The Mel Robbins Podcast - How to Control Your Mind & Redirect Your Energy to Self Transformation

Episode Date: February 17, 2025

In today’s episode, you’ll learn how to do a mindset reset to unlock the full power of your mind. Your brain is wired to give you what you want, and today, you’re getting Mel’s science-backed insights and her step-by-step guide for letting go of negative thoughts and redirecting your energy to self-transformation. If you’ve ever felt stuck in a cycle of negativity, self-doubt, or overthinking, this episode is for you. Mel is sharing 5 powerful, science-backed techniques to get your brain working for you rather than against you. By the end, you’ll see that when you focus your thoughts toward the right things, there’s no stopping you. Whether you want to build confidence, break free from negative thought loops, or simply create more peace in your life, this episode gives you the life-changing tools to make it happen. For more resources, click here for the podcast episode page. If you like this research-packed episode, your next listen should be this one, with Dr. Jim Doty: #1 Neurosurgeon: How to Manifest Anything You Want & Unlock the Unlimited Power of Your MindConnect with Mel:  Get Mel’s #1 bestselling book, The Let Them TheoryWatch the episodes on YouTubeFollow Mel on Instagram The Mel Robbins Podcast InstagramMel's TikTok Sign up for Mel’s personal letter Subscribe to SiriusXM Podcasts+ on Apple Podcasts to listen to ad-free new episodes Disclaimer

Hey, it's your friend Mel, and welcome to the Mel Robbins Podcast. So the other day I was on FaceTime with our two daughters, and they're 25 and 24 years old. And one of them was saying, I've just been really stuck in this mental rut lately. It's like no matter what she does, it's just never enough. She'll see somebody else doing something and then all of a sudden she's beating herself up. She's picking apart how she looks.

She's working very hard and she was like, I know I'm working very hard and I'm doing what I'm supposed to be doing and yet I'm telling myself it's not enough. Have you ever been in that kind of place? I know I have. Or maybe somebody that you love, they're really stuck in this negative rut right now.

Well, that's what you and I are going to talk about today. What do you do when it feels like your mind has actually turned against you? I know what that feels like, because I lived in that negative place for decades in my life. Like, I was smiling on the outside, but on the inside, doom and gloom.

No matter how hard I tried, I just couldn't do anything right. So when I heard my 24 year old daughter trap there, like it broke my heart. And then our other daughter is chiming in, oh my God, I do the same thing. And I'm thinking, no, no, no, no, no, no, I'm not gonna let the two of you stay there.

I'm not gonna let you waste decades of your life trashing yourself. And there's two reasons why I want to talk to you about this today. First of all, it feels awful when you talk to yourself in a way that just brings you down. And second, your brain is a supercomputer. Your brain can help you get what you want if you know how to use it correctly. And nobody teaches you this stuff. At least nobody taught me. So that's why you and I are gonna talk about this today.

I'm gonna teach you the five simple things that help me and that are gonna help you let go of the negative thoughts. Five simple things that create a more positive way of looking at yourself. And by the way, these are also the exact same five things that will train your brain to help you get what you want in life. So whether you're excited to learn this

because you're just so sick and tired of beating yourself up and dragging yourself down, or you wanna help someone that you care about, like I wanna help my daughters, or maybe you've got big goals, and you're like, Mel, tell me how to get my mind to work for me so that I can get what I want. Well, I'm gonna, because that's exactly what we're talking about today.

Five simple things that will redirect all your mental energy toward happiness, success, and self-transformation. Hey, it's your friend Mel, and welcome to the Mel Robbins Podcast. I love what we're going to talk about today. I am so excited that you're here. It's always such an honor to spend time with you and to be together. And if you're a new listener, I just want to take a moment and personally welcome you to the Mel Robbins Podcast family.

I am so glad that you're here, and I also want to point out something. If you're listening to this particular episode because someone shared this with you, that's really cool. It means you have people in your life that care about you, and I just want to take a moment and point that out. And I know that so many of you are going to be sharing this episode with people that you care about, so I also want to thank a moment and point that out. And I know that so many of you are going to be sharing this episode with people that you

care about. So I also want to thank you for taking the time to listen to something that's not only going to help you create a more positive mindset, and it's going to teach you five simple things that you can do to let go of the negative thoughts and train your mind to work for you. I'm so excited that you're listening to that for yourself and also that you're going to be able to share this resource with people that you care about, because I know you're the type of person who values your time and you made the time to listen to this.

And so if you're sick of beating yourself up, if you're sick of living in a negative place, or if you're just curious, like, how do I use simple research-backed methods to actually make my mind work for me? Holy cow, are you in the right place. Because that's exactly what we're going to talk about today. Five simple things that you can do to take control of your mind, let go of negative thoughts,

and redirect all your mental energy toward happiness, success, and self-transformation. And so, you know, I always am very intentional about why I want to talk to you about certain things. And what inspired this conversation today is the conversation I had with my daughters. I mean, we always get on FaceTime, the three of us do, typically when one of us is getting ready or we're waking up in the morning. And we were on FaceTime the other day. And as I shared earlier, one of our daughters is 24. The other one is 25. One lives in New York, one lives in LA.

I live in Southern Vermont. And so just like you do with the people you care about, we get on FaceTime all the time and we're yapping away. And all of a sudden, one of my daughters is like, I'm just in this negative place right now. It's like, nothing I do is enough. Everything that I put on my body doesn't look good. No matter how hard I'm working,

I just am constantly trashing myself. And then my other daughter chimed in, and I was horrified to hear that they were both kind of in this place where they're focused on the negative, where their thoughts are kind of turned back against them. And as we're having this conversation, it reminded me of a story that I've shared on this podcast, and I've shared in some interviews that I've done. You know, I've been talking about the Let Them Theory book. And so you may have heard this story, but it's such an important and compelling

story that it bears repeating. And so here's what happened. My 25-year-old daughter Sawyer and I wrote the Let Them Theory book together. And on the press tour, a ton of people have asked me, what was it like to work on a project of that magnitude, writing and researching a book with one of your kids? And it was incredible. I mean, it was absolutely incredible for a number of reasons to not only get to know her in a completely different way, because I'm her mother and she's my daughter, and so we have the mother-daughter dynamic.

