The School of Greatness - 970 Mel Robbins: The “Secret” Mindset Habit to Building Confidence and Overcoming Scarcity

Episode Date: June 22, 2020

“When the world feels upside down, you always have the power to make it right.”Lewis sits down with motivational speaker, author, and old friend Mel Robbins to discuss how to make the most of challenging situations, break negative patterns, overcome childhood trauma, and think about confidence in a whole new way. Mel also talks about the opportunity we all have during COVID-19's "great pause," and why she's committed to using her platform to fight racial injustice.-Listen to Mel's first interview on School of Greatness: https://lewishowes.com/podcast/the-5-second-rule-to-change-your-life-with-mel-robbins/-Dan Harris can help you become 10% happier: https://lewishowes.com/958-Text "podcast" to 614-350-9360 to start a conversation with Lewis

This is episode number 970 with the inspirational Mel Robbins. Welcome to the School of Greatness. My name is Lewis Howes, a former pro athlete turned lifestyle entrepreneur. And each week we bring you an inspiring person or message to help you discover how to unlock your inner greatness. Thanks for spending some time with me today. Now let the class begin. NBA Hall of Famer Jerry West once said,

Confidence is a lot of this game, or any game. If you don't think you can, you won't. And Warren Buffett once said, Chains of habit are too light to be felt until they are too heavy to be broken. Ooh, my guest today is literally one of my favorite people in the world. Mel Robbins is a close friend and motivational speaker,

a best-selling author, former CNN legal analyst, and daytime talk show host, the creator of the life-changing five-second rule as well. And Mel is one of the people I trust most in moments of uncertainty. And she has this way of delivering clear and actionable guidance to improve your life today. And in this episode, we talk about overcoming a scarcity mindset. Also what Mel learned when her talk show and her big dream was canceled. Why the COVID-19 pandemic, which Mel calls the great pause,

provides us an immense opportunity for positive change. How to identify and break destructive patterns from our past. Why confidence is all about action instead of mindset. And the lessons on racial justice that Mel learned while covering the deaths of Trayvon Martin, Michael Brown, and more for CNN. Honestly, this is one of the most impactful conversations I've had in months. And if you're finding value in Mel's wisdom, make sure to share this with someone who needs

to hear it. Let's dive into this episode with the one and only Mel Robbins. I realize that I'm still in the mindset that I was in in 2008 when Chris and I went bankrupt. Which is, I need to get as- Scarcity. Yeah, yeah. Man, really? Yes, that's the big insight I've had during this pandemic. Yeah.

Shut up. Shut up. We're going to talk about it. I like, I- No, I'm just saying shut up because that's crazy to hear you say that. No, honestly, like, so if you get into a situation where you nearly lose everything, and look, I know you've been on your sister's couch. You've been down and out. You've had to reinvent yourself. We could be

the reinvention twins, the two of us. We could be. Yes. And the thing is though, is that if you get in that moment where you can't pay for groceries, where you think your car is going to get repossessed, where you can't pay for your kid's fucking town soccer league. Like that is low. When as a parent, you can't provide what you want to provide for your kids. You don't ever want to be in that situation again. And so when I started to claw my way out of that, Lewis, and I started making money and Chris started getting his restaurant business back on the rails, we were still $800,000 in debt. It was three years worth of trying to make the ends meet. And when I gave that TEDx talk in 2011, that was three years after I discovered the five-second rule. I had a full-time job with

benefits. We were still massively in debt. There were still liens on the house. After that TEDx talk, which is what launched the speaking business, as people started to book me and I started making money, I was like a squirrel with a freaking nut man. A dollar came in. I'm like, put it away, put it away, put it away, put it away, put it away. And every time a speech came, you know what everybody said as I started to explode on the speaking circuit is, oh, speakers get hot. You're going to be the hot speaker in, you know, 2017 and then take everything you can get. And I just said, yes. And so I figured I was just a fad. And so I said yes to everything. And I have become addicted to being busy and it is driven when I'm present

from making an impact. But if I'm honest, it is mostly driven from that mentality from 2008, the fear that this could all disappear. Wow. We are, you know, we both went through our own, I guess, identity shift and, and dream death or ego death in 2000, in 2008 with me from football and you with your career and everything to give people context. Cause I'm just going to roll with this from what you just shared, Mel Robbins has been a friend of mine for years. You've come and spoke at the Summit of Greatness. You've been on the show a few times before, and you've exploded in the last four years, really,

with everything you've been talking about from speaking to the five-second rule to the Mel Robbins show, which was a big hit. But then, you know, in the middle of pandemic, that dream just ended and we're talking about, you know, a big revelation for you, which is scarcity. And this is something we teach all the time to be in abundance and don't have a scarce mindset. But you're saying that you feel like you've been in scarcity still for the

last three years. Yeah. Like I, in some way, obviously abundance of like, I can do everything, but in some way you felt, yeah, there have been modes where I've said yes to things, Lewis, because I've been afraid that all of my good fortune would disappear. And if I had to take a look at the biggest, one of the biggest lessons from the pandemic that COVID-19 created, I call it the great pause where all of us were forced to take a gigantic pause from our everyday life. And I need to qualify what I'm about to say by also saying

that we have not lost a family member. We have not had the, you know, we don't have anybody, my dad is retired, so we don't have an essential worker at a hospital or a grocery store. So I am speaking about the impact of COVID-19 without having lost a loved one. And so the great pause that basically had my talk show end abruptly, we got five minutes notice, we're told to evacuate CVS Broadcast Center. And all of a sudden, it was over. 139 people, no goodbyes. Oh my goodness. 175 shows, no thank yous. It was, we finished taping. I walked into the control room. My executive producer, Mindy Borman, turned to me and said they found COVID in the building. She started tearing up. Everybody,

this has been remarkable. It's a wrap. We are the last show in the building. CBS let us finish taping the, like they're, they're sealing off the building. I literally ran up in the middle of a show. Yes. My, my, my, my, this was March 11th and I, we had already stopped down audiences. And so I ran upstairs to the apartment in CBS, which was like our green room. I grabbed everything that was possibly not nailed down. Don't tell Sony I took a bunch of the blazers. And I'm still a farm girl from the Midwest at heart. Grab them, go. Who's going to know that they're missing? And that was it. I mean, it was so awful because it felt like the biggest dream of my life, which was to host a daytime syndicated talk show and give

advice to people five days a week on television who had no access to therapy, you know, worked, didn't have the time for personal development, make it entertaining, accessible. My whole dream, the time for personal development, make it entertaining, accessible. My whole dream, boom, in five minutes flat, done, no completion, disruption. That was it. And then two days later, Houghton Mifflin, which was my publisher for my next book, started laying people off and they called me and said, we need to cancel the book contract. No, they did not. Yeah, they did. They did not. Yeah, they did. And then, well, in their defense, Louis, I was a year late in delivering. Okay, yeah.

So if you would have done it on time, yeah, it would have been out. Yeah, okay, yes. You had a talk show to do. Dyslexia strikes again. Exactly. So I, and then it started to be like, this speech is canceled, and this speech is canceled, and this speech is canceled. And basically, once Microsoft announced that there were no events happening until June,

2021, the speaking business, at least the corporate speaking business is basically on hold for in-person events for over a year. And in a matter of a week, I saw my entire runway shut down. And what's so interesting is you and I have both, in 2008, like so many of your listeners, the first recession just rocked my life to rock bottom. And when rock bottom hits, you don't have to hit with a thud. Oftentimes when you hit bottom, you bounce. And that's where I think the power is. When the world feels upside down, you always have the power to make it right. When one chapter ends, you always have the power to write a new one. When you feel like nobody loves you, you have the power to learn how to love yourself. And if there's one thing that COVID-19 has done, regardless of whatever devastation it has caused in your life, is it has forced us all to experience the great pause.

