How to Speak So That People Listen: #1 Rule for Getting the Support You Need

Mel Robbins: Hey, it's your friend Mel, and welcome to the Mel Robbins podcast. I am so glad you're here. I'm just honored to be able to spend some time with you today. Welcome to the Mel Robbins podcast family.

Mel Robbins: I also want to start by acknowledging you for something. You decided to listen to this, and I know why you did, because you're committed to making your own life better. And I just want to say, I think that is so cool. I am so proud of you. So go you.

Mel Robbins: I'm Mel Robbins. I'm a New York Times bestselling author, and I have a simple mission, and it's this. I just want to inspire and empower you with the tools and the expert resources that you need and deserve in order to create a better life.

Mel Robbins: And lately, I've been seeing so many of you writing in from around the world, and you are having so much trouble shaking free of the guilt that you feel. It's almost like I can feel the weight of it as I'm reading your questions and reading your stories.

Mel Robbins: And, you know, the fact that you have all these things that you would like to do, there are things about who you are, but it doesn't fit the expectations of other people in your life. Whether it's what your family thinks that you should be doing with your career, what your spouse thinks you should be doing with your life, or maybe you don't want to get married. Maybe you don't want kids. Maybe you don't want to work in the family business or go to the school that your brother and your sister went to.

Mel Robbins: Or maybe people are upset with you and they don't really say it directly, but you know it. And it's because you no longer practice the religion of the household that you grew up in. Or perhaps you're just questioning yourself every single day because you're on this totally different path that your friends are on right now. And you think about it and then you feel conflicted and you want to talk to the people in your life about it, but you don't know how to bring it up.

Mel Robbins: Or have you ever done this? You actually do bring it up. This is what happened to me. You bring up this thing that you want to do. You know, I think I might start an online business. And the reaction, wait, you? What are you going to sell? What do you know about that? That happened to me.

Mel Robbins: See, 20 years ago, when I first decided I wanted to go into something called life coaching, it wasn't really this big thing. But I went through this big training program. And when I was done with the training program, I told a friend of mine that I was going to start a life coaching business. And she looked me in the face and said, you? Who is going to hire you to coach them? I felt myself disappear. And I bet you can relate. That may be the message that you're getting right now from the people in your life.

Mel Robbins: So I wanted to track down someone who's not only insanely successful, but she is also radically confident. Hey, it's your friend Mel, and I am absolutely thrilled that one of my dear, dear friends, I love this person, Lisa Bilyeu, hopped on a plane in Los Angeles and flew all the way to our studios here in Boston just to coach you.

Mel Robbins: So let me tell you a little bit about Lisa. Lisa is the co-founder of Quest Nutrition. You know that brand. Every single grocery store on the planet has like an entire aisle of their cookies and their chips and their bars, which by the way, was ultimately sold for a billion dollars. But that isn't just the whole story.

Mel Robbins: Lisa's journey to becoming unapologetically and confidently herself began being a young gal dreaming of the film business. But she grew up in a conservative Greek family in the UK, and they were not all that thrilled about the film business. In fact, she was told, don't worry about those dreams because you're going to go on and get married and just support your husband. And you know what? Ultimately, that's where her path started to lead. And for the first eight years of her marriage, she put all those ambitions and dreams on the back burner.

Mel Robbins: So it begs the question, how on earth did Lisa Bilyeu go from feeling like a bored, insecure housewife to one of the most successful, confident, and absolutely unbelievable people that I know and love? Well, you're about to hear the whole story. And more importantly, the advice, the tactics, the tools, and the scripts, I love scripts, that you need in order to take control of your life and own how you want to live it, regardless of what everybody else thinks about it.

Mel Robbins: And after leaving Quest Nutrition, Lisa is now the co-founder and president of Impact Theory Studios. She's a New York Times bestselling author. Her YouTube channels and all the shows that they launch have billions of views, and she is here today to be with you and me. So please help me welcome the remarkable Lisa Bilyeu.

Lisa Bilyeu: Yeah, Mel Robbins! Let's go, girl! Oh my God. I'm so excited to be here.

Mel Robbins: I am so excited that you're here. Let's change some lives.

Lisa Bilyeu: Let's change some lives.

Mel Robbins: So I want to go back to the beginning of your story because when people tune into the shows that you produce, they pick up a quest bar, they see you on the cover of your New York Times bestseller, Radical Confidence. You are the kind of person that just screams, I don't care what you think. I'm doing what I want to do. You are so confident and just yourself that you're probably intimidating to a lot of people. So take us back to the beginning and tell us a little bit about Lisa being a little girl over in the UK and what you dreamt about doing and the kind of family environment you grew up in.

Lisa Bilyeu: Yeah. So I think everything that we talk about, how we handle things as an adult, absolutely stem from the things we've been taught we should or shouldn't do. The amount of times I've been patted on the head by a grown man when I was a kid telling me little girls don't speak until spoken to. So I think it's super important for people at home to be listening, to think about what their story is and how they then use what we talk about to then lead into the life they actually want.

Lisa Bilyeu: So the expectations, Greek family, very traditional, it's patted on the head a lot, like I said, really, like literally literally top, top, top, top, tapped on the head multiple times. And little things like when you think about the subliminal messages that we're taught, you have to pay attention. Because when you look at your belief system now, a lot of it stems from what you've been taught as a child to be true.

Lisa Bilyeu: So for me, for instance, I would run in the street, play like, you know, like in the mud with the boys and I would scrape my knee. And my grandmother would like come running over, like wipe the tears. And in a big, thick Greek accent, she'd be like, oh, it's OK. You'll be OK by the time you get married. Oh, so you're going to be OK by the time you get married. That was her consoling me for pain. So imagine that messaging for a young little girl. It's basically saying, don't worry, when you get married, everything's going to be solved for you. And you just need to get to marriage.

Lisa Bilyeu: Then I once studied film, I had these big dreams, audacious, like I want to win an Academy Award. I actually said I would stay up at 3 a.m. I'd watch the Oscars. And I remember so vividly doing that.

Mel Robbins: And what was it about film that really drew you in?

Lisa Bilyeu: I was bullied and teased as a kid for my looks and being short and a big nose and a unibrow. And I had like a head brace that went all the way around the plate.

Mel Robbins: Oh, my God. A head brace. I remember head braces.

Lisa Bilyeu: I wish I had a photo, but I refuse to let anyone take a photo of me with a head brace. So I go to school. I get teased and bullied. I go home. I can lose myself in anything. You watch a movie. It impacts your life. It can change how you feel. It can change how you see things. It was just magical to me. So I wanted to be a part of that. The magic of creating a story that can impact someone for the greater good. So I just loved film.

Lisa Bilyeu: So I really wanted to do it but I have a very traditional Greek father and so I was like I want to go to film school dad I want to go and he's just like no you need to do something academic it has to be math science something like that we argued for like two weeks in the end he turned to me I remember this day so clearly he turned to me and he said you know what it doesn't matter study film you're going to be a stay-at-home wife in a way.

Mel Robbins: Now here's the thing I hope people can see your face if you're on podcast mel looks horrified right now.

Lisa Bilyeu: People now here's the thing think about where my dad came from everyone has a belief system remember how i said that earlier yes my dad's belief system was he grew up in a tiny mountain in uh in a village in cyprus the toilet was a hole in the floor he didn't have running water. So all the kids growing up, there was no school. So the age of 12, they would choose, I think it was like four kids from the village that would then be taken for an education. They didn't choose women because contraception didn't exist. So women just got pregnant. So they're like, well, we won't give a woman an education because she can't go out in a way. Let's give the boys an education. Let's take them away from their family.

Lisa Bilyeu: So at the age of 12, my dad moved away from his parents, lived with strangers just to go to school. So now when my dad says to me as an adult or as a teenager who wants to go to college, you're just going to be a stay-at-home wife anyway, it wasn't an insult. It was his belief system. Now, at the time, I took it as an offense, as a lot of us do. We take offense to that sort of thing. And I fought back. And I was like, well, at the time, I was like, well, actually, I got what I wanted, so it doesn't matter. But that was a pivotal thing that happened to me that made me realize I have to understand where people come from before I defend or judge their opinion.

Mel Robbins: Let's highlight this for a minute. Because when it's happening to you, you are so offended and angered and frozen in the moment. And yet it is so easy to forget that the world that your parents grew up in doesn't exist anymore.

Lisa Bilyeu: Correct.

Mel Robbins: But they still live based on the conditioning, the experiences, the good, the bad from that world. And yet we just have this expectation that somehow every human being is going to magically transform and magically think differently, even though they have had generational conditioning. And that is not to excuse any kind of abusive or terrible or toxic behavior or excuse what your dad just said to you. But you've just offered up this framework where you can look back and go, wait a minute. I'm not condoning what he did, but I understand it.

