Here's Where It Gets Interesting - Embracing the High 5 Habit with Mel Robbins

Episode Date: October 15, 2021

In this episode, Sharon is joined by bestselling author and world-renowned speaker, Mel Robbins, who talks about her latest book, The High 5 Habit. After experiencing the lowest point in her life, Mel did something life-changing: She gave herself a high-five in the mirror. Mel uncovers the magic and science behind giving yourself a high-five and explains how we can make self-encouragement a habit. Mel calls us back to ourselves and provides practical tools to feeling grounded, comfortable and confident. With wit, humor and unblinking honesty, Mel urges us to be kind to ourselves - because who knows what could happen if we were? For more information on this episode including all resources and links discussed go to https://www.sharonmcmahon.com/podcast Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information. To learn more about listener data and our privacy practices visit: https://www.audacyinc.com/privacy-policy Learn more about your ad choices. Visit https://podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Hello and welcome. I am beyond stoked for this episode today because I am chatting with one of my all-time favorites, Mel Robbins. If you are not familiar with her, she is one of the best-selling authors in the United States, and she is one of the most booked public speakers ever. She has literally coached millions of people and she is talking to me. I just love her. I love all of the practical insights she gives us for ways to live our own life more fully, with more joy, with more peace, with less anxiety. You have got to hear my conversation with the one and only Mel Robbins. I'm Sharon McMahon, and welcome to the Sharon Says So podcast. I have so many questions. I have so many things I want to talk to you about. Let's go. So let's introduce your brand new book. Tell

everybody who this book is for and what it's about. Well, you read it. I did read it. Who do you think it's for? Good job turning it back on the host of this podcast, Mel. Here's the thing. I think everyone can take away something from this book. I don't struggle with anxiety, but I still got so much out of it. So I feel like this audience is massive. I think that this book is for absolutely anybody on the planet ages eight and above, because I think at the age of eight, that's when you go from seeing a person that you love in the mirror and seeing your dorky outfits and and loving everything about yourself, to having your brain turn into a sorting hat that starts to tell you exactly where you belong and where you don't.

You stop seeing the beautiful human being that is staring back at you in the mirror, who just wants you to see them and love them and support them. who just wants you to see them and love them and support them. I love that you give real actionable tips that people can just start using. And it's not just like, think better, be more, you know what I mean? Like that's nice. But I actually, if I could just think better, then I wouldn't need your help. You know, like just telling somebody to think differently doesn't work, but you give very specific actionable tips that people can use.

Like here are the steps I want you to use. And all of this is backed up by research and science. And I love that about your work. Can you give us one tip that somebody could use that would start helping them think about themselves differently? Oh yeah. I mean, we're going to talk all about the high five habit because it is the single most profound thing I've ever stumbled into. And I use stumble deliberately because my brand of life improvement, personal development, fulfillment, happiness, it's really about, unfortunately, screwing up my own life or falling into or creating a hole.

life. We're falling into or creating a hole. And then I find myself hitting rock bottom or in a big hole. And now I got to find a ladder to climb out of it. And just sitting there wishing a ladder would appear or bitching about the fact that ladders are in other people's holes or whatever, like it's not helping. There's a how that I always find that I need. And so, you know, this high five habit thing is going to sound ridiculous. You have a very smart group of people that listen to you and that follow you. You also have a big group of people that are amazing advocates and champions for other people. But what I've found is that when it came to lifting myself up or supporting myself, I was not only bad at it, I was doing the opposite. And like so many women, 91% of us do not like our appearance. I would stand in front of a mirror and I would pick myself apart

or I would ignore myself. And that was a part of my morning routine that I didn't even realize I was doing. And so this high five habit, which you will reject, you will think is weird. You will resist doing it. If you are smart or cynical or resigned, all three of which I am, you will think it is the dumbest thing that you have ever heard in your entire life. And I am here to tell you, it's OK if you don't do it. If cynicism and hating yourself and being hard on yourself is working for you, keep going. But if you would actually like to enjoy your life more, if you would love to silent the constant beat down that you feel, if you would love to see the things you're doing right more often and really feel content and proud of the little things you're doing, this is the secret to everything. And I cannot underscore

how profound this is. And so if I may, I would love to unpack the story for you, because I think as I go layer by layer, you are literally going to go, this is deep. You know, I know that you are so incredible educating all of us about the fact that history and policy, it's not a soundbite. Like there's very real layered things going on. This is the same thing. It sounds like a soundbite, but there is something so rich and foundational and spiritual and magical and scientific all wrapped up in a stupid idea of high-fiving your reflection in the mirror. So the genesis of this was like the five-second rule. Literally a moment in my life where I was completely beaten down. And so this was April of 2020. To suspend all the kind of imaginary cynicism. I did not set out and go, okay,

