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What do you think is the hardest thing you're working on right now? Like what's the most challenging thing you're working on internally or externally? Could be creatively. It could be habit-wise. What is something that you're struggling with or grappling with that you're working through? Happiness. Wow. Okay. Yeah. Happiness. It's interesting. I was um getting ready to come over here this morning and so I My daughter goes to school here uh at the Thornton School for Music. She's a senior and she spent the night with me last night. I'm going
to tell you the story because it's relevant about both learning things the hard way and about happiness. So, she slept in my bed with me last night and it was so awesome and I just love her and she's 22 and she's about to like burst into the next chapter of her life. It is so exciting and I miss her terribly, terribly. And I Oh, I'm I'm going to get like totally choked up when I think about it cuz I live on the other side of the country. And I think one of the hardest things that you have to do in life if you really love somebody is to encourage them to leave, to encourage them to grow. And um I can't believe how choked up I'm getting about this cuz I mean this just happened this morning and I was laying
in bed and she's sound asleep, you know, like sprolled out like this 22year-old sleep and sweating and you know, just like this. And I thought, "Oh, I want to take a picture of this moment." And then I thought, "No, she's going to kill me cuz she looks terrible." And you know how that rolls when you're 20 years old. And so I closed my eyes to just capture the memory. And I thought why is it that I am always gripping onto the thing that makes me unhappy? What is it about this campaign? I call it the campaign of misery. like instead of focusing on the fact that here I am first of all lucky enough to be in Los Angeles to be able to have the means to go see her for parents weekend that I
have a relationship with her where she would want to come and just snuggle up and spend the night that she is pursuing her passion and dream of being a singer songwriter that she is just killing it she's happy why am I always defaulting to the loss and so when I say that I'm working on happiness. What I've realized about myself, Jay, is that I have done a lot of things in life, but I've spent the vast majority of my life being so busy and keeping myself so busy as a means to outrun, I think, a deep-seated unhappiness. And that when the pandemic hit and I had to slow down and I had to truly say to myself, okay, you can't go anywhere. You cannot regulate your anxiety by running to Target. You can't catch a plane. You
can't you like it's you and your like you and yourself right now, Mel. And all the coping mechanisms that you used to have that distracted you from the fact that you're just not that happy. They're not there anymore. And unless I want to drink myself into the ground, which I don't, and numb it or hit the vape pen or take a go, like unless I want to numb it, I got to deal with it. And so I've spent the last two years and I continue to focus right now on the number one goal that I have, which is to learn how to be happy and content wherever I am. And so this morning is the perfect example of catching this profound sadness which is part of the human
experience deeply missing somebody is also about loving them right and noticing that I was going into the negative and part of being content and being happy wherever I am is not trying to fix things. It's being okay with things. It's allowing the emotion to rise up and then noticing that there's a different way to feel. And so in that moment, I just am doing what I'm doing a lot of, which is just breathing through those deep moments where I'm like, why am I complaining about this? This is so stupid. Why am I obsessing about this thing tomorrow and I'm not even here right now? And refraraming things in a more positive way. And this might surprise people because I am a very positive person. I am a very optimistic person, but when I really slow down,
my mind runs a million miles an hour and normally it's 15 steps ahead, which means I'm never content where I am. And so I've been doing a ton of work like in my nervous system, in my body, instead of going right up here and trying to wrestle with my thoughts, I've been going down into here to just anchor in my body and slow things down and be physically where I am, where my feet are. And so then there was a second thing that happened. So again, I'm working on happiness. That's the thing I'm really like working on. It's like a muscle, right? Um, I'm in the bathroom and I am terrible at doing my hair. I know it looks really decent today, but normally I look like a freaking
labradoodle on a humid day. Like, that's just me. I just have never figured out the hair situation. And so, I finally said, "That's it. I have got to figure out how to make my hair look halfway okay." Like, I'm not even looking for amazing. I'm just looking for okay. And so I was watching YouTube. I'm learning the tutorials. I've got the right sprays. And so Kendall comes rolling in after she wakes up. And I am sitting there trying to curl my hair, right, with this big fat curling. I'm terrible at it, Jay. And all of a sudden, I hit my freaking ear and I'm like, "OH." AND I'M LIKE, "OH MY GOD, I just burned my ear." And Kendall casually goes, "Well, you got to learn somehow."
