The Power of Frame of Reference: Shaping Your Worldview | Mel Robbins

As somebody who has drank alcohol or smoked weed like I understand how profoundly an exogenous substance can make you perceive the world differently and my whole thing is frame of reference and there's what do you mean by that in the same way that if I bend glass I can get you to see yourself in a distorted fun house mirror way I can bend glass and turn it into a telescope I can make it represent what we would Call objective reality but those slight distortions in the way that the glass is handled completely Alters your perception

all of us see the world in a certain way and so the story that put this on my radar so I'm working in the inner cities I'm dealing with people that have been through profound difficulties and I'm looking at poverty and I don't really understand the nature of it so it feels to me like poverty is about not having money but I've been Broke I've been unable to pay bills and I was poor but I wasn't broke or vice versa depending on how you define the terms and I started to realize oh this isn't a

money problem this is a belief system problem but when you think about what beliefs do is they create a way of perceiving the world and so the moment that it all clicked for me was I was talking to this guy and he was really smart really smart smart and I was like dude you're so smart you're probably Smarter than me but you're not doing anything with your life what the [ __ ] and he was like oh yeah well my mom told me that the world doesn't want people that look like me to succeed and

I was like and the world probably told him that too in a bazillion different ways you know but I was like that's the dumbest frame of reference I've ever heard in my life and the reason is even if it's true it makes you not take any action and the only only thing that will Guarantee your failure is not taking action and so I was like I know that your mom had the best of intentions when she said that she wanted to save you from heartache she wanted to prepare you for difficulties but the reality is

it made you not try and I was like the reality is you can get so good that people can't stop you from being successful and as I said that I realized ah this is frame of reference my frame of reference is that yes I'm not as Smart as I would like to be but I can learn and I can get better and if I get good enough at something people can't stop me from doing it your frame of reference is I might as well not even try because the world is going to stop me and

if I were to adopt your frame of reference I would get the same outcome because it's now what I call the only belief that matters the only belief that matters is that you can get better and if you believe that you can't get better Or that getting better doesn't yield any results then what would be the point why would you try and since we all end up bumping up against reality which is that skills have utility and so if you lack the utility then you won't be able to do the things you want to do

and if you have the utility people can't stop you whether they want to or not we're all going to bump up against that reality and any frame of reference that stops you from pursuing Improvement skill Acquisition is doomed to fail from the beginning and so then I became obsessed with whoa this is actually a game of frame of reference how do I give somebody the frame of reference it says no matter how the deck is stacked against you you have to learn to play better and that I mean that is impact Theory it's literally why

it's called impact Theory this is my theory on how to interesting so well and that's especially important not only when your Mother says it but if you uh are a person that society's organized and sending messaging and discriminating against you that message just gets reinforced by your live experience and so it me gets reinforced by what how you interpret it well that's your brain If yourin from a very young age is told the message that people that look like you like don't succeed so don't bother whether it's told from your parents or You get that

from your school or you get that from the media or you get that from some [ __ ] that says it to you your brain and the RAS of course lets it in and then looks for matching theories it starts spotting it and so it's both true that bias and discrimination exists and your mind organizes it itself to see it everywhere as well and so you have to fight I think I think it's really hard to fight against these things that are out in the world that are like for me I Was not dealing with

it from society I had built enough of a of a cage in my own mind that's what I was breaking through what I'm trying to say is I think shows like impact Theory are essential because if you start to believe that [ __ ] whatever that [ __ ] is that's not true because everybody is capable of change period you and I have seen too much evidence of it that you could try to argue to Tom and to Mel Robbins that this person is beyond Change it is complete [ __ ] I think everybody is

capable of change unless you have some sort of incredible di psychosis or diagnos something or another that makes it neurologically incapable everybody's capable of change and so the importance of what you're doing cannot be understated because our brains are organized to spot evidence that matches our belief system that's the way the RAS works and until you start to interrupt the story that You're telling yourself you're going to continue to feel stuck you're going to continue to see those thoughts and you're this kind of content that you're putting out is hugely important because the other thing

that interrupts the r is representation if you see somebody that looks like you or you see somebody like me that was uh facing bankruptcy 14 years ago and have leans on my house and you see somebody else that faced the [ __ ] that you feel Overcome by it's proof that you can do it too and so thank God you're doing this yeah it's interesting getting people to realize that whatever your frame of reference is it's been a series of choices that you've made about what to believe and the problem is most people think that

what they believe they have simply realized objective reality and so getting people understand that it's not Objective reality that it is a distortion it's a funhouse mirror that we all construct and it starts when we're young so it's like who's responsible for constructing it I'm not even worried about that all I care about is you can reshape the glass at any time and getting people to really engage with whatever your frame of reference is there is a frame of reference that will move you towards your goals and there's A frame of reference that will move

you away from your goals that's the aligned action thing exactly and the catches that aligned action follows from the intention which follows from the you didn't say wake up but I'll say wake up in my own language of recognizing that all the things you believe are it's a construct now it's a construct that's based on things that are real you bump into something it really does hurt and So that that stimulus is real but the response is chosen and so the story that you tell yourself and well hold on a second here's where I would

push back so where I would push back is this I think once you become an adult and you're outside of the family home or the the Church of origin or whatever the hell it is that you now once you get away from that container you have a choice and away From that container may be that you've logged onto YouTube and you found videos that make you start to think different and to question what has been programmed in I believe that most of us do not have a choice when we're little that we say when you're

little okay well I just want to clarify that because because I feel that most of the programming that most of us have was absorb five and under and that most of the [ __ ] that we react to is some sort Of response to a past experience and that it's not until you have a wakeup call from somebody like Tom Bilu or you see somebody that has been in your circumstance uh that has overcome it or somebody says something that challenges what's been programmed up here that's the wakeup call and that's when you realize oh

wait a minute all of this [ __ ] that I just naturally believe like for example I didn't have I like you know I didn't choose to speak English That's what was spoken in my house so I absorbed it if you grew up with a hypercritical parent or a narcissistic leaning parent you probably absorbed certain things from them that you don't want now that you're an adult I would even say probably that's a guarantee yes and so I just wanted to be very clear because one of the things that prevents people from changing their lives

is when you said the thing about what's missing I was going to say hope because without Hope that things could change or that this new action or thought matters you won't do it and so if you have this moment where you immediately get this wakeup call that maybe I don't have to be miserable maybe I don't have to criticize myself maybe I don't have to live with anxiety for the rest of my life maybe I could be the first one to go to college maybe I could like live as an openly gay transperson even if

my family rejects me like there's that Wakeup call moment that is critical but now what you're up against is completely learning how to reprogram all that default [ __ ] that somebody else put there and that's the work that you're up to that's the work that I'm doing for myself and I did it at a certain level uh up until the last two years like I've been shipping away at this [ __ ] at all different kinds of levels and I think the more self-aware you become and the more successful that you become In achieving

goals or taking away a lot of the stressors that you know are no joke like paying your bills the deeper the opportunity to attack the deeper shed which is what I've been working on can we take some time to really unpack it for the person that's listening yeah let's go deep let's start with how you define what this thing is and can you give us an example of how the person listening might be able to use this concept of Frame of reference to create better relationships with somebody in their life yeah absolutely so frame of

