--:-- Mel Robbins: Hey, it's your friend Mel, and welcome to the Mel Robbins podcast. Today, you and I are going to talk about one of the biggest obstacles that's holding you back. What is the obstacle? Oh, it's worrying about what other people think, and then how hard you are on yourself because of it. So if you're exhausted by worrying about other people, or if you're tired of constantly feeling misunderstood, or if you feel like you're trapped in this prison of self-criticism, you're so hard on yourself, our conversation today will set you free.
--:-- Mel Robbins: I'm going to teach you a revolutionary new approach to life. Let people have negative thoughts about you. Your power is never in what someone else thinks. Your power is in what you think about yourself. Today, you're going to learn how to use the "let them" theory to let people have their opinions and focus on living your life in a way that makes you proud of yourself.
--:-- Mel Robbins: Hey, it's your friend Mel and welcome to the Mel Robbins podcast. I am so thrilled to be here with you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you for hitting play on this episode and choosing to spend some time with me. It is always an honor to be together with you. If you're brand new to the Mel Robbins podcast, I just want to welcome you to the family.
--:-- Mel Robbins: Here's what I know about you. The fact that you actually hit play on this tells me that you're the kind of person who really values your time and that you've made the time to listen to something that could truly help you create a better life. There is no doubt in my mind, you have hit play on the perfect episode because today we are going to unpack a topic that I personally believe is the single biggest obstacle that stands in the way of you and your ability to achieve absolutely everything that you want in your life.
--:-- Mel Robbins: And what is that obstacle? That obstacle is your fear of what other people think about you. We all have it. We worry about it. We care about what other people think. We try to manage what other people think. You probably don't even realize how much of a default it is for you to stop and consider what somebody might think before you post something on social media, before you say something at work, before you make the move that you've been afraid to make, before you start the conversation. You always stop and you consider what somebody else is going to think or do in response to it. And you don't even realize how often you do this. I didn't either until I discovered the "let them" theory and started learning to catch myself whenever I was considering what somebody else would think or how they might react and worrying about it. Learning how to say "let them" has been life altering.
--:-- Mel Robbins: And one of the reasons why I thought I got to dedicate an entire episode to this is because first of all, you struggle with this. That's why you chose to listen to this. That's why somebody that you care about deeply forwarded you this episode because they want you to stop worrying so much about what everybody thinks and live your life and be happy. But I'm here to tell you, you're not alone. Every single human being struggles with this.
--:-- Mel Robbins: And so I thought, here's what we're going to do. We're going to unpack this today because in the 35 press interviews that I've done so far for *The Let Them Theory* book, this is the biggest question everybody's asking. And I don't care who's on the other side of the microphone with me, whether it's Oprah Winfrey or the *New York Times* or it's *Time* Magazine or it is the *Wall Street Journal*. Everybody wants to know, how do I stop caring about what other people think? And that's what we're going to do today.
--:-- Mel Robbins: And I'm so excited because I'm going to teach you this in a really special way. We're going to talk about this topic and I'm going to unpack it by sharing a conversation with you that I had with Chrissy Teigen. And before we even jump into it, I want to thank Chrissy. I want to thank her for allowing me to share this conversation with you because we were talking on her new podcast and she was so open with what she's struggling with and she struggles with what other people think about her. I mean, it's almost crippling to her that people would think something negative, that they would attack her, and she was so open about it. And on top of it, she allowed me to coach her. And I got in her face about this because it's really sad when you hold yourself back because you're afraid of something that you can't control. Because you're going to learn you will never, ever, ever be able to control or guarantee what another person thinks about you. Never.
--:-- Mel Robbins: And so I not only got in Chrissy's face about this because I want her to have a breakthrough, but I need to get into your face about this because you need a breakthrough about this. Right now, you are holding yourself back because you're worried about what your friends from college are thinking, or you're worried about what your parents are going to be thinking, or you're worried about what your boss is going to think, or this, or that, or the other thing. More importantly, it's not even that worrying about it is the problem. It's the fact that you then aim it back at yourself. I think it's fine to care what other people think. It's a sign that you're a good person. That's not the problem. The problem is how you hold yourself back, how you silence your opinion, how you use other people's opinions as a means to make yourself feel like you're not good enough as you are. That's going to stop today.
--:-- Mel Robbins: And the reason why we struggle with this is because you believe that there's a way that you can behave that somehow can manipulate or guarantee that somebody will think a certain thing. I'm here to tell you, you can't. And any time and any energy that you pour into trying to manipulate or control or guarantee what somebody else is going to think about you is a gigantic waste of time and energy. And in fact, anytime you start worrying about what somebody else thinks about you, you actually cause stress and anxiety for yourself. The fact that you're worrying about what everybody thinks so much is actually a major source of stress. And there is an easier way to live.
