You have this term that you call the grind culture. I think, even though we don't know what the definition is, we all feel that we're in the thick of it. It's this stress and this pressure to do more all the time, and that when you're not doing more, it's never enough. So no matter how successful you are, it's never enough. No matter what school you get into, it's never enough. So I want to start off with the terms that you use in your research. What is the grind culture?

Grind culture, to me, is is a set of messages that tell us we are only as good as our productivity, our performance, what we make, the grades we get, the college we get into. So it is, grind culture to me is your worth is contingent upon your performance.

That makes a lot of sense. And I think we all understand what that is because we all feel this vice on our heads right now. But you also use this term in your research, toxic achievement. What exactly is toxic achievement?

Toxic achievement is running for the next goal because you feel like you are not worthy until you hit that next goal.

I worry about our kids because I don't feel like I felt that pressure when I was their age. I know a lot of you are worried about either your kids or your nieces and nephews or your grandchildren, or you've felt this pressure. Even though you're through college, you feel this pressure to climb the ladder. You feel this pressure compared to what your friends are doing. You feel this pressure because you're not making the money your friends and finance are making. If that's toxic achievement, what is healthy achievement?

Healthy achievement is recognizing your strengths, recognizing that you need other people to reach for these high goals. If you miss it, if you miss a goal, to not feel as though it's an indictment against your worth.

That makes a lot of sense. Here's how I want to handle this, because your work is primarily focused, Jenny, on the toxic achievement and grind culture aimed at children and teenagers and young adults and how it's impacting their mental health and how it's backfiring and not working, but it relates to all of us. Here's what we're going to do in this conversation. Number one, I want you to unpack your research for us, okay? Then what I want to do is I want to go to the deeper conversation that relates to all of us, which is the root cause of toxic achievement. We can all feel it. It's never enough. But how the hell did we get here?

What's happening today is that parents are becoming, in the words of researchers, social conduits. They are trying to prepare their kids for this uncertain competitive future. It comes out in our parenting. We tend to become more controlling. We tend to become more perfectionistic in what we're demanding of our kids. Again, not to blame parents.

But why not? Hold on a second. I blame myself, and I don't have a problem with it. And by the way, this is so relevant to me as a boss, too. To take responsibility for how you take the pressure that you feel and pass it on to somebody else, you have a huge impact in other people's lives based on how you process and handle the pressure that you feel, whether you just jam that down your kids or your colleagues or your friends' throats because you can't tolerate it yourself. And so I think there is a massive role that parents play that they need to wake up and start taking responsibility for.

I don't disagree with you. And I agree that it's blame is the word that I'm tired of. I guess what I'm trying to tell parents is to zoom out and put into context the anxieties and the fears that they they're feeling so that they can see them. It's not personal. Every parent is feeling this. As I mentioned, I worked with a Harvard researcher to conduct a first-of-its-kind parenting survey, and we were hoping to get a sample size of a thousand parents. And within a few days, 6,500 parents had filled it out. And there were these universal themes that parents today are feeling. I feel responsible for my children's achievement and success.

Does that concern you?

I mean, it concerns me because that's when our parenting behaviors are not necessarily conducive to raising healthy achievers. But when I was growing up in the '70s and '80s, my parents, yes, they would buy me a tennis a pair of running shoes, but they didn't feel like they had to push me to the front of the pack. And I think today, parents feel that responsibility. But here's one other thing I want to say. Not only do they feel that responsibility, they think other people are judging them on that as well. I asked, How many agreed with others think that my children's academic success is a reflection of my parenting? 83% of parents agreed with that statement. So it's not only that we feel responsible for creating these safety nets for our kids and making sure they're successful in the future, but other people are judging us.

In fact, this is the first time in US history that kids are worse off than their parents, worse health outcomes, life expectancy, higher anxiety rates, higher depression rates, worried about the environment, the changing job market. It's no wonder everybody is stressed out.

I asked parents. We're talking about the stress that they're feeling in In our homes, I said, How many of you agree or disagree with this statement on a scale from one to four? I wish today's childhood was less stressful for my kids. 87% of parents agreed with that statement.

I want to know, who are the 13 that didn't? My God. Maybe they read the question wrong.

At the end of the survey, I asked parents if they would be willing to be interviewed, and hundreds of parents reached out. I traveled the country listening to these stories over and over again. It was the same story, the Sleepless Nights by their kids in order to cram in all the AP classes, the weekend spent at soccer tournaments, missing family gatherings, missing birthday parties. The mother in Alaska told me her kids never understood what a Thanksgiving meal really was because they were always on the road going to soccer tournaments on Thanksgiving. So I guess what surprises What surprised me the most was how universal this feeling was and how honest parents were about it.

That makes a lot of sense. I can't wait to hear what we need to focus on in order to get back to the life where you are focused on healthy achievement instead of being driven to the race to nowhere based on this toxic grind culture and this pressure that we feel. When I explain that story about how my friend said something, and next thing you know, I swoop in and start pressuring my son because now I'm all freaked out and I'm buying into this. That's exactly what we're talking about, that there's the ability to strive and to want to achieve something and to do it in a very healthy way rather than amping up the pressure and the stress that we feel. How do we get there?

At the root of all this suffering is an unmet need to feel like we matter for who we are at our core.

Seriously? Honestly? I mean, I thought we were talking about achievement. Now you're talking about mattering. I mean, that's a Squishy topic. You're going to have to break this down for me and for the person listening, because you're talking about doing, doing, doing as the problem, but somehow being, being, being and feeling like you matter. How are we going to get there?

Mattering is a core need that we all have to feel important, significant, and like we make an impact on the world. To matter, we need to feel valued for who we are at our core by our families, by our colleagues, by our friends, and our larger community, and we need to be dependent on, we need to be relied on to add value back to our families, to our colleagues or friends, and to our larger communities. When we experience that feeling valued and adding value, that's when we have a high level of mattering. And mattering acts like a protective shield against anxiety, depression. It's not that the students that I met who experienced this high level of mattering, who were striving in healthy ways, it didn't mean they didn't have failures or setbacks. But what mattering did is it acted like a Bowie. It helped to lift them up. When they had a setback, when they felt like they were failing, it wasn't an indictment of their worth. So as part of my research, I I went in search of the healthiest drivers. I wanted to know what, if anything, they had in common. What was home life like for them?