Lisa Bilyeu: Yeah, it's what I call a frame of reference. It is so helpful when people say anything to me from now on. And it's not even just offensive. Like if someone says something, it's like, oh, what's their frame of reference? And they're saying that, like, what would have to be true? Like, imagine movie scripts, right?

Mel Robbins: Right.

Lisa Bilyeu: Just said movies in my jam. I literally go, if I was writing a script right now, what would have to be true about their frame of reference for them to say that to me. Now, when it comes to family, I do this a lot. I don't necessarily do it with strangers a lot because I don't, it takes a lot of time and energy to go through someone's frame of reference. But when it's a parent, when it's a friend, why are they actually saying it? What is it that has taught them to believe that thing that they're saying to you?

Lisa Bilyeu: So you said earlier about how people said to you, like, you're going into coaching. What the hell? My dad said the same thing, like movies. What the hell do you know about movies? Now here's the other thing a frame of reference ready said that makes me understand my dad the second thing that i'm gonna be honest mel is what the hell did i know about movies like when people get very defensive over the like what did you know about coaching you didn't probably know anything at the time i took some course i mean literally i didn't know what the hell i was doing that's my point we take offense to criticism when sometimes the criticism is true and true and so what i go is instead of it being criticism what can i learn from it

Lisa Bilyeu: So if my dad said to me and I didn't have this frame of reference at the time but I do now my dad said to me you can't make it in Hollywood my response is why and he will list a whole load of reasons you don't know anyone you have to have a visa you haven't got an education all of those things he says is true so what I do instead is I go listen because it's not that they don't believe in you they believe in the laws of physics if you will if you haven't taught yourself something how you going to know it right so i just go oh he's got a point and so instead of taking offense to it instead of making that detrimental to my self-esteem which i used to i don't want to pretend that i never used to i absolutely did so i want people to know that the way that i'm talking now is how i think now it's an evolution and i'm trying to help people that have been there because there because i've been there i know what it feels like when someone doesn't believe in you i know what it feels like when someone actually tears down your freaking dreams it feels terrible it feels destroying sometimes emotionally it makes you doubt yourself who you are and what you want but how do you get past it frame of reference and maybe there's truth to what they say and if there's truth you've now become more powerful for it

Mel Robbins: Damn, Lisa freaking Bilyeu. I did not expect us to go here and I'm so happy we are because this is something that can help anyone navigate your day-to-day life because it is so easy to get hooked and triggered emotionally when somebody else's frame of reference is not the same as yours.

Lisa Bilyeu: Correct.

Mel Robbins: And we walk around thinking that absolutely everybody that we meet, our parents and our friends included, have the same level of therapy, have the same way of thinking, have the same way of loving that we do, and people don't. And we make assumptions about that. And then we are pissed off or we are emotionally triggered or we are devastated when it doesn't match what we want to hear.

Lisa Bilyeu: Yes.

Mel Robbins: If it's okay, can we take some time to really unpack it for the person that's listening?

Lisa Bilyeu: Yeah, let's go deep.

Mel Robbins: Let's start with how you define what this thing is. And can you give us an example of how the person listening might be able to use this concept of frame of reference to create better relationships with somebody in their life?

Lisa Bilyeu: Yeah, absolutely. So frame of reference really is how someone perceives the world the words they use and actions so when somebody comes in and yells if you've come from a family of abusive verbally abusive family let's say where you've just yelling actually triggers you if someone comes in the yells your frame of reference is danger run if you come from a greek family where everyone yells and someone yells i'm like oh my god it's my peeps my frame of reference is when someone yells, it feels good. It means that everyone's happy and excited.

Lisa Bilyeu: So you can imagine two people in the same room communicating over something and their frame of reference is completely different. You're talking, it's literally like I'm talking Chinese and you're talking, you know, English and we're not understanding each other because our entire perception of words, actions, and behaviors are all based on our own beliefs from growing up. Got it. Does that make sense?

Mel Robbins: Yes. And if you and the reason why this is powerful is because if you understand in your example that you're not triggered by yelling because your association growing up in a very loud kind of family is that's the sound of a full house. But somebody else may experience that same volume and have a profound shutdown and traumatic response because that kind of volume and yelling in their household meant something else.

Lisa Bilyeu: Correct.

Mel Robbins: So now when you see somebody acting out of accordance to what you expect them to do.

Lisa Bilyeu: Right.

Mel Robbins: So, you know, when you go into a conversation and like, OK, they're going to say this and then they say the company, you're like, they're offended. How the hell are they offended? I thought that that was going to be a great news. That's an indication you actually probably have a different frame of reference.

Lisa Bilyeu: You know, I would imagine that most couples therapy is nothing but a therapist trying to tease out people's frames of reference, which is their conditioning from their life experience, which then leads to your beliefs.

Mel Robbins: And this needs to be shouted from the rooftops because what you're talking about at the highest level isn't allowing someone else to treat you poorly. What you're talking about is developing a skill where you do not allow other people's frame of reference or other people's emotions or other people's opinions to derail you.

Lisa Bilyeu: Yes.

Mel Robbins: And at the same time, because you're not derailed, because you're not emotionally triggered, you have this objectivity to truly hold space for that other person. And obviously, this is a lot of work. So you do it with the people you care about. Like it's hard to do with strangers. But even so, it's a way to not be emotionally hooked.

Mel Robbins: Now, we're in a story where you're probably 16, 17 years old and you feel run over by, you know, a train at the moment. I'm in tears. I used to be called Daddy's Little Girl. So you can imagine this entire thing where my dad doesn't believe in me. It is tearing me apart. And so I still went to college. I still studied film.

Mel Robbins: So do you study film in the UK?

Lisa Bilyeu: Yes, I studied film. Yeah, I got a degree in movie making.

Mel Robbins: And so was there like a lot of eye rolling in your house or what happened once you started down the path?

Lisa Bilyeu: I think my dad so it's funny how traditional families are they'll push you to get a you know college degree and something that's prestigious and then they wait for you to get married like it's literally like get my dad was like get the college degree only so I could go and get married and then not do and not not do anything I don't want to dismiss like freaking being a stay-at-home wife is the hardest job ever can't imagine being a stay-at-home wife with kids oh my god literally hardest job ever but my dad just assumed I'd get the college degree just to get me to marriage marriage just gets me to kids kids just then get you to dying like it's the it's the the projected life that a greek woman is going to have in my dad's eyes so because that's his frame of reference correct so when he said okay fine go to college he'd just been like okay three years she's gonna meet someone she's gonna get married so there was no eye rolling because for him he already thought well she's gonna find a guy get married and it won't matter in a way so the dream of movie making, I just kind of just lent into it.

Mel Robbins: Yeah.

Lisa Bilyeu: And so I didn't have any backlash once he had said, fine. Because he already had in his mind a different frame of reference. This isn't going to work out anyway.

Mel Robbins: Yeah.

Lisa Bilyeu: Because I know what happens here because my frame of reference is she gets married.

Mel Robbins: Correct. And it's such a fabulous tool because everybody in your family has a frame of reference about what they think is about or should happen in your life because that's what they've experienced.

Lisa Bilyeu: Yeah, exactly.

Mel Robbins: And so you study, you now are tapping into this ambition. What happens next?

Lisa Bilyeu: So I'm thinking, okay, I'm getting this degree. I'm working, but like all of my dad's concerns are like, in my little ear, right? Like, like you don't know anyone in Hollywood. How are you going to make movies? Like all these voices.

Mel Robbins: And I'm looking at you because if you're watching on YouTube, you see it. But if you're listening to us, Lisa Bilyeu, has such a extraordinary style. And she is so distinctive and gorgeous and powerful in her style. And she has this fabulous stack of earrings. And so as you reached up your little hand and you started to wiggle your fingers, I started thinking about it's almost like wearing an ear cuff that's like going beep, beep, beep, beep, beep. You're not going to, you're going to get married anyway. That's always like right there hanging around, just kind of chirping in your ear.

Lisa Bilyeu: Yeah, except you can't, you can take earrings out at the end of the day. You can't take the thought out of it, you know, as easy. But it's so true. Like it is that voice echoes and you remember that stuff. The stuff that really stings is the stuff that you remember. And so it was repeating in my head. So as I was finishing college, I was like, what is that next move? Like, I don't know anyone in Hollywood. I have zero contacts and I don't have a visa.

Lisa Bilyeu: And then my roommate walks in and she hands me a brochure for the New York Film Academy. and it's an eight week course. You get to go to America. You get to film on the backlots of Universal Studios. Like you actually get to use their sets. You get to use their props department. I mean, it was literally like a dream come true and it was just for eight weeks. And so I was like, okay, I have to persuade my dad now to fund it because I had no money. I was in college. I just finished college. So I was like, this is dream come true. I get to go to America. I'm going to prove myself in eight weeks and I'm going to get the five picture deal, right? Like that's the lie I'm telling myself. but the lie was helpful the lie propelled me forward so i actually don't mind that so i go to my dad and have to convince him again and i'm like dad i know that i said that i finished college and i'd get a job but i actually need a lot of money to go and study film in america for eight weeks and so again we just argued and eventually he's like as long as you promise me that when you come back the first thing you're going to do is take life seriously and get a job and get a career until you find the guy he didn't say that but that's always underlined so i said Yep, deal.

