Sibling Revelry with Kate Hudson and Oliver Hudson - Revelry and Real Talk with Goldie Hawn & Mel Robbins: Part 1

Episode Date: November 3, 2025

Best-selling author Mel Robbins has turned her own mistakes into life lessons for the rest of us, and she's sharing her wisdom and revelations with Oliver and mom Goldie Hawn.  In part 1 of this 2-part deep dive, this trio digs into Mel's "Let Them Theory," opening up about parenting pitfalls, anxiety struggles and how too much empathy can be a blessing and a curse. See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

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on the IHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Hi, I'm Kate Hudson. And my name is Oliver Hudson. We wanted to do something that highlighted our relationship. And what it's like to be siblings. We are a sibling rivalry. No, no.

Sibling rivalry. Don't do that with your mouth. Sibling Revelry That's good Oh well I'll never get in that water again This is Oliver Hudson here

And I'm actually live With an incredible guest Mel Robbins And my mother I'm speaking quietly Now I've read her book The Let Them Theory And it's incredible

But I'm speaking quietly Because my mom and Mel They have really hit it off. They're currently right to my left. But before we even got the mic set up, they are up, up, and away. They're excluding me right now, which is fine.

I will work my way in. Right now I'm just commentating on their conversation. These two beautiful blondes are just going at it. Let's join their conversation now, already in progress. Yeah. But, you know, what you have done, which is so interesting, and I've got so many, we've got so many questions,

but you're also looking at human behavior. Yes. You're also looking at where we can go to actually heal. How are we going to be able to understand, like you did, you know, the five second rule or whatever, which was amazing, and get people off, you know, off because they're thinking of all kinds of reasons why not to do something. Yes. Get them going. But you really have met sort of the culture.

People aren't needing this. They want this so much. And I have this question because some of us are driven. Some of us are driven to help. Some of us are driven to make change. Some of us have a lot of empathy to be able to take your time and your interest to help and change and shift other people's mindset and thinking. What made you as a human being going through all the things you went through? were you an empathetic child

oh that's an interesting I think so highly so I think I absorbed everybody's feelings I absorbed everything that was going on around me I feel like sometimes being deeply empathetic is both a gift and a curse

because you can feel everything and the problem is is assuming responsibility for either creating equilibrium if what you're feeling is chaos or anger or hurt or sadness or hostility and assuming that it's your job when you feel something to do something to fix it exactly and there's things you talked about also in your book which i've been reading i'm loving it um was was an idea that you

can't fix things and there are things you can't fix true and and with that is is an important a place in your life to have that mindset to say, I can't fix you. And I did laugh because there was something in there with Oliver. I know I've told this story before, but Oliver was my child, right? And you know, your kids never end up. There's always your kids, right? No, no matter how old they are, they're always your children. So, anyway, so he went to go. Here we go. It always devolves into something here. I'm the worst. Like, you're the best. What are you talking about? This isn't about my circumcision, is it? No.

Let's talk about that story. She told that. She told this story on a talk show. Okay. What is the story? I don't know. See, not everybody in the world knows the story. Well, were you on the circumcision story?

Tell the circumcision story and then we'll get into a little deeper stuff. Well, the circumcision story was he was a month old. Okay. And I was really, really upset. I wanted to be in there because I felt I could make him feel good. and but I was waiting and then the doctor I was so upset

and the doctor came out and said you'll be happy to know I need a bigger clamp I said oh my god now what do I have? She told this on a talk show and then of course Did you thank her?

Yeah kind of you know it's like bigger clamp I'm like what I know that's better than her saying we can't find something small right exactly but but the story about being

servile okay someone who wants to take care of your children make sure they don't fall like today. You know, they're putting, you know, all kinds of like rubber mats or things under playgrounds. They shouldn't hurt themselves. They were always helping them not have to go through a problem or fixing it for them. And this is he wrote about this so beautifully. And even I might say, I could be related to it. And it brought me up to a point where Oliver went to college. And I was

worried about him, you know, eating. And he was in this, you know, apartment or whatever they had. And I was concerned, so I got a chef. Yeah, well, so. Well, I can't say she was a chef. Well, it was a chef, but she didn't even tell me what was happening. There was a knock on my door. In college? In college.

