Mel Robbins: How to Use the ‘Let Them Theory’ (A Life Changing Mindset Hack That 15 Million People Can’t Stop Talking About)

Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:00):
Every human being has a hard wired need to be
in control of everything. There's three things in your control JA,
what you think, what you do or don't do, and
how you process your emotions. If you embrace the skill,
you're going to be shocked.

Speaker 2 (00:13):
This is by far one of the best self helpe
books I've ever read.

Speaker 1 (00:18):
Your Mind and Soul are in for a Tree, The
Queen of grounded science backed personal development Mail Robbist.

Speaker 2 (00:28):
Work has been seen as the number one cause of stress.

Speaker 1 (00:32):
You have a customer that's really rude, you lose a
big account, you get passed over for something. As you
notice the stress come up, Jay, You're simply going to
say let them. If you focus and try to manage
things that are never going to be within your control,
it only creates stress, anxiety, and frustration for you.

Speaker 2 (00:51):
Imagine, for every thought you had about that person, you
have to pay them a dollar. That's how much energy,
time and money is being wasted.

Speaker 1 (01:00):
You have no idea right now how much time and
energy is being wasted or drained because of other people's
behavior or your expectations about how you wish things would go.
This is I think my legacy. I think that this
is the thing I was supposed to figure out and
leave the world.

Speaker 2 (01:22):
The number one health and wellness podcast, Jay Setty Jay Setty.
If you're struggling right now with things you can't control,
this episode is for you. If you're someone who's struggling
at work and negative people and toxic culture, this episode's
for you. If you're someone who's struggling with your family

(01:42):
members and your friends and setting boundaries, these episodes for you. So,
mel where I want to start is work has been
seen as the number one cause of stress. You write
about this book in people's lives. How can they let
them theory help people in the place that causes then
the most stress.

Speaker 1 (02:01):
It's an excellent question. So first, let me no pun intended.
Let me explain the theory. So in case you haven't
bumped into this online, the theory is very simple. It
is a mindset tool that instantly helps you identify what's
in your control and what's not in your control. The
reason why this is important is because any psychologists will

(02:23):
tell you that if you focus and try to manage
things that are never going to be within your control,
it only creates stress, anxiety, and frustration for you. When
you take the context of work. There is so much
inside your day to day life at work that is irritating.
It is stressful. It is annoying from the endless meetings

(02:46):
and no time to get work done to if you're
somebody that is working in a retail store, you're doing
shift work. You don't have control over what shifts. You
get to feeling like you don't have the chance for promotion.
It is just endless. And the way that you're going
to use the let them theory is anytime something is
happening at work that stresses you out, you have a
customer that's really rude, you lose a big account, you

(03:08):
get passed over for something, your idea gets dismissed in
a work meeting. As you notice the stress come up, Jay,
you're simply going to say, let them. Let my boss
be in a bad mood, let my colleague take credit,
let the customer be rude to me. And here's the thing.
This sounds almost like you're being a doormat and you're
being passive. It's the exact opposite. When you say let them,

(03:31):
you're recognizing that the situation right now that has just
happened has already happened, and that there is no reason
to allow it to stress you out. When you allow
your boss's mood to stress you out or make you nervous,
you're giving power to your boss that they do not deserve,
and so you're going to say let them. When you

(03:54):
allow a customer that is rude or inconsiderate to make
you feel bad about yourself, or to make you upset,
or to rattle you, you just gave this rude person
power over you. When you say let them, something interesting happens.
First of all, you detach. Second, you feel almost superior.

(04:14):
It's this weird thing because I don't think this is
the same thing as saying.

Speaker 2 (04:17):
Let it go.

Speaker 1 (04:18):
You're a very grounded person. Jay, you strike me as
the kind of person that can let anything go.

Speaker 2 (04:24):
Ha me.

Speaker 1 (04:27):
Whenever somebody would say to me, mel I know, I
know it's not fair, which just happened at work. You
gotta let it go, I'd be like, but I feel
like I lost. I feel like I now have to
be defeated. I feel more like a doormat. If somebody
tells me to let something go.

Speaker 2 (04:40):
What's the difference between let it go and let them?

Speaker 1 (04:43):
For me, when I say let them, I get a
jolt to superiority because I'm like, I can see that
my boss is kind of a jerk, and I'm just
going to let them be a jerk, and I rise
above it. And I feel a little judgy. I mean,
if I'm being perfectly honest, I mean, this is why
people get this tattooed on their bodies. Because when you
say that word let them, or you see it on
your arm, what happens is you no longer allowed a

(05:05):
rude colleague or something frustrating at work to derail your day.
You say let them, and you rise above it, and
you kind of go, I see what's happening here. I'm
going to allow this without allowing it. But then there's
a second part, Jay, and this is the most important part,
and it's the part that people do not tattoo on
themselves because it's the harder part. And the second part

(05:28):
of this theory is saying yourself, let me, let me
remind myself that in life, there are always three things
I can control. That's where my power is. My power
is not in managing my boss or in trying to
deal with some customer that just doesn't want to be
in an okay mood, and doesn't want to be calmed down.

(05:49):
They want to be right. They want to take it
out on you. So you're gonna let them. But then
you've created this boundary you rise above. I'm gonna just
let you be upset here. I'm not gonna let it
impact me. And then you say let me. And what
you're reminding yourself of is there's three things in your control.
Ja what you think, next, what you do or don't do,
and oftentimes not doing something. It's the more powerful mood

(06:11):
and how you process your emotions. Those are the three
things that are always in your control. And when you say,
let me take responsibility right now for how I'm going
to respond to this. And the word responsibility, after all,
is the ability to respond right. And so when you
say let me, and you remember, I can think what

(06:33):
I want about this, I can act in response to this,
and I can process my emotions and either allow them
to rise and fall and stay steady and calm, or
you know, you can certainly irrupt if you want to.
But why would you want to, because then that means
you've given power to somebody else.

Speaker 2 (06:50):
Why are we so distracted and obsessed with things we
can't control. I'm sure, we all have a friend or
know someone who knows they need to be working on
their business, but they're talking about the news. They know
they should be writing their book, but they're focused on
talking about politics. They know they should be building the

(07:12):
next stage in their career or whatever it may be,
trying to get that promotion, work towards that next threshold
or whatever they're trying to achieve, but they're distracted by
talking about all the people, all the things, all the
ideas that they can do nothing about. Why are we
so addicted to it?

Speaker 1 (07:28):
Well, I think there's two reasons, because your question is
about two different things. One is why are we focused
on things we can't control? And the other one is
sort of like why are we distracted? And they're interconnected.
So let's just address the issue of control. Every human
being has a hard wired need to be in control
of everything because being in control is what makes you

(07:50):
feel safe. So I need to feel in control of
my thoughts, my decisions, my environment, my future. And the
problem is so do you. But part of the need
for control jay extends beyond me, because if you're doing
something that makes me annoyed or irritated or worried, about you.

(08:12):
Now I'm feeling a little unsafer, worried because of what
you're doing, and so now I'm going to want to
control you so that I feel better. And so it
is a fundamental, hardwired need inside every human being you know,
to be in control of yourself. And yet the second
we step across the line and we try to control

(08:33):
someone else, whether it's I think you should be healthier,
I think you should be more motivated. I wish you
wouldn't like leave the kleenexes when you're blowing your nose
on the whatever it is that you wish someone else
would do. I wish my boss wouldn't talk in every
meeting and would give a chance for us to talk.
All of that desire for someone else to change. Is
you attempting to control the uncontrollable. And so I think

(08:56):
one of the reasons why we do this is because
we're hardwired to do it. And the problem becomes that
the second I try to control you, Jay, it's not
going to motivate you to do what I want you
to do. It's going to bump up against your need
for your own control. So you're going to push back
against me absolutely, And so you also asked about distraction.
I think the reason why we're so distracted is because

(09:18):
if you spend so much time and energy allowing the
world around you to stress you out and drain your energy,
you are now susceptible to being hijacked by meaningless things
that are not important to you. And this is one
of the biggest discoveries that I've made about using the
let them theory and researching it has spread around the world,
is that the single biggest benefit is that you get

(09:41):
time and energy back. You have no idea right now
how much time and energy is being wasted or drained
because of other people's behavior or your expectations about how
you wish things would go. And once you start noticing
all of these little moments all day long, it's like
a death by a thousand cus. Do you want to
know why you're too tired? You want to know why
you're overwhelmed, You want to know why you're stressed out,