And I read that in a Medium article, and I loved that idea of a pause because I think in 2020, our lives have gotten so fast and so digital. When you are forced to pause and get present and to slow down, you are reminded of what's actually important. What's important is your health. What's important is your family and your friends. What's important is whether or not you are taking care of yourself and thinking positive thoughts versus negative thoughts. We got to practice and get to continue to practice the most important skill on the planet, which is emotional resilience, the ability to face hard shit and actually be okay. The ability to face the uncertain and redirect your attention on things that you know that are certain. that are certain. And so I am so grateful that we had this time because when I think about my family, so we've got a 21 year old, a 20 year old and a 15 year old, we will never get these 10

weeks back again. It was a gift as much as our two daughters who are in college were complete assholes when they got home. It was a gift. And the other thing is for that generation, by the way, for them to learn, the generation where everybody gets a trophy, that the things that you love can be taken away like that. That there are things in life that are way more important than your prom or rush. Or graduation. Or graduation. Not to say that you don't deserve to mourn those things, but the perspective check that you got from COVID-19, and it really hit home because one of our daughters has a very close friend in college whose dad died, who's my age. No prior conditions, nothing. And I think when change hits and it's personal, that's when the perspective shift comes.

I think when change hits and it's personal, that's when the perspective shift comes. And so between COVID-19 and the fight for social justice that we're seeing with the Black Lives Matter movement and all of the protesting going on, it's been a really remarkable moment of time if you pause for a minute and you reflect on the opportunity of this moment. What is the opportunity? and you reflect on the opportunity of this moment. What is the opportunity? The opportunity is to unlock the power that's inside you to create a better future for yourself, for your family, for your body, for your mind, for your spirit,

for this country, for this world, for your community. Yeah. You know, I always talk about, since I experienced many breakdowns, whether it be a physical breakdown or relationship breakdown or many breakdowns, whether it be a physical breakdown or relationship breakdown or family breakdowns, I feel like in order for us to really see clearly, we need to break down in a big way. It's hard to make big changes when things are good or when they're so-so. Even when it's like, it's not good, it's hard to make changes.

It needs to be devastatingly challenging for a lot of us some of us maybe can make changes all the time but for most people there needs to be some devastation or near devastation either personally or close to you to say oh let me reevaluate let me pause like you talked about and start creating a better future for myself why do you think that is in human beings that, you know, if things are going bad, we won't change. If they're going good, we won't change, but it's almost like we need a massive breakdown, near-death experience, divorce, COVID for us to see clearly to start changing. Well, there's a really simple answer, patterns.

answer patterns. So the thing about all human beings is that we are pattern learning machines. And if you feel stuck or broken, I guarantee you while you feel that way, you're not, you have a pattern of behavior or a pattern of thinking that is broken. And we need to be disrupted because we love our patterns. And even people that I know, like I've- People when we're in pain. Even when we're in pain, we love the pattern. Well, pain's familiar for a lot of people. Yeah. So a lot of people, like you may be listening to Lewis and I talking,

and you grew up in a super chaotic household. Maybe your parents argued all the time. Maybe your dad or mom were in and out. Maybe there was a lot of fighting. Maybe there was actual abuse. I don't know what was going on, but it was chaotic as hell. And so as an adult, you have vowed yourself, you're not going to repeat that pattern. But what ends up happening is because as a little kid, you observed, witnessed, absorbed the pattern of chaos in your nervous system, unless you go about the intentional work of breaking the pattern of chaos, you will create it in your own life because it's

what's familiar. You won't understand. Why do I keep dating these assholes? Why do I go to these bosses that treat me like crap? Because you don't know what it feels like to be in a relationship with either a boss or a romantic partner or a roommate that is consistent because for the first 18 years of your life, you lived in a state called when's the next shoe going to drop? Right. And so wherever it is in your life that something is broken, there is a pattern that you don't see yet that is making you continue to stay in a broken situation. And so one of the things that you just asked, which is why is a perspective change or losing a job or something like that that's so disruptive because those sorts of things, COVID-19 breaks every pattern.

disruptive because those sorts of things, COVID-19 breaks every pattern. Yes. Black Lives Matter. Yes. Black Lives Matter breaks patterns of thinking that you weren't even aware that you had about privilege or being anti-racist or what your black colleagues and friends and relatives deal with on a day-to-day basis. And so having a breakdown is one of the biggest things on the planet because what you get is you get a break from your own bullshit and you can look objectively at where you are. And for the first time, look ahead and say, well, what do I want to go create? And nine times out of 10, if you're discouraged right now, if you've got financial devastation, if you're facing something that is making this moment in time as hard for you as life was for Lewis and I in 2008 during the last

recession, I beg you, ask yourself honestly if what you had is actually what you wanted. The thing that you just lost, that job that you talked about all the time. That relationship that was bad to you. Yes, or the friends you can't hang out with because it's convenient and you're in quarantine. Like actually ask yourself if this is what you wanted or were you just used to it? Being used to something, Lewis, I think is the biggest reason why people don't change. I asked my mother. I asked my mother, I love my mother. I love my parents. They've been married 51 years, which is a feat because they were, my mom was a teen mom, but I asked her once if she'd go to a personal development seminar with

me. What'd you say? Are you kidding me? Why would I want to change at my age? Oh, wow. I might discover I hate my life. Wow. I was like, okay, I'm just going to leave that right there. Right. I mean. I think being used to what you have. I mean, even our son is, so I'm here in Vermont at my mother-in-law's place, and our son is going to go to high school in Vermont. And so we're going to kind of split our time back and forth between my mother-in-law's place and our place in Boston, because God knows what business is going to be like. And you know, why would you need an office after COVID-19? Another amazing thing to realize, even that change, I notice my own agitation,

my own anxiety coming up. Will I make friends? Will I like a slower lifestyle? What happens if Chris likes it up here and I hate it up here? My own mind, because it's not something I'm used to yet, is making up stories to cling to the old way of life. This is a moment in time, everyone, please. This is the greatest gift. The greatest gift is this moment in time, everyone, please. This is the greatest gift. The greatest gift is this moment of pause where you get in touch with what you actually want.

And if you don't have the skills for crying out loud, look around and take an online course because if you need skills to prepare yourself for the thing that you want, get them right now. Yeah. What is the thing that you want. Get them right now. Yeah. What is the thing you really want then? You've gone on this grab chase of opportunities that have come your way.

Not in a bad sense, but it's like here are a way for you to share a message and be on thousands of stages and do a talk show. And, you know, it sounds like it was your part of your dream, but was it a dream of like, wow, this sounds amazing or is this exactly what I want? Because I remember you texting me a dream of like, wow, this sounds amazing. Or is this is exactly what I want? Cause I remember, I remember you texting me a year and a half ago, two years ago saying, I'm working on the deal with Sony. It's good. I think it's going to happen. And then a couple weeks later it's happening. And then I see all the announcement. It's exciting. You know, I had a talk show on Facebook for a little while. It's exciting stuff. And then you put your whole life into one thing and then it's

over. Now you've transcended where you were before because of the skills you acquired and the opportunities you created for yourself and you've sharpened your coaching abilities and on-camera stuff. Everything has gotten better, but how do you, you know, what do you think about that? Well, so let me back up. Three years ago when I was last on the School of Greatness, I had just published the five-second rule book. Your support was life-changing, Lewis. Like you literally were the person.