--:-- Mel Robbins: I am going to prove it to you today with the help of Chrissy Teigen. And it may surprise you that when you listen to Chrissy and you listen to her share, it may surprise you that when you consider her life, well, this is a woman that is so wildly successful. She's an extraordinary businesswoman. She has four amazing kids. She's got an incredible marriage to John Legend, and she struggles with this. And so from the outside, you see somebody who's succeeding. So you don't think that this is a person who feels misunderstood. You don't think that this is a person who feels like she's living in a prison of her own making. You don't think that this is a person who lives in fear that she's going to pass this onto her kids. And what is it that she's afraid she's going to pass onto her kids? Well, it's this fear of being misunderstood, this fear that people are criticizing her, this fear that she can never do anything right.
--:-- Mel Robbins: And the "let them" theory is liberating in this regard, not only for Chrissy Teigen, but also for you and for whomever you share this with. And so I just want to thank Chrissy because she is giving me permission to share a few segments from her new podcast, *Self-Conscious with Chrissy Teigen*. And you can listen to the whole conversation that Chrissy and I had right now if you just go to audible.com forward slash Chrissy and Mel.
--:-- Mel Robbins: So on the opening of her podcast, I explained to Chrissy what the "Let Them" Theory is. And in case you're brand new to the Mel Robbins podcast family, let me just share what the "Let Them" Theory is to you as well. So "Let Them" Theory is a very simple mindset tool that shows you instantly what's in your control and what's not in your control. And there's two very simple parts to the "Let Them" Theory. Part one, you're going to use whenever you feel yourself starting to get frustrated or stressed out or annoyed or worried about what somebody else is doing, feeling, or saying. Just say, "let them." Let them say what they're going to say. Let them think what they're going to think. I'm going to stop trying to control them and just let them.
--:-- Mel Robbins: And the second step is when you say, "let me." And when you say, "let me," you remind yourself that in life, there's only three things you can control. It's what you think, it's what you do or don't do, and it's how you process the feelings that are rising up. And when you say, "let me," this is where you get your power back. Let me remind myself that my power is not in what other people are doing. My power is always in my response. And when you focus on your response, and particularly you focus on showing up in a way that makes you proud of yourself, you're now in control of your life.
--:-- Mel Robbins: And so I explained that to Chrissy on her new podcast, and this is what she had to say in response.
--:-- Chrissy Teigen: I can say that to myself all I want. I can say, "let them, let them, let them think their thoughts, let yourself be misunderstood. It's okay. You have a wonderful family, wonderful friends, a wonderful life," but it is so incredibly challenging for me. The one thing I wish I could change was that I wish I weren't so misunderstood and I wish people knew how good I was. And it's so desperate sounding and so sad, but that for me is my biggest battle in life.
--:-- Mel Robbins: Yeah, I'm so happy that she shared that because I don't think it sounds desperate at all. Haven't you ever had an experience in your life where you felt like you just wish that people didn't misunderstand you? That you wish people knew how good you were, how you had such great intentions. I think that's a really universal fear. And I was so glad that she actually shared that this is the one thing I wish I could change. I mean, just imagine what would change about your life if you really could just let people think what they think and you didn't worry about being misunderstood.
--:-- Mel Robbins: And so, of course, I had to ask Chrissy directly, like, why are you so concerned about what other people think? And what is it exactly that you're afraid of? And this is what she had to say.
--:-- Chrissy Teigen: Since I was little, I really wanted to be loved. And I really wanted adoration and affection. I had a parent that was not very touchy-feely. I felt growing up that I was someone that she could show off. And so when I was little and going up to people and saying my words in Thai or doing what I was told and being good, I got really good feedback from that. And I got that feeling of always wanting to be really good for everybody. And it's been in me since I was little.
--:-- Mel Robbins: I think it's been inside all of us since we were little. I mean, if you just think about your own life, when did you get positive attention? It's when you were performing or you got good grades or the team that you were on won. And so what she's talking about here is something that so many of the psychologists and psychiatrists that have come on the Mel Robbins podcast talk about, which is the experience that you had when you were little, where you got positive attention. It kind of tells you, "Oh, oh, oh, when other people are telling me that I'm good, when other people are giving me positive attention, that's how I know that I feel good about myself."
--:-- Mel Robbins: But here's the problem. As long as you locate your goodness and whether or not you're doing a good job as a person in the opinions and the moods of other people, you're never going to be in control of it. And that's why so many of us, whether it's Chrissy Teigen or it's you or it's me, we find ourselves in these situations in life where you're like, "Oh my gosh, why am I so concerned about what other people think about me?"