(10:03):
you want to know why you have no time for yourself.
It's because of the power you give to other people's opinions,
their emotions, their immature behavior. It's the ways in which
you are turning people into a problem in your life.
And here's the sad fact. The sad fact is other
people should be the greatest source of happiness and connection

(10:25):
and inspiration. But if you don't truly learn this skill
that we're going to talk about today of focusing on
what you can control and letting people be who they are,
letting things play out as they're playing out, and then
bringing the power back in house, and really focusing on

(10:47):
how you responded. If you embrace this skill, you're going
to be shocked. You're going to be shocked by how
much time you've wasted, I'm not kidding. Yeah, And you're
going to be shocked jay by the fact that you've
allowed stupid things and people's drama to drain you. And
that's why I also think we're so susceptible to distraction

(11:10):
because we've given so much power away all day long.
Because here's the truth. I'll give you an example when
I first discovered this and I started playing around with it.
The very first way that I used it after I
discovered it was I was standing in line and we've
all been at the grocery store when it's like six
people deep and there's one person working, and it's like, beep, beep,

(11:31):
beep and you start feeling that wave right and immediately
the wave of stress takes over because you're now irritated
by what's happening. And what just happens when you start
reacting to that and you allow that stress wave to
start to take over, is that you're giving power to

(11:51):
something outside of you. Now, I can't control what's happening
right now, so why on earth would I allow it
to brain my energy? Because as it comes up, Jay,
what do I then do? I then start talking to myself, Well,
this is ridiculous. Why have they not done an announcement
like I gotta get going here? Why are they not
bringing another Now I'm starting to believe, Jay, that I

(12:13):
can run a supermarket better than the people that are
running it. And then you, of course turn to the
person behind you and your role, like can you believe this?
And now this is the interesting part that I really
want everybody. I really want the person listening to embrace.
In that moment, you just gave away your energy and

(12:35):
you have a choice. When you say let them, you
instantly feel a release and then you say, let me
decide what I'm gonna do right now? Am I going
to I can leave the store. That's one thing I
can do. I could stand here and practice being present.
It's another thing I could do. I could because I

(12:56):
don't have time at the end of the day and
I'm always tired and I'm complaining that I'm lonely. I
could actually pick up the phone and call my grandmother.
I could text my friend Jayshetty because I've been thinking
about them. Like, you have so much power, but you're
going to burn through it in that line, and then
you're going to feel your stress activated, and then you're
going to get in the car and then somebody is
going to pull out in front of you, and then

(13:16):
you're going to like be stressed again. And then you're
going to walk into work and you're going to be
annoyed in some meeting because of what something somebody said,
and then that's going to hit you again an all
day long. Because you don't recognize how this stuff is
impacting you. That energy inside your body is slowly draining,
and this is why you're exhausted, and so simply starting

(13:39):
to use it, whether it's at work or it's just
in your daily life, to say, let them when you
notice that somebody else is irritating you or your sister
you know, is doing that annoying thing. Just letter, yeah,
let her.

Speaker 2 (13:52):
Be the example. That example was great, and I love
how you explain that difference between just how much you
notice how your whole life gets immersed in this tiny
thing where you now talk about it. I've thought about it.
If you were late somewhere, you're getting somewhere with some
struggle in trouble, and you had a bad journey getting somewhere,

(14:13):
you'll talk about it to everyone. You'll be like, oh, yeah,
this person cut us off in traffic, and then there
was this new driver that was figuring ou how to learn,
and then the cops were around. If you had the
best journey, easiest journey here you describe it in one sentence, right,
and we just get so absorbed. And so I love
that example. I want to paint in another scenario for
people to really understand the system. Let's say you have
a partner, boyfriend, girlfriend, maybe you're married to them, and

(14:36):
this person always turns up from work a little bit late.
They don't wash the dishes. You wake up in the morning,
the dishes are always still out there. There's a sense
that you've told them this urged you a million times?

Speaker 1 (14:50):
Did my husband ask you to ask me this question, Jake.

Speaker 2 (14:55):
He's amazing.

Speaker 1 (14:56):
Chris has your number, Chris.

Speaker 2 (15:00):
Yeah. And so I'm mean, I'm speaking from so much,
not direct personal experience, but personal ext winds in so
many ways.

Speaker 1 (15:06):
And you're saying this person's not changing. They haven't changed,
because it's the fundamental role everybody. Number one, You cannot
change another human being. It is impossible for you to
change somebody else. Now, you can influence them, but you
cannot change them. People only change if they feel like
it and if they can. And wanting and wishing is

(15:28):
a wonderful thing. Wanting and wishing somebody to be cleaner
and to pick up after themselves, Wanting your kids to
be more motivated, Wanting the people that you love to
take better care of themselves and to be healthier, to
date somebody that is normal and healthy instead of the
losers that treat them like crap. That's a beautiful thing
for you to want for other people, and you deserve

(15:49):
to do that, and you should do that. Wanting people
to change is not the problem. Wanting bigger possibilities for
people is not the problem. How we go about it is,
And so in this scenario that you're talking about is
a beautiful example because you have to say let them.
You see the dishes in the sink. It makes you

(16:09):
upset because you feel disrespected and that it's annoying, and
you have higher standards for cleanliness, which means you're probably
just going to do them anyway, and then you're going
to feel like you're really taking whatever for granted. But
you have to say let them. And one of the
reasons why is because number one, if this is a
long term, committed partnership, learning how to love somebody as

(16:33):
they are is a form of love that is deeply important.
And if you can't say let them in that moment,
you are going to get frustrated and angry, and then
you are going to come to the next part of
the let them theory with tremendous intensity and judgment and
that's not going to motivate change. What it does when

(16:56):
you judge somebody or you push against them, is it
actually creates it's resistance to change. So you have to
say let them because it allows you to detach from
your emotions and detach from judgment. Right, it is what
it is. I see what's happened I'm accepting the reality
of this.

Speaker 2 (17:13):
Let them.

Speaker 1 (17:14):
Then you come to the let me part. Is this
something that bothers you? And if it is, remember you
got three things. I can choose what I want to
think about this, and so you could think a good thought.
You could think, okay, good intention. They were probably super
busy this morning and they meant to do it later.
Let them Okay, I'm going to choose to believe that.
You could also then remind yourself. Let me remind myself

(17:36):
there's something I can do about this, right, And if
it's really important, what you need to do about this
is have a conversation. And by the way, Chris has
had this conversation with me a bazillion times. So if
you walk into our bathroom, Chris's bathroom probably looks like
your side of the sink, which is it's like a
zen seven star hotel Jay like, there's not a speck
on that man's like basin or whatever you call it.

(17:59):
You you look at mine, it looks like somebody tipped
over a Walgreens aisle on top of that thing. And
it drives Chris crazy. But what particularly drives them crazy
is when something migrates from my side to his side right.
And so he's asked me. He's asked me to please
keep my stuff over there. He has asked me to
please flatten cardboard boxes when they come in, don't please pack,
don't unpack them, and then stack them by the garage door,

(18:22):
as if I'm supposed to do it. And he's asked
me and asked me and ask me, and then I
forget well, he finally sat me down, Jay, And this
is to let me part. You have to take responsibility
for explaining to somebody what you need and the reason
why this is important to you. Because when Chris said
to me, I know you don't intend this, but this

(18:43):
is the impact Mal When I see the cardboard boxes stacked,
or I see your hair brush in fifteen products of
yours on my countertop, it actually makes me feel like
you think I'm the maid and we don't even have
a maid. Like it's just like it makes me feel
like you think it's my job to clean up after you,

(19:06):
and that doesn't make me feel loved. Now, when he
took the time, in a very calm way, to drop
into his values and communicate what he needed, something interesting
happens if you're in a committed, loving partnership and you're
with somebody who wants to do better and cares about you,
it taps into their intrinsic motivation to build new skills.