And she walks out of the room. I think there is so much wisdom in that. Because that is how you learn. That is how you learn how close to hold a curling iron to your ear. You burn yourself and then your whole body absorbs the lesson and you don't go that close to the fire next time. Mhm. And I'm doing that dance with happiness and contentment that when I feel the fire of discontent or friction or complaining or looking for what's wrong, I pull the curling iron a little away from the ear and I go back into a safer, calmer place. That was a beautiful answer. I didn't know what to expect when I asked that question. I really appreciate you, you know, going that inward with it because you could have gone a number of ways. I
I fully understand and empathize what you're saying because my mom and my family do something similar. So, and I love my mom. I have a great relationship with my mom. She's amazing and anything that's good about me is because of her. But every time I go back to London, the day I land, my family will say, "Well, you're only here for 21 days." I'm like, 21 days? Like, that's three weeks. Even if you added up all the hours weekly that you spend with time with someone, it probably won't account for 21 full days with full presence. And then a week will go and be like, "Oh, you've only got 40 14 days left. Oh, you've only got seven days left. Oh, you're leaving today." And that mindset just keeps
forcing you to think that day 21 is day one, right? As in that day, 21 days left is the same as one day left. And you're living all 21 days as there's only one day left. And I' I've taken time and I've sat with my mom so many times to have that conversation with her. And I said, "Mom, if you celebrate that we have 21 days and we're going to make the most of it and we're going to create new memories and create new experiences, then you're going to be happier for these 21 days. And yes, you're going to miss me the same. It's not going to change that. And I'm going to miss you." So, I have personal experience of that. on the other end of it with having that conversation with my
mom where she's really grown in understanding how that thought hasn't served her right and she's so much happier for it now when I go back. So that I definitely identify with that. What you touched on at the end there though was really interesting to me when you talk about happiness. It sounds like you believe you deserve it and you sound like you believe it's yours for the taking. Like it's like it is a clear goal direction. It's there. Yeah. And I think what's happened is subconsciously or consciously so many of us don't feel we deserve happiness or we don't feel we're worthy of happiness or we actually think mediocrity is a safer place to live because then we don't have
our expectations being unmet. We don't have the fall of I wanted this but I got this. Right? And so I've been I had a friend the other day who sent me a message and he said, "Take a look at this and it was all about how really we shouldn't strive for happiness. We should strive for mediocrity because mediocrity is where most people will end up." So that was literally this is the message. So my friend messaged me. He goes, "What do you think of this?" I think it sucks. That's what Mel Robinson I think it's the worst advice I've ever freaking heard. How about that? It's the dumbest thing I've ever heard. Here's the thing, Jay. So, one of the things I also wanted to say is that I'm 54 and it's taken me a
long time to figure out that I was actually not a happy person. And I don't think I act I really truly understood what happiness is. And maybe I'm using the wrong word. Maybe the word is the problem because I always associated happiness with like parties and laughter and like I'm just like full of joy and I'm and I just, you know, it's like this very positive thing. And again, I am a positive person. I'm a very optimistic person. But if you were to put a speaker on my head and broadcast the things I said to myself, you would literally check me in to the seventh floor at Mass General Hospital in Boston, Massachusetts, because it was a constant drum beat of negativity. And as I one by one Jay started to fix the
