Latest news with #personaldevelopment
New York Times
a day ago
- Health
- New York Times
Want to get hooked on walking? Try our 7-day challenge
Editor's note: This story is a part of Peak, The Athletic's desk covering leadership, personal development and success through the lens of sports. Follow Peak here. All of us at Peak are walking enthusiasts. My colleague Rustin Dodd just wrote a story centered on MLB manager Bruce Bochy's love of a good walk. As Rustin explained, walking can help us both physically and mentally, perhaps even unlocking creativity. Advertisement So we wanted to try something out that you could do with us: A 7-day Peak walking challenge. The seven-day plan was crafted by race walking guru David McGovern (McGovern's plans are also used by Dr. Alan Poisner, a 90-year-old competitive racewalker who wrote about his love of walking for Peak. Check it out). If you want to come along with us, we really want to hear how it goes — and learn about your own walking routines and ideas. If you have an observation or thought about your experience, or you want to go into detail about what walking means to your life, email me at edevlin@ or drop us a comment below. Now, on to the challenge. The key for the first day is 'easy.' Typically, McGovern said he wouldn't recommend a beginner to immediately go out and walk at a fast pace for an hour. But if you're moving at an easy speed, you should be fine. Another thing you'll want to be mindful of is the time you choose. Make sure it's at some point in your day you'll be able to regularly set aside for walking. Poisner believes heading out for your walk at the same time each day will help make it a habit. Poisner brought up a few studies that proved why walking in nature is scientifically better than walking in a city environment. In a city, you might experience sensory overload. Spending time in nature also lowers cortisol levels, a stress hormone, and even has the potential to reduce anxiety or depression symptoms. 10-minute warmup: Start at your average walking pace and try to increase your pace by 10 percent every minute. One minute fast: Increase your speed to as fast as you can comfortably walk and try to maintain that for the entire minute. One minute recovery: Slow back down to your average pace. This formula is an example of a HIIT workout (high-intensity interval training) and McGovern and Poisner have both relied on it to improve. Interval training is a good way to build your endurance, McGovern said, which makes it easier to sustain a brisk walking pace for longer periods of time. You'll also burn more calories. Advertisement Day two would be a good time for some upbeat music, but it's optional. In fact, Poisner prefers to walk without headphones, and recommends you give it a try too. 'I like to have my own creative thinking,' he told me. 'Creativity comes in when you're just not thinking about anything, and it can just come to you. But if you're being bombarded by some music or something specific, you lose a little bit of that.' McGovern jokingly compared himself to David Puddy in the "Seinfeld" episode where Puddy does nothing on a long plane ride but stares straight ahead. 'I want to be out with my own thoughts,' McGovern said. 'I like to calculate my split times in my head: 'What does my next kilometer need to be to bring my average down to X?'' Day three should be at a faster pace than day one. 'It has to be slow enough where you can continue doing it because if you go so fast that you're exhausted after 10 minutes, that's not really helping you either,' McGovern said. 'You want to pick a moderate intensity where you can get out there and do that for an hour.' To start, that might be somewhere between 15 to 18 minutes per mile. 10-minute warmup: Start at your average walking pace and try to increase your pace by 10 percent every minute. Fast 10 minutes: Increase to a tempo pace, or the fastest speed you can comfortably hold for 10 minutes. 10-minute cool down: Slow back down to your average walking pace. If you haven't already, think about switching your location on day four. Poisner hasn't studied if there are specific benefits to trying new walking routes, but thinks that it's impactful in a lot of ways. 'If you just keep doing the same habit, whatever it is, over and over again, you get good at it, but then you don't have the variety to do other things,' he said. Advertisement It's also a way to help you feel a little more excited to get out there and walk, especially on an interval day like day four. This day is meant for recovery, so McGovern said substituting yoga for your walk works too. Poisner is also an advocate for frequent rest. 'You have to be gradual. That's one of the lessons I give new people: Don't push it,' he said. 'This is something you want to do the rest of your life. If you want a lifetime habit, it has to be something you are enjoying and not doing it as a drudgery workout.' By day six, you might be losing some steam, so it's a great time for a social walk. Having a friend to go on walks with is a good way to hold yourself accountable, McGovern said, while making it a little more interesting. He brought up one woman he's worked with as an example. She wakes up every day at 4:30 a.m. to meet her training partner at 5 a.m. 'If she has a training partner that's going to meet her at 5 a.m. every day, it's more likely in the winter or when it's hot and humid in the summer, she's going to get out there and try with somebody to hold her accountable,' he said. He wishes more people walked in groups. He has found, like Poisner, that it's a way to meet new people. Every week, there should be a day set aside for a longer walk. It's a good opportunity to test your endurance and to mentally check in with yourself. 'If the muscle between your ears is ready to go, you're ready to go,' McGovern said. When I spoke to Poisner, he had walked 5.7 miles the day before. He held a 15-minute-per-mile pace, which he called 'brisk walking' for younger people. The hardest part is usually finding the motivation to do it. Once you're out there, it becomes a little easier to lean into it and enjoy what you're doing. After all, that's part of this challenge. (Illustration: Kelsea Petersen / The Athletic)
The Guardian
3 days ago
- Entertainment
- The Guardian
‘Women have more power than they think': self-help superstar Mel Robbins on success, survival and silencing her critics