Mel Robbins: So I go to America and my life changed forever. What happened?

Lisa Bilyeu: So I walk into the New York Film Academy and I like wow that teacher my teacher really freaking hot. And I'm in class. This is a school for adults, people, just to give context. I'm 21 years old. And I'm like, my teacher is really smoking and he's very talented and I get very turned on by talent. And so he shows his movie and I'm really interested. And he ignores me, Mel. And I'm like, God, this guy. So anyway, to cut a long story short, a month in, he turns around and asks me on a date.

Mel Robbins: Like, so you're still taking the class?

Lisa Bilyeu: So I'd finished. You got four weeks left, baby, because it's an eight week class.

Mel Robbins: Yes, look at her counting.

Lisa Bilyeu: But the last four weeks was practical.

Mel Robbins: Okay.

Lisa Bilyeu: So I didn't have any more classes with him. You just have to go out and make your movie. Okay, great. So on the last day of my last class, it was like, I hint, we're going out with friends. He's like, why don't you give me your number?

Mel Robbins: And how much older was he than you?

Lisa Bilyeu: Four years.

Mel Robbins: Okay, so like this is not like some 40 year old dude.

Lisa Bilyeu: No, no, no.

Mel Robbins: Okay, gotcha.

Lisa Bilyeu: So he comes pick me up on the first date and it is not what I was expecting. Not what I thought, like I'd been taught as a young kid. Like having a car with rims was like a sign of wealth. Wealth meant security. Having a guy that wore so much cologne was, you know, almost like a calling card, right? Like I'd grown up with. And I opened the door and this guy's standing there and he comes straight from work and his car's a mess and it's dirty and it's half broken and the backseat is full of like just complete junk. And then he opens the car door for me. And I was like, wow, chivalry is alive. So all the things I had on my checklist that you kind of think you look for, none of that was there. And then he surprised me with this. And I was like, wow, this is interesting.

Mel Robbins: Well, what's interesting, and I want to stop here, is that this is an example of your frame of reference.

Lisa Bilyeu: Correct.

Mel Robbins: Yes. Because your frame of reference growing up in just the neighborhood and the community that you did is that the cologne and the fancy cars and all those things is my frame of reference for a good catch. And then he shows up and doesn't match it. But then all of a sudden, because you were like, hmm.

Lisa Bilyeu: Yeah. The door was opened.

Mel Robbins: Exactly.

Lisa Bilyeu: And we went to like a B restaurant.

Mel Robbins: What's a B restaurant?

Lisa Bilyeu: So in California, I wasn't sure if it was worldwide or countrywide, you rate a restaurant and you have to put it legally on the front of your window. And so an A means that you're great. A B means, oh, my God, we're about to shut you down. It's like the health department. So you don't go to somebody that has a check for a good bill of health. You've got sort of like, eh, kind of sketchy.

Mel Robbins: Yeah.

Lisa Bilyeu: So he takes me to a strip mall restaurant on our first day with a B rating for health. and he starts asking me these crazy questions I've never been asked before on a first date because I'm used to guys posturing. He didn't posture. He was just like, oh, so yeah, why do you believe in God? And he was sincerely asking. And he's like, oh.

Mel Robbins: Like on the first date?

Lisa Bilyeu: On the first. Oh, we talked about God and porn all in one date.

Mel Robbins: Wow.

Lisa Bilyeu: And that's either going to lead you right into somebody's arms or straight for the exit door.

Mel Robbins: Exactly.

Lisa Bilyeu: And I was fascinated. I was like, this guy isn't posturing. He doesn't care what his clothes look like. He actually wants to know what I'm interested in. He's not just trying to like create conversation for conversation's sake. And I was mesmerized. And I'm thinking this is going to be the best holiday fling ever. When I'm 90 years old, Mel, I'm going to go back as a grandmother and I'm going to tell my grandkids that once upon a time I had this hot fling with this hot American dude. And so I literally thought this is a great story to tell.

Lisa Bilyeu: Now, on the other side, he had just come out of a relationship where the girl got a little clingy. So he's thinking, great, she has to legally leave the country because she's only here on a visa. I might have a hot fling.

Mel Robbins: Exactly.

Lisa Bilyeu: I'm going to have a hot fling. And the government's going to take care of the rest, even if she's interested. And every day we would hang out. It was, what are you doing tomorrow? Nothing. Let's hang out. There was zero pressure, zero expectation. And we just had the best time. and of course that person turns out to be my husband Tom.

Mel Robbins: At what point did your frame of reference completely shatter and you had that moment where you go this is my person?

Lisa Bilyeu: I think it becomes a drip by drip. There was the conversation. Then there was he wrote poetry and I was like I'm thinking of this as being He's like a stoic alpha male. I mean, you know, Tom, he creates, he has presence. And here he's writing poetry and he's reading it to me. And he had a darkroom for those people who have no idea what a darkroom is. It's back in the day when you used to process film, you actually had to process it in like a red light in a dark room and put it in liquid. He had his own darkroom. And so he was just fascinating. Like our dates were we would go to the mountains and take photos on like film and then we'd go back and develop them. It was just my frame of reference. It was bit by bit. It was showing what was possible. It was seeing what was possible. It was then seeing what was possible was questioning my belief system around what I thought and why did I think it. And bit by bit, each thing started to chip away. And I started to compare my belief system with how I actually felt.

Mel Robbins: What's so great about the detail in this story is that you're sharing this very powerful tool frame of reference. And the first way that you introduced it is a way that you can use it to truly understand and be separate from another person's opinions, emotions, expectations. And the example was your dad. So understanding in hindsight that his frame of reference is growing up on a mountain, the toilet's a hole in the floor, only four boys from the village get to go to school. Every girl in the village, because there's no contraception, is going to get married. That's my frame of reference. And because you can understand that, it allows you to be separate from it, hold space for it, and actually still be able to say for yourself, that's not going to be my frame of reference.

Lisa Bilyeu: And one more thing to add to that is 100% and it's not personal.

Mel Robbins: And so I love that you have first shown us how you use a frame of reference to truly understand where someone's coming from and to unhook emotionally. But now you're explaining a second way to use it, which is when you meet somebody like Tom and he is completely different than anybody that is in your frame of reference and your belief system, you're explaining how when you really have the courage to examine what is my frame of reference? What do I believe about family? What do I believe the rules are that make you a good person? What do I believe about purpose and meaning and what it means to be a good daughter or this or that? When you can see your own, you can now have the power to start to challenge it based on the people that you meet or ideas that you bump into or things that you study in school. And that's so powerful.

Lisa Bilyeu: Thank you. I love the way you brought it together. on it didn't really dawn on me as I was talking that it's the two it's the frame of reference for somebody else but then it's also your own frame of reference yes and we are so quick to defend our frame of reference as the right yes way to look at something and the only way to look at something and that if you don't fit in this you're out or if you don't understand me you're out and so I think it's a very powerful self-awareness tool that you're explaining for both understanding and being able to live in that kind of messy, sticky middle part where your emotions aren't the same as others, where you think about things aren't the same as others, and to also challenge yourself.

Mel Robbins: So I have to ask, what the hell happened?

Mel Robbins: So I have to ask, what the hell happened? Like the eight weeks come up, do you have to go back to the UK? Do you tell your father? Are you getting married? Like what is going on?

Lisa Bilyeu: So eight weeks comes, and for four weeks we're like, "It's fun, it's a fling." We're just seeing each other all the time. So it was the last week, and we go to Dockweiler Beach and we're making s'mores with his friends. We're sitting there making s'mores, and his friend turns around and says, "So, Lisa's leaving. What are you guys gonna do?" He didn't say a word. He just turned to me and said, "I'm gonna come see you in London. Is it okay if I come in like two weeks?" And I was like, "Yeah."

Mel Robbins: He didn't even have a passport.

Lisa Bilyeu: In two weeks, he booked a flight, got an emergency passport, didn't even have a suitcase. He took his mom's pink suitcase. I can still see him walking down the ramp with his pink suitcase. I was like, "Who is this guy? I love him so much."

Mel Robbins: So he jumps on a plane and just comes. Now, you've never introduced a guy to your dad ever. Never introduced any guy. And now you're going to introduce him to Tom Bilyeu, who's got a pink suitcase that has flown in from the United States?

Lisa Bilyeu: Yes, exactly.

Mel Robbins: Are you out of your mind?

Lisa Bilyeu: I was out of my mind.

Mel Robbins: What did you feel?

