Mel Robbins on The High 5 Habit — It’s Weird, But it Works

In this episode of MarieTV, we do have some adult language. So if you do have little ones around, grab your headphones now.

Marie Forleo:

In this episode of MarieTV, we do have some adult language. So if you have little ones around, grab your headphones now.

Mel Robbins:

I’m here to tell you that because you survive those things, because you can drag yourself outta bed, because you are still standing here breathing, you are still trying, you not only deserve a high five, you need one, because what a high five says isn’t, “I’m amazing because I’m failed.”
A high five says, “I see you. And I see that you’re struggling. And I still love you. And I still support you.”

Marie Forleo:

Hey, it’s Marie Forleo. And welcome to another episode of MarieTV and The Marie Forleo Podcast. I have to tell you, I’m so excited about my guest today. We have been orbiting each other’s universes for so long, we’ve had the mutual admiration society going for so long, and today, we’re finally sitting down and having a conversation. And she’s going to teach us one simple habit that can help all of us take control of our life. Mel Robbins coaches millions of people every month, and her TEDx Talk is one of the most popular of all time. Her work includes the global phenomenon The 5 Second Rule, plus four number one bestselling books. She’s got a number one podcast on Audible. She’s got online courses and her newest book, The High 5 Habit, is available now.

Mel frigging Robbins, come on, come on, like…

Mel Robbins:

Here we go.

Marie Forleo:

…we’re finally, finally doing it. I have so admired you. And I just have to say, I know I’ve been texting you and sending you little videos of me that are kind of risque. Last night, we were in bed together. I was…

Mel Robbins:

How did I do?

Marie Forleo:

You were amazing. I literally, I put down the book and I was like, oh, because it was so fantastic. I just first want to congratulate you on this because it is such a beautiful book. It’s so fun. It’s so personal. We’re going to dive into so many things. But first really, congratulations, because I know it is so hard to get any project out into the world, and this is just so beautiful, and it has your soul, and your energy, and your brilliance, and your research, and everything in it. So big ups, my friend.

Mel Robbins:

Thank you. Thank you.

Marie Forleo:

So. Okay. I want to just dive straight in because this was not an easy book for you to write.

Mel Robbins:

No.

Marie Forleo:

Am I correct? And I also love that you were revealed, and I want to get into this a little bit later, but can you just tell everyone, for those who might think it’s Mel frigging Robbins, and she can just pop things out and create things, and here’s her next big best-selling book. Can you reveal to people why this one was a challenge and what that road was like for you?

Mel Robbins:

Sure. You know, this is the first book that I’ve put out in print in almost five years. And one of the reasons why it’s a challenge is because I have dyslexia, I have ADHD. It’s hard for me to get something on paper. I mean, I can talk and blather on like an idiot, you know, forever, particularly if I have a few drinks in me. So audio stuff is super easy, but actually getting something on paper, my mind doesn’t work that way. That’s the first thing. The second thing is, is that I really struggled just like everybody does. And I know that so many of you that follow your work, Marie, and that love you, or that are alumni of your incredible course, courses, I should say, we all struggle with this notion that we don’t know what the thing is.

You know, and then, so I didn’t know what to write about, and because The 5 Second Rule had such a profound impact on millions of people’s lives, absolutely anything that I kind of put on paper just seemed kind of stupid.

Marie Forleo:

Yes.

Mel Robbins:

And so I became my own biggest critic. And I, in the last probably four and a half years, my family will tell you, I drove them absolutely fucking crazy because I was constantly working on a book and I would crank out something, and my process of writing is to dictate. So I just record, you know, because you don’t have to make yourself do things the hard way. If you struggle with something, figure out a cheat. For me, it was just dictating, putting little voice memo notes in my phone, it would be sitting in front of my computer and just dictate, dictate, dictate, and then we’d send them off for transcription. And then what I would find is that the things that I was saying did not actually translate down to writing. I skip words, I sort of put the front of the sentence at the end of the sentence when I talk. And so we would edit and edit and edit and nothing seemed good, and I started to feel discouraged. And this was what was going on for four years and I wanted…

Marie Forleo:

Okay.

Mel Robbins:

Go ahead.

Marie Forleo:

Let me interrupt you because I really want to unpack this because there’s not many people in the world that I can do this with.

Mel Robbins:

Yeah.

Marie Forleo:

And I feel like you and I are soul sisters in this way.

Mel Robbins:

We so are.

Marie Forleo:

Because, so my question for you, was the idea for The High 5 Habit there or where you kind of test driving different sort of…

Mel Robbins:

Oh my God, no. No, no, no. The idea for The High 5 Habit was nowhere on the radar screen.

Marie Forleo:

Yes.

Mel Robbins:

I was writing things like, oh motivation is garbage.

Marie Forleo:

Yes.

Mel Robbins:

That’s what you should do because of that clip that went viral with Tom Bilyeu.

Marie Forleo:

Yes.

Mel Robbins:

And that just kind of didn’t light me up.

Marie Forleo:

Yes.

Mel Robbins:

And that’s how you know if you have an idea that’s for you. An idea that’s for you is sort of like a little spark in a forest almost. It’s like that little first pop that you feel energy, a great idea, that’s your idea or that’s the right idea for you. It might not end up being the thing.

Marie Forleo:

Yep.

Mel Robbins:

It expands you.

Marie Forleo:

Yes.

Mel Robbins:

There’s a little bit of something. And honestly, as I was working for the last four years, I felt dead.

Marie Forleo:

Yep.

Mel Robbins:

I felt defeated. I just knew, even if I pushed an idea forward, Marie, it wasn’t it. And so there’s…

Marie Forleo:

Yes.

Mel Robbins:

Yes.

Marie Forleo:

So let’s, I just want to play with that for a minute.

Mel Robbins:

Sure.

Marie Forleo:

Because did you have the feeling, two things, one, that your best work had already come out? That The 5 Second Rule was like the thing and…

Mel Robbins:

Oh, for sure.

Marie Forleo:

Okay, good. I just want to say that because I’ve had that so many times, so I just want to normalize that, so people don’t think you or I, or other people like us or people that they admire are these like kind of special unicorns. And two, did you have a voice in your head that said, “If I was really a writer or coach or whatever, professional leading person in this field of personal development, that I would be able to crank out like a book a year.” And by the way, it’s not like you’ve been sitting twiddling your thumbs, right?

