Everything Is Content - Everything In Conversation: Mel Robbins' 'Let Them Theory'

Episode Date: March 19, 2025

Hello EIC-heads, happy Wednesday... let's chat!One two-word phrase has blown up on the internet in the past year - let them. Its creator, Mel Robbins, is a popular motivational speaker and self-help figure. In 2023, she posted a tiktok on the theory, which now has 20m views and an instagram post where she said 'I’ve just learnt about this thing called the ‘let them theory’. The Cut’s review of the book makes a really good point for why ‘let them’ resonates with our times - ‘One is that it’s catchy and sounds easy to do. Another, more depressing hypothesis: Let Them Theory appeals to passive resignation, placing all real power outside our control. Let Them is easily adopted by people who want to do what they were already going to do while pretending their actions don’t really matter, because change is impossible and we’ve already lost.'She’s also been criticised for not crediting the poet Cassie B Phillips, whose poem Let Them went viral in 2022 - i.e. a year before Mel’s viral post on it. Cassie has spoken out about the situation on a number of occasions, and believes she’s been plagarised. She’s even drawn parallels between the theory and her poem, which has lines like ‘let them lose you. You were never theirs’ and ‘trying to control any outcome regarding their decision is a waste of time. Just let them be, and let them do it on their own.’So if you will let us, let's get into it ;) As always we'd love to hear your thoughts! Send us a dm, and don't forget to leave us a review on your podcast player app!'Let them’: can this viral self-help mantra change your life? - The GuardianDoes Mel Robbins' 'The Let Them Theory' Work?: A ReviewChanté Joseph FOMO TikTokMel Robbins conceals the truth of her let them “discovery” - Andy MortCassie Phillips Instagram Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

I'm Richera and I'm Manoni and this is Everything in Conversation. This is where we report the biggest pop culture stories from the week before dissecting a hot topic along with your insight. Remember, if you want to take part in these extra episodes, just follow us on Instagram at everythingiscontentpod. That's where we decide on topics and ask for your opinions too. Our gorgeous Beth is feeling ill and is resting up. But this week, we're talking about Mel Robbins' viral let them theory. Can it transform our lives or is it another bullshit self-help trend? And did she steal the concept from someone else? But first, the headlines from the EIC newsroom.

The first trailer for Freakier Friday, starring Lindsaysey lohan and jamie lee curtis has dropped and the film which comes out a frightening 22 years after their first freaky friday film is set for release this august megan markle has announced a new podcast titled confessions of a female founder jason sudeikis has confirmed ted Lasso is returning for season four, saying, quote, We're writing season four now. That's the official word. Ted's coaching a women's team. Sam Jones, the US influencer who briefly snatched a baby wombat from its distressed mother and uploaded the video to social media, has left Australia on her own accord. The Australian Prime Minister, Anthony Albanese,

has called Sam Jones' actions an outrage and challenged her to, I quote, try and take a baby crocodile from its mother and see how you go there. Jeremy Corbyn has been posting on Letterboxd and people have been loving it. He logged six reviews in one day and seems to be watching socially conscious cinema

from his reviews. Will Smith is ending his 20-year music hiatus and dropping his first album since 2005 been working on this project for a minute and I'm itching to get it out to y'all he said on an instagram post the album's title is based on a true story and is due end of the month Iggy Azalea says universal music owes her millions of dollars in the eight figure range in a statement posted on X, Azealia said, they are the scummiest company and they do this to so many artists

who unfortunately can't afford to fight what they're owed. Mark my words, you ugly bitch, you will pay me what's owed. Kim Kardashian posed with her Tesla robot, cuddling up with it on a bed outdoors for Perfect magazine. Molly May Haig and Tommy Fury have sparked rumours of a reunion after posting photos of a family holiday in Dubai. Lizzo is staging a comeback and has played her first live show for nearly two years, telling fans she went through a dark depression after being sued and accused of harassment by three of her former dancers. Disney's live-action remake

of Snow White is set to be released in UK cinemas amid criticism of the film. Disney has made the choice to use computer-generated dwarfs in the remake, saying it would, quote, avoid reinforcing stereotypes from the original animated film. But actors with dwarfism have said that they would have liked the opportunity to play the roles, actually. And that's all from the headlines this week one two-word phrase has been blowing up on the internet in the past year let them its creator mel robbins is a popular motivational speaker and self-help guru in 2023 she posted a tiktok on the theory which if you look now has 20 million views which is insane and in the instagram post that blew up this entire thing, she said,

quote, I've just learned about this thing called the Let Them Theory. In December of last year, she released The Let Them Theory as a book titled The Let Them Theory, a life-changing tool that millions of people can't stop talking about. The book became a New York Times bestseller and sold more than 100,000 copies in its very first week, which is completely insane. This is how Mel describes what the let them theory is in that book. The let them theory is about freedom. Two simple words, let them, will free you from the burden of trying to manage other people. Imagine you're at work and a colleague is in a bad mood. Instead of letting