What was their relationship like with their peers? What was school like? And I found about 15 or so common threads that these healthy achievers had in common. And as I was looking for a framework to present my findings, I came across the psychological construct of mattering. It's been around since the 1980s. It was first conceptualized by Maurice Rosenberg, who brought us the idea of self-esteem. And what he found in the '80s was that students who felt a healthy level of self-esteem felt like they mattered, that they were important to their parents and known for who they were at their core. Their value wasn't contingent on their performance or what they looked like or what team they made. And they were also dependent on to add meaningful value back to their families, to their friends, to their communities. They experienced this high level of mattering because they had social proof. They believed at their core that they were valued, and then they saw it in action with how they were adding value to those around them. So when they stumbled, when they had a setback, they didn't feel like it was an indictment of their worth.

They were able to bounce back.

Hey, it's Mel. And you know what? I want you to stop thinking about what you want and watching videos on YouTube and actually go out into your life and do something about it. Because action is the answer, and the first action you should take is jump into my brand new free training. It's called Make It Happen. This training gives you the tools to go from thinking to doing. It's packed with science. It comes with a free workbook, and it's exactly what you need right now. More than half a million people are taking it. And the fact is, you do have the power to change your life. And I want to help you. All you have to do is click in the link in the caption or go to melrobbins. Com/makithappen. It's It's free. You jump right in. I'm going to be your coach. I created it for you. Why wouldn't you take this opportunity to make your life better? Go do it. Do not miss out on the life you could be living. Let's make it happen together.

The kids who seem to be suffering the most were kids who felt like they only mattered when, that their mattering was contingent, their value was contingent. The other group that seemed to be suffering the most were kids who felt like they were valued at home, but no one ever depended or relied on them. So what happens is they lacked social proof that they mattered.

This is the exact same thing that all the research has proven to be true about people who succeed at work and people who don't. That there is this underlying theme of feeling feeling like you matter to the people that you work with, to the person that is your manager, and that your contributions are important. It makes sense to me that this would be the exact same construct that would either make a student feel invisible or that they mattered, or make a student feel like, I only get the attention I need at home when my grades are amazing and my parents have something to brag about. We just touched on this, and I know so many people do not like what they do for a living. In the book, you write about having a job that was very toxic. Can you describe what it felt like to walk into work and how you practice a homecoming when you're in a toxic environment? Yes.

It is so stressful in your body, in your mind. And that's even before you can do your work, right? Just the- True.

The Sunday scaries, the driving in. Oh, dreading it.

It's It's terrible. And so then, of course, you can't flow in a spirit of excellence because you're battling all of these other dynamics. I like to encourage people to create a morning ritual so that you show up with your cup already full.

Can you give us an example? What does that mean?

Yes. First of all, wake up before you have to get up.

Okay, what does that mean?

That means don't set your alarm for the time you have to jump out of bed and jump in the shower because now you've already started your day frantic. Yes. So now I'm going into a toxic place already feeling anxious. Okay. You want to wake up a little bit earlier and then figure out what are the practices that would nourish me. For some people that will be listening to music, I like to say, in every season of your life, come up with your theme song. So your theme song will get you in the right mindset, doing some stretching next to the bed, body movement, exercise. Some people go for early morning walk, so then they already feel settled and slowed down. Meditation and/or prayer, reading something inspirational, and that can create the mantra for your day.

Why does this matter? Because when somebody's like, You have no idea. I have this abusive boss and these jerks that I work with, and I can't quit, and I've got bills to play. Don't sit here, Dr. Tama, and tell me that I should freaking stretch. Yes. Go for a walk. Are Are you a crazy woman? Yeah. Why does this matter?

I want to introduce you to the part of you that is not an employee. You are more than your labor.

Oh. Yeah.

So So if we center our full session every week on your boss, then all you are is your boss's worker, and there is a you beyond your boss.

Wow. Is that true about being in a bad relationship, too?

Yes. That they consume a lot of your energy and time, but you were a person before you met them. And whether this continues or not, you're going to be a person. And we want to meet that person. We want to nourish that person because there is more to you than what they see. And a part of what they're responding to is they see the vastness of you and don't like it.

I promise that I would unpack the difference between being thankful versus genuine gratitude. You ready? Being Be thankful. Think about this as something transactional. That's just on the surface. Because if you're thankful, it's automatic, it's in the moment, and it's like good manners, right? It's almost that you you expect someone to be thankful. If somebody, for example, holds the elevator door for you, you're not grateful. You're thankful. You say thanks. And the second the door is closed, you forget that you said thanks, and they forget that you said thanks because they expected you to say thanks because they held the door open. And so there was an expectation that you would thank them for something like that. That is what it means to be thankful. It's transactional, it's automatic, it's momentary. The second you express That's the thanks, emotions are gone. Gratitude, something else in different. Something else entirely. Genuine gratitude is when you are deeply moved. When the emotion that you feel, the emotion of appreciation, the emotion of being connected, either to another human being or some larger force that you can't explain, the emotion lingers. And the other thing that's important about gratitude is that it's not expected in the moment from anyone else.

And oftentimes moments of genuine gratitude, they take you by pure surprise. And the other thing that's so important is that the impact is lasting. It's like a positive energy buzz. And so let's go back to the example this morning with Judah. I was deeply moved by how kind he was. I was so moved that even when I was in class and my quads were quivering, and I was huffing and puffing as I'm doing this bar class, I was still thinking and feeling this emotion of appreciation for how I was welcomed late into the studio and how I was taken care of. And when I stopped by the desk and I called Judah a human ray of sunshine, he wasn't expecting that. He smiled wide. He might have been expecting a thank you, but no, I expressed this deep, deep emotion. I think you can tell, because this happened just a couple hours ago, I'm still buzzing from the appreciation and the, I guess, what you would call the dopamine rush and the oxytocin and the epiphorepherin or whatever you call that thing that is the energy drug. It is lingering in me. That's how I know it is genuine gratitude.

And there is this connection that happens. When you have a situation where you express genuine gratitude, you feel deeply connected to the energy of the other person. And you're going to feel that when you hear the message that Judah has for you and the three takeaways that he has for you about gratitude. Let me Let me give you one more example of being thankful versus being grateful. Let's say that you're in an area where there is a huge snowstorm, and next door to you, you have an elderly neighbor, and you go over in the morning after shoveling your own steps and your own drive, and you shovel the steps of your neighbor. When you're done shoveling the steps, can we just be honest with one another? You expect a thank you, right? You'd be like, meh, what a rude person if they didn't open the door and say thank you or didn't wander over later and say thank you. That's what I mean by the nature of a thank you. It's transactional, it's expected. You expect it to be something automatic in a moment. That's not how Gratitude works. Gratitude is the woman opening the door and coming down and hugging you and putting her hands on your shoulders and looking you in the eye and telling you, The last time somebody shoveled my walk was when my son was alive.

