, I don't think I can go back to work. He's like, what do you mean? You have to go back to work. First of all, we both pay for the mortgage. Secondly, you will drive me, our daughter, and yourself crazy if you're not doing something. And here's the deal.

You've got to make $60,000. And now I have a problem. And he's like, and I don't care if you're a barista. That's what you have to make. I've crunched the numbers in order for us to pay our bills. And so now I have a problem. I do not want to go back to work. I got four weeks before maternity leave is up.

And now I got to find a job that will pay me $60,000. And I'm going to tell you something. When you have a problem, think about this, if you have a problem that one of your kids is facing, you basically have a PhD all of a sudden in figuring that thing out. But when it's you, you sit around and you're like, I want to do. And so I networked like crazy because I did not want to go back to that job. and the night before I was supposed to go back for maternity leave. I got offered a job for $55,000 with a new tech startup. This was 1999 in Boston, first big dot-com bubble.

And I had to go in to work the next day. And they threw me when I walked in the door a surprise baby shower. Oh, balls. Oh, no. And I had to resign. That was harder than breaking up with like, a couple people that were like nice guys, but not your person. Yeah, but also, I mean, I think a lot of people, like, you now run a business.

Do you ever want somebody to stay and work for you? Absolutely not. That hates their life? Get out. What would you do if somebody came to you and said, hey, I love you. I love what we're doing here. It's just not for me. Great.

You would say, let's tell me what is for you. Should I make an introduction? If you're a good performer, go on. Absolutely. Let's fill your role. Let's find you something else. Great. Absolutely.

But it does seem like you have these ideas in your brain about how things are going to work. Yes. And we catastrophize and say, it will go terrible if my boss knows. They'll fire me immediately. Then I'll never be able to become a poll again as opposed to, well, but how would you know? If you've never run a business, you don't know that feeling yet. Yes. And if you don't know, here's another thing that happened.

So I kept feeling this nagging pole that, okay, now I'm in the start of space. I think, like I, what do I want to do? And I'd always thought I wanted to run a bakery. And if you think you want to run a bakery or open a restaurant, before you do that, experiment by getting a part-time job in one. Because it took me exactly one Saturday shift of showing up at 5 o'clock in the morning and filling the napkin container and filling and refilling the half and half and the milk and wiping the counters and baking the carrot cake muffins and running the thing and da-da-da-da-da and cleaning up the tables to realize, wait a minute. I don't want to spend my life smelling like a carrot muffin and doing all this stuff. Why I was interested in a bakery is, first of all, my grandparents had one, so it's in the DNA, but I'm interested in the experience and having a life where I could walk into a bakery

where people know my name and I know them and I can have my carrot muffin and I have time and I can have a meeting there. I want the freedom of the experience. And so all these little experiments that you can do while you're employed because you need to be responsible, you need to pay your bills, the worst thing you can do is quit too soon and put stress on the thing that you are starting is do an experiment and really put yourself in a micro way in the thing that you think you want and you will feel immediately whether it's for you or not for you. And so, you know, back to kind of the core story, I just continued to kind of back to kind of back. bounce from one tech company to another. I then hired a coach because I felt like I was all over the place to help me figure out what to do. This would have been 2001. And this coach said, you know, because you're a lawyer and because you've now got this dot com experience and because you

are crazy intuitive, I think you'd be a great coach. Why don't you let me train you? And so in 2003, I started coaching people. I basically said I worked. with successful people who feel stuck. And I started doing it on the side. This is how bad of an employee I was. You ready? So I was working for another tech firm. I would literally tell my boss.

Oh my God, I'm so. I would tell my boss that I was going to take a call in the conference room. And I would be in there coaching somebody on the phone who was paying me $75 an hour. That's incredible. And then what I did is I so badly wanted to get out of that job, but I couldn't afford to. And so here's how I did the math. If you're currently straddling something and you're just like, okay, when do I make the leap? When do I make the leap? You want to create a math equation for yourself that is tied to your psychology. And what I said is if I can land 10 clients at 75% of, $75 an hour. And if I can have those 10 clients pay me consistently. So every single week, I'm making $750 on the side at night in the mornings, hiding in a conference room while I'm lying to my boss, like, you got to do what you got to do. If I can do that consistently for four months,

then I can quit my job because I have, you have. now demonstrated that I am able to maintain that. And it's not now luck. I've demonstrated something to myself that I'm willing to count on. And that's what happened. And you kind of pair the luck with the like. So you could have probably stayed at the bakery for the same amount of hours. Yeah, no, one Saturday shift, I'm like, not for me. But it's actually one of the reasons why I think that unpaid work is so useful because all it is... Wait, hold on. It's not unpaid. Because you're getting paid knowledge and experience.

No, totally. I'm just saying half the time people are like, I really want to be a podcaster. And then you're like, well, sit and talk to somebody for an hour and see if you actually like it, even if it's free. Just try it. Well, I got a better idea. Take out the voice memo on your phone and start recording and see if you like it. Because that's the job. And put it on the internet and see how you feel about other people listening to it. Yes, because that's the job.

Because that's the job. Yes. You know, you talked about this, but I think you're probably considered one of the best life coaches, the biggest life coaches in the world across all different types of humans. And when I think about... Is that what people think about me? I think so. Really? I think you're a... Wow. Yeah. I saw multiple YouTube channels titles. Number one life coach. Is that what it said to me? Yeah, yeah. Like on my channel? No, no, no, no. Other people. No, okay. Go ahead. I love being called number one. I'm fine with it. Oh, I'll take number one. I'm like, get rid of the life coach. Okay. Well, I'll tell you why, because I feel like all I'm doing is sharing my experience.

Yeah. And I am providing access to some of the best thinkers and researchers and interesting people in a way that's relevant to a normal person's life. And I am sharing the advice that's worked for me. But I feel like if you're somebody's coach, you have an accountability to. to them. And to me, I know that the responsibility for what you do with what I have shared or the conversation we have put out, by the way, for free, I mean, everything about the things that I do, I mean, what am I selling? You're going to tell me it's a dumb business model. I have a book. And you don't even need to buy it because I'm going to tell you exactly how to use what I'm doing.

We have multiple books. How many copies have you sold overall? Eight million, 11 months. Wow. It's on track to be the most successful nonfiction book in history. But not surprising because it's really hard to take the complex things and simplify them. I always feel like if you want to figure out if somebody's really smart and somebody you should learn from, it's not do they make you feel stupid. It's do they make you feel really smart? Yes.

Even when you talk about really complex things. And I'm not afraid to be the villain. And the reason why is I'm not interested in being smart. I'm interested in being useful. And if I can save anybody the heartache I've caused myself or the pain I've caused myself or other people, that's an incredible way to live your life. And for me, I spent so long hiding who I was and being embarrassed by my mistakes. People, if you always say, oh my God, you're so vulnerable.

I'm like, I don't think it's vulnerable to talk about what's actually happening. It's way harder to lie and to carry things on your own. Because when you carry it silently, it has so much weight. And, you know, I want to go back to one of the things that you said earlier. You know, I want you to start late, start. What else? It was like all these starts. When we were $800,000 in debt and I had had more job changes than an ABBA cover ban

does costume changes. I told myself that it was too late. I told myself we had screwed everything up. We would never get out of debt. I would never figure out my career. We would never be able to

pay for college. We would never get these liens off the house. I was too old. I had screwed up too much. There was too much of a track. record for us, it's over. And there was this moment where you kind of get trapped in this loop with yourself, where now you're arguing against everything that you want. And you're arguing at

the person that you married. And you forget who you married. And you forget that they're trying as hard as they can. They're not meaning to screw anything up. And you being a world-class jerk to this person is only making it worse. And I remember this moment, and I didn't want to be that way. I didn't want to be yelling at Chris. I didn't want to be drinking so much. I didn't want to be hitting the snooze button five times a morning and the kids were missing the bus. I didn't want to feel like I had screwed up my life. but I could not, Cody, make myself do anything. I was frozen in this experience. And I knew what to do.