their negativity affect you, just say, let them. Let them be grumpy. It's not your problem. Focus on your work and how you feel. Or maybe your dad makes another comment about your life choices and it hits you like a brick. Instead of letting it ruin your day, just say, let him. The truth is other people hold no real power over you unless you give it to them. So in the book Mel Robbins talks about her experience of beating bankruptcy, going from depression to huge success as a motivational speaker and then the giant popularity that's come from the let them theory. But here's the real dilemma. She's also been criticised for not crediting the poet Cassie B. Phillips, who wrote Let Them, a poem that went hugely viral in 2022, i.e. a year before Mel's viral post. Mel has also claimed that part of the response to her Let Them theory is a widespread trend of people getting it tattooed on their body but how true is this? Cassie the poet mentioned has spoken out so

many times on the fact that she feels she's been plagiarized. She's even drawn parallels between the theory and her poem which has lines like quote let them lose you you are never theirs and quote trying to control any outcome regarding their decision is a waste of time just let them be and let them do it on their own. But when asked about Cassie's poem, Mel has not really given into accusations she's plagiarized her. She's only credited her daughter for inspiring the theory and told the Guardian, quote, the Let Them Theory has its roots in Buddhism, Stoicism, the Serenity Prayer, the legacy of Dr. Martin Luther king jr and therapeutic modalities like

detachment theory and radical acceptance i would definitely recommend anyone listening to this podcast go look up a video by youtuber andy mort we'll link it in the show notes but it has a hundred thousand views and he does a really good job of arguing that there are multiple plot holes in mel's narrative of how she came about this theory including dates of events she claimed were inspired by the theory but actually come much after such as her son's prom. Also he makes the point which is I think a bit of a smoking gun that lots of the tattoos that she's used as evidence for her theory's popularity were actually photographed before she'd even done her post so we're clearly

in reference to Cassie's poem. Mel has also been trying to trademark let them and it appears that hasn't gone through. Before we dive into all of that I want to start with what did you think of the theory Anoni? Okay oh god I have so much to say on this. First of all I think it's kind of egregious to call it a theory. I remember being like in school and my mum being like well just let them you know if I was talking about feeling upset by something with a group of girls or like something she was just like just let them it doesn't matter and that being said it's something I live by like I really try to live by it but it comes in loads of different forms for example you can't control what happens to you can only control how you react to it that's something I really live by

stop trying to control the outcome all of these kind of things of just like letting go and recognizing where your power lies and empowering yourself to like not because I'm someone who gets quite anxious I know you get do too and a lot of my anxiety comes from worrying about what other people think about me or whatever so this kind of theory is a really useful tool for someone like me when I can get like incapacitated by worrying about how other people are going to react or whatever so it's I think it's really useful I'm just very surprised at how much Mel Robbins and I'm it's amazing that she's made so many people understand this theory or like find a way to implement it in their lives but I'm really shocked how much credit she's been given for something which I just kind of

think is a way of thinking that has probably existed since humans have existed what did you what do you make of it yeah I completely agree with you my main gripe and it's with the entire kind of self-help industry as well is just none of these concepts are particularly new they're just packaged and repackaged in these novel ways they have kind of these bite-sized catchphrases to them I'm thinking of the subtle art of not giving a fuck that's basically the let them theory right just it sounds a bit different kind of goes about it in a different way so I think on the one hand none of these concepts are new therapists have been talking about detachment theory they've been talking about you know empowering yourself

reminding yourself you have agency and everything that these things aren't novel but I guess there is a power in being able to communicate them in ways that really affect people and my main thinking is if this is something that really sits with you and has helped you that's amazing it's not a bad thing that she has put this book out in that regard I think the only the only kind of problem I have is the way that figures are deified and become like gods of a movement when they are just repackaging similar things and I think we have to remind ourselves that there's not one perfect way to living that somebody has discovered these people are just communicators of ideas that already exist and that's what they're doing successfully so I think

that's that's kind of my thought around it basically yeah I agree And that's the thing exactly that I was thinking that when I was listening, because I listened to the audio book that I was like, I know there are some people that this will be really transformative. And there were passages where I was like, it's really good to be reminded of this, which is always how I feel whenever I read a self help book, it doesn't necessarily feel like someone's telling me something new, but someone's lining up things that I forget to implement in my day to day life. life and it's just a really good reminder yeah I also read the subtle art of not giving a fuck and again it's like you kind of know it's all obvious but you're right it's just that communication it's very direct it's almost instructive and sometimes I think