--:-- Mel Robbins: And as I explained to Chrissy, look, it's natural when you're a kid because you need to be cared for to be deeply, deeply connected to the people around you and attuned to them and looking to them for positive signaling that you're okay and that you're good. That's what happens when we're kids. But when we are adults, we have to pull that back to ourselves. And that's where the "let them" theory is really going to change things. Because when you outsource your self-worth, when you outsource the positive affirmations to other people's opinions, you will never feel safe.
--:-- Mel Robbins: And so I was explaining to Chrissy that you're really going to love the "let them" theory, because it's going to teach you how to stop looking outside yourself for the thing that you're actually seeking. And as I started to explain this to Chrissy, that the more you can learn to let other people say what they're going to say, be who they're going to be, the better your life is going to get because you're going to understand that what you think about yourself is actually the most important thing.
--:-- Mel Robbins: And in this next part, in the conversation that we had on her new podcast, *Self-Conscious*, she started talking about her relationship with herself. And this is where it starts to go way deeper. Take a listen.
--:-- Chrissy Teigen: The relationship with myself is the hardest part. I've always been a punisher, whether it was through diets and food emotionally or drinking. I always inflict some kind of pain on myself and punish myself for letting people down or feeling like I wasn't good enough in a group of people. And it's so all encompassing. I very rarely leave the house because when I do and I interact with people out in the world, whether it's through work or just being out shopping at the grocery store, I just destroy myself and work so hard to make sure that they had the really good experience with me. And then I come home and I dwell on it forever. It's getting so exhausting being this mean to myself. And I don't know what it's like to not be that way. And if I could heal that part of myself, so much would change. So much of my day would be free to think of other things that really matter. But right now I'm in the prison of it.
--:-- Mel Robbins: You're clearly in a prison of it because you've given all the control to other people. Your worth, your value, whether or not you're happy, whether or not you are proud of yourself is entirely given away to other people's reactions or what they say. And just like you cannot control what another human being feels, you will never be able to control what someone else thinks about you.
--:-- Chrissy Teigen: I can by being really good.
--:-- Mel Robbins: No, you can't.
--:-- Chrissy Teigen: I know.
--:-- Mel Robbins: No, you can't. When we're done talking, can you control what I'm going to say about you when my two daughters are like, can you actually control what my thoughts and feelings about you are going to be?
--:-- Chrissy Teigen: No.
--:-- Mel Robbins: Excellent.
--:-- Chrissy Teigen: I know that. I'm saying that, but there's another level of me that's, "I can do the best I can to ensure that you..."
--:-- Mel Robbins: So there's a couple things I want to unpack about this because she's describing something that you have experienced, which is, if you ever had the experience of you wake up in the morning, you feel fine, you feel good about yourself, the day starts, and then you get to work, and something goes down. And suddenly, you're obsessing over the email that somebody sent you, or the mood that your boss is in, or maybe something happened at school or with your friends, and you start obsessing. "I should have done this. I should have done that. I should have done the other thing." What are we doing when we do that? What we're doing is we're giving our power away. We're basically saying that our worth lies in what another human being thinks about us. That if you don't act the right way at work and somebody's upset with you, that somehow now you're the bad person. I'm here to tell you, absolutely not.
--:-- Mel Robbins: This is why you need the "let them" theory. Like your boss's bad mood doesn't mean you're a bad person. Somebody saying something negative about you doesn't mean you have to feel negatively about yourself. And I knew that intellectually, but I never knew how to separate myself from other people's moods and other people's opinions of me. And the "let them" theory has been life altering in this regard.
--:-- Mel Robbins: And this is what I was trying to explain to Chrissy. She's literally describing how you probably go through your day too, where you're concerned about what people at work think about you. You're concerned about what your sorority sisters think about you. You're concerned about what your family thinks about you. What if we were to invert this? What if you were more concerned about what you think about you? And instead of exhausting yourself over something you'll never be able to manage, you pull the power back. This is what I was trying to explain to her. And I think she's starting to get it.
--:-- Chrissy Teigen: And if I could heal that part of myself, so much would change. So much of my day would be free to think of other things that really matter.
--:-- Mel Robbins: Can you actually control what my thoughts and feelings about you are going to be?
--:-- Chrissy Teigen: No.
--:-- Mel Robbins: She said the correct answer. No. Just like I can't control what you're going to think about me as you're listening to this podcast episode. Please take a moment and share this with everybody that you care about because everybody needs to learn how to let people have negative thoughts and take their power back.
--:-- Mel Robbins: Oh, there's so much more that we need to unpack, and I want to stay on this topic, but let's take a quick pause so we can hear from our amazing sponsors of the Mel Robbins podcast. And don't go anywhere, because I'm going to be waiting for you after this short break.