Thank you so much. I'm so grateful that you took care of me this morning. You can feel the fact that she's deeply moved. You can feel the lingering emotion. You didn't expect that. But you now have this lasting buzz feel-good thing, too, don't you? That is genuine gratitude. And I don't even need to explain the research. When you cultivate those moments for yourself in your day-to-day life, it changes how you move through your day-to-day life. That's why this is such a profound practice. And one of the mistakes that people make when they, quote, have a gratitude practice is they're really writing down things that they're thankful for. I'm thankful for my health. I'm thankful for my kids. I'm thankful for my job. I'm thankful for this. I'm thankful for that. That's not practicing genuine gratitude. Genuine gratitude is something very specific. It is deeply filled with emotion. It is named, it is expressed, and it is felt in a lingering way. And so if you're somebody that's writing down three to five things, that's wonderful. But stop writing down the same five things everybody does, which is, I'm grateful for my health. I'm grateful for my house.

I'm grateful for the blue sky. I'm grateful for this. No, no, no. Make it super specific. I am so grateful for my daughter, who always calls me out on the ugly clothing that I wear, even though I hate hearing it in the moment, because she wants me to feel and look my best. Wow, that works a little bit, even though it's a very odd example. I say that because my daughter picked out my outfit for Good Morning, America, and I second-guessed her, but she was right. So I'm sitting here very grateful because I got a lot of compliments on my Bell Bottom jeans and my red T-shirt that I wore at Good Morning America today. And I have a lingering buzz about it. So there's an example. Specific example and why. What is it about the thing that you're grateful for? What is the emotion it conjures up. That's how you can practice it in the written form by yourself. But just ticking off things you're thankful for, you're not getting the benefit. Now let's go a layer deeper on the negative. Let's talk toxic gratitude. Yes, there is such a thing as toxic gratitude.

We've all heard about toxic positivity, right? Toxic positivity is when you basically paint everything with a rosy lens. Got to always be in a good mood, got to always be upbeat, got always see the bright side of things. When you engage in toxic positivity, it's just gross because you're minimizing the very real struggles and discrimination and suffering and valid feelings and negative experiences that people have. I want you to imagine Mel Robbins is giving you a lifetime achievement award. What do you want to thank your sofa? What have you pushed through? Thank your sofa that. What are the things you're chipping away at? Don't you dare forget the one person that knows exactly how hard it was for you to keep showing up. And that's what I want you to learn how to do today with me. You are the only one who knows what it's like to go through what you had to go through. And thanking your sofa everything that you do, that is an example of speaking your truth. You have power. Hey, it's your friend Mel, and welcome to the Mel Robbins podcast. I I have been dying to talk to you. So let me back up and tell you what happened.

A couple of days ago, I saw something, and ever since, I have been bursting at the seams to tell you about it. I have been holding this in and Until I could get up here above the garage in Vermont, get on this microphone, get in front of the camera, and share this with you. Because today, what I want to talk about, it's going to unlock this power that is lying dormant inside you and yes, you heard me right, you do have power. Even if you're sitting there right now eating cheese curls on the couch, or you're feeling too lazy to get up and do anything today, or you're out there walking the dog, or maybe you're driving home from a job you hate, I don't care where you're listening to this, you have power. And I'm so excited because I saw something that motivated me, that lit a fire inside me, and it's going to help me show you how to tap into that power, and yes, unlock it today, and you need to. But before we jump in, I just want to say thank you. Thank you for being here with me, and thank you for spending your time listening, or maybe you're watching this on YouTube.

But thank you for spending your time listening or watching something that can change your life. Oh, but before we get into this crazy motivational message, I have to ask you something. I love being here with you. Please subscribe. Please My goal is to get 50% of the people that watch this channel to subscribe. Why? It really helps our channel, and it helps me. It allows me to bring you these incredible videos at zero cost. So hit subscribe. Thank you, thank you, thank you. All right, you ready? I cannot wait to tell you this. Let's go to the episode. All right.

Are you ready?

Okay, good. Because you and I are cooking up something pretty hot today. The topic is something that I knew the second I saw this thing go viral this weekend. You and I were in the middle of award seasons, right? For movies and for films, and I saw the most incredible acceptance speech. It went crazy viral. You maybe saw it, too. It was this acceptance speech that was delivered by actor Nisi Nash-Betz. Now, if you don't know Nisi, don't worry. I'm going to tell you a little bit about her. She is an amazing actor. She's 53 years old, so just two years younger than me, and she's been in the acting game for decades. I want to put this acceptance speech in context, because Nisi has been nominated five times for a primetime Emmy, and she's never won, which means she has lost four times. If you're hearing my voice right right now? I guarantee you, at some point in your life, you have experienced a string of losses. Maybe you've gone through four relationships in a row that all ended up in a breakup, or maybe you've had four different career changes, or you've tried four different medications, or you've been passed over at work for at least four different types of jobs or promotions, or maybe you've been searching for a house, and you have been turned down four different times.

I say that because I want to put what you're about to hear in context. I want you to think about what it must feel like to be Nisi. Here you are, you're an actor. This is your dream. You're 53 years old. You have been working at your craft day in and day out, and you get nominated for awards. In fact, you get nominated for the Primetime Emmies four times. And four times, you show up, you sit on national television, They got a camera pointed right at your face. You're all dressed up. You're sitting there in the audience. There's all these other actors around. And four times in a row, they announced someone else's name as the winner. Whoa. Now look, I know you're supposed to be grateful that you're even nominated, right? But can we just be honest among friends here? It freaking sucks to lose. That is not an easy position to be in, right? Because here you are, you're now at the fifth award ceremony. And if I'm Nisi and I'm sitting there dressed up to the nines, I will be thinking because I want to manage my disappointment. I'm sitting in the audience and I'm thinking, Don't get your hopes up.

Just put that expression on your face. Lock in the smile because you know that this is not going to happen. You've experienced this four times where someone else's name is called. And in today's world, I do not want my facial reaction to become some a meme when I'm all disappointed. And then all of a sudden, boom, they announced her name. She wins the Primetime Emmy for Outstanding Supporting Actress for the Series Domer. And here's why I wanted to talk about this. Because when Nisi stepped up to that mic, she was like a heat-seeking missile of motivation. And I want you to hear it. I am going to take you through parts of her acceptance speech step by step, because there is something here for you and me to learn as we listen. I'm a winner, baby. Thank you.

