THE ED MYLETT SHOW - The Motivational Power Of A High Five w/ Mel Robbins

Episode Date: September 28, 2021

Some people you meet, you instantly CONNECT with them. MEL ROBBINS is one of those people for me. Ask anybody who knows me, and they will tell you that she is simply one of my favorite human beings I’ve ever met. When you listen to this week’s episode, you’ll see why one of Mel’s superpowers is to connect with people wherever she goes. In a smart, earthy, funny, and candid talk, Mel is a LIVE WIRE who’s going to win you over from the start. A former criminal defense attorney, she is now one of the most sought-after motivational speakers in America. You may know her from her appearances on CNN as a legal analyst, or as the host Cox Media Group's _The Mel Robbins Show, A&E's Monster In-Laws, and Fox's Someone's Gotta Go._ You may think that something as simple as giving a HIGH FIVE doesn’t amount to much, but as Mel explains, one HIGH FIVE can make all the difference in the world. Think about it. You have a lifetime of positive programming from giving others high fives. It’s impossible to say something negative a then give someone a high five. The two actions are INCONGRUENT. You’ve never given it any thought, have you? But Mel has. She’s figured it out and applied the NEUROSCIENCE to back it up. Like many great actions, it’s the simple ones like HIGH FIVES that carry the most weight for me and you. That includes the importance of learning how to properly HIGH FIVE YOURSELF to start your day. Yes…it’s important to HIGH FIVE other people but it’s ESSENTIAL that you validate your self-worth by generously giving yourself HIGH FIVES. It’s even more CRITICAL when you haven’t accomplished anything big than when you do. Mind-blowing, isn’t it? But when Mel goes into the physiological details, it makes perfect sense. If that isn’t enough, Mel shares some eye-opening insights on how to cope with gossip and jealously. Here’s a hint. Learn to EMBRACE JEALOUSY. And if you’d like to know how 5 SECONDS can change your life several times a day, Mel gives an awesome tutorial about the power of a 5-4-3-2-1 countdown. There’s so much to impact behind the psychology of a HIGH FIVE. BOTTOM LINE… A HIGH FIVE is an amazing gift you can give others. More important, a HIGH FIVE is an AMAZING gift you can give YOURSELF.   👉 SUBSCRIBE TO ED'S YOUTUBE CHANNEL NOW 👈  → → → CONNECT WITH ED MYLETT ON SOCIAL MEDIA: ← ← ← ▶︎ INSTAGRAM ▶︎ FACEBOOK  ▶︎ LINKEDIN ▶︎ TWITTER ▶︎ WEBSITE  

This is The Edmila Show. Welcome back to Max Out Everybody. I'm so excited about today's show. Seriously, I wanted to do this show for months and months, but I wanted to wait until her new book, The High Five Habit, came out. And so the timing is perfect for this. But this is literally one of my favorite people I have met in my life. And particularly I could tell you for sure in the last two years, the favorite person that I have met. I think she's brilliant. I think she can change lives. I think

the show today will change lives. It's going to impact mine as well. You know who she is. You've seen her on television. She's five years at CNN as a legal analyst had her own talk show, 60 million people engage with her social media, her first book, last book. So two million copies like that, then this one's going to probably triple that. And I take full credit for it after the show is over today. It's got a TED talk with 26 million views. You don't need any more data than that. Mel Robbins, thank you for being here. Oh, and.

I was like, who the f**k is he talking about? Oh my God. It's you. I hate her. It's you. I love her. Oh, that was so nice. And you even said that in front of your wife

when she was here earlier. I do. So I know it's true. It's absolutely, totally true. I talk about you all the time. We haven't known each other that long, everybody. And I feel like you are a long lost relative of mine

yeah i do too i really do you know i come from a long line of farmers and like blue collar workers and my grandparents had a bakery my other grandparents were angus cattle farmers and you know i just we connect we connect because there's no b***h there is no bs with you and i also think

i think you connect with people That's probably explains it why I think most people I Think that you have a way of delivering super Insightful content and what I would call like a non-threatening or non-egotistical way in other words You just still really complicated things in a very simple way and I'm super curious about this I the book itself by the way, if you're watching on YouTube that it's here, let's start like, why'd you do this? So you had the high five habit, where did this actually come from initially so that we can get into what

that means? But how did it even start? Well, it started like a lot of things start in my life, which is I had a personal rock bottom. And the things that I share tend to be the things that I figured out having to save my own ass. And that's why I'm so passionate about what I put out into the world because you know I'm gonna be 53 this year. I have made my life very hard for myself. If I could save anybody the headaches and heartaches that I've put my own ass through, that to me is a life well lived. Do you think people would be surprised to hear that though? I mean, as much success you've had

in notoriety and impact, you say you put yourself through a difficult path? You know, I don't think people would be surprised. And the reason why, and I think you have this exact same thing, we are not talking at or down. We are with you, shoulder to shoulder. And so when somebody says you're so authentic and I so relate to you, it's the fact that they feel like you get them. It has nothing to do with how much money you've made or how successful you've become. It's your ability to be on somebody's level because you've been there. I think you're right.

Yeah. Well, you were there when this start, so do you mind sharing like what was going on? And then what did you do? Well, I'll share what the lawyers will allow me to share. I'll share that. Okay. It's okay.

And I'll share what our kids know. Because there's stuff that let you know, if I were to say some of the things, you'd be like, what? Really? Yeah, exactly. And so yeah, it's a moment that I think everybody can relate to.

I mean, what was going on in my life is my dream job, which was to be a daytime talk show host ended. Which you were great at. Thank you. The show failed. I mean, let's be honest. It got canceled.

I got fired for my dream job. That's what happened. I could make some lovely story up, but that's f***ing it. And I've been amazing. We'd be in season two. And so I find myself fired for my dream job. I then abruptly get a book contract canceled, not because the publisher is a jerk, but because I have crazy dyslexia and ADHD, it is next to impossible for me to

take what's in my noggin and get it on a piece of paper, and I was a year late in delivering a manuscript. So I then get a contract canceled and I have to return money I've already spent, and then the pandemic is just in full swing and speech after speech after speech after speech starts canceling. We get three kids coming home, two from college, one from middle school. We all know what it was like to be with their kids in the early days. They were like caged animals going through grief and fear and anger and aiming it right at us the parents. And I found myself one morning standing in my bathroom in my underwear.

I was brushing my teeth. I hadn't even had a cup of coffee yet. I hadn't put on a bra. I mean, I'm just standing there. Give me the visual. Please brush it up somehow. If you want to look at this, there's something wrong in you. Stop it. So I'm standing there.

And of course, I look at the mirror and I immediately think, ugh, I have jowls that look like saddlebags on a packed meal going into the Grand Canyon. I've got stripes on my neck. one Ted is hanging lower than the other. I have gray hair coming in. I look down the dog still has to be walked. I haven't responded to Ed's text.

I've got a zoom meeting in nine minutes. I literally, my mind is taking me down the drain. I feel the mood drop. Look, like you, I am one of the most successful motivational speakers in the world. It is so awesome. I didn't have a f***ing thing to say to myself. Right, I've been there.

Yep. All I wanted to do is crawl on the couch with the dog and have a cup of coffee. I wanted to not have to deal with anything or deal with anybody or face the problems that I felt. I wanted the stress to disappear and I didn't know what to say. Here's the pathetic part. As if this isn't lame enough. I literally without thinking raised my hand and gave myself a high five in the mirror.

I love this. And I could cry. Like gave myself a high five in the mirror. I love this. And I could cry. Like I just, my shoulders dropped. I kind of felt this like, okay. Yeah. Pick your head up. Yeah. It's okay, you got this.

And I went on with my day. Wow. That was it. In that moment, you go, this is something. No. God no. I'm like, don't tell anybody what just happened. Like that is plenty.

Oh my God. Yeah, like normally what I would do is on a stressful day, it's like, get canceled the Zoom call and make a bloody marry. I mean, it's like, so I. 25 billion people are agreeing and connecting with you right now. Obviously. But this is the truth.

Yeah. Right? This is the truth. Yeah. Yeah. And so the next morning, this is the weird part. This is when things got weird. I woke up.

I always wake up in the alarm rings and then I make my bed, largely so I don't crawl back into it. But also so that I have a beautiful place to come back to to sleep so that I practice simple discipline. Yeah. And as I walk toward the bathroom, something weird happened. I started to anticipate seeing myself. Sort of like, you know when you pull out of your driveway and you got a neighbor that

waves to you. I felt like I was about to see a friend. Interesting. Now here's the crazy part. I have probably spent the last four years either criticizing the person I see in the mirror. Or ignoring her. And so I step into the bathroom, right? So I step in and there's your reflection.

