Mel Robbins: Swap Self-Criticism for Self-Love

0:00Watch it early on the High Performance App. Available now, Roman Kemp, the broadcaster, opens up a powerful conversation on success and mental health. Life taught you to criticize and ignore yourself. As a kid, you didn't lay in front of a mirror and criticize your face or your chubby thighs. You literally crawled up to it and kissed yourself. If you long to feel happier, if you wish you were content, if you wish you could stop focusing on the things that are going wrong, You better sit up and pay attention to what I'm about to tell you because this shit is real.

1:00of high performance and trying to understand it. I've worked with professional sports teams all over the world, including the Scotland Mugby Union team, as well as the England national football team, as well as with leading business people to help them understand how they can create cultures that get the best out of themselves and others. Now, Mel is a real global star in the self-help world. She's the pioneer of the five-second rule, which suggests that when you want to take action, just count down from five, then do it. And though this might seem simple, the technique is rooted in science and is actually one of so many effective methods that Mel shares with the world.

1:35I mean, I really enjoyed this conversation with her. There's a great bit that Jake's laughing at. I'm laughing already. Because, listen out for it, when I confess to Mel that I've got a little bit of cynicism about one of her ideas and she hits back straight away with, go on Jake. Hey Damien, how's cynicism working out for you in everyday life? I love how this focus on results was the first thing that came to her mind. I think it's a great conversation. So let's do it then and welcome the brilliant Mel Robbins to High Performance.

2:08It's an absolute honor to welcome to High Performance Mel Robbins. Mel, thank you very much for making the time. Oh, well, thank you. And I should probably thank your wife for being a fan since that's how you likely found me. Let's get straight into it, Mel. To you, what represents high performance? doing what you said you would do, even when you don't feel like it. How often do you not feel like it? Every second of every day. Really? Because I think a lot of people feel that someone like you, who to the external world has found her passion and is hugely successful and everything she touches seems to be great.

2:46She always has a smile on her face. I suppose we would imagine that you would never feel like that. I always feel like that. But see, I know the secret to high performance. It's not expecting to feel motivated. It's realizing that there will always be resistance. There will always be fear. There will always be a moment of anxiety, particularly in those moments when you're doing something new or you're uncertain about how it's going to go. And the secret is always just pushing through that temporary moment. And, you know, I think it's important for everybody to know that I invented the five second rule by sheer luck during one of the worst moments of my life 13 years ago.

3:29It was a Tuesday morning in February 2008 outside of Boston, Massachusetts. 13 years later, I still have to use the five second rule, 54321, to drag my ass out of bed every morning. You know, I know that habit research suggests that anywhere from 21 days to 67 days of repeating a behavior will carve the new neural pathways in your mind and make it a subconscious habit. I think that's only true if you like doing the thing. I think that you need to know that there are going to be some things in your life that you will never like doing, that will never become second nature, and getting out of bed is one of those things for me.

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5:59So can I take you on to your new book then, Mel? Because I've read it and I really enjoyed it. So The High Five Habit. But I'll be honest with you that when I first started reading it, I was thinking of cynics in my head that were thinking, going into your bathroom every morning and giving yourself a high five this is nonsense you know it's an easy thing to mock you know like the idea of I'm sure you get it that as a motivational speaker people say well you can't motivate me and you get that kind of cynical approach but there's some really fascinating research that once you carry on reading in your book like the one I really enjoyed was you speak about how the compelling science of the best NBA basketball teams give more high fives than the least successful ones.

6:44Would you just answer the cynics for us and give us a reason why we should overcome our cynicism and really start to listen to your message of the high five habit and why it can lead to high performance in our own lives? Well, my message to the cynic is don't. Don't do it. How's cynicism working for you? Like, what have you got to lose? Seriously, what if this is actually the secret? Like, how hard is it, honestly, to stand in your knickers in front of a bathroom mirror and raise your hand? And let me tell you something about the cynicism and the resistance and all the crap that you're gonna feel.

7:23There's a couple things that are gonna happen when you try this. First of all, to the cynic, I'm gonna tell you, it would be a huge mistake to let pessimism and cynicism keep you from trying something that sounds too good to be true. What I'm about to tell you is the single most powerful thing I have ever discovered in my entire life. And my passion about this topic is not coming from the fact that I want you to buy the book. Don't buy the book. You don't need to. I put all the content out for free anyway. My passion comes from the fact that I know that this habit will crack you open in a way that you need.

8:11And it will reintroduce you to the most important force on the planet. And that is belief and support and validation of yourself. Life is what turned you into a cynic. You were not born that way. and so what I'm here to tell you and I'm standing not only on my own experience but on the experience now of hundreds of thousands of people and the validation of the world's leading scientists I know that this sounds dumb I know that this is cheesy and I am telling you if you take this on just do it five days in a row something profound is going to happen what you're going to realize at the deepest level is there is a fucking human being that stands in that mirror with you every single morning and you have been criticizing and ignoring them.

