Never miss a talk! SUBSCRIBE to the TEDx channel: http://bit.ly/1FAg8hB

Mel Robbins is a married working mother of three, an ivy-educated criminal lawyer, and one of the top career and relationship experts in America.  Widely respected for her grab-'em-by-the-collar advice and tough love, Robbins drills through the mental clutter that stands between people and what they want.  Her approach is smart, effective and entertaining. Five days a week, Mel hosts her own syndicated radio show The Mel Robbins Show, discussing hot topics and giving advice to callers across America.  She is starring in a new series, In-Laws, airing this summer on A&E. In addition, she writes a monthly column for Success Magazine, is a former CNBC contributor and is the co-founder of Advice for Living, Inc., which develops products and television programming with experts in the wellness, health, relationship and career categories.

Most nights, once the kids are in bed, you'll find Mel at home with a bourbon on the rocks and her Australian Shepherd at her feet, writing about life, love and everything else on her award-winning blog: www.melrobbins.com

event video by: http://repertoireproductions.com/

Bigger welcome, hello San Francisco, TEDx, oh my God, blinding light.

is Mel Robbins, and for the last 17 years I have done nothing but help people get everything that they want.

And so I've done it in the courtroom, in the boardroom, in the bedroom, in people's living room, whatever room you want to be in, if I'm there, I will help you get whatever you want by any means necessary.

5 days a week, I go live in 40 cities and I talk to men and women across America who feel stuck.

Do you know that a third of Americans feel dissatisfied with their lives right now?

And I've come face to face with it in this new show that I'm doing, which is also insane.

You guessed it, who are at war with their in-laws.

And I get people to stop arguing about the donuts and who's hosting Thanksgiving dinner and talk about the real stuff.

And that's what I want to talk to you about.

I'm going to tell you everything I know in less than 18 minutes About how to get what you want?

So I want you to take a millisecond right now, and I want you to think about what you want You and I want you to be selfish screw Simon and the we thing this is about me right now

What do you want and here's the deal I don't want it to sound good to other people.

Being healthy will not get your ass on a treadmill.

Losing your man boobs So you could hook up with somebody?

So we're going to be talking about how you get what you want.

And frankly, getting what you want is simple.

In fact, if you think about it, we live in the most amazing moment in time.

So that thing that you have up here, whatever it may be, you want to use healthy eating to cure your diabetes, you want to figure out how to take care of the elders and start

a new hospice center, you want to move to Africa and build a school, guess what?

You could walk into a bookstore right now and buy at least 10 books written by credentialed experts on how the hell you do it.

You could Google it and you could probably find at least, I don't know, a thousand blogs documenting the step by step by step transformation that somebody else is already doing.

You can find anybody online and cyberstalk them.

You can just walk in their footsteps and let them.

You know, just use the science of drafting.

Follow what everyone else has done, because somebody else is already doing it.

When you have all the information that you need, you have the contacts that you need, there are probably free tools online that allow you to start a business or join a group or do whatever the heck you want.

Shut the front door, you know what I'm talking about?

And I honestly don't understand what the appeal is of the word.

I mean, you don't sound smart when you say it.

And it's really not expressing how you really feel.

It's sort of a cheap, you know, shot to take.

And of course, I'm talking about the word fine.

Feeling like roommates with your spouse, and you're fine?

You haven't had sex in 4 months, you're fine?

But see, here's the deal with saying that you're fine.

Because if you're fine, you don't have to do anything about it.

But when you think about this word fine, it just makes me so angry.

at a conference about being alive and you're going to describe the experience of being alive as fine?

And this not only goes for the social construct, oh, I don't want to burden you

with the fact that I hate my life, or, you know, hey, I'm amazing, but

The bigger issue, the bigger issue with fine is that you say it to yourself.

That thing that you want, I guarantee you, you've convinced yourself that you're fine not having it.

It's the areas in your life where you've given up, where you've said, oh, I'm fine.

My mom's never going to change, so I just can't have that conversation.

You know, we've got to wait until the kids graduate before we get divorced, so we'll just sleep in separate bedrooms.

I can barely pay my bills, but whatever, it's hard to get a job.