To the most high for this divine moment. Thank you, Ryan Murphy, for seeing me. Netflix, every single person who voted for me. Thank you, my better half, who picked me up when I was gutted from this work. Thank you.

That last sentence is takeaway number one. No one tells you that pursuing the things that you love, pursuing the things that you want to do, pursuing the changes you want to make, there will be days that it guts you. It's true. Do not expect your life to be a cakewalk, and do not expect those changes or the ambitions that you have to be easy or to be fun, because here's what I've learned, and I've learned this the hard way. Nothing in life that is worth doing is a walk in the park. In fact, it's the opposite. The higher the stakes, the bigger the battle. It's important to understand who your you're up against, who you're battling, because you want to know who you're not battling? You're not battling other actors. You're not battling other people in your company. You're not battling your friends or anyone in your industry. You are in a battle with yourself. Because here you have all these hopes and dreams, and these expectations, and these ambitions, and that's the future you. That's the future you that sees what's possible. And yet every single Every day, you have to drag yourself out of bed.

You got to do the work. Then you got to come home. You got to feed the dogs. You got to wash the dishes. You got to pay the bills. And some days, Some days, turn out pretty amazing, don't they? But a lot of days, they just suck. Some days, you're going to be gutted. If you're fighting that battle right now, and you're working on making changes, or you're going after something, or you're chasing down those ambitions, and let me tell you something, you probably are, because you listen to the Mel Robbins podcast. I want you to hear this loud and clear. Expect it to suck. Expect it to be a battle. Expect days where you feel gutted at the end of the day because it is harder than you could possibly imagine. And then you got to do the hard part. You got to get Get up tomorrow morning and do it again. And we don't talk about this part enough that when the work is worth doing to you, it's hard. Whether the work for you is trying to get in better shape, or maybe you're trying to get some aspect of your health under control, or you're trying to write a book, or maybe you are a working actor, or perhaps you want to go back to school and get a degree.

I need you to understand, except from the beginning, this is not going to be cakewalk. Expect a battle. I'm going to talk more about that battle in a minute, but I want to go back to her acceptance speech because she was just getting started. You know who I want to thank?

I want to thank me for believing in me and doing what they said I could not do. I want to say to myself in front of all you beautiful people, Go on, girl, with your bad self. You did that.

I love that. Go on, girl, with your bad self. You did that. You know what else Nisi just did? Nisi just gave you a master class in self-esteem. What is self-esteem? Self-esteem is how you value and perceive yourself. And being able to thank your sofa doing the work, being able to thank your sofa believing living in yourself, for doing what people said you would not be able to do, that's self-esteem. And you and I need to know how to do that for ourselves. Self-esteem is critical because when you value yourself, you not only prop yourself up, but you also pave the way for other people to feel valued, too. You lead by example. Nisi gives a beautiful nod to that at the end of her acceptance speech.

I accept this award on behalf of every Black and Brown woman who has gone unheard, yet overpoliced, like Glenda Cleveland, like Sandra Bland, like Breonna Taylor. As an artist, my job is to speak truth to power, and baby, I'm going to do it till the day I die.

I love that part so much where she says, As an artist, my job is to speak truth to power. Now, here's what I want you to consider. It's not just the job of an artist to speak truth to power. It is the job of each and every one of us to speak our truth. Because it's only through speaking your truth that you unlock your power. And thanking your sofa everything that you do. Thanking yourself. That is an example of speaking your truth. Thanking picking yourself, for fighting the battles that you fight, for picking yourself up when you feel gutted, for opening your mouth and saying what needs to be said. That is exactly how that power that's inside you, you know it's in there. That's how that power gets unleashed. And one of the big takeaways for me in really experiencing the force that she was in that moment, you can feel it coming through that microphone, right? Is just notice how powerful it is to hear someone thank themselves. I mean, you don't hear that, do you? You don't ever hear somebody say that. And you're so quick to give the thanks to everybody else, to give all the credit away.

And yeah, you should thank people that help you. But don't you dare forget the one person that knows exactly how hard it was for you to keep showing up? And that's what I want you to learn how to do today with me. You need to learn to thank yourself in the moments when you're winning, and you got to learn how to thank yourself in the moments where you feel gutted. Now, here's what's interesting. The second Nisi step helped off the stage, everyone was so blown away by her force and her presence and her passion and her words on stage that almost immediately she was asked by an interviewer, Nisi, why was it so important for you to take that moment? Well, I'll tell you what. If you thought that moment she shared on stage was powerful, you better stick around because it was nothing compared to what she said next. Stay with me. You know who I want to thank?

I want to thank me.

That was Nisi Nisi Nash-Bets, an actor accepting the Primetime Emmy Award for Best Support Actress. I'm Mel Robbins. I'm so glad that you're here with me today because we are talking about the importance of self-esteem. As far as I'm concerned, Nisi Nash-Bets just gave a master class in it in her acceptance speech, and I'm unpacking the lessons step by step. We've already talked about what she said on stage, but what I find more interesting is that when she got off stage and somebody put a microphone in front of her and said, During your acceptance speech, you thanked yourself. You gave yourself the recognition you deserve, which is something that women, especially Black women, can struggle to do. Why is it important for you to take that moment? I really want you to pay attention to what she said.

I'm the only one who knows what it cost me. I'm the only one who knows how many nights I cried because I couldn't be seen for a certain type of role. I'm the one who knows what it's like to go through divorce on camera and still have to pull up and show out, and you still got to go home. You have children in a whole life.

Now, if you're watching on YouTube, you can see me nodding right now, but I guarantee, as you're hearing my words and you're listening with me right now, you are nodding along. I'm the only one who knows what it cost me. I'm the only one who knows what it's like to go through what I had to go through, to be here in this moment. And you are the only one who knows what it's like to be you. You are the only one who knows what it's like to go through what you had to go through. For you to be here with me in this very moment. It's so easy to forget that people only see what you're doing on the outside. Nobody but you knows the battle that you've been fighting on the inside, how often you feel defeated, how you struggle to believe in yourself, or the problems and the challenges that you have in your personal life. And yet when you walk the door, you slap a smile on your face, carry it all on the inside. I mean, heck, just think about how challenging it can be some days to just get through the day.

