Welcome to the Resilient Mind podcast. In this episode, you will be listening to what is holding you back with Mel Robbins. Get access to the Resilient Mind Journal by clicking the link in the show notes. Enjoy. What's interesting is that we all think we know what is holding us back. And we describe it, whether it's money or time or I'm exhausted or I'm stuck or it's my past or it's my mindset. And it's not that at all.
If you're not happy, if you don't have what you want in life, if you're exhausted, tired, stuck, or overwhelmed, the problem isn't what you think it is. In fact, the problem isn't you. The problem is the power you are unknowingly giving to other people. And I didn't see it.
I didn't see this until about two years ago when there was this just kind of random thing that happened to me. And I was, I'll tell you the quick story, and then we can get into the let them theory and how you've made other people a problem.
And there are eight key ways that you have turned other people into the biggest obstacle in your life. And other people should be one of the greatest sources of inspiration and connection and joy and love. And instead they're a constant source of stress and frustration and energy drain and they do not have to be. And it is this invisible obstacle
that is in everybody's way, that is stealing your time, is stealing your energy, and you don't even realize it. And there's a totally different way to go through life. And so first I'm going to tell you the story about how I had this life-changing insight.
So I have three kids, 25-year-old, 23-year-old, both girls, and a 19-year-old son. And our two daughters had gone through the prom, right, twice. And let's talk about a nightmare, OK? If you ever want to experience high stress, do a high school prom with a daughter, and you'll experience five months of drama around dresses, and spree jams, and makeup, and nails, and restaurants, and limos, and who they're going to go in the promposals. And I mean, it's literally
What the unbelievable. You basically need a colonic and a spa day after the whole thing is over in therapy for three months because of the buildup. So I just figured we've gone through this thing four times already with our daughters when Oakley rolls around. Gonna be a breeze. Completely wrong. It was almost worse because yes, because he was so non-committal. And everybody that's got a brother or a son or is a dude is like, yeah, uh-huh. He wasn't sure he was gonna go,
That's right, right, right. Right, yeah. They don't know how to ask him about it. I don't know. And like, don't you want to go and I'm starting to kind of needle him about it? I don't know. And then all of a sudden, Lewis, two days before the thing, he's like, all right, I'm going. And now we have to find a tux. And we live in the middle of nowhere in Vermont. And he wants a certain kind of Adidas shoes that we got to find online and get shipped. And then he's going to, all of a sudden, ask him, chick, he doesn't know. And of course, I was with this, that, the other. And so we get to the Knight of Prom. And by the way, in the middle of these 48 hours,
Chris and I have been talked into now hosting the post prom at our house. And so it was just this crazy whirlwind. And so we go to this party, it happens before prom, where everybody's taking the photos. And we walk in and we meet his date.
and we're milling about and talking to other parents, and then all of a sudden out of nowhere, it starts to rain. And by rain, I mean, pouring rain. We live in a mountain, so it just kind of comes in and out, but it was not in the forecast. So you've got 20 kids in black tie and heels. Now, in the middle of the woods, in pouring rain, and the parents are starting to get on edge. And I turned to Oakley, and I'm like, dude, where are you guys going for dinner? He's like dinner.
What do you mean? I'm like, you don't have plans for dinner? Problem does it serve for two hours? What do you do? I don't know. And so I turned to Chris, I'm like, they don't have plans for dinner? He's like, I guess not. It didn't bother Chris, but for some reason, I'm now starting to get stressed. Why? I don't know. It's not your life.
Correct, but I'll explain why it's getting stressed. So I start to go, okay, well let me help. And so I start looking for reservations. Some other moms and dads start trying to figure things out. And I'm like, I can't find anything and the rain's getting worse and worse. And I turned to Oak and I'm like, I can't find anything. Well, we'll just gonna go to the taco stand. And I'm like the tacos, dude, it's outside. You're gonna get soaked. And I start to just feel the stress coming up.
And my daughter Kendall, who lives here in Los Angeles, was home from college. And she reached out and grabbed my armrest and kind of pulled me to her and she was like, oh, you're being so annoying. And I was like, but, but, but, and she's like, mom, let him do what he wants.