If I had shimmied down into the kind of barrel of a cannon, you freaking lit the match and shot me. I don't know about that. You did it. Oh, yeah. You were match and shot me. I don't know about that. You did. Oh yeah. You were crushing it on your own. Don't worry. Well, so I, you know, since then what I, what, what has happened, and this is one of the things that I have, I have reflected upon during these last 10 weeks that I've been off the road and I've been working from home, which I've loved every single second of.

Everything that I have done since we launched the five-second rule book was in reaction to things that were coming to me. So I never sat out and said, hey, the five-second rule audio book has been a complete record breaker. We clearly have an audio audience. Let's go pitch Audible. Audible came to me, which is fantastic. I always dreamt about having a talk show, but I wasn't out pitching one. Sony came to me. In fact, the only reason why we got into courses, online courses, and we now have more than a half a million people that have taken our courses online, was because Success Magazine came to me and said, let's do a course together.

I was there to view you for, Oh, I hated it. Cause what I discovered is I hate being told what to do. And so, but that gave me the idea, Oh, we should do courses ourselves.

And so this pause has made me stop and go, well, what do I really want to do? And the truth is I want to go and make the biggest possible impact that I can. And I want to collaborate with more people. And I want to do events. And I don't want to be the CEO. I'm a terrible leader, horrible leader.

The worst, actually. Because I'm amazing at coaching. I'm amazing at creating. I'm amazing at reacting. I'm terrible at managing people. I'm terrible at managing a project. I have ADD. I have dyslexia. I'm a bulldozer when I get anxious. I know we are. We'd kill each other if we were roommates or business partners, but, but I think understanding yourself is really important. And so there's a couple of things that I've decided. Number one, I'm going to consciously create the next chapter. And what is that? And I'm, well, I'm still in the middle of doing it.

Yeah. But you want to advance, you want to do these things you're talking about. Yeah. Yes. And I want to, I want to collaborate more with a wider audience of people and I want to build a brand bigger than Mel Robbins. Yep. I don't want it to just be me. I want to build a platform based business that reaches more people Because here's the thing that has got, that got me through kind of the loss of the talk show and the way that I think

about things that I hope helps if you're listening, you're kind of struggling with something I believe. And I went into the talk show saying this to myself because there's a 99% chance based on the history of people that have tried to have a daytime talk show that it was going to fail. I went in there saying, I'm not doing this because I expect to have a successful talk show. I'm going to put a thousand percent into it so that I have no regrets and I wouldn't change a thing. But I'm going into this because I know that there is a skill, a person, or an experience I am meant to have that will help me for the next chapter that I can't see coming. And the experience was, number one, meeting Mindy Borman, who is my executive producer, now my business partner and CEO.

is my executive producer, now my business partner and CEO. And it was also in working with a team of 130 people and finally being in the right seat on the bus, Lewis. And not having to manage everything, but being in your lane. Yes. And having a team and you not being the one doing everything. I know that feeling. Well, it's not even that I was doing everything. It's that I didn't have anybody managing me. Right. And so your mind is going to go into like opportunity, opportunity, opportunity, as opposed to focus mode. Right. And so if you ever wonder why it feels like we're running in circles, it's because I'm the one leading us in circles. Right. Yeah. And, and, and so it's a very hard thing to spot when you're in the middle of it. But when I got into a machinery that operated in a way where I was in the right seat on the bus, it was absolutely liberating.

And that was the biggest gift of all. And then the third thing is, I think the daytime talk show and being face-to-face with your audience and having such a big daily audience, it was really amazing to be able to have an impact on a large number of people who feel forgotten because they're a little bit older if they're still watching TV. And a lot of the folks who are still watching TV at home during the daytime do not have the resources that you and I have and may not have access to therapy or live in a community where it's stigmatized. And so having a platform that was reaching people that really appreciated this kind of content and also working with a really diverse range of experts, absolutely incredible. So I felt like I was

organizing a killer dinner party conversation every day with real people's problems and the world's best experts. And so you kind of do a similar thing here on your podcast. So I know I want to continue to do that, but I'm in the middle of creating it. So if I said anything other than I know it's events, I know it's more courses, I know it's collaborating with more people and getting outside my comfort zone. And I also know that as I set out to write down what I want to do, there is so much freaking fear that I have. Why is that? Because I still feel like I'm not worthy. I feel like I don't deserve it.

Like it's old bullshit. And I think that's the other thing about patterns. Everybody is just because you identify. And for me as a kid, for whatever reason, I have my own version of feeling invisible and feeling like I'm not good enough. And so my way of coping both with my anxiety and being a survivor of sexual abuse and wanting love, which we all need, is I was like an overachiever. And so I'm the kind of person that's super busy and a go-getter because it got me attention. And if I was the one that was super busy and achieving, I not only got praise, but it also insulates you from other

people not picking you because you're the one in a leadership role doing the picking. And so there's a part of me at the age of 51 that is realizing that these feelings of feeling unworthy and this hyper drive to try to achieve it's all coming from a place of feeling inadequate or like what i'm doing is not enough and still that's 50 having a talk show having a best-selling book having the audible originals having the platform everywhere having the impact is still don't feel being the most booked female speaker in the world. Like you still don't feel stupid. It's annoying. And human beings are annoying. We are stuck with this wiring. Like if you think about it, like all of the crap you believe is probably a hangover from age zero to 10. That as adults, we walk around thinking the same stuff we thought as kids. And I can't stand that I feel that way, but knowing it, it allows me to catch it before it

has me, before it stops me from having an event or writing that next book or taking a risk. What do you think the biggest fear is? Because you say not worthy or not feeling enough. Is that? I mean, it's just people liking me. I think like, you know, being a people pleaser. Yeah. We're so similar in every way.

It's crazy. What happens if 99% of people like you and one percent doesn't like you oh i don't give a shit about that okay but if it's like if it's 50 50 i think that the work that we all have to do every single one of us whether you bulldoze whether you people please whether you avoid conflict whether you're impulsive, whether you yo-yo your decisions, whatever it is that is your pattern, you know, the constant trashing yourself. I think the journey of your whole life is figuring out how to truly like and love yourself. It's so true. I mean, I remember this was my whole life was never loving myself and needing to go prove to others originally that I'm worthy. This was happening in sports and

business until I started opening up and accepting myself and taking off the mask when I turned 30, talking about sexual abuse and just kind of saying, screw it. I don't care what people think about me anymore. This pain inside is hurting so much. It's not worth living with it. So I'm going to start sharing and allow myself to heal and allow myself to finally love myself. And it's so funny that we could just write a book with two words that says love yourself. And that's all the book needs to say, because a lot of us never remember to love ourselves. Remember to acquire skills, which are important. Remember to love other people or remind ourselves to take care of our health. But if we don't love ourselves internally, we don't think we can give ourselves a hug because we're not deserving of it. Then none of this stuff is going to matter to the point of