Are you procrastinating on YouTube again? I can help you fix that. For free. I'm Mel Robbins. I'm an expert on confidence and motivation, and right now you need both. I've been there. You know what you need to do, but you're wasting time on YouTube. Stop procrastinating. Start executing by taking my free two-part training series, Make It Happen with Mel Robbins. Two video lectures It's taught by me, a 25-page workbook to get you in action. You deserve this, so grab your free spot with me. Just click the link, make it happen, or you can go back to procrastinating. Youtube will be waiting, but don't you dare miss out on living the life you could be living. Make it happen. I have a pit in my stomach because I have at least one person, very prominent person, that I have in my mind in my life, and I'm like, check, check, check. Check, check. Somebody's talking at the table. They're rolling their eyes at other people. Somebody leaves the room. They just immediately trash them as they leave. What I want to know is we'll get into what to do. But now that you're really pulling apart the signs, and we've learned that there are two tracks in childhood where this behavior and this personality type is made, what What is the impact if you have a parent that is like this?

If you've been raised by somebody that exhibits all five of these, or you're like, Oh, my God, I think my mom or my dad was a freaking narcissist. Check, check, check. How does that impact you now that you're an adult?

So it's not good. That's the best answer I can give you. It is not good. So let's remember two things. First of all, I'm going to add a five B to that list. Look for entitlement. Like that idea of they won't wait in line. They're special. They expect special treatment, and they get really angry if they're not given special treatment. That's another sign to look for. But let's remember this about narcissism. It's on a continuum. Not all narcissists are the same. So a person who is dealing with more of what we call a milder, lighter, narcissistic person is having a very different experience than somebody who's dealing with a rather severe, narcissistic person. And I think that that has muddied the waters in this conversation, because if a person dealing with a milder Narcissist. Here's the story of somebody who's dealing with a really severe, narcissist or saying, Well, maybe I'm not dealing with a narcissus because I'm not living in terror. I'm not isolated from all my friends. I still think that person dealing with a lighter narcissus is still feeling unseen, unheard, self-blaming, and all of that, just at a different level. The reason I bring this up is with the parents.

I do think that any narcissism in a parent is never good for a child. But at the more severe levels, it's absolutely devastating. What it does is it hijacks a child's sense of self, identity, autonomy. They don't believe in themselves. They believe that their needs are not... In fact, they've been shamed for their needs their entire life. You want something from me? That's what the parents' attitude is. Maybe not that explicitly. But people who grow up with narcissistic parents, the vast majority, become rather anxious adults who are not aware of their own self-worth, who have very inaccurate self-appraisal. Usually in the wrong direction. They devalue themselves entirely. They don't trust themselves. They downsell themselves. They don't aspire to things that they actually could do because in some ways, they've so internalized the way they were shamed by that parent. But above all else, they lose their entire sense of self because their parent never let them develop it, because in essence, the parent really experience the child as an extension of themselves.

What does that mean when the child is the extension of the parent?

So it means that the child should have no needs outside of that parent. So if the child goes along, everyone gets along. If they're, mommy, mommy, you're so pretty. And we'll do anything you want. And they eat the way the parent wants, and they do the sport the parent wants, and they Excel at what the parent wants, and they just become literally the parent and have no identity or need outside of that. Everything's going to be just fine. But that's not how kids work. The whole point of being a child is to individuate and become autonomous. And once Once that happens, the parent is not interested in that, and they don't like it. So the child will always feel that they're almost in psychological servitude to that parent. They're not allowed to have a reality outside of the parent.

Wow. Let's talk a little bit about this whiplash, because when you're dealing with a narcissistic parent, or spouse, or boss, it feels like I keep reading these comments from our audience about, on On the one hand, you're like, okay, there's the tantrum behavior, but you still feel responsible for them. You still feel guilty when you're mad at them. You still want to please them. Correct.

Why? Because there's a guy named Daniel Shaw who writes about this brilliantly, and I want to credit him because I'm going to use his language. He talks about, and it's going to use a technical term, and I'm going to bring it down to what all of us, how we'd make sense of it. He calls having a narcissistic parent. He calls it a loss of inter-subjectivity. That's a real fancy way of saying, it's my reality, it's my way. You're almost like a non-entity here. Everyone exists to serve me. I don't want you to have needs. I don't want you to be something separate. In a healthy parent, the child will be sad, and the parent will... Even if the parents are in a good mood, the child will stop and be with their sad child and listen to them and empathize. Whereas a narcissistic parent will say, this is my birthday. What is happening here? Wait, You're not... Get this kid away from me. How dare he cry on my birthday? It's that thing, right? So the child is not allowed to have any experience outside of that of the parents. And the parent really expresses the resentment at the child having needs.

Thus, the child internalizes a sense of shame and even guilt over having needs. So when they go into adulthood, that shame and guilt persists because that relationship, a lot of therapists don't address it that explicitly. It It's not an easy cycle to end because remember, unlike an adult narcissistic relationship, the child needs the parent. The child needs the parent for safety, for shelter, for food. It's not like you can divorce a parent and say, I'm going to start dating again and see if I could find someone better. That is not how this works. The child knows the parents the only game in town, and identity is very much shaped by that attachment relationship, by that caregiving parental relationship. So what you're learning is that you're a pain in the neck, don't need so much. You're not good enough, because if you were good enough, that parent would be regulated. That parent would be happy, so you're doing something wrong. And the narcissistic parent explicitly and implicitly communicates that to them. I wish you'd never been born. You're so much trouble. I would have had such an amazing career if it weren't for you. A child shouldn't be hearing that.

They'll shame a child's weight like, Oh, goodness. If somebody's eating too much, it's because you're a bad reflection on the parent. If you don't look the way the parent wants, you're not doing what the parent wants. Oh, my kid, he wants to play a violin. He won't even play sports. All of those things are the child is supposed to be a functionary for the parent. And so as that person goes into adulthood, I would actually say it's almost a three-part whiplash. There is the sense of you know what the tantrum is. You see it coming. You then have the experience of, Is this my fault? I need to calm them down. I feel bad. And then you have the third experience that you may still have some good moments with that parent. That parent may be really Really smart, really interesting, really fun. In fact, a lot of people say, As I got older, there were parts of my parent I enjoyed because I'd noticed there was something fun, but I still felt the shaming and the blaming. It's very interesting for a lot of narcissistic parents. They like babies because babies are like an accessory, like a bag.