And 1 of the reasons why this word also just annoys me so much is scientists have calculated.

Scientists have calculated the odds of you being born.

know, you guys standing up, you want to sit down for this.

They've crunched the numbers on you being born.

And they took into account all of the wars, and the natural disasters, and the dinosaurs, and everything else.

And do you realize that the odds, the odds of you, yeah, right here, put your computer away, stand up for me, Doug.

So the odds of Doug here, turn around, say hi to everybody.

The odds, yeah, of Doug, Doug being born, at the moment in time he was born, to the parents you were born to with the DNA structure that you have,

You have life-changing ideas for a reason, and it's not to torture yourself.

You know, Christine was right when she said all of you could be on stage, Because all of you, we're all in this category.

All day long you have ideas that could change your life, that could change the world, that could change the way that you feel.

Because we all have, I love to use the analogy, the inner snooze button.

You have these amazing ideas that bubble up, right?

You've been watching people all day, and I guarantee you, like, ping pong balls, boom, boom, boom, boom, boom, boom, boom, boom, boom, boom, you've got

What's the first decision you made this morning?

If you're lucky, you've got somebody that you love next to you.

Or in my case, I've got my husband and my 2 kids and possibly the dog.

And the reason why I'm bringing up this first decision that you made today, and the inner snooze alarm, is because in any area of your life that you want to change.

That's what they call the force required to get you to change from what you're doing on autopilot to do something new.

You think you're so fancy, I know you're attending TED.

Tomorrow morning, set your alarm for 30 minutes earlier.

And then when it goes off, take those sheets, throw them off, and stand up and start your day.

No snooze, no delay, no I'll just wait here for 5 seconds because Mel's not standing here?

And the reason why I want you to do it is because you will come face to face with the physical, and I mean physical, force that's required to change your behavior.

Do you think that somebody who needs to lose weight ever feels like going on a diet?

they ever feel like eating boiled chicken and peas

The activation energy required to get your ass away from your computer and out your front door to go on the walk you said that you were going to go on is the exact same amount of force that it takes you to push yourself out of

Nobody tells you that it's now going to be your job to parent yourself.

And by parent yourself, I mean it's your job to make yourself do the crap you don't want to do, So you can be everything that you're supposed to be.

And you're so damn busy waiting to feel like it.

My son never feels like getting off his DS.

As parents, and you were a kid, your parents make you do the things you don't feel like doing, because you won't, Ever.

And even when you get good at something, you'll figure out something else you don't want to do.

And then you'll plateau out and you'll get bored and you'll

It's very, very simple to get what you want.

And the reason why I use the word force, when Roz is up here and talking about the emotion tracking and she had the picture of the 2 sides of the brain, I look at the brain the exact same way.

Only I describe 1 side of your brain as autopilot and the other side as emergency brake.

And guess which 1 your brain likes better?

You've had the experience where you've driven to work, right?

And you get there like, oh my god, I don't remember driving here.

And the problem with your mind is that any time you do anything that's different from your normal routine Guess what your brain does emergency brake and It has that reaction for everything Everything you walk into the kitchen and you see everybody's left their breakfast dishes for you.

And you think for the hundredth time, I'm going to kill them.

In fact, I'm going to leave them here and I'm going to make them do it.

But that's not your normal routine, is it?

I'll just load it and be pissed and then not have sex.

force, anything that's a break from your routine is

And if you think about your life, it's kind of funny because we are kids, and then we become adults, and we spend so much time trying to push our life into some sort of stable routine.

You wake up at, what, the same time every day?

You drive to work the same way you show Up at work you look busy You avoid making calls you update Facebook you attend a meeting and doodle the whole time you go back and update Facebook you make plans For the evening you look busy some more Then you drive home the same way, eat largely the same dinner or, you know, variety of it.

You watch the same kind of media and then you go to bed and do the same thing all over again.

I have this theory about why people get stuck in life.

So most of you have probably taken your basic Psych 101 class, and you've bumped into Andrew Maslow's hierarchy of needs.

Well, your body is kind of cool, because you have these basic needs.

And your body is wired to send you signals.

I mean if you need food, what do you feel?