And, you know, here's the kind of twist on modern life. You have no excuse right now, because you can go to any AI platform, and you can type in your problem or your goal, and it will pretty consistently spit out a step-by-step plan. and if you were to follow it and give up your timeline, eventually things will get better. Eventually, you'll get nearer the thing that you want. Eventually, like the things that you need to do work. But if you feel right now like I felt, which is I was so discouraged, if you're discouraged, you won't do anything.

So true. And so, and it's so easy when you're in business because it's so isolating when you're a, entrepreneur. And a major mistake that we make when we launch a business, and this is why I love what you guys are doing here, is we do it alone. And so we don't have anybody to talk to. And we carry the burden alone. And I just think, I think about Chris at this moment and time. And I think about that famous statue, is it Atlas of the guy that's got the world on his, like, that is what that poor man felt. And so. It's funny you say that. that. Where is it, Kyle? Oh, right there. Oh, yeah, there it is up there. That's our company logo. Shut off. Shut off. Except it's a brain. But the idea is really that you're holding up, holding up the world when you decide to build something. It's way easier. Well, I think being broke is hard and getting

rich is hard and being an employee is hard and being an owner is hard. It's all hard. But you get to choose which one. Yes. Or for how long you're in which one. Yeah. Or if you're going to try to do something about which one. That's right. Buy any business or launching your own venture can feel impossible if you're stuck figuring out the website, logo, email, marketing, all it wants. But here's the good news. GoDaddy Arrow is here to help. So just a few prompts. It builds a professional website, a logo, an email, even social content, all tailored to your business. It's like having a whole launch team in your laptop. Instead of months of grinding, you can go from idea to launch ready business in minutes.

No more waiting, no more guessing, just a real online presence that you can grow with day one. Suddenly, the thing that was just a tiny idea in a notebook is online polished and ready to scale. So if you're ready to take your idea to life, head to godaddy.com backslash Cody Sanchez and try GoDaddy Arrow today. But I think one of the really cool things about your story is you kind of said it earlier. You're not afraid to be the villain. You're not afraid to tell all the dark spots that we often don't want to tell. That's how you free yourself of them. And even with AI today, I think part of the reason it's so interesting in having these conversations,

What I hope, you know, if you're listening right now that you're taken away from this is sometimes I think in modern society today, you're told a lot the things that won't help you but might make you feel better in that moment. So if you go to chat, GPT, and go, I fought with Chris and told him he was a terrible entrepreneur because he did this and now we're in debt and this happened. AI will probably say back to you, you know, you're right. That was inappropriate how he did that and you are in debt and it'll validate you. And so instead, we got to have Mel or somebody yelling at you a little bit to say. Well, yes. Maybe not. Yeah, and here, there was this moment in our marriage where Chris and I were fighting. And he's like, I feel like you don't believe me.

And I said, I don't. I do not believe in your ability to get us out of this. And it was the truth. And there was something in that brutal moment of honesty that he, he need to hear, that I needed to say because, you know, I will say for myself that I was part of the brainwashing that happens to women of assuming that it was my partner's responsibility to pay for my life, that it was his job to be successful so that I could have the things that I wanted. And that if I made money was my money, it was for the extra stuff, but his money was

our money. And there was something that happened in just saying it out loud that something shifted in me where I started to have this brutal moment with myself that was like, bitch, wake up. Like if you want things to change, it's your job to change it. Like, you're capable of making money. You're capable of figuring this out. You're capable of getting a job. Stop bitching. him stop pointing the fingers and look in the mirror and see that if you can define what you want and you're willing to give up the timeline on it, you can actually make something amazing happen. And, you know, I said I was very negatively motivated. Once you admit to yourself, this motherfucker's not going to get these liens off this house. Like if I want to keep this house,

it's on me. All right, we're selling that car. All right, we're pulling the kids out of town soccer. All right, cut the cable, everybody. Can't pay for it anyway. All right. I guess I better find not one job, but three jobs. And that's what I did. And so you don't have to be motivated by this big, beautiful, brilliant thing. I wasn't. I wasn't trying to take my kids at Disney or go to buy a beach house. I was trying to pay my bills. And so there are going to be moments in your journey, whether, you know, you're going to be more entrepreneurial at work or you're going to be an entrepreneur in terms of your profession. There are going to be moments where you are in crisis and survival mode, and that was my motivation. The pain of sitting around hoping that somebody was going to come in and fix this, the pain of drinking myself into the ground as a way to numb all the awful thoughts.

That finally got harder than just getting it. getting my butt out of bed and looking for a job and going for a walk and calling my parents and saying, we're in deep trouble. I need help. And explaining to friends and being kinder to Chris. Like the thing that I had been avoiding that anybody, it's so easy to give other people advice. Oh my God. Because you could have heard this around me like, Mel, you're an idiot. Get a job. Call the cabanks. Like, ask for money. Like, do something. Don't do what you're doing because it's not working. but you will have a moment in time where the pain of your situation

finally, just avoiding what you need to do, is harder than doing it. And so I, for the first, I don't know however many years, it was just desperation, desperate, get a job,

then get another job, then get another job. The first job I got was $25 an hour as a Saturday morning radio host call in show a talk radio station in Boston you do have a great voice thank you do you get that lot i do that uh do you think that you would like can you be really successful without having a massive failure at some point i don't think you can live a life without having a massive failure

you're going to have a massive failure if you're not successful that's just life and it's not about what's going to happen to you because horrible things will happen to you. Unfair things are going to happen to you. They maybe already have. They're going to be amazing things that happened to you. It took me so long to recognize that while I was so busy trying to manage everything

and everybody else and I had lots of opinions and upsetness about the unfairness of this or that or the other, the blah, blah, blah, blah, I was missing the fact that it's not about what's happening out there. The power is in here. Your power is in, now what are you going to do about it? Like through your actions and your attitude, you can make anything better.

And that's not toxic positivity. That is the truth. It doesn't remove the very real issues that a lot of people face in, you know, the world today. It doesn't remove historical things that have kept people from gaining wealth. Like if you look at the way that black families were discriminated against and unable and discriminated against and not able to buy a house, which is the single biggest form of the way we transfer generational wealth to people. And it is not just impacted their grandparents and their parents, but now the generation.

That is real. That is not fair. it is a reality and what are you going to do given where you are you are at this moment because you have to acknowledge that it's not fair but then acknowledge that you through your actions and through your attitude and through the fact that you live in this extraordinary moment And I realize the world's falling off its axis. There's a lot that feels wrong, but there's so much more information and support

and ways to solve problems that weren't even here 10 years ago. And so what I don't ever want anybody to do in business or in life or relationships or health, which mental health, I even hate that word, because you know what mental health is? Happiness.

Yeah. It's managing your stress. It's not being a dick to people because, you know, you're burnt out. That's what mental health means. Like, we need a better word for it. We got to market it better, Cody. Yeah. Well, also, why do you think that, I mean, nobody wants to stay in all the negative states,

but could you imagine a person who had never experienced the deepest, darkest parts that hadn't had the biggest highs that hadn't been so angry and so sad and so upset? Why do we have to feel like we can't feel them? Why do we have to be happy all the time? Where's the context in that? I think everybody just has this wild array of emotions and that I think it has a lot to do, if I were to get intellectual about it. It has to do with the fact that we are wired to connect with other people.

And when you experience any form of social rejection, whether it's walking down the hallway at middle school and, oh, there's the cool kids and I'm the weird one. Nobody wants to be the weird one. And the part of the brain that experiences social rejection is the same part of the brain where you experience physical pain. And so you will viscerally move away from any experience where you're the weird one. This is why we're having such a huge problem right now with self-silencing because especially the younger generation is so worried about feeling cringe because cringe. Oh my God, I don't even feel cringe. And here's the truth.

cringe is actually doing it right. Because if you're going to do something where you step out of your comfort zone for the first time, you will feel cringy. That is what it feels like to do something for the first time. And it also feels like social rejection and pain. And so if you feel cringy when you put up your first YouTube video, you did it correctly. if you feel cringy when you go to your first pitch meeting and ask your friends and family for money and you're like oh god what you did it right because your body's saying oh my god oh my god oh my god oh my god and so i feel that people are uncomfortable especially sharing the lows because they are afraid of being judged you know we had we had a grief expert on dan kessler he's so awesome and he's hilarious like who knows that if you're talking about grief you'd be like snort laughing with somebody. And it's the one thing we're all going to experience.