in a world that feels quite chaotic it's quite nice for someone to just go this is how you should live your life here's the way to do it and I'm going to tell you follow these simple steps and you'll feel better but listening to the book I just like Here's the way to do it. And I'm going to tell you, follow these simple steps and you'll feel better. But listening to the book, I just like that. It was just, to me, it could have been a caption. And I think that the book is interesting. It's kind of just a memoir. And then she just says, let them let me every other sentence. And it was just the framing of it as this kind of like transformative way of living. I do think it's a really good thing to have in your arsenal to remember that it's okay. And I do agree that it kind of relaxes your nervous system when you realize that it's for me controlling the outcome

is actually how I prefer to think about it because it's not necessarily like, let them it's just like I actually have no control over how this is going to play out. It's all the same thing. That's just whatever works for you. But she'd kind of retrofitted every single experience in her life going back like to whenever to be like and this is because of the let them theory and I'm like I actually don't know if it is that neat and I don't know if it's a British cynicism in me where I find sort of that American sort of earnestness I I find it quite trying a little bit. But I think that, you know, it's just a different way of living. But she's like, Oh my god, it's because of this let them theory. And the amount of times I don't listen to audiobook, the amount of times

she said let them after a while, I was starting to think maybe this book has like a hypno therapeutic kind of aspect, because I'm not joking, I can't stop hearing just the words let them in my brain, because it is every other sentence. I know you also read the book. Or did you listen to it? Or did you read it? I read it. And then I also listened to her podcast episode on it. You're so right. Even when I was reading quotes out just, you know, like two minutes before now, I just was struck by I've said let them so many times. feel like this must sound absurd and it's funny because the we're gonna get onto the cut piece I think but in the cut piece she kind of says how she outlines that Mel Robbins you know doesn't really use this theory for anything worse

than like a bad breakup and I was quite astonished by how simple and to me non-stressful the first instance she uses which is like her son getting ready for prom first of all it was so gender binary about like how her daughter had been prepping for months really labors the point about if her daughter was going to prom she'd have all these things and if her son was going and I was thinking well that must be kind of on your parenting that you've like gendered your children so much in a way that they really focus on these things that's one thing but all of the instances she was using like a man coughing on a plane I was like these are just things that I automatically I don't need to be told to not stress I have already told myself it's okay if

someone are coughing on a plane nothing to do with you don't get stressed like maybe this applies to people that have quite short tempers or like are quickly enraged I don't know but that was another thing where I'm just not really finding this relatable like the the examples you're using to me are things that I just I don't know I've got worse stuff going on I guess I don't I don't know no I completely agree with you it felt like she was a making so many generalizations about how people react and what kinds of people are reading the book it really felt like she was speaking to one type of person somebody who is so tightly coiled up and really stressed out and that's not to diminish people who feel like that that I'm so glad that there's a book that speaks to those people but I don't think there's a huge

amount of nuance in why people might be responding that way what that inevitably says about them what experiences they might have that you know make them stressed out about particular situation and not so that they're stressed out about a guy coughing on a plane that definitely was something that I thought about also do you remember the bit she was talking about addiction that was that was one of my big red flags and listen I am not an expert on addiction my only experience is and I sometimes feel like there is um some overlaps between having had an eating disorder between kind of that addictive personality of you know control and you know they are not the same things but I feel like sometimes

it feels like there are like a small amount of overlap in the behaviors that I exhibited during that time essentially but one thing she said about using let them for addiction is if you have a friend who's struggling with addiction and who's not ready for help let them it means accepting that their choice is not your responsibility and if you know they are choosing to relapse letting them is instead focusing on your own power and setting healthy boundaries that all sounds good on the surface but I also think I don't know I just think if you had a friend that was relapsing constantly just letting them feels like such an intensely difficult possibly even dangerous thing to do I understand that people will seek help when they're

ready to seek help but completely removing responsibility from somebody who is stuck in that dark position that feels like too much to me I would be so interested to hear what you think on this because that really stood out as something that I just I don't know big red flag basically it's in I've the reason that kind of makes it weird is because the thing about like having your pat I don't what I don't like about that is this theory to me is quite light and fluffy and so then applying it to things like addiction even though I just said all the examples she uses on that it does feel a bit sort of like oh okay, okay, that feels a bit surface level. That being said, I remember reading this book called, I think it was The Wrong Knickers by Bryony Gordon,

who also was like an alcoholic. And another book that I read by Catherine Gray called The Joy of Being Sober. And there is, I don't know if this is specifically to do with alcohol or just all addiction, but there is something to be said for at some point as the person that's in relation with whoever it is that's struggling. You kind of do actually really have to let them because they sometimes, if you try to facilitate recovery in a person that isn't ready, it actually kind of slows down the process. And sometimes you have to let those people reach rock bottom in inverted commas so that they make because addiction is so difficult like someone will only ever decide to step into recovery literally when they're ready so I think the I think that that is right in some ways I know what you mean though you obviously don't want to

