The Resilient Mind - From Failure to Success: How One Tool Can Change Your Life - Mel Robbins

Episode Date: September 8, 2024

Mel Robbins is an accomplished author, motivational speaker, former lawyer, and one of the most sought-after self-help experts in America. Her TEDx talk, "How to Stop Yourself Over," has been viewed over 25 million times and has helped millions of people around the world change their lives for the better.Learn More About Mel's training: Make It HappenTake action and strengthen your mind with The Resilient Mind Journal. Get your free digital copy today: ⁠⁠⁠⁠Download Now⁠⁠ Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Welcome to the Resilient Mind podcast. In this episode, you will be listening to, from failure to success, how one decision can change your life with Mel Robbins. Get access to the Resilient Mind Journal by clicking the link in the show notes. Enjoy. At some point, we all bought into this lie that you've got to feel ready in order to change. We bought into this complete falsehood that at so, point you're going to have the courage. At some point you're going to have the confidence.

And it's total bullshit. It's complete garbage. And so there are so many people in the world. And you may be watching this right now. And you have these incredible ideas. And what you think is missing is motivation. And that's not true. Because the way that our minds are wired and the fact about human beings is that we are not designed to do things that are uncomfortable or scary or difficult. Our brains are designed to protect us from those things because our brains are trying to keep us alive.

And in order to change, in order to build a business, in order to be the best parent, the best spouse, to do all those things that you know you want to do with your life, with your work, with your dreams, you're going to have to do things that are difficult, uncertain, or scary, which

sets up this problem for all of us. You're never going to feel like it. Motivation's garbage. You only feel motivated to do the things that are easy. Because I've studied this so much because for me, one of the hardest things to figure out was why is it so hard to do the little things that would improve my life? And what I've come to realize and what we'll talk a lot about today is that the way that our minds are designed is our minds are designed to stop you at all cost.

from doing anything that might hurt you. And the way that this all happens is it all starts with something super subtle that none of us ever catch. And that is with this habit that all of us have that nobody's talking about. We all have a habit of hesitating. We have an idea. You're sitting in a meeting. You have this incredible idea.

And instead of just, you know, saying it, you stop. and you hesitate. Now what none of us realize is that when you hesitate, just that moment, that micro moment, that small hesitation, it sends a stress signal to your brain. It wakes your brain up and your brain all of a sudden goes, oh, wait a minute, why is he hesitating? Now he's hesitating to talk, something must be up. So then your brain goes to work to protect you. It has a million different ways to protect you. One of them is called the spotlight effect. It's a known phenomenon where your brain magnifies risk. Why? To pull you away from something that it perceives to be a problem. And so you can truly trace every single problem or complaint in your life

to silence and hesitation. Those are decisions. And what I do and what's changed my life is waking up and realizing that motivation's garbage. I'm never going to feel like doing the things that are tough or difficult or uncertain or scary or new. So I need to stop waiting until I feel like it. And number two, I am one decision away from a totally different marriage, a totally different life, a totally different job, a totally different income, a totally different relationship with my kids. Not like one decision I'm divorcing you in the marriage example, but one decision on, you know, you could be having a conversation with your spouse and you feel your emotions rise up and within a tiny window, those emotions. can take over and can impact how your marriage goes. Or you can learn how to take control of that micro moment and make a decision to act in a way that actually shifts your marriage.

Your life comes down to your decisions. And if you change your decisions, you will change everything. The five-second rule and my life now and my 20-year marriage and everything that I'm doing and the companies that I've built and sold in the company I'm building now. It all comes back to a point in my life that completely and utterly blew. I was 41 years old.

I was unemployed. My husband had started a restaurant business, which was his dream. This is actually a funny story when he got laid off from a big job in high tech and I think he was really relieved. You know how a lot of us wait to quit our jobs and then we get laid off and we're like, yes.

