If Books Could Kill - The Let Them Theory

Episode Date: April 23, 2025

Peter and Michael discuss The Let Them Theory, a self-help guide to seeking bliss through unmitigated complacency.Where to find us: Peter's newsletterPeter's other podcast, 5-4Mike's other podcast, Maintenance PhaseSources:How to stop screwing yourself overMel Robbins and PlagiarismLet her? Army wife claims Mel Robbins stole her idea for blockbuster self-help book Mel Robbins’s “Let Them” theory: really that simple?Breathing Practices for Stress and Anxiety Reduction: Conceptual Framework of Implementation Guidelines Based on a Systematic Review of the Published Literature Polarization in AmericaThe 5 Resets Impact of health warning labels on selection and consumption of food and alcohol products: systematic review with meta-analysisThanks to Mindseye for our theme song!

Okay, I have a zinger, but you need to tell me if it's bad. We might have to do it again, okay Michael Peter, what do you know about let them all I know is that this is the first time we've covered a Norwegian horror thriller on the podcast What the fuck does that even make sense? What is that reference fuck? Never mind Wait, okay. Well now I need to come up with a fucking real one That's the first time I've never had any idea what you're talking about. Just dead silence?

Because literally all I have now is like they them jokes about the title, which I don't think is a very good idea. There's a sweet spot for pronoun jokes where LGBT people think you're joking with them. Yeah. And homophobic people think that you're making fun where LGBT people think you're joking with them. Yeah. And homophobic people think that you're making fun of LGBT people. I was on Tumblr once and I saw the joke. Somebody said, it's so hot out that all my gender fluid friends are now gender vapor. And I immediately went to the account to be like, is this a transphobic joke or is this

a pro-trans joke? That's too deep. That's too deep to be transphobic, right? Okay, okay, let me try one, let me try one. Okay. Michael. Peter. What do you know about the let them theory?

Finally, we're talking about a book based on the Democrats' approach to the Trump administration. The Let Them Theory is a book hot off the presses came out in December 2024 written by Mel Robbins, a self-help author and podcaster. Two red flags. Two red flags. Two red flags. Immediate New York Times number one bestseller. I've seen reports that it sold over a million copies in its first month.

To give you some background on Robbins, she struck it big in 2017 with her book, The Five Second Rule. About dropping food on the floor. I feel like we're at a point where you could see an entire book that's just like you've got five seconds to pick that burger up, you know? Just pad it out, man. Get some testimonials. Every chapter is just a different food. It's like chicken. Yeah, you got five seconds. Grilled cheese, it's five seconds right there. Some Aristotle quotes from QuotesBrought.com.

They knew the secret of dropping food. Yeah, I don't know why she called it this, but whatever. The idea behind the five second rule was that you have five seconds to turn an impulse into an action if you really want to make it happen. So sort of like an anti-procrastination tool when it comes to simple tasks like getting out of bed, count to five and do it or else your brain will sort of move on, right? All of my impulses are for bad things so that wouldn't work for me, but some people have impulses for good things.

Yeah, no, it's cool if what your impulses are are to like do work or something. When she opens up the let them theory, she tells the tale of her rise to prominence and the sort of success of the five second rule. She opens up the book saying, at the age of 41, I found myself $800,000 in debt, unemployed and watching my husband's restaurant business crumble. She goes on to detail their situation a bit, basically how it left her depressed and how it helped her come up with the five second rule and then she sort of uses that rule to Lift herself out of it, right? Okay. She says this and I'm gonna send it to you just for your reference

there's a lot of things that I'm gonna send you less for your reaction and more because Need you reading something. There's Unfortunately, so little of substance that there's not a ton to like send you and be like thoughts But people do need to hear you speak and so I will be sitting here I'll just be sitting here reading a different book as you talk. This is like this is expert podcasting She says but that all changed one fateful day when an old roommate recommended me as the perfect person to give advice on career Change at a small event I suppose she thought of me because I had changed my career so many times, even I had

lost count. When I walked on stage and saw 700 people in the audience staring back at me, my mind went blank, and I could feel my chest and neck turning red. I then proceeded to have a 21-minute long anxiety attack on stage. About 19 minutes in, I forgot how to end my talk on career change, so I blurted out the five-second rule on how I use it because I couldn't think of anything else to say. I must have blacked out, because I also don't remember the part where I gave everyone in the audience my email address.

And as I walked off that stage, I thought that was the worst experience of my life. Thank God it's over. It turns out that small event was one of the first TEDx conferences ever held. They filmed it, and a year later, post the video online. Not only did it go viral, it's become one of the most...not only did it go viral, it's become one of the most watched TED Talks of all time. This is a really long humble brag. I was so nervous and it was so bad but it turns out it's like super good and everybody loves it. I've heard her say this in interviews too that she was like so flustered on stage that she just blurted out the five-second rule

And like whoa it changed her whole career trajectory. It's a miracle right, but if you watch the video she has slides for it, right? It's built into her presentation. Yeah on stage She says she hosts a syndicated radio show okay And also that she had a book that she was promoting in let let them when she's describing this, she says she's unemployed. She says that her friend recommended her because she switched careers a lot and not to be too nitpicky. It wasn't actually a talk about career change. The name of the talk is how to stop screwing yourself over and it's sort of standard self

help stuff about how to get out of your own way in various regards She doesn't say the word career once. I checked the whole transcript. People always write their own ambition out of these things It's always like oh, I just happen to stumble into this huge opportunity, but like it's actually fine to look for opportunities That's actually the kind of thing that like self-help advice might be useful for and we're already into one book theory territory. Yeah, no kidding. Because one of the quintessential elements of these people is that almost all of them were pitching their advice before they were actually successful. So even in her own sort of fictionalized telling,

once again, we see the self-help career preceding the actual success. So this is someone who claims she was floating from career to career, she was like a lawyer, and then she was doing, she was like a pundit for a bit, she was apparently in severe debt, and then strikes it big with this big TEDx talk, and suddenly her self-help career is up and running.