And I stood there for a minute and like you, I'm really busy and my mind is also like wildly active constantly going. And when I stood there and stared at my reflection, knowing that I was about to high five myself, it was this moment of intentional, just purposeful presence with myself. That's beautiful. Yeah.

And as I raised my hand and high five myself again, something else weird happened. Okay. It's impossible to have a negative thought when you're high five in yourself. I love this. Impossible. I love this.

You cannot go, you f**king suck. Yeah. You're a failure. You've like blown it. You're not going to do well in this meeting. Today is going to be, you can't do it. And I'm going to tell you in this meeting. Today is going to be you can't do it And I'm going to tell you why the science on this is this is what I love. Yes. Yeah, it's crazy So here's what happens

You have a lifetime of giving other people high-five. Yeah, I got a trigger now or something No, you so what does a high five mean to you? Good job. Awesome. Let's go right? Yes Yes, yeah, you got a teammate that's going down and you get my high five to pick him. You got the biggest player of your life. You give him a high five to send them into the game. Yeah. You've got a really awesome thing. You're celebrating a high five is what seals it. Yes. So you have a lifetime of positive programming. Very good. High fiveing other people. This is awesome. It is already stored right here in your Basil ganglia. And so when you do the physical motion that is tied to all the positive programming and you start to fuse it with your own reflection. Oh my gosh. You silence the inner critic, you silence decades of

criticism, you shut the shame up, you literally reset the regret that you may feel, any stress or anxiety that you feel about what's about to happen, shuts up, and you cannot have negative thoughts as your arm moves. Now, there's this whole field of psychology and neuroscience called neurobics. I didn't make the word up, but it's like neuroscience and aerobics. And the research shows that when you take an unexpected physical action, so, you know, we're used to high-fiving everybody else, but we're not used to high-fiving ourselves. So it's unexpected for your brain, so your prefrontal cortex engages. And you have a positive thought with it.

You accelerate new neural pathway development. And so you're using the physical action that's unexpected, along with a lifetime of positive programming, to fundamentally rewire how you think about yourself. This is good. It's unbelievable. This is good. And so that's just the beginning.

Can I say something about that? I want to just validate a few things. One, I want to tell you that I appreciate your vulnerability in sharing that you spent those four years either criticizing or being a person 40. Okay, excuse me 40, it's not meant to say 40 years. And I can tell you because we get this both a lot where you know obviously people that pour energy and other people, I just want to tell you that that's true for me too and I want my audience to know we get this both a lot, where obviously people are poor energy, you know, the people, I just wanna tell you that that's true for me too, and I want my audience to know that. I do a lot of criticism of myself,

I've done it all my life, but I've really moved that more into invisibility. I don't look at myself, I don't think about myself. I do that as well. So just from a male perspective, I don't have the right boob lower than the left and all that other stuff you're going through. If you're left on one side, you might.

I'd probably, actually, at this point, the way I've been eating, I definitely do. But typically, I would like to think I don't. But I want to say that I want to second that. And then the other thing is the massive power of what you're describing because you're engaging both parts of the brain here. You're engaging the frontal cortex of the brain because it's a new move. So your brain can't conserve energy. It's got to actually engage. But you're also engaging all the hardwiring you've had for years and years and years of having this trigger of this high five. This is brilliant at both times.

So I don't want to interrupt you. I'm not even done, dude. I'm going to just scratch the surface on the sides. You're going to freak the f*** out. Talk about max out. You're going to freak the f*** out of this. So keep rolling on it because you know me. I'm super fascinated by this.

So simple move out of nothing high five all of a sudden you stumbled into some of the best neuroscience in the world that proves that this is Again, yeah, yeah, so now there's even more so think about a moment when you go to high five somebody and you guys kind of like You know like you have a shitty high five. Yeah, you miss it. It's like a limp. Yeah, yeah, I hate that one Yeah, right missed it. It's like a limp. Yeah, yeah, I hate that one. Me too. Okay. Yeah, do it again. Why? Because a high five requires both presence and intention. Yes, that's true.

You're right. Yeah. You're right. And so, standing there with yourself, there's new research right out of Harvard that proves that if you take just one minute of an intentional reflection about who you're going to be today, it changes your level of productivity, it changes how you show up as a leader, it changes your ability to impact people and it changes your effectiveness. Simply a single minute of setting an intention

about who you're going to be today. And so when you stand in front of that mirror and you don't ignore yourself like Ed and my husband do, or criticize yourself like 91% of women do on default, and you take a moment to intentionally be with yourself and you think about the day ahead, even if you've got a lot of stressful stuff going on, especially actually, if you have a lot of stressful stuff

going on. And you then raise your hand, and you begin your day with this high five to yourself. You are sealing that intention that you believe in yourself and that you got it. It's very good. It's incredible. There's also, I was just with Dr. Daniel Aiman, who I know you know too, who's one of the

world's leading experts on the brain. And we were talking about the high five habit. And he was saying that the other thing that's happening, and this is why when you first start doing it, it's going to take two to three days to get through, and we're going to talk about the resistance, and we're going to talk about the fact that it feels weird and why. Because there's a very deep and very sad reason why it feels weird and why you're going to have resistance to doing this. But by about day three, what's going to happen is pretty crazy.

You're either going to feel a major surge and boost in your mood or you are going to have a very just kind of unnerving sense of calm and the reason why is you have a lifetime of your nervous system experiencing joy when you celebrate people. I mean, think about going to, for me, you know, well, you're a Boston guy, the Red Sox. You go to the Fenway Park and they score, you're like, yes, naturally. First move you make.

Like, yes. And so literally, when you raise your hand like that and it has been infused with so much celebration, your nervous system and your brain recognizes it, and you get what he calls a positive drip of dopamine, which either calms your brain and the stress, or it amplifies your mood to make you feel excited about what you're about to do.

Oh gosh. Isn't this incredible? It is incredible. Yeah, it is incredible. So are you suggesting, and we're going to go to the resistance in a minute, I'm just. So are you suggesting, and we're gonna go to the resistance in a minute, I'm just thinking through all the applications, the other thing is almost anything good happens in my life,

especially anyone that ever played a sports you, bam, I am high five and anywhere I can get it, and spread it, and it is a way of acknowledging yourself, but also acknowledging the other person, it's a massive state change. So I love the fact that some, I intro to you this way, not knowing when we're going to talk about this, that you can take incredibly complicated things and

distill them down to the most simple action you can take. This is the best example ever of that, because there's all this neuroscience behind all of it. You're like, look, look at the Marin High Five, right? Yeah, which sounds like a please. It actually doesn't now, though. Like we're 10 minutes in here and it's brilliant, right? So it doesn't sound that way to me now. So I want to go back physically, you're saying that what you're suggesting we all do, recommending, which I will begin to do immediately, is that upon waking, is there a time that you believe that this is a quick rule? Oh, it's a good question. I don't, I personally think how you set your day up is how it ends up. And all the research also shows that when you're mood in your morning impacts productivity all day.

For sure. So when you do small things to boost your mood, it has a documented impact on your ability to focus to be productive, breathing yourself. And so I personally would recommend that you have it stuck it, that you parrot with something that you always do in the morning in the bathroom. So, whether that's brushing your teeth, or whether it's flossing or shaving, or whatever you might do,

before or after, just before you leave that bathroom, you have to high-five yourself in the mirror. And so, the simple rule is, don't ever leave a bathroom without high-fiving yourself in the mirror. Send yourself back into the game of life. Having your own back. Okay, can I ask you about that? No one else is going to ask you this. I'm just thinking through, because I'm going to do this. Okay, I'm in. 1,000%. Do you think that if you do it

too repetitiously, that it loses its charge, or do you believe that if you do it more repetitiously that it actually gains a pattern with you that has a deeper trigger? Excellent question. I'm realizing that I do the high five right before I leave the bathroom, so it's the last thing I do. It's always after I brush my teeth, but it's the last thing I do before I leave the bathroom. Now I might come back in and put makeup on or do something else,

but that first high five in the morning is important. And here to answer your question, in the beginning, it becomes something you do. It becomes a practice that you're adding to your morning routine. Over time, it becomes part of who you are. Because here's the killer thing. Oh my god, I'm not even done explaining all the research. Because we've got to get into motivation. We've got to get into what research says about celebration, empowerment, support. We've got to get into what the studies about the MBA teams say about high fives and championship teams. Like, I got so much to unpack. I love this. It's incredible. So, oh God, what was I going to say? I was high fiving and, uh, well, I want you to stay on one

thought you have because I don't want to move off of it because we're going to get into the research. I actually want to ask you about the resistance piece of it. Oh. You said that it's powerful and a little bit sad. And I just stuck it when you said it. It's really sad. Because we can move into the NBA stuff.