like leave someone to be in such a desperate situation that they can end up completely unsupported but I think that also is another again with addiction and anything like that it's never one size fits all and everyone's approaches are really different I definitely that is like a separate avenue that people go down where it's like sometimes with addiction people if you try and help them in certain ways they end up staying sicker for longer because they're kind of being supported in the moment when they're in active addiction whereas if you take the support away that might encourage them seeking oh okay I'm not going to be supported through this I've probably articulated that really badly I agree with you that that made me when she talks about it I don't know there was another bit which again I felt it's almost like we have an iceberg

and this is like the top of the iceberg there's so much stuff underneath there's a bit where she's talking about work and she's like if you've got a horrible boss and you don't like your job you can just leave your job if you don't like the industry you're in you can just get another industry sure you might not want to and it's so self-disample because it's like, that is such a privilege. And we've spoken about this so many times. It's such a privilege to have access to another job, to be able to find new work that it rubbed me up the wrong way initially. Then I thought about it from like a self-healthy point of view. And I was like, there is another thing to be said about self-limiting beliefs by sometimes we can kind of

bind ourselves to this idea that we don't have access that we're underprivileged whatever those things are all true but also mindset sometimes not always can lift you out so it's like this is where I get caught in the crosshairs with anything to do with self-help because we have all of these structural systemic things which are fundamentally legally systemically like that they are real they exist and they are complete barriers for so many people in society for all different reasons for all different intersections of privilege but weirdly at the same time mindset sometimes can override like so many things whether it's like mental health or your ability to do certain

things you kind of have to be in a good frame of mental health to use it does any of it is all of that a bit garbagey do you know what I'm trying to say I know exactly what you're trying to say and it's something that I've thought about a lot over the last few years because I think I had really self-limiting beliefs and that was in part propped up by understanding that being a brown woman in journalism means that I'm a minority and you know not many people of color in super senior positions existed throughout my career I still haven't seen that many in like 10 years of being in journalism which is mad not to say that they don't exist they do they're doing great jobs obviously they exist out there it's just in my literal 10 years I've not been surrounded by them which is a travesty basically

but I think weirdly not to get super meta about this but I wouldn't have done this podcast if we hadn't just jumped and we didn't set ourselves deadlines and you and Beth weren't there just like pushing to make it happen with me because I had this idea that it wasn't even conscious it was very subconscious that I was waiting for somebody to tell me you're good enough to do something and I had it with you know applying for certain jobs I had it with this podcast as I said I had it with any kind of future potential of writing a book and when we started this podcast it like blew my mind into the idea that no one's going to come and give me permission or tell me or validate me to do anything I just have to find that in myself and just do it and she talks about this in the book as well with her first theory which was the five second rule

which is just she learned to say five four three two one and just do whatever she needed to do whether that was getting out of bed during a period of depression or you know doing public speaking jobs that she didn't think she was good enough for and weirdly that was the theory in the book of let in the book about let them that I found the most powerful, which I thought, yeah, if you just do something that is more powerful than kind of ruminating and thinking about all the things and the difficult aspects of something. And so I do get what you mean. It is, it is this kind of careful balancing act of understanding that it's so easy to limit yourself in life. And it's so easy to kind of get bogged down in the realities of the world, which are very real, and are important to

acknowledge and understand because they are legitimate hurdles to people accessing so many important things, accessing the career they want. But at the same time, we only have one life and there's only the ability that we're dealt with in the cards that we're given and what if you're underplaying yourself at the same time it is it's so difficult but those two things exist in this world I think completely and one of the things they say about people who are privately educated is that what private education gives people isn't often necessarily a better education, because sometimes students aren't as attentive, don't have as much ambition or drive to do really well, because they come from maybe quite a comforted background. But one of the things

that private education gives people is this confidence to believe that they will be listened to, heard, and people will think they're good. And that is one of the biggest privileges that you can be given in life. And I I think that what am I trying to say about this what I'm trying to say is that so many people walk through life just believing that they're not good enough they're not qualified enough that no one's going to listen to them when actually they probably are more than good enough more than qualified and people would listen if they were if they like spoke up whereas you will get people and I'm what I went to private school people who

aren't qualified who aren't necessarily good enough but have all of this gumption and confidence to just walk into a room and go I belong here and I'm good enough and I'm going to speak up for myself and do this thing and it just shows that there is like an inverse um reward system for like so much of life is actually just and it sounds so ridiculous and really self-help people it's it's just I'm trying to think about these systems and privileges and the way that we the way that different people attack different things loads of times people that are really successful are just people who have enough confidence or enough sometimes like lack of self-awareness to put themselves in a position where they then were able to become