I think when you feel stuck or dissatisfied in your life, it's a signal.

And it's not a signal that your life is broken.

It's a signal that 1 of your most basic needs are not being met.

Everything about your life, about your body, grows.

Your cells regenerate, your hair, your nails.

And your soul needs exploration and growth.

And the only way you'll get it is by forcing yourself to be uncomfortable.

Forcing yourself to get outside, out of your head, thank you.

If you're in your head, you're behind enemy lines.

In fact, if I put a speaker on it and we broadcast what you say to yourself, we would institutionalize you.

You would not hang out with people that talk to you the way you talk to yourself.

Your feelings, your feelings are screwing you.

And if you listen to how you feel when it comes to what you want, you will not get it.

And you need to get outside your comfort zone.

It's about getting outside your comfort zone.

Those first 3 seconds when you push yourself out of bed, they blow.

Those first 3 seconds when you're sitting here in a stadium like this and somebody says, get up and come dance,

That experience that you had where you had the impulse to do it, and then you didn't do the activation energy required to force yourself, your emergency brake got pulled.

I'm not going up with those crazy people.

I don't know, anyway, anyway, anyway, anyway, anyway.

Well, what happened for me is I came up and I bumped into Rachel, and then we started talking.

That's where the 1 and 400 trillion exists.

So everything I do, 000, wait, okay, this is the last part, sorry.


Speaker 0: Bigger welcome, hello San Francisco, TEDx, oh my God, blinding light. Hi everybody, how are you? Fine, oh my gosh. Okay, so my name

Speaker 1: is Mel Robbins, and for the last 17 years I have done nothing but help people get everything that they want. Within reason, my husband's here. And so I've done it in the courtroom, in the boardroom, in the bedroom, in people's living room, whatever room you want to be in, if I'm there, I will help you get whatever you want by any means necessary.

Speaker 2: For the last 3 years,

Speaker 1: I host a syndicated radio show. 5 days a week, I go live in 40 cities and I talk to men and women across America who feel stuck. Do you know that a third of Americans feel dissatisfied with their lives right now?

Speaker 2: That is a hundred million people. That's insane.

Speaker 1: And I've come face to face with it in this new show that I'm doing, which is also insane. It's called In-Laws. I move in with families across America. You guessed it, who are at war with their in-laws. We move them into the same house.

I verbally assassinate everybody. We open up Pandora's box. And I get people to stop arguing about the donuts and who's hosting Thanksgiving dinner and talk about the real stuff. And that's what I want to talk to you about. I'm here for you.

I'm going to tell you everything I know in less than 18 minutes About how to get what you want?

Speaker 2: So I want you to take a millisecond right now, and I want you to think about what you want You and I want you to be selfish screw Simon and the we thing this is about me right now

Speaker 1: Sorry Simon

Speaker 2: What do you want and here's the deal I don't want it to sound good to other people. Being healthy will not get your ass on a treadmill. Losing your man boobs So you could hook up with somebody? Now that's motivation. So I want to know, what do you want?

Do you want to lose weight? Do you want to triple your income? Do you want to start a non-profit? Do you want to find love? What is it?

Get it right here. You know what it is. Don't analyze it to death. Just pick something. That's part of the problem.

You won't pick.

Speaker 1: So we're going to be talking about how you get what you want. And frankly, getting what you want is simple. But notice I didn't say it was easy. It's very simple. In fact, if you think about it, we live in the most amazing moment in time.

So that thing that you have up here, whatever it may be, you want to use healthy eating to cure your diabetes, you want to figure out how to take care of the elders and start

Speaker 2: a new hospice center, you want to move to Africa and build a school, guess what? You could walk into a bookstore right now and buy at least 10 books written by credentialed experts on how the hell you do it. You could Google it and you could probably find at least, I don't know, a thousand blogs documenting the step by step by step transformation that somebody else is already doing. You can find anybody online and cyberstalk them. You can just walk in their footsteps and let them.

You know, just use the science of drafting. Follow what everyone else has done, because somebody else is already doing it. So why Don't you have what you want? When you have all the information that you need, you have the contacts that you need, there are probably free tools online that allow you to start a business or join a group or do whatever the heck you want.