So it's like, the five second rule itself doesn't change her life, right? It was the motivational speaking circuit that resulted from it that change her life right it was the motivational speaking circuit that resulted from it that changed her life it's an Escher painting it's an Escher painting of a sector there's no actual like insight being produced they're selling you the fact that they're selling you insight and so she's relatively self-aware about this she says meanwhile my friends and extended family had no idea what I was doing because I was too scared to tell them

Mel giving advice, give me a break. She nearly destroyed her own life." Wasn't she a talk show host? Looking back I can see how paralyzed I was with imposter syndrome. What right did I have to call myself an expert in anything? That's the thing is like this isn't really imposter syndrome, right? This is just being an actual imposter What do I Michael Hobbs have the right to give people advice on 17th century France I felt like an imposter This is like, you know that tweet that's like like I don't support all women some of you bitches are dumb

I don't support all women. Some of you bitches are dumb. Yeah. This is like, like I don't, a lot of you are out there being like, oh, like here's how to fight through your imposter syndrome, but my message to some of you would be, maybe just sit with it for a minute. The core narrative of all of these

books is someone getting over their imposter syndrome and just continuing to be an imposter. Like I used to feel bad about giving advice and now I still get bullshitoster. Like I used to feel bad about giving advice and now I still get bullshit advice. I just don't feel bad about it. Really rooting for the underdog. So let's talk about the let them theory.

In the book she describes how she came up with this theory. She says, two years ago I stumbled upon these two words, let them, and it was like flipping a switch in my life. She says, the let them theory is about freedom two simple words Let them will free you from the burden of trying to manage other people I'm gonna send you a bit. So what does this look like? Imagine you're at work and your colleagues in a bad mood instead of letting their negativity affect you just say let them Let them be grumpy. It's not your problem

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. Let him have his opinions. They don't change who you are or what you've accomplished or your right to make decisions that make you happy. The truth is, other people hold no real power over you unless you give it to them. This, I mean, like most of these books, this seems like a nugget of good advice at the center of it. Yeah, there are many situations where it's like, I can't control that, I'm not gonna freak out, right? Right now, we're trying to record and some workers outside my house are throwing giant logs into a wood chipper

at intervals designed to drive us insane. People people are always like release the uncut episodes and it's like every three minutes We're like stopping mid-sense like fuck. Yes. Just just us being like, oh, there's a wood chipper She says but perhaps the most surprising thing about the let them theory is how I discovered it in the first place Oh, I'm almost embarrassed to tell you the story I discovered something that changed my entire approach to life at a high school prom. Damn it. I was hoping she was gonna be on a scuba boat and her husband had a meltdown. Let him. Let him kill everyone on the boat. She says she discovered the idea when she was dealing with a bunch of chaos surrounding her son Oakley going to the prom.

They're scrambling to get him ready, it's raining, the kids all want to eat a pre-prom dinner at a taco bar that might not have enough seating. Mel is freaking out trying to convince them to do something else. And then she has this exchange with her daughter Kendall. I'm gonna send you something, let's do it as a script. I will be Mel Robbins and you will be

her wise young daughter. Mom, and you will be her Wise young daughter mom if Oakley and his friends want to go to a taco bar for pre-prom let them But it's too small for all of them to fit in they're going to get soaked mom Let them get soaked, but his new sneakers are going to get ruined. Let them get ruined Kendall. They're brand new mom You're being annoying. Let them show up to prom in wet tuxedos and dresses. Let them go eat where they want. It's their prom, not yours. Just drop it.

Let them. And then she says, the effect was immediate. Something inside of me softened. I could feel the tension disappearing. My mind stopped racing, and the stress of trying to control what was happening evaporated. Why did I need to get involved? Why did I have to manage this situation?

Why not worry about what I was going to do for dinner tonight rather than what they were? Why was I stressing out about them at all? Let them. It's their prom, not yours. Stop controlling it or judging it or managing it and let them. Honestly, good advice. This seems fine to me. So she takes us to Hart and says that within a week her whole outlook changed.

She's letting things happen and the result is that little things aren't getting to her. She says, I felt at ease, happy and centered. The impact was undeniable. Even Chris noticed, her husband, you seem different. And the fact is, I felt different. I felt so good I had to share let them online. So I posted a 60 second video

explaining the let them theory on social media. And I am now going to send you that video. So I've been using this thing called the let them theory. I love this, I want you to try it. Here's how it works. The next time you feel left out, your friends all go out to brunch together and they don't invite you, let them.

Or maybe the person you're dating doesn't want a commitment, let them. Or perhaps your spouse does not want to do the 5K with you, let them. Your company is laying people off. Let them. We'll circle back on that one. You spend so much time and energy

trying to control other people and getting emotionally worked up about things that are beyond your control. You can tap into peace and true control if you let them be themselves. And here's the other thing. If you let them, people will then reveal who they truly are. And when they reveal who they truly are to you,

you now know what you can choose next that's right for you. So let them. Okay. Oh, then she's got like a little graphic at the end. The script of her name, just Mel coming in, it's so fucking good. And she has her little microphone, has the Mel Robbins podcast on it. So this is like a well established influencer. The reality of this, Michael, is that this person is extremely famous in a certain part

of society that we do not participate in at all. This is the LinkedIn community. She's famous among the LinkedIn poster community. So this goes mega viral as we discussed and bam, Mel decides to turn it into a book. I'm going to send you a poem. You can just read the first few lines. You're sending me a poem right now? I'm sending you a poem.