--:-- [Musical break / Advertisement]
--:-- Chrissy Teigen: The relationship with myself is the hardest part. I've always been a punisher, whether it was through diets and food emotionally or drinking. I always inflict some kind of pain on myself and punish myself for letting people down or feeling like I wasn't good enough in a group of people. And it's getting so exhausting being this mean to myself. And I don't know what it's like to not be that way. And if I could heal that part of myself, so much would change.
--:-- Mel Robbins: Welcome back. It's your friend Mel Robbins. I am so glad that you're here. I'm so glad that you're learning how to let people have negative thoughts. And again, I'm so grateful that Chrissy Teigen is allowing me to play some moments from her new podcast, *Self-Conscious with Chrissy Teigen*.
--:-- Mel Robbins: As we're unpacking this, and it's really starting to sink in, you know, I have to applaud Chrissy because she shared something very personal in this next segment. And I wanted to share it with you because I think it's really important to stop and consider that how you move through life is an example to other people. And using the "let them" theory, you can truly take the power back and decide who you want to be. That's the "let me" part. Let me decide what I want to think about myself. Let me align my actions with the kind of person I want to be. Let me allow my emotions to rise and fall instead of navigating my life based on what I think everybody else expects of me or is going to be disappointed.
--:-- Mel Robbins: And that brings me to this part of Chrissy's new podcast and the conversation that we had that I wanted to share with you because she shared this fear that she had that is extremely personal. And I think it's an important part of this conversation. Check this out.
--:-- Chrissy Teigen: One of the worst parts about it is me feeling crazy or feeling that nobody else will understand this feeling. Why am I like this? I'm really scared of passing this along to my kids. I think that is the big realization for me. I can't do this to my kids. I don't ever want them to feel like they have to perform for everybody and be good all the time. But I know that sometimes I probably am that way. I do want them to be the most polite. And I don't want people to think they're just celebrity asshole kids. And so I might go harder the other direction to make sure that they don't come off that way. And I really need to break that because I'm okay. And this is another reason I'm in therapy. I'm okay with me getting the shit end of the stick on anything or living this life where I'm stressed and in pain. But I'm not okay with them.
--:-- Mel Robbins: Yeah. Well, I can see it really bothers you.
--:-- Chrissy Teigen: Yeah. Because I see how much my interactions with adults as a child affected me from so many different layers from whether it was sexual or the reason I became such a people pleaser. And that was through sleeping with people. It travels so far in my life. It's not just that I wanted to smile and say my little Thai words for people. It started that way, yes. But then I ended up believing, sorry, I ended up believing that I was for everybody and my body was for everybody. And it took a hold on every part of my life. And as you can see, it still has a hold on me now. So I cannot imagine this for my kids. I hope that they don't want to please everybody in life. And I hope that they know that their body is their own, their mind is their own, their actions are their own, and they can't control other people. I cannot have them live this way that I live.
--:-- Mel Robbins: Who is going to teach them this? And that's the enormous opportunity that you have. When you understand what you're dealing with, you have the ability to face it and to make decisions to live differently. And that's exactly what you're doing. And your kids watch you. And they are watching how much strangers and other people impact how you feel about yourself. And so as you take this on and you truly start to separate what is your responsibility to manage, which is your thoughts, your feelings, your words, when you focus on that and you align your values with how you show up in life and you put yourself first in that regard, you are also showing your children that their opinion of themselves is more important than what anybody else says or does because they're no longer seeing their mom destroyed by what other people are saying.
--:-- Chrissy Teigen: It always amazed me that I was the "give no fucks" girl. I'm like, you guys have no idea how many fucks I give.
--:-- Mel Robbins: Well, anytime anybody says, "I don't give a shit what they think," you know they totally do. Because it's when you have to say that out loud, it's evidence that you are still processing something that bothers you. It's so true, isn't it? I bet you're thinking about somebody in your life who constantly says, "I don't care what they think." This is an episode they need to hear because the fact that they're saying it out loud means they care what they think.
--:-- Mel Robbins: And I really want to unpack this whole idea of not giving any fucks. And let's look at what Chrissy Teigen actually said, because I have it right here.
--:-- Chrissy Teigen: It always amazed me that I was the "give no fucks" girl. I'm like, you guys have no idea how many fucks I give.
--:-- Mel Robbins: You guys have no idea how many fucks I give. "Give" is the word. Because when you actually are worried or try to manage what somebody else thinks, you give someone else power. That's why Chrissy's crying because she's sensing and realizing how much power other people had over her life.