reference really is how someone perceives the world the words they use and actions so when somebody comes in and yells if you've come from a family of abusive verbally abusive family let's say where you've just yelling actually triggers you if someone comes in he yells your frame of reference is danger run if you come from A Greek family where everyone yells and someone yells I'm like oh my God it's my peeps my frame of reference is when someone yells it feels good it means that everyone's happy and excited so you can imagine two people in

the same room communicating over something and their frame of reference is completely different you're talking it's literally like I'm talking Chinese and you're talking you know English and we're not understanding each other because our our Entire perception of words actions and behaviors are all based on our own beliefs of grow from growing up got it does that make sense yes and if you and the reason why this is powerful is because if you understand in your example that you're not triggered by yelling because your Association growing up in a very loud kind of family is

that's the sound of a full house MH but somebody else may experience that same volume and have a Profound shutdown and traumatic response because that kind of volume and yelling in their household meant something else correct so now when you see somebody acting out of accordance to what you expect them to do right so you know when you go into a conversation and you're like okay they're going to say this and then they say the company you're like they're offended how the hell are they offended I thought that that was going to be a Great

news that's an indication you actually probably have a different frame of reference you know I would imagine that most couples therapy is nothing but a therapist trying to tease out people's frames of reference which is their conditioning corre from their life experience which then leads to your beliefs and this needs to be shouted from the rooftops because what you're talking about at the highest level isn't allowing Someone else to treat you poorly what you're talking about is developing a skill where you do not allow other people's frame of reference or other people's emotions or other

people's opinions to derail you yes and at the same time because you're not derailed because you're not emotionally triggered you have this objectivity to truly hold space for that other person and obviously this is a lot of work so You do it with the people you care about like it's hard to do with strangers but even so it's a way to not be emotionally hooked now we're in a story where you're probably 16 17 years old and you feel run over by you know a train at the moment I'm in tears my I used to

be called Daddy's little girl so you can imagine this entire thing when my dad doesn't believe in me it is tearing me apart and so I still went to college I still studied film but so did you study Film in the UK yes so I studied film yeah I got a degree in movie making and so is there like a lot of eye rolling in your house or what happened once you started down the path um I think my dad so it's funny how traditional families are they'll push you to get a you know college

degree and something that's prestigious and then they wait for you to get married like it's literally like get my dad was like get the college degree only so I could go and get Married and then not do not not do anything I don't want to dismiss like freaking being a stay home wife is the hardest job ever con imagine being a stay and wife with kids oh my God literally hardest job ever but my dad just assumed I'd get the college degree just to get me to marriage marriage just gets me to kids kids just

then get you to dying like it's the it's the the projected life that a Greek woman is going to have in my dad's eyes so cuz That's his frame of reference correct correct so when he said okay fine go to college he'd just been like ah okay three years she's gonna meet someone she's gonna get married so there was no eye rolling because for him he already thought which is's gonna find a guy get married and it won't matter Anway so the dream of movie making I just kind of just lent into it y um

and so I didn't have any backlash once he had said fine cuz he already had in his mind a Different frame of reference this isn't going to work out anyway CU I know what happens here because my frame of reference is she gets married correct and it's such a fabulous tool because everybody in your family has a frame of reference about what they think is about or should happen in your life because that's what they've experienced yeah exactly and so you study you now are tapping into this ambition what happens next so I'm thinking okay

I'm getting This degree I'm working but like all of my dad's concerns are like in My Little right like like you don't know anyone in Hollywood how are you going to make movies like all these voices and I'm looking at you because if you're watching on YouTube you see it but if you're listening to us Lisa Bilu has such a extraordinary style and she is so distinctive and gorgeous and Powerful in her style and she has this fabulous stack of earrings and so as you reached Up your little hand and you started to wiggle your

fingers I started thinking about it's almost like wearing an earcuff that's like going beep you're not going to you're going to get married anyway that's always like right there hanging around just kind of chirping in your ear yeah except you can't you can take earrings out at the end of the day you can't take the thought out of it you know as easy um but it's so true like it is that voice Echoes and you remember That stuff the stuff that really stings is the stuff that you remember and so it was repeating in my

head so as I was fing in college I was like what is that next move like I don't know anyone in Hollywood I have zero contacts and I don't have a Visa and then my roommate walks in and she hands me a brochure for the New York Film Academy and she it's an 8we course you get to go to America you get to film on the back lots of Universal Studios like you actually get To use their sets you get to use their props Department I me it was literally like a dream come true and

it was just for8 weeks and so I had I was like okay I have to persuade my dad now to fund it cuz I had no money I was I was in college I just finished college so I was like this is dream come true I get to go to America I'm going to prove myself in eight weeks and I'm going to get the five picture deal right like that's that's the lie I'm telling myself but The lie was helpful the LI propelled me forward so I actually don't mind that so I go to my

dad and I have to convince him again and I'm like Dad I know that I said that I'd finish college and I'd get a job but I actually need a lot of money to go and study film in America for eight weeks and so again we just argued and eventually he's like as long as you promise me that when you come back the first thing you're going to do is take life seriously and get a job and get a Career until you find the guy he didn't say that but that's always underl so I said

yep deal so I go to America and my life changed forever what happened so I walk into the New York Film Academy and I'm like wow my that teacher my teacher really freaking hot and I'm in class this is a school for adults people just to give context I'm 21 years old and I'm like my teacher is really smoking and he's very talented and I get very turned on by talent and So he shows his movie and I'm really interested and he ignores me now and I'm like God this guy so anyway to cut a

long story short a month in he turns around and asks me on a date it like so you're still taking the class so I'd finish you got four weeks but left baby cuz it's an 8we class yes look at her counting but the last four weeks was practical okay so I didn't have any more classes with him you just have to go out and make your movie okay great so on the Last day of my last class it was like I I hint we're going out with friends he's like why don't you give me your

number and how much older was he than you four years Okay so like this is not like some 40y old dude okay gotcha so he comes pick me up on the first date and it is not what I was expecting not what I thought like I'd been taught as a young kid like having a car with rims was like a sign of wealth wealth meant security um having a guy that wore so much Cologne was you know a a a almost like a calling card right like I'd grown up with and I open the door

and this guy standing there and he comes straight from work and his car's a mess and it's dirty and it's half broken and the back seat is full of like just complete junk and then he opens the car door for me and I was like Wow chivalry is alive so all the things I had on my checklist that you kind of think you look for none of that was there and then he surprised Me with this and I was like wow this is interesting well what's interesting and I want to stop here yeah is that

this is an example of your frame of reference correct yes because your frame of reference growing up in just the neighborhood and the community that you did is that the cologne and the fancy cars and all those things as my frame of reference for a good catch and then he shows up and doesn't match it but then all of a sudden because you were like hm Yeah the door was open exactly and we went to like a b restaurant it's a be restaurant so um in California I wasn't sure if it was worldwide or Countrywide

you rate a restaurant and you have to put Le legally on the front of your window and so an a means that you're great a b means a b means oh my God we're about to shut you down it's like the health department so you don't go to somebody that has a check for a good bill of health you've got sort of like Eh kind of sketchy yeah so he takes me to a strip more restaurant on our first dat with a B rating for health and he starts asking me these crazy questions I've never

been asked before on our first date cuz I'm used to guy's posturing he didn't posture he was just like oh so yeah why do you believe in God and he was sincerely asking and he's like like on the first date on the first oh we talked about God and porn all in one date wow and that's either going to Lead you right into somebody's arms or straight for the exit door exactly and I was fascinated I was like this guy isn't posturing he doesn't care what his clothes look like he actually wants to know what