'Putting yourself in this room today,' booms Mel Robbins from the stage of a sold-out London theatre, 'is a decision that's going to change the trajectory of your life.' Rows and rows of (almost exclusively) women gaze at the podcaster and self-help superstar, her image on a huge screen behind her. It's the final day of Robbins's first tour, this one to promote her latest book and viral sensation, The Let Them Theory – her tool for helping people detach from other people's dramas. Outside forces, she teaches, from annoying relatives to strangers in a traffic jam, are not in your control; nor are you responsible for what they do, feel or think (so long as they are not your children). It's a waste of time, energy and emotion to even try. Instead, you should just say to yourself: 'Let them.' Robbins is bounding around, sparkling with charisma and no-nonsense charm, first in a comfy tracksuit (available from her website for £150), then in boss-lady blazer and sexy denim. For nearly two hours, she commands the stage – occasionally joined by her two grown-up daughters, one of whom, Sawyer, is the book's co-author – and the women in the audience smile, nod, hug each other and cry. By the finale, when the confetti cannons go off and yellow ribbons rain down to Coldplay's booming A Sky Full of Stars, I have promised myself I will (in no particular order) lose my perimenopause tummy, be nicer to my children and care less what other people think. I am, I decide, beaming to myself, ready to change the trajectory of my life. Three days before I was fully indoctrinated into the cult of Mel Robbins, when I still had some semblance of cynicism and didn't have phrases such as 'You have everything you need inside you to make it' flashing across my brain like ticker tape, I meet her in a London cafe. Robbins has flown in this morning, but you wouldn't know it. The qualities that make her such a good podcast host – warmth, energy, humour – are intense in person. People, she argues, mostly need encouragement. 'I think that's the number one thing in people's way,' she says, untouched iced coffee in front of her. 'This sense of discouragement: my life is fucked, so nothing I do is going to matter, or I'm too old, or I'm too late, or too this.' This is where Robbins comes in, and it seems to work. The 56-year-old has a huge, cultish following. Her podcast has had more than 200m downloads, she has 10m Instagram followers and Let Them has sold 5m copies since it was published in December. She has celebrity stans, including Chrissy Teigen and Davina McCall, who called her the 'queen of beginning again'. Oprah has anointed her, saying, 'I have over the years read probably thousands of books. And Let Them is by far just one of the best self-help books I've ever read. It is right up there with all the greats … saying everything I was trying to say for 25 years.' If you have spent any time on Instagram, Robbins will probably have been served up to you at some point, face framed by blond hair and heavy-rimmed black glasses, to dispense some no-nonsense advice. Someone may have sent you one of her podcast episodes, in which she interviews renowned doctors and professors, such as the Harvard psychiatrist and happiness expert Robert Waldinger or the orthopaedic surgeon Vonda Wright (though not all guests are so rational – at least one medium has appeared). Other shows might find Robbins spending an easy hour talking about herself and the lessons she has learned about everything from diet and relationships to boosting confidence and setting boundaries. Even if you don't know her name, you have probably been touched by her rules for empowered life. Maybe people have begun saying 'let them' around you when they're frustrated by friends' behaviour, or used the five-second rule (counting down from five before doing something uncomfortable) or high-fiving themselves in the mirror before breakfast – blame Robbins for all of that. She is the ultimate in personal brand-building – a lawyer turned motivational speaker who, according to legend, dragged herself out of an $800,000 debt to become a star of the advice economy in her 50s. She wanted to do the tour, she says, to look her audience in the eye. 'It's just a reminder that who I'm reaching are normal people trying to get up every day and do a little better. I'm not trying to reach people who want to be billionaires.' Does she feel like a rock star, soaking up the adulation? 'I don't think about that,' she insists. 'When you have something this extraordinary happen this late in life, you're very clear about what matters – my family and my friends, and I'm mostly driven by the impact that I can make.' Self-development is huge, from questionable wellbeing influencers to any number of writers and podcasters exploring what it takes to be healthy, happy and successful. What does it say about us, in the affluent west, that we all crave it? Are we all narcissists? 'No,' Robbins says with a smile, 'but we all have that self-centredness. I personally feel we're so overoptimised for productivity, but what I also hope happens is that, in listening to podcasts and reading this book, you're reminded of what's actually important to you. Most of us focus on the wrong things for too long, and then we realise we didn't spend the time we wish we had with our parents while they were here, and we realise we worked too many late nights at work and we didn't spend time with our pets or our friends.' Is all this advice, overwhelmingly aimed at women, just another way to make them feel they need more, or to change, or be perfect? Robbins brushes over the question, saying, 'I guess what I want women in particular to know is you have more power than you think.' She is sometimes criticised for not being a qualified psychologist or therapist, or for dispensing obvious or age-old advice, but that is to miss her talent – she has an ability in the way she distils and communicates information to mainline it straight to your brain. I know, because for years I've had her voice in my head in a way that few other wellbeing podcasters – and I've listened to them all at some point – take up residence. Robbins acknowledges that her insights aren't necessarily new. 'Everybody has said 'let them' a bazillion times,' she says. 'This is stoicism. It's radical acceptance. It's the serenity prayer.' What is it about her saying it that makes people listen? She ponders for a second. 'I think this is a moment. I've said to our team: we never would have been able to orchestrate something as extraordinary as the timing of this – a modern twist on a timeless rule of life, for a moment where it feels like the Earth is spinning off its axis. All of the things that have lined up, I don't feel that it's me; I feel in service of something bigger.' As a child growing up in Michigan, Robbins wanted to be a doctor like her father (her mother ran a kitchenware shop). Was she a confident teenager? 'I think people who knew me would say yes. What I would say is I was deeply anxious and insecure.' Her anxiety made her driven, she thinks, 'but I wouldn't call it confidence'. She 'barely made it through' law school – she had undiagnosed dyslexia and ADHD – but thrived in mock trials and oral argument. For three years, Robbins worked as a legal-aid criminal-defence lawyer in Manhattan, representing people who couldn't afford to pay for representation. It taught her to develop intimacy fast. 