I'm always saying, Peter, stop sending me poems constantly throughout the day. But I never stop. You have to just let me. Let me be homophobic. Let me be annoying. It says, just let them. If they want to choose something or someone over you, let them. If they want to go weeks without talking to you, let them.

If they are okay with never seeing you, let them. If they are okay with always putting themselves first, let them. Do I have to keep going? This is so boring. So now just read me what's at the very bottom there. Author Cassie Phillips. Is that what you mean? That's right. Not Mel Robbins, but a woman named Cassie Phillips wrote this poem in 2019. Oh. So the message of the poem is pretty obviously the same as the book, right? But maybe more importantly it follows the same style and format that Mel Robbins is using. Something happens, let them. Something happens, let them. It's like the da-na-na-na-na in blues. The same little riff after every sentence. The poem goes viral in September 2022, just a few months before Robbins made a video about the let them idea.

No way. Not only that, but in October 2022, Phillips follows it up with a Facebook post where she says that once you absorb the lesson of let them, you can finally let you. Meaning like you can be yourself and do yourself without worrying too much about other people. Sure. That post goes viral too. Robbins throughout the book uses the same exact concept. She just calls it let me. First you let them. And then you let me.

She says, that's why the theory only works if you say both parts. When you say let them, you make a conscious decision not to allow other people's behavior to bother you. When you say let me, you take responsibility for what you do next. Not only is Cassie Phillips not thanked or mentioned in the book, but before it comes out,

Robbins tries to trademark the phrase, let them. No way. Litigation's still ongoing, by the way. We've actually talked about this on the show before. There's been other plagiarism scandals among self-help gurus, and it's always interesting to me because the fundamentals of the field is that people are basically repackaging the exact same idea in a million ways. This is the whole like this is all meta behind our one book joke

It's like it's all the same shit And so there's a finite number of ways in the English language that you can repackage the same idea Although in this case, it's particularly egregious In this case, it's very obvious in my mind Yeah, cuz it's not like some obscure like 1950s thing. This would have been floating around the internet when she was allegedly coming up with this like let them theory. It goes viral right before. Yeah.

It comes across her, you know, it comes into her field of vision in some way. We don't know exactly how. Maybe it was indirect. Maybe it wasn't from the poem itself. But it's very obvious that this is the same idea lifted. Yeah, yeah. Here's her response when confronted by the New York Post. When asked about the timeline allegations, Robbins reiterated, I spent 10 years shining a light on other people's work So the allegation that I would steal someone else's work is ridiculous as I write in the let them theory You cannot control what people say do feel or choose to make up about you People can say anything about you at schools at work on the internet and you can't control it. Let them. Oh, she's good

She turned it into marketing for the concept. She fucking turned it into self-promotion Yes, you can already see the dangers of let them now. Oh, she's using it to gaslight you about whether she stole the idea itself. So instead of addressing the obvious contradictions in her story, the issue with the timeline, she just deflects, promotes her book, and then predicates a lot of her denial

on I didn't read the poem, which might be true, but it's sort of beside the point, right? Like, the reality is that the idea and the phrase were both taken from the poem either directly or indirectly, right? It might be that she read the poem, it might be that she heard someone else quoting the poem, doesn't matter, still stolen, and on top of that,

in the process of researching this book, there is absolutely no way that no one came across this poem, right? This was so wild, because when we were developing ideas for the name of this show, we came up with various things and we would Google them and be like, oh, that's taken. I remember once, I can't remember what it was, I remember making a joke on Five to Four

that someone on social media was like, that was making a joke on five to four that someone on social media was like, that was like word for word a tweet I read. And just like sent it to me and I was like, oh, I must have read that tweet and forgot it. I've done this too, yeah. The idea that you could be like, no, I didn't do it, no.

Let me. There's another mini drama surrounding this book, which is that in the book itself She says that she wrote it with her daughter But her daughter was not like listed on the cover and so a lot of people are like well, that's kind of shitty, right? Yeah, so after a while they put her daughter in a smaller font Newer versions have her daughter's name in little letters if your daughter has hold on The truck is now backing up down my street. Take your time boys take your time

Let them let them this is I I need let them in my life so badly when this shit is going on I'm I'm just losing my mind as this truck backs up, but isn't that the whole thing though? It's like well, let them like let them ruin your podcast recording Well, no, that's not that's not reasonable advice for like many situations like well, just let this happen No I'll go even farther. If I were the type of person to not get annoyed by a beeping truck on my street while we tried to record, I really think I would lose some of my pizzazz.

You know what I mean? You're supposed to be grumpy. Yeah, that's a lot of the flavor I bring to the table. You want, if you want to hang out with Peter, you're signing up to hear me complain about little things that are happening in my life. That's part of the Peter experience. And if you take that away, what am I? I'm just some fucking guy. That's your book about masculinity. You're like you got a mode about some random shit. Oh, what about this? What

about this? Now tell me if this is good. Bitch like a man. And I'll write a companion book called man like a bitch. You write one called man up, I'll write one called man down. Anyway, that was the intro portion to this episode because sometimes when we do these sort of like fluffy, at times harmless self-help books, people get mad at me. People are like, oh, that book's not that bad. So what I did this time is make you hate her first. And now, all the bad faith shit talking I do is gonna be framed properly and you're all gonna love it. Also, the book is actually fine,

but you want us to hate this person first, so we can just do bitch eating crackers for the rest of the episode. The idea is actually lovely. So let's turn to the substance of the episode. The idea is actually lovely. So let's turn to the substance of the book. I think big picture, this book has some good ideas in it, but it suffers from a couple of common self-help book problems.