I'm interested in he's not just trying to like create conversation for conversation sake and I was mesmerized and I'm thinking this is going to be the best holiday fling ever when I'm 90 years old Mel I'm going to go back as a grandmother and I'm going To tell my grandkids that once upon a time I had this hot fling with this hot American dude and so I literally thought this is a great story to tell now on the other side he had just come out of a relationship where the girl got a little clingy so

he's thinking great she has to legally leave the country cuz she's only here on a Visa I'm might have a heart fling exactly I'm going to have a fling and The government going to take care of the rest even if she's interested and every day we would hang out it was what are you doing tomorrow nothing let's hang out there was zero pressure zero expectation and we just had the best time and of course that person turns out to be my husband Tom at what point did your frame of reference completely shatter and you had

that moment where you go this is my person I think it becomes a Drip by drip there was the conversation then there was he wrote poetry and I was like I'm thinking of this as being he's a like a stoic Alpha I mean you know Tom he creates he has presence and here he's writing poetry and he's reading it to me and he's T he had a dark room for those people who have no idea what a dark room is is back in the day when you used to process film you actually had to process

it in like a red light in a dark room and put it in liquid he had his own dark Room and so he was just fascinating like our dates were we would go to the mountains and take photos on like film and then we'd go back and develop them to it was just my frame of reference it was bit by bit it was showing what was possible it was seeing what was possible it was then seeing what was possible was questioning my belief system around what I thought and why did I think it and bit

by bit each thing started to chip away and I Started to compare my belief system with how I actually felt what's so great about the detail in this story is that you're sharing this very powerful tool frame of reference and the first way that you introduced it is a way that you can use it to truly understand and be separate from another person's opinions emotions expectations and the example was your dad MH so understanding in mindsight that his Frame of reference is growing up on a mountain the toilet's a hole in the floor only four

boys from the village get to go to school every girl in the village because there's no contraception is going to get married that's my frame of reference and because you can understand that it allows you to be separate from it hold space for it and actually still be able to say for yourself that's not going to be my frame of reference and one more thing to add To that that is 100% And it's not personal and so I love that you have first shown us how you use a frame of reference to truly understand where

someone's coming from and to unhook emotionally but now you're explaining a second way to use it which is when you meet somebody like Tom and he is completely different than anybody that is in your frame of reference and your belief system you're explaining how when you really have the courage to examine What is my frame of reference what do I believe about family what do I believe the rules are that make you a good person what do I believe about purpose and meaning and what means it means to be a good daughter or a this

or a that when you can see your own you can now have the power to start to challenge it based on the people that you meet or ideas that you bump into or things that you study in school and that's so powerful thank you I love that The way you brought it together on it didn't really do me as I was talking that it's the the two it's the frame of reference for somebody else but then it's also your own frame of reference yes and we are so quick to defend our frame of reference as

the right yes way to look at something and the only way to look at something and that if you don't fit in this you're out or if you don't understand me you're out and so I think it's a very powerful self-awareness tool That you're explaining for both understanding and being able to live in that kind of messy sticky middle part where your emotions aren't the same as others the way you think about things aren't the same as others and to also challenge yourself so I have to ask what the hell happened like the eight weeks

come up do you have to go back to the UK do you tell your father are you getting married like what is going on so eight weeks eight weeks comes and we we Literally for 4 weeks we're like it's fun it's a fling it's fun it's a fling and we just seeing each other all the time so it was like the last week and we go to uh Dockweiler Beach and we're making s'mores with his friends okay and so we're sitting there making s'mores and his friend turns around and he's like so um you know

Lisa's leaving like what are you guys going to do and he didn't say a word he just turned to me and he's like I'm going to come see you In London is it okay if I come in like two weeks and I was like yeah he didn't even have a passport so in like 2 weeks he booked a flight got like an emergency passport didn't even have a suitcase he took took his mom's pink suitcase like I literally could still see him walking down the like the thing with his pink suitcase and I was like

who is this guy I love him so much um but he so he jumps on a plane and he just comes now I've never introduced a Guy to my dad ever never introduced any never guy no now you're going to introduce him to Tom Bilu who's got a pink suitcase that has flown in from the United States exactly are you mind I was out of my mind what did you feel so well my parents are divorced so I used to live with my mom so he was going to stay with my mom so iated do

I hide him for two weeks and I was I can't two weeks that's a long time my dad's a Greek man who takes care of his daughter very Protective if I don't call him for two days he's like calling the ambulance he's calling the police like he's that guy so I was like I can't hide in for two weeks I just have to take him to see my dad so I was like well I've never introduced them so I tell my Dad hey I'm meeting somebody he's coming to stay don't worry staying with my mom

like I want you to meet him and my dad's Greek Orthodox so he's the first thing he's like is is he Greek and I'm like no he's Like a white boy from Tacoma Washington and my dad's like okay so I bring him in and I'm preparing Tom right I'm like babe my dad asks a lot of questions he's very protective so he's going to bombard you with a thousand questions and you walk in I just want to warn you that's who is is nothing against you like don't worry this moment I'm feeling nervous for you

because you don't have this frame of reference thing and you're taking me we all have this moment where We're about to introduce somebody that we've fallen for to our family and I cannot wait to hear what happens next and I'm particularly curious to hear what your father's reaction was and so I got to take a quick break to hear a word from our sponsors they are bringing this to you at zero cost please take a listen but don't go anywhere because Lisa and I are going to be waiting for you after a short break and

check this out I have a story that Lisa's reminding me of of When I first met Chris it is really personal I have never shared this on the podcast before and I'm going to tell that and you're going to hear what happened with Lisa and Tom and her dad and we're going to dig more into this tool frame of reference stay with us welcome back it's your friend Mel I'm so thrilled you're still here I am with my dear friend Lisa Bilu and she is the co-founder of Quest Nutrition which sold for over a billion

dollars she is also The co-founder and the president of impact Theory Studios and she's here today talking about how you can become unapologetically you and there's this interesting angle we've been discussing which is how do you do that without cutting everybody out of your life how do you do that when you actually do care about what your friends and your family think and we were just talking about both how she met her husband Tom Bilu and we're at the part of the story where She is having him come to London he's about to meet her

dad so Lisa what happened next so I so Tom he's going to ask you a thousand questions remember he's just a Greek dad that cares about his daughter so when he asks you questions he just wants to know that you're good for me so please if you just come from like he's a father that cares not that he hates you right so set him up there then my dad I've said to him I've never introduced you to a guy Before Dad I'm 21 years old I really like this guy it would be great if you

could welcome him it would mean a lot to me what was your dad's response okay but here's the funny thing now my dad didn't think it was going to last so he was like yeah I just thought why Rock the Boat I may as well say okay Tom meets my dad he asks him barely even one question wait your dad barely asked Tom any questions so remember I've said set him Up and now I'm like oh dear lord and it was because my dad was like I showed him respect I fed him I greeted him