'The job is actually about trust, and building trust with somebody that didn't pick you.' And it exposed her to people who had had extremely difficult lives. It was around the time New York City was being cleaned up, and with so many petty arrests to process, Robbins would often work in the night court. 'When you're representing somebody in a bail hearing, one of the things the judge considers is ties to community. Night after night, I would go into that courtroom, and I would call out for family or friends for this person, and no one was there. It broke my heart.' Later, it would be the reason she ends her podcast with the words: 'In case no one else tells you today, I wanted to be sure to tell you I love you.' By this time, Robbins had met her husband, Chris. When he got a place at business school in Boston, they moved. 'I went to a large law firm and wanted to die,' she says. With four weeks of her maternity leave with her first child left, she reveals, 'I had a mental breakdown and said, 'I'm not doing that any more.' An interesting thing about human beings is that when you have a defined problem, most of us are good at solving it. I found a new job the night before I was supposed to go back.' For the next few years, Robbins worked for tech startups and digital marketers, and wondered what to do with her life, so she hired a life coach, who suggested that actually Robbins would make a good coach herself. She loved it, and was good at it. She started a daily call-in radio show, Make It Happen With Mel Robbins, and a newspaper column, and was already laying the foundations of her empire: there was a development deal with Disney, and books and a talkshow planned. In a 2007 magazine profile, Robbins, then in her late 30s, sounds hyper, talking up everything about herself – her sex life and marriage, her body, her work. Call it hubris. Within a couple of years her husband's business was struggling, leaving them $800,000 in debt. How did she cope? 'I wanted to kill him. I'm serious. I wanted to absolutely kill him. Those moments when things go off the rails in your life, it's easier to be angry than it is to be afraid, and I could tell he was afraid, which just made me even angrier, because I felt fearful that we'd never get out of the situation.' She felt incapacitated for about six months, she says. 'I drank myself into the ground. I was a bitch every time he was around. I withdrew from my friends. I didn't tell my parents what was going on.' She lost a long-term coaching job. 'I felt, how can I possibly give anybody advice when my life looks like this? I'm not even an impostor; I'm just a liar. And so my whole life kind of collapsed.' Blame seemed the obvious response. 'And then you avoid doing what you really could be doing. It goes back to what we were talking about: discouragement. I believed at that moment, at 41 with three kids under the age of 10, and liens on the house and no income coming in, that I would never get out of this.' It was in this state, slumped in front of the TV and seeing an advert that used images of a rocket launch, that Robbins had the idea that, instead of staying in bed the next morning, she would count down from five and launch herself out of it. It worked for other things – the idea being that if you give yourself more than five seconds, you will talk yourself out of doing something difficult or hard. In 2011, Robbins, who was still earning a living as a coach and motivational speaker, and had just published her first book, Stop Saying You're Fine, was invited by a friend to speak at a Tedx event in San Francisco. 'That was like a 21-minute-long panic attack,' she says with a laugh. She didn't intend to make her 'five-second rule' a thing, but she blurted it out towards the end. The video went viral (it has now had more than 33m views), then she published her second book, based on the 'rule', in 2017. Her next book, The High 5 Habit – essentially, high-five yourself in the mirror in the morning, setting a plan for the day, boosting confidence and silencing your inner critic – became a bestseller, and in 2022 Robbins launched her podcast. It's in this arena that Robbins, by talking about overcoming adversity, feels infinitely more relatable. In her episodes on trauma, she has described being sexually abused by an older child while on a family holiday, around the age of 10. She has also talked about the impact of getting a later-life ADHD diagnosis, and issues her husband and three children have gone through; part of her live show is about how she improved her relationship with her eldest child. How does she feel about using her personal life and trauma in her work? 'It's easier than hiding it,' she says. 'So many of us are putting on a front, yet every one of us is going through something. I feel that sharing, like any good friend does with another friend – that's a way to make all of this scientific research relatable and understandable.' When she's more open or vulnerable, is listener engagement greater? 'Here's what I do know – the uglier I look on social, the better the content does,' she says with a laugh. 'I don't even think about it as being vulnerable. To me, it's just easier to be honest. When you feel like you can't disclose something, you're judging yourself. Being free with your history and what you've learned from it means you don't judge, and you don't have shame around what's happened to you.' If Robbins was successful before, her Let Them theory has taken that to another level. Essentially, it's simple: if you spend too much time worrying about what other people do or say, which you can't control anyway, you're giving them too much power. Focus on yourself. It isn't about being a doormat, or about resignation, she says. 'When you say, 'let them', you're not allowing anybody to do anything. You're recognising what people are doing, and what's in your control and what's not.' This is only the first stage in the process. One problem with saying 'let them', she acknowledges, is that it can put you in a position of judgment and superiority. 'That's why it works, because when you feel superior, that unhooks you from the frustration or hurt you may feel.' But if that's all you do, she warns, you can end up isolating yourself. 'At some point you've got to use the 'let me' part. I think what keeps you from becoming an asshole and cutting people out of your life is: let me decide what I'm going to do in response.' Maybe that will be accepting you're the sibling who always checks in, or the friend who invariably makes the plans. 