It's my sophomore year. I'm living in a house. It was your freshman year. It was my sophomore year. It was a disgusting house with six dudes. And there's a knock at the door, and I open it up, and there's this woman with a casserole. I'm like, yes? And she's like, your mom has hired.

me to bring you food and I'm like oh my lord okay were you surprised uh no I mean yes and no it was a bit of a shock but but you know she was afraid I wasn't eating you know well I was afraid you wouldn't eat enough it was whatever and it was very funny so you we want to make everything nice for your children worse but you can't do everything for them right you don't want to you shouldn't yes that's the problem but do you think that's changed though because but when we were kids uh-huh you know it was like take whatever rolls on a wheel and and get the fuck out of here go you know go go to your friend's house there's no phones there's no connection there's no gps locating there's no find you know find my friends or life 360 you know and there was just more

there's more freedom then you know we could make more mistakes yes just you know just Just by, just by, just even technologically. Yes. So have you seen that shift? Were you brought up the way that you brought your kids up? Well, I think I was a little bit looser than you see a lot of parents now. I always had this point of view that my job was not to turn them into me, but to try to help them, try to guide my kids as best as I could in them becoming who they were supposed to be.

I think a lot of that over-parenting comes from this fundamental need to be in control. And there's a lot of research, it's not research that I've done, but there's a lot of research around how the milk carton missing children created a false concern in parents' minds that your child could be snatched from the front yard at any moment. And there's lots of great researchers that have sort of connected the dots going backwards to that moment where all of a sudden parents started to feel like childhood wasn't safe.

And then it starts to compound and compound and compound. And when you look at parents that are over-parenting, and, you know, on one hand, sending a casserole is a wonderful thing to do. And it's a way to kind of be there when you can't be there.

And then there's the stepping in and solving problems, there's the bulldozing other people so your kids don't have to ever experience disappointment. Well, there's the helicopter parent, then there's the bulldozer parent, right. And what's very clear is that's coming from a parent's own anxiety and a parent's feeling that the world is out of control, therefore I have to control the experience of my child. And here's the sad part. The sad part is your kid is probably more resilient and smarter and more capable than you are treating. them. And I made this huge mistake. So I made this huge mistake, and that's how I learn almost

everything. Every book you'll see, I'm the villain. And the Let Them Theory is no different. The reason why I know that this theory works is because I used to be a complete control freak that was doing things the exact opposite in terms of the way that human beings work and the way that relationships work. I thought that love meant control and change. I thought that I knew best. I thought judging people and trying to motivate them was the way that you get them to change. And the fact is it has the exact opposite effect. And so I made this huge mistake when I was a parent.

We went to Cambodia when our kids were really little. And we were there visiting my husband's mom, who was a recent widow, and she had gone over to Cambodia to do some volunteer work and had really found her calling. So we go over to visit her. And there's this thing that happens where we go visit a museum that was all about the Khmer Rouge.

And I don't know what I was thinking, taking a bunch of elementary age kids to an old elementary school where the Khmer Rouge had held prisoners and they've turned it into this really important museum. We walk into the first classroom and our daughter, Kendall, who was maybe, I don't know, fourth or fifth grade,

takes one look at this room where they have a bed and they have handcuffs to it and there's like a stand. You know that they had just killed people in this room. She goes running out. I go running out after her.

She was hysterical. Something's going to happen to you and dead. Something's going to happen to you and dad. We get home from the trip and she could not sleep through the night. Yeah. Wow. And so she came downstairs every night.

And for the first couple nights, I would walk her back upstairs and then she would come back down and everybody who's ever been a parent has had that experience where you're just so exhausted that they wear you down. Next thing, you know, I'm lifting up the blanket. She's crawling in. And finally, it just got to the point, you guys, where she would sleep on her floor. She did this for almost six months. I made a bed on the floor. I thought I was doing the right thing. I thought that I was really just nurturing her and helping her. And what I realize now is that I royally compounded the anxiety because I was allowing her anxiety to win.

I was basically by allowing her to avoid being up in her room, what it confirmed to her is that she's not capable of being up there, that this fear is real. And then it turned into you can't do a sleepover. You've got to have a sleep under where you pick the kid up. And then it turns into you can't travel. And so it got bigger and bigger and bigger. And I was just trying to help. And what I can see now is that by not following the advice of all the pediatricians who were like, you need to take her upstairs, you need to sit with her.

You need to let her go back to sleep. You need to model for her that she is capable of facing this fear. By allowing her to opt out, I actually made the fear way worse. Like it became an issue for years and years and years that we're only now kind of fully unwinding and understanding. It's so funny because you're also dealing with a different sect of parenting as well, which is attachment parenting, where these kids will sleep in the room from the very beginning and feeding on demand. And it's like you cater to your child. It's that attachment parenting thing, you know.

I don't know anything about that. Here's what I know. If it works for you, do it. But what I found is that I took the easy right. And it made things way harder in the end. Yeah. Way harder. Yeah.