it's been five years. I need to write a book. I need a five in the title. Like that's not what happened here. I had been trying to write a book and nothing would come. And after the enormous impact that the five second rule had had, I didn't know what I should write. I didn't know. And plus I have dyslexia, plus I'm ADHD. So writing is just not the thing. So I was working and working and cranking out stuff and nothing seemed right. And then the pandemic hits and this is not a pandemic book, but I guarantee you, you remember the moment Sharon, when you're like, this is turning my life upside down. What was that moment for you? It was when my husband got a kidney transplant in August of 2020. And I owned a business that

I couldn't work at anymore because of the pandemic. So we all have that for sure. We all have a story. Yes. And so I found myself having had my dream job hosting a daytime talk show canceled. So I'm basically fired from my dream job. I'm like, are you kidding me? I'm 51 freaking years old. I have to reinvent myself again. I'm sure you felt the same thing when this was happening with your husband. My kids are home and in a state of trauma and distress and grief and just tsunami of

having college imploded. We don't have PPP loans yet, so I don't know how I'm going to make payroll. Every speech has been canceled. The book that I was supposed to be working on, the publisher cancels the book contract and wants money back, money I don't have. And so I wake up in April 2020 feeling the weight of the world on my shoulders, worried about frontline workers, worried about my parents, worried about everybody and having no idea how I am going to face all this. Right. And I five, four, three, two, one, drag my ass out of bed. Cause I know it's a bad place to lay around and think I make my bed. so I don't crawl back into it. I drag myself into the bathroom

and as I'm standing there, I catch a glimpse of my reflection and I go, oh my God, you look like hell. And I start criticizing the woman I see in the mirror. I see her gray hair. I look at her saggy neck. She looks exhausted. She looks beaten down. I honestly, I felt sorry for the woman I saw in the mirror. And here's what's interesting. If you had walked into the bathroom, Sharon, I literally would have been able to spin on a dime and be like, your husband's gonna be okay. This is happening for a reason.

You're gonna find your calling. If anybody can face this, it's you. You are not gonna go through this alone. Like I could have like, woo, lift you up. Yeah. But when you have to do it for yourself, I couldn't even think of anything to say. And I probably wouldn't have believed it

because I didn't feel resilient. I didn't feel up to it. And I don't know why, because it seems ludicrous. But standing there in my underwear, I literally raised my hand to the woman I saw in the mirror and gave her a high five because she needed it. Now, here's the thing. It's not like lightning strike in that moment. Like, it's not like the heavens open and it's like, oh, that's not what happened. I literally just felt something small shift. My shoulders drop, my chin lifts up.

And I kind of felt this like energy. I didn't even think it, but I felt this energy that was like, oh, come on, stop being so dramatic. I can get out there and go face a day. Come on now. It was the second morning where this gets really deep. So I wake up again, defeated, overwhelmed, stressed out, five, four, three, two, one, I'm up. I start walking to the bathroom. I'm not even in the bathroom yet. And I realize I'm feeling something I have never, ever felt before. And this is what it was. You know how when you're about to go see a friend, someone you really like, and you're about to walk into a cafe, what do you feel as you're about to walk in and see that person you like? You feel like a little sense of excitement or anticipation, like, oh, I'm excited

to see her. Exactly. That is the first time in my entire life I have ever felt excited to see the human being, Mel Robbins. I've been excited to see an outfit. I've been excited to see a haircut. I don't think in 53 years I've ever actually remembered feeling excited about seeing me the person. And so I walk into the bathroom and I have this sort of like deeper sense that something's happening. And as I'm brushing my teeth, I have this realization that there are two people in the bathroom. There's me standing there holding my toothbrush. And there is a woman in the mirror that really needs me, that's been waiting for me to wake up and see her, that really wants to be supported and encouraged, who's trying as hard as she can, and who needs my love and support, and who needs to be told

she's doing a good job, and who needs to be reassured. And as I put my toothbrush down, I kind of remember this piece of research that I had read for a speech I was giving that came out of Harvard that was about the fact that if you're a leader and you take an intentional moment, even less than a minute, and you think about the day ahead and you think about how you're going to show up, it changes your level of focus. It changes your productivity. It changes how you show up and it changes your impact that you have with other people. And in that moment, I looked at the woman in the mirror and I thought, who do I need to be for her today? And so I set an intention to just be kind to myself. And I raised my hand and I sealed it with a high five. And that was that. That was the moment I realized something big is actually unfolding here inside of me.