And we're very close, but we've always kind of had this friction. But having this project that we could both focus on and organize ourselves around was super cool because I got to experience her in a completely different way. And here's what happened. So when we first started working together, I asked her if she would simply just do this research project about the let them theory,

because we had done a podcast episode on it and there were all of these comments. It had gone crazy viral and really resonated with people around the world. So I was like, hey, Sawyer, would you just dig into the comments on this podcast episode and the things that you're seeing that people are saying online about the things that I've been sharing? And then come back to me in a couple of weeks with an analysis of what you're seeing. And I expected this to take like two weeks.

Now, mind you, I'm very different than my daughter Sawyer. I mean, I've got like this crazy artistic ADHD brain and Sawyer thinks in Excel spreadsheets. Before working for me and working with me, she worked at a huge cybersecurity firm that is in 44 countries and was in like the digital marketing and marketing tech side of that business. And so here she is taking on this research project

for me on the side. And I'm expecting this thing to take two or three weeks. I'm expecting the result to be like a briefing that is gonna be a couple pages long. She hands me 36 hours later a 27 page. Like I don't even know how to describe the way this thing was organized. It was like columns with color-coded tabs and links to the source material and she had a two-page synopsis of her analysis of all of the sentiment online, and she had identified all these things that needed further research.

I mean, it was jaw-dropping. My brain just doesn't work like that. My brain is like letting a box full of mice loose in your kitchen. Everything scatters in different directions. This was a level of organization and mental horsepower that I actually didn't know she had. Like I'm not sitting here saying she's dumb.

I just didn't understand that this was how her brain worked. And when I saw this work product from her generated in 36 hours, I was not only dumbfounded at just how intelligent she is and how differently her brain works, I had this heartbreaking realization. As I looked at the 27 pages, I thought to myself, oh my God, I now know why she's so hard on herself. Because if she doesn't have a project

to aim this supercomputer at, she aims it at herself. And I just want that to sit in with you for a minute. That if you have this supercomputer, and you do, you have a supercomputer between your ears, it is designed to solve problems, It is designed to spot patterns. It is designed to learn new things. It is designed to keep you safe. It is designed to analyze things. It is designed to create and to connect

and to constantly be growing. That's what your brain is doing. And it's doing an incredible job because if you're listening to this and you're able to hear these words and absorb this information or you're watching me on YouTube right now, your supercomputer is engaged. It is processing information. It is filing it away in your brain. There are neural pathways connecting and firing and wiring together. Like it is doing its thing. It's keeping you breathing. It's keeping your body temperature in a certain place all while you're doing this. And that's just like a scratch to the surface of what that supercomputer is doing. But I want you to really stop and consider what I'm saying.

If you have this massive horsepower between your ears, which you do, and you're not aiming it at something like a big project or something that's important or something that's positive, it's true, isn't it? That your brain aims itself back at you. And when this happened with my daughter and I had this realization it was as if I was meeting her for the first time. I finally understood her at a level that I had never understood her as her mother. And it even revealed a little bit about why I'm hurt on myself. I mean, I just described my brain as working like taking a box of mice and letting it loose in your kitchen and everything scatters

everywhere. But I have absolutely had those moments and I know you have too, where you are so focused on something that you're enjoying. Like it might be something like gardening. It might be that you're a great video gamer and so you get lost in the moment. It might be when you've played sports or you're playing a instrument

or it might be when you're out on a hike and you're just so hyper present. Why? You can get lost in the flow of focus because you're in the present moment because your supercomputer in your mind is aimed at something outside of you. But isn't it true that in those moments

where you feel consumed with negativity or you're beating yourself up, or you're constantly telling yourself it's never enough, or you're seeing nothing but the negative when you look in the mirror. You've just taken all that horsepower that is designed to create and laugh and grow and solve problems, and you just aimed it right at you.

And so it got me thinking, if you have a brain that is designed to do all these incredible things, solve problems, grow, learn, laugh, create, be present, build, like all these amazing things, how is it that you and I can take that truth? Because I think you're with me, I can kind of feel you with me like, oh my God, I've never thought about it that way.

It's true, Mel. If I'm engaged in something, I'm not beating myself up. If I'm working on a project that I'm truly focused on, I don't have time to trash my appearance. Huh, never thought about it that way. That this supercomputer can be used for good, and if I'm not using it for good, holy cow, it feels kind of bad because it just aims it right back

at me. And just in case, before I move on to these five simple things, because what I'm going to do is I'm going to teach you today, it took me far too long to learn this, I wish they taught this in schools, I wish they taught this in elementary school, that's how simple I'm going to make the science today. There are five simple things that you can do,

and you can start doing them as I'm explaining them to you. You can do these things as soon as this episode is over. These are so simple that you can make them part of your day-to-day life. These are ways for you to take control of your mind, that supercomputer in your brain. These are ways for you to let go of the negative thoughts, which is really what happens when your brain directs itself back at you, right?

And third, we're going to talk about how do you redirect that power of your mind and aim it at something that energizes you. How do you take all that mental energy and instead of aiming it at something that energizes you. How do you take all that mental energy and instead of aiming it at yourself, you actually aim it at something that creates happiness and success and more positivity and self-transformation? That's what's available to you.

And I didn't understand any of this until several years ago. And so the second I'm done recording this, I'm sharing this with my two daughters. And before we jump into the first skill, okay, and I've already kind of alluded to it, but before we jump into the first skill, I want to bring in one more visual example, because I personally find that whenever you talk

about the mind or thinking or mindset, it so quickly becomes fuzzy and too intellectual and like too conceptual that I lose interest and I don't know what the hell people are talking about. So I like things that are visual because it helps my brain, the little mice that are running around to just anchor on something. So we've already talked about the supercomputer and the fact that you've got this brain between your ears that is designed to learn patterns. It's designed to grow. It's designed to fire and wire information

together and program it in your mind. It's designed to filter the world. It's actually designed to help you get more of what you want. And we're going to talk more about that in a little bit. And that's a cool thing. Have you ever in your life had the chance to spend time with like a golden retriever or a Labrador? You know, one of these dogs that from the moment they come into this world as a puppy, there is something hardwired in their DNA to just fetch. You throw a ball and you don't even have to train a Labrador or a golden retriever or some of these other kind of hunting breeds, I guess they call them.

They will just go right after that ball that you throw, bring it right back. You throw it again, they bring it right back. It's like they are programmed to chase down a ball that you throw. They are programmed to chase it down and to retrieve. Guess what? Your brain is designed to do the exact same thing. I'm going to say that again. Your brain is like a Labrador retriever or a golden retriever.