And I'm like, but he's gonna get so, let him go to the taco set, but there's no room. And she kept saying, let him, let him, let him. And every objection was like, his shoes are gonna get soaked, her heels are gonna get ruined, her dress, the this, the that. And finally she just was like, let them do what they want. It's their prom, not yours. And there was something Lewis about that moment of the cascading, let them, let them, let them, let them.
That it was almost like the final one was a sledgehammer that hit me and I just felt my whole body release. And I kind of thought, well, why do I care about this? Why am I not worried about where I'm meeting? And so I felt myself just detached. I felt a sense of peace take over and I walked up to Oakley and he turned, he's like, now what? And I'm like, nothing dude, here's a worry box, go have fun.
And you then saw him drop his shoulders and smile and, wow, thanks mom. And he and his date ran off the door. And sure enough, mott all over the back of her dress and his shoes were ruined and they were soaking wet by the time they got to Chris's truck. It was super cute. Wow. And so,
I went home, I went to bed, and then the next morning I was at like a garden center. You know, if you ever go to like a big store and there's a garden center. And so you're standing there in line, there's like five people in front of us, and there's one cash in. Beep, beep, beep. Pause for small talk. Small town for what? Yeah. And if you've ever been in line at a grocery store,
and the lines are backing up and there's no one else coming to the front and there's no announcement getting made what happens. You start to feel the stress rise and then you start to rock and you feel agitated and impatient and suddenly you think you can run a grocery store better than anybody else and you know and you started to turn to the person behind you and you're like rolling your eyes and can you believe this? And I felt it coming and I said, let them. Let them run the store, however they want.
and I get home and I open up the door and the dog is puked right in that entryway. Let him.
But I'm dead serious. And so all day long, whether it was trafficking up or I send a text to somebody and they send like something sort of passive, let them. And I started to feel this instant lever of peace. And I started to feel this sense of protection from all this stupid stuff that I was allowing
to drain my energy and to waste my time. And if you stop and think about it, your single most valuable resources are time and energy. Because where you spend your time and what you pour your energy into determines the quality of your life. And when I started to notice very, very, very quickly, like within 24 hours,
is that the reason why I didn't have a lot of time is because I was spending it getting worked up about stupid things. The reason why my energy was so drained is because I was allowing other people's behavior or things that were happening around me to actually drain my energy. And saying let them became this lever I could pull any moment where I felt my time and attention.
getting sucked towards something that truly wasn't worth my time and energy or didn't matter or more importantly beyond my control. Because the dog's already thrown up, so I can't control what just happened.
And as you talk about all the time, and as lots of people talk about, it's not about what's happening, it's about how you respond to it. And the problem that I've always had with stoicism, or letting it go, or principles that are about being more peaceful and boundaries, is that I never knew how to apply it. Like, let's take the concept of let it go. I don't wanna let it go. Because it feels like I'm losing.
You know, when somebody says to you, Louis, you just got to let it go. They're basically saying you lose. So stop worrying about it. That person won, you got to let it go. So I had two things happen in my company, one where we had a contractor that literally stole our database and lied about a campaign that we thought we were paying for that was going on and it never actually happened and they presented fake data.
Now, I have to let them because it happened and I didn't know until I discovered it too late. But there's a second part to this theory because, of course, I'm going to get upset and I'm going to be pissed off. But allowing myself to stay in that state of rage
What I know is it doesn't allow me to leverage this part of my brain to then respond. And that's the second part of this theory that I discovered, which is once you say let them, you detach from the thing you can't control. Because the other thing that happened to me, Lewis, and I think I've shared the story with you before is that I was also the victim of a big wire fraud scam, $350,000.
a scam that's very common in the real estate business where somebody breaks into a server and just intercepts emails and then changes banking information. 50 is a lot. No kidding. But by the time I figured it out, the money was gone. Gone. Gone. And the more upset that you get about something, the more upset that you get about something, the faster you lose your ability to think critically. It's true. And so when you say let them, it's like allowing something without allowing it.