we're always going to need to do more to feel something. Right. Well, nobody teaches you how to do it. And see, that's the thing. And, you know, I mean, if you look at human development, we're the only species that literally can't survive without another human being taking care of you. And so we are biologically hardwired to bond with other people. And that is the that is from the very beginning of when you come out, bonding with somebody else and making sure they pay attention to you is your survival imperative. So you are born needing somebody else. And I think what ends up happening is there's never that kind of clean break or pass off between needing your parents to take care of you, needing your friend's approval to fit in, to truly having ownership over giving yourself what

you didn't get, giving yourself what you needed. And that's the piece that I've been doing a lot of during the great pause is slowing down because so much of my busyness was fueled by, you know, praise me, love me. Am I doing enough? You know, please tell me I'm doing okay. Okay. I can breathe now. I'm okay now. And when I slow down and maybe it's a function of the anxiety, that's when things get scary because that's when you've really got to be with yourself. And so it's in getting off the road, slowing down, recognizing that I'm super grateful for all the opportunity. And I know the work that I'm doing makes a tremendous impact. And I particularly love hearing from mental health practitioners that the five second

rule, I've heard from so many people in inpatient psychiatric wards, Lewis, that use the five second rule in the videos we put on YouTube in their group counseling sessions with people. And knowing that it is helping so many people, it is like the greatest gift on the planet to know that it's making a difference. But I know that in this next chapter that I consciously create, I want to have more fun. I really want to love the process. I don't want to make it so hard on myself and be gripping everything so tight. And it's really easy for me to see it in other people because I know what it feels like in here. I'm working hard to break the patterns that still hold me back. And the big one that holds me back

is bulldozing. It's literally when I start to feel any level of tension, this is particularly true in my marriage. I'm married to a saint. Thank God Chris Robbins meditates every morning. It's the only reason why we've lasted 26 years. That's how he puts up with me. When I feel my whatever, emotion rise, I immediately raise my my voice it's how I assert power in the relationship and I am so committed Lewis to breaking that pattern wow and being a more fun person to be around and a kinder person to be around wow that's beautiful that you're getting this during the pause what do you pause. What do you think was, what do you think was the biggest lesson you learned about yourself during the talk show

experience before the pause? Because you, you covered so many topics and you had to research about so many things and you brought so many people on, experts, but then just everyday people going through their challenges. What's the thing that you learned that was new? Because this is something you've been studying for years and talking about. And was there anything new that you were like shocked about? You learned about yourself or about human behavior? This is going to be a really, well, first of all, there's two things. The first one, I'll make it deeply personal. And the second one will be a thing that I learned. I'll make it deeply personal and the second one will be a thing that I learned. Okay. The talk show experience was almost like it's, it's weird. It almost feels like it didn't happen. Really?

Yeah. It was your whole life for like two years. Yeah. But you know, 175 shows, it was in super intense, you know, it was, it was almost a spiritual experience because I had dreamt about it for as long as I could remember. And I stepped onto that talk show set with such a level of mastery. And the reason why I had a level of mastery is because I could look backwards at my life and see that I had been heading to that moment for my entire life. That the ability to create trust and take a complicated amount of information and get down to the human connection immediately. That began back in 1994 when I was a legal aid attorney doing criminal defense work in New York City. My ability to understand what victims of domestic violence go through goes all the way back to 1986 through 1988 when I was a

crisis intervention counselor volunteering on a domestic violence hotline. My ability to read a teleprompter had to do with being at CNN. My ability to work 18 hour days was a function of the reality TV show world. My ability to relate to somebody who had lost everything was a function of what Chris and I had gone through. My ability, like just everything all of a sudden was like, and it's why I can say with such urgency that you have to have faith that this is happening for a reason that this is leading somewhere. And if you only just stay awake and you pay attention to what your body's trying to tell you in those moments when you have a signal come up. Like, I think right now, aren't you so happy you're a digital entrepreneur? I've been speaking about building an online business for over a decade.

And so now I'm like, oh, I know what to do. And everyone's coming to me for the solutions. And our team is digital. So we are virtual. So we know how to run everything. And we do Zoom meetings every week already. Yes. And so I literally, when I think back three years ago, where I saw one of your videos or Gary's videos or somebody, I'm like, oh, I just need to start filming the book lines at these speeches. And it was a moment. It was this little amount of wisdom inside of me that I listened to. And I am telling you, that is the power. You got to tune out the noise and you got to learn how to make what I call a quiet decision.

Quiet decision where you shh, shh, shh, shh, shh, shh, and you hear what your heart is urging you to do. And so I sit here, because aside from the talk show ending and the book getting canceled, I was literally like, okay, so online courses, we do Zoom, we've got this amazing social media platform, we'll figure it out. And luckily, I was like a squirrel with a nut. And I put a lot of money away because I was not going to make the same mistake twice. Smart. Yeah. And you've been doing a lot of research and you've been diving in and making sure you make the right decisions. We've been texting and chatting about different stuff. So the biggest, the biggest insight though, is we did a show that had, uh, I, I can't believe I can't remember the gentleman's name. He's from Washington, D.C., and it was a show about heroin and heroin addiction or the opioid addiction and heroin and how this has been an epidemic in the black community for 20 years.

It only became a big national story because opioid addiction got linked to heroin abuse and it became a white problem. And so he came on the show with three former addicts. It was the most profound show that I have ever done because I learned something that I never even understood as a public defender. And that is living in poverty and living with systematic racism creates trauma. And when people experience trauma in their bodies and in their nervous systems, your response, particularly if you have no resources or treatment, and the vast majority of us do not get treatment for the trauma that we experience,

most of us want to numb it. And he connected the dots between the chronic trauma that the folks that he was serving had experienced growing up in extreme poverty around violence, dealing with racism and bigotry and violence and the natural inclination to reach for something to help you numb that pain. And he connected the dots between deep emotional trauma and addictions that result in a way that I had never heard anybody explain so eloquently. And it was such an eye-opening experience. How do you think we heal trauma if we don't have the resources to go to therapy or do workshops or whatever it may be, even if we do have resources, we don't have the courage to put ourselves out there. How do we start to heal trauma within our body? Excellent question. So we did a whole project for Audible original called Take Control that was all about, the thesis was this,

any area of your life that you're stuck, I am willing to bet everything I have that you have a trauma pattern from your past that you've never healed. You got a boss that is abusive, guarantee you this has to do with a trauma pattern from your past. You can't succeed in the areas you want. You can't lose the weight. There's some pattern from your past. So the first thing is recognizing that you actually experienced trauma. And I am a huge proponent, as so many people are, of widening the definition. Because I think up until about five years ago, most of us thought that trauma just meant, okay, you were in active duty, or you were in a huge accident or incident that was highly traumatic, or you survived some sort of physical, sexual, whatever abuse.