It is hardwired to actually chase down something that you direct it at. And so I love this visual because the first thing that I'm going to talk about today of the five things that I'm going to teach you is one of the things that helps you get out of that negative rut where your brain is aimed at you and you start trashing yourself down, right, is to actually give your brain something to chase down and focus on. Think about it like you need a project or think about like the project is the ball. So with a dog that loves to chase a ball, you take that ball, you throw it in whatever direction,

that dog forgets that you exist. That dog is maniacally focused on that ball. That dog will literally run over a child in order to get the ball, get the ball, get the ball, because it's hardwired to focus on that and then it brings it back. Your brain does the same thing. Your brain is just sitting around like a bored Labrador waiting for you to pick up a ball and put it in motion, waiting for you to throw something out into the future and say, go get it.

Your brain loves projects. You know this. It wants something to gnaw on. It is bored. Like, have you ever noticed too? Like, if you've got a dog that needs a job, if it doesn't have a job, what does it do? It chews your slippers, it starts gnawing on the corners of your cabinets. Next thing you know, it's naughty and it's peeing in the corner.

Why? Because it's got all this mental energy and this desire to have a project and to chase down a ball and you're not feeding that desire. Your brain's the same way. It needs a job. And that brings me to skill number one. One of the best things that you can do is understand that giving yourself a project or a goal or some sort of ball that you can put in play in your life, it is one of the best ways to direct your brain at something other than you. It's one of the best ways to start to leverage the natural capacity that your mind has to solve problems and to actually chase something down.

And this isn't just my suggestion. This comes from not only research that I'm going to walk you through, but it comes from something that world renowned PhD, New York Times bestselling author Martha Beck has been talking about. And you may have seen her talking about this. It's the basis of her new book. And there's so much research that I'm also going to share with you after you hear this clip.

But you're gonna hear Martha Beck talking about the fact that when you're in an anxious state or you're ruminating, we now know in the way that you and I are talking about this, the supercomputer is now aimed at you, you're up in your head. Instead of being focused on the world and solving problems, you're now tearing yourself down. You've made yourself a problem, right? The other way you can think about this is that Labrador Retriever is chewing on the world and solving problems, you're now tearing yourself down. You've made yourself a problem, right?

The other way you can think about this is that Labrador Retriever is chewing on the slipper and being self-destructive because it's got nothing to do. Well, she had this thesis in this book. Well, if you're in that state, being anxious and negative, it shuts down your ability to problem solve. We know this based on the research. We also know it based on common sense. It shuts down your ability to problem solve. We know this based on the research. We also know it based on common sense. It shuts down your ability to be creative.

Well, she thought, well, wait a minute. Does creativity and problem solving actually shut down anxiety and rumination and being negative? Turns out it does. And so here's Martha Beck sharing this idea on the Today Show. And the idea is so exciting, and it's also so simple and obvious to understand,

that you're going to hear Martha talking first, and then you're going to hear the Today Show anchors jump in because they totally get it. And then what we're going to do after you listen to this is you and I are going to unpack what she said so that you can apply this first skill. Take a listen. And when we've known forever that anxiety shuts down creativity, so I started thinking,

what if it works the other way too? What if creativity shuts down anxiety? So if you, like if I take a client and I do something very simple like plan a meal for tomorrow, so say you're having a dinner party, start planning right now. Right, your brain starts to think I'm going to do steak on the Traeger trigger grill and I'm gonna serve it with this and what would go good with that No, I'm thinking in a different pattern here and your anxiety is quiet and it does that work Just it does work. It works like that Yeah

Same thing with knitting or with your hands or where you're figuring something absolutely and though it's anything creative that you should be out You should start doing and people say Right, that's still in the anxiety part. Just make something you love. Try using your hands, your senses, cook, garden, if you like to draw or paint or do whatever. Just stop and consider what she's saying. It's true, isn't it?

That when you're idle, your thoughts turn negative. When you've got nothing that you're focused on, the supercomputer focuses on you. And because it's a problem-solving machine, it typically is looking for problems, and then it turns you into one. And so I love what Martha Beck is saying, because she's basically saying, anytime you're worried, anytime you're negative, it's a sign that your mind is now turning you into a problem. And we can change this by picking up a ball and in her language by doing something creative

with your hands. She talked about how like just start planning the meal for tonight, open up a cookbook and start flipping through it and now what are you doing? You've thrown a ball. Your mind is now focused on solving the problem. The problem is no longer you. The problem is what are we going to create for dinner? It's a simple idea that has so much research in it. In fact, I want you to hear this research because it's not just about creativity. It's about the power of having a project that you can aim your mind at.

This is this revelation that I had about my daughter that, oh my God, like she's got so much horsepower upstairs and so do you that if you're not aiming it at something, it's going to come back at you. And I want to share some of this research with you because it's actually very exciting about simply having a project. And it could be a project like, I've got a project this weekend that I know that I'm gonna get lost in.

And that is now that my husband and I are empty nesters, it's time for me to go through the closets in the bedroom upstairs and donate what is just being used as long-term storage by our adult children, right? And just kind of reclaim the space. That's a project. That will keep my mind

occupied, which will keep me from turning it against myself and ruminating. And the research bears this out. Check this out. Simply having a project according to research done at the University of Exeter turns down negative self-talk. What's so interesting about this is that they found in this research study that when you have a project and you start chipping away at it, I walk upstairs, I open up the closet, I start sorting through what's in there, that the small steps literally rewire

your brain away from rumination. It makes so much sense when you realize, well, that's because I am focusing my brain on something. I'm putting a ball in play instead of having it aim it at me. And when you don't have a project, you feel like you're not making progress towards anything, which means you have more negative emotions.

So it works in the positive and the negative. And I think you can kind of see that. When you're not really working on anything, you got an idle mind. And that's not gonna come to a lot of good. Here's another research study from the University of Michigan and the University of Oxford. This one was published in a journal called Neuron.

