Mel Robbins - The High 5 Habit

In today’s episode, our guest is an author and speaker, Mel Robbins. She was the world's most booked female speaker, with a fee of $100,000 per hour. She had numerous audiobooks being listened to every day. The 5 Second Rule was Audible's nonfiction bestseller in 2017 and the most successful self-published audiobook of all time, with 2 million copies sold in 33 languages and 100,000+ five-star ratings. Today, she will share with us her journey on how she figured out how she can change her habits and be a more confident and fulfilled person. Stay tuned!

[3:02] Why should we listen to you?

I don't think you should, and I believe that you should do what you authentically want to do. And if I have a vibe or energy about me that clicks, then you'll want to listen and talk to me. And if I don't, you shouldn't listen or talk to me.

[4:04] Do you find you've ever had conversations where you feel like “I'm supposed to be important,” and then someone makes it clear you're not to them?

I recently had this interview where it was a guy who I think had been in broadcast forever. He had invited me to come on his podcast. And he's not on camera. He keeps his camera off. And I say, hey, I've done some research, but could you tell me about your audience and your ideal intention so that I can make sure that the way I show up in this interview aligns with what your audience likes? And he's like, “Oh, it's a generic audience.” He was dismissive. Then he asked me the first question, which was, “So, tell me about the high five habits.” It was a wide-open question. I was explaining whatever, I've just written a book about it. And so I'm telling the story, and all of a sudden he goes, “You know, could you stop talking? We need a back and forth. I don't need you to give me a goddamn presentation.”

[8:41] “It's hard to see the label when you're the one inside the jar.”

What that made me think about is that one of the biggest challenges that I have as a mom is dealing with any issue where our kids feel anxious because it triggers my own anxiety and then I rush in to try to get rid of the anxiety and solve the situation which only makes the anxiety stick around and come back because I'm not teaching them how to problem solve through it. I'm rescuing them. And so that's been a really difficult issue for me to try to work through. But that's not the label of my job this year.

[11:00] It's hard to see the label when you're inside the jar. And you know you're inside the jar because it's frustrating to try to get the lid off no matter how hard you're cranking. I think the label on the jar I've been trapped in is successful but miserable.

[16:24] Your fears are so much a part of who you are that every time you go to level up or ask, “Well, what's next? Or what do I want to do?”, you will immediately level it back down based on that fear. That's the only thing that will allow me to get out of that fucking jar.

[18:48] Harmony

I love the word harmony. Whenever anybody asks me about life balance, I say I don't believe in that. I believe in work-life harmony. Things fit together when they're in harmony. One of the most important things for creating harmony is boundaries. They will only fit together if they aren't competing with one another. And that doesn't mean the rigidity of this. It just means you don't want to find yourself in a zone where it's not kind of the black and white kind of weave together. Everything's a gray blob because you're always working and there's got to be a little bit of separation.

[22:18] What do I want my life to look like?

I'm looking for areas where there is friction. I'll give you an example. This morning, I was talking with somebody that works on my team. And we were talking about the newsletter that will go out this week to our newsletter list. And we have a huge newsletter list. And I have to be honest with you, I hate writing the newsletter. Because the process of writing it, creating it, all of it creates a ton of friction. For me, the process is broken. I'm not clear about what I'm doing. It's just not joyful. And one of the things I know that I want in my life is to have more fun and be more joyful in the process of doing work. And there's a lot of things that I do in my work, a life that is fun and has no friction.

[30:02] My medium happens to be making videos, writing books, talking to people, soon to be podcasting as well. When I finally permitted myself to realize that being a businesswoman, a dealmaker, and an artist are the two things that I love to do. And it means that I'm always going to be creating something. With every project or new thing that we take on, there's always something that you're going to learn.

[36:54] Life Lesson

If there are some lessons learned, it would be to reach out for help sooner. So reach out to people that are two steps ahead of you. Go to their seminars, d...