Trauma is just about any kind of experience that you witness or you absorb that has your nervous system light up on edge and start warning you. So if you've ever had, like you could have a critical parent and you just brace for them. You could have a parent that drinks like crazy and you brace at five o'clock because you know they're coming home. You could have been abandoned by a parent or have a parent that was mentally ill or have a parent that was so on your ass because they wanted you to be a pro football player. And so you were constantly on edge. It's when your nervous system fires up to a state of alert that now gets programmed

into your body as a response. now gets programmed into your body as a response. There's a reason why so many couples at five o'clock at night start bickering. And it has to do with the fact that at five o'clock is typically when a lot of parents 20 years ago were coming home from work. And that's when the arguing would start. And so what happens when you feel it is as a kid, you're now in a state where you're on edge. I see you rocking in your chair. Wow, that's crazy. Well, I mean, I just remember, you know, it's funny. There's a lot of good things that usually happen to our childhood,

but we just seem to remember a lot of the bad stuff. And it's because it's- You know why, right? Because it's trauma, just just like and you're nervous yeah and also your mind is wired in a way to prioritize the negative as a means to keep your ass safe for protection from not experiencing correct which is why you got to work on your positive mindset because your mind defaults to negative so you got to build up the programming to positive this isn't just woo woo. This is actually science. I know. So I remember,

you know, my, the memories of the past, I always have to remind myself of all the positive stuff that, you know, my parents did all the time and what they were going through and giving them grace and all these different things. But I remember,

you know, when my dad would get home, it would be, it was, he didn't know what type of day it was going to be for him. You know, it was like either a thunder coming through the, the wooden floors with his wooden shoes and like being angry and upset, or it was like the loving father that would take me out and play catch in the backyard. So I have

to constantly remind myself of like the pause, which I'm, I'm certain it was 90% of the time was good, but those 10% of the time, you know, creates that clinching mode, like you said. But those 10% of the time, you know, creates that clinching mode, like you said. Well, let me explain what happens. So there's a really interesting concept called ghosts in the nursery. And so trauma patterns get automated because they're not experienced in your brain. They're felt in your nervous system. And so it's why you can have a pattern from your past, but be completely unaware that it's running your life right now, because it's stored not in your conscious thought, but

in your nervous system. And you feel it in your body before it even gets into your head. And so there's this concept called ghost in the nursery, which basically means there's all kinds of shit that goes on when you're little that you may or may not remember in your mind, but your body remembers it. So for example, if you had parents that were just stressed out and they come home and they've been busy and you're sitting there playing on the floor and there's toys everywhere and mom or dad's reaction to a mess is to scream, that creates this kind of thing in your nervous

system. that creates this kind of thing in your nervous system. Now, you may not remember that episode that happened on May 17th, 1972, but your nervous system remembers what it's like. So fast forward, you're now 51 years old and you walk in the house and there's a mess everywhere. And even though you have said, I'm not going to bulldoze and yell at anybody, my body recognizes the situation. So what do you do? You repeat the pattern you saw. And so what I'm working on right now is a pattern that is encoded in my nervous system. I was trying to create a video yesterday or two days ago for share the mic for share the mic now, um, trying to create a video. And I'm like doing take after take, cause I want to get it right. And my daughter comes waltzing into the room and was like, how long are you going to be

doing this? And I was like, I literally like screamed at her. And she looked at me, Lewis, I literally like screamed at her and she looked at me, Lewis. And she goes, you have a real problem. Wow. How old is your daughter? 20. And I said, I calmly said, you're right. I do. When I get interrupted, I lose control of the response and I'm working so hard and the way that you, and I'm clearly not mastering this yet, but the way that you do it is as you feel it rise up, you have to, you know, you can use the five second rule, five, four, three, two, one. You can use, just take a quick breath. You can notice the pattern and you've got to create a pause between the emotion rising up and the reaction that gets automated. And for many people, the reaction, Louis, got to create a pause between the emotion rising up and the reaction

that gets automated. And for many people, the reaction, Lewis, is to run away. It's to leave the room. It's to avoid the confrontation. It was just easy, you know, hold on, let me let the clock go. Even though you hate being interrupted by anything, this is a great interruption. See, I did. I didn't do the bulldoze. I was calm because I wasn't a human being. I'm only mean to human beings. A lot of people run away. They avoid conflict. They say it's just easier. But if running away and avoiding conflict continues to create a pattern where you feel invisible and your boundaries are trumped on, that's a pattern. And here's the other thing about patterns. Running away and being quiet

might've saved your ass when you were little. Because if you were quiet and out of the room, you didn't get hit, you didn't get yelled at, you were out of harm's way. So when you were little, it was a genius pattern because it protected you. But the issue for adults is that, again, we walk around with the patterns that we created when we were eight years old in different situations than we are in now. And now we are completely a robot to these patterns. I love that you had a great tweet the other day about boundaries. as individuals, both of us, who try to help people break boundaries, try to break their mindset that's holding them back, try to get them to become greater than their past, all these different things. You wrote a post that said, your boundaries are there to serve you. As you grow,

so will your boundaries. What boundaries do you need to set up in order to help yourself grow? Why are boundaries important when we also have the mindset of like, you should be breaking your boundaries all the time? Well, I wouldn't say that breaking your, like, I don't call the obstacles, I call them excuses. And so I think the hardest boundaries, honestly, are the ones to set with yourself. To not drink during the week, to not tolerate the bulldozing and immediately apologize and try to do better, to not waste hours on social media, like all the things that the small promises you need to make in order to create boundaries with your old patterns and your excuses. To me, the hardest boundaries

to set are those with myself. What boundaries do you need to help yourself to protect yourself? And which ones do you need to grow past that are holding you back? I think that the definition with boundaries that has helped me the most is understanding that boundaries are for me, they're not for you. And the single biggest mistake that we make in any relationship, particularly romantic ones, but also work related ones is we do not express what we need. That's so true. My girlfriend was telling me this the other day. She's like, I really want you to tell me what you need and when you want it and feel comfortable and confident saying it. And for me, I go back into trauma of past. Like when I used to say what I want and need and it didn't get met,

I'd get let down, my expectations, I'd get hurt. So I was like, screw it, I'll just do everything on my own, which leads to resentment or whatever else. Yeah, how's that working out for you? So Louis, that's an example of eight-year-old Louis created a pattern that worked when you were eight yeah but now that you're in your 30s and in a relationship that you really care about you've got to identify the pattern and break it and replace it and the good

news is any pattern can be replaced yeah change isn't personal it just feels personal change is just about identifying patterns and replacing them with new ones. That's it. And it'll take a little while because they're encoded in your nervous system and your default is to just do it yourself. But you have to, you cannot, as a rule, punish other people for you didn't communicate. So I'll give you the perfect example. So Chris and I have been married for 24 years. And when I was before the talk show and I made my living mostly by, you know, doing a hundred speeches a year, I would be on the road 150 days a year. And when I would come home, there was always something that pissed me off. Like what? Like, oh, the trashes are taken out, the clothes are here, or is it something else? Oh, no, I'm way worse than that.

Are you kidding? I would walk in after being gone for five or six days, and there on the island in the kitchen was a vase that had dead flowers, the ones that I had bought for myself a week before. And it was as if everybody in my family had been walking around the island for six days as if there was some dead flower sculpture in the middle of the island. And so I would come home and first of all, the only person that's really excited to see me is a dog. And my family did sit me down at one point and they said, you know, you realize when you're not here, we have our own lives.

So you don't put your lives on hold while, you know, for us and we're not putting our lives on hold. So it's not that we're not excited to see you, but we're not organizing our whole lives around when mom comes home. Right. To be like the dog. Which is actually really good. To be like the dog excited and running up and jumping in your arms and kissing you.