Lisa Bilyeu: Well, my parents are divorced. I used to live with my mom, so he was going to stay with my mom. I contemplated, "Do I hide him for two weeks?" I can't. Two weeks is a long time. My dad's a Greek man who takes care of his daughter, very protective. If I don't call him for two days, he's calling the ambulance, calling the police. He's that guy. So I was like, "I can't hide him for two weeks. I just have to take him to see my dad."

I tell my dad, "Hey, I'm meeting somebody. He's coming to stay. Don't worry, staying with my mom. I want you to meet him." My dad's Greek Orthodox, so the first thing he says is, "Is he Greek?" And I'm like, "No, he's a white boy from Tacoma, Washington." My dad's like, "Okay."

So I bring Tom in and I'm preparing him. I'm like, "Babe, my dad asks a lot of questions. He's very protective. He's going to bombard you with a thousand questions when you walk in. I just want to warn you. That's who he is. Nothing against you. Don't worry."

Mel Robbins: This moment, I'm feeling nervous for you because you don't have this frame of reference thing. And you're taking me. We all have this moment where we're about to introduce somebody that we've fallen for to our family. I cannot wait to hear what happens next. I'm particularly curious to hear what your father's reaction was.

I've got to take a quick break to hear a word from our sponsors. They're bringing this to you at zero cost. Please take a listen, but don't go anywhere because Lisa and I are going to be waiting for you after a short break. And check this out: I have a story that Lisa's reminding me of, of when I first met Chris. It is really personal. I have never shared this on the podcast before. I'm going to tell that, and you're going to hear what happened with Lisa and Tom and her dad. And we're going to dig more into this tool, frame of reference. Stay with us.

[BREAK]

Mel Robbins: Welcome back. It's your friend, Mel. I'm so thrilled you're still here. I am with my dear friend, Lisa Bilyeu. She is the co-founder of Quest Nutrition, which sold for over a billion dollars. She is also the co-founder and the president of Impact Theory Studios. She's here today talking about how you can become unapologetically you. There's this interesting angle we've been discussing: how do you do that without cutting everybody out of your life? How do you do that when you actually do care about what your friends and your family think?

We were just talking about how she met her husband, Tom Bilyeu. We're at the part of the story where she is having him come to London. He's about to meet her dad. So Lisa, what happened next?

Lisa Bilyeu: So I told Tom, "He's going to ask you a thousand questions. Remember, he's just a Greek dad that cares about his daughter. When he asks you questions, he just wants to know that you're good for me. So please, come from a place of, he's a father that cares, not that he hates you." I set him up there. Then I said to my dad, "I've never introduced you to a guy before, Dad. I'm 21 years old. I really like this guy. It would be great if you could welcome him. It would mean a lot to me."

Mel Robbins: What was your dad's response?

Lisa Bilyeu: "Okay." But here's the funny thing. My dad didn't think it was going to last, so he was like, "Yeah, why rock the boat? I may as well say okay." Tom meets my dad. He asks him barely even one question.

Mel Robbins: Wait, your dad barely asked Tom any questions?

Lisa Bilyeu: Yes. So remember, I set him up, and now I'm like, "Oh dear lord." It was because my dad was like, "I showed him respect. I fed him. I greeted him. We were very polite." My dad's very polite. He just was like, "How's the weather? What's America like?" It wasn't like, "What do you do for a living? What's your goals?" So it was very unlike my dad. Even though he was welcoming, in hindsight, he just didn't think we were going to last. So he was like, "You greet him, you show politeness, you always show respect."

Mel Robbins: What did you do? Because you know that this is not going...

Lisa Bilyeu: I was unsure. I didn't know it was a sign of what he was actually thinking. Because when someone acts out of accordance to what you expect, now having done all the mental work, the first thing I would say to myself is: if I was writing a script, what would have to be true for my dad, who always asks a thousand questions, not to ask Tom any? That he doesn't like him. The answer would be he doesn't like him, or he has resentment towards him, or he feels threatened. My dad is the center of my attention. So if my dad doesn't approve of him and now my attention is going elsewhere, could that be why? I didn't know. But those are the conclusions you come up with.

Mel Robbins: I want to hover on this for a minute because this is life. The ability to navigate these moments where somebody's behavior or their emotions do not align with what you wish. This is reminding me of a story I don't think I've ever told: when Chris and I got engaged. Chris lives in the East, I grew up in the Midwest. Like most families and parents, now that I'm at the age I am, I understand my mother's frame of reference now. But back then I didn't.

There was this thing that happened between us that really pissed me off and hurt me. As Chris and I got engaged and as the wedding approached, my mom became more and more bristly towards him and snarky about his family. It bothered me. I did not have this tool that we're talking about in terms of being able to take a step back and not get all triggered and emotional, but go, "Well, what is her frame of reference here? What might be true for her to have her, someone I love and who I know loves me, act like this?" Not having that tool, I was spun around like a top. "Why is she doing this?" Then you get angry, and you start interacting with each other through emotion instead of being able to unhook yourself and slow yourself down.

I was talking to a friend, and she said, "I think you just need to talk to your mom. Maybe what you could say is, 'It really hurts me that you're chilly and bristly toward his family. You're a very warm person, and you're acting in a way that's very cold and judgy. I need you to act consistently with this. I need you to pretend you picked him for me. I need you to show up in a way that is consistent with you being happy because you picked him for me.'"

Lisa Bilyeu: And do you want to know what she said?

Mel Robbins: She said, "I didn't pick them for you, and I'm not happy." I was so pissed. But here's the interesting thing: even the request made her warmth come back online and made her change. However, I can now use your tool, frame of reference, and I can absolutely see what was going on. She grew up in a huge farm family in upstate New York. My dad grew up in New Jersey in a working class family that had a bakery. The second they got married right out of college in Kansas and ended up in Michigan, they never saw their family ever again. My mom's family was too busy running a farm—who's going to take care of a hundred head of cattle? My dad's family was running a bakery. Nobody was flying around or traveling like they do today. Her frame of reference is: once you move away, you never see your family. So I can now use that tool and go back in time and say, of course she didn't pick a guy that was on the East Coast for her daughter, because she wanted somebody that was going to have her end up in the Midwest. I totally get it now.

You can use this—whether you're using it today for a difficult conversation to try to hold space for what somebody else's reaction might be and what you need to say, or you're moving forward in your life examining your own frame of reference, or helping you understand others—I think this is an incredibly powerful tool to go backwards.

Lisa Bilyeu: A thousand percent. What's interesting with everything you just broke down is your mom probably wasn't even aware of her own frame of reference or why she was behaving like that. If you don't do the work, if you don't have a growth mindset, if you don't actually look to try to understand yourself, you will be reactive. When someone's reactive, sometimes they don't actually have clarity on why they're reacting. As you do this process, please bear in mind that person may not actually know their frame of reference.

Mel Robbins: I think you should assume they don't.

Lisa Bilyeu: No, no, no. You think their frame of reference is... Do not tell them. Because then the response will be, "Oh, you know me better than I know myself." You're doing this for your own work so that you know how to show up, how to communicate, and actually work towards your goals without someone unhindering it. That's the goal. If you have a dream, what life do you want? How are you going to get that life? What's getting in your way? These are all tools you can use so that you can keep moving forward towards that dream without holding back when someone comes to you, whether it's a mom that you care about and is upset about a decision you made.

Mel Robbins: I love this so much, Lisa. This is so powerful because it is at the heart of every interaction in every relationship. One thing I also want to say about this is it takes time. Do not just start regurgitating "frame of reference, frame of reference" and assume you're suddenly healed. This takes time. Understanding yourself, knowing yourself in your own frame of reference takes time, especially when you want to navigate this space that we all need to learn how to navigate: where you are in relation to other people.

So what happens? He meets your dad.

Lisa Bilyeu: He meets my dad, and he's very quiet, doesn't ask a lot of questions. Tom and I just get on so well. There's just something, a connection between us that we cannot describe. We just keep leaning into it. This was before cell phones, so we would email each other. He'd come back to America. We tried to find ways to be together. I would come to America for three months. Tom would get me a job on a movie set. I would work as a PA, then I'd go back to England, then Tom would come and visit. We did that on and off for about a year.

Mel Robbins: Okay.

Lisa Bilyeu: Then Tom proposes. But here's the thing: being a very traditional Greek family, I've always said to him it was very important that he gets my dad's blessing if it ever happened. So of course Tom goes to my dad, sits down, and says, "Andres, I love your daughter. I want to marry her."

Mel Robbins: And my dad says no.

Lisa Bilyeu: You're so uncomfortable. I can't believe you don't know this story.

Mel Robbins: Your dad actually said no?

Lisa Bilyeu: Yes.

Mel Robbins: What did Tom do?

Lisa Bilyeu: First of all, he asks him, and my dad then had the thousand questions.

Mel Robbins: Oh, now we're in.