One, very simple idea that, as you saw, can be summarized effectively in a TikTok video, and then it's stretched out to a few hundred pages. Two, it's an idea of very limited utility that she wants to think can be applied broadly to almost everything Exactly in your life In this poem that Cassie posted a lot of these situations are not situations where you should let them like if your partner is being Shitty to you. You probably shouldn't let them. You should probably start a conversation about that It's like there's many situations in which letting them is like sociopathic advice.

No, a lot of our books are like this could have been an essay, but my wife said this could have been a children's book. Yeah, and I keep thinking about it. It actually does seem like it could be a pretty good children's book. Yeah, don't be like the busybody rabbit be like the the bear who lets them. Like that's honestly like kind of good advice especially for kids Yeah, she talks about the roots of this idea in like stoicism radical acceptance Detachment theory all these sort of like related ideas Basically being like this is not a totally novel idea, right? In fact, if you go on Instagram in 2022 You'll actually find you'll find roots of this idea in the poem that I stole it from directly.

She says that the biggest use of the idea is to rise above the tiny stressors that you face every day. And this is where I think that she's right. It actually is useful. She speaks with another author, Aditi Nehrukar, in their book, The Five Resets, this person is an actual doctor and they talk about the brain. The basic idea that she presents is that your brain's prefrontal cortex regulates emotions. And then during times of stress, it becomes less active while the amygdala becomes more active which can lead you to respond to things more emotionally. As far as I know, that's like roughly true. Also I want to say when I took

bio in like ninth grade, my teacher pronounced it amygdala and I thought people that said amygdala were big dummies until I looked up the proper pronunciation knowing that I was going to be hounded if I got it wrong and it turns out I'm the dummy. It was named after Natalie Portman in the Phantom Menace. That's where they got the name of the brain part. God. Who can forget? Every podcast I'm on has. It was named after Natalie Portman in The Phantom Menace. That's where they got the name of the brain part. God. Who can forget? Every podcast I'm on has some fucking Star Wars nerd on it.

I'm not even a Star Wars nerd. I'm just a gay man. And Natalie Portman is just implanted in my brain. I'm going to send you one of her sort of overview of how it works. The problem is that the second you feel stressed by the guy coughing on the plane, the line that is taking too long, or the test results that you're waiting on, your brain goes into a stress response, and that prefrontal cortex

that is so important is no longer in control, and neither are you. The moment you say let them, you're signaling to your brain that it's okay. This isn't worth stressing about. You're willing your amygdala to turn off. You're resetting that stress response by detaching from the negative emotion you feel. Here's how you do it. The moment anything happens that stresses you out, say let them.

Put yourself in pause. Then say let me and take a breath. Let me take another breath. Slow your stress response. Calm your body and brain down. Take control and regain your power. Okay. So she's already mixing up like different categories

of things though, cause it's like the guy coughing on the plane and also test results that you're waiting on. Those are very different things and one of those is kind of okay to stress about. She quotes Dr. Aditi saying that deep breaths can be helpful in mitigating a stress response, but there's no indication in the book that this doctor said anything about the let them idea specifically. Right, right. So she's sort of saying there's research that shows pausing and taking a deep breath

can lower your stress response. So if you pause, take a deep breath and say let them, that'll work too. And it's like, yeah, I guess you're right, but can I do the same thing? Can I be like, take a deep breath and say subscribe to If Books Could Kill and you will find your stress response fading. I'm the kind of person who stresses out about minor things like this, and sometimes it does help me to talk myself out of it, be like, oh yeah, someone in front of you in line is taking a long time,

but whatever, you'll be a minute late to the thing you were going to, it's really not that big of a deal. It helps to talk through these things. The deep breath and sort of like a who cares kind of works for me. I don't think saying let them would work for me just because it's too much focus on the other person who I hate. I hate that person. The lady counting change in front of me in line.

She should go to jail. But you know what? I'm not gonna work on it right now. She will get hers in hell. Yeah. So there's, again, a little bit of one-book theory here because this is a very simple concept that's stretched

out to book length. So she's endlessly filling space with like anecdotes and scenarios that illustrate something that's already been illustrated within a few pages. So she's like, if someone's holding up the line and you're getting impatient, let them. If someone's being inconsiderate, let them. If your friends aren't texting you back, let them. And you know, at different points, he's just like, you might wonder how this applies when you're stressed out at the airport. It's like, no, I get it. What about at the zoo? What about at the library? What if you're at this address? What if you're at this address? How does this work at LAX? Now let's talk O'Hare. Another example she likes to use is

your friend not texting you back. The framing she likes to use is like, if you let them, you see who people really are. And I think that's very catchy, but like, is this better than having a conversation with someone? Yeah, exactly. If a friend or a spouse is doing something you don't like, isn't step one a simple chat? And also, even that depends on the situation. There's like, if it's someone you met on a dating app and they're not texting you back, like yeah, probably just move on

It's exactly but it's like a close friend like yeah, maybe bring it up It's like all of these things break down because there's so many there's so many examples where it isn't good advice She also tries to back this idea up with research about how people are resistant to change and especially change through negative feedback Which is true although? I don't think it supports the let-them concept exactly. It just means that you need to be sort of conscious of how you approach people. I don't know, people are like dynamic and willing to change in many different circumstances, right? And maybe not always, but I think it's weird to build your worldview around the idea that

other people are generally static creatures who you can't change. Also, I want her to go through like painstaking every specific example of this of like imagine you're getting negative feedback such as I don't know You plagiarize your book. What should you do in that situation? Gaslight your haters. That's what you should do. This is another area where she Brings in actual research, but the applicability doesn't like feel like it's quite there Like she's talking about people's receptiveness to negative feedback, and she uses warning labels as an example. Basically, there's some research that shows that even though people understand rationally

that warning labels are telling you the truth, they tend to believe that they are the exceptions. That's sort of generally true. Warning labels, generally speaking, are not very effective. There are exceptions, like the horrific warning with like pictures of smoky lungs and stuff. Actually, there's evidence that those do work and like the more basically the more outrageous warning labels get the more effective they tend to be.