like we were very polite I want to make sure my dad's very polite he just was like you know how's the weather what's America like it wasn't like what do you do for a living what's your goals you know like so it was very like not like my dad so even though he was welcoming and a again in highsight he just didn't think we would last so he was like well you greet Him you show politeness you always show respect what did you do cuz you know that this is not going I was unsure I

was like yeah I well the funny thing is I didn't know it was a sign of what he was actually thinking because when someone acts out of accordance to what you expect now as having done all the mental work the first thing I would say to myself is if I was writing a script what would have to be true for my dad who always asks a thousand questions not To ask Tom any that he doesn't like him and the the answer would be he doesn't like him or he has resentment towards him or he has

a threat my dad is the center of my you know center of my attention and so if my dad doesn't approve of him and now my attention is going elsewhere could that be why I didn't know but those are kind of like you come up with conclusions but again it's not about me here's what I just want to hover on for a Minute because this is life the ability to navigate these moments where somebody's Behavior or their emotions do not align with what you wish this is reminding me of a story I don't think I've

ever told which is when Chris and I got engaged and Chris lives in the East and I grew up in the Midwest and like most families and parents now that you know I'm kind of at the age I am I understand my mother's Frame of reference now but back then I didn't and there was this thing that happened between us that really pissed me off and hurt me and it was this as Chris and I got engaged and as the wedding approached my mom became more and more brisly towards him and snarky about his family

and it bothered me and I did not have this tool that we're talking about in terms of being able to take a step back and not get all triggered and Emotional but but go well what is her frame of reference here what might be true for her to be in her mind and her frame of reference to have her someone I love and someone who I know loves me act like this and not having that tool I of course just was spun around like a t why is she doing this and then you get angry

and then you literally start interacting with each other through a motion instead of being able to unhook yourself and Slow yourself down and so here's what happened I was talking to a friend and she said well I think you just need to talk to your mom and maybe what you could say is it really hurts you that you're chilly and kind of like bristly toward his family and you're a very warm person and you're acting in a way that's very cold and judgy and I need you to act consistently with this I need you to

Pretend you picked him for me I need you to show up in a way that is consistent with you being happy because you picked him for me and do you want to know what she said yeah she said I didn't pick him for you and I'm not happy and I was so pissed and then here's though what I started to piece together and this is the interesting thing even the request made her warmth come back online and made her Change however I can now use your tool frame of reference and I can absolutely see what

was going on because she grew up in a huge Farm family in Upstate New York and my dad grew up in New Jersey in a workingclass family that had a bakery the second that they got married right out of college in Kansas and ended up in Michigan they never saw their family ever ever because my mom's family was too busy running a farm so who's going To take care of a 100 head of cattle my dad's family's running a bakery nobody was flying around or traveling like they do today her frame of reference is once

you move away you never see your family and so I can now use that tool and go back in time and say of course she didn't pick a guy that was on the East Coast for her daughter cuz she wanted somebody that was going to have her end up in the Midwest and I totally get it now and so you can using this Whether you're using it today for a difficult conversation to really try to hold space for what somebody else's reaction might be and also what you need to say or you're moving forward in

your life examining your own frame of reference or helping you understand others or I think this is an incredibly powerful tool to go backwards a th% and what's interesting with everything that you just broke down is your mom probably wasn't even aware Of her own frame of reference of why she was behaving like that because if you don't do the work you know this if you don't have a growth mindset if you don't actually look to try to understand yourself you will be reactive and when someone's reactive sometimes they don't actually have Clarity on why

they're reacting and so as you do this process please bear in mind that they that person may not actually know their frame of reference I think you should assume They don't yeah actually that's probably best don't tell them what you think they frame of references do not know because then the response will be oh you know me better than I know myself it's like you're doing this for your own work so that you know how to show up how to communicate and actually work towards your goals without someone hindering it that's the goal right it's

like if you have a dream what life do you want how are you going to get that life what's Getting in your way and these are all tools that you can use so that you can keep moving forward towards that dream without holding back when someone comes to you whether it's a mom that you care about and is upset about a decision that you made I love this so much Lisa this is so powerful because it is at the heart of every interaction and every relationship and one thing I also want to say about this

is it takes time do not just start regurgitating frame of Reference frame of reference and assume that you're suddenly healed no this is something that takes time understanding yourself knowing yourself and your own frame of reference takes time especially when you want to navigate in this space that we all need to learn how to navigate which is where where you are in relation to other people mhm and so what happens he meets your dad so meets my dad and he's very quiet doesn't ask a lot of questions I Tom and I just get along so

well there's just something connection between us that we cannot describe we just keep leaning into it and this was before cell phones so we would email each other he'd come back to America so we tried to find ways to be together right so I would come to America for 3 months I would try and like Tom would get me a job on movie set I would work you know for 3 months kind of you know as like a PA and then I'd go back to England then Tom would Come and visit so we did that

on and off for about um a year okay and then Tom proposes but here's the thing being a very traditional Greek family that I have I've always said to him it was very important that he gets my dad's blessing if it ever happened y so of course Tom goes to my dad and sits down and says Andress I love your daughter I want to marry her and my dad says no my God you're so forg SM I can't believe You don't know this star yet my dad actually said no what did Tom do so first

of all what happened was he asks him and my dad then had the Thousand questions oh now we're in that's when the Thousand questions came up was your plan how are you going to provide if you don't have a like a a job right now that's paying a lot like you live in in a one you know an apartment how what about kids if you have kids what job are you going to have so you can pay for the Kids like it was all very traditional questions okay um and then afterwards then my dad said

no I no based on Tom's answers Bas yeah he basically was like I I still don't want you to marry my daughter and so Tom was the fact that Tom wasn't Greek also a big issue oh that was like one of the biggest okay that was actually the biggest it was more the religion first then it was the career path of how you're going to take care of me and the children that we're Apparently going to have um so see he didn't even ask me if I was going to have children he just assumed and

that's why he asked Tom that so Tom like the man that I love did he's like Andreas I respect you thank you for taking the time to speak to me I'm still going to propose to her I understand I don't have your blessing but I promise you the man that you see today will not be the man that ends up being with your daughter and I promise I will provide for her so That's what Tom said to him wow and so Tom when he proposed he told me very honestly your dad said no but he

still knows that I so my dad even after that though was very respectful he paid for the wedding he came to the wedding like he was very gracious he was just as I was talking to him I'm going to leave go to America to remember all the things that we've set up I'm Daddy's girl I really want to please reference I'm now saying yes to someone that my dad Doesn't want me to marry my dad was just very ad like he kept saying you maybe you should wait what's the rush don't put a down payment

on the reception yet like he was very kind of like he was respectful but very try to push it off mhm and that's where it's the Collision how many people have made decisions in their life based on their parents and what they want or other people and what's happened is one of my favorite movies of all time is a movie called Closing doors or sliding doors with grenth palro that metaphor I think about all the time for people that may not know G PCH is running for the train in one scene she makes the train

they show her life they cut and then they do it again she's running for the train and she doesn't make the train and they cut and then her life the difference of just making that train that's really how I think about decisions one decision can take you on a Completely different path so what are the decisions that you make I love him so much I will marry him but how do I navigate that with my dad who doesn't want me to marry him who doesn't want me to go so I stepped back and I said