Having a project also boosts happiness because having something to focus on actually increases dopamine, which we know is kind of this neurochemical that gets released in your mind that is all about drive and it helps you focus. And your brain is gonna release dopamine not when you clean out the closet,

not when you finish writing the song, not when you finish writing the song, not when you finish paying your bills, not when dinner is finished cooking, but rather as you're working toward it. How cool is that? And it kind of makes sense because if you take as fact that your brain's a supercomputer that wants to solve problems,

that wants to engage in something, that wants to build and design and create and have a project to focus on, when you provide that to the supercomputer between your ears, your supercomputer is a little happier because it's able to chase a ball. It's able to do what it's designed to do. Here's another study from Pennsylvania University that having a project to focus your brainpower on strengthens your overall mental health. Goals give you direction and purpose. Goals help you navigate challenges because

it actually gives your mind something to focus on, which helps you build resilience against stress and emotional struggles. And you know what's interesting about that? Is that I know based on what I'm seeing in the inbox as your fellow listeners are writing in from around the world, that you're experiencing just unprecedented levels of stress. And we know that based on the medical experts that we talk to on this show all the time, that the levels of stress. And we know that based on the medical experts

that we talk to on this show all the time, that the levels of chronic stress that people are experiencing are at unprecedented levels. And it would have never occurred to me that one of the ways for you to not allow the stress to put you in an even more negative state would be to have a project, something like a painting to do or a closet to clean out or like some sort of something

that you're working on because that means that even in a stressed out state, you have something that you can aim your brain at so that your tired, stressed out brain doesn't start turning you into an even bigger problem. I just love this research. So number one, what you're learning is that in order to take control of your mind, in order to let go of negative thoughts, in order to redirect your energy toward happiness,

success, and self-transformation, skill number one is put a ball in play. Find a project. And if you can make it creative, if you can use your hands, even better. Because when you focus that supercomputer in your brain on something outside of you, it is happy and it's excited and it's now engaged and that's going to leave you with space that is going to feel better for you. So that's skill number one.

I got four more that I want to cover with you. I don't want you to go anywhere. What I want you to do is I want you to share this with someone. We're going to take a quick pause so I can hear a word from our amazing sponsors of the Mel Robbins podcast, but don't you dare go anywhere

because I'm just getting started. That's just skill number one. We got four more to cover and each one gets better and better and better. And I can't wait for you to hear them. Stay with me. I'm gonna be talking about the negative things

that I've been doing for the past few weeks. I've been doing a lot of work on the negative things that I've been doing for the past few weeks. I've been doing a lot of work on the negative things that I've been doing for the past few weeks. I've been doing a lot of work on the negative things that I've been doing for the past few weeks. I've been doing a lot of work on the negative things

that I've been doing for the past few weeks. I've been doing a lot of teaching you five simple things that I do that have helped me take control of my mind, it has helped me let go of negative thoughts and redirect all my mental energy into using my brain for good, having the kind of mindset or the thinking patterns that make me feel happier, that make me more successful,

and that have really transformed my life. And today I'm teaching them to you. And we've already talked about the fact that your brain is this extraordinary supercomputer that is designed to build and focus on projects and create. And if you don't aim it at something and you don't intentionally train it in terms of how you want it to work for you, that supercomputer will aim itself back at you.

And we've talked already about the first skill or habit that you can use in order to have your brain work for you and to take control of it. And that is to always give it a project. And giving it a project is a lot like throwing a ball for a Labrador Retriever. Once that ball is in motion, man, that dog is running. Your brain is the same way. Once you let your brain know that there's a project that you want to work on, your

brain is now engaged in something other than bashing you. So that's skill number one. Skill number two is something that you may have heard me talk about before. This is a habit of mine. I use it every single day in my life. I am not kidding. It is a habit that has helped me wire my brain for success because it is a way that I train my mind to see what I want to see. And seeing what you want to see in the world, it's not some woo-woo stupid like nonsense. This is hard science.

I actually wrote about this in my New York Times bestselling book, The High Five Habit. And so you may have heard about this before, but even so, it's a fabulous reminder. So what is skill number two? Skill number two, my daily habit is look for hearts. I know what you're thinking. What does that mean, Mel? Look for hearts is a very simple game that you're going to play that helps you train your brain. And it's very simple. Today, as you're going about your life, I want you to look for a naturally occurring heart shape somewhere around you. That's it. You are going to tell your brain, as stupid as it sounds, brain, today, somewhere in the world, I want you to show me a shape of a heart. It could be a leaf on a tree. It could be a stain on a sidewalk. It could be the shape of the foam on

your coffee today. It might be a spot on a dog at the dog park. In fact, you can do it right now, as long as you're not driving a car. I want you to just look around the environment that you're in. I mean, I'm so trained to do this now that I see them everywhere. And I want you to just kind of scan the environment and see if somewhere around you,

I've already spotted two where I am right now, I'm going to describe them in just a second. See if you can see a heart shape. Is there a shadow on the wall? Is there some discoloration in the brick? Like right now as I'm looking straight around the room that I am in above the garage here in southern Vermont, I can see that on the whiteboard over on the other side of the room, we have a series of magnets.

And they're all clustered at the bottom of the whiteboard, and a bunch of the magnets are together, and they're actually in the shape of a heart. I'm looking down on the carpet, and I see that there's a stain on the carpet, a little like, I don't know what, maybe it's cat hair. I can't quite tell what that is. But it's also in the shape of a heart.

Every time I go on a walk in the woods, I see rocks, I see tree stumps, I see them everywhere. So you're probably thinking, why on earth is this important? Well, let me explain the science. In order to explain the science, I want to teach you about a part of your brain, the supercomputer between your ears, that has a specific name. And that part of your brain is called the reticular activating system. Okay, reticular activating system. I like to call it the RAS for short,

because reticular activating system is a mouthful. And you don't need to know that. You just need to know that there is this filter in your brain. I think about it almost like there's a hair net that's over my brain. It's like the bouncer for your brain. And what is this reticular activating system doing? Well, it is deciding all day long what information gets into your conscious mind and what information is being filtered out of your conscious mind. That is what it is doing.

And there's a reason why you need this filter. So we had a amazing neuroscientist and neurosurgeon from Stanford that appeared on the Mel Robbins podcast by the name of Dr. Jim Doty. So he is not only somebody who is a neuroscientist, he is a neurosurgeon, meaning he actually operates on people's brain. And he is a world-renowned expert in the neuroscience of manifestation. And he told me when I was talking to him about the

science, check this out. Do you know that there are six to 10 million bits of information coming at your mind, body, and spirit every single second? Six to 10 million. Your brain can't handle that. Neither can your body. Dr. Doty says that your conscious brain can only handle between 50 and 100 bits. And 99% of that that it can

handle is all stuff that's about how your body operates. So we're talking teeny amounts of information is actually getting to your conscious brain. What's super interesting about this is that means that a massive amount, a bazillion amounts of bits of information are bombarding you, you're just not aware of it. And the reason why you're not aware of it is because of this hairnet on your brain, the bouncer, the reticular activating system. Its job is to decide, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, of the six to 10 million bits coming at me a million miles an hour, what's actually important?