(19:30):
If you have that kind of conversation with somebody and
you explain how their behavior impacts you, whether it's their
drinking or it's the tone of their voice, or it's
the fact that they leave their stuff everywhere, or it's
that they insist that you spend every holiday with their
family and they have no interest in your whatever. The
issue is, if you sit somebody down and you take responsibility,

(19:51):
you've let them be and you've let them shown you
who they are, and then you say, let me sit
down and talk about this and take responsibility. I have
the ability to respond to this a mature adult, and
you actually express what you need and why, and that
person doesn't try. You have to let them. And here's why.
Their behavior is telling you the truth. Their behavior is

(20:15):
telling you what they care about and what their priorities are.
And if their behavior is telling you that your needs
are not a priority, you have to let them reveal
that because yes, because then you're going to come back
to the second part, which is let me ask myself,

(20:36):
is this kind of behavior from somebody what I deserve?
Is this what I'm willing to accept in somebody? Because again,
what do we also know? People only change when they
want to or they can. And you might be in
a situation where somebody would really love to change, but

(20:58):
they can't because they're dealing with some challenge right now,
or they don't have the skill yet. And you may decide,
if that's the case, to still love and accept the person.
But there may be times where you have had the
conversation and it is very clear they're capable of it,

(21:18):
they just won't do it. And what I find in
relationships where that sort of invisible distance and the frustration
and the resentment comes up is twofold number one. You
can't detach from your emotions and say let them and
really fully just let the person be who they are,
and you don't do the part let me where you
actually take responsibility for expressing in a mature way what

(21:41):
you need and how their behavior impacts you. And so
if you don't ever express what you need and how
it's impacting you, you're not actually giving somebody the opportunity
to build a skill or to change or to love
you the way that you need them to love you
so that you feel loved. The second mistake that I
see constantly is that you make the ask and then

(22:03):
the person doesn't do it, and then you start making
excuses and resentment builds, and you stay in something seeing
exactly who someone is wishing they would change, living up
here in your mind about the fantasy of what you wish.
This was refusing to accept the reality of what it
actually is.

Speaker 2 (22:25):
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(22:48):
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I can't wait to see you there. Tickets are on
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You've just unlocked a whole new meaning of let them
for me. How so I've always understood let them when
I've heard you speak about it, when I read the book,
this idea of let them be who they are, let

(23:11):
them act the way they want to act, let them
say and do whatever they want to do. I have
to let them. I have to keep that distance. What
you just unlocked for me, which I really want to,
you know, everyone to grapple with because I think it's
so powerful. Is this idea of let them also show
you who they are? Yes, And if they're showing you
who they are, let them be that person. Don't make

(23:33):
them the person you imagine them to be the one
you want them to be the one that you're wishing
and waiting and hoping for them to be. They are
that person. Yes, let them be that is Oh my gosh,
my mind is literally blown because that is so powerful.

Speaker 1 (23:46):
But you still have power. Jay, Here's the most important thing, everybody,
This is the most important thing. This is the epiphany
that I had too. Like, holy cow, I still get
to choose. I still get to choose use. I get
to choose how much time and energy I pour into this,
whether it's this issue, or it's this topic, or it's

(24:07):
this person. And here's how you know, if you can
actually love somebody for who they are and who they're not.
Can you end your complaining and bitching about it? Because
if you can't do that, then this is something you're
holding on too, and you're holding over the other person.
And if they're never going to change, you now have

(24:29):
a problem because the only thing that's going to make
the relationship better is either them hearing you and caring
enough and being able to adjust, or you being the
one to adjust, because it's your complaining about it that
is creating the friction and the resentment. And this is
not only with romantic relationships, Like when I think about

(24:52):
the broader applications of this for family, there are very
challenging people in my extended family. It's like everybody's family, right,
and so there's always one person in your life that
you wish there just wasn't drama with you, wish they
didn't have a challenging demeanor or personality. The let them
theory has fundamentally profoundly changed my relationship also with people

(25:16):
that have been difficult because when I say let them, like,
let's say you're talking you, we're talking about somebody who's
very narcissistic or dramatic or victim or they it's always
about them and very draining person to be around. Well,
part of the reason why they're draining is because you
brace and you get ready for it, and you allow

(25:37):
their energy to impact you. And I always find it funny,
Jay that, especially in families and at work, we allow
the most challenging person to have the biggest impact on
the whole system. So if you have one person that's
narcissistic in their personality style, or that is very very
dramatic and immature in their personality style, they're one. If

(26:00):
you imagine a spider web, right, I think about a
system of relationships like a spider web, and you're out
in the morning, the do's on it when you have
a challenging person, because we all tiptoe around this person,
that person's energy is like tap tap tap and shakes
all the do off. I believe the opposite is true,
especially after learning to let them theory, because there's been
people in my life, both in work life and in

(26:22):
my family life where when that person's around, I literally
shrink to eight years old. I'm dancing around their mood.
We all have had an experience like this. Maybe you're
thinking about a boss, or your mother, or your father
in law, or a brother or whomever, an adult child.
Right when I walk into these situations now and I say,

(26:43):
let them, let them be who they are. Why am
I making it my job to manage your mood? Why
am I pouring time and energy into this drama? Let
me manage my energy. Let me remind myself. I can
remove myself from any dinner table, any family text chain.

(27:03):
I can remove myself from an interview, a date, a conversation,
a relationship anytime I want. And I believe Jay that
the person that is the most peaceful and centered and powerful,
because you understand the power of your energy and your
thoughts and your actions, you actually have more power in

(27:24):
any family system and any office building, in any room
anywhere than the most challenging person.

Speaker 2 (27:30):
I can agree more. I couldn't agree more. I love that.
And I feel like when you start looking at your
energy and time, if you thought about it like money,
and this idea that imagine for every thought you had
about that person, you had to pay them a dollar,
and you think about how many dollars If you now
started account the amount of thoughts you having about that person,

(27:51):
about that situation, about what they said, about what they
said to so and so, what they thought about you,
and you had to pay a dollar for every thought
you had about them. That's how much energy and money
is being wasted. Yes, and we're not realizing where else
it could be invested put in. But I think you
hit the nail on the head there. The reason is
we feel so attached that we don't feel we can

(28:15):
actually leave. As tik Nahn would say, we would rather
live in the familiar pain, right than the unfamiliar pain.
At least we know what we're going to get with
this person, and there's a part of us that gets
attached to that, even subconsciously.

Speaker 1 (28:30):
Well, here's the thing, though, Jay, because I think it's
a really important point that you're bringing up. But here's
what I think you're going to discover. I think you're
only attached to it because you don't value your time
and energy.

Speaker 2 (28:47):
For sure.

Speaker 1 (28:48):
You're only attached to it because you've never experienced anything else.
And the reason why you're used to it is because
in the relationship dynamic, you're up in your head usually
in a relationship, explaining a way behavior instead of actually

(29:08):
seeing it with clear eyes and detaching from it. And
that's the other reason. And I know you knew this
instantly that the let them theory and saying let them
and let me. One of the reasons why it's so
powerful and I'm so excited is I feel literally like
I am surrounded by ancestors because this is a modern
application of ancient philosophy spiritual guidance, stoicism, detachment theory that

(29:36):
you can then apply in any moment, in any relationship.
And what I also love about this jay is that
I think it allows you to truly see people, perhaps
for the first time, and to give them the space
to be who they are. And from that space, it's

(30:00):
amazing is you can let people. For example, a lot
of us are very triggered and motivated when somebody's disappointed
or when some or we think that somebody is gonna, like,
you know, really be let down by us. And I
had this huge breakthrough because I used to feel really
guilty either by how much I work or the fact
that Chris and I raised our kids on the East

(30:22):
Coast and my parents are in the Midwest. And you know,
I love my parents and I wish we all live together.
But here's the thing. They're not moving to me, and
I'm not moving to them. We got to let them right,
But there's a lot of emotion about it. And I
know your family's all over the place too, so you
know you're not like I'm not saying anything because my
family listens to this s mouth. So so here's the thing.
If I don't go home with my family for the holidays,

(30:46):
my parents are disappointed. Let them be disappointed. I mean,
isn't that a beautiful thing that they're disappointed. Don't you
want somebody to be disappointed that you're not coming?

Speaker 2 (31:02):
That really messes with people's minds, right, Yeah.