--:-- Mel Robbins: And here's the other thing I want to say both to you and to Chrissy, and I said this to her on her podcast. This isn't your fault. This isn't your fault. This was conditioned in you as a child. When you get positive reinforcement based on other people's behavior, your mom's or the adults around you, of course you get conditioned to please other people. Of course you get trained to care what other people think. And a bigger issue is you actually being taught somehow that you are responsible for other people's moods and opinions and that your worth is outside of you.
--:-- Mel Robbins: And so I want to come back to the word "give." When you give fucks or you give a shit or you give power to what somebody else thinks, you are always going to feel stressed out, anxious, and unworthy. Because you're never going to be in control of what somebody else thinks. And you're always going to be up in your head worried about it. And that's why the "let them" theory is going to change your life. Because when you say "let them" think something negative, "let them" be disappointed, "let them" be upset that I'm not meeting their expectations, "let them" say that I'm rude, "let them" believe that I should be acting a different way, "let them" unfollow me, "let them" think what they're going to think.
--:-- Mel Robbins: And then a really funny thing happens, and this is something that I've noticed in my own life. The more I say "let them" think something negative, and the more I take my power back, and I really put all my time and energy into showing up in my life in a way that makes me proud of myself, I know who I am. And when I know who I am and I'm proud of myself because I'm trying and I'm doing my best and I know what my intentions are, I don't actually think about other people a whole lot because I know the truth. And that's what's available to you.
--:-- Mel Robbins: And I want to go back to two things that Chrissy said that really struck me in the moment. She said, "One of the worst parts about it is me feeling crazy or feeling that nobody else will understand this feeling. Why am I like this? Why do I do this? Like, why am I so mean to myself? Why am I such a people pleaser? Why do I constantly worry about what other people are thinking? Why, why, why?" And the truth is, we're all like this. And it's a fundamental part of the human wiring.
--:-- Mel Robbins: See, we are super hard on ourselves and I'm sure if you really are honest with yourself, the way that Chrissy Teigen was honest with me about how she is bashing herself all the time and she doesn't want to do this and she doesn't want to pass this on to her kids, that I don't think we mean harm to ourselves and yet here we are caught in this negative loop with ourselves. And so this is why we're looking for validation outside ourselves, because we're trying to escape the criticism that is running on repeat in our own heads. We're looking for clues from the outside world.
--:-- Mel Robbins: And what I'm here to tell you is that since this has been going on since childhood, the better approach is to learn how to give yourself clues internally. And I never understood this until I talked to world-renowned psychiatrist and best-selling author, Dr. Paul Conti. He wrote the *New York Times* bestseller, *Trauma: The Invisible Epidemic*. And the introduction for that book, the foreword, was written by Lady Gaga because he treated Lady Gaga. And she says that Dr. Conti saved her life.
--:-- Mel Robbins: As soon as I was done talking to Chrissy Teigen, I remembered Dr. Paul Conti and his appearance on the Mel Robbins podcast. And I'm like, this is exactly what he was talking about. I wish he was here talking to me and Chrissy. Well, through the magic of podcasting, I can bring him into this conversation because he explained why we are all so negative, why we are all criticizing ourselves, why we all feel like we're not good enough, and also why we give so much weight to other people's opinions, why we're constantly looking around at our bosses and our parents and our significant others and our friends for validation that we're a good person.
--:-- Mel Robbins: And the way that he explains it, it's just, it's going to help you understand that other people's thoughts and other people's behavior does not determine your worth, even though this is how you've been operating since childhood. It's because of this missing thing called attribution. This is so important that I really want you to hear Dr. Paul Conti explain this to you.
--:-- Dr. Paul Conti: Children are trying to understand, right? Especially at the stage of life where there's so many connections forming and the child is growing and learning about the world around them, that the child is trying to understand, but without the benefit of abstract thought and of life experience. But in children, they're trying to make sense of things without those capabilities. So then the idea is, it must be me, because there's not the thought, "Oh, people can have issues of their own that can impact how they're responding." So in one sense, they're responding to me, but they're not really responding to me. They're responding to what's inside of their head. So if I say, you know, mom or dad, can I have something to drink?
--:-- Dr. Paul Conti: And the person says, "Just go in the other room," or just yells at me. I didn't really do anything wrong. That person, my mom or my dad, was in a bad place. They can't do that. So the attribution is to self, which is why the lessons that we learn in childhood can be so, so difficult into the future. Because we don't have the capacity for the abstract thought. We don't have the life experience, so we attribute the negative things around us to ourselves.
--:-- Dr. Paul Conti: And this is where there was an English physician named Winnicott who wrote about the idea of raising children so that the child can feel good enough. And this wasn't an idea of limp over the line. That's not what good enough meant. Good enough means solidly good enough, that I'm good enough to face what there is for me to face. If that's something negative, I can get myself through negative things. And also, I can get myself to better places. I can find better for myself. If I get knocked down, I can get back up again. These are the lessons that we want.