You can take them around and show them around town. Once they stop being baggable and carryable, not so interested in them, not so cute They're going to get on social media, then there's this long period where that child needs more than it can give back. Then the child gets into late adolescence and early adulthood. The parents interested again. They can go out to dinner with them. They can go to a bar with them. They can go on an interesting vacation with them. They can bring them into the family business. And so now they're interested in their kid. And for some kids who desperately wanted that love, they go all in on that. They're like, I'm going to play tennis with my dad, or I'm going to help my mom in her business because now, now, now, I'm going to get that love, the love you wanted when you were four, and you couldn't quite work in the family business. And that's where we get to this idea of the trauma bond.

Okay, let's talk about this, because I know that what's happening as you're listening to this is you're probably going ding, ding, ding, ding, ding That with the parent-child relationship, you are there. You don't have an option. So what do you do now? If you're sitting there listening to this and you're going, Oh, my God, that's me. And I do keep jumping back into the fire. It's like this, are they super hostile or are they loving me? Did I get it right? And now I'm getting affection, or are they trying to annihilate me because they're not getting what they need from me and I'm not behaving? So as an adult now, if you're going, This is me, what do you do?

So a couple of things. All right. Number one, I am not going to sugarcoat this and say there's three easy steps to pushing back from a narcissistic parent. This ain't TikTok, folks. This is hard work. Okay? There is no three-step, five-step, 10-step, or even 172-step plan here.Okay.

I'm going to take a deep breath because I need every one of you to hear this is not TikTok. Okay? You need to wake up and realize that, first of all, you're not changing the weather in Chicago, and you're not going to change the personality type if your parent is a narcissist or you are in love with one. Okay.

It's okay. So number one is the acknowledgement, and this is the hardest part of all. Although you're this person's child, narcissistic people view all the people around them as objects, like my coffee maker or my tea maker. This morning, I made a cup of tea. I don't think about my tea maker unless I want a cup of tea. When I want a cup of tea, me and my tea maker interact. The rest of the day, don't think about it once. At all? At all. Why would I? I don't need a cup of tea. And that's how a narcissistic person thinks about other people. Do I need something from you? Really? Yeah. Do I need something from you? Oh, yeah, I do need something from you. Now you're my central focus. I'm thinking about only you. But if that tea maker waddled over to me and said, Hey, Could you listen to me? I'll be like, What? You're a team maker. Go away. This is not Beauty and the Beast. Appliances do not talk. Get the hell away from me. You are a tea maker. Learn your place. So for a narcissistic person, we all serve a function for them, whether it's their lover, whether you're their accountant, whether you're their cleaner.

That's why narcissistic people always have a team around them. It's always about the team. I'm like, Of course you have a team around you because everyone serves a function for you.

I'm trying to pick my mouth up off the floor because this is a revolutionary idea for me, that a narcissistic person isn't ever thinking about you unless they need something for you. Exactly. And yet, if you have ever been in a serious relationship with a nurse assist or you were raised by one, you think about them all the time.

All the time. You're ruminating them. They're not thinking about you unless they need something from you or you're a blockade to something they need. You're not signing the deal or because you're sick, they can't go to something. Now they're thinking about you because they're mad at you. Going back to your parents- I'm sorry. I'm like-going back to that parenting issue. So as you get into adulthood, you are an object to them. So what can I do? You're never going to be able to read their mind and give them everything they want. You will never be able to... None of us are mind readers. You're never going to be able to fully anticipate. And what's so sad is people who are in with narcissistic parents or even narcissistic partners will literally try to devote their lives to anticipating the narcissistic person's every need so they can finally win them over, that they could do it just right. So that's not possible because none of us are mind readers.

So what do you do?

At that point, you're like, okay, I can only be the best person I can be. Live in a way that's in line with your own values, right? Now, this is what I'm saying, that this is not an easy TikTok strategy. Because even as you do that, even when the day comes, you realize my parents never going to end, but my parent is never going to change. None of this is my fault. It's really just my genetic bad luck that this is the parent I pulled. Again, I am not responsible for any of this. I need to stop taking my bucket to an empty well. They are never going to notice me. They are never going to have empathy for me. I cannot live my life as a sacrifice to them and forever keep trying to please them and not living my own true, authentic path. All of those things are important. Here's the part that I'm saying is never this is just the work. And then when you tell your parent, no, I'm not coming to dinner this Sunday. I'm not. I didn't feel good last month. I'm taking a pass. Really? You're not coming?

I was making that special thing, and I really miss you, and I'm thinking of you. And I'm getting older. 90 % of people are going to break under that one, and they're going to show up, and guess what's going to happen at that dinner again? The criticism, the humiliation, the devaluation, the invalidation, right? So I say to people, you got two options here. Either be with the guilt of saying no or go to the dinner with realistic expectations. Almost make it a game, like a personal bingo. It's not quite a drinking game, because if you took a shot every time they invalidated, you would be loaded before the main course came. But I literally have I'm in this where I'm like, okay, I'm going to collect points at this dinner. For every five invalidations, I'm going to go like, I'm going to get a scoop of ice cream. And then it's like a little thing that pays out during the week. Tuesday, I'm going to get ice cream. And on Thursday, I might get a massage. 15 invalidations is usually a massage for me. And that keeps you objective. Yeah. And I'm like, I'm gone in.

I'm like, Do it again, do it again, do it again. We're 13. I really want to massage.

So let me ask you this question. So should you ever confront a narciss? Somebody's going to come listen to this podcast and be like, All right, that's it. I'm calling dad. No.

If we only said one thing in this entire podcast episode is never, ever call out a narciss, we will be giving the single most brilliant piece of advice.

Why do you never call out a narciss?

I'm going to temper that with, it depends on what you want. If you're doing this because you want to say, it's like a got you moment. Ha ha, I see you. Okay. And they're going to rage at you, and they're going to scream at you. And there might be a smear campaign now. And they may be telling everybody out there that not only are you an ungrateful kid, but you are the narciss, and you're the one who's harmful, And everybody needs to keep their distance from you. And they will really do such a number on you, and they're not going to change. So if all it is for you to say, I see you, I think the better way to play that is you see them, not change your behavior. Stop being supply for them. Stop engaging with them. Stop taking the bait.

So are you saying if you call home and the first thing out of somebody's mouth is, I haven't heard from you in a long time, you should not say, The phone works both ways. No way.

No. If you know this person's narcissistic, absolutely not. So they say, Haven't heard from you in a long time, and you'd say, No, you haven't.

Oh.