Speaker 1 (31:05):
Like whether you can't make it to a business engagement,
or you can't make it to a birthday party, or
you can't make it this year home. I mean, what's
the alternative that they're like, thank God Jay's not coming,
I can't stand him. No, seriously, like, really wrap your
brain around this. And so when you say let them

(31:26):
be disappointed, something beautiful happens. You actually honor their experience
of being human, you allow them to be adults. Yes,
that is a sign that emotion that things are really
good in your relationships. But then you say let me,
and the old me would twist myself in knots and
then I would make myself feel bad, and then I
would question what I was doing, and then I'd bend

(31:47):
over backwards to try to be there and try to
be here. And instead, when I say let me, I
drop into my values. I deeply value family, and so
if they're disappointed, that's not the reason I would change plans.
I have to look at what do I think, what
do I want to do, and how am I going
to process my emotions? And so as someone else is disappointed,

(32:08):
the old me would feel deeply guilty and conflicted. Now
with the lethn theory, I have space for them to
be disappointed and for me to feel a little sad.
But if I change plans, I don't do it for them,
because if I change plans for them, guess what I
just did. I made them the villain in my life.
If I change plans because it makes me feel like

(32:31):
a good daughter, makes me feel good. Now I take
responsibility for my life and I am owning my decisions.
And it's a small nuance, but it's absolutely everything. Everything
And the other reason why I love this, especially as
a parent of adult children, and you know there are

(32:52):
very This is a book about adult relationships, and so
I make it very clear in the book, and there's
resources for parents with younger kids and back But one
of the coolest things about this is that when you
let someone like have their emotions and you let someone
struggle while you say, I'm on the sidelines and I'm
here to support, but I know that the greatest teacher

(33:14):
in life is life, and I'm not going to shield
you from the consequences of some of the things that
you're choosing. You're an adult, so I'm going.

Speaker 2 (33:20):
To let you.

Speaker 1 (33:21):
When you allow someone the space to process emotion and
the space to face their struggles and the space to
heal on their own timeline and in their own way,
you actually communicate that I believe that you can when
you step in and try to force somebody to be
more motivated at school or you let's just take that one,
because there's a lot of people that listen to my show,

(33:46):
and I'm sure it's the same people that are listening
to yours that write in are like, I don't know
how to make this person more motivated. Oh for sure, right,
And so here's what I want you to understand. And
this was another huge breakthrough when I was writing this book.
You want to know the hardest person, hardest working person
in a classroom, Jay, it's the kid who's struggling. It's
not the people that are getting straight a's. It's the

(34:08):
person who's having a really hard time. Wow, do you
want to know the hardest person that's working on their health?
It's actually the person that's unhealthy because they know that
they want to be healthier, and so they are not stuck.
They're in deep conflict actively within themselves. And so if
somebody is already aware that there is a gap between

(34:29):
their potential and how they're performing, that there is a
gap between god given right to thrive and be happy
and be connected and what their life actually feels like,
they know it. And then you come in and try
to impose your will or your good ideas. Oh, thanks
a lot. So I never thought that if I wanted

(34:52):
to get good grades, I needed to study and not
play video games. Thank you Einstein. Oh I should go
to the gym if I want to lose some way.
Never thought of that. So you come in and you
have judgment and assumptions. What is it that's more pressure
on top of somebody who is actually already deeply conflicted
with themselves? Yeah, and so if you really embrace this

(35:17):
and you understand that people change when they feel like
it and when they can. And if somebody's struggling, it's
because they're not able to. Right now, there's a skill
that's missing, and one of the biggest things that's typically
missing is the belief that any of the small actions
will actually do anything anyway. Yeah, and so you coming
in and imposing it, you know what that says. It

(35:39):
actually says I don't believe you can do this.

Speaker 2 (35:42):
I'll do it for you. Yes, I can do it
for you for you, Yeah, absolutely absolutely. I remember me
and Rady as you got married and we moved to America,
and RADI will say this herself that at that time
in her life had parents had made a lot of
big decisions for her, and she was following decisions that
they were making or opportunities that they were putting forward,

(36:02):
and all of that was with good intention. And then
when we got married, she'd start to ask me for
my advice or my insight. This would be anything from
what plates we should buy for our apartment through to
like what kind of curtains we wanted. Right, We're talking
about really small everyday things. And I Remember I would
always say to well, what do you think? And she'd

(36:23):
always say, no, no, no, you just tell me. And
I'd be like, no, but what do you think? And
in the start it would really frustrate her, But now
she looks back and she goes that question helped her
so much because it helped her find her own identity,
her own strength, her own tastes, her own dislikes, and
now she's a whole human with opinions and it's so
fascinating to what's that? And it was because I almost

(36:44):
had this fore visioning, or this thought that even if
I make my life easier by just telling her my
tastes and dislikes and likes, it's only going to be
easy in the short term, because ten years from now,
she's going to think she'd became the person I wanted
her to be and never became the person she could
be right. And I could see that, and so I

(37:06):
set up and I was like, no, you just tell me.
Until this day, I always practice something. I think you
look beautiful, but I want you to wear what you
want to wear. It shouldn't be about what I think
you look better in or worse. You know, that shouldn't
be the case. And it's so interesting how we think
love is overcaring, but actually overcaring is over enabling that

(37:27):
person and overwhelming that person.

Speaker 1 (37:28):
Yes, and it's control.

Speaker 2 (37:30):
It's control.

Speaker 1 (37:31):
You're not like if you think about what love really is,
and for me, love is two things. It's consideration, right,
It's having someone in mind. If you pour in oat
milk instead of the cow milk because that's what they like,
that's an act of love. It's also admiration, and admiration

(37:53):
is the ability to see something in somebody that you
deeply admire. I want to go back to something that
you said though, because it was genius and it had
me think about the idea of the power of your
time and energy. And you were talking about imagine if

(38:15):
like your time and your energy had dollars associated with it,
because I don't think we value it. And I started
to think about one of the biggest obstacles because what's
ultimately happening when you start to use let them and
let me, is you're going to see that you've turned
other people into a major problem. And you have turned
them into a problem in four ways. First of all,

(38:36):
you allow them to stress you out, but you're not
going to do that anymore because you're going to let
them be. But the second way that you've made them
a major problem in your life is that you give
so much weight to other people's opinions. And in the
example you were just talking about what was happening is
by asking you what do you think.

Speaker 2 (39:00):
Was doing?

Speaker 1 (39:00):
What we all do but most of us do it
subconsciously and we don't even realize it, which is before
we even ask ourselves what feels right for us, we
stop and consider what we think somebody is going to think.
And you have that like really brilliant thing that I've
heard you say a bazillion times that I love. It's
not what you think you think of think And I'm like, wait, well,

(39:21):
but so I want to play this out because this
is so important. Was a huge thing for me. If
you open up your favorite social media platform, we've all
had the experience where you go and you pick a
photo and you then put it up and you're like, okay,
should a a filter on this? And you start to
then question is this right photo? And then you go

(39:41):
back to your photo role and then you start working
on the caption should I put emoji? Is this too much?
Should I do this? And then you are worried why
because you're actually thinking about what other people are going
to think or do in response to what you're posting. Yes,
which means if you take the value of it right,

(40:02):
you just overvalued something that you will never be able
to control ever, ever, ever, ever, and yet you're doing
it subconsciously. And what typically happens is if you notice
everybody's got hundreds of draft posts, you know what that is.
That is a graveyard of energy. You waste it on
something that you didn't you'll never be able to control

(40:24):
because the average person has seventy thousand random thoughts a day.
You can't even control half the crap that goes in
your own mind. So what makes you think any post
is going to guarantee that any human being thinks anything?
And the let them theory revealed to me Jay how
often I was subconsciously valuing, oh, for sure, someone else

(40:48):
and that like, are they going to think negative? They
gonna think this? Are they going to think too much?
And there's such a simple way to change this. You
just let them think negative thoughts.

Speaker 2 (40:56):
That's it.

Speaker 1 (40:58):
The next time you catch yourself stopping to consider what
you're going to post or what your colleagues might react to,
and that's what's keeping you silent. Say to yourself, let
them think negative thoughts, because that's what you're actually afraid of.
And so when you say let them think negative thoughts,
something wild happens. You accept the reality that no matter

(41:20):
what you do, it doesn't guarantee that anybody thinks anything.
And then you say, let me And here's where this
gets really cool. Let me remind myself I can think
what I want and I can do what I want.
And your social media, in particular, as you and I
both know, it's your self expression. That's what it's there for.
And if you can't allow yourself to express yourself there,

(41:45):
then it's going to be everywhere where you at it
yourself because you're not just letting people think negative thoughts.
But if you operate in a way now and you
now take the value, you take the money back. We're
not going to pay Jay the money for his opinion.
I'm going to take the money back, and where I'm
going to put the value is operating in a way
that makes me feel proud of myself. Because when I

(42:07):
operate in a way, whether I'm posting something or I'm
speaking in a meeting, or I'm showing up and not
responding to my dramatic whatever. I'm proud of myself. And
when you're proud of yourself, you don't even consider what
other people are thinking, because you've just anchored all of
your worth inside of yourself. And that's why this is

(42:30):
another reason why this is so unbelievably powerful.