It's recognizing that there is something that happened or there is a person in your life that's doing something, that's pissing you off or annoying you or stressing you out or worrying you. But you have no control over that. And so yes, react, but at some point you got to go let them because it helps you recognize and accept the reality and detach something. It's already happened and detach most importantly from what you can't control. So what's the second part then? Let me. Let me choose.
what I'm going to do. And when you say, let me, you do something crazy powerful. First of all, you take responsibility for how you're going to address this. And let's look at the word responsibility. It's the ability to respond. And when you say, let me, you are reminding yourself that in life, there are only three things, Lewis, you can control. Only three things.
Number one, you can control what you think next. Number two, you can control what you do or you don't do next. And oftentimes doing nothing is way more powerful than doing something. And number three, you can control what you're going to do with the emotions that you feel.
And when you say, let me in any situation, you detach from the things you cannot control, and you remind yourself that no matter what is happening around me or to me,
I always have power because through my thoughts and through my actions and through the processing of my emotion, I can positively impact or change what's happening for the better. And if you allow yourself to constantly get stressed out or waste your time,
by managing what you will never be able to control, you will never see the power that you have. And so this gets back to the question that you asked, which is what is the single biggest thing that is in everybody's way? And the single biggest thing that is in everybody's way is the power you unknowingly give to other people. And there are four main ways that you're doing it.
And it is blocking your ability to be happy. It is blocking your ability to make decisions that are aligned with what you want. It is blocking your ability to leverage your time for the things that you care about. It is keeping you from pursuing the things that you're capable of doing in your life. And it is also draining your time and the four big ways that you've turned other people into a problem.
Number one, you allow them to stress you out. Number two, you're so concerned about what everybody else thinks. It is a massive obstacle in your way because you consider it before you do anything. Number three, you navigate your entire life based on other people's emotional reactions.
and you allow emotional immaturity in other people and in yourself to dominate how you move through your day. And number four, your habit of chronically looking over there and comparing yourself makes you feel like life is unfair.
and that other people are against you or competing with you. And all four of those things are simply not true. And you can use the let them theory to remove all four of those obstacles. And when you no longer allow people to stress you out, you have more energy. When you allow people, you let them think negative thoughts about you because you recognize you can't control what they think anyway.
It frees you up to focus on what's within your control, which is what you think about yourself. And when you operate in a way, Lewis, that makes you proud of yourself, you authentically don't really care if people have a negative opinion.
When it comes to emotional immaturity, so many of us are driven by guilt, or we're scared to disappoint people, or we don't want to let people down, or we think it's our job to make other people happy. And when you organize your life around managing another adult's feelings, you become the parent to another human being. And there's a much easier way, let them, let them be disappointed, let them be upset.
Let them be sad that you're doing something that they wanted you to do, but you're not going to do it. Let them be an adult and let them deal with themselves. And the fourth one is when you spend tons of time comparing yourself to other people, and look, comparison is normal, comparing yourself to other people isn't the problem. It's what you're doing with it that is. And so using the let them theory, you got to let other people be successful.
Because right now what's happening is when you see somebody else succeeding or happy or they're pregnant or they're engaged or they're doing whatever, they're building some big brand and you tell yourself, oh my God, they've already done what I wanted to do. I'm too late because they've done it, now I can't do it. You actually are working against the laws of the world.
because success and happiness and joy and friendship and love, these are all things that are in limitless supply. And the truth about life is that you're not actually playing against other people. You're playing with them.
And when you turn other people into a problem and you look at other people's success or happiness or the things that they've achieved or experienced in their lives as evidence that you won't have it, you're working against the natural order of things. Other people can't actually block your way. Only you can do that. And if you let people show you the way,
If you let them inspire you, if you let them reveal the formula to success, now you're learning from people instead of turning people into a problem that is blocking you from doing what you're capable of.
And those are the four ways that you have turned other people into a problem. And you have allowed other people and your desire to control them or to manage them or the sense that you have this responsibility to make everybody else happy. And you've forgotten about the one person whose job it is that you are supposed to be making happy, which is you. See, it's sort of like you and I both have dyslexia.