Yeah. Yeah. No. Yeah. No, no. But I think that's cool because that means that they're independent and doing their own thing. They've set boundaries. They've set boundaries with me. Perfect. So for probably six months, I would get pissy and I would walk in and put my bags down and I grabbed the flowers and I demonstrably,

how many times has everyone done this? Throw them out loudly. Like, are you getting my communication? Yeah, I'm getting my communication. Just throwing these dead flowers out, communicate to you that you should buy me flowers. Like, I'm not saying that, but that's what the body language is, right? How dare I have been off. I've been in four cities and then you become a mart like oh i'm disgusting when i tell this story but this is it this is like so well i see you've got some lovely flowers behind you that look alive so that's good to see oh that's nice i do love flowers so finally i just said to chris you know what would make me feel amazing is if when I came home, you had just bought some flowers. Just when you're at the grocery store, you don't have to

order. I'm saying buy the $5 pack of half dead tulips, just something. And then he said, why? And this is the most important part of expressing and look you don't have to give an explanation if you're trying to like cut off a toxic person but if you want to express boundaries with somebody because you want them to understand you more deeply give them the why i said because it makes me think that you are excited for me to come home and that you knew I was coming because I'm starting to feel forgotten. So underneath the anger, Lewis was hurt and feeling like I didn't matter. And so I'll be darn, I walk in and there they are. And I literally feel so seen. And you know, the other thing to do is like another thing for us too, is like Chris and I, I learned on my talk show because Chris was on it. And we

did a show all about men and what men think and the secrets they keep. I learned for the first time that my husband prefers to have sex in the morning. I get a lot of men do. I didn't know that. We'll see. I didn't like it because I don't like bad breath in the mouth. My girlfriend says the same thing. But I'm like, why didn't you tell me? And the reason why is because we're so funky about asking for what we need. We're so afraid of getting rejected or denied or whatever, or being vulnerable in that moment. But the greatest thing that you can do is ask for what you need. Your friends need to know what you need. Your lover

needs to know what you need. Your kids need to know what you need because then they can show up in a way where you feel seen and then you're going to, and they're going to feel incredible. Yeah. And you can't expect people to know what you need or them to know what you need by communicating it through anger and this frustration of, you know, whatever, like he's throwing away the flowers, that way of communicating all really unhealthy. I'm, I'm to blame there as well. And I think it's, that's not a healthy way of, of creating love within a relationship, whether it's a friend, a family member or a loved one.

But here's the thing. You want to know why? Let me let everybody off the hook. Yeah. Because here's the reason why this happens. And this is what I want everyone to know what we're up against. So Louis, as you and I sit here talking about the flower thing, right? And you got to communicate your boundaries. As we're having this conversation, we are present and we're using the thinking part of our brain. When I walk into the kitchen, I am not thinking. I am in the emotional, traumatic, nervous system, robot part of my body. And that's where your feelings and your triggers take over. Yeah.

And if you can start to identify the bulldozing, the anger, all that stuff, you will literally change your whole life by just changing one or two patterns. The other thing, and you know, you asked me about the talk show. The single greatest gift of the talk show content wise is something called the word wheel. So I don't have it right here, but if you Google word wheel or wheel of emotions, you will find that if you ask somebody name as many emotions as you can, most people can name three, happy, sad, angry. There's literally like 113 of them from disgusted to hopeless to, and if you, if you start with a core, this thing allows you to start with

a core emotion and go out. Because back to the flower example, I was expressing anger. That's not what I was feeling. I was feeling invisible and forgotten. And so the word wheel is something that we used several times a week to help people go from the thing that they are expressing to communicating what you're feeling, which is a lot like the work that you wrote about in your book around wearing masks. Getting to the root of the core emotion you're feeling but not expressing. And that gets back to the pause thing. What have I seen? That I am busy. Have you ever wanted something so bad that you become paralyzed? Yeah. I so want to end the mental pain and suffering that people feel. I so want to end the mental pain and suffering that people feel. I so want to help people heal their minds and to have the power to create a better future.

And I get so overwhelmed by how much I want to see that happen in the world that sometimes I become paralyzed. And what happens for me a lot of the time is I feel insignificant and my ability to move the needle on that. Yeah, because there's billions of people who are struggling. Yeah. And it's like, what do you do to make the maximum use of your time to make the maximum impact and also create resources to create more impact?

I yell at my husband to buy me flowers. That's what more impact. I get that feeling. I yell at my husband to buy me flowers. That's what I do. I get the feeling. Is this Wheel of Emotions? Is this something you created or is this something out there? No, it's in the public domain. Wow, that's cool. I've never heard of that.

That's really cool. Now, I've been, I think I mentioned this to you. I guess I've had some paralysis or just a lack of focus around completion of my book proposal I've been working on for about a year as well about about you know eliminating self-doubt I think self-doubt and mental challenges kind of are cousins maybe of each other family members in some way and I think self-doubt I think self-doubt is the killer of dreams I believe when we don't believe in ourselves and our abilities, eventually we're going to sabotage something. And I hear you talk about confidence a lot. A lot of your social media posts are about this.

You say it a lot better than I do. But what do you think are the reasons we doubt ourselves? Or what do you think is the steps to gaining more confidence in ourselves when we doubt? So I always thought that confidence was a thing that you feel. And I have come to prefer that confidence is something that you do. Meaning that, you know, a lot of people, a lot of people like to think, okay, well, you're going to feel confident first. And then once you feel confident, then you'll take the action. And that's wrong. It's not a chicken or an egg in my mind. I think what happens is you have to force yourself

in a moment of self-doubt to do something. And when you see yourself taking action, the confidence follows. So I have created my own definition of confidence, which is confidence is the willingness to try. And you display the willingness to try when you take action. Yeah. It's a lot like the relationship between courage and fear. You can't have courage without fear. Courage isn't the absence of fear. It's acting in the face of it.

And confidence isn't the absence of self-doubt. It's being willing to try, even though you doubt yourself. That's beautiful. That's going in the book. I'm quoting you in the book. Make it, baby. Make it your own. I love that. That's powerful. Yeah. And I think, you know, I'm sure you probably, we're very similar in the sense that we do a lot and we build confidence because we would take action. You in law school and public defending and all these different things you've done which like okay I'm afraid but let me go do it and do it and now okay I'm getting better now I feel more confident it's not just it's not just let me learn something or let me read a book and now I'm

confident in a skill that I haven't applied I must apply it and fail a bunch and realize, oh, okay, I've gotten better. I have fallen over and over and now I'm standing and I'm actually doing okay. And I'm doing even better now. Let me build my confidence there. So. Yes. And look, you know, here's the thing. I think that preparation and studying something so that you feel like you have an understanding of something can be an important first thing that you try, but don't let the studying of something become the reason why you don't actually take the next action. Well, I need to get my master's. I need to go to business school. I need to go to whatever and then never actually do it. When you can start doing something much sooner

before needing to have all the credentials necessarily. Yes. There's very few things. Except for like being a doctor. Okay. Maybe don't do surgery. Correct. Yeah. Yeah. A chemist, a doctor, something that requires you to actually have accreditation and specialized knowledge and engineer, whatever. But most things that you will master in life will not be mastered by reading a book. You cannot learn how to ride a bike by reading about it. You have to get your ass on that seat and find your balance. That's how you find balance is by falling because balance is somewhere in between not being on the bike and falling or being on the bike and falling rather.

That's beautiful. I could go on for another few hours, but I want to ask a few more questions and shift for a second and then try to wrangle us in at some point because I could talk to you forever. But we are in the middle of a powerful moment of time, like you said, with the pause of COVID and now just everything with Black Lives Matter and the, I guess, the race for social justice and the urgency for social justice. You were covering, I believe, when you were at CNN, the George Zimmerman trial about the killing of Trayvon Martin. Is that correct? Yeah. So when I, I was a paid legal commentator for CNN for over three years and I covered Trayvon Martin's murder, Eric Garner, Tamir Rice, Freddie Gray, the list goes on, Michael Brown, Ferguson, the list goes on and on and on and on.