But beforehand, because one, my question is don't outthink the room, right? Just take this principle and apply it. That's the first thing. Don't overthink it. How do I do it? Where do I put my hand? Just give yourself a high five.

You're not thinking about it when you're giving another person a high five. Open hand, close hand, just give them a damn high five, right? So don't overthink the room. I know that 30% of everyone's like exactly which hand, how quickly, how long do I hold it up for? Let's not do that, everybody, right? Let's just apply the room. I know that 30% of us are exactly which hand, how quickly, how long do I hold it up for? Let's not do that, everybody, right? Let's just, let's apply the principle. And the second thing is, what is the resistance? Why is there resistance?

This is so sad. Okay. So, there's two kind of buckets that it falls into. Okay. And the one bucket is that you believe you only deserve it if you've achieved something. Yeah. I haven't done anything worthy of a high five. I don't get a high five unless I hit the number on the scale or I have that number in the

bank account or I land the job or I find the person or I do the thing. And by withholding celebration support, empowerment, and encouragement from yourself, you're making it not only harder, I would say next to impossible, to make those things that you want a reality. Very good. The other reason why people feel a resistance in this is also incredibly sad,

is that your default in your mind is that you are not worthy of it. Yes. Yeah. That you have failed or you're damaged or you've been abused or you have so much evidence stacked up about why you do not deserve to be celebrated. Yeah. That you actively withhold it from yourself. Yep.

Which is a metaphor for other parts of your life. You actually don't think you're worthy of this joy. I have to say to you, if you're hearing me under my breath during the interview, I'm going, this is very good. This is very good. They don't normally hear me talk like this, because I'm going to be honest with everybody. When I have someone on the show that's in our space

or our world, there's usually, there's thing, this is very good, or this is great. But when I'm listening to you right now, there's a part of me that envies you a little bit, because I think this is one of the most brilliant things I've heard since I've ever been involved in personal development or peak performance or life change. And so I'm just gonna, this is, I wish,

why didn't I think of this? This is so good, right? I also am like a high five person. I've done it with people thinking, I'm where I do it, my kids all the time. I'm sort of spreading that over. Oh, I love that you said this, dude. Okay.

You want to know why? Yeah. Because we're all good at giving everybody else a high five. So everybody thinks they're extra good at it, but everybody's actually good at doing it. They just don't, they won't give themselves one because they're not worthy or Nobody's ever taught you how yeah like we all know we're supposed to validate ourselves and love ourselves and accept ourselves How the fuck do you do it? Yeah, what are you doing actually to physically do that? Yes, yeah

Yes, and so the thing is is that we're amazing at cheering for our favorite sports teams and and downloading albums and planning birthday parties and doing extra work for colleagues who are stressed out and visiting people that are sick. We not only fall short, what I have found now researching this for a year is that most of us do the opposite. We withhold it from ourselves. Yep. Yep. I do.

Yeah, I do too. I do the two things you said. If I'm in a space by myself, I am typically being somewhat critical of myself I do. I do the two things you said. If I'm in a space by myself, I am typically being somewhat critical of myself evaluating what I could have done. There's one thing we all do too. I could have done this better. That's actually self-criticism.

I used to think, no, I'm growing. I'm evaluating myself. I'm, you know, I'm self-aware. Nah, it's usually criticism. Yeah. Usually criticism. And then because I avoid that guy, I do the invisible thing. I've literally gotten ready in front of hundreds of mirrors in my life

and really never looked at myself. Really never looked at the man looking back at me. Like, I wonder sometimes I've looked at myself so little, I don't know if everybody can relate to this. I don't know if I would recognize me and a crowd if I were there. And that's a pretty sad thing to admit to somebody who's probably impacted a few people in their life positively, right? I pay so little attention to me and give myself so little of just this gift.

For me, I'm thinking about this in the morning for sure I'm going to do it. I'm also thinking about before I go out and give my a talk somewhere to do, find myself and about them, just give myself a gift of it. This is a gift you can give yourself. Exactly. That is so simple that you know why your mind is popping off because you actually understand so much about the brain. Yeah. Like I can see like your neurons firing as you're connecting the dots and being like this actually reshapes your RIS. Correct. Like this is like something that is a tool. Like one of the other things that I think that you're going to really, really love about this is that I want to tell you about two other studies.

Okay. Okay, because your audience, my audience, really into peak performance, into achieving goals, into, and I think when you're somebody that's driven like you and I are, you already said it. We have a negativity bias because we're so driven that we've developed a voice that's really hard on us. We don't see the hundred things that went right today. We see the one frickin' thing that didn't work.

And then we look at that. And we call that, of course it's one of the reasons why we're successful. But I'm here to tell you, it's also why you're not as joyous. Yes. As you could be as you're having this success. Yes. Because you are focused on the s*** that's wrong

instead of having micro celebrations and moments of joy and dripped dopamine as Dr. Aiman says, throughout the day, as you're seeing the things that are going right. Yep. I think the robbing of that of yourself will eventually cause a frying and burnout. For sure. You continue to take actions and get no dopamine hits for doing any of them at one point you just reach the conclusion that it's not as worth doing as it used to be.

Yeah. And this is one way to give yourself that hit. My brain is firing, thinking about all the applications. Yeah. Yeah. So give me another study. You're gonna say, you're gonna study. So there's two really cool studies that I know you're gonna love. So, and this goes into the power, the motivational power of encouragement, support, and celebration.

Because I think the myth of like tough love and being hard on yourself as a motivational force, it's, I know it is. Based on the research, it doesn't work. Even if you look at Goggins, what does he do when he is really up against the wall, right? He's got that cookie jar thing. That's a positive memory. Positive memory, that's right. Yep. So even that is in the form of encouragement. Yep. And so here's the study with the MBA teams. They took a look at MBA teams in a couple across various seasons.

You can predict who is going to be in the championships, based on the teams that have the most number of high fives, fist bumps, and backpats in the preseason. In the preseason? Because they build trust and partnership. And you can also predict who's going to rank the worst. Based on the fewest? Yes, because those players are selfish and in for themselves.

And so there is a partnership and a trust that this builds. And what I'm here to tell you is you do this every morning. You will build partnership and trust with yourself. You are the most important person in your life. Your relationship with yourself is the foundation of every single relationship that you have. You better start f***ing paying attention to it and look in yourself in the eyes. And if you continue to do this, you are a man with an enormous heart and soul. Thank you. You will, I don't even see myself physically. I'm in touch with the being that's in this like skin sack. Seriously. Were you prior to this? I don't think so. I think I was so busy and sort of dysregulated

in my nervous system. And my success was born out of, at least in this chapter of my life, another rock bottom moment where we were on the verge of losing absolutely everything. And I know that you've been there too, facing bankruptcy. I've strengthened myself into the ground, Chris, and I were fighting like crazy.

While I have fixed things on the outside, I never actually knew how to connect with myself on the inside. I absolutely was chasing all those things outside. The likes, the validation, the external achievement stuff in order to prove that I was worthy of love. The high five habit, and that's just the beginning. I mean, this high five in the mirror is just a Trojan horse.

I mean, the whole book is about small habits based in science that teach you how to fulfill your own needs emotionally and how to support, encourage and empower yourself through the ups and downs in life, how to flip jealousy, for example, into inspiration, how to go from a really low mindset into what I call a high five attitude when you feel insecure or people pleasing. And so the high five in the mirror is the beginning of. I want to go to this jealousy into inspiration thing,

but I want to say something to you first. I'm loving this, by the way. We better be careful because we're gonna go five hours and I know neither one of us can't. I want to so badly. I realized a few things about myself and that is that I struggle with being present with other people sometimes.

Sometimes, it was interesting when you and I met in the dinner that we had with some great friends, what was interesting when you and I met in the dinner that we had with some great friends, what was so wonderful was how present all of us were that evening, and none of us wanted that conversation. And, but I'm not very rarely present with myself. I think one of the gifts of this is it causes presence with oneself.

It's not just the high five for me, but it's a moment of presence with me. And so I just want to acknowledge some of you that all have that. The second thing you said that I really connect with, we're so similar, is that for me, this idea of validating or earning love or bliss or these conditional things wired into me as a kid, I got more attention and significance when I achieve something. So that's true for the vast majority of people that are wired like you and I are.