Mel Robbins:

Right.

Marie Forleo:

You’ve got best-selling audiobooks, but I just want to know from the inside out, because I’ve had this, that, because the idea wasn’t right there and you just couldn’t do it, that it kind of starts this backpedaling of like, I must just suck. I’m like a one-hit wonder.

Mel Robbins:

Oh, 1000%. And then on top of it, I completely tortured myself by watching people that I love, like you or Jay Shetty or, you know, Gabby or anybody that is kind of in even our friend group where I’m like, I love you, and I hate you, I love you, and I hate you. Why are they able to crank out those many videos? Why are they able to put those courses? There must be something wrong with me.

Marie Forleo:

Yeah.

Mel Robbins:

I’m just a one hit pony here. I got lucky on The 5 Second Rule, by the skin of my teeth, that thing got done. It’s helping people. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. I’m done here. There will never be another idea. I’m not as smart as those people. I’m not as organized as those people. I got lucky. That is 100% what I said. And, you know, the other thing, too, is that I also felt like I was on the outside.

And so I will tell everybody, this is so important because I think when you start launching your own thing, you know, you’re lit up because you’re finally going to start your yoga studio, you’re finally going to start that catering business, or you’re finally going to start that flower growing business, or you’re finally going to do the thing. And then all of a sudden, you do the thing, and instead of being excited and thrilled and validating yourself, you then look up and go, oh, wait a minute, there are all these other people that do something similar and they’re all friends or they’re all bigger than me. And then you start to tell your story that you’re the little one on the outside looking in.

Marie Forleo:

Yes.

Mel Robbins:

That you’re not part, you know what I mean? And then you use that to invalidate yourself.

Marie Forleo:

Completely.

Mel Robbins:

And so I found a gagillion ways to tell myself, I call it, pile driving. I would just pile drive myself. And it was paralyzing and it makes the process of creating anything so sucky, so laborious, so stress-filled, it creates more procrastination. And so I have been in the soup of self judgment for four and a half years. Yeah.

Marie Forleo:

Yeah. Well, look, I remember I’ve talked about this a couple of times, but I don’t think we can say it enough, like my process for creating Everything is Figureoutable, I’m like, oh, this is great. I am absolutely unable to figure out how to write a book called Everything is Figureoutable, and torture the hell out of myself while I was writing it. And like, should I give back the money? I’m not really meant to do this. I mean like, you know, and this has happened so many times in my career. So I just, I love talking about this stuff because sometimes these are the stories that you don’t get to hear and people just make all of these assumptions, and it’s just not the truth.

Mel Robbins:

Well, and, you know, that book came out, let me just tell you what happened. Your book came out and I saw this incredible title, I saw this on-brand book, I saw you putting more amazing, life-changing work out. The book is fucking fantastic.

Marie Forleo:

Thank you.

Mel Robbins:

I read every, you know, word and you don’t even read every word and let it seep in because you’re like, this is so good, why didn’t I do this? Of course, she can put a book out because she’s Marie. You know what I mean? So you literally… and it’s so interesting because, you know, one of the things you and I are going to talk about is that your relationship with yourself is the foundation for everything.

Marie Forleo:

Yes.

Mel Robbins:

So if you look in the mirror, and you judge yourself, or reject yourself, or you’re insecure about anything, you then take that self rejection and self-judgment and that insecurity, and you project it on everything that you see. And so instead of being able to walk in a world where your genius co-exists with other people’s genius, instead of being able to walk in a world where you’re like, everything is unfolding for me, this is taking time because it’s supposed to, Marie is a light on the path for me. And if I’m secure with myself and if I can literally support and encourage myself, even when I’m struggling, what happens is you start to see the world differently.

I see your book, and I’m like, if she can do it, that means she’s lighting the path and I can do it. And the only reason why, again, I couldn’t do that is because I hadn’t actually discovered or started to feel the impact of this High 5 Habit thing.

Marie Forleo:

Yes.

Mel Robbins:

Which was a total, I didn’t set out to do this. I did not say, “Okay, I need another book with a five in it. And it’s not going to be the five decisions, it’s not going to be the five this, I need another book with a five, and it’s going to be five parts and five…” Like, no.

Marie Forleo:

Yes.

Mel Robbins:

That’s not what I set out to do.

Marie Forleo:

Yes.

Mel Robbins:

Life punched me in the fucking face.

Marie Forleo:

Yes.

Mel Robbins:

And I fell into a hole, like we all fall into a hole, and this is kind of my brand, for better or for worse, this is what I’m going to need to embrace. My brand of transformation is dig a hole or fall in one, and then figure out how to build a ladder. And then as you’re doing this process of helping yourself, pick yourself back up through a really hard time.

I have had two instances in my life where I have stumbled upon something that is absurd on its face, that turns out to have been handed to me by the universe as a gift. And it also turns out when you unpack it to have a mind-blowing amount of depth and science to it. And that’s what The High 5 Habit is.

Marie Forleo:

Yes. So let’s keep going there. So for those who are unfamiliar with the The High 5 Habit, they’re like, okay, what is this thing? Tell us what it is, and then I want you to take us back into the time when you did it for the first time.

Mel Robbins:

Okay. So The High 5 Habit is a very simple habit that I want every human being on the planet to incorporate in their morning routine. And here’s how you’re going to do it. You’re gonna, after brushing your teeth, because you got to get that gunk out of your mouth so you don’t spread dragon breath everywhere all day, we’re going to get the gunk out of your head, your mind, body, and spirit, so you don’t drag it into your day. You’re going to put your toothbrush down and I want you to do it right after you brush your teeth so that we stack this habit with an old one. So you do it immediately. I also want you to do it in your bathroom, because you’re going to be alone. And we know, based on research, that this is, your mood in the morning has an impact on your focus and your productivity all day long.