okay I can't have my dad dictate but that was a thought like a fleeing thought course and for a lot of people they do yeah I'm just honest I try not to hide around anything and the truth is hopefully if nature takes it course my dad dies Before me so now think about when I'm 50 if my dad's not around I've now said no to the person that I love and it may not have worked out but what if it did and I made a decision for somebody else that I have to live with for

the rest of my life so that was how I processed I can't do what my dad wants I have to do what I want now how do you navigate the conversation cuz I didn't want my dad out of my life going back to I actually Care so I said okay what do I know about humans everyone wants to be seen and heard period my dad if I shut him down and I'm like I'm going to do right we said it earlier I'm I'm going to do don't who you you think you are to tell me

what to do like you go girl like all that like it isn't reality because the reality is I did care and I wanted to show my dad respect so I said okay going into this conversation you're not going to back down Lisa you are going to marry The man of your dreams it may not work out you have to embrace that everything you fight for may not work out but it may but either way I have to know I'm making this decision for myself otherwise I won't forgive myself because I won't know if it works

out on and here's the thing what I love is that you are willing to make the decision with the mindset what if it does yeah what if it does work out and in that moment that you Isolated where your dad is said no you are making the decision that you are going to go ahead and marry Tom I think at some point in every person's life there is that collision between somebody else's expectations and hopes and dreams and wants and desires and yours whether it's a job or moving somewhere or choosing to live openly in

terms of who you are and who you love and in that moment Literally putting the bet on well what if it does work out what if this Collision is momentary and I'm willing to acknowledge that this person's frame of reference is not the same of mine and I'm just going to step one step further onto that train knowing it's taking me in a direction I feel called to go but what if it works out like that's a beautiful way to inch your way forward in your life agreed and I think The poison of brains is

when we ask ourselves what if it doesn't and now I've gone against the family I've gone against the beliefs I made a big deal so let's say you're studying something and you've gone to college and you tell everybody even if they don't agree with you you're going to go do this thing and you've spent $100,000 and four years of your life and you go to the job and you freaking hate it and now you stay in the job because you're so embarrassed to Tell everybody you actually hate it right that you can never predict what's

going to happen and so I have the ability and I just the ability cuz I've just promised myself that even if it doesn't work out I'm going to be freaking proud that I gave it a chance in the first place and if I make that decision now when I get there if it fails I just go oh I knew that it could fail I just gave myself permission to get started in the first place so even With my marriage I had to say to my dad even if in my marriage doesn't work out I have

to give it a shot and I won't feel bad and go back like I'm not going to be that person that's going to go lick my wounds back to my dad being like Dad you or I it's like No I gave it a shot and I'm proud that I did yes now the thing with how you communicate that is that step in like this whole humongous like oh I just got something really big God oh my God oh my God oh my God oh my God so in the scenario where you make a decision and

it turns out that it doesn't work out yes and you come back with your tail between your legs and you're at that moment with your dad right or anybody in your life who's like I told you so see I was right here's what I just got in the moment of the collision and we're just going to use your story as The model for this and your dad is saying no this is not the right person for you what he's actually saying is he's not the right person in my story about what happens in your life

yes but that Collision is the moment where you get to decide who is the the right person for your story about your life and it doesn't matter honestly if the relationship goes the distance or not because Obviously if you are making the right decision for your story in that moment they are meant to be a part of your story I a th% agree and I think what we instinctually do is if it fails we then beat ourselves up and think else was right and we think the other person's right it doesn't make them right exactly

and what you have to do in order to prevent that because I know that right like I try not to like okay I know this about me like know thyself know exactly What makes you tick know exactly what doesn't make you tick I know myself I knew that oh my God if it fails I'm going to feel really bad and oh my God now everyone's think I'm a loser and right that story you telling yourself so in that moment go how do I make sure that even if it doesn't work out I don't actually have

that knock on effect because I know it's going to be D detrimental to my self-esteem and how I feel about myself so I put in actions Now in order for the future me to thank me and feel good about the decisions I've made so that's why I say I've did the process okay my dad's going to die before me okay that's actually true that I don't know if my relationship's going to work out or not but either way my dad may not be around or obviously eventually he won't be around to even know if it

works or not so I have to make a decision for me not for him so I Was very concrete on the decision I was making Lisa this is so powerful I am getting so much about this concept of frame of reference in my own life right now looking at the past and here's what I want to do I want to take a pause here a word from our sponsors because they're bringing this to you at zero cost and when we return let's unpack this tool for real and let's really make sure that you as you're

listening you leave knowing exactly how to use this in your Life with yourself with your relationships I also have listener questions you're going to love all of it so don't go anywhere we're going to be for you after a short break welcome back it's your friend Mel I'm so glad you're still here I am learning so much from Lis abil you I know you are too her book is radical confidence and she is teaching us about this relationship tool I freaking love this thing it's called frame of Reference and Lisa what I want to do

now is unpack this even further I love this idea of rolling the clock forward and I can give you an example of how I use this without realizing it in my own life to make a really really big decision so Chris and I we you know as you know we have three kids and um we had two daughters and Sawyer was five and Kendall was literally had just turned four they're like 17 months apart and um we were Trying to decide do we want to have another kid and in that moment everybody has an opinion

about this kind of thing but I made the decision by going I don't really want to think about it for my life right now but if I roll the clock forward 50 years from now and I close my eyes do I want to see two adult children or three decision made and what's interesting about your story is you and Tom ultimately go on and get married and another Collision Point with you and your parents was the decision that you and Tom made that we're not going to have kids yeah could you share more about having

that conversation with your parents yeah so um every time I have a conversation I've done the internal work first because I've realized that until I've actually realized how strong I am why I believe what I believe why I've made the decision I've made I understand that I'm um permeable to other people's opinions And thoughts and expectations and so I have to do the inner work first before I ever bring something up to some to somebody else to have that communication because I got to know what I'm saying and because I find myself again just knowing

myself I start blubbering when I don't have Clarity well you know oh it could be it that means you don't have Clarity so have Clarity in why you are making a decision so that you can articulate it so when it came to having Kids it was really hard because it was such a loud voice in my head now this is back let's say it was maybe 15 years ago so women weren't talking like they do about being childree it wasn't heard of really especially as a Greek woman so what was interesting is I kept pushing

it pushing it pushing it pushing it and people being the external sources family everyone assumed one of two things because I didn't have children my marriage wasn't stable or I naturally Couldn't have kids oh cuz that was their frame of reference that was their frame of reference so when I kept getting asked is everything okay you all right like you know oh have you been to a fertility doctor right like it's all frame of and I'm like I'm not even trying why you keep asking me but it was their frame of reference so once I

started to work through do I actually want children like I know people keep saying it and I actually told Tom when I First married him that I wanted four I'm a different person now like the neurons in my brain have rewired I think differently I have different Ambitions different Hobbies I'm not that person that I was when I met Tom and so do I actually want children and I just had to ask myself the question now what's weird is a lot of people may uh resonate with this whether it's children or something else right sometimes

do you find it starts in Like a little whisper in your head that you try to ignore not going to hear her and then she just gets louder and louder and louder to eventually you're just like do I actually want kids and so instead of just judging myself I stepped back and I said why do people want kids people keep saying Legacy I've never actually asked myself what Legacy means to me from a reference Legacy means to me that you do something that actually lives past you Amazing I don't have to have children to do

