“The best thing” Mel Robbins has made began with a stressful moment on his son's graduation night.
The best -selling author, former lawyer and host of one of the most Popular podcasts He is talking about his latest book, “The Let Them Theory: a tool that changes the life of which millions of people can't stop talking” (there is House).
The book, which demystifies the ancient concepts of stoicism, Buddhism and Greek philosophy for the modern, plugged and multitasking public, emerged that night, when Robbins says he was “being a complete control monster” and “micrognizing every detail.”
The help of the shelf is a well -being column where we interviewed researchers, thinkers and writers about their last books, all with the aim of learning to live a more complete life.
I was dying for the lack of teenagers dinner plans and the fact that they were raining and could appear in the soaked dance. He was on his phone and shouted other parents and tried to take control of the situation when his daughter repeatedly insisted that he let the children do it in their own way.
Let them grab tacos instead of going to a restaurant. Let them ruin their shoes in the rain. “It's his graduation dance, not yours,” he told Robbins.
After “like the eleventh time,” Robbins finally sank, and she felt relaxed.
After sharing the experience with his 8.3 million Instagram followers, and then to his legions of subscribers of Podcast loyal, the enthusiastic response of it made it clear: he needed to write a book. In December 2024, thus “Let Them” came. In an interview with Robbins, Oprah Winfrey He called it “One of the best self -help books I've read.”
The Times spoke with Robbins about how simple phrases “leave them” and “let me” can help us feel less stressed and more empowered, and help us better navigate the challenges of appointments, family relationships and social networks.
This interview has been condensed and edited by clarity.
(Author of Mel Robbins of “The Let Them Theory” (Jenny Sherman))
How did you realize that “leave them” could work beyond graduation dance?
I am the type of person who has always wanted to know how to be more stoic and let it go, however, I have never been able to apply philosophy when I am already emotionally triggered. The way he hit me was in the graduation dance.
From that moment on, every time life was frustrating me or my husband did something annoying, or my mother, I began to say: “Leave them”, and I noticed that it was an immediate peace in a way that I had never experienced in my life.
All I am doing is reminding people what they know is true. The problem of trying to control things that are not yours to control, and how it simply creates stress for you, this is the fundamental law of human beings that have existed since the beginning of time.
There are two parts in the theory: Leave them and leave me. Why is it important to use both?
The second part is the most important part, because the second part is where you really indicate and remember that your life is your responsibility. When you say: “leave me”, you remember that in any situation, and this is literally teaching in “the search for man of man”, [Holocaust survivor] Viktor Frankl's work: the only thing in his control is his response to what is happening. You can control what you think about what is happening. You can choose what you do or not do in response. And you can choose how you process your emotions. That is what you can control and that is where your power is.
You say that the most difficult part of “let is” is to learn to feel raw emotions without reacting immediately. Many times, we are already reacting even before thinking “let them”. How do we do this?
I'm still working on it. I think you deserve a gold medal if you have the presence of mind to say: “I would like to be less reactive in the future.” Simply aware that it is a skill and would benefit you and bring more peace to your life, that is the first step. Part of the reason why we are so reactive is because we feel this feeling that we are trapped because we have given so much power to other people. Every time you say: “Leave them”, even if it is after the outbreak, you are still spreading the emotion. What I have found in my own life, because [I’m] A very emotional person is that the more I said, the more the distance between the impulse of turning someone is approaching and saying: “Leave them.” And you will reach a point where every time you say it, you are literally using it as a tool to catch that nervous system or emotional response.
How can we use “Let Things theory” to avoid this feeling of comparison and deposit that we often obtain from social networks?
It took me a long time to turn from this really insecure and scarcity mentality, where I really believed that if someone else had something he wanted, he meant they were winning and lost. I did not understand the beauty of the world in which we live, which are the things you want in life, either success or it is money or their happiness or their friendship, these things are in unlimited supply.
It took me too long to understand that I am not really competing against someone else in the game of life. I am playing with them. If my friend can do [something]So it is evidence that I, with work and time and patience, I can also do that for myself.
You begin to realize that other people are not on their way; You are doing that yourself. You are the one who uses the comparison to stop. You are the one who tells yourself that will never happen. You are the one who tells you that you are not good enough or that you cannot solve it. When you stop your way, you lose the fact that literally every person who has something that interests you or wants in life, can actually show you how to get it. They show you what is possible.
Let's talk about “leaving them” when it comes to appointments. You say they show us who they are, how receptive they are. But given today's digital panorama, how do we use “letals” and we are still present enough to allow flirting and mystery in relationships?
Is to understand what part of the dating cycle are Personally, instead of constantly trying to guess in which part of the cycle the other person is. If you are in that phase where you are knowing a lot of people, really keeping you focused on “I'm fine playing the field at this time.” But a point will come in the time when you are no longer interested in that, or where you tell yourself: “I really like this person and I don't want them to see other people.”
When you acknowledge that you are no longer in that space to want to be casual, the mistake that everyone makes is that we now give power to the other person that interests us. Now we become detectives trying to find out when they feel the same as us. That's when you start pursuing the potential. That's when you start analyzing too much everything you do. That's when you start clinging, and you begin to be weird, and you begin to pretend that things are still informal, but in secret you are looking to see if your hinge profile is still active.
That's where you lose power. Because the best thing you don't want to be in casual space is to have a conversation. They could say no, but that's how you respect yourself.
It seems to say “let them” and “leave me” requires self -confidence and self -pity. How do we get there?
You don't get there waiting for you to arrive. You have to use the tools. One of the reasons why we do not have these conversations, or even somewhat more subtle, as if you have a roommate or a sister or a father who is negative or passive-agrees and you have endured for years, is that courage is needed to tell yourself, “I don't want to have to deal with this, so I'm going to say,” let them “because I will stop trying to handle your mood.”
You need a lot of compassion and grace for yourself. And then you make the part of “Leave me”, which is: let me remind me that I can choose how much time and energy I spend with this person.
You say this is especially hard with loved ones. Why is that?
These people know you since you were born, and have expectations about who you are and who you should be and what should happen in this family.
Think about the family like a web. Any touch on the Reverbera website through all. Every time you start letting your family have your opinions, or allow you to have your fears, or allow them to have their expectations and allow them to have their concerns, what they have, because they have always had them about you, when you start saying “leave” and create space, you are expanding the space between the networks. People don't like that.
Then you say: let me live my life in a way that makes me happy; Let me follow a career that I really want to follow; Let me love the person I love. These decisions really force other people to have to deal with their own expectations and opinions. But that does not mean that you have to change what you are doing to appease them or fulfill your opinions.
How do we apply the theory without becoming passive or distant or waiting for a great explosion?
One of the things I see about people is: “Are I supposed to let people abuse me? Are I supposed to let my respect be missing?” I am like, no, that is probably happening right now. Because we, especially in families and with loved ones, explain a bad, disrespectful and abusive behavior.
(Maggie Chiang / For the Times)
If we are in a family system or in a relationship in which there has been a cycle of emotional abuse or a cycle of narcissism, psychology is very, very challenging, because you are still clinging to the hope that someone will change. We maintain a living fantasy in our heads instead of learning to live with reality in front of us. You begin to realize, every time you say “let them” and “leave me”, that power is not in what other people are doing. Power is in its values and how it responds.
Take food
From “Let Them theory”