Nobody gets out of this alive. Like we're all going to go through it. But he basically said the average time, period, that somebody reaches out for help for grief after somebody dies or has a living death, like, you know, they have a stroke or Alzheimer's. Five years. Holy hell. Five years. Wow. Why?

the shame of feeling like you're supposed to be beyond it and the shame of feeling like you're the only one and so that keeps you trapped and when you hold on to that kind of negativity or that suffering on your own even if it's like I can't figure out how to make this P&L work I'm terrified that I'm not going to make payroll next month or your little town your town awards are coming out and the person that secret shopped at your retail store was a real bitch and now you're like what are we going to do oh my god and then you get frozen well there's people out there that can help you you can ask for help but if you hold it all inside it's going to get bigger and so i think we just do it reflexively because nobody wants to be the weirdo and to me

it just is so liberating to not hold that over my own own head. And it's not that I'm proud of the crappy things I've done. It's it's it's it's not that I, you know, am celebrating the negative things or the crappy things I said to Chris or the ways I've mistreated myself or other people. It's that the only way I can truly move on is if I give myself the freedom. Yeah. And you release it by being comfortable enough to talk about it. Well, you also seem to do a real like one of the things that I love about your work online is probably a little bit of, little funky, which is you really express so many emotions. And you, like, I will never forget you, you know, Oprah sent this, I mean, the way Oprah sends a bouquet, Jesus Christ. Oh my God.

That thing was the size of a basketball court. It was beautiful, but it was like, I've never seen a bouquet that big. It was enormous. Thank God we had sliding glass doors in our house. It would not have actually come through. Just in the driveway. It was huge. It's actually amazing. It's like, Oprah, most houses, this is the most. You can't go bigger. It was like the size of these two chairs. It's so funny. But what I love is sometimes, like I go back to like the Taylor Swift lyrics even,

where, you know, she talks about how it is cool to try and it is cool to get excited. And if you are doing something incredible, like celebrate it. And I struggle with that sometimes. I like, I don't know. I just keep going and I don't think about it. And I don't take that moment to have that emotional connection. Okay. Hold on a second. Let me just, let me change this.

for you. Oh, I can't wait. These are the best days. Do not rip yourself off of the opportunity of taking a moment every day and really savoring something that went well. So how do you savor it? What does that look like in your day? So tell me something that went well today. You know what? I had an incredible conversation before you with the guy by the name of Joe Lamont who is changing. Have you talked to this guy? No, who's still Lamont? Oh my gosh. He started this school here called Alpha School. Okay. You should maybe consider.

Oh, wait. I think I've heard about this. Oh, it's like a Waldorf meets of this, meets of that. Yeah. It's by all these entrepreneurs that started it. So it's two. He has, his schools across the U.S. Our top 1% students in every single course and category that they have.

Wow. The students learn in two hours a day, AI guided, and the rest of the day is self-discovery plus outings, et cetera. I want to go there. I mean, that's what I said. And it's actually a little funny because it used to be this hardcore private equity, NADA. I was like, how was your EQ before Joe? And he was like, not high. And now he's the principal of the school. He's a billionaire, billionaire, billionaire, billionaire. It's so fascinating to me, though, is I, he said this line to me that I try to sink in. He was like, I was like, well, can we change education in this country? There's a mom listening that does, like, her kid hates school. She's sitting there thinking, like crying. I don't want to go to school anymore. It's so awful. Why do you? make me do this, but what's the alternative? Right.

Can we change that in this country? And he looked at me and he was like, of course, absolutely. He's like, give not just me, but all of us a few years. And in two hours a day, we should be able to replace our curriculum and we should let, and then you know what his number one reason is to go to school? He was like, every child should love going to school. They should want to go to school more than they want to go on vacation. I was like, I don't know what kind of fucking school you got, Joe, but that has never existed for me.

So anyway, so I had this beautiful conversation with him. So let me tell you what to reflect on there. Okay. That in the middle of running this massive company and like being the CEO and having all these people whose salaries you can pay and all these people that you are impacting with your work who are going on to launch businesses and getting the support and the guidance that so many entrepreneurs don't have, you are taking time. and you have the time to speak to people that help you grow and think in new ways. And how freaking cool is it that you have built your life this way and you're self-aware enough to know that these types of conversations help you feel more empowered. Okay.

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Do you think it's good for you or for anybody? Is it good for you to like show that bodily? Like I see you run out and grab that bouquet. Yes. Like, because you can say that in your head and be really cerebral about it. But do you think that people need to show that they're excited about life? I wish people would. Because right now what people are showing is I'm beaten down by life.

And look, there's very real things to be worried about and to feel stress around. There are very real problems that people have. This is not like, just smile and your shit goes away. That's not what this is. This is counter-programming. to the negative programming that the world is giving you. And that you are wired for positivity. You're wired for growth.

There's no, it's not a matter of whether or not you are, quote, spiritual. Because you are wired for spirituality. They've looked at people's brains and there's circuitry in your brains. because spirituality, by definition, is this belief and awareness that there is something larger than you to this existence. And that day to day,

you have moments where you feel connected to it. Spirituality can mean that you're out sitting in a, like a deer stand, and you hear a crack in the woods. And then through the trees, you see a bardell and you just have this moment where you connect to something deeper. Spirituality could be, you know, singing a hymn. It could be making love to somebody that you love deeply.

It could be being present when somebody dies. It could be just enjoying a cup of tea and taking a deep breath. That there's something larger going on. And so to me, why would you want to go through life feeling that the only thing available to you is the heaviness and the disconnection? All of the division you see, which I think is this illusion, I believe that everybody right now is so beaten down and self-silencing, but the vast majority of us. 90% of us want the same things. We believe in the same things. We may disagree on how to get there.

Like, is it two hours a day in the school? Is it three hours a day in school? I don't know. How do we pay for it? I don't know. We'll figure it out. But you have to get intentional about allowing happiness back in. And you do this in a lot of different ways.

You've talked about a lot of modalities. Yes. You also now go on tour cities all over the world. I've got to go to one of these because they look so dynamic. There it's a show. Yeah, your face right now says it all. But some of these modalities you do live from what I can tell from videos that I've seen of other people. What do you tell people to do tactically?

They want to become more happier if they want to take more action in their life and they're going, Mel, boss me around. Well, and here's what I'm going to tell you. This isn't just your buddy Mel telling you this. There's Dr. Judith Joseph who is, she runs, she's a principal investigator, which means she runs a lab as a P. medical doctor and professor at NYU. Single mom runs the only all-female medical lab, research lab, called the Manhattan Behavioral Institute. And she is actually responsible for getting the research done that got the first postpartum

drug passed through the FDA by the FDA. Wow. So they do all these clinical research studies. She has all this new research that has a huge research paper out about high functioning depression, which is this, you're getting it done, but just the wet blank, you can't feel anything. The prescription from Dr. Judith Joseph is small moments of joy. Small moments where you separate from the heaviness of the world around you and the burden

of caring for aging parents and the burden of balancing the bank account and wondering how you're going to get the loan paid and figuring out how, like, to get the online marketing stuff done and can I get my cousin's kid in here to run the Instagram account? Like, I hear you. Yes. How do I get the shop pay integrated into this thing? Like, when are we doing this? Somebody do our internet strategy because I'm running the cash register. Right? Give me PTSD. Right? And so, like, oh, of course, you, you have a, you've invested all these laundromats. Now, like, laundromats aren't enough. I got to make a fancy laundromats. And I got to have an Instagram story. and I'm going to do that, but if I do that, then I can't go to the bank and oh my God, what am I doing?

And so, can you tell I've lived this shit? So I, so. You probably remember what my, my, my, it's the smells that get me from, like I can, you could just put it in front of me. I would be able to smell a laundromat from anywhere. I bet. I bet. It's like a fucking beagle. Yes.

And so I, um, what the hell is it? Say, this is this is menopar's brain. What's happening? You were talking about these small moments of joy. Oh, yes. This is where. you are defiant in a world that wants to steal your joy and attention. This is where you say no.