9:08And the moment that you wake up and you realize that every single morning, there is another, there's a human being that looks at you that needs you, that wants you to pay attention, that needs your support and love. And you have abandoned them, you've criticized them, you've beaten them down. and the second that you change your relationship with the person that stares back at you in the mirror, your whole life changes because your relationship with yourself is the foundation of everything. And so let me tell you though, the story of how I discovered this because when I start to unpack the layers and layers and layers of what is happening, this is foundational.

9:47It's foundational to your experience, to your fulfillment, to your happiness, to your confidence, to all of it. And so I'm here to tell you, if cynicism works for you, keep doing it. Don't even try this. Stop listening to us right now. But if you want something more, if you long to feel happier, if you wish you were content, if you wish you could stop focusing on the things that are going wrong, if you wish you could forgive yourself for stuff the way that you can forgive everybody else, if you wish you weren't so bloody hard on yourself, you better sit up and pay attention to what I'm about to tell you because this shit is real.

10:21So it was April of 2020. I woke up. You don't even need to know the backstory. And I just felt overwhelmed by my life. I felt defeated. I felt like the list of stuff that was on my shoulders between the business I was running, the employees that I have, the people I take care of, the kids that my husband and I have that were in breakdown, just everything was weighing on me. And I know we all know that feeling. You wake up, you stare at the ceiling. You feel like the fear and the overwhelm is a gravity blanket pinning you to the bed. I use the five-second rule, 5, 4, 3, 2, 1. I get out of bed. I always make my bed.

10:59That morning, I made it so I wouldn't crawl back into it. I then start dragging myself to the bathroom. I'm standing in the bathroom in my underwear, brushing my teeth like every other morning. And all of a sudden, you guys, I catch a glimpse of my reflection in the mirror. and I think, oh my God, you look like hell. And the woman I saw standing in the mirror did. She looked exhausted. She looked tired. She looked stressed. I actually felt sad for her. And then out of habit, I started picking her apart. The dark circles under her eyes, the saggy neck, one boob is hanging lower than the other. And then of course, once you start picking yourself apart, your thoughts only go more negative.

11:46So then I start like thinking about the day ahead and it wasn't optimistic. It was like, why did I get up so late? And I got eight minutes before the Zoom call starts and shit, there's the dog and he's, I haven't even walked the dog yet. I did not respond to those text messages. So now I'm like doing the beat down. And here's the interesting thing. If either one of you guys had walked into the bathroom that morning, I would have spun on a dime. I would have been like, Damian, Jake, oh, come on guys. Yes, this sucks. Yeah, this is hard right now. Yeah, you don't deserve this. But you know what?

12:19If anybody can figure it out, you can. Come on. Come on. You got this. Get your ass back out there. Suck it up. Like I would have been able to lift you up. But standing there alone in my bathroom in my underwear, I actually couldn't think of anything to say. And honestly, I don't think I would have believed it because it's not how I felt. And I don't know what came over me because I'm, you know, look, I'm kind of a cynical person. I'm not like all woo-woo like, you know, a lot of people are. I like science, but this sounds so dumb. I literally don't know what came over me. But standing there in my underwear, I didn't even have a bra on, for God's sakes.

13:00I literally raised my hand and I high-fived the woman in the mirror because she needed it. And look, it's not like lightning struck. I literally just felt like something small shift inside me. That's it. I just felt like a little, hmm, my shoulders drop, my chin lift. I actually laughed because it's so dumb. I mean, come on, that's pathetic. I'm standing there. I got to high five myself. Jeez Louise, who does that? And I kind of laugh at the absurdity of the whole thing. And then I kind of, I don't even say it. I kind of feel this sense of suck it up. Come on. It's not that bad. get there, there's people with a lot, just get out there.

13:44And I go on with my day. That, that is what happened. It was the second morning, you guys, that it really hit me. So let me tell you what happened on the second morning. Cause this is crazy. So I wake up, same problems, same overwhelm, same anxiety, same beat down. I five, four, three, two, one, get out of bed. I make the bed. I start walking toward the bathroom and that's the moment I felt something I have never felt before. You know, when you are about to meet a friend and you're about to walk into a pub or a cafe and you're going to have a beer or you're going to have like a coffee with somebody you really like, what do you feel in that moment when you're about to walk into the pub?

14:29Excitement. Yeah. Did you have that feeling? I did. I actually felt excited. about what to see the human being mel robbins what what were you saying to yourself mel when you put your when you put your hand on the glass you don't have to say anything and i felt it before i even got to the bathroom and this is the part that had me really wake up i am going to be 53 years old this year i don't ever remember experiencing the feeling of being excited to see the human being Mel Robbins in a mirror. I've been excited to see an outfit. I've been excited to see what a haircut looks like. But the human being?