In fact, when the first wave of Black Lives Matter protests happened, I was on set at CNN with Sonny Hostin and Sally Cohn and Margaret Hoover. And at the end of our segment, we all put our hands up in solidarity and support with Black Lives Matter and almost got fired for making a political statement. Yep, on CNN. I was just going to ask, what were your big lessons learned from those early cases as we're now kind of seeing it come to fruition and people talking about those a lot even more now. What did you really learn about racism, about social injustice, about systemic racism, or the facts about certain things? Because people can express emotion

around topics, but then you're diving into more statistics and facts. So what did you truly learn as an analyst there? Well, and I think that it goes even further back to being a public defender in New York City. You're experiencing this all the time. Legal aid. First of all, that white people don't have a fucking clue what it's like to deal with the racism that you face if you're black in America. We will never understand the stress, the bigotry, the bias, the fear, and the ways in which systematic racism, which impacts every level of society, whether we're talking about medical access, or we're talking about the way schools are funded, or redlining, or voter access, or it just goes on, or police police brutality or the fact that an unarmed black man is four times more likely to be killed by the police. I mean, it just goes on and on and on.

The fact that if you have an ethnic sounding name, Lewis, and somebody gets your resume, you're more likely to not even get an interview with identical qualifications. So it goes on and on and on. So the first thing that I will say is this, is that this moment in time feels different. Why? I was outraged when Trayvon Martin was murdered. I was outraged when Freddie Gray was choked to death. I was, and said, I can't breathe the same words. I was horrified and heartbroken

watching that surveillance tape when the cops rolled up on Tamir Rice, who I think was 12, playing in a, in a park with a little toy gun with his friends when the cops killed. I just, I, and, and I don't want to make this, this is not a police versus, there's a huge need for police reform, huge need, and criminal justice reform, and issues of mass incarceration. But this does feel different. And the reason why this feels different is because of the diversity of voices that are joining in the fight for change and the size and global nature of the marches and the collective nature of this. amount of work to do. And I really love the work of Professor Ibram Kendi, all of his research around anti-racism. And I do agree with him that this has got to be looked at as a policy issue, that there are policies that keep a racist system in place. And until we change policy and systems, we do not have a chance to eradicate

racism and bigotry and violence against black people. And we have got to look at policy on every level, local, state, federal, everything. The know, the biggest insight that I had, though, being a CNN analyst was personal. And I'm kind of embarrassed to admit this, but it is what it is. So I remember sitting on the set and we were like in between shows. And one of my very dear friends, Joey Jackson, who is also a legal analyst, he's still at CNN. I am no longer at CNN. We were sitting there talking and we have kids the same age and Joey and I are very, very good friends. And his son had gotten into a fantastic school and we were still waiting for, to hear, you know, whether or not our daughter or where our daughter was going to get in. And I'm

like, oh my God, Joey, he got it. And so we were talking about it. And I said, are you so excited? And he paused and he said, yeah, but I'm really nervous. I said, nervous? What are you nervous about? And it was a school in the South. And he said, I'm really nervous to have our son go down to the Carolinas. Here he is, you know, a black kid who grew up in New York City. And I'm nervous.

And it was the first time, Louis, after decades of talking about these issues, thinking about these issues, that I felt this like here personally, because it was the first time time that it dawned on me in a deep soul crack open kind of way that this person that I love and adore has to deal with that Chris and I would never even it wouldn't even occur to us yeah and that was the moment that I think in my bones I started to understand what people meant by privilege, that it's not just what Warren Buffett said in that video that's gone viral about his success and how part of his success is that his mother was white and the womb that he was in was white and that opened doors that would not have been open for him had it had been otherwise. But it was not, you know, this idea that, yeah, there's the

fact that because of your status as being white, heterosexual, college, like on and on and on, you're ahead when you talk about the starting line. But it was also this idea that, holy, like the type of things I stress about, I don't even, like Joey and his wife think about totally different things. That's not fair. Yeah. Their anxiety is different than mine because of racism. And then that started much deeper conversations. I remember talking with Sonny Hostin, who's now on The View, when Trayvon Martin was murdered and how she wanted her son to cut the hoodies off his thing. And I kept thinking, I wouldn't have to ask Oakley to do that. We haven't had to have the talk with our son about

being pulled over. And so that was the beginning of me starting to really understand to the best anybody can, and we can't if you're white, how this is an issue that it just doesn't leave. You know, my kids came, you know, my kids, and look, anti-racism work is something, we're in the personal development business. And as far as I'm concerned, anti-racism work is something that every human being has to do in order to continue to develop yourself as a better human being. And that it's a lifetime of work and learning and listening. And I know that when, remember when the black square thing happened on Instagram, my kids were like, should we post? Should we not? What should we do? I don't want to. And they didn't want to do the wrong thing. And I looked

at her and I said, you know, guys, here's what I want you to consider. You know how you're feeling all stressed out about what the right thing to do is around racism? Imagine what it feels like to worry about racism all day, every day, because you're black. Like even worrying about posting the right thing is a form of privilege. And so I said, the worst thing you can do right now is stay silent. Post something, say something. We are in the middle of the largest civil rights movement of our generation. And history is not going to be rewritten on this one. We have it on video. And so you will know who spoke out and who didn't. You will know what side of history you are on. And you may not know what to say, but for God's sakes, of history you are on. And you may not know what to say, but for God's sakes, don't stay silent because your silence cannot be misinterpreted. It's very loud. And so even if you don't know

what to say, start listening. Repost things that you're finding helpful. I think that I take the influence that we have, having a platform the size that we do with great responsibility. It was a huge honor and a huge responsibility to try to unpack some of the biggest criminal justice and social cases on a platform as large as CNN. It is a huge responsibility and an honor to have a platform where you can hopefully lift other voices up, particularly black voices. And you can also share what you're learning on the never ending journey to be a better human being, because that's what it's going to take. It's going to take everybody doing the work to be anti-racist because the truth is, you know, and this is why I love, I mean, I love so many of the experts, but it really resonates for me what

Professor Kendi is saying about how every action or inaction is either racist or anti-racist. Everything you say or the silence that you choose could be racist or anti-racist. And look, there are probably things that I've said during this that might be deemed racist. I'll learn from it. But the one thing that I'm not going to do is stay silent. I'd rather make a mistake. I'd rather learn something. And now is a time to speak up. And that's because of the kind of influence I want to make in the world. Policy takes time to change. And policy takes a lot of smart people focused on solving policy and systematic problems. And I think all change starts in your own heart. Then it starts in your home by how you talk to your children

and how you talk to your family. Then it trickles out to your workplace and to the community. And so if you really want to see this happen, you have to get involved in local politics and who's getting elected to be the sheriff and the DA. You have to get involved in state politics. You have to get involved in national politics. And, you know, I think that if, what I'm optimistic about is I think there is such a groundswell of people talking about the need for change, that maybe just maybe this groundswell is going to fuel the next administration coming in and focusing on solving some of these

problems. But I also am one of these people, Lewis, who believe that one of the smartest things that we could do is invest in education. That when you have a school system, national policy that is almost entirely funded by property taxes, of course, you're going to have tremendous inequities. When you have a militarized police force post 9-11, and we've moved away from a community policing model of course we're going to have major issues when and so there's a lot of things that started to happen on the back of centuries of policies that were racist keeping this structure in place that have now, hopefully we've reached a tipping point. I don't have all the answers. I know that I can just focus on what I can do,

learn as much as I can, listen as much as I can, share what I'm learning, elevate other people's voices on my platform and at work and in the kind of content that I'm doing and in the kind of research that I'm doing. And vote for change. Yeah. And that's what you can do. And, of course, get out there and march and check in on your black friends. And don't expect your black friends to teach you. Get Google out.