And when you do get to a point where you understand you're worthy of those things without having to achieve them just by your being is a real breakthrough day. I have to think that one of the hidden gifts of this is just that in and of itself. That's 1%. It's not conditional. So, but go ahead, I wanted to step back away from that just for a second because I want to validate what you were saying. But you said this idea, these other small habits.

What I have found in my life the last five years, even at the highest levels, is there is more jealousy and gossip that I really ever realized in people's lives. And I think it's one of the hidden killers of joy in people's lives is this inability not to gossip or to have jealousy towards other people. You know, the whole haters things been covered agnasium in personal development. But the actual gossip or jealousy piece, this is where it really comes from.

So what can somebody do to flip that? Oh, that's good. You're going to die, right? Okay. Well, gossiping, I like that. What's that quote that small minds talk about people and big minds talk about ideas? Yes, that's it. So, like, one rule that will make you a better person, and it's hard to do. It is hard to do.

Is to try at least with your family and your friends. Only talk about the people who are in the room. Pooh. I can, so if somebody starts talking about somebody else it it it's one thing to talk about somebody at a concern or just sort of that reporting in that family members tend to do about one another. Yeah. When it when it strays into that judgment and we all know what it's there. Yeah.

Like just say hey, you know, why don't we just but they're not here. Right. Why don't we just give them the benefit of the doubt and let's just talk about the people that are here. I don't see you guys enough. Yeah. That's not waste or time talking about that. Why don't we just give them the benefit of the doubt? And let's just talk about the people that are here. I don't see you guys enough. That's not waste your time talking about that. It's just a great way without kind of meaning with somebody to just direct it back.

You're going to advice, move it away. So that's one way that I have tried to curb gossiping in my own life, but here's the coolest thing about jealousy. Embrace it. Let me tell you why. You are only jealous of the things you authentically want. So for example, for a long time in my life, I was super, when we were struggling financially, I was super f**king jealous of anybody that had a big house or was putting on an addition and

I didn't know what to do with my jealousy. So it would consume me. I tell the story in this book of going into a friend's brand new, you know new house at a time in our life where Chris's restaurants were failing and I was unemployed and we were profoundly in debt. I was, it nearly made me self-combust in this woman's kitchen, okay? And how did I deal with my jealousy? Because I didn't know what it was. We get in the car. And what do you think I did for my poor husband? Why aren't you more successful? I should have married somebody in finance like she did. Why are we in this such a, like you're just like amid in people, right?

Because you don't know what to do with it. Yep. My jealousy was not about a house. When I finally started to unpack it, it was about my ambition. Very, yeah, very true. And so you cannot be jealous of something you don't want. If I believe that jealousy is blocked inspiration, I've never heard that before. It is blocked by your fear. It is blocked by insecurity. It is blocked by you of this deep

It is blocked by insecurity. It is blocked by you of this deep, like you have this, and like you said it earlier, I'm really jealous of this IDML. I wish I'd come up with it. You have a new book coming out. I'm not gonna say what the title is, but here's what I want you to take away from it.

There's something about the simplicity of the idea that makes you jealous. That is what your inspiration is trying to get you to pay attention to. Very good. So I'm jealous of you. You got this show. You have a discipline to do it all the time.

You're translating into a podcast. I've been sitting on my ass talking about doing a podcast for four years. What the old Mel would do before I understood jealousy is because it's blocked by insecurity. I would then tell myself a story. You're too late. It's already done. There's not enough room for you. If you do it, you're a copycat. All of that just blocks what you really want. Pay attention to your jealousy and stop an unpack it. What really is it about that person?

Is it their marriage? Is it the way that they're being treated? Is it how they take care of themselves? What is it about financial freedom and anybody that has it that makes you feel jealous? Really get to the core of what feels right for you and then get to work on it. and get to work on it. I have to say this, that's one of the most incredible things I've ever heard. I'm gonna give you a reason why I'm saying stuff to the on today's show I never admit to, because you do it. But I'm jealous of people that really like themselves a lot.

I'm jealous of not confidence, because you have confidence too. We both have this really pretty good combo, well brag about us. We're both pretty confident people, but at the same time there's a degree of humility there that makes us want to learn and grow and change and be better, and I love people that toe that line. People with a lot of confidence, no humility, they're no fun. People with a bunch of humility with no confidence, they're paying the butt, right?

But people that really I have found in my life, I was just thinking, what am I jealous of? I sometimes feel jealous of you when I'm around somebody, it's like, I just really like themselves, don't they? Maybe a little too much. You know, yeah, you do that story with yourself. And you make that story up, and that's a signal to me. And it just literally, as you were talking,

it was an indicator to me like like you need to look at that. Yeah. That's a signal, like this is something you want that you don't have enough of, man. And that's amazing to admit in front of millions of people who look to both of us for help on this. Well, it's because you have been hard on yourself along the way.

And so it's now been woven into what you think you're formula for success. That's exactly right. It's the your ****, your formula you, well, if I let go of that, I'm going to lose all my power. Yeah. If I let go of this beating myself up thing, that's why I'm so successful.

No, I'm successful in spite of doing that. Yes. Not because of it. Yes. Right. Yes. And in the in spite of in that gap is where all the joy comes. See, high-fiving yourself isn't about becoming an arrogant asshole.

We're not trying to turn you into a narcissist. I'm trying to relocate you inside of your own power. I am trying to get you to understand that if you want to feel validated, if you want to feel supported in life, stop looking outside of yourself and give it to yourself. This is being, you know, the greatest form of confidence is just being comfortable in your own skin. That's it. And that

means being able to sit with yourself. On the mornings that you wake up and you are facing a terrifying health diagnosis or somebody that you love is in trouble or you've got the hardest conversation of your life in front of you. You're about to say, I don't love you anymore. You're about to say I quit or you're about to say whatever. In those moments, being able to be with yourself and to look yourself in the eye and to really get, this is hard. And you know what? You're still going to do it. And I got you. I love this. We're at the end of the show by the way. We're going to talk about a challenge that you could participate in to kind of take you through this and make it something that becomes a part of your formula, a part of your pattern that you do that we're going to talk about towards

the end that I'm really, really excited about, that we get a chance to participate in, that I'm going to participate in myself. But you said that a lot of the things, it's fascinating to me, a couple million people read the five-second rule, right? I think probably three or four times that will end up reading the high five habit. By the way, I don't think I need to say this everybody. You need to get the book.

But I think probably everyone's already concluded that, you know, 10 minutes into this. You can just feel that this is something groundbreaking. This is not just another book on, hey, think better. You know, this is most personal development books are, and it's nothing wrong with it, are just some other little version of Think and Grow Rich. There's some delineation of it all the way back.

This is next level stuff, and it's next level because in our world today, simple things win complexities of the enemy of execution. So those very complex things changing in you as you do this very simple thing, you can execute it very easily and very regularly starting right now. That's what makes this so brilliant. But you also, when you wrote the five second rule, that was born out of what we're describing

too, another one of these times. My audience probably knows, but I think it would be an unbelievable gift for us to have the high five habit with a little bit of the five second rule today just to give them a little bit of magic. So you got it. I'm going to tell you the five second rule and when we're done, remind me to tell you the story about the reticular activity system, the RES and the brain and my metaphor of doing laundry. Okay, you're in my go zone for sure. I know you have all people on the planet. You're in my go zone for sure. I know you are going to have all people on the planet. Yeah, what about it? You're in my zone.

You are the one that is going to go, oh, this is good. All right, we're going to laundry after this. So the five-second rule. So the five-second rule is. Brilliant. Desperate, are you kidding? It is brilliant.

But the story is desperate. It's 2008. We're in the middle of the housing crisis. My husband has followed his dream and gone into the restaurant business, opening up a string a little pizza restaurants with his best friend. We were new entrepreneurs, so of course when location number one was great, what do you do? Complete idiots.

We cash out our 401Ks, our kids college savings. We get a home equity line because that's for the money. We cash out the credit cards. We ask friends and family to invest. We go all in. And then Chris and his business partner, as is the case in the restaurant business, the second location was a huge dog. Too big, too expensive, wrong location. Tons of traffic driving by every day is you're sitting there with an empty restaurant knowing you're f***ing. These guys are so committed to returning an investment. I have to hand it to Chris and Jonathan.

They work day and night to pull this plane crash out of like the room, factoring in this and like just anything you could possibly do. So we find ourselves in a situation in 2008, 41 years old, and we're $800,000 in debt. Dude, I could not pay for it. There was a moment, the rock bottom moment was this morning where I went and we live in a nice neighborhood. Friends have invested. We can't let them know this is happening. Boy, kids, three of them under the can't let them know this is happening. Boy. Kids, three of them under the age of 10. Oh, my gosh.