Like there is a major change that is happening because I noticed immediately that as I raised my hand, even though it kind of feels weird to do it, my mind went silent. it, my mind went silent. It's impossible neurologically to think, I hate my face. Today's going to suck. I can't do this. While you're high-fiving yourself, neurologically impossible. You always say that you are one decision away from a completely different life. And that is a great example of that, that you literally just made a decision to do that and it changed everything for you. And I think the other decision is that when I started to notice something, I leaned into it instead of dismissing it. I let sort of the intuition and the curiosity draw me toward what was happening because, you. Because as I kept doing it and kept doing it and kept doing it, and I noticed my own optimism rising,

and I noticed a sense of feeling support, and I noticed a sense of feeling like I could get through it. And I noticed that I felt more confident and more resilient. I then post this photo on my story. And within an hour, more than a hundred people post photos of them high-fiving themselves. And within an hour, more than a hundred people post photos of them high-fiving themselves. And then the stories start rolling in. And that's when I'm like, okay, I'm not the only one here. And that's when I started digging into the research. And the

research is honestly groundbreaking. This resonated so strongly for me in your book. You said the way you view yourself is the way that you view the world. And I was like, dang, that is good. Can you talk more about that? I sure can. I'm going to talk about it two ways. First, and this happened as I was writing the book, because I didn't even start writing the book until like late May of 2020.

So as I'm writing this book, it was like everything started to become a gift. Like, okay, it's time. It's time for this idea. Here's another thing. Here's another thing. I get this text from my daughter. She's 23 at the time she was graduating from college. She texts me late night, which is never a good thing, but it said, how do I not feel like the ugliest girl at the bar every time I go out? Now, here's the thing about that text. We've all had the experience of getting a text or a letter or a voicemail or an email from somebody we love who has this horrible opinion about themselves, which by the way, is not actually accurate or true based on reality.

And it's heartbreaking because you know that this is this person's lived experience. She actually believes that. And there is absolutely nothing I can say or do that will change that experience for her. If I tell her she's beautiful, she feels like I'm not hearing her. If I compliment all of her amazing attributes of being a loyal friend, of being an amazing daughter, of being a hard worker, of being funny, of like all of it, it doesn't matter

because the way she views herself is that way, which changes the filter in her brain. And that's all she's gonna see is more evidence of it. And it's why I come back to this idea that it all begins with you because your relationship with yourself is the foundation of every relationship that you have. And if you are insecure with yourself, you will literally be insecure in all other relationships. If you don't love yourself, you won't let other people love you. If you stand in front of a mirror and think I'm too fat, too ugly to this, to that, not this, not that you will just see a world and all of the places where you don't belong. Your brain adjusts in real time

based on what you're saying to it. And so one of the reasons why I am so passionate about this idea is because I could not teach her to stand in front of a mirror and say, I love my body because she doesn't right now. Her brain will reject that positive mantra. But if I can get her to stand in front of the mirror at a moment in her life where she doesn't like herself or is judging herself and still get her to do this, the high five communicates everything. It says, I see that you're not where you want to be. And I still celebrate you. I see that this is hard and I still love you. And with that kind of affirmation and encouragement, you can be and do just about anything. I was so fascinated too, with your

research into the reticular activating system of the brain. Can you tell people what that is and why it matters? So the reticular activating system is so freaking cool. It's like a electric hairnet that sits on your brain and it has a really big job. It's a filter and your RAS has to determine what gets into your conscious brain and what actually just passes through. And it's really important that you understand that

you have this filter and that you also understand how to program it. Because right now your RAS is working against you. It's letting in all kinds of negative information that makes you feel stuck. And you can spin it on a dime if you know how to make it work for you. So first, let me explain how it works. So there are only four things that your RAS will let into your conscious mind. Number one, the sound of your name. And we've all experienced this. Somebody yells what you think is your name in a crowd, you turn around. That was your RAS. It just let in that particular sound with all the other noise. It blocked out everything else. Let that in.