problems in my marriage and my finances um with my anxiety as I built a business you know a lot of people are surprised to learn that most of what you see that I've built has been built in the last six years literally and so I as I started fixing things outside that default drum beat did not go away. It just was a situation where I no longer had anything outside of me that was rationally wrong. So, I turned it back on me and just started hammering me in crazy ways. I'll give you an example. So, this is where I started to have this breakthrough. So, I was sitting my husband and I have just uh bought a house in Vermont. And I know you guys, you know, are in your new home. It's an incredible thing to do. It
is our dream house. It's the house that his parents built. It's the family house. We not only were able to purchase this thing, we have been able to completely renovate it, make it our own. This place is the closest place to God that I have ever been. We sit nestled between mountains with a 140 mile view straight down a valley with cascading like it is just spectacular. When I would sit in therapy sessions eight years ago and my therapist would ask me to come up with like a um you know like a totem or a spiritual guide or vision whatever for truth or God or what it's always this view. And so lo and behold, eight years later, we freaking live there. And I'm
sitting on this covered deck looking down the valley. My daughter is sitting next to me, our other daughter who lives in Boston who's 23. And it's Sunday. And normally on Sundays, I'm not even present on Sundays because I'm now got the Sunday scaries. I'm now thinking about the week ahead. She is starting to now do that. Okay, I got to get going. I got to pack the car. I got to get going. I got to I got a big week of work this week. And it's 7:30 in the morning on a spectacular day and the energy is starting and I recognize the energy because that is the campaign of misery that I have lived with for 50 years. And I'm sitting there and I'm thinking, "Oh, this is interesting. That's me." And then I stopped in that moment, Jay, and I thought, "I don't feel that right now.
I just feel that exactly where I am looking at this view is exactly where I'm supposed to be. And it was so profound. It's almost like that moment where Echart Tole has on the bench in the beginning of the power of now where I have this profound experience where I think wait a minute is this what happiness is that I'm not 15 steps ahead I'm just able to be right here without the anxiety without the stress I mean that is like a revolutionary experience for me. I don't think I had ever not felt the default of a revved up nervous system, an anxious mind, or a to-do list that was a mile long. And I don't want to go back to that sort of frenetic busyness that creates chronic stress.
And you know, the challenge for me right now is how do I stay in a space that's that's happy? Because I love the game of building a business. I love pushing myself. I love like and I realized, oh wait, you actually need both. You need deep spiritual quiet time and you need the busyiness of Los Angeles or Boston or New York in small sprints. But that can't be your default anymore, woman. And that's a that's such a great realization and reflection, I think, when you come to that. And it takes a lot of self-acceptance to come to that because I think we think of life as binary like you have to make a choice.
You're either going to be a hustler or you're going to be peaceful. You're either going to be a winner or you're going to be a loser. You're either going to be wisdom and zen or you're going to be money and materialistic. Right? And it's almost like you feel you have to make those choices early in life. And I think when you came in here, we were talking about something and I really think it's something that a lot of our listeners will resonate with. The idea that so many of us experience pain of not going after what we want or what we need or what we feel is our calling because of the pain that comes with that. And so we settle for the pain of where we are.
Yeah. And I think those two ideas are related because again we think there's this choice you have to make at any point in time where it's like I'm either going to live the life of my dreams or I'm going to be stuck forever and then we're like okay well I'll be stuck forever because my dreams seem so far away. I remember being there and it's always hard to help everyone who's listening realize how much I felt that way. So how old were you? I this was six years ago for me. It was Oh my god. That's right. You like have this crazy parallel path. Yeah. Six years ago. So it was six years ago. I was working a safe corporate job.