And so we’re going to attack this right now, and we’re also going to break a really disgusting and ugly habit that every single one of us has that we don’t talk about. And that is the habit of either ignoring yourself or judging yourself every morning. And so you’re going to stand there, and what you’re going to notice is you have another human being in the bathroom with you. Like this is the profound piece, and I’ll kind of unpack it more when I explain how I stumbled into The High 5 Habit, but I want you to stand with yourself. And you may find it very difficult to even look at yourself. 91% of women don’t like how they look, more than 50% of women will not look at themselves in the mirror, they’re uncomfortable doing it. And so you might feel discomfort.

What I want you to do is I want you to ask yourself a question you’ve probably never asked yourself before, what does she need for me today? And whatever it is that pops in your mind, kindness, patience, she needs to be bold, she needs to bring the fun and the energy, whatever it is that the woman in the mirror needs from you, I want you to think of that. And then I want you to raise your hand and I want you to high five her. That’s what I want you to do. That’s The High 5 Habit. And you’re going to notice a bunch of things that happen. First of all, you’re going to notice it feels very weird. And it’s weird because you are doing the opposite of what you always do. Right now, you start your day by beating the hell out of yourself. You start your day by not even looking at yourself. It’s weird because this is a brand new neural pathway that we’re trying to create in your mind.

You know, I’m a right-hander, so I don’t even think about it when I write with my right hand. If I were to lose my arm in an accident today and start writing with my left hand tomorrow, I could do it, and it would feel weird because it’s new. And so just push right through that weirdness. And what you’re going to notice is you’re going to notice that it’s impossible, Marie, neurologically impossible to actually think anything while you’re doing it. And the reason why is because you have spent your entire lifetime high-fiving other people.

Marie Forleo:

Yes.

Mel Robbins:

And so the coolest thing about all the science, and we’ll get into it after I tell you the story, is that you’re actually not trying to put anything new into your nervous system or your brain. I’m teaching you using one gesture, how to unlock positive and energizing programming that’s already in your mind, that you’ve spent a lifetime programming, and now we’re going to aim it back at you. And so yeah, right? Right? And so what is… yeah.

Marie Forleo:

Yes. Yes. I’m like fist pumping, for people on the podcast, and you should watch the damn video because not only do we look cute, but it’s great to get the visual.

Mel Robbins:

Yes. Yes. So like when you high five somebody, Marie, what are you communicating whenever you go and you high five somebody?

Marie Forleo:

I’m communicating, I believe in you. I’m communicating, you are awesome. I’m communicating, I appreciate and adore you, respect you, and want you to win.

Mel Robbins:

I was so excited to talk to you because you are a human being who, in your spirit, you embody a high five. You are powerful. You are positive. You are celebratory. You are encouraging. You are understanding. You are a cheerleader and a coach and an advocate for people. You’re always encouraging people to keep going. That is what a high five represents. You have never high-fived somebody and said, “I hate you.” You never high-fived somebody and said, “You look like shit.” You’ve never high-fived somebody and said, “I hope you lose.”

Marie Forleo:

Right.

Mel Robbins:

And so when you go to raise your hand to yourself, even though it feels weird, and even though you’re going to resist it the first time you do it, your mind will go silent, and all that positive programming gets married with your reflection.

So this is a way using something called Neurobics, which is not a word I created, it’s a whole field of study about the brain and habits, who knew. Neurobic activity, physical activity, married with a new thought is the fastest way to create a new neural pathway in your mind. And so when you high five yourself, it’s an unexpected new physical activity. Your brain recognizes what the high five is. The second that you raise your hand, your brain turns off your conscious thinking, it taps into the subconscious programming, that’s all positive, and it marries it with your reflection. That’s what happens. And here’s the crazy part. So I’ve been practicing this. I discovered this in April 2020, and I’m going to tell you the whole story, because it’s so relatable, and there’s so much depth that I want to kind of unpack the layers of this.

I’ve been doing this for an entire year now, more than a year. And the truth is I actually don’t have to high five myself anymore.

Marie Forleo:

Tell me more, tell me more.

Mel Robbins:

Well, I do high five myself, I high five myself in my hotel room today, I high five myself and the elevator today, but I don’t have to because I, by doing the simple thing every morning, have kicked the bitch critic asshole beat down voice out of my head. When I look in the mirror, I don’t even see my face, I see my soul. I see a human being who’s trying, a human being who deserves to be encouraged and loved and supported. I look at the woman that I see in the mirror the same way I see my kids. It’s not arrogance or being conceited or anything like that at all. It’s just a deep and profound connection and love. I wouldn’t even think about criticizing her because I know how hard she’s trying. And that has been the most profound. I just get so choked up when I think about it because I’m going to be 53 this year.

Marie Forleo:

In a little bit. In a couple of minutes.

Mel Robbins:

Yeah. Yeah. And when I think about the fact that for 52 years, I have just…

Marie Forleo:

Beaten the shit out of yourself.

Mel Robbins:

…hated on myself. Yeah.

Marie Forleo:

Yeah. Listen, you’re talking, that’s why I was like you and I share so much of the same DNA.

Mel Robbins:

Yeah.

Marie Forleo:

I am so hard on myself and it’s something that… And that’s why I’m so grateful for your book, because I’ve been doing it. I’ve been high five myself. And it has been fantastic to start to quiet that part of my mind that is relentless. And my relentlessness can be one of my greatest strengths.

Mel Robbins:

Yes.

Marie Forleo:

Because, you know, it’s like, I will not give up. You know, if there’s something that I am passionate about, if there is something I want to learn, if there’s someone I believe in, if there’s something that I want to see happen, that’s kind of part of that, Everything is Figureoutable philosophy, right?

Mel Robbins:

Right.

Marie Forleo:

But the flip side of that coin is I can be relentless about being hard on myself. And I love what you’re sharing right now, because it’s such a beacon of hope for so many of us who are good and earnest and trying our best and yet have had that voice be with us for our entire lives.

Mel Robbins:

Yeah. Yeah. And let’s kind of unpack that sort of relentlessness because, you know, we’re going to talk about the reason why we resist doing this. And one of it is because so many of us have literally chased achievement and doing, because we have been trained to believe by our life that when we’re achieving, we’re lovable. So when you get the good grade, when you get through your to-do list, when you make somebody else happy, that is what means you’re worthy and lovable. And what happens is when you’ve outsourced your worth to doing things or to other people’s approval, first of all, you’re never in control of it. And secondly, you’re always going to be chasing it.