So one of the trips I'm most grateful for was this summer in Greece. And it was amazing. And the whole family was together. That doesn't happen very often. Some sun, a few laughs. And my kids love anything adventurous. So it was right up our alley. And what makes those trips even more special is staying in a place on Airbnb.

Because you're not just visiting, you're living a local life for a while, which makes the experience so much more memorable. So if you're planning to travel this November, it's also a great time to think about hosting your own home on Airbnb. And the best part, you don't have to handle everything on your own. With Airbnb's co-host network, you can partner with someone local to help manage your listing, your guests, and everything in between. Find a co-host at Airbnb.com slash host. Here we go. Hey, I'm Cal Penn, and on my new podcast, Here We Go Again. We'll take today's trends and headlines and ask, why does history keep repeating itself?

You may know me as the second hottest actor from the Harold and Kumar movies, but I'm also an author, a White House staffer, and as of like 15 seconds ago, a podcast host. Along the way, I've made some friends who are experts in science, politics, and pop culture. And each week, one of them will be joining me to answer my burning questions. Like, are we heading towards another financial crash like in 08? Is non-monogamy back in style? And how come there's never a gate ready for your flight when it lands like two minutes early? We've got guests like Pete Buttigieg, Stacey Abrams, Lili Singh, and Bill Nye. When you start weaponizing outer space, things can potentially go really wrong.

Look, the world can seem pretty scary right now, because it is. But my goal here is for you to listen and feel a little better about the future. Listen and subscribe to Here We Go Again with Cal Penn on the IHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. I live below a cult leader, and I fear I've angered her. Well, wait a minute, Sophia. Adia knows she's a cult leader. Well, Dakota, luckily it's I'm not afraid of a scary story week on the OK Storytime podcast, so you'll find out soon. This person writes, my neighbor's been blasting music every day and doing dirt rituals, and now my ceiling is collapsing.

I try to report them, but things keep getting weirder. I think they may be part of a cult? Hold up, Sophia. A real-life cult? And what is a dirt ritual? No clue. But according to this person, contractors are tearing down the patio to find out what's going on with her ceiling, and her neighbors are not happy. Well, she needs to report them ASAP.

She did, and now they've been confronting her in really creepy ways all the time. So do we find out if this person survives their neighborhood cult or not? To hear the explosive finale, listen to the OK Storytime podcast on the IHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. The Crying Wolf podcast is the story of two men bound by injustice, of a city haunted by its secrets, and the quest for redemption, no matter the price. White victim, female, pretty, wealthy, black defendant. Chicago, a white woman's murder, a black man behind bars. for a crime he didn't commit. I got 90 years for killing somebody I have never seen.

He says the police are his friends and then that's it. They turn on it. A corrupt detective. How he was interrogated the techniques. That's crazy. A snitch and a life stolen. They got the wrong guy. But on the inside, Lee Harris finds an ally in his cellie, Robert,

who swears to tell the truth about what happened to Lee and free his friend. And if you're with me, your goal to... I'll take care of you. I'm going to be with you. You stuck with me for life. Listen to the Crying Wolf podcast, starting on October 22nd, on the IHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. The Big Take podcast from Bloomberg News dives deep into one big global business story every weekday. A shutdown means we don't get the data, but it also means for President Trump that there's no chance of bad news on the labor market.

What does a bacon, egg, and cheese sandwich reveal about the economy? Our breakfast foods are consistent consumer staples, and so they sort of become outsize indicators of inflation. What's behind Elon Musk's trillion dollar payout? There's a sort of concerted effort to message that Musk is coming back. He's putting politics aside. He's left the White House. And what can the PCE tell you that the CPI can't?

CPI tries to measure out-of-pocket costs that consumers are paying for things, whereas the PCE index that the Fed targets is a little bit broader of a measure. Listen to the big take from Bloomberg News every weekday afternoon on the IHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. So I take Lexa Pro, anxiety has been a part of my podcast. life. Um, mom had anxiety in her 20s. There has to be some sort of genetic component to that for sure. So it's something I've dealt with, deal with, um, even the last like 10 days. When's the last time you had anxiety? Oh, I mean, six hours ago. What happened? But it's different. I just, I'm so, you, I know how to deal with it. I know what it is. I've made an, I've had a relationship with my anxiety. So it doesn't take me over anymore. Okay. I understand it.

whereas before I thought I was dying, you know what I mean? And I was able to sort of meditate through it, journal through it, and then eventually I had to get on medication for it. And now every once in a while it will pop up. It's these sort of irrational thoughts, but I understand that I'm not going to die. I'm okay. Is it really what that's the way it manifests itself? Like you literally will start, you'll like have a stomach pain and then it escalates?