successful and it's like sometimes you've got to give yourself the permission to be like actually I do belong in this room and we joke about you know like having the confidence of a mediocre white man but it really is that it's just sometimes going I'm just gonna put this out there and also this is so cringe but I love it have you seen the meme where it's like what if I fail but what if you fly and it's like it's so true we're constantly going to ourselves like oh my god what if this doesn't work out like what and it's like we never ever go what if I do really well at this and it's like sometimes I think we've got to tap into that thing and it's like it could actually all really work

out I remember when I was a kid I used to have like imagine conversations where I'd be on a chat show because I'd become so famous and so successful that somebody was interviewing me. And to be a kid is to be free because I've never had a thought like that since. It's more just like, yeah, self-doubt plaguing my mind. That's so true. So there was one bit in a piece from The Cut where it reviews the let them theory which kind of suggests why let them might be so crucial for our times why it possibly resonates for our times the writer says one one thing is that it's catchy and sounds easy to do another more depressing hypothesis let them theory

appeals to passive resignation placing all real power outside of our control let them is easily adopted by people who want to do what they're already going to do while pretending their actions don't really matter and because change is impossible and we've already lost and i think that's true there is such a passivity to the phrase let them it's not it's ironic because she talks about let them giving yourself power and agency because it gives you the power to make choices and to put your energy into things that matter more to you but there's also this kind of deep passivity to everything she talks about so she talks about you know this friend this friendship group of women going on holiday

without her and she talks about this being like also she talks about her feelings about this being toxic which I also found very bizarre because I think it's very normal for you to be upset and for FOMO to be an emotion that you have that is very normal it's not toxic secondly she talks about just letting them have that holiday and then you working out what you can do about it i.e creating another situation where you invite them later but i also think if you have deep friendships it's also okay to sit somebody down and say this thing you did hurt me can we have a talk about it it lets somebody know the real you and it lets somebody kind of see you and your vulnerability as well so that's

something that I rubbed up against I totally agree with this I found this really interesting because it's really hurtful when a group of friends leave you out and it does she said that she felt like she was back at school it always really hurts and I was listening to this I was thinking interesting yeah there's something to be said for allowing things not to upset you. She did go on to clarify that she hadn't really like reached out to this group of friends. And so it was, you know, it was fair enough. But I actually, and I'll share, I saw Shantae Joseph did a really interesting TikTok the other day about this guy who was the person that coined the term FOMO. And he was saying FOMO is actually really instructive, because sometimes it's like the reason you're getting that feeling is because it's telling you something and I think in that instance

I think having the passivity of going yeah I'll let my friends I enjoy a holiday without me whatever is good but I also think sometimes it's good to go have I done something I actually think it's useful sometimes to go have I done something wrong sometimes you haven't sometimes people are being mean to you but as an adult more often than not I don't think people generally are being mean it probably is like something if there's like enough instances or like enough people sometimes groups can be cool and geeky but I like confrontation in as much as I don't mean I like arguing but I love facing things up front so I would probably message my friends when they got back from the holiday or the person I was close to and be like oh my god how was the trip it looked amazing I know it sounds

really silly but I would I just wanted to check like have I done anything well maybe that's not the right thing but I just got quite anxious about wanting to always check that I haven't upset anyone where she was like I definitely haven't upset anyone my reaction was what was wrong my reaction for even looking at the pictures kind of thing was wrong. So there was loads of it where I agree with the let me theory in practice, but I do think that her approach to it was extremely passive. It was either like, to me really extreme in situations where I didn't even realize people would need that level of brain calming, or just so passive, it was always laid back, which is why she really labors the point about why she loves let me why she finds it let them let me where she finds that really empowering but like my favorite

thing is always I can't control the outcome I can't control what happens I can only control how I react to it I find that is much more balanced and also takes in a bit of like accountability to the situation that's happening which I find useful because I always want to make sure that I'm also trying to learn and grow and make sure that, you know, if things are happening around me, are there consequences of my actions or are they nothing to do with me? It's not always that they're nothing to do with you, which is what let them kind of insinuate. I agree. It absolves you of a level of responsibility to a degree, I think. And that's, I think, to be honest, that's my main gripe with the theory. I think that and the kind of the fact that it doesn't really take responsibility for

bigger, vaguer movements that really do rely on people to step forward and take responsibility, even though it's not their necessarily, not necessarily their job. So something like Trump coming into power, turning up to a protest isn't necessarily anybody's responsibility, but it also requires you to just want to do something like that because we all have a moral obligation to do something like that. It's not really let them. It's more like, I will take part. But I don't know, as we've said before, it's really hard for there to be nuance in a two-word phrase and I think the main problem with the book is that it's just unable to kind of tease out those points when it's trying to fit succinctly into a two-word phrase and apply that to so many different