Speaker 1: It all comes down to 1 word. Shut the front door, you know what I'm talking about? The F-bomb. It's everywhere. You hear it all the time.

And I honestly don't understand what the appeal is of the word. I mean, you don't sound smart when you say it. And it's really not expressing how you really feel. It's sort of a cheap, you know, shot to take. And of course, I'm talking about the word fine.

How you doing? I'm fine.

Speaker 2: Really? You are? Dragging around those extra 40 pounds? You're fine? Feeling like roommates with your spouse, and you're fine?

Speaker 1: You haven't had sex in 4 months, you're fine? Really? I don't think so. But see, here's the deal with saying that you're fine. It's actually genius.

Because if you're fine, you don't have to do anything about it.

Speaker 2: But when you think about this word fine, it just makes me so angry. I mean, here we are

Speaker 1: at a conference about being alive and you're going to describe the experience of being alive as fine? What a flimsy and feeble word. If you're crappy, say

Speaker 2: you're crappy. If you're amazing, say you're amazing. Tell the truth. And this not only goes for the social construct, oh, I don't want to burden you

Speaker 1: with the fact that I hate my life, or, you know, hey, I'm amazing, but

Speaker 2: that would make you feel terrible. The bigger issue, the bigger issue with fine is that you say it to yourself.

Speaker 1: That thing that you want, I guarantee you, you've convinced yourself that you're fine not having it. That's why you're not pushing yourself. It's the areas in your life where you've given up, where you've said, oh, I'm fine. My mom's never going to change, so I just can't have that conversation. I'm fine.

You know, we've got to wait until the kids graduate before we get divorced, so we'll just sleep in separate bedrooms. I'm fine. I lost my job. I can barely pay my bills, but whatever, it's hard to get a job. And 1 of the reasons why this word also just annoys me so much is scientists have calculated.

Yeah, I'm coming down. Scientists have calculated the odds of you being born. That's right. They've crunched the numbers. I see you up there.

They have

Speaker 2: crunched the numbers on you. Yeah, I

Speaker 1: know, you guys standing up, you want to sit down for this. They've crunched the numbers on you being born. And they took into account all of the wars, and the natural disasters, and the dinosaurs, and everything else. And do you realize that the odds, the odds of you, yeah, right here, put your computer away, stand up for me, Doug.

Speaker 2: So the odds of Doug here, turn around, say hi to everybody. The odds, yeah, of Doug, Doug being born, at the moment in time he was born, to the parents you were born to with the DNA structure that you have,

Speaker 0: 100,

Speaker 2: or no, 1 in 400 trillion. Isn't that amazing? I'm so lucky. Yes. You're not fine.

You're fantastic. You have life-changing ideas for a reason, and it's not to torture yourself. Thank you. Thank you, Doug. You know, Christine was right when she said all of you could be on stage, Because all of you, we're all in this category.

1 and 400000000000000.

Speaker 1: All day long you have ideas that could change your life, that could change the world, that could change the way that you feel. And what do you do with them? Nothing. Hopefully I won't moon you.

Speaker 0: You didn't pay for that.

Speaker 2: And I want you to

Speaker 1: just think for a minute. Because we all have, I love to use the analogy, the inner snooze button. You have these amazing ideas that bubble up, right? You've been watching people all day, and I guarantee you, like, ping pong balls, boom, boom, boom, boom, boom, boom, boom, boom, boom, boom, you've got

Speaker 2: an idea, we should do this, we

Speaker 1: should do that, blah, blah, blah, blah. And every time you have an idea, what do

Speaker 2: you do? Boop, hit the snooze. What's the first decision you made this morning?

Speaker 1: I bet it was to go back to bed.

Speaker 2: Yeah, bro, the first decision today.

Speaker 1: I'm 101 and 400 trillion. I'm going to

Speaker 2: go back to sleep. And I get it. Your bed is comfortable. It's cozy. It's warm.

If you're lucky, you've got somebody that you love next to you. Or in my case, I've got my husband and my 2 kids and possibly the dog.

Speaker 1: And the reason why I'm bringing up this first decision that you made today, and the inner snooze alarm, is because in any area of your life that you want to change. Any. There's 1 fact that you need to know. Just 1. You're never going to feel like it.