It's in my stomach. It manifests in my stomach for the most part. Really? Yeah. Well, I'm interested in this because my son has a stomach triggered anxiety spiral. Yeah. I mean, I used to. That's really interesting. So my 20s, 30s and 40s is when I've had my like big bouts of it. My 20s, it was all stomach. I mean, I couldn't leave the house without throwing up. Wow. Oh, it was awful. See, this is a fear of it. Yeah, see, mine, it was a fear of looking stupid. I don't want, I didn't want to look stupid in front of people.

And throwing up like that would make me look like an asshole. and people would judge me and, you know, so the minute I would get out of the house, I'd feel nauseous. I'd want to throw up. I was trying to be an actor. My sister was, was, you know, famous. My parents were famous. I'm just starting. There was a lot of sort of unconscious pressure that I was sort of putting on myself expectations. And I was going to auditions, throwing up outside of the audition space. Remember when I was in New York? Yeah. I had to fly to New York because I had to read, with Laura Linney for this movie, and I said to my manager, I'm like, I can't get on a fucking

airplane. I mean, I'm like, I can barely get a step out of my home, but I fought through it. I get on the airplane and now I'm driving down like Fifth Avenue. The cab has to pull over multiple times because I'm throwing up. I'm throwing up before the audition. I call mom in the waiting room. I'm like, I can't do like, holy shit. Like, I'm just a complete wreck. But I fought through it. I was always trying to, I didn't want it to, to it for it to debilitate me. It sounded pretty debilitating. Oh, it was awful. I had that too. So that was happened to me and it was all stomach. It was my panic attacks. And I couldn't go into public without throwing up. Really? So can I ask you guys a question about this? Because I find this fascinating because

a number of pediatricians that I've spoken to have said that other than the fear of your parents dying, the fear of throwing up is the number one fear that kids have. Because it's this moment of a complete loss of control. So do you remember the first time you connected like stomach tension with this fear that you're going to throw up? So I better like I got to make it happen now so that I'm in control of it. Yeah. When was the first time that happened? The first time I'm honestly not sure. I mean, the first time that I had my, it was a panic attack. My heart felt like it exploded. Yep. And I was going to like a closet, going to into a, club in my mid-20s and I was like boom I thought I was going to die on the sidewalk I mean it was

just horrible and then after that it started to sort of manifest in my stomach but yes that's interesting that you say you almost want to expel it you want to throw up in your space first and then move to the public area because you just don't want to look stupid well there's two things I want to share with you guys that I that have been life changing for me. And one of them is something that I researched and studied that fundamentally changed the way that I experience any nerves or anxiety. And it stopped the escalation. And then the second thing I want to share with you is something from, I think his name is Steve Magnus who was, who's been an Olympic track coach and is like a big mindset guy, that's a trick that he used with athletes that had this particular issue

that stops it. And so the first thing I want to explain that has been very life-changing for me is that I never realize that when you're about to go do something that you're nervous about. It could be an audition, it could be a date, it could be just going out in public. Because you are about to go do something that you kind of care about and you have a little bit of a how is this going to go, you immediately switch into a preparation mode that's sort of like fight or flight. And when you go into, so like before an audition, before a speech, before a date, before an interview, we all get nervous. And when you're getting nervous, there are physiological and medical symptoms that happen. Your heart starts to race, your throat starts to get a little tight, your hands can get clear, your arm,

Pits can be like Niagara Falls. The connection between the brain, the imagina in particular. Yes. That really has a complete connection to the body. Yes. And your stomach, people start to say you have butterflies. Here's why. Here's why.

From an evolutionary standpoint, if you are about to prepare to do something, whether it's hunt or it's run from something or fight, your body goes into a let's get ready mode. The chemistry in your body changes. All the blood goes to your heart and your brain so you can think and so you can move faster, which means it leaves your digestive tract, which means the chemistry in your stomach is changing. Those butterflies are not actually a sign that you're about to screw up. They're not a sign that you're about to throw up. They're not a sign that anything's about to go wrong.

It's a sign that your chemistry and your body is changing to help you be able to focus or run or do the thing you need to do. And for years, I mistook, like everybody does, those butterflies as a sign of impending doom versus just your body getting ready for you to get out the door and go do the audition. If you then go up in your head and are like, fuck, fuck, fuck, fuck, fuck, fuck, fuck.