Second thing is it will let in anything that is a threat to your immediate safety. So there are loud sounds around you all the time, but it's only the ones within close proximity that they can duck. That's your RAS letting it in, blocking out everything else. The third thing is anything that you tell it is important to you. And here's the trick. Anything that you repeat over and over or anything that has a charged emotional reaction to it. Trauma is this way, by the way. So when your nervous system fires up in a positive or negative way, your RAS changes in real time to remember what's

happening right now. This is important because if you repeat something over and over, your filter in your brain also filters the world this way. You've experienced your filter in your brain change in real time. And I can explain how. Is it just me or are there new Broncos everywhere? Yes. They've just released a brand new design of the Bronco. They put out a lot of publicity. Now, suddenly they're everywhere. All the places. All the places. And the moment you see one and you go, oh, that's the new Bronco. You see them everywhere. Yep. You're RAS because you're like, oh, there's a Bronco goes, oh, Sharon thinks this is important. You see them everywhere. Yep. You're RAS because you're like, oh, there's a Bronco goes, oh, Sharon thinks this is important. Let them all in. Yeah. You just blocked out all the

Hondas for a while. It was Tesla's. If you're ever shopping for a car, you've had this experience where you go and test drive a car and you're like, why does everybody drive a blue four runner? That's your RAS. This is great news. It's great news because if you get serious about encoding a different story, your RAS is designed to work for you. This is actually one of the reasons why the high five is so effective. Your brain is already wired to make it work. You see, you've been high-fiving everybody your whole life. So Sharon, when you high-five somebody else, what are you communicating to them? Good job. I like you. Nice work. Keep it up. Keep going. Yeah.

I believe you. I see you. I love you. Let's do this. It's all in your subconscious. It is also programmed with the gesture. This is called neurobics, a whole field of study around physical movement plus a positive thought. This is the fastest way to create a new neural pathway. So I'm going to give my daughter and my husband as an example. My husband, when the restaurant business failed, he and his best friend worked at it for seven years. And ultimately they sold it at a loss to a new owner. It's interesting because Chris's business partner, one of our best friends was able to look at the whole experience and be proud of himself and say, we worked our tail off. We created an incredible brand and an incredible

product. And did we return an investment that we thought we would for our investors? No. Did we make them whole? Yes. Is that something you're proud of? Yes. My husband could not do that. He took the entire experience and said it failed because we did not return an investment. Therefore, I am a failure. For seven years, he has stepped in front of a mirror and he has dragged that past between him and his reflection. And he has said, this is why he resisted high-fiving himself in the beginning. I don't deserve one because my past proves that I'm a failure. And the more that you think it, the more that your RAS is like, yup. Okay. We'll show you more reasons. We'll show you all the dads at work. We'll show you all the people that are successful. We'll filter the world in real time. Cause apparently this is

important to you because you stand in front of the mirror every morning and you criticize yourself. Same thing with our daughter. If your story is, I hate myself. I don't like how I look. I'm the biggest one. I'm this, I'm that. And your brain sees you moving to the back of every photo. It is going to show you a world that reflects that back at you. Now, does changing your RAS or what you tell it change the reality that the restaurant failed? No.

What it changes is you and how you relate to what's possible. It silences the beat down so that when you can get out from underneath it, you're actually encouraged enough to take the actions goes, oh, here's a high five, it silences, I'm a failure. And it activates, I believe you. I love you. Keep going. I still got you. No matter where you are in life. And that changes the filter.

It changes in real time how you see yourself. And that's not all. This isn't even in the book, Sharon. I learned this three weeks ago. I was talking to Dr. Daniel Amen, the world's leading expert on the brain. He's like, dude, do you know why this works? I'm like, no. Why? Tell me. He's like, Mel, when somebody else high fives you, you get a drip of dopamine. The reason why you actually feel good when you do this is your brain is releasing dopamine when you high five yourself. And that's not all. The reason why

your nervous system feels a little bit more empowered, a little more energized is because it recognizes a wave, a hug, a pat on the back, arms up at a finish line and a high five as celebratory. So it's now giving you a celebratory jolt. That makes sense. There's a lot of research around the idea of smiling as well. Like your brain releases all of these feel good chemicals when you smile, even if it's a fake smile, because it knows like, Oh, we're smiling. Okay. Something good is happening. Your brain is programmed to know that those gestures and smiling should come with a certain type of feeling like that shortcut is in your brain. Correct. I'm Jenna Fisher and I'm Angela

Kinsey. We are best friends and together we have the podcast office ladies, where we rewatched every single episode of the office with insanethe-scenes stories, hilarious guests, and lots of laughs. Guess who's sitting next to me? Steve! It is my girl in the studio! Every Wednesday, we'll be sharing even more exclusive stories from The Office and our friendship with brand new guests, and we'll be digging into our mailbag to answer your questions and comments. So join us for brand new Office Lady 6.0 episodes every Wednesday. Plus, on Mondays, we are taking a second drink.