And he said, I'm not going to look for a job. I'm going to go into the restaurant business. And I think I said the most famous lines of our marriage at that point. I looked at him and I said, listen, buddy, inspiration is for strangers. You get your butt back to that job and you pay the mortgage. And again, micro-moment where I'm being a jerk instead of being a supportive wife.

But that's an example of where when he said he was not going to go get a job, but he was going to start a business, the first thing that was there was fear. And so fear was making the decision for me. Well, so what happened is the first restaurant, was a home run. And of course, what do you do when things are successful? You grow it. You grow it really big. And so they decided to raise some money. And we threw in our home equity line, the kids' college savings. They tried to open a second and a third. And at the same point,

a grocery store chain encouraged them to go into wholesale. So it basically got way too big, way too fast. And the wheel started to come off. And they came off so badly that the second restaurant failed and they held on to it for too long like a lot of us do it's another trick our brains play on us called sunk costs when you throw a ton of time and a ton of money at something it's really hard to let go of it and if you haven't done it in business we all have a relationship in our past stayed way too long that was a trick your brain played on you um so by the time that they closed the second restaurant it was an $800,000 loss that meant our entire home equity line gone Right.

It meant kids' call it. I get just choked up just thinking about how terrifying it was. And so I found myself at the age of 41, like, just feeling like a complete failure. And so did Chris. And to make it worse, not only had we lost all of our savings, but so many friends and family members had invested. And so there was this real tension between the truth of what was happening and what you had to do in public.

because it was a public business. Shame, failure, embarrassment, and the liens started to hit the house. The phone started to ring, and it was nothing but collection calls. And I just remember feeling this tremendous shame. And at some point, I think we all hit that moment in life where things just are not going how you thought they would go.

And what's amazing about those moments is we all respond very differently. So my husband, he would spring out of bed and he would head right out that door, 6 o'clock in the morning, and he would go meet his partner and they would go to the bank and they would dig right in and they would face their problems head on. And he's also a smart guy. I mean, he did not want to be in the house when yours truly woke up because I was a raging bitch at that point in our lives.

And the reason why is because when you're scared and you're afraid and you're jealous and you're overwhelmed with emotion, it is so much easier to point the finger at other people. That's a decision, by the way. One, you may not be aware that you're making, but you're still making it. So what would happen to me is the exact opposite. Is Chris would be gone. The alarm would go off at 6 o'clock in the morning, and I would lie there.

And I would think about the lien on the house, and I would think about the bankruptcy that we were facing, and I would think about how much we had fought the night before, and I would think about the fact that I was unemployed, and I would hit the snooze button. I mean, why would you get up when your life is like that? Why would you? I mean, I needed confidence.

I needed courage. I was so tapped out. And, you know, in the scheme of life, hitting the snooze button is not that big of a deal. But here's the thing about life. None of us wake up and say, today is the day I destroy my life. What we do is we kind of check out because it feels overwhelming.

Or we check out because we're afraid. Or we check out because we start listening to self-doubt. And then we make these teeny tiny decisions all day long. And we don't even realize it. Decision to not get up on time. A decision to not eat the right thing. A decision to snap at your kids. A decision to not speak in a meeting.

A decision to not look for a job. A decision to not deal with your finances. A decision to not call your parents. whatever it is. All day long, these tiny decisions that take you so far off track. And then you wake up like I did and you look at your life and you think, how the hell did I get here? And more importantly, how do you get back over there? And you have no idea. And so I was so trapped. And I know from your story, you felt the same way. Like you knew that there was more in store for you, but you couldn't figure out how do you close that gap? How do you find the power that's in

How do you discover your greatness? How do you solve these problems? It feels so overwhelming. When you can't, I mean, I would go to the grocery store and the items would scan, and I would be sitting there readying my excuse, because there was no way that my check card was going to clear. So I got in this struggle with myself that a lot of us find ourselves in, And that is, you get trapped in what I call the knowledge action gap.

