PNTV: The Let Them Theory by Mel Robbins

0:00Just let them do what they want to do. Isn't that big of a deal? Quit making it a big deal. When it's his problem, not your problem. Let them. Buddhist retreat, that she wants to meditation retreat, where the teacher said, Look, suffering equals pain times resistance. If you resist whatever is happening to you right now, you increase your suffering. An ancient Sanskrit, the word mantra literally means a tool of the mind. So let them can be a tool of your mind to restructure how you're approaching something. Refrain how you're approaching something. Let them. Hi, this is Brian. Welcome back to Philosopher's Notes TV. Today we've got another great book, The Let Them Theory by Mel Robbins. Love, Mel, we've got the Philosopher's Notes. You can get for free. Just click on the link in the show notes and you can check it out. What I do in the notes, as I said every time, is I pull out the best, most light-changing ideas from my favorite books.

1:06And this one's packed with them. I'm a big fan of Mel Robbins. We have notes on her prior two books, the five-second rule, which is phenomenal as well, and the high five habit building yourself image and giving yourself some love. This book, subtitle, The Let Them Theory, subtitle a life-changing tool that millions of people can't stop talking about what's yet to work. We've got five ideas we're going to look at quickly today. Let them. We're going to talk about the origin story, how she came up with this idea. Now it took off almost immediately. We're going to talk about the fact that it's a tool that you can use. She connects it to ancient philosophy, modern therapy, psychology, et cetera. And then it's not just let them, that's only half of the story. Then we need to let me. It's easier to complain about what other people are doing. We've got to let them be them. Then we need to let me in let ourselves do what we feel called to do. Much more challenging. Part one, part two, let them let me. And then we're going to talk about how to influence people.

2:08Mel says you can't motivate people. They need to be motivated and not, but you can't influence them. The way you do that, we'll talk about the number one way. And then finally, we're going to talk about a love note. Mel ends the book with just this pure, beautiful expression of love. It's one of the reasons everyone loves Mel as much as they do. You can feel how much she cares about you. One, two, three, four, five. And then always most important. Let's go. The point here is to move from theory to practice, to mastery together today. Light-changing ideas are only life-changing if you live them. So that's our intention. So watch this thinking about what distinction you can make in your life and how specifically you can engage in that behavior today. As Phil Stutt says, no philosophy is worth anything unless it ends in action. With that, origin story time let them. So Mel is among many things a great storyteller. And she tells the story of her son who's going to prom. And apparently he's all dectowed. He's got these new sneakers.

3:10And he decides he's going to go to some taco stand or something with those friends. And it's raining outside. And I think the taco stand might be outside. So they're going to get rained on in his new shoes. And she's like, you can't do that. First of all, what are you doing? Doing this tie, I think it was a taco stand. I might not be getting the story quite right. What are you going there? And it's going to rain. It's going to ruin your shoes. And she's getting all worked up about it. And her son's like, dude, I'm just going to go. I'm going to have a great time. And her daughter told Mel, let them. Just let them. Let them do what they want to do. It isn't that big of a deal. Quit making it a big deal. And it's his problem, not your problem. Let them. Now you got goose bumps saying that. Again, she tells the story beautifully. That's the condensed version. And she just something clicked for her. And she said, oh, gosh, let them. Then she created a post that she shared on social media. And apparently within 24 hours, something like 15 million people had watched it. With an experience of time, even more people had engaged in it. News outlet started writing about it. And she ran with it.

4:11And this book is the distillation of, kind of unpacking, the philosophical, psychological underpinnings of the Let Them Theory. Which leads us to, with that origin story, I think you had a great time at prom. Let's go. Prom. My goodness. Let's go. All right. Next idea here is, think about Let Them as a tool. And, they'll talk about the fact that you can connect this basic idea to ancient philosophy and to modern science and modern psychotherapy. So if we look at the philosophical side of things, we've got stoicism. And we've got Buddhism that she reflects on. So stoicism 101, raise your hand if you're a fan of stoicism. Rule number one of stoicism. Ryan Holliday, my one of my favorite authors, one of the best thinkers on applying ancient stoic wisdom to our modern lives, wrote a book called The Daily Stoic. If you haven't gotten into stoicism yet, that's a great place to start.

5:12Again, check out the philosophers notes. Check out the PNTV on it. Day one of his daily stoic, 366. Let's go leap here on it. 366 day guide to embody the wisdom of stoicism. What does he say on day one? Well, he gives us stoicism 101. Stoicism 101 is this. You have control over some things and you don't have control over other things. Quit worrying about the things you do not have control over. Focus on the things you do have control over. What do you have control over? You have control over your thoughts, your behaviors, your values, how you're showing up in the world. You do not have control over other people, the weather, broader systemic, you know, political challenges, et cetera. That's stoicism 101. Applied here, let them. You do not have control over other people. Quit trying to exert that control, let them. Again, a big part of the ancient stoic practice. They called it the art of acquiescence, where you allow reality to be what it is.