Now here's where this gets interesting. What's important is what you tell your reticular activating system is important. This is so cool. This is a treasure trove. This is how you take control of your mind. If you're interested in achieving your goals and making more money and having a positive mindset, understanding that your brain is trying to help you. And if you're not helping your brain by telling your brain

what's important to it, it's going to filter out things that could be helping you. And that brings me back to this daily habit that I have. Any time I'm on a walk, I'm looking for hearts. Because it's a way for me to prove to myself that the filter's actually working. And you're going to be startled when you see this. You are literally going to go out for a walk today, or you're going to be out and about in your life.

And maybe you've already seen something. Maybe you've already seen a heart as you've been listening to me or watching on YouTube right now. That you've already seen something. Maybe you've already seen a heart as you've been listening to me or watching on YouTube right now. That you've seen this heart and the reason why you saw it is because you and I are talking about it. It's sort of like, you know,

another example I can give you about how this works is, you know how social media is dynamically filtering things based on what it either watches you watching on social or it hears you talking to somebody about something. And you're talking about maybe bird feeders. And next thing you know, there's fricking ads for bird feeders all over your social media.

Well, that's because social media has a filter and it's dynamic. Your brain has the same thing. And so this is a habit looking for hearts that you can do all day, every day, to strengthen this filter. Every time you see a heart, here's what I want you to do. I want you to stop and just take it in. I want you for a minute, in a very calm way, to see this heart that you see as a sign from

the universe or God or goddesses or whatever you believe in, that the world is actually trying to help you, that there are signs all around you. And you, just like I used to, you're just so up in your head and your computer is aimed against you that you're not programming it correctly to see the positive signs that are around you.

If you can tell your brain to look for a heart, you can actually learn to use this habit to look for other things too. I mean, one of the reasons why I'm so successful in business and why it appears from the outside that I'm a super lucky person is because I Understand all of the things I'm teaching you today

I have learned how to take that supercomputer between my head and stop aiming it at myself and aim it out and To program it to help me spot Coincidences and to help me spot things that are going my way Because when you start to spot things that are going your way, you start to spot more things that are going your way. Just like you're going to notice that, oh my gosh, Mel, now that I saw one heart, I see them everywhere. Same here.

Why? Because I've told my brain to. If you've read The High Five Habit, chapter seven of the book is about this programming. And one of the things that I love since introducing the world to the high five habit and writing this book is that every day on social media, people post hearts that they find. This is on page 91 of the book. It's just plastered with hearts that people have found.

And it's evidence that your mind can be trained. Now, here's something I want to read to you, okay? Because you may be thinking, look, I got huge problems, Mel. The negativity is justified because there's a lot of things going on in my life. And so I want to say something right now. Looking for hurts is not going to make your problems go away. Not at all. What looking for hearts does is it actually leverages the power of your mind to problem solve and to start to work for you. And I got to start with baby steps here. Like if you can't find a heart as you're taking a walk outside tomorrow, you're not going to believe that your brain and the filter in it is there

for you to use to your advantage. As I write in this book, the point of this exercise is to train your mind to spot things you currently block out and prove to yourself that you can make your brain work for you by telling it what is important to you. And if you want to make a lot of money, you better train your mind to see opportunities and deals that other people walk right by, just like the stupid heart rock on the ground.

Because if you miss the heart rock because you're not looking for it, then you're gonna miss the opportunities and deals that are right there that you currently aren't seeing because you're not looking for it either. And the only reason why you're not looking for it is because you haven't made this a project. And the way you can start doing this is by looking for hearts. It's my way to prove to you that this filter is there and it is waiting for you to program it.

And it's a simple thing. You can do this with your kids. You can do it anywhere that you live in the world. You can do this as a way to start to understand that, wow, my mind is very flexible. Wow, there are things that I see now that I've never seen. Nothing changed in the outside world. What changed is the filter on the supercomputer because you programmed it. And you can train yourself in how you program it by simply looking for hearts. How freaking cool is that?

And that brings me to tool number three. And tool number three is all about manifesting. And again, just like looking for hearts, this is not fairy dust and woo woo, this is hard science. And I mentioned a Stanford neurosurgeon and neuroscientist by the name of Dr. Jim Doty. Well, I'm gonna bring Dr. Jim Doty into this part of our brain training session.

Because as I said earlier, he's not only a professor, a New York Times bestselling author, Dr. Jim Doty into this part of our brain training session. Because as I said earlier, he's not only a professor, a New York Times bestselling author, he's a world-renowned expert on the neuroscience of manifestation. He also is a neurosurgeon who operates on the brain. I mean, this guy understands the science. And he has this extraordinary way of explaining what manifestation is. And manifestation, in the words of Dr. Doty, is just, quote, the ability to take an intention and embed it into your subconscious in a manner such that it has the greatest likelihood to

occur. In other words, Dr. Doty teaches people around the world, and he's about to teach you this, that you can, through intentional actions, fire and wire your neural pathways together to make your supercomputer in your brain help you. That's what this is. Manifesting isn't magic and woo woo and fairy dust.

Manifesting is programming your brain so that it helps you get what you want in life. And there is so much amazing hard science here. And I'm gonna bring Dr. Doty into the conversation because Dr. Doty is not only going to explain this at a scientific level for you and he's going to talk about the parts of the brain that you use when you want to intentionally program your brain to work for you, but he is also going to walk you through the five simple steps that he uses.

I'm talking Stanford's neuroscientist and neurosurgeon, the guy who wrote the book on the science of manifesting, is gonna walk you through the five things he does every morning in his manifesting practice so that you can learn how to do this too. And don't go anywhere because we're gonna hear a short word from our sponsors. I'm gonna give you a second to share this extraordinary conversation with the people that you care about. And when we return, you and I are going to learn from Dr. Jim Doty on the science of manifesting,

because that is the third skill that you need in order to leverage the power of your brain. We'll be right back. Welcome back. It's your buddy Mel Robbins. I love our topic today and I'm so excited for you and I'm excited for everybody that you share this with because these are simple things that we're talking about that truly help you leverage the full capacity of your brain. And one of my favorite tools is manifesting.