You can revisit all the Office Ladies rewatch episodes every Monday with new bonus tidbits before every episode. Well, we can't wait to see you there. Follow and listen to Office Ladies on the free Odyssey app and wherever you get your podcasts. I love that you say that positive thinking isn't the answer and that motivation is garbage. So tell us why we can't just positively think our way into a better life and why waiting for motivation is just a garbage idea. It's a great question. So let's start with

positive thinking alone. One reason why positive thinking isn't the answer is because there are very real problems that people face. You write about this all the time. There's systematic discrimination, there's bias, there's poverty, there's abuse, there's trauma. There's very real issues that people face. And thinking positively doesn't remove those things. It doesn't change those things. But cultivating a positive mindset does change you. And that's where there's an interesting twist. If you have a very negative and pessimistic mindset, you will never, ever take the actions that could have a positive impact on the very real things that you're facing. Yes. When you have an optimistic mindset, what I call high five attitude, you believe that through your attitude and your

actions, you can have a positive impact on a situation that you're facing. And so when you cultivate that kind of attitude, it makes it easier when you feel encouraged, when you're grounded in faith and belief, when you start to push yourself and cheer yourself forward, that even though this is hard, every step I take forward makes a difference. It encourages the action because you will never, ever, ever change your life or change your health or change your community or change this world or change anything in your life by thinking only about it. You have to take action. That's also why I say motivation is garbage because we've all bought into this lie, this belief that at some point you're going to feel motivated. At some point you'll feel ready.

At some point you'll feel energized. At some point you feel courageous and it's not happening. You're not designed to do things that feel hard. You're designed to repeat the patterns you already know. And all change requires you to push outside your comfort zone. All change requires you to do something new. And your brain will resist anything that feels weird or new. And so sitting around waiting to feel like it is a recipe for doing nothing. And the five-second rule is a way to create instant motivation to push yourself because you're not going to feel

like it, but you can do it anyway. I love that so much. I resonate with that so much that the world is changed by people who actually do stuff and sitting around waiting for things to happen because he had some deep thoughts has changed almost nothing in the world. Correct. Correct. If you want the world to be better, you actually have to get up off the couch and your brain doesn't want to do that for a variety of reasons. It wants to conserve the energy. Something out there is scary. Let's stay here where it's safe. We already know what's in our house. What is outside the house?

We don't know. There's a big variety of reasons why your brain doesn't want to change. I could not agree with you more wholeheartedly that if you want something to change, you cannot wait to feel ready. Yeah. And so let me add something to it. So let's go a little bit deeper. Psychologists basically say that you either are a person that has a bias toward thinking, which typically means overthinking and reflecting on obstacles and ruminating about challenges and worries, or you are a person that has a bias towards action. And the five second rule, five, four, three, two, one moves you from that bias towards thinking to a bias toward action.

The other thing that I want to say about motivation is the high five habit plays a role in this too. And I'll explain why using a common sense example, most of us have a default of focusing on what we're doing wrong, beating ourselves up for not being where we're supposed to be, criticizing the stuff that we're doing. And I want to ask, is that actually helping you? Is it encouraging and motivating you to take the actions that you need to change your life? Of course it isn't. It makes you feel demoralized and defeated and less than. And if you think about a marathon, you know, we've all had the experience of seeing a road race go by or a marathon. And if you're standing at mile 11, as a spectator, you don't

cross your arms and go, look at all these runners. Yeah. I'm not clapping for you. Forget it. Maybe when you cross the finish line, I don't know. We'll see. Now, are you kidding? We're like, yeah. And if you've ever been in a road race or a walkathon or something, it's the fans and feeling cheered for and encouraged that actually keeps you going. feeling cheered for and encouraged that actually keeps you going. And so if you want to manufacture motivation, the high five habit and sending yourself into the game of life to take another step forward in what is a marathon, sending yourself into it, feeling encouraged and supported, even if yesterday you didn't get through your to-do list, you didn't do the thing you said you were going to do, you ate the donut, you screamed at the kids, whatever. If you can still drag yourself out of bed and despite everything that you've survived,

raise your hand, see yourself, celebrate yourself, love yourself, and give yourself the support you need, you'll show up very differently today. How do you think the world would be different if everybody on earth read the high five habit and applied the principles of it? How would the world be different? I think that we'd be very kind. I think we'd be more compassionate. I think that we would be way less polarized. We'd be able to listen to each other. We'd be able to collaborate because I personally believe that after the last five or six years, and particularly of political polarization and constant insanity in the news, and now 18 months into a global pandemic, everybody has a wildly dysregulated nervous system that we are all living on edge and stressed out. And at the end of our rope, waiting for the next shoe to drop, we are frazzled and it would be impossible to have experienced what we've experienced and bombarded with

without feeling that way. And so part of what, you know, I write about in this book is this tool that I created called High-Fiving Your Heart, which is learning how to use a treasure in your body called the vagus nerve to switch off the fight or flight nervous system. It's called the sympathetic nervous system and flip on the parasympathetic nervous system, which is your calm, cool, grounded state. And this is so important because according to Dr. Judy Willis, one of the world's leading neuroscientists that studies human behavior and how the brain learns information, and this was new to me, but it makes a lot of sense. impossible to learn anything new. It's impossible to think clearly. And I think part of why the polarization and the vitriol has just amped up, and I think a lot of it from a human level, is that everybody's dysregulated. And that makes you more prone to snap. It makes you more emotional.