15:17Never. Mel, I've never even looked at the human being in the mirror. Correct. I've looked at the haircut and I've looked at the outfit like you and I've looked at the bags and do I need to shave this morning? I'm 42. I've never looked at the human being in the mirror. When you think about it, who does? It's a means to an end looking in the mirror right brushing your teeth are they clean great move on with the rest of my day but will you tell us about this because i like i'm not being cynical but i want to address the cynic that would still go yeah yeah this is great but it's not for me you talk really quite powerfully in your book about neurobionics which to me is the fascinating area that this links to yeah the way i understood it was that we learn faster when we do an unusual activity and we link it up with a positive thought, it goes in deeper.

16:06But would you explain in a bit more detail why this simple exercise you're describing can be so profoundly positive? Yeah. So let me unpack this for you. And I will hit you between the eyes with the research. Because at this point in the story, I'm not even in the bathroom yet. I'm realizing as I'm rounding the corner to step in the bathroom, that I've spent probably 45 years either criticizing or ignoring myself. You know, you talk a lot about morning routines and everything we need to do to set yourself up for, you know, making sure that you're a high-performance person and you're happier. You stepped over the habit that everybody has, which is as you're standing there brushing your teeth, you drift into autopilot and you either beat the shit out of yourself or you ignore yourself.

16:58And then you start thinking about your day and everything that you're gonna do for everybody else. And I'm here to tell you, there is a habit you need every morning based on crazy science that works for you because your brain and your nervous system is already programmed to have it work. And so I'm gonna unpack this because it's important for you to understand where the cynicism comes from because it's fucking sad. It's really sad. And so standing there that second morning, I'm having this weird ass experience where I'm like, what? Like there's me standing here and then there's this human being in the mirror that I've never actually paid attention to.

17:38Behind the skin, behind the face, there is a soul, there is a person, there are emotions and I have never actually even considered it. You wanna go out in the world and do great things? You wanna be a leader? There is something called emotional contagion, how you feel about yourself, the emotions you feel in the morning, They are contagious to the people you're trying to lead and inspire and change. And so it starts with you, especially if you think you're going to be some kind of leader. This is not cheese ball. This is science. And so as I stand there and I realize there is a human being I've ignored.

18:16There is a person who needs me that I have neglected. And I put the toothbrush down. And it's important for you, as you said, Jake, you need to do this right after you brush your teeth because I want you to stack the habit with something you already do. You got to clean the crap out of your mouth. You don't want to go into the day and spread dragon breath all over the place. You got to clean the crap out of your brain so you don't spread that negative bullshit that's in your head that's been building for your entire lifetime on unsuspecting people around you and for yourself. And so I put the toothbrush down and here's what you're going to notice.

18:49First things first, this will feel weird. It will. And the reason is explained by neuroscience. science. You have the opposite habit of high-fiving yourself. You either ignore or you criticize yourself or you judge yourself. That's what you do in the mirror every day. The high-five is the exact opposite. So just like I write with my right hand right now, it's not weird at all because it's already programmed into my subconscious brain through neuropathway connection and through a lifetime of physical and mental activity fused together. If I lost my arm in a car accident today and I had to start writing with my left hand, of course it would feel weird.

19:25It's new. It's the opposite of what I've done. That's what it feels like to create new neural pathways. So weirdness is not a rejection of the idea. It's your own brain and how it works. That's number one. Number two, there are only two reactions that people have when they first do it. It's either wildly positive. So you might raise your hand and high five the mirror and you will either burst into laughter at the absurdity and kind of how good it feels, or you'll start crying in a positive way because there's a deep emotional release for people when they realize I have been waiting for a very long time for you to wake the fuck up and actually see me and start supporting me.

20:07And the tears come from a sense of relief that you finally got it. You're finally returning home. You're finally coming back to who you fundamentally are because as a kid, you didn't lay in front of a mirror and criticize your face or your chubby thighs. You literally crawled up to it and kissed yourself. You used to spin in front of it. You used to dance when the music came on. Life taught you to criticize and ignore yourself. So this is a coming back to what is innately wired into your DNA, this need for support and celebration of self. And so it feels so good. And I'm going to explain the science behind that because there's so much science here that we've even uncovered since finishing the book.

20:51It's bananas. So the second though and more likely response is the resistance. You will scoff at it. You will not do it. You'll roll your eyes. You'll tell yourself this is stupid. Let me tell you where the resistance comes from because this is what's blocking you from being a high performer. It's blocking you from feeling fulfillment. It's blocking you from the happiness and joy you deserve. When you stand in the bathroom every morning, you drag your entire past into the bathroom with you. So if you've ever been abused or experienced trauma or been discriminated against or been abandoned or heartbroken or have had anything done to you that makes you feel like you're unworthy or unlovable or somehow you're damaged, that experience in your past is the evidence that you use to see a human being that is unworthy or unlovable or damaged because of those things.

21:54And so you see somebody who doesn't deserve celebration because of those things. Or if you're a human being, you have done shit you regret, whether it's cheating or it's drugs or it's lying or it's not living up to your potential or it's giving up on yourself or it's hurting other people or all the things that, boy, you would forgive Damien or Jake or Mel Robbins for, but you can't forgive yourself for it. You wear that shame and that regret like a yoke around your neck and then you bring it into the bathroom every morning and you see that evidence. Like my husband did this for years. He followed his dream and went into the pizza restaurant and, you know, they worked, he and his best friend for seven years at it and then it shut down.