Speaker 2 (42:33):
Yeah, and the truth is, no one's thinking about you
for as long as you think it's true. No one's
thinking about you for as much as you think. No
one's thinking about you as much as they even say
that thinking about you. And we, just like you said,
we keep draining that energy, consumed by it. You reminded
me of the beautiful Charles Houghton Cooley quote, and he
wrote this in eighteen ninety and he said, the challenge

(42:56):
today is I'm not what I think I am. I'm
not what you think I am. I am what I
think you think I am, which means we live in
a perception of a perception of ourselves. So if I
think mel thinks I'm not smart, then I don't think
I'm smart. So it's not even reality, it's not even

(43:16):
factually proven or checked or tested. By the way everything
in the let them theory, this book is literally every thought,
those seventy thousand thoughts, that's what you're addressing in.

Speaker 1 (43:26):
This book gets rid of this fear.

Speaker 2 (43:29):
Yeah, it literally does, because I was talking. I've talked
to at least three friends this week, and all of
them are concerned by either heyj I'm thinking about posting
a video on social media. I'm scared of what people
will think. So that's for their professional or their passion. Right.
I've got another friend who's worried that a lot of
our other friends are talking about him negatively because he's

(43:50):
recently fallen out with them, Okay, and so he's worried, like,
what are they saying they're all talking to each other,
what rumors are they spreading about me? Like, maybe it's
not true. And the thing that holding onto is they
just can't let they can't let them, and it's.

Speaker 1 (44:04):
No, but they can ye See, I don't think they
have the tool. See, here's the thing. If you're worried
that people are gossiping about you, let them let them
gossip about you. Here's why you can't control it.

Speaker 2 (44:16):
It's gonna happen anyway.

Speaker 1 (44:17):
Yes, And so if you can't control it, why on
earth would you allow any time or energy to be wasted.
It's an act of self torture. So if you are
worried that people are gossiping about you, first of all,
let them gossip about you, because they're going to do

(44:38):
what they're going to do, because you cannot change what
other people do. You can't control what they think. You
can't control what they do. If they're going to gossip,
they're going to gossip. So let them gossip. And when
you say that, it's a relief because you actually acknowledge
the thing that you've been afraid of, and it's like
you're allowing it without allowing it. But then, don't forget
you have power.

Speaker 2 (44:56):
Let me.

Speaker 1 (44:59):
Remind myself that I get to choose what I think
about myself. I get to decide what I do and
what I don't do, whether or not I respond or not,
and I get to decide who I spend time with.
And so the bigger question becomes, if you're busy worrying
about which means you're spending time and energy people who

(45:23):
are gossiping about you, why would you want to be
friends with them? And so now you take responsibility for
your own part in chasing people that aren't treating you
in a way that you deserve, and you recognize that
the power here is in just letting people be. And
when you let people be, your relationships get better because

(45:46):
people reveal who they are and where you stand. And
then you get to choose how much time you spend
or not. And not everybody in your life deserves an explanation,
they don't deserve a response necessary, and so you also
get to choose who you tell your story to, or
who you apologize to, or who how you respond to it.

(46:08):
And that's where your power is. And I'm not saying
this makes it easy, because you're probably in a situation
like that going to have to say let them, let them,
let them, And then you're gonna see them on social
media and you're gonna be like, should I black them?
Should I not block them? Are they going to see
if I do that? Should I'm not going to let them?
Let them live their lives, and if I want to
unfollow them, let me do that because I get to

(46:30):
choose what comes into my space or not. And when
you start to really play around with this, because one
of the big pushbacks that I that I've gotten in
the research is what Am I just going to be
a dorm at im. I'll let people abuse me, I'll
let people. No, Actually it's the opposite, because you're probably
allowing it right now and then explaining it away. When
you say let them, you're letting somebody's behavior speak, and

(46:55):
then you have to bring it back to yourself and say,
I've got to let them reveal who they are are.
And if this person keeps gaslighting me or not including me,
now I've got to ask myself, is this actually the
relationship for me?

Speaker 2 (47:10):
Well? Do you think we expect too much from people?
I do.

Speaker 1 (47:15):
I think everybody's really busy and life is very overwhelming,
and you have no idea what's going on in other
people's lives. And we've gotten to a point in today's
world where if I text you, I expect Jay to respond,
and if Jay doesn't respond, then I make it mean
something about Jay or me. And I hate that because

(47:40):
it doesn't give people grace. We're constantly expecting people to
show up a certain way and then judging them when
they don't, instead of stopping to consider that other people
have lives and other people have a lot of things
going on, and sometimes when people go silent on you,
it has nothing to do with you. It has to

(48:02):
do with a crazy busy period in life, or it
has to do with the fact that something's going on
with their family and they're so drained at the end
of the day that the last thing they want to
do is talk to anybody. And so I do think
we expect too much because relationships feel very like transactional.
You do this for me, I do this for you.
I text you, you better text me back. Now, there

(48:24):
are rules in terms of just being courteous to people
and being gracious to people. But I'm deeply concerned Jay
about the rise of both estrangement. I'm concerned about the
amount of posts that go viral about you know, I
got my life better because I cut all the talks

(48:45):
of people out and I stop and think always, well,
did you have a conversation about what was bothering you?
Because if you just ghost other people or you use
the silent treatment, that's actually punishing somebody and that's extremely immature. Actually,
it means you can't handle your own emotions, which is

(49:06):
why you don't have a hard conversation about what you
need or how someone's behavior is impacting you, and if
you haven't had that, it's a very immature move to
just cut somebody off. And so I get very worried
about the labeling of people as toxic and about the
ease at which people seem to just drop people. And

(49:28):
what I really love about the let them theory is
that it opens up the window to a lot more compassion,
because we're quick to think that if somebody hasn't texted
you back, or you've texted somebody a couple times and
they haven't responded, that you did something bad. And it's
perfectly fine to be like, did I do something?

Speaker 2 (49:49):
You know?

Speaker 1 (49:49):
I noticed you haven't responded? Is everything okay? If they
don't respond, then then something's probably wrong, either with them
or with you, and you get to decide what you're
going to do next. But I am worried about the
combination of people being isolated, of people spending way too
much time on their phones instead of with each other,

(50:11):
and that we've gotten very transactional with one another, and
it's easy to forget that people have a lot going
on and they're not thinking about you as much as
you're thinking about them, and just because you have time
to text them, doesn't mean they have time right now
to text you back. And I guarantee you when they
saw your text, they probably thought, oh my god, I
love it. You know, I got a and then something
came up, and so I do worry about it, Jay,

(50:33):
I do think we have too much of an expectation
of something in return. And when you start to use
this theory, what you're also going to notice is this,
when you start to say let them, you will notice
that maybe you're the sibling that reaches out more. And
it might bother you because when you say let them

(50:55):
and you keep reaching out and they don't reach out,
or you have a group of friends and you notice
that when you stop reaching out or making the plans,
that you're not included in theirs, and that hurts. The
thing I used to do when that happened is I
would make it about me. I would make it like
some deficiency in me and what I've learned using the

(51:16):
let them theory and really just saying let them, which
detaches from the hurt, It detaches from the judgment. It
reminds you that adults are allowed to live their lives,
Adults are allowed to come and go in friendship. They're
allowed to prioritize certain people at certain times. They're allowed
to have busy periods at work. They're allowed to fall
in and out of communication. And the more you let

(51:37):
people live their lives, the better your life gets and
the more compassionate of a human being you become. And
the more I've started to recognize, oh wait, like my
social life is my responsibility. If I have a group
of friends where if I make the plans, everybody's included,
but if I sit back, I'm never invited. Then now

(51:59):
I got an exam and am I investing in the
right group of friends? Or you might also wake up
and realize, well, maybe I just like really like introverted people,
but I'm the party planner and that's my role in life.
And instead of you being transactional, you actually recognize the
gift that it is to people. Right, And you know,

(52:19):
it sucks that maybe your siblings get together because they
live closer and they don't include you, and it does hurt,
and feeling a little bit of pain like that means
your mind and body is working properly. It's a sign
that you're mentally well. It doesn't mean there's a sign
that there's anything wrong with you. And so when you
can say let them, and then you say let me,

(52:40):
let me decide what I want to do about this,
you can have the conversation and you might realize that
they just click and you don't have as close as
a relationship. But then you get to decide how you
value family and if you're going to bring different energy
or if you're going to try a little bit harder,

