What I Learned from Mel Robbins’ Let Them Theory (And Why It’s Harder Than It Sounds)

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This is the Beyond the Story podcast, a show that goes way beyond the story. And now, Sebastian Rusk What's happening, everybody? Happy Monday to you. At least the day I'm recording this episode, it's Monday. Maybe you're listening to this a week from now, three days from now, either way. I'm glad that you tuned in. This is a little bit different of a format for Beyond the Story. Typically, I'm interviewing other people, getting their perspective and their story. Today, I want to mix things up a little bit, and I want to give you my perspective and what I've come up with based on reading the great Mel Robbins, The Let Them Theory.

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Number one, I am a gigantic Mel However, I was not interested in reading this book at all, because like most people, or maybe even you, if you're listening to this, think, I mean, how hard is it to just let people do whatever it is that they want to do? And I asked myself that same question, but boy, oh boy, are we wrong more times than we are right? Especially when it comes to things like this, because it's one of those things where you go, you think, you know, but you have no idea. That was some show in the nineties. I remember maybe it was on MTV. You think, you know, I'll be beyond the story or behind the story or VH1. That's what it was. You think, you know, but you have no idea. So from the strong advice and nudge from my girlfriend to read this book, because she said she read it and it really changed her perspective as to how to make your own personal life just that much easier by not getting caught up on what other people actually do. So Might as well give it a shot, see what shows up for me. So that's exactly what I did. Did the audible book because I think that Mel Robbins is very animated in her storytelling and I number one, number two, reading a physical book while I can do it. And I do do it. It's a little bit challenging. Uh, cause I don't do it as long as I'd like to.

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Uh, so I dove into the audio book, decided that, um, we're going to read this as long as it takes us to read this. Thankfully, I like to read on my days off, excuse me, on my, on my daily walks and days off. And, um, I'd read, I usually walk for about 45 minutes a day before hitting the gym or doing some kind of physical activity. And I got through it. And here's my biggest takeaway that I, at least I've Um, I hope that it is, but The biggest thing that I learned from reading the book, it's a very long book, to get the Audible doesn't seem as long, but the biggest thing that landed for me is what she actually teaches in addition to the let them theory, which is when people are doing things that you don't agree with, or you don't like, or they annoy you, or they drive you crazy, or D all of the above, let them. And the next step after that is let you. Now that took a minute to unpack, let them, let me, let you, who's on first, what's on second. But what I realized is that when you let them, you actually let yourself. You let yourself be free from the emotional attachment to wanting it your way. You set yourself free and create some bandwidth around what is productive to think about and to focus on. And it's not necessarily about giving people permission to just be careless in general. I think that we're all careless at times, and to be faltered for that, well, would make us a shining example of but it's giving yourself permission to not care so damn much about what other people are actually doing. Because another big newsflash I got was that people are going to, there's one thing about people, people going to be people. And, and I don't think that they're going to stop doing that anytime soon because it's probably been happening since the inception of time. It's part of our human design. We're all unique. We're all different. Thank God. Could you imagine if we weren't how weird that would be? Here's what the theory of let them really means. And here's, here's what The core idea is when people show you exactly who they are, let them, You Maya Angelou says when people show you who they are the first time, believe them. You can believe them, but you can also let them at the same time But, but, but, but, but you don't know. Or, or if they could just, usually it's, if Imagine that. Imagine the world living its life and people changing because other people want them to change because that's what other people think that they should do. It's Not a lot of people like the idea of that happening. I know I don't, I know a lot of people close to me don't. When people choose to not show up, whether it's physically show up, emotionally show up, show up as a friend, spouse, coworker, letting them, lets us. What does it let us do, Sebastian? It gives us the freedom and the choice to let people do whatever they're going to do. It gives us, individually and personally, to focus on something so much more productive, so much more important. If you wrote down 10 things that you don't agree about with your friends, family, people who are close to you right now, and then I ask you to come up with 25 other productive things you could be thinking about, forward thinking things that you could be thinking about, you could come up with 25, if not more. So I literally just, shared this with my girlfriend this morning. The great Tony Robbins says that when what's wrong is always available, so It's almost like when we want people to do something the way that we want them to, it's almost as if, well, What do we really want? Cause it's often said that what we choose to say or the opinions we have about others is oftentimes what is landing for us. So I don't know what you're up against right now or the people that are in your life or who's driving you crazy. And maybe it's your spouse or relative. I mean, cause I know family, family never ever or spouse or partner, friends, that never happens, right?

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And more frequently than we'd like to even admit. But today I wanna invite everybody as I'm inviting myself, I'm talking to myself, this episode is for me, it's very much a selfish episode because I'm forcing myself to talk about what And every single day, I get the opportunity to put this into play. Every day.

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Somebody cuts you off, let them. Spouse does something you don't agree with, let them. Somebody All the things that Mel talks about in the book. She talks about it because she's experienced them. Up until writing the book and discovering the Let Them Theory, she was a very miserable individual because of how she lived her life and wanting and the needs and desires of other people. I've been thinking a lot about that lately.

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I got people close to me, very close to me, my incredible girlfriend being one of them, that often remind me that my commands, desires, requests from other people are at times ludicrous.

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And that doesn't come from a bad space. That just comes from us. That comes from peopling, people be peopling. me just being a hundred percent Sebastian, not saying that's right at all. It's wrong more times than not, but it comes from a space of, I think it's So friends, let me ask you today, what's available by just letting the people that you know, love, and care about that are in your life that you do life with, maybe you to work with, maybe you don't even know strangers.