Start buying people's books. Right. Teach yourself. That's what you can do if you're concerned about this. Yeah, I love it. This is powerful. I want to wrap it up with my final two questions I ask at the end. And I want to see how these relate to the last interview we did years ago.

Imagine it's your last day on earth, hypothetically, and you've achieved everything you want in your life. You've accomplished all your dreams. You finally don't need the approval of others. You've accomplished all your dreams. You finally don't need the approval of others. You aren't in scarcity mindset anymore. You're doing all these things that you want to do, but it's your last day and you've got to take all your body of work with you. Every message you put out in the world, every tweet, every book, every video, every virtual reality thing you do in the future, whatever it is, it's got to go with you to the next place.

But you get to be behind three things you know to be true from all the lessons you've learned that you would share with the world. What would you say are those three truths for you? 5, 4, 3, 2, 1. Motivation is garbage. You're one decision away from a totally different life. I love that. We're always one decision away from a different life. And it can change and it changes. It could be in a moment of decision. It doesn't have to take years to decide. You can decide now. Well, most of us take years trying to decide, but it actually happens in five seconds. And I look, I mean, one decision to just get out of bed and try to get out of bed fast enough so that my anxiety wouldn't hit. It changed my life because it sent me on a different trajectory. And I think if you look

backwards at any of the kind of pivotal moments of your life, there was a moment where you made a decision. And it's through your life is a sum of the decisions that you make. And staying silent is a decision. Avoiding people is a decision. Thinking about things is a decision. And when you realize that you do have the power to change things

because you have the power to make a decision, you have the power to change the decisions that you've been making, you have the power in any moment to take control and you take control by making very conscious decisions about what you're going to do next. That's the secret to everything. Love that. Mel, people can follow you everywhere. Mel Robbins on social media. How can we support you moving forward i know you're still creating the game plan for yourself but if you haven't bought the the five

second rule go buy that book right yeah get the audio book that's the best thing get the audio book exactly go to audible uh and check out your audible originals well you know like you like like lewis i have 99 of the shit that i put out is free yeah Yeah. So, you know, if you got anything out of this. If you want more from Mel, you got to listen to the audio book. It's incredible. And I think you've sold like 30 million copies or something now. So one of the top sellers on Audible. It's always up there on the top.

But whenever you have the next thing coming out, whenever it's going to be, we'd love to support you. And make sure you're following Mel. I'll be begging. I'll be knocking on Lewis's door. So let's hold him to it. We're going to be collaborating. I got to finish writing the damn book, though, first. We're going to be collaborating. Well, maybe by. I'll be knocking on Lewis's door. So let's hold him to it. I got to finish writing the damn book though.

We're going to recall. Well, maybe by then I'll have a podcast Lewis and I'll bring you on my podcast. You know what I want to call it. What are you going to call it? What the Mel? What the Mel? There you go.

We're going to be collaborating for a long time. So we're going to be doing a lot more content together, but I want to acknowledge you Mel going to be collaborating for a long time. So a lot more content together, but I want to acknowledge you Mel for constantly showing up and being so real and authentic that you always are. And, you know, just sharing the things about yourself that you have to, the things you need to work on and recognizing within yourself, because I think there's a lot of people out there who are sharing this type of work who don't open enough about this. I try to be the example on my show of say, here's where I'm messing up all the time and here's where I'm learning.

And I think you do an amazing job as well of saying, I don't have all the answers, but I have some of the answers and here's what's working and here's what's not working. And I really acknowledge you for that. I acknowledge you for chasing your dreams. Even when the dreams don't work out the way you want them and still picking yourself up and going after it again. So it can be debilitating for people to have a dream end drastically when you

put your life into something. I know the pain of that. So I acknowledge you for showing up and for taking a pause like we all are taking the pause right now. Final question for you. What's your definition of greatness? Let's see if it's changed from before. My, honestly, my definition of greatness is Lewis House. First of all, he owns the URL greatness.com. I do. Secondly, you are just, you embody greatness. I don't know anybody that cheers louder for other people than you. You embody greatness.

I don't know anybody that cheers louder for other people than you. And you are one of the greatest people on the planet, Lewis. I cannot thank you enough for your support. I always hear you cheering, not only for me, but everybody. Like, you're the guy that I think is like, say it a little louder on the back. That's Lewis. And just keep shining bright, dude. I'm looking at those bulbs behind you.

I appreciate it. You are the definition of greatness. I appreciate that. You embody that word. Oh, thank you. I appreciate that. You know, something I learned recently was that success is about ourselves. Greatness is about other people. And I think, you know, I've transitioned from starting a personal brand I guess 10 years ago or

12 years ago with gettinglewishouse.com because that was the thing to do to build your personal brand to saying okay I see what Oprah's done I see what some other people have done I'm having their name be the brand but how can I not make it all about me and make it about something greater than that and so I when I hear you say you, you want to make it more than just your name and just yourself as the person, you'll be leading the charge. But that's why I've shifted more into the School of Greatness and, you know, building out greatness.com and things like that, too, to try to go beyond that and not put so much pressure on one person being the person with all the answers.

So I appreciate your kind words, Mel. You're amazing. You're an amazing friend. And anything I can do to support. So I appreciate your kind words, Mel. You're amazing. You're an amazing friend. And anything I can do to support you, I got your back as always. You got it. And anytime you need to pick me up, call me because you know I'm going up way worse than you. So I'll make you feel a lot better about yourself. I got that. I'm with you. Thanks, Mel. Thank you so much for listening to this special episode with my dear friend Mel Robbins. If you enjoyed it, you know what to do.

Share it with a friend who you think that this could be helpful to, that you think could inspire and give them some positive, actionable steps in their life today. And make sure to tag me, Lewis Howes, and tag Mel Robbins over on Instagram, Twitter, or anywhere that you're sharing this on social media as well. And if this is your first time here and someone sent you here, make sure to thank them and leave us a review. Subscribe to the podcast over on Apple Podcasts and let us know what you think. We're always trying to hear more from people that are listening

and who this is impacting on a daily basis. So your reviews mean a lot to us. And if you want more weekly inspiration from me, you can text me. You can text the word podcast to 614-350-3960. We send out inspirational quotes, thoughts, ideas, and other resources over on my text platform. So send the word podcast to 614-350-3960. And make sure to check out the podcast description for links to other impactful episodes that I think you will like that are related to this one. And I want to leave you with this quote by Stan Smith, who says,

Experience tells you what to do. Confidence allows you to do it. I don't know if you've been feeling a lack of confidence lately or uncertainty with just everything that's happening in the world. But I'm telling you, the confidence to do something will bring you so much more power when you do it. But you need the willingness to try. You need the willingness to take action. And you're going to learn along the way through the action, not just by trying to read something and experiencing it that way. So make sure you're taking action on a daily basis towards your dreams. I love you. I'm so grateful for you. And you know what time it is. It's time to go out there and do something great.