22:35It didn't return the investment. They had hoped and they had worked their tails off for it. And when he left that business in 2014, you guys, he could not separate the failure of the business from how he saw himself. He would walk into that mirror for six years and see a failure. Did he feel like he deserved a high five? No, because he had evidence for why. And that's the resistance. There's another reason why, and this is big with high performers. It's because you believe that it's only when you're achieving something that's worthy of celebration that you deserve it. That until you have the money in the bank, until you have the number on the scale, until you're married to the right person or living in the right neighborhood or driving that Range Rover or whatever the fuck it is that you think that you need or your hair is not kinky or this, that, or the other thing.

23:29that until you have that thing, you haven't done anything worthy of a high five. So why would you on a random day, raise your hand in celebration, given the fact that you're not where you think you should be? That's what the resistance is. That's what your cynicism is. And it's become a habit. And here's the sad ass part about all this. If you think about the London Marathon, right? Even you cynical Brits, do you stand on the side with your arms crossed at mile eight and go, hey fucking asshole like i'm not i'm not cheering for you i saw how slow you were on the last split when you cross the finish line i'll give you a little polite clap fuck off that's not what you do you like you know you like high five them in fact if you've ever done a road race you know it's the encouragement of strangers every step of the way i'm like one of the most positive people that you will ever meet.

24:26And I did not know how to stand before myself until I discovered this and actually see the human being Mel Robbins, somebody who is trying, somebody who needs help, somebody who doesn't ask for help, somebody who's waiting for somebody to show up and acknowledge me and help me and read my mind. And the fact is, you have your best ally and hype squad, the person you spend your whole life with staring back at you in the mirror. And you need to actually be that person celebrating and high-fiving them every step of the way. And here's the science. Here's the science. This is why I want you to do it for five days.

25:07So first of all, yes, it's going to feel weird. Yes, you're going to resist it. But the moment you raise your hand and go to high-five yourself, you'll notice something. You can't high-five yourself in the mirror and go, I hate my face. You can't do it. And your brain won't allow you to. And there's a reason why that can be explained by science. And this has to do with neurobics, what you were talking about, Damien. So I spent a couple hours with Dr. Daniel Amen. So the world's leading expert on the brain. When I told him about this three weeks ago, the guy geeked the hell out and explained to me all kinds of stuff that I didn't even realize.

25:47So he said, first of all, and this part we write about in the book based on aerobics, marrying a physical motion that's unexpected. So you never high five yourself. So it's unexpected. So that who snaps your prefrontal cortex into motion, like what the heck's going on with a positive new thought. It's the fastest way to create a new neural pathway. And so he basically said, so you guys, when you've high five people in sport or in life, or you've received one, what does the gesture of a high five without anybody saying anything. What does it actually communicate to you? I see you. I acknowledge you.

26:22Yeah. I believe in you. I got you. Let's do this. I celebrate you. If your attitude's in the tank, shake it off. I got you. It's all of that. It's celebration. It's encouragement. It's acknowledgement. And you've been doing it for other people your entire life. So all the positive programming is already in your basal ganglia. It's already married to the motion. So when you raise your hand and you do the physical gesture, your brain recognizes it, you guys, and it overrides any critic, any habit loop associated with bashing yourself, silences it, and it overrides it with the positive programming and marries it with your reflection.

27:05Do you realize I've been doing this for a year and I don't even have to high five myself anymore because when I walk in front of the mirror, the critic is gone. I see a human being that I love and it's not arrogance at all. It's just support. That's it. And so I'm not even done with the science. So hold on a second. So Dr. Daniel Amon's like, Hey, Amel, you know, you want to know what else? You want to know what else? You want to know why it feels goofy and you kind of feel a little bit better when you do it? He said, well, because every time that somebody else high fives you, your brain gives you dopamine, the feel good drug.

27:43When you do it to yourself, your brain recognizes the gesture and gives you a drip of dopamine. He said, you want to know why else it works? I said, yeah, I do. He said, well, because your nervous system also knows what's going on. And it jumps into the mode to help you. And I'm like, what do you mean? He said, well, gestures of hugging, you're raising your arms. Pat on the back, you raise your arm. A wave hello, you raise your arm. When you cross your finish line, you raise your arms. When you high five somebody, you raise your arm. All celebratory gestures, all gestures your nervous system recognizes as celebratory.

28:17You start to do it every single day in the mirror, along with the positive programming that's already in your brain associated with it, along with the celebratory energy that is in your nervous system that boosts your mood. Your body and your brain is already conditioned, wired by a lifetime of experience to have this override your circuitry and program a new set of neural pathways and an entirely new experience that you will feel when you see and think about yourself. It's crazy. It's amazing. So, Mel, we get a lot of teachers and parents listening to this podcast. And And I was particularly taken by the line that you said about that many of us haven't been taught the skill of being kind to ourselves, which is what the book is around.