'Maybe, conversely, you're going to realise: I've been chasing these people all this time; they don't give me anything in return. Is this what I deserve? Maybe I should pour my time into creating other types of relationships.' That's the harder part. But, Robbins adds, 'If all people want to do is say, 'let them', then let them.' How has her theory changed her life? 'I had no idea how much I allowed the outside world and meaningless bullshit to penetrate me and my peace, whether it was traffic or people walking slowly, or somebody who didn't text me back when I thought they should, or somebody's mood.' Applying her tactic helped, she says, 'to let them have their emotions and opinions, and then remind myself: what do I want to think about this? What do I want or not want to do?'. Robbins's style can be quite tough. 'You think I'm tough?' Forthright, then. 'I think I'm honest,' she says. In her book, she writes that, if you're stuck in a job you hate, 'the harsh truth is you're the one to blame – because you are choosing to stay in a job that makes you miserable'. Doesn't that underestimate the reality for people who don't have the privilege of walking into another job? 'You always have options,' Robbins says. 'You may not have options tomorrow, but you have options. Even if you are living paycheck to paycheck and you are sleeping on a friend's couch, if you believe there are no other options, you won't look for them. It is important to recognise that, with time and consistent effort, you can create different options.' We're in a moment, she says, 'where the headlines are terrifying, economies are faltering, AI is coming, jobs are redundant. You don't know if you're going to get laid off.' That's beyond your control, she says. 'Say: let them lay you off. You're recognising it could happen, and reminding yourself to not waste time and energy worrying, feeling like a loser, feeling like you've got no options. So let me, every day after work, spend an hour getting my résumé together, networking and doing what I need to do to build skills. You will feel empowered when you focus on what's in your control, and what's in your control is what you put your time and energy into.' It can be applied to big or small things. Robbins describes herself as a 'very political person'. 'If we're ever going to get things back on track in terms of people feeling stability and peace and support, you can't burn through all your energy feeling powerless. You've got to remind yourself: I actually have the power to change this. If it bothers me, the more energy I spend arguing about it and venting about it, the less time I'm spending getting myself organised to change this.' With Robbins's increased success and profile has come, inevitably, more criticism. How does she deal with that? 'Let them,' she says instantly. Does it not hurt when she reads horrible comments about herself online? 'No.' She doesn't look, anyway – people who are intent on misunderstanding aren't her problem, she adds. Does she think male podcasters get an easier time? 'Yes – no question. Absolutely.' One of the persistent allegations is that Robbins plagiarised 'let them' from a poem that went viral in 2022. She has always said she hadn't seen the poem and her inspiration came from the night she was trying to micromanage her 18-year-old son's school prom, and her middle child, her daughter Kendall, told her in a moment of exasperation to 'let them' – get soaked in the rain, have tacos if they want them, just let them. 'Anybody that can't see that a poem is very different than a book that makes a case for a theory, with an 18-page bibliography, doesn't want to see, and doesn't understand the word plagiarism either,' Robbins says. I agree it's a fairly weak criticism, as is the complaint that she has stretched a basic idea into a whole book (and now tour) – something that could be applied to just about every self-help book ever written. Her podcast remains free and, unlike many other motivational 'influencers', she doesn't flog online courses, or supplements. I take more issue with some of the oversimplistic things she says: 'Success, love, happiness, money, friendship – these things are in limitless supply,' said the multimillionaire Mel Robbins to the billionaire Oprah Winfrey, on the latter's podcast. Robbins says she follows her own rules 'about 90% of the time'. When she's at home in Vermont, she gets up around 6am, makes her bed, 'so I don't crawl back into it', and high-fives herself in the mirror. She might take a bite of a banana, 'because of what Dr Stacy Sims said about cortisol and women never working out fasted'. Sims, a physiologist and one of her podcast guests, says that, for women, exercising on an empty stomach means burning lean muscle and holding on to fat. 'I was like: motherfucker, we've been gaslit by the fitness industry. It's incredible what she shared about women not being little men.' Robbins walks her dogs to get her early sunlight (it helps with the circadian rhythm), drinks water before her coffee, has breakfast. She has a regular walking group with friends. She likes to cook, so she'll start prepping dinner when she does lunch, then it's bath and bed not long after 9pm. 'I'm so fucking old,' she says with a laugh. 'But I love my sleep.' In the middle of it all is work. She wants, she says, to be an example 'of leaning into new things and reinventing myself over and over, and clawing our way out of debt in our 40s. There's so much you can do.' Robbins, similarly to Oprah, controls her empire. 'I don't want to be in a situation where I'm pissed off about the deal I made, and if I'm in control of what happens, the only person I can truly be mad at is me.' Is she a life coach or a media mogul? 'I'm just your friend, Mel,' she says with a bright smile. A few days later, on stage, Robbins is so overcome with emotion, she can barely get her last words out: 'I love you, I do, and I believe in you.' There are cheers and whoops, and that blast of confetti and Coldplay, and we leave on a high. I chat to two women, in their 40s, who had been sitting behind me, emotional at points; one has a delicate tattoo on her arm of a dandelion releasing its seeds and the words 'Let them … Let me'. They love Robbins, says Eva (with the tattoo), 'because she's so normal. She's been through stuff like all of us have, but she's got grit and determination, and she's an example that, if you put your mind to it, you can achieve anything.' Her friend Hayley says the years and the struggles since the pandemic have left her feeling exhausted and overwhelmed. 'I know that I need to make a change,' she says, eyes shining. 'She makes you believe you can do it.' The Let Them Theory by Mel Robbins is published by Hay House UK at £22.99. To support the Guardian, order your copy at Her podcast is available here.