--:-- Dr. Paul Conti: And if we can get through childhood, and if we didn't get through childhood, so feeling good enough, and there's aspects of not good enough we carry along in all of us, then we can go back and look at that and we can change that later in life.
--:-- Mel Robbins: And at the deepest level, that's what you and I are talking about today. If anything that Chrissy Teigen and I shared with you in those moments in her podcast resonated with you, or if somebody in your life struggles with people pleasing, or if you're constantly on this negative loop and you really are navigating your life based on people's moods or their opinions or worrying about them or acting in a way, twisting yourself in knots that people think that you're the good daughter or the good wife or the good mom or the good dad, there's a different way that you can live.
--:-- Mel Robbins: That good enough means that you know that within yourself, you have the ability through your thoughts and your actions to face anything. That you know based on your thoughts and actions that you're a good person. You know what you intended. And that you hold the power and you are the person that determines your worth.
--:-- Mel Robbins: I am on a roll. I have so much more I want to share with you, but I got to hit the pause button so you can hear a word from our amazing sponsors. But don't you dare go anywhere because when we return, we're jumping right back into this masterclass coaching session that you need, the people that you love need. So take a moment and share this with people in your life who need to be set free. Don't go anywhere. I'm going to be waiting for you after a short break and then we're going to jump right back in. Stay with me.
--:-- Mel Robbins: Welcome back. It's your friend Mel Robbins. I am so glad that you're here. I'm so glad that you're learning how to let people have negative thoughts. And again, I'm so grateful that Chrissy Teigen is allowing me to play some moments from her new podcast, *Self-Conscious with Chrissy Teigen*, because we all need to learn how to let people think negative thoughts and take the power back.
--:-- Mel Robbins: And using the Let Them theory, you can truly take the power back and decide who you want to be. Since childhood, we have been looking outside of ourselves to confirm that we're okay and that we're loved and that we're worthy. And the opportunity of this conversation is for you to take that power back and know inside yourself, based on how you act, how you treat yourself, what you think about, what you do, what you don't do, that you are a good person because you know who you are at your core.
--:-- Mel Robbins: And nothing has helped me do that more than learning to say, "Let them." Because when I say "let them," if I put it in the words of Dr. Paul Conti, I'm now practicing attribution. I'm saying that if that person is in a bad mood, let them. If that person has a negative opinion about me, let them. I am attributing their behavior to them and I am not attaching it to me and my self-worth. Isn't that so cool?
--:-- Mel Robbins: It's the world's best boundary because you realize that when you let other people think, say, do, feel how they feel, that you attribute their behavior and their thoughts to them alone. And then you say the second part, "let me," and you take all the power back and attribute your power to your thoughts, your feelings, and what you do or don't do. And that is how you will know deep in your core that you are good enough.
--:-- Mel Robbins: That's how you're going to start to change the way that you talk to yourself. The "let me" part: let me remind myself of who I am and that I'm a good person and I know what I intended. And that's how you stop this habit that so many of us have of constantly bending ourselves in knots or exhausting ourselves to try to please other people enough. You do not need to live that way.
--:-- Mel Robbins: And I want to stay right on this topic because it's so important. I really wanted Chrissy to get this point that you will never be able to control what somebody else thinks. That's number one. And number two, that two things can be true at once. It's a really important thing that I teach in the Let Them theory and that I've learned over the last two years: somebody can be disappointed in you and still like you or love you. Somebody can misunderstand you and you can still be a good person. Somebody can have a negative thought about you and you can still have positive self-worth. Two things can be true at once.
--:-- Mel Robbins: And so in order to make sure that Chrissy and you understand that people are always going to have negative thoughts about you, always. And instead of exhausting yourself or putting yourself in a prison trying to manage what other people think, learning to just accept that people have negative thoughts, including the people that are the closest to you, that is a liberating way to go through life. You're just going to learn to let them think something negative.
--:-- Mel Robbins: So in this next segment from her podcast, *Self-Conscious with Chrissy Teigen*, I want you to hear me set up this next piece of coaching all about how you're never going to be able to control what somebody else thinks. And even the people that you love the most, they have negative thoughts about you all the time. Check this out.
--:-- [Clip from Self-Conscious with Chrissy Teigen begins]
--:-- Mel Robbins: The issue is you're focused on me and what I think of you. I want you to start focusing on you and what you think of you. That's what matters. And I'm going to prove something to you. The people that love you the most... So who loves you more than anybody on the planet? John. And who do you feel the safest with? John. Do you think John has negative thoughts about you?
--:-- Chrissy Teigen: No.