And that makes you more prone to snap. It makes you more emotional.us nerve to get you back so that you can feel like you're in your own skin. And then you step into the bathroom and you look that human being in the mirror and you see somebody who's trying hard and you show up with compassion, love and support. You send them into their day, feeling a little more encouraged. I think a lot would change. No doubt. Oh my goodness. I get so many messages, literally hundreds and hundreds and hundreds of messages every week about this very topic where people are like, I feel overwhelmed, hopeless. I don't know what to do. The world is going to hell in a handbasket. The world is literally like on fire, not even metaphorically

on fire. It's literally on fire. Has it ever been this bad? Where do we go from here? Of course, those are real issues. Nobody is saying, oh, the world's actually not on fire, but feeling that way in a perpetual state, that's dysregulation of your nervous system. And that's no way to live your life. That is no way to live your life. Well, we are living our life this way. I think this is actually why everybody's writing about this great resignation, that they believe that more than half of people are going to quit their jobs in the next year. They've just had it. I can't do this anymore. We're going into the third school year in a pandemic. The level of uncertainty, sustained uncertainty,

is something that you're not wired for. And it's why you have to, if you would like to take control of how you're feeling every day, come back to these simple principles that are about grounding you back in your body, giving yourself the assurance and the encouragement that the world is not giving you right now. Creating certainty in your life for yourself based on how you're

treating yourself. Feeling your energy lift, even just a little, feeling a sense of encouragement from yourself because the world is not giving it to you. I mean, this is an unprecedented moment in time where nobody really has the answer about what's going to happen or mass, no mass around. Is it around? Is it a bonus? Is it a this? Is it that? And so it's time to really go back and figure out how to find the power inside you to give yourself what you need emotionally, because the world is what is frazzling you at the moment. For people who aren't aware of your background, you are a lawyer. You are a former legal analyst for CNN. You obviously care a lot about the world at large.

What do you feel people should do when they are feeling this sense of overwhelmed dysregulation? The news is so horrible. Yep. Use the tools in your book. Absolutely. Because they will make a difference. But what else can people do? Should they stop watching the news? Yes. You're not going to like this, but your attention is the most important commodity you got. And we have got it backwards. You just like give everybody access to your attention when really it's a VIP ticket people. Like what's interesting about social media that always strikes me is people allow accounts that make you feel like crap to come into your own stream. Yes. It should be VIP access. Yes. Every Friday,

do something called Unfollow Friday. Go through your feed and literally unfollow anybody or any account that puts you on edge or better yet, raise the bar. If it's not additive, delete. Literally, this social media feed is for you. And if you are not curating who has access to your brain, you're making a major mistake. Do not be lazy about this. When kids go away to summer camp and they come back and like, this was the best six weeks of my life because I didn't have my phone. It's because everything that they're looking at is reinforcing things that make them feel insecure. We do the same thing as adults. Yes, stay informed. Pick one or two people that you follow that keep you informed. That's all you need. If there's a crisis, you'll know about it. That is such a good point too, that like, listen, if there is a tornado about to hit your town, alerts are going to go off. You don't actually need to

spend eight hours a day doom scrolling in order to stay informed. No. The other thing is, is like, do not sleep with your phone. And everybody listening goes, well, I don't sleep with my phone. Everybody sleeps with their phone. Get an old fashioned alarm clock, put your phone in the bathroom, in the closet, in the kitchen. Do not sleep with your phone because you will inevitably wake up and you'll lay in bed and look at it. Now, here's the thing. Let's say you got 500 people on Facebook. Let's just say that's how many people you got on Facebook as friends. Do you want them walking into your bedroom in the morning? Heck no. I don't even know who half my Facebook friends are. That's what you're doing when you look at your phone in bed. Yeah. And more importantly, all those people rush to the front of your attention. The reason why you're getting out