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What does it look like to just let them, do whatever it is that they want to do. The It's quite powerful. It's quite the opposite. It's powerful. You know what's exhausting? Attempting to Notice I said attempting because controls, it's an illusion. It doesn't even exist. We try really hard though. Try really hard to cling on. I got this. I can hover over this area and infuse my unrequested, unsolicited opinion into this, and it's going to change something, and it doesn't. But control is exhausting. You know where there's freedom? There's freedom in letting go.

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That, my friends, well, that's where the rubber meets the road. That whole letting go.

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What does it look like to let go? Let go of what seems to be running the show in our heads. Here's When I started applying this and I fail more times than not, notice I fail more times than not, but I am trying my best on a daily basis to I love the horn in my car. I So unproductive. You know why? Because I remember my daughter was little. It's been going on a long time. It's not road rage.

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It's an obsession with my horn. Okay. Maybe a little bit of road rage back in the day. Cause I was honking at somebody or I don't know what I said. And my daughter was like six or seven at She looks over and she goes, Hey dad, do you know that they can't hear you? And I just want to be right about a stranger cutting me off, walking across the street when the light was green and there's no crosswalk. And what are you thinking? And rah, rah, rah, rah, rah, rah, rah. I I'm using myself as the gleaming example here. But when I started to apply the let them theory in I create margin. I create space in between what I can influence. Notice the difference here. I create space in between what I can influence and what I cannot. And if I weigh out the options, as far as payoffs are concerned, personal gratification payoffs, and I got to say, wait a second, What I can't influence, what I can influence, what I can influence is going to outweigh that all day long because I'm committed to impact and influence. I'm not committed to the things that I cannot do that. I know that I cannot do I E change people's perspective, have them show up a certain way, have them return a phone call, have them think a certain way, have them do a Only they can. I And influencing them does not mean verbally vomiting my unsolicited opinion on what they're currently doing. I believe the best way to influence someone and impact someone is to love them through the process. and live your life how you would like to see others Love, compassion, integrity, impact, influence. That creates a margin between reaction and Margin, space between reaction, peace.

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You really gotta ask yourself, what do I wanna do here? Do I wanna be right? Want to be at peace. A lot of you might be like, both, been there. Between chaos, clarity.

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You want chaos? Well, you may want to be with that for a minute. You want peace? Which I believe most of us do. Letting them does not mean that you don't care. It means you care about the right things. Let me say that again. Letting them doesn't mean you don't care. It just So some hidden wins within this book. Again, I'm going through this book again. My good friend, Carrie Howe was in town from Costa Rica this week and we were in conversation over breakfast and he mentioned, you know, you just got to let them. And I said, Oh, I'm, I'm letting them most days. And I said, great book. He said, yeah, it was, it's become my constant reference point when I've read it a couple of times. I'm gonna read it again. Heard a quote from Bob Proctor this week, I'm reading his book, And he was quoted once saying, and I'm paraphrasing right now, because I'll probably mangle it, but, when you read a book a second or third time, you don't discover what you missed the first time around, you discover what's As he shared this, he also shared that he's been reading, thinking, grow rich every single day for 63 years, same book over and over and over and over again. And that's where that quote was extracted from the idea of that. Here's the twist that Mel didn't spell out. Or maybe she did and I was not ADD brained out or look, squirrel is at a park. When we let them, we let ourselves. We stop forcing outcomes. We And that frees us up to live our lives. Maybe She did spell that out, but she didn't have to drive the point home because all of that makes sense. When we let them, we let ourselves, we let ourselves and we stop forcing outcomes. We stop rewriting other people's stories and that frees us up to live our own. The moment you stop trying to fix, convince or prove, you suddenly have and way less trauma. More time, less trauma. Raise your hand if that sounds like something that tickles your fancy. All right, here's the challenge. This is This idea sounds really easy. It is not. It is not. And again, what is? Why is this not easy? Well, it hits her ego exactly where it hurts. Bingo, bullseye. Our ego wants to be right. It's to fix it. It's to But peace isn't about being right. It's about being free. So, the next time something doesn't go your way, and it will, or someone doesn't act the way you think they should, and they will, Mel talks a lot about this in the book. The impact that it has on us I'm excited to hear what this little challenge does for you. I'm on the challenge with you. So yeah, maybe the real message here isn't let them, it's let yourself. Let Let yourself rest in what you know is right for you.

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Now full disclosure, I'm still unpacking my biggest takeaway from all of this. That's why I probably need to start reading the book again this week, but that's where I'm at today. I'd love to know what you think. Drop your comments below wherever you're watching. Maybe you're watching the live stream. Maybe you're listening to the beyond the story audio podcast version. Maybe you're watching a clip. Send me a DM on Instagram at podcast suck. That's podcast, plural two S's. shoot me a DM and let me know, find me on Facebook, LinkedIn, wherever else you hang out. I'd love to know. I love your feedback, but more importantly, I appreciate you for tuning in and listen to me babble about what's worked and what hasn't worked with me reading the let them theory. As I continue to unpack this and implement it and integrate it into my life. I think it's an everyday thing. It's not a sometimes thing. It's not a someday thing, but I believe I'm already a better person because I read the book.

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I believe I'm already a better person because I've taken opportunities where I have let them, and I didn't want to.

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May this episode encourage you, and may you get out there and let them. As soon as you hit stop on this episode, I believe that the Let Them Theory starts right now. Until Thanks so much for tuning into this episode of the Beyond the Story podcast. We sure do appreciate it. If you haven't done so already, make sure you're subscribed to the show. This way you'll get updates as new episodes become available. If you feel so inclined, please leave us a review. We sure do appreciate it. Signing off from the podcast, launchlab.com studios.