types of situations we had a message from Alice that said I've always really struggled to get on board with Mel Robbins work I think it's because I see her as one of these modern day so-called thought leaders, inverted commas, who proclaim themselves to be innovators of our age, but who actually platform overly simplistic, pretty unimpressive takes and get near worshipped for doing so. I guess sometimes our lives are so stressful and people are so busy that someone's telling you something really directly, really succinctinctly really simply and really repetitively can be really calming I think that I'm quite cynical when it comes to self-help even though I'm quite a self-healthy person internally I feel quite allergic to self-help books do you feel that way? I agree with you I'm such a secret woo-woo

self-healthy type of person I also really self self-improvement I am in therapy at the moment I love watching therapy bite-sized videos kind of like reading up on all of this stuff the deep irony exactly the same as you is I also have this kind of aversion and cynicism and almost just like oh feeling about self-help and I think it is just like the market of self-help is so cringe the fact that people are rewarded so much for self-help and also just the lack of nuance and also just the kind of obvious being sold into these concepts which aren't anything new I can see all of this and also the podcast if books could kill is a really good podcast that kind of dissects all the kind of biggest airport self-help books and talks

about everything from you know one end of the spectrum which is possibly something like this which isn't going to hurt you but is repackaged concepts that we know all the way to concepts like if men are from mars women are from venus books that are just actively damaging to society so i think it's the knowledge that there's like so much bullshit out there and this industry is a bit of a mess is it can be a bit snake oily as well on the worst end of the scale and it's the knowledge that some of it really does help me and i sometimes really lap this shit up so I kind of am annoyed at myself at the same time yeah I agree also I'm doing so many things right now like I'm waking up

at 5am 5am club woo I'm running I'm like drinking less like I'm doing so many of these self-help things which actually make you realize they're not self-help they're just sort of like really easy things not easy really good things to introduce into like your lifestyle to support yourself with your mental health which is fundamentally what we're all like trying to do one of the books I actually did find really instructive which is very much of this kind of world is Atomic Habits did you ever read that by James Cleverley I think I never read it but I know it it's yeah huge what what is the kind of concept of that well that one is just really interesting because I used to be really disorganized I'm really chaotic and as someone who I think has

ADHD it was really useful it explains again it's probably an explain somewhere else but I hadn't read about it but he explains things about like habit stacking so that in order to make your day easier it's like when you wake up in the morning you also put your shoes by the front door and after you put your shoes by the front it was just really like simple ways of I'm someone that can if I have kind of too much time that I haven't really neatly structured then I will end up getting just completely sidetracked and distracted so his book is just about like really like basically creating less barriers to you achieving what you need to do in a day and it was really simple but there are things from that book that I still have implemented but I remember reading like the subtle art of not giving

a fuck and at the time when you're reading it they do feel I was listening to the audiobook as I was going to sleep last night and after a while they do become quite like calming once I do find them cringe and I do the over sort of enthusiastic nature of Mel Robbins reading I did it but I found it a bit jarring but when I was falling asleep after all I'm like oh there is something nice about this it's just the fundamental thing is is basically deep down it's just someone saying you're going to be okay these are the tools and we're going to help you fix it and so I don't think there's anything wrong with that but I completely agree with you on the other hand when you look at sort of like the marketableness of this and like it's kind of what we always talk about it's like this is fine but also so many people

wouldn't be struggling if we had a functioning government nhs and support for people like people's mental health is not bad because they aren't good at thinking let them it's because we live in a society which is completely unsupportive of like the majority of its inhabitants and we had quite a few messages saying a similar thing rowan rovan said according to my therapist let them is great but it leaves a void how are you filling it it lacks nuance and there should be space for communication based on case and vivian also messaged a similar thing saying this doesn't seem that groundbreaking to me like yeah you have to let people do what they want to do because you can't control them but that's life no totally agree we did have a message from Georgina though which said one of my new year's resolutions was to try and employ this way of thinking more often

I regularly get stuck in over analyzing other people's actions reading extra meaning into things and getting genuinely frustrated by some people's decisions so for me let them is being employed in its most simple and i think harmless manner by encouraging me to relinquish control and not take things too personally i also wonder if this kind of theory serves as a good reminder that the price we pay for community is annoyance and growing a tolerance for certain behaviors is necessary unless you want to live in a cabin in the woods much to think about and i'm looking forward to hearing you guys talk about this. Georgina, I completely agree. As I said, like, that's one of my worst things is just really worrying about what people think about me or overanalyzing other people's thoughts. That's

where I think it's really instructive. But I also love that bit about community. Someone, there was a thing I actually saw on Twitter recently which is like everyone wants a village to raise the child but no one's ready to be a villager and it was kind of about how we all are craving this community and we talk about it and we've spoken about in this podcast you know with with the rise in tech with the lack of like intergenerational communities living in the same houses with religion kind of diminishing and like love thy neighbor and all that stuff kind of going out the window and just like more isolated living we don't really have community and everyone's like god i really miss that at the same time no one wants to talk to anyone on the tube everyone gets really frustrated at literally

anyone annoying them in any small capacity so i think that's a really also like a really beneficial side to this of going like, actually, we're not all just individuals in a rat race. This isn't just my way or the highway. This isn't just kind of like neoliberal thinking. Maybe this bleeds into a greater, bigger purpose, which is actually, we are all part of a community. And so if someone's coughing, that's shit for them. Maybe they're sick.