I didn't discover that I had dyslexia and ADHD until I was 47. And I found out the way most women do. My son was getting evaluated for school and I'm like, oh, I think I have the same thing here. Yeah. And if you don't know the problem, then you have no access to solving it.
And for years, Lewis, I thought that the primary thing that I was struggling with was anxiety. Because when you have dyslexia or ADHD and it's not diagnosed or addressed, the thing that rises to the surface is anxiety. And anxiety wasn't my problem. Anxiety was a symptom. What do you think you had anxiety then? Or what do you think anxiety was showing up for you in your life?
Oh, well, it's very simple. Like, if you're sitting in a classroom and your brain can't do what everybody else can do, and you're falling behind... You'll feel anxious. Of course, because you're uncertain. And anxiety in my mind is just a situation where you feel like there's an unknown, right? And you add in this belief that you're not capable of figuring it out.
And the problem is that when something feels overwhelming or you don't know or things feel a little out of control, we focus on that and then we start worrying versus focusing on the fact that you're actually capable of figuring something out.
That's all that anxiety is. It's a separation with the power inside you. And then, of course, your body has this alarm system. And when something is happening in the moment or it's about to happen and you get nervous because you're uncertain or you're afraid of how things are going to turn out or you're afraid that the teacher is going to call on you, right? The alarm system in your body goes off. And then you separate
yourself from your power because you always have the ability to figure something out.
And for somebody who starts to struggle chronically with anxiety, what ends up happening is that you start to, when you feel nervous in your body, which by the way, it is a mentally healthy response if you're a dyslexic kid in classroom and you don't know what the hell's going on to feel nervous. That's a sign that your things are working well because the alarm is trying to tell you something's not right.
and then we feel the alarm and we don't know what the issue is, so then we make a major mistake. Instead of dropping into the alarm, which is always in your body, we go upstairs to our heads, which is where self-doubt is. And then you start going, oh my God, oh my God, oh my God, which only makes the alarm.
bigger. I didn't know any of this back then. So I, of course, went from a dyslexic and ADHD kid to somebody that develops anxiety because I'm sitting in a classroom thinking I'm an idiot. And you want to know the kid that works the hardest in school? The one who's struggling. Not the kids that are getting straight A's. It's easy for them. Yes. Yeah. Even if they're working hard, it's still easy to come up. Yes.
It's the kid who isn't able to learn in that way and is terrified of being found out. You don't have to tell a kid that's struggling in school that telling somebody to work harder is dumb. Because it's not an issue of willpower, it's an issue of I don't have the skills right now.
And when you're in that situation where you can't, in fact, there's a doctor that was on our show two weeks ago that you've got to have on his name is Dr. Stuart Avalon. And Lewis, he said this sentence, he's been at Mass General Brigham for 30 years, credible. Child psychiatrist, he says, people do well in the can. And if somebody's not doing well and they're exhibiting challenging behavior,
It's because they're missing one of a few skills. And he's been able to identify it down into five skills. And one of the tragic things about his work with kids that he sees over and over is that it's not the kids' fault.
And if you don't know what the skill is that you need, whether it's communicating or impulse control or it is the ability to learn in the way that your brain's being asked to learn, these are all things that can be addressed. If you don't know what the skill is that's missing, you will continue to struggle. And we live in a world where if you're struggling or you're presenting challenging behavior, we punish you.
Or you tell you to work harder or whatever it might be. Or you punish yourself. Oh yeah. You go shame and guilt and all that. Correct. And so the Latin theory is the exact same thing because it is a skill to be able to identify what's in your control and what's not in your control. And is a skill anybody can learn. And you need to learn it because human beings at our core, we have a fundamental hardwired need for control.
it makes us feel safe. So if you really think about this, like, you need to feel in control of your decisions, you need to feel in control of your environment, you need to feel in control of what's gonna happen in the future or at work today. And we also try to make ourselves feel safe, by what? Controlling the people around us. And this is in all of us.
I have this need to be in control. You have this need to be in control. This is why the parent-child relationship is so irritating, right? Because you're the parent or you're the adult child and you have a need to be in control of yourself, but your parent only feels safe if they're in control of you. And that sets up a problem for every relationship that you're in.