Marie Forleo:

Yep.

Mel Robbins:

And so that relentlessness is also tied into that self-loathing in that sense that if I’m not doing something that’s worthy of love, then I don’t deserve the love that I really need, that I desire and that, as a human being, is foundational.

And so, you know, that’s part of it. And then the other thing too, for you and me is that, you know, like you, this was the other reason why I so get you, is that I will fucking outwork anybody because everything is figureoutable. I might not be the smartest or the first or the whatever, but I will outwork you. I come from a long line of farmers and from immigrant blue collar bakers.

Marie Forleo:

Yep. Yep.

Mel Robbins:

Like, we will outwork you. It is figureoutable, and I will literally grind my face into the ground until I figure it out.

Marie Forleo:

Totally.

Mel Robbins:

But here’s the problem with that.

Marie Forleo:

Yep.

Mel Robbins:

We actually squeeze all the joy out of it.

Marie Forleo:

Yes.

Mel Robbins:

Because we are not celebrating the thousand things we did right today. We are literally holding out the joy and the celebration and the momentum that comes from also being present to all the things you’re doing right as you’re relentless.

Marie Forleo:

Yes. Yes. And this has been, this is like one of the best parts I think for me of just getting older and getting wiser and seeing things from a different perspective and going like, wow.

Mel Robbins:

Yeah.

Marie Forleo:

I love this. Wait, did you talk about you discovering this? Did you talk about the first time you… I don’t think we’ve covered it yet.

Mel Robbins:

No. No. Okay. So what happened is, like we all have that moment when we knew that COVID-19 was going to turn our lives upside down. And this is not a pandemic book, we’re all sick of hearing about the pandemic, we’re ready for it to be over, but that is when this hit. So do you remember when all this went down and you’re like, oh, this is actually a thing and my life is changing.

Marie Forleo:

Yep.

Mel Robbins:

What was the moment for you?

Marie Forleo:

So I kind of, I have a little bit of a psychic, intuitive nature and I was in London, I can’t even believe I didn’t get sick. I was hugging like 3000 people taking selfies late February. Came back, flew through New York, came to LA, and I had been paying attention to the news and it wasn’t locked down yet, but it was starting to just gain momentum. And I actually remember, Mel, writing a note to my team who probably thought I was bonker pants, and I told everybody, I said, “Hey, I’m going to recommend, you’re going to think I’m a little crazy, please go get four weeks worth of food for yourselves right now.” We have a totally distributed team.

Mel Robbins:

Yep.

Marie Forleo:

And some of them did think I was a little, probably off my chain.

Mel Robbins:

Here she goes.

Marie Forleo:

And a couple of friends that were having events, I said, “Hey, I’m going to tell you, I think this is really, really big.” And they’re like, “No, Marie, you don’t know what you’re talking about.” So I kind of felt it a little bit early, and then when it happened, Josh and I were in LA and we were just like, oh my goodness. I was just grateful that we were together, and then I was like, okay, I wanted to just kind of buckle down and go, and go, and basically everything is figureoutable, we’re going to figure this out about how to stay safe, how to take care of our community, and how to just be with the uncertainty of this moment.

Mel Robbins:

Yeah. Yeah. For me, it was a Wednesday in March in 2020, and I had my dream job or what I had always thought would be my dream job. So when I was in a little girl in Western Michigan, I would come home from school and my mom would be watching Oprah or Donahue or Montel, and I’d always dreamt of being a daytime talk show host, because I thought it would be the coolest thing in the world to talk to real people, like one person at a time, and use that one conversation to help millions of people. And so this lifelong dream comes true. I launched a daytime syndicated talk show with Sony Pictures Television when I’m 50 years old, and we are taping episode 167 of season one. And on a Wednesday morning, somebody walked into our studio at CBS and said, “We’ve just found COVID-19 in the building, everybody needs to evacuate in the next five minutes.”

And like that, everybody scatters. And don’t get a chance to say goodbye to the 130 people I’d worked with for almost a year. As we get out of the CBS Broadcast Center on 57th on the West Side, you could see our offices being evacuated along with 60 Minutes, and Entertainment Tonight, and Tonight with John Oliver. And I get in the car and I’m driving up the West Side highway to head back to Boston, which is where Chris and I have lived for, you know, over two decades, and the phone rings, and it’s our daughter and she’s in Spain and studying abroad for college. And she’s, “I hear they’re closing the border, oh my God what’s happening.” And then the phone rings again and it’s our daughter in LA and she’s a freshman in college and she’s sobbing. “They’re closing school. This isn’t fair. What the fuck is going on?” Like dah, dah, dah.

And so for those first three weeks, when all five of us were home, it’s a blur. I mean, I started drinking Bloody Marys at 10 o’clock in the morning, pajamas on. They canceled the show, I get fired from my dream job, then a publisher calls for a book I’d been working on for three years, not this book, but I was a year late and delivering a manuscript. And between you and me, I really didn’t have anything. And they said, “We’re canceling the contract and we need the advance back.” Money I’d already spent, the PPP loans were not available yet, or even a thing. Every speech to your point starts to cancel. And I find myself in this free fall emotionally, where I’ve got kids in complete breakdown because their college experience has imploded, I have employees that I’m worried about. I’m worried about my parents. I have no idea how we’re going to deal with the financial freefall.

I’m now triggered because a decade ago, my story about getting into personal development is my husband was in the restaurant business when the housing crisis hit in 2008, and we found ourselves $800,000 in debt, and about to lose everything. That’s when I invented The 5 Second Rule. So now I’m having these flashbacks feeling like, is this how this goes?

Marie Forleo:

Right.

Mel Robbins:

10 years later after working my ass off.

Marie Forleo:

Again.

Mel Robbins:

And paying down that debt, and I am now going to have to reinvent myself again?

Marie Forleo:

Yes.

Mel Robbins:

Are you kidding me? Why are you doing this to me? And then I would feel guilty. I would use what I call the gratitude sledgehammer, where you’re now pounding yourself, because you should be grateful that at least, you know, you’re healthy. And so I’m not even allowing myself to feel what I need to feel.