The Guardian
3 days ago
- Entertainment
- The Guardian
‘Women have more power than they think': self-help superstar Mel Robbins on success, survival and silencing her critics
'Putting yourself in this room today,' booms Mel Robbins from the stage of a sold-out London theatre, 'is a decision that's going to change the trajectory of your life.' Rows and rows of (almost exclusively) women gaze at the podcaster and self-help superstar, her image on a huge screen behind her. It's the final day of Robbins's first tour, this one to promote her latest book and viral sensation, The Let Them Theory – her tool for helping people detach from other people's dramas. Outside forces, she teaches, from annoying relatives to strangers in a traffic jam, are not in your control; nor are you responsible for what they do, feel or think (so long as they are not your children). It's a waste of time, energy and emotion to even try. Instead, you should just say to yourself: 'Let them.' Robbins is bounding around, sparkling with charisma and no-nonsense charm, first in a comfy tracksuit (available from her website for £150), then in boss-lady blazer and sexy denim. For nearly two hours, she commands the stage – occasionally joined by her two grown-up daughters, one of whom, Sawyer, is the book's co-author – and the women in the audience smile, nod, hug each other and cry. By the finale, when the confetti cannons go off and yellow ribbons rain down to Coldplay's booming A Sky Full of Stars, I have promised myself I will (in no particular order) lose my perimenopause tummy, be nicer to my children and care less what other people think. I am, I decide, beaming to myself, ready to change the trajectory of my life. Three days before I was fully indoctrinated into the cult of Mel Robbins, when I still had some semblance of cynicism and didn't have phrases such as 'You have everything you need inside you to make it' flashing across my brain like ticker tape, I meet her in a London cafe. Robbins has flown in this morning, but you wouldn't know it. The qualities that make her such a good podcast host – warmth, energy, humour – are intense in person. People, she argues, mostly need encouragement. 'I think that's the number one thing in people's way,' she says, untouched iced coffee in front of her. 'This sense of discouragement: my life is fucked, so nothing I do is going to matter, or I'm too old, or I'm too late, or too this.' This is where Robbins comes in, and it seems to work. The 56-year-old has a huge, cultish following. Her podcast has had more than 200m downloads, she has 10m Instagram followers and Let Them has sold 5m copies since it was published in December. She has celebrity stans, including Chrissy Teigen and Davina McCall, who called her the 'queen of beginning again'. Oprah has anointed her, saying, 'I have over the years read probably thousands of books. And Let Them is by far just one of the best self-help books I've ever read. It is right up there with all the greats … saying everything I was trying to say for 25 years.' If you have spent any time on Instagram, Robbins will probably have been served up to you at some point, face framed by blond hair and heavy-rimmed black glasses, to dispense some no-nonsense advice. Someone may have sent you one of her podcast episodes, in which she interviews renowned doctors and professors, such as the Harvard psychiatrist and happiness expert Robert Waldinger or the orthopaedic surgeon Vonda Wright (though not all guests are so rational – at least one medium has appeared). Other shows might find Robbins spending an easy hour talking about herself and the lessons she has learned about everything from diet and relationships to boosting confidence and setting boundaries. Even if you don't know her name, you have probably been touched by her rules for empowered life. Maybe people have begun saying 'let them' around you when they're frustrated by friends' behaviour, or used the five-second rule (counting down from five before doing something uncomfortable) or high-fiving themselves in the mirror before breakfast – blame Robbins for all of that. She is the ultimate in personal brand-building – a lawyer turned motivational speaker who, according to legend, dragged herself out of an $800,000 debt to become a star of the advice economy in her 50s. She wanted to do the tour, she says, to look her audience in the eye. 'It's just a reminder that who I'm reaching are normal people trying to get up every day and do a little better. I'm not trying to reach people who want to be billionaires.' Does she feel like a rock star, soaking up the adulation? 'I don't think about that,' she insists. 'When you have something this extraordinary happen this late in life, you're very clear about what matters – my family and my friends, and I'm mostly driven by the impact that I can make.' Self-development is huge, from questionable wellbeing influencers to any number of writers and podcasters exploring what it takes to be healthy, happy and successful. What does it say about us, in the affluent west, that we all crave it? Are we all narcissists? 'No,' Robbins says with a smile, 'but we all have that self-centredness. I personally feel we're so overoptimised for productivity, but what I also hope happens is that, in listening to podcasts and reading this book, you're reminded of what's actually important to you. Most of us focus on the wrong things for too long, and then we realise we didn't spend the time we wish we had with our parents while they were here, and we realise we worked too many late nights at work and we didn't spend time with our pets or our friends.' Is all this advice, overwhelmingly aimed at women, just another way to make them feel they need more, or to change, or be perfect? Robbins brushes over the question, saying, 'I guess what I want women in particular to know is you have more power than you think.' She is sometimes criticised for not being a qualified psychologist or therapist, or for dispensing obvious or age-old advice, but that is to miss her talent – she has an ability in the way she distils and communicates information to mainline it straight to your brain. I know, because for years I've had her voice in my head in a way that few other wellbeing podcasters – and I've listened to them all at some point – take up residence. Robbins acknowledges that her insights aren't necessarily new. 'Everybody has said 'let them' a bazillion times,' she says. 'This is stoicism. It's radical acceptance. It's the serenity prayer.' What is it about her saying it that makes people listen? She ponders for a second. 'I think this is a moment. I've said to our team: we never would have been able to orchestrate something as extraordinary as the timing of this – a modern twist on a timeless rule of life, for a moment where it feels like the Earth is spinning off its axis. All of the things that have lined up, I don't feel that it's me; I feel in service of something bigger.' As a child growing up in Michigan, Robbins wanted to be a doctor like her father (her mother ran a kitchenware shop). Was she a confident teenager? 