You now escalate the alarm state in your body and you make it worse. They've actually studied this. And what happens to your executive function? Out the window. Because the second that, and you know this, with all your work, the second that you switch gears from the prefrontal cortex being engaged to now the amygdala's trigger, executive functionings out the window, your critical voice

gets louder, your ability to recall the preparation that you had and to be able to talk yourself down out the window. And so they studied this at Harvard Business School. There's this really interesting study where they taught people in high performance situations, whether you're going to go into a track meet or a debate competition or something that we can measure. They taught them in states where you're about to do something and you're nervous and your stomach is like twirling around with butterflies to say, I'm so excited to do this thing. I'm so excited. I'm excited to run this thing. I'm excited to do the debate. I'm excited to go on the interview. I'm excited to get on the plane, even though you may not feel that. Simply queuing your brain to say I'm excited comes the stress

response. Right. I mean, how different, though, is excitement from nerves? It's the exact same thing. Right. Because there are certain people where the nerves become debilitating, and then there are others where it can begin empowering, you know, where you use that, that's fuel to just be better. What you're saying, too, in terms of that, is the brain is basically a muscle. So once you start feeding it, all of this thing, for instance, if you smile and you don't feel like it, your brain thinks you're happier. It goes right into your brain, activity, your connections, all of it. It's just an act, a physical act, a choice that I choose to smile.

Interesting, how it helps the brain to be able to actually feel happier. It's a signal. So the same thing is when you repeat over and over again, I'm really excited to do this. I have something to share with that on that because being self-aware, as we are, we try to be. I notice that there's, you know, going through some stress things, stuff we deal all every day. always stuff. It's a leak here. There's something here. There's a bill there. There's a, I don't know there. And then with my foundation, it's always something. And I ended up looking at this, because you know, you talk to yourself. You go, I don't know. I made myself aware of that. I said,

what do you mean you don't know? You do know. And every time I would say, I would say it to myself, I don't, I don't know, or even out loud, I would laugh. And I would say, no, I do know. I do know why am I doing this and I've stopped saying it because I do know so you're already signaling your negative thought yes which is I'm I don't know what's going to happen I'm feeling anxious about it I mean what am I going to do I'm I going to solve this problem I don't know I don't know I don't know well even if you look at your faces you're talking like that like if you think about the experience of waking up in the morning if your first thought is how am I going to get through the day your face changes your energy changes if your first thought is i'm going to make today a good day

yeah even though there's a lot i got to make today a good day like that's just a simple example and it's also an intention isn't correct yeah yes so the second piece of advice though on this because i have a hunch that what started to happen for you is similar to what i think happened with our son where the link between the physical sensation of this to the brain thought I'm in big trouble now and the only way to solve it is to get rid of this by throwing up, I think that got so well worn that it became automatic. And one of the things, and that brings me to this advice from coach Steve Magnus, which is he had a high performing athlete that he was coaching who would always get sick before a race.

Yeah. And it was really, really bothering her, very distracting. She could not hit the mark in terms of her ability to get better and to make nationals. And so he came up with a strategy where he'd be like, all right, we got an hour before the race. What time are you going to throw up? And she'd be like, what do you mean? No, no, name the time you're going to throw up. And it removed the urge to throw up.

Interesting. Because by naming the time. time she all the sudden felt in control of when it would happen and then suddenly didn't need to do it. Well, I could get the actor. You know what it reminds me of though? You know, when the kids had hiccups and stuff. Yeah.

We used to say, okay, now, hiccup again. Yeah, hiccup. Go. Go. Go. Let's go now. Let's go ahead. Hick up.

Yeah. Hick up on Hick up. And you know what? They couldn't hiccup because we made them hiccup. I'm going to try that. I've only ever used a scoop of peanut butter. Oh, yeah. I like that trick.

I love that. But I think I could get the actor wrong, but I think it was Peter Fonda who threw up before every play performance, for every performance. There are actors who will throw up. And there's actors, by the way, who use beta blockers, right? Wow. Which is going to block all of that. You don't have to feel it anymore because it's a drug that has literally stopped

from the mouth getting dry, from the stomach going from all of it. But if you simply understand the chemistry of it, you now have the ability to find the switches and the drivers in your brain and your body to start to understand and not be a afraid of it. So one of the trips I'm most grateful for was this summer in Greece, and it was amazing. And the whole family was together. That doesn't happen very often. Some sun, a few laughs.