And then where are they going to go with that? Because what you've done is you've taken away the volley. They're playing tennis. You need to play solitaire.

Can you give us some other role plays?

So put another conversation starter out there for me.

Why don't you Why don't you come to Thanksgiving?

And the assumption in this one is, why don't you come to Thanksgiving? Because this person is committed fully to not going this shit.

You got to come to me.

Okay. So you go, this is where... And I'm going to step back before I role play that. I'm going to introduce the concept of True North. Okay, the True North. True North. Okay. True North is a big healing, we call healing technique for folks, or at least it's more of a management technique than healing, I should say. True North is that you need to figure out what in your life is worth fighting for. So maybe you're not going to Thanksgiving this year, not only because you don't want to see them, but your kid is playing football that day, all right? And you do not want to miss that football game. Or you do actually have a big deadline at work, Monday after Thanksgiving, and you I want to get it done. Or you said, tack with it, this is the year we're actually going to go to... We're going to go camping, or we're going to go to Hawaii for Thanksgiving, okay? Because that's what my family has always wanted to... Whatever, your friends. You've decided to take a trip with your friends. You're The true north is what is healthy for you. So you've got to be clear on that.

It sounds like it's a balance between how much guilt can you tolerate.

It is, it isn't. Because the guilt is... People feel guilt. People feel guilt when they believe they're doing wrong. So to which I'd say, what did you do? You feel guilt if you committed a crime. You feel guilt if you stole something. You feel guilt if you cheated on someone. So when people, my clients tell me all the time, I feel guilty. I'm like, Tell me what you did wrong. And that's when I get the pause. They're like, I don't want to go to Thanksgiving. I'm like, Where is... I'm sorry. So help me understand where that's wrong. Well, that's what they want. I'm like, I hear that, but how is that wrong? Because the axiom to that is not doing what they want is wrong.

Okay. Everybody, did you hear that? This is a huge takeaway. So if the lights are going off in your head and you're starting to go, Wait a minute. I definitely either had a parent that had some narcissistic personality, or I'm in a relationship with somebody like this, the reason why you feel guilty is because if you don't do what they say, that's wrong. Correct.

That's exactly.

And that's what you are trained to believe.

You are trained to believe that is. And if you had a parent like that, let's say this is even happening in your committed relationship or your marriage, then that's another time when you're almost indoctrinated into believing not doing what another person wants is wrong. And I make the argument about it for me.

This is foundational because what happens is the tantrum throwing, the shaming, the gas. I didn't say that. All the adolescent tantrum behavior.

Adolescent toddler.

Yeah, is what actually has trained you to believe that not doing something that that person wants is wrong. That's why you feel guilty. That's why you feel guilty. Holy shit. Yeah. Wow. How the hell do you get rid of that programming?

Well, first of all, is one of the only paths forward to healing is getting comfortable with being uncomfortable, right?

I don't like that answer.

And I know people don't like that answer. I'll tell you why. Everyone goes to the damn gym, and they lift the weights, and they do the this, and they're cross-fitting that, and they're in pain because they want a hot ass, or they want abs, or they want arms, or they want to look good. Why are you willing to tolerate pain there, and you're not willing to tolerate pain here? Pain's painful. Folks.

So many people remarked about the openness that you guys have all displayed on various episodes of this podcast. And do you personally think that you have a very open relationship with me and dad, or how would you describe the type of relationship that you have with dad and I? Why don't you go first?

To answer the question point blank, yes, definitely very open. I tell them almost everything. And that being said, I consider I'm myself extremely open. I tell them anything from work to friend problems to boyfriend issues, et cetera. But I think that I am actually the least open when now looking to my two right or my siblings, simply because I think I choose what I share with them. And that is a lot, but not every single detail, which others can I'll speak to. Guilty. Guilty. Okay, now you're up.

Why do you share stuff with us?

I think that growing up, we always had a It was a very open relationship. I think one of the core things that you both instilled in all of us is you will never, ever get in trouble for telling the truth. If we were telling you completely upfront and honestly what we were doing, where we were going, who we were going with, or in general, what is going on in our lives, then regardless of what it was, we would never be punished for that. I will always remember I had an incident with my first time drinking. I drank a whole handle of vodka, and I'm the oldest, so that was my first rodeo. I woke up in the morning and I was petrified, puke all over myself, sleeping on the window bench. I thought I was just toast. I thought I was dead meat. I was so scared. And then we all sat down in the screened in porch, and they both said to me, We will never punish you for something that we also did as kids. And as long as you are open and honest about- That pretty much opens the door while-Oh, yeah, I was running with gas after that.

But after you guys said that, I just felt so much more at ease. And my punishment that day was actually going to a lacrosse tryout, which I yacked at several times. But then I looked at my other friends who would get in trouble for drinking or for doing things we weren't allowed to, and they would immediately be grounded. They'd immediately have to stay home. They were restricted from alcohol. They were whatever. That just put a huge barrier between, I think, them and their parents, which was just, Let's be sneaky. Let's steal. Let's sneak out. Let's go to parties and lie about where we are, when I think from very early on, you both were very vocal about, as long as you are honest, you will not get in trouble. I think that that just eliminated the barrier between us completely.

I think a lot of parents say that. I think that is every parent's throwaway line. Hey, as long as you tell me the truth, you're not going to get in trouble. As long as you call me, you're not getting in trouble. Then in the tsunami of emotions, when you get the call that your kid is blacked out or there's been a huge party or the police showed up or whatever else, most parents freak out and then ground or punish.

No, I disagree. I disagree for you to say that every parent out there just makes a blanket statement that says, Just tell us the truth and you'll be fine.

No way. That therein lies, I think, one of the secrets, the keys to the kingdom is inviting that truth-telling Because most people don't.

Okay. I agree. I actually don't think that any of my... I think that it was unspoken in a lot of my friends' households growing up, that if you tell us the truth, you won't get in trouble. But there was a difference between what they were saying and what they were doing in terms of the parents. The parents want you to tell the truth, but they're still going to punish you. You guys want us to tell the truth, but you're not going to punish us. You actually do what you say you're going to do as parents.

But did you, Mel, is that what your parents told you? Because I didn't-Yeah. See, I didn't get that from my parents. I just got the idea that it takes...

The message to me was it takes a long time to build trust, and it takes two seconds to shatter the trust, which is infers that tell the truth, and you're not going to blow up relationships or leave people feeling lost inside of the dynamic between the two of you?