Ever. No one's coming. Motivation isn't happening. You're never going to feel like it. Scientists call it activation energy.

That's what they call the force required to get you to change from what you're doing on autopilot to do something new. So try this test tomorrow. You think you're so fancy, I know you're attending TED.

Speaker 2: Try this. Tomorrow morning, set your alarm for 30 minutes earlier.

Speaker 1: And then when it goes off, take those sheets, throw them off, and stand up and start your day. No snooze, no delay, no I'll just wait here for 5 seconds because Mel's not standing here? Do it. And the reason why I want you to do it is because you will come face to face with the physical, and I mean physical, force that's required to change your behavior. Do you think that somebody who needs to lose weight ever feels like going on a diet?

Of course not! Do you think

Speaker 0: they ever feel like eating boiled chicken and peas

Speaker 2: instead of a croissant? I don't think so. The activation energy required to get your ass away from your computer and out your front door to go on the walk you said that you were going to go on is the exact same amount of force that it takes you to push yourself out of

Speaker 1: a warm bed and into a cold room. What's interesting about being an adult

Speaker 2: is that when you become

Speaker 0: 18,

Speaker 1: Nobody tells you that it's now going to be your job to parent yourself. And by parent yourself, I mean it's your job to make yourself do the crap you don't want to do, So you can be everything that you're supposed to be. And you're so damn busy waiting to feel like it. And you're never going to. My son never feels like getting off his DS.

That's my job. Get off the damn DS.

Speaker 2: Kendall, clean up the Barbies. If you're going to have a nude party in

Speaker 0: my bathroom, at least clean it up.

Speaker 2: God, chew with your mouth closed.

Speaker 0: We're not in a barn for crying out loud.

Speaker 1: All right, dinner's coming. Get out of the pantry.

Speaker 2: As parents, and you were a kid, your parents make you do the things you don't feel like doing, because you won't, Ever. Not now, not then, not ever. And even when you get good at something, you'll figure out something else you don't want to do. And then you'll plateau out and you'll get bored and you'll

Speaker 1: be like, I hate this job,

Speaker 2: this is boring. But will you look for a

Speaker 1: new 1? No. You'll just bitch about that 1. It's very, very simple to get what you want. But it's not easy.

Speaker 2: You have to force yourself.

Speaker 1: And I mean force. And the reason why I use the word force, when Roz is up here and talking about the emotion tracking and she had the picture of the 2 sides of the brain, I look at the brain the exact same way. Only I describe 1 side of your brain as autopilot and the other side as emergency brake. That's the only 2 speeds you get. Autopilot, emergency brake.

And guess which 1 your brain likes better? Autopilot. You've had the experience where you've driven to work, right? And you get there like, oh my god, I don't remember driving here.

Speaker 2: You weren't drunk. That was your brain on autopilot. It was functioning just at this level. And the problem with your mind is that any time you do anything that's different from your normal routine Guess what your brain does emergency brake and It has that reaction for everything Everything you walk into the kitchen and you see everybody's left their breakfast dishes for you. And you think for the hundredth time, I'm going to kill them.

In fact, I'm going to leave them here and I'm going to make them do it. But that's not your normal routine, is it? So your mind goes, emergency break!

Speaker 1: And you go right into autopilot. I'll just load it and be pissed and then not have sex. That's what I'm going to do.

Speaker 0: So when I say

Speaker 2: force, anything that's a break from your routine is

Speaker 1: going to require force. And if you think about your life, it's kind of funny because we are kids, and then we become adults, and we spend so much time trying to push our life into some sort of stable routine. And then we grow bored of it. You wake up at, what, the same time every day? You have largely the same breakfast.

You drive to work the same way you show Up at work you look busy You avoid making calls you update Facebook you attend a meeting and doodle the whole time you go back and update Facebook you make plans For the evening you look busy some more Then you drive home the same way, eat largely the same dinner or, you know, variety of it. You watch the same kind of media and then you go to bed and do the same thing all over again. No wonder you're bored out of your mind. It's the routine that's killing you. I have this theory about why people get stuck in life.