'I think people who knew me would say yes. What I would say is I was deeply anxious and insecure.' Her anxiety made her driven, she thinks, 'but I wouldn't call it confidence'. She 'barely made it through' law school – she had undiagnosed dyslexia and ADHD – but thrived in mock trials and oral argument. For three years, Robbins worked as a legal-aid criminal-defence lawyer in Manhattan, representing people who couldn't afford to pay for representation. It taught her to develop intimacy fast. 'The job is actually about trust, and building trust with somebody that didn't pick you.' And it exposed her to people who had had extremely difficult lives. It was around the time New York City was being cleaned up, and with so many petty arrests to process, Robbins would often work in the night court. 'When you're representing somebody in a bail hearing, one of the things the judge considers is ties to community. Night after night, I would go into that courtroom, and I would call out for family or friends for this person, and no one was there. It broke my heart.' Later, it would be the reason she ends her podcast with the words: 'In case no one else tells you today, I wanted to be sure to tell you I love you.' By this time, Robbins had met her husband, Chris. When he got a place at business school in Boston, they moved. 'I went to a large law firm and wanted to die,' she says. With four weeks of her maternity leave with her first child left, she reveals, 'I had a mental breakdown and said, 'I'm not doing that any more.' An interesting thing about human beings is that when you have a defined problem, most of us are good at solving it. I found a new job the night before I was supposed to go back.' For the next few years, Robbins worked for tech startups and digital marketers, and wondered what to do with her life, so she hired a life coach, who suggested that actually Robbins would make a good coach herself. She loved it, and was good at it. She started a daily call-in radio show, Make It Happen With Mel Robbins, and a newspaper column, and was already laying the foundations of her empire: there was a development deal with Disney, and books and a talkshow planned. In a 2007 magazine profile, Robbins, then in her late 30s, sounds hyper, talking up everything about herself – her sex life and marriage, her body, her work. Call it hubris. Within a couple of years her husband's business was struggling, leaving them $800,000 in debt. How did she cope? 'I wanted to kill him. I'm serious. I wanted to absolutely kill him. Those moments when things go off the rails in your life, it's easier to be angry than it is to be afraid, and I could tell he was afraid, which just made me even angrier, because I felt fearful that we'd never get out of the situation.' She felt incapacitated for about six months, she says. 'I drank myself into the ground. I was a bitch every time he was around. I withdrew from my friends. I didn't tell my parents what was going on.' She lost a long-term coaching job. 'I felt, how can I possibly give anybody advice when my life looks like this? I'm not even an impostor; I'm just a liar. And so my whole life kind of collapsed.' Blame seemed the obvious response. 'And then you avoid doing what you really could be doing. It goes back to what we were talking about: discouragement. I believed at that moment, at 41 with three kids under the age of 10, and liens on the house and no income coming in, that I would never get out of this.' It was in this state, slumped in front of the TV and seeing an advert that used images of a rocket launch, that Robbins had the idea that, instead of staying in bed the next morning, she would count down from five and launch herself out of it. It worked for other things – the idea being that if you give yourself more than five seconds, you will talk yourself out of doing something difficult or hard. In 2011, Robbins, who was still earning a living as a coach and motivational speaker, and had just published her first book, Stop Saying You're Fine, was invited by a friend to speak at a Tedx event in San Francisco. 'That was like a 21-minute-long panic attack,' she says with a laugh. She didn't intend to make her 'five-second rule' a thing, but she blurted it out towards the end. The video went viral (it has now had more than 33m views), then she published her second book, based on the 'rule', in 2017. Her next book, The High 5 Habit – essentially, high-five yourself in the mirror in the morning, setting a plan for the day, boosting confidence and silencing your inner critic – became a bestseller, and in 2022 Robbins launched her podcast. It's in this arena that Robbins, by talking about overcoming adversity, feels infinitely more relatable. In her episodes on trauma, she has described being sexually abused by an older child while on a family holiday, around the age of 10. She has also talked about the impact of getting a later-life ADHD diagnosis, and issues her husband and three children have gone through; part of her live show is about how she improved her relationship with her eldest child. How does she feel about using her personal life and trauma in her work? 'It's easier than hiding it,' she says. 'So many of us are putting on a front, yet every one of us is going through something. I feel that sharing, like any good friend does with another friend – that's a way to make all of this scientific research relatable and understandable.' When she's more open or vulnerable, is listener engagement greater? 'Here's what I do know – the uglier I look on social, the better the content does,' she says with a laugh. 'I don't even think about it as being vulnerable. To me, it's just easier to be honest. When you feel like you can't disclose something, you're judging yourself. Being free with your history and what you've learned from it means you don't judge, and you don't have shame around what's happened to you.' If Robbins was successful before, her Let Them theory has taken that to another level. Essentially, it's simple: if you spend too much time worrying about what other people do or say, which you can't control anyway, you're giving them too much power. Focus on yourself. It isn't about being a doormat, or about resignation, she says. 'When you say, 'let them', you're not allowing anybody to do anything. You're recognising what people are doing, and what's in your control and what's not.' This is only the first stage in the process. One problem with saying 'let them', she acknowledges, is that it can put you in a position of judgment and superiority. 'That's why it works, because when you feel superior, that unhooks you from the frustration or hurt you may feel.' But if that's all you do, she warns, you can end up isolating yourself. 