that okay let's write that down next thing why do people think I have tears you don't want to die alone is what my dad used to say all right well if I don't want children is it worth having them oh my entire life just that I don't die alone that's not fair on them let alone me okay no doesn't make sense don't die alone have great friendships build community like there's other ways to not die alone and so I literally just Went through the checklist of why I think I need kids and everything that I

had believed everything I had believed I actually disagreed with h once I started to actually ask myself and then the final thing to all of this is okay I love the idea of having a little Tom running around because the truth is I think we can all get caught up in the idea of the glory of something right build a business the glory is you make so much money you never have to worry About money have kids the glory is that you never have to do anything when you're older and your kids are going to

take care of you right you can you can have little kids love on you and when you feel badly about yourself and the world hates you your kids are going to come and give you a cuddle there are so many reasons why I love the idea of kids but what does that look like in reality so I call it what does your average Wednesday look Like like actually a Wednesday yeah what does it actually look like if you're working and you've got kids if you're not working and you have kids if you don't have kids

and you're work like every possible scenario paint what a Wednesday looks like and you could do this for anything anything anything anything any change you want to make correct what does it look like on a Wednesday if I decide to cut gluten out what does it look like on a Wednesday if I go back to Art School exactly what would what would have to be true for me to cut gluten and go to art school at the same time all right well my husband's a baker so I have to tell him to either make gluten-free

bread right like then it takes you into action yes of what you actually have to do to have that life that you want on an average Wednesday so I sat with Tom and we had the communication that we always have babe how do you feel about kids how do You want to function and he was like I'm very ambitious you knew that about me I'm not going to be the father that comes home at 7:00 p.m. I need my cognitive load to be very on point so I'm not going to be waking up during the

week to to change the diapers he's like I love you I'll support you in any way but these are my how I want to show up I have to respect that he's my husband he has an opinion just like I do frame of reference frame of reference so on my Average Wednesday I took him and his thought and I said cool he's not waking up in the middle of the night so either I am or I have a nny how do I feel about that well I don't really want a stranger in my house okay

so Lisa you're waking up in the middle of the night but you love what you do you love crushing at work you love being a beast you love growing a team you'd love creating content how do you do that if you've got a kid and You don't have a nanny all right well right and you can see you know what's interesting about listening to you unpack this is that if you're somebody who wants kids or you're like me and you already have them my frame of reference answering every one of those questions is completely different

than Lisa's M and yet two things can be true at the same time yes and that's how you navigate this understanding of others And understanding of yourself you know what I forgot to ask you well what ever happened with your dad and Tom like what is their relationship like that oh my go so you want to talk about how people can shift their frame of reference so my dad goes to from somebody who's how you can take care of my daughter I'm not sure I believe in you I don't know how you're going to do

it to we're 5 years in at Quest my dad doesn't quite understand like the ginormous company that it had Grown into grew at 57,000 we went from Z to a billion dollars in 5 years yeah so I went from stay-at-home wife supporting my husband to helping him build it in 5 years so talk about how much skill sets I had to learn and build and the confidence that I was like feeling inferior all the time but I just kept going but the results are 5 years later we're announced as the second fastest growing company in

North America And my D my dad comes for vacation so it's the first time we go from poor not you know not having a company just kind of like really trying to make ends meet to then this company and we take them around the facilities and we at that point had 300,000 facil uh 300,000 Square ft we had 3,000 employees 3,000 cuz we were manufacturing and so we take my dad round these 300,000 ft and you walk into the facility mail and it looked like Freaking Willy Wonka Chocolate Factory like we were doing 1.2 Bill

1.2 million bars a day so my dad goes from nothing to seeing this right we take him around we've got the tour we've got the hairnets the the jackets and we're done and right at the end Tom turns around to my dad and says and Dre remember when you asked me how I was going to take care of your daughter and he goes yes Tom goes how am I doing now and my dad burst into tears he hugged him he was Like I'm so proud of you and it was the most incredible moment because of

where we had started because I had spoken up because we spoke to him we communicated I didn't accept his frame of reference as it was going to be my frame of reference and I gave him the grace to adapt and change and for us to prove not necessarily to him but to prove that we were willing to work through our relationship struggles and actually Thrive and It was just the most amazing kind of ending to you don't have to just stop at someone else's opinion you don't have to relinquish your dreams for somebody else keep

going on that path and either they're going to come around like my dad or they're not but either way homie you're going to be on that path that makes you freaking Thrive what I love so much about that is that it also Reveals that if you give give somebody the space to feel how they feel to have their opinions and you don't agree and you respect that that's their frame of reference and then you go and you make the decisions that really Empower you people do change and you've now just not shamed somebody into doing

it but he can own authentically a massive shift in his belief yeah what what a beautiful Example thank you now the other St part of this though is we may not have succeeded we may not have got the company we may have bickered so much and not been able to communicate and we may have got divorced so I don't want people to think there's always going to be the rainbows but I still would have made the same Choice that's the important part here we're talking about Joseph Campbell's the hero's journey and we're focusing on four

specific steps of it And you just learned the first one which is the ordinary world and now we're about to jump into the second one The Call to Adventure The Call to Adventure is all around you and there are four things you must know in order to recognize it in your own life so here's the first thing number one The Call to Adventure will not likely come from someone else I mean a robot isn't going to come and project a message to you a wizard is not going to show up at your Front door and

be like come on now we got to go save the world this isn't someone coming to you with your future on a silver platter saying you're the chosen one that's not how it works in the real world it works that way in the movies and we love it but this Call to Adventure is something you have to be open to and be willing to see for yourself and here's one way you can start to open your mind up to this ask Yourself this question what is your life trying to tell you I'm going to ask

you that question again what is your life trying to tell you if you really sit with that question you'll notice that your life is trying to nudge you in a certain direction there's something you can't stop thinking about there's some sort of sign that keeps showing up there's something that you've wanted to do but you haven't Done it and I need you to realize that you've got to be willing to start to look for this Call to Adventure because if you don't pay attention you're going to miss it now the second thing you need to

know about the Call to Adventure in your life is it can come as a very positive signal or it could be a negative one and here's an example that you might be able to relate to of a negative thing that represents a call to Adventure so one of My best friends jod she and I have been literally friends since the fourth grade well she has lived in Santa Barbara for years and all of a sudden her rent started going up she recently left a job she didn't like and she has just felt like something's been

off about where she lives and then both of her parents ended up in the hospital at the same time talk about a wakeup call she had this Instinct this pull I should really move back home to Michigan I mean I Don't know how much longer my parents are going to be around I'm so far away I really feel like I should move back home to Michigan that right there is her Call to Adventure rent going up leaving a job you don't like all of a sudden something changing with her family that's an example of what