But also I was just like, okay, that's a cool little tidbit of psychology, but we're a little far afield from the let them idea, right? Okay, Peter, warning labels. You know I have tendonitis right now, which is why I can't go rock climbing. And so you're supposed to put heat on it. So I bought these toe warmers that you're supposed to put in boots when you go skiing to keep your feet warm. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

I'm familiar. So I got a bunch of those, and when you pull them out of the package, it's like on the package, on the outside, it's like, do not put on skin. And then you pull them out of the package, and it's like, do not put on skin. And then you peel off the backing, and it's like, do not put on skin. And then you pull them out of the package and it's like, do not put on skin. And then you peel off the backing and it's like, do not put on skin. And so I put it on my skin because I was like, it's like a fake, like we're surrounded by warning labels, like warning coffee is hot, right? Like we're surrounded by these like fake warnings all the time. Put on my skin, I put like an elbow wrap thing over it to like keep it stuck into my skin. And I was like working on my computer for like an hour or two and I was like, how does this feel a little too warm, like uncomfortably

warm? I pulled off the elbow thing, I pulled off the pad and there was a fucking divot. It had burned a dime-sized divot into my arm. I have a fucking scar, Peter. It's so bad. The thing is, the first instinct that I had, the first emotion that I felt was anger. I was like, why didn't they tell me this is bullshit like Why didn't they tell me not to put it against my arm? The reality is that if they had just showed a picture of what could happen to your arm Exactly, my now didn't. Then you wouldn't have done it. So it is their fault. It's not your fault Michael. You're perfect

So let's talk about how this works in the workplace. She basically says that if you're in a situation where you deserve a promotion or something like that and you're not getting one, you don't use let them to get the promotion. You use it to accept that they aren't likely giving you what you deserve and think about what power you do have,

like taking steps to find another job or something like that. But then that's not let them. You're letting them not give you a promotion. Yeah, but then you're doing something about it. That's let me. Oh, god. First you let them and then you let me.

Okay. This is the thing though, is that she makes it seem like it's a natural delineation between letting them and letting you, but it's actually not. You can assert yourself in all sorts of ways and I don't think she's particularly clear on like when you should be letting me. That's the kind of thing for which people read advice books, right?

When should I assert myself and when should I not she also talks about using this with difficult family members I was a little bit worried about this part at first I thought that she was maybe going to advocate for complacency in the face of Mistreatment or even abuse. I actually think that this section is mostly good. There's definitely some good advice. She talks about how it's like very normal to have negative opinions about people you like and love, right? So like if a family member or close friend is upset at you or doesn't like this thing about you, it's not something that should weigh you down. Like this is just what normal human relationships are like, right? thing to keep in mind little family spats and stuff like that right yeah she says that

you should let your family be judgmental or inappropriate and focus on yourself because you can't control them she also says if like eventually if you let them and it turns out that cutting them out is like what's best for you then do that's letting you. But this is every piece of advice of like, let them in less. But the in less is the hard part. Exactly, and this is again, you can just sort of see, there's good advice in here, but the higher the stakes, the less effective the framework, right?

When it's a small thing, sure, you take a deep breath because your brain is sort of like irrationally irritated. But when you are dealing with a family member who's a consistent part of your life and is causing like real emotional turmoil for you, it's much harder to just work through that. You can't just breathe your way through your relationship with your father or whatever.

And this would be psychotic advice in particular situations. I'm sure she's not giving that, like you're in an abusive relationship, let them. I wanna be clear, I do think that she makes room for like there's a line that you can draw for yourself Yeah, she doesn't seem as like psycho is some of the other people we've covered on the show There are moments where I'm like, I don't know about this Mel. Yeah, her advice is less Problematic than a lot of the authors we've covered

It's not like kiyosaki right the rich dad poor dad guy who's basically just like do crime right like tax fraud do it Do you not have enough money? Have you tried crimes? She does in this section do another? quintessential self-help gimmick where like Extremely basic and common advice is sort of repackaged and then sold to you as if it's really novel. I'm going to send you this bit. My friend Lisa Bilyeu, who is a best-selling author, host of Women of Impact podcast, and co-founder of the billion dollar nutrition company Quest Nutrition, shared the concept of frame of reference with me. It's a tool to help you deal with situations where someone disapproves of who you are, who you love, what you believe, or how you're living in your life, and you want to navigate this at a deeper level. Our global podcast audience went crazy over frame of reference when Lisa described it as a mindset tool that's helped her relationships. Frame of reference is a fancy way to say

understanding the lens through which somebody sees something and it works beautifully with the let them theory. Okay, yeah, this is like try to see things from other people's perspective. There's something so funny about this. Okay. Yeah, this is like try to see things from other people's perspective. There's something so funny about this It's like she has this method of getting or like an aura of authority Right this generic nothing advice my friend who was a best-selling author host of this podcast Co-founder of this billion dollar company our global podcast audience went crazy over this idea And the idea is like something that straight up you should have heard for the first time as a child. Yeah. Have you ever thought about other people's perspectives?