Because if I can't control you, it makes me feel unsafe. But if I try to control you, Lewis, then you're going to feel annoyed. And what happens in the body, and I write about this in the book, because the first thing you're going to learn when you learn this skill of identifying what's not in your control.
and removing it as an obstacle in your life. Because when you stop giving power to things that aren't in your control, guess what you give back time, energy, power, confidence, peace, joy, you realize you do have agency and that that power isn't over there, it's in here. And you have the exact same thing.
And when you start to tap into that for yourself, it's just liberating. And then you start to see the second thing that I write about in the book, which is that there are four ways you're screwing up your relationships because you're trying to control people. And any psychologist will tell you that
When you try to control something that you can't control, it just creates stress and frustration for you, and it creates tension and misunderstanding and distancing your relationships. Because if you have a need to control, and I have a need to control, right? And I try to pressure you to do something, Louis. Your brain is wired not to feel motivated.
but to actually resist the change I want you to make. Yeah, exactly. You don't want to do it. No. No. And so it was fascinating also to see that for 54 years, I was actually operating the opposite of human wiring when it came to relationships. Because this is a book about adult relationships. And we make a huge distinction because when you're an adult,
You are and you have a child, or you're a caregiver or a coach. No. You are a, well, there are certain things you need to let them do. Yes. But there are certain guardrails that are your responsibility. For example, a child cannot regulate their own emotions. Right.
you have to, it's your responsibility to teach a child how to regulate their own emotions. And the problem is that no adults know how to do this. They haven't been taught it either. Correct, which is why another philosophy and rule in the Let them Theory book is that from this point forward, go through life and see every adult is an eight year old in a big body. And when you do that, something fascinating happens. Instead of being scared of people,
who are challenging or narcissistic or passive or immature. You actually can let them be and you feel compassion.
And you also realize it's not your job to make excuses for somebody who is immature. It's not your job to change somebody who has an narcissistic personality style. It's not your job to take away somebody's disappointment or sadness.
You need to let them. And when you do it, it's the ultimate boundary because then you separate your emotions and energy from someone else. And then you say the second part, which is let me. Let me double down on my values and let me see this person very clearly. Because if I see this person's immature behavior,
And I visualize the eight-year-old version of them. What I realize is that this is a person who has just never taught the skill of understanding and managing their emotions in a responsible and healthy way. Here's the thing, who is the power in a narcissistic relationship? Yes, the narcissist, if the other person's allowing it to happen.
Correct, but you're only allowing it if you see it happening and you make excuses for it and you stay. So if you let them ordeal who they are, and so this is a very important point, you are not allowing people to abuse you. In fact, what the let them theory does is it helps you wake up perhaps for the first time and actually see somebody very clearly as they are and not make an excuse because people's behavior is the truth.
People can say anything that they want, but if you watch their behavior, someone tells you exactly who they are and they tell you what their priorities are and where you fall in those priorities. So let them reveal who they are. And if you are in a situation with any human being,
and you let them be who they are, and they reveal to you that they are emotionally abusive, or narcissistic, or they don't call back, or they keep saying that they're gonna stop drinking and they don't, or they promise that they're not gonna raise their voice, but they do. Let them, because your power is not in trying to change them, because you can never change another human being. Human beings only change when they feel like it,
and they are not going to change for you. People only change when they feel like changing for themselves. And so trying to make someone else change or wishing that they would change, that's not where your power is. Don't put your time and energy there. Let someone reveal who they are and then say the second part, which is let me. Let me remind myself that I always have power because I can leave any conversation
I can leave any interview, I can leave any date, I can leave any relationship, I can leave any dining room table, any time I, any job, any time I choose.
And so, I also say this, knowing the research, I used to work at domestic violence hotline. And when I was a public defender, we had a tremendous amount of training and crisis intervention. And I know you've covered this topic a lot and you understand trauma and have written about it extensively. And I say this in abusive relationships, this is a life-changing tool for you to say, let them, and here's why.