(53:01):
because again, you get to choose. And when you realize
how much power you have, you see that through you
the way you think about it or you respond to it,
you actually can shift anything for the better for sure.
And I'm really excited about this. I wrote this actually
with my daughter who's twenty five, and it was an
amazing experience because she was bringing a much different perspective

(53:28):
and when we wrote the section about how you use
to let them theory with love, she started researching the
breakup section because the fact about love is people choose
who and how they love, and sometimes they won't choose you.
But you also get to choose who and how you
love and how you're going to create it, and people

(53:48):
forget that. And so we get to the part about
when a relationship is ending and her boyfriend of two
years breaks up with her, and she's book like, this
is horse, you rip this stuff. I have to let
a walk out the door. I have to let to
believe it. There's a bullshit of it, like just like

(54:09):
And it was this unbelievable experience because when somebody that
you love is grieving or going through heartbreak or struggling,
you would jump in front of a car to take
their pain away. And the let them theory and the
experience of this book taught me that the best thing

(54:32):
I could do was to let her grieve, to let
her be heartbroken, to let her go through her process.
You know, I think about it this way, like arm
around somebody. You're not blocking and tackling. You've got your
arm around somebody. But if she's on the floor sobbing,
letter because she needs to, you know, if we need

(54:56):
to remove the photos from the family thing because this
is a two year long relalationship, because that is actually
a huge recommendation that I make in this book that
you've got to follow a thirty day rule of zero contact,
zero photos, zero videos, because you're not just letting them leave.
You have to unlearn the patterns of your life. Yes,

(55:19):
that were with them. It's a withdrawal like anything else. Yes,
And any sign of that person actually triggers the old
patterns in your nervous system and it delays your ability
to move through it absolutely, And it's impossible when you're
in it to just let them move on because every

(55:41):
part of your wiring and programming, you're going to want
to check their location. You're going to want to listen
to the voice memos, You're going to want to saturate
yourself because the life that you wanted is over and
you're either going to trap yourself in a life that
you're no longer in by watching their life play out
from afar, and you're going to keep re triggering these

(56:03):
patterns in your nervous system because you're going to keep
this person in your life even though they walked out
the door, which is why you have to let them.
And then you've got to let me do the hard part,
which is I get to choose how I'm going to
move through this. And the research is also really empowering.
It gets better for the majority of people. Seventy one

(56:26):
percent of people start to feel better by eleven weeks.

Speaker 2 (56:29):
That's that's not eleven weeks.

Speaker 1 (56:31):
Eleven weeks, and you may feel better in eleven days.

Speaker 2 (56:34):
What happens at eleven weeks.

Speaker 1 (56:35):
What happens at eleven weeks if you're not cyberstalking somebody,
is that you've actually allowed your body to break the
old patterns. See the reason why when you're going through
a heartbreak, and heartbreak and breakups are just like death.
That's what they are for sure, because you're grieving what's

(56:56):
no longer there.

Speaker 2 (56:56):
The life you have. Yes, and.

Speaker 1 (57:01):
Aside from the thirty day rule, which is remove like
do not look at voice, memos, location, social nothing, no photos,
because it triggers everything to stay alive in you. But
during those thirty days, what's going to happen is every
time you wake up, you're going to feel them there.
Because your body remembers. That doesn't mean that's a sign
you should get back together. That's actually a sign that

(57:22):
you're unlearning something. Let those memories come up. Let your
nervous system process this. Every time you have news in
your life, you're going to want to reach out to them.
Why because that was the pattern. That doesn't mean you should.
So you've got to do the let them leave and
let me remind myself, I'm going through this process, and
every day that you do that, you're actually unlearning these patterns,

(57:44):
and by the time you get to about thirty days,
you feel less intoxicated. Another huge recommendation is do something
in your bedroom, like paint a wall, move the bed,
do something, because you spent a lot of time there,
so walking back into it is like a graveyard of
your old life and it can be very triggering. And
so she did that, And the eleven week mark is

(58:07):
important because what's happening is you're now starting to create
new patterns as you've let them leave. You're now letting
me move on. You're letting me take the actions that
show me that my life is moving forward. And my
therapist and Davin, who's the smartest woman of human being

(58:29):
I've ever met, she said, you know, now, the thing
for Sawyer to ask herself is if she knew that
the love of her life were literally just a couple
months away, what would you do right now with this
period of time? And when you think about it that way,

(58:50):
because again, as long as you're holding on to somebody
who already left, you actually are not open to meeting
anybody else.

Speaker 2 (58:58):
That is beautiful, that idea of what would you look like,
what would you be thinking? Yeah, how would you behave
if the love of your life was two months away?

Speaker 1 (59:08):
Yeah, or two years ago or a year away or whatever.

Speaker 2 (59:10):
Crazy?

Speaker 1 (59:11):
See, because we think because when somebody leaves that you love,
you think you're unlovable. You actually think you're never gonna
find it again. You hate yourself. That's why most of
the advice about this is complete bullshit. Go love yourself.
How am I going to go love myself and the
person I love more than anything just left me? I

(59:34):
hate myself. I despise myself. I am terrified of the
day that they're going to meet somebody. I'm never gonna
find that again. I'm never going to have sex like
that again. I'm not like you hate yourself and so
telling somebody to just go on a revenge diet or
leon love yourself it's horrible. Instead, I want you to

(59:55):
face reality they left, let them and then let me
grieve and follow my therapist and Davin's advice. You have
to do a thirty day detox, and if you are
somebody that's been holding on to somebody that left a
year ago, I guarantee you you have not gone thirty
days without listening to a voice memo or looking at
a photo. You are keeping them alive, which is keeping

(01:00:18):
you trapped in something that's dead. And your inability to
let them go and let them leave, and then let
me accept reality and start moving forward, and let me
believe that the person that I am meant to meet
they are in the future. They're not in my past.

(01:00:39):
And by the way, even if you kind of hold
out secretly hope it might be the person from the past,
it might be, but they're not the version from back there,
and neither are you, and neither are you, and so
you have to again come back to where the power is.
It's not in getting them back. It's not in making
them jealous, because if you focus, I'm making that person

(01:01:01):
jealous or what? But where are you putting your power then?
And something you can't control, You have to put your
power here. And the reason why I love the thirty
day rule in the eleven week mark is because it's
the truth. This is going to suck. The only way
to get over someone and to go through heartbreak is
to go through it. There's no avoiding it. There's only

(01:01:23):
delaying it, and we delay it because we don't want
to accept people as they are. When somebody breaks up
and leaves or cheats on you, they have just revealed
who they are for sure, and your inability to accept
it instead of explaining it away and living in a
fantasy up here, that's what's keeping you from having and

(01:01:45):
creating the love you actually deserve and want in your life.

Speaker 2 (01:01:48):
I was talking to a friend recently, and everything you're
saying is just so true and it's resonating so strongly
to me. I was doing to a friend recently and
she was saying to me, I wish my friend would
just be honest with me. I wish this person who's
just screwed me over, just let me down, would just
be honest with me rather than pretending to be my friend.

(01:02:11):
And I said to them, they are being honest with you.
Them lying is showing you their truth. That's how much
they value you. Them pretending to be your friend is
their truth. You don't want the truth. Actually, you want
them to lie to you, and you want them to
be someone else. You want them to become the honest person.
But they're showing you that they're not an honest person.

(01:02:32):
That is the truth.

Speaker 1 (01:02:33):
It's true. And here's the other thing. Why are you
pretending to be this person's friend and not bringing it up?
Why is it on them to tell you the truth?
Let them lie to you and then come to the
let me part. If aren't you pretending that you're their friend?
If you haven't brought this up, and you're actually holding
that in your head, right, there are so many applications

(01:02:57):
of this, so many, it's just credible. And the thing
that I'm really really excited about is that, you know,
the other massive thing that I think this is going
to help people with is that one other way that
you make people a massive problem is that you see

(01:03:17):
somebody else's success or happiness or the things that they
achieve in their life is somehow robbing you of yours.
And the thing about life is that you're never playing
against people. You play with them. And somebody else's success, happiness, love,
like the things that they achieve, it's in limitless supply.