And what you're about to learn is that manifesting is not magic, it's not fairy dust, it is hard science. And it is all about intentional ways you can leverage your brain circuitry to lay down new neural pathways and embed programming in your subconscious mind. And I wanted you to learn from the best of the best. And in my opinion, the best of the best is Dr. Jim Doty. Dr. Jim Doty is a fascinating guy.

He is a professor at Stanford. He is the former chairman of the Dalai Lama Institute. He is a neuroscientist and a neurosurgeon and he trained at Stanford. And he has a New York Times best-selling book that is all about the science of manifesting. I'm so excited for you to learn from him because one of the things he's about to share with you is he's not only gonna break down what manifesting is and what it means to embed something in your subconscious and what it means to embed something in your subconscious and

what it means to lay down neurocircuitry. But he's going to walk you through what he does every morning in his manifesting practice. And this is something you can use. You can literally try this tomorrow morning. And what I'm excited about for you is that it's so easy. And the way that he describes it, it just makes so much sense. So it is my absolute honor to be able to introduce you to Dr. Jim Doty and have you spend a little bit of time

learning from him. Check this out. If you have an intention, you take a pencil, you write it down, you're actually doing something physical, tactile, then you read it silently, then you read it aloud, then you visualize that, and you do that over and over and over again. What that will do is then embed that into your subconscious, and then these different

cognitive brain networks get activated. Now, can we unpack that just a minute? Sure. conscious. And then these different cognitive brain networks get activated. Now can we unpack that just a minute? Sure. Because everyone that listens to this loves to make sure that they just got the instructions from you, Dr. Doty, because I'm like hanging on every word. And so there were a couple steps to that because you had the physical pencil, you had the act of writing, you had this moment where if you're watching on YouTube, you saw it, but if you're listening, let me

describe it. He sat back in his chair, he put his hands kind of in prayer at his chest, closed his eyes, and he started talking about repeating the thought. Is that the chain of events that you do to encode it in your mind? Yes, absolutely. So what is, will you to encode it in your mind? Yes, absolutely. So what is, will you walk us through it one more time? Yes. So again, what you want to do is to use all of your sensory organs as much as possible to embed that intention.

So by writing it down, by reading it aloud, by visualizing it, that creates the process where this gets embedded into your subconscious. And what happens is once you get this embedded, it activates different parts of your brain. And without getting too technical, one is something called the default mode network. Is that the same thing as the reticular activating system? No. Okay.

But they're related. Okay. So the default mode network. Yes. So this is what happens when your mind wanders or you're daydreaming and it's self-referential because it's internally focused, but it's where you create the narrative of who you are or what you want. So if you have negative self-talk, if you ruminate, if you are like, I'm never good enough, nothing works out for me, things like that don't happen

to a person like me, I can never get it right. That is in the default mode network. Oh, absolutely. And that gets really activated and results in rumination for some people. Can I ask you another question? Because one of the things that you said at the very, very beginning is you painted this gorgeous picture of the ability to leverage the remarkable power of your brain to help you get what you truly desire in life to help you live in heart mode and you said it's just

about believing it. And part of the reason why we have trouble believing it is because of the default mode network and all of these stories you've repeated over and over and over again. Is that fair to say? No, that's exactly correct. And can we can reprogram or we can lay down a new track? Oh, absolutely. And it's available 24-7 and it doesn't matter what's happened to you before. So many people get fixated, well, I don't deserve this because of, we all deserve it. So once this gets embedded and you create the narrative of who you want to be or how

you see yourself, what you're doing is you're creating salience, okay? What's that word mean? It means making it important, okay? Once something is important, this activates what we call our task positive network. And the task positive network has three parts. It has the salience network, it has the attention network, and then it has the executive control network. And once something is salient, what you're basically saying is this deserves my attention. And by doing it in a very specific way,

then that becomes important to you. That gets embedded into your subconscious as something to pay attention to. Once that is defined as something important to you, then that activates your attention network so that then you cognitively focus your attention on whatever that intention is. Once those are activated, and I use the analogy in the book, it's as if you have a file cabinet and you put this file into the file cabinet that says important stuff. And once that is there, then the attention network is activated, which is, as an example, a bloodhound that says, okay, now there's something there. I need to track this down and figure out what's going on here.

Then you activate the bloodhound and then that gets released. And then once that attention is focused, then it starts looking around through all the possibilities in your environment. As soon as it identifies one, then your executive control network is activated, which in some ways is the thing that chases down what is in your subconscious. This is how it works.

There is no magic here. This is fundamentally basic neuroscience, and it's something that we all have the ability to master by just doing these techniques whereby you were able to embed your intention, you do it over and over. It's not as if one and done. What I mean by that is some people wake up,

and this is like a New Year's resolution, I'm going to do this January 1st. And then January 1st comes and you already fail the first day. You have to not have excessive expectations at first. What I mean by that is these are based on habit. What happens with habit? You start small. You don't sit there and say, I'm going to lose a hundred pounds in the next month. You say, I'm going to try to modify my diet where I'm not drinking sodas. That's the first little one. And each of these little wins strengthens you to actually then do the big thing ultimately. So you don't start by running a marathon on day one, you start by getting up out of bed

and walking around the block. Don't you just love Dr. Jim Doty? I freaking love him. I always feel smarter when I listen to him. And he just shared so much that I wanna unpack it all with you and I wanna put it in the language that you and I have been using since we started this conversation.

Because what Dr. Jim Doty just did as a neuroscientist and a neurosurgeon is he broke down absolutely every aspect of what I've been talking to you about. Did you catch that? But he put it in terms of the different networks and the functioning of your brain. And so I want to just highlight

and repeat a couple things, okay? So as he explained the way that your mind worked and he went through the mechanics of manifesting, which as he said, the same thing I said, this is not woo-woo, it's not fairy dust, this is hard science. This is intentionally embedding information in your brain. And by intentionally embedding information in your brain, you are activating certain aspects of your brain to work for you. And I'm gonna unpack all of this

because he basically just explained why having projects is super important because it activates the task positive network in your brain. He referred to it as a bloodhound. I called it a golden retriever. It's that instinct, that executive functioning, that focusing of your attention on something outside of you. That's a good thing. And you can train your brain using the method he just talked to us to be able to do it, which is how you're going to train your brain to work for you. You're going to get that bloodhound or that golden retriever to chase down what you want instead of turning itself at you. And he went through this

process, and I'm going to repeat it for you, whereby you can intentionally, through repetition, and by being intentional, you can encode a default way of thinking. And it could be anything. I'm gonna give you an example from my own life. So I used to be a person that struggled a lot with anxiety. I used to see the negative. I used to be constantly worried.