29:06So what advice would you give to those of us that are parents or those of us that are teachers about how we can start to educate children around kindness? Well, the most powerful way to teach anybody anything is to not tell them, but to show them. It starts with you. If you stand in front of the mirror and criticize yourself, your kids are hearing you. If you say, let me get in the back of the photo because you don't like your body, your kids are hearing you. If you screw up and you're like, bloody hell, why do I always suck? Your kids are hearing you. Their brains are like little sponges absorbing your patterns of behavior.

29:46And if your patterns of behavior include being hard on yourself, criticizing yourself, hating your body, your kids hear it. And so it starts with you. That's number one. The second thing that I would say is that there's a really interesting study that we write about in chapter two that was mind blowing to me that every educator and parent needs to know. Now, you guys talk about the growth mindset all the time, right? You know, the difference between a growth mindset and a fixed mindset. We all know that. So researchers wondered, what is the best way to motivate somebody to tap into that sense of resilience when you're facing a challenging moment, right?

30:24And so they did this study where they divided kids into three groups, and they tested three different forms of encouragement. One of them was based in the fixed mindset stuff. So they would walk up to students and verbally tell them you're really smart, you know, praising a fixed trait about them, which, you know, helps a little bit to feel encouraged, but doesn't really go the distance. The second group got the growth mindset praise, which is, of course, as we all know, praising something that you have control of, which is your effort. Oh, you're really persevering. Oh, you're such a hard worker.

30:53The third group, the researchers didn't say a thing. They just gave the kids a high five. Those kids that got a high five during a challenging task, those kids outworked both of those groups, felt better about themselves, worked longer, pushed through more challenges. The researchers were so blown away that they changed the title of the study when it was published in Frontiers of Psychology, the research magazine, to the motivational power of a high five. And the question is, why? Why is it more motivating than verbal praise? Well, the reason why a high five is so motivating is because it fulfills a human being's most foundational emotional needs.

31:38When you high five somebody, whether it's yourself or your kid, when they're going through a challenging moment. First of all, you hear them because the high five says, I get it. This sucks. Like when my husband started doing this, he still felt like a failure. The high five doesn't say you're awesome. The high five says, I get it. There have been some things that have really gone wrong. And guess what? I'm still here for you. I still believe in you. That's what it's doing. So when you high five a kid going through a challenge, you're acknowledging that this is hard, but you're also transferring the energy of your belief back to them.

32:18It's a shared celebration in your ability to face this moment. And I'm here to tell you, you can build that partnership with yourself. Like right now at the beginning of a school year, what goes viral? All of those moments where teachers create individual handshakes and high fives with kids going into the classroom. Why do we all love that? Well, because innately we know that each one of those kids feels seen. They feel like they matter. That is the most important thing for your kids and for you to feel that they matter. And so I think that A, you should certainly be adopting the high five and B, you should be modeling this.

33:00Because one of the other things that I write about in this book, and since you brought up kids, I'm gonna read a text message from one of my daughters who is 21 years old. And she is a junior in college. And she is at a music conservatory studying. She's a singer songwriter. She's at a music conservatory at the University of Southern California. And she texted me the other day. And I think our text exchange is illustrative of not only the power of this, but of the resistance that everybody feels. she says, hey mom, are you getting excited about your new book? I can't wait to read it. By the way, I've been high-fiving myself in the mirror.

33:45And I said, how's the high-five working? And she said, well, I really don't know what to say when I do it. Because sometimes I still stand and look in the mirror and the first thing I think is, you're not as pretty as the rest of the girls. and I said well you actually don't need to say anything the high five will silence that thought and communicate everything that you need for you and she said but what if I didn't accomplish anything like I didn't work out today or I didn't write a song like I said I would do I still high five myself after the shower I said absolutely you got to keep showing up every day trying to do a little better.

34:32That alone makes you worthy of support and celebration. You see, we have the secret to life and happiness and motivation backwards. You think you need to accomplish something to be worthy of a high five. And she says, wait a minute. Are you saying the fact that I exist deserves a high five? Like it just like makes me. And I said, yeah, when you high five yourself for just standing there in front of the mirror. You are demonstrating that you see you and all your potential and you still support you and you believe in you and that no matter what happens today, you've got your own back. And I said, well, what do you think about what I just wrote, Ken?

35:15And she said, I love it. It makes me feel great. And then I wrote this. Can you explain why it makes you feel great? Because maybe what you say is going to help me explain this to everybody else. And she said, well, what the high five shows you is that you don't actually know how much you're always doing. And I think that once you start high fiving yourself every single morning, it almost allows you to be more present to everything you're doing. And it helps you recognize all those small victories. And when you compile those small victories, you can actually recognize all of your accomplishments, big and small, and eventually come to believe that not only are you worth it, but you can do anything.