On average, at least the research I saw last, it took a woman seven times of leaving to leave for good in a domestic one. Why is that? I'll tell you why. The reason why is if you look at brain circuitry,
And you look at all that research that scientists have done on addiction. And there's this famous study, I'm going to get completely wrong. It's part of my brand to just kind of miss some of the details, get the gist of it. So they put these poor rats in two different pages. And in one of the cages, they give the rats all the sugar that they want, or heroin, or I don't even know what they were going to do. And it's on tap. And of course, they're like tap, tap, tap. But then they kind of get a little like tired of it.
In this cage, they put the rats in with the same sugar or heroin or whatever, but they gave it to them randomly. So you would tap it once and get your hit, and then you go back in its water, and then you hit it again, and then maybe it comes again. And then you hit it a couple more times in its water, and then you hit it again. It's called intermittent rewards. It is the exact same mechanism as pulling a slot machine.
Like sometimes you win and then you got to pull it 20 through and then you win again and it's that lack of predictability, which by the way is the exact same mechanism with social media. Because when you're scrolling, you know, for those of us that have been caught doing scrolling, this is not your fault. The algorithms designed this way.
It's designed to feed you things that are like a dopamine hit, and then you get a bunch of boring crap. But if you ever noticed, as you start to talk to yourself, I got to go to bed. Like I really need to talk to you. And then you hit one thing, okay, and then you're on for another. It's intermittent reward. And so in the cycle of an emotionally or physically or sexually abusive relationship, what happens is the relationship cycle is one where it's calm.
and then the abuse, and then the apology, and then it's calm. And the fact that it's not always like it negatively the whole time makes you do what we all do when we're on social media. I know that I need to do something but
And so you- You want that to happen all the time, but it's going to help. Oh, right. And the world's leading experts, you've had Dr. Ramani Diversola on a number of times here, leading expert in the world on narcissism. She has said that the single biggest problem in a narcissistic relationship, whether it's your mother or the person that you're dating or a brother or sister or a friend, is the hope that they will change. I'm kind of smart.
likelihood is not. But I think that you can hold out the belief that people can change and at the same time you can live in the reality of who they actually are right now. And that's the power of letting them. You're not letting them do anything to you. You're letting them reveal exactly who they are through their behavior and for the first time you are not explaining it away. And that is the biggest issue
that people also face in dating. We're so terrified to be single. And I get it. I've been married a long time. I have two daughters that are one is single, the other's in a relationship. And the obsession with not wanting to be the single friend. Like how awesome it is to have plans on the weekend. Like the fear that you have that you're not gonna meet the one. And the problem is,
that we are so married to the fantasy that we chase the potential and you don't see the reality of the person that you're actually with. And the explaining away of behavior is the single biggest reason why you'll waste years of your life or months of your life with the wrong person because you're up here
Though if they only lose some more weight or they'd be more motivated or they didn't watch golf all weekend or they treated me nicer, then maybe. No, this is exactly who this person is.
I once heard someone say that if you're not changing it, you're choosing it. If you're not changing the situation or changing your relationship within the situation or changing your environment, you're choosing that environment, choosing that relationship, choosing that job, whatever it might be. And you can speak up and you can communicate, hey, this is something that I would like to create with this relationship within this career, within this job.
And I'm not happy with my current situation or this is what's working for me, but this isn't working for me. How can we evolve this relationship? So I think you should have the conversation. You have to. That's the let me part. Don't just say, screw this person and I'm gone. No. No.
communicating with courage, with consciousness of like, here's what I do appreciate about you. Here's all the good that is happening. Here's some things that I would like to improve on. Can we improve in this situation in my relationship or my career or whatever might be our friendship? If not, okay, it's information.
Maybe I'll stay as invested with you. Maybe I won't. Correct. Maybe I'll stay in this job. Maybe I'll look for a new job and try to find some other situation. But if you're not changing it, you're choosing it. Yes. Yes. And when you're choosing it, you got to accept it. Yes. If you accept it, you got to start having a conscious conversation. Yes. Thank you for tuning in. Continue strengthening your mind by listening to our other episodes. Download the Resilient Mind Journal by clicking the link in the show notes.