If someone, it's like the baby crying thing on a plane. It's like, you don't have to have a baby, but it doesn't entitle you to be in child-free spaces or something like that I think that's a really good takeaway again that was probably a word waffle no it's really interesting because my immediate thought was I wonder how conducive let them is to community building because my initial assumption before reading Georgina's message was I don't know why I let them feel so rampantly individual for me it feels like I guess it's just the same thing we keep coming up to which is the lack of nuance but it to me it feels like it's not encouraging

you to understand people it just feels like just let them and just allow them to do what they're doing. And inevitably you will feel the benefits of that. It doesn't really feel like necessarily when I was reading it, this concept that forges connections and meaningful connections. It just, the way she was, the way she was positioning it, if she has an argument with her daughter, she said on the podcast just you know let them feel their feelings inevitably it's going to work out and you're going to have a better a better day because they're going to feel like you heard them but it's it's still coming back to you benefiting

so I don't know I but I guess at the same time maybe that is means to forge connection because it's getting you to the point of allowing people to be who they are so maybe that is a good starting point but it did feel very individual to me so I yeah I don't know what did you think on that I found her very self-centric in the way that she was framing it and she very infrequently was talking about how other people would feel she does say there's this like let me and let me do blah blah blah I don't know I think she's very differently minded from me I guess this is what's nice about these theories and which is why it is a bit complicated if she's trying to sort of co-opt it or get it trademarked or whatever is there is actually a way to apply like to apply all of these things in loads of ways in fact you could apply let them really nefariously let them think

I'm a sleaze let them think I'm an awful person I'm going to carry on anyway you know that's like it doesn't really actually mean anything it's all in the application and so it's that's really individual and I think it can be really empowering but yeah I love Georgina's message because there definitely is an element where you can go let them because I'm not having the day that you're having and a really obvious example that everyone talks about but I completely agree with this is if I'm ever anywhere and someone's really rude to me like in a shop or in a restaurant my immediate thought now is oh they must be having a really bad day something bad's probably happened to them and so I'm extra nice to them and that was because of something that I remember being circled around maybe like 10 years ago everyone was like stop getting annoyed when

someone's being mean to you because like hurt people hurt people if someone's being mean they probably had someone be really mean to them and that completely changed my way of thinking for the better and now if anyone's rude to me in that kind of instance I'm almost unless I'm in a bad mood as well in which case it might rub me up the wrong way and then I'll be like oh she was being a bitch I normally will try and be extra nice and it normally softens them that's really community building and I think let them could be used in that way I guess it's having a belief in the system of the world and having a belief in people to behave in good ways as well I keep coming back to this isn't a new theory it's just a new translation of theories that already exist and if it

works for you if it's something that really resonates with you that's a great thing because it's hopefully ultimately getting us all to the same place but I do worry as you literally just said it could be used for people just to kind of excuse their shit behavior because if you're just saying let them let them let them be upset if I just you know gate crash this party let them if I hook up with this woman's boyfriend I don't know like if you're if you're obviously a fool you could use this just to translate your shit behavior also it's been well overdue but let's get into the Cassie stuff what were what were your thoughts when you read the kind of similarities and the fact that people are accusing Mel Robbins of having plagiarized her 2022 poem?

And also the fact that she doesn't reference and she maintains refusal. I mean, she doesn't even like hold the material in her quotes. Cassie's poem at all but she has never referenced her since or taken any kind of responsibility for potentially being inspired by the poem do you think that that is necessarily fair do you think she's fitting a narrative that excludes Cassie deliberately or do you think she generally genuinely didn't read the poem I think there's every possibility that she saw the poem but I just think there's no way to prove it also one of my the books I did love which is a self-help book is Big Magic by Elizabeth Gilbert which is one of the best books if you're ever in a creative slum slumber slum what's it called slump that's a beautiful book and she talks about how it's really woo-woo

actually that goes really spiritual but she talks about how it's really woo-woo actually that goes really spiritual but she talks about how that ideas kind of float around and they come to you and if you don't act on them then they go to someone else but there is something to be said for like stuff is just in the zeitgeist we're all kind of thinking the same thing the amount of times I read a sub stack where I was like I was literally just about to write that or I just had that thought yesterday we're all living in the same world in similar societies with similar influences and causes and so often there will be things happening the exact same time like I remember speaking to publishers whether like we'll literally get a pitch the exact same book within the same