Lisa Bilyeu: That's when the thousand questions came up. "What is your plan? How are you going to provide if you don't have a job right now that's paying a lot? You live in a one-bedroom apartment. What about kids? If you have kids, what job are you going to have so you can pay for the kids?" It was all very traditional questions. Afterwards, my dad said no.

Mel Robbins: Based on Tom's answers?

Lisa Bilyeu: Yeah. He basically was like, "I still don't want you to marry my daughter."

Mel Robbins: Was the fact that Tom wasn't Greek also a big issue?

Lisa Bilyeu: Oh, that was like one of the biggest. That was actually the biggest. It was more the religion first, then it was the career path of how you're going to take care of me and the children that we're apparently going to have. He didn't even ask me if I was going to have children, he just assumed. That's why he asked Tom that.

Tom, the man that I loved, said, "Andres, I respect you. Thank you for taking the time to speak to me. I'm still going to propose to her. I understand I don't have your blessing, but I promise you the man that you see today will not be the man that ends up being with your daughter. I promise I will provide." That's what Tom said to him.

Mel Robbins: Wow.

Lisa Bilyeu: So Tom, when he proposed, he told me very honestly, "Your dad said no." But he still knows that. My dad, even after that, was very respectful. He paid for the wedding. He came to the wedding. He was very gracious. But as I was talking to him, I'm going to leave, go to America. Remember all the things that we've set up? I'm daddy's girl. I really want to please him. My frame of reference: I'm now saying yes to someone that my dad doesn't want me to marry. My dad was very adamant. He kept saying, "You should maybe wait. What's the rush? Don't put a down payment on the reception yet." He was respectful but very much tried to push it off.

Mel Robbins: That's where the collision happens. How many people have made decisions in their life based on their parents and what they want, or other people? One of my favorite movies of all time is *Sliding Doors* with Gwyneth Paltrow. I think about that metaphor all the time. For people that may not know, Gwyneth Paltrow is running for the train. In one scene, she makes the train, they show her life. They cut, and then they do it again. She's running for the train and she doesn't make the train. They cut, and then her life. The difference of just making that train. That's really how I think about decisions. One decision can take you on a completely different path.

So what are the decisions that you make? "I love him so much, I will marry him. But how do I navigate that with my dad who doesn't want me to marry him, who doesn't want me to go?"

Lisa Bilyeu: I stepped back and I said, "Okay, I can't have my dad dictate." But that was a thought, a fleeting thought.

Mel Robbins: Of course. For a lot of people, they do.

Lisa Bilyeu: I'm just honest. I try not to hide anything. The truth is, hopefully if nature takes its course, my dad dies before me. So now think about when I'm 50, if my dad's not around. I've now said no to the person that I love. It may not have worked out, but what if it did? And I made a decision for somebody else that I have to live with for the rest of my life. That was how I processed. I can't do what my dad wants. I have to do what I want.

Now, how do you navigate the conversation? Because I didn't want my dad out of my life. Going back to "I actually care." So I said, "Okay, what do I know about humans? Everyone wants to be seen and heard, period." My dad, if I shut him down and I'm like, "I'm going to do it. Don't you think you are to tell me what to do?" Like, "You go, girl!" It isn't reality, because the reality is I did care and I wanted to show my dad respect. So I said, "Okay, going into this conversation, you're not going to back down, Lisa. You are going to marry the man of your dreams. It may not work out. You have to embrace that everything you fight for may not work out. But it may. Either way, I have to know I'm making this decision for myself. Otherwise, I won't forgive myself because I won't know if it works out or not."

Mel Robbins: What I love is that you are willing to make the decision with the mindset: "What if it does?" What if it does work out? In that moment that you isolated, where your dad has said no, you are making the decision that you are going to go ahead and marry Tom. I think at some point in every person's life, there is that collision between somebody else's expectations and hopes and dreams and wants and desires and yours. Whether it's a job or moving somewhere or choosing to live openly in terms of who you are and who you love. In that moment, literally putting the bet on, "Well, what if it does work out? What if this collision is momentary and I'm willing to acknowledge that this person's frame of reference is not the same as mine? I'm just going to step one step further onto that train, knowing it's taking me in a direction I feel called to go." But what if it works out? That's a beautiful way to inch your way forward in your life.

Lisa Bilyeu: Agreed. I think the poison of our brains is when we ask ourselves, "What if it doesn't?" And now I've gone against the family. I've gone against the beliefs. I made a big deal. Let's say you're studying something and you've gone to college and you tell everybody, even if they don't agree with you, you're going to go do this thing. You spent $100,000 and four years of your life, and you go to the job and you hate it. Now you stay in the job because you're so embarrassed to tell everybody you actually hate it. You can never predict what's going to happen.

I have the ability, because I've just promised myself that even if it doesn't work out, I'm going to be proud that I gave it a chance in the first place. If I make that decision now, when I get there, if it fails, I just go, "Oh, I knew that it could fail. I just gave myself permission to get started in the first place." Even with my marriage, I had to say to my dad, "Even if my marriage doesn't work out, I have to give it a shot and I won't feel bad and go back." I'm not going to be that person that goes back to my dad licking my wounds saying, "Dad, you were right." No, I gave it a shot and I'm proud that I did.

Mel Robbins: Yes. Now, the thing with how you communicate that is the next step. Oh, I just got something really good.

[Pause]

Mel Robbins: So in the scenario where you make a decision and it turns out that it doesn't work out and you come back with your tail between your legs at that moment with your dad, or anybody in your life who's like, "I told you so. See, I was right." Here's what I just got. In the moment of the collision, and we're just going to use your story as the model for this, and your dad is saying, "No, this is not the right person for you." What he's actually saying is, "He's not the right person in my story about what happens in your life." But that collision is the moment where you get to decide who is the right person for your story about your life. It doesn't matter if the relationship goes the distance or not, because if you are making the right decision for your story in that moment, they are meant to be a part of your story.

Lisa Bilyeu: I a thousand percent agree. I think what we instinctually do is if it fails, we beat ourselves up. We think somebody else was right. The other person doesn't make them right. What you have to do to prevent that—because I know this about me, know thyself, know exactly what makes you tick, know exactly what doesn't—I knew that if it fails, I'm going to feel really bad. And now everyone's going to think I'm a loser. That story you're telling yourself. So in that moment, how do I make sure that even if it doesn't work out, I don't have that knock-on effect because I know it's going to be detrimental to my self-esteem and how I feel about myself? I put in actions now in order for the future me to thank me and feel good about the decisions I've made.

That's why I did the process. "Okay, my dad's going to die before me. That's actually true. I don't know if my relationship is going to work out or not. But either way, my dad may not be around, or eventually he won't be around, to even know if it works or not. So I have to make a decision for me, not for him." I was very concrete on the decision I was making.

Mel Robbins: Lisa, this is so powerful. I am getting so much about this concept of frame of reference in my own life right now, looking at the past. Here's what I want to do. I want to take a pause, hear a word from our sponsors because they're bringing this to you at zero cost. When we return, let's unpack this tool for real. Let's really make sure that you, as you're listening, leave knowing exactly how to use this in your life, with yourself, with your relationships. I also have listener questions. You're going to love all of it. So don't go anywhere. We're going to be waiting for you after a short break.

[BREAK]

Mel Robbins: Welcome back. It's your friend Mel. I'm so glad you're still here. I am learning so much from Lisa Bilyeu. I know you are too. Her book is *Radical Confidence*, and she is teaching us about this relationship tool I love: it's called frame of reference. Lisa, what I want to do now is unpack this even further. I love this idea of rolling the clock forward. I can give you an example of how I used this without realizing it in my own life to make a really big decision.

Chris and I have three kids. We had two daughters: Sawyer was five and Kendall had just turned four, they're 17 months apart. We were trying to decide, do we want to have another kid? In that moment, everybody has an opinion about this kind of thing. But I made the decision by going, "I don't really want to think about it for my life right now. But if I roll the clock forward 50 years from now and I close my eyes, do I want to see two adult children or three?" Decision made.

What's interesting about your story is you and Tom ultimately go on and get married, and another collision point with you and your parents was the decision that you and Tom made that you're not going to have kids.

Lisa Bilyeu: Yeah.

Mel Robbins: Could you share more about having that conversation with your parents?

Lisa Bilyeu: Every time I have a conversation, I've done the internal work first because I've realized that until I've actually realized how strong I am, why I believe what I believe, why I've made the decision I've made, I understand that I'm permeable to other people's opinions and thoughts and expectations. I have to do the inner work first before I ever bring something up to somebody else to have that communication, because I've got to know what I'm saying. I find myself, just knowing myself, I start blubbering when I don't have clarity. That means you don't have clarity. So have clarity in why you are making a decision so that you can articulate it.