--:-- Mel Robbins: Baloney. I know you love John. So give me some negative thoughts and opinions that you've had about John today or yesterday.
--:-- Chrissy Teigen: Oh, God. I think one of the only fights we really get in is about scheduling or being home enough, being together enough without kids sometimes.
--:-- Mel Robbins: I'll share some for mine. So my husband gets up in the morning and farts and I'm like, "You're disgusting." Or I worked late last night and I came down in the kitchen and he was eating cereal. And I'm like, "Why aren't you making dinner? What the hell?" That's a negative thought. My daughter Sawyer, she's so intense. I'm like, "You need to chill, dude." My daughter Kendall, I love her to pieces.
--:-- Chrissy Teigen: Yeah, the kid thing is easier for me. I probably have... because the kids can drive you crazy, but John is so even-keeled and just...
--:-- Mel Robbins: But doesn't that drive you crazy? Aren't you like sometimes...
--:-- Chrissy Teigen: Yes, actually. Yes. I want some passion sometimes. I want him to get mad at me. I want him... But yeah.
--:-- Mel Robbins: So that's an example of even though you love the person, negative thoughts pop in your mind. It doesn't make you love him less. And there are times where you drive John flipping crazy. He may not be telling you this, but he's thinking in his mind something about you. And the point I'm trying to make is the average human being has 70,000 thoughts a day, Chrissy, and they can barely control what they're thinking. There is never going to be a moment where you can ensure that another human being thinks something that you want them to think. That's not where your power is. Your power is in the "let me" part.
--:-- Mel Robbins: So whenever you feel yourself getting worked up, whether it's a press storm or it's something else, let them. When you spend all your time and energy exhausting yourself to make everybody else happy, you lose yourself. It is not your job when you become an adult, Chrissy, to manage or fix other adults' emotions. You, as a parent, are responsible for helping your children process their emotions because children cannot regulate their own emotions without an adult helping them. But you are never responsible for managing someone else's emotions when they are an adult, no matter what you do.
--:-- Mel Robbins: And I'm going to share some things with you to have you really try to embrace the truth of what I'm saying and the freedom that is available to you. Because it's so sad to me to see a woman that I respect who has an extraordinary marriage. You do so many remarkable things. You are an unbelievable businesswoman. And you place all of this power that you have in the hands of strangers on the internet. And you don't have to live like this.
--:-- Chrissy Teigen: It's so interesting when someone tells me something that I needed to hear or when I have an epiphany about something, I get this incredible throbbing in my wrists and arms and I can really feel it so hard now.
--:-- Mel Robbins: And I hope you're feeling it too. And the sentence I want you to really laser in on is: you don't have to live like this. And you don't have to have the millions of followers that Chrissy Teigen does to be paralyzed by people's opinions. I'm going to give you a simple example that I want you to think about. And it's an example that I know that you're going to relate to.
--:-- Mel Robbins: And I shared it over and over and over when I would get asked about how you use the Let Them theory to stop caring about other people's thoughts. And I would say, well, you're never going to stop caring because it's important to care what other people think. Otherwise, you'd be a selfish jerk, and I don't want you to be that. What you need to do is care more about what you think.
--:-- Mel Robbins: So learning to let people have negative thoughts, first of all, it recognizes, number one, that you'll never be able to control what somebody else thinks. Therefore, it is not worth your time and energy because you protect your time and energy. And second, you also recognize that your value as a human being is not in what somebody else thinks. It is in what you think about yourself.
--:-- Mel Robbins: And three, when you let people think negative thoughts, you are acknowledging the fear that you have because the reason why you worry about what everybody else thinks is because you're afraid that it's going to be negative. So when you say "let them," you're allowing this fear without allowing it. And you're also really valuing your time and energy because you're saying, "I'm not going to waste time and energy on something that I can't control."
--:-- Mel Robbins: And I also know that the power is not in what somebody else thinks. The power is in me and what I think about myself. And I know myself, so let them think something negative and let me remind myself that the power is in what I think about myself. And as long as I conduct myself in a way that I'm proud, even if somebody misunderstands me or is disappointed, I know the truth. Do you see how that means you hold the power? That you could be misunderstood and still understand yourself. That's true power. That's what's available to you.
--:-- Mel Robbins: So let me give you this example that I shared over and over and over again as people would ask me questions about this. I want you to think about posting on social media. So you open up your favorite app, mine is Instagram, and let's just say that there's something that you want to be using social media for. And maybe it's because you want to launch a new business, or maybe you're a singer and you want to put out your music, or maybe you're an artist and you want to post about your artistry, or maybe, heck, you just want to put up a photo of you in a bathing suit or without a filter.