And one way you can do this is going to sound crazy. So if you are somebody that is working for somebody else, you've got your big dreams, you're listening to this, or you're just getting started, or you're in the throes of like, oh, my God, all I do is work. Imagine a world where you could take 10 minutes and eat your lunch. and maybe. And if you're a nurse, you're now going,

I could never do that. I would get fired. No, no, no. You do have a legal lunch break, but you don't take it. I can't step what you. You could step into the storeroom and just take a moment and sit down.

Another thing you could do is if you don't even remember when you were happy or joyful, I want you to either go through your photos, just scroll back and find some photos that remind you of when you felt a little happier. And then write down a list, what did my life look like?

What time did I wake up? What was it eating? How often did I see friends? And you'll notice your life holds the map back to moments of happiness. You already know you just don't do those things. And then the job becomes, oh, wait, I haven't painted in 10 years.

If I pick up a paintbrush, No, it doesn't pay your bills. It does something just as important, though. It pays something forward inside you because you start to feel a little bit more like yourself again. And there's also researcher on time management that believe it or not, if you feel like you have no time, adding in something, even though that sounds bananas, because I have no time, Mel, what do you mean add in something? Add in one thing. Like, if you used to sing at choir and you haven't done it in five years because now you're running five laundromats and you're worried about your social media accounts, go back and do that on a Thursday night. And that experience will fill

something up inside you that makes you feel like you're actually a little bit more in control, which oddly gives you more clarity about what you want to focus on. There's so much research around this. So that's one thing. Second thing I would tell you to do is wake up every morning, this is so cheesy, and say, today's going to be a good day. No matter what happens, today, I'm going to make today a good day. You could be going to a funeral and you could say to, you know what, I'm going to this funeral and today is still going to be a good day because I'm going to show up for this family. And that simple thing changes a setting in your mind and helps you become more intentional

about spotting moments where you can have a good day. another specific thing I want you to do, and none of you will do this, but those of you that actually take this advice will make more money than everybody else that's listening and watching right now. Put your phone in the bathroom when you go to bed. You will not do it. I know you won't. Because you're like, well, what do they do?

But they need to problem. Here's what I want you to imagine. When you wake up in the morning, I want you to imagine the banker that you own money to. I want you to imagine the hacker that's been trying to break into your, bank account sitting in the corner. I want you to imagine every business that you think is doing it better than you. Their marketing team is in there. I want you to think about the side of politics you hate and all the news outlets from that side sitting in there. And I want you to think about like people gossiping about you over here. Because when you wake up in the morning, as an entrepreneur,

This is the only moment of the day. The only moment where you have any fighting chance to actually think. It's the only moment where you have any chance to put yourself first. You have to fucking fight for those 10 lousy minutes. because the second you pick up the phone, the hacker, the competition, the people gossiping about you, the, it's all in there. And you're not even out of bed. And so if you want to know why you are so stressed out and you can't sleep, it's because

that freaking thing is right next to you and you're laying in bed and you're pouring it into your brain before you're even vertical. If you want to make more money, you have to fight for the first 15 minutes of the day. I call it the hot 15. The hot 15. I have built my business 15 minutes at a time. The hot 15, and I go, I'm not a morning person. I get bullshit.

Don't tell me that story because you can't think clearly at night either because you're exhausted. And you know this, it used to be in business that the second you walked into your business, day is over. All the plans out the window, because now you're just in reaction mode. So the only chance you had was driving over. Like I can think about what the one thing. And we'll get to the one thing role. I know that's whatever his name is Keller book. But here I'm going to tell you how to use it.

So just hear me out on this. Imagine if you could carve out those first 15 minutes. And before you let the world into your brain and before you let everybody else's emergencies become your priority, you carve out 15 minutes. I don't even care what you do. You can have some fancy-ass morning routine or not. if you just for 15 minutes, I'll even give you this, just lay in bed. Lay in bed and here's what I want you to think about.

What is the one thing that if I made progress, I don't want you to get it done because to-do lists are just wish lists. That's all that they are. What's the one thing that if I made progress on this, it would be a good day. The one thing that matters to me. Now here's the catch, and this is why I am successful. I taught myself to do it before I looked at the phone. So you actually wake up, take action on the one thing, and don't touch your phone until you.

No. How long? How many years? Oh, God. I don't know. For as long as I can remember. I mean, like, probably at least, at least consistently the last five years. And is it like an 80% of the time every time, or is it 100% of the time?

It's like 80% five days a week. Like I give myself weekends off. But I do still think, like, what's the one thing? And a lot of times like, God, I got to get that photo album done from the trip that we took for my dad's 80th birthday to Peru. That was 18 months ago. Christmas is coming. Oh, my God.

And then I do nothing. But I thought, but I, no, I do something. I literally take some action. You don't have to complete the whole thing. Yes. You just take a little bite of the elephant. I literally might send a text to my brother and say, dude, we got to get that group photo going. Done.

Positive momentum, compounding, snowballed. Just one. Because here's the thing I want you to understand. What makes you feel out of control is that you're not progressing the thing that matters to you. And so you start to resent your business and the people that work for you and your customers because their emergencies become your priority. And now you're not getting that new AI thing done. Now you're not getting that kid hired to help with Instagram. Now you're not doing that thing you really know you need to do because the interesting thing about the stuff that matters is not going anywhere.

So you can get, you can allow it to haunt you or you can like really understand this hot 15. So for me, I actually have a morning routine. I'm disciplined enough over time and discipline's the wrong word. I understand myself and I set traps for myself. Like one of the reasons why the phone is not next to me is because I am a lazy person and I will pick it up. And so I have to put it walking distance. And now I've solved two problems, Cody, because I don't like to get out of bed either. So the alarms ringing across the room, I got to get my butt out of bed to go turn the thing off.

And then I flip it over. Because I've also told my family, if there's an emergency, call me. People will text you all night long because they're bored and they have bad sleep habits and they want to vomit their stress on you. But they only call you if there's an emergency. That's so good. And so now you can sleep at night because you know if somebody's in trouble, they'll call you. If something's going out work, they'll call you. I don't need to check my phone because if it's really important, they'll call me. I keep my phone down. I make my bed right away. Then I typically go into the bathroom because I have to go the bathroom. And then I brush my

teeth. I think about while I'm brushing my teeth, what is the one thing that matters to me? I do this every single day and then I look myself in the eyes as cheeseball as this is and I high five myself into the day. This is a bit of neuroscience. And the reason why this is called neurobics, lots of research around this. So the fastest way to change a thinking pattern is to marry it with an unexpected physical action. So there's a lot of research around, you know, writing with a non-dominate hand or standing on one leg while you're doing something else. For your entire life, a high five. Like, I don't ever high five somebody. You don't be like, I fucking hate you. Like, I hope you fail. Loser. Like, forever this has been, go get them. Yeah. I believe in you.

Brush it off. You got this. And so you don't say a word. You look at yourself in the eyes. And as you high five the mirror, you are taking the physical lifetime association with that and aiming it at how you feel about yourself. You know, it's so good because, you know, at least me, I'm similar. I need a bunch of, I will come up with every excuse on the sun. I literally had this incredible neuroscience on the podcast, scientist on the podcast the other day. And my brilliant world-changing question was, I'm getting older, my hip hurts, I can't fucking stretch.