What if this happens? What if that happens? What if the other thing happens? And I don't think like that anymore. I have used the tools that we've been talking about to reprogram my brain to have a different default thinking which is I always think either, well, what if this all works out?

Because I don't know in a moment of worry whether it works out or not. So why not consider as your default, what if this works out? I also as a default have programmed into my mind, I believe that this moment is leading me somewhere that I'm meant to go. It's either teaching me something

or it's giving me a skill or a lesson that I need. And I don't know why I need this, but at some point in the future, I believe that I'll look back on this moment and I'll know why this happened. It's a way to kind of have faith and this kind of trust and assurance in myself to be able to face life's challenges. I have intentionally programmed that into my mind. How do you do it? You do it exactly as Dr. Doty just walked you through. He said, you take out a pencil,

you write down what you wanna believe. I believe I'm capable of success. I believe I am worthy of love. I believe that the love of my life is around the corner. I believe that this moment is temporary and the future is brighter. I believe that I'm stronger than I think. You can write down anything

you wanna believe about yourself. You can write down that I'm beautiful. You can write down that I'm working very hard and my hard work is going to pay off. And all I need to do is just keep my head down and keep being a kind person and working hard and things are going to work out. And Dr. Doty says, take out a pencil, write down the statement that you want to believe about yourself. After you write it down, you're gonna read it to yourself. Then you're gonna say it out loud. And what did he just teach us?

That if you do this over and over, you wake up every day and you pick up the pencil and you write it down and you read it to yourself, and then you read it out loud, through repetition, you are intentionally embedding this belief about yourself. And he then explained to you, I mean, I think this is so exciting.

The different parts of your brain networks that are activated. Number one, by writing it down, you're making it important. Number two, through the repetition, you're actually embedding the intention in your subconscious, right? What does that do? Well, remember when we talked about looking for hearts?

It's the same thing. By telling yourself that you want to see a heart, you're making it salient. You're making it important. You're telling the reticular activity system that seeing hearts is important to you. Same thing with a positive attitude. Same thing with believing that things are gonna work out for you. Isn't that kinda cool?

So now the filter changes because you're embedding this. And then what happens, he talked about the focus and attention network, that's this filter. That's you directing the supercomputer in your mind to filter out anything that is unrelated to this thing you want to believe. And for me, it's literally what if it all works out? It's this belief that if I just show up every day and I do my best and I'm a kind person and I just do the reps and put in the work, eventually things work out. And I do believe that because I have used this process to embed that belief.

And then what happens is when you use the process, you make it important. Through repetition, you embed it in your mind. You then are changing the RAS, which is all about focus and attention. Now you're triggering what he called the task positive network. That's the blood out in your mind. I call it the golden retriever. Boom. It's now actively chasing down anything that is related to this thing that you want.

That's how it works based on the science. And that also covers all of the things we've talked about so far. Having a project and the research about how that aims your brain at something rather than having your problem solving aimed at you. Number two, we talked about looking for hearts. And this is exactly what Dr. Doty is talking about when he's talking about embedding a belief and changing the filter and activating this task network to find things for you. Third, we've just talked about the neuroscience and the mechanics of manifesting

and how you cement in new thinking and you program your brain to work for you. Fourth, let's jump into this one, because this is a simple suggestion for how you can put it all together. And this suggestion is called how you direct your thinking with one sentence. And what I love about this skill

is this comes from another world renowned medical doctor and one of the world's leading experts on the brain itself. I'm talking about none other than Dr. Daniel Amon. He has scanned 225,000 brains, including mine. He has scanned brains of patients from 155 countries. Not only that, but he's written 12 New York Times bestselling books on the brain and brain health. He is a psychiatrist for 40 years. He is the founder and chief executive officer of the Amon Brain Clinics, and he's also the founder of Change Your Brain Foundation, BrainMD, and the Amon University.

This is a busy guy, which means he knows not only about brain health, he knows how to leverage the power of your brain. And so I wanted you to get to learn from him. This is something that he shared with me when he was on the Mel Robbins podcast, and it's the fourth skill I want you to start practicing. It is one sentence that you

can say in the morning and one sentence that you can say at night that leverages everything that you have just learned from Dr. Jim Doty to embed a positive mindset. So let's take a listen and learn together from Dr. Daniel Amon. Check this out. So I start every day with today is going to be a great day because once you get the physical functioning of your brain healthy, you then have to program it. And so I knew I was going to talk to you, firstly, and it came up in my mind. So I start every day. And if you have children, it's really good to do this at breakfast, which is if you have breakfast, it's so why is today going to be a great day for you directing your mind, which for many people,

because of evolution, they wake up in a negative state, it puts your brain in a positive state. And then my favorite of all the habits I do is when I go to bed at night, I say a prayer, and then I go what went well today, and I go on a treasure hunt. And I actually start from the very moment I woke up, looking for what was right about the day. And I've done this now, seven or eight years, and even the night my dad died about two and a half years ago. It was an awful, awful day. I did it because it was my habit, right? The brain

is lazy. It does what you nudge it to do. And so it really helped me even in a really hard time. But it's almost my favorite time of the day, because like you, I'm busy and great things will happen and I'll just not really focus on it. But it's that treasure hunt that is just so good. Here's what I love about what Dr. Daniel Amon just shared with us. This is so simple.

I'm just gonna repeat it. Every morning, I gotta look ahead at the day, I gotta activate the bloodhound, and I gotta look for things that are gonna make it a great day. And guess what happens with your brain? Your brain is so smart that it'll find whatever you're asking for.