And one morning, in early April, I wake up and I just feel the weight of the world. I feel overwhelmed, exhausted, my to-do list feels impossibly long. I’m hungover. I am just, I don’t know how I’m going to face everything that I need to face. And so I use The 5 Second Rule, 5, 4, 3, 2, 1, and I get out of bed. And this is an important note in the story, because, you know, I invented The 5 Second Rule to help me get out of bed when my anxiety was so crushing, it would pin me to the bed like a gravity blanket. I know that the last place that I should be is lying in bed, staring at the ceiling when life is challenging. I want you to hear this, I use that thing every single morning, even 13 years later, because I believe that yes, if you repeat a behavior, it can become a habit, but if you don’t like it, it may never become a habit.

Marie Forleo:

Right.

Mel Robbins:

I still have to force myself out of bed. So 5, 4, 3, 2, 1, I forced myself out of bed. I make my bed. I always make my bed. On this morning, I made it so I wouldn’t crawl back into it. And so I dragged myself into the bathroom, I’m standing there in my underwear, and I catch a glimpse of myself in the mirror. And I think, oh my God, you look like hell. I honestly felt sad for the woman I saw in the mirror because she looked beaten up, she looked depleted.

Marie Forleo:

Yeah.

Mel Robbins:

The life force was just drained from her.

Marie Forleo:

Yes.

Mel Robbins:

And then I started to pick her apart. I’m like, the dark circles under her eyes and the saggy neck, and one breast is hanging lower than the other. And then all of a sudden, once your thoughts go negative, it’s just going to take you down this spiral.

And so then I start the pile driving and I’m like, why’d you get up so late? And you got a Zoom call in eight minutes, and the dog’s sitting there at my feet. Why am I late? I didn’t text Marie back and I’m just pounding myself into the ground. Now, here’s the interesting thing, if you had walked into the bathroom that morning, I could’ve spun on the dime. I would have been like, Marie, I get it. I get it. This is hard. I know. I know. It’s not fair. We’ve worked too hard. Here’s the thing though, honey, if anybody can handle it, it’s you, I got faith in you. You pick your chin up, you get your ass back out there, come on, girl. That’s going to make you strong. Like I could give you what you needed. But standing there in my underwear, feeling the weight of the world on my shoulders, I could not think of a thing to say. And I don’t think I would have believed it anyway, because it didn’t match how I felt.

Now I don’t know why I did it. I actually think it’s divine intervention. I think it’s the universe. I think this was the moment. Without even thinking, I just raised my hand and I high five that exhausted woman I saw in the mirror because I knew she needed it. And here’s the thing, it’s not like lightning struck, it’s not like the heavens opened and like, oh, the angels are here. That’s not what happened, no, no, but I’ll tell you what did happen. There was this little switch that flipped. In fact, Jay Shetty, I talked to him the other day about this. He’s the one that pointed out. He’s like, it’s like, he’s flipped a switch. He’s right. And that first morning, it wasn’t even like electrical. It was just a small flip, and I felt my shoulders drop, you know, and I felt this sort of shakeup in my energy.

I didn’t even think anything, but what the energy felt like was a little bit like sarcastic Mel Robbins. It was like, oh, come on, you’re fine. Get out there. You can figure this out. You know what I mean?

Marie Forleo:

Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

Mel Robbins:

Like, come on, stop feeling sorry for yourself. It was kind of that energy.

Marie Forleo:

Yep.

Mel Robbins:

But it was the second morning, Marie, where everything changed. So the second morning, I wake up, still same problems, same overwhelm, same stress, same anxiety, same exhaustion, same fatigue, same defeated feeling, 5, 4, 3, 2, 1, I’m out of bed. I make the bed. I start walking to the bathroom, and I realized, before I even get to the bathroom, I am experiencing something I have never felt in my entire adult life. And it was this, you know how when you’re about to go see a friend at a cafe who you really like?

Marie Forleo:

Yes.

Mel Robbins:

And you’re about to walk in the door, what do you feel in that moment?

Marie Forleo:

Excited.

Mel Robbins:

Mm-hmm (affirmative). I actually felt excited to see the human being, Mel Robbins. I don’t ever recall having had that feeling as an adult. I’ve been excited to see an outfit I’m wearing.

Marie Forleo:

Yep.

Mel Robbins:

I’ve been excited to see what a haircut looks like, but to see the human being, Mel Robbins, I’ve never felt that before. And so I round the corner and the profound nature of this is starting to hit me. And it’s in that moment, as I’m standing there brushing my teeth, that I realize there are two human beings in the bathroom with you every morning. There’s you, and there’s a human being in the mirror, and I’ve never realized it, that there’s a human being that is staring back at you, who needs you, who has been waiting for you to wake up and realize that they need your support and your love and your acceptance and your encouragement and your forgiveness, that they’re trying so hard, that they feel alone, they feel beaten up.

And I put my toothbrush down and what’s interesting is the day before, I had been doing some research, because, like you, my team’s distributed and I’m trying desperately to figure out how do I need to show up right now? How do I inspire everybody? How do I encourage them in this unprecedented moment in time when I don’t even feel inspired or certain or motivated? And I stumbled onto this new piece of research out of Harvard that was about leadership, and basically, they have done this research that shows that if you just take less than a minute to think about how you’re going to show up today as a leader, that’s it, just less than a minute, how am I going to show up today? What’s the impact I’m going to make? It changes your level of focus. It changes your productivity. It changes how you show up. It changes the impact that you can make.

There’s this like emotional contagion research about how the emotion that you bring, the intention that you bring is contagious to the people that you’re leading or your family members or your loved ones. And so I had just looked at this and for whatever reason that morning, I decided, well, what if instead of using that for my employees, what if I used it for myself? And I thought, okay, well, how am I going to show up for her today? What does she need? And I immediately just thought, well, she needs me to be really optimistic. That’s what she needs. And she needs me to be kind. And she needs me to bring some confidence today because that’s what she needs. She needs to know that this is figureoutable, that she’s going to get us through this. And so I thought about that, and then I raised my hand and I sealed it with a high five.