I can't, I don't know why, but in the evening I cannot make myself stretch. Like I can do billion-dollar deals. I could do this. I can't get on the floor. This is the dumbest thing ever, and I had her help me. What'd she say? I want to know. She basically said, why are you doing it at the end of the day when you're completely depleted? You've made all of the decisions throughout the day and you think that you're some sort of superhero that's going to have more in the tank when you don't. You're tired. It's cold in the house. You know, it's dark. The cold and the dark, yes. And she's like, why would you think that that would work for you? And I was like, well, take it easy. You know, I don't know why. But I did it. I tried for years. She's like, so we're. going to switch it in the morning. And she's like, and you're going to text one person every morning and you're going to tell them you're doing it. That's it. And she goes, don't do 15 minutes,

do two, which is like, I love your. Well, and then there's one other thing that you talk about, too, that has helped me a lot too. You know, when I had a really, I got divorced previous to my husband. I was married before and I got married really young and takes two to tango, both of our faults. But my decision to divorce. It was probably one of the hardest decisions I've ever made because I made promise to a human and I said forever and then I took a vow and I'm I'm religious and at that time I was maybe a little less then but I was hoof and Latina mom and all the things I mean I think she cried harder actually when I got divorced that I did but um I was pretty devastated and I couldn't find my happiness Mel like I just I'm a happy motherfucker you know these guys know I'm running around here

we have long days I'm going it was gone we would be in a lot of trouble oh god this place You know how I feel about you? I'm like mad you don't live near me. Dude, I'd be so, I'd be stretching like a motherfucker if you live near me. Yes, go. Five, four, three, two, stretch, you know. But I kept a happiness list because I had so few moments where I felt any happiness that when I did, I just wrote them down. And it would be like, that's a pansy. Like, I love pansies.

It looks like little happy faces to me. Oh, I love that. The faces. The faces. I don't know what it is. I love that, yes. So I'd write like, I saw a pansy today, you know, the littlest things. And over the years, I've kept this list.

And sometimes I'll have a little moment and then I'll go back. And I'll say one thing. So do I buy a $5 pansy at the garden center? That would make me happy, you know? And so I love the word that you said, which is I need hacks to trick myself into it. Yes. And here's the next one. When I walk into the closet, I have laid out my exercise clothes like I have geranimals or whatever those things were that I used to wear from Sears.

I have to step over it and ignore it. Yeah, that's good. And so no decision. There it is like a middle finger on the floor. Pull it on. And now I go straight out the door with my dogs. And I take a 10-minute walk. And while I'm on the walk,

I think about what's the thing I could do that advances the thing. And I still, have not looked at my phone most mornings on a work day. Yes. Until when? Well, if it's a good day, I will then do what I need to do

right after the walk because I then drink a big mason jar of water before I have my coffee. And a lot of the things that I work on in that Hot 15 are longer term projects. Like this Peru photo album really nagged me for a long time. I finally got it done. It took like seven hours

on a Sunday. I hope like it turned out great, but that was a lot. And anyway, I, uh, I typically use the hot 15 for something that is really a longer term thing. Like I really started working on the concept and the let them theory book in that window. Um, a lot of operational stuff I will work on in that window. Um, there are like if I'm screwing around with AI and trying to learn, more and how to use it at a more advanced level.

You know, I'll get on Microsoft co-pilot and use it then. But it really, really has made a huge difference because it taught me that you don't need a lot of time. And oftentimes, if you can get yourself going, you will keep going. Yeah, it's true. And so it's really, really, really important. Now, of course, there are weeks, like production weeks where everything's on fire. I'm in Boston for five days.

My EA is texting me at 5.30. Are you up? Plotties in a half an hour. And I'm like, oh, my God, okay, I'm up. But like, you know, like, and so it's out. But here's the thing. I might respond to Lynn, but I don't look at my phone for 20 minutes. Yeah.

And now I'm back. I make my hotel, I make my bed in a hotel room. Yeah, because like, it's how I feel like myself. Yeah. That way I feel like myself everywhere that I go. And so I'm still. in my mind thinking about the thing. And so then once you pick up the phone, here's what I want you to understand. You are now in what I basically call phase two of the day, five phases to a day.

Phase one is from the moment you wake up to the moment you pick up your phone. That's why I want you to think about the hot 15. This is where you protect your time and energy. Phase two is now you're in reaction mode. And you are getting paid to react. This is what you're doing. Phase three is where you go out of that, and now you're starting to transition. Because we all know from three to five,

if you're an employee and you work kind of typical hours. You're like, meh, I'm sort of out of here. We're not doing a lot of... Not a contrary in thinking, but everywhere else. Yeah, you know, like just like sort of like, right? And then from phase four is all the stuff you do for life. At cooking dinner, being with family, all this stuff.

phase five is when you stop looking at your phone and wind down to bed. What do you do? Are you book? What do I do? Okay, so I'm a big bath person. Yeah, me too. And I typically, I will, on the work night weeks, I have a drink because it's like my one vice, that and weed.

Like I will, I live in Vermont. I mean, come on. And so it's the one thing that, like, I did not have a drink last night. My brain was going for probably an hour and a half. I can have one sip of a Manhattan or a gin and tonic or a margarita. We're here in Texas. One set. My brain's like, okay, we're done.

It's the weirdest thing. And I'm done shaming myself about it. It's just my thing. Me too. Muscal, wine. Also, I can't do the mescal. It's a little too smoky, but I like a smoky Manhattan. Wow.

Don't like the smoky tequila. I don't know what that's about. Maybe we'll give you some different options. But I think the... Oh, but let me tell you one more thing because this is unbelievable. This is fucking unbelievable. Okay, wait to hear this.

So, you know how a lot of people have gratitude lists? Yeah. Steal this. Have a piece of paper next to your bed and write down every to-do that you didn't get to. That sounds awful. Oh, no, it's amazing. Wait to hear what you're doing.

Okay, fine. You're closing tabs in your brain. See, your brain runs on open loops. And if you had some like, oh, I got it. One of the reasons why people have a hard time falling asleep is you're ruminating because your brain is trying to keep the loop open because the tabs aren't closed. There is incredible research that has just, it's life changing. If you write down all the things you didn't get to, your brain's like, oh, Cody's got on a piece of paper, we can close a loop. Great point.

And research shows that doing that is as effective. as a sleeping pill, that you fall asleep between eight and ten minutes faster. That pharma stocks dropping everywhere. And then check this out. You don't have to worry because the list is right there. I like that a lot. Isn't that great? Such a good point because you know what? I didn't realize it, but I do two outsourcing things too, which is I have assistance now. But back when I have my first one, which isn't that expensive to get all things considered. But like for a $15 a hundred bucks a month, you can get a virtual assistant. That's how I first started. And if I don't, if I don't write something down in the moment, it's gone. Like, if you tell me your birthday,

I'm going to forget it. If you tell me, I forget my, I don't. You're going to be one of those friends that remembers. No, it's only because it is, you want to know why? Yeah. Because it relates to me. Yes. If it was some random ass, I would like, don't care. I'm just kidding. I don't care. I would prefer you didn't because then I'll feel bad when I forget yours. But I, um, I, uh, I send a little note to my assistants and I just have them put it on my to do list. I love that. And so I do it pretty nonstop. And now I figured out how to delay send on texts, you know, how you can do send later. So I'm not the dick emailing them at 11 when I can't, you know, whatever. And it's been a game changer. And I'll even say, I'm stressing about this. Like, can you just put one hour

on your day tomorrow and you stress about this stuff instead? Like just kind of like put it somewhere, do something with it. Because you can't really transfer stress. Like she's not going to internalize it like I do. But she'll like, hey, I got that. I know you're worried about the doctor stuff. I've got it. I'll handle that for you. I'm going to schedule it from three to four. Yep. And so I've never thought about having a little thing by my bed. But at first it gave me a panic attack, that idea. But now it makes sense. This came from, I can't remember the neuroscientist that just shared this on our, but with the research involved, that it was just so counterintuitive. But once they explained

the open loops of your mind and that this allows your mind to go, oh, I don't have to keep this open. She's got it. You know what I think I'm curious about with you. You've had all this success now. And sometimes I think people think, oh, man, When I have all this success, it's going to be amazing. I'm going to figure it all out. And all the negative emotions are going to go away. Right. Do you still get, like, jealous?

No. What? No. How do you not get jealous anymore? I'll tell you, because, well, first of all, I understand jealousy. So, jealousy is a very important thing to feel because you can only feel jealous of something you want. Yeah.

Like, just think about it. I have zero interest in a yellow Lamborghini. If somebody drives past me in a yellow Lamborghini and a bunch of me like, Oh, God, look, who? I'm like, what car? The Hyundai over there? Like, what are you talking about? I don't want one.