Whoa. I, um, remember going to the grocery store. And I went to an Ivy League school. I have a lot of green, but here I am unemployed. We've lost everybody's money we're about to lose the house and i'm doing that i don't know if you've ever played this sort of like mental bingo game with your checkcard where you're like ok please do god let that let

the electronic system not talk to the bank absolutely yes please yes so i'm standing there is she scanning the stuff knowing that the balance is red and i'm thinking please please please please, please, please, please, just let this go through, please. And the woman looks at me and says, oh, you know, this was declined. I was ready with my excuse.

I would always cock my head and go, well, that's weird, because it just worked at the gas station, which was a complete lie. I've done this. I'd be like, okay, kids, let's go to the car and get my other car, and we would walk out of there and leave the stuff and I'd done this. I've done this. Okay, kids, let's go to the car and get my other car. And we would walk out of there and lead the stuff and I'd get in the car and drive away.

Oh my gosh. And then I of course would come home and drink to numb all of the everything. So I was sitting in a chair and I was doing that thing. Have you, I'm sure you have. Have you ever been in such a little moment where you give yourself a pep talk?

Yes. That is a pathetic moment. That is a pathetic moment. Yes. I have been there. Yeah. I was there. I was there.

Yeah. That's it. No. Tomorrow morning, it's the new you. No more drinking. Yeah. Gotta be nice to your husband. You gotta look for a job.

Girl, you gotta get these kids on the bus on time. And by God woman, when that alarm rings, you have got to get out of bed. You cannot lay there like a human pot roasts marinating in fear. You cannot hit the snooze button four times. You have got to get up and get the day started. And then, honest to God, what happened is a rocket ship launched across the television screen. It was probably the four-man hat in Sikib, and I thought, that's it. Tomorrow morning, when the alarm rings, you got to launch yourself out of bed. If you move fast enough, Mel, you will beat the anxiety. You won't be in the bed

when the anxiety hits. So I the next morning, and this is the power of the five second world, now I keep in mind, I didn't know any of this at the time, a lot like the high five habit. It was the super simplistic moment that changed everything. And what changed everything for me was the very next morning, it was a Tuesday in February, outside of Boston, Massachusetts. I'm familiar with that look. And the alarm rings. And what I'm about to share with you, if you've never heard this, you'll never see life again, the same. You never will. Once you see what I'm about to show you, you can't

unsee this. There is a five-second moment of hesitation that defines your entire life. It's the moment of hesitation that is the gap between what psychologists call a bias towards thinking and a bias towards action, right? The moment you have an impulse to move to say something, to do something, you'll start hesitating as you think about it. If you don't physically move within those five seconds, your basal ganglia takes over, and you drift into a biased toward thinking. If you can manage what you think and do in that five-second window, you know the secret

to changing any habit, any behavior, any thought pattern. Now, I didn't know that then. All I knew was I had thought of this dumb thing while I was drunk, and now it's February in Massachusetts, and it's dark and it's freezing. The alarm goes off. I start thinking, I'm not going to f***ing launch myself out of it. This is dumb. How is this going to help? I don't want to get out of it, this is dumb as, how is this gonna help? I don't wanna get out of it, it's cold, it's dark,

it's not gonna, I start reaching for the snooze button and then I go five, four, three, two, one. And I stand up and I'm like, that's weird. Oh my gosh. I go on my five day, the next morning, same thing. I immediately remember that I immediately just, dumb, I'm not doing it five, four, three, two, one. I stand up again.

It was the third morning and look, I'm like you somebody that I'm like super optimistic, but really resigned. You know what I mean? Like kind of skeptical, even not really positive. Like, yeah, prove it, you know, like that kind of thing. So I'm like, okay, I start arguing. Okay, so you invented some stupid ass thing that helps you get out of bed. How the f*** is this gonna pay off $1 million, right? And then I'm like, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa. You're about to lose everything, woman. What do you have to, like, why not try it?

And so this was the simple thing I said to myself. Any moment today, I know what I should do, but I don't feel like it. Just count backwards, see what happens. I'll explain the science around the thing in a minute. So I walk into the kitchen, and there's my poor husband, Chris. I love of my life. We're celebrating 25 years married next week.

Congratulations. Poor guy standing there, mining his own business, looking for breakfast. And you know how that thing happens, where you see somebody you love, and you just want to kill them. Yes. So there's Chris, and I'm like, oh, my God. And here's the thing.

I knew he wasn't trying to bankrupt us. I knew the man was working us. I knew he was full of shame and scared and felt so bad. And here's the other thing. I knew I didn't want to get a divorce. OK. I knew I didn't want to treat him like this. I was so triggered. And here's

why. It is so much easier ed to be angry than it is to be afraid. They're closely related aren't they? But you check the anger button. Yeah. So I go 5, 4, 3, 2-1. And that counting backwards, here's what it's doing in your mind. It is interrupting habit loops and emotional responses that get stored in your basal ganglia and run on autopilot and control your fucking life. And when you start counting backwards, 5-4-3-2-1, the moment you start counting, you've made a decision to interrupt the pattern. Oh boy, yeah. And by the counting backwards, when you first start doing it, it engages your prefrontal cortex because it requires focus. By the time you get to one, you have created a moment where you have taken control and you now can consciously choose what you think or do next. And so I used it every single day in

secret to walk away from the bourbon to pick up the phone and call in certain network 54321 go out the door and exercise 54321 don't snap at the kids 54321 get out of bed even though you don't feel like it 5434321, tell the truth. Reach out to friends. All the things, because here's the thing. We all know what we need to do. We don't know how to make ourselves do it. So the five-second rule, I never intended to tell anybody. You'll love this story. In three years flat, I go from unemployed

to cold calling my way into a radio audition and getting a job at a digital marketing agency because we had bills to pay. And I end up with this little Saturday morning show that ends up doing really, really well in Boston, WTKK. And then it gets picked up by Cox Media. And I end up winning an award called the Gracie Award and seeing end calls.

And they're like, we love radio hosts. We love how you talk about complicated topics, like you're sitting at a kitchen table, we don't want Fox News to have you, you're in woman. And so I became a legal and social commentator paid by CNN. Incredible. So my life is turning around. Chris and Jonathan are working day and night to get the business.

They end up opening more units and like, so that gets turned around, our marriage gets better. I'm not in personal development. We still have leans on our house. Like, we're still like trying to figure it out. This is 2011. And somebody calls and is like, hey, your college roommate said you've changed your jobs a lot.

Would you ever come give a talk about it at this thing called TEDx? I'm like, I've never given a speech before, but okay, I was used to be a criminal defense attorney, I think I can do this. This was the first TEDx conference, so there was no real like major protocol, right? So I show up with my 20-minute speech and no prep. No prep. If you watch my TEDx talk, you will see me having a 21-minute one panic attack on stage. If you look closely, I have a chest rash that comes on from anxiety I'm dirting all over the place I forgot how to end that speech yeah that's what that's what

happens when you're really nervous you forget the end yep and so I pause at the very end because that was not about the five-second rule and I look out into the audience and I go oh there's this thing I do I caught the five-second rule. And I look out into the audience and I go, oh, there's this thing I do. I call it the five-second rule. The moment you have an instinct to move, you've got to move in five seconds or your brain, will kill the instinct to move.

I was so disassociated, I gave out my email address, that's great. And then I left. And I went back to my life at CNN and back to working hard with Chris to claw away out of debt and prove our marriage and pay our bills. And I'm not kidding. We got the leans off our house just like three years ago.

And so a year goes by. So it's now 2012. Somebody starts, people start messaging me on Facebook about the speech. And I'm like, oh, were you in San Francisco? They're like, no, I saw it online. I'm like, it's online? I didn't even know.

My gosh. It gets a million views within a year. People start to now, 2013, ask me to come talk. I have no formal speech. I'm not even really talking about the five-second rule all that much. I'm sort of mentioning it in this speech. It's starting to spread. I'm now up at night with a bottle of wine,

answering emails from people in India, and you know, like Bali and the UK, about I've lost a hundred pounds with this count backwards thing. Why is this working? And because I work at CNN, I can email somebody like Dr. Aiman and say, yeah, can I interview you

about this little brain hack? Wow. Is this not incredible? It is incredible. There is no other explanation other than the universal God said, this is something that needs to get out of the world. And this chick is the one who's going to do it. Unbelievable.

Because I'll tell you what, it takes some very big balls to stand on a stage with 20,000 people and convince an arena full of people that you can change your life by counting backwards from five. I know, it's so simple. And believe it with every fiber of my being. And so I now understand the science, but more than that, I have the real life stories of literally hundreds of thousands of people.