Six months from now I was about to be married to Radhi and I was making £31,500 a year and that was my salary at this company. And I was doing extremely well at the company. So I had a good track to progress there. And I'm sitting there going, I've been there for two years and I'm like, I don't think this is where I'm meant to be. I was looking at people who'd been at the company for decades. I was I've always said to people, look 10, 20 years ahead of you and look at that person in a company and go, is that where I want to be? And I was like, well, even if they paid me as much as that person's paid, even if I got all the benefits that person got, I don't think I want to do that in my 50s. And so I thought to myself, okay,
well then I have to take a risk. So, and obviously that was like a 2-year journey of even convincing myself. Let's talk about that. If someone's sitting there right now passionate about something, wanting to get inspired, wanting to do something, but they're settling for the pain of where they are. And that's why I asked that med mediocrity and happiness question. Yeah. It is really that dance between I'm going to settle for where I'm at or I'm going to be where I want to be. How do you think about that journey? How do you know what just popped into my mind in a weird way? Cancer. If you got
diagnosed with a cancer that was treatable, would you try to treat your cancer? Yes, of course you would. Because otherwise it would kill you. When you feel this call or this burning desire and I feel like we all have this flame inside of us. We are not like a boiler where the pilot light can blow out. That is not how a human being is wired. you, whether you're stuck, whether you're in pain, whether you're suffering, you still have this flame inside you that is burning. And when you actively engage in your own campaign of misery and you actively tell yourself the reasons why it's not going to work or the reasons why you can't do it or the reasons why now is not the time or you're never going to make it happen or
it was great for Jay or great for je for Mel but nothing ever works out for when you engage in your own campaign of misery you are creating literally a cancer inside of you that eats at you and we don't realize that by engaging in this campaign of misery because it's active that flame is burning inside you and you are actively convincing yourself not to do anything it is an active engage that's why I call it a campaign because that flame is going to keep on burning which is why the campaign has to get louder and the excuses have to get louder and you know what starts to happen is you start to listen to that campaign and you start to feel pain because there's something burning inside
of you. And the only cure for this is to stop listening to that campaign and simply start taking small steps, just one every day toward the thing that you want. I talk to my daughter about this all the time. So she dreams, absolutely dreams of being a singer, songwriter, solo artist with a successful career, literally stadium tours. And if I'm being perfectly honest, this kid has all of the talent and all of the like she's one of those five tool players and she is a great person, kind and just awesome. And she's even in a program for it, the best in the country. She has everything. She just has to do the work.
What is the work? Well, the work is simply writing crappy songs every day. The work is not listening to the campaign of misery because all around you, you're going to see evidence of this person's better or that person this or this one's that or there. Uh-uh. When you listen to that campaign in your head, it is like a cancer inside. It causes pain because you can feel when you are giving up on your own potential and that is the worst kind of life to live. You are either in the stands commenting about the game or you're on the court playing it. And right now I want you to think about that flame inside you, that dream that you have. And I'm going to go back to my daughter
who is on the court. But she will be the first to say that for many years she was engaged in her own campaign of misery sitting in the stands telling herself why she can't get on the court right now. And so I like that visual because at any moment it literally like cuts right to the truth. Are you in the stands criticizing who the people who are playing the game or being jealous of them or in the stands telling yourself it's not time to jump in or are you on the freaking court? There's only two places to be in life. That's it. There is no middle ground here. And so what I want to say also is that being in the stands is loud. It is an active thing that you're doing. This is not a passive
thing that we do to ourselves. We actively argue against our dream and our potential. And that is a thousand% tied to your happiness, to your confidence. Because if you are arguing against your own god-given potential, you are actively destroying your confidence. You're actively destroying possibility in your life. And here's the thing, you freaking know it. Yeah, people know when they have imposttor syndrome. They know it. They talk about it openly. And I also hate the term fake it till you make it. And here's why. When you say, "I'm just going to fake it till you make it," you are calling yourself a fake. It amplifies your self-doubt. instead say this. I'm going to get on the court and try until I make it.
Because the pain of sitting in the stands and never getting down there is way greater than tripping on the court. Mhm. Way greater. You're causing your And this is the thing I want people to understand. You are causing yourself so much pain by laughing off and making jokes about how it's never going to happen. You are causing yourself so much pain by thinking about it. Get out of the freaking stands and get back on the court in your life.