And so when you understand that jealousy is blocked desire. And what is it blocked by? It's blocked by your belief that you can't have it to. And when the settings in your mind are, that beautiful white kitchen with the marble countertops are for other people, but I can never have that. You will feel jealous if that is meant for you. And I struggled with so much jealousy.

I was that friend that wanted to be happy for my friends. I remember when we were struggling financially, oh my God, have you ever had a friend? you're probably that you probably have been that friend for people but i i don't mean that in a mean way but but but have you ever had a friend who all of a sudden like moves to the nicer town yeah or all of a sudden goes from renting an apartment to like some house and they inevitably invite you over and they open up the door and as you're driving up the driveway you're like how the hell do they have this much money yep and then they open up the door and they hand you the glass of wine

and you start to grip the wine glass as you're getting a tour of their house and Cody I'm happy for you I was so happy for my friend because I love my friend but I was so sad for me because her house

looked like a fucking restoration hardware store and then we rounded the corner and that bitch she had the white cabinets with the barma I never should have shared my Pinterest board

that bitch she stole my god and then you get in the car and then you basically drink all next door you got that smile oh no that smile that smile I listen I hear you then you get in the car and if you're like a complete emotionally immature jerk like I am

you turn to your husband and you're like why couldn't you have been in finance why did you have to like people why are you a nice guy and poor Chris is like He's like shrinking like a turtle. He's like, I don't know. I don't know why I didn't go.

It would have made things easier. Oh my God. This was me every day, all day long. God, I need to meet this guy. I was in radio in 2008. It was the first job I got, $25 an hour. $800,000 in debt. I love that job because I could literally talk to strangers.

and not think about my problems. And I felt less alone. And the thing about radio that's so cool is it's one to one. And I fell in love with it. And as my career really started taking off, which would have been 2015, I'd suppose, podcasting started. And I remember seeing it. And I always wanted to get back into radio.

And I just kept telling myself, no. No, no, I talked myself out of starting a podcast for probably, if I'm 50, I'd say probably about six years. And I kept saying, it's too late, you miss the window, what are you going to say? That monk, Jay Shetty, Stephen Bartlett, fuck that guy. Like I, like, you stole it from me. You know, I got nothing to say. Who's got like, oh, oh, they've all, you know, like, this is what you tell.

Oh, there's another restaurant in my, my sisters, I can't possibly become a real estate agent. My sisters are, she's got to think I'm, of course you're copying her. And so I would feel jealousy. I would see an episode release and I were, Jay and I are friends. We were in a mastermind. We were just texting yesterday about something. He's a very, very, very close friend of mine.

And I was like, I am so jealous. I'd see my buddy Rich Roll. Fucking Rich. You know, he started a podcast. That incredible hair? Yes. Like, what am I going to say? And so I just kept talking myself out of it.

And the jealousy, it's so amazing. The jealousy is a signal from something deep inside you. And the more jealous you are, the more it is meant for you. And what I want you to do is I want you to ask yourself, go beneath the surface. go beneath the surface. What is it about it? Like if you're jealous of a friend's marriage, what is it about the marriage

that is the thing that you really want in your life? What is that? And here's the truth. If you look at jealousy as a gift from your deepest dreams and from what is meant for you, and you understand that there is not a human being that can block your way. You do that for yourself. Just because somebody else has it doesn't mean

you can't create something that's proximate to it for yourself. And when you block yourself from doing the work to create the things that you want, from doing the work to change your health or change your relationship, you will become more and more jealous, because jealousy's blocked desire. And the thing for me is that I don't feel jealous. And the reason why is if I even get a ting that feels more like a pull now, I just go, oh, I got to, I got to like work on that. That's it. Like every time around our buddy, Stephen Partlet, I'm like, what tech are you using? Like, I don't, what? Okay, hey, guys, we got to do, like, get the thing under the table that he's got. Right?

Yes. And then I can't, I never remember to click it. And then everybody's like, you've clicked it a thousand times. I'm like, oh, that was my knee. I'm sorry. Like, I just can't pay attention like Stephen does. So I, so I, but, but I see it as signals. I don't, and because here's the belief that I now have. I believe that most things in life that you want are there for the creating. That there is an infinite number of white kitchen cabinets. And if your friend is a bitch because you have the same cabinet color, let her be a bitch about it. Just take note that that's kind of who she is.

That's okay. Let her. But don't block yourself from going for the things that you want in life. And, you know, that period of my life taught me something important because it happened when Chris and I were struggling. It happened when I had told Chris, I don't believe in your ability to get us out of this. and that anger and that fear fueled me to go, well, I'm going to have to do it.

No one's coming. It's up to me. I'm doing it. God, and I was resentful. But I bumped into my ambition. See, the reason why I could say to Chris, I don't believe in your ability to fix this, is because he's not a corporate guy.

I'm married to a guy who's a death dula. He's a spiritual psychologist. He created men's retreats. like he is such a heart-led guy he is so unmotivated by my he would live in a yurt if i allowed him to which i will not i mean we live in vermont that's the closest but and i loved a camp i just don't want to live in a tent but he is a true like of the spirit and of nature person and so i think i instinctively knew that he wasn't going to get us out of it because he's not built for that what he was built for is actually grounding and healing our family in the aftermath of it. What he was built for

is staying home and being the like on-call parent when I was on the road 150 days a year because when I first started getting paid to speak, we still had liens on the house. You know, when I gave that TEDx talk that went crazy viral, is the first time I ever talked about the five-second rule. This five, four, three, two, one, move. And I had liens on my house. I was $800,000 in debt as I stood on that stage. And when people started to pay me, I said yes to everything, and you will have that happen in your career.

You will take the world's worst deals because you have to. Because your highest value is actually security, safety, and family. And so I said yes to all kinds of things, that I would never say yes to now because it was aligned with my mission, pay off these bills, get my family secure. Like, I was not trying to be anybody. I was trying to solve a problem that I had. And as I got better and better and more and more and more successful, I just became much,

much better at the business side of it. And what I have learned, and I say this to, in every partnership meeting I have, you know, that we get into like with these massive Fortune 10, Fortune 100 brands, I'll be talking to their CEO or their CMO about a project we're going to do and like, look, I'm not talent. I'm a businesswoman. And that's how I need you to relate to me. And that is, like I discovered through that experience of being so in debt that I

freaking love building things. I love the business. I love the tech. I love being the first mover in something. I love figuring things out. I love being the person people are watching as an example, not because of my ego, but because it means I'm doing something that's making an impact. Well, I mean, one of the first things you said to me when you walked in here really

resonated with me that the best builders in the world have, I think, which is you really care about the people you serve. And I'm not like paying you lip service because you came. into my office and you said, hey, you really want to do this podcast thing. You have to obsess on who you're talking to. And then you told me, you know, at my podcast, here is who we are talking to. And then you're like, and remember, they're giving you an hour of their day. They don't have it. They could give it to anybody. They're giving it to you. What are you doing with it? Yes. And you use the word maniacal. You said, we are maniacal about giving that person

value. Yes. And then we talked about all the things you won't do that could make you a ton of money and even more famous. I don't want to be famous. That is not why I got into this. You want to be a famous life coach. No, fuck you. No, I literally, that's the piece, like it's an occupational hazard. But I live in a town of 3,000 people in the middle of nowhere in Vermont.

I live on a mountain and I look straight down a valley and I do not see human beings. And I am a real small, I shop for my groceries in a store where you can buy car hearts and feed. and fishing poles and fertilizer. And so I love just being a normal person. And, you know, when your success comes after you almost lose everything that matters to you, you do not forget what matters to you. And so to me, I am motivated on the business side by,

like one rule I have in business is don't ever take a deal that you will be pissed off about in success. Yeah. Always bet on yourself unless you have to pay your bills. Then you take whatever deal you can until you can strike better deals. But always look at the long tail. And so one thing that I think a lot of people don't understand about the extraordinary success

that I have built is I own all my content. Yeah. Publishers do not own my books. I do. No way. Oh, yeah, I do joint ventures. And I've severed all my audio rights. With eight million.