So most of you have probably taken your basic Psych 101 class, and you've bumped into Andrew Maslow's hierarchy of needs. Well, your body is kind of cool, because you have these basic needs. And your body is wired to send you signals. If you are hungry, or

Speaker 2: I mean if you need food, what do you feel? If you need water, what do

Speaker 1: you feel? If you need sex, What do you feel? Thank you. I think when you feel stuck or dissatisfied in your life, it's a signal. And it's not a signal that your life is broken.

It's a signal that 1 of your most basic needs are not being met. Your need for exploration. Everything about your life, about your body, grows. Your cells regenerate, your hair, your nails. Everything grows for your entire life.

And your soul needs exploration and growth. And the only way you'll get it is by forcing yourself to be uncomfortable. Forcing yourself to get outside, out of your head, thank you.

Speaker 2: If you're in your head, you're behind enemy lines.

Speaker 1: That is not God talking, okay? It's not.

Speaker 2: In fact, if I put a speaker on it and we broadcast what you say to yourself, we would institutionalize you. You would not hang out with people that talk to you the way you talk to yourself. So get out of your head. Your feelings, your feelings are screwing you. I don't care how you feel.

I care about what you want. And if you listen to how you feel when it comes to what you want, you will not get it.

Speaker 1: Because you will never feel like it. And you need to get outside your comfort zone. It's not about taking risks. It's about getting outside your comfort zone. Those first 3 seconds when you push yourself out of bed, they blow.

But once you're up, It's great.

Speaker 2: Those first 3 seconds when you're sitting here in a stadium like this and somebody says, get up and come dance,

Speaker 1: and you think, oh, I should do that. And you're like, oh. That experience that you had where you had the impulse to do it, and then you didn't do the activation energy required to force yourself, your emergency brake got pulled. I'm sitting right here. I'm not going up with those crazy people.

I don't like to dance. I don't know, anyway, anyway, anyway, anyway, anyway. Well, what happened for me is I came up and I bumped into Rachel, and then we started talking. And next thing you know, she's tweeting. And we're friends.

And boom, get outside. That's where the magic is. That's where the 1 and 400 trillion exists.

Speaker 2: So everything I do, 000, wait, okay, this is the last part, sorry. So 1 more thing that you can use. I call it

Speaker 1: the 5 second rule. Your mind can process a facial expression in

Speaker 0: 33

Speaker 1: milliseconds. It can move pretty damn quick. The other thing that it does very quickly is if you have 1 of those little impulses that are pulling you, if you don't marry it with an action within 5 second, you pull the emergency brake and kill the idea. Kill it. If you have the impulse to get up and come dance while the band is playing.

If you don't stand up in 5 seconds, you're going to pull the emergency brake. If you have an impulse about you were inspired by somebody's speech today, and you don't do something within 5 seconds, write a note, send yourself a text. Anything physical to marry it with the idea, you will pull the emergency brake and kill the idea. Your problem isn't ideas. Your problem is you don't act on them.

You kill them. It's not my fault. It's not anybody's fault. You're doing it to yourself. Stop it.

I'm counting on you.

Speaker 0: $1.4

Speaker 2: trillion. You got stuff to do. And it's not going to happen in your head. So I want you to practice this today. When we go

Speaker 1: off to party, thank God it's coming soon because I think we all could use a cocktail. I want you to practice the five-second rule. You see somebody and you think they have that impulse, they look interesting. Walk over there. You were inspired by somebody and

Speaker 2: you have a request, make it. That's why you're here.

Speaker 1: Experiment with it and I think you'll be shocked about what happens. And 1 more thing, I want you to know that everything that I do, whether it's the radio show or the television show or the book that I wrote or the column, it's for you. And if there is anything that I can do, if I can do anything to make you do the things you don't want to do so you can have what you want, I will do it. But you need to walk over, you need to open your mouth, and you need to make the request. You got it?

Good. Go do it. Thank you. Thank you.

Speaker 0: Yes. Stand up. You have the impulse. Stand up. Thank you.

See all TEDx Talks transcripts on Youtube

How to stop screwing yourself over | Mel Robbins | TEDxSF