'At some point you've got to use the 'let me' part. I think what keeps you from becoming an asshole and cutting people out of your life is: let me decide what I'm going to do in response.' Maybe that will be accepting you're the sibling who always checks in, or the friend who invariably makes the plans. 'Maybe, conversely, you're going to realise: I've been chasing these people all this time; they don't give me anything in return. Is this what I deserve? Maybe I should pour my time into creating other types of relationships.' That's the harder part. But, Robbins adds, 'If all people want to do is say, 'let them', then let them.' How has her theory changed her life? 'I had no idea how much I allowed the outside world and meaningless bullshit to penetrate me and my peace, whether it was traffic or people walking slowly, or somebody who didn't text me back when I thought they should, or somebody's mood.' Applying her tactic helped, she says, 'to let them have their emotions and opinions, and then remind myself: what do I want to think about this? What do I want or not want to do?'. Robbins's style can be quite tough. 'You think I'm tough?' Forthright, then. 'I think I'm honest,' she says. In her book, she writes that, if you're stuck in a job you hate, 'the harsh truth is you're the one to blame – because you are choosing to stay in a job that makes you miserable'. Doesn't that underestimate the reality for people who don't have the privilege of walking into another job? 'You always have options,' Robbins says. 'You may not have options tomorrow, but you have options. Even if you are living paycheck to paycheck and you are sleeping on a friend's couch, if you believe there are no other options, you won't look for them. It is important to recognise that, with time and consistent effort, you can create different options.' We're in a moment, she says, 'where the headlines are terrifying, economies are faltering, AI is coming, jobs are redundant. You don't know if you're going to get laid off.' That's beyond your control, she says. 'Say: let them lay you off. You're recognising it could happen, and reminding yourself to not waste time and energy worrying, feeling like a loser, feeling like you've got no options. So let me, every day after work, spend an hour getting my résumé together, networking and doing what I need to do to build skills. You will feel empowered when you focus on what's in your control, and what's in your control is what you put your time and energy into.' It can be applied to big or small things. Robbins describes herself as a 'very political person'. 'If we're ever going to get things back on track in terms of people feeling stability and peace and support, you can't burn through all your energy feeling powerless. You've got to remind yourself: I actually have the power to change this. If it bothers me, the more energy I spend arguing about it and venting about it, the less time I'm spending getting myself organised to change this.' With Robbins's increased success and profile has come, inevitably, more criticism. How does she deal with that? 'Let them,' she says instantly. Does it not hurt when she reads horrible comments about herself online? 'No.' She doesn't look, anyway – people who are intent on misunderstanding aren't her problem, she adds. Does she think male podcasters get an easier time? 'Yes – no question. Absolutely.' One of the persistent allegations is that Robbins plagiarised 'let them' from a poem that went viral in 2022. She has always said she hadn't seen the poem and her inspiration came from the night she was trying to micromanage her 18-year-old son's school prom, and her middle child, her daughter Kendall, told her in a moment of exasperation to 'let them' – get soaked in the rain, have tacos if they want them, just let them. 'Anybody that can't see that a poem is very different than a book that makes a case for a theory, with an 18-page bibliography, doesn't want to see, and doesn't understand the word plagiarism either,' Robbins says. I agree it's a fairly weak criticism, as is the complaint that she has stretched a basic idea into a whole book (and now tour) – something that could be applied to just about every self-help book ever written. Her podcast remains free and, unlike many other motivational 'influencers', she doesn't flog online courses, or supplements. I take more issue with some of the oversimplistic things she says: 'Success, love, happiness, money, friendship – these things are in limitless supply,' said the multimillionaire Mel Robbins to the billionaire Oprah Winfrey, on the latter's podcast. Robbins says she follows her own rules 'about 90% of the time'. When she's at home in Vermont, she gets up around 6am, makes her bed, 'so I don't crawl back into it', and high-fives herself in the mirror. She might take a bite of a banana, 'because of what Dr Stacy Sims said about cortisol and women never working out fasted'. Sims, a physiologist and one of her podcast guests, says that, for women, exercising on an empty stomach means burning lean muscle and holding on to fat. 'I was like: motherfucker, we've been gaslit by the fitness industry. It's incredible what she shared about women not being little men.' Robbins walks her dogs to get her early sunlight (it helps with the circadian rhythm), drinks water before her coffee, has breakfast. She has a regular walking group with friends. She likes to cook, so she'll start prepping dinner when she does lunch, then it's bath and bed not long after 9pm. 'I'm so fucking old,' she says with a laugh. 'But I love my sleep.' In the middle of it all is work. She wants, she says, to be an example 'of leaning into new things and reinventing myself over and over, and clawing our way out of debt in our 40s. There's so much you can do.' Robbins, similarly to Oprah, controls her empire. 'I don't want to be in a situation where I'm pissed off about the deal I made, and if I'm in control of what happens, the only person I can truly be mad at is me.' Is she a life coach or a media mogul? 'I'm just your friend, Mel,' she says with a bright smile. A few days later, on stage, Robbins is so overcome with emotion, she can barely get her last words out: 'I love you, I do, and I believe in you.' There are cheers and whoops, and that blast of confetti and Coldplay, and we leave on a high. I chat to two women, in their 40s, who had been sitting behind me, emotional at points; one has a delicate tattoo on her arm of a dandelion releasing its seeds and the words 'Let them … Let me'. They love Robbins, says Eva (with the tattoo), 'because she's so normal. She's been through stuff like all of us have, but she's got grit and determination, and she's an example that, if you put your mind to it, you can achieve anything.' Her friend Hayley says the years and the struggles since the pandemic have left her feeling exhausted and overwhelmed. 'I know that I need to make a change,' she says, eyes shining. 'She makes you believe you can do it.' The Let Them Theory by Mel Robbins is published by Hay House UK at £22.99. To support the Guardian, order your copy at Her podcast is available here.