And we know of 111 people who have not committed suicide because they have counted backwards. We know of veterans that are retraining their reaction to triggers associated with PTSD. Obviously it does not regulate a dysregulated nervous system. It gives you a moment of control. It works with OCD. We have pediatricians using it with kids to interrupt the thoughts that cause anxiety. Over and over and over. The things that you know what you need to do. 5, 4, 3, 2, 1 is a tool you can use in 5 seconds flat to interrupt the the t*** of holding you back. And push yourself to take the actions that change your life. I'm listening to you. I think you're brilliant. I know you don't like to hear that. I'm sitting here though. I've done a lot of interviews now. I think you're brilliant. The combination

of the content and how real it is, the validation of it. You're unbelievable ability to tell stories though and communicate it. You were picked to do, you were destined to do this. There's no question, you're relatable, you're brilliant. You're, I enjoy you so much. It's such an interesting thing. Mail the female thing because we become friends. How much I just really admire and respect you.

You are right for me in this space. Do you know what I'm saying? I feel that way about you too. Thank you. You know what it is? I have suffered so much in my life and I didn't need to. I didn't need to. I didn't need to, you know. And we are so lucky to have the internet and podcasts.

And books, you know, back in the day, it was embarrassing to walk into a self-help like section in a bookstore. There were no podcasts or online courses. There was something really wrong with you if you went to therapy. I had a great grandmother who went to electric shock therapy. The fact that there are simple things that you can share that help somebody take control in meaningful ways. That is what brings the greatest joy to me. It's helping real people face the real issues in their life.

I think that's why I love you because of me too. And I've suffered that way. I'm so thrilled. I'm just happy to hear that you're not suffering like that. Meanwhile, you've helped millions of people and they're suffering. And I'm just emotional like you are, just listening to you.

Imagine everybody, if you took this podcast or YouTube, whatever you're doing with it today, and you went back through, and you combined both of these strategies. You end up getting the high five habit and learning all the micro habits that are in there as well, but you combine this five second of the five second rule for me, I learned about way before I knew Malin. For me, it wasn't always just even things that I should do that I wasn't doing.

It was things I shouldn't do that I stopped doing. So for me in my life, the five second rule, when you have the ability to be pretty verbally influential, that works both ways. Right? And so for me, it was counting backwards and not saying that sentence the way I was going to say it, because I did a lot of damage to myself, my businesses, my friendships, my relationships, by not implementing the five-second rule in my life. And so it changed my life far before I knew you. So, a couple of things.

And by the way, so many people also, the dis-relate, the in-layered in the story, is this woman who's created this incredible life, this incredible influence, born out of suffering, born out of, you know, a little bit too much to drink one night and bam, here we are. The next one's one of the worst days and you're rockin' to the bathroom and high five

and the mirror, it's just incredible. That should inspire so many of you listening to this, that you think, well, I'll really get to my real life once I'm out of this low part of my life. No, maybe this is the beginning of the great part of your life. Oh, it actually is. You don't build your inner strength when you're winning. Hmm. It's like steel. It's forged in fire.

Fords to fire. Like, in your lowest moments, that's where you're gaining the wisdom that you need and the resilience that you need. And the other thing that I am so fucking passionate about because I see my daughter beating herself up aware of where she is to this day, my husband still struggles with shaken off that sense of failure because the restaurant didn't deliver the returns that he wanted to. And we're talking six years later. Yeah. And, you know, I have a totally different story, which is, are you s***ing me without that? We wouldn't have the fight to be like,

you're right. I'm like, you're right. Don't you see how all these dots connect? Yeah. But it's personal. Like, I can't teach my husband or my daughter how to see themselves differently. Yeah.

They have to do it for themselves. Your face changed when you just said that, by the way. That's how important that is to you. Oh, there are the most. There you go. It makes me sad. Yeah. Like, we all have somebody that we love very deeply.

And it doesn't matter what you say to them. Yeah. And one of the hopes that I have for the High Five habit and for the tools in this book is that it gives you the things that you need in order to hit the reset in terms of how you see yourself. Because if you continue to beat yourself up over what happened, you will never feel the encouragement and the support you need and the worthiness that you need to create what's next.

What's next? And we all have had the experience of standing in the present moment and looking back, right, and going, oh, I see how the dots of my life brought me here. What I love about this new tool of high-fiving your own reflection is what it's been doing for me at a very spiritual level, is it's helped me stand in the present moment and have faith that this dot is connecting to something amazing that hasn't happened yet.

And as long as I have my own back, I'm going to be okay. I love it. What if you could live, what she just said, you guys, what if you could live knowing that the dots are connecting right now? If you actually knew that, there's dots connecting for you right now if you have your own back. And I believe that and I know that. In fact, you do too. If you look back at every single chapter of your life, no matter what chapter it was, the dots connected. They're connecting right now. And that gives us a comfort that we can move forward, that there is gonna be change, that this story you're telling yourself

doesn't need to be the story that happens in the future. Okay, laundry. Oh, you're gonna love this. Okay, I gotta, because this is up my alley, big time. So, we both love the RIS, this live network that's constantly changing in your brain and showing you either what you want or what you don't want and you and I are both huge advocates of this fact that it's true. Your mind is designed to help you.

Absolutely. If you know how to train it. And so I came up with this analogy doing laundry. You know how when you open up the dryer and you got to pull out the filter? And then you take your finger and your thumb and you pull off that crap, that lint. It is impossible to do a load of laundry and not create lint, right? Yes. It's impossible to go through a day in your life and not create mental lin. Mental lin is any thought that makes you lose inspiration

due to the negative thought. And what's happened for most people is that all of the negative thoughts that have been spinning every day of your life have gotten trapped in your RES. And just like you can take your finger and pull it away so that the filter isn't blocked by the wrong stuff, because what accumulates when Lint starts to build, more Lint, what accumulates when more negative thoughts start to build, more negative thoughts. I believe that the high five in the mirror and even the five second rule when

you use it to push through the fear and insecurity that's holding you back from acting like the person you want to be, these two tools act like you're clearing the filter away every single day. That's why when you five, four, three, two, one, get out of bed in the morning, like you said you would, you wipe away that thought that I'm a failure, that I'm a loser, that I can't count on myself. When you stand in front of the mirror and you high-five your reflection no matter what, you wipe away that length that's built in your RAS that says, I'm unworthy. The actions themselves are proving to your mind and changing the filter in your brain in real time

because you are seeing yourself acting like a person who is different from the one you used to be. I love this. That's cool. It's super cool and the other thing that's happening. Come on, this is good. The other thing that's happening is that you are feeding yourself visually and kinesthetically.

And if you actually say anything auditorily when you're doing this over and over, this is so damn good. This is so damn good. All right, we're gonna run it. Well, I'm going a little further. I'm gonna give a cry. I have two pages of questions here.

I've asked none of them because we've literally got to this is what you're gonna do. Why am I gonna tell you the other study? Okay, give me the other study. Okay, so it's called the motivational power of our high five, or the high five motivation mark. I'll send you the link to the psychological study. Okay.

So researchers wanted to know, what is the single most effective way to motivate and inspire kids when they're doing a challenging task? They divided kids into three groups and then gave them super, something super challenging to do. The first group, the researchers, would simply walk up and do the fixed mindset praise.

Hey, you're super smart, Ed. You got this. The next group got the growth mindset, oh, add your perseverance, you're such a hard worker, you're gonna get this. And obviously, the hard work praise that worked better than your smart. The third group, the researchers just walked up to the kids, didn't say, just gave my high five. Outworked, outlasted, more resilience, more grit than the other two combined. That's big stop. That's big time Here's why and this is the like hmm a high five is not a celebration of your work

It's a celebration of you So the high five Fulfills your most fundamental emotional needs of being seen of fulfills your most fundamental emotional needs of being seen, of being gotten, and of being celebrated for the unique individual that you are. This is going to be a movement. I hope so. This is going to be a movement. Well, we're starting.

Because I want people to stop beating themselves up. I want them to start cheering themselves forward. So do I. And you're giving them the tool to do it. Okay, one last thing, we're gonna go a little on. I also am this believer, this is one of my favorite stories from you and I'm gonna couch it so we can finish with it

because it's really out of sorts or everything else we're talking about. But I just want to say that. It's actually if it's the story, I think you're gonna say it's the, in the last chapter of the book. Well, no, I don't think it's the one you're thinking. We'll see.