And my kids love anything adventurous. So it was right up our alley. And what makes those trips even more special is staying in a place on Airbnb. Because you're not just visiting. You're living a local life for a while. while, which makes the experience so much more memorable. So if you're planning to travel this November, it's also a great time to think about hosting your own home on Airbnb, and the best part, you don't have to handle everything on your own. With Airbnb's co-host network, you can partner

with someone local to help manage your listing, your guests, and everything in between. Find a co-host at Airbnb.com slash host. Here we go. Hey, I'm Cal Penn. And on my new podcast, Here We Go again, We'll take today's trends and headlines and ask, why does history keep repeating itself? You may know me as the second hottest actor from the Harold and Kumar movies, but I'm also an author, a White House staffer, and as of like 15 seconds ago, a podcast host. Along the way, I've made some friends who are experts in science, politics, and pop culture. And each week, one of them will be joining me to answer my burning questions. Like, are we heading towards another financial crash like in 08? is non-monogamy back in style?

And how come there's never a gate ready for your flight when it lands like two minutes early? We've got guests like Pete Buttigieg, Stacey Abrams, Lili Singh, and Bill Nye. When you start weaponizing outer space, things can potentially go really wrong. Look, the world can seem pretty scary right now, because it is.

But my goal here is for you to listen and feel a little better about the future. Listen and subscribe to Here We Go Again with Cal Penn on the IHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. I live below a cult leader, and I fear I've angered her. Well, wait a minute, Sophia. How do you know she's a cult leader?

Well, Dakota, luckily it's I'm not afraid of a scary story week on the OK Storytime podcast, so you'll find out soon. This person writes, my neighbor has been blasting music every day and doing dirt rituals, and now my ceiling is collapsing. I try to report them, but things keep getting weirder. I think they may be part of a cult. Hold up, Sophia. A real-life cult?

And what is a dirt ritual? No clue. But according to this person, contractors are tearing down the patio to find out what's going on with their ceiling, and her neighbors are not happy. Well, she needs to report them ASAP. She did! And now they've been confronting her in really creepy ways all the time.

So do we find out if this person survives their neighborhood cult or not? To hear the explosive finale, listen to the OK Storytime podcast on the Iheart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or work. wherever you get your podcasts. The Crying Wolf Podcast is the story of two men bound by injustice, of a city haunted by its secrets and the quest for redemption, no matter the price. White victim, female, pretty, wealthy, black defendant. Chicago, a white woman's murder, a black man behind bars, for a crime he didn't commit.

I had 90 years for killing somebody. I have never seen He says the police are his friends and then that's it They turn on it A corrupt detective How he was interrogated the techniques That's crazy

A snitch and a life stolen They got the wrong guy But on the inside Lee Harris finds an ally In his celly Robert Who swears to tell the truth About what happened to Lee And free his friend

And if you're with me You're golden I'll take care of you I'm gonna be with you You stuck with me for life Listen to the Crying Wolf podcast, starting on October 22nd, on the IHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. The Big Take podcast from Bloomberg News dives deep into one big global business story every weekday. A shutdown means we don't get the data, but it also means for President Trump that there's no chance of bad news on the labor market.

What does a bacon, egg, and cheese sandwich reveal about the economy? Our breakfast foods are consistent consumer staples, and so they sort of become outsize indicators of inflation. What's behind Elon Musk's trillion dollar payout? There's a sort of concerted effort to message that Musk is coming back. He's putting politics aside. He's left the White House. And what can the PCE tell you that the CPI can't? CPI tries to measure out-of-pocket costs that consumers are paying for things, whereas the PCE,

index that the Fed targets is a little bit broader of a measure. Listen to the big take from Bloomberg News every weekday afternoon on the IHeart radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Even with what you write, the let me stuff, and even what we're talking about right now, there's so much deeper psychology that has been imprinted and ingrained in us through traumas and all that. So it's so much easier said than done. Because I've been through, I've been through therapy for 25 years. I went to the Hoffman process. Like I am like always on a journey itself. Yeah. No, but I am, but I'm not. I mean, I'm all, I love it. You know,

and now through my, through reading, even just fiction, you know, I learned so much about myself through different characters. I'm always trying to be better, you know. You're curious. Right. I'm curious and sometimes it's like there's those moments where you can just let it let it all go and you feel at peace but there's also a lot of muck and tar to have to wade through to be able to sort of put a lot of these practices into true practice and have and reap benefits from it because there's a lot to wade through that is true and here's a simple truth if i were to ask you can you list five ways you could make your life worse yes yeah and my list would be pretty I can go, like, really, let's just destroy everything.