When it came to having kids, it was really hard because it was such a loud voice in my head. This was maybe 15 years ago. Women weren't talking like they do about being child-free. It wasn't heard of, especially as a Greek woman. What was interesting is I kept pushing it, pushing it, pushing it. People, external sources, family, everyone assumed one of two things because I didn't have children: my marriage wasn't stable, or I naturally couldn't have kids. Because that was their frame of reference. So when I kept getting asked, "Is everything okay with you and Tom? Have you been to a fertility doctor?" It's all frame of reference. I'm not even trying. "Well, why do you keep asking me?" But it was their frame of reference.

Once I started to work through, "Do I actually want children?" I know people keep saying it. I actually told Tom when I first married him that I wanted four. I'm a different person now. The neurons in my brain have rewired. I think differently. I have different ambitions, different hobbies. I'm not that person that I was when I met Tom. So do I actually want children? I just had to ask myself the question.

What's weird is a lot of people may resonate with this, whether it's children or something else. Sometimes you find it starts as a little whisper in your head that you try to ignore. "I'm not gonna hear her." Then she just gets louder and louder and louder until eventually you're just like, "Do I actually want kids?" Instead of just judging myself, I stepped back and I said, "Why do people want kids?" People keep saying "legacy." I've never actually asked myself what legacy means to me. Frame of reference: legacy means to me that you do something that actually lives past you.

Mel Robbins: Amazing.

Lisa Bilyeu: I don't have to have children to do that. Okay, let's write that down. Next thing: why do people think I don't have kids? "You don't want to die alone" is what my dad used to say. All right, well, if I don't want children, is it worth having them just so I don't die alone? That's not fair on them, let alone me. Okay, nope, doesn't make sense. Don't die alone. Have great friendships. Build community. There's other ways to not die alone.

I literally went through the checklist of why I think I need kids. Everything that I had believed, I actually disagreed with once I started to actually ask myself. Then the final thing to all of this is: okay, I love the idea of having a little Tom running around. The truth is, I think we can all get caught up in the idea of the glory of something. Build a business: the glory is you make so much money you never have to worry about money. Have kids: the glory is that you never have to do anything when you're older and your kids are going to take care of you. You can have little kids that love on you. When you feel badly about yourself and the world hates you, your kids are going to come and give you a cuddle. There are so many reasons why I love the idea of kids. But what does that look like in reality?

I call it: what does your average Wednesday look like? Actually a Wednesday. What does it actually look like if you're working and you've got kids? If you're not working and you have kids? If you don't have kids and you're working? Every possible scenario, paint what a Wednesday looks like.

Mel Robbins: You could do this for anything. Anything. Any change you want to make.

Lisa Bilyeu: Correct. What does it look like on a Wednesday if I decide to cut gluten out? What does it look like on a Wednesday if I go back to art school?

Mel Robbins: Exactly.

Lisa Bilyeu: What would have to be true for me to cut gluten and go to art school at the same time? All right, well, my husband's a baker, so I have to tell him to either make gluten-free bread... Then it takes you into action of what you actually have to do to have that life that you want on an average Wednesday.

So I sat with Tom and we had the communication that we always have. "Babe, how do you feel about kids? How do you want to function?" He was like, "I'm very ambitious. You knew that about me. I'm not going to be the father that comes home at 7 p.m. I need my cognitive load to be very on point. So I'm not going to be waking up during the week to change the diapers. I love you. I'll support you in any way. But these are how I want to show up." I have to respect that. He's my husband. He has an opinion just like I do. Frame of reference.

On my average Wednesday, I took him and his thoughts and I said, "Cool. He's not waking up in the middle of the night. So either I am or I have a nanny. How do I feel about that? Well, I don't really want a stranger in my house. Okay, so Lisa, you're waking up in the middle of the night. But you love what you do. You love crushing at work. You love being a beast. You love growing a team. You love creating content. How do you do that if you've got a kid and you don't have a nanny?"

Mel Robbins: All right. And you can see. You know what's interesting about listening to you unpack this is that if you're somebody who wants kids or you're like me and you already have them, my frame of reference answering every one of those questions is completely different than Lisa's. And yet two things can be true at the same time. And that's how you navigate this understanding of others and understanding of yourself.

Lisa Bilyeu: Yeah. You know what I forgot to ask you? Well, whatever happened with your dad and Tom? What is their relationship like?

Mel Robbins: Oh my god.

Lisa Bilyeu: So you want to talk about how people can shift their frame of reference.

Mel Robbins: Yeah.

Lisa Bilyeu: So my dad goes from somebody who's like, "How can you take care of my daughter? I'm not sure I believe in you. I don't know how you're going to do it," to we're five years in at Quest. My dad doesn't quite understand. It was like the ginormous company that it had grown into. It grew at 57,000%. We went from zero to a billion dollars in five years.

Mel Robbins: Yeah.

Lisa Bilyeu: So I went from stay at home wife, supporting my husband, to helping him build it in five years. So talk about how much skill sets I had to learn and build and the confidence that I was feeling inferior all the time, but I just kept going. But the results are five years later, we're announced as the second fastest growing company in North America. And my dad comes for vacation. So it's the first time we go from poor, not having a company, just kind of really trying to make ends meet, to then this company. And we take him around the facilities. And we at that point had 300,000 square feet. We had 3,000 employees, because we were manufacturing. And so we take my dad around these 300,000 square feet and you walk into the facility mill and it looked like freaking Willy Wonka's Chocolate Factory. We were doing 1.2 million bars a day. So my dad goes from nothing to seeing this, right? We take him around. We've got the tour. We've got the hairnets, the jackets, and we're done. And right at the end, Tom turns around to my dad and says, "Andres, remember when you asked me how I was going to take care of your daughter?" And he goes, "Yes." Tom goes, "How am I doing now?" And my dad burst into tears. He hugged him. He was like, "I'm so proud of you." And it was the most incredible moment because of where we had started, because I had spoken up, because we spoke to him, we communicated. I didn't accept his frame of reference as it was going to be my frame of reference, and I gave him the grace to adapt and change and for us to prove—not necessarily to him, but to prove that we were willing to work through our relationship struggles and actually thrive. And it was just the most amazing kind of ending to: you don't have to just stop at someone else's opinion. You don't have to relinquish your dreams for somebody else. Keep going on that path, and either they're going to come around like my dad, or they're not. But either way, homie, you're going to be on that path that makes you freaking thrive.

Mel Robbins: What I love so much about that is that it also reveals that if you give somebody the space to feel how they feel, to have their opinions, and you don't agree, and you respect that that's their frame of reference, and then you go and you make the decisions that really empower you, people do change. And you've now just not shamed somebody into doing it. But he can own authentically a massive shift in his belief. What a beautiful example. Thank you.

Lisa Bilyeu: Now, the other part of this, though, is we may not have succeeded. We may not have got the company. We may have bickered so much and not been able to communicate, and we may have got divorced. So I don't want people to think there's always going to be the rainbows, but I still would have made the same choice. That's the important part here.

Mel Robbins: Amazing. All right, let's jump into some listener questions because we got tons of them from people that listen to this podcast and knew that you were coming on. And I know that you are going to give some incredible advice. And this is an interesting one. This comes from Patty. "How can you correct a mistake? I took confidence away from my daughter who is now in college. I think I messed this up big time. I think I made her feel like I didn't believe in her and her ability and I feel like I ruined her."

Lisa Bilyeu: Wow. Okay. Wow, Patty. Thank you first of all for being so open and honest. I think it's very hard to admit when you've made a mistake. That's a huge freaking win already, that she is thinking about that. Number two, I would say you only know what you know. And so you did the best you could at the time. And now you've grown and maybe you've realized differences of how you should have behaved or interacted, but you didn't know better. You do now. And then I would just say, thirdly, I'm always a person to just be honest. And I would literally read that question out to my daughter. I would say, "I love you so much. You mean so much to me. And I feel like I've made a mistake. And this isn't about me."

Mel Robbins: This isn't about you making me feel better, because that's going to be the trick, right? You don't want her to get into that conversation and have the daughter console the mom.

Lisa Bilyeu: Oh, that's good. That's really good.

Mel Robbins: So if you're not going into the conversation with your daughter or anybody because you think you screwed up, we do go into those conversations wanting to feel relief from the guilt that we feel.

Lisa Bilyeu: Yes, we do.

Mel Robbins: So what do you go into that conversation with instead? What is your intention? If your intention is to actually help your daughter get her confidence back, this isn't about you. Take yourself out of the freaking equation. Don't make yourself part of the victimness of this situation. And I mean that with compassion. Hopefully you know that. But I would just go, this isn't about me. I actually feel like I've done something to my daughter. I would go into that conversation like, "I love you so much. I really care about you. I feel like I've made a mistake. But this isn't about me. I just need to know how you feel. And I'd love to work with you in order to fix it. Is this true or is this my own figment of my own perception of how things have been? And I want to leave space that you can be very open. This isn't about protecting my emotions." Because that's very important, because if the daughter's true thing is to actually get the truth, you need to give space for her daughter to be honest. But if you're going in to make yourself feel better and you expect and want an answer from her, you're setting yourself and your daughter up for disaster and the conversation won't go well. And if you actually care about her based on what that letter says or that question, then do not go in with the idea of you're trying to fix your own emotion. This isn't about you.