It's like, well, yeah, because I'm not an actual psychopath. My billionaire friend who's a bestselling author taught me about a principle called sharing, where if I eat a cookie, other people can't have the cookie, and so I should break apart the cookie and give it to others. My podcast audience went fucking nuts when they found out about sharing. So this leads me to one of these sort of like uncomfortable stories she shares about her own life and I think it shows how difficult it is to actually square the let them theory with like the challenging scenarios that you encounter in the real world her primary example

For the frame of reference concept is a story about her mom Send you it in chunks when I met my husband Chris I was ecstatic and madly in love and when he proposed I was absolutely over the moon at the time I remember my mom not seeming as excited as I expected her to be so I had this conversation with her where I told her I wanted her to be excited for me and I asked her her where I told her I wanted her to be excited for me and I asked her to act as though she was the one who chose him for me. And she said, but I didn't choose him for you, and if it were up to me, I wouldn't have.

So I'm not going to act like I did. At the time I was so angry I didn't know what to do. I didn't want to cut her out of my life, but I had no idea how to handle the situation. Here I am madly in love with someone I know is my soulmate, and my mom tells me, to my face, I never would have picked him for you, and then refuses to act excited for me. I went on to marry Chris, but I felt this tension of disapproval

underneath the dynamic between me and my mom for years. It was hard for me to forget what she said, and I didn't know how to let it go. She says she eventually used the frame of reference concept, taught to her for the first time by her friend who sells granola or whatever, to see it from her mom's perspective. Her mom had moved away from her own parents after marrying and then after that didn't see them very often. And she says that her mom was scared of the same thing happening with her daughter.

So I'm going to send you another bit. She says, when you look at it from my mother's frame of reference, she saw her story playing out in front of her all over again. I was going to move away and meet somebody and never come home. And she was right. I'm sure she wanted me to marry someone from Michigan so I would settle down close to them. Thirty years ago, I met Chris and I didn't think about my mom's frame of reference. I was just offended and angry and concluded that she didn't support me.

I can now see that she supported me. She was just scared of losing her daughter." So I think that this is when letting them goes too far, because I agree it's important to understand why your mom reacted in a certain way, right? But that doesn't mean that it was an okay reaction. Yeah, yeah, exactly. You told her you were in love with someone and engaged and she openly shit on it, right? So like it might be true that this is because of some bottled up trauma or whatever

But that doesn't mean she was being supportive. She very much wasn't and the way that she yeah It's like it's understandable this stuff But it also it's like it's up to her the way that she expresses that and how much she lets that affect her behavior Right. So like yeah, regardless of where it comes from, you need to be nice to my husband. That's not like a line too far. This was like one of my concerns going into it, that like there are going to be people who would use this idea to sort of like

accept a certain amount of toxicity into their life, right? Well, my mom has a different frame of reference, so I'm just gonna let her shit on my choice of soulmate or whatever. It's also, the thing is I actually really like this as an instinct of like, hey mom, I'm getting some weird vibes, like do you know where that's from? And sort of using this as the opening of a conversation. But then also, yeah, if you're like, oh well, it's okay that she's mean to my husband because she's afraid of me moving away. That's nuts.

As long as your shitty behavior comes from trauma. I accept it and you're great I feel like most people's bad behavior comes from trauma You imagine the same story, but it's like Why she's racist it's like I understand like I learned that as a young person Someone yelled a slur at me from a car and then I saw it from their perspective I'm actually harming the world in front of God. She also loses me a little bit when she says that this can be used to handle stress from politics. This is a relatively quick aside in the book, but it was very off-putting to me.

First, there's like a whole section where she talks about how everyone is stressed about politics these days. Let me send it to you. She says, We live in a moment where we're more polarized than ever. The stakes feel so high and everyone seems so far apart and either angry or scared about where things are or both. It's impossible to have a civil conversation with most people who have a different point of view because none of us really want to take the time

to understand where the other person is coming from. Ah, this stuff is a sickness. It's fucking everywhere. Such a dumbass guy. Analysis of the current political moment. Politics are polarized because no one wants to understand each other anymore. This is like the very like Ted Talk approach to politics where it's like, aren't things just a little too political these days? We don't have to get into this too much, but I see this so much that I do want to

give it like a minute to say that like there's a ton of research about political polarization. My one paragraph explanation for why we're polarized is basically over the span of the last four or five decades, we've seen the parties become ideological. American political parties used to be like a mishmash of interest groups, right? And then that changes after the Southern Democrats split with the party on segregation. And over the years, we've seen all of this demographic sorting between the parties so that now partisan identity aligns more with like other identities, social, cultural, whatever, which leads to polarization.

And then on top of that, you have like social media, you have media ecosystem shit. Right. Incomplete answer, but like, I just hope no one listening to this thinks that polarization is because we're listening less or some dumbass shit like that. Like that's the stuff we just know is not true. I also don't even agree with the framing of polarization being the problem.

That right people are more right and left people are more left and that just isn't what the evidence shows. The evidence shows that America has like a fairly standard center left party and a completely deranged far right party. And so it's not that the parties have each drifted further from the center. It's that one party has completely gone off the rails. There's also some evidence and a lot of people believe that like the polarization has started from the top that like it happened first at the party level among Republican elites especially,

and then trickled down. Which I think, this is just not how people think about it. Everyone's just like, we're all in our own little bubbles, and that's the problem. It's like, no, not exactly. That explanation totally flatters power. I always think about after Princess Diana died, you know, in the chase with the paparazzi, there was all this stuff about like, we're all to blame. We're all to blame for the way that her fame killed her. And it's like, no, there's like five like high level editors of tabloids who are to

blame. 100%. And blaming every single person who ever bought a fucking newspaper is just a way of letting those people off the hook. Yeah. And whenever you distribute blame throughout society to this level, oh, aren't we all polarized? Like, no, we're not. There's a specific problem.

And we can look at the features of that problem, but it's just brain dead to say, like, oh, we all just have our opinions, and we're not hearing other people's opinions. There's no evidence of this whatsoever. So here's her theory of politics. I'm going to. Ooh, there's more. OK, good.