Fuck. That's so small. But that's a big bet because if people don't know, those are millions of dollars. If you don't, like, it's one thing. How big was the advance? Do you think you could have gotten? No, but if they, they would have offered you millions for let-

who cares? They would have paid me pennies on the dollar. No. An advance is a loan for your ego with shitty math. That's what it advances. That's good. It is. And there are writers out there that need the advance to,

be able to pay for their life, take the advance, and then be smarter about your next deal and make sure book number two does not have that attached to it. The second thing I will tell you, though, is you must sever your audio rights on every single book you do. An audio book is like having the world's single best rental property at a beach town. And there's no cost. because it's one digital file and it will be around in perpetuity. And it's pure value. And it's pure value. If your audience is paying 15, 20 bucks for an audiobook.

And there's no cost to creating the audiobook and no cost to shipping or stocking or storing or returning or warehousing an audiobook, why would you give somebody that did nothing? Oh, I feel that intensely. Yes. It's all about ownership and betting on yourself. Yes. Which I was forced to do because nobody would give me a book deal. Yeah.

In 2017, yes. Wow. And that book sold over a million copies too, didn't it? Yes, largely because of the audiobook. Fascinating. Yeah. Well, I mean, I... That's how I discovered that by mistake.

My mom, Lori, is a giant Mel Robbins fan and has read Let Them and gave me your first book and then gave me let them after. after I had already read it. And I think one of the coolest things, for anybody who hasn't read them, my favorite part, you're not very, people make books that are so long these days. And you kind of make the book only as long as it needs to be to give you as many examples in instances. Right. Because I can.

Because I'm controlling the deal. Right. I'll give you another thing. So here's another thing to think about. So make sure if you have a physical product. that you really think about the product in the environment. Yeah. Like when we did, for example, the,

and I think about this obsessively about everything. So I think about the thumbnail of the Mel Robbins podcast as a consumer product. Yeah. So what does that thumbnail look like on Spotify? What does it look like on Apple? What does it look on somebody's car display? What does it look like on YouTube?

What does it look like on the television screen where 30% of our audience on YouTube is playing it on a big screen? What does it look on an iPhone? And we photoshopped our top runners into those environments. It's why we didn't end up going with a black background, which looked better. But in the environments, it didn't pop. And so the book, the design of the book was very simple. The test was this.

If you were walking down a beach, half a football field away, could you go, oh, that's that book? Whoa. What a good fucking idea. And so think about the environment in which you are trying to break through and is it recognizable. Because we overcomplicate everything and understand that people are so overwhelmed right now that the more that you can simplify something and the more that you can be useful and people can get it like that, the more successful you're going to be. I'm dying to come to this tour of years. You're coming. I want to know. Give me like one instance of like what is one of the magic moments at Mel Robbins?

Like what is a moment you remember about the show? Well, I should say that this was one of the hardest things I've ever done because we hired the person that we ended up hiring is the person that does tours for like Kendrick Lamar and the Super Bowl. So they're just singing at a different level. And I get into the opening call. And Charlotte's here in the room with me who works on my team, who's one of our senior managers who was part of the tour core team. And they're like, yo, you know, you could do a speech because people are coming to see you. Or you could do something that nobody has ever done in spoken word. They've never done this in a podcast tour. They've never done it in comedy.

They've never done it. Like in any kind of spoken word book event, I'm like, well, what's that? They're like, you could put on a show. I'm like, well, what do you mean? They're like, well, instead of telling everybody, what if you brought it to life? What if you didn't tell the story of being in the bed? What if we got you in a bed and you acted it out? What if we brought to life the whole process of the book?

What if we made it an actual show with sets, with everything? And I was like, yes, I had no idea what they were talking about. and of course because I have made a living doing speeches which by the way speaking is you have an hour it's somebody else's event you don't have to fill the seats you don't have to put on the event you have an hour you show up you do your thing you leave so I I was so dumb because I'm like oh I got this oh this is easy no problem and meanwhile Charlotte my daughter Sawyer and two other members of the team. They were working with the tour. They're like putting it all. We did a four day workshop where we mapped. Oh, this is going to be great. I got this. I got this. They start putting together the animation

deck. Now, I'm thinking, clicker, PowerPoint. I'll go out. We show up for rehearsals. We have, first of all, I had never, ever, ever done my own events. I just, I was kind of honestly nervous. People wouldn't show up because I thought I've never gone to a podcast door who shows up for a podcast like I don't even see the audience people like oh they're going to show up I'm like really maybe the venues are a little too big guys like I this was me this all the shows sold out in 20 seconds it was insane they're like thousands of people oh yeah every venue is between three and five thousand people and I was so pissed off because I did not understand that you had to request that that they turn off dynamic pricing

And there was such a surge, like now you understand as a consumer what a racket this is. There was such a surge of interest that all of a sudden what happens is all the bots buy them and then the ticket prices go up and as there. Like I was so angry at how expensive the tickets were because of the demand and then the resellers and all that that I came on the first call afterwards and I said, I'll be damned if somebody's paying $1,000 and coming to this thing. and they do not have the show of their life. And so we invested in three documentary style cameras.

We built one of these screens that is the quality of what you would see at Colplay so that if you were in one of the seats on the balcony, that it felt like I was right there. It mattered so much to me because I was mortified that people were paying this kind of money. And we have this huge confetti explosion because my favorite part of the Coldplay concert

is when they, explode all this confetti and I had paid for those seats that are the first rung but we weren't on the floor and you're like reaching and pulling a groin muscle to try to get one confetti thing and so I'm like we are going to shower this place we're going to rain it down with with if you're in the chute you're get we got fans because I wanted it to just feel like this sensory thing and we lost so much money on this thing even though we're so hard oh my god even though we sold it out like I made every mistake in the world with merch, it was just so dumb. Like, oh, my God, my merch went to the place where, you know, I always wonder, when somebody wins a Super Bowl, you know, the other team

had the hats printed out, too. Where do those go? Well, they go wherever our shirts went, like, because we didn't sell them. So I, so I, so anyway, I, but, but so we get to rehearsals. I think Charlotte is about to have PTSD. We get to rehearsals, and I'm like, what are all these people doing here? There were 35 people there. There were cases of stuff. Like, I'm like, and everyone's panicking. I'm like, we got this, guys. And then I realize, I'm like, just show me the clicker.

We'll start working on the slides. They're like, there's no slides. You have a 47 animation deck that is fully stacked that can't be changed. And Jason over there cues it based on you hitting the lines of the show you don't know. Oh, God. Sounds awful. It was awful. And so Charlotte was forced to create a makeshick,

teleprompter because I didn't know my own show because I'm a, me too. And then, of course, I drag my two daughters into this who both don't want to do it with me. And what could be more fun than to work out your mother-daughter trauma on a stage as a comedy skit with your two daughters who don't want to be there and you don't know your own show? Oh my God. Uh-huh. So basically, I stayed up all night memorizing it. if you walked into my dressing room, the first two nights of that show,

it would have smelled worse than any porta potty at a construction site. The stress diarrhea. I have never, like, I make a living... Have you been in a porta potty at a construction site? Yes, I have. Okay, me too. Because we did a video there,

and that is a smell, Mel. Yes, you got to pull up your pants. Oh, God, and it's hot. You, like, have to brace, like you don't want to touch it. You have to hold your knees. When the barrier gets broken, when you have to suck the stuff out is really...

That's just the ticket right there. So come to the show. Oh my gosh. So the first night, it was so awful because I've never spoken at night. So I didn't even occur. People would be drunk. They're coming for a good time. Half the people were dragged there on a date night and don't even know who the

hell I am. Oh, my God. Yeah. And then like it just was one thing. And then we didn't put mics out into the audience. So we didn't have a return. And we had never done a full rehearsal because I'm, I didn't know the show.

And so we get out there. The lights were too high. We could see everybody. I don't know the show. My daughter's like this. Sniff is a penguin. Every joke we're cracking that we thought sounded great above the garage in Vermont. We can't hear anybody laughing.

So we're looking at each other like, this sucks. Oh my God. Oh, my God. It's terrible. Like, I'm acting. Like, this is horrible. So we walk off stage. The whole crew's like, that was amazing.