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38:08That's moving. And by the way, thanks very much for sharing the personal message between you and your daughter. so so interesting the way it makes you reframe your thinking though isn't it because i've been sitting here thinking about high fives and when i high five people in my life and i high five my kids exactly as you've just said when something great happens and then i thought about what you were saying about the nba at the very beginning when do they high five each other at the start of the game they haven't even won the game but the first thing they're doing before they even tip off is high-fiving each other and i think there's a really strong message there for for people to share that high five as your kids walk out the door in the morning as your husband or wife wake up and it also leads me to ask the question my kids I know I spend all my time lifting up my kids because they're my children I want them to be resilient and I want to but I I think it's probably been a long time since I high five my wife and I and I think there's a probably it's worth us all thinking isn't it about of course it's good to be good to ourselves and good to the people that we feel need it.

39:12But we should also high five those that we think don't necessarily need it because perhaps they do. I think that's true, but it does start with you. Like what I've begun to realize is that unless you truly love and support yourself, you won't allow somebody to deeply love you back or support you either. And so I feel that the more I have done this and the more I have felt supported and happy with who I am by accepting myself, by loving myself, every single morning supporting myself and sending myself into the game of life, right? Just like those NBA players, knowing that I have my own back and then sending Chris into his day and sending the kids into the day.

40:01Yes, we need to support our spouses and our partners and our kids and our colleagues and everybody needs to feel a sense of being lifted up. But the true, true power comes from knowing how to do it for yourself. Because it's in those moments when you're alone that how you see yourself and how you treat yourself matters. Like I get this text and this is at the beginning of chapter four that would break anybody's heart. And we all have gotten a text like this from somebody we love. How do I not feel like the ugliest girl at the bar every time I go out? Now, it doesn't matter, Jake, how I see her.

40:44It doesn't matter if I high-five her or I tell her that she's beautiful and smart and loyal and amazing human being. Because her experience of her life is not determined what I think of her. It's determined by what she thinks of herself. And so the other reason why this high five habit is so important is because a mantra is not going to work. If you hate your body or you think you're the ugliest or you think you're a failure because your entrepreneurial venture failed, standing in front of a mirror and chanting, I'm awesome, it's not going to work because your brain doesn't believe it. you've been saying the opposite for decades.

41:30The power of the high five is you can still think I'm ugly and I'm a failure, but the second you go to raise the hand, you're demonstrating the opposite. And so it's really important that this is something that people take on for themselves because only you can change how you see yourself. And it's only through action and acting like a different person that your brain will fall into line and start to see you as a different person. And if you're too scared to do it because you have such a low opinion of yourself, you don't really want to get to know the person in the mirror, what about those people?

42:10Do it anyway. 5, 4, 3, 2, 1. Do it anyway. You desperately want to. You have been withholding it from yourself. And on the total opposite, the people listening to this now thinking, that's great well done mel amazing there are people out there that need it but i don't i'm confident enough i'm happy enough life's good enough what would you say to those people don't do it it's not beneficial to everyone of course it is regardless of their own opinion like so even if they they think they're great they should try anyway uh you know even somebody who thinks they're great is bullshitting themselves because at the end of the day there are things you've never forgiven yourself for.

42:54There are pieces of you that you pick apart. There are parts of you that you hide and that you've shoved away and that you've never faced. And there's a level of contentment. There's a level of freedom that comes from truly accepting all of you. Everything that you're not, everything that you are, there's a level of happiness and joy that It comes from truly being able to stand with yourself and understand that all those things that you did that you'd rather forget, you just did them while you were trying to survive and it's time to fucking forgive yourself. It's time to move on. Like so many of us that are high achievers, by the way, are trying to prove through our actions that we're actually worthy.

43:41And all of the bolstering and the nice cars that we drive and the fat bank account. Look, I'm one of the most successful people you'll meet. I make a shitload of money. I am making a huge impact in the world. And all of that shit is outside of me. It created a life, guys, where I'm just busier and busier and busier. Because the second you get the Range Rover, what's the next car that's gonna prove it? The second that you get a million dollars, how are you gonna get$10 million in the bank? The second that you're not racing around and you're not busy and the book's not on the bestseller list, that just means that you're no longer worthy.

44:15And so when you marry your worth or your lovability with what you are achieving or how you're performing or the shit that you have, you will always be trapped in this rat race of trying to get more. You'll also be consumed by jealousy in comparison because the second that somebody outranks you or does something more or does something that looks better, you will, at your core, feel like you're no longer lovable. So are you still doing, Mel, are you still doing all those things that left you in that difficult state when you started high-fiving yourself in the mirror um yeah so has this changed the way you act and well it took you there it's a great question so it is profoundly fundamentally a total 180 in terms of the experience of being with myself i actually don't even see a body i don't criticize myself I see somebody that I cheer for, full stop.