There's more. So how do you use the let them theory to change the state of politics at a local, national, or global level? You don't. The school board has already decided. The Senate has voted. These are the two candidates running. The election is over.

It's tied up in the courts. Let them. You can't change what just happened. But I never said you couldn't change the future. Does it seem overwhelming? Yes. Does it feel like it won't make a difference? Yes. Do it anyway. Let me stay engaged and vocal on the issues I care about and do something that can change the future of my local, national, and global

politics. Don't sit around and wait for someone else to clean up the mess that you see. Stay engaged. Get out there. Get vocal. Let them. Let them deport you to Seacoat in El Salvador. This is the join the conversation Pepsi ad Join the conversation Holding up signs this sign just says like protest Yeah, I don't think this is an adequate way to address Politics or other larger problems like I was sort of waiting for her to be like by the way

This doesn't apply to politics. Like, I kind of thought that was where we were going. It's interesting how this spirals out because she starts off with being like, there's real science. And by the way, she like brags about how there's like real science behind this and she brings in the science. And so I was sort of like ready for there to be some actual, real like some science throughout. But this is a good example of what she does there to be some actual Real like some science throughout

But this is a good example of what she does where she's like Here's the science about the prefrontal cortex and the amygdala and you're like, okay, there's a real Material hook right we're sort of sitting in with one foot in reality, but then the idea Evolves so much that you reach a point like this where the Science that she described earlier has no applicability at all. Where is Queen amygdala now? She's gone her clone her clone has been killed but she has not been killed one of the weird whenever you make these nerdy jokes It's not even a nerdy of a joke. It's fucking it's a major movie that made like hundreds of millions of dollars Whenever you make these nerdy ass jokes

major movie that made like hundreds of millions of dollars. Whenever you make these nerdy ass jokes, all I can think is like I'm sort of like, you know, I'm obviously a nerd in many different ways, which is why I enjoy being extremely judgmental about the ways that I'm not a nerd. Yeah, you're a nerd about gambling. I was gonna keep going, but later in this episode she makes an analogy to playing cards and then I get really pedantic about it I now have to drop this I've been completely owned in advance when you bring up this nerdy shit Peter sports betting well I just wonder what percentage of our audience is just like what are they talking like everyone is gonna get that

joke no they're not sound off in're not. Sound off in the comments. Folks? Sound off in the comments. The problem is that the people who reply to us on social media are not an emblematic cross-section. For better or for worse, my understanding is they are 100% lesbians, due to the feedback we've gotten on our last couple episodes. Yeah. If you're listening to this right now and you're not a lesbian...

We don't believe you exist. We have no proof of this. Reach out, you know? What do you want to hear? There's another self-help trope that we... I don't think we've talked about as such, but we've touched upon many times. At some point, all of these authors will tell you, life isn't fair, but you need to suck it up. Again, something I've read in children's books numerous times, but okay. 100% sending you to my son Amaze. She says, you are the problem and the first step is accepting the truth.

Life isn't fair. It's just not. It's not fair that you're drowning in student debt because you couldn't afford the tuition. It's not fair that your sister looks like a supermodel and everyone flocks to her at the bars while you're sitting there off to the side buying your own drinks. It's not fair that your supervisor keeps giving you the crappy shift at work. I don't need this many examples. It's not fair that your country is torn apart by war. Pause, pause, pause.

The transition that we made right there and you were like, this is too many examples, but now you can see why I had to keep them all because she goes from yeah maybe you're maybe your country's torn apart by war right like your sister's hot she's giving her TED talk in Chechnya she she goes on she says in life you're not playing against anyone you're playing with them someone will always have better cards than yours it's not about the hand you've been dealt it's about how you play it. I mean, whatever. And while you've been busy comparing yourself to everyone else, you've missed one of the

greatest secrets in life. Other people teach you how to be a better player, and that's how you win. It's true, a lot of people have been dealt a luckier or more successful hand of cards. Let them. I mean, this is fine advice, but- Is it? Is it? I would phrase it differently but also like there are things you cannot change, there are things you can, like freaking out about stuff you can't change is not great

for your mental health. Fair enough. Coming to terms with it with these things is important. I totally agree. Whatever. Again the choice to include war in here is so crazy. I know. I don't know if you've thought about this child in Gaza But some people's sisters are way hotter than that Also, yeah, I will I will get nerdy about the what is this card playing metaphor? You might be dealt a bad hand But you learn how to win from other people who you're not competing against and also the cards don't matter It's how you play that's actually not true of cards, right?

I saw rounders, I'm an expert, I know this. She uses this line, and I've heard you hear it so much, like any top card player will tell you it's not about the cards, it's how you play them. Huge pet peeve of mine. Any card player will actually tell you that the cards are way more important. Way more important. Peter, this is the thinnest

possible excuse for you to talk about cards let's talk about probability let's talk about probabilities there are 52 cards in every deck did you know that there are different there are more arrangements of cards in a deck than there are atoms in the universe yeah 52 factorial I watch a whole video about this. Yeah, because I'm a nerd in different ways. Yeah, interesting. I understood it intuitively It is funny that's a very common idiom and it is just false I think it doesn't matter the cards your dealt it matters how you play them No, it really does matter the cards that you're dealt genuinely. I'm a pretty middling poker player I like it, but I'm a pretty middling player