And that morning, I felt the jolt. I laughed out loud because it’s so absurd to do this the first couple times, but I did notice that as I left the bathroom, I felt a completely different level of energy. And I now understand why. And so let me unpack, because what happened is I just kept doing it in secret for about three or four weeks, and then I, all of a sudden, snap a photo of myself and had I known this was going to be the photo, I probably would’ve done it a different morning, because I have my retainer in and crazy bedhead, And I posted online and within an hour, more than 100 people, without even a prompt or a, hey try this…

Marie Forleo:

Right.

Mel Robbins:

…were posting photos and tagging me of themselves with their kids, alone, all ages all over the world, high fiving themselves. And that’s when I was like, oh, maybe I’m not the only one who actually needs this. And that’s when I dug into the research, and the research is life changing.

So couple things that I want to explain when you do this, because we’ve already taught you how to do it, I want you to understand what you can expect. First of all, you know it’s going to feel weird, great. So what? Do it anyway. I need you to do this for five days. That’s how long it takes to push through the weirdness and the resistance that you’re going to feel. And there’s only two reactions that people have to this when they first start doing it. You’re either going to have a really positive reaction where you’re going to laugh and you’re going to smile and it’s be funny and corny and all this stuff, or you will burst into tears in a very positive way. This is a very, very common thing that’s happening for people. And the tears are a positive release because you are realizing emotionally how much you’ve longed for this from yourself.

Marie Forleo:

Yes.

Mel Robbins:

How long it’s been since you have done this for yourself. And that’s the positive thing. What did you feel when you first started doing it?

Marie Forleo:

Well, the first thing, because I am such a frigging neat freak and I love that you actually said this in the book, I was like, I don’t want fingerprints all over my damn mirror. Mama don’t need one more thing to clean. But then of course I got wise to the fact that it wasn’t necessarily about touching the goddamn mirror, it was about the gesture and that moment of connection, which could happen even if I didn’t touch the mirror.

Mel Robbins:

Yes. Yes.

Marie Forleo:

And then, you know, I think you and I, again, you from Boston, me from Jersey, we have, I’ll speak for myself, this intrinsic little, there’s like a little cynicism, there’s a little attitude, there’s a little something in there, right?

Mel Robbins:

Yeah.

Marie Forleo:

But I also, the bigger wiser, the real Marie is so game for everything. Do you know what I mean?

Mel Robbins:

Yes. Yeah.

Marie Forleo:

So I had that little, that same, it was the fingerprints and also like, could this really work? And then it was just awesome, because, you know, so much of my life, not only just looking in the mirror, was about like, what can I fix?

Mel Robbins:

Yeah.

Marie Forleo:

What do I have to fix about me? But this was just, it was so fun because like even, you know, you and I have become friends and so many people. I just, I received… I’m like teary about this. I received a text this morning from someone like, “Hey, I want to help you. You know, what can we do with Time Genius?” Right?

Mel Robbins:

Yeah.

Marie Forleo:

And I get, the immediate thing, was like, “I don’t need help. I’m the one who helps everyone.”

Mel Robbins:

Yes.

Marie Forleo:

I don’t, but it’s another iteration of that same notion of she takes care of everyone else.

Mel Robbins:

Yeah.

Marie Forleo:

She doesn’t need anything.

Mel Robbins:

Yeah, totally. And like, I don’t, you’re so used to not getting that kind of support and not getting that kind of outreach that you don’t even know what to do with it.

Marie Forleo:

Totally.

Mel Robbins:

So let’s talk about the resistance, and then I’ll explain the science that is super exciting that I didn’t even include this latest stuff in the book because I just learned it.

Marie Forleo:

Yeah.

Mel Robbins:

But the resistance is really sad and this is what most people feel. So the resistance comes from a number of places because what happens when you step into the bathroom and you are with that human being in the mirror, is you drag your entire past into that bathroom with you subconsciously. And that past stands between you and the human being in the mirror. So if you have a past where there’s things that have been done to you, whether it’s abuse or trauma or discrimination or poverty or heartbreak or abandonment or neglect or all kinds of things that happen to human beings. So many of you bring that into the bathroom subconsciously and you see that as evidence that the human being in the mirror does not deserve, isn’t worthy of, is damaged, is unlovable. And so you see a person who does not deserve a high five because of those things.

The other reason why people resist this, Marie, is because, if you’re human, you’ve done shit you’ve regretted. You know, whether you’ve lied or cheated or you hurt people or you were addicted to something or you squandered opportunity or you hurt it yourself, all of that stuff, by the way, that you would forgive Marie or Mel Robbins for, but you drag it subconsciously into the bathroom every single morning and you wear it like a yoke.

Marie Forleo:

Yeah.

Mel Robbins:

And you see a person who has done things that you regret or that you can’t forgive. And that means that you are unworthy of celebration, you are unworthy of that high five. The other piece that we do is we say, “Well, I only deserve that high five if I’ve done something worthy of it. So if I don’t have the number on the scale, if my pants aren’t the size, if I don’t have that bank account, or that person doesn’t love me, or I haven’t launched that business, or I didn’t do the thing, if you haven’ exercise today, well, then I’ve screwed up. I don’t deserve the high five.”

And I’m here to tell you that because you survive those things, because you can drag yourself outta bed, because you are still standing here breathing, you are still trying, you not only deserve a high five, you need one, because what a high five says isn’t, “I’m amazing because I’m failed.” A high five says, “I see you. And I see that you’re struggling. And I still love you. And I still support you.” That’s what a high five says in those moments. “I know you’re not at the number on the scale, but guess what? I’m still going to remind you that you deserve to feel good about yourself. You deserve support. Today is another day. You can keep going.” You know, We don’t stand at a marathon at mile seven as spectators and cross our arms and go, oh, I’m not fucking clapping for you. Did you see how slow you’re running? Girl, look at that outfit you’re wearing. You know, we don’t do that.

Marie Forleo:

No.

Mel Robbins:

No. We clap and celebrate runners every step of the way, because we know that’s what keeps them going. And if you’ve ever done a walkathon or a marathon, you know the single best part of those 26.2 miles is the fact that people are encouraging you.

Marie Forleo:

Yes.