45:11Just like your children, you would never, it doesn't matter how much weight they lose or gain or it doesn't matter if they get fired from their, like you might be disappointed. You never stop loving them and you never stop cheering for them. It's that relationship that you create with yourself. I don't ever have a thought that is a teardown of my kid. Do they frustrate me? Yes. Do they make me angry? Yes. Do they disappoint me? and annoy me? Yes. Do they piss me off? Yes. Do I ever stop loving them, supporting them, celebrating, cheering for them? Never. I now have that relationship with myself.

45:52And does jealousy come up? You better believe it does. Do I find myself people? Do I want you to like me? Yes, I do. Am I going to lie to make that happen? No, I'm going to catch myself. all of those feelings come up all of that like throughout the day it's impossible to go through your day and not have a negative thought and not have something happen that takes you down and not have something happen that has you aim it back at yourself the difference is I so have my own back that I'm like there I am I'm jealous of these guys again I catch myself because you can feel what it feels like to go low energy and I go there I go again I'm just doing that thing and then I flip it back into a high five attitude, which when it comes to jealousy and comparison, I go, oh, interesting.

46:39There it is again. Pay attention to it. Stop blocking that desire and get to work, Mel. So let's just pause there, Mel, because I think you're talking about that emotion of jealousy. And I, one of my favorite chapters in your book was where you argue that jealousy is a good thing. Yeah. So your explanation of it and your argument was fascinating. Would you mind sharing that for our listeners. Well, first tell me, what did you get from it? Because I think you got something from it that was a bit of a breakthrough. I really liked the idea that you identified that there's a message coming for you.

47:14So when you say that, so you might see somebody say it might be somebody with a great physique and you feel jealous of them. And then you say, what is it telling me? Well, it's that I want to have a physique like that. And therefore Or I need to think about how I can start working harder for it. So it was just a really interesting way of framing what is often seen as a negative emotion. Yeah, Damien, excellent. It could also mean this. It could also mean that you don't want the physique, but you actually would wish that you would respect your body a little bit more. You wish you would take your health a little bit more seriously.

47:48And so jealousy is a really interesting phenomenon because it's an emotion that is deeply personal. Number one, it is impossible to be jealous of someone or something that you don't authentically desire. So for example, I'm not the least bit jealous of anybody who owns a magnificent penthouse apartment in New York City, because I do not want to live there right now. I don't feel a thing other than good for you, nice apartment. I don't feel anything, because that's not meant for me right now. So jealousy is deeply personal. And the issue with jealousy is when you don't understand what it is. Jealousy is just like a, it's a direction on a map of your life.

48:38Jealousy tries to get you to pay attention to something that you want. If you're jealous of somebody who, for example, has a brand new kitchen, this used to happen to me all the time when I was like, I didn't know any of this stuff. I would get consumed with jealousy every time we'd go to somebody's house who was nicer than Chris and mine, or every time somebody went on a nice vacation that we could not afford, you know, when we were in the restaurant business and just had no money. And of course, I would channel my jealousy by aiming it at my husband and screaming at him for not being more successful, you know?

49:11And when I started to unpack the jealousy, I realized for real that it wasn't about doing a renovation at our house. And it wasn't actually about going on vacation. It was about the fact that I really longed to have a freedom to do those things. I had an ambition in me that I was not tapping into. I was not giving myself permission to feel. And so when you feel jealous, just as Damien explained, and of course, I'm talking about things that are values. I'm not talking about cheating. I'm not talking about like longing for somebody else's spouse. Even if that's the case, unpack it. Is it because they're in partnership?

49:52Is it because of the way they treat each other? Like, what is it about it that actually calls to you? And then get to work on it because the things that you're jealous of, they're actually not going to go away because they're tied to what you authentically want. So you're either going to be haunted by it and consumed by it. And it's going to be at the heart of all the comparison that you struggle with, or you're going to give yourself permission to turn your life toward the things that are actually pulling at you. Brilliant answers. I mean, it's so interesting to sit and listen to this. Before we move to our quickfire questions where we always finish the interview, Mel, I do want to talk really quickly about a story in your book that really stood out to me, which is when you talk about your son having blue hair when he started school and you were desperate for him not to stand out.

50:40And this is a really interesting one because the amount of teachers and parents that listen to this podcast is crazy. And I think this is good for them because what we need to do is nurture individuality, but without projecting our own sort of adult worries and fears onto our children. What is the answer to doing that? Well, this is like a horrible story because it makes me feel like the world's worst parent. And I'll tell it to you. So our son, we found out that he had like profound dyslexia. He ends up going to a school for kids with language-based learning styles. And then he was going to transfer back to like a regular public school in the seventh grade.

51:24And at this time, he had blue hair. He loves the gamer ninja. His blue hair was so cool. I love it. And as we were nearing him starting this new school, I started to get worried that if he shows up at a new school in the seventh grade with blue hair, that he would get picked on and he would get bullied. And so I started to let my worries bubble over and I started to say to him, hey, you want to get a haircut before school? Hey, do you think we should cut the tips off? Hey, you know, what do you think about the blue hair? Hey, like I started to just nudge him and nudge him. And then, of course, our older daughters, his older sisters pile on and like, dude, you're not going to roll into that school with blue hair.