of bed feeling frazzled and overwhelmed is because you've been reading emails and texts and social media. And so you've lost complete control of your day and you're not even vertical yet. Those are two very simple things that you could do. It'll change your life. Not of which anybody's going to do by the way. EIP only that I love that. I actually am super aggressive about unfollowing people. I am constantly like, how can I follow fewer people? I feel that way too. And then I, and then the platforms don't make it easy because they tend to show you the same 15 and then you get sick of those people. And yeah, but you have made the cut. See, I constantly, your account is a

fantastic example of that additive moment where I feel like I actually get something useful out of following you. You're not contributing to the noise. Okay. You talk about how confidence is not something you inherit. It's not something that you just are born with. We have this idea that some people are just born, oh my gosh, so confident. Can you talk just a little bit more about confidence? Of course. There are personalities that appear confident, but confidence is actually a skill. I think about confidence as the willingness to try because all the research shows that there's something called a confidence competence loop. The way that you gain confidence in anything is by trying something and failing, and then you learn in the failing, and then you try again, you learn a little more. It's the practice makes

perfect kind of thing. That as you try each time, you gain a little bit more competence in the thing that you're learning. And as you gain more competence, you become and feel more confident doing it. But it's the trying that initiates the confidence and it's the feeling that follows. So it's the action first. You are literally one of the biggest selling authors and most booked speakers. What has that been like for you? What have you learned from being on the road a hundred plus days a year, speaking on the world's biggest stages? What have you learned? Well, I've learned what I love the most about that. And it's not the stages. It's what happens before and after. It's the people. I'm somebody that's driven by real people and

making a real difference in real people's lives. What I've loved is realizing in these face-to-face interactions that we're all the same. We're all trying. We're all struggling on some level. We're all profoundly hard on ourselves. After this past 18 months, we're all very lonely and beaten up. And all that anybody actually needs is really simple. People just want to be seen. They want to feel like they matter to someone. And so the greatest gift of writing the books that I've written or recording the stuff for Audible or appearing on some of these major stages is that the simple things that I'm sharing have spread around the globe. And every single day I have been given the gift of having a human being walk up to me and say, there's something that you shared that helped me heal

my anxiety. There's something that you shared that made me not jump off a boat. There's something that you shared that got me through that divorce. And inside of that, you talked about hopelessness, you talked about feeling alone, talked about feeling beaten up. There is this message of hope and resilience and optimism and that you're not alone, even in those moments when you feel like you are. And that this moment, even though it's really hard, is still something you can face and it's going to pass and things are going to get better. And so I think I feel so deeply connected to just the average person who's waking up every day. It's got so many things on their mind. They've got a million people they're taking care of. They're trying to do the best they can. And the biggest obstacle in their way is how they treat

themselves in the mirror, that the beat down and the criticism and the negativity, it's just not necessary. In fact, there's a whole different way to experience your life. And when you learn that you can learn how to believe in yourself, like this is why I'm so excited about this book, because I've had so many people say, and I'm sure you have too, about this book because I've had so many people say, and I'm sure you have too, that it was your belief, Mel, or your story that made me believe in me. It's my deepest hope that this book is a vehicle to help people realize, yeah, I believe in you, but now it's your turn to learn how to believe in you.

And I think that's one of the reasons you have been so incredibly popular. Your Ted talk and your videos have been viewed over a billion times is because you're not coming from this position of guru of, I am the enlightened one and you should all be my disciples that you are honest about. Listen, I know I'm smart. You have a lot of, you know, opportunity in life. I have still struggled just like everybody. And my struggle is I still do. You just, Sharon, you just said all this stuff. And the truth is three nights ago, I get an email. I should never have read the email before bed. And I read an email that says, Target, my favorite store on the planet, is not carrying my book. No. Well, you want to know why? I disapprove. Why? I'm not a known author. You're not a known author? Uh-huh. That is a lie. I'm not kidding. All the big box stores

passed on carrying this book. This book is coming out in 22 languages. They passed. I am not kidding. All the big box stores passed on carrying this book. This book is coming out in 22 languages. They pass. I am not a known author. And I'll tell you in that moment, I went right back to the 10th grade when the seniors on the tennis team I was on through a sleepover and they invited the other two 10th graders on the tennis team, but not me. And I have a story. There goes my IRS. You are always on the outside looking in now. All those people that you admire, they don't want you. You will always have to sneak in the back

door. And so I literally like for a half an hour, licking my wounds. And that would have been a whole thing for weeks, anger, resentment, stuck in it, spite. I'll show you, I'm going to sell the hell out of this book. And then when you come out, but that's not actually where I want to be. That's not the energy I want to feel. And so by practicing the high five habit and feeling my nervous system fire up, I can allow myself to feel the deep sense of rejection because that's what I felt. Absolutely. Yeah. I can imagine in that moment how I would feel and it would be the same.