Mel Robbins: And I would add something. I personally think that the frame of reference piece could be extremely helpful for you understanding why you may have acted how you did. You don't go in explaining yourself. I agree with you because putting the focus on your daughter and listening and what she needs, because your own inability to deal with your own emotions and fears is what caused this, if in fact it did. Second thing I would just say is that human beings are built for resilience. Don't sell your daughter short. Just because she's struggling right now and yeah, you probably did do something. We all do and we don't mean it. But taking responsibility and standing also in the space of "you are going to get through this and you are confident, you're not wrecked or ruined." And even thinking that brings your daughter even further down. Hold a higher standard for what's possible in your daughter as you're going into that.

Lisa Bilyeu: And one more thing to just even pile on to that is there's no way you are solely responsible for somebody else's behavior, confidence, or self-esteem. Zero. So while I say, yes, you should talk to her and everything else, you've got to give yourself compassion, homie. There is no way you are the sole being of everything that's happened to her. There's so much complication to a human, right? The condition of how and where they were birthed, their gut biome, their interactions with their first teacher, maybe they got bullied and maybe they didn't. What was their diet like as a kid? If they were only on sugar, then I'm sure that their brain was inflamed so they actually feel less confident. There's so much complexity to what makes a human that I honestly want to give you compassion as well to say this isn't all on you. So give yourself that grace as well. And focus on your daughter.

Mel Robbins: Correct. This isn't about relieving your stuff. Got it. Go to a therapist for that.

Lisa Bilyeu: Yeah.

Mel Robbins: Here's another question. "Can you be successful even when you have an introverted personality type? The reason I ask is because I'm 40 years old and for years I've been told by people I meet in new situations, 'You're so quiet. Speak up.' And it really annoys me. Why is it not okay to be a bit quiet? Or should I make an effort to change and be more outgoing and loud?"

Lisa Bilyeu: Well, there's no shoulds. It's only if she wants to be more outgoing and loud based on her own needs, not other people's expectations. So I think that's where she needs to start. It seems like she's very comfortable being an introvert. So the question is, why do you feel like you have to please other people? Number one. Number two, what does success mean to you? Because she's like, "Can you be successful?"

Mel Robbins: I am going to come back to frame of reference. Anybody that comes to you and says, "Why are you so quiet? You should speak up more." That's their frame of reference. And you need to create—well, first you need to understand your own, but then Lisa gave you the advice. What does success mean to you? And there's a small piece of research that I would add here, which is if it does matter to you to make more money, if it does matter to you to be perceived as more successful. The research is very clear that the only thing that tends to translate to a promotion or a pay increase for women in the workplace is when your contributions are made known, which means in that specific setting of advocating for yourself and being louder about the contribution you are making at work, that is important if getting paid more is important to you. But being louder or more outgoing when you're first meeting people, that's up to you.

Lisa Bilyeu: Yeah, I think it stems from the goal. What are you trying to get to? And then what skills do you need to adopt to get there? Period. That is how I think about my life in every single avenue. So for her, what are you trying to get to? What is that success for you look like? And to your point, if then it means you have to advocate for yourself, then yeah, you're going to have to become more of an extrovert and come out of your shell. So that would dictate how you show up.

Mel Robbins: I have a question that I think is really going to resonate with you. This is from Marina. "Hello, Mel and Lisa. From a young age, I was raised to keep my head down, to be small and to not want a lot. And even writing to you both now feels strange. The old me wouldn't dare." And she goes on to write that she doesn't want to feel small anymore. "What wisdom can you give me to push myself to do more with my life and to take the small steps every day toward my dream? What advice do you have for someone like Marina who feels lost, who feels out of touch with her ambition?"

Lisa Bilyeu: Yeah, I think clarity is key. So, A, I want to say just applaud this woman because holy smoke, she said that even writing that question made her uneasy. So do you want to talk about a step by step in the right direction? Hells yeah, homie. Congratulations. I'm so damn proud of you. And really the key is to have clarity in what you're actually trying to get to. I have a feeling in her question she doesn't actually know what she's looking for. And this is the problem that I think a lot of us face: if you don't have clarity, what's the quote? A fuzzy target is hard to hit. So if you don't have such clarity on what you're trying to get to, I have no idea what steps I need to take. So let me just give you a bit of a method that I use on how I figure out goals and stuff. So I go, okay, what is my mission? Everything's based around the thing that's going to help me get up out of bed every single day when I feel terrible. We all know it, we have those days we feel badly about ourselves, it's our hormones.

Mel Robbins: Imagine you like that.

Lisa Bilyeu: Oh dude, I'm like that all the time.

Mel Robbins: No, seriously. Like, you know, when you look at your resume, it's hard. Does Lisa Bilyeu ever wake up and feel bad? Like she is confident. She is driven. She is clear. I mean, when you were in that eight year cycle for yourself, where you were just in the monotony of the day to day, staying at home, you were bored, you felt insecure.

Lisa Bilyeu: Yeah.

Mel Robbins: Where do you start when you're there?

Lisa Bilyeu: Okay. That's a great question. So when you know you don't like where you are, it's a great start. But again, I don't know where I'm going. I don't know how to put a plan together. So let's say I was the stay at home wife. I started to realize I had been swallowing my dreams for eight years. Why? Why was I doing that? I had to start there. What was the conditioning and the thought process that made me think like I couldn't speak up? My husband showed me every step of the way that he loves me and he'll support me in whatever I want to do. And so it all came to what got me stuck in the first place that was important to me. And so I backtracked and I wrote the script. What were the things I was saying to myself? It was the word "when." "I will do this when..." "I will tell Tom that I don't like cooking for him when we have enough money that I can then go do what I want." "I will go after my dreams when Tom's made enough money and we have enough money to go make movies." "I will speak up about not having kids when..." Right? Like the "when" is so powerful to us that keeps us stuck. And what I had to ask myself is: what happens if the "when" never came? So I'm going to do X, Y, and Z when this happens. What if that thing never happens? What now? Now you have a choice. And so taking away that "when" was very powerful for me. So now I have to figure out what I'm actually then going to do with my life. What do I actually want to do? So, of course, it was making movies. How do I articulate that to the people in my life that I'm about to make a change in my life? Because to her point, she doesn't know how to. It's hard to speak up. So I had to have the clarity of what I'm trying to do. So clarity is the goal. It's the what, the how much, and by when.

Mel Robbins: That's a great little tip. Because for any of you that are sitting there listening going, "But I don't know what I want, but I don't know what I want." Lisa's basically going, that's not true because somewhere down in the back of your mind, you have a timeline where you say, "When this happens, then I'll do X." So if you answer that: "When I can pay my bills, then I'll do X." "When I don't have to do this, then I'll do that." "When..." A lot of people write in, "When the kids are grown up, then I'll get a divorce." And that "when" is holding you hostage. And it's also the reason why you're not in touch with what you want.

Lisa Bilyeu: Correct. And I call it you're in the purgatory, the mundane. Your life's just mundane enough. It's not rock bottom yet.

Mel Robbins: No, homie.

Lisa Bilyeu: And this is the powerful thing. So I think way more people are stuck in the "when" than hit rock bottom and like, "Well, I've got no other choice. I've got to make a move." And it's the "when" that keeps us freaking stuck that never gets us to change because it's not bad enough. You haven't hit rock bottom. The pain isn't bad enough for you to actually go and make a change in your life. And so how many people—this is what I was living—I was like, "How's life?" "It's fine. I'm all right." If you find you're saying "it's fine, I'm all right," it means you're not fine and you're not all right. It means that you're disguising something for your own protection. I get it. It's a protective mechanism that you have.

Mel Robbins: To say, "I'm doing this because of..." For a lot of people, the "when" is "when I have the money." So I get that. What is your advice to somebody? It's an excuse. I mean that with compassion. Because now look, when I say an excuse, I mean you can't then not have money and go, "I'm gonna go and spend a hundred thousand on building a studio." Like, right, you don't have the money. But if you're saying, "I can't create content because I don't have $100,000 because I don't have a studio. Or I don't have the new camera or I don't have this or I don't have that."

Lisa Bilyeu: Exactly. It's an excuse. You can pick up your iPhone and shoot something right now for free on your phone. Obviously, you have to have the money for the phone, but you see what I'm saying. So I very much think the money you think grand, and I would just go granular. If I had to—and I love challenging myself—if I had to create a YouTube channel and I didn't have a penny except my phone, what would I do? All right, now I'll put a plan in place.