I'm talking about and how much more positive do you feel if you look at that situation and you frame it as a Call to Adventure very different Than feeling like life is breaking apart let me give you now a positive example of what could be a call to Adventure and this is like a a small thing my husband Chris and our daughter Sawyer when it's snowing outside and it's the winter months they go to this mountain nearby and they do what's called skinning up the mountain which is you take these skis and you put these

sticky things on the bottom of them and you basically hike up a mountain Mountain a snow Mountain with your skis on it and then when you get to the top you take the sticky things off and now you can ski down and Chris has organized this whole group of people that meet in the parking lot and they now do it twice a week during the winter I feel pulled to do it but I'm scared of it I'm not in great shape I'm not as good as they are at this especially thinking about pulling into a

parking lot where Chris has Organized this group and there 30 or 40 people there that do this all the time but here's the thing as I think about this I feel the pull I could see myself as somebody that gets up super early to do that as somebody that has that level of Adventure of somebody that's doing something that's that cool and I'm using the word pulled because that's an example of a call to Adventure for you you might feel Pushed or you might feel pulled could be positive could be negative both are a call

to Adventure the third thing I want you to be aware of is that it can be big or it can be small I am so moved by the number of you who listen to this podcast around the world and write to me and say that simply taking on something new or bringing back something that I used to do that it's made you so happy it's made a part of you come alive it's made you Tap into into something deeper like taking a painting class or writing every day in your Journal again or just the Instinct

that you have that you want to make your life a little bit better these are all examples of small things that are calls to Adventure for you and number four and this is super important it is so easy to refuse it so easy to refuse it and and I think this is why we identify with characters in our favorite movies who are the Reluctant hero you are the reluctant hero in your own life just like Luke I mean do you remember what happens at the beginning of the movie he's bending over this robot as he's

trying to fix it and all of a sudden this message pops out you are my only hope you are my only hope and you remember his response his response was not like where's the first flight out of here his response was um I I I I don't think that I can do this Like I hate the empire but there's nothing I can do about this right now I got stuff I need to do on my desert Planet I don't think this this is meant for me isn't that what you say too that there's nothing I

can do about this right now see whenever you find yourself in a place where you feel kind of stuck or you feel like you have to stay where you are for the betterment of the people around you even though you don't want to that's a sign of this tension between The Call to Adventure and and staying where you are Luke always felt so different from who he actually is he always had this inner turmoil between who he is on the desert planet and who he knows he's being asked to be and I think that's so

relatable because it is The Human Experience right that you don't know what you're meant for so you stay stuck in this tension and you never leave the comfort of your Ordinary World because you don't know where to set out To and so I'm going to keep coming back to this question that I asked you just a few minutes ago what is your life trying to tell you right now this may be exactly where you are in your life right now the reluctant hero resisting the call refusing to acknowledge that there is something more maybe because

you're afraid or you're not sure what more is well that Tension that right there is evidence that the call to Adventure exists right now in your life because whenever you say I'm stuck that's a way for your soul to say um can you answer the call to Adventure get me out of this neighborhood get me off this planet get me out of this little village we got something to do there is a hero inside you and ding ding ding ding ding ding ding when you feel stuck that hero inside you is trying to Rattle the

cage And say uh wake up we got stuff to do and so here's how you are going to use Joseph Campbell's framework the hero's journey start labeling these moments of tension as a call to Adventure that breakup that heartbreak you feel guess what that is Call to Adventure that layoff you didn't see coming Call to Adventure the jealousy that you feel as you watch your friends move forward with their lives whether moving across country or they're going to graduate School or they're moving in with a significant other or moving out for that matter Call to

Adventure and if you're like me I am looking ahead at my life and Chris and I are going to be empty nesters this fall now I can sit around and worry about what I am going to feel like as an empty nester when Oakley heads off to college or I can see this as an amazing Call to Adventure a whole new journey is about to begin a journey where I will only discover what's Possible by going through it I mean how cool is that to think of changes in your life as an opportunity to see

changes in your life as a moment and the ability to find yourself to become the hero that you need to discover some power inside you that you didn't know existed and by the way you can only find by going through this this journey and you know what's interesting about the hero's journey is that if you look backwards at your life especially in moments of Challenge you can see many Heroes Journeys you can see how going through something brought out the hero inside you it offered up this opportunity for growth and discover some sort of treasure

that you didn't realize was there what's so cool about using this as a framework cuz my therapist does this all the time I'm constantly writing down the notes that she tells me as we're having these conversations is that you can use this framework moving forward You can stand where you are right now and say okay my life is great but I'm in an Ordinary World right there's a call to Adventure and when you open your eyes and you see tension or feeling stuck or you feel the pull or the push and you frame it as

a call to advance Venture now you're ready for stage three in the hero's journey and that is crossing the threshold now this is the moment where the hero leaves behind the safety of the Ordinary World and Ventures into the Unknown fully committing to their journey of transformation now in Star Wars Luke leaves his planet and he goes on this new Quest Mulan she leaves her home remember in the middle of the night she even disguised herself S as a man to sneak into the Army's training camp to take the place of her father in the

war Lord of the Rings crossing the threshold Frodo leaves the safety of the Shire I even remember that moment where they stop and turn to one another and say We've never been this far and then they set out on their journey and cross the threshold now my friend that I mentioned jod she crossed the threshold she packed up her house in Santa Barbara she loaded up her car she got her Bulldog into the passenger seat next to her drove across country and moved home to Michigan she's going to live with her parents and she texted

me last night I just arrived for my next adventure she moved back home And she's turning the upstairs of her parents house into an apartment why because she felt pulled to to take care of them them now they never asked her to do that and I'm sure now that she's crossed the threshold she's probably going oh my God what the hell have I done and here's the thing it's not just the physical act of leaving a place if you say to yourself out loud I want something different that can be its own kind of commitment

that can be its Own threshold that you cross you could submit an application you could step into the gym for the first time you could throw out all the alcohol in your house you could make the doctor's appointment in fact just sitting down in a cal and mature way and expressing a boundary about something that needs to change that's a way that you cross a threshold in a relationship and yeah it is hard as I mentioned to see the Call to Adventure But you want to know what's actually more difficult than recognizing that you're called

to do something more it's actually committing to it Crossing this threshold is the most powerful step in my opinion because it's a huge turning point in the hero's journey and once you do it there's no turning back it's a declaration of intent it is a bold and courageous act and this is why you hear me talk about taking the first step or getting started or signing up or saying What you need to say out loud all the time 54321 take the action because it's bigger than just that first step if you look at the courage

that it takes for you to answer the call to change to be greater to do something that scares you this stage of crossing the threshold is no joke because you can live for years with that tension knowing that you're meant for something greater and never do anything about it and this is the part Of the hero's journey where most people fail because there is no Journey until you take this step and you answer the call and you cross the threshold it's when you commit to yourself and to the journey that you're officially on the journey

not by thinking about it I mean think there would be no Star Wars if Luke just stayed on the planet and thought about it there'd be no Lord of the Rings If Frodo was still just laying around and eating good food in the Shire there'd be no Mulan if she was like okay I guess I'm not marriage material I guess I'll just die single in my parents house no at some point you have to not only answer the call but you have to begin it that's what it means to be on the journey and speaking

of a journey I want to make a hero's call out to our amazing sponsors who bring you the Mel Robbins podcast at zero cost so take a quick listen and when we come back do not go Anywhere because we're just starting this journey now and the next and most pivotal stage is one that you cannot afford to miss stay with me and you want to know one of my favorite sponsors it's me that's right I'm coming in right now with my own ad and if you're loving the hero's journey you're probably thinking but Mel I