You know what to do, but you can't seem to make yourself do it. Right? I mean, every one of us is one Google search away from a list of instructions that if you follow any of them, it will change your life. But how do you get out of your head and stop thinking about what you need to do and actually do it? And in my case, this stuff was pretty easy. get up on time make breakfast for the kids

get them on the bus start looking for a job be nicer to Chris don't drink so much instead of isolating yourself pick up the phone and call a friend get yourself out into the woods and go for a walk start running again

like all these little things that I was capable of but I couldn't get out of here could not get out of here and if you're stuck that's the problem The problem is you're in your head, you're thinking. That is the universal problem. And it all starts with this knowledge of what to do,

and then you hesitate and you think about whether or not you feel like doing it. So for a couple months, I was really stuck. Chris would get up at six. I'd hit the snooze, and then I'd hit the snooze, and then I'd hit the snooze, and then I'd hit the snooze. The kids would miss the bus. And then every night I'd do the same thing. I'd go in bed.

Have you ever had one of those nights? Probably before you started your company, but were you'd go in bed and you're like, All right, Tom, that's it. Tomorrow, it's the new me. Tomorrow, tomorrow, I'm going to get up on time. I am going to go to the gym. I am going to look for a job.

I'm not going to drink so much. It's going to be amazing. The new me, the future me, woo! Let's do this, right? Then you go to bed and you wake up seven hours later and you're like, I don't feel like the new me. It's the only, who is the stupid? See, motivation's garbage.

It's never there when you need it. Ever. Ever, ever, ever. And so here's what happened to me. And thank you for wearing the NASA T-shirt. It's a really stupid story. So one night, Chris had gone to bed. I'd been struggling, struggling, struggling.

We still had all the same problems. We still to lean on the house, still facing bankruptcy, still fighting like crazy. I was still unemployed. They still hadn't figured out the solution yet for the business. And I was about to turn off the TV, and there on the TV, there was this rocket launching, and I thought, oh, my gosh, that is it. I am going to launch myself out of bed like a rocket ship, like NASA, right here,

had launched me out of that bed. And I'm going to move so fast that I don't think. I'm going to beat my brain. Now, here's a really interesting point. I talk a lot about your instincts and inner wisdom. And we can get into this a little bit later, but a lot of us talk about the fact that you have a gut feeling. But what all this research that I've done for the book

and all the speaking that I do, what I've discovered that's fascinating is actually when you set goals, when you have an intention on something that you want to change about your life, your brain helps you. What it does is it opens up a checklist, and then your brain goes to work, to remind you of that intention that you said.

And it's really important to develop the skill. And I say that word purposefully, the skill of knowing how to hear that inner wisdom and that intention kicking in and leaning into it quickly. So for me, my brain saying, that's it, right there, move as fast as a rocket mill. I wanted to change my life. And I think most people that are miserable or that are really like dying, to be great and dying to have more, we want to change. We want to live a better life.

We want to create more for our families. We want to be happier. The desire is there. Again, it's about how do you go from knowledge to action? So the first thing in the story that's important is realizing that the answer was in me. And my mind was telling me, pay attention. Could have also been the bourbon. I had a couple of Manhattan's that night.

Anyway, the next morning, the alarm goes off. and I pretended NASA was there. It's a stupidest story. I literally went five, four, three, two, one. I counted out loud, and then I stood up. And I'll never forget standing there in my bedroom. It was dark, it was cold, it was winter in Boston. And for the first time in three months,

I had beaten my habit of hitting the snooze button. I couldn't believe it. And I thought, wait a minute. Counting backwards, that is the dumbest thing I've ever heard in my entire life. Well, the next morning I used it again and it worked. The next morning I used it again and it worked. The next morning I used it again and it worked. And then I started to notice something really interesting.