I think you're one person, one decision, one anything away, one new relationship away from totally changing your life. I believe this. And so, you were one moment away when you got out of bed, 5, 4, 3, 2, 1, that changed your life, right? The high five in the mirror changed your life. So you're doing your show. Okay.

You're doing your show and you've got some life decisions that you need to make. I think people need to be open to that one moment, that one person, that one second of inspiration in their life as well. Right, so you're doing your show and this one of my favorite stories I've ever heard in my life. So we're gonna talk about the psychic that was on your show.

Okay. It is the last chapter of the book. Okay, so that's what you thought. And you knew that's where I was going. I did know psychic that was on your show. OK. It is the last chapter of the book. OK, so that's what you thought. And you knew why? You knew that's where I was going. I did know where it was going. OK. So the story that he's referring to.

This is awesome. Because here's the layers, right? Yep. So I believe that the other cool thing about the High Five Habit is that when you first start using it, it creates a connection to yourself. There's that presence, there's the support, there's the encouragement, there's this, that,

as you use it over time and the habits of self-empowerment, self-celebration, self-fellowsion, become a part of who you are, and you start to truly build that trust in that partnership, something interesting happens. You hear your own intuition and your ability to trust in the divine nature of things more loudly. So I am doing the talk show.

Now I have not in full disclosure invented the high five habit yet, but I love this story because I believe that what's meant for you is trying to find you. And your job is to remove the fear and the insecurity so that you are open to it just like jealousy is a signal and your insecurity and fears are blocking that signal. There are signals and signs every day of your life. So, the backstory of this is that so we have a 23 year old and a 21 year old and a 16 year old and at this point our son is in the eighth grade and our son isn't like everybody's kid. Awesome kid but he's really struggled

in school. He had profound dyslexia and dysgraphia, ADHD, he had bounced from the public school to a school for language-based learning, to now a tiny little independent school, hoping that we could find the right fit so that this kid would actually enjoy learning. High school's coming up. And I made the mistake, or I guess I should not even say it that way, I said, because everything happens for a reason, you've had such a terrible time with school oak.

You can choose your high school. Big mistake at the time. It turns out to be the greatest thing that ever happened. But I thought he would look in Boston. Plenty of amazing high schools in Boston. Our daughters had already said, bro, you cannot go to the public high school. Your ass will get eaten alive at that place. It's like not the theater kid with the slacksie.

I'm not going there. I love my theater kid with the slacksie, but just in a big kind of room in my school. And so they're like, you're not going to like it. We went there, we know. So I thought he'd look in Boston. And all of a sudden he says, I want to go to high school in Vermont. In Vermont? I'm like, okay, what boarding school? I don't want you to go to boarding school, but if this is, I don't want to go to boarding school. I want to go to the public high school where my grandparents live. Like, what? You know we live in Boston.

So my husband has gone to Southern Vermont for 45 years. He grew up ski racing for straten. We love Vermont. But I believe my words to my husband were, Vermont is where people go to die. I am not at the age of 52 moving to Vermont. I have a talk show in New York. I have a house in Boston. Our home is in Boston.

Our friends are in Boston. Our 15 year old son is not going to get us to move to Vermont. No. We went around and around and around and around about this. And finally, finally, Oak and Chris said, you're right. That would be kind of like us moving further away from where you are. Means we don't say, like, okay, we'll find a high school. So he's looking at high schools, right, in Boston.

Meanwhile, I'm, you know, taping this daytime talk show, which I ended up failing at and getting fired from, at CBS Broadcast Center. The producers have booked a psychic. And I love this kind of stuff, but I'm super skeptical. Yep, like me. She comes on. And the truth of the matter is, there's no way she had an audience list.

Because the dirty little secret about daytime talk is unless you're Ellen or something that's wildly successful, you are trying to get church groups and homeless people to show up. You're seeing whoever as a Paul can sit in the audience. So we don't even know who said that. So it's not like this was staged.

So I learned that this woman can speak to people who have died because she was electrocuted when she was little and when she came to in the hospital bed and and she's like, our age, her dead relatives were there. Amazing. Amazing. So I'm like, oh, this is cool. And I'm like, what are you going to do? I said, are there dead people here? I said, oh, yeah, everybody's got somebody stand in.

Certain to crowd it. And the second I start talking, it's going to get really crowded. I'm like, really? She said, yes. I said, well, who are you going to talk to first? The first reading it. Honest to God. She gets up. She goes straight over to like this

section over here, asked four women in the second row to stand up, looks dead in the eyes at the first woman and says, does your mother know you're pregnant yet? Yeah, that was that woman's, and then the mom looks at her like this, and then she goes, now you've lost two kids, right? And the woman's face. And then she said the daughter that you lost is here. The woman's now crying and she wants you to know she loves you and everything's going to be okay, but she's going to pass over.

But the son that you're carrying is going to stay. But the son that you've lost, now she's weeping, is going to stay because he's connected to the son you're carrying. The whole audience is now sobbing. This is the first reading. Like buckle up people. So it just got crazier and crazier from there. And then all of a sudden she turns and says, there's somebody standing behind you that would like to talk to you. Are you open to being red? I'm like, of course. Yeah. So she said he's in a military uniform,

and I say it must be my grandfather, Frank Schneiderger. And she said, he was in the Navy. And she said, no, this is a pilot in the Air Force. And I'm like a pilot in the Air Force. There's nobody I'm related to that is pilot in the Air Force. Could it be a front? No. K, does the letter K mean anything to you? No.

How about the name Ken? I'm like, well, that's what we call my daughter. Her name is Kendall. She's named after Chris's dad, whose name was Kenneth. And she said, I think it's Ken. Chris is dead. And I said, you're wrong. Ken was an advertising executive. He was not in the military. In fact, I think I said, if Ken had been in the military, I would know. He said that. And she said he's getting agitated. I think he wants you to verify this.

So meanwhile, Chris's dad had died of a soft-adjeel cancer like 11 years ago. So they get Chris on the phone in the control room and I can hear in that little earpiece. Mel, we got Chris on the phone. Your father in law Ken was in the Air Force reserves in college. His dream was to be a pilot and he found out on the pilot's exam that he was colorblind. Something you can't Google and something that I didn't know. Impossible. Come on.

So now I'm like levitating at my own show and so she said he's come here because he has a lot of grandkids, but your son is very special to him and he's come here with a message about your son. And I'm like, oh my God, what's wrong? What is he going to say? And she said like, oh my God, what's wrong? Right? What is it gonna say? And she said, I don't quite understand what it is. I don't know if it's about a nickname or a group of friends, but there's something going on

with a school. Come on. And you don't like it. He's here to tell you, you have to trust your son on this one. I am like, are you shitting me? My dead father-in-law has come back from the grave with an un-google with fact or proof that he's here to tell me that I got a move to Vermont? You're a different mom.

So I wrap the taping head. I'm real. I get on the phone with Chris. And I said, I'm not gonna argue with your dead father. We gotta give it a go. Let's at least go, we'll rent a house. Well, you guys can be up there. I'll be down here.

I'll go back home to Boston. Like we'll figure it out. Like, we gotta do it. And he goes, Mal, you're not gonna believe this. I said, what? He said a year ago, my mom, who's been living alone in this house that she built with her husband Ken, alone, up on a mountain for like 11 years. She wrote to somebody a year ago

about this townhouse that's in a little kind of 60 plus community that all her girlfriends live in in the little town in Vermont that we're in. And apparently the dude wrote back a couple days ago and my mom has put an offer on the place. She called me yesterday, asked me if you and I wanted to buy the house that she and dad built. I told her no, and I told her we were staying in Boston, and I paused and said, tell her yes, we'll buy the house, we'll move to Vermont. A week later, COVID hit, the show was canceled.

The world turns upside down. We had signed a contract to buy the house in Vermont. Wow. And my whole life changed. Unbelievable. So you never know where these dots are coming from that are lining up. Everything's a lesson. Life is the greatest school you'll ever attend.