And then I can realize that, okay, I can feel all that and I can put my hands on my heart and say, I'm okay. I'm safe. I'm loved. I can get my vagus nerve to turn down that response and bring me back into my body. And then I can start to flip my attitude back to the attitude that has really helped me, which is to say, this is preparing me for something. There is something amazing that's happening. And this is preparing me for something. There is something amazing that's happening. And this is preparing me for something. And, you know, I deeply believe Sharon,

and I know that this will resonate with you, that it's very easy to sit in this moment and look back and see how everything in your life connects to this moment, all the heartache, all the pain, all the trauma, all the upset, all the highs, all the amazing stuff, how it's all just dot on the map of your life leading you to this moment. All makes perfect sense. But I think the true sense of power and contentment and faith and optimism is standing in this moment and being able to look yourself in the mirror and tell yourself that this too is a moment on the map of your life. And even though it's challenging and even though you don't deserve it, and even though it is what it is, it too is preparing you for something amazing that hasn't happened yet.

And when I ground myself in that kind of high five attitude and that optimism and that faith, it doesn't remove the fact that I've been rejected. It just helps me flip it to see that eventually it'll all make sense. And my job right now is not to give up on myself. It's to raise my hand to the woman that just got rejected and to say, I see you and this sucks. And you know what? I got you. Keep going. Well, I give zero out of 10 approves, zero out of 10 approves, zero out of 10 approves for targets decision. Absolutely. That advice of, Hey, this is preparing me for something and reminding yourself of that. That is so, that's just so incredible. One more question, which is if you could right now send a message to the phone of every single human and they picked it up and they were like, this is a message from Mount Robins.

What would it be? At some point your life is going to end. So make sure you live the life you want before you die. And I love that your books and your work help give us the tools to be able to live the life we want. I also just have to say on a personal note, you have been a leader for people in this space of, is it too late for me? I'm over 40. Is it too late for me to start doing something new? I'm 37. Is it too late for me to go back to school? My kids are in college. Like what I'm on the downslope is too late for me. And I absolutely love that you are out there as a role model for especially all the women of the world who just feel like it's too late for me. Like, there's no point. It's too late for me. And we have Mel Robbins to look to who is like, hell no, it isn't.

Oh my God. No, we need you. In fact, like think about the high five habit. In fact, like think about the high five habit. There's something that's been incubating inside you. All of that stuff that you've been doing between then and now is wisdom that you've been accumulating. And so you're not too late. You're right on time. It is never too late.

I love that. I've already read the book. I have already, I've already bought copies for two of my adolescent children. Oh, I am going to get more for Christmas presents because first of all, this book is so readable. Your voice is so easy to read. It's like, you're talking to us. This is not a book where you're like, I just couldn't get through it. Absolutely not. I, you can read this book in a few hours and the tools in it will absolutely change your life. If you use them, you can't just think about them. You actually have to do them. So true. Just thinking about it won't

work. Thank you for your work. Thank you for coming on this podcast. And thank you. Oh my God, I love you. Thank you for lighting up my Instagram feed. It's so nice to see you. I hope your husband's okay. Yes. Yes. My mother gave her kidney to a stranger. So Chris, my husband could get one from a stranger. That's killer. And they're both doing amazing. Amazing. I can't wait for everybody to go buy the High Five five habit and to follow you on Instagram and all the places. Oh, well, thank you. And did I tell you that we're doing a five day challenge? Tell me about the five. Oh, my God, it's incredible. Well, I didn't I wasn't

going to ask you to high five yourself in your underwear and not actually help. So I literally created a five day free challenge. You just need a name and an email address. It's hosted by the world's leading personal development app Growth Day. You get free a name and an email address. It's hosted by the world's leading personal development app, Growth Day. You get free access to this thing. Normally, it's 300 bucks. I arranged for you to have it for free for five days. And it's five days of teaching where every day you get a video from me, a journal prompt, and here's the coolest part, hundreds of thousands of people around the world high-fiving you back so that I can support you, high-five you,

and hold your hand as you push through the weirdness and the resistance and the sense of failure and the fact that you hate your body. I will be there going, high-five yourself. Let's do this. I love you. Thank you so much for listening to the Sharon Says So podcast. I am truly grateful for you. And I'm wondering if you could do me a quick favor. Would you be willing to follow or subscribe to this podcast or maybe leave me a rating or review? Or if you're feeling extra generous, would you share this episode on your Instagram stories or with a friend? All of those things help podcasters out so much. I cannot wait to have another mind-blown moment with you next episode. Thanks again for listening to the Sharon Says So podcast.