Mel Robbins:

And you’re sitting there waiting for your boss or your spouse or your friends or your family to do the thing, to encourage you, to love you, to validate you. I’m here to tell you, you need to make it a habit to start every fucking day validating yourself.

Marie Forleo:

Yes.

Mel Robbins:

Cheering for yourself, because life is a marathon and this might be a challenging leg where you’re like, I’m just going to throw in the towel. I’m not going to do that thing. Hell, no. If you’re standing in front of that mirror, you deserve to feel the support and empowerment and encouragement that you need.

And so stop waiting for everybody else to do it. Stop waiting for the fact that you got to get to the gym or do this. You are doing so much every single day that you don’t give yourself credit for. And, you know, I also was thinking about this, why do we celebrate birthdays? We celebrate birthdays because you’re alive.

Marie Forleo:

Totally.

Mel Robbins:

This is a moment every single morning to bring that celebratory energy that you need into your life. And let me tell you why this is going to work. It’s going to work, and this comes from our friend, Dr. Daniel Amen, one of the world’s leading experts on the brain. So I was talking to him two weeks ago. This stuff is not even in the book. So this is hot off the research presses, people.

Marie Forleo:

Yes.

Mel Robbins:

So, Dr. Amen goes, “So you know how you feel a little bit better, Mel, after you do that high five to yourself?” I’m like, “Yeah.” He goes, “Do you want to know the reason why you feel better?” I’m like, “Yes.” He said, “Well, when somebody else high fives you, your brain gives you a drip of dopamine. When you high five yourself, your brain recognizes the gesture, so it automatically gives you a drip of dopamine.” So even on your lowest mornings, somebody you love says, “I don’t love you anymore,” and breaks up with you, you get fired from your dream job, you feel like the world’s worst parent, you didn’t finish Module 2 of Marie’s course, like, you know, and you’re beating yourself up, whatever it is that you’re doing to just pile drive yourself. When you raise your hand and you high five yourself, even when you feel low, you don’t have to say a thing because your brain has all the positive programming, and you’re going to feel a little bit better because your brain just, boop, gave you some dopamine.

Marie Forleo:

Yeah. That little spritz is everything. It’s everything.

Mel Robbins:

Yes, it’s everything. And there’s a second reason why. He said, “Do you want to know why you’re going to leave the bathroom feeling a little kind of corny pep in your step?” I said, “Yes, I do.” He said, “That’s your nervous system, Mel.” I said, “Well, what is my nervous system doing when I high five myself?” He said, well, he said, “A high five is what we call a celebratory gesture. Dancing, you put your arms up. Hugging somebody, you put your arms up. When you cross a finish line, you put your arms up. When your favorite team scores, you put your arms up. When you wave hello, you put your arms up. When Marie fist pumps the air, she puts her arms up. These are all celebratory gestures that your nervous system knows. When you start to high five yourself over and over, your nervous system gives you a jolt of celebratory energy. That’s the vitality, the life force that you feel. Even just this little pep, that’s your nervous system helping you. That’s the science behind why this is working.” Crazy.

Marie Forleo:

It’s so good. It’s so, so good. Gosh, you know what’s awesome? Is I love how it organically, like I did all my prep work, did all my questions and we really, we drove around all the neighborhoods where I wanted to go. I think the, there’s a couple more, there’s two things that I want to go for.

Mel Robbins:

Sure.

Marie Forleo:

Chapter 14 talks about the right and wrong way to manifest. And I thought this was really awesome because, again, for folks like you and I, who tend to then attract folks like you and I, meaning very hard workers, people who put their nose to the grindstone, we get it done no matter what, right?

Mel Robbins:

Yes.

Marie Forleo:

Even if you don’t like the word manifesting, just this notion of having more ease in your life of bringing things into your life, that you don’t necessarily pound your face against the ground for every single day until your eyeballs fall out. So talk to me about a little bit of the wrong way and the right way to manifest for those who may want a little more ease.

Mel Robbins:

Yeah. Great question. So let me draw a distinction between the importance of dreaming and the power of manifesting. So dreaming, in terms of not what you’re doing at night, but dreaming and giving yourself permission to desire things, to have incredible magical things occur in your life, giving yourself permission to let your mind, body, and spirit wander into the future, and to imagine a life that really lights you up, that’s so important, because those dreams are deeply connected to your soul. Like you won’t dream about something that’s not meant for you. I’m not dreaming right now about a penthouse apartment in New York City. I don’t want to live there right now.

Marie Forleo:

Right.

Mel Robbins:

So that’s not going to come to me.

But, you know, when you allow yourself and your mind and spirit to wander forward and just allow yourself and give yourself permission to imagine, what’s amazing is you plant a beacon out into the future and that beacon, whether it’s a beach house, or it’s a loving relationship, or it’s healing past trauma, or it’s launching your dream business, or it’s just waking up and being happier and healthier and surrounded by all these amazing people, whatever that dream is, you got to allow yourself to dream it because it acts as a mechanism that starts to pull you toward it and it will pull you through your fear, it will create tension in your life because it’s going to make you start to wake up and pay attention to it. That’s where a vision board comes in.

And a vision board, yeah, most of us make a vision board and we put up the beach house or the Range Rover or the amazing log cabin or the trip to Disney World or the dream business that we want, whatever it is, the things are that we want, the loving relationship. But then this is where we make the biggest mistake, because manifesting isn’t the dream, manifesting is the bridge between where you are and where you want to go. Manifesting is the bricks that form the pathway that connect you there. And most of us have been led to believe that we need to sit quietly and with vibrational force feel ourselves sitting on the deck of that beach house, and how it’s going to feel when the wind is in our hair. And what happens when you do it that way is that you socialize your mind and body to the end, when the fact is it’s going to be a bazillion little irritating steps that get you there. And we skip that part.

Marie Forleo:

Yes. So, I love this. I just want to underscore this because when we were doing the Everything is Figureoutable book tour, and I did this event and I had people close their eyes and visualize themselves, figuring it out whatever their dream was, we actually did that. I was like, I want you to see yourself taking those steps. And I loved how you broke this down in the book. I thought it was so great because yeah, it’s one thing to go, yay, we crossed the finish line and there’s the house or the relationship or the health or the trip or whatever.

Mel Robbins:

Right.