My number one goal as your parent in our relationship building was to get you to want to come and talk to me and dad about important topics instead of going to your dips shit friends. I always thought, if you're 13, 14, 15, or 16, way better to talk through something you're thinking about or worried about or wanting to try and all that stuff with adults who will listen to you than going to other 14, 15, or 16-year-olds that don't know what the hell they're doing.

I agree with that. This was going to be my whole point about why I also have such an open relationship with my parents, arguably too open.

Definitely too open.

Yeah, don't take notes for me. I turned out fine. What I was going to say is you were just saying it's so much better for kids at that age to go to their parents who will listen to them rather than their dips shit friends. But that's the issue is that parents don't listen. And what I was going to say, my whole point is that there's a difference between I think that my definition of listen as you guys have defined what listen means to me, and it's internalizing what we're saying. Parents all around the world can just listen to their kid be like, I really want to go to this party tonight. Blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, or can I please... Whatever it may be, Oh, I got too drunk at this party, or, Oh, I slept with someone before I was ready. There's a difference between hearing what they're saying and actually listening and internalizing how it's making them feel. I feel like every time we told you guys something as kids, you would actually empathize with us and hear us and internalize it. In doing that, you were able to loosen the reins a little bit and let us fuck up and let us fail.

Instead of being like, You're stupid, you're You're being punished. That was dumb. You were like, Let's talk about it. How is it making you feel?

So you're saying in these conversations that we were having as you were growing up, you had that sense of feeling heard inside of Yes.

Absolutely. My dad is bawling. That's cool. I hate when you cry. I really wasn't planning on this.

But no, totally. I feel like most kids don't talk to their parents because their parents don't hear them and don't listen to them. So why would they?

I think a lot of my friends, for example, whenever they would want to go on a trip or go to a party or do anything they want to do, and they already knew in the in the back of their head that their parents didn't want them to or were going to say no, they go into the conversation to talk about that and express how they're feeling. And as a kid, I think we all come from the exact same scenario where we want to explain why we want to go to this thing or go to this trip or why we should be able to do this, et cetera. But on the other end, the parents, like Kendall said, be listening, but they already have an answer in the back of their head. Their mind is made up. There's no room for conversation or changing. I think that when kids go into conversations with parents who immediately make up their mind, do not allow for any alterations or changes to the plan, then you're just set up for failure because then it just turns into sneakiness and hatred and all that stuff. Resentment. Yeah, resentment. I don't know.

I think that I'm looking for a word, but... Oh, I mean, I think this is also a little bit of... I mean, I I think parents and children should not obviously be equal. Parents need to have a little bit of authority over children. But I think what I really appreciated most- Or a lot of it. And a lot. Yeah, for sure. Yeah. Okay. But I think that at the end of the day, I always felt as a child like you're equal, and I always felt like you guys- What does that mean?

Because I don't think dad and I ever bought into the parenting philosophy of being your friends. What dad and I, at least if I had to summarize the way that we think about parenting, is I think about parenting as though our job is to help you figure out who you are. That means learning how to think through decisions, learning how to come to terms with your own values, learning the weight of the consequences of decisions, and that the whole point of parenting is for you to grow up and leave and go find somebody that you love as much as dad and I love one another and go build a family and to become more of who you are. We were always focused on connection first, correction, dead last.

I feel like I'm so open because you guys were so open with me.

I feel like I could go to you guys.

I could ask you guys something about your life, and you'd tell me.

There was nothing that you really hid from me.

Maybe there was, or maybe I was just so young that I didn't really ask. But you were very open, which was super nice.

I also felt like you guys had my back 100% of the time, no matter what.

For example, I went to camp for a month and I got bullied.

My mom found out about it, and she refused to let me stay there.

She took me out a week early, which felt really nice because it showed that she cared about how I was feeling, and she understood that, and she acted upon it, which was really helpful for me.

It showed that she has my back. She continued to show me that throughout the rest of my life.

Seeking connection with you guys required us to learn how to listen. It required us to learn how to hear your points of view, even though they were often stupid or immature or dangerous or irrational or emotional or irritating. But still, to respect you enough to listen. Now, oftentimes, your ideas were great, and we would listen and acquiesce. But I think you also had a sense of safety because we always had guardrails. There's nothing you're going to do that's dangerous. There's nothing we're going to allow you to do that is self-destructive or destructive to other people. There is nothing that we're going to ever allow you to do that could be a situation that is deadly or discriminatory against people. And so there were guardrails, and there are guardrails that we're very, very intense about.

But I think that your guardrails are around morals and who we are as human beings, not behavioral.

Can you give an example?

Be a kind person. Hold the door for people. Say thank you. Ask the waiter's Those kinds of things are unspoken guardrails, whereas I feel like other parents put up guardrails that are like, no drinking on the weekends. You never put up guardrails that were activities or experiences or things we do. It's how we are within those experiences are where the guardrails are.

What do most parents get wrong? What are some don'ts that you've seen either dad and I do or other parents do? Let your kids figure it out themselves.

Yes. Let their kid...

Never with drinking and driving.

Well, yeah.

Obviously.

Honestly, if somebody is gateway drugging their way into heroine or cocaine or becoming an alcoholic at a young age, I can bet you that there is a massive lack of love and appreciation and being heard and being seen in their household. It's probably coming from their parents. Hate to call you guys out, but it's probably coming from their parents. It definitely is. You know what? Instead of the like, you find out that they're doing cocaine. That's terrifying. I can't even imagine what that's like as a parent. But instead of seeing that and having some rash, crazy reaction about, We're throwing all this out. We're putting you into this. We're putting you into therapy, blah, blah, blah, blah, It's got to be a lot more deep-seated issues than just this bag of white powder. I think that the issue is that parents are just so quick to be like, they're so afraid of it becoming a bigger issue that they just bandaid on a bullet wound and just put them into... When the real issue is the deep-seated hurt that the kid is feeling and the love that they're not getting.

But I also want to add, though, that for a lot of people, the parents sitting down to have that conversation, if the parent is not the actual person to talk to, then a licensed therapist is. And so it's not searching the house to get rid of all the coke and the weed to make sure they don't have any, because I can assure you we're smart. We can find it anywhere.

Hey, it's Mel. Thank you so much for being here. If you enjoyed that video, by God, please subscribe because I don't want you to miss a thing. Thank you so much for being here. We've got so much amazing stuff coming. Thank you so much for sending this stuff to your friends and your family. I love you. We create these videos for you, so make sure you subscribe.