--:-- Mel Robbins: So you're at this moment where you've got social media open. You go and you select a photo or you select this kind of video that you've shot. And then what do you do? As you look at the photo or the video, you're like, "Oh, is this... I don't know... filter, filter, filter. Should I put this on a chair? Is this too much?" Too much for whom? As you're looking at the photo, who are you thinking about? You're not thinking about how you feel about the photo. You've actually, in that moment, as you stop and consider the photo, you are giving power to somebody else's opinion about the photo or video that you want to post. This is how quickly you put yourself in a prison.
--:-- Mel Robbins: And then you go to write the caption, and you're like, "Blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. Oh, delete, delete, delete. Emoji, emoji, emoji. Is this too much?" For who? I want to remind you of something. Your social media is for your self-expression. It's for your business. It's for your artistry. It's not for your sorority sisters from college. It's not for your family. It's not for the women in your mother's group. It's for you.
--:-- Mel Robbins: And you want to know how sad it is that you literally have so many draft posts that you've saved. Those are the graveyard of your dreams and self-expression. All those draft posts that you never posted on social media. Why? Because you sat there, you looked at the thing you wanted to do, and then you gave power to somebody else's opinions or feelings. "Are they going to unfollow me? What are people going to think?" And that's something you're never going to have control over.
--:-- Mel Robbins: This is why you don't feel control of your life. This is why you don't feel like you're understood. It's because in this moment, you're actually censoring yourself. Do you want to know how sad this is? You don't have to live like this. Let them think a negative thought about what you're going to post. Let them unfollow you. Let them roll their eyes. Let them gossip. You can't control any of it anyway. The only thing you can control is you can control what you think of yourself.
--:-- Mel Robbins: And so in that moment on social media, if you like the photo, post it. If you want to say something, say it. Your social media... you are giving power to people all damn day long. You will never be able to control it. There's a different way to live. Use the Let Them theory. Let them think something negative. Let them do something negative, like unfollow you or write some comment or whatever. Let them. You know that the power is not in someone else. The power is in you.
--:-- Mel Robbins: And let me remind myself that what I think about myself matters more than what anybody thinks, says, or does, or feels about it. What I do or don't do is where the power is. That's why I'm going to post what I want to post. I'm going to post the bathing suit photo. I'm going to post this video without the filter. I'm going to write something powerful in the description and not dumb it down with an emoji because I'm afraid of what somebody thinks, all of which is beyond my control.
--:-- Mel Robbins: That's what we're talking about here. Let them think something negative and take the power back for yourself. And you are going to feel so different in your life. Your social media is going to be different. You're going to be different at work, different with your family, because you're going to stop giving power to something that is beyond your control. You do not need to live that way. And the Let Them theory will help you take your power back.
--:-- Mel Robbins: I just want to give one more big shout out to Chrissy Teigen and to our partners and friends at Audible. Thank you, thank you, thank you for allowing me to share some of that extraordinary conversation with you. If you want to hear the whole thing, just go to audible.com forward slash Chrissy and Mel and you can listen to the entire thing.
--:-- Mel Robbins: And I also want to thank you. Thank you for hitting play and finding and making the time to listen to something that will truly change your life. And I wanted to have this conversation in the way that I did because I knew that if you listened to some of the conversation with Chrissy, you would see yourself or somebody that you love in it. And by bringing in the deeper explanation from Dr. Paul Conti, I knew it would hit you at a much more profound level.
--:-- Mel Robbins: It is possible to change how you think. It's possible to change how you talk to yourself. It's possible to feel good enough, and it is possible to learn how to let people think negative thoughts about you. Because when you know the truth about who you are, you're not really going to think much about other people at all.
--:-- Mel Robbins: Alrighty. And in case nobody else tells you this, I wanted to be sure to tell you that I love you and I believe in you. And I believe in your ability to take what you just listened to and watched today and use it to change how you talk to yourself, and to change where you pour your time and energy, and to take your power back. And when you do that, there is no doubt in my mind that your life is going to get better. And I will be waiting for you in the very next episode as soon as you hit play. All right, great. Thanks, guys.
--:-- Mel Robbins: Here we go. Okay, hold on a second. Sorry, let me hit that again. Don't be... Oh my God, damn it. Sorry. I am on a roll. I am on a... Look, I am just starting. Look, I'm just getting going. Oh my God. Damn it. Okay, I can't put a word together. Okay, so here's what I'm going to say. You ready?
--:-- Mel Robbins: Okay, that was perfect. Wow, that's incredible. I don't know, guys. Let's try this. Our garage band. Good. I think we got it. Don't you? That's a wrap. Oh, my God. Woo. That was a monster. Thank you, guys. Great job, everybody.
--:-- 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.