I'm like, I quit. I'm going to do an Adele video. This is the worst thing I've ever done in my entire life. I stayed up that night. I had three martinis. I stayed up to 1.30 in the morning. I was so upset. I'm like, I'm making a video.

We're canceling the show. We're not ready for this. Or he's like, I'm not doing that again. We go to bed, and I wake up, and I'm laying in bed. I did not follow my hot 15 that morning. I called my husband hung over, and I started crying, and I said, honey, it was so terrible. Like, it was so awful. Sawyer hates it.

The kids don't want to be here. What have I done? Why didn't I just do a speech? And he's like, Mel, get your fucking ass out of bed. And you get back to that theater. and you go learn your show. Oh, I like him. And there was something, and at some point,

you just have to rip the Band-Aid off and do the thing, and ship the video, and post the podcast episode, and walk out on that stage. Because you're never going to be ready for the first time you do it. It was so crudged. People loved it. I didn't love the experience of it. The show was fantastic.

People loved it. And it's so now. Oh, no, no, but I mean, the first night, even. Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah. The second night, it was like, fuck it. Like, let's just have fun. And we, it was way better. And then the third night, oh, my God, by the third night, all the wheels were off.

We were having a blast. It started with six Boston police officers, only in Boston. Six Boston police officers come in at the beginning of the show, because two women are fighting at the let them theory show. Fist fighting. Stop. That they have to get removed by six Boston. Thank you. Thank you to the Boston police officers.

Boston's finest. This is so Boston. Yes. And so we just start, we, and so here's going back to the fact that I'm crazy intentional. Here was my intention for the show. My intention was to have fun. It was to try something I'd never tried before. And by the time we were done to feel like the closing night at the Apollo Theater in London was the best.

the best show that we did of the entire tour that every single time we did it it got better we learned something that we had a lot of fun doing it that and that people really loved it that was my intention and then I would say and I just don't want to lose too much money yeah and my sister-in-law who's my CFO would text me and C-O and would be like would you please stop saying that in the meetings because people are taking you seriously um and that's what happened it's incredible And so it was such an incredible gift because at the age of 56, to do something that far out of your comfort zone and to stretch yourself creatively, it brought out that sort of stand-up side in me that I could express in a way that I can't express all the time. And it allowed me to, like, perform and really make an impact differently. And I loved it.

And so we're going – and the other thing that I loved is on my deathbed, I will remember that experience of my daughters as one of the highlights of my life. Like, we worked out so much shit that was, like, four weeks. I don't recommend it. But, you know, just you, the amount of things that happened. and the amount of growth and connection that we shared and that I shared with the extraordinary women and men that were part of that team, I will just, it changed me forever. And so, yeah, we're going to do it again. And we're starting in New Zealand and Australia.

And then-Melrovens.com. What's that? Yeah, Melrovins.com. And the only two shows that have tickets. The only two are Houston and Dallas. The only two of the tickets left So you're not buying any Nobody's buying anything here

We're going to give you the tickets No, no, no, I like buying my kids No, absolutely not Also I swear to God, if you make me cry on this podcast I told Stephen too who is now by a buddy I was like, I'm not coming on If you try to make me cry I won't do it, I want to shove my feelings down

where they're supposed to be inside Like an adult And anyway, but you can feel what that tour meant to you And I think it's so cool You putting yourself out there And if you're listening right now And you haven't taken that big risk

That makes you want to throw up a little bit Here's your chance Well, and the other thing is that when you do a podcast or you create a show or you write a book or you have an online business you don't see the people you're impacting and so it is one of the greatest joys when I bump into somebody and they're like oh my god I listen to that thing and it helped my son with anxiety or wow I sent my husband this thing it really like helped them negotiate a raise Like seeing and meeting people is incredible.

And so to be in a room of people who consciously put themselves there, who are there to have a good time and there because they want more out of life and because they want more for other people, there are very few spaces you can go in today's world like that. And so the energy of that was just transformative and electric and celebratory. and there were so many stories that came out of people meeting really good friends, people starting businesses with people that they met who they were sitting next to. And so that was also one of the big things. And I'm going to give you one other piece of advice for your business. So I am

driven by the impact. It's very important in your business and in life to understand what data is important and what isn't. I do not have the back end data to what's happening in the podcast. I don't ever look at the rankings. Once a week, I'll be like, are we still doing okay? Like literally, right, Charlotte? Like, that's, are we still doing it? We still are? And I'm like, every time I'm legit surprised. We are?

We're still in the top five of the world? Really? Take that, Bartlett. No, I'm just kidding. I love Stephen. At the London show, he was there with Mel. And I was on stage talking about jealousy, and I did this whole thing about the podcast. And I'm like, that Stephen Bartlett guy, fuck that guy.

And then he's in the audience. I'm like, just kidding. I love you, Steve. Stand up, Stephen. And then, like, gave him a big shout out. He is an incredible friend, incredible friend. incredible mentor. That guy, he is a solid human being, like one of the best. So is Jay, too. Jay is too. So are you. Wow. So are you. But you guys are all, oh, geez, that have had all this

massive success. And it'd be really easy for you guys to not share the homework, to not help, to not whatever. I mean, Jay, I went to Jay's show in London at a, I must have at the same theater, Apollo maybe. And I brought my, one of my right hands, Christian. And Christian, and Christian is a very British 25-year-old. And so when I say it was so much love that he is not Jay Shetty's main avatar. Yeah. Right? And so we just went to support Jay.

Not that he needed it. It's totally fucking sad. He's fine. But we're in like the fronty front row. Yeah. And I have Christian who went to Cambridge. You know, he's serious. He's very smart.

And, you know, Jay's show is huggy and emotional and, you know, not British in a lot of ways. And so Christian's next to me. And did you go to The J's Show? Uh-huh. So you know that last part of J's show where he has you turned to whoever you took and you look him in the eye and you say, I love you to them? And I have my employee, Christian, next to me. And he turns to me and he looks at me and he goes, you don't pay me enough for this. And I died.

That's amazing. We've been together for five years. He's incredible, a dear friend of mine and somebody who works with me. But what we joke about to this day is that tour, that Jay Shetty that we weren't even the Target Avatar for was so, it's a story we talk about to this day. Yeah. Because Jay took a risk and did a thing that we will never forget being there for. I will never forget. Yes.

And so your tour, I am sure, is the same. When Stephen came, he's like, I actually can't do a live event again until I reinvent everything I do. Just completely raise the bar. I was so proud of the fact also that we went for it because I cannot tell you how many people that I have never met before that are A-list like bobbity-bottie-bada-bba who reached out to say, I want you to know that I'm a fan from afar. And I have been in four meetings this week where your name was used to say, well, you could do it this way or you could do what Mel Robbins did. And it's really cool to show people what's possible, but it was only possible because we were really driven not by like flexing, but by making an impact.

Like I wanted people to know we put everything into that experience for them. Like I even paid for people to be handed a bag with stuff in it, a gift. Like who pays for their own thing? A dummy who loses money. But anyway, that's a different story. So it's very important to understand what is the data that's important. And so for me, the thing that I want you to steal is we do this thing that means so much to me. In fact, Charlotte, who's sitting here, who's a senior manager who does all kinds of things in marketing and all kinds of brand projects and strategic initiatives,

she started her career with our company, 143 Studios, by assembling this email I'm going to tell you. Steal this idea. It's called an impact email. Every single day, every one of our 50 employees, and everybody that is an agency partner that we work with, receives an email that is a roundup of what people are saying today about the impact that some piece of content had.

on their life. Not a, hey, I let you know. Yeah. But a, oh my gosh, I just listened to this episode with Dr. Dawn, the cancer person from the Mayo Clinic. I'm so, thank you for putting this out. I sent it to my sister. So that front and center, the impact that the content that we're putting out, the impact

that it has on a real human being is front and center to everybody that works for me and with me. And that is a way to keep a piece of data that is very important to you, front and center to you and the people that work for you. And it's not just the customer stories up here. We put it in the inbox so that you see. And it's not us summarizing. It's the screenshots. So you can see the name.

You can see the photo. It comes from every platform, every social media comes from the inbox. It comes from the reviews because that's what matters. that's why you win Mel Robbins Thank you so much Thank you