Yeah, but the openness to following the dots when they're laid out there, what you said, being open to that and not blocking you. Now, hold on a second. Okay. The dots were there for six months. The universe had to bring a sledgehammer. Had to give you a psychic reading from the dead. Sometimes the lesson though you're teaching us

is you don't need the sledgehammer or the psychic in your life, like you needed, like I'm gonna do my life too. I am gonna have a better story that you're gonna like even better. Okay, give me it. Okay, this is also in the book. Okay. So this is a story about remaining open. Okay. This is a story about giving yourself permission to want something. Okay. Not somebody else's spouse. Let's just start there. Okay. It's like saying, you don't want the

money that's in a bank that you're going to rob. We're talking about things aligned with your values that are legal. But most like with the high five habit, the other thing about this resistance is so many people are unhappy because you won't even give yourself permission to have the things you desire. You actively argue against it. So one thing about a high five attitude is flipping resignation into possibility, right? So in 1989, I was a senior at Dartmouth College in New Hampshire, another state I know you love. I love. And I, my parents were in town, I grew up in Western Michigan, they'd come out to visit and we went over to the mill at Simon Pierce, right? Which I know you also now. So we go over to the mill and Simon Pierce, right? Which I know you also now. So we go over to

the mill and Simon Pierce and Quichey Vermont and we walk into the restaurant and I have this experience I've never had before in my life. There's this painting on the wall that is about the size of a door and for whatever reason I see this painting and I am immediately pulled towards it. And I have an experience at where the noise of the restaurant disappears and I am literally standing in the painting. The grass is blowing. It's a big Vermont landscape with trees running down

the center and mountains behind it and a blue sky. And I'm like, in it. Okay. And then all of a sudden I come to and I'm back in the restaurant and I'm like, someday I am going to own this painting. And I lean forward and I see the price and it's like $3,000 and I'm like, not today. Not today.

And I go back to the table. Now here's the interesting thing about how things are meant to you. Remember how I said, you're only jealous of things that you actually want. Yeah. You're also only drawn toward things that are meant for you. My parents didn't notice the painting. Right. I did.

Now there's something called, and I know you know this too, the zygarnaq effect. When something is important to you, the zygarnaq effect takes place. Your RIS shifts in real time, and your mind makes a mental note that this is important. It stores this thing in the back of your subconscious. This happens in positive ways ways like with the painting and negative ways like with trauma, right? Things you can't forget. And this is why I say your dreams will either haunt you or they will pull you toward them. You don't have a choice about that. If you don't work on the things that you're drawn toward, it will haunt your ass for the rest of your life. So, I never forgot about that painting. Ever. If somebody ever said Vermont, I thought about the painting. If somebody

said something about a painting, I thought about the painting. If somebody handed me a cocktail glass and it was hand-blown, I thought about the painting. So, I meet Chris. We're planning a trip to go up to his family's place in Vermont for the first time. I'm like, oh my gosh, we've got to go to Simon Pierce. So this is probably like seven years later. So we drive up to Simon Pierce. I can feel with every fiber of my beating what this painting felt like. We walk right into the mill and there is a painting by the same artist, Gail Sheppard. And I'm like, it's here, it's here.

I know it's here. We go all around the mill, looking at all the paintings because they rep her. And it's not there. And here's the interesting thing. Chris was more disappointed than I was. And I've thought a lot about this moment, and the reason why I wasn't disappointed is because I was open to the possibility that could be mine. So the fact that it wasn't there didn't end the possibility.

And so a few more years passed by, I turned to Chris, I'm like, that's okay. It'd be weird if it were here. Like, I'm gonna track that. F*** her down. This is a quest. Like, if I have to be 70 years old and track down the guy who bought it

and hung it in a corporate lobby, and I have to pay $60,000 for this thing, I'm doing it. You're getting it. Yeah. And by cheering myself forward, I am socializing my brain. I'm changing the filter. I'm making myself believe because I'm literally telling myself a story that it's possible.

Right? I love this. I love this. So, a couple more years go by. And I'm turning 30 or 31 or something. Chris gets all of our friends to chip in some money into an envelope, hands me $500. I'm pregnant with our first daughter. I'm like out to here.

Buy anything you want. I should about a crib or like, school's for a new house or something. But for one reason, all I can think of is this painting. Money, whatever I want, equals painting. So I pick up the phone and I call Simon Pierce. I want to buy a Gail Shepherd piece. What's your budget? He's like pause, right? And he's like, hmm, tell you what, I'll send you some polarids of the smaller ones. And I go, okay, shh, burn, right? Right, right. And then I'm like, by the way, by the way,

there's this one painting. I couldn't remember the name of it, but I could describe it. Stand a tree, is blowing field, mountains, blue sky. And he pauses, he goes, oh, well, that was before my time. But you know who would remember it is Gail. Like Gail? Personally, Gail. Right. And he's like, here's her number.

I'm like, you know Gail is like, of course, she lives down the street. Come on. So he hands me her phone number. I give her a call. We have this great conversation. And I say, by the way, there is this one painting. I go on to describe it

in great detail. I can hear her thinking and she said, you know, Mel, she said, there have been so many times in my career that I've done like large landscapes, Vermont based format, I would hate to guess and be wrong. Tell you what, why not you and your husband come up to the mill? We will walk around the mill, I'll tell you the stories behind all the paintings. If you don't say anything you like there, we'll go back to my studio, you can see what I'm working on. If you don't see anything that really connects you through there, you're welcome to go through the thousands and thousands of slides that I have and try to find it.

And maybe I can recreate something in a small form after you. I'm like, fantastic. So we go up to the mill, we go all around as we're going around looking at these things. She was lovely, like amazing woman or husband was awesome. I'm starting to realize I can't afford any of this. Like I'm like out of here with like about to give birth like what am I doing there? The imposter syndrome picks all I want to do is impress her. We don't have the money for this. Why are we buying a painting? Like the only thing on our walls is

like a poster that was hanging in my dorm room and college that Matisse jazz thing that we all have. So we sit down and she goes now that you're sitting down I have something to tell you. There has only been two times in my entire career as an artist, that I have done two studies of the same scene at the same time. And your painting is one of them. She said, your painting is one of a pair. Oh my gosh. And the sister piece to that painting is in my studio,

where it's been sitting for the last 11 years, waiting for you to come looking for. Oh my gosh. And her husband was like, you should have seen her when she hung up the phone with you. It was like she saw a ghost. So we're all crying and we drive down to her studio and we walk into the studio and they're on this easel.

Is this massive painting? And I'll tell you Ed, it was the most exquisite moment of my life. Oh gosh. It was as if I was standing in that mill on October 6th, 1989, my 21st birthday, declaring that that thing would be mine, and 10 years later, standing before it, knowing I couldn't f***ing afford it. So I turned to my husband and I say, dude, I don't need sh**. You don't have to mind me any rings or anything. I'm just f***ing buying me that painting and he turns and says, hey, gale, how much for the big one?

And she says, Mel can have it for $500. Because clearly when I was making it, I was making it for her. So it now hangs in my kitchen and it is a visual reminder every single day that your mind is designed to help you. Your job is to tell it what you want and to remain open to the possibility of having it. That's incredible. Usually you don't make me cry on my show. Usually they don't get me crying on my show. That's incredible.

You're incredible. This has's incredible. You're incredible. This has been incredible. I love you. I love you. I really do. It's just think you're amazing. I think you're amazing too. We were definitely meant to meet.

I know. I know. You got me today, girl. You got me. All right, we're going to help everybody here at the end. Yes. First off, thank you for today. And for me, thank you.

Thank you. I'm glad millions of people probably will get a chance to listen in on our conversation, but this was for me today, so thank you. Will you do me a favor? Yeah. Will you work on being kinder to yourself? I certainly will.

I know we'll hold each other accountable for that. You're ahead of me on that journey now. I absolutely will be. Yeah, I'll give you my word on that. Thank you. Today, help me with it. Today, help me with it, for, help me with it for sure. Let's help a bunch of people too.

So there's a high five challenge. Yes. We're going to put it in the show notes. We'll put links, all that stuff. Right. But tell us a little bit. Yeah, so I wanted to make it easy to start this thing, because it does feel a little dumb when you do it alone.

So you can, we're going to get 5 million people to wake up 5 mornings in a row and start their day with a high five in the mirror and see what happens. And you just click the link, all you need is a name and an email address. And that's it. Absolutely nothing. No, it's totally free. And it's powered by Growth Day, our friend Brandon Brushard's app, which means you get a very inspiring video for me to launch it.

You get to high five yourself. You can upload a photo, get cheered on by millions of other people, you get a journal print. It's awesome, it's awesome. It'll just kick you off and get you going. Okay, everybody needs to get in. High five challenge. High five challenge and everybody needs to go get the book.

I don't think I need to tell you guys all that. I think you've all made that decision. So listen, thank you, Mel. I love you. Today, I love you too. Today was awesome. And everybody share the show. This is one of those shows. So listen, thank you, Mel. I love you. Today, I love you too. Today was awesome. And everybody, share the show.

This is one of those shows. You probably watch more than one time. I have a hallucination that's gonna happen for a lot of you. Anybody you love or care about needs to see this show today or listen to it at least on the audio platforms. So please make sure you're sharing it, fast growing show on the planet. I love you all.

God bless you, max out. This is The Edm Mylich Show.