There were moments all day long, all day long, just like that five second moment in bed, where I knew knowledge what I should do. and if I didn't move within five seconds, my brain would step in and talk me out of it. Every human being has a five-second window. It might even be shorter for you. You have about a five-second window in which you can move from idea to action

before your brain kicks into full gear and sabotages any change in behavior. Because remember, your brain is wired to stop you from doing things that are uncomfortable or uncertain or scary. It's your job to learn how to move from those ideas that could change everything into acting on them. There's a guy, Steve, that wrote to us who was a veteran.

He was suffering from post-traumatic stress disorder. He boarded a ferry overseas with the intention to jump over. He walked over to the railing and his inner wisdom kicked in. In that moment, the five-second rule, five-four, three. 3-2-1, counting backwards, moved away from the railing, asked for help, saved his life. His story has inspired countless other people that have heard me in the speeches that I give around the world about this one tool. And so, you know, the thing that's so cool about this, and I should tell you the science behind

it, because I'm going to be honest with you, it is stupid. Had I ever thought that I would find myself eight years after discovering it, spending my days telling people about the five-second rule. It was my secret weapon. This was something I did. I never intended to tell anybody because I went from getting up on time and waking up on time to shaking up my entire life.

Because when you understand the power of a five-second decision and you understand that you always have a choice to go from autopilot to decision-maker, everything in your life will change. You will be a different negotiator. You will be different in sales. You will be unstoppable in the gym. because you will realize the amount of garbage

that you put in the way of your hopes, of your dreams, of your potential, of your confidence, of your courage. Everything comes down to the decisions that you make. We all know what to do. None of us know how to make ourselves do it. So I started researching it. Why does something so stupid work?

Why? Why does something so silly create such powerful and profound change? Well, here's why. The rule is a form of metacognition. Metacognition is a fancy-pants terms that means something real simple. You can outsmart your own brain in furtherance of goals. There are tricks that you can use that actually outsmart the tricks your brain plays on you.

In furtherance of a higher purpose. We all know this. You can restrain yourself if you're in a situation that calls for it. You can jump into a raging river to save your dog or your kid. You can direct yourself in ways if it's important to you. And so the rule, what it does is it does something really remarkable. When you count backwards, 5, 4, 3, 2, 1, what you're actually doing is you're interrupting what researchers call habit loops that get encoded as closed loop patterns in your basal ganglia.

That's the part of the brain where your feelings, where your emotions, every habit that you have, which is nothing more than behavior that you repeat, that you don't even think about. So when you go 5, 4, 3, 2, 1, it interrupts what's going on here that's spinning without you thinking, and it moves and awakens your prefrontal cortex. So when you hit 1, your habit has been interrupted. So you've interrupted self-doubt. You've interrupted maybe snapping at your kids. You've interrupted the desire to grab for a drink.

you've interrupted procrastination. You've also, by counting backwards, done an action. It's awakened your prefrontal cortex. That is the part of the brain that you need that's awake when you're changing behavior, when you're learning new things. When you hit one, it's also a prompt. So in the language of research, you'll hear people talk about starting rituals. That is something that's proven to help you learn a new habit.

the five-second rule, when you repeat, it becomes a starting ritual that triggers you to act with confidence, that triggers you that this is a moment for courage, that triggers you to shift gears. And because you've also done the manual work of awakening the part of the brain that you need to change, you've set yourself up for success. It doesn't work if you count up, because you can keep going. And also counting up doesn't require focus. If you count backwards, 5, 4, 3,21, it, again, awakens the prefrontal cortex, and it prompts you to move. When you start to use it and then you read about it, you'll see that it's being used all over the place.

They use it in the armed services in order to align troops and get them to start an exercise because it requires you to focus. It's not a habit. It will become a habit that prompts you to have confidence and courage. But in the beginning, it interrupts patterns of behavior that you do on autopilot. It helps you assert control. And it teaches you how to become the kind of person that moves from thinking about something to actually doing it. Thank you for tuning in. Continue strengthening your mind by listening to our other episodes.