If that's true, then you can also list five things that would make your life better. Yeah. And while it is true that trauma does get ingrained as patterns and things that your body remembers and repeats, it's also true that it can be healed. Sure. And what I have found personally is that the thing that stands in our way, oftentimes, is that it's not that we don't know what we could be doing. It's that we wait until we feel like doing it. And the fact is, when you want your life to get better, it begins with you deciding that how your life feels, how it's going right now, just no longer works for you.

Maybe it did work for you a decade ago to throw up before everything. You can make a decision to say to yourself, this just no longer works for my life to feel like this. And that decision is what begins the change. Right. It begins the journey to change. Correct. Correct. But once you can identify that I just don't want my life to feel like this, there's thousands of things you can do. Yeah. And it's going to be. And so I don't believe that you have to stay stuck and waiting through the muck for the rest of your life. I do not believe that. Yeah. I don't believe that if something took 10 years in terms of how long you were experiencing something that you need 10 years to actually heal yourself.

But you do have to put the work in. Of course you do. So that's where grit comes in and how much grit people do have to be able to face, like you say, our failures are where we learn. Well, you know, and to adopt a philosophy that this is, this is real. This is not, we know this, we know, because we understand. and how, sorry to go back into my world, but feed the brain. So when we go into understanding that we are in control of our own brain,

our brain does not control us. We have to have the intention and the grit and the awareness that it's okay to fail. But ultimately, it's the only way we learn. And this is what you have done is opened up a lot of windows in people's brains, a lot of areas where they don't talk about, a lot of things where they have no roadmatch. to be able to say, I'm going to follow this stepping stone, you know, the 5, 4, 3, 2, 1. I'm going to do it this way.

There's tools. So you're really giving tools to people who don't have them or that would like to get better. And you're inspiring them to know that there is a possibility of cure. You're not sick. You're just thinking in the wrong way. Let's think differently. Let's put ourselves in a position of positive. Negatives, like you said, we can think of a million negatives.

But when you look at optimism and pessimism, right? Then you sort of look at these two things. So you can look something simple like a rainy day. What's bad about it? What's negative? What's pessimistic? It's whatever you're saying is. Exactly.

So, you know, we have the capacity. If we can look at a rainy day and think of what's good and what's not good about it, we could do the same thing with us. Let me ask both of you a question. Yes. And I don't, I know this is true, but do you think primally our default is fear? Because this is how we survive. You know, when we default to a feeling, is it optimistic or is it more fear-based?

The brain is negative bias. It feels like it's negative bias, right? It feels like we default there. And it's there. It's primal. It's reptilian. But it's definitely there. to protect us. So there's all these amazing feelings that we think you're helping,

so many, so many, so many people, how to enjoy the possibilities of a happier life, a calmer life, and some ways to make people actually deal better. Like you said, let them. You know, and let me. And let me. That's the harder part for everything. In your book, I read the story, the prom story. which is just intensely relatable. It's so great. Well, myself, my wife and I, I feel like I live, let me. Like, I feel like that's kind of who I am because on my headstone will be, we'll figure it out.

I'm just like, eh, we'll figure it out. And we have teenagers now and, you know, the corsage and the thing, what are you going to do in the rain? And I mean, this, I was literally reading my wife. And then I forget the exact. I am the villain in the book. I forget the exact, I forget the exact line, but when your husband were like, like, well, you know, there's only four tables in this restaurant. I forget the exact line of your husband's like, yeah, okay, like, and?

Yes, I was like, that's me. Well, he's Buddhist. That's why nothing bothers him, which really pisses me off as a control. Is he really? My husband is Buddhist. Oh, okay. And so, you know, I, and in case you don't know what the let them theory is, it's very, very simple.

It is the fastest way to feel less stress, to be more in control, to have more peace in your life, is to stop trying to control what other people think. say, do believe, and let them be. Yeah. And then take your power back and focus on yourself. I mean, this is Victor Frankl's mansearcher meaning. Yeah, I just read it. This is the serenity prayer.

But this is a tool that I've leveraged all this ancient wisdom and these therapeutic practices and spiritual philosophies into a tool that's just four words. To your point, though, about the healing, I do believe that if you didn't talk yourself, into the trauma, you can't talk yourself out of it. And I'll give you an example. So when I was younger like you, I was in a car accident where the car that I was enrolled and my mom was driving and we were up in Northern Michigan and we were near Calcasca and the radio announcer came on and said something about the effect of black ice and be careful out there. And all of a sudden a guy went to pass us and then a semi truck was coming and he cut in front of the,