And so when you give it that project to look ahead and you unleash the bloodhound and the golden retriever, it's gonna find reasons that today is going to be a great day. And then at night, as you lay your head down on the pillow and you say to your brain, well, what went well today? You just did the same thing again. And what I love about this simple sentence in the morning and at night is that it's not only a way to program your subconscious,

to reflect on the positive, is that it's not only a way to program your subconscious, to reflect on the positive, it's a way to train your brain, to direct it, to activate that task network that Dr. Doty was talking about, that bloodhound and the golden retriever in there, to go find it. And the more that you prompt yourself to see what went well or what's going to go great, the more you're going to see the good things that are happening that you currently don't.

And I have found that this works beautifully in my life because there's a ton of great things that happen and they're small things, but we don't look for them. And when you don't look for them, you don't see them. And when you don't see them, you miss what's actually happening in your life. And there's a lot of good, even when things are terrible, there's a lot of good that's happening in your life if you ask your brain to help you see it.

And that's a simple way that you can do it. All right. That brings us to the final fifth thing. This fifth thing is literally just quieting your mind. You know, I think one of my biggest problems is at the end of the day, my brain has been so busy working or just running or thinking

that if you really stop and think about it, how do you shut your brain down? Well, if you're a normal person, you probably either start watching TV or you pick up in your doom scroll with your phone or next thing you know, you might be pouring a drink to try to turn your brain off. I've certainly done that in the past.

But what if there was a different option? What if you could just use something like the let them theory and understand that your thoughts kind of come and go, they rise and they fall. And what if you could just let the thoughts rise and not grip onto them? What if part of your wind down routine at the end of the day before your head hits the pillow and you say what went well today, is you just let your mind slowly quiet. Like I just want you to really take this in for me,

because there's a lot of research around how mindfulness, which is not quieting of the mind, but it's really just kind of observing your thoughts without attaching yourself to them. How interesting, I'm still thinking about work. Oh, interesting. That news headline just popped in my mind. Oh, interesting, now I'm thinking about picking up my phone.

You just let the thoughts rise without giving them any weight. You know, one of my favorite meditations, I don't know who told me this, so I don't know who to credit. And it involves littering. So now I'm of course gonna make myself wrong for doing this, but this is just visual, we're not actually doing this, so I don't know who to credit. And it involves littering. So now I'm of course going to make myself wrong for doing this, but this is just visual. We're not actually doing this.

Is thinking about your thoughts as they rise up, especially negative ones. Something rises up, oh, I wish I would have said that, oh, that went well, that went bad, whatever. As if you are casting them on a piece of paper into a raging river, and you just watch them float downstream. And I find that to be super effective, because I'm just letting the thoughts rise without giving them weight, and I'm watching them float away. And what's interesting is there's a brand new study about how effective this is. Mindfulness, just being mindful of the thoughts as they rise without attaching yourself to it. And this study was just published

in the Journal of Mindfulness. It's research that comes out of Lawrence University and Goucher College that basically found that being present and practicing techniques where you just let your thoughts rise and fall, they help you steer clear of negative thought loops. And that leads to a brighter and more positive outlook.

They've actually found that, you know, if you're somebody that ruminates a lot, which is where you dwell on negative feelings and you dwell on what's going wrong, it can worsen symptoms of depression and you can stay stuck there. It's almost like when the dog, you know, goes number two, don't step in it, notice it, and walk past it. You can do the same things with your thoughts. And I find that the let them theory is super helpful when I just say to myself, just let the thoughts come,

don't attach and then let me remind myself, I'm not my thoughts. And now you've got another let me part because you now understand that supercomputer in your brain. You understand that you also have the ability to give yourself a project, especially something creative. If you just occupy your hands and you occupy your mind with something that is creative or a project or some ball that you can chase down, as we've been discussing over and over, that's gonna help.

Another thing that you can do is you can remind yourself to look for hearts, which activates that filter in your brain and reminds you that your mind is trying to help you see the things that are important to you. You have to remind your mind that are important to you. You have to remind your mind what's important to you. How do you do that?

Remember the third skill, manifesting. Dr. Jim Doty walked us through how it works and how you can do it through repetition. Just write it down, read it, say it out loud, repeat it. That's the process. You also learned about this trick from Dr. Daniel Lehman. One sentence in the morning. Why is today gonna be a great day? Your mind is like a bloodhound or a golden retriever. If you direct it like throwing a ball, why is today going to be a great day? Your mind will chase down an answer

for you. It's pretty cool when you start to really embrace what I'm telling you. And finally, let the thoughts rise, let the thoughts fall. Because you have more power than you believe. It has been so liberating and empowering and exciting when I finally took all these tools and started to use them in my life. And I'm so excited to see what happens to you

when you embrace these five simple skills and you start using them in your day-to-day life. And I'm certain here's what you're gonna find. And here's what the people that you share this episode are gonna find. That this is how you can take control of your mind. This is also how you let go of negative thoughts and you program in more positive default thoughts.

And this is also how you redirect all of your mental energy to happiness, positivity, success, and self-transformation. And one more thing, I wanted to be sure to tell you that I love you and I believe in you. And I am so excited for you because absolutely everything that you learn today, it works. It's simple to understand.

It's simple to use. And I think you're going to start feeling different and seeing the world and yourself differently really quickly. Like, your brain is a super cool thing because it has the ability to change and you now know simple ways you can program it every single day to work for you.

And I can't wait to see what happens in your life when you do. Alrighty, I'll be waiting for you in the very next episode. In fact, I'm gonna be waiting to welcome you into it the moment you hit play. I'll see you there. I'll see you there.

I'll see you there. I'll see you there. I'll see you there. I'll see you there. I'll see you there. I'll see you there. And every time you see a heart, here's what I want you to do. I gotta take a sip of my water.

What's it called? A T-Gowan? What's it called, a T-Gowan? What's it called? Great. Mel, you have three minutes till therapy. Oh, fuck. Yeah. What's it called? A Tiga-wan? What's it called? Great. Mel, you have three minutes until therapy. Oh, fuck. Yeah.

Okay. The natural break for you. Okay. Wow. Bummer. Why don't you... Like, you could write down anything that you want to believe about yourself. Can you hear them? We're good, you think? Yeah.

Okay, great. All right, great job guys. Oh, and one more thing. And no, this is not a blooper. This is the legal language. You know what the lawyers write and what I need to read to you. This podcast is presented solely for educational and entertainment purposes. I'm just your friend. I am not a

licensed therapist and this podcast is not intended as a substitute for the advice of a physician, professional coach, psychotherapist or other qualified professional. Got it? Good. I'll see you in the next episode. Sticher.