Yahoo
14-07-2025
- Health
- Yahoo
What you need to know before you call someone "Toxic"
We all know what it feels like to be around toxic energy. Toxic behavior isn't always obvious or intentional. Sometimes, it's survival mode in disguise. Other times, it's unhealed pain masked as control, criticism, or silence. In today's TikTok Therapy world, we throw around the term 'toxic' often, but rarely turn the lens inward. We're quick to call out ghosting, gaslighting, and manipulation in others, but what if the red flags are in the mirror? What happens when we pause and ask: Could I be showing up in ways that hurt the people I care about? This piece explores 7 subtle ways we might unknowingly bring toxic energy into our relationships and how awareness can lead to change. This isn't about shame, it's about courage. Let's gentle look inward before we point any fingers… Do you deflect blame or justify your mistakes? Accountability isn't about perfection, it's about owning your impact. If you often say things like 'Sorry you feel that way' or 'I wouldn't have done that if you hadn't…,' you might be dodging responsibility. If vulnerability was punished in your past, defensiveness may feel like self-protection. Try to shift: Replace blame with honest reflection. Shift from 'Why is this happening to me?' to 'What can I do next?' Do you correct, critique, or offer 'honest feedback' that no one asked for? There's a fine line between being real and being rude. If you regularly highlight flaws without balancing encouragement, it could be toxic. We often judge others where we feel most insecure ourselves. Try to shift: Offer the compassion you wish you'd received Swap unsolicited advice for active listening. Do you sulk, withdraw, or guilt-trip when disappointed? Manipulation isn't always calculated. Sometimes, it's a learned way to cope when direct communication seems unsafe. If expressing needs was ignored or punished, guilt might feel like the only no matter the underlying reason, yielding power over someone else isn't healthy. Try to shift: Practice stating your needs clearly. Map them out by yourself first. Know that you're allowed to want things, and to ask directly. Do you take 'no' personally? Are you often trying to change people's minds? Respecting boundaries is a critical relationship skill. If you find yourself pushing back when others set limits, it may be time to pause. If boundaries weren't modeled in childhood, they may feel like rejection now. Try to shift: Learn to recognize boundaries as safety that protects you and others too. Reflect on your own boundaries. Practice asking people to share their boundaries in times you are unclear. Do people feel uplifted or drained after being around you? Honest venting can be okay at times, but if you're often stuck in complaint mode, it can impact those around you. What examples do you have of raising the vibe and how does that compare to dampening the energy? Negativity can feel protective, like bracing for impact, but it also can inhibit connection. Try to shift: Notice and name small wins and joys. Ground your honesty in hope. Do you plan everything, lead everything, and struggle to let go? Control can feel like safety when you've experienced chaos or betrayal. Fear of abandonment and the unknown often fuel control. While these are understandable anxieties, without working on them the need for control can eave others feeling suffocated. Try to shift: Create a safe space to explore your fears of letting go Focus on building inner safety. Trust what's meant for you won't require force to stay. Do you ghost, shut down emotionally, or quietly build resentment? Sometimes toxicity is in what we don't do. Silence, avoidance, and passive withdrawal are all signs of disconnection. Avoidance often stems from fear of confrontation or not feeling safe to express emotion. Try this: Reflect on the difference between acceptance and avoidance Start small, you don't have to tackle your biggest problems first. Maybe you're wondering, 'Does this mean I'm toxic?' Not necessarily. Truth be told, if your toxicity was sky-high you likely wouldn't have made it this far into this article. If you did notice room for growth, excellent work! It's that awareness, that we often overlook, that sparks impactful change. Before you go please remember, no one is perfect, and being willing to look at the truth is meaningful work.
Yahoo
07-07-2025
- General
- Yahoo
Cancer Daily Horoscope Yahoo Life Astrology: July 07, 2025
You are feeling torn apart, but not in a terrible way. It's just the conflict between your inner persona and your outer demeanor that is causing you to question whether things need to change soon. Uncover the guidance you need to thrive in the month ahead with your premium Monthly Horoscope.