Marie Forleo:

But to rehearse in your mind’s eye emotionally, visually, intellectually seeing yourself doing the steps. So if it’s writing a book, sitting at your table, and maybe sweating a little, because you don’t think you’re a very good writer, but showing up anyway, or getting up when the alarm goes off and putting your sneakers on, and all of those different little micro actions, even if it’s a healthier relationship.

For me, there’s been times where if what I want to shift and change is a reaction that I’ve had to something, seeing myself with the same situation that could trigger me in the past and visualizing myself behaving differently, feeling differently, watching it. Those are the steps that help me create that shift where it actually happens.

Mel Robbins:

Yes. Yes.

Marie Forleo:

So I just wanted to praise you, acknowledge you, and underscore how awesome this is because your mind is so powerful. Our brains are so incredibly miraculous, but we’re not given the instruction kits on how to use them.

Mel Robbins:

Yes. Yes, exactly. So you want to launch a business, visualize yourself telling your friends, you can’t come out tonight, because you’re going to work on something. Visualize yourself hitting that post and then feeling the fear that people are going to judge you when you start posting about something different than your kids or your dream vacations, and you start posting about your business. Visualize yourself spending a Saturday while the kids are playing soccer, working on something. Visualize yourself hearing no and feeling discouraged, and then picking up the phone and making the next phone call. There’s something called the Zeigarnik effect in your brain. It’s like a little to-do list, a checklist that your brain keeps intact in your mind and your brain, once you start to socialize your mind, body, and spirit to all these little irritating steps. Like you want to run a marathon, don’t visualize a finish, visualize yourself at mile 11 on a training run, and it starts to rain, and your earbud batteries die. And you keep going.

Marie Forleo:

Yes.

Mel Robbins:

When you do that, what you’re doing is you’re smoothing out your resistance to all this work that it’s going to require to make this stuff happen, because you are capable, you can figure it out. And you can use simple tools backed by science to lower the resistance in your body and mind, to actually doing the things that you’ve never done before.

Marie Forleo:

I love this. So Mel, I want to wrap us up. Before we wrap us up, is there anything else that you want to say about the power of self acceptance? Although I feel like we really, we went there and it was excellent, but what I want to have you do is actually read a final section of your book for us that you’re…

Mel Robbins:

Oh God.

Marie Forleo:

Yeah.

Mel Robbins:

I can. You know, I think that one of the things that people really resonate with is there’s this one study where they look at NBA teams and you can predict or researchers can predict who are going to be the most successful teams at the championship round at the end of a season, based on how the teams treat each other during preseason. And the behavior that researchers noticed indicates whether or not a team goes on to be successful or a team is in the bottom of the league is very simple. How many back pats or fist bumps or high fives do team members give each other in the beginning of a season? And if the team does that a lot in the beginning of a season, they typically go on, based on research, to be the highest ranking teams at the end of the season, the most winning ones. And the question is, why?

And the reason is very simple. These are more than gestures. A pat on the back, a fist bump, a high five, that is a fulfillment of a fundamental emotional need that you have to be seen, to be supported, to be celebrated, to be encouraged. And when you do that with a team member, it creates support, it creates partnership, it creates trust. And I’m here to tell you, if you start doing that to yourself in the mirror, the coolest thing on the planet happens, you rebuild trust with yourself. If you struggle with people pleasing, you literally have, not a problem with other people, you have a problem with trusting yourself and who you are. And so if you really want to be fulfilled and happy, start by improving the most important relationship that you have, and it’s with the human being that you spend your whole life with, the one who’s staring back at you every morning in the mirror.

Oh, I barely got through this in the audiobook. I mean, when I read this chapter in the audiobook, I was literally almost (mimics crying) as I read it. And I said to my team afterwards, “We need to rerecord that.” They were like, “Are you kidding me?” So let’s see if I can get through this. “Dreams don’t disappear. You were born with them, and they are…” Like I say, I can’t even get through this. “Dreams don’t disappear. You were born with them and they’re meant for you. That means you take them with you wherever you go in whatever version of yourself you create. So you might as well stop running and start leaning into them. You might as well see and hear and feel all the clues of your life that it’s trying to give you about who you’re destined to be. We are called in different ways to be the best and highest versions of ourself. We want to high five marriage, we want to be high five parents, we want high five friendships, and a high five career. Wherever there is a dream in your life, trust that you can high five your way to it, and know that I’m still right here beside you, and so is Marie, raising our hand and celebration with you. High five, my friend, we see you, we believe in you. Now it’s your turn to believe in yourself and go make your dreams come true.“

Marie Forleo:

I love you so much. Thank you so much. I know you are in the middle of this launch, I am so excited for you. I’m so excited from millions more people to get in on The High 5 Habit with us because it works. And I just want you to know how loved and appreciated you are in this world. Thank you for this gift.

Mel Robbins:

Thank you. Thank you. I feel the exact same way about you, Marie. High five, baby. I love that you go both hands.

Marie Forleo:

I did.

Mel Robbins:

Just a 10.

Marie Forleo:

I can. I’m from Jersey, I double up. I’m like, double up, double up.

Mel Robbins:

Double up, double up. Here we go. Here we go.

Marie Forleo:

Wasn’t that amazing? I just adore Mel Robbins and I’m sure you do, too. And now we both love to know what is the number one insight that you’re taking away from this conversation? And most important, how can you turn that insight into action right now? As always, the best conversations happen over at the magical land of marieforleo.com. So head on over there and leave a comment now. And if you’re not already, be sure to subscribe to our email list and become an MF Insider. Why would you want to do that? Because every single Tuesday, I send inspiring, action-oriented, motivating emails that will help keep you on track. You’re going to love them. Now until next time, stay on your game and keep going for your big dreams because the world really does mean that very special gift that only you have. Thank you so much for tuning in, and I’ll catch you next time on The Marie Forleo Podcast and Marie TV.

Hey! You having trouble bringing your dreams to life? Well guess what? The problem isn’t you. It’s not that you’re not hard-working, or intelligent, or deserving. It’s that you haven’t yet installed the one key belief that will change it all. Everything is Figureoutable. It’s my new book and you can order it now at EverythingisFigureoutable.com.