Mel Robbins: That's right. Well, you have a phone, so you could get to YouTube.

Lisa Bilyeu: But I was even like, you go to a local library and log on to YouTube for free and create a channel at a computer sitting at a library. And if you have the phone, you can film it. And so the "I don't have the money" is BS. It's just holding you back.

Mel Robbins: And look, the problem with excuses is they actually sometimes are very real.

Lisa Bilyeu: Yes.

Mel Robbins: And so it's up to you. Like, I am such a person of like, do you, homie? If you want to just do nothing with your life and you love that, have the life you actually want. I don't care. But if you're sitting there in pain and hating your life and using reasons that's holding you back, the only person that's suffering is you. The only person that's been impacted is you. And remember what I said, people around you are living their own lives. Your parents, sadly, are going to go away. Your siblings are going to do their own thing. What life do you actually want? Now rip off the band-aid and say the money thing is an excuse. The time thing is an excuse because if it were damn important to me, you better believe I would figure it out.

Lisa Bilyeu: So now you're going to gold because I'm the person—I can use my excuses to soothe my emotions. That's the trick. I absolutely can. And I know that about myself. I just don't accept it. And that's the difference. I want people to hear that. I'm the person that has used excuses. I used excuses for eight years. And it didn't serve me. It didn't serve my goals. It didn't serve my dreams. And so by taking away the excuses, only then forced me to say, "Well, now what? Lisa, you're saying that your husband, you cook and clean for your husband and that's why you can't. Okay, well, stop cooking and cleaning. Okay, well, how do I stop cooking and cleaning? Okay, well, that means you have to communicate to your husband. How do you communicate?" And so I then broke each thing down because it's like you can get grand, but it's like do one thing at a time. I no longer enjoy the life that I'm living. Great. That's number one. Communicate that to someone in your life that can maybe set support. So for me, it was Tom. I realized I didn't want to cook and clean. I realized why. So I did that internal work first before I communicated, but then I communicated. So I sat him down. I was like, "All right. I figured out what I actually want. I'm firm in my convictions. I don't want to cook and clean for him anymore. I'm very firm in why."

Mel Robbins: What was the why?

Lisa Bilyeu: The why was because I was unhappy and I didn't feel like I had a purpose. I didn't have the word purpose back then, but that was the truth. And I loved the idea. We just started this new protein bar company that was like, "Oh, I can actually help someone lose weight or, you know, having a mom that was morbidly obese." That was very important to me. So what happened was my why turned into my mission. So every time that I found myself under something that was difficult, I would go back to my mom, who was my mission. So let me just break that down for you quickly. So when you have a mission, most people will say, "I just want to help people." What does that actually mean? Get granular. "I want to help people by creating content for women that is going to help them build confidence." Okay, that is very concrete. That is my mission. Now, every single morning that I wake up, I have a mission that I'm pulled to by my heart and soul. That way, if I fail, if I feel badly about myself, I've got the thing that I go. Call it my North Star. So you've got your North Star. Then you put in your goals. The what, the how much, and by when. That will lead into your mission. So I'm going to create four YouTube videos that are 30 minutes long. And I'm going to put them all out by the end of this month. All right. That's the actual goal. Now, did you either do or you didn't? So I did that with Tom beforehand. I was like, "Okay, what do I actually want to do? Why do I want to do it? What's my mission? What's my goal?" So I'm very concrete. And then I'm going to sit him down. Now, the communication piece. How do you talk to people about this? You give them the grace that they're human and everything isn't about you. So, okay, Tom's going to have a response and I need to hear him.

Mel Robbins: I'd said earlier. He has a frame of reference.

Lisa Bilyeu: He has a frame of reference. There it is.

Mel Robbins: I love this.

Lisa Bilyeu: And the most important thing in any relationship is to feel seen and heard. So if I come into this relationship and say, "I'm not cooking and cleaning anymore, now deal with it," is that me showing him respect? Is that making him part of the two of us, the couple that we promised we would be? Or is that pushing him out and saying, "This is me and you just have to deal with it"? I was like, that's not gonna work. Imagine someone came at you like that. How would you want someone to come to you and handle this discussion? So I said, "Okay, show him grace, show him respect, articulate why, tell him you're unhappy." So I had this literally cheat sheet of how I was going to do that conversation. And I went in and I sat him down. I was like, "I love you more than life itself, but I hate cooking and cleaning. And I hope you don't think that has a reflection of how I feel about you. I don't want to do it anymore. It's making me unhappy. My goal is this. I want to do this right." And everything I just laid out. Now his response: "Babe, what kind of husband would I be if I would rather you be unhappy and have clean underwear? What kind of husband would I be?" So that was the first step, that he realized that I wasn't happy and something needed to change. But then the other thing is he's not going to change overnight, right? And so I said, "Babe, you've had eight years of me cooking and cleaning for you." So I was like, how do I show him respect, help him navigate it? So I said, "You've had eight years of me cooking and cleaning. I so appreciate your support." I use language very particularly. "I appreciate your support." So I'm reinforcing that in him, that I'm hearing his support. I want more of it, but I also respect where you're coming from. So here's a plan that I want to propose to you, babe. Next week, I'm going to cook and clean for you six days a week. The week after, I'm going to cook and clean five days, and then four, and then three. How do you feel about that plan? Does that allow you time to adjust and navigate the changes that are happening to me?" And he was like, "You know what? Yeah, I would really love that. Thank you." And so we just spoke through it. And then like three months later, because I was like, "I'm doing the laundry once a month, right? If you've got dirty underwear, sorry." About three months later, he ended up with the dirty underwear. And if I hadn't have had that communication, you better believe he would have been like, "I can't believe I have to get my..." It would have been huffing and puffing and feeling like you're combating each other and you're not working as a team. But because I brought him in as a teammate in this problem that I'm having, he shouts to me one day, "Babe, I'm out of underwear, so I'm going commando. Bye." And so he literally went to work with no underwear on. And you know what? He felt so damn good about it because he felt he was supporting me.

Mel Robbins: Does he still wear underwear?

Lisa Bilyeu: He does want to do the cleaning. But do you know what I mean? Like he really did that communication piece, that understanding who you are, the setting the boundary, being strong in your conviction, bringing the other person. And then the last thing is, there's no guarantee how they were going to respond. He absolutely could have said, "This isn't the person that I've married. For eight years, you were a stay at home wife. You said you wanted four children. I don't want to change." A lot of people blow up their relationships there.

Mel Robbins: And if it is true, you shouldn't stay with somebody.

Lisa Bilyeu: Agreed.

Mel Robbins: Where your frame of reference about what you want isn't going to match or at least work with somebody else. Staying where you're resentful, hoping another adult is going to do something they don't want to do. No adult does anything they don't want to do.

Lisa Bilyeu: Yeah.

Mel Robbins: Lisa Bilyeu. Thank you. Is there any final departing wisdom you want to share to the person listening?

Lisa Bilyeu: I think the last thing, if we're talking about kind of confidence and facing all these things, I want people to know that they're not born with confidence. It is a muscle and it is a skill. If you have not practiced it, you won't be good at it. And if you don't keep practicing, like a muscle, it will atrophy. And it's not one and done. So give yourself the grace on the days that you don't feel confident and know that confidence becomes the byproduct of taking action. If you don't take action, you cannot be competent enough to get to confidence. So take action little by little, bit by bit. You may fall, you may stumble, but you got this. You can pick yourself up and you can keep on going.

Mel Robbins: Lisa, thank you. Thank you. Thank you. The frame of reference concept is an enormous gift. And I know that I'm going to be using it all the time to improve how I show up in my life and to give people more space to be themselves. So thank you.

Lisa Bilyeu: Thank you. Thank you for having me, Mel Robbins, in your studio.

Mel Robbins: Oh, you're welcome. And thank you for tuning in and spending time with us. I want to make sure that I tell you, in case nobody else does, that I love you and I believe in you and I believe in your ability to create a better life. And now you have a magnificent frame of reference to help you do so. I'll talk to you in a few days.

[Outro music begins]

Mel Robbins: Okay, great. Oh my God. I'm so excited for this. Okay. Here we go. Alrighty. It's Mel. I'm so excited you're here. Oh wait, what am I doing? Here we go. Okay. Hold on. Oh my God. Okay, um, what's the top again? Let's see. Sorry, there's the burger. I feel like it. Sorry about that. Okay, great. Great, great. Oh my God. Oh my God. Peace.

[Legal disclaimer]

Mel Robbins: Oh, and one more thing. And no, this is not a blooper. This is the legal language. You know what the lawyers write and what I need to read to you. This podcast is presented solely for educational and entertainment purposes. I'm just your friend. I am not a licensed therapist and this podcast is not intended as a substitute for the advice of a physician, professional coach, psychotherapist, or other qualified professional. Got it? Good. I'll see you in the next episode.