want allies I mean Frodo had Gandalf and Sam Luke had Han Solo and Princess Leia and Mulan she had Mushu and cricky I mean Come on now what about me if you're nodding your head first of all consider the Mel Robins podcast your ally but second once a year I gather amazing people from around the world together and we spend six months going through our own Heroes Journey you can think about it as a way to do like a six-month quest with people around the world and discover the power within you and go create something

amazing if you want to learn more about this program and how to Participate in this quest in 2024 just go to melrobbins.com / launch and if it's not available you can just hop on the wait list for when I open up the quest in 2025 melrobbins.com launch it's time to become the hero of your own life welcome back it's your friend Mel and you and I are talking about Joseph Campbell's the heroes journey and we just talked about the powerful step of crossing the threshold and now you have come to the midpoint o now this

is where You've left the Ordinary World you have answered the call you've crossed the threshold this is where the work begins this by the way is also where the magic happens it's also where you tend to find your mentors and your allies because once you set off on this journey if you ever notice that all kinds of people start to show up to help it's pretty cool right but here's the thing about the midpoint it's also where there are so many challenges along the way and It's also not the end of the journey yet see

this point signifies the second half of the movie right and you're probably going to spend the second half of your life on this part of the journey too I mean this happens in all the stories that we love right in Star Wars along the journey Luke faces challenge after challenge after challenge after Challenge and one Ally after another shows up and same thing happens to Milan including a huge battle that she thinks Is the final stand but it isn't and in The Lord of the Rings holy smokes I mean just think of how it twists

and it turns and Frodo and his companions also are facing challenge after Challenge and increasing dangers and just when you think it's about to all end boom something unbelievable happens and in the movie world this second act is so long it just keeps going I mean could how many battles are how many challenges how many times are they going to fall Down well it's testing your strength and your resilience and you also get glimpses of success little winds that keep you going and here's the thing about the midpoint don't you dare turn back do not

do it and in your life the midpoint in your journey could show up in so many different ways it could be a ser series of challenges or setback it's the moment that you may question yourself you know I I think of My friend jod who just move back and I imagine her kind of pulling into the driveway moving in with her parents who were both recently hospitalized can you imagine how she's going to face the challenges I mean you can imagine how she's going to question is this the right decision what the heck am I

doing here in the middle of Michigan what is going on this is not what I thought was going to happen and she's going to have This long time where it feels like she's not making progress or she's not going to break through and and and she's not going to understand where is this all leading but it's always leading somewhere isn't it and that's the hero's journey and the same is true for you to trust that it's leading you somewhere to trust that when you answer the call you will be rewarded at some point that's the

midpoint if you're sitting there holding yourself back and you're telling Yourself it's too late or my life is so busy I couldn't possibly fit in this thing that I want to do you're wrong you're absolutely wrong you can go to grad school you can move across country you can start that business you do have the time and you can fit it in and I want to share a personal story with you my husband Chris for example he was in this stage for a long time when we first got married he decided that he wanted to

get his m NBA he answered the call he crossed the threshold and then the midpoint holy smokes do you know he earned his MBA from Babson by taking one class at a time it took them man seven years to complete his degree do you know how many times he thought about quitting he would come home from class at night after working all day and be like I am literally twice as old as everybody in the class in fact it took so long that all three of our children were born While he was in the MBA

program he thought about giving up all the time this stage the midpoint this is a slog and you want to know what we all face it it's part of the hero's journey you know I'm in the middle of a slog right now I am writing a book I am so excited about the book I answered the call I crossed the threshold I've been putting pen to paper I'm also not done with the manuscript and I am spending every Single weekend all weekend and every single evening just slogging away and in fact this past week I

sat in a chair for three days straight I could not write a single word I felt like I was at that point in The Lord of the Rings where froto is at that weird disgusting pond at the base of modor or modor or however the hell you say that scary Mountain that he's going toward just it's not working why am I here this is the part of the writing and releasing of a book It's not sexy I don't feel like a hero I feel like quitting this is the midpoint and I'm experiencing everything that Heroes

experience in the movies that we love for literally 50% of the movie The UPS the Downs the questioning of your ability the unex expected challenges and here's what the midpoint does it requires something of you it requires you to keep showing up to keep digging deeper and deeper and deeper within yourself to keep Surprising yourself and to keep going it would be so easy to quit but don't you dare the movie would be over the journey would be done I mean it is called the hero's journey not the hero's Finish Line so you're not finished

in fact you're never finished I mean that's the point of your life right and that's my big message to you right now you are not finished you have so much more strength and resilience and ability that you haven't even tapped into yet and you Won't unless you keep going because as you keep facing these challenges in your life in this midpoint yeah you'll have lots of little wins but it's through facing the challenges that you discover what you're meant to discover about yourself whether it's Luke defeating the Empire or froto destroying the ring and saving

the world or you finishing the manuscript or getting your Masters or settling into that new stage of life and creating it To be extraordinary you'll figure it out I mean every single movie that you love ends with the hero of the movie figuring it out so let me stop and ask you what did they actually figure out what did Luke figure out what did Frodo figure out what did Milan figure out if you look back at your own life and you think about the most challenging things that you have ever faced and lived through what

did you figure Out you figured out who you are and what you're capable of and you may not think you're changing the world when you go back to school or when you pack up your stuff and leave your job and move across country and back in with your parents you may not think you're changing the world when you answer the call for adventure that's calling in to you but what you are doing is changing yourself see the hero at the end of the Story always comes home home to themselves and what's interesting when you go

back home to where you began if you've ever experienced this of going back to your childhood home what's so fascinating if you've ever gone back to your childhood home isn't it interesting how small it feels the reason why it feels so small is because you realize when you go back that you've outgrown it that when you Left you changed you grew you learned something about yourself that life tested you that you discovered something by facing this challenge by answering the call and you surprised yourself with your ability to face new things in a new place

that you never thought you'd be capable of doing so whenever you come back to where you came from you will be confronted with the fact that it stayed the same but you haven't and maybe what you're recognizing as you listen to this Is that there have been many many Heroes Journeys that you've already learned from in your life when you left home for college when you discovered your strength after a relationship ended when you overcame a Health Challenge or handled an unexpected setback or layoff you pushed through grief and learned how to live with it

you moved to a new place and found a new community or maybe you look back and you see that you're a totally different person today because Of the habits and the changes that you committed to and started over a year ago and look you and I might not be fighting the Empire or truly saving the world but every single day when you wake up you're facing your own battles you're in the trenches you're doing the work you're in the midpoint of some Journey that you're on and you are stronger and braver and more resilient than

you know that's what makes you the hero in your own life so if you're sitting there feeling like Yeah things are a little ordinary I am a little bored or maybe you're realizing that tension isn't tension at all it's telling you something bigger and you need to stop ignoring it you need to see it for what it is it's a call to Adventure and it's time for you to answer the call and begin the journey and I can promise you this you already got me as your ally I may not be as good-looking as Gandalf

but I'm going to be there right by your Side on your hero's journey and in case no one else tells you let me be the one to tell you I love you and I believe in you and I believe in your ability to create a better life and when you commit to doing that you not only discover the hero inside yourself but you create a better world I'll talk to you in a few days 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 mAh