You could put me up against the best player in the world And if I chose my cards every time I can guarantee Yes, you know this from cards. I know this from roguelikes. You have poker I have dead cells like sometimes your run just can't get off the ground I do want to cover a couple of like generally good sections in the book She writes a lot about using the let them Concept in adult friendships with the general theme being that people sort of naturally grow distant in adulthood

and you can't force it, you can't force these friendships. You know, there's like a shocking amount about adult friendships. It was obvious that she needed to pad this book out and they were like, we need three chapters on adult friendships. There's a ton of stuff about how to make new friends as an adult and you're just like,

what does this have to do with the let them theory? What's going on here? Is this why when I text you Taylor Swift lyrics, you text back, I'm actually at capacity and I'm unable to hold space for you right now? All right. I like the portions about the early stages of romantic relationships, right? Another area where I think the let them framework makes a lot of sense, right? Like, if you're searching for romance and someone's not giving you what you need, it's important

to understand that you're probably not going to change them and work from there, right? Although in gay world instead of let them at the end of every sentence, we just say send nudes. They're not texting you back, send nudes. You're not getting what you need from them, send nudes. I think when I originally jotted my outline down, I had a piece where I was like, here's where we'll put the good sections. And then over time, that just dwindled as I realized that I hated almost every section

of the book. I do worry we're being too mean to her. Honestly, this book seems like, okay, on the relative scale by which we judge books on this show, it's so much less toxic than like 90% of the garbage we've talked about. Absolutely. And I do think that there's a sort of weird problem here where the fundamental idea that she can convey in the span of a couple pages is pretty decent, but because she needs 200 to 250 pages, the bulk of the book ends up sucking. she's creating all of these situations where the

framework isn't a great fit, right? But she has to because otherwise it's not a book. That's actually an interesting thing. It's like it's like a good idea at the heart of the book, but by padding it out and making it into 200 pages, you have to add 190 pages of bad shit. One last section that I really didn't like and I think is worth mentioning. There was a chapter about helping people who are struggling. Obviously if you know someone who is having a really hard time, especially with self-destructive behavior for example, let them seems like very questionable advice. You want to send nudes. You want to send nudes. Where it leads her is that when someone is struggling, you don't want to just bail them

out because that can often make things worse. She gives a classic example of giving money to an addict, right? Doesn't help them, it often just enables them. Everyone knows this is true in the abstract, right? The hard part is knowing when to help and when not to, and how you can help in ways that aren't enabling, right? It's almost as if you have to know the specifics of a situation to give meaningful advice, rather than just generic two-word phrases to solve every problem.

I don't know if my reaction to this section was entirely rational or if it just pissed me off to read this person be like, here's how to use this idea I stole from social media to avoid enabling addicts. She's sort of saying, you might think that this wouldn't be useful for someone who's really struggling, but actually it would be because you can just let them because otherwise you're enabling them. That's like, come on. I guess that's the problem with these books, I guess, like as you were saying earlier,

because if you tried to actually write this out, it would be like 10 pages of a decent idea and then 190 pages of exceptions. But you can't write a book about a bunch of exceptions like where this doesn't apply, so you have to just pretend that it does apply. That's the challenge that I face with Bitch Like a Man, my book about complaining in a masculine way. So that's the book.

I feel like you can look at both the content of the book and the context in which it exists as like essentially a stolen product. Mel Robbins and all of these self-help authors, what they're really good at is taking these existing self-help concepts and then packaging and marketing them, right? But if what you're stealing is the marketing, right? Let them is the marketing. Like, da-da-da, let them. That's the package. You're stealing the marketing right? Let's go is the marketing like that. Let them

Yeah, that's the package right you're stealing the marketing That is the only work of writing one of these self-help books is like literally like I came up with a little bumper sticker Slogan for this idea. She didn't even do that Right, right. What's the elevator pitch? Yeah, you can stole the elevator pitch she's still the whole like top to bottom like She fucking stole the elevator pitch. She stole the whole, like top to bottom. Like we've had the discussion before about like, what's a grift and what's a grifter?

And I mean, I don't know how this is anything other than a grift, sorry. Like, you know, not to say that she is necessarily purely a grifter, but this book is a grift. Like she's not contributing anything. It's a stolen idea, not even repackaged, just glossed up and some marketing money put behind it. I do love the sort of meta-ness of it,

where it's like she's grifted somebody else out of their idea, and if they're mad, she can be like, well, let me. I'm gonna let you be mad? You let me get rich off of this. Just take my advice. It's right there in the book. Someone like this, she's just like rent seeking on the American psyche. I think you're overdoing it. This seems like a dumb book, but it's reasonably, I mean, other than the fact that it's a fucking stolen idea.

You don't think it's rent seeking? This whole sector is fucking rent seeking. You get so mad at landlords, but this lady is occupying space in your mind And that's that's the thing is like a big complaint that I have about these like grifty self-help authors They're just good at marketing these already existing ideas and sort of pretending that it's their idea Yeah, like they came up with this or they have some like real inspiration, right? But it's not literal in most cases in this case And Cassie Phillips the the author of the poem has said I didn't want any money off this operation right but it's not literal in most cases in this case literal and The the author of the poem has said I didn't want any money off this I don't want any money off this right so right all you have to do is just give a little bit of credit where you do

And you're good but the thing is that like if you give credit then you're sort of just like The reason she can't give credit is because as soon as you read that poem you're like oh you stole this That's like right you couldn't put the poem in the front as you read that poem you're like, oh you stole this That's like right. You couldn't put the poem in the front of the book if someone would be like why are you writing the book? I want to hear from the person who wrote the poem, right? We always complain about how that someone stretched out What was basically a brief essay to a book in this case? She literally did just stretch out a one-page poem adds

Nothing of substance where she took someone else's idea that wasn't even that good and she made it worse. Instead goes like very far afield being like politics also. Peter, you really are bitching like a man now. You're really embodying the premise of the book. Give me $1 million and I will deliver you bitch like a man.

If you do this, Peter, I'm absolutely gonna fabricate a JPEG that says bitch like a man came out in like 2021. Offer Michael Homs.