6:16Byron Katie doesn't reference stoicism in her work, but loving what is. Is essentially stoicism. Her work is essentially stoicism applied in her own distinct way. She says that when she argues with reality, whether that's what someone's doing, the weather, whatever, she loses, but only 100% of the time. Let them. Let whatever is happening, be what's happening. Radical acceptance is another big idea that she brings into the psychological side of things. Radical acceptance. Big idea. Phil Stutz talks about that all the time as well. Acceptance and commitment therapy. All these different approaches begin by accepting your current reality. It may not be what you want it to be, except it then you can choose to take effective action. Now, from a Buddhist perspective, I think she brings up Christen Neff. If not, I'm pretty sure she does. But Christen Neff, leading researcher on self-compassion, check out the Philosopher's Notes and TV on self-compassion

7:16by Christen Neff, phenomenal stuff. She shares a story about a Buddhist retreat that she wants you to meditation retreat. Where the teacher said, look, suffering equals pain times resistance. In fact, suffering is actually not just multiplicative, but exponentially driven by your resistance. Meaning, if you resist whatever is happening to you right now, you increase your suffering. Step one, accept that life involves a certain amount of suffering and challenges, and whatever is happening to you right now is happening. Accept that, step back, then choose your best response. In terms of it being a tool that's reflected in both ancient stoic and Buddhist philosophy of modern science, you can think of it literally like a tool, and I'm thinking now of the word mantra. I've been practicing this when I was reading the book, and at different times you can say to yourself, let them. Any time you find yourself wanting to micromanage someone in your life, whether it's your significant other,

8:19your kids, colleagues, whatever, you can say to yourself, let them. In ancient Sanskrit, the word mantra literally means a tool of the mind. So let them, can be a tool of your mind to restructure how you're approaching something, reframe how you're approaching something, let them. A quick look at how it applies to a stoic Buddhist ideas, et cetera, through in a little birencadia as well. Now again, part one is let them, part two is let me. So once we accept reality and the individuals who are behaving in a certain way, even if it's not quite the way we'd hope that they are behaving or would behave, then the question is, what do you want? Who are you? And when you look forward, what do you want to see in your life? And it's a lot easier to complain about what other people are doing or not doing, then it is to slow down, say let them, and then decide what you want. This is where let me, let me live a life of deep, authentic, values driven meaning and purpose.

9:23But that requires a lot more effort than criticizing and complaining and condemning other people for their behaviors. You got to slow down and take responsibility for yourself, which is habit number one, the seven habits of highly effective people, Stephen Covey, habit number one of the most highly effective people and each of us, at our most highly effective, be proactive, be response able. Right? This is again, stoicist 101, whatever's happening is happening. The question is, how are you going to choose to respond? Can you step in between the stimulus and choose a better response? As Victor Frankl says, it's in that gap between the stimulus and your response in which your freedom exists. One of the practices I like to engage in with heroic and our coach certification program, our basic training and all the other stuff that we do, is something called targeted thinking. So again, go back to the ancient world of philosophy. The patron god of philosophy in ancient Greece was Apollo.

10:24Apollo was an archer and the idea was you can take clear aim and once you release your arrow, you no longer have control over the outcomes. I like to think of it as targeted thinking. So you accept what other people are doing, you accept reality, whether you like it or not, then the question is, if you want to move from victim, complaining, criticizing, etc. to creator or hero, the question is simple. What do you want? Given the current reality, what do you want? Let me get clear on what I want, then the question is, all right, well, if you want that, what do you need to do? And the answer to those questions is rarely, well, I want to be in an argument with somebody and I want to blow up my relationship with them, rarely would a conscious, deliberative, contemplative conclusion would be to that question. No, no, I want to navigate this however I can in this best way and then what specifically do you need to do in order to take those next steps? Let me, responsibility agency is another big concept in psychological,

11:30therapeutic approaches. You got to have agency, you got to believe that you can affect change, you do that by quit trying to control things, you can't control and begin controlling the things you can, which leads us to the fourth idea here, influence. So Mel has got a chapter on how do you interact with other people? Okay, given all these ideas, how do we interact with other people? And she was asked a question, hey, can I motivate? How do I motivate my loved one? Who's not doing certain things I want? She says, hey, to break the news to you, but you can't. You can't motivate somebody else, but you can't influence them. They either want to do it or they don't. But the way to influence them is to let them be who they are, let me, let us be who we aspire to be, and let who we are being influence them. Again, this is a really big idea in our coach training program we have where it's one of the most frequent of me asked questions. Our coaches get really into it and they want their spouses to change with them. Good luck with that. Don't proselytize.