of us and my mom went off the side of the road, the car rolled, and we ended up with her up and me down, and thankfully we had our seatbelts on, but the dog, you know, went from the front to the back, we were okay. And the thing that's interesting about that experience is that my mom and I were both in the car. It certainly was a traumatic experience in terms of the trauma response of all five senses coming online and capturing everything that happens because in a traumatic experience, it can go into slow motion. But what's interesting is that to this day, if my mom hears the words black ice, she feels like she's back in the car. If I hear the words black ice, I feel nothing. But if I walk to my mailbox on a snowy day and it's that

kind of mailbox or kind of snow it's like I am back in that car I feel like I'm sitting in the dryer as things are flying around me and there is no amount of talking that will get rid of the connection between that sound and the association with that memory however there are lots of things you can do, whether it's EMDR or it's some of the new psychedelic guided modalities that get into your body with the amygdala suspended and allow you to revisit those things in a calm state, which allows your brain to file those memories in long-term storage. And so I believe what's very exciting is that just because you endured something for a very long period of time, doesn't mean it has to take you that long to heal it. And to your point,

Goldie, it is so true that your brain is extraordinary in that it's not a storage unit. It's a processor that you can encode. And any time that you decide, you know what, I'm tired of beating myself up. I'm tired of feeling like the victim. I'm tired of telling myself that success happens for other people, but it never happens for somebody like me. I want to change the settings. in my mind, and I want to learn how to encode my mind with the kind of thoughts that help me take the steps, that help me believe, because I actually think the biggest thing that people struggle with,

it's not a lack of information. Because if you're stuck and you don't like your life, go to AI, go to Microsoft Copilot, and type in what's wrong and ask it for 10 suggestions, it'll work. The problem's going to be that if you're at a point in your life, and I have certainly been there, where you are so discouraged and you don't have hope, you will tell yourself it doesn't matter.

And you won't take the steps to either change the way you think or change the way you start your day or change the things you eat or change the people that you hang out with that actually do change everything over time. What happens is that they say, well, that's the way I am. Yes. No, it's not. it's the way you think you are. Yep.

But it's not the way you are. And there's definitely fluidity of understanding that you don't have to stay with who you perceive yourself to do. That's true. So it's really, it's a beautiful message. Well, once again,

we have to make a part two because this is just too good. This is just, it's too fascinating. There's too much to talk about. So we are, we're doing a part two of Mel. It's an impossibility not to. I live below a cult leader, and I fear I've angered her.

Wait a minute, Sophia. How do you know she's a cult leader? Well, Dakota, luckily it's I'm not afraid of a scary story week on the OK Storytime podcast. So we'll find out soon. This person writes, my neighbor has been blasting music every day and doing dirt rituals. And now my ceiling is collapsing. I try to report them, but things keep getting weirder. I think they might be part of a cult.

Hold up. A real life call. And what is a dirt ritual? No clue, Dakota. Find out how it ends. Listen to the OK Storytime podcast on the Iheart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Chicago. A white woman's murder.

A black man behind bars. For a crime he didn't commit. 90 years for killing somebody I have never seen. The Crying Wolf podcast is the story of a corrupt detective, two men bound by injustice, and the quest for redemption, no matter the price. Listen to the Crying Wolf Podcasts on the IHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Hey, I'm Cal Penn, and on my new podcast, here we go again, we'll take today's trends and headlines and ask, why does history keep repeating itself? Each week, I'm calling up my friends like Bill Nye, Lily Singh, and Pete Buttigieg, to talk about everything from the space race to movie remakes to psychedelics.

Put another way, are you high? Look, the world can seem pretty scary right now. But my goal here is for you to listen and feel a little better about the future. Listen and subscribe to Here We Go Again with Cal Penn on the IHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. The Big Take podcast from Bloomberg News keeps you on top of the biggest stories of the day. My fellow Americans, this is Liberation Day. Stories that move markets. Chair Powell opened the door.

to this first interest rate cut. Impact politics, change businesses. This is a really stunning development for the AI world and how you think about your bottom line. Listen to the big take from Bloomberg News every weekday afternoon on the IHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. What happens when Reese Witherspoon calls up the king of thrillers,

Harlan Coben, and says, let's write a book together. I was asking him basically to let me into his secret, thriller writing world. This week, bookmarked by Reese's book club goes live from Apple Soho in New York City for the ultimate storytelling mashup. Reese Witherspoon and Harlan Cobin on their new thriller, Gone Before Goodbye.

You think you're going to read for 10 minutes. And next thing you know, it's four in a morning. Get the story behind the season's most addictive read, already a New York Times bestseller. Listen to Bookmarked by Reese's Book Club on the IHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. This is an IHeart podcast.