(01:03:40):
And when you wrap your brain around the fact that happiness, love, money,
like all of it limitless supply, so other people can't
block your way. They actually lead the way. And so
if you let them lead the way, and you see
their wins not as your losses, but you see it
as an example to follow. You Now, stop making other
people a problem, and you stop using them as an

(01:04:03):
excuse for why you can't do what you're capable of.
Other People don't block you, you block your way. Allow
people to lead the way, and the way that you
do that, you say, let them be successful, let them
get married, let them have the baby, let them have
the nice car. Because they're showing me what's possible. And
the cool thing about really embracing let them in that

(01:04:25):
regard is that other people also show you the formula. Right,
they show you exactly how to do something. But if
you're so busy going, oh well, Jane launched a podcast
and there's too many podcasts Now, I can't launch a podcasts.
Who's blocking you? Correct? You're capable of learning to be

(01:04:46):
a better player in the game of life from other people, Yes,
so stop playing against them and let them show you
the way.

Speaker 2 (01:04:54):
Now, why is it so hard to make friends as
we get out of.

Speaker 1 (01:05:00):
There is a massive shift that happens in adult friendship
when you hit twenty that nobody sees coming. The rules
of friendship completely change when your twenties hit and I'm
going to explain the rules when you're little, and then
we're going to talk about the rules of adult friendship.
So when you're little, your entire life is organized around

(01:05:21):
friendship and making it possible because you're with people your
age all the time in class, in sports, true, you
move in groups because you're on teams and you're in
neighborhoods and you're always together. You also celebrate the same milestones.
You're hitting the same birthdays. You're all talking about the
next level of school or this thing this summer. You're
watching the same movies because you're all the same age,

(01:05:41):
and so there's so much synergy and relevance and the
conditions to spend a ton of time together are there.
Then you get to university and you spend even more
time together. And what happens when you hit your twenties, right,
is that it moves from this big group sport where
you just kind of expect to be around your friends
all the time. You expect the group to get invited
because that's what's always happened. You expect to see them

(01:06:04):
all the time because you do always see them all
the time. But then your twenties hit, the rules change
and what I call the Great Scattering happens. Everybody moves
in different directions and friendship goes from group sport to
individual sport. You can no longer expect friendship. You are
no longer part of a group that is expected to

(01:06:24):
be invited everywhere because everybody scatters and suddenly everybody's on
different timelines. You're in different cities, you're moving in different directions,
so there's no way to locate yourself inside your friend group.
And the only thing that's keeping you together from your friends,
from your little is a text chain that starts to
go quieter and quieter, a quieter as people start to
focus on the people in front of them. And that

(01:06:46):
brings me to two major shifts that I want you
to embrace using the let them theory. Number one, you
can no longer expect friendship. You have to take a
way more flexible approach and a more proactive approach. You've
got to let people come and go super important, and
then you've got to let me take the actions to

(01:07:06):
create the friendships. I got to go first. I got
to be the one planning. I got to seek out
new people. But there are three pillars of adult friendship
based on research that are also going to help you
understand that when people come and go in your life,
ninety nine percent of the time, it's not personal and
you actually haven't lost them as a friend. One of

(01:07:27):
the three pillars is missing. So the three things that
need to be required to have a friendship happen are
the same three things that were around all the time
when you were a kid. Number one, proximity. Proximity matters tremendously.
Proximity means who are you actually physically next to. In fact,
they've done research, Jay, if you and I were in
a dorm and we lived across the hall, I don't

(01:07:49):
I don't remember the percentages exactly, but it's like ninety
percent chance we're going to be friends interesting the poor
person at the end of the hallway ten percent chance
that we're going to be friends with them because of proximity,
even a matter of fifty feet makes a difference. And
so when you were little, you were in proximity to
people your age all the time exactly. The research also

(01:08:10):
shows that to have as an adult a kind of
casual friend, you need to spend approximately seventy hours with
somebody to have a close friend two hundred hours. So
when you're an adult, that creates a big problem because
who are you spending all your time with once you're
twenty The American time study shows that it's with people
you work with. So why aren't we best friends with

(01:08:31):
people at work because you have proximity and you're spending
a lot of time together. But here's the thing, timing.
When you were little, you were in the same timing
of life with everybody. When you hit your twenties and
it's now individual, everybody's on different timelines. Some of your
friends are getting married, some are going to graduate school,
some are now pursuing jobs. Other people are moving out

(01:08:52):
of the city into the city. Everybody's timing is now different.
And this also explains why you're almost never best friends
with people at work because the timing is off. You're
sitting next to people that are in very different times
of their life. You may like them a lot, and
you may be friends, but you never spend time outside
of work because they're at home with their family and

(01:09:17):
you're going out with your bodies your age on the weekends.
And then that brings me to the third thing that
needs to be present for a friendship to truly click.
And that's energy. And the thing about energy is it changes.
And you can have fantastic energy with somebody, and then
if you decide you're not drinking anymore, the energys off.
If you decide to get really focused on fitness, the

(01:09:38):
energy is off. If you have very different political beliefs,
the energy is off. It's not personal. It's one of
these three pillars. And it has helped me so profoundly
Jay to realize that people come and go and it's
a beautiful thing and you should let them. And you
should really if you have a friendship that starts to dissipate, right,

(01:10:00):
ask yourself before you blame them or you blame you.
Are any one of these three pillars missing? Are we
not near each other anymore? Is the timing of our
lives off? Is there just something about the energy that
hasn't clicked? Because you can't force those things. But what

(01:10:21):
I've found is that when you recognize that those are
really important factors to your connection to someone else, that
if a friendship starts to fade, for me, it's so
easy to say let them. And I don't wish anybody bad.
I literally wish people well because the other thing that
I've learned, and you know, being fifty six, I've had

(01:10:44):
a lot of friends come and go in different phases
of my life that you would be startled by how
many people from your past that you no longer quote
consider friends because you haven't seen them in a very
long time, or things just got weird. If you actually
called them, they'd pick up the phone if you texted them.
The research shows that when you get a surprise text

(01:11:06):
from somebody that you haven't heard from in a long time,
the amount of joy that you feel. And so I
want you to consider, if you're very lonely right now,
that there's actually probably hundreds of people from your past
that still consider you a friend. And if you take
the approach that I'm talking about, which is friendship is
your responsibility, you need to go first, let me create

(01:11:26):
the friendship and the connection that I want. And you
can start by literally taking a look through your past
and thinking about people that you remember fondly and just
sending them a text, and you will be startled by
what comes back because they're there, they haven't actually gone anywhere.
The connection is still there. And oftentimes even if you've

(01:11:48):
had somebody where something's been off again, let them and
wish them well, and there will be a time, I
promise you, where the timing or proximity or energy comes
back around again.

Speaker 2 (01:12:01):
Yeah, and often you're so right. When as I'm listening
to your talk, I'm just thinking of how conscious we
have to be with all of our relationships, the ones
that matter to us, the ones that we want to
invest in. And it's what you said there was we
were actually dealt such a tough card in the fact

(01:12:21):
that basically from the moment you joined school at four
till the moment you were twenty one, if you went
to college, you basically didn't have to make really any
major decisions or think about the next step because you
went from seventh grade to eighth grade, to ninth grade
to whatever it is, right, And so then all of

(01:12:41):
a sudden, you're in the world at twenty one, yeah,
or eighteen if you didn't go to college, and you
all of a sudden now have to figure out what
to do for the next fifty sixty years.

Speaker 1 (01:12:52):
All structure of your life just that just disappears because
there is no structure and it makes no sense.

Speaker 2 (01:12:58):
And as I'm hearing you talk, it sounds like to
me that it would have been harder to watch your
daughter have to practice to let them theory than it
is for you to practice to let them theory yes
when she was going through her business. Would you say,
that's in your deep vicinity of people that you're close
with the hardest way you've had to practice to let

(01:13:20):
them do yes.

Speaker 1 (01:13:21):
The hardest way is when you recognize the potential in
somebody and you see them struggling, and when you recognize
that somebody that you love deeply is in pain. When
you're saying let them, you're not abandoning somebody. You're actually
recognizing their ability to meet these difficult moments in their

(01:13:44):
life with you by their side. And I think when
I think about supporting versus enabling, because the more you
kind of step in and rescue people from their feelings
or from the consequences of their decisions or their inaction,
the more people continue to drown in their problems. I
really believe that I do too.

Speaker 2 (01:14:05):
I really believe that.

Speaker 1 (01:14:06):
And it's a very very difficult balance because you're going
to hit your frustration and rock bottom and worry with
somebody before they do, and somebody said something in the
Addiction Commune. I can't remember who said this, but it
just is so true that somebody only gets sober when
getting drunk is harder than facing the thing that they

(01:14:28):
don't want to face. And the same is true with
anything like really motivating yourself to get in better shape,
recognizing that you have a pattern of dating people that
are emotionally abusive, and taking a break and really digging
deep into the issue that keeps coming.