12:30Slow down, integrate the things that you believe to be true. Phil Stutz calls this being unilateral. Don't expect anyone else to change. You just do the hard work integrating these ideas, practicing your philosophy, etc. And I vividly remember, and I've shared this story a number of times in different contexts, the very first coach graduation we ever have. We've now trained 10,000 coaches from around the world, over 100 countries, etc. The first one we had a cohort of 1,000 people, and at the end of the first graduation, a woman came up to me and said, at the beginning of this program, when my husband started it, I hated you. I was just saying, I can feel my hard skips when she said that to me. I'm like, all right, cool, where's this going? She's like, it was so annoying because he did this, he did that, he did this, and I just teach him his life. He stopped watching TV late at night, he stopped changing his nutrition, and I just, I literally hated you. All right, cool, take a breath. We'll talk about this in the next PM TV, by the way. There's going to be on Jefferson Fisher's, the next conversation.

13:31He says, say with control, say with confidence, say to connect, his three rules of good communication. Say with control, the number one tip there we'll talk about, and our next one is, breathe. He calls it a conversational breath. Take a breath before you say anything. So I sat there and listened to her and I took a breath. All right, deep into my belly, back out through my nose, let's go. Where are we going? Anyway, long story short, she says, and then something happened. Over the months that he was engaged in the practice, over the first, second, third month he changed. I get tears in my eyes now, and goosebumps again. He just became a better husband, he became a better father, he became a better human being. It was just amazing. The stuff was working. And then she said, now I've signed up for your program and I'm excited to go through it. Point here being, bringing it back to the Let Them Theory. You can't change somebody by wanting to change them, per se. Be the change you want to see. Paraphrased, Gandhi, 101, he didn't actually quite say that. But be the change you want to see.

14:32As Ralph Fauder-Emerson, great teacher on my wall, one of my heroes we named our son after him. He says, who you are? Who you are speaks so loudly. I cannot hear what you say. Who you are speaks so loudly. I cannot hear what you say. You want to influence your significant others. You want to influence your kids. You want to influence your team. Be the version of you you aspire to be. Let that influence shape them. And the best feedback we ever get when we train our coaches is individuals coming up to them and saying, what are you doing? They've lost 5, 10, 15, 20 pounds. They're more calm. They're more calm. What are you doing? That's how we want to influence people most powerfully. Be that change, etc. Then the next idea here is, and the final idea is the love note. Again, Mel ends the book with what I consider to be just a beautiful love note. And she says, look, if nobody else in your life is believing in you, let me. Let me be the one who believes in you. Let me be the one who loves you and knows you're capable of achieving what you aspire to achieve.

15:34So I, in the note, echo that, reflect that right back to you. Wherever you are in your life right now, it's a privilege to be this far into a conversation with you today. Let me be the one, along with Mel who believes in you. You have untapped potential. You, as I like to say, are the hero we've been waiting for. I have absolutely no doubt about that. It's an honor and a privilege to be able to serve with you together. And I hope you enjoyed this quick look at the Let Them Theory Origin story. Let them wear sneakers in the rain to the prom at a taco shop. It's a tool. Use it as a mantra. Let them. They let me. We talked about ancient stoicism, ancient Buddhism, radical acceptance, knowing that resisting what's happening is going to amplify the amount of suffering that you're experiencing. We talked about how to influence. Well, then we talked about let me, right? Response ability. Have agency. Know what you want. Know what you need here to get there. What harder to do than to complain? But what other people aren't doing? Influence comes through you being the change.

16:34And at the end of the day. And most importantly, you are the hero we've been waiting for. Plus one, let's go. What's an idea that jumped out and landed for you today? Think about that. Think about how you can move from theory to practice, to mastery. Put that into practice today. And whatever small way you can. And aggregate and compound those tiny gains over an extended period of time. And we can fundamentally and permanently change your life. Helping you be that version of you you aspire to be. And as always today is day one. We are all in. Let's go. One more time. Get the note. For free in the show notes. If you're feeling it and check out all the philosophers notes and the stuff we've got going on with heroic. And I'll see you in the next episode. Have a great day. Hey, this is Brian. Thanks for spending a few minutes with me today. If you enjoyed it, please hit subscribe so that the best of the show keeps landing in your feed.

17:37Then head over to heroic.us. That's heroic.us where you'll find the full library of wisdom I've created over the last 20 years. As well as the app, advanced training programs, coaching. And everything else we've built to help you optimize your life, actualize your potential and live heroically. It is day one. We are all in. Let's go.