52:08It's not like you're a star lacrosse player. You know, you do musical theater and you play on the girls field hockey team. I think you might want to cut your blue hair off, buddy. You know, like they literally and and we're not like like it's literally out of pleased your God. He had just been bullied at a camp. Don't let him roll into a school and have this happen again. It was all out of love. And ultimately, a couple of days before school, Oak goes, you know, I think I want to get my haircut. He acquiesces. And upon reflection, here's what I realized. We meant well. But parenting styles are often about compliance.

52:51and they're often driven by your ego and your desire to protect your kid or not have that kid or whatever. And so you end up sending these messages either overtly, you're not doing musical theater because of your own bullshit, or you send these messages very, what's the other word, subtly or not so subtly. because you're worried, you're protecting them, you're concerned because you don't understand them. And the message that I realized now that I was sending to him is, I'm not accepting you for who you are. And until you do as I say, that's when I'll like you. Until you look how I want you to look or do the activities that I want you to do, that's when you're okay.

53:47But who you are is not okay and you got to change in order to get my approval. And you see, I think that's the heart of where we break this relationship with ourselves. We start to tell ourselves there's something wrong with me as I am. And in order to fit into this group or in order to make my mother happy or in order to get my dad to stop griping at me, I have to be somebody I'm not. We become our own sorting hat as a means to protect ourselves from criticism as a means to comply and make everybody feel okay and as a means to fit in with people. And that's where it begins. And that's why I'm so passionate about this because I feel like if you can stand in front of a mirror and see your blue hair and high five it, it doesn't fucking matter what anybody else says, including your mother.

54:41There are kids who can't reveal their true identity because it's not safe for them to do so in their homes or in their schools. And so when you're a kid, you often don't have a choice, but there's a fundamental flaw in human wiring, which is when that kind of bullshit happens to you. No human being who's a child has the life perspective or experience or the brain wiring to be objective and go, these freaking adults are screwed up, man. Somebody call the police. You know, if this kid's bullying me, I bet his dad's an asshole. Like you have no ability. So every one of us goes, there's something wrong with me.

55:20And in order to get the love and the likes and to be seen and supported for who I am, I got to hide. I got to change. I can't be myself. And that's where it begins. Can we go into what we call our quickfire round, Mel, where we just ask a series of questions. So the first of those questions is, what are the three non-negotiable behaviors that you and everyone around you has to buy into? Well, if it includes everybody around me, you've got to be kind. You need to tell the truth about how you're feeling. And you need to put your freaking dish in the dishwasher and not leave it in the sink. That drives me crazy.

55:58That was brilliant. If you could go back to one period in your life, where would you choose to go to and why? I think I would go back to when I was an infant. I recently did a guided MDMA therapy session for trauma that was life-changing. And there was one vision that I had of seeing little booties from a carriage and looking up at a sky. And there were all these kites in this big blue sky. And I saw my mom and my dad, and they were so young and so alone. And after the experience on MDMA with this trauma therapist, I called my parents and I kind of described, did we ever go to this park with kites?

56:47There's kites. And my mom's like, oh my God, yeah, that was Kansas City. And it was this stored memory. And having this experience of going back and seeing my folks so young gave me so much compassion and empathy for the stress and the emotions they must have felt as new parents. And it just really shifted things for me. So I would love to go back and just be a fly on the wall. How important is legacy to you? It's not as important as being in the moment and enjoying as much as I can of this amazing ride. Finally, your one golden rule, Mel, for our listeners and viewers to live their own high performance life.

57:35What's your one final message to them? Don't ever leave a bathroom without high fiving the human being you see in a mirror. Brilliant. Mel Robbins, thank you so much for taking an hour out of your day to share the incredible things that you've learned with us. And I think I came into this and I had a similar mindset to a lot of us Brits, us cynical Brits thinking high fiving yourself in the mirror. Who booked this chick? I'm kind of excited now to get my kids going tomorrow morning. So one of the rules, I don't know whether this will work, what you think of this. Before you leave the house for school, we all go to the bathroom or everyone has to just go and do a high five.

58:09Let's see how it goes. Why not, right? I love it. Growth mindset and all that. Growth mindset. I love it. I love it. You know, there's a piece of research from Harvard that says that if you take an intentional moment of reflection in the morning as a leader and you decide how you're going to show up today, it changes your level of focus and productivity and how you can impact other people. I say you take that same research and you look at the human being staring back at you and you say, how am I going to show up for that person? And it's going to change everything. I love that. Amazing way to finish.

58:39Mel Robbins, thank you so much. Thank you guys. And that's it for today. Thank you so much for joining us for this episode. We appreciate you giving us your time. And if you do enjoy high performance, please simply leave us a review wherever you get your podcasts. It makes such a difference for us. We're back with another conversation very soon. Until then, please make sure you're following the show. And if you want to get our episodes as soon as they're released, download the High Performance app. But for now, take care and we'll see you soon.

59:22Thank you.

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