Speaker 2 (01:14:47):
Up for you.

Speaker 1 (01:14:48):
That's really hard. That's why we avoid it. And so
when you see somebody that you know is capable or
who deserves better, wanting that for them is a form
of loving them like you should and want the people
in your life that you care about to be doing better,
and you I hate seeing somebody with so much potential

(01:15:09):
squandering it. But again, I'm going to come back to
something that I learned from doctor Stewart Ablon at mass
General Hospital. People do well in the can and I
want you to start to assume that if somebody in
your life is not doing well, or if they're going
through a challenge, there is a skill that's missing, or
there is emotion that needs to be processed, or there

(01:15:30):
is pain that needs to be felt before they can
galvanize the ability to do the very difficult work to change.
And in the case of watching my daughter go through
this heartbreak, I mean I literally found myself Jay wanting
to text you know, her boyfriend, her boyfriend's mother are like,
you know, hey, maybe we can like just because I

(01:15:52):
want to fix it. But when you step in and
fix it, you literally demean someone else. Because I do
know that she has the ability to move through this.
And so the way that I love thinking about support
is this way. The next time you have somebody in
your life who is truly struggling, whether it's in school,
or in relationships or with an addiction, I want you

(01:16:14):
to think, how can I create an environment that supports
their healing, not stepping in and doing it. It's rarely
an issue of will like It's not willpower for people
or the desire. It's actually more about skill and the
ability and need to process things and do it on

(01:16:34):
their own timeline. So how can you create an environment
for that to happen? And for me, it meant removing
any imagery. It meant letting her stay up in her
bedroom and every once in a while knocking on the
door and being like, do you need anything, and allowing
her to be in her pajamas for four days and
be in a depressive state, because guess what, being in

(01:16:54):
a depressive state and falling on the floor and crying,
it's a sign she's mentally well, that's what you do.
It's a sign that you're okay. Yes, it would be
scary if she wasn't feeling anything, And then when you're ready,
you kind of put your arm around people and say
how can you do this? When she was born, actually sawyer,

(01:17:18):
I had severe postpartum depression. Jay I had a very
traumatic delivery, lost a lot of blood, and I just
was so out of it that they put me on
these drugs that turned me into a zombie. I couldn't breastfeeder.
I wasn't allowed to be alone with her. I missed
the first three and a half months of her life,
and nobody asked me if I needed help. They showed

(01:17:42):
up and created an environment where I could get better.
I had my parents drive out and just stay and
they just did laundry and they cleaned and they did
what needed to be done. And people who are struggling,
they don't even know what they need, and so don't
ask somebody what you can do. Find something you can do.

(01:18:04):
Show up with the meal, walk into your brother's bedroom
and pull open the curtains in the morning when he's
struggling with depressions so the sunlight comes in. Create a
playlist for somebody pick him up. Like, don't say you
want to meet at yoga. Say here's what we're going
to do. I'm going to come over on Saturday and
pick you up and we're going to go to that
yoga class. Or I'm going to come over on Sunday

(01:18:26):
and I'm going to watch the kids and the dog
so you can go to the park and read a
book for two hours. That's how you create an environment
for someone else to get better. And the other way
that you do it is instead of judging, you're going
to let them be who they are. You're going to
let them struggle, and then you're going to use this
technique that's incredibly effective. I labeled at the ABC so

(01:18:50):
that I can remember it. First, you're going to apologize,
so let's talk about like, this is an issue I
had with our son. He didn't seem motivated, so I
would constantly be like why aren't you motivated? Why don't
you study hard? Why are you doing this? It didn't work?

Speaker 2 (01:19:04):
Yeah, it doesn't work.

Speaker 1 (01:19:05):
No, And so I finally A you're going to apologize,
I'm sorry, I'm pressuring you, I'm sorry, I'm questioning you.
And then A you're going to ask an open ended question,
how do you feel about this issue? And it doesn't
matter what they say, because you're probably asking for the
first time how they actually feel about the issue. And

(01:19:29):
then you're going to ask a really important question. You're
going to ask what would you like to do about it?
If anything? And their answers don't matter because what you're
doing by apologizing is you're removing the pressure that you're bringing.
And now by asking these questions, and I like to
do this in a car Jay because they're trapped and
because you're both looking ahead, so it's not as confrontational,

(01:19:50):
and there's something in the science around forward ambulation and
the movement that actually opens up your thinking. And then
you ask, you know, what do you want to do
about it? If anything? And what happens is you're now
revealing this tension because people that are stuck know it,
people that are struggling know it. People who are failing

(01:20:12):
at school know it. Nobody wants to fail. It's not
like people are trying to be depressed. It's not like
people are trying to be very unhealthy. People know when
they're letting themselves go. You don't need to remind them.
But have you ever asked them what would you like
to do about this? If anything, what happens in that question,
whether they answered or not, is that friction between what

(01:20:36):
they know to be true about what they desire and
where they actually are rises up. That is the organizing
intrinsic motivation that somebody needs to want to do better.
And then you've got to do beat back off. That's
the hard part. Let them, let them, let them, let them,

(01:20:56):
let me shut up, let them, let them, let me
not rollin eyes, let me. And people need space to
have it be their idea. And I'll give you a
quick example. I used to be the kind of person
that would eat like they would eat lunch and work
on my computer and like tapping on my computer, shoving
a sandwich on my throat right. And there would be
this colleague that would stand up and go for a
walk most days, and every time she came back she'd

(01:21:19):
have a smile on her face, and she take her
earbuds off, and she'd then get back to work. And
this would go on for weeks, and then finally one day, Jay,
I look up outside and it's a nice day, and
I think, I think I'm gonna go for a walk.
Now here's the interesting thing. I didn't credit her. I
thought it was my idea. Her example influenced my desire

(01:21:42):
to do it. The people that you are close to
need enough distance from you. This is why you have
to back off for that friction, Yeah, and that stirring
to sit with them in order for them to feel safe,
to be able to take the step forward. And then

(01:22:02):
you better keep back and off because you do not
want to be like, oh I saw you in mentor
in your tet, like that's going to no. And so
you keep going let them. And then the sea part
is any small thing, you celebrate it in a non
passive aggressive way, and you actually model the change. You
can't ask somebody to stop drinking while you're pouring yourself

(01:22:23):
a glass of wine, for sure. You can't ask somebody
else to get healthy if you're sitting on the couch
eating chips. So you model the change and make it easy,
just like my colleague did with the Walk, and just
like you and I constantly buy things online because it
looks so easy and fun. Your behavior in backing off
and that tension inside them actually creates the space for

(01:22:44):
somebody to truly want to change, and that's how it's
done well.

Speaker 2 (01:22:50):
I want to thank you so deeply for writing this book.
They Let Them theory a life changing tool that millions
of people can stop talking about it. It's true, Mel
I've learned so much from you today, honestly, and you've
connected so many dots to me. I know I'm going
to be recommending this book to so many people in
my life because I really believe it's the thing that's

(01:23:10):
holding them back. Yeah, I want to thank you for
writing it. I want to thank you for pouring your
heart into it. I want to thank you for just
showing up so brilliantly and emphatically today as you always do.
And I'm just so grateful to call you a friend
and grateful to know you in this journey called life,
and genuinely so thankful that you're constantly trying to find
really simple, practical tools that all of us can apply

(01:23:33):
in our lives to make it easier and make it
a bit more livable, but also thrive. So thank you
so much. Truly.

Speaker 1 (01:23:40):
Well, I'm not as smart as you, Jay, so I
can't do the intellectual stuff. I gotta find simple things.

Speaker 2 (01:23:44):
You'd agree.

Speaker 1 (01:23:44):
Well, you know, I have to tell you I really
appreciate simple and beautiful and I truly accept and feel
how heartfelt and honest those words are. Because this is
I think my legacy.

Speaker 2 (01:24:02):
I do.

Speaker 1 (01:24:03):
I think that this is the thing I was supposed
to figure out and leave the world.

Speaker 2 (01:24:10):
I believe it too. Thank you, Thank you the best.
If you love this episode, you'll love my interview with
doctor Gabo Matte on understanding your trauma and how to
heal emotional wounds to start moving on from the past.

Speaker 1 (01:24:26):
Everything in nature grows only where it's vulnerable. So a
tree doesn't go o where it's hard and thick, does it.
It goes where it's soft and green and vulnerable.

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Host

Jay Shetty

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