month at the same time of the year because we're all we're all living of a generation that are experiencing the same things I think that it's just too like vague the thing I can't imagine which would be so shitty is if you are Cassie and then you see this whole thing blow up and what that must feel like especially seeing everyone credit Mel Robbins with let them and yeah I feel the same as you I don't know if she read the poem herself in her book she credits her daughter as having kind of started this train of well mum why don't you just let them and who knows if her daughter came across the poem who who knows we'll never get to the bottom of that I think there is a there is a possibility like you said that at least one of them read the poem and it maybe

ambiently was in their mind before they started posting all of this stuff. And the sad part of this is if that is true, it is possible in our modern world for somebody else to kind of become the figurehead of something that creatively you had some part in. And it is just so difficult to prove these things. I have such a desire to dig into the question of can you trademark a phrase and can you own something like this on the internet anymore or could you ever own something like this? and then somebody else wrote a book about it later, but I had tweeted it and it got like a few hundred likes. Do I own that? Is that if I'd like, you know, done a thread about it and spoken a little bit about it, do I own that as a theory? What, like, how do you own a theory?

This happens on social media all the time. You have to be really aware that if you have like a good idea on social media, someone might borrow it and credit you the first time. And then someone else will see it and before you know it it's like everyone's doing it and it's like it's actually become so normalized that you can't really there's like trends and things that happen but years ago when it was like a much smaller pool everyone would be like oh this is what so and so did now it's like if you have a

concept for an idea it translates so quickly the things move so rapid fire. Unless it's, I think, a really genuine sort of like discovery, it's academic, it's so undeniably your intellectual property, like a concept which is so well thought out and has come from a real place of it's brand new. What do you think? So my main thought is, I think trademarks can be used in a really shitty way on the internet these days. And I was just thinking of do you remember Jules Lebrun who posted that hilarious video about very demure very mindful

very sweet or very cutesy there was a big thing last year because somebody else basically had muscled in and trademarked demure after her viral video so I think this is such a ripe part of the internet and I think we should probably do like a big deep dive on it at some point but I do think this is obviously a part of internet culture a part of our world that is progressing in a really fast way and I think people are kind of capitalizing off the back of people's viral tweets, people's viral moments to take credit for it or to kind of basically get the cash flow from it and push them out. I'm not saying that's what's happening here, but I'm just saying this whole world is just happening. And I had no idea about it. It's

not uncommon for people to do that. These kind of random people have nothing to do with it, taking credit for these buzzy catchphrases so I think people are trying to do something about it and I think people need to be really savvy about trademarking their shit if they have something viral which is an insane thing to say because it feels like what kind of world are we living in that you have to be that sharky but I think people are sharks and I think people are already going after taking credit for your work in really obvious ways. My friend is in a band and she basically found out a few months ago even though they'd been operating for about a year some random band of young men basically had launched a trademark for their name that they'd

already been operating under as a band for a year this other group had been in existence for about three months and they had to challenge it spend a load of fucking money and basically the other group backed down eventually but they sent them a message at first they spoke to them they asked them oh by the way i hope that you realize that we exist we've been working under this name and they basically the other group basically just ignored them and then blocked them. So what I'm trying to say is, there's a dog eat dog world out there and people are fucking awful. So I think, I don't know, I think trademarks can be really shitty. And I think the fact that Mel Robbins is trying to trademark this, if I was Cassie,

I would feel really shitty because rather than just saying, oh, everyone owns this phrase and operating in the way that you said, which is it's really hard to take credit for something. We all have to kind of accept that ideas are these ambient transient things. At the same time, Mel Robbins is trying to take credit for this. Maybe we should trademark everything as content, should we? Now I'm scared. Should we do it tomorrow? Yeah, should we do it? I'm scared it's do it tomorrow yeah should we do it I'm scared it's gonna be like 50 million pounds I guess my final thing to say on let them is and this is the kind of dubiousness of self-help is just the narrative building is so strong both from the creators or the self-help

gurus who kind of retrospectively fit theories to their life and stories become these very succinct perfect anecdotes with a beginning middle fable and an end but also the fact that Mel Robbins is using the fact that so many people have let them tattooed on themselves as proof that her theory is so popular when a lot of those tattoos existed before she'd even come up with the theories you know we say theory had even done her viral post I should say it is just I don't know they that's the thing I find really uncomfortable about self-help it is just all in the story that you weave and tell people even if sometimes the realities are a bit trickier a bit more difficult to fit in a neat summary they are just kind of pushed and shoved into a tight story anyway thank you